The skin trade

``Acne's random," says Lindsay Lohan.

And the tabloid queen knows this, for sure.

Lohan apparently gets pimples -- three little ones on her chin that look something like the Little Dipper.

Her minor breakouts are on display in her commercial for Proactiv Solution, which has taken over air time on MTV like a marathon of ``Laguna Beach."

The signing of A-lister Lohan, who reportedly earned $2 million to appear in the ads, reinforces Proactiv as an advertising phenomenon. If you've never heard of the acne medication , it comes from Gu thy-Renker, an infomercial giant that makes $700 million a year on vitamins, age-defying beauty products hawked by Victoria Principal, and DVD collections of Dean Martin celebrity roasts.

Somehow, for its Proactiv line, the company manages to snag real stars (no offense to Principal) who do not need the money -- spokesman P. Diddy was recently reported to be worth about $350 million -- to not only pitch its pimple products enthusiastically, but to unabashedly narrate their own skin quandaries over unflattering on-screen close-ups of past break outs.

In her Proactiv commercial, Jessica Simpson says her diet caused her to develop what can best be described as a beard of pimples that had to be airbrushed out of music videos. Her story is accompanied by a dreadful shot of her face covered in red mountains that have been spackled with brown make up.

Kelly Clarkson, who has sold more than 11 million copies of her album ``Breakaway" and can afford to pretend she has never had a blemish, is even more candid. She states, ``I'm like, oh God, there is a planet on the side of my face."

In the case of Alicia Keys, it's hard to watch. Her commercial shows close-ups of acne so bad it could ruin a prom night.

Karen Barner, an executive with Proactiv Solution, says luring big-name celebs to pitch the product and show their imperfections takes ``finessing."

``We'll do our research to see who has acne and approach them," she says, noting that some stars even offer up unappealing photos of themselves for the ads. ``The most important thing is that they have to be willing to share their acne story with the world."

What makes them willing?

Ed Evangelista, an ad specialist at JWT and judge on the reality show ``American Inventor," says that multimillionaires showing off their pussing pores is shocking, but less surprising when you consider their audience's enduring interest in realism.

``Everything is going reality. I think everyone is looking for some sort of reality or taking a peek into someone's [life]," he says, making the point that Lohan's blemishes make her more accessible and more consumable as an icon. ``For me, personally, I don't know if I'd want people to see what I look like without makeup and with pimples."

So, whose zits do we get to see next? Reebok already snagged Scarlett Johansson as a sneaker spokesperson. We're thinking that leaves Anne Hathaway, who is on the up after ``The Devil Wears Prada." Her skin looks crystal clear -- porcelain, in fact. But maybe Proactiv will find that when cameras are off, like Kelly, Jessica, and Lindsay, she is a real girl with planets on the side of her face and caked-on make up to cover the scars.

MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN