If you’ve spent time trying to navigate skin care during pregnancy or postpartum, you know the feeling. You take a product you’ve been using for years, turn it around, and suddenly you’re in a spiral. Is this safe? Should I change? What does “clean” even mean and why does everything I own obviously not qualify?
Dr. Aegean Chanboard-certified dermatologist and mother of three, has a lot to say about this coil. Most of it is reassuring and frankly, super refreshing. She’s spent years watching the fear-inducing machine at work on her own patients, her friends on the playground, and herself, during a decade of cycling through pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Her conclusion: the skin care industry is profiting from maternal anxiety, the “clean beauty” movement is largely unscientific, and most of us are doing far more to our skin than necessary.
Also, for what it’s worth, he’s done something about it. More than nineher new minimalist skincare line created specifically for the arc of motherhood launches this month. But that’s almost beside the point. What Dr. Chan really wants to talk about is why your bathroom cabinetry got so complicated in the first place — and why the solution is probably simpler and cheaper than anything out there right now.
Because motherhood is the time when most of us overcomplicate skin care
I will be transparent. I’ve been obsessed with skincare for most of my adult life. I’ve cycled through serums and acids and elaborate routines with the dedication of someone training for a sport. Then came a bout of eczema, some really worrying eyelid conditions and a slow reckoning that I was doing too much. My skin was not appreciative of my effort. He was burning with it.
So when Dr. Chan and I sat down to talk, I was already receptive to her argument. What I wasn’t fully prepared for was how strong her criticism of the wider industry would be.
Skin care, she says, has become homework. “I have a lot of friends, a lot of moms on the playground, who tell me they’ve had ‘fix my routine’ on their to-do list for six months because it seems like too much to dip.” The irony is that most of what was added to this list wasn’t necessary to begin with.
The “pure beauty” problem that no one is really talking about
Dr. Chan is particularly singled out for the fear-mongering that has come to define the beauty and skin care industry, and particularly how it plays out for pregnant and postpartum women, who are already primed for anxiety about what they wear and on their bodies.
“Fear-mongering in skincare has become standard,” she says. “Scaring your consumer has become kind of the golden rule. And the label ‘clean beauty’ – it means literally nothing. There’s no data to suggest that clean or natural products are any safer than well-formulated conventional ones. It’s the dose that matters. But brands have learned that fear sells.”
It has a particular focus on parabens, which have been so thoroughly demonized that “paraben-free” has become an industry-wide selling point. Science, he says, does not support fear. The family of parabens commonly used in the formulation are among the safest preservatives available, with low allergy rates and a long history. “They’ve won the Dermatologist Non-Contact Allergen of the Year award multiple times,” he says. “As in – this is a great preservative, stop trading it.”
When brands reformulated to remove parabens, many replaced them with alternatives that have significantly higher reaction rates. Dr. Chan says she sees more contact dermatitis in her practice from natural and pure products than conventional ones — natural deodorants in particular, where volatile essential oils turn over time into highly allergenic molecules. “I tell people: just switch to Dove sensitive. It’s fine.”
The same cycle is happening around chemical sunscreens during pregnancy, where fear has trumped the evidence in ways that have real consequences. “There’s been a lot of messaging that you can’t use chemical sunscreens while you’re pregnant, and there’s literally no good data to back that up,” she says. The problem is that mineral sunscreens simply don’t work on all skin tones. For women with deeper skin, “paraben-free” or mineral-only recommendations aren’t just useless—they’re effectively telling these women not to wear sunscreen at all. “You’re really hurting people,” he says. “They feel like there are no options and then they just don’t wear it.”
The ecosystem that sustains all of this, he says, is a closed loop. Brands blame consumer demand. Consumers say they were told this is what they should want. Retailers mandate clean ingredient lists as a requirement for shelf space, which shapes what brands shape, which shapes what consumers think they need. “I don’t know how to break this cycle,” he says. “My part is just being transparent, giving people the information and trusting them to think for themselves.”
What pregnancy-safe skincare really means—and what isn’t
Certain ingredients warrant great caution during pregnancy: retinoids and hydroquinone are off the table. But Dr. Chan is careful to distinguish evidence-based caution from proactive marketing. “If you say something is safe for pregnancy, unless you test it on a pregnant woman — which you can’t — you can’t really make that claim,” she says. “What I want is for women to understand the reasoning, to have the information so they can make their own decisions. Don’t be afraid to buy something.”
More than Nine’s website includes educational center is called “Is it OK?” where you can search for ingredient and safety questions and get vetted, accessible answers. It exists because reliable information about it is currently scattered across the ACOG website, American Academy of Dermatology, and clinical databases that most new moms aren’t going to navigate at 11pm with a baby on their chest.
Its formulas are reviewed by an independent toxicologist to confirm that levels are well below safe margins. And they’re based on ingredients that have been proven effective for decades without needing to be rebranded. Glycerin, for example, is central to both the cleanser and the moisturizer. “Classic ingredients don’t get enough credit,” he says. “We know glycerin works. It’s cost-effective, it makes a formula feel great, and it’s really one of the best things you can use for hydration — especially after giving birth, when so many women find their skin has become much drier and more sensitive.”
On the trend side, she’ll admit to a mild heresy: She’s not convinced vitamin C is earning its place in most moms’ routines. “I think a lot of dermatologists say you should use it, and I find that people really struggle to be consistent with it because they don’t see immediate results. Personally, I can’t keep it in my routine. Mornings are a mess.” The antioxidant benefits are real, he says. But for a woman who’s already stretched, it tends to be the first thing to fall — and she’d rather be consistent with the four things that will really move the needle.
Her Real Routine (It’s Shorter Than You Think)
Dr. Chan’s routine is about as stripped down as it gets. Cleaner in the shower. Moisturizing cream. Sunscreen — Korean formula, two fingers long, non-negotiable. Good morning, a glycolic and melisyl serum was experimenting with hyperpigmentation, maybe twice a week. At night: cleanser again, an OTC retinoid a few nights a week, moisturizer. “It’s not exciting,” he says. “But it works.”
I tried the products. Here’s what my skin thought.
From our conversation, I use three of the More than nine products (under $30 each!), and my skin—which has become increasingly popular in recent years—isn’t complaining. THE Get a Sec Cleanser is a creamy pump formula that gently lathers and removes a full face of SPF and makeup without leaving that tight, stripped-down feeling that has you reaching for three follow-up products. A little goes a long way. THE Look Alive Exfoliator it’s a powder that you mix with water that gives you control over the intensity and is nothing like the aggressive scrubs that many of us have grown up with. (Millennials who survived the St. Ives Apricot Scrub, rest assured that you don’t have to remove half an inch of skin to really exfoliate.) The Go-To Moisturizer it’s lightweight but has staying power. It’s the kind of formula that works in the heat of July and won’t leave you feeling parched in February.
Dr. Chan spent nearly a decade cycling through pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding before starting the series. “Motherhood is big,” she says. “The phases all blend together. You’re not going to stop and say, ‘I’m not pregnant anymore, let me redo my skincare.’ I wanted something that could just drive you.”
There is a version of this sentence that applies to many things we overcomplicate about mothers. Skin care is a logical place to start.
