Skin Stories
Jennifer Chung
Skin Stories is a collection of articles, book excerpts, and personal testimonies that examine how we help and harm our skin (both intentionally and unintentionally) and why we struggle to stop. Compulsive behaviors like skin picking, nail biting, hair pulling, and cuticle picking are surprisingly common, yet rarely talked about, often out of shame or embarrassment.
This project derives from my personal experience with dermatillomania (excoriation disorder) and the sense of shame that derives from these kinds of habits. Before I took the step to reach out to others I knew, or suspected, of having their own secret skin battles, I felt profoundly lonely and sought to record these thoughts in print form.
The book is organized into two parts. The first explores skin picking, peeling, nail pulling, and other body-focused repetitive behaviors, while the second examines the cosmetic side of peeling, specifically chemical peels, and the psychology of a beauty industry built around controlled skin damage. The body text throughout is shaped by pieces of skin collected as part of the research process, creating an organic and imperfect flow of information. Whether driven by compulsion or by vanity, by shame or by self-improvement, we are all, in some way, trying to get underneath our own skin. The damage we do to ourselves is not always so different from the damage we pay for.