Things You Won’t Catch Me Saying to Sell Skincare

Making the product is only one part of the equation. How it's marketed matters too.

You can have the prettiest packaging, the trendiest ingredients, and the most aesthetic product photos in the world, but if your entire sales strategy depends on fear, shame, misinformation, or pretending your moisturizer has the authority of a prescription pad? Absolutely not. Kind of rude actually.

I’m not interested in scaring you into a purchase. I’m definitely not going to insult your intelligence with “chemical-free” nonsense, vague toxin panic, or miracle claims that belong nowhere near a cosmetic product. Skincare should not require a panic spiral or a medical dictionary.

So let’s get into the marketing claims and sales tactics you won’t catch me using, even if other brands do.

Medical Claims

Let’s start here, because this one is a big deal, and I see far too many brands making these outlandish claims. My products will not treat, cure, prevent, or heal any medical condition.

Not eczema, or psoriasis, or acne, or rosacea, or infections, or hormonal conditions. Or anything that turns a cosmetic product into an unapproved drug with cute packaging.

Cosmetics can cleanse, moisturize, exfoliate, soften, smooth, condition, and help support the appearance and feel of the skin. But once a brand starts claiming their product can treat a disease, alter the structure or function of the body, or replace actual medical care, we are no longer talking about regular skincare marketing. We are talking about drug claims. And no, adding “these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA” in tiny text at the bottom does not magically make it fine, or legal.

I can talk about dry skin. I can talk about rough texture. I can talk about the look and feel of skin. I can talk about ingredients and why I chose them. But I am not going to tell you my handmade cream is going to treat your eczema flare, cure your acne, fix your hormones, or replace a dermatologist.

That is not integrity. It's capitalizing on people's pain points for profit, and that's just gross.

Chemical-Free Claims

Chemical-free isn't "clean beauty." It's science illiteracy in a cute font. The chemi-phobia is getting out of control.

Water is a chemical. Air is chemicals. You are a skin sack of chemicals. Your coffee is chemicals. Your dog is chemicals. Your sourdough starter that you forgot about in the back of the fridge is, unfortunately, also chemicals.

“Chemical-free” is not a meaningful claim. It is a marketing scare tactic designed to make perfectly normal ingredients sound dangerous simply because they have scientific names. Frankly, I will not take skincare advice seriously from a brand who thinks “chemical” means “bad.” They sound dumb. If they do not understand one of the most fundamental concepts in formulation, where else are the knowledge gaps?

Cosmetic formulation, soap making, preservation, emulsification and pH are all chemistry. The reason your cream does not separate into sad soup is chemistry.

You know what's chemical-free? Nothing. Hope this helps.

Toxin-Free Marketing

“Toxins" sounds scary when you don't understand science, so I will never sell you this fairy tale. Not because product safety doesn't matter. It absolutely does, but vague toxin panic is not the same thing as actual safety.

If a brand says something is “toxin-free,” my first question is: which toxin? Name it. I double dog dare you. What specific substance are we talking about? At what dose? Through what route of exposure? In what context? Based on what data?

Because “toxins” has become one of those words that sounds serious while often meaning almost nothing. It lets brands imply that other products are dangerous without having to actually prove anything. It creates the feeling of safety without doing the harder work of explaining formulation, ingredient function, usage rates, testing, exposure, and risk. And that is the problem.

Many brands are peddling pseudoscience from cherry picked data off the internet. Demonizing a singular ingredient as toxic because a rat was exposed to it at 10,000 times the normal usage rate and died, is just being woefully obtuse. You would never find that amount used in a properly formulated cosmetic by a qualified cosmetic formulator. This is why safe usage levels matter.

"The poison is in the dose" is quite literally Toxicology 101. Safety is not determined by whether an ingredient sounds natural, scary, long, synthetic, crunchy, Latin, or like it belongs in a spell book. Safety depends on dose, exposure, formulation, purity, usage, and context. Anything can be toxic at the wrong dose. I promise brands aren't trying to poison you, because killing our customers means killing our profits.

