Alix Earle on Dating With Acne and Why She "Feels Bad" for the Haters

Alix Earle has created a personal brand that is nearly impossible to ignore.

If you’ve ever zombie-scrolled TikTok or just regularly keep up with social media darlings, then you've most definitely come across Earle's videos. It would be hard not to; she essentially garnered overnight fame in 2023 when she amassed millions of followers in mere weeks. Whether you were coming for her makeup tips, GRWM storytime, or relatable college student fodder, you stayed for her honest and candid videos that made her feel like a friend. She’s much deeper than the glam and gossip, though.

Amid her rise to fame, Earle began opening up about her struggle with acne, sharing her experiences with Accutane while revealing her real, unfiltered skin to her millions of followers. Her very real and vulnerable posts have turned Earle into a role model for women everywhere.

“I wish I had someone, in terms of acne, to look up to when I was younger and dealing with acne,” Earle tells InStyle. “The fact that I can be that for someone else is amazing. It makes me feel honored that I have a platform to be able to help other people and speak openly about such a prevalent topic.”

As a poster child for the skin positivity movement and a purveyor of actually effective skin-care products, Earle has aptly teamed up with Hero Cosmetics to become their first-ever global face for their patches category. The partnership means a lot to the TikTok star, who has been using the company’s viral Mighty Patch pimple patches long before she became a figure in the acne space. She discovered them at a time when her acne was “at its worst,” and she was “desperately” scrolling Amazon for a solution. “I came across the Hero pimple patches, and I was shocked by the way that it just sucked all of the gunk out of my pimples,” she says. “It completely flattened them.” 

The star has always been candid with her followers (her authenticity has become a core pillar of her brand and is a huge part of the reason she has found so much success), so she promises fans in her videos that she would never endorse a product she hadn’t tried or didn’t believe in. This is all to say: When it comes to acne-fighting treatments, Earle is a reliable source.

In addition to Hero Cosmetics, Earle reaches for gentle products: an oil-based makeup remover, a toner, a moisturizer, an acne-treating serum, and, of course, her Mighty Patches. Less is more for Earle; she’s not a 20-step routine kind of girl. She’s found that simplifying her routine actually gives her better results. When she is trying a new product, she is diligent about checking that the product is safe for acne-prone skin and does not include any pore-clogging ingredients.

“A lot of acne products have always irritated my skin, and it's been better for me to just keep it simple,” she says. “I've been trying to stick to a routine and not really switch it up, just because it obviously still takes a minute for your routine to even kick in. So I've learned that it's better just to stick to it, and you'll be able to see more progress that way.”

Although we may find ourselves heavily influenced by Earle, she isn’t your average influencer. After last year’s overnight virality, Earle became a bonafide It girl, scoring invites to prestigious parties and front row seats at Fashion Week. She even partnered with reigning queen of podcasts Alex Cooper to launch her very own weekly show, Hot Mess. Despite her massive amounts of success, Earle has maintained her down-to-earth and relatable persona.

“I've been able to stay really grounded,” Earle says. “It's been such a fun process just because I'm surrounded by all my friends, and they don't think [differently] of me in terms of fame.”

Fame, however, comes at a price and doesn’t make one immune to imposter syndrome, gossip, media scrutiny and speculation (“The fact that people even wanted to talk about me was crazy.”). But even so new to the spotlight, Earle has a healthy outlook on all of it, including the haters that litter her comments section.

“It's expected when you're posting online, and it's something that you definitely have to get over,” she explains. “I try to never take anything too personally just because I know that someone who is truly happy with themselves isn't going to be going online and hating on other people. I guess I feel bad for them in a sense.”

Part of why she isn’t acutely impacted by other people’s opinions is because the social media star finds confidence from within — with a little help from her self-care regimen. “I think just making sure you're in a good head space is always going to help with your confidence,” she says. “I always say I romanticize getting ready for bed at night and doing my skincare. Putting on my pimple patches, laying in bed, lighting a candle, and journaling.”

She hasn’t always been as confident, however. She says it took her a while to build up the courage to post her unfiltered skin online (“It was something I was so insecure about, but the second I saw it was helping other people, and I found a great community through it, it just made it all worth it.”), and even IRL activities, like dating, proved to be difficult. 

“Dating with acne can be so scary,” she recalls. “There were times when I truly was doing everything and anything I could to try and hide it.”

Of course, Earle is now romantically linked to an NFL man (aka Miami Dolphins wide receiver Braxton Berrios). In any relationship, Earle notes that being transparent is key to feeling confident. 

“It's always worse in your own head, so address it if it makes you feel better,” she suggests. “But at the end of the day, no one cares as much as you do about it.”

Normalizing acne in her day-to-day life, online presence, and now professional endeavors (becoming Hero’s first global face), Earle will continue to help millions of other individuals with acne. And, build on her own self-confidence in the process.

“I think it all goes back to helping other people that are dealing with those negative thoughts about their skin and letting them know that they're not alone,” she explains before adding that it has also helped her feel more comfortable in her own skin. “It has helped with the way I feel about my skin when I am breaking out. It's made me realize how normal it is and how many people struggle with acne.”

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