Skin Positivity Influencers Helped Me Accept My Acne For What It Is
A deep dive into acne positive influencers changing beauty standards for women everywhere
Words: Shelby Cooke
Photograph: Sofia Grahn
In the world of FaceTune, Photoshop and Beauty Filters, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking clear and smooth skin is the standard of beauty we should all be aiming for. In turn, and like many of the other unrealistic standards women in particular are pressured to reach, the quest for clear skin feels constant. We spoke to Shelby Cooke about the #FreeThePimple movement and how ‘skin positivity’ influencers revolutionised her attitude towards her acne …
“It’s everywhere. Completely inescapable. On screens and social media. In photographs and magazines. On the streets. You’re own mates have it. It’s impossible to avoid.
It’s perfect skin!
For the lucky few of us - mostly women - adult acne is really great: we get to have permanent scars indented on our faces, we can’t wear red because we already look like bumpy tomatoes and we get to have little kids ask: “what is wrong with your skin.”
Acne is just like any other body issue: it makes you feel like a monster, wanting to hide away so no one has to see how disgusting you are. Acne is a form of body dysmorphia, and acne sufferers have declining mental health because of it.
Like everyone else, I started to have spots when I was a teenager: an odd pimple here or there, but everyone my age had the same problem. I went to the dermatologist - because let’s be honest, kids are mean - but little did I know, 12 years later, I’d still be going. By 17, I took a course of Isotretinoin, which was promised to me as the miracle drug that would ‘cure’ acne. Yet it did nothing but leave my cheeks permanently scarred, a reminder of the pain and suffering I went through.
Five years after the miracle cure failed, my dermatologist told me that I have adult female acne caused by - take a guess - hormones, and that I will have it for the rest of my life. Brilliant. This news came while I was in, what my doctor called, a “purging moment,” where my face was so broken out, scarred and sore for the first time since high school.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t care about people judging me because of my acne. It’s been a constant struggle for 12 years: not wanting to appear vain and self-involved, but wanting to look beautiful, but also wanting to be comfortable in my own skin. I’ve become socially isolated (before it was trendy), unable to talk to people, running away from every social situation possible to avoid having others look at me and judge me. I developed debilitating social anxiety, eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem because of these red marks on my face. I had no friends - it was only me, my mean mind and my painful face.
“I’ve suffered alone for 12 years with my acne, feeling like I was the most disgusting human on the planet. I’d never met someone who had the same severity of skin issues like me. And there she was - on Instagram, in a magazine. I couldn’t believe it. ”
Of course, I only believe that I’m ugly and dirty and unworthy of a partner (because they’re the one that has to look at me, after all - I trained myself not to look in any reflections or mirrors) because of society’s beauty standards. We all know beauty standards are, to put it nicely, problematic and that you don’t have to be white, tall, skinny, with perfect hair, teeth and skin and have a symmetrical face and have a great personality and…. You don’t have to be that to be beautiful.
But that’s still a hard thing to unlearn. Barbie doesn’t have spots on her face, celebrities don’t have marked up complexions, even the people on the acne commercials don’t have acne! We’re constantly being bombarded with images of “perfection” that our “imperfect” face makes you feel like “ugly” is an understatement.
So, there I was, going about my life with a brand new flare-up, red spots all over my skin, unable to control it no matter what I did. I was trying to date, but a make-up free, acne face is a great way to get yourself ghosted. So, instead of going out into the big, bad, judgemental world, I sat on Instagram, admiring the smooth skin of all the selfies on my feed. I went to my explore page (which is usually just populated with pictures of corgis and David Bowie) and came across something shocking: a bare-faced woman with cystic acne.
I clicked through to her page, and it was full of images of her proudly showing off her acne, unfiltered and unfacetuned - completely her, looking stunning. I went to her stories: she’s in WHSmith’s buying a magazine with her in it. Unphotoshopped. Red marks, oozing pimples all on show.
Her name is Lou Northcote (@lounorthcote), and she’s a skin positivity influencer. I’ve suffered alone for 12 years with my acne, feeling like I was the most disgusting human on the planet. I’d never met someone who had the same severity of skin issues like me. And there she was - on Instagram, in a magazine. I couldn’t believe it.
“On 16 February, I wrote: “found some beautiful women with acne scars to follow on Instagram. You can be beautiful with spots.”
I did more research on Lou: she is the founder of the hashtag #freethepimple (a play on the ‘Free the Nipple’ movement), encouraging acne-sufferers to be proud of their skin, to find it beautiful and to know that you’re not alone.
I followed her. Then the suggested people to follow were flooded with even more skin-positivity women! Whoa! It was almost too much to handle. I found more women to follow; one of my favourite being Sofia Grahn (@isotretinoninwiths), a woman from Sweden who has similar scarring as me but rocks it with complete confidence.
At the start of 2020 (before the year was completely cancelled), in an attempt to improve my mental health by doing less negative self-talk, I wrote down something good that happened every day - regardless of how small it was. On 16 February, I wrote: “found some beautiful women with acne scars to follow on Instagram. You can be beautiful with spots.
This was the first time I’d ever said this to myself.
Finding Lou’s and Sofia’s Instagram was more than following another influencer; I now see skin-positivity on my feed every day. I can look at confident, beautiful and soulful women, unashamed of their medical condition, flaunting their imperfect skin, giving me the confidence to not be so hateful towards myself.
Have I posted an unfiltered self on Instagram? No, not yet. Am I taking baby steps to be more confident and accepting of my skin? Yes. Even though I don’t wear make-up in my day-to-day life (the fear of oils clogging my pores and causing even more breakouts is unbearable) and go all-natural every day, I’m still horrified by the idea of taking an unedited picture and consciously putting it out there for everyone to see. Yes, I still use Facetune when I post a picture to my grid, but just 2 years ago I wouldn’t have even posted a picture because I was so self-conscious. Within the last few months, I’ve even started posting selfies - unfiltered, spots and scars completely on show - to my stories. So I’m making my way there.
Like anything you have to unlearn, it’s a slow process. You can’t just flip a switch and say, “I’m no longer embarrassed by my acne.” But seeing other women embrace their flawed skin has helped me undo years of self-abuse, allowing me to, perhaps, accept that I’m not disgusting because of a skin condition. We need more influencers like Lou and Sofia on our feed, normalising the beauty of imperfection.”
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To read more from Shelby you can find her on Instagram at @shelbscookie, or to read more of her words, check out her incredibly accurate and vulnerable take on the normality of mental illness in BBC’s Normal People.