Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - All About Acne & Skincare with The Founders of CLEARSTEM - Danielle Gronich & Kayleigh Christina

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

BONUS EPISODE!! Tune in to learn all about skincare: Acne, aging, and tips for healthier skin. After dealing with cystic acne for 10+ years, Danielle Gronich, a Licensed Clinical Esthetician and the founder of San Diego Acne Clinic, worked with thousands of people across all ages and ethnic backgrounds to achieve a 98% success rate in clearing patients’ skin. One of these patients was Kayleigh Christina, a Certified Holistic Nutritionist who suffered her own bout of cystic acne in her mid-twenties and finally got clear through Danielle’s comprehensive, whole-body approach to skin wellness. Connecting over their mutual passion for holistic health, the two dove into the clinical research together to uncover the nasty truth about conventional skincare for acne and aging: most acne products contain toxic, hormone disrupting ingredients, while products that target aging are full of pore-clogging fillers. Determined to deliver a safer, more effective alternative to traditional skincare, they joined forces to formulate CLEARSTEM - the first toxin-free brand that targets both acne and aging at the same time. They join Kaitlyn to discuss the root causes of acne, from common ingredients in cosmetics and skincare products to everyday foods and activities. Learn how to keep your skin healthy and youthful with these important tips about health and skincare. Take the Skincare Quiz at: https://clearstemskincare.com/pages/quiz Get 20% off with code OFFTHEVINE at https://clearstemskincare.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, let's talk about the original enemies to lovers story. Before all of our reality TV couples, before the rom-coms, we binge, there was Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in pride and prejudice. An Audible has just dropped a brand new original that will have you completely hooked, I am. It's not just any audiobook. This is a full cast performance. So Marisa Abella, you might know her from industry, brings Elizabeth Bennett to life.

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it just feels so fresh and modern while still keeping that timeless Jane Austen charm. So whether it's your first time experience, seeing pride and prejudice or you've read it a million times you're going to fall absolutely in love all over again so go listen to pride and prejudice now at audible.ca slash jane austin. Off the line. I will say the number one topic people want me to talk about on this podcast on my Instagram on TikTok. Everyone's like skin, skin, skin. Now don't judge mine right now because I had a sports massage and I you know that you get those lines all of your face from the massage table and I try to put makeup over the lines but now it just looks like my

doesn't and I'm getting acne all over my chin so it's literally perfect that you two are here today because I'm last night I'm like doing an Instagram story I'm like well I've got acne like I had three huge massive zits I did zip patches which I'm curious your thoughts on those they work yeah they work really protecting that area it protects you from picking from touching from other things getting on it yeah so it's a great protection mechanism. It won't like get in there and remove the clog, but it protects it. So we're fans of them in that way. That makes actually a lot of sense. It's not, I don't know what's in them or if there's anything in them, but like the fact that you're not touching, pillow casing, which saves you from so

much. Yeah, you get the satisfaction of doing something, but it's not harmful. Right. Because when you, when that switch goes off in your brain and you're in like attack mode, you can't do nothing. You have to do something. Right. So it's giving you something that will work for you, not against you. Right. Yeah. And they do have, like, colloidal silver and some stuff that, like, softens it and draws out the impurities, which is very, very helpful. It's just that they don't really work on cystic acne. They're good for, like, little white heads. Yeah, I don't know. I'm, like, so dramatic. I'm like, I have acne. I have, like, three little pimples, and it's really not that bad. But you too, obviously know your shit when it comes to skin. So I'm so excited. Introduce yourself for all of my, what I call Vino's. They're my listeners, so that we know who you are. I love that. Hello, Vino's. I'm Danielle Granich, the acne guru. I'm found San Diego Acne Clinic about 10 years ago, and then co-founded Clearstem Skin Care with my wonderful business partner, Kaylee. And Danielle and I met, so my name is Kaylee Christina, the other co-founder in Clearstem Skin Care.

Danielle and I met, this was, okay, coming up on nine, 10 years ago, which is crazy. But I was 24 years old at the time, and I had recently got up birth control, and my entire face and neck erupted with angry cystic acne. It was so bad. Ooh, and painful. It's so painful. Yeah. I went through the gamut of going to every single doctor, dermatologist,

anesthetion, and all I was handed was prescriptions. Yeah. Birth control, acutane, spyrinalactone, antibiotics. And at the time, I'd gone back to school for holistic nutrition, was really diving into what are the root causes. And I couldn't find anyone that would sit down with me and actually help me understand internally what was going on until I met Danielle. Because no one has the patience and knowledge.

just go, well, here's a medicine, and yes, that might work, but sometimes you're like, but what's actually going on internally that this is happening in my skin, which I'm sure you know is a lot of different things. It's so many different things. And acne is internal and external. And it's never just one thing. And that's why we see all these ads. It's like, this is the one thing that cured my acne. This is the one missing piece. Like, that is such bullshit. And even if you find one thing that's working for you now, it's just going to start again because of some other things. you really need the whole big picture in order to have a comprehensive strategy to, like, stay clear.

Yeah, and back to the, you know, the medicine thing, everyone has gone through that racket. Like, our medical system is run by pharma. It's prescription-based. You've got about 12 minutes to see a client the whole time, sorry, a patient, the whole time they're there, they're trying to match you with the appropriate prescription that they know of. That is the playbook. And that's birth control, antibiotics, when those fail, sparing.

lactone when that fails acutane cycle repeat and i went through it three times i've done acutane three separate times and my acne came right back well and that's so hard on your system i mean gnarly to go through what about okay um how do you say it spiron lactone spiroana lactone spirona lactone i'm on that right now i ask how i pronounce it everyone's on that right now but i'm scared of it women in their 30s right now is on it like it's crazy but is that doing bad things to to me internally of all the prescriptions it's the one i hate the least okay i like i Like, I don't think it's that terrible for you. You don't want to be on it forever.

