Why Normal Skin Is a Myth
Jessica DeFino
where we’re going back to the basics with our skincare routines, and getting to the bottom of what really works for us from effective ingredients and affordable products to understanding how to protect our skin barriers and that having acne is normal.
Welcome to “
,” an op-ed column in which beauty reporter Jessica DeFino digs up the capitalist, colonialist, patriarchal foundation of the beauty industry — and attempts to rebuild something better. In this installment, she investigates the emergence of “skin types” and the myth of “normal” skin.
Homo sapien skin has existed for approximately 200,000 years, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s that someone felt the need to classify skin into “types.” That someone was not a dermatologist. It was Helena Rubinstein, a master of marketing and one of the modern world’s first famous beauty brand founders. When Rubinstein decided to categorize skin as “dry,” “oily,” or “normal,” she was positioning exceedingly common occurrences — dry patches, oil production — as