L’ORIENT is going well (does anyone else hate when people ask how that little business of yours is going because I do haha). No paid spend, still, partly by design, partly by circumstance (if anyone has a contact at TikTok who can help me recover an account locked behind an old friend’s email address, I will owe you a lifetime supply of deodorant). International orders are flying, literally + figuratively. We’re quietly exploring expansion into two countries in Southeast Asia, so keep your eyes open.

What I’ve been resisting is the usual playbook: PR, UGC, paid placement, the whole performance of legitimacy. Instead, I’ve been following my gut and focusing almost entirely on consumers, not on being validated by peers, press, or industry. Trust is at an all-time low, and when you outsource the conveying of it to external voices, something in your positioning gets diluted. What I’m after is proof. Peer-to-peer referral. The kind of trust that compounds quietly, not the kind that spikes on a press day and then evaporates.

This has meant gifting selectively, to women typically overlooked by brands, with zero expectation of a post in return. Grateful when it happens, genuinely unbothered when it doesn’t. There’s something clarifying about operating without the transactional undertow or pressure of ROI. It moves you out of performance and into care. Maybe that’s bad business advice. It’s certainly how I’ve always been.

I’m tired of trends

For all the strategy frameworks and founder playbooks in the world, nothing quite replaces creating from a place that actually interests you. I’ve retired the word authentic…it’s had the same arc as wanderlust circa 2012, but the thing it used to mean still matters. When I make work that resonates with me personally, without deliberate strategy behind it, it tends to read more fluently with other people. Less constructed. Passion shows in the texture of how you communicate, in cues we register instinctively, human to human.

Case in point, and one of the genuine perks of ADHD: an inability to be casually interested in anything. When we began developing fragranced deodorant SKUs, I fell face-first into the world of perfumery. Fragrantica became my most visited site. I started reading about the history of scent, the origins of notes, the molecular biology of how fragrance compounds interact with skin chemistry. I became genuinely obsessed with it as an art form.

L’ORIENT has always been about destigmatising body and skin concerns. So I started thinking about how to reframe the fear of body odour, not just mask it, but work with the compounds produced by perspiration, through fragrance science and perceptual psychology. An off-the-cuff video on this performed wildly beyond anything planned or pillared, and it has since opened a whole series: going deep on niche, granular territory and finding the fragrance-and-science corner of the internet that was apparently waiting for it.

Here’s what that confirmed: you don’t need to be everything to everyone. You just need to find your equally obsessive, equally niche people. They exist. They’re usually relieved someone is finally talking about it properly.

On trusting your own journey and gut

Something else I’ve been quietly stepping back from: the gravitational pull of other founders’ stories. They’re useful in pieces, genuinely. But more than most people admit, there is no single playbook. Sometimes what actually moves the needle is the unglamorous thing, the consistent showing up, the brick-by-brick accumulation, the slow grind that doesn’t make for a compelling LinkedIn post. Building in public has conditioned us to expect overnight scale, and somewhere in that we’ve lost the vocabulary for slow, intentional, purposeful growth.

I’m reminding myself I’m not in a race. Other brands’ metrics are aspirational, yes, but the quiet, steady playbook deserves its own merit. I’m trying to give it some.

There’s something related here about restraint. In a world where everything is externalised and public-facing, the decision to keep some things close feels almost radical.

Not every meaningful consumer exchange needs to be screenshotted. Not every strong sales day needs an announcement. I understand the argument for visibility, you never know who’s watching, but I also think there’s something worth protecting in the private interaction. The two-person moment that doesn’t require a third-party audience to have meaning.

Optimisation culture can sod off

This train of thought leads me, naturally, to optimisation culture, how even wellness has become a competitive benchmark.

How well are you doing your well?

I think about this in terms of skin and body care too. Here’s a little excerpt of my rambles…

Alain de Botton writes about dignity not as something earned through excellence, but as something sustained through care. The kind of care that does not announce itself. The kind that does not need witnesses.

Some things, he suggests, become thinner when they are shared too widely.
Some experiences need containment to retain their depth.

Privacy, in this sense, is not secrecy.
It is protection.

It is the decision to let certain parts of life remain unspectacular and whole.

A meal eaten without documentation.
A moment of tenderness without narration.
Care given without explanation.

These acts are not diminished by their invisibility.
They are preserved by it.

And in a culture that increasingly demands that every act be narratable, this kind of care can feel almost subversive.

I’ve been journalling the moments in my week that actually bring me joy, and they are almost entirely inconspicuous.

Nescafé Blend 43 with my husband in the quiet before he leaves for work, after a night of broken sleep with a newborn.

Ridiculous nonsensical arguments in said state that turn into both of us in fits of laughter (mainly me being argumentative and being met with gentle humour mostly by my patient husband haha)

When my daughter says “group hug” and we all embrace as a family, Benji my dog jumping up to join.

His wagging entire back half when I return from simply going to the shops to grab milk.

Five minutes post-shower with my body cream, just present in my own body, no agenda.

Washing my face with cold water in the morning.

None of these optimise for anything. All of them are the point.

It led me to write some work on the quiet architecture of everyday life

Packaging as artifact and art

I’ve been working with a glass artist in the US on a limited edition vessel for a new product…hand-blown, beautiful, designed to be repurposed long after the product inside it is gone. As a perfume bottle, an oil vessel, whatever you want it to become. I want it to feel like an artifact. An object with a life beyond its original function.

The psychology I’m chasing here runs deeper than packaging. Skin-of-colour bodies have been pathologised for so long, handed uninspiring vessels, narratives rooted in shame, products that were sensorially punishing in the name of fixing something. To offer those same bodies something genuinely luxurious, something beautiful and considered, is a small but deliberate act of reframing. The act of revering the object extends to how you revere the body that uses it.

And since Louis was born: I understand this differently now. When you’re elbow-deep in nappies and your brain has been quietly composted by sleep deprivation, small moments of beauty matter enormously. A well-designed bottle isn’t frivolous, it’s a signal to your nervous system that this three-minute routine is worth showing up for. That you are worth showing up for.

Speaking for VT Cosmetics 3 weeks postpartum

I also recently spoke at a W cosmetics/VT Cosmetics’ event on their viral PDRN and Reedle Shot, three weeks postpartum, a small personal triumph, achieved in full maternity-pad-and-high-waisted-briefs regalia that no St. Agni dress could fully conceal. My first proper work collaboration with a K-beauty brand (the entire time were incredibly nice and made me want to visit Korea asap).

While the rest of the industry looks to Korea primarily to replicate, I’m more interested in appreciation. What Korean skincare has mastered, better than almost anyone, is the psychology of joy in the routine. The sensorial reward, the ritual logic, the idea that skincare should feel like something you want to do rather than something you’re obligated to.

This piece may feel like it sprawls but I think it is connected loosely by one persistent question that has been on my mind:

how do you build something that matters when everyone around you is optimising for attention?

The new product exists because I identified a clinical need, not because there is any particular aspect of the ingredient story that is trending. The limited edition vessel exists because I want to make objects with permanence, not planned obsolescence. The body odour piece landed because it was specific, not broad.

The through-line is this: authenticity isn’t aesthetic. It’s operational. It’s the choice to write about what actually fascinates you, even if it won’t go viral. To make a product with reliable old school actives when everyone else is chasing new peptide complexes. To design a bottle that outlives its contents. To nerd out about fragrance molecular biology because you can’t help it.

I’m not chasing trends because I genuinely cannot…temporally, creatively, energetically.

And what I keep finding is that the constraint is the gift.

When you can’t be everywhere, you have to be somewhere.

Specific. Rooted. Niche.

Turns out, that’s where the interesting work happens.

Til next time - Dr P x

Louis is here, despite the contention around the spelling of his name with my husband and extended family (he thinks it should be Louie, Penelope calls him “Bluey”, my grandma said “Congratulations on Louise!”, and my granddad asked why we didn’t spell it Lewis, shortly after remembering studying the many King Louis’ of France in the 1940’s at school in Malaysia).

This pregnancy was wildly different from the last…a series of unfortunate events one after another (having to give away one of my beautiful dogs which absolutely tore my heart to a million pieces I have still not recovered, recurrent daycare illnesses week on week I inevitably shared with my daughter including a stint with Influenza to name a few), along with planning a business heavily pregnant, heavily physically exhausted, left me more disconnected than ever from both my bump and myself.

Last time I was weight training 2-3 times a week, squatting 80-90 kg’s like a champ, making it to reformer pilates 4 times a week and yoga too. This time, I couldn’t work out as much due to the constraints of having a toddler, back and pelvic pain, working in clinic and telehealth more than before, and iron deficiency all arriving conveniently one after another.

I’m sitting here 7 days postpartum, quite literally in front of a fan my dad assembled in my room as I am dealing with the biggest hormonal drop of my life and sweating from my face, swollen legs propped up in viparita karani laying in my childhood bedroom. Despite all of these lovely horrendous things women go through, I do already find myself feeling more myself.

I’m not one of those women who think pregnancy is a beautiful goddess-adjacent experience. I truthfully think it’s f**ked. The relief of having the extra weight out, of having my poise and centre of energy slowly returning, of not having acid rise up my oesophagus like molten lava rising violently up from Mt Doom, of being able to see my toes again is a much better place to be living life and running a business from.

The Pressure to Look Presentable vs. Permission to Just Be

Something shifts when you have a child. It’s been a part of me slowly metamorphising over the last year or so. I have become less preoccupied with the performance of how I appear to the outside world – my appearance, my body, my outward capacity and my need for recognition. That certainly doesn’t mean I let myself go, but it’s nice to feel permission to not look the most optimised and perfect version of yourself all the time. Or at least, doing those things for me now, not external validation.

The first time around I remember an overwhelming anxiety around my body. Stretch marks that appeared overnight, a deep purple and red, tortuous and angry under my breasts that engorged from a c cup to a double ee overnight, and with it the realisation that perhaps I didn’t need a boob job and I had a pretty decent perky, petite set with a lovely bare decolletage now eclipsed for the foreseeable future by cleavage, something that I’d taken for granted. A C-section scar that felt like a shelf, that for a few weeks I panicked wouldn’t resolve, and a deep frustration I couldn’t walk without pain, feeling so much pressure to go for hour-long walks every day, the only thing I was allowed to do. Fearful of weight gain of course, the impotus.

Over time I experienced an acneiform breakout too…painful pustules and cysts all over my cheeks that left me with pitted scars and red and purple post-inflammatory pigmentation from a previously relatively flawless canvas. I was eager to get treatments done before returning to work, hopeful that would make me look more presentable, soften the fact my cheekbones had vanished from existence and I seemed to have a perptually full moon face.

This time around has felt more freeing. I’ve been accepting my wrinkles and grays. I didn’t have time to dye my hair or do my nails to look and feel presentable for the obligatory birth shot. They are chipped and short like those of an unruly boy in Year 1. My belly is larger than last time, and ominous stretch marks are now on one side of my underbelly that I didn’t fully visualise during pregnancy but now can.

On bounce back culture

Recent research supports what many of us already know viscerally, the “bounce back” narrative is not only unrealistic but actively harmful. A 2025 study in the Journal of Health Communication found that postpartum mothers exposed to #fitspo content reported increased anxiety and lower body satisfaction, while those exposed to body positive content showed improved outcomes. Another study examining TikTok’s “bounce back culture” revealed how these videos maintain dangerous expectations rooted in gender, race, and class constructs. The researchers argue that researchers should replace “bouncing back” with a conceptualisation of “reclaiming”, however cheesy that may sound I think this is nice, reclaiming agency, reclaiming your sense of self beyond appearance metrics.

And look I'm not judging women who feel compelled to return to a baseline they recognise. I don’t think I am better or worse for not doing these things. Heck I probably will dye my hair at some stage and do my nails because I want a moment to myself and to feel cute for a minute. Actually, I see real value in feeling like yourself again, not because of external pressure, but because feeling recognisable to yourself matters. A healthy, happy mum often does mean healthy, happy kids. And honestly? I think having the impetus to care somewhat means you care about yourself enough to value looking and feeling your best. That's not vanity, that's self-worth.

What I'm pushing back against is the optimisation culture that says this must happen on a timeline, must be documented, must be performed for an audience, and must erase all evidence of what your body accomplished. The difference between "I want to feel strong in my body again" and "I must have visible abs by 6 weeks postpartum or I've failed" is the difference between self-care and self-violence. One honours your body's capacity, the other punishes it for being human.

Leaning Into Confinement (Sort Of)

And so as I pen this, Louis fully asleep in true form after a meal on the breast while I’m attempting to manage my toddler coming to terms with a new brother (which involves her elbowing my engorged breasts with alarming frequency), I find myself thinking about confinement practices. I am staying again with my parents for about a month because I know I need to recover this time around. And the only way I will do that, is with my Indian mother yelling at me for spending too long on my laptop and my dad insisting I eat dinner ASAP.

In Asian and Indian communities, postpartum confinement has deep historical roots… a period of 30 to 40 days where new mothers are cared for, fed nourishing foods, kept warm, and explicitly told to rest. Rest is taken seriously. I mean, really serious business.

Western medicine has only recently begun to understand what these traditions knew: the postpartum body needs genuine recovery time, not performance metrics. So this time, I am leaning into rest in whatever way I can. Instead of punishing myself for not being my pre child self, I am finding ways in the everyday routine of sameness and mundane to elevate and make special. It’s working rather nicely so let me share some little things I have been doing.

Dr P’s Actually Honest Postpartum Essentials

You won’t find this list in the aesthetically curated, beige, performative postpartum content that floods social media. This is what actually matters when you’re stripped down to basics but still want to feel remotely human:

For Your Actual Body:

- Pure Mama Belly Oil & Trofolastin Cream: for the stretch marks we’re learning to care for and nourish as evidence of holding life rather than erase.

- Tretinoin: my old friend…if you recommence one active in post partum let it be this. Time to build back and preserve some collagen and hyaluronic acid for smoother, hydrated, resilient skin in a few months! I also apply this first to my stretch marks followed by the Trofolastin and Pure Mama Oil for triple support…retinoic acid, centella, sweet almond oil is chefs kiss for healing the skin.

NOTE* Always discuss use with your own GP or Obstetrician and be mindful to wash your hands pre handling bub and not apply anywhere near the breast/nipple area where they will come into close contact (this may including avoiding the dec and neck for now as they invariably tend to sit up on your chest etc)

- A delicious luxurious towel: I bought this for a L’ORIENT shoot but its egyptian cotton some kind of impressive thread count I don’t remember. It’s vibrant and fun and a little luxurious and makes shower time a bit nicer drying off my new post partum bod.

- Augustinus Bader Rich Cream: if moisturising is the only thing you remember or have time to put on, let it be something decadent. I also indulge in sunscreen as I am sitting by a window everyday and the UV is currently cooked in Aus even on cloudy days…Merit The Uniform or Clinique Dramatically Different are my go to’s depending on if I am filming content or not.

- Dermalogica Daily Milkfoliant: a gentle face wash with soothing oat that doesn’t require elaborate routines or strip the skin

- Bioderma Atoderm Body Wash Oil: for shower moments that feel like self-care even when they’re 4 minutes long. Affordable, gently scented, luxurious hydrating texture.

- La Mer Lip Treatment Lip Balm: because your lips will crack from dehydration and at least this feels luxurious and looks cute to pull out. I use cocoa.

- Dymista nasal spray: for those of us with pregnancy rhinitis that doesn’t magically disappear

- Eye drops: dry eyes from hormones and sleep deprivation are real

For Function Without Compromise:

- Mumma Milla or Nala bras: I live in my bras post partum and this time I decided to invest in local Australian brands, comfortable, but not overtly ugly, not the shit Kmart ones that fray after one wash and crust when milky and dig in. I tend to enjoy the Mumma Milla ones slightly more for the inbuilt leakage support and the really cute camis.

- Wylk postpartum undies and pads: honestly these post partum undies in the perfect shade of brown for every skin tone feel like Nagnata shorts at this point…you deserve better than the flimsy, tear prone, geriatric white stretchies the hospital provide

- Cotton On pyjamas: cute enough that you don’t feel completely feral, comfortable enough to live in, frills and bows make everything nicer

- Spectra Dual S breast pump: if you’re pumping, invest in something that actually works and gets the job done quick. I unfortunately melted a whole part and flange of my previous pump and used to have to pump breast by breast which was wildly annoying and inefficient and didn’t want to sit there forever this time. Still doesn’t stop you feeling like an actual cow but at least it’s efficient

- A genuinely nice mug: for the 47 cups of tea/water/coffee you’ll drink experiencing thirst like never before

- Noodie sunrise clock: for softer night feeds, gentle alarms to wake, and also I found lovely mood lighting in the shower

For Your Sanity:

- Books you started and can now finish in 5-minute increments

- Nice perfume to spray daily even in home clothes

- Gentle walks for movement, for family time, not for aesthetics

The Perfect Imperfectness of It All

Here’s what I’m embracing this time: the messiness. The hormonal drop happening while simultaneously managing a toddler’s adjustment. Icepacks to my swollen armpits (yes, really, axillary breast tissue that engorges is delightful).

One of the joys I’m embracing is the perfect imperfectness of it all. Not putting pressure on myself for a flat stomach in record turnaround time. Not rushing to beauty appointments. Not performing recovery for an audience.

The other night, Louis was cluster feeding at 2am and my toddler woke up in the kerfuffle asking for water, and I realised I had fallen asleep with one breast out, which had leaked all over the bed, mismatched pyjama bottoms, and had somehow managed to roll a little Blanche Byredo on my wrists before shuffling to attend to both of them.

This is it. This is the luxury. Not the body that “bounces back” but the body that endures, that feeds, that gets up again, that smells good even in the middle of the night for noone other than me, when it’s messy and peak chaotic.

It will never make sense to me how something can feel so challenging, that bone deep exhaustion that makes you realise how far up your own arse you were before kids, and yet still the most rewarding thing in the world. Feeling like you have lost parts of yourself and gained immeasurable love for little souls that completed you in ways you didn’t know needed completion. Simultaneously strong and empowered and incapable and overwhelmed at all times.

Motherhood is wild, whiplashing you minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day until the thief of time offers you hindsight to realise these fleeting days that feel like marathons are the moments your soul will crave and miss into the future.

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They don’t tell you that postpartum is less about returning to who you were and more about meeting who you’re becoming. That the stretch marks are literally your skin making room for more… more life, more love, more versions of yourself you didn’t know existed. That some mornings you’ll catch your reflection and think “God I look bloody wrecked and tired and also friggin magnificent you boss a** b**ch!” and both will be true.

I’m writing this fluid pooling once again to my feet, belly softer than it’s ever been, hormones staging a coup, and Louis asleep in that boneless newborn way, drunk on breastmilk that makes you believe in magic. My pyjamas cost $30 on sale, my face cream costs more than I’ll admit, and neither makes me a better mother. But they make this moment feel a little less like survival and a little more like living.

This time around, I’m not bouncing anywhere. I’m settling in. I am trying to lean into the moment and not rush to escape. I’m enjoying the Coles Choc Chip Cookies with Milo because they’re bloody delicious, and watching the mind numbingly repetitive Twirly Woos with Penelope because that makes her happy, and her happy makes me happier than punching out mountains of work ever will. I’m not looking in the mirror flinching at the fluid that’s appeared overnight masking my true bone structure, massaging the good creams into it with love and devotion rather than correction top of mind. Making a home in this body that’s done the unthinkable twice. And if that means my toddler keeps elbowing my engorged breasts and my belly takes years to return to some semblance of its nulliparous state, and I spend the next month in variations of the same three outfits, so be it.

We contain multitudes… the hormonal drop and the surge of love, the physical wreckage and the emotional abundance, the profound exhaustion and the crystal-clear moments of “I made this.” Both things are true. All things are true. And none of it needs to be optimised, aestheticised, or approved by an algorithm.

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Written somewhere between exhaustion and oxytocin, with Louis sleeping on my chest and Penelope asking me if “Bluey” is going home soon. Close enough, darling. Close enough.

This used to be my favourite holiday.

The one night where the social contract demanded excess, where you could dress up and drink champagne and kiss strangers at midnight and call it tradition. I was good at New Year’s Eve. I planned weeks in advance. I wore uncomfortable shoes. And short tight fast fashion dresses.

Now? I’m genuinely delighted to be home by 8pm, analysing friction points in the customer journey while Casey Donovan performs in sequins.

How did we get here?

Every morning, I do what Tara Swart calls “manifestation board work” - though I prefer thinking of it as deliberate mental housekeeping. Before I open my laptop or check my phone, I write down the limiting beliefs that are loudest that day. The day before, battling the hangover of a Restavit keeping me sluggish: “I can’t do this, I can’t manage a business and 2 kids…” And then: “My aspirations and goals are delusional.”

These beliefs get interrogated with evidence. I write them down.

We’ve hit 30 K in sales in < 2 weeks with no paid spend despite my enduring fatigue and delightful pelvic and back pain. Orders from Oslo, Sweden, Texas, Mexico, North Carolina, California, London, Leeds, Dublin, Netherlands, Spain, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, NZ, Philippines. So many more.

The reel I filmed on the fly, exhausted, after home prayers for the baby with my parents in my indian clothes has nearly 4000 likes and over 800 sends.

But here’s what I’ve learned this week, this month, this entire pregnancy spent building LORIENT while my body builds a human: the work is the life. I’ve started to try view things day by day rather than by a goal in X months. What can I solve and optimise today.

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The video calls I make work with unholy time differences, 10pm in Dublin from an eager and sweet medical student asking about melasma moustache treatment and whether our deodorant interacts with her Naturium body wash. The woman in Dubai who sent photos of her underarms despondent about having spent so much money on products and in clinic treatments with pigmentation returning with what I immediately recognised as PCOS-related acanthosis nigricans, and the video call she took walking along the beach whilst the sun set in Sydney explaining it all, the email I sent her explaining hormonal pigmentation, insulin resistance, and a first recepient of my new lead magnet that took me a day to make just for this. The abandoned carts recovered because I invidually emailed each customer, and created a manual that pop ups on our home page comparing the popular solutions on the market deep diving their ingredients and mechanism of action, price points and real reviews with an honest takeaway not just shitting on them.

This is not sexy. This does not make good Instagram content. But this is how I think you build trust when you’re selling a product to genuinely solve a problem that the beauty industry has historically either ignored or pathologised. I want to move from a place of my strengths…authority and expertise, integrity, and genuine care.

I’ve become obsessed with friction points…not in a business school way, but in a genuine “what stops someone from clicking buy?” way.

The answers are humbling: Price. (Fair.) Shipping costs to USA. (Working on it but can’t work on Donald.) Fear it won’t work. (Understandable…how many products have failed them?) Doubt it functions as actual deodorant. (it does.)

So I made a lead magnet. A transparent comparison of the most popular underarm brightening products on the market… not a blanket “they’re all shit and mine is better” thing, but an honest breakdown, I tried to be fair and balanced, as though a patient had walked in asking me if she should buy this?

Here’s what’s in The Ordinary’s Glycolic Acid Toner and why this can and can’t work. Here’s what’s in Nécessaire. Here’s what we include and why the ingredient matrix matters for melanin-rich skin specifically. Pros and cons for each. Clinical evidence. pH considerations.

Almost everyone who downloaded it made a purchase within 48 hours.

Turns out, people don’t want to be sold to. They want to be educated, respected, and trusted to make their own informed decisions. Something I learnt even as a doctor, in an industry where aesthetic medicine is competitive and clinicians can become possessive of their patients, is that you don’t own anyone. You can’t manipulate or strangle people into staying. It’s best to trust that the right ones will come, after you present them with your offering and leaving the rest up to them.

