The Unexpected Way SkinTok Helped Discourage My Skin-Picking Disorder
“If you have this gross gunk in your face, you need to be double-cleansing,” a TikTok skinfluencer told me a few days ago. As she described the product she was about to slather over her face, she zoomed in on her bumpy chin and speckled nose. They looked a lot like mine when I studied them in a magnifying mirror. Although the influencer wasn’t speaking directly to me that day—she didn’t know me or my skin concerns or my skincare regime or the innumerable habits and factors that affect my skin’s appearance—her words felt like confirmation of what I already fear to be true: I was failing to properly cleanse myself and so I was gross.
I don’t have to tell you that acne sucks. It can affect so much more than just your complexion, and while acne is caused by any number of triggers, skincare can offer a sense of control. For many, it’s a healthy addition to a daily routine, a mood-boosting regimen that makes them feel confident and more comfortable in their skin. Likewise, SkinTok (the skincare side of TikTok) can be a way to learn more about skincare or even find community and feel less alone in your skin struggles.
But for me, SkinTok is not a community or a resource; it’s a space that feels as urgent and judgmental as the voices in my head. Its emphasis on consumerism—on the latest peels and scrubs and microcurrent devices—echo my own obsessiveness, reminding me that I will never be satisfied. At my lowest moments, SkinTok has convinced me that I’ll never have enough beauty products crowding my bathroom counter, and my skin will never be clean enough. But it has also shown me that—despite what those many highly filtered videos suggest—perfect skin may not be something I can, or even want, to achieve.
I was a senior in college when I was first diagnosed with excoriation disorder, otherwise known as dermatillomania and characterized by chronic, pathological skin-picking. Of course, I’d already known for years that my preoccupation with my skin was not normal. Since high school, I hadn’t been able to pass a reflective surface without scrutinizing my skin, and if I saw a blemish—or even a suggestion of a blemish—I couldn’t leave it alone.
Back then, my desire for clear skin was so powerful that I had no patience with products. I needed to poke, to prod, to squeeze, to rid myself of the grossness immediately. And each and every time, the intoxicating satisfaction would allow me to (temporarily) forget that the result was always so, so much worse than the initial problem. My feverish, dopamine-fueled picking sessions would leave me raw and mutilated and deeply ashamed—I couldn’t stop.
In the 10 years since I was diagnosed, SSRIs have helped. So has cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ve seen more than half a dozen specialists and they’ve all had more or less the same advice: Pay less attention to your skin. Dim your bathroom lights. Cover your mirrors. Identify your triggers and hide your removal tools and keep your fingernails cut short. I wanted to follow their advice. But what I wanted even more was for someone to hand me a magic formula that would give me the skin of my dreams, skin that didn’t make my fingers itch to pick until I bled.
Enter SkinTok. The endless stream of videos the algorithm served me felt like permission to pick. As though rather than persuading me to buy a double-cleanser duo, these skinfluencers were telling me, Don’t leave your skin alone. It needs attention. It needs you to fix it.
Here was a world of people trapped in the same hapless pursuit of poreless, blemish-free skin—except their obsession revolved less around self-mutilation and more around overconsumption. I initially found it comforting to have a space where skincare was marketed as a form of self-care rather than a compulsion. Fuck those doctors who wanted me to pee by candlelight and live a mirrorless existence, I thought. Vanity wasn’t my issue. According to SkinTok, my issue was not knowing the right products to use.
Was this true? No, of course not. For a while, it felt nice to believe that I was just an exfoliator, toner, and emollient away from liking how I looked. Just as it had felt good—temporarily—to pop a zit. I spent months adding products to my virtual shopping cart, covering my face in various acids, and eagerly awaiting the morning when I’d look in the mirror to find a face as smooth and luminous as glass. Spoiler alert: That morning never arrived. Even after dropping more money than I care to admit and cycling through dozens of skinfluencer-backed beauty routines, my skin wasn’t fixed. It just looked as tired as I felt.
The realization that I was, once again, losing myself in pursuit of an impossible ideal didn’t come with an a ha moment. It was only as my 33rd birthday approached that I decided SkinTok and its conveyor belt of exclusionary microtrends had left me feeling as overwhelmed as I do looking into my magnifying mirror (the one I promised my therapist I’d stop using). Yes, I still scroll through SkinTok from time to time and even find my feelings hurt by the occasional SkinToker suggesting I’m “gross.” But I’m better now at keeping all those opinions from (please excuse the pun) getting under my skin.
I wish I could say I’m cured, that I formulated an 11-step skincare routine with the right combination of AHAs and BHAs and now my complexion is that of a porcelain doll. I wish I could say I’ve stopped letting the state of my skin on any given day dictate my mood, my self-esteem, and my willingness to engage with the world. None of these things are true. What is true: I’ve found ways to enjoy and educate myself about skincare without it becoming an obsession.
In a strange way, I would say SkinTok has helped me do this, but not by giving me actionable advice or selling me a holy grail serum. (And as someone whose job it is to compile lists of the best salicylic acid and L-ascorbic acid serums, I am aware of the irony here.) I don’t want glass skin (or honey skin or glazed doughnut skin or whatever you want to call it), I have realized. I want to look at my reflection, clogged pores and all, and like what I see.
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