Skincare as Practice: The Way Silk & Crown Is Built

Skincare is often treated as a product problem.
Silk & Crown was built on the understanding that it is a practice.

When I think about skincare, I don’t really think about it as a collection of products. I think about it as a practice, and perhaps that distinction explains more about the way I am building Silk & Crown than anything else I could say about the brand.

There is already so much language around beauty that begins with the assumption that something about us needs fixing. We are encouraged to look closely enough at our skin to find the next problem, and then there is inevitably a product, treatment or new ingredient waiting to correct it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to improve our skin or address the things that concern us, because of course I do too, but I also don’t want caring for ourselves to become another endless exercise in finding fault with ourselves.

I want Silk & Crown to exist somewhere slightly differently from that.

Of course the products matter. The formulations matter enormously to me, as do the ingredients I choose, the way they work together, the texture of the finished product and the experience of applying it to the skin. I want the products to perform, because beautiful language and beautiful packaging mean very little to me if what is inside the jar doesn’t make sense.

But the product isn’t the whole story.

When I say that skincare is a practice, I mean that I think there is value in the consistency of caring for ourselves, in learning our own skin and in paying enough attention to recognise what it needs rather than constantly responding to whatever we are being told we should want next.

Our skin is living with us. It responds to our environment, our routines, the seasons and the different stages of our lives, and I think there is something quite powerful about developing enough familiarity with your own skin that you begin to understand it rather than constantly trying to conquer it.

Perhaps that is also where the idea of slow beauty began to make sense to me.

I don’t mean slow simply in the romantic sense of taking a long bath, lighting a candle and turning every skincare routine into a ceremony. I enjoy beautiful rituals as much as anybody, but that isn’t really what I mean. For me, slowness is also about intention. It is about not rushing the process of making something simply because we can, not adding ingredients because they happen to be fashionable and not treating our skin as though it needs to be constantly challenged in order for us to be taking good care of it.

There is something about the beauty industry that can make us feel as though more must always be better. More products, more steps, more actives, more correction, more intervention. And I find myself increasingly drawn in the opposite direction, towards understanding what is necessary and doing that well.

That thinking is very much part of the way I want to build Silk & Crown.

I want to make products slowly and deliberately. I want to understand why something belongs in a formulation rather than adding it because it makes good marketing copy. I want texture to matter because the experience of using a product matters, and I want the ritual of caring for the skin to feel pleasurable enough that it becomes something we naturally return to rather than another obligation sitting on a very long list of things women are supposed to be doing correctly.

And perhaps underneath all of that is something even more personal for me, which is the relationship we have with our bodies.

We spend so much of our lives being taught to assess them. We notice what is too dry, too dark, too textured, too soft, too large, too small, no longer as firm as it once was or beginning to show evidence of age. There always seems to be another standard against which we can measure ourselves and discover something that needs improvement.

I don’t think caring for the body should require disliking it first.

There is a difference, for me, between applying a body butter because you have stood in front of the mirror identifying everything that needs fixing and applying that same body butter because this is your body, this is the skin you live in, and caring for it is simply one of the ways you care for yourself.

The product may be exactly the same, but the relationship is not.

That is where ritual becomes important to me, although even that word can sometimes make self-care sound far more elaborate than it needs to be. Most of our lives are not lived in beautifully staged bathrooms with candles burning and an hour available for skincare. Most of the time we are simply getting out of the shower, reaching for something that feels beautiful against the skin and taking a few minutes to care for our bodies before getting dressed and continuing with the day.

This is also why I wanted Notes & Rituals to exist alongside Silk & Crown.

I wanted somewhere for the thinking behind the making, because I don’t think I can separate what I make from why I make it. There will be conversations here about skin and ingredients and formulations, certainly, but I also want there to be room for conversations about routines, ageing, our bodies and the relationship we develop with ourselves over time.

I want to talk about the choices I make as I build this brand and why I make them, including the things I choose not to rush. I want this to be somewhere I can think aloud about what beauty and care can look like when they are not constantly driven by urgency.

Silk & Crown is still at the beginning, and perhaps that is exactly why it feels important to write this now.

Before the business grows, before there is more noise around it and before the practical demands of running it inevitably become louder, I want to remember what the foundation was supposed to be.

I want to create beautiful skincare. I want beautiful textures and thoughtful formulations, and I want using them to bring some pleasure into the ordinary act of caring for our skin. But I don’t want Silk & Crown to teach women that their bodies are projects they will eventually finish if only they buy the right things.

Our skin will change because we will change, and I don’t think the goal should be to spend our lives fighting that reality.

Perhaps skincare as a practice is simply the decision to pay attention to the skin we are actually living in, to care for it consistently and intentionally, and to allow that care to become part of the relationship we build with ourselves over time.

That is the thinking behind the making.

And, as I stand here at the very beginning of Silk & Crown, that is the foundation I want to build from.