Truth vs. Human Desire and Beauty Standards

In 2025, I think the “Make America Healthy Again” movement will have lasting effects on the clean beauty industry. While I personally don’t align with all aspects of this movement, I do think some of it will help us continue the conversation about what’s truly healthy for human skin.

In our corner of the skincare industry, we’re holistically minded. We focus on the entire body and always ask ourselves, “But is it healthy?” before selecting an ingredient to create a topically applied product.

I think we’ll see more greenwashing in 2025 as the trend of natural, health-focused marketing tries to capitalize on consumer insecurities and misinformation, with the spotlight focused on the MAHA movement. 

For my company, truth-telling is part of our very essence. I see us, as leaders, able to share our values through the products we create with even more excitement because more and more people are looking for the real thing.

I think when it comes to ingredients, you’ll see a focus on actives. I think of actives like the fast food of the skincare industry. They offer quick results but usually to the detriment of your overall health. 

It’s interesting to me that as a society we’re having such a large conversation about processed foods but not about processed skincare. In 2025, I think we’ll finally start to have that conversation as health comes into the mainstream. I believe natural actives—like strong antioxidants and acids such as glycolic, mandelic, and lactic—will take center stage in the natural skincare space. Because of their minimal processing 

For aging skin, I think you’ll see more retinol alternatives like our Well Serum. We were first to market last year, and this year I expect other companies to follow suit, trying their hand at similar products. It’s the sweet spot: an active that’s wildly effective but also healthy for the skin, working slowly to build up skin rather than breaking it down.

At Botnia, we’re going to think deeply about how we want to approach skin that has scarring or damage—either from acne or the sun—and find protective ways to aid in barrier repair, cellular health, and protection. 

For the wider industry, I think more estheticians will put down the scalpel and move away from services that create an imbalance in the epidermis, like dermaplaning and medium-depth peels. Barrier and biome health will be part of the healing conversation. In 2025, I see more estheticians aligning themselves with human health and gentle, restorative services. Clients will walk out of facials with better-looking and better-feeling skin than they walked in with, rather than experiencing days of downtime and damage repair as a result of having a facial. 

I also see more services for menopause and perimenopause as the conversation of what it means to age in 2025 is more readily talked about in the beauty world. Changes in the body are met with cryotherapy, encouraging cellular health through massage, and skincare services for those going through hormonal shifts.

I see our industry embracing healthy skincare and using the term “health” as a way of describing its mission. For us, saying something like “Botnia healthy skincare” will be a differentiator in the market, so you, the consumer, know how to determine skincare products based on the health of the body. For so many years, the buzzword was “ritual.” Now, I see the word becoming “health.” As we live in black and white polarizing times. 

In essence, 2025 will be a year where the industry grapples with truth, health, and genuine care for the human body—where shortcuts and quick fixes feel increasingly hollow.---- And if we are successful an honest, skin-forward approach emerges as the guiding light for truly healthy skincare.