No. And the only reason I did it. And again, once I stop, it's going to come back. But I have PCOS. And the hair growth that I get on my face, I'm like, I am a man. I am an actual man. Like, I could grow more facial hair than some guys I know. It's bizarre and obviously humiliating.

And so I went on that thing. It's gone. Because it suppresses testosterone. Which is a big thing of what we educate about. So we recently launched an acne lab test, which we can talk about later, but I just want to speak to it in the, because we're talking about spyrnalactone, there is a root cause to your heightened testosterone. And so through our acne lab panel, that's what we help people figure out through patterns and through our acne analyst that goes over it with that goes over it in our membership with everyone. But it's like, what is that root cause of testosterone? So long term, instead of being on a medication, that synthetically suppresses it.

then in turn will eventually mess with other hormones. What's the root cause of why your testosterone is so high? Let's fix that root cause. And then your hormones can stabilize and so you don't have to live on a medication. How do I figure that out though? Why? Because nothing else seems, I just don't know how to get to the root cause of the testosterone. How do you do that?

Do I do blood work? Is it like? I mean, basically you just buy the test. You go to a local lab court place. you do it fasting so you just go first thing in the morning when you haven't eaten anything you give some blood 10 days later you get a full report with what's going on in your system as it pertains to acne and it's stuff that dermatologists do not check for and then also something we educate on all the time is the fact that a lot of supplements raise testosterone there are a lot

of everyday supplements that are often indicated for acne but if you take too much of them they spike testosterone vitamin d is a classic example when men start to hit their 40s they start dealing with low T, one of the first things they get put on is a vitamin D regimen. Really? Bodybuilders, same thing because it spikes T. And everyone's vitamin D deficient, so they're taking a supplement. It has way too much. It's fat soluble, so it's building up.

You're probably not absorbing it all the right way if you don't have the right cofactors. So that spikes testosterone and creates hormonal acne. The other ones that do that are vitamin B12, which is in every B complex, all the B12 shots. It's in every energy drink, every new tropic. So excess B12. And by excess, I mean, like, above 300% RDB. And then zinc, zinc is another one. So I'm a clinical ascetician.

I've had my acne practice for 10 years. Every winter, cold and flu season, people start taking zinc. And you see it, you saw it a lot during COVID too. Everyone's acne, their hormonal acne, spikes during that time because they're taking too much zinc. And you see it right on your upper lip. It's the funniest thing. It's consistent on the upper lip and sides of the mouth. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. And then the other one that spikes tea. is Aschwaganda and that shit is in everything. I love Ashwaganda. Well, it can be a great adaptogen. It can help modulate stress. However, if you're already high testosterone, it's also going to break you out. And if it's over, I believe the study was 150 milligrams, which is a pretty small amount, actually, that's when it can start to affect tea. And when you see it in effect tea, meaning testosterone. I was on. I think I'm following.

Yeah, sorry. A tea testosterone. So, and you see it in like every green juice, powder and it won't really tell you how much is in there, but it'll be kind of the main ingredient. Same thing with spirulina. Spirulina has a ton of B12. It feels like every time I feel like I'm being healthy, I'll find out something where I go, oh, shit. And then, like, there's something in everything that we shouldn't be having. It's so overwhelming. So overwhelming.

We've created really great checklist for our community because, one, having acne is already so overwhelming. And then for being on Instagram, TikTok, you're Googling. You're even more overwhelmed and you're hearing all this information. It's like, what do I believe, what don't I believe, what should I implement, what is like too much to implement? So we have a great quiz on our website that actually leads people into root cause of acne and gives them this checklist.

So like Danielle mentioned, the vitamin D, zinc, B12, excess amounts, and then biotin is a huge, huge acne trigger. But on the supplements checklist, it has those four. And it encourages people to check, one, if they're taking any standalone, but to look at their multivitamin, they'll get literally anything they're taking their, if they buy an immune drink every single morning, that usually has a lot of D or zinc in it. What about electrolytes? So it depends what's in it. We've actually been seeing a link between stevia and acne recently. There's a lot of new scientific studies showing the impact of stevia every single day

on hormones and acting as birth control. And why I mentioned stevia is that it's used a lot in electrolyte drinks. So people will have an electrolyte powder. First thing in the morning, sometimes they won't want to drink regular water anymore because you're so used to like having a put. I'm literally, I'm like to pour over here. No, literally Danielle and I, I'm like not going to mention the brand, but it the main sweetener in it is stevia and we were having it every single day to the point like where we were barely having water without putting like a little bit in. And it was it was causing acne flare ups in us. And then we started to find out from people from our community. And that's when more information about Steviea came out. So again, we have these

really curated checklist that can help guide people of just the acne nuances. What is going to flare up your acne so you don't feel so overwhelmed? And when you do have a big flare up, you can go back to the checklist and kind of re-go over the simple checklist, not the insane amount of information that exists on social media. Yeah. And everyone's an expert on social media, right? Right. I know. Yeah. And what we like to do is like we like to take away the overwhelm with actual implementable information where you can like make that change that same day. And the cool thing about it is you're actually doing less. You're like, okay, I'm going to take a break from all these supplements. I'm going to hold off on buying anything new. I'm going to get back to like homeostasis and then

add one thing back at a time to see and know what it does to you. Yeah. It's so we're talking about like, you know, how many, how much information is out there, how everybody's an expert. It is so overwhelming and whether that's vitamins, skin care, acne treatment. Like, where do you suggest listeners start if they want, like, the quiz sounds really helpful? Yeah. Like, where can people start to not feel so overwhelmed with what they need? The quiz. Yeah, the quiz. Two things. So the quiz, and then as far as external causes of acne, and the quiz will guide you to this as well, but we have a great checker on our website. It's a poor-clogging ingredients checker. So all you have to do is go through, lay out your skincare, makeup, and hair conditioner. Google each of them, copy,

and paste the ingredient deck of that product, put it into our poor clogging ingredients checker, and it'll show up red if there's a poor clogger in it. That'll be externally causing your acne. So you know, oh, it's my foundation, oh, it's my bronzer, oh, it's my moisturizer. So instead of just throwing out everything and buying all the, like, I mean, this is the position I was in when I met Danielle. I was buying every single skin care that could possibly market acne to me, like spending thousands of dollars. When now people, before buying anything new, like if it's not clear stem, anything else new, plug it into that checker, see first if it'll break you out or not. If it's all in the green, then you're good to go.

