Genderless Skincare – Skin is Skin

by | Holistic Living, Print Articles, Spring 2022

A peek inside any heterosexual couple’s bathroom cabinet will typically reveal the fact that skincare is either for men or it’s for women, not both and certainly not for anyone who finds themselves between these two binaries.

The skincare industry, being the multi-billion-dollar business that it is, is full of advice. If you have skin, you’ll have been fed a whole lot of information and opinions from the get-go and much of it reveals just how misguided the power behind the machine can be.

The truth, in fact, is far simpler: Skin is skin. That’s all. It doesn’t have a gender, nor an ethnicity, it seeks solutions specific to that person’s skin condition. Effectively this means that the lilac-hued tube of moisturiser with a subtle floral scent and the down-to-business black tube with the lemony fresh scent are mere marketing tools.

Recently, the world has heeded a new consciousness around genderless skincare and the brands leading by example have stripped away any notion of products being geared toward men or women specifically, aiming rather to treat drier skins, oilier skins, pigmented skins, congested skins and so on. This is a new crop of skincare that caters to the full gender spectrum; a bit like epicene fragrances, these cleansers, moisturisers and serums don’t discriminate.

There’s also been a levelling out of interest in skincare between the genders, doing away with the notion that it’s women who have majority of the market.

“The way you age is exactly the same. Your collagen and elastin fibres are going destruct as you get older; the contours of your skin will decrease and whether you’re a Fitzpatrick 1 or 6 (scale of skins complexion and response to the sun), anti-ageing ingredients are the same,” notes Dr Judey Pretorius, a leading biomedical scientist and founder of Biomedical Emporium. For her, it comes down to the quality of skincare products, how they’re formulated and the expertise of those creating them, rather than targeting an exclusively male or female audience.

Dr Judey has created the first tertiary-tissue protective peptide technology, a protein in all her products that encourages faster cell-division, because, despite what you’ve heard, optimal skincare is deeper than skin-deep, it happens at a cellular and molecular level.

Odyssey asked Dr Judey about the purity of her products and raw materials used:

“The purity of ingredients is that there are no ‘related substances’ detected. What this means is that every ingredient that we put into our product goes through strenuous purification steps in order for the ingredients to work harmoniously on the skin and also be hypoallergenic, thus safe for even small children to use. The ingredients are, in fact, organic – but in an extremely purified state,” says Dr Judey

“If you take out your ID card, 80 per cent of what you see is skin. You’re identified by it, it’s your largest and most public organ as well as your most dynamic and it’s directly linked to your self-esteem. So, how you take care of your skin is crucial,” she says. This, from a doctor who teaches skin histology, biochemistry, cosmetic chemistry, tissue engineering and medical aesthetics.

Ultimately, this is where premium skincare is at; it’s cosmeceutical, science-backed and solutions-driven, rather than demographically based and surface level. Protecting the uniqueness of human skin is the new gold standard.

For more information about Biomedical Emporium https://www.biomedicalemporium.com/