I’ve also started treating content creation like a medical shift rotation: maximum efficiency, minimum waste. One dense educational piece gets repurposed into a carousel, a blog post, a reel, an EDM. The lead magnet becomes a minefield of content to create multiple TikToks. The Substack essay becomes the foundation for personal account founder Instagram content. Rick Rubin has this line about not having a fixed idea of what you want the creative output to be…sometimes the work takes you in a different direction, and you have to follow it even if it wasn’t the plan.

My plan was to avoid cultural dialogue content. I’m tired. I’ve been reflecting on medical colonialism and the racialisation of body odour and “ethnic” versus “regular” beauty categories for years, and honestly, I wanted LORIENT to just exist as a beautiful product without having to carry the weight of discourse.

But that content performs. The videos about why underarm darkness isn’t a hygiene issue, about the politics of the West appropriating Eastern practices and ingredients, about what it means to center melanin-rich skin in formulation from the start rather than as an afterthought…these resonate. My follower count climbs. The DMs, reshares, comments, sends pour in. People tag their friends, their sisters, their mothers.

So I follow it. Not because it’s easy, but because clearly this is the seed that needed sowing. I post cultural criticism, then nurture with product education. Build awareness through intellectual rigour, convert through demonstrable expertise. It’s working. I personally reply to every single comment on those viral videos and story shares. One from months ago even, all of them asking when the product drops. Because that’s how you convert attention into community.

And speaking of community: I’m treating my testers like the actual VIPs of this operation. The beauty industry has this backwards hierarchy where influencers with engagement rates are courted while the women who actually use your product daily for twelveweeks are treated as free labour.

After our testing period ended, I did exit interviews with every single participant. Everyone who completed the trial and their deliverables got another free product, plus one for a friend or family member. Some are entering trials for our new prescription telehealth service and bespoke compounded product offering “Night Shift”. Others are testing upcoming fine fragranced versions of Éclair or have volunteered to try Crème Brûlée. Some get early access to La Piscine when it launches (more on that in time).

This isn’t strategy. Or rather, it is, but not in a cynical way. Peer-to-peer referrals are the strongest form of marketing, yes, but also, these women trusted me with their bodies, their insecurities, their 8am armpit selfies in horrible bathroom lighting. That deserves reciprocity. Their social proof helps other consumers. Genuine care builds loyalty, builds trust, builds evangelists. You can’t fake this. I genuinely value each and every one of them.

The clock struck midnight while I was uploading the comparison guide to the website pop-up. I poured myself lukewarm Sydney tap water to guzzle ferociously, the pipes evidently still cooling down from the hot day. Outside, the neighborhood erupted in amateur fireworks. Benji woke up briefly, confused.

“Happy New Year,” a half asleep James said, as he walked past me to the toilet for the third time at 1230 AM after having some wines before bed.

Here’s what I know that my former self didn’t: transformation isn’t loud. It doesn’t happen at parties or in rooms full of strangers or at the moment the ball drops. It happens in the quiet accumulation of daily work. The daily monotony of showing up consistently in small ways. In the choice to reply to the 847th comment. In the three-paragraph email explaining hormonal pigmentation to someone you’ll never meet. In deciding that treating customers with intellectual respect matters more than crafting virality.

I don’t miss the parties. I don’t miss the uncomfortable shoes or the forced merriment or the particular loneliness of being surrounded by people off their faces having the time of their lives about to enter a week of depression.

I’m exactly where I want to be: 38 weeks pregnant, building something that matters, sowing seeds that may not flower for months or years. Writing lead magnets at midnight because I genuinely enjoy sharing knowledge freely and with depth. Living a life that would bore my former self to tears.

The real manifestation work isn’t pretty visualisation boards posted on the gram or champagne wishes. It’s showing up daily and taking aligned action. It’s treating every customer question as an opportunity for education and even reflection rather than inconvenience. It’s following the work where it wants to go, even when it’s not the plan.

It’s choosing the lead magnet over the party, every single time, no regrets.

How wonderfully, impossibly boring. How absolutely right.

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One week into bringing LORIENT into the world, and I’m writing this propped up by approximately four pillows, having just cried in the bathroom because my back decided that today, of all days, when I need to fulfill orders and respond to inquiries, was the day to remind me that I am, in fact, gestating an entire human while trying to build an empire from my laptop.

But let me start with the good news, because there was plenty of it, and dwelling in gratitude feels like the only antidote to the relentless fatigue that has me in bed zonked most nights.

We launched.

And people, real people, with their real credit cards and their real desire for products that centre pleasure over pathology responded.

Over a unit per second in the first minute.

Just under thirteen thousand dollars in revenue in the first twenty-four hours.

Orders from every inhabited continent, from Norway to Guyana, from Kuwait to New Zealand. From Doha to Manila. Dublin to Alberta. The kind of reception that makes you want to cry for entirely different reasons than the ones that have me weeping in bed when the burning reflux rises unannounced into the upper echelons of my throat and I can taste my dinner all over again.

Of course, launches can manufacture spectacular statistics, the adrenaline and novelty doing half the work. What comes after is the sobering realisation that there is no finish line here, just a constantly shifting set of goalposts and the daily work of keeping the needle moving forward. But here’s what surprised me: setting things in motion has reignited something in me that had been dampened by setbacks and delays.

My mantra has been “done is better than perfect,” even as Klaviyo’s email templates drive my perfectionist self to the edge of madness (thank god for plain text emails, truly). I’m learning that consumer feedback and real data provide a far more astute navigational tool than strict influencer strategies or conventional PR playbooks. What matters is emotional resonance, dialogue with the people who are buying or considering buying what you’re offering.

The validation feels profound. The intuition to create a product like this, to centre intimate body care as a site of pleasure rather than correction, to challenge the colourism embedded in hyperpigmentation discourse, seeing it resonate feels like proof that I haven’t lost the plot entirely.

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But Then There’s the Guilt

Because competing behind the scenes with all this gratitude and momentum is a consuming, gnawing guilt about what this work takes me away from: my daughter, in these final weeks before she’s no longer my only child. I know this position isn’t unique to me, the working mother’s eternal push-pull between ambition and presence, but I find myself feeling these emotions so deeply nonetheless, questioning where personal ambition ends and personal responsibility as a mother begins.

It didn’t help that I had an episode of The Kardashians playing in the background (don’t judge me, we all have our vices), where Kourtney brought in Erica Komisar to deliver what felt like a masterclass in maternal guilt. The message was clear, almost brutally so: if you’re not physically present enough, you are harming your child. Suddenly my normal, loving ambition started feeling like negligence. There were sweeping statements about daycare and behavioural issues, an implicit moral hierarchy where good mothers stay home and work becomes a selfish choice if you could financially avoid it.

I sat there, hands on my growing belly, orders pinging, and wondered if I was irreparably damaging my daughter by choosing to do this work that lights me up, that feels like my intellectual and creative contribution to shifting narratives around bodies like ours. The Protestant guilt of my own conditioning around productivity meeting the maternal guilt of never feeling like you’re doing enough in either direction.

Thankfully, reassurances from my husband and close friends reminded me that I am not a negligent parent, that ambition and being a devoted mother are not mutually exclusive concepts. That my daughter seeing me build something meaningful, watching me navigate setbacks and celebrate wins, teaching her that women can create and think and work, that this too is a form of presence, of modelling what’s possible.

The Physical Reality No One Tells You About

And then there’s the body keeping score in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated. Behind every product shipment, every email drafted, every social media caption written, there’s been a physical cost I’m only now learning to name without shame. The fatigue is unlike anything I’ve experienced…not the kind that sleep fixes, but the bone-deep exhaustion that has me moving through water, every task requiring twice the energy it should. Most days by noon, I’m already running on fumes, pushing through because the orders won’t pack themselves and the content calendar doesn’t pause for pregnancy.

The reflux is its own special hell, arriving without warning in the middle of filming a Reel or Tik Tok, leaving me tasting stomach acid and scrambling for PPI’s and antacids like it’s a lifeline. And the back pain, god, the back pain that has me in tears most days, the kind that radiates down my legs, wraps around my mid section and makes standing at my packing station feel like an endurance sport. There are moments when I’m on my elbows arching my back to release my thoracic spine, the sound of facet joints cracking amidst the hum of printing shipping labels, wondering if this is what ambition is supposed to feel like, if other people launching brands are also contorting their bodies for some reprieve every minute because their bodies have decided to stage a full revolt.

I’m learning to hold both truths: that this launch is everything I hoped it would be, and that I’m doing it while my body actively works against me. That success and struggle aren’t mutually exclusive, that you can be proud and in pain simultaneously. There’s no Instagram caption for that particular duality.

How I’ve Been Navigating

1- Action aligned journalling/meaningful manifestation

Each morning, I’ve been using specific prompts for goal-setting and action planning: reviewing what I actually accomplished the previous day (not what I failed to do, which is my brain’s natural inclination), then aligning my actions toward concrete goals for the incoming day. In the evening, I write a brief summary to prime my brain away from its negative bias and toward confirmation of action taken. It’s a small practice, but it’s been crucial for staying functional when exhaustion would otherwise have me spiralling.

2- Exploring my Human Design

I’ve also been dissecting my Human Design chart. I’m a Projector, and understanding this framework has been unexpectedly insightful for recognising my natural approach, my pitfalls, and how my energy operates differently than the Generators and Manifestors whose workflows dominate business advice. It’s helped me give myself permission to work in bursts rather than marathon sessions, to recognise when I need to wait for invitation rather than initiate, to stop measuring myself against productivity standards designed for completely different energetic blueprints.

3- Navigating hateful DMs and comments

A disdainful DM and comment about our pricing.

I sat with this and turned it into an entire content piece about friction points to purchase. Instead of getting defensive, I used it as an opportunity to articulate our brand ethos, to explain why we’re not competing on price but on value, on the philosophy of pleasure over pressure, on the reality that luxury isn’t about how much gold leaf you can sprinkle on something but about the intentionality of formulation and the cultural intervention the product represents. That piece resonated far more than I expected.

4- A viral piece exploring culturally resonant thematics

Then there was the viral content moment, a post that struck some deep cultural and emotional chord that I hadn’t fully anticipated. Excellent for top-of-funnel awareness, less directly translatable to immediate sales, but valuable for establishing the brand’s voice and positioning in people’s consciousness and gaining followers. These are the moments that remind me why emotional resonance matters more than conversion-optimised copy and listing product specs alone.

5- Our first giveback

I’ve been thinking carefully about what meaningful rewards look like within our brand ethos. Our first giveaway is framed as a “holiday at home ritual,” aligning with our pleasure-over-pressure philosophy…perhaps not the most business-savvy move, but givebacks that feel genuine rather than transactional align with my personal values. Next month, I’m planning to offer a Vedic natal chart reading and year-ahead session with a close friend who’s an astrologer, something for the community that feels like a true gift rather than a marketing ploy. And planning rewards that align with the brand philosophy and give something meaningful back to consumers.

6- Do something each day I am scared of

My operating principles have been simple: do at least one thing each day that could move the needle forward, and collect at least three rejections per week. The latter keeps me pitching, reaching out, taking swings even when I’m terrified of hearing no. Most of the nos haven’t materialised anyway, but the practice of expecting them has made me bolder.

The Products That Got Me Through 2025

Now, for the part where I talk about the products that have either kept me sane, made me feel vaguely human, or simply brought enough joy to justify their exorbitant price tags. In no particular order beyond stream of consciousness:

The Victoria Beckham Beauty Foundation Drops have been my saving grace for days when I need to look alive on camera but have the energy of a Victorian ghost. The coverage is substantial for me, skin like finish, without feeling heavy, a perfect summer foundation.

Merit’s The Uniform SPF 40 is my go to for minimal makeup days, perfectly colour matched, not oily, a genuine feat when you’re already “glowing” (read: sweating) through most conversations.

I’ve returned to Clinique’s Dramatically Different Moisturising Lotion and their SPF because sometimes you need the skincare equivalent of a reliable friend who doesn’t ask too much of you.

Similarly, La Mer’s Hydrating Balancing Lotion is my concession to luxury when I need to feel like I’m taking care of myself, even if “taking care” just means a slightly more expensive toner. It feels divine and hydrating.

Iris and Romeo’s Lash Up Peptide Thickening Mascara deserves its own sonnet. My lashes during pregnancy have been distinctly underwhelming, and this has been the only formula that makes me look awake without clumping or flaking by hour three.

Victoria Beckham’s Portofino 97 Body Oil is pure indulgence, a sensory delight, the kind of thing I apply after a shower when I want to feel less like a exhausted incubator and more like a person who still appreciates beauty rituals and smells effin good.

Speaking of smelling good…Guerlain’s Angelique Noire fragrance…I joked to my husband that he had to buy me this (it’s exxy) and he did (what an angel). It has been my olfactory escape, rich and sophisticated enough to make me feel pulled together even in pyjamas at 3 PM.

Pure Mama Belly Oil has been crucial for keeping my expanding skin comfortable, it smells divine, spreads divine. A moment to try slow down and connect with bub and myself. I haven’t been as diligent looking after my skin this pregnancy, and my belly is a totally different shape, much lower, and as a result stretching the skin of my lower abdomen much more than it did with Penny. I have developed stretch marks on one side and I’ve made peace with that but I know they will fade soon.

On the clinical side, Finacea 15% Azelaic Acid has been my go-to for managing hyperpigmentation that seems to enhance in pregnancy.

Epaderm Ointment is unglamorous but essential for the dry patches that have appeared seemingly overnight, a must for my fellow eczema and dry skinned folk.

Bioderma’s Body Oil Wash has made showering feel less like a chore and more like a small pleasure, non stripping and a gentle fragrance.

And finally, a shout out to Dymista, the nasal spray for rhinitis that has made breathing through my nose possible. Not sexy, but deeply appreciated.

What Comes Next

One week in, and I’m learning that building something meaningful while growing a human is less about balance and more about surrender…to the chaos, to the imperfection, to the reality that some days you’re in pain at your desk and shipping orders simultaneously, that ambition and exhaustion can occupy the same space, that you can be proud and in pain and uncertain and absolutely certain all at once.

The goalposts will keep shifting. The orders will keep coming (I hope). My daughter will become a big sister in a matter of days. My back will continue to hurt until then, the reflux will persist, the fatigue will remain my unwelcome companion. But I’ll also keep showing up, keep figuring it out one day at a time, keep trusting that done is better than perfect and that the work of creating something that centres pleasure over pathology is worth the cost.

Here’s to week two, whatever it brings. Probably more pain, definitely more Esomeprazole, hopefully more orders from unexpected corners of the world. And through it all, the quiet knowledge that we’re building something that matters, even when it hurts.

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I’m 36 weeks pregnant, my feet are swollen, I feel like Violet Beauregarde about to explode, this baby has been kicking my ribs all night that I have been up since 3:30 AM.

I’ve already nearly cried twice…once at a dog video about how they look forward to you coming home all day (and feeling guilty I have been neglecting my beautiful choccy boy Benji), once because the deodorant feedback from the tester group has had answers like this:

I have been reflecting this morning on some of the sentiments from really beautiful strangers on the internet on my social accounts, friends, patients, etc, and words like “superwoman” and “boss” come up a lot, and I don’t say this to covertly flex, I just feel a huge responsibility to relay that I am honestly neither of those things. Or at least, it’s incomplete. Yes, I work hard. Yes, I’ve shown up. But the romanticised image of the entrepreneur grinding alone at 3am? That’s not how any of this happened.

The Truth

None of this, not one single thing, would be possible without my husband who works relentlessly and still gets up with our daughter at night and has had to deal with a very hormonal wife. Marriage is work, even when you love their guts, but one thing I know for sure is I picked the right partner.

Without my parents who take her so I can work. Without my mother who shows up every week with fresh meals because she knows I’ll forget to eat properly.

Without my bosses & managers (Susan + Melissa and Mel + Lucy) who’ve given me flexibility whilst navigating motherhood to build something alongside clinical practice.

Without fellow friends and family in and out of business, especially Pernima from Phos Rituals, Alisha, Jess, my cousin Misha, Dr Yalda, and Ashi Bhat of Ashi Branding (and a properly disruptive beauty brand on the way, god I am obsessed you will be too).

And without the brilliant people along the way I’ve had the privilege to learn from: , , , , Mike Modula…each of whom has shaped how I think about business, branding, and doing this work with integrity.

I filmed a podcast by Glowreel earlier this week and Shilpa was surprised when I revealed I am actually an incredibly chaotic person. Which surprised me (that she was surprised) as the persona I must be giving off (unintentionally or associated with the doctor title perhaps) is very different to my lived reality.

Truthfully, I am more “frantically responding to emails and curating content drinking cold Nescafe Blend 43 while feeding my daughter Milo cereal post meltdown over a more sensible breakfast”, and less “serene founder with a delightful colour coordinated planner sipping an oat latte whilst reviewing a fully laid out marketing content calendar meal prepped for the week.”

What Actually Keeps Me (Semi)Functional

Building a business while pregnant, parenting, and working clinically requires nervous system regulation that goes beyond manifestation journals and sage burning (though I love both). Here are five things I have been doing recently or for some time that actually keep me grounded:

1. Morning Rituals (The Boring Ones)

With the exemption of today, I have been trying to not use my phone for the first hour or two. I recently got a sunrise alarm clock from Noodie that tweets at me with birdsong and mimicks the sunrise without showing me the time or needing me to reach for my phone. Has been great!

I installed OPAL because who doesn’t love Olivia Unplugged. Blocks social apps and more for this time.

Morning sunlight, even if it’s just 60 seconds on the balcony through puffy eyes.

A full glass of water before anything else, I am like a cactus in a desert and can forget to drink water but the brain needs it. Pregnancy bladder not so much a fan.

Creatine for cognitive function (studies show 5g daily improves working memory and reduces mental fatigue, particularly relevant for sleep-deprived brains aka me).

Food before coffee or matcha…because cortisol spikes on an empty stomach aren’t the vibe and some suggest that if you consume caffeine immediately after waking (when adenosine levels are naturally low), it might lead to a more significant crash later as accumulated adenosine rushes to receptors once the caffeine wears off.

Three pages of stream-of-consciousness journalling (with the caveat, child allowing).

Fifteen minutes of reading something that isn’t a business book. I am enjoying Rick Rubin at the minute.

It sounds like a lot written out, but it takes maybe 45 minutes total, and the research is clear: morning light exposure regulates circadian rhythm and improves mood through serotonin production. Creatine supplementation has been shown to benefit cognitive processing, especially under conditions of sleep deprivation (which, with a toddler, and being pregnant, is my baseline state).

2. Evening Walks with Benji

Raw-dogging it (no pun intended)…no phone, no podcast, just me, my dog, and whatever my brain wants to process. I find it quite interesting seeing where my mind goes. But also just observing the beautiful simplicity of my suburban scape, the sound of nothing, the cool evening breeze. There’s solid evidence here: a 2011 study in Neuroscience found that aerobic exercise increases BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which supports neuroplasticity and the formation of new neural connections. Essentially, walking makes your brain work better. Revolutionary, I know.

3. Shower Rituals (Sometimes Twice Daily)

This might sound excessive, but body care gives me a tangible opportunity to check in with my physical self. I try to sometimes do a minute of cold exposure (not too cold because that’s actually not good for women, a whole article in and of itself).

But recently, to thank my body, even when it’s exhausted, swollen, or doing things I’d rather it didn’t. Having a baby is great for feeling less selfish and worrying about the minor things. It’s a practice in presence, and frankly, one of the few moments in the day where nobody needs anything from me. Usually. I will admit I am often in the shower with my dog splooted right on the mat I need to dry off on, and my daughter rummaging through the cupboards pulling out expensive makeup and skincare to break.

4. Box Breathing

Four counts in, four counts hold, four counts out, four counts hold. Morning and night. The vagus nerve activation from controlled breathing reduces cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, your body’s “rest and digest” mode. A 2017 study in Frontiers in Psychology showed that slow breathing techniques significantly reduce anxiety and improve attention. It works. It’s free. I do it when I can, sometimes in bed, sometimes this leads to me falling asleep. I lean into that too,

5. Pomodoro Technique and Realistic Expectations

I have maybe 4-5 hours of genuinely solid cognitive work in me per day. That’s it. Research supports this…studies on ultradian rhythms show that our brains naturally operate in 90-minute cycles of high and low alertness. Fighting this is futile. We aren’t built for 12 hour days. So I work in focused 30-minute blocks, try take breaks (where I play the guitar or literally do nothing for 15 mins…I read something about how it’s important to be bored from a Harvard Prof recently and it’s been life changing) , and accept that I’m not going to be “on” for 12 hours straight. That’s taken me a looooong time to accept. Productivity culture will tell you otherwise. Productivity culture is lying. Let your brain rest. It performs better.

Launch Day

So here we are. Launch day. Éclair goes live today, and I’m feeling every emotion at once…pride, terror, exhaustion, gratitude, and whatever that feeling is when you’ve built something and you’re about to let other people see it. Vulnerable I guess.

This deodorant exists because I wanted it to. It felt serendipitous. Like the universe led me on a windy path to create something of value for an underserved pain point.

An opportunity to truly reframe that hyperpigmentation isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s a natural result of melanocytes doing their job, and we deserve products that work with our skin, not against it. Dialogue of care and celebration rather than stigma and shame.

But it also exists because I had help.

So much help.

And I think that’s worth saying out loud on a day when we’re supposed to perform flawless founder confidence boss vibes.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible. To my husband, my mum and dad, my friends, my advisors, my patients and randoms on the internet who trusted me with their skin and their stories enough to leave comments, send emails, and lengthy DMs. I read them all.

To my daughter, Penelope, you can’t read this (yet) but I am doing this in part for you!

And to you, if you’ve been following along, thank you for being here.

Shop Éclair here from 11 AM AEDT → link

LFG!

Dr P x

When I started LORIENT in mid-2021, the landscape was unrecognisable from today. What feels like an eternity ago (but was realistically just a few brutal product development cycles), the original vision was an East-meets-West philosophy focused on facial hyperpigmentation. Clean, sophisticated, safely within the bounds of what a cosmetic doctor “should” be making.

Then time did what time does: it moved on without consulting me first. Product development dragged. Setbacks compounded. More brands with similar hybrid ideologies emerged. I came to the sobering realisation that our initial USP was no longer unique enough, strong enough to compete with heritage brands and the seemingly infinite parade of indie launches. At this point, I felt rather despondent. Retrospectively though, what felt like irrecoverable sucker punches to the solar plexus turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

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The Algorithm Knew Before I Did

I was posting educational videos on TikTok, slowly growing my following (shout out to my 22-year-old Gen Z marketing friend who dragged me onto the platform despite my millennial resistance). I began receiving recurring comments and DMs: “pleaaaaaase talk about what we can do for dark underarms.”

These were areas of dialogue missing from mainstream beauty discourse at the time, which maintained its myopic focus on the face alone. So I started posting about these hidden corners of the body. These videos amassed hundreds of thousands of views, along with a flood of comments, saves, shares. More DMs poured in with questions about other discreet areas: inner thighs, buttocks, breasts, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation on backs and limbs, dark knuckles, elbows, knees, necks several shades deeper than faces.

Even though I knew these pain points intimately as a woman of colour, both personally and through family and friends, it became evident this was a universally significant concern for a huge portion of people. These weren’t niche anxieties. They were collective, quietly carried burdens.

