Most beauty campaigns are glowy and glossy, so why has luxury skincare brand NIOD gone in the opposite direction?
Created with Uncommon Creative Studio, ‘The New York Facial’ is a social film that reframes the everyday urban experience as a kind of unwanted beauty treatment. Instead of serums, oils and gentle exfoliants, viewers are confronted with the toxins and pollutants that city dwellers absorb as they move through traffic-choked streets and smog-filled air.
The premise is simple but unsettling. Inspired by the visual language of TikTok viral skincare routines, the film replaces calming voiceovers and silky textures with a stark dramatisation of environmental exposure. Heavy metals, exhaust fumes and airborne irritants become the active ingredients in a facial nobody asked for.
It’s a gamble, but it does what it’s supposed to, and that’s to stop the dreaded scroll. Rather than beauty aspiration, the campaign wants to make us feel uncomfortable. And it’s backed by a troubling statistic: research suggests that air pollutants in urban areas can increase pigmentation by over 20%, thus accelerating visible skin damage.
The film marks the launch of NIOD’s Superoxide Dismutase 3 Enzyme Mist (SDEM3), a formula developed to combat environmental stressors. But instead of presenting the product in isolation, the campaign foregrounds the problem first… you can’t sell protection unless people understand what they’re being exposed to.
“The industry playbook to launching a premium skincare product isn’t to rub toxins on someone’s face, but that’s exactly why we did it,” say Ellie Daghlian and Elisa Czerwenka, creative directors at Uncommon Creative Studio. “We wanted to hold up a mirror to city living and make the invisible impossible to ignore.”
What gives the campaign its edge is that it’s not just shocking for the sake of it – it reframes daily pollution as an active, ongoing assault on the skin.
“Communicating the science behind skin health is in our DNA, and an innovation like SDEM3 required an equally innovative execution,” says Amy Bi, VP of brand at DECIEM, NIOD’s parent company. “We wanted to highlight the real-world problem that our cities are affecting our skin – we love how The New York Facial does that in such a visceral way.”
Beyond the film, the campaign rolls out across London, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, featuring creator-led activity. Influencers receive a mock ‘hazardous’ New York Facial kit—a product they can’t open due to its listed toxic ingredients—and a bottle of SDEM3. The message? The real threat isn’t in the box, but in the air.
