White Faces at the Top, Black Faces in the Ads: A Skin Script Critique

This piece is about Skin Script, but it could be about nearly any major skincare line. It’s about who smiles for the ads, and who signs the checks.

It’s always the same pattern. A company claims to be “for us,” because our faces show up in the marketing reels, in the smiling esthetician demos, in the endless carousel of Black and Brown models. But peel back the label, and what you find is predictable: ownership, wealth, and power flowing into white hands.

Our faces show up in the ads, but the profits flow into white hands.

Skin Script is no exception. Their marketing strategy leans heavily on Black estheticians, the 32-pearl-tooth smiles telling other Black estheticians to become “Skin Script Pros.” We are positioned as the loyal salesforce, forever the affiliate, forever the rep, forever the educator convincing our community to buy in. But never - never - the person who reaps the benefits of ownership or sets the strategic direction of the company.

We are positioned as the loyal salesforce, forever the rep, never the owner.

Their founder, Lisa VanBockern, entered this industry at 40, pivoting from a corporate career into esthetics. By her own account, she was frustrated with companies who wouldn’t let her “cherry-pick” her favorite formulas, so she called up a chemist and built her own line in 2006. This is the story often told with admiration: a white woman “discovered her passion” and turned it into a thriving brand. But let’s pause here.

Would a Black esthetician have had the same access? Could a Haitian, Nigerian, or Afro-Latina esthetician have simply called up a chemist, launched a national distribution line, and been met with open doors to trade shows, schools, and professional networks? History, and the daily barriers Black estheticians face, says no.

Access is the difference between a white woman’s passion project and a Black woman’s impossibility.

Representation as Labor, Not Power

The brilliance of Skin Script’s model is that it outsources cultural credibility. Black estheticians lend their image, their trust, and their community reach. They make the company look diverse, approachable, and inclusive. Yet they remain outside the circle of decision-making. Their labor is visibility; their role is recruitment.

Our labor is visibility. Our role is recruitment. But power never leaves their circle.

When those same estheticians push Skin Script to their peers, they are not building equity. They are building Lisa’s bottom line. They are building wealth for a brand whose core ownership is not ours, whose profits will never cycle back into Black neighborhoods, Black training schools, or Black-owned spas.

Every sale builds Lisa’s bottom line, not Black equity.

The Deeper Problem

This isn’t just about one company. It’s about the entire esthetics industry structure, where Black and Brown estheticians are positioned as salespeople for lines created by white women who had access to chemists, labs, and capital. We become the face of their inclusivity campaigns while our own ventures struggle for recognition and funding.

We are the face of their inclusivity while our own ventures fight to breathe.

It’s about the illusion of belonging. If the textbooks, trade shows, and product shelves keep telling us, “This industry is for you,” while erasing Black ownership, then our participation is reduced to labor, not leadership.

Belonging without ownership is just another illusion.

Why I Refuse

So, when I look at Skin Script, I see the truth behind the smiling estheticians on Instagram. I see a community being leveraged. I see a white woman who built her empire not on melanin-safe formulations or ancestral skin science, but on access, privilege, and positioning. And I ask myself: why would I help a white woman get richer on the back of my community?

I refuse to help a white woman get richer on the back of my community.

We deserve more than representation without power. We deserve to stop being the salesforce for someone else’s legacy, and start being the architects of our own.

We are not the salesforce of someone else’s legacy; we are the architects of our own.

Why We Need to Build Our Own: When Diversity Is Just Tokenism

Scroll through the marketing of most skincare lines and you’ll notice a pattern: Black and Brown estheticians smiling in white coats, clients of color glowing in before-and-afters, and captions about “inclusivity” and “skin for all.”

But when you trace the money and the power, the picture changes.

Trace the money and the power, and the picture always changes.

Yet behind the curtain, the leadership team tells a different story:

• Founder: Lisa VanBockern - white woman, corporate background turned spa owner turned product founder.

• CFO: Phil Papadantonakis - white man.

• Director of Education: Michael Shuey -white man.

• Business Operations: Kelly O’Halleran - white woman.

Behind the curtain, diversity disappears.

Diversity as Marketing Mask

This is what tokenism looks like in the beauty industry. It’s not about who appears in the ads. It’s about who owns, who profits, and who holds the power. Diversity, when reduced to marketing images, is a tool, not a transformation.

Diversity without ownership is not liberation, it’s a marketing mask.

The Call to Build Our Own

That’s why we must build our own. Representation without ownership is exploitation. Our communities deserve more than to be the borrowed faces of someone else’s wealth. We deserve to own the brands, shape the education, and decide the science that centers melanin safely and truthfully.

Until then, every smile in the ad is just a mask, covering up the fact that the power still belongs to someone else.

Representation without ownership is exploitation.

A Lesson From the Bahamas

On my way back to the U.S., I stopped in a shop at the Bahamas airport. A young Black Bahamian woman stood confidently behind the counter of a pretty souvenir store. I thought: Finally, I can support a Black-owned business. I made my purchase believing it was hers.

But when I returned home and looked online, I discovered the shop was owned by a white woman who ran multiple stores across the island, each staffed by young Black Bahamians to give the illusion of ownership.

Our faces create the illusion of ownership while white hands collect the profit.

That is extraction. Our presence is the storefront, our trust the selling point, but ownership never rests with us.

And that is the exact same model I see in skincare.

Until we build our own, we will always be the storefront, never the shareholder.

Her Story, My Story

Lisa VanBockern tells the story of leaving a corporate career at 40, going back to school for esthetics, and building a skincare brand out of passion. That story is supposed to be inspiring. But it is also my story.

I am an attorney with 14 years of experience who returned to school to build something different, not just a business, but a legacy. A path that honors my melanin and reclaims what this industry keeps trying to erase.

But do I dare believe my story will be met with the same open doors as Lisa’s? That I will be celebrated in the same way for “discovering my passion”? That I will be granted chemists, capital, and distribution channels simply because I dared to dream?

Her positioning as a white woman who wanted to see more diversity was enough to build her empire. My positioning as a Black woman who wants to reclaim what was erased will not be met with the same applause.

And that is the difference.