Decolonize How We Treat Our Melanated Skin

The Industry Doesn’t Understand Us Because It Wasn’t Built for Us

Let’s be honest. The skincare industry was not designed with melanated bodies in mind.

From ingredients that disrupt hormonal balance to protocols that ignore how melanin responds to trauma, inflammation, and healing, we have been handed systems that do not reflect our biology or our lived realities. Treatments are labeled “universal,” yet tested on skin that lacks melanin altogether.

Retinoids, acids, tyrosinase inhibitors, marketed as miracle solutions, often become triggers for melanated skin, provoking inflammation, photosensitivity, and long-term damage. Not because our skin is “difficult,” but because the science never centered us.

The result is predictable: harm framed as progress.