The viral “hack” of swiping glycolic acid toner on underarms soon took over social feeds and online articles. This prompted me to research what solutions were actually available if people were desperate enough to off-label swipe one of the strongest acids onto such delicate skin. Why on earth would people want to do this to their pits? I thought.

I scoured Reddit forums, Amazon, YouTube, typed every possible permutation of “dark underarm treatment” into Google. What I found was disappointing: a messy mix of fluffy DIY hacks, snake oils, boring product assortments, and worryingly high numbers of unregulated whitening and bleaching creams.

The Slide That Changed Everything

Then came the final push, delivered with cinematic timing.

I was sitting (uncomfortably at 38 weeks pregnant with my daughter) in the beautiful Vue de Monde one evening amongst other physicians and dermatologists, invited to La Roche-Posay’s MelaB3 serum launch. During a professor’s presentation, a slide appeared on screen. I immediately photographed it and sent it to my husband: “We have to do this product. Trust me.”

There it was – a statistic buried in a 48,000-person global survey that listed axillary hyperpigmentation as the second most common pigmentary complaint globally. See the full survey here.

Second. Most. Common.

And yet, where were the thoughtful solutions? Where was the cultural conversation?

What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Beauty

I was forced to reflect on my own relationship with my underarms – as a South Asian woman, yes, but also simply as a woman navigating the world in a body that’s constantly being surveilled, judged, optimised.

These folds dictated what I wore. How I positioned my arms in group photos. The cheap deodorants and sickening aerosol sprays I saturated them with through my teens and early twenties. Cheap razors. Frantic hair removal rituals: shaving, abrading, stripping, waxing, ripping, those horrible sulphuric-smelling removal creams.

Objectification theory demonstrates that beauty standards and representation in culture significantly impact women of colour, particularly affecting mental health, intimate relationships, and how we show up (or rather, don’t show up) in the world. As philosopher Sara Ahmed writes, we learn to “inhabit norms”, to fold ourselves into the shapes culture demands of us.

The personal care category has long centred smooth, white, even underarms as the ideal in advertisements and campaigns. This isolates a significant portion of the global population, who can never achieve such “results” owing simply to having more heavily melanated skin. It’s not a failure of effort or hygiene or care. It’s melanogenesis doing exactly what it’s designed to do in response to friction, inflammation, and the very hair removal practices the industry promotes.

The irony is exquisite, really. We’re sold products and practices that cause the very thing we’re then sold solutions to fix.

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Pleasure Over Pressure

This is why Éclair was born: to provide a safe, effective, and thoughtful solution for a chronically overlooked pain point. To step away from shame-and-fear-based marketing, harsh acids, and whitening rhetoric toward an approach that gives armpits the unique care they’ve long deserved.

One of our core pillars is pleasure over pressure. To show up in our bodies, live a full life, arms up, no hesitation. Not as a corrected version of ourselves, but as we are.

It feels surreal to be launching in a few days after years of endless work. I hope people will see and feel the intention and thought that’s gone into not just a product that works, but one that resonates emotionally and culturally. That refuses to participate in the tired narrative of body parts requiring “fixing.”

Because sometimes the gap in the market isn’t a gap at all. It’s a void. A silence. A collective holding of breath.

And someone just needs to be willing to exhale and name the elephant in the room first.

Éclair launches this Thursday 18th of December at 11:00 AM AEDT.

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I’ll be honest…I haven’t been immune to this impulse myself. I once left what I thought was a gentle comment on a beauty creator’s video promoting topical Sculptra after at-home microneedling. The response was swift: a personal attack, followed by a barrage of loyalists berating me. My well-intentioned correction didn’t create dialogue or change. It created defensiveness and tribal allegiance. Whatever harm I thought I was preventing likely calcified instead.

So when I see this pattern playing out across platforms, I recognise it not from superiority, but from lived experience of getting it wrong myself.

This behaviour troubles me so much that I have personally gone to lengths like preventing my videos being stitched or downloaded, even blocking problematic creators with a penchant for the above.

It’s often framed as integrity. As doing the work of education. As protecting an audience from misinformation. As holding other professionals to a standard in public spaces.

I’m not going to pretend misinformation isn’t a problem, to state the obvious, it absolutely is, particularly when it comes to health, science, and the billion-dollar machinery of the beauty industry. But I want to sit with something uncomfortable for a moment:

I don’t think this approach actually works.

More than that, I think it often does the opposite of what we claim to want.

The Psychological Theatre of Public Callouts

There’s a concept in social psychology called the backfire effect: when confronted with contradicting information, we often dig in deeper rather than updating our beliefs. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler’s research showed that corrections, particularly when they feel like attacks, actually strengthen misperceptions rather than correct them.

The thing about public callouts in our creator economy is that they are inherently theatrical. They’re not designed for the person being called out, even if they claim so.

They’re designed for an audience.

Specifically, an audience that already agrees with you. The performance of intellectual superiority becomes its own reward, a kind of epistemic peacocking that says look how smart I am, look how wrong they are.

Sara Ahmed (a British Aussie scholar I adore) in her work on feminist killjoys, talks about how calling out can become a way of accumulating what she calls progressive capital.

This is essentially the social currency that comes from being seen as more enlightened, more correct, more ethically pure than others. In the context of science and health creators, this translates into authority capital. And once you’re in the business of accumulating that capital, the actual outcome, whether anyone’s mind is changed, whether health literacy actually improves, becomes secondary to the performance itself.

calling out can become a way of accumulating “progressive capital”…essentially the social currency that comes from being seen as more enlightened, more correct, more ethically pure than others.

The Ego We Don’t Talk About

Let’s call a spade a spade…because there’s often an element of ego in these callouts that we dress up in the language of education and harm prevention.

It feels good to be right.
It feels really damn good to be publicly right while someone else is publicly wrong.

Daniel Kahneman writes about what he calls the illusion of explanatory depth which is our tendency to believe we understand things far more deeply than we actually do. When we publicly call out someone else’s position, we’re implicitly claiming not just knowledge but comprehensive understanding. We’re saying:

I know enough to adjudicate this, to be the arbiter, to determine what’s true and what’s not.

That makes me uncomfortable.

The performance of intellectual superiority becomes its own reward, a kind of epistemic peacocking that says look how smart I am, look how wrong they are.

Because here’s what actually happens in the nuanced, messy world of medicine and skincare science: we’re often working with incomplete information, emerging research, and contexts that matter enormously.

When I see creators calling out other creators, I often wonder: are we genuinely concerned about public health education, or are we demonstrating our own superiority to an audience already predisposed to agree with us?

One thing I have definitively learnt to be true in my 3 decades on earth is that human beings, by nature, are inherently defensive creatures.

When criticised, particularly publicly, our nervous system literally registers it as a threat. We go into fight-or-flight. The amygdala hijacks the prefrontal cortex. Most are certainly not in a state to learn, to be curious, to update our understanding, we’re in a state to protect ourselves.

Human beings, by nature, are inherently defensive creatures.

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The False Hierarchy: Art, Science, and What We Value

I often see people with perceived authority…doctors, scientists, experts, posting from an angle of moral and intellectual superiority, sometimes complaining that they don’t have access to the same opportunities as beauty creators, as though these content creators with beautiful aesthetic feeds are vapid, have less valuable input simply because they lack credentials.

I have a different perspective.

The experience of someone who isn’t a doctor or PhD scientist is equally valuable.

The storytelling and escapism of their content, the lens of pleasure, their non-medicalised interpretation of the user experience, the beautiful ways they capture texture and ritual and sensory delight…these have genuine place and value in the world.

They’re engaging with skincare as art, as curation, as an embodied practice rather than a clinical intervention.

And there’s profound knowledge in that too.

Susan Sontag wrote about how we privilege analytical dissection over direct aesthetic encounter. She argued that constant interpretation impoverishes art by reducing it to content we must decode, advocating instead for direct, sensory engagement, an “erotics of art.” Interpretation, she wrote, was “the revenge of the intellectual upon art.”

In skincare, we see this constantly: the ingredient list valued over the ritual, evidence over embodiment. But it’s not either-or. The person who films morning light catching a serum bottle, who writes about the weight of cream in their palm—they’re teaching us about pleasure, about skincare as a practice of attention rather than correction.

Susan Sontag wrote about how we privilege analytical dissection over direct aesthetic encounter.

They remind us that not everyone is dissecting formulas and evidence the way we do. For some people, skincare is simply about joy and luxury and the curation of beauty itself. And that matters too. It matters because pleasure matters. Because ritual matters. Because the aesthetics of care are part of caring itself.

The Turf Wars We Don’t Need

This gets even more tangled when we look at the turf wars within the scientific community itself: doctors versus cosmetic chemists versus aestheticians, each policing the boundaries of who gets to speak about what.

There’s something absurd about watching a cosmetic chemist insist doctors shouldn’t comment on formulation whilst making claims about clinical outcomes—or seeing someone dismiss a product solely by dissecting an ingredient list.

We seem to apply one set of rules to others: stay in your lane, don’t speak outside your expertise, whilst exempting ourselves from those same constraints.

Here’s what’s true: we can all read literature. We can all study scientific methodology, interpret data, engage with research, quote them impressively. That’s not the exclusive domain of any one profession. But clinical expertise, the pattern recognition that comes from seeing thousands of patients, the nuanced understanding of how textbook presentations differ from real-world complexity, the experience of managing complications and unexpected outcomes, does represent a layer of knowledge that isn’t confined to pieces of paper. It doesn’t make clinical expertise superior to formulation chemistry or aesthetic theory. It makes it different.

So perhaps that’s the actual conversation we should be having: not who’s right and who’s wrong, but what different forms of expertise and experience contribute and how they might inform rather than invalidate each other. Art and science. Evidence and embodiment. Data and lived experience. These aren’t opposing forces but complementary ways of knowing that, together, create a richer understanding than either could alone.

And perhaps that’s the actual conversation we should be having: not who’s right and who’s wrong, but what different forms of expertise and experience contribute and how they might inform rather than invalidate each other.

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The Practice of Unconditional Regard

Carl Rogers, the psychologist who developed person-centred therapy, argued that real change, the kind that actually shifts behaviour and understanding, requires what he called unconditional positive regard. Not agreement. Not approval. But a baseline of respect and genuine curiosity about another person’s perspective.

When we publicly eviscerate someone else’s position, we’re doing the opposite of this. We’re creating conditions where change becomes nearly impossible because accepting that change would mean public humiliation.

Real change…the kind that actually shifts behaviour and understanding, requires unconditional positive regard…a baseline of respect and genuine curiosity about another person’s perspective.

Maybe it’s because I was raised with spiritual texts like the Gita and the Sutras, but this approach resonates deeply with something fundamental in how I see the world.

There’s something about non-attachment to perspectives, about the ability to hold space without judgement or the compulsion to correct, that feels both intellectually rigorous and profoundly generous.

It’s the recognition that multiple truths can exist simultaneously, that what appears as contradiction might simply be different vantage points on the same complex reality.

Leading By Example (Even When It’s Uncomfortable)

I keep coming back to something deceptively simple: modelling the behaviour I want to see rather than performing superiority over behaviour I don’t.

I believe my role isn’t to demand adherence to my way of knowing, but to offer information clearly enough that people can make informed choices within whatever framework matters to them. I believe this can be done compassionately, not aggressively - Dr P

In the context of brand building and skincare it means being transparent when something doesn’t work. In our recent trial of LORIENT’s Brightening Deodorant Eclair, some of the tester’s skin reacted in ways I didn’t anticipate, paradoxical darkening, or a total subtherapeutic response.

My instinct wasn’t to defend the formulation or blame user error (which admittedly I likely would have defaulted to in the past), it was genuine curiosity.

”What’s happening here? What am I missing? What can I learn?”

This means saying “I don’t know” when I don’t know. Admitting when research is preliminary and avoiding hyperbole, admitting when evidence is mixed, when individual variation means there’s no single right answer.

Saidiya Hartman writes about the importance of critical fabulation, working with the known to imagine what we cannot fully see or prove.

In science communication, I think there’s something powerful about admitting the limits of our knowing whilst still offering the best understanding we have right now.

And there’s something equally important about recognising that not everyone accepts the scientific method as the governing framework for their decisions. Some people are values-driven in ways that aren’t rooted in evidence, and whilst I might not share those values, who am I to tell them their framework for living is fundamentally wrong?

I believe my role isn’t to demand adherence to my way of knowing, but to offer information clearly enough that people can make informed choices within whatever framework matters to them.

I believe this can be done compassionately, not aggressively.

Offering information without moral superiority or performative takedowns that list xyz reasons someone is wrong.

Being able to discern when someone might be receptive to a different perspective versus when they’re not, and having the grace to let go when there’s resistance.

Accepting differences without feeling the need to force a viewpoint down someone’s throat.

It’s about communication that invites rather than demands, that respects autonomy even when we disagree with the choice being made.

The Humility of Ongoing Learning

I’m still learning. Constantly.

New research emerges. Formulation technology advances. I see clinical outcomes that surprise me and challenge previous assumptions. Dialogue with a colleague on cases enlightens me to new clinical approaches or ways of thinking.

If I, with my training and experience, am still updating my understanding, how can I claim absolute certainty about what someone else gets wrong?

Michel Foucault wrote extensively about the relationship between power and knowledge…how what counts as truth is always entangled with who has the authority to speak it.

In our creator economy, this plays out in real time. The performance of certainty becomes a way of claiming authority. But actual expertise, I think, looks more like what physicist Richard Feynman described:

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

When I see a creator I disagree with, someone promoting something I think is ineffective or overhyped, I try to ask myself:

What are they seeing that I’m not?
Why is this bothering me so much?
What context are they working from?
What value set is driving this perspective?
What legitimate need are they trying to meet, even if I think their solution is wrong?

This doesn’t mean accepting misinformation or staying silent or avoidant in the face of genuine harm. But it does mean starting from a place of curiosity rather than condemnation.

It means recognising that most people, even when wrong, aren’t wrong because they’re stupid or malicious, they’re wrong because they’re working with incomplete information biased by the world and lived experiences of their microcosm, just like all of us.

It means recognising that most people, even when wrong, aren’t wrong because they’re stupid or malicious…

The Work That Actually Changes Things

Deborah Tannen, the linguist who studies conversational dynamics, talks about the argument culture, our tendency to approach disagreement as warfare rather than genuine intellectual exchange. I think we see this in the health and science creator space constantly. We’ve mistaken aggression for rigour, public takedowns for educational integrity.

But the actual work of improving health literacy, of combating misinformation, of helping people make better decisions about their skin and bodies? It’s slower and less spectacular than a viral callout video.

It’s creating content that’s so genuinely useful, so thoughtfully researched, so practically applicable that it becomes the reference point.

It’s building trust over time by being consistently honest about uncertainty.

It’s admitting mistakes publicly, not to perform humility but because that’s what intellectual integrity actually looks like.

It’s also recognising that we’re all working within systems that incentivise certainty and spectacle.

argument culture…our tendency to approach disagreement as warfare rather than genuine intellectual exchange, mistaking aggression for rigour, public takedowns for educational integrity…

The algorithm rewards conflict.

Engagement peaks when we’re angry or defensive.

The creator economy runs on the currency of attention, and nothing captures attention quite like watching someone get taken down.

If we want to build something better than the current landscape of health and beauty misinformation, we can’t use the same tools that created it, spectacle, superiority, zero-sum thinking. We have to build something else entirely.

Maybe that something is less exciting. Maybe it doesn’t go as viral. Maybe it takes longer and requires more patience and doesn’t give us the same dopamine hit of being publicly, performatively right.

But maybe it actually works.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you found your mind changed by someone calling out a position you held? Or has real learning happened in other ways for you?

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It’s a performance. A curated highlight reel designed to make building a business look like a luxury lifestyle…aspirational, sexy, achievable if you just want it badly enough.

And it’s a lie.

Not because these moments don’t exist for some founders, but because they represent approximately 0.02% of the actual experience of building something from nothing. The rest? The 99.98%? That’s the part nobody posts about. That’s the part I’m living right now as I finishing writing this at 4 AM, 8 months pregnant, in the same clothes I woke up in this morning to wrangle my toddler who didn’t get the Sunday sleep in memo, after seeing patients all day yesterday, trying to launch LORIENT while my toddler and husband sleep catch a bit of extra sleep, and I contemplate eating half a tub of icecream because it’s the only thing that sounds remotely appealing (I stop myself only because I remember that the reflux is not worth it).

There’s no aesthetic here. Just reality.

Stop Taking Advice From People Whose Morning Routine Is Their Full-Time Job

Here’s what I need you to understand: those founders posting about their elaborate morning rituals? The ones waxing poetic about their ice baths and 30-minute red light therapy sessions and ceremonial grade matcha (delicious I do love) and casual 10K steps (have you ever actually walked 10K steps in one go because I do not have the time to walk for nearly 2 hours a day…)?

They have 14 uninterrupted hours in their day.

No one needs them at 3am.

No one’s climbing on them during a Zoom call.

They’ve never written an email with a baby on their breast or planned a product launch around nap windows or survived on four hours of sleep because of night feeds.

And I am not saying these things are bad. They’re fantastic. I bloody love a bit of contrast therapy, the adrenaline after a plunge and roasting like a pig in a spicy hot sauna. I feel phenomenal after a long walk with my Labrador Benji. I genuinely like the taste of matcha. It’s all fab…if you have the time and capacity to do them.

But that playbook doesn’t land when you’re a working mother. It doesn’t land when you’re a doctor seeing patients throughout the week and your job involves talking all day and being on your feet performing procedure after procedure and taking on patient’s emotional load. It doesn’t land when you’re managing a household and a marriage and a toddler and a pregnancy and trying to build something meaningful in the fragments of time that remain. It doesn’t land when you live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and have a ridiculous mortgage and bills to pay. It feels totally tone deaf. It becomes another thing you feel pressured to have to do and can’t. Because of bandwidth. Because of money. Because of time.

I don’t have uninterrupted hours. I have fragments. Stolen moments. The 45 minutes during naptime before my daughter wakes up. The space between appointments. The late nights after everyone else has gone to bed.

And yet, we’re supposed to feel like we’re failing because we can’t replicate the routines of childless men with infinite time and zero domestic responsibilities.

The Statistics They Don’t Mention in the Instagram Captions

Let me give you some numbers that won’t make it into anyone’s founder highlight reel:

Ninety percent of startups fail. Not “struggle”...fail. Close their doors. Cease to exist. And it’s not because those founders didn’t want it badly enough or didn’t wake up at 5am or didn’t have the right aesthetic. First-time founders have an 18% success rate. Even founders who’ve failed before only improve their odds to 20%. Only if you’ve already built a successful business do your chances jump to 30%...still barely a coin flip odds.

Forty-two percent of startups fail because they build products nobody wants. Twenty-nine percent run out of cash. Eighty-two percent struggle with cash flow management. The construction industry has a 73.4% failure rate over ten years. Fintech? Seventy-five percent of those startups will eventually fail. E-commerce has an 80% failure rate.

Ninety percent of startups fail.

These are not the statistics of an endeavour that’s accessible to everyone, despite what the social media gurus would have you believe. This is not “just follow your passion and the money will come.” No amount of manifestation is going to bring this into fruition I am sorry to tell you. This is brutal, unglamourous, financially precarious work that requires not just planning, calculated risk taking, skill and drive but also privilege…the privilege of time, of financial cushion, of domestic support, of not being the primary caregiver.

The Motherhood Penalty: Or, How Having a Uterus Costs You Everything

And if you’re a woman who dares to procreate while building a business? Welcome to the motherhood penalty, which accounts for approximately 80% of the gender pay gap. Mothers earn 31% less than fathers. They’re viewed as less competent, less committed, less promotable, more emotional. Competency ratings for mothers are 10% lower than for childless women. Mothers are half as likely to be promoted as fathers.

This is brutal, unglamourous, financially precarious work that requires not just skill and drive but also privilege…the privilege of time, of financial cushion, of domestic support, of not being the primary caregiver.

Forty-three percent of mothers in STEM fields leave their full-time positions after having children, with 71% citing “family-related” reasons. Every year in the UK, 74,000 women lose their jobs solely because they’re pregnant…one woman every ten minutes.

Meanwhile, fathers get a bonus. They’re 1.83 times more likely to be recommended for management than childless men. Because fatherhood signals stability and responsibility, while motherhood signals...distraction? Lack of commitment? The audacity of biological function?

So when you see a male founder posting about his morning routine or his latest funding round, understand that he’s playing a fundamentally different game. He’s not navigating the motherhood penalty. He’s not doing the majority of the household labour (men spend a third of the time women spend on unpaid work). He’s not facing hiring discrimination or competency questions or the expectation that he’ll be the primary caregiver while also running a business.

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What Building a Brand Actually Looks Like

motherhood signals...distraction? Lack of commitment? The audacity of biological function?

I’m not a “girlboss.” I hate that word. I’m not living the founder aesthetic. I’m a GP and cosmetic doctor who sees patients because I need (and want) financial stability and I’m good at my job and I believe in the work I do and I like it. I’m a mother to a toddler who thinks 5:30am is a reasonable wake-up time after getting up multiple times in the wee hours of the morning before finally declaring her morning is to start. I’m pregnant with my second child. I’m a wife trying to maintain a marriage while being spread impossibly thin. I’m trying to manage a household that doesn’t run itself.

I anticipate the pushback: these are all choices you’ve made, so why should the rest of us care about your self-imposed limitations?

Fair question.

Yes, these are “choices” I’ve made…the medical career, the marriage, the children, the business…so perhaps my capacity constraints are self-imposed. But I want to interrogate that word: choice.

The language of choice implies equal options, equal consequences.

And so I’d push back on the premise. Because when you’re a woman in your thirties, the decision to have children isn’t quite the same voluntary election as, say, choosing to take on a side project like knitting (tried that, sucked, dog then half ate a knitting stick so that was that). Biology doesn’t negotiate. The window for conception narrows with each year. The risks increase. The motherhood penalty, that 31% wage gap, those competency questions, that career stalling, that awaits regardless of when you have children, only the timing changes.

So yes, I chose to become a mother, but that choice was made against a backdrop of constraints my childless male peers will never navigate.

Women navigate this finite window of fertility in the peak of their career and life, the bulk of caregiving, the biology of reproduction and its physical toll because it is thrust upon them. So are these really choices in the way a man’s career decisions are choices?

My male peers (and even my dear husband) aren’t choosing between career advancement and fertility windows. They’re not doing the calculus of: If I wait three more years to have children, will I need IVF? Can I afford to freeze my eggs or embryos and go through IVF while building a business? Will pregnancy discrimination cost me my funding round? Their biology doesn’t penalise ambition. Mine does. Their capacity isn’t dictated by fertility windows or the expectation that they’ll be primary caregivers. Mine is. That’s not complaining, it’s factual context.

Women aren’t choosing from the same menu as their male counterparts. We’re calculating, doing mental gymnastics…weighing up professional ambition vs the motherhood penalty that will penalise her for daring to do both.

And in whatever time is left over…which is basically no time…I’m building LORIENT, a luxury bodycare brand that’s attempting to shift how we think about intimate care and hyperpigmentation and whose bodies get centered in beauty.

The Instagram version would be: “Balancing it all! So grateful!” with a photo of my matcha and laptop at golden hour and in a cute maternity fit.

The reality? I’m writing brand positioning at 10pm in mismatched torn pyjamas because that’s what I threw on. I forgot to take my husband’s jumper off to record my content and look like a Star Wars obsessed teenager. My boobs have started leaking (hot). I’m taking a Google meet with the USA at 1030PM because that’s the best timezone alignment we could come to. I’m reviewing packaging while being used as a jungle gym and my daughter wants to touch everything with her grotty pasta hands. My PUPPP rash is back and I look like I have been eaten by 573974974 mosquitoes. I’ve rewritten that Instagram caption six times because I have a combination of baby brain and severe iron deficiency and I’m trying to say something digestible about colourism without sounding like either a thesis or a generic skincare ad.

