Only a few weeks ago, the young actress Lili Reinhart—also an advocate for mental health—launched her own skincare line, Personal Day. The brand is specifically formulated for sensitive, acne‑prone skin. Her products are empathetic by design: vegan, cruelty‑free, and consciously gentle.

Reinhart is widely known for portraying Betty Cooper, one of the central characters in Riverdale, the U.S. television series produced by Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios, which ran from January 2017 through August 2023. (For the curious, it’s still available on Netflix.) Betty is intelligent, empathetic, determined—yet shadowed by darker undertones. Unusually for a teenager, she grapples with a fraught relationship with her parents. Over seven seasons, Betty evolves from a sweet, idealistic high‑school student into a more seasoned, complex young woman, scarred by trauma and the sinister secrets of Riverdale. Her personal arc involves confronting her fears, redefining her identity, and seeking balance between her light and dark sides. Some critics claim she never truly succeeds.

Reinhart herself—though you would never guess it—once struggled with severe acne, and she remembers how crushing it felt. That insecurity, she says, drove her to develop those little green bottles promising to banish, within a few decades, all trace of the condition that so many silently endure. At the launch, Reinhart spoke candidly about her own experience and stressed the need for open dialogue, to foster a more supportive environment for adolescents facing this often‑devastating challenge.

The cultural approach to a subject like acne has shifted dramatically in the era of political correctness. Those affected are now recognized as a sensitive community—quick to take offense, sometimes fiercely so, at any perceived misunderstanding or careless remark. For that reason, I was startled to find these ads in a magazine of questionable moral standing. They first appeared in Indonesia in December 2015, commissioned by the Mentholatum brand from the Jakarta office of Dentsu Sparks. The art director, the ever‑irreverent Yayan Heryanto, created the campaign “Shame No More,” which proved so successful he produced two variants—both so… peculiar, I cannot decide which I dislike more.

It is worth noting that the campaign hired—and handsomely paid—a photographer, Rudi Cahyadi, close friend of account managers Citra Rigiannisa and Achmad Reza Prayudi. As you can see, photography was central to how the message was delivered.

Whether the campaign ultimately succeeded, whether Mentholatum struck gold or went bankrupt, is beside the point. What matters is that these ads were printed, and a staggering number of teenagers—fondly nicknamed “pizza face,” “wandering crater,” “seven volcanoes,” “minefield”—were exposed to their message.

I have no doubt Yayan, the “irreverent” one, had the time of his life sketching those illustrations. The agency, I imagine, roared with laughter. Even the Mentholatum president must have spent an afternoon unable to stop grinning. I have no idea what the quality standards for advertising are in Indonesia. Perhaps it is indeed a society so lighthearted, so committed to revelry and mockery, that such examples are seen as gems of communication.

What is known of Indonesia is curious in itself: like certain Caribbean islands, it has only two seasons—dry and wet. It produces the most expensive coffee in the world, kopi luwak, whose beans are eaten and excreted by the charming civet. It is home to the largest and foulest‑smelling flower on earth, Rafflesia arnoldii—the “corpse flower”—which can span a full meter across and emits a truly pungent stench. Among its favored creatures is the Komodo dragon, and its people communicate in more than 700 languages. Yayan still lives there, the creative mind behind that infamous campaign. They say he lives in peace with his neighbors. And little else is known.