Sofie Pavitt: The Acne Whisperer

Everyone says that acne comes from stress and hormones. But how can people be less stressed when your school schedule makes you anxious and overworked?? How does one combat the stress and make sure their skin is not showing what they are really feeling inside? Whenever I have acne from stress, especially since I am a teenager, I always feel so self conscious, and it’s hard to find products that are safe for teen skin and also WORK? In this section, New York’s Acne Whisperer (and also my friend) Sofie Pavitt talks about how to handle acne and how her facials work. I attended a Sofie Pavitt X Neverworns event and I got to learn a little about Sofie and her work! I hope through this you grow to love her as much as I do.

MM: Sofie, you're called NYC’s Acne Whisperer - did you have acne?

SP: I did. I had acne when I was a teenager, and then I also had it again when I moved back from the States to London. It was a really stressful time, like I'd given up my job and I was moving back to the UK for a couple of years and I didn't have a job and I was living in London and a lot of different things were going on and I had crazy acne. I started a birth control that gave me really terrible cystic jawline breakouts. I just remember feeling so frustrated with it. Adults get acne as much as teenagers. And if you're predisposed to acne It's something that you'll deal with throughout your life in different periods of time, you know? So I wanted to create a line that didn't feel too childish, but I didn't want it to feel like it was just targeted to one demographic of people. I wanted it to look cool.

MM: A lot of kids, especially my age group and like, especially since I'm a girl, I feel like pimples just emerge whenever I’m stressed out. Do you have any tips for how to manage stress breakouts?

SP: I think it is really easy to get in a position where you don't know what to do, because there's too many people telling you contradicting things. But I would say the easiest path is to just do three things in the morning, Three things in the evening. Just keep it simple. And sticking with it and then trying not to overworry about it. I think it's the best way to do it. Easier said than done, right? In school, your face is the first thing that someone sees. And I understand the stress and anxiety and unhappiness that can come with that, too.

MM: I remember when I first got stress acne. I was so influenced by people saying you should do this, you should do that. And I wasted money trying to find something and nothing worked. But I feel like Sofie Pavitt products are very gentle, and they really work. For stress acne, what should I use?

SP: Mandelic all the way. Mandelic clearing serum, the big yellow bottle. That is the one that I recommend for everyone, regardless if they have acne or not. It's gonna make the skin smoother and brighter and make the other products that you use in your routine work even better. Mandelic is going to make you feel brighter and fresher. You know, when you're a teenager, your cell turnover on your skin is really quite fast, but mandelic helps because it's antibacterial and also going to help kill any of the acne’s bacteria. So it's really healthy if you're a teenager. If you're my age - I'm 43 - I use it every day. It's something that you can use throughout your skin journey. You know, you get older, you have a baby, get married, you know, all these things can change your skin.

MM: You do not look a day over 28.

SP: Okay, you're hired.

MM: What's your favorite part about doing facials?

SP: I like taking care of people. I love working with people one on one, and seeing a confidence change. It's so amazing to see, if you can help someone with their skin and they feel happy and confident, It's like such a rewarding experience to me.

MM: How did the Sofie Pavitt brand come to life?

SP: The process was pretty complicated, to be honest with you, because with beauty, you have a layer of issues and complications, which is regulatory, right? Like a chemical that you put on someone's skin - you don't want anyone to have a reaction, you have to do a lot of testing, stability. So I started very small. I started with one product, which is our Mandelic Serum, and that was the only product we launched. That product took 3 years to develop. So we started in 2020 and we launched in March 2023.

MM: Wow.

SP: Years of hard work to get it to market. And even now we launch 2 to 3 new products a year. We are quite small, but that's intentional. I don't want to flood the brand with tons of products, you know? But you've got to think about packaging, you’ve got to think about your customer, you’ve got to think about the product formula, like what you want it to feel like, and what you want it to do, and then you're going to test it all. And then you've got to pilot, try it, and put it through like a machine to make sure that when it gets filled in the factory it’s getting filled correctly. And then you send it off to Regulatory, make sure that all your marketing messaging is right and true. And not overclaiming, you know? So there's a lot of moving parts to it, for sure.

MM: Is it your intention to keep the product line kind of very small because shorter skincare routines work better for you?

SP: Yes, but what I want to also make sure is that the product line is really customizable. So I always stand behind 3 steps in the morning, 3 steps in the evening. Our line is really cool, because you can, like, pick what plans that you want, you pick what treatment you want, and you kind of build it, how you see fit with your skin. Yeah. It's very custom. I don't want to do too many products, because it's overwhelming, you know?

MM: How do you want people to feel after using your skin care?

SP: I want to feel confident in their skin. Also, I'm confident that they know how to do it on their own. That's a big thing for me when I meet with people. A lot of the time they are just overwhelmed, and for me, it’s really important to show people how to do it at home, without me. Because I can give you a facial, and I can explain it to you. But if I can show you how to do it at home and you've got the results at home without an appointment? That's even better.

MM: How do you feel about how TikTok and social media has changed beauty advertising?

SP: I think that there’s a good side to it and a bad side to it. I think the good side is that more and more people are showing each other how they clear their skin, or how they do their makeup… You know, like when I was young and I wanted to find a makeup tutorial, YouTube was like… a little bit around, but mostly you'd have to get a book. The internet was there, but it wasn't like what it is now. You didn't have Instagram or UGC or content creators and no one was an influencer. I think there's a lot of really good stuff. There's a lot of really bad stuff. You know, there's a lot of, uh, people talking about skincare and what to do, but they're not really experts. And so that can be damaging. There's also so many different opinions. Like some people say that sunscreen is bad. Some people say sunscreen is good. It's about finding your niche and seeing what you like, and it can be really fun, but always find someone who's an expert.

MM: How do you feel about kids using skincare?

SP: I think that is, I think it's really cool that kids are interested in skincare. But also, when you're in your teens and early 20s, all you need to do is use a lot of sunscreen. Absolutely no cigarettes, and make sure you get to bed on time and wash your makeup off when you go to bed. Nobody needs to be using a retinol.

It's fun to play with skincare. When I was a teenager, everyone used Avon. We used to get these little catalogues, and they'd have all these products in them, and he had the kids line. So kids using his skin care is not a new thing. Kids using grown up skincare is not a new thing. I think it's okay, but just within reason!

Sofie’s New York Studio