The beauty industry has been prone to outdated and harmful clichés over the years: think slim white models, Hollywood smiles and unrealistically flawless skin. Thankfully, there has been a marked shift in thinking more recently, with the likes of natural beauty brand Glossier and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty range leading the way. Meanwhile, on social media, there’s been a rise of the makeup free selfie, and agency Ogilvy just announced it will no longer work with influencers who retouch their faces or bodies.

Julie Schott bore the brunt of the beauty industry’s weighty expectations when she was working as a beauty editor at Elle in the 2010s, around the same time as she was dealing with the onset of acne. By 2019, her frustration with the mindset that spots were something shameful to be dealt with in secret led Schott and co-founder Brian Bordainick to launch Starface, a new skincare brand that aims to change attitudes towards acne.