Is Mercury Retrograde Messing With Your Skin?

The cosmic confusion is shaking plenty of things up-including your beauty routine

- Lia Mappoura

Do you often find yourself citing Mercury retrograde as an explanation for all the things going wrong in your life? Like a delayed train, miscommunication with your partner, or even that unexpected breakout? Well, same, because when all else fails, just blame the universe...right?

Like many teens growing up in the 00s, I developed a fascination with astrology at an early age, critiquing (and heavily relating to, may I add) my birth chart that came via every glossy magazine (read: Cosmo, of course).

However, unlike my emo phase, it is a fascination that’s carried through to adulthood. On every first date, I’ll find myself asking, ‘So, what’s your star sign?’ (Sure, they often scowl and retreat with ‘the ick’, but I’m unphased, TBH...)

And as far as I know, when it comes to Mercury retrograde, it’s not just a me—or zillennial— thing. In fact, it’s so far-reaching it’s hard to ignore. Every few months, my social media timelines are filled with folks speculating on the power of the planets. Like in April, when Taylor Swift branded an injury on tour ‘Mercury in retrograde coded’. She’s not the only singer to defer to its powers, either—way back in 2013, Katy Perry lyricised, ‘Is Mercury in retrograde, or is that the excuse that I’ve always made?’