skn to skn skincare luminary mothers thought piece pregnancy changes how we choose motherhood campaign — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

Pregnancy has a particular way of turning the most ordinary, everyday decisions into questions. What we eat. What we buy. What we bring into our homes. What we put on our bodies. Things we once chose almost instinctively can suddenly become decisions we research, scrutinise and, more often than not, Google at 2am.

It’s this subtle but profound shift that sits at the heart of SKN TO SKN’s new September campaign, Pregnancy Changes How You Choose, and why Luminary Mothers has teamed up with the brand to explore the conversation behind it.

Because pregnancy doesn’t simply change the things we choose. It can change the way we make those choices altogether. We look closer. We ask more questions. We want to understand what is in the products we use, where they come from and whether they still feel right for this new chapter of our lives.

But when it comes to skincare, that raises a more complicated question. Do women really need products specifically created for pregnancy? Or have we been asking the wrong question all along?

Perhaps the point isn’t to tell women what they should choose. Perhaps it’s to give them better information, greater reassurance and, ultimately, more meaningful choices in the first place.

By Alice Codford, in partnership with SKN TO SKN

*Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

Pregnancy Changes How You Choose

There is a very specific kind of Google search that seems to start somewhere between the positive pregnancy test and the first scan and it normally begins with two words: “Can I…”

Can I eat this? Can I drink that? Can I take this supplement? Can I dye my hair? Can I use this cleaning product? Can I exercise? Can I still use the serum that has sat unquestioned in my bathroom cabinet for the past three years?

Then come the screenshots of ingredient lists sent to group chats. The late-night scrolling through various forums. The opening of eight different browser tabs, each one somehow producing a slightly different answer from the last… Pregnancy turns many of us into researchers.

Not necessarily because we have become frightened of the world around us, but because something fundamental has changed: the decisions we make no longer feel as though they affect only us, and once that happens, “it’s probably fine” can suddenly stop feeling quite fine enough.

That psychological shift is at the heart of SKN TO SKN’s new campaign, Pregnancy Changes How You Choose. The idea is simple: Pregnancy may change what we choose, but more profoundly, it changes how we choose.

Suddenly once the positive lines hit the pregnancy test, we want to know more of everything. Where was it made? What is in it? Why is that ingredient there? What is this babygrow made from? What is in the food we are eating? What are we cleaning the house with? What are we putting onto our skin, our largest organ, at a time when the skin itself may be behaving in ways we have never experienced before?

The moisturiser we have been using (maybe even for years without question) is now subjected to the sort of due diligence normally reserved for a mortgage application, and it is funny saying it that way but underneath sits something much bigger: Motherhood has a habit of raising our standards.

The Pregnancy Beauty Problem

There is, however, a legitimate criticism of the way the beauty industry has responded to this heightened scrutiny. In recent years, there has been pushback against the term “pregnancy-safe skincare” and against brands that imply becoming pregnant somehow renders the rest of your bathroom cabinet dangerous. That criticism deserves to be taken seriously.

Many skincare products can still be used during pregnancy. The American Academy of Dermatology notes that plenty of skincare remains suitable while pregnant, although certain ingredients and treatments require more consideration or should be avoided; it recommends discussing medications and prescription skincare with a dermatologist or obstetrician. The NHS, for example, advises that topical retinoids are not suitable for use during pregnancy.

Fear should not be a business model, but that is not what brands are doing.

Pregnant women do not need another industry telling them that everything they were doing yesterday has suddenly become wrong today. But there is an important distinction between saying “everything else is unsafe” and saying “we made something specifically with you in mind.”

And perhaps that is where the conversation around pregnancy skincare has become stuck. Because the question is usually framed as: Do women really need dedicated pregnancy skincare?

Maybe need is the wrong word. We do not need most of the choices available to us. Choice is valuable because it allows us to decide which option best meets our own priorities.

And pregnancy-specific skincare does not have to exist because every other product is somehow dangerous.

It can exist because pregnancy is a particular biological and psychological chapter in a woman’s life, and some women would quite reasonably like the option of products that have been deliberately formulated, scrutinised and tested with that chapter in mind.

skn to skn pregnancy postpartum skincare pregnancy motherhood luminary mothers thought piece sara stokes alice codford — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

Pregnancy Changes More Than The Bump

There is another part of this conversation that tends to get lost when we reduce pregnancy skincare to a list of ingredients to use or avoid: the skin itself can change.

Pregnancy brings enormous hormonal changes, and dermatologists recognise that those changes can present in the skin in different ways, including acne, pigmentation and melasma, dryness and increased sensitivity… the list goes on!

A woman who has never experienced acne may suddenly break out. Someone whose skin has always tolerated almost anything may find it newly reactive. Products that once worked beautifully may simply stop doing the job they used to.

SKN TO SKN was built around the idea that pregnancy deserves to be thought of as a distinct skin life stage.

Beauty already understands the concept elsewhere. Puberty is treated as a hormonal turning point for skin. Increasingly, menopause is too. Yet pregnancy has often been approached differently: less as a skin stage to understand and support, and more as a temporary period characterised by caution and lists of things to avoid. That is precisely the gap SKN TO SKN wants to challenge.

It is an interesting reframing.

