Dr. Ewoma Ukeleghe, UK-trained physician and aesthetic specialist.
Dr. Ewoma Ukeleghe
We have come to associate wellness with aesthetics, accompanied by glowing skin, curated routines, and a life defined by ease. But beneath the surface, something far more complex is unfolding. For many women, particularly Black women, wellness is not just about looking good. It is about recovery.
“It’s funny because burnout was really the pivotal [thing] in making me who I am today,” says Dr. Ewoma Ukeleghe. Before building a globally recognized skincare platform and clinic, Ukeleghe trained and worked as a doctor. But within just a year and a half, the toll became undeniable.
“I was clinically depressed, constantly unwell, and it just was not conducive to my health or happiness at all,” she explains. Her courageous pivot away from traditional medicine was not just a career shift; it was a survival decision. Trained as a medical doctor in the UK, with experience in general surgery, Ukeleghe initially planned to pursue a traditional hospital-based career before transitioning into aesthetic medicine, where she now bridges clinical expertise with a rapidly growing global audience seeking her guidance on skin, health, and lifestyle.
Burnout is no longer a fringe experience. According to McKinsey & Company, one in three women report feeling burned out, with even higher rates among women of color. The American Psychological Association similarly finds that women consistently report higher stress levels than men, particularly when balancing work, caregiving, and emotional labor.
But what often goes unexamined is how that stress manifests physically. “Definitely skin,” Ukeleghe says. “People really underestimate that.” But in her consultations, she rarely looks at skin in isolation.
“I always find out about their holistic health. You’re on this medication. Tell me more. How did you get here?” This approach reflects Ukeleghe’s broader understanding of how stress operates in the body.
Chronic stress activates the body’s stress response systems, elevating cortisol and increasing inflammation, factors that can disrupt the skin barrier, trigger breakouts, and slow healing. Dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe has noted that prolonged stress can “impair skin function and accelerate visible aging.”
But for Ukeleghe, the signs go deeper than physiology. “I would say even just people’s life decisions show me that they’re stressed… a lack of clarity, a lack of direction… something’s going on where you’re just not thinking straight.”
For Black women, the impact of stress is often compounded by what professor and public health researcher Arline Geronimus describes as weathering, the cumulative toll of chronic social, economic, and racial stress.
According to Ukeleghe, that stress does not just show up in lab results; it shows up in behavior. “The way that some of my patients handle their skin… very rough, very aggressive,” she explains. “At times, almost mutilating their skin.”
She describes patterns in some of her Black patients, such as repeatedly picking at healing skin, over-exfoliating, or using harsh treatments daily -- not as isolated habits, but as responses that often reflect something deeper.
“I’m like… are you trying to feel something?” Rather than positioning these behaviors as individual failings, Ukeleghe situates them within a broader cultural and psychological context that examines how Black women have been conditioned to internalize pain rather than express it.
“We really internalize our pain,” she says. “It’s so sad. We have been taught that we can’t express or share our pain because it may be seen as a weakness.” She recalls her time working in hospitals, where differences in how patients expressed pain had real consequences.
“Black female patients… They’d become inward, quiet… and people would assume they weren’t in pain,” she says. “And then you scan them, and their condition is ten times worse than the other patient who is screaming in agony.” For Black women, this internalization not only affects medical outcomes; it also shapes how stress manifests in the body.
In recent years, the soft life has emerged as a cultural response to this exhaustion, particularly among Black women. At its best, it represents a rejection of constant struggle. “I love it,” Ukeleghe says. “Black women need more of that.”
But she also offers a more nuanced perspective. “I think the burnout can be… just existing as a Black woman. That mental, emotional arithmetic that we don’t realize we’re doing every second… It’s tiring.”
While the soft life may offer relief, it does not fully resolve the underlying stress. “There’s a real presentation… where [women are] going, going, going for so long, and then they crash,” she explains. “And when they crash, they don’t just crash a little bit, they crash hard.” Psychologist Dr. Thema Bryant echoes this tension, noting that while self-care practices are important, without addressing structural and emotional stressors, they cannot fully mitigate burnout.
In this context, skincare has taken on new meaning. “It’s both,” Ukeleghe says when asked whether skincare is control or regulation. “People use skincare… to control the way they show up in the world, the image they’re trying to portray.” Skincare, in this sense, becomes more than routine. It becomes a way of managing visibility, identity, and perception. A form of control in environments where much else feels uncertain.
But it can also serve a more restorative purpose. “It can help people connect to their sense of self, or lack of,” Ukeleghe explains. That dual role, control, and care reflects a broader shift in how women are approaching wellness. Skincare is no longer just about beauty. It is about agency, regulation, and, in some cases, survival.
The wellness industry has responded accordingly, with a surge in Pilates studios, supplements, saunas, and curated skincare routines. On the surface, Ukeleghe sees these as markers of luxury.
“I think on a superficial level, that’s what luxury in wellness looks like, the Pilates, the matcha, the saunas… I love all of it.” But she is quick to distinguish between performance and reality. “On a deeper level, it’s more about internal peace and ease,” she says. “A state of mind that can’t be achieved through outward performance.”
That distinction is critical. While the aesthetics of wellness are increasingly accessible, the conditions required for true regulation, such as rest, emotional safety, and sustained support, remain far less attainable. In other words, you cannot buy your way out of burnout.
As the seasons shift, so should routines. “Please wear sunscreen,” begs Ukeleghe. “Don’t think your moisturizer with SPF is enough; it’s not.” Her additional guidance includes:
And perhaps most importantly, approach skincare with intention, not urgency. She emphasizes that the goal is not perfection; it is sustainability.
The rise of skincare culture and the soft life more broadly are not superficial. They are responsive. Responsive to burnout, emotional and invisible labor, and years of internalized strain. While these practices may not solve everything, they signal something important: women are paying attention. Not just to how they look, but to how they feel. Increasingly, they are refusing to ignore the difference, because the goal is no longer just to glow. It is to feel whole.
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