Before Influencer Derms, There Was Dr. Zizmor · Rinoure Natural Hair Education

Wayne Educator

10d (edited) • 🧬 NATURAL HAIR EDUCATION

Before Influencer Derms, There Was Dr. Zizmor

Alright, storytime with seasoning 🍿🧴😅

So boom — I’m 12 years old, hormonal acne has entered the chat uninvited, and my mom takes me to see Jonathan Zizmor.

Yes. That Dr. Zizmor.

The subway-ad legend.

The man whose face has been staring at New Yorkers between stops since forever 🚇😂

At this point, he wasn’t just a dermatologist — he was a city mascot.

We walk in. White coat. Clipboard. Very calm. Very confident. Very “I’ve seen faces worse than yours, relax.”

He looks at my skin and sends me home with The Routine™:

🧼 Cleanser

🪵 Scrub

🧴 Toner

💊 Treatment

Four steps. No questions. No TED Talk. Just “do this” and off you go.

And listen — I did it.

Morning. Night. No skipping. No freestyle. I was a disciplined little acne patient 😭

Did my skin get better?

Sure. A little.

Did I wake up flawless like the girls in Clearasil commercials?

Absolutely not.

At the time, I thought I was the issue. Like maybe my skin was stubborn. Maybe acne was just my personality now. Maybe this was my villain origin story.

Fast forward to adulthood and I’m like… oh.

This was hormonal acne. Puberty. Oil glands clocking in overtime. Inflammation doing parkour under my skin.

Biology was running the show 🧬 — and nobody told me.

So let’s be real:

Did I really need a scrub at 12? 🥴 probably not.

Did I need a toner? 🤔 also probably not.

And that treatment? Most likely something drying, because that was the textbook answer back then.

And this isn’t a drag on the doctor — let’s be clear.

Sometimes even professionals get it wrong. Not because they’re bad, but because medicine is taught in patterns. One-size-fits-all. Textbook cases. And melanated skin — especially hormonal, reactive melanated skin — didn’t always get the nuance.

Textbook skin 🧠

Real-life skin 😬

That experience stuck with me.

Because it taught me this:

Skin isn’t just “acne-prone.”

It’s hormonal. Contextual. Personal. Moody. And sometimes dramatic.

And when routines are built around assumptions instead of biology, they work okay — but not optimally.

So now when I side-eye scrubs, toners, and extra steps “just because”… it’s not rebellion. It’s experience.

Sometimes the truth is:

You weren’t failing the routine.

The routine just didn’t fully understand you yet.

And honestly? That realization healed more than my skin 😌✨