Gen Z: Just nipping to the shop.
Boomer: Hold on... what's that on your face?
My pimple patch OFC*. Cute, right?
Cute? It's an enormous pink star! You look like you've been dragged face first down Hobbycraft's sticker aisle.
It's giving fashion accessory, actually. I'm literally enhancing my outfit.
You're 'literally' enhancing your poor pores! In my day you'd slather on Avon Cover-All and pray for bad lighting.
In the words of Gen Z acne bloggers, that indicates 'internalised shame'.
It indicates I had self-respect. And a mirror. Why would you want to draw attention to a blemish?
Cos the stickers look pretty? Starface has sold more than one billion of its little star ones since 2019.
So acne sufferers can walk around like they've replicated Ursa Minor on their forehead?
Patch made in heaven: Hailey and Justin Bieber
Well, Gen Zs love them. Pimple patches are summer's must-have accessory.
Is this according to the Starface marketing team?
No, according to A-listers like Florence Pugh, Kim Kardashian and the absolute kween PinkPantheress.
I have not a clue who PinkPantheress is, but it sounds like she needs a stern word.
Maybe Hailey Bieber's new pimple patches for her skincare brand Rhode are more your thing. She co-designed them with her husband Justin.
Justin Bieber designing spot treatments? What next, Ed Sheeran launching moustache bleach?
Don't be gross. They're hydrocolloid patches that absorb the spot's fluid and reduce inflammation. Plus, they come in cute shapes: daisies, mushrooms, jellybeans...
Jellybeans? How long till Maynards Bassetts brings out a liquorice allsort for your blackheads?
TikTok is full of Gen Z influencers showing off their £72 pack of Rhode's kitschy pimple patches.
Seventy-two pounds! For spot stickers?! In my day, we dabbed on toothpaste and went to bed!
That's absolutely unhinged.
It worked! Dried them right out overnight.
Also chemically burned your face. My mum told me to do that once and IJBOL*.
You're so fussy. What about Sudocrem? Or a good old-fashioned squeeze in front of the mirror?
I just can't. Picking your spots? Yuck.
Of course! Like Boomers on Reddit say, that's how you actually get rid of them.
It's how you actually get scars. JSYK*, the patches protect from bacteria and stop you picking.
But you look ridiculous! As one bloke quite aptly asked the New York Post: 'Why are all these weird Gen Z kids putting stars on their faces? What is this? Nursery?'
It's about being proud of your skin, however blemished it is. Plus TikTok's obsessed. There are 4.3 million posts under #acne with people posting daily updates and close-ups.
I'm not sure I want to know what they involve...
One influencer posted her 'pimple patch take-off reveal'.
Please stop... I'm feeling queasy.
Her 131,000 followers could literally see...
Stop! You've finally broken me. That is well and truly revolting. Don't your generation understand that some things belong behind closed doors?
Why? It's normalising acne and breaking the stigma.
It's oversharing! When I was young, your friends would rib you for a spot until you burnt it off with tea tree oil. It built character!
It built trauma. One girl told The Times she felt mortified hiding spots for years but now 'happily wears patches to the pub'.
Of course she does. Your generation films everything and calls it 'self empowerment'.
Better than your generation pretending spots didn't exist while prodding at them in the bathroom.
A minor blemish, dear, on our otherwise flawless generation.