A YouTuber Has Called Out Huda Beauty For Using Her Selfie To Talk About Hiding Acne Scars

Can you think of anything worse than your face being used as an example of flaws that need to be ‘fixed’?

This is exactly what happened to YouTuber Em Ford, who has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers for her honesty about her struggles with acne.

She recently discovered that a selfie of hers was used by mega-influencer Huda Kattan in a blog post about ‘hiding’ acne scars – that very selfie was posted by Em as part of her #SkinPositivity series in which she talks about learning to embrace her skin, acne and all.

“Taking my image without credit is one thing,” she tweeted. “But taking my #SkinPositivity images and using them to get clicks on ‘How to get rid of acne scars’?!”

On her Instagram Story, Em added:

Dear Huda Beauty, I wanted to thank you for using my #SkinPositivity images to tell the world that my face full of scars is worse than active breakouts. And for reinforcing the narrative that anything less than ‘flawless’ is something that we should feel ashamed of, or want to fix and ‘get rid of’. Headlines like that are the reason why I receive thousands of emails on a daily and weekly basis from women all over the world.

“Some of them are made to feel so ashamed of their skin, it affects every aspect of their lives. And couldn’t even dream of enjoying themselves on holiday without applying a full coverage foundation,” she continued. “Since 2015, I have used my platforms and voice to talk about hate online, and why perpetuating beauty standards has very real, and very serious consequences.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl3GXIPHQJt/?hl=en

Em’s following rallied behind her, asking Huda Beauty to take her face off the article – she eventually received an email of apology from Huda herself, and the post was removed.

Speaking on her own Instagram Story, Huda apologised again to Em, and said that they had talked about her work on the blog before. She stressed to her millions of followers that they don’t need to cover up anything:

I’ve had acne and I didn’t feel like I wanted to leave my house before, and [Em] has been the person to really own her skin. So the fact that this happened… I’m really disappointed. If you have acne scars – I’ve suffered through them – Em is a great example of a person who own it. Yes, you can cover it up, but you don’t have to.

The correct response, but still – yikes. This is why you always reverse image search…

• acne