Nobody posts candidly about the hard conversations with your partner about time and money and why you’re doing this. Nobody posts enough about managing the guilt of feeling like you’re not doing any of it well enough... medicine, the mothering, the marriage, the business, because you’re spread so thin. Nobody posts about crying in your car between appointments because a shipment’s delayed or a manufacturer has doubled a unit price just before production or the thousands of boxes you ordered are the wrong Pantone (all of these have happened to me and I have cried my damn heart out). Nobody posts about choosing between sleep and working on the business and choosing the business even though you know you shouldn’t.

Building a brand while working full-time, raising a family, and managing everything else isn’t glamourous. It’s not aesthetic. Most days I’m just trying to keep all the plates spinning without dropping one on my head.

Nobody posts enough about managing the guilt of feeling like you’re not doing any of it well enough... medicine, the mothering, the marriage, the business, because you’re spread so thin.

Five Non-Negotiable Tips for Founders Living Real, Layered Lives

If you’re building something in between your messy, chaotic, imperfect life, in whatever time you can carve out, here’s what I wish people shared as freely as their highlight reels:

1. Validate before you invest.

Test your idea with a small group first. Don’t commit to mass production, full inventory, or going all-in before you know people actually want what you’re making. I’ve watched too many founders (including past versions of myself) fall in love with their idea without confirming the market wants it. Forty-two percent of startups fail because they build products nobody wants, so don’t be one of them.

2. Don’t quit your job.

I know this sounds unsexy. I know the founder mythology says you should burn the boats and go all-in. But 78% of startups are self-funded, and financial stability is what allows you to make strategic decisions instead of desperate ones. Financial independence is even more important for women. My medical practice isn’t a backup plan, it’s what gives me the freedom to build LORIENT properly, without taking on investors before I’m ready or compromising on quality because I need to monetise immediately.

3. Know what you’re sacrificing.

Building a business costs you in ways that don’t show up on a P&L. Social life? Cya l8r. Family time? Limited. Sleep? Que? Your relationship? Under constant strain, like passing ships. Be honest about what you’re willing to give up and for how long, and communicate that with the people who’ll be affected. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, and there’s no shame in deciding it’s not worth what it costs.

4. Financial literacy is non-negotiable.

I say this as someone who can be very money avoidant but what you resist persists so stop putting this into the too hard basket and confront it. Because eighty-two percent of businesses that fail do so because of cash flow problems. You need to understand your numbers…not aspirationally, but actually. What are your total cost of goods? What are your margins after factoring in EVERYTHING (freight, shipping, marketing costs, packaging, formula etc etc)? What’s your burn rate? What are your projections? How do these numbers improve with economies of scale? What is your P&L telling you? How long can you sustain this? I’m a doctor, not an accountant, but I’ve taught myself to improve financial literacy, learn the bro lingo and read up on business finance because I have to. Ignorance isn’t bliss; it’s bankruptcy.

5. Build differently.

You don’t need childless timelines to succeed. You don’t need 14 uninterrupted hours or ice baths or business class flights. Stop trying to live that life because it isn’t the reality of yours. Give yourself grace. Accept your reality. Mothers build differently…I think mothers build more intuitively, in flow, as softer grinders. We make it work in nap windows and late nights and stolen moments. That’s not less valid. That’s not less worthy. That’s just different. And maybe, actually, better, because we’re building sustainable businesses that fit into sustainable lives instead of burning ourselves out for the aesthetic.

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The Work Matters Anyway

I’m not telling you this to discourage you. I’m telling you this because I think we need more honest conversations about what it actually takes to build something meaningful when you’re living a full, complicated, messy life with real demands and constraints.

The founder content you see online makes it look smooth and aspirational. Like if you just wake up early enough and want it badly enough, it all flows. But that’s not real. That’s a performance designed to sell you courses or coaching or the fantasy that entrepreneurship is accessible to everyone.

It’s not. And pretending otherwise does a disservice to the people who are actually in the trenches, wondering why it feels so much harder for them than it looks for everyone else.

But here’s what’s also true: the work matters. LORIENT matters to me. What we’re building, a brand that challenges how we think about skincare, intimate bodycare and hyperpigmentation and whose bodies deserve luxury, that matters deeply to me. It’s worth every unglamorous moment. Worth the late nights and the stolen time and the constant juggling act.

Your journey is not less worthy to share because it’s real and layered and complex. It’s actually more honest. And probably more relatable than a 20 year old telling you to seize the day (it’s giving KIM K GYFAUAW)

In three weeks, we’re launching Éclair, LORIENT’s brightening deodorant. Built in nap windows, late nights, powered by Nescafe instant coffee, Milo cereal and in-between moments. Built while working as a doctor. Built while pregnant and iron deficient with recurrent illnesses my toddler brings home from daycare and parenting and “managing” a household. Built without the aesthetic, without the uninterrupted hours, without the luxury lifestyle.

It’s been anything but glamorous. But it’s real. And it’s ours.

www.lorientofficial.com

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What does it actually mean to formulate for melanin-rich skin?

Not in the “our brand sees you” marketing sense.
Not in the “we included niacinamide and therefore did our job” sense.
But in the physiological, biochemical, dermatological sense.

Because when I scan the category, the growing wave of brands positioning themselves as “for melanin-rich skin,” I am struck by a pattern: the messaging has evolved; the formulas largely have not.

The industry has correctly identified that deeper skin tones deserve targeted attention. But it has often responded by centring hyperpigmentation as our defining concern. Statistically, the incidence of this in darker skin tones is higher, but there is more depth than dark spots and uneven skin tone. The complexity of melanin cannot be resolved by throwing every known tyrosinase inhibitor into a single product and declaring it culturally competent.

This is not malice. Many of these brands are founded by people who deeply understand the lived experience of hyperpigmentation. The cultural work matters. Representation matters.

But scientifically, we are still a long way from formulation that reflects the physiology.

Melanin behaves differently

For most of modern dermatology, that simple fact was treated as a footnote rather than a foundation.

For decades, the “normal” skin in clinical trials, textbooks and lecture slides was pale, Northern European, Fitzpatrick I–III. Anything deeper was either missing, misrepresented or relegated to a short chapter at the back titled something like “Ethnic Skin,” as if melanin itself were a niche.

So it is not surprising that now, in the middle of a boom in “melanin-rich skincare,” the messaging feels new but the underlying science often does not.

Building LORIENT has forced me to ask a fairly uncomfortable question as a doctor, as a woman of colour, and as someone trying to actually build formulas rather than simply critique them:

What does it truly mean to serve melanin-rich skin, from pathophysiology to texture to transparency?

When you look closely, it becomes obvious how much of this category is still catching up.

The historical hangover: who was dermatology originally built for?

For a long time, the default body in dermatology was white.

Clinical trials routinely underrepresented darker skin tones. Many of the “gold standard” treatment algorithms were developed and validated on lighter skin, then casually extrapolated to everyone else. Textbooks illustrated erythema, rashes, pigment and disease patterns overwhelmingly on white skin, which means that for years, doctors were quite literally trained not to see pathology properly in melanin-rich patients.

Where we are now: melanin-rich branding, melanocyte-agnostic formulation.

Pigment problems in darker skin were either framed as a cosmetic nuisance or approached with the same tools used in lighter skin, then blamed on “non-compliance” when things went wrong.

So when the industry suddenly discovered melanin-rich consumers as a growth segment, it did not arrive on a robust, nuanced evidence base. It arrived on marketing insight, lived experience (which has value but is not the same as mechanistic understanding) and a pre-existing brightening toolbox built for lighter skin.

Hence where we are now: melanin-rich branding, melanocyte-agnostic formulation.

The physiology we keep skipping over

From a medical perspective, melanin-rich skin is not simply “more melanin.” The differences are structural and functional.

• Melanocytes in darker skin are not more numerous but are more reactive. They respond more readily to UV, inflammation, hormones and mechanical trauma.

• Melanosomes are larger, more numerous and individually dispersed rather than clustered and rapidly degraded. Pigment lingers longer in the epidermis.

• Barrier behaviour is more complex than the “thick skin” myth. Some studies show higher TEWL, altered lipid ratios and slightly higher surface pH.

Together, these factors create a feedback loop that most “melanin-rich skincare” does not fully address:

compromised barrier → inflammation → melanocyte activation → pigment → harsher treatments → further barrier injury → more inflammation → more pigment.

When you understand this cycle, it becomes obvious that stacking five tyrosinase inhibitors into a serum is not formulating for melanin-rich skin. It is treating melanin as the problem rather than the inflammatory triggers and barrier biology.

The skin is not fragile, it is responsive. But that responsiveness has consequences.

A mosquito bite becomes a souvenir. A blocked pore becomes a mark. A little inflammation becomes a multi-month PIH (post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation) cycle.

Brightening without addressing the barrier and inflammation is, at best, dermatological short-sightedness.

When you understand this cycle, it becomes obvious that stacking five tyrosinase inhibitors into a serum is not formulating for melanin-rich skin.

The collective tyrosinase reflex

Across the brands currently speaking to us, including Dr. V, Eadem and Topicals, there is a shared pattern. The faces in the campaigns have changed, but the underlying strategy often has not.

Hyperpigmentation is positioned as the defining concern.
Formulas stack multiple tyrosinase inhibitors.
Barrier support and inflammation management are present but not foundational.

This is not about villainising any brand. Many are founded by people who deeply understand these experiences. Hyperpigmentation IS a big concern in skin of colour but it’s managed is more nuanced than these offerings. And medically, the “more inhibitors” reflex has limitations.

1. Competitive targeting
   Several of these molecules converge on the same enzymatic context. When you mix them, they can compete rather than complement. Redundancy replaces synergy.

2. IC50 nuance
   Not all inhibitors are equal. An ingredient with a low IC50 (meaning it inhibits 50 percent of enzymatic activity at a low concentration) is very different from one that requires far higher percentages to achieve similar effects. A long list of actives means nothing without attention to potency, stability and irritation thresholds.

3. Downstream fixation
   Tyrosinase is the final act, not the opening scene. The upstream regulators include:

   • alpha MSH

   • MC1R and the cAMP cascade

   • MAPK signalling

   • MITF transcription

   • ROS from UV or inflammation

   • hormonal signals such as oestrogen, progesterone and insulin

   If you ignore these, you are forever chasing pigment rather than altering the signals that produced it.

What formulation should look like

If we actually formulated for the way melanin behaves, we would start elsewhere.

• Barrier first: ceramides, cholesterol, fatty acids in physiological ratios; pH considered, not assumed.

• Inflammation second: not spa “soothing,” but genuine anti-inflammatory signalling, for example centella, glycyrrhetinic acid, EGCG, niacinamide at tolerable percentages. Given the plethora of inflammatory pathways, prevention and attenuation of these upstream should be the priority, not an afterthought.

• Irritation mitigation: delivery systems as a central design choice, not a luxury. Encapsulation, slow-release systems, measured actives.

• Melanin protection: antioxidants, photostability, UV filters.

Only then would we touch melanin synthesis directly.

This approach is not flashy. It does not produce instant brightening before-and-afters. It will not go viral. But it respects the biology rather than bulldozing it. And in my clinical experience, the simple, unsexy things yield the results.

Location matters more than we admit

One of the most striking gaps in current “melanin-rich skincare” is the lack of context-specific formulation.

Underarms are not the face.
Vulvar skin is not the underarms.
The physiology shifts dramatically by site.

Underarms

Darkening here is rarely the clean “hyperpigmentation” narrative the industry loves. It is friction, lichenification, hair removal trauma, microbiome shifts, occlusion, hormones; a dermatological Eton mess.

A stack of brighteners alone does not address any of this.

Vulvar area

This is where marketing becomes especially irresponsible. Much of the darkening here is physiological, not pathological. The tissue is transitional, permeable, microbiome-dependent. Actives behave completely differently, and yet most formulas do not adjust for that reality.

This is what I mean when I say melanin-rich skin requires more than a demographic label. It requires anatomical and contextual intelligence.

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The cultural work formulation alone cannot do

Here is the uncomfortable truth I met while building LORIENT: formulation can correct inflammation; it cannot correct colourism.

The industry has made progress in representation, but has also, unintentionally, reinforced the idea that darker skin requires perpetual management. That brightness equals health. That uniformity is the goal.

Real inclusion does not mean formulating against melanin. It means formulating with melanin in mind.

Melanin-rich skin and melanin synthesis are protective. Melanin is not the pathology. Inflammation is. Irritation is. Structural neglect is.

What building LORIENT forced me to learn

Creating LORIENT made me interrogate what “serving melanin-rich skin” actually requires.

Melanin-rich skin and melanin synthesis are protective. Melanin is not the pathology. Inflammation is. Irritation is. Structural neglect is.

It is not enough to be a brand with brown faces in the campaign. That is important but is superficial representation at best.
It is not enough to target hyperpigmentation alone.
It is not enough to declare “for melanin-rich skin.”

It requires a fundamental shift in how we approach formulation: barrier-first, inflammation-preventive, region-specific, physiologically grounded.

It requires language that does not pathologise melanin. And it requires honesty about what over the counter skincare can do, and what it cannot.

How I approach formulation at LORIENT (and why it is still evolving)

LORIENT did not arrive as a perfectly optimised line. We are bootstrapped, and the kind of delivery systems and multi-pathway modulators I eventually want to build are extraordinarily expensive. This is a long game, not a launch stunt. We are already working on this with the future in mind.

My north star is to target the melanogenesis pathway holistically while designing for real skin behaviour rather than theoretical pathways.

This means:

• Modulating MITF and the upstream signalling that determines how much pigment machinery the cell builds.

• Addressing oxidative stress with antioxidants that perform in vivo and in the actual vehicle.

• Recognising hormonal and metabolic contributors such as insulin resistance or PCOS-associated darkening.

• Investing in delivery systems that respect regional anatomy, especially in underarms and vulvar-adjacent skin where permeability and microbiome differ. Encapsulation and time-release systems are ideal but costly. We will get there, just not instantly.

I would rather build fewer things well than create an encyclopaedia of mediocre products.

Why we refuse to simply stack brighteners

I would rather build fewer things well than create an encyclopaedia of mediocre products. - Dr P

More brightening actives do not equal more efficacy. They can:

• compete for the same enzyme

• destabilise each other

• trigger irritation in skin that is more reactive at baseline

• fuel the inflammation that worsens pigmentation

Our approach is to choose actives with meaningful IC50 values, support them with delivery, embed them in barrier-forward vehicles and ensure irritation remains low enough to avoid the pigment spiral.

This is slower but more intelligent, and it aligns with how I treat patients in clinic.

Pleasure as a therapeutic design choice

A perfect formula that feels medicinal, chalky or punitive will not be used consistently. In melanin-rich communities, the association between “effective” and “unpleasant” runs deep due to decades of harsh prescriptions, bleaching agents and medicalised textures.

Pleasure is not superficial. It is adherence.
If you enjoy using something, you will use it.
If you use it, it has the opportunity to work.

This is why LORIENT prioritises texture and sensory design. Luxury does not undermine efficacy. That is a false opposition inherited from sterile, biomedical thinking.

Eastern botanicals, but pharmacologically

Many of the botanicals I grew up with have real anti-inflammatory and antioxidant value, but only when extracted and standardised properly. Otherwise they are aesthetic garnish.

For example, CO2 fractionated extracts use supercritical carbon dioxide to isolate specific fractions at low temperatures and without harsh solvents. This preserves sensitive compounds and yields more predictable potency.

Quality of actives changes outcomes. So our botanicals are chosen for pharmacological relevance, not nostalgia.

Luxury does not undermine efficacy. That is a false opposition inherited from sterile, biomedical thinking.

When products do not work and why I will say that publicly

Another legacy of old dermatology is the myth of the universally effective product. In melanin-rich skin, outcomes vary widely due to genetics, hormonal drivers, frictional environments, lifestyle, sun exposure and underlying conditions.

In our Éclair trial, some participants had striking improvements and others had modest or minimal change. When you look closely, the reasons make sense: hormonal context, mechanical friction, metabolic patterns.

Instead of hiding this variation, I plan to publish it. We will show where LORIENT works beautifully, where it works moderately and where prescription or in-clinic therapies are needed.

Transparency is care. Perfection is fiction.

Where this leaves the category

Representation has improved. Visibility has improved. Conversations have expanded. I am genuinely glad these brands exist.

But if we want “for melanin-rich skin” to mean something beyond marketing, we need to align formulation with physiology, respect the complexity of melanogenesis, design for barrier and inflammation, consider regional anatomy, value pleasure and communicate honestly about limitations.

Melanin behaves differently. Our industry should too.

LORIENT is my attempt to do exactly that. Imperfect, evolving, constrained by reality, but anchored in an insistence that melanin deserves more than aesthetic inclusion. It deserves scientific specificity, textural pleasure and transparent outcomes..

I understand the visceral reaction. I’m a mother, and the image of a three-year-old in a face mask does make me pause. But I’m also a doctor who treats skin, a business founder in the body and intimate care space, and someone who’s spent considerable time thinking about how beauty standards colonise bodies, particularly bodies like mine.

So when I see this particular moral panic unfold, I find myself less interested in the easy outrage and more curious about what’s actually happening here, what anxieties this controversy reveals, and whether we might be missing something more nuanced in our rush to judgment.

The Numbers Tell a Different Story

Let’s start with what the business case reveals, because market forces, much as we might wish otherwise, are remarkably good at identifying where culture is already moving. The children’s skincare market is currently valued at approximately $15 billion globally and projected to reach $25 billion by 2033, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate of 7%. The children’s cosmetics segment sits at roughly $1.7 billion, expected to reach $3 billion by 2034. Gen Alpha, kids born between 2010 and 2024, spent nearly $4.7 billion on beauty products in 2023 alone, outspending every other demographic.

These aren’t aspirational projections; they’re reflections of existing behaviour. Before we clutch our pearls about Rini “creating” demand, we need to acknowledge that children are already in Sephora, already asking for Drunk Elephant, Bubble, already performing elaborate GRWM (get ready with me) videos on social media. The “Sephora kids” phenomenon didn’t emerge from a boardroom, it emerged from a cultural landscape where tweens spend up to four hours daily on social media, where 44% of Gen Alpha uses TikTok (outpacing traditional television), and where children see their parents, siblings, and favourite influencers engaging in elaborate beauty rituals as part of daily life.

Mitchell and her co-founder Esther Song didn’t manufacture this reality. They recognised it and attempted to create a product that acknowledged children’s existing curiosity while prioritising safety. Is that cynical capitalism or pragmatic harm reduction? Perhaps both. Perhaps neither. The binaries we’re offered, either protect children from all beauty culture or let them use adult retinol, feel insufficient to the complexity of the moment.

On Mimicry and Meaning-Making

The question isn’t whether children will engage with beauty culture, they’re swimming in it, but rather how we might create spaces for that engagement that prioritise play over perfection, care over correction, curiosity over shame.

I think it’s pertinent to reflect on theory. Roger Caillois, the French sociologist who wrote extensively about play, identified mimicry as one of the four fundamental categories of play, the impulse to “make believe or make others believe that [one] is someone other than [oneself].”

This isn’t pathology; it’s how children develop.

D.W. Winnicott, the English Paediatrician and Psychoanalyst whose work on play remains foundational, understood that children use objects from the external world, including fragments of adult culture, to work through their understanding of identity, relationships, and their place in the social order.

When my daughter watches me apply LORIENT’s Éclair deodorant or sees me engage in my own skincare routine, she’s not passively absorbing “beauty standards”, she’s actively making meaning. She’s engaging in what Winnicott called “potential space,” that transitional area where self and other, internal and external, begin to differentiate. The face mask becomes what he termed a transitional object, a bridge between her world and mine.

To dismiss this as simply “letting kids be kids” misunderstands what being a kid actually entails. Children are always already cultural beings, always already interpreting and re-performing the rituals they witness. The question isn’t whether children will engage with beauty culture, they’re swimming in it, we all are, but rather how we might create spaces for that engagement that prioritise play over perfection, care over correction, curiosity over shame.

The Medical Reality

As a GP and cosmetic doctor, I want to address the dermatological concerns, because they’re valid, to a point. Young skin has an immature barrier function through at least the first two years of life, and toddler skin is more permeable, meaning substances absorb more readily and penetrate more deeply. The literature on sun protection for young children is unequivocal: infant and toddler skin is particularly susceptible to UV damage, accumulation of photodamage begins as early as the first summer of life, and sun protection during these years is critical for long-term skin health.

But here’s what’s interesting about the Rini controversy: the products in question are gentle hydrogel masks with ingredients like aloe vera, vitamin E, and vitamin B12. These are hydrating, soothing formulations, not the retinol, AHAs, or harsh actives that dermatologists rightly worry about kids and tweens using. The after-sun mask, in particular, addresses a legitimate need: children do get sunburned, they do need soothing, and having a fun, age-appropriate way to address that isn’t inherently problematic.

The critique seems less about what’s in these products and more about what they represent, and that’s worth examining. When we see a toddler in a face mask, we’re not just seeing a skincare product; we’re seeing the telescoping of childhood, the intrusion of adult concerns into spaces we’ve mentally designated as innocent. But is the problem the product, or is the problem a culture where we can no longer imagine self-care divorced from self-optimisation? Where taking care of one’s body has become indistinguishable from fixing what’s wrong with it?

The Colourism Context

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address how this conversation looks different through the lens of melanin-rich skin. Much of the outrage centres on children being exposed to “beauty standards” too early, but which beauty standards are we discussing? The discourse around Sephora kids focuses largely on anti-ageing concerns…retinol for ten-year-olds, peptide serums for pre-pubescent skin. But hyperpigmentation, uneven tone, and sun sensitivity affect children of colour from young ages, and those concerns are routinely pathologised or dismissed.

When a South Asian or Black child experiences hyperpigmentation from sun exposure, insect bites, or natural hormonal changes, are we meant to tell their parents that addressing those concerns is “imposing beauty standards”? Or might we acknowledge that skin that darkens, that marks itself, that holds onto its history is already deemed problematic in a world organised around white beauty norms?

When a South Asian or Black child experiences hyperpigmentation from sun exposure, insect bites, or natural hormonal changes, are we meant to tell their parents that addressing those concerns is “imposing beauty standards”?

This is where the conversation about Rini gets interesting to me as someone building LORIENT. Our brand exists precisely because intimate bodycare for melanin-rich skin has been either medicalised (dermatology clinics, prescription treatments) or moralised (the brightening industry’s extraction of shame from natural variation). We’re trying to create a third space, one that says yes, hyperpigmentation on underarms, inner thighs, vulvas is normal, and also yes, if you want to address it, that can be an act of pleasure and reclamation rather than correction and pathology.

Children’s bodies deserve that same nuance. A gentle, fun mask that soothes sun-sensitive skin or provides hydration after a day at the beach isn’t the same as telling a child their skin needs “fixing.” The distinction matters.

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The Business of Growing Up

If I think through a founder lens, Mitchell has built multiple successful businesses…BÉIS (travel), Onda (tequila), so she understands markets. Rini isn’t a vanity project; it’s a calculated entry into a booming category. The growth projections I cited earlier aren’t wishful thinking, they reflect increasing parental spending on premium children’s products, rising disposable incomes in developing economies, and the explosive growth of e-commerce channels where children’s personal care products are increasingly purchased.

Is it uncomfortable that childhood has become a lucrative market segment? Absolutely. But children have always been a market….for toys, for clothing, for entertainment. The moral panic around beauty products specifically reveals our culture’s particular anxieties about appearance, femininity, and the female body as perpetually subject to scrutiny and improvement.

The cynical read: Mitchell saw an opportunity to capitalise on insecurity, creating products children don’t need to solve problems they don’t have. The generous read: Mitchell recognised that children are already using adult products (unsafe, inappropriate ones) and created age-appropriate alternatives that prioritise play and safety. The most honest read: probably somewhere in between, like most things.

What I find more interesting than Mitchell’s motivations is why this particular product launch elicits such rage when toy makeup, dress-up costumes, and play kitchens don’t. All are forms of mimicry, all involve children performing adult roles. But skincare—especially face masks, that most Instagram-able of beauty rituals—feels like a bridge too far. Why?

Is it uncomfortable that childhood has become a lucrative market segment? Absolutely. But children have always been a market….for toys, for clothing, for entertainment.

Beyond the Binary

The easy positions are:
(1) Children need protection from beauty culture, ergo all children’s beauty products are harmful, or
(2) Children are naturally curious, ergo we should let them experiment with whatever interests them.

Both positions are insufficient because both treat children as passive recipients of culture rather than active meaning-makers within it.

What if we asked different questions? Not “should children use skincare?” but “what kind of relationship to their bodies and self-care do we want to help children develop?” Not “is this product appropriate?” but “what values does this product embody, and are those values we want to cultivate?”

I think about my own daughter navigating a world where her underarms, her intimate zones, her skin’s propensity to hold pigment will all be subject to judgment. I think about building LORIENT as a counter-narrative to that judgment…yes, your body is perfect as it is, and also, you get to choose what feels good, pleasurable, yours. Not correction, but cultivation. Not fixing, but tending.

Children deserve that same framework. A three-year-old in a panda mask after a day in the sun, laughing because it’s silly and cooling and her mum is doing the same thing… to me, that’s not necessarily oppression. It might be connection. It might be play. It might be the beginning of learning that bodies need tending, and tending can be joyful.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here’s what I think we’re actually afraid of: not that children will use face masks, but that we can’t protect them from a culture that will judge their bodies harshly. Not that three-year-olds will develop elaborate skincare routines (or should), but that we’ve created a world where self-worth and appearance have become dangerously entangled. Not that Rini exists, but that it will inevitably succeed because the market, a brutally honest reflection of our collective values, has already spoken.

We want childhood to be a protected space, innocent and untouched by the pressures that plague adult women. That ship has sailed, if it ever docked in the first place. Children’s bodies have always been sites of intervention…we pierce their ears (I did my daughter’s at 6 months of age, the norm in South Asian culture), style their hair, choose their clothes, correct their posture, monitor their weight, police their food intake. We’ve just decided that some interventions are innocent (hair bows, tutus and dress up) and others are suspect (face masks, lip gloss).

The question isn’t whether to allow children access to beauty culture…they already have it, through their screens, through their parents, through every image they consume. The question is what kind of beauty culture we model, what values we embody in our own relationships to our bodies, and whether we can create products and practices that prioritise joy, play, and bodily autonomy over correction, optimisation, and shame.

We want childhood to be a protected space, innocent and untouched by the pressures that plague adult women. That ship has sailed, if it ever docked in the first place. Children’s bodies have always been sites of intervention…

Where I Land

Do I think every three-year-old needs a ten-step skincare routine? Obviously not. Do I think Rini represents the downfall of childhood innocence? Also no. What I think is that we’re living through a moment of profound cultural transition where traditional boundaries, between childhood and adulthood, between care and correction, between play and optimisation, are being renegotiated in real-time, and it’s deeply uncomfortable.

Mitchell’s launch timing was either remarkably tone-deaf or savvily provocative, depending on your read. Launching children’s sheet masks immediately after the “Sephora kids” moral panic either shows a stunning lack of awareness or a clear-eyed understanding that controversy creates conversation, and conversation creates customers.

But more than Mitchell’s business acumen, I’m interested in what this controversy reveals about us, about which aspects of childhood we’ve decided to protect and which we’ve already ceded to market forces. About how we talk about children’s bodies and autonomy. About the particular panic that attends young girls’ relationships to beauty and appearance in ways that don’t similarly constrain young boys.

I’m interested in whether we might move beyond reactive outrage toward something more constructive: creating beauty cultures that value diversity, that decentre whiteness and thinness as aspirational, that understand care as something other than correction, that make space for children to explore identity and embodiment without pathologising that exploration.

I’m interested in what this controversy reveals about us, about which aspects of childhood we’ve decided to protect and which we’ve already ceded to market forces. About how we talk about children’s bodies and autonomy. About the particular panic that attends young girls’ relationships to beauty and appearance in ways that don’t similarly constrain young boys.

As a mother, I want my daughter to grow up in a world that doesn’t reduce her worth to her appearance. As a doctor, I want her to understand that caring for her body is valuable but that her body doesn’t need “fixing.” As a founder, I’m trying to build something that models that complexity, that says yes to pleasure, no to shame, yes to choice, no to correction as the only framework for engagement.

Maybe Rini can exist in that space. Maybe it can’t. But the conversation shouldn’t be whether a three-year-old “needs” a face mask (obviously not). It should be about what it means to tend to bodies, young and old, in a culture that has made such tending synonymous with inadequacy. About whether we can reclaim care as something other than correction. About whether mimicry might be not just imitation but imagination, children trying on different ways of being in the world.

I don’t think there is a clear right or wrong here and I certainly don’t attest to having it all figured out best. But I do know this: the outrage machine is easier than the nuance, the judgment is easier than the complexity, the “let kids be kids” is easier than acknowledging that kids are already cultural beings navigating impossible standards we adults created.

Maybe instead of being horrified by Rini, we might use it as an opportunity to examine what we actually want for children, what values we’re modelling, and whether our outrage is protecting them or just making us feel better about the world we’ve built.

Perhaps that’s the most uncomfortable question of all. What do you think?

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This is either brilliant strategy or catastrophic negligence, depending on who you ask. Every founder playbook tells you to “know your competition.” Track their launches. Audit their messaging. Peruse their ads in the Meta Library. Honestly, I found this ‘foundational exercise’ in brand building 101 fatiguing and anxiety provoking, not the place I wanted to build authentically from.

Because here’s what happens when you do that : you start to sound exactly like everyone else.

The Vanilla Sameness

Let me paint you a picture of the competitive landscape for underarm care, and by extension, most intimate body-care categories.

Camp One: The Beige Naturals

Clean. Simple. Gentle. Aluminum-free (said breathlessly, as if aluminum were arsenic). Baking soda discourse. Charcoal as personality. The colour palette is that specific shade of oat milk that signals “wellness.”

The messaging? Pseudo-empowering but ultimately empty. “You deserve this.” “Self-care Sunday.” “Your body is a temple.”

It’s not wrong. It’s just... boring. Relentlessly inoffensive.

Camp Two: The Clinical Correctors

Then you have the other side: medical-grade authority delivered with all the warmth of a fluorescent-lit dermatology waiting room.

These brands speak in percentages and pathology. “Targets hyperpigmentation.” “Clinically proven to reduce discolouration by 43% in 8 weeks.”

This is where my own profession, medicine, has failed us. We took something physiological (melanin responding to friction, hormones, being alive) and reframed it as pathological. Something to correct.

The subtext? Your body is wrong. We have the cure.

Shame as the Goldilocks Zone

But here’s the really insidious bit: both camps traffic in shame.

The naturals shame you gently, wrapped in self-care language through exhaustive free from lists, but the implication remains: you should be doing better, being cleaner, caring more, living a ‘tox free life’.

The clinical brands shame you explicitly: this is a problem. You have discolouration. Let us fix you.

I’ve seen this firsthand in my practice. Women, almost always women of colour, coming in asking for lightening treatments with language borrowed directly from these marketing campaigns. “I want to correct this.” “Can you fix my underarms?”

And I have to untangle: is this what you want, or what you’ve been told you should want?

Why I Stopped Looking at Other Brands

Six months ago, I realised I was stuck in a loop.

I’d spend hours analysing competitor positioning, and then I’d sit down to write copy or content ideation for LORIENT and... nothing. Or worse: a paraphrased version of the same beige vernacular.

The problem: you can’t disrupt a category by studying the category.

If I’m only looking at other deodorant brands, I’m only seeing the narrow slice of possibility they’ve already carved out. I’m operating within their Overton window. I’m thinking in their vocabulary.

So I stopped.

I stopped following competitors. Stopped screenshot folders. Stopped the ambient awareness of what everyone else was doing.

And I started looking laterally.

You can’t disrupt a category by studying the category.

Where I Look Instead

I look at art. Literature. Fashion editorials. Perfume campaigns (which understand desire in ways body-care has forgotten). Architectural theory. Postcolonial criticism. The New Yorker’s culture section. Essays. Maggie Nelson on bluets and desire. Sontag on camp.

I look at adjacent luxury categories, the ones that have figured out how to talk about transformation without shame. How fragrance speaks about “revealing” rather than “correcting.” How lingerie positions itself as sovereignty, not solution.

This is how I ended up staring at Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl’s 1888 Birth of Venus for fourty minutes on a Tuesday afternoon and falling in love.

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The Painting That Changed Everything

Let me tell you what stopped me about this painting.

It’s not Botticelli’s Venus…serene, standing, perfectly posed on her shell. This Venus is horizontal. A little more chaotic a scene. Pushed through turbulent foam, arms thrown back in surrender.

And there they are: her underarms. Exposed. Vulnerable.

The raised arm appears so rarely in academic art because it signals loss of control. To show the underarm is to show the body unperformed. It’s the private geography that only reveals itself in reaching, in abandon, in intimacy.

I sat there thinking: when was the last time I saw the underarm discussed as intimate topography? As an erotic zone?

Never in body-care marketing, that’s for sure.

And yet, obviously, obviously, the underarm is intimate. It requires proximity. It reveals itself only in vulnerability. The fold, the shadow, the place where arm meets torso.

This is the body’s secret architecture.

Ritualising the Sanitised

Here’s what the clinical approach gets wrong: it sanitises.

Underarm care becomes hygiene. Functional. Necessary. The language is antiseptic: “odour control,” “wetness protection,” “even skin tone.”

But what if we ritualised it instead?

I’m thinking of how Japanese skincare approaches the face, each step is deliberate, meditative, almost ceremonial. Or how French women talk about fragrance: it’s not covering up, it’s revealing. Layering. Building.

The underarm deserves this same attention. Not because it’s broken and needs fixing, but because it’s intimate and deserves care.

This is why Éclair (our brightening deodorant) isn’t just actives in a tube. The name itself, French for “flash of light” but also the pastry, pleasure, indulgence, signals: this is about delight, not correction.

The ritual: apply slowly. Intentionally. Notice the texture. The scent (we’re working with a perfumer and fine fragrances for future versions). The way it feels to attend to this hidden geography.

We’re not sanitising the underarm. We’re sacralising it.

The underarm deserves this same attention. Not because it’s broken and needs fixing, but because it’s intimate and deserves care.

The Tension I Live With

But here’s where I have to be honest with you, because this is the tension that keeps me up:

I am making a brightening product. There is no shying away from that.

Which means, yes, it changes something. Our brightening stack, (I’ve coined Axilla Rx), these ingredients reduce melanin production. The underarm will, over time, become lighter.

So how do I square that with my criticism of “correction” culture?

Here’s how I think about it:

The product changes the skin. The messaging changes the relationship.

The actives don’t know if they’re being used from a place of shame or sovereignty. That’s determined by everything around the product: the language, the positioning, the cultural scaffolding we build.

When clinical brands say “correct hyperpigmentation” the subtext can feel as though your body is wrong.

When LORIENT says “brighten areas keeping you paralysed in fear and shame so that you can enjoy life in your body” the framing is, hopefully, about agency and reclamation of power, not pathology.

It’s the same ingredient doing the same thing. But the why transforms everything. Or so I feel.

The Mental Health Reality

We need to acknowledge this: for many people, hyperpigmentation in intimate areas genuinely impacts mental health.

Studies frequently cite this. I’ve had patients nearly cry in my office. DM’s from women who haven’t been intimate with partners in years because they’re ashamed of their underarms, their inner thighs, their vulva, even dark spots on their legs. Women who won’t wear sleeveless clothes or swimwear. Who feel fundamentally unlovable because of something that’s just... melanin.

This isn’t vanity. This is suffering.

And the suffering is socially constructed, created by beauty standards that centre whiteness, by marketing that pathologises melanin-rich skin, by a culture that treats variation as deviation.

But the fact that it’s socially constructed doesn’t make it less real.

So yes, I’ll make products that change the skin. Not because darkening is wrong, but because feeling shame about your body is a particular kind of violence, and if I can offer one tool for reclaiming sovereignty, fine.

The goal isn’t to erase evidence of embodiment. It’s to give people choice.

And critically: to change the cultural conversation so the next generation doesn’t internalise this shame in the first place.

So yes, I’ll make products that change the skin. Not because darkening is wrong, but because feeling shame about your body is a particular kind of violence, and if I can offer one tool for reclaiming sovereignty, fine.

Tangible Tips for Brand Founders

If you’re building in an oversaturated category and want to actually differentiate:

1. Stop looking at competitors for 90 days.

Seriously. Cold turkey. You’ll panic initially. Then something interesting happens: you start thinking in original syntax instead of remixing their language.

2. Find your adjacent categories.

Where has the work you’re trying to do already been done—just in a different context?

For me: perfume marketing (desire without shame), luxury lingerie (intimacy as power), art historical criticism (the body as text).

Study those. Borrow their vocabulary. Import their emotional intelligence.

3. Read outside your industry.

I’m building body-care, so I read: Maggie Nelson (Bluets), Anne Boyer (The Undying), Audre Lorde (A Burst of Light), Jia Tolentino’s essays on optimisation culture.

Find the writers who are thinking about the body, about capitalism, about desire in ways that illuminate what you’re trying to build.

4. Make your brand thesis a question, not an answer.

“What if we treated unseen areas with reverence instead of correction?”

That question generates infinite content. It’s a lens, not a tagline.

5. Accept the tensions.

You don’t have to resolve every contradiction. LORIENT makes a brightening product while critiquing colourism, that’s the tension I live with. Being explicit about it I hope makes the brand more honest, not less.

The Underarm as Art

I want to return to the Venus painting for a moment.

What mesmerises me isn’t just that the underarms are visible, it’s that they’re vulnerable. This goddess, being born, has no say in her exposure. Her body is offered to the viewer’s gaze.

But when I look at that painting now, I’m not seeing it through the male gaze that commissioned it. I’m seeing it through my own.

And what I see is: this intimate geography deserves attention. Care. Luxury.

Not because it’s broken. Because it’s intimate.

This is the shift I want LORIENT to make in the cultural conversation:

From: “Your underarms are too dark (problem) → use this (solution)”

To: “Your underarms are intimate topography (fact) → treat them accordingly (ritual)”

Same category. Different cosmology.

Pleasure Over Pressure

A friend asked me recently: “But isn’t this just semantic? You’re still essentially selling skin-lightening products to brown women.”

And yes, if you strip away all context, all messaging, all cultural positioning, yes, the ingredients do what they do.

But humans don’t live in a context-free vacuum. We live in language. In culture. In the stories we tell about our bodies.

And I refuse to use the language of shame to sell care.

Not: you need this. But: you might want this.

Not: correction. But: sovereignty.

Choice and agency. Ultimately, pleasure over pressure.

And when I look at competitors now, on the rare occasions I do, I don’t see threats. I see confirmation that there’s wide open space for something different.

What I’m Building

LORIENT isn’t just a product line. It’s a refusal.

A refusal to accept that intimate body-care must be either beige-bland or clinically cold.

A refusal to pathologise melanin-rich skin.

A refusal to be compartmentalised as a doctor, told that clinical expertise and cultural criticism can’t coexist, that I should stay in my lane, stick to education and ‘authority building; and not build conversations around art, literature, and the politics of the body.

A refusal to treat the unseen parts of the body as less deserving of luxury, of attention, of care.

I’m building from sideways glances: art that understands eroticism, literature that interrogates desire, cultural criticism that sees through the shame industrial complex.

And when I look at competitors now, on the rare occasions I do, I don’t see threats. I see confirmation that there’s wide open space for something different.

Something that treats the body not as problem, but as intimate geography.

Something that understands: the places that require proximity to access are precisely the places that deserve reverence.

LORIENT. Pleasure over pressure. Coming soon.

P.S. - If you’re building a brand and this resonated, I’d love to hear: where do YOU look for inspiration when you stop looking at competitors? Hit reply or leave a comment below.

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FURTHER READING:

• Maggie Nelson, Bluets - On desire, colour, and the body

• Anne Boyer, The Undying - Medical-industrial complex criticism

• Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” - Cultural criticism and aesthetics

• Bell Hooks, The Will to Change - Includes discussion of embodiment and patriarchy

• Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light - Essays on the body, self-care as resistance

• Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror - Chapter on optimisation culture

• Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion - How shame operates culturally

• Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments - Reclaiming intimate histories

The kind of skin that does not need a filter, looks alive in person and translates beautifully to photos, whether that’s a professional headshot, your passport or license photo (a big flex, truly), a wedding album, or just not dreading being tagged on social media.

As a clinician, this is an area I have really tried to dissect over time, reading and learning as much as I can on why the skin of some people photographs beautifully while others, despite being objectively youthful or wrinkle-free, fall a little flat. ‘

This isn’t about adding another thing to the list we are fed of things that we need to ‘correct’, and the answer isn’t what the aesthetics industry at large wants you to believe. It’s not about eliminating every line or chasing perpetual volume. It’s about physics.

Light Doesn’t Lie

Skin glow isn’t just surface-level, it requires optimal interaction across three zones: surface reflection, diffuse reflection, and subsurface scattering. The quality of that interaction, how smoothly light bounces off your surface, how it penetrates and re-emerges from deeper layers, determines whether you look luminous or flat, both in person and on camera.

Well-hydrated skin with an intact outer layer produces even specular reflection, creating that “lit from within” quality.

Surface layer: Even specular reflection occurs when light hits smooth, well-hydrated skin. Excessive dryness creates chaotic dispersion; excess sebum creates undesirable shine rather than glow.

Within the epidermis: Light is absorbed by chromophores (melanin and haemoglobin) and scattered by cellular structures like mitochondria. Even tone and low inflammation optimise this layer.

Deep dermal reflection: Dense, organised collagen fibres in the papillary and reticular dermis create subsurface diffuse reflection aka light penetrates, bounces off collagen, and re-emerges as that “milky, homogenous” luminosity. This is why dermal remodelling treatments work (which treatments, I discuss below): they’re improving the collagen architecture that creates the optical foundation of glow.

The consensus: True skin radiance requires uninterrupted reflection from healthy dermal collagen layers, achieved only when surface integrity, pigmentation, inflammation, and dermal density are all optimised. It’s a three-dimensional optical event, not a surface trick.

The reality: Modern smartphone and digital cameras capture incredible detail (humbling for all of us). Every dry patch, every compromised pore, every subtle area of inflammation creates micro-shadows that show up in photos and the dullness, roughness, and uneven texture in person under natural and artificial lighting.

The Barrier Is Everything

Your skin barrier, the lipid matrix of your stratum corneum, is roughly 50% ceramides, 25% cholesterol, and 15% free fatty acids, plus natural moisturising factors. This precise ratio isn’t gimmicky marketing (for once), though you don’t see it emphasised as much as all those fancy corrective serums. It’s structural biology that requires respect.

When your barrier is compromised, transepidermal water loss increases, leading to dehydration. Inflammatory cascades activate, causing redness and breakouts. Your skin loses its optical advantage.

What Actually Works: The Evidence

Topical Hydration: Glycerin Does More Than You Think

Glycerin is the gold standard humectant, around for ages, the unsung hero of skincare, I feel. But calling it just a “moisturiser” undersells its biology. Yes, it draws water into the stratum corneum, reflectance spectroscopy studies show 40-50% improved directional light reflection compared to untreated skin. But the mechanism goes deeper.

Beyond Hydration: Glycerol’s Multiple Mechanisms

Within the skin, glycerol is produced by sebaceous glands and delivered via aquaporin-3 channels. It is crucial for baseline skin hydration. Glycerin also upregulates aquaporin-3 channels in keratinocytes, improving water transport from deeper layers to the surface. A 2003 study by Hara et al. demonstrated that glycerin increases aquaporin-3 expression, essentially training your skin to hydrate itself more efficiently.

Studies on asebia mice (lacking sebaceous glands) showed an 85% decrease in stratum corneum glycerol content, directly correlating with severe dehydration. This demonstrates glycerol isn’t just a cosmetic additive; it’s a native component of healthy skin function.

Why glycerol outperforms other humectants

Its unique molecular structure allows it to create a “reservoir” within lipid bilayers, binding water more effectively than other polyols. Critically, glycerol prevents lipid phase transitions in the stratum corneum, maintaining lipids in their liquid crystalline state even under environmental stress. This preserves barrier integrity when other humectants would fail. More importantly, glycerin stimulates barrier lipid synthesis. Research by Fluhr et al. (2008) showed glycerin application increases ceramide and cholesterol production in the stratum corneum, it doesn’t just sit on your skin (like a lot of topical hyaluronic acid serums), it signals your cells to build better barrier architecture. It also exhibits anti-inflammatory properties by inhibiting certain inflammatory cytokines, calming subclinical irritation that shows up as redness and uneven tone.

Additional benefits beyond moisture retention:

• Enhanced desquamation: Glycerol increases kallikrein enzyme activity, promoting healthy keratinocyte shedding and preventing the buildup that creates rough, dull texture

• Accelerated wound healing: Supports epidermal barrier repair processes

• Antimicrobial activity: Shows efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa at skin temperature (36°C), helping maintain a balanced microbiome

• Protection against irritants: Buffers against environmental stressors that would otherwise compromise barrier function

If you’ve seen me in clinic, I am always recommending a specific glycerin based serum in most routines. This is because I know it’s working through multiple complementary pathways, not just surface hydration. I love it so much I am genuinely contemplating creating a product hero-ing it within L’ORIENT.

Pair glycerin with ceramides, cholesterol, fatty acids in that physiological ratio, and you’re not just moisturising, you’re engineering optical advantage.

My top glycerin picks:

Experiment Beauty Super Saturated : 30% Glycerin

Pure Glycerin Face Serum : 15% Glycerin

Boring without you Make Me Wet: 10% Glycerin

REFERENCES:

• Fluhr JW, et al. Glycerol accelerates recovery of barrier function in vivo. Acta Derm Venereol. 1999;79(6):418-421.

• Verdier-Sévrain S, Bonté F. Skin hydration: a review on its molecular mechanisms. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2007;6(2):75-82.

• Hara M, et al. Increased expression of aquaporin-3 in atopic skin. Br J Dermatol. 2003;148(4):761-771.

• Fluhr JW, et al. Glycerol and the skin: holistic approach to its origin and functions. Br J Dermatol. 2008;159(1):23-34.

Chemical Peels that don’t need you to be a snake for weeks

Forget the idea of peels as aggressive exfoliation. Gentle, repeated peels work through controlled inflammation that triggers dermal remodelling over time.

