Iyong Skinory^™

Iyong means "your" in Tagalog. Skinory is skin + story. Because every person's skin carries a story — and mine started a long time ago.

I've lived with eczema since childhood. It was severe as a child, went quiet through my teenage years and into my twenties, and flared back harder than I'd ever experienced in my 30s — starting in 2018, shaped by a mix of climate, my home environment, my diet, and stress I didn't even realize was affecting my skin.

I've also walked alongside my son through his own eczema flares, so I understand this from both sides — as the person living in the skin, and as the person caring for someone who is.

I know what it's like to wake up already exhausted, because the itching kept you up half the night. To avoid mirrors. To not wash a single dish, gloves or not, because your fingers crack and bleed with every movement. To cancel plans because a flare showed up on your face the morning of. To scratch until you bleed, then collapse into tears with nothing left to hold yourself back. To hear "have you tried just moisturizing more?" one more time, from someone who has no idea. This isn't a routine problem — it's a life problem, and I've lived every part of it.

These aren't stock photos. This is my skin, on the days I didn't want to be seen — because I think you deserve to know the person guiding you has actually been here.

Over the years, I've pieced together what actually helped and what didn't, appointment by appointment, working with:

That search is the reason Iyong Skinory exists — so other women don't have to piece it together alone.

Today, I focus specifically on women navigating eczema during perimenopause — because I know firsthand how disorienting it is when your skin starts reacting to things that never used to bother it, right when everything else in your body is shifting too.

During my worst flares, I leaned hard into the protocols — the creams, the appointments, all of it. It wasn't until I leaned into my faith, too, that I found something those alone couldn't give me. Prayer and scripture are still part of my healing today, in every flare I navigate. I don't expect that to be part of everyone's path, but it's part of mine, and it's part of why Iyong Skinory exists the way it does. If it would be meaningful to you too, I'm glad to bring it into our sessions — always by your lead, never assumed.

I'm not a dermatologist or medical provider — think of me as your guide through the parts of this journey that happen between appointments: the day-to-day routine, the product overwhelm, and the pieces of the puzzle that are easy to miss.

With you in this,
— Frances Guia, Founder & Skinory Guide