Before Neurocosmetics Became a Beauty Buzzword
I’m pissed. There. I said it.
For ten years, I’ve been talking about neurocosmetics, the skin-brain connection, and the relationship between our skin, senses and nervous system. I built Face It Skin around these ideas when most people had never even heard the word neurocosmetics.
Now suddenly, everyone is talking about it.
Major skincare companies are incorporating (using the word) "neurocosmetics" into their marketing, education and product storytelling when they had no idea what it was when they launched their lines years before they even knew about neurocosmetics!
What I spent years researching, developing products around and educating clients about is becoming one of skincare’s newest buzzwords now.
And as the founder of a small independent PNW skincare company, watching big brands step into this space as though it’s something new?
Yeah. I’m pissed.
Luxury is no longer only about what a product costs. It is about the quality of the ingredients, the sophistication of the texture, the elegance of the fragrance and it's origin, the intelligence of the formulation, the integrity of what is left out and the emotional experience it creates. I knew this years ago when doing makeup for Bobbi Brown.
My history.
Before neurocosmetics was a beauty buzzword...I began building Face It Skin around these ideas in 2016, but my interest in the connection between the brain, nervous system and skin started long before that.
In my early 20s, I was a psychology major in college while working for the cosmetic line Color Me Beautiful—years before my career with Bobbi Brown. I didn't finish my psychology degree, but what I learned about the brain, nervous system, how our skin is connected and how our bodies communicate through nerve endings stayed with me.
Years later, working professionally with skin and cosmetics, those two worlds started coming together.
I kept coming back to something that fascinated me: we don't experience a skincare product through our skin alone.
We experience its texture.
Its aroma.
The sensation of applying it.
The ritual.
And ultimately, how that entire experience makes us feel while improving our skin. And ultimately, how that experience makes us feel. That curiosity became Luxe Serum, the first Face It Skin product, that eventually helped shape an entire neurocosmetic skincare philosophy. I wasn't following a beauty trend. There wasn't a trend to follow!
Before the Beauty Industry Started Talking About It
For years, I have talked about the skin-brain connection and the idea that skincare should consider more than what is happening on the surface of the skin.
In February 2024, I published an article called “Skin + Senses + Brain Connection = Neurocosmetics.” This is one among many. I wrote it for Skin INC Magazine and so they did a live interview with me.
By February 2025, Face It Skin was publicly described as a neurocosmetics-based collection in national press and prestigious magazines globally. And the story started years before either of those dates.
I was publicly speaking about it at trade shows, doing podcast interviews while working my regular gig as an esthetician (as I still do today) helping women get better skin while feeling better.
Today, much larger well known professional skincare companies are beginning to use the language of neurocosmetics in their own education and marketing. As a small independent founder, it is strange to watch terminology and ideas you've spent years educating people about suddenly become fashionable when much larger companies begin talking about them.
But it also tells me something important: I was paying attention to the right thing.
I Don't Own the Word. I Do Own My History.
“Neurocosmetics” isn't a word I invented, and I don't claim ownership of the scientific field.
What I can claim is my own timeline.
I can show when I started developing Face It Skin.
I can show what I've written.
I can show what I've taught.
I can show what I've spoken about at trade shows.
I can show the products I've created and the philosophy behind them. And I can show that Face It Skin was talking about the skin-brain connection long before neurocosmetics became fashionable skincare language. They cannot. They just started using the next buzzword.
There is an important difference between adopting a trend and building your company around an idea before the trend arrives. Face It Skin belongs to the second story.
Neurocosmetics Is Bigger Than a Marketing Word
What concerns me most about any emerging skincare trend is what happens when meaningful science gets reduced to marketing language. Neurocosmetics isn't simply putting the word “neuro” on a product. For ten years I've been developing products not only for our skin but for our senses which affects our mood and all are regulated by the brain! And for gods sake they certainly didn't build their skincare line around it when their line was out years before neurocosmetics.
For Face It Skin, it has always been part of a larger philosophy: skin is connected to the person living inside it.
Stress matters.
Sleep matters.
Nutrition matters.
Digestion matters.
The nervous system matters.
The skin barrier matters.
And the sensory experience of caring for yourself matters. That philosophy has continued to evolve as science evolves — and it is one reason Face It Skin today talks about Beauty Wellness, not simply beauty. We aren't treating skin as an isolated surface.
We are looking at the whole person.
Ten Years Later, The Industry Is Catching Up
I am actually glad neurocosmetics is finally receiving attention. More research, education and conversation around the skin-brain connection can ultimately move skincare forward.
But as the word begins appearing everywhere, I want the history of this little independent Oregon based skincare company to be part of the conversation.
Face It Skin didn't discover neurocosmetics because it became popular.
I built around the concept before most people had ever heard the word.
And ten years later, I'm still here — formulating, treating skin, educating clients and continuing to explore where skin health, neuroscience and whole-body wellness meet.
Sometimes being small means you don't have the biggest microphone...
It doesn't mean you weren't there first. We definitely were.
Genelle Holub
Founder, Face It Skin
Licensed Esthetician | Certified Nutrition Esthetician | Pro Makeup Artist
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