“I was an active child—always outdoors—and somewhat ‘rough and tumble’! Being a brown-skinned girl, when my skin became dry (which was not infrequently!), it would look dry and ashen. In our community, we used the word ashy to describe dry, flaky ashen-looking skin. My elbows, knees, and legs were ashy more often than not, and in those childhood years, my mom taught me the importance of moisturizing my skin to keep it well hydrated, soft, and glowing—and to avoid looking ashy!
“She would hand me a tube of cream, a stick of cocoa butter, or a bottle of lotion and say, ‘Put this on those legs!’ She told me then, ‘Your skin might not mean much to you now, but one day you’ll care about how it looks.” And of course, my mom was right.
“One of my first and fondest beauty memories was watching my mother apply lipstick. My mom never wore much makeup (didn’t need it!), but she almost always wore lip color, usually in some enchanting shade of red or burgundy. I remember watching her standing at her vanity and sliding these satiny, transformative, utterly captivating shades onto her lips. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to wear lipstick too. To this day, I have a thing for red lipstick.”
—Raechele Cochran Gathers, M.D., board-certified dermatologist and founder of MDhairmixtress.com
