When I made my first television appearance, I wasn’t talking about trends, makeup looks or client transformations — I was talking about dehydrated skin. It was an unusual topic for TV at the time but the producer found it so fascinating that I was asked to do a second segment right there on the spot. Before long, I became known as the dehydrated skin girl — and sometimes the hydrated skin girl — because I was explaining something the industry wasn’t addressing yet. Not really.
From that moment on, something remarkable happened. Anytime I mentioned hydrating products, hydrating foods, skincare steps to prevent dehydration or anything related to moisture, those posts — and later, my magazine articles — became instant hits. Readers were hungry for clarity. They wanted to understand their skin and they trusted me because I was explaining what a few people were discussing. It was the beginning of a whole new world for some people.
Women were constantly being mis-diagnosed. Every Winter, they were told they had dry skin. Every summer, they thought peeling from sunburn meant dryness or that sweat meant oiliness. Many believed they had combination skin — a term dermatologists later taught me doesn’t actually exist. What most women were experiencing wasn’t a skin type at all. It was a skin condition: dehydration.
I knew the confusion personally. As a teenager, I was told I had oily skin when I didn’t. I had normal skin with two conditions: dehydrated and sensitive. The products recommended to me were wrong because the categories were wrong. There was no “dehydrated skin” section on the shelf. You either bought products for dry skin, oily skin or normal to dry skin— neither addressed the real issue.
So, as I had gotten older, I researched and learned from attending school studying skincare from dermatologists (and estheticians), in this case, I learned directly from La Roche‑Posay dermatologists. I dove deep into hydration, sensitivity and sunscreen science. And when I wrote Dehydrated Skin vs Dry Skin on the original Face by Stace around 2010–2011, it took off. Women finally had language for what they were experiencing. One reader even contacted me to say that after years of frustration, she finally received the correct products because of that post.
That moment proved that clear, honest, evidence‑based education resonates — and it’s why hydration has remained a cornerstone of my work ever since.
(And yes… the exfoliating skin girl story is coming another day.)
I’m Stacey Hobbs, thanks for reading Face by Stace! Until next time.
do you feel fabulous today?