Fear-Based Marketing

Scaring the sh*t out of you for sales? Couldn't be me.

This is the umbrella everything else loves to hide under. Fear-based marketing is when a brand sells by making you feel unsafe, ugly, dirty, irresponsible, aging wrong, harming your family, ruining your hormones, poisoning your body, or failing morally because you used the “wrong” moisturizer.

And I hate it. Insecurity, panic, fear, and shame are profitable. Shopping is emotional, and brands know this and exploit it. But profitable does not mean ethical.

You will not catch me telling you that your pores are disgusting, your wrinkles are a moral failure, your body is full of toxins, or every other brand is dirty except mine.

Could I sell more products if I leaned harder into fear? Yeah probably. But I’d rather build trust than manufacture anxiety. I want you to buy my products because they feel good, smell good, are formulated thoughtfully, and make sense for your routine. Not because I convinced you that your bathroom shelf is secretly trying to kill you.

Skincare should make you feel cared for, not cornered.

AI Product Photography

This is a trust issue.

When you shop online, you rely on product photos to understand what you're actually buying. The color, texture, finish, size, shape, packaging, label, shimmer, swirl, and overall appearance matter. Brands shouldn't scream "shop small, shop handmade," while using generative AI built on the work of artists and creators who did not meaningfully consent. Add in the environmental cost of AI, and suddenly those fake product photos feel even less “innovative” and a lot more dystopian Etsy-core.

If I make a soap, I want you to see the actual soap. Not an AI fantasy version of what a computer thinks my soap could look like if it had perfect lighting, impossible swirls, and absolutely no relationship with reality. Plus, every AI photo has an Uncanny Valley coldness to it that makes my brain internally scream, "why am I uncomfortable?!" There is a difference between editing a photo so it looks clean and accurate, and generating a fake product image that does not reflect the item being sold.

I briefly studied photography at Mass Art, so I will always be my own product photographer. I take the pictures. I edit them. I try to make them look polished while still making sure they represent the actual product. When you buy something from me, I want you to know what is showing up at your door.

Humanity and art over AI. Radical concept, apparently.

Tallow as Magic

Can tallow be used in skincare? Sure. Is it automatically magical, superior, non-toxic, skin-identical, hormone-safe, acne-curing, barrier-repairing, anti-aging, eczema-healing, chemical-free, ancestral skincare perfection? Please be serious.

Tallow is an ingredient. That’s it. It's not the freaking holy grail.It can be part of a formulation, just like many other oils, butters, esters, waxes, and emollients can be part of a formulation. But it's also not the best ingredient. There are a plethora of other ingredients that work just as well, if not better, and don't leave you smelling like a medieval kitchen.

My issue is not that tallow exists.

My issue is the way some brands market it like every other moisturizer is toxic garbage and tallow is the one true path to skin salvation. Claiming it is "loaded with" vitamins A, D, E, and K, when testing has shown those amounts were negligible at best. (Check out this research from two brands who make and sell tallow based products.)

And comparing tallow to retinol because it contains trace amounts of vitamin A? Omg, no. Retinol is a specific cosmetic ingredient with actual data behind it. Trace vitamin A in beef fat is not the same thing as formulating with retinol, and pretending otherwise is not education. It's giving marketing gymnastics in a prairie dress.

So again, my issue is not the ingredient. It is the weird little religion being built around it. I’m not here for it.

At the end of the day, I’m not going to scare you, shame you, or mislead you to sell skincare, or pretend cosmetics are medicine. I’m not going to act like “natural” automatically means safe, “synthetic” automatically means bad, or a long ingredient name is something you need to fear. I’m definitely not going to insult your intelligence just to make a sale.

You deserve products that are made thoughtfully, labeled honestly, and marketed without the emotional manipulation.