Rather than asking only, “What can’t I use now?”, what happens if we also ask, “What does my skin actually need now?”

skn to skn skincare boots sara stokes luminary mothers thought piece pregnancy motherhood postpartum — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

Why SKN TO SKN Exists

For founder and mother of two Sara Stokes, the idea came from experiencing that shift herself.

During her pregnancies, she found herself doing what so many women do: questioning things she had previously never thought twice about, looking more closely at ingredients and wanting clearer answers.

“The women I meet aren’t anxious shoppers,” Stokes says. “They’re switched on, engaged, and asking better questions than they ever have before.” She remembers that same change during her own pregnancies, the questions beginning to creep in and previously automatic choices suddenly becoming something she considered more carefully.

And that distinction matters. Curiosity is not hysteria and discernment is not fear.

And women wanting more information about the products they use during pregnancy should not automatically be dismissed as victims of clever marketing any more than they should be frightened into believing that everything they previously used is toxic.

SKN TO SKN’s answer was to create another option.

The brand describes itself as dermatologist-designed skincare for TTC, pregnancy, postpartum and the hormonal chapters that follow, products intended to remove some of the decoding from a period already characterised by an extraordinary amount of new information.

Or, put another way: one less thing to Google at two in the morning!

skn to akn pregnancy skincare postpartum motherhood luminary mothers by alice codford sara stokes founder female owned business — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

But What Does “Made For Pregnancy” Actually Mean?

This is where the research matters. Because if a brand is going to ask women to choose it specifically because it has been developed with pregnancy in mind, the burden is on that brand to show what sits behind the claim.

For SKN TO SKN, every product in its range is clinically tested and trialled exclusively on women, including pregnant women, with formulas designed to address concerns such as sensitivity, dryness, pigmentation and hormonally driven breakouts. The formulations have been developed with a consultant dermatologist and GP input.

Consultant dermatologist Professor Caitriona Ryan, founder of the Institute of Dermatologists in Dublin, advocates a gentler, barrier-supporting approach during pregnancy, particularly when skin becomes more reactive. Women’s health GP Dr Raj Arora makes another point that feels particularly pertinent to anyone who has experienced pregnancy-related information overload: a simplified, carefully curated routine can remove some of the mental load while continuing to support changing skin.

The brand has also moved beyond conventional beauty retail. Alongside Boots, SKN TO SKN is stocked by specialist destinations including the Institute of Dermatologists and The Face Bible, as well as The Skin Nerd and For The Creators.

Its own clinical testing is specific, too. SKN TO SKN reports that its Sleep Cheat Night Cream, which has been tested on pregnant women, increased hydration by 40 per cent and reduced the appearance of wrinkles by 15 per cent in its testing; its mineral SPF moisturiser reported a 35 per cent increase in hydration alongside a reduction in the appearance of pigmentation.

That is an important part of the proposition, this shows that this isn't simply about stripping ingredients out. It is about asking: if we are going to formulate specifically for this woman, at this moment in her life, can the product still perform?

Because reassurance should not require women to lower their expectations.

skn to skn postpartum skincare pregnancy motherhood luminary mothers thought piece sara stokes alice codford — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

The Real Thing Mothers Are Buying

Perhaps this is where the skincare conversation becomes part of a much larger conversation about motherhood.

The extraordinary thing about becoming a mother is how quickly you are expected to acquire expertise in things that previously occupied absolutely no space in your brain.

Nutrition. Sleep. Car seats. Feeding. Child development. Fabrics. Household chemicals. Sunscreen. Schools. Screen time… again, the list goes on.

Suddenly there are opinions, recommendations and warnings everywhere, and somewhere in amongst them sits a woman at 2am trying to work out whether the ingredient she cannot pronounce on the back of her cleanser is something she ought to know about.

We talk a lot about the physical load of motherhood and we talk increasingly about the mental load, but perhaps we should also be talking about the research load?

The endless expectation that women will locate, analyse and reconcile all the information required to make the “right” decision for their families.

And perhaps the brands that will matter most to mothers in the future will not be those that give them another reason to worry: They will be the ones prepared to answer their questions, without requiring a chemistry degree and forty minutes on Google.

Because there is a world of difference between telling a woman what she should choose and giving her enough information to make a choice confidently for herself.

luminary mothers motherhood postpartum pregnancy trying to convince skn to skn skincare alice codford — *Photo Credits: AnotherLand Creative, Andrea Swarz*

A Better Kind Of Choice

So, do women need pregnancy skincare?

Maybe we have been asking the wrong question. Women certainly do not need to be told that becoming pregnant means everything already sitting in their bathroom is dangerous. Nor do they need fear disguised as empowerment.

But that does not make a product developed specifically for pregnancy unnecessary.

If pregnancy can alter our skin, our priorities and the level of scrutiny we apply to the products around us, there is nothing inherently strange about wanting an option made with those realities in mind.

The existence of that option does not have to diminish every other one, it simply gives women another choice.

And perhaps that is the larger truth of pregnancy.

It doesn't hand us a new set of answers the moment we see two lines on a test, quite the opposite. It gives us questions we had never thought to ask. About what we eat. What we buy. What we bring into our homes. What we put onto our bodies. What we will eventually put onto the bodies of the tiny people entrusted to us.

We just look closer, we just ask more, and we just expect more.

Pregnancy does not tell us what to choose, it changes how we choose.

Discover SKN TO SKN Skincare Today. Follow SKN TO SKN on instagram here.

Pregnancy Changes How We Choose, And What We Expect.