Millie Bobby Brown Broke Down Her Nighttime Acne Routine With Refreshing Honesty

Millie Bobby Brown has created quite the track record for herself since playing her breakout role as Eleven in Stranger Things—she’s become somewhat of a fashion icon, played Sherlock Holmes's younger sibling in the Netflix-original film Enola Holmes, and even created her own beauty line, Florence by Mills. It seems that Brown is on a fast track to tackle everything in her path.

Her beauty latest venture? Getting real about her skin. On March 4, Millie Bobby Brown posted a video to Instagram, showing her nighttime acne routine with a few products from her line. In the video, she’s in her bathroom, wearing a silky peach robe and floral top, as she shows how she spot treats her acne before bed.

She applies the Florence by Mills Clear The Way Clarifying Mud Mask ($20) on her smaller acne spots and then layers two whale-shaped Spot A Spot Acne Patches ($15) over a pimple on her cheek. Throughout the video, she explains that she “gives [her acne] the love it needs” by caring for it with healing ingredients.

Before you call her “brave” for sharing her acne journey, may we suggest an alternate perspective? The word brave has an underlying negative connotation because it suggests that acne, for the most part, should be hidden, and whoever goes against this idea should be labeled as a skincare hero. Sure, we won’t deny that there’s still a stigma around acne—but nobody has control over acne since it can pop up from anything, from hormonal changes and stress to lifestyle and much, much more.

It’s refreshing to know that Brown is a real person like the rest of us and that she embraces her acne as something that’s simply a part of her skin. And there’s room in the beauty community to see acne not as a flaw. Rather, it's time to embrace skin neutrality since acne is natural, and everyone experiences it occasionally. The more we approach acne with neutrality, the closer we will come, collectively, to accepting acne as something that everyone faces—even celebrities.