Wow. That is brilliant. Like really smart. Like, what about, okay, my mom's going to hate me for throwing her under the bus like this, but anytime I visit, she goes, put toothpaste on it. I love that. I did that in college. How bad is that? I need to hear Danielle's thoughts on the toothpaste. Let's see here. It's not the worst thing ever. It's just not the best thing ever. It's like only if it's the last resort in that moment. But it's like before, okay, you're talking about things and even conditioners because we all think pillowcases, change your pillow case every night or wash it all the time. But then if you're putting stuff in conditioner and then you're sleeping on your pillow, that can cause acne too, right? Even if your hair is up in a bun, it still gets on your pillow and then you move in the night and it gets on your face.

I love that we're all like, like, the pillowcase is innocent. It's the hair product. Targeting the pillowcase. You can have a brand new pillow case every night, like you said. But if your hair conditioner or anything that you leave in your hair has poor cloggers, it's going to get on there. And we heat up during the night. So your pores kind of like open up.

And people always freak out when I say that. Yes, your pores open up when you heat up. And stuff goes and gets smushed into it little by little. And then bacteria grows and it's just a whole thing. But yeah, the pillowcase is not inherently the culprit. It's the hair products. Leave the pillowcase as low. That's it.

So, you know, I have a steamer. So you know how people do that to open up your pores? Is that when you should put skin care on? Yeah, I actually love a good steam. You never want to use hot water directly on your skin because that's going to be around 100 degrees. And that is direct contact. But steam isn't that hot. And it actually does serve a purpose for circulation and for allowing your pores to essentially open up.

We have these little muscles. A pore is a hair follicle. And hair follicles have little muscles called erect. or pilly muscles. And that's they open and contract when, you know, they contract when it's dry to preserve water

and they kind of open when there's steam and moisture. So when you open your pores like that, you can exfoliate better because you can do like a clay mask and it'll pull stuff out. Like after hot yoga is like the best to do like a detoxifying mask

because your pores are like available for business. But yeah, a steamer at home freaking love it. Good to know because I have the only thing that freaks me about heat on my face is I have melasma. And so I feel like anything that causes, like, heat and that it's all around my forehead.

And do you know, like, what I could, what I get knew about that? I get molasmus, too. I'm just kidding. Yeah, toothpaste. Your mom knew. Yeah. I just listen to my mom. Melasma is definitely an internal thing, but it has external triggers.

So it's related to estrogen. So you want to make sure that you're optimizing for your liver. Supplements, like, DIM can help, but you don't want to just assume that that'll be the thing if it's caused by other stuff. So basically blood work. Okay. Checking on the. liver, maybe a Dutch test if there's something really going on with your estrogen. Yeah. And then

mandelic acid and vitamin C. Those are your best friends for molasma. And that's in our clarity serum, the yellow one. Okay. So that helps both unclog pores, but it also really, really helps break apart melasma. Really? Yeah. And Mandelic is the sweet spot for it because you don't want anything that's too harsh or makes you too sun sensitive because then it'll just come back. Right. Yeah. Like mandelic is the sweet spot. Okay. Oh, I'm so excited. I get so psyched over skin care. Like anything, I'm like, we're obsessed. Yeah. I totally get it. And you know, there's, you are an acne guru. I think people need to hear this. I heard this you talk about on another podcast. It helps you age better. So for anyone struggling with acne, I can't imagine how hard

that is like for confidence, for feeling uncomfortable, but got to give them a positive to a negative. Yeah. If you, generally, if you are acne prone, you have retention, you have hyperkeratosis, essentially. You make more keratin than the people who never break out, even though they, like, don't bathe. So we make our skin reproduces as, reproduces at a faster rate. And we generally have a little bit more oil. Like, that's the raw material to age well. Oil is your lipid barrier, and it's your first line of defense against UV damage. So dry skin ages faster. Even though it doesn't break out quite as easily, generally, it ages faster. If someone looks great and they're in their 60s or 70s, guarantee you they had oily skin. So sell it. celebrate that shit. It is a blessing. Like never curse your oily skin. That's crazy. I love that because I have pretty normal skin. It's a little more on the oily side. So allelu. That's amazing. Let's talk about the importance of diet and lifestyle when it comes to skin. I even notice it with my own skin. But can you actually explain how diet and lifestyle can impact your skin? Well, kick it off with the acne nuances. Because again, back to the theme of not wanting to completely overwhelm people with a whole list of things. What we like to touch on is the acne nuances. What is going to actually make your acne worse and you will see a flare up?

So the very first one top of the list is dairy. And I know that's like the worst one for people to hear. I try to not eat my dairy, but I don't like cheese. Yeah. A little goat's milk cheese once in a while. Yeah. And let's be honest. Like we're not, we're not perfect.

