Ever tried a promising skincare product that just didn’t work for your skin? Before dishing out money on good copywriting and validating all one’s purchases with research-backed testimonies, it's important to recognize that your skin concerns are a factor of many things, including ethnicity. By using the phrase ‘ethnicity’, I am taking into consideration not only one’s genetic influences but also the cultural factors and environmental context which collectively contribute to skin health. 

But why do we need to know these differences? 

For one, summarising the research on this topic may help shed some light on the intricacies and triggers specific to your skin. It is worth knowing that much of the research on even the most widely studied skincare ingredients have often been carried out only on Caucasian/white skin. Due to structural differences in skin and significant environmental differences across cultures, the effect of these studies would most likely vary for Asian, Continental Indian, Hispanic, African skin, and more.

Knowing how your ethnicity interacts with your skin’s performance can help you make more informed purchases. Ultimately, the goal is to avoid falling prey to ‘miracle marketing’, a term I have coined just now. ‘Miracle marketing’ describes those products whose ingredients are sub-standard/not studied enough/irrelevant to the concern they claim solve while the product itself sells like hotcakes as a result of clever advertising.

So what do we know about skin concerns and ethnicity at this point?

Before getting into this, it's worth noting that the studies have their limitations. In some cases, there were inconsistent findings across multiple trials. Another limitation of the summary is that these studies can differ when it comes to categorizing skin based on ethnicities. Finally, the majority of the studies I found were only done on female skin for some reason.