Why I Built Papa & Filles: A Dad's Skincare Brand for His Daughters

Papa & Filles means "Dad & Daughters" in French — the brand is named for exactly how it started.

It began on our bathroom counter: a father reading ingredient lists and not liking what he found.

The whole line is genderless — skin has no pronouns — because our family never fit the two-aisle system anyway.

I use it, my daughters use it, and when my girlfriends ask what we're using, I gift it.

That thing became Papa & Filles — "Dad & Daughters," because that's literally what it is. A skincare line born on our bathroom counter, made of products gentle enough that I never have to do the label-squint again. I use it. My girls use it. And when my girlfriends ask what we're using — because they always ask — I don't explain. I gift it.

Here's the part that surprised me, though. Somewhere between the first formulation and the first shipped box, this stopped being a product story and became a family story — which, if you've read anything I've written, is the only kind of story I know how to tell.

Because the beauty aisle has opinions about my family. It always has. There's the shelf for women, pink and promising. There's the shelf for men, navy blue and ashamed of itself, where everything smells like a hockey bag's idea of a forest. And there is no shelf at all for us: a papa and his daughters, sharing one counter, one routine, and — inconveniently for the marketing departments — one type of skin. Human.

That's where our line in the sand came from: skin has no pronouns. It's not a slogan we workshopped. It's just what's true in our house. My daughters' moisturizer works on my face. My face mist ends up in their room and never comes back. Nobody's skin barrier checked anyone's ID.

I spent years learning that families don't have to look like the instructions to be real. I wrote The Dad Diaries about exactly that. I suppose it was naive to think the lesson would stay in the book. It followed us into the kitchen, the school pickup line, and yes — the bathroom, where an entire industry politely insists my family shop in two different aisles.

We built one aisle instead. It's at papafilles.com, it's gentle, it's ours, and every product on it passed the only clinical trial I care about: two daughters, one picky papa, and a counter with no room for anything that doesn't earn its spot.

Not sure where to start? Take the Skin Quiz — it's faster than reading the rest of this paragraph, and it'll point you to the right products instead of making you guess.

The girls think it's normal that Papa makes skincare now. That might be my favourite review.

What is Papa & Filles? A genderless skincare and beauty line I founded, sold at papafilles.com. The name is French for "Dad & Daughters" — because that's who built it and who uses it, every day, off the same bathroom counter.

What does "skin has no pronouns" mean? It means we don't make products "for men" or "for women." Skin is skin. One line, one shelf, for everyone in the household — that's the whole philosophy, and it came from how my family actually lives.

Why did a dad start a skincare brand? Because I couldn't find products I trusted enough to use on my own daughters. After a year of squinting at ingredient lists, I built the line I was looking for instead.

Do you actually use the products yourself? Every day. So do my daughters — and when my girlfriends ask what we're using, I gift it. If a product doesn't survive our own counter, it doesn't ship.

Is Papa & Filles connected to The Dad Diaries? Same papa, same family, same story. The Dad Diaries (Cormorant Books) is the memoir about how I became a father; Papa & Filles is what that family's bathroom counter grew into.

Where can I buy Papa & Filles? Directly at papafilles.com.