Like we like to live our life in balance, but we like to be aware of all these acne triggers that we were making the choice instead of the choice being made for us. And then we're left really confused of where the action. came from. So when it comes to cheese, you know it's the top, top acne-triggering food, but you get to make that choice. The sneaky thing about cheese, because it's basically cow's milk products is what's the worst. The more bio-individual is like the sheep or the goat, it's not all people break out to that. So I'm really speaking to cows dairy on this one. Okay. Because it has something in it called insulin-like growth factors. And that's, I mean,

it's the hormones for the baby cows. Right. God, we are sick. humans taking that for our own ice cream so if you're like oh but I don't drink milk or I barely have cheese the sneaky things to look out for is way protein way protein is so aggressive it'll cause really aggressive cystic acne if you ever see the bodybuilders with the really harsh back acne and acne on their face that's pretty much from all of the way protein I use hemp protein is that good that's my favorite one it has the most fiber yes yeah we love that Okay, so things to check, even if you're like, oh, but I don't buy way protein. Okay, but if you go and get a smoothie, have you ever asked what type of protein powder they're using? I know when I go home to the East Coast, most protein shops are still using way in a lot of areas. And they're putting real cows milk yogurt. They're putting real milk in those smoothies. So making sure you're asking where you're unaware. And then you'll see both whey and also milk protein isolate snuck in different protein bars, anything protein drink, protein bars. Make sure you're flipping that over and seeing if they're using way or milk protein

isolate. Those are like the really sneaky areas. And even Greek yogurt, that's still, because it's still touted as such a healthy food. It's still cow's milk. So it's still going to cause breakouts. The second one, which always gets to people, and this was my biggest acne trigger when I met Danielle. It's wine. It's wine, isn't it? The second one is not wine. I promise. It's eggs, actually. No. Okay, but egg whites. Don't worry. I love egg whites. It's literally all I eat. So egg whites have a protein in it called albumin protein,

and it's really hard for a lymph to break down. So you'll see it around the jaw line and chin area. It'll come through here. That'll be the egg, and a little bit down your neck. You'll see that if you also overeat rotissory chicken. Like, have you ever bought a rotissory chicken? And you're like making a salad, but then you're also like stuffing your face while you're making a salad

and you end up like eating absurd amount. Like that's me. So I would make myself break out on my neck by accident because I would just eat an absurd amount of rotisserie chicken. So it's really the chicken and the egg whites are really hard for that area. Egg whites as well, they actually block nutrient absorption. All the nutrient exists in the egg yolk. I know.

It's crazy. And it also has excess biotin in it too, which is all, you know, is just adding up in progesterone. So like eggs, you would suggest if you're going to eat them like maybe once a week? Yeah. Cut them out. Here's what we suggest. Cut it out for about a month.

and then purposefully go have it one time and then wait a few days and see what happened. The good thing is you're going to know. If you have acne and you're trying to clear it, you are obsessed with your skin. You know what every pore is doing. You know if something made it worse, right? So everyone has a unique threshold. Like I can have eggs once, like maybe once every couple of weeks if I'm not PMSing. Okay.

Same thing with dairy, actually. If I can have like goat fetta and I was drunk the other night and I had a shitload of it at like five in the morning because we didn't have any other food. I was fine. I was got of people over here. It was amazing. Yeah. So all the things we're saying right now,

we don't live our life 100% on all these things. These are, if you're struggling with acne and you need to get to a baseline, like I make eggs every single Saturday and Sunday morning for my boyfriend and I. Like we love eggs for breakfast. I just don't have any other five days of the week. Okay. And so, but that was after months of taking them out,

getting my acne, getting my acne to a baseline, not breaking out anymore, bringing them back in. And I take a lot, I take digestive enzymes when I have the eggs too. So I take our mind body skin, well, I take our mind body skin supplement. So that helps like counteract any breakouts that I would get with it. And that's how I get to enjoy my eggs once a week. Yeah. Yeah. Our mind body skin supplement like is the biggest life changing thing ever. And it makes it so you can eat the foods you love without them backfiring on you.

Oh, that's what I need to get some of those. Yeah. It also is very helpful with PCOS. Like we've, that's what we've heard a lot from our community. community has told us, our PCOS community of Clearstem has really told us that it's helped a lot with their PCOS symptoms. When you say you see it a lot under here and in the lymph, do you mean acne or do you mean inflammation? Both actually. Acne, but funny story about the inflammation, right before I had met Danielle when I was going to see every single doctor possible to figure out my acne, my lymph notes were really swollen. And I went to an ENT, an ear, nose, and throat doctor and their protocol they wanted to my lymph nodes were so swollen they wanted to remove them no after

I cut out eggs for a few months it all the inflation went down because they were I hate birds and now I'm mad at them about the eggs I'm like fuck you chickens that's so frustrating yeah it's yeah I know no way it's oh you have it pinned on your Instagram what your skin was before and after that was my skin you would never even believe this before and after too like your skin is flawless now Crazy. It really is. I'm a very disciplined person when I need to be. So I, all of the acne things, like once I met Danielle and went through her protocol, I followed to such a tea until I got my skin completely clear. And that's when I now allow like flexibility and living life. Yeah. Drinking the wine and having the cheese. But it's because I got to that strong

baseline. And then I'm also just conscious of if I go a little too far, I will probably break out. So do I want to or do I want to pull back? So what are the other triggers? Because I know you said two. Yeah. So we have dairy. We have eggs. Gluten is a big one, but I, everyone's a little different.

So gluten will show up however a certain person gets inflamed. Oh, okay. So some people get really bad sinus issues after having gluten. Some people like joints really hurt after getting it. So the person whose acne is triggered by gluten, this will be one they'll want to remove for a while and then test it and bring it back in. We recommend 30 days for that one as well because gluten actually takes 30 days to fully leave your system. So to get a really good idea if your inflammation acne. There's so many good gluten-free options anyways these days.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So luckily we are in a day and age where it makes it way easier than it was 10 years ago. Yeah. But this is definitely one to test if you are struggling with acne. And you might feel your bloating has gone away. Like it might be a bloating issue for you with it. But it's all really connected. Okay.

