We treat not just the skin as bad, but the person under it. The problem is even though drinking water and using SPF and getting sleep helps, some people are just more prone to cystic acne or seborrheic dermatitis, the way others are prone to thick hair or small feet. But that hasn’t stopped us from moralizing any of those qualities and seeking to “improve” our own condition with anything available. And those resources typically become more available the more money you have.
Skin is at once an organ and a presentation, an issue of medicine and of cosmetics. So *insert bad high school essay voice* since the dawn of time, humankind has sought to have “good” skin. Whether it was Romans using a paste made with barley flour, Indians changing their diets based on ayurvedic practices, or the French covering up smallpox scars and sores caused by the lead in their face makeup with beauty patches, we tried to either get rid of perceived blemishes or cover them up.