Mandelic acid (an alpha-hydroxy acid with a larger molecular size) penetrates slowly, making it ideal for sensitive or darker skin tones. It’s lipophilic, so it works within sebaceous follicles to regulate keratinisation and reduce congestion without the post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation risk of more aggressive acids. These usually have no downtime. You might purge a little the first few times but thereafter, walk out with a gorgeous glow.

Lactic acid does more than exfoliate, she is my fav I have to say. As a natural moisturising factor component, it is skin identical and increases ceramide synthesis. Studies show lactic acid improves stratum corneum hydration and barrier function whilst stimulating fibroblast activity in the dermis, promoting collagen and elastin production (Bernstein et al., Dermatol Surg, 2001).

Even tretinoin peels (used carefully strategically every few months, not as daily torture) work by accelerating cellular turnover and upregulating collagen gene expression through retinoic acid receptors. This isn’t about resurfacing yourself raw, it’s about cumulative remodelling that improves dermal architecture and epidermal uniformity over months to years.

The goal: thicker, more organised dermis with better light-scattering properties; thinner, more even epidermis with improved translucency.

References:

• Bernstein EF, et al. Glycolic acid treatment increases type I collagen mRNA and hyaluronic acid content of human skin. Dermatol Surg. 2001;27(5):429-433.

• Kligman AM, et al. Topical tretinoin for photoaged skin. J Am Acad Dermatol. 1986;15(4 Pt 2):836-859.

No downtime Laser Facials are the secret sauce

Non-ablative lasers (particularly Q-switched Nd:YAG for laser toning) work through selective photothermolysis without destroying the epidermis. Here’s the elegant part: low-fluence, high-repetition treatments create controlled thermal injury in the dermis that triggers neocollagenesis (making more collagen) through heat shock protein activation and fibroblast stimulation.

Collagen remodelling happens over 3-6 months as new, organised collagen replaces damaged fibres, improving dermal density and light-scattering properties.

But laser toning’s secret weapon is melanocyte regulation. The thermal energy causes fragmentation of melanosomes (pigment-containing organelles) which are then cleared by macrophages (think pac man nomming on broken up melanin). More importantly, repeated low-energy exposure downregulates melanocyte activity and reduces melanosome transfer to keratinocytes, creating lasting tone evenness.

This is why laser toning outperforms topical pigment fighters alone, you’re addressing the source, not just the symptom.

References:

• Wattanakrai P, et al. Low-fluence Q-switched neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (1,064 nm) laser for the treatment of facial melasma in Asians. Dermatol Surg. 2010;36(1):76-87.

• Lee MC, et al. Histological effects of a low-fluence 1064-nm Q-switched Nd:YAG laser on facial skin. J Cosmet Laser Ther. 2013;15(5):265-271.

Injectable Hydrators: Why Dermis Matters More

Here’s the problem with topical hyaluronic acid: molecular weight matters. Most topical HA formulations (even “low molecular weight” versions) don’t penetrate beyond the stratum corneum. They provide surface hydration, which helps, but they don’t address subsurface light scattering. Some can behave like pro inflammatory signals too = redness, irritation, stinging, dryness.

When you inject low molecular weight HA and glycerol-based skin boosters into the superficial-to-mid dermis, you’re creating a hydrated scaffold that:

1. Improves subsurface light scattering - hydrated dermal matrix allows light to penetrate, scatter, and re-emerge as luminosity

2. Stimulates fibroblast activity - mechanical stretch from injected volume plus HA’s interaction with CD44 receptors triggers collagen and elastin synthesis

3. Provides lasting hydration - dermal HA attracts and binds water molecules (each HA molecule can hold up to 1000x its weight in water), creating a reservoir that topicals simply can’t match

A 2019 study by Pavicic et al. demonstrated that injectable HA increased skin hydration and elasticity for 3-6 months, with histological evidence of neocollagenesis.

But here’s the critical point: you need both. Injectable hydration optimises the dermis; topical barrier care optimises the epidermis and stratum corneum. They’re different optical layers requiring different strategies.

References:

• Pavicic T, et al. Efficacy of cream-based novel hyaluronic acid vs. hyaluronic acid-based dermal fillers in anti-ageing treatment. J Drugs Dermatol. 2019;18(4):360-366.

• Wang F, et al. In vitro stimulation of de novo collagen production caused by cross-linked hyaluronic acid dermal filler injections. Dermatol Surg. 2007;33 Suppl 2:S148-151.

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The Inside-Out Approach: Your Skin Needs More Than Water

Drinking water alone won’t hydrate your skin. Great for you in many other ways. Water reaches the dermis through circulation, but the epidermis, being avascular (that is, no blood supply), relies on diffusion and, critically, aquaporin channels and natural moisturising factors to draw and retain water at the surface. You can be systemically well-hydrated and still have dehydrated skin if your barrier is compromised.

This is where strategic supplementation fills gaps:

Omega Fatty Acids

Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (particularly EPA, DHA, and GLA) are precursors to barrier lipids and anti-inflammatory mediators. Studies show omega-3 supplementation improves stratum corneum lipid composition, reduces TEWL, and downregulates inflammatory cytokines that cause redness and sensitivity.

A 2011 study by Foolad et al. found omega-3 supplementation significantly improved skin barrier function and reduced UV-induced inflammation. You’re literally providing building blocks for that critical ceramide-cholesterol-fatty acid matrix.

Lots on the market, find one affordable and reputably sourced.

References:

• Foolad N, et al. Effect of nutrient supplementation on atopic dermatitis in children. Arch Dermatol. 2013;149(3):350-355.

• Kendall AC, et al. The effects of dietary omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on skin barrier function. Br J Dermatol. 2015;173(6):1428-1429.

Ingestible Hyaluronic Acid (Hyabest)

Oral HA seems counterintuitive, surely it’s just digested into component sugars? But research suggests otherwise. Low molecular weight oral HA (like Hyabest, typically 2-300 kDa) appears to be partially absorbed intact and shows up in skin tissue.

A 2017 study by Oe et al. demonstrated that oral HA (120 mg daily) significantly increased skin moisture and reduced wrinkles after 12 weeks, with evidence suggesting HA fragments stimulate fibroblasts and CD44 receptor activation systemically.

The mechanism likely involves absorbed HA fragments triggering hyaluronan synthesis and improving dermal water retention from within, essentially supporting what your injectable boosters do topically.

My picks?

Now Foods Hydration Rescue

Ritual HyaCera

References:

• Oe M, et al. Oral hyaluronan relieves wrinkles. J Med Food. 2017;20(1):89-93.

• Kawada C, et al. Ingested hyaluronan moisturises dry skin. Nutr J. 2014;13:70.

Collagen Peptides: Adjunct, Not Answer

Oral collagen peptides (typically hydrolysed to 2-10 kDa) show modest evidence for improving skin hydration and elasticity. A 2019 meta-analysis by Choi et al. found collagen supplementation improved skin hydration, elasticity, and dermal collagen density.

The proposed mechanism: hydrolysed collagen peptides may survive digestion, enter circulation, and signal fibroblasts through unknown pathways to upregulate collagen synthesis. It’s not that you’re “replacing” collagen with collagen, you’re providing peptide signals that trigger endogenous production.

My clinical stance: oral collagen is fine as part of a comprehensive approach, I take it daily because when sourced reputably, it is very safe, and I am happy to throw what I can at my skin, especially as someone who doesn’t eat meat. But it’s not carrying the weight. Think of it as supporting cast, not leading role. Your topicals, in-clinic treatments, and injectables do the heavy lifting. Ideally, try get all your nutrients from wholefoods as much as possible. Life gets busy and this is where supplementation can help bridge gaps, but they should not be your primary source of goodness.

My picks:

Par Olive Coconut Cream Collagen

Vida Glow Liquid Collagen Advance Mixed Berry

References:

• Choi FD, et al. Oral collagen supplementation: a systematic review of dermatological applications. J Drugs Dermatol. 2019;18(1):9-16.

• Proksch E, et al. Oral supplementation of specific collagen peptides has beneficial effects on human skin physiology. Skin Pharmacol Physiol. 2014;27(1):47-55.

Skin barrier and structure first, everything else second

Here’s what matters: consistency. Even skin tone across your face reads as health, vitality, and youth. Studies have shown this.

Hyperpigmentation, erythema, and sallowness perceivably age you more than fine lines ever will. Meanwhile, minor volume loss or expression lines? Those are expected, human, and part of a face that’s actually lived. I am not so stressed about that in my patients, and try to direct them to optimising skin first.

The obsession with filling every hollow and freezing every movement has created faces that look strange both in person and in photos, overly smooth in some areas, distorted in others, but lacking the optical properties that create genuine radiance.

The Art of Ageing Gracefully

My clinical philosophy: preserve skin quality, manage volume and movement judiciously, prioritise function over fear.

This means:

• Building and maintaining barrier integrity as foundational (not optional)

• Addressing texture, tone, and hydration before considering injectables

• Using neuromodulators and fillers as refinement tools conservatively, not transformative ones

• Supporting skin from inside and outside, topicals, treatments, smart supplementation

• Accepting that some lines tell stories worth keeping

Well-hydrated skin with good barrier function looks better in all lighting conditions, photographs naturally, and maintains that quality through the daily stresses we put it through. This resilience, the ability to look like yourself under any condition and have your skin be healthy, matters more than frozen perfection.

The Takeaway

If you take nothing else from this: hydration status determines optical properties. At 10-20% water content, your stratum corneum appears opaque and rough. At 30-40%, it becomes translucent and allows optimal light reflection.

Build and bolster your barrier. Hydrate and support the dermis. Feed the skin from within. Use treatments that remodel, not obliterate.

And then tell everyone that the secret is obviously just drinking 3 L of water a day.

If you enjoyed this post share with someone else who will enjoy geeking out the skin science.

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I told myself it was “just for fun.” Like picking earrings to match an outfit. Which, sure. Except that’s not quite true, is it? Because I never picked brown contacts to match my brown eyes. Funny how “fun” only seems to go in one direction.

Here’s what I can admit now, with the clarity that only comes from distance and probably too many self help books: I thought lighter eyes made me prettier. More palatable. More... something I couldn’t name at nineteen but can now say without flinching: closer to looking white.

And when someone said, “You don’t look traditionally Indian,” I glowed. As if “traditional” were something I’d misplaced, like my house keys or my self-respect.

The Thing About Hegemony Is That It Doesn’t Feel Like Hegemony

There’s this concept in critical race theory called internalised racism. It’s when marginalised groups absorb the dominant culture’s shitty opinions about them and then *plot twist*, start reproducing those beliefs themselves.

Frantz Fanon wrote about this brilliantly in Black Skin, White Masks, describing how colonised people develop this psychic split, this alienation from their own bodies. You start seeing yourself through the coloniser’s eyes and then trying to become what they see. Toni Morrison gave us the devastating The Bluest Eye, where Pecola Breedlove doesn’t just want blue eyes, she needs them to feel human. Spoiler: she doesn’t get blue eyes. She gets madness.

And look, I know someone’s already typing: “It’s not that deep, it’s just contacts.” But that’s exactly how hegemony works. It makes oppression feel like preference. It makes violence look like choice.

Antonio Gramsci called this “common sense”, the kind of thinking that feels so natural you don’t even question it. When you grow up watching lighter eyes get coded as more beautiful in every film, every magazine, every “world’s most beautiful people” list that’s somehow always suspiciously pale, and then you choose lighter contacts? That’s not really a choice. That’s socialisation so successful you’ve mistaken your training for your taste.

Bell hooks talks about the “oppositional gaze” in Black Looks, the conscious effort it takes to refuse seeing yourself through the coloniser’s lens. Most of us don’t even know we’re looking through it. The lens feels like our own eyes.

Which is the whole problem, really.

That’s socialisation so successful you’ve mistaken your training for your taste.

Studies on colourism and featurism consistently show that Eurocentric features aka lighter skin, eyes, hair, thinner noses, are rated as more attractive across cultures shaped by colonialism or Western media. This isn’t subjective. It’s measurable. Depressing, but measurable cultural domination induced.

Margaret Hunter’s research goes further: lighter-featured women of colour earn more money, have better marriage prospects, and face less discrimination. Beauty isn’t just aesthetic. It’s economic. It’s a currency, and the exchange rate still heavily favours proximity to whiteness.

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality reminds us that being a woman of colour isn’t just about facing racism and sexism separately, they compound in ways that create unique pressures. We’re not just navigating beauty standards. We’re navigating white supremacist patriarchal beauty standards. Which is a mouthful, but also accurate.

Consider: Fair & Lovely built an entire empire selling the promise that lighter skin equals better life outcomes. (They’ve since rebranded to “Glow & Lovely” after decades of backlash, because nothing says “we’ve learned our lesson” like a cosmetic name change.) Bollywood still casts the palest possible actresses and then spray-tans them for “authenticity.” The paper bag test. The pencil test. Brutal little metrics designed to police who gets to belong based on how close they are to whiteness.

The message is never subtle: brown is a problem seeking a solution.

At nineteen, wearing green contacts, I’d get, “Your eyes are so pretty! Are those real?” And there’d be this split in me. One part preening. One part cringing. Because I knew what they were really complimenting: the parts of me that looked less Indian.

And yet I craved it anyway. I craved it so badly.

It’s this paradoxical thing…knowing the game is rigged and still desperately wanting to win it.

What makes me saddest now isn’t that I wore coloured contacts. It’s seeing young brown girls buying them and recognising the same hunger I had. Not the desire to look pretty, everyone wants to look pretty. But the specific hunger to be beautiful without qualification. To not be beautiful “for an Indian girl.” To not be beautiful despite brownness, but just... beautiful. Full stop.

That distinction matters. And it breaks my heart.

It’s this paradoxical thing…knowing the game is rigged and still desperately wanting to win it.

Let me be extremely clear: I’m not here to police anyone’s choices. If you wear coloured contacts because you genuinely love them, because they’re fun, because you’re navigating a hostile world the best way you know how, that’s your call. Full stop.

Sara Ahmed has this whole thing about being the “feminist killjoy”, she’s not trying to ruin anyone’s joy, just name the conditions that make certain joys more accessible to some people than others. I’m not trying to kill your joy. I’m just asking why some of us have to work so much harder to access it.

We make choices under pressure. Sometimes those choices are survival. Sometimes they’re about belonging. Sometimes they’re about softening the world’s gaze just enough to breathe. Audre Lorde wrote about how women of colour get taught to police each other, to reproduce the master’s tools among ourselves. But she also understood that surviving requires strategy.

Conformity isn’t always complicity. Sometimes it’s just camouflage.

Tressie McMillan Cottom makes this point beautifully in her essay “In the Name of Beauty.” She pushes back against the tendency to read Black and brown women’s beauty practices as pure “internalised oppression” without acknowledging that conforming often brings real, material benefits. It’s easy to judge from the outside. It’s harder to admit there’s intelligence in that navigation, even when the map itself is violent.

Here’s what I’m trying to say: We can hold two truths at once.

Women adapting to survive a racist beauty system are not the problem. The system demanding that adaptation is.

When I look at my younger self in those green contacts, I don’t feel superior. I don’t think, “God, what an internalised-racism-having idiot.”

I feel sad. Not self-pitying sad, but clear-eyed sad. The kind that comes from recognising how much energy I spent trying to negotiate my own face.

My mother would tell me my brown eyes were beautiful. She meant it. I didn’t believe her. Not because she was lying, but because the whole world was louder than she was.

Healing isn’t about rejecting who you were under oppression. It’s about loving her more fiercely because she tried so hard.

Women adapting to survive a racist beauty system are not the problem. The system demanding that adaptation is.

Beyond Looking Good (Which Is Also, a Trap)

When I started L’ORIENT, I had one non-negotiable rule: every image, every campaign, every model had to show brown features: brown skin, brown eyes, black hair as the aspiration. Not as something to be corrected or lightened or apologised for. Not “ethnic beauty” in quotation marks. Just beauty.

But here’s the other thing I’m committed to: refusing to make “looking good” the ultimate goal.

The obsession with beauty as our primary value is patriarchal distraction. Your skin is your largest functioning organ. It’s your first immune defense. It heals wounds. It regulates temperature. It protects you while you run and work and protest and create and live.

What if we measured skin by resilience, not radiance? By function, not glow? By how it supports you doing things that matter, not how it photographs?

Naomi Wolf called this “the beauty myth”, the idea that women’s worth is determined by appearance, keeping us distracted and compliant and consuming.

And look, I’m not saying don’t care about beauty. I run a skincare company. I work as a cosmetic doctor. I don’t want to hold hands and sing kumbaya and proclaim “guys…it’s what’s inside that truly matters” when the truth is, we do in fact operate in a world that conspicuously values being beautiful. Obviously I think taking care of your skin matters. But when it becomes the only thing that matters? That’s a problem.

Representation isn’t just visibility. It’s visibility without translation. Without asterisks. It’s a brown girl seeing brown eyes and not immediately wondering what they’d look like lighter.

I worry about the architecture we’re building in young brown girls’ minds. The quiet belief that their faces are rough drafts, not finished works. That brownness is a starting point to improve upon, not a destination to inhabit fully.

If coloured contacts were really just neutral fun, why are they almost always lighter?

Why aren’t white women wearing brown contacts in the same numbers?

Why does transformation only ever flow one direction, away from brownness, toward whiteness?

The asymmetry tells you everything you need to know about whose features count as default and whose as deviation.

I don’t have a neat conclusion. I wore coloured contacts for years. Maybe you do too. Maybe you will again tomorrow. I’m genuinely not here to judge that.

I’m just here to name what we all sort of know but rarely say out loud: the game is comprehensively rigged, and sometimes we play anyway because the cost of not playing feels too high.

But naming the game doesn’t make you a loser for playing it. It just means you see the board clearly. And seeing clearly is the first step to deciding if you even want to keep playing.

Here’s what I’m left with: maybe freedom doesn’t start with changing our faces. Maybe it starts with recognising them as our own. Not because we’ve transcended beauty politics, we haven’t, we can’t, not while living inside this system, but because we’ve decided our faces, exactly as they are, aren’t rough drafts waiting for edits.

The girl at the optometrist counter will buy the green contacts. She’ll probably love them. And that’s fine.

I just hope she gets to the part I’m at now faster than I did: knowing she never needed them. Not to be beautiful. Not to belong. Not to be seen.

Not for any of it.

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Dr Prasanthi Purusothaman is a doctor, writer, and founder of L’ORIENT, a luxury skincare brand reimagining hyperpigmentation care for the hush hush parts of our body.

The overachiever of the hyperpigmentation world. Bit of a diva, rocking up without invitation but bucket loads of audacity, a mottled map of the world splattered across your forehead, cheeks, and of course the dreaded melasma moustache.

She loves an audience of women in their prime, in their 20s to 50s, like we aren’t already having a time navigating a society that demands perfection of our appearance. Especially taking a liking, almost cruelly, to those with darker skin tones who can barely find the right foundation let alone a cosmetically elegant tinted sunscreen that tries to stratify the breadth of melanin variation and undertones into singular hues of ‘medium’ or ‘deep’.

A flirtatious encounter with the sun, a deeply relaxing much needed sauna session, in the depths of growing literal life in one’s womb, or simply trying to enjoy a vivacious sex life without falling pregnant…these can all be the green light for her to rock up uninvited and overstay.

DOWNLOAD DR P'S FREE MELASMA GUIDE

And if you suffer with Melasma, it’s not your fault per say, it’s a complex relapsing remitting condition lingering like a protracted cough, that is the interplay of enthusiastic melanocytes, immune cells, overzealous blood vessels, structural changes to the skin, lazy fibroblasts, barrier disruption and neural involvement…there is a lot going on underneath the skin beyond the speckled hyperpigmentation it is known for.

TRIGGERS

Gorging like an insatiable teenage boy on a limitless buffet of difficult to avoid triggers and predisposing factors:

• Genetics: family history, a strong risk factor, especially first degree relatives (thanks mum and dad)

• UV Radiation & Visible Light: triggering multiple cascades towards pigmentation…alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone, MITF, tyrosinase pathways, activation of OPSIN 3 receptors, nitrous oxide to name a few.

• Hormones: increased protein expression oestrogen receptor beta and progesterone receptor

• Oxidative stress: lower immunoreactivity PPAR gamma which modulates skin ageing, melanogenesis, lipid catabolism and increased antioxidants in blood of malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, glutathione in melasma patients

• Increased vascularisation: Increased nitrous oxide release, bigger size and density of blood vessels releasing pro-angiogenic VEGF, arachadonic acid, COX 2, leading to further pigmentation

• Dermal elastosis & basement membrane disruption: melanogenic cytokines e.g. endothelin 1 from fibroblasts leading to epidermal thinning, pendulous melanocytes, basal cell hyperpigmentation, senescent fibroblasts

• Lymphohystiotic infiltrates: CD4+ T cells, macrophages, mast cells, histamine release, COX 2, IL-17 leading to, you guessed it, more pigmentation

• Neural involvement: seemingly occurring along the distribution of the trigeminal nerve

• Sebocyte involvement: occurring over areas of sebaceous gland density

I lay this out to paint the complexity of the picture. Herein lies the symphony of pure pigmentary chaos. Not merely one thing to target, but a whole orchestra to conduct into some semblance of harmony to calm her down.

MANAGING THE MELADRAMA

Melasma is like a stage 5 clinger. Treatment is really a relationship strategy. No quick fixes here, you have to outsmart her.

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DR P’S PILLARS OF MANAGEMENT

3 overarching principles: Protect & Prevent, Suppress & Treat, Repair & Support.

DIVE DEEPER IN DR P'S MELASMA GUIDE HERE

Protect and Prevent

As always, prevention is much better than cure. Tinted broad spectrum sunscreens, a must. Throw out the old school rhetoric that zinc oxide is the superior choice (spoiler, it predominantly works by absorbing UV photons and dissipating them to heat, a tiny amount only scattering and reflecting). The tint is crucial. Chemical Physical, pick your player. Just make sure it’s broad spectrum SPF 50 AND tinted.

Sun protection is also: UPF protective clothing, good quality sunglasses (Mary Kate & Ashley oversized is best), no saunas (sorry), staying cool (literally and figuratively). No hormonal contraception. No irritating skincare. Supplements to increase antioxidant reserve to attenuate sun and life induced oxidative stress, and no blue light LED.

Suppress and Treat

Melanogenesis inhibition 101. Disruption at every step.

1. Prescription strength skincare: Hydroquinone with Tretinoin and a steroid (fluorinated corticosteroids seem better and safer) is the gold standard. Cysteamine, another option. High strength azelaic acid. Either through your doctor or reputable telehealth dermatology services (we have one coming next year eek!)
   

   

   
   
   

2. The right mix of OTC cosmeceuticals: licorice root and it’s derivatives, alpha arbutin, Vitamin C (L Ascorbic remains the best), Niacinamide, Melasyl, Kojic, alpha hydroxy acids.
   

3. Chemical peels: best in conjunction with prescription skincare, glycolic has the most evidence, Jessner peels, Salicylic in the right candidates, Lactic Acid, Mandelic Acid, TCA, Pyruvic. Sure, Cosmelan or Dermamelan can be fabulous, but it’s not the one off life changing climax you might be hoping for. So go in with realistic expectations rather than thinking it didn’t ‘work’.
   

4. Lasers: last resort, not first. 1064 nm Q Switch in low fluence large spot size laser toning settings 1-4 weeks apart. Pico. 1927 nm Moxi. All in experienced hands might I add, experience with melasma, for there is always the risk of rebound hyperpigmentation or confetti hypopigmentation. Personally, I say no to BBL and IPL.