And is there more sugar? I'm sure. Sugar is a huge one. I will say my wine label does have low sugar. Spadensparis.com. It really does have low sugar, which always helps. But sugar, I'm assuming as. Well, to your brand, okay, so it's so important to know about wine is all the conventional

brands that are just so mass produced in the market, they add in so much junk. So to have one that's lower sugar is really, really important because wine isn't supposed to have like 60 grams of sugar. It's not naturally supposed to have. that much. So going for your brand that's going to lead in that lower sugar direction, you don't want to go all those mass produce that you like find at your average grocery store. I'm not going to name names, but it's the ones that like the majority people go to grab for in the market, you know. Yes. So it's not supposed to have that much sugar. So I should really lean

into my sugar, low sugar marketing. Yes. A thousand percent. Yes. Because wine is not supposed to have a lot of sugar. I mean, that's literally what I look for in wine and that's why I wanted it in mine. But okay, that's so good. And like, I'm sure there's so many other things. Like stress, how many brides get pimples on their wedding day from stress? Well, here's a big thing with brides, too. So the exercise routine gets kicked in like crazy when you're planning your wedding, right? And a lot of people will push their body to such an amount of stress,

not only from all the wedding planning, but they had a personal trainer. They're doing so many hit workouts. Like, they're going crazy on their own body. And hit workouts excessively can actually cause acne for people too, because it's so stressful to the body and it's keeping your cortisol level so high. Hit workouts are really important to do every once in a while for like the cardiovascular aspect of it,

but it's not meant to do every single day of the week in an hour format, right? Like those crazy hour hit, that's not hit. Being women and having such crazy hormonal changes. You know, during our periods, we're not supposed to be doing crazy cardio. Our bodies aren't built for it. We don't have the hormonal support during that time.

to be able to support such hard workouts. So what, so do you know, like, weekly or in your cycle what workouts you should be doing? I love syncing for workout. It's actually, so it's relieved so much guilt for me because I used to be more regimented with working out. Yeah. And now during my period, I barely were, I just basically walk and do really light Pilates and I give my body that permission.

So during our period, everything has crashed, right? like we're getting annoyed at everything or losing our minds we're craving everything so me too yeah yeah so testosterone is crash it like everything is um and so it's really important just to give our body's grace during this time because our tank is empty yeah we do not have a full tank and if you're trying to push your body through the hormones that it doesn't even have you're just going to continue to exhaust yourself and actually cause hormonal imbalance and then um right after your period is when you start to get all your energy back and you're creeping up on ovulation, that's when you can do the harder workouts. You can do the hit. You can do the heavy weightlifting. You can do the

spin classes, really anything you want around that time and your body can handle it. It'll also respond better. It won't get as inflamed doing those workouts versus other times the month. You'll notice, you'll be like, why did I just work out my body's so puffy and inflamed? Like your body's telling you that's not what you should be doing during that time of the month. So I think it relieves a lot of stress for us knowing we don't do that stress the number one cause of like weight gain weight loss acne skin like exhaustion everything we put so much pressure on ourselves for so many things when really stresses probably just making everything work yeah and women are naturally more stressed out because we have what's called diffuse awareness it's estrogen makes us aware of everything we notice every

little detail whether we want to or not and that is a lot of input it's a lot to process especially if, like, if your environment is cluttered or you, you know, you're behind on stuff or, you know, your hair didn't cooperate that day. Like, we have so many different opportunities for stuff in our environment to just annoy our way on our minds, our stress level. And we're the caretakers of our families and all the things. Then our cycle is changing. So it's like, we really need to respect the stress and, like, prioritize loving ourselves

that way. Yes. I love that. How do you two prioritize business together? because you met how many years ago? Almost 10. So I was 20 years ago. That was 2000, we went 2005, so eight years ago.

Yeah, coming up on nine years. Wow. Okay. I refuse to age. So whenever she says, oh, it's almost nine years. I'm like, no, it's closer to five years. Yeah, you're like, still five actually. She literally drops it down every time.

She's like, hasn't been that long. I'm with you. I'm with you. That's so funny. So how do you prioritize, like, the stressful times in owning a business together and being friends at the same time? How do we prioritize that? I mean, our executive therapist slash coach.

Well, she makes it easy. I mean, luckily, we have such a natural compatibility, which is why the business started anyway. And then we invest in it like you got to do with every relationship. Yeah. Yeah, our co-founder therapist has just been total game changer for us personally, for our team, our team members personally. Like, he's just been our guide.

He's a therapist? Yeah. He's not like he's not a certified. We joke and call him our therapist because we go into these executive coaching and it turns into like all the modalities that you have in therapy. He's trained on a lot of really beautiful, amazing therapeutic modalities and he takes us through. His wife's a therapist and like owns a whole, um, she owns a whole therapist conglomerate. Like my therapist work, my personal therapist works under his wife. So like she owns a whole practice. I could not think I conglomerate. I literally. I couldn't think of the word. I've done the word you remember. I literally couldn't think of the word practice. Oh my goodness. That's actually impressive. Yeah.

But it's crazy. It's like we've gotten really good about having hard conversations where they're not even hard anymore. So one specific modality he's taught us that we live and breathe by and we've taught our whole entire Clearstom team this too is having cleanup conversations. Like even the last two days, Danielle and I like there's been. something that came up where just we noticed there was a tiny, tiny bit of tension around. So literally this morning, we're like, hey, can we just clean up around this really quick?

And we had a beautiful conversation and it's cleared. But you can't expect a relationship that doesn't have tension, conflict, hard conversations. But we and you can do it in such an empathetic, beautiful I love you, you love me way. Let's just clear this up because we both feel that there's something going around on when we talk about this. Let's just clean it up. I love that. And it works. People should take that into like marriages.

Yeah, seriously. You want to clean this up for a second? Yeah, you got eight hours. This is an eight hour cleanup. Yeah. Get ready.

Call in the, what are the cleaning ladies called that are like so expensive? Molly made. Molly made. Layed on a tarp. We got to clean some stuff up. It's a big one. But it's a good, it's a good thought.

Like a good, easy thought to have of just cleaning something up. Yeah. You know, if you do it regularly, nothing gets that big. Yeah, it's true. The beauty of it. It doesn't. God, I'm an idiot. You're right.

