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STAYING ON TOPIC

I Now Get Why Topicals' Skin-Care Products Sold Out in 48 Hours

I just found my new favorite treatment for my eczema — and scored another serum to fade my dark marks.
Tube of Topicals Faded on a multihue pink background
Courtesy of brand/Illustration by Clara Hendler

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TL;DR:

What It Is: A gel-serum and a gel-cream created by GenZers
What It Does: Faded reduces the appearance of hyperpigmentation and Like Butter soothes dry skin
Who It's For: Anyone who experiences hyperpigmentation and dark spots

It's been just around two months since Topicals made its debut on the skin-care scene. Within 48 hours of its launch on nordstrom.com, the retailer was sold out of products from the burgeoning brand — whose founders both happen to be under 25 years old.

Olamide Olowe, 23, and Claudia Teng, 24, set out to create a skin-care brand to give folks with hyperpigmentation and eczema some fresh, new options. They created two products: Faded ($36), a gel-serum that helps treat hyperpigmentation, and Like Butter ($32), a moisturizer that can also be used as a mask for dry, flaky, eczema-prone skin.

Though I credit my father's genes for my relatively good complexion, as a darker-skinned woman, hyperpigmentation is pretty much inevitable. "Hyperpigmentation is caused by overproduction and irregular distribution of melanin in the skin," Nancy Samolitis, a board-certified dermatologist in Long Beach, California previously told Allure

Now, there are a few factors that can trigger hyperpigmentation, but skin inflammation and trauma, like getting a pimple, is definitely one. It's also the one that most often causes me to get dark marks. It doesn't happen with every pimple I get, but it definitely makes its unwelcome cameos, conveniently (*insert eye roll here*) after one or a few older dark marks have already faded.

Courtesy of Brands

By the time I received my tube of Faded, two new spots of hyperpigmentation appeared on the right side of my face — just in time! So I headed to the bathroom, cleansed and toned my face, added a moisturizing serum, then squeezed a tiny, smaller-than-a-pea-sized amount of Faded onto my finger then rubbed it into my dark spots. It has a thin consistency, but I wouldn't say that it absorbs quickly. It takes quite a bit of rubbing in for the product to completely disappear into my skin.

Now, if you like your skin-care products to smell nice, this isn't for you. This stuff smells slightly of sulfur and, call me weird, but I kind of… like that. It makes me feel as if the product is really working as opposed to just looking pretty on a counter (though, it does that, too). One of its key ingredients is tranexamic acid, which is meant to keep your melanocytes — the cells that produce melanin in your skin — from acting up and creating more pigmentation in the areas where you have dark marks. "Studies have shown that tranexamic acid slows melanin synthesis," says New York City-based board-certified dermatologist Hadley King. "Using either oral or topical tranexamic acid can decrease melasma-associated skin pigmentation."

Kojic acid, an ingredient that works to stop melanin production, acts as a mild exfoliant, and melatonin works to slow down the stimulation of your melanocytes. After about three weeks of using it, I started to see my scars fade, though I wasn't able to determine if it was particularly because of the product or because of the time that had passed. And I also got more dark marks in the meantime because, like I said, new ones like to pop up as the old ones disappear. Don't worry — the new dark marks weren't from Faded. They were from me picking at my face — which I absolutely do not recommend doing!

Courtesy Jihan Forbes

Digital assistant beauty editor Angela Trakoshis swears by Faded, though. "[Dark spots] will stay on my skin for weeks (longer than the damn pimple) — they're not even paying rent! Faded brings down the darkness without lightening my skin, so it works not only for my olive skin tone but for all skin tones."

I think of the two, Like Butter is my favorite. I don't have eczema on my face, but it lives on my hands. It sucks. The type of eczema I have is dyshidrotic eczema, which manifests itself as some super itchy, fluid-filled bubbles that pop up right underneath my skin. "Dyshidrotic eczema is classically characterized by small, tense, clear fluid-filled blisters on the surfaces of the palms and soles and the sides of the fingers and toes," confirms King. "These blisters can appear 'deep-seated' or 'tapioca-like' due to the thickness of the skin in these areas."

They itch like crazy, for me, it's typically triggered when I use certain kinds of soaps, especially if they contain citrus oil. If I get citrus juice on my hands (cutting lemons can be painful, but delicious afterward), or if I wash my hands a lot. "Flares can be caused by stress. Flares can also be linked to seasonal allergies and to hot, humid weather," adds King. "Specific substances may also be triggers, but it's also important to distinguish this from allergic contact dermatitis."

Since we're in a pandemic — yep, I'm washing my hands a lot, and my eczema flares up every once in a while. It seems like whenever I feel like I have it under control, it comes back to torture me. As it heals, it flakes off, and sometimes my hands can get so dry they crack again, and then they bleed and sting when I wash my hands — it's a mess. And it's gross to describe, but it's reality! I'm always on the hunt for highly moisturizing hand creams or thick oils that penetrate quickly so that I can avoid that kind of situation.

Courtesy of brand

My only issue with Like Butter is that it doesn't come in a bigger size. If I could get a 16-ounce tube of this stuff that would be, as the YouTube girls say, "bomb." It's not a thick consistency at all — it kind of reminds me of a gel-cream, but it is extremely moisturizing. My hands aren't dry again five minutes after using it. It absorbs quickly and it doesn't leave grease marks on my laptop after I put it on.

The products are good on their own, and they come in cute packaging to boot. Let me put it this way: My bedside table has a tube of my doctor-prescribed ointment for my eczema and that packaging is… clinical! So supplementing the medical-grade shit with something that comes in a pretty tube makes my jar of bedside essentials look a little cuter.

For a brand-new company started by two Gen Zers, this millennial is overall impressed. You can pick up Topicals for $32 and $36 at the brand's website right now.