Repair and Support

Calm inflammation, support the barrier, increase antioxidant reserve from the inside out. Oral tranexamic, Polypodium Leucotomos, Astaxanthin, Nanoglutathione, French Pine Bark, Grape seed extract. Biostimulators (and more discussed in my Melasma E Book) to support the structural changes in the dermis and skin.

FREE DOCTOR WRITTEN E-BOOK ON OUTSMARTING YOUR MELASMA

I spent a week putting together a comprehensive downloadable guide and summary to everything you need to understand about Melasma in one place. This delicious document comes with product recommendations (possibly the best melasma guide on the internet in one place if I do say so myself!).

It’s a lifelong battle, but one you can come out on top of with support, care and diligence and less struggle and more understanding of your skin.

Wishing you all the success in your melasma journey, my DMs and emails and comment sections are always open to general questions. In clinic if you want some tailored advice to you.

Let me know if there are any other conditions or topics you’d like me to cover and collate. I do enjoy putting them together!


- Dr P

DR P’S FAVS/WISHLIST THIS WEEK

Book: The Wedding People by Alison Espach. A nice easy read and escape. Read this on my recent break to Byron Bay at restaurants, by the pool, at the beach
Podcast Episode: How to Build an Iconic Brand: Mindset Shifts & Strategy Lessons from Olamide Olawe on Working Hard with Grace Beverley
Makeup: The Foundation Drops from VB Beauty. Of course, my shade match is out of stock.
Skincare: Super unsexy but my eczema has been flaring really badly at the minute. No traditional chemist brand moisturisers (QV, Aveeno etc) are cutting it. I found this tub called Epaderm Ointment on Amazon. Essentially 40% Paraffin + . She’s thicccc but this is the only thing that’s sealing in hydration for me at the moment. I use her over my belly too after I have done my evening skincare.
Clothing: I really want these pants. I love Malbon as a brand. I’ve played golf a total of twice in my life but would love to become a cool golf girl (ha). But I am all about multiuse pieces, that can be worn for outings and also work.

Not when you're a brown woman trying to build a beauty brand in Australia, the land of the coastal neutral aesthetic, and founder line-ups that feel like the Instagram explore page of clean girl living: a lot of beige and racially homogenous.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a takedown of white women in business. I know many brilliant, kind, hardworking white women building beautiful brands. I cheer them on whole heartedly, I am in their corner. But what I want to talk about, the thing that sticks in my throat when I scroll through yet another magazine round-up of “Female Founders to Watch”, is the quiet, systemic privilege that whiteness brings to the table. It’s the unspoken wind behind the sails.

For years, I tried to make myself more palatable: soft-spoken, overly polished, endlessly credentialed. I thought if I was good enough, smart enough, neutral enough, I’d earn a seat at the table.

But over time, I realised the very things that made me feel like an outsider, my skin, my story, my specificity, were actually my power.

Building a brand when you’re not the default isn’t just harder. It’s lonelier. It’s riskier. It’s exhausting in ways that have nothing to do with logistics and everything to do with invisibility.

Because yes, the industry is uneven. Yes, the hurdles are real. But if you dwell too long on your otherness, it will paralyse you.

This essay is about all of it, and how I persist.

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The Australian Beauty Founder Archetype: Blonde, Branded, and Backed

Most beauty brands are founded by White women and have majority White teams. This monocultural operating system limits their ability to serve a pluralistic world. It shapes who the brand speaks to, who it centres, and who it forgets.

When teams lack racial and cultural diversity, the products, campaigns, and priorities often do too. It’s not just a missed opportunity, it’s a total disconnect. A failure to reflect the diverse communities they claim to serve. Especially in a multicultural country like Australia.

A brand that centres only one kind of experience is no longer just incomplete, it’s out of touch. No amount of tokenistic BIPOC models strategically planted into campaigns can guise this.

When it comes to beauty founders specifically, the media love a certain kind of woman: smiley, swathed in neutrals or millennial pink, often with a corporate-turned-beauty narrative. She’s “passionate about wellness”, she “couldn’t find a product that worked” so she “made her own”. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, I, an actual medical doctor with years of clinical experience in skin and more, regularly wonder whether I belong in this space at all.

I listen to panels and business podcasts, scroll through founder profiles where White women are celebrated for their “instincts,” their “go-getter energy,” their “natural flair for branding.” And women like me? We’re expected to over-credential ourselves. Cite papers. Conduct trials. Secure data for proof of viability. Just to hope to be taken seriously. And even then, we’re often told, implicitly or otherwise, to soften our tone. Don’t be too intense. Don’t be too intellectual. Don’t be too niche, too... brown.

Here’s what the numbers show: this isn’t imagined.
People from African, Middle Eastern, Indigenous, and mixed-race backgrounds remain severely underrepresented among Australian founders. Those who do break through are disproportionately overqualified. Female founders of colour, in particular, are far more likely to hold multiple degrees from top institutions, simply to be seen as “fundable.” The bar for entry isn’t just higher, it’s rigged.

Globally, only 2% of venture capital goes to female-led startups. Just 0.2% to women of colour. In Australia, a 2021 study by the Creative Co-Operative found that the vast majority of early-stage women of colour founders relied on their own savings to fund their businesses. Only 9.5% had raised VC funding, despite making up more than a third of female founders overall.

So yes, I built my own table.
I’m not waiting for validation, and I’m certainly not asking for pity.
But some days, it feels like no one even notices ‘it’ is there. It being racial inequity.

And it is.

Impostor Syndrome With a Side of Melanin

There’s a unique kind of impostor syndrome that comes with being a woman of colour founder in a whitewashed space.

I’ve treated a lot of patients. I’ve studied for a very long time and continue to study (and will have to study until the day I retire, doctor perks). I’ve created boundary pushing formulas from scratch alongside the most qualified PhD scientists to safely treat hyperpigmentation on deep skin tones, something clinical trials or beauty brands barely even consider (it’s improving, but testing on darker tones is not mandated). And still, I’ve found myself second-guessing whether my brand is “legit” enough. Whether I’m allowed to take up space next to brands founded by wellness influencers with no credentials but the right “vibe”, look and the access to network that offers.

Don’t get me wrong, expertise is not a pre requisite for building something. Often people outside of the box bring fresh ideas and innovation to the table. There’s place and rationale for both.

It’s the fact that when you’re a woman of colour, especially in a country like Australia, you learn early that you need to be better. You need to be the best actually. You must be overqualified, over polished, and endlessly patient and grateful. And even then, you’re still sometimes seen as the “niche” founder. The “ethnic” one.

I’ve felt it in meetings. I’ve felt it when explaining the significant social impact of skin disorders disproportionately affecting people like me to someone who’s never had to think twice about wearing a sleeveless top because they’re embarrassed by their dark underarms in their life. I’ve felt it when someone asks, “But can white people use your products?”. A question no one ever asks a White founder, because building for whiteness is seen as universal. Building for brown or Black skin? That’s seen as niche. Optional. An extra.

When White founders create products that don’t serve people of colour, it’s not considered a flaw. It’s just... not their concern. No one questions it. No one calls it exclusion.

But when I create with melanin in mind, suddenly I have to defend my relevance.

Funny, really, considering over 80% of the global population has skin of colour (yes, we make up the actual majority).

Race, Risk, and the ‘Bold White Woman’ Bias

Let’s talk about risk.

White women are often celebrated for their boldness, quitting corporate jobs, launching a skincare line, “taking the leap.” Build it before it’s perfect. Get funding with just a prototype. Speak boldly, go viral, raise millions. “Just start”, they say. It’s that easy.
But the truth is, they’re diving with a safety net.

White women are allowed to take risks. They’re encouraged to. They take risks from a place of cultural cushioning: generational wealth, networks that reflect them, a beauty ideal built in their image. When they fail, it’s framed as learning. When they succeed, it’s innovation. The system is designed to catch them.

For women of colour, the stakes are different.

We’re not diving from the same height. We’re cliff-jumping with no clear landing. No family connections in venture capital. No media defaulting to our desirability. We’re taught to minimise risk, because we carry more to lose, socially, financially, generationally.

I wasn’t raised to take wild swings. No, I’m the daughter of immigrant parents. I was raised to work twice as hard to be seen as half as credible. Because failure, for people like me, isn’t just a learning curve, it’s seen as confirmation that we never belonged.

And the research backs this. A Harvard Business Review study found that women, especially women of colour, are more likely to be asked preventative questions by investors (focusing on risk) while white men are asked promotion questions (focused on growth).

So when we leap, we don’t do it for fun.
We leap despite the cost.
We leap because no one’s building the thing we need.
And we do it knowing there’s no soft landing waiting.

Intersectionality: The Unseen Load

Race, gender, and class don’t operate separately, they stack. As Kimberlé Crenshaw framed it: intersectionality is about the compounded effects of identity, not their isolation.

White women have historically positioned themselves as the face of diversity in business, often benefiting from gender-focused equity initiatives while race goes unaddressed. But the experience of a woman of colour founder is a whole different equation.

We don’t just fight for gender equality, we do so while navigating racial bias, cultural erasure, and societal expectations that we be demure, deferential, and grateful for scraps.

What’s celebrated as “confidence” or “boldness” in White founders is often read as arrogance or aggression in us. We are policed not just by what we say, but how we say it, how we look while saying it, and how much space we take up doing it.

This isn’t just frustrating, it’s structurally limiting. Intersectionality isn’t an identity politics buzzword. It’s the difference between being funded and being overlooked. Between being featured, elevated and being “not the right fit.”

Australia vs the US: A Tale of Two Realities

When I speak to fellow founders of colour in the United States, I’m often floored, not just by the size of the ecosystem, but by its intentionality. There are fellowships, accelerators, and grants specifically for women of colour founders. Platforms like the Fifteen Percent Pledge, Glossier’s Grant Program, Sephora Accelerate and Fearless Fund actively redistribute access.

And while it's not perfect, there’s a language, and a legislative will (pre Trump), in the US to discuss systemic racism, funding gaps, and representation with some honesty.

In Australia? Not so much.

Here, the term “woman of colour” itself still makes people twitch. “I don’t see colour” and “what happened to the best man/woman wins”. Our grant system barely recognises racial disparity, let alone funds to redress it. I’ve seen grants for “female founders,” but they overwhelmingly serve the same demographic: White, conventionally attractive, irrelevant tertiary education, inner-city.

We are still decades behind in recognising the need for targeted equity instead of generic empowerment.

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When “Wellness” Becomes Whitewashed

This is where it gets personal.

As a South Asian woman, watching my culture be endlessly mined for content and commodified for clout has been one of the most disorienting parts of being in beauty. Those turmeric scrubs rebranded as “golden facials.” Ayurvedic oils marketed as “ancient elixirs.” Chakra-aligning perfumes launched without a single brown face in the room (or even the courtesy of cultural consultation). I see it all. And yes, it infuriates me.

But I often stay silent. Not out of apathy, but self-preservation.

Because experience has taught me that many White founders don’t respond well to accountability, especially when it comes from the very communities whose cultures they commodify. White women’s discomfort is often weaponised as fragility. Their tears land softer than our truths.

And frankly, I don’t always have the energy to be labelled “aggressive” for stating what should be obvious.

I’m not cruel. I’m clear. And I’m tired of clarity being mistaken for hostility. So it’s easier to stay quiet and scroll along.

Wellness has become a kind of aesthetic colonialism, where White women get to borrow spiritual practices, strip them of cultural meaning, and sell them back as “intentional self-care.” No context. No credit. No consequence. Endless praise.

And yes, there’s a fine line between appreciation and appropriation. I’m all for the former. But if the brand story includes Sanskrit names but no South Asians, we have a problem.

The Weight of Otherness—and What We Do With It

Being a woman of colour in a White-dominated industry can feel like walking uphill in heels. Every reminder of your “difference” can quietly chip away at your confidence. And when you see others with less expertise, less nuance, less lived experience rise faster, it’s natural to feel… rage. Or worse, resentment. A low-grade jealousy you don’t want to admit even to yourself.

I’ve felt it. I’ve sat in that place.

And here’s what I’ve learned: you can visit that place, but you can’t live there. It’s paralysing. It poisons your creativity. You start building from spite instead of vision. You stop dreaming expansively because you’re too busy proving your worth in a world that refuses to see it.

But our otherness isn’t a flaw. It’s a vantage point.

Studies in positive psychology and resilience show that reframing adversity, not denying it, but transforming it, is one of the most powerful predictors of long-term success. When you anchor your identity in purpose and future-forward clarity (rather than pain or lack), you give yourself psychological stamina. What Angela Duckworth calls “grit,” or what we call: just surviving, elegantly.

So how do we do it? How do we use the rage without being ruled by it?

Evidence-backed advice for channelling otherness into drive:

• Reframe rejection as redirection. Cognitive behavioural science shows that perceived rejection can hijack your brain’s reward system, unless you consciously reframe it. Instead of “they didn’t want me,” try “this wasn’t aligned.” Over time, you stop internalising other people’s bias as your inadequacy.
  

• Set approach goals, not avoidance goals. Don’t build your brand just to prove someone wrong. Build it to prove yourself right. Studies show people who pursue intrinsic, value-aligned goals report more joy, less burnout, and greater long-term achievement.
  

• Practice psychological distancing. When that feeling of “I’ll never belong here” hits, zoom out. Speak to yourself in the third person (yes, really, it’s called self-distancing). “She’s feeling overlooked right now, but she’s built something extraordinary.” This technique reduces emotional flooding and increases rational confidence.
  

• Transmute anger into clarity. Anger isn’t toxic, it’s data. It shows you what matters. What feels unjust. Use that signal not to spiral, but to sharpen. Every time you feel side-lined, write a page and dump your frustrations. Refine your pitch. Test the formula again. Let your rage be compost, not an unruly fire.
  

• Surround yourself with mirrors, not windows. Find women of colour and people in general who reflect your ambition back to you, not just your pain. Join founder groups, follow creatives who speak to your experience, build a micro-community where your identity is a given, not an explanation.
  

The truth is: we don’t have the luxury of waiting for the world to validate us.

We build anyway. We pitch anyway. We create even when we’re tired of explaining why we deserve to be here.

And one day, someone else, another brown girl wondering if she’s allowed to dream like this, will look at what we made and think, maybe I can, too.

That’s the power of refusing to stay small.

That’s what makes you unstoppable.

For My Fellow WOC Founders: You Are the Blueprint

I’m not writing this to discourage. I’m writing it to name what so many of us feel but rarely say out loud.

Because for every glossy White female founder profile, you best believe there’s a brown or Black woman behind the scenes doing ten times the work with none of the spotlight. And we deserve better.

So here’s what I want you to remember:

• You are allowed to take up space—even if it feels uncomfortable. Especially then.
  

• You are not underqualified. You are overdue for recognition.
  

• Your culture is not a trend. It is legacy, wisdom, and power. You can rewrite the narrative on your terms.
  

• Your story doesn’t need to be palatable to be valuable. Speak it anyway.
  

• Find your people. Other WOC founders will be your mirror, your safety net, and your reminder that you’re not alone.

Finishing thoughts: Beauty, Redefined

They say beauty is skin deep, but the industry isn’t. It’s built on perception, privilege, and power. But every time a woman of colour steps up and launches something rooted in truth, care, and culture, she doesn’t just start a brand, she chips away at a broken system. She serves her community.

So here I am, doing just that.
A doctor, a mother, a woman of colour, plodding along, building a beauty brand not in spite of who I am, but because of it.

And I promise you: I’m not the only one.
We are coming. We are already here.
And we’re changing everything. You aren’t ready.

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Leave me a comment or message me if this resonated, especially if you’re a fellow WOC founder. I would love to connect with you.

It’s called Phi (Φ) — aka the Golden Ratio. Once you learn about it, you can’t unsee it. It shows up everywhere: spiral galaxies, seashells, flower petals, the Parthenon, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and yes, faces.

I use Phi in clinic. Not to create "perfect" faces (because honestly, perfection is boring), but to bring out a natural balance based on my patient’s individual features. I do this using special Phi calipers that maintain this ratio according to specific distances on the face.

I find in applying the golden ratio principles, tiny, strategic tweaks — not big, obvious changes — are what bring people’s faces into that sweet spot where everything feels lovely, natural and harmonious.

I’ll break down what the Golden Ratio actually is, how it shows up in your face, and how we can use it to guide treatments that make you look like the best version of you.

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What is the Golden Ratio (Phi) — and Why Does It Matter?

The idea of the Golden Ratio goes all the way back about 2,500 years to Ancient Greece, where mathematicians first discovered that dividing a line into two unequal parts — so that the ratio of the whole line to the longer part was the same as the ratio of the longer part to the shorter — created a proportion that felt naturally pleasing.

This special number is approximately 1.618, and it pops up everywhere: in art, nature, architecture, and yes, human faces.

The term "Phi" (Φ) comes from Phidias, a renowned Greek sculptor who is thought to have incorporated these proportions into his masterpieces to create a sense of balance and beauty.

In simple terms:
The Golden Ratio happens when the relationship between two parts mirrors the relationship between their sum and the larger part.
(Think: the part is to the whole what the whole is to the sum.)

Phi is nature’s blueprint for balance. When your facial features line up with it, your face feels more harmonious to the human brain (we're literally wired to love Phi from the time we are babies). Jodie Comer (below) is said to have one of the most balanced faces according to these principles.

In aesthetics, I use Phi as a guide, not a rulebook, to create enhancements that look natural, individual, and in proportion.

Quick nerd-out:
Your intercanthal distance (the distance between the inside corners of your eyes) is the starting point for mapping out your unique Phi grid. From there, we look at:

• Nose length ≈ 1.618x eye distance

• Mouth width ≈ 1.618x nose width

• Lip balance = top lip 1 : bottom lip 1.618 bottom lip

And so on... nature's hidden cheat codes.

How I Use Phi to Guide Treatments

Some injectors just eyeball injections, and with experience of course this is absolutely fine. I have been injecting for years now and I still like to measure it.

Using precision tools (like beauty-phi calipers), I can map your facial structure and find areas where small enhancements can bring everything into effortless balance.

Key treatment zones where Phi matters:

1. Lips: It’s Not Just Volume, It’s Proportion

Lips aren't supposed to be "big" on everyone. They’re supposed to be balanced according to your facial dimensions.

According to Phi, the ideal ratio is about 1 : 1.618 (top lip to bottom lip).

What I do:

• Subtle volumisation of the top lip (if it's too small compared to the bottom)

• Respecting the natural lip anatomy — Cupid’s bow, vermilion border, lip show at rest

• Volumising the bottom lip in proportion to the chin

🔹 Common mistakes:
Overfilling both lips equally — which can throw off Phi and make the face look bottom-heavy or unnatural. The only time this can be of merit is in certain ethnic groups whereby a 1:1 ratio is more common and natural.

2. Chin: My favourite underrated treatment

A well-proportioned chin is everything.
It anchors the lower third of the face — and when it’s short, recessed, or under-projected, it can throw balance off. Having said that, some of the most striking faces have smaller chins. If desired, it is a great area to augment to balance the entire face.

By elongating the lower third slightly, you can restore the 1.618 ideal between the middle third (brow-to-nose) and the lower third (nose-to-chin).

🔹 What I do:

• Chin augmentation to enhance projection (both vertically and horizontally)

• Correct underdevelopment or age-related bone loss

• Soften dimpling (mental crease) if needed

  

  

3. Cheekbones vs. Jawline: Masseter Slimming

Another Phi hot spot is the relationship between your cheekbone width (bizygomatic width) and jaw width (bigonial width).
Ideally, your jaw should be about 1.618x smaller than your cheekbone span — creating that sculpted, heart-shaped facial flow (a hallmark of traditionally ‘feminine’ faces).

What I do:

• Masseter injections to slim a bulky lower face (great for jaw clenchers, too)

• Cheek augmentation (product placed strategically) to highlight natural high points (apex) without puffiness. The intercanthal distance (between the eyes) is measured with calipers and the subsequent 1.618 ratio of the opposite end is placed on the inner eye at one end, the other end touching the cheek at the ideal apex according to Phi principles. Another technique to find the ideal highest point of your cheekbone can be determined by the intersection of two lines:
  - A vertical line from the outer corner of your eye (lateral canthus)
  - A diagonal from your nose wing to your ear tragus.

Phi Mapping: Some principles that guide treatment

Horizontal Fifths:

• Face should be 5 eye-widths across.

Vertical Thirds:

• Hairline to brows ➔ Brows to nose ➔ Nose to chin. Ideal ratio: Each section should be roughly 1:1:1, but the lower third (subnasale ie under the nose to chin) often looks best at 1.618x the middle third.

• If lower third is too short, chin filler is the quiet hero.
  

  

  
  

Takeaways:

Phi isn’t about chasing perfection but rather finding balance within the features you have..

Tiny, strategic tweaks (like a touch of chin product or subtle conservative lip balancing) can completely transform the face without anyone quite knowing why you look so good.

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I have spent the last few years intermittently battling post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Seemingly innocuous things like a rogue pimple, a scratch from my dog, even dermatitis and cold sores can leave nasty pigmentation that lingers for months, sometimes years on my body.

From my personal experience and that of treating patients with pigmentation I can confidently tell you this: people with melasma and darker skin tones struggling with uneven skin tone need a killer sunscreen. And well, they’re not necessarily all as good as each other.

Decoding sunscreens

I’ve tried a lot of sunscreens. And for years, I thought I was doing everything right—SPF 50, broad-spectrum, good enough right?

Then, as I tend to do, I got weirdly hyper-fixated on getting granular on all things sunscreens. I learned some hard truths: SPF doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact I believe seeing SPF 50 lulls people into a false sense of security.

Most sunscreens focus on UVB, that’s what SPF is about (traditionally the rays responsible for redness and burns, though it is a bit more nuanced than that). And yes, whilst there are guidelines to ensure adequate UVA cover to meet ‘broad spectrum’ claims, many sunscreens meet the minimum requirement, with protection dropping off in the ranges that darker and melasma prone skin require more robust protection from.

UVA1 (340-400nm) and visible light (400-700nm) are sneaky wavelengths that don’t just age you—they feed pigmentation in melanin rich and melasma prone skin like a leech engorging on blood. They’re basically throwing a party in your epidermis and your melanocytes are having the time of their lives, unaware, unprotected.

I think it’s helpful to understand the how.

1. The Melanogenesis Pathway: Your Skin’s Overzealous Defence System

• Trigger: UV rays/visible light hit your skin → cells release α-MSH (a hormone that triggers a cascade to make melanin pronto).

• Domino Effect: This activates tyrosinase, the enzyme that turns tyrosine into melanin (aka pigment).

• Result: Melanin gets pumped up to the skin’s surface like a tiny umbrella, with good intentions, to protect the skin from further UV radiation—except it’s not the cutest umbrella and leaves patches of uneven skin tone

2. UVA1 & Visible Light: The Silent Saboteurs

• UVA1 (340-400nm): Penetrates deep into the dermis, causing persistent pigment darkening (PPD) that can last weeks to months.

• Visible Light (400-700nm, especially blue light): Activates opsin-3 receptors on melanocytes—basically a direct hotline to tyrosinase. Studies show VL-induced pigmentation can be darker and longer-lasting than UV alone in darker skin tones.

Translation: If your sunscreen only blocks well against UVB/UVA2, it’s like locking the front door but leaving the back wide open for pigmentation to waltz in and trash your skin. The problem is that historically, filters have not been very good at protecting against these longer wavelengths doing the damage in darker skin tones.

Oh, and let’s not forget the white cast saga. Zinc oxide is a great filter, in theory, but unless it’s micronised or tinted, I might as well be auditioning for The Walking Dead. And sadly, when micronised, the protection against the longer wavelengths changes and drops off too.