Speaking of clean, how important is it for clean beauty? And how do you know when something really is clean? Because I feel like a lot of companies will say it is and it's not. How do they get away with that? Clean? Well, first of all, they're all getting sued. Great, great. So they're not getting away with it.

So clean generally means free of, known toxins, hormone disruptors, and, you know, harsh preservatives. Right. But undesirable ingredients, it does not mean acne safe. And that is where we are constantly educating because people will be like, no, this can't be breaking me out. It's clean, but they don't know the difference. They don't know what about poor clogging ingredients.

Yeah. So organic skin care causes some of the worst acne I've ever seen. Really. Case in point, shay butter and coconut oil. If it's an organic or a clean line, it probably has coconut oil. To slather my face in coconut oil. So did I. Yeah.

I'm like, oh, this will help with the bacteria of my cystic eye is what we are all told on the internet. Yeah. Yeah. It's the worst. Every ascetician who's been around long enough sees coconut oil die and then rise again as a trend. It's like people forget. And like every ascetician is like, yep, it's coming back again. No.

Yeah. Coconut oil is the most poor clogging oil. Okay, good to know. So again, I put that in my hair. So then I'm going into bed and then I'm rolling in it in my. How Kim Kay? Or innocent, sleep pillow. Yeah.

Use hemp oil. What's called? The pill. Pillcase. I saw that, I saw a clip on Instagram that Kim Kay like dips her whole head in coconut oil. I'm like, how does that woman not have aggressive acne is beyond me? Because that's like the, that's the biggest action trigger for people. Is acne genetic?

Like, yeah. Can also people like, let's say somebody doesn't get acne and they slather their face with coconut oil or are they still not going to get it? because they're just not prone to it? So two things. Yes, they might not get it, but a lot of people think they're not getting acne, but they'll see rough texture to their skin, and that's clogged pores.

Got it. But it never rises to the surface like acne. It just doesn't look like they have smooth skin. But again, someone who's constantly investing in facials, like 24-7 and all the things, you can just probably clear it right out, clear that texture right off. Kim's like, I have money. What do you talk about?

We're like, how does she do it? She's like, money. I am a billionaire. Wow. And then from your experience, what specific skincare ingredients would you recommend to use to maintain clear skin? Ooh, there's a ton that we really love. So for anti-aging and anti-acne, you really want to tackle inflammation. Yeah. So we use a ton of turmeric, green tea, B5, and Arnica in our products. And these are ingredients that have stood the test of time. Every culture respects and uses them. It's that ancient wisdom. brought into your everyday routine that also has the science of things like Bukutiel, which is the retinal alternative that's on it's the clean version of retinol.

Okay. So there's ingredients like that. And then there's like stem cell ingredients and epidermal growth factors. So our line really is reducing inflammation, adding ingredients that will help keep the poor clear, but also stimulate collagen and not making more sun sensitive. It's just a whole thought process of everything good and nothing bad. in this really specific way and that's our that's our special sauce we know how to do that extremely well because we are our customer yeah i actually have a biology background i studied genetics biology and immunology for a long time and the clinical practice that we do have quite a scientific background and our new director of product is the most obsessed with her cosmetic chemist really yeah like

she's worked for like a ton of the top brands and she's ours now and that's our exciting yeah the guy formulates our stuff is like a world renown like celebrity chemist like not the celebrity means you know like anything in that sense hey if kim k's using it i am right well like like our team just like understands what we are trying to do and our ethos of what not to include is also what makes it work so well yeah wow it's just like i love hearing people who know what they're talking about you know that i'm like yeah i want to use what you're using um also what would you like wave a red flag at for skin care, like, not brands, but like ingredients, maybe. I would say the top one would be pork cloggers. And again, you can check everything across the poor clogged ingredients

checker, but there's no real monitoring of claiming no pork cloggers. Non-communogenic is another way of saying it. So you can see non-communogenic on a label, which is supposed to mean no pork cloggers, but there's no regulation around it. There's no monitoring of it. So you could have these amazing active ingredients and all the like there could be a lot of filler agents that have pork cloggers in it that's still going to cause people to break out right so I would say that's the top no-no is to just really check all of your products for those because then you can identify the culprit and on that note is like exactly don't make assumptions every single time someone's breaking out and I'm talking to them one-on-one in the clinic they're like no I've been using that

for years or no like it can't be that like they're checking everything else but they're assuming something is safe. You have to start from the, do a thorough sweep of checking for poor cloggers because perfect example of this is retinae. Retinae, that white, there's a gel version that's clear and then there's the white version that's the really common one. That one is marketed and sold for acne, but it has the most notorious poor clogger in it, which is isopropal mirror state. So it's exfoliating you, slowly burning your skin and clogging you at the same time. That's why so many people get a gnarly purge and their acne doesn't stop. Right. But they're shocked because it was given to them by a dermatologist for Acme.

Of course. So what you're saying, tell everybody one more time where they can do this checklist, where they can put in the ingredients, because I think that's going to be something that's really important in this podcast. Go to clearstem skincare.com. Click resources and it's right under there. You can even just Google Clearstem, poor, clogging ingredients checker. And it'll just be that first search that comes up for you. Yeah. And save it as a bookmark to your phone.

That way when you're, you know, killing time at the airport, looking at stuff at Sep, Sephora, copy and paste. put it in, takes three seconds. We have a clear. We have a clear stem app now, too, that it's, like, way easier accessible just in the app. You can just go right into it. So it makes it really easy. That's so genius. That's going to change my whole life.

And then also as skincare professionals, what, like, what is your top three products people must use, like a sunscreen, a vitamin C, like, what are your, if you were going to simplify it for somebody? I'm all about dialing in your exfoliation. Okay. So exfoliation is just like exercise. the right type, the right intensity, and the right frequency is what will make you get the desired result. So knowing exactly how to use your scrub, some people use a scrub once a week for like a

minute. No, you want to use it like every few days for like eight seconds. So finding that sweet spot with your exfoliation, it's unique to everyone and it's going to change depending on the weather. So just really getting in tune with it. And then, God, I really love ingredients with Arnica. Arnica. Yeah. Okay. I think it's just amazing for the skin and for inflammation. It's a night and day difference with inflammation.

