This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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For the past 10 years, Dr. Shereene Idriss has been a practicing dermatologist in New York City. And in 2018, she also became a social media star. Today, Dr. Idriss has 657,000 followers on Instagram, 441,000 on TikTok and 704,000 on YouTube. In October 2021, she opened her own practice, Idriss Dermatology, in Manhattan. Then, a year later, in October 2022, she launched PillowtalkDerm, her skin-care brand, named for the content series she’d become known for. In #PillowtalkDerm social media content, Dr. Idriss can often be found in bed, in her pajamas, educating her followers about skin care in her typical no-B.S. style. While Dr. Idriss built her robust following of “nerds,” as she calls her followers, by calling out trends she’s deemed unworthy of their hype and mostly shying away from paid brand deals, it’s worth noting that she’s also very funny.
When PillowtalkDerm, the brand, became available for pre-sale in September 2022, it sold out in less than 36 hours. It launched with three products, all aimed at hyperpigmentation and discoloration and labeled the Major Fade collection. Since then, it has released just one more product, the Depuffer, in April 2023. The arnica-filled roller serum was inspired by Dr. Idriss’s patients recovering from treatments including injectables and Sculptra.
Dr. Shereene Idriss, spoke with Glossy senior reporter Sara Spruch-Feiner about the inception of #PillowtalkDerm on social, the reason she’s turned down lucrative brand deals and the decision to kick off the brand with a focus on hyperpigmentation.
See below for excerpts of the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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On her own beauty partnerships — and how they’ve informed her own brand’s strategy
“I can count [my partnerships] on one hand, maybe two. And it’s usually brands that I’ve already spoken about — brands that I already adhere to or subscribe to, and brands that I think are interesting. And I make it very clear. Do not try to feed me the words that you want me to say, because I won’t do it. I’ll just walk away. … When I [was considering working] with SK-ii, I asked [my community], ‘Should I do this? I’ve never used their essence, and it’d be interesting to learn [about it] behind the scenes. Do you guys think I should?’ And they all voted. Maybe 70% voted, ‘Do it.’ So I actually took the community in mind, and I did the sponsorship for SK-ii. In hindsight, I wish they had let me speak about how I experienced it. It probably would have been better for them. But it was a good learning for me. … I’m grateful the community voted yes, because it opened up my eyes now, as a brand founder, to allow people to speak about things in the way that they want to speak about them, as long as it’s not wrong.”
On turning down lucrative partnerships
“I feel very rich in my heart. And I don’t say this to sound cliche, but I don’t care for the materialistic stuff as much in my life. … As my husband likes to joke, I am unemployable. [It’s why I have] my own practice, and I have my own line. If you tell me, ‘You have to say X, Y or Z,’ I will retaliate. I’m not a fucking puppet. I’m not a billboard. I’m not an ad. I have my own opinions, like ’em, leave them, take them, don’t, whatever it is. But I’m gonna say what I want to say, how I want to say it. So do not try to own me. It was very hard, very honestly, to see all those dollar signs pass me by, when I’m still paying student loans. … At the same time, the only person I have to answer to when I go to sleep at night is myself. I never wanted to be owned. I never wanted to be a Cerave doctor dancing on TikTok or a Cetaphil derm, or whatever. … I didn’t want to be a derm that was owned. I didn’t go to school for 12 years so that I could be a walking ad.”
On her brand’s focus on hyperpigmentation
“I see over 100 patients a week. … My patients always come in complaining about a little line or a little wrinkle. But I take a step back and I hold the mirror from across the room, and I’m like, ‘What do you see? Do you see that line?’ And they’re like, ‘No.’ I’m like, ‘Exactly. What do you see? I want to tell you what you see. You see dullness. Your color is not even, and it’s not as radiant as it could be. There are sun spots, there are brown spots, there are broken blood vessels. And if you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, address your color first. Because I’m not God, and I cannot create collagen overnight for you. But I can help you with your color, and once you address the color first, it makes a world of a difference.’ Why is makeup so popular? Because people are covering it up, because they’re trying to get an even skin tone, right? So I’m like, ‘Let’s work on the foundation of your skin, so that you need less makeup and so you have an overall better look and feel about yourself, with less.'”
