Tallying over 16 BILLION views and counting, skinTok is definitely something to watch on TikTok if you’re into skincare. And while you scroll through literally thousands of videos that cover hacks, reactions, product reviews and dupes, there’s really only a few that you can actually trust.
Dr. Muneeb Shah — better known as the “Derm Doctor” on TikTok — is a board certified dermatologist that’s been dominating the platform with his educational videos, making himself one of the few that you should be listening to when it comes to advice. He’s the most followed dermatologist on the Internet with a fanbase of over 17 MILLION and continues to grow as the days go by!
But hopes of going viral was not the sole reason why he joined social media.
“I was making videos for fun that I was actually planning to just repost to Instagram so my friends could see,” Dr. Shah told Celeb Secrets reporter Juliet Schroder in an exclusive interview over Zoom. “After seeing them independently go viral on the platform, I took it as an opportunity to reach millions of people.”
As a dermatologist in a clinic, Dr. Shah says it would “take a lifetime” to reach and educate that many people about skincare. However, online, he can reach that many in minutes.
“I really started taking [posting] seriously right off the bat. I kept posting pretty regularly and it took off from there. I then expanded from TikTok to YouTube and Instagram,” he shared. “I think that there are so many people around the world that struggled with different skin conditions, so I use my platform to really bridge that gap of information that a lot of people are missing.
When scrolling through Dr. Shah’s feed, you’ll see a variety of videos that cover almost everything you see on skinTok. Putting the viewer first, the board-certified dermatologist chooses what type of content to post combing through his mentions and tags to answer his followers’ burning questions.
“I cover whatever people tag me in,” Dr. Shah says about curating his content. “I have hundreds of tags from the public of content that’s going viral; it might be like a really gruesome pop of a pimple, it might be like a cyst explosion, or it might be like a product that’s going viral. They want to know whether or not they should use it for their skin or it’s a skincare trend, so I basically scroll that tag feed to look for content ideas of what I should be responding to.”
“The feedback has been great so far,” he adds. “Over the last few years, my followers feel like they can trust me, and I’m honored that they are willing to listen to what I have to say and they trust my opinion over these years.”
With his overall goal being to help people obtain better skin, Dr. Shah has started a new venture as an advisor for Cortina, which is the only all-inclusive teledermatology platform providing patiences with access to Board-Certified Dermatologists and treating the most common skin conditions in all 50 states. With making an appointment to see your doctor harder than ever, Cortina is helping fill the gap so your skin condition can be treated with little to no downtime.
“Being an advisor for Cortina was really important because I spent two years creating videos on how to treat acne, how to treat rosacea, how to treat eczema, how to treat psoriasis, and the problem was that I’d tell you at the end of this video that you need to go see your dermatologist. And overwhelmingly in the comments, people are saying to me that they don’t have access to one so that’s why they watch my videos,” he shared. “I felt like I was falling flat, like I was telling people, ‘Hey, you have this issue, here’s the answer, but you don’t have access to the answer.'”
“[Cortina] is never meant to replace that, but it’s, it’s for those people that don’t have time to take off from work that are in a state where it’s gonna take you six months to get in to see a dermatologist. Within, within 24 hours or 48 hours, you can have a diagnosis, a treatment, and then you can have it shipped to your house in a week for acne or rosacea.”
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But while you wait until your scheduled appointment with Cortina, Dr. Shah says these four routines are the secret to having celebrity-looking skin.
“I would vitamin A would be the first thing — using a retinol in your skincare routine really helps and making sure you have vitamin B, like niacinamide, is a phenomenal ingredient that really helps with results,” he said, before adding, “If you’re able to get vitamin C in your skincare routine, you’ll help slow down the snit-aging process, along with dermatologic procedures. I think that a lot of times, especially celebrities, they discount a lot of what they’re doing in the office. A lot of these procedures include chemical peels, laser resurfacing, Botox and Disor. Those types of things really do help the skin, but a lot of people don’t talk about them.”
For more on Dr. Shah and his expertise on skincare, watch our full interview below. Don’t forget to let us know what you think of Dr. Shah’s videos by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs at @celebsecrets.
You can connect with Dr. Shah by giving him a follow on TikTok at @dermdoctor and Instagram at @doctorly.