Yeah. And then a mineral based sunscreen. That's automatic. Yeah. What is that one that everybody, people are starting to put it in their skincare? It's like squaline. How do you feel about that? Squalane.

Oh, squaline. Yeah. Well, there is something called squaline. It's less common because it's generally animal derived. Squalane is derived from olives. It's like a thinner version of olive oil, if you want to think of it that way. And it mimics human oil. Okay.

So I freaking love squaline. We're actually, like, obsessed with it. Yay, okay, because I use it sometimes when I was like, please don't say no. It's so good. I podcast twice a week, and I swear this motherfucker out here only mose his lawn when I'm like. Yeah, who mows their lawn at night? It's dark out. What's wrong with him?

How can he see what he's mowing? I swear my neighbors don't like dogs. And so they're like, ah, she's podcasting. Let's get the dogs to mark. They're like weed whacking right outside of my door. It's insane. I'm like. That was a morning activity.

You, like, wake up, mow the lawn. It is. And if I do this in the morning, they'll be out there doing it. There's really never a good time. It's just so frustrating. If you're mowing, you're also a son of a bitch. Like, ruining when you're waking me up. Yeah, at six hours.

I don't understand. The birds, oh, I get so mad at the birds. It's like they're chirping at like 6 a.m. I'm like, shut the fuck up. I don't like birds and I do love sleep. Okay, we need to talk about why you dislike birds so much. It's, I know exactly where it stems from. It's literally.

Literally, my mom was terrified of it, and she made us think they were the devils growing up. Like, I'm definitely my mom, toothpaste and birds. My mom, like, really tormented me with. She thought the birds were, like, out to get her. And she made my sister, and I think that they were little flying devils. I want to meet your mom one day. Oh, yeah. She's a hoot-y earrings and didn't realize they were just coming for that.

Oh, my, maybe. I don't know, but I have tattoos and birds on my arms. It's so ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. I don't really know how to explain it. Back to you guys. I'm so glad I'm embarrassed. Anyways, back to you.

Tell me about getting into the skin industry when it is so saturated. Was it just like we know what we're talking about and we can make a difference? Because it sounds like it. Pretty much. Yeah, I knew, based on my educational experience and my love of knowing the inner workings of the human body. So I didn't become a dermatologist because by then I'd already seen a dozen of them and none of them could help me with my acne. So I was like, this is dumb. It's a prescription writing funnel.

That's it. I don't want to do this. So I left and went into the corporate world. Fast forward to him 28. The third round of acutane has failed. And I'm getting all the side effects. Like my vision was getting effective. Holy shit.

Yeah. So I'm like, screw this. I'll have to figure it out myself. I just haven't gotten access to this information. So I was looking to take classes. You can only do that if you're in aesthetician school. So I enrolled in aesthetic school at night, strictly there to just get the information and bounce.

And then while I was there, I saw that treating acne was. the medical profession I'd always wanted, but didn't know existed. So, yeah, I was hooked after that, left the corporate world, shadowed under a ton of other skin specialists, and then started San Diego Acne Clinic. And I started that one very intentionally because, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, I do lashes, I do brows, I do waxing, and I also do facials. And it's like, those are all very different things. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so I was like, I only want to do this. And that's, and, you know, there's a ton of estheticians and beauty places. That's how that one became successful is because

of its focus. Right. And the name, I also have very good SEO. So being extremely focused was what allowed that business to thrive in a saturated market. And then getting the process and the education dialed in and knowing how to formulate. And like Kaylee and I just geeking out over lab samples and getting feedback from people being like, this isn't common knowledge. You know, people need to know this. I think that was the biggest aha is when we started educating people and we started bringing it to more of a mass scale. People didn't know it. And then we felt it was, instead of like, how are we going to break into the industry, our brains weren't even thinking like that.

It was more, how can we get this education of more people? Because no one's talking about this. And we can help people with acne at such a mass scale and really help untangle the damage that's been done with education around acne. And we can help people. And I think that just really gave us all the fire to just continue to talk and to educate and do what we're doing now in your podcast to hopefully reach more people. people to help find understanding and relief suffering with their acne.

Yeah. I mean, there's so many things, skincare being one of them, but like people always think there's just going to be one simple solution and they don't think to look what's going on inside your body. And like obviously that has so much to do with it. So it's, I mean, I love that your website sounds so helpful as well. And then what is your Instagram as well? It's just at Clearsome Skincare pretty much across every of the social channels.

But you can find a lot of education there. That's what, that we want people to land on all of our pages and be able to find really useful information that can help them in the form that they need to hear or see it in. Okay. And then looking into the feature, if you had a crystal ball, like what innovations or trends do you see coming up in the skin world? We're actually, I think we were just writing a piece on this the other day and we're just talking about it. But I really do see non-poor-clogging skincare and makeup on the rise. I think the consumers, is really starting to understand the impact that pork-clog ingredients take on their skin. And I think it's going to force a lot of companies to start cleaning up a little bit more as far as the poor-clot ingredients sector. So I really see that as not even just like it's going to start as a trend, but it's going to

form from a trend to more of a baseline of how you should be really creating skincare and makeup. Does Clarism ever think about doing makeup? Yes. Really? Yeah, that's a whole other. animal. I'll talk about like you got to have like a thousand skews and it's just like the manufacturing is crazy. Totally different animal. So that is something. We'll have to poach some talent from

