In this opinion piece, Julie Curphey, Chief Marketing Officer at Blis Technologies, calls for an end to the way the beauty industry applies unrealistic expectations to women. Blis Technologies is the parent brand of new skincare company, Unconditional Skincare Co.
We all know the messages sent to women by the beauty industry about their skin – too dry, too oily, too sensitive, too red, too wrinkly, too freckly, not clear enough. This is how women have been conditioned to think about their skin for decades.
One in two women surveyed as part of the Skin Confidence Survey said they felt bombarded with unrealistic beauty messages. One in three said these messages affect their self-esteem.
The quantitative study, undertaken this year by Unconditional Skincare Co, surveyed 600 New Zealand women between 20-44 and revealed the relationship between beauty messages in advertising and women's self-esteem. It is one of the first quantitative surveys focused on understanding the impact of messaging instead of just advertising imagery.
We've seen quite clearly that women are fed up with being told their skin is a problem. They feel the constant pressure to live up to unrealistic beauty expectations, upheld by society and proliferated throughout advertising, social media and beauty publications.
In our research, one in two women surveyed stated they feel pressured to look a certain way.
These expectations imply that women need to fix or remove features that naturally occur, such as acne spots, redness or wrinkles. They are reinforced by the skincare industry's language – framing skin as "good" or "bad" or "problem" skin – and by advertising messages suggesting women can "fix" problem skin or "banish" features with "miracle treatments".
As a New Zealand skincare brand, Unconditional Skincare Co rejects unrealistic beauty messages that make women question whether their skin is somehow unworthy , and hope we can achieve 'skin peace' for all.
But this is not just a social mission for us; it comes from the science behind our product. Our live probiotic, BLIS Q24®, works with your skin; it shows up to balance the skin microbiome, helping your skin to be its best. This goes against many things women have been conditioned to believe about "skin types" and "problem skin".
We believe that skin isn't "good" or "bad" but simply out of balance. That balance is the goal of BLIS Q24®, which was discovered and commercialised by our team of pioneering scientists at Blis Technologies in Dunedin.
We didn't want just to have an impact at a product level if we could have a more significant effect on how women think about their skin. So, we are encouraging them to tell us about the unrealistic beauty language that most disturbs them and from which they would like to be freed.
We are calling this the Skin Peace Pledge, a commitment to a new way of talking about skin and beauty, without the negative impacts on women's self-esteem. The pledge will inform a set of standards we will commit to as a brand – and hope they will also prompt discussion at influencer and industry level, helping to create broader change.
Once we have collated the messages, we will work with a psychologist to create the standards underpinning our Skin Peace Pledge – turning them into a set of best practice for how we, as a brand, will talk about women's skin.
Contributions to the Skin Peace Pledge so far have included this feedback from women:
- "Messages about clear skin make me feel helpless about mine."
- "I'm covered in freckles and it makes them feel like they're a problem to be fixed."
- "The messages I see make me think that wrinkles make you look ugly, that having any type of spot or line on your body is ugly."
- "The unrealistic beauty message I've seen my whole life is that women should chase poreless skin."
- "Messages that set up an unrealistic idea that you shouldn't age."
- "We should cancel the phrase 'problem skin'. It's as if my skin is this lawless demon that can't be tamed... it's no negative!"
- "Messages that set up an unrealistic idea that you shouldn't age."
- "We should cancel the phrase 'problem skin'. It's as if my skin is this lawless demon that can't be tamed... it's no negative!"
At Unconditional Skincare Co, we are passionate about creating a brand that helps women feel confident in their skin and that is why the Skin Peace Pledge is so important to us. We know that together we can significantly impact how women feel about their skin for the better.
To find out more about the Skin Peace Pledge or to contribute the unrealistic skincare messages you want to see changed, visit skinpeacepledge.com