Iron Oxides & Tinted Sunscreens, the GOAT

Here’s the kicker: Most filters don’t adequately block visible light. That’s why tinted sunscreens with iron oxides are non-negotiable for melasma/PIH. They absorb VL like a blackout curtain.

Spoiler: the iron oxides in your foundation are not enough. This is because their transparency and composition are such to give a beautiful cosmetic effect to mimic skin and thus not attenuate visible light appropriately (smaller particle sizes, which end up mainly blocking UV radiation and still not protecting adequately against visible light-boo).

Filters That Actually Work

Not all sunscreens are created equal. It’s important to look for sunscreens with a combination of filters to adequately protect against the entire UV spectrum and especially the blue light portion of VL. I go through this in depth in my guide. Here are a few:

1- Mexoryl 400 or TriAsorB – The only filters that cover up to 400nm (UVA1’s worst zone). You will find them in La Roche and Avene products.

2- Tinosorb S + Uvinul A Plus – A powerhouse duo for stable UVA protection. Aussie and Korean sunscreens have access to these newer gen filters.

3- Tinted formulas with iron oxides – The gold standard for visible light defense 3-5% concentration.

Top sunscreens for darker skin tones and melasma prone skin

If you’re using any of these sunscreens, we’re already best friends:

1. La Roche-Posay UVMune 400 Cream or Fluid

The holy grail for UVA1 (thanks to Mexoryl 400), this is my desert-island pick. No white cast, just chef’s kiss protection. And the best UVA1 protection on the market.

2. Beauty of Joseon Relief Sunscreen with probiotics – A K-beauty legend with

Tinosorb S + Uvinul A Plus—dewy, lightweight, and plays nice under makeup. Cult for a reason and the best UVA protection currently of Korean sunscreens I believe. (correct me if wrong). Sadly the US version is not as robust as the Korean version due to lack of access to the newer gen filters there.

3. Colorescience Sunforgettable Total Protection Face Shield Flex (Tinted)

Zinc oxide + iron oxides in a weightless formula. The tint adapts to deeper skin tones (no ashy drama, though they do need deeper tones).

4. Ultra Violette Future Fluid SPF 50+ Superlight Mineral SKINSCREEN™ 50ml

For mineral purists, an Aussie treasure: Zinc oxide + iron oxides (specifically love that they have broken down the types of Iron Oxides in this one- black iron oxides protect against the entire visible light spectrum for example).

5. La Roche-Posay Anthelios Tinted Fluid

The tinted version with iron oxides—sheer enough for everyday reapplication.

Honourable mention to EltaMD UV Clear (tinted) for my sensitive-skin folks and Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skin Care Milk SPF50+ PA++++

These aren’t just ‘good’—they’re hyperpigmentation assassins. Because SPF 50 means nothing if it’s broad spectrum and blocking UVA1 and visible light. I give more recommendations in my guide if these don’t tickle your fancy.

One final word

If your hyperpigmentation is stuck on replay, your sunscreen might be the weak link. Stop chasing the next brightening serum and ask:

✔️ Does my sunscreen protect beyond comprehensive UVB cover (important still in pigmentation but not the only element to consider)?

✔️ Is it strong in UVA1 (340-400nm)?

✔️ Does it have iron oxides for visible light?

✔️ Sunscreen is just one part of sun protection. Are you wearing protective clothing (I love Solbari for UPF protected hats and clothing) and seeking shade regularly?

Because here’s the truth: How well your pigmentation is being managed is a test of your sunscreen commitment. And most of us are failing.

(P.S. If you’ve found a tinted sunscreen that doesn’t look like terracotta paste, DM me. We need to talk.)

— Dr. Prasanthi

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Every brand slaps a♻️on their packaging, brags about “clean” ingredients (whatever that means?), and acts like they’ve single-handedly saved the planet (they haven’t). Meanwhile, I’m over here staring at spreadsheets, cost of goods, supply chains, realising that launching any brand is inherently unsustainable. Including mine.

And the worst part? Consumers disproportionately and conditionally care about sustainability in beauty. They expect flawless perfection from skincare & cosmetic brands but still can’t get their recycling right, brag about their Shein hauls and don’t question how the Himalayan Salt they’re so attached to adding to their meals was sourced. They’ll answer yes to consumer preference surveys on sustainability, rage-comment on brand Instagram’s about how wasteful they are, ‘is this clean?’ ‘is your packaging sustainable?’ they’ll ask, and swear they’ll only buy ‘eco-friendly’. But when it comes down to it? Price, convenience, product performance, aesthetics and how your brand makes them feel will win every damn time.

Let’s break down the “sustainable” claims I am sick of hearing:

1. Recyclable Packaging (This is actually ending up in landfill)

That little recycling symbol on your jar? Cute. Here’s the reality:

• Only 14% of plastic waste is sent to recycling and only 9% gets recycled (British Beauty Council)

• Glass is infinitely recyclable… but 40% still ends up in landfills because people can’t be bothered to rinse and sort. It’s also much heavier to ship which = more carbon emissions.

• ‘Biodegradable’ packaging? A little misleading as most of the time it’s more so ‘compostable’, still sits in landfill and takes years to breakdown, and even that is dependent on the soil conditions and biological activity within it.

2. Natural Ingredients(Greenwashing 101)

We’ve been sold this fairy tale that “natural” = better. Spoiler: It’s not.

Take “reef-safe” mineral sunscreen – the poster child of ‘clean’ beauty. We’ve been sold this fairytale that zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the heroes: non-toxic, coral-friendly, Mother Earth-approved. Happy fish.

But dig deeper (literally), and you’ll find:

• 1 tonne of titanium dioxide requires mining 8 tonnes of ore, causes significant soil erosion, air pollution (from the byproduct sulphur and nitrogen dioxide), nanoparticles can cause fish death, affect water ecological systems through disrupting the pH, it goes on…

• Zinc mining creates acidic runoff that pollutes waterways

• Most mineral (inorganic- go figure) UV filters come from China – meaning intensely carbon-heavy shipping before they even hit your face

Suddenly that $40 “ocean-friendly” non-toxic sunscreen doesn’t feel so pure (even though many a self righteous influencer will harp on and on and on about how chemical sunscreens are sooooo…. toxic).

• Sandalwood, that luxe fragrance staple? The trees are now endangered (including the Australian species) because we overharvested them. Only mature trees can be harvested for Santalol, the aromatic component, significantly impacting forest ecosystems and biodiversity.

• Almond oil? One gallon of water per nut. But sure, slap “natural” on the label and call it a day and tell me how cheap and terrible silicones are for hydrating the skin.

Natural ingredients require a lot of energy to process raw materials into their usable components. They require extremecultivation, destruction of habitats, deforestation, which impacts global biodiversity and also, contributes climate change. Not so great for nature after all.

What upsets me about the alarming increase in the request for ‘natural’ is the fetishisation of it as superior to science and ‘man made’ ingredients. Synthetic is a word that has negative connotations despite often being incredibly efficacious, safe and sustainable. I feel that conversations around the reality of ingredient sourcing can make for a really interesting informative story.

For L’ORIENT, we use a mixture, and invest in biotechnology derived ingredients (plant stem cells, bio fermentation to extract more potent bioactive materials as examples of some manufacturing methods for our ingredients) which reduce ecological strain, energy use, and are genuinely better for the environment (more expensive than natural ingredients mind you).

3. Refillable Everything

Refills sound amazing—until you remember that humans are lazy. This is called the ‘ghost refill’ problem.

• fewer than 24% of the roughly 79% of sustainably minded beauty consumers actually refill their products. This number is likely less of real world usage.

• Every refill pouch still needs to be manufactured, shipped, and (let’s be real) eventually thrown away. They are often multilaminate making them difficult to recycle.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not crapping on refillable. Our deodorant has been designed as a refillable system because deodorants are one of the biggest contributors to waste. When done right, they absolutely reduce greenhouse emissions and overall plastic usage and waste. But the key determinant here is proper usage. It is estimated that to reduce carbon emissions and waste through refill systems people need to be refilling 4-5 times. Are people doing that? No. And I am conscious of this even in creating a refillable product myself.

Very few brands (<2%) are tracking or reporting on consumers’ uptake of refillable options, and without enough robust data to back up the claims made around refillable products, we don’t know exactly if they have a lower environmental footprint’. - Becca Willcox, beauty ratings manager at Good On You.

4. Shipping is a carbon monster

That ‘carbon-neutral’ label? Often just an offset—a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Shipping accounts for 3% of global emissions (more than aviation!), and while electric delivery vans sound great, they’re not scaling fast enough. Even DTC brands with ‘eco’ packaging still rely on diesel-guzzling trucks, ships and planes.

5. The B Corp Scam

Oh, and let’s talk about certifications. B Corp? Please.

• You only need 80/200 points to get the badge (a solid C+).

• Nestlé owns 4 B Corps. Let that sink in.

• You can still pay minimum wage, ship in plastic, and call yourself “ethical.”

CASE STUDY- Emma Lewisham

I’m obsessed with Emma Lewisham. Even though I am not a natural skincare girlie. Not because she’s “perfect,” but because she’s actually trying. Here’s what her brand does right:

• Real closed-loop system: They take back empty jars, sterilise them, and reuse them. No greenwashing—just actual recycling.

• Carbon-positive shipping: They don’t just offset; they over-offset.

• Zero-waste formulas: Every drop is designed to be used (no “dead space” in bottles).

But if I may even put Emma under the microscope for a moment, she can’t escape the hard truths:

• Her sunscreens still rely on mined minerals.

• Her products are expensive (because sustainability costs money).

• Her products use a LOT of natural ingredients (sourcing and manufacturing methods are incredibly resource and environment intensive)

• Her entire model depends on customers mailing back empties—and most people as the data shows, just… won’t.

So What Actually Works?

If sustainability isn’t enough to sell your brand, what is?

1. Lead with desire, not guilt

• Patagonia sells adventure, not recycled polyester.

• Glossier sold cool-girl, not “clean” makeup.

People buy what makes them feel good, not what makes them feel guilty. Brands and retailers need to stop with their exhaustive ‘made without’ lists as a marketing strategy and USP. They need to stop harping on about ‘natural’ and ‘toxic’ without considering the true implications to the environment of their products and entire ingredient supply chain.

2. Be honest about your flaws

Say: Our sunscreen may be better for coral and fish, but mining has impacts—here’s how we’re improving.

Perfection is boring. Progress is relatable.

3. Make sustainability easy

If your refill program requires 4 steps, it will fail.

If your “eco” packaging is ugly or inconvenient, no one will care.

Sustainability only works if it’s seamless.

The Bottom Line

Very few people wake up thinking, “I need to buy something sustainable today.” They wake up thinking, “I want to feel beautiful.” “I want to address xyz pain point”.

The future belongs to brands that bake sustainability into:

• Irresistible products

• Seamless experiences

• Honest storytelling

if you’re a founder like me, our job? Make them feel seen, beautiful, invite them into a world—then blow their mind by being human, transparent and working towards more sustainable choices too.

Thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

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(P.S. My brand’s coming soon. Will we be perfect? Hell no. But we’ll be honest—and that’s a start. Here’s a sneak peek of our refillable deodorant system.)

Yours imperfectly,

Dr P X

It all started a few weeks before my wedding. Like any self-respecting bride-to-be, I decided (admittedly through a mix of societal pressure and the, in hindsight, ridiculous expectation on brides to look somewhat flawless), that it was time to level up.

I did the usual things. Got my hair cut. My brows threaded. My nails manicured (twice: deep maroon for the Indian wedding, French for the civil). But then, like a villain in a rom-com, Mr ‘erase-all-lines-and-look-as-smooth-as-a-baby’s-bottom’ (you know what I am talking about) entered the scene. I thought, “Why not?”. A little bit here and there, and I’ll look like a glazed doughnut that’s been sleeping eight hours a night since 1998 and have creaseless makeup.

Fast forward two weeks, and I’m staring at my reflection, wondering why I suddenly look like I’ve got little pool hammocks under my eyes. Enter: malar bags (mounds or festoons as some call them, but there’s nothing festive about them). We think of bags as iconic like a Birkin, Kelly, Dior Saddle. These bags are far from: they are puffy, stubborn, little pockets of fluid that decided to throw a party on my face. Right before my wedding. Cool, right? No.

So, What Are These Malar Bags/Mounds/Festoons Anyway?

Let’s get science-y for a hot second. Malar bags are basically swollen areas of skin and tissue that sit on your cheekbones, right under your eyes. They’re like the uninvited guests who show up to your party, eat all the snacks, and refuse to leave (the worst).

A doctor, Dr David Furnas, first described “festoons” in 1978. Since then, variable terminology has been used to describe this swelling or excess tissue immediately below the infraorbital rim within the pre-zygomatic space. Here for reference:

ANATOMY 101

Malar bags (those puffy areas under the eyes) happen when there’s extra volume or swelling in a specific part of the face called the pre-zygomatic space. This space is bordered by a few key structures:

• Orbicularis Retaining Ligament (ORL): A band of tissue that helps hold up the area around the eyes. Over time, it can weaken, causing the skin and muscle to sag.

• Zygomaticocutaneous Ligament (ZCL): A ligament that runs along the cheekbones and connects to the skin, creating a natural groove in the midface.

• Malar Septum (MS): A thin layer of tissue that starts at the eye socket and extends down into the cheek.
  

When the ORL weakens (due to ageing or genetics), the muscle and skin around the eyes can droop. Fluid (oedema) can also build up in this area, stretching the skin and muscle further. This sagging, combined with fat or swelling, can "hang" over the stronger lower attachments (ZCL and MS), creating the puffy appearance of malar bags.

In some cases, malar bags are congenital (you’re born with them- I’ve noticed my baby has them, sorry Penny!) and involve extra fat under the skin.

In others, they’re acquired (develop over time) due to factors like fluid retention, fat shifting, or changes in skin elasticity.

In short: malar bags are a mix of sagging skin, weakened ligaments, fluid buildup, and sometimes fat, all pooling in the area below the eyes.

Malar bags = oedema/mounds/festoons - which do you have? (lucky dip)

‘Malar bags’ is the terminology used to describe the broad anatomical problem that encompasses malar oedema, mounds, and festoons

Malar oedema

This is what I had. It is fluid buildup over the cheekbones (malar eminence). It can feel soft and squishy, and sometimes pressing on it leaves a temporary dent. The swelling might look slightly bluish or purple. It can get worse after eating salty foods or waking up in the morning.

Causes include:

• Health issues like heart, kidney, or liver problems.

• Low thyroid function.

• Allergies.

• Side effects from surgery or cosmetic injections around the eyes.

Malar Mounds

These are permanent, puffy bulges in the area below the eyes (pre-zygomatic space). They’re caused by extra fat, muscle, or sagging tissue. Some people are born with them (congenital), and they might run in families. If someone has had puffiness since they were a kid, it’s likely malar mounds. I have started to develop these too. Fun.

Festoons

Festoons are like sagging "hammocks" of loose skin and muscle under the eyes. They often happen as people age and can be a more advanced version of malar edema or mounds. Festoons may also trap fluid or have droopy fat inside them. They’re most common in older adults and are a sign of long-term changes in the skin and tissues.

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In short:

• Malar oedema = temporary fluid build up.

• Malar mounds = permanent puffiness (sometimes from birth).

• Festoons = sagging skin and muscle, usually in older adults.

All three involve swelling or sagging in the cheek/eye area, but they differ in causes and how long they stick around!

Why do they happen? Well, it’s a mix of things:

- Fluid build up: Sometimes, your lymphatic system (the body’s drainage system) gets lazy or blocked, and fluid decides to hang out where it shouldn’t—like under your eyes. Allergies can worsen this.

- Ageing: As we get older, the skin and muscles around our eyes lose their elasticity, creating little pockets where fluid and tissue sagging can collect.

- Injectable mishaps: In my case, injections messed with the delicate balance of my facial muscles and lymphatic drainage. Basically, it told my face, “Hey, let’s just pool all the fluid here because your muscle is no longer contracting and pumping the fluid away towards the lymph node.” Not cool.

Treatments that stop the movement of the orbicularis oculi muscle (the big sheet like structure around the eyes responsible for ‘crows feet’), impede this lymphatic system draining fluid from the inner to outer eye, causing lymph to pool. Thanks, lymphatic system. Products used in volume restoration can also exacerbate fluid build up either through compression of the lymphatics or attracting more fluid owing to the substance these products are made of.

What Can You Do About Them?

Okay, so you’ve got these under-eye squatters. What now?

- Lymphatic drainage massage like Gua Sha: essentially massaging and rubbing your face to encourage fluid to GTFO. It’s like a relaxing facial, but you’re the aesthetician. The problem is the results are usually temporary. Nonetheless some people find these techniques beneficial.

- Caffeine creams and serums: These can temporarily constrict leaky blood vessels and reduce puffiness. Like a targeted coffee for your under eyes to wake up. Variable, sometimes ineffective.

- Injectables or lasers: If you’re feeling fancy, these can help smooth things out or restore volume loss exacerbating the issue. I can’t speak to these too much due to regulatory. Just make sure you go to someone who knows what they’re doing, understands the complex anatomy behind these bags—because as mentioned, it can also be the culprit for some. Disguising can temporarily improve things but in the long run exacerbate the issue so get a good thorough consultation.

- Surgery: For the truly committed, there’s lower blepharoplasty or direct excision of the tissue, which is basically a fancy way of saying “let’s cut out the puffiness.” It’s the nuclear option, but hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

- Concealer: The MVP of my wedding day. When in doubt, slap on some makeup and pray no one notices. Peach/orange/red tones disguise the potential blue/purple tones if there’s fluid here.

The moral of the story? Sometimes, the quest for perfection leads to puffy pitfalls. And that’s okay. My wedding photos aren’t flawless, but they’re real. I look genuinely happy, bags and all. And honestly, most people don’t notice them. Plus, now I have a great story to tell to my patients when I am trying to tell them their eye wrinkles (happy crinkles I call them) are beautiful and not to touch them.

So, if you’re out there Googling “how to fix under-eye bags” at 2 a.m., take a deep breath. You’re not alone. And hey, if all else fails, there’s always Photoshop (I know I’m probably not meant to say that but hey).

Yours in puffy solidarity,

Dr Prasanthi

P.S. If you’ve got your own under-eye saga, hit leave a comment. Misery loves company, and so does my Substack.

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I remember the time I was walking to school with my grandmother and a boisterous boy I didn’t even know at my primary school yelled out “EWWWWW, Brown Chocolate!”. It was one of my first memories of otherness, a new sensation that would come at unpredictable cadences in my life. My grandmother sassily shot back, “Well if she’s brown chocolate you’re white chocolate!”. The boy paused and continued running down the oval towards the brick laden buildings. Is chocolate so bad? I thought.

I remember my best friend in Year 1 Zuhal and I, she was a beautiful brunette Turkish girl. And we both liked the same boy Jarrod (who happened to be Mrs Hooligan’s son, a teacher). At lunch he played eenie meenie miny mo to decide which one of us he would rather be with. He landed on me but then decided on Zuhal anyway. Even when the odds were meant to be even and 50/50, they really never were, I learnt.

I remember tailing behind my mum at the Bonnyrigg shops after attending prayer as we did every Sunday. She forced me to get out of the car but I was in a traditional Indian Salwar Kameez. “No!” I protested, tears rolled down my cheeks. I will sit in this goddamn Mitsubishi. But it was 35 degrees outside. “Stop being ridiculous and get out now!” she yelled in that voice that means business. I hid between racks of clothes in Big W. I felt as though every pair of eyes were staring at me, judging me, my weird outfit. ‘Hurry up mum’ I thought to myself. I ran back to the car, strapped my seatbelt on and relaxed as the engine hummed up into action and we left the car park.

In Year 6 we went to a sleepover at one of my friends houses in the North Shore. I went to a primary school here and as one would expect the demographic was not particularly diverse (though the school’s teachings were). A daring game of spin the bottle landed on the popular boy in my year. He spun the bottle again hoping it would land on my beautiful blonde haired blue eyed best friend Jasmine from Manly.

In Year 7 I liked a boy called Luke. We ‘dated’ for a day or two, held hands. He was a dreamy country boy with surfer blonde hair and blue eyes. The next day he stopped talking to me, there were people in his ear you see, because being with a girl with long black hair bushy brows and a fine haired moustache was not it. He was holding hands with Diana. She was blonde, thin, blue eyed. As goddess as they come. They looked like Ken and Barbie. They sang the jingle to Enjo as I walked by and laughed.

I remember pleading with my mum to let me remove the hair on my legs. It didn't matter she said. But it was all I could see, magnified and straggling across my shins, my forearms, my face. She bought me a Silkymit from the shops, I desperately sandpapered my long hairs off my legs in circular motions. It hurt. Throughout the years I stole my dad’s disposable Gillete Razors to maintain my hair free legs, hoping he didn’t notice them periodically go missing(I think he did and very kindly let it slide). One day before we went to a Bledisloe cup match in Year 12, I decided to shave off my little moustache. I had had enough. I had never seen my upper lip so smooth. I felt so free and beautiful. My mother yelled at me when I went downstairs. But I didn’t care because for a fleeting moment this was all I wanted.

I remember when the year 12 formal rolled around. My boyfriend had broken up with me a few months prior, he was having too much fun in university you see. I longingly watched on the lawn as girls' wrists were adorned with beautiful corsages. Wouldn’t that be nice, I pondered. I caught the coach to the venue with my best friend Romain, pulling away from the school entrance is everyone else excitedly got into their stretch limousines.

I remember when my ex boyfriend told me Indian girls were the ugliest ethnicity in the world. He told me how much more beautiful white women looked in a saree. ‘Rachel looks so hot in a saree’. What about me? I thought.

I remember when my daughter was born. I cried tears of joy. How was something so perfect inside of me all this time. I stared at her beautiful pink lips, her rosy cheeks, her little rolls, her mongolian spot above her little bottom. I held her so tight.

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It’s 5 am in the morning, I am sipping a terrible cup of instant coffee, my dogs Benji and Frankie are curled up beside me and I feel a sense of relief and gratitude. These seemingly benign fleeting moments once felt like weights pulling me under—sitting here on an ordinary morning, I realise how far I’ve come. Perhaps it is a cruel rite of passage for young girls of colour to go through experiences like these. The little girl who hid between racks of clothes, the teenager who sandpapered her legs raw, the young woman who questioned her worth in the face of careless words—she’s still a part of me, but she’s much stronger now. She’s learnt that belonging isn’t about fitting into someone else’s mould; it’s about creating a space where you can exist, unapologetically, as yourself, authentically. She would love seeing me now.

I think about my daughter, her tiny hands clutching mine, her wide eyes taking in the world. I want her to grow up knowing that her worth isn’t tied to the colour of her skin, the texture or length of her hair, or the shape of her body. I want her to know that she is enough, just as she is. And maybe, in teaching her that, I’m finally teaching myself, too.

These moments of otherness I endured often in silence, they’ve shaped me. Taught me resilience, empathy, and the importance of creating spaces where people like me, like us, can feel seen and heard. Because belonging isn’t just a feeling; it’s a foundational human need and right. It’s what allows us to to thrive.

So, am I pretty enough? The question doesn’t taunt me the way it once did. Pretty is subjective, fleeting, and often tied to someone else’s gaze. Being pretty isn’t something I strive for anymore. But belonging—that’s something deeper. That’s something I can build, something I can give to myself and to others.

Here’s to belonging—to ourselves, and to the stories we’re still writing. Maslow was onto something. And healing is a continuum that never stops.

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