Peace Out Skincare Is Social Media Savvy—and Effective

Here's something they teach in marketing school: Products that play to people's insecurities tend to be successful. Of course those products have to work—plus, beautiful branding and digital community building go a long way, too; this is the recipe for success behind Peace Out Skincare. The beautiful (check), much buzzed about (check), and effective (check) products all target individual things that are universally disliked: acne, wrinkles, dull skin, dark spots, puffy eyes, large pores, and more.

Each product label essentially says "Peace Out" to each problem at hand—Peace Out Pores, Peace Out Wrinkles, Peace Out Acne—and gives customers a sticky one-step solution, be it a remedial patch, a sticky-dot, or a strip. (Though the brand has pads, serums, balms, and applicator sticks, too.) And besides correcting these concerns with ingredients like AHAs, BHA, PHA, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide, Peace Out is an expert in branding. That cheeky peace sign over big block text, bidding adieu to our biggest insecurities... no wonder it's a hit across social channels. The brand has pushed more than 35 million sales of its hero-product acne dots, making it the #1 acne brand at Sephora.

Founder Enrico Frezza was plagued by acne problems his whole life, and when he founded the company in 2017, he used his own face as the Peace Out guinea pig. "I tried everything on the market but nothing worked, so I started making my own solutions, and I learned about hydrocolloid dressing, a material used to heal wounds in hospitals," he says. "When fortified with active ingredients, this dressing helped to heal my acne overnight, if not sooner." Frezza mixed and matched a variety of topical ingredients, often burning away his skin in the pursuit of the right formula. ("I'm a hacker at heart!" he notes.)

But that magical recipe wasn't enough to convince the labs and factories to work with him on the final product. "No one had done what I was trying to do before, and no one thought it could be done," he says. So, while he was doing the research for a medical patent on the product, Frezza located a lab that was working with hydrocolloid dressing just 15 miles from his house. That was the lab that helped him bring the dots to market—and the rest is history.

Frezza then built an eye-catching, social-media-savvy brand, primarily targeting young people who were experiencing acne in high numbers. Since inception, however, he's been able to reach wider audiences with products like wrinkle patches and puffy eye pads. But it's that TikTok crowd that has always had the brand's back: "Over 18,000 people purchased our Pore Strips in one day because of one TikTok [push]," he says. "Our customer is mobile and digital savvy, so that gives us a few fun ways to get our skincare in front of them."

And that ingenious name and deuces logo? It was a lightning-bolt moment of inspiration that struck Frezza one night near the beginning of the process: "I checked the trademark and domain, and no one had it, so we immediately scooped it up. We wanted our logo and packaging to pop and stand out among the many other brands at Sephora, so we knew we needed bold imagery, strong graphics, fun names, and catchy colors."

Effective ingredients and products go a long way too, especially in Peace Out's case. Read on for my favorite Peace Out Skincare products—which have drastically helped my acne-prone, age-tested, puffy-eyed face.