people who have done it before. Just get the right people. Yeah, exactly. Like you you all add so much to the company and you just need somebody to come in. We need someone who's already done makeup before and then just through the clear stem lens and making it really, really good. But we want to do it. So what makes clear stem above? Like what is what is it that makes you guys just feel like we need someone on the clear stem level to work with us just our commitment to the mission our commitment like what we do is to relieve suffering yeah and we hire base we hire people who can relate to that like you have to be one with the customer to work on our team so people that are like we know it when we're interviewing people like their eyes light up

they're leaning forward they're like they can't wait to tell us what they've been through like even our male CEO oh he you know you would never look at him and think he was you know relatable in this way but he totally is yeah so it's really people that have dealt with this issue on a personal level and they care that much about it that they're like i'm in i love that that's that makes all the difference in the world too because you people see through bullshit you know you can't pretend to connect with a customer that's struggling with acting when you've never struggled through a skin issue of some form it just you can tell i always say one of my favorite sayings in life is the proof is in the pudding yes i don't know i always say it my friend the other day i said

it and he goes yeah he wrote it because i wrote proof is in the pudding and he wrote it and he goes no it's in the pudding like p-u-t-t-t-i-n-g like the proof is in the pudding and i was like i actually don't know okay but none of those makes sense so let's just go with pudding i like pudding is p-d-d-d yeah yeah i'm googling this proof let's find out where this saying can i love to google where saying is yes oh that's my favorite yeah three sheets to the wind like everyone says that it's like an old pirate metaphor it is yeah i love this too it means you're taking off Do you know about the bees' knees? Where does that one come from?

Okay, it's because like it must be so out of this world like it doesn't exist, like bees don't have knees. Oh, that's cute. I like that. I know, it's cute, isn't it? It's the bees' knees. Because it doesn't exist. Cat's pajamas?

Not sure. Maybe the same thing. It's funny you see a cat in pajamas. Try to dress up a cat. They don't like it. To get a cat in a pajama, that's a cool thing. It's the cat's pajamas must be excellent in order for that to work. That's why it's a cat.

So, damn it. It's all making sense. I'm Googling this. I'm so excited. Okay. It originated as a reference to the fact that it was difficult to judge the pudding if it was properly cooked until it was actually being eaten. So it actually is pudding. Yeah. It is pudding. So again, you don't know how good the pudding is until it's completely done. You can't like test it along as you go. Yeah. Proof is in the pudding. The final. So it's like already happened. It's fine. It makes perfect sense. It is pudding. You shouldn't name one of your.

skin care lines pudding because the proof is in it you're welcome no that's what i should name one of my wines pudding actually i don't really want a wine named pudding but that would be a cool like i like that putting my pudding mask mask yes oh the proof is in the pudding and it's a pudding and it can smell like pudding like chocolate it could smell like vanilla i'm like okay we're going to have to have a call daniel's mad scientist brain is already going on And you get to eat it afterwards. And then your skin's so clean, you can eat it. Like, you can eat something off the floor.

Okay. I'm going too far. I do this all the time, but let's have a call. I think we're on to something here. Last but not least, I always have my guest confess something to me. Something embarrassing, something that you're like, I can't believe him about to tell this to Caitlin. Okay.

We were actually struggling. We were in the Uber and we saw that and we're like, fuck, we didn't think about that before. We have to come to third. Some people come real prepared And I'm like, I can't believe you just shared that And other people are like, oh, it's not that embarrassing And I'm like, okay And then other people are like, I got a good one

And then I'm like, I did that yesterday So most of mine would not do well for a public image That's what we were going through We're like, what can you say? I've rolled out several. Hey, I thought you want to be one with the customer It's relatable This is when everyone can appreciate

So this happened recently in Mexico for something like a friend's birthday or something and coming back across the border all the like customs border patrol agents they were very sexy that day I'm like making eyes with some of them or I'm in line, I'm bored, I'm single and like wants to do some eye flirting whatever and I have this cute purse that I had bought off

like the real real or some I don't know some place some secondary place where they're supposed to authenticate it this place didn't because when I got back home after crossing the border from Mexico, I was digging around for my chapsic and found a bag of cocaine. Shut up. You're not.

She bought off the webs. Shut up. I could have gotten in so much trouble. But the thing I didn't know. Because you were flirting there probably like she's innocent. She's good. She just wants a little eye flirt. Imagine if you found that while you were in line and you start freaking out.

Like, literally. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Did you sniff it? Just kidding. that is crazy I've heard a story one of my friends friends so who knows if that's a true story I feel like that's always like Goli but someone like strapped cocaine under their car and followed them across the border that happens yeah I'm like that that's so scary that I can't believe there's a you bought something off the real real real and there was cocaine in there I don't want to throw the real real under the bus I don't remember where I bought it but it was one of the secondary yeah one of them yeah whoa that's good that's a good confession because you could have been in jail. Yeah, for sure. You could be in a Mexican jail right now, but instead you are gracing our ear holes and screens with skin knowledge. I love it. Okay, beat that.

Dang. I was just going to say, guys, I cannot beat that. But I definitely tricked my boyfriend into dating me. So he does not know this. So in the beginning stages of us, like, see each other, like loosely, going on dates. The going on date stage. I like, lived in San Diego and he lived in L.A. And he would just be like, let me know when next time you're in L.A. And we'll go out to dinner. Well, like, not too many things brought me up to L.A. So I would literally, one of my best friends, Julia, lived up in L.A.

So I would just be like, hey, I'm coming up and I'm going to stay at your house for two days. But I'm just going to tell David, like, I'm in town so, like, I can trick him into taking me on a date. And so many times I would drive up. There was times where I was in San Diego that I told him I was in L.A. So then he, like, asked me on a date, and then I'd drive up and then, like, stay with my friend Julia. Like, I would, like, post a story, like, looking like I was in L.A. Because every time I post a story that I was in L.A., he would comment on it, and he'd be like, oh, you're back in L.A., what are you up to? That's so genius because you, like, didn't actually like that.

So it wasn't even in L.A. And I would post, like, a picture, like, a juice at Airwