Spend five minutes on skinTok—a corner of TikTok dedicated to all things skin—and you'll quickly learn its language. The ideal video has a big reveal: Skincare enthusiasts dangle the end result—skin that's radiant with an almost wet-looking gleam—against photos of acneic "before" faces and an infinite reel of recommendations for gentle cleansers, vitamin C serums, and DIY hacks. There's an aspirational quality to these videos, but they're also prescriptive in nature. Consumers tell other consumers what to do, what to try, what to buy—and this advice can be rife with bad info. On skinTok, the algorithm allows anyone to be a viral skincare "expert." Except, of course, for the fact that they're not.
The real experts on skinTok are also the real experts IRL: dermatologists. This new breed of internet derms and derm residents have hundreds of thousands—even millions—of followers and share videos of themselves having conversations about skin conditions, discussing beauty marketing terms like "clean" and "natural," debunking common skincare misconceptions, addressing viral trends like "slugging," and ranking their favorite products. Fluent in influencer, these doctors dance around clinics with a choreographed flair, create content with trending sounds, and have mastered the fine art of posing with products in a post.
 Spend five minutes on skinTok—a corner of TikTok dedicated to all things skin—and you'll quickly learn its language. The ideal video has a big reveal: Skincare enthusiasts dangle the end result—skin that's radiant with an almost wet-looking gleam—against photos of acneic "before" faces and an infinite reel of recommendations for gentle cleansers, vitamin C serums, and DIY hacks. There's an aspirational quality to these videos, but they're also prescriptive in nature. Consumers tell other consumers what to do, what to try, what to buy—and this advice can be rife with bad info. On skinTok, the algorithm allows anyone to be a viral skincare "expert." Except, of course, for the fact that they're not.
The real experts on skinTok are also the real experts IRL: dermatologists. This new breed of internet derms and derm residents have hundreds of thousands—even millions—of followers and share videos of themselves having conversations about skin conditions, discussing beauty marketing terms like "clean" and "natural," debunking common skincare misconceptions, addressing viral trends like "slugging," and ranking their favorite products. Fluent in influencer, these doctors dance around clinics with a choreographed flair, create content with trending sounds, and have mastered the fine art of posing with products in a post. |
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