Not to brag, but I went most of my life without a single pimple. I still remember the day I discovered moisturizer wasn’t optional, when I suddenly found myself sharing a roof with three girls and their aggressively pink make up pouches. Imagine my shock when the skincare-obsessed of the group (still my most trusted reviewer) pulled out an azelaic acid serum. Fast forward a couple of years later, and azelaic acid proudly sits on the very top of my 2 AM TikTok searches. Guess who had hormonal acne crash the party.
But before serums took over my for you page, Alix Earle did. Get ready with me, get unready with me, outfit of the night, and chit-chat videos made her early content. Then came the bare-faced selfies. And suddenly, she was basically unavoidable. Ten times bigger, almost overnight. Next up, “leaving the house with nothing but acne” challenges and brutally open convos about… literally everything. Skin, accutane, life, you name it. Years passed and that girl went mega, her face was everywhere. The Super Bowl, Dancing With The Stars, late night shows, magazines, billboards, red carpets, even giant puzzles on NYC walls. All part of peak marketing, especially the puzzles.
A few days before the official launch, the no-context account @wtfisalixdoing (which turned out to be @realeactives), had already hundreds of thousands of followers connecting dots and spiraling. Big white boxes started showing up at people’s doors. Inside, a cryptic note and a giant puzzle piece, sitting on a passcode-locked suitcase. Honestly, the tease was cinematic. But by March 25, the secret was finally out.
Earle had been working closely with Dr. Kiran Mian, who is no stranger to us, or her 8 million followers, on an acne-first skincare brand. The first four products go by the names of get bare, a melting cleansing balm that shaves out and weirdly reminds me of flowers, go deep, a mandelic acid serum you tap instead of squeeze, pore power, an exfoliating gel cleanser, and dew more, a barrier-boosting moisturizer. After Rhode, skincare packaging will never look the same. Earle admitted she was done with the very unsexy, pharma-style products everyone shoves behind closed bathroom doors.
“Hot and acne can be used in the same sentence,” she wrote on Instagram. Which, given the very bare campaign photos as much as the unedited ones, is a big part of the line’s message. Between all the digital tweaks and fake lighting, we’re starting to forget skin actually has… skin. Texture, imperfections, and, you know, parts. Who knew breakouts and marks look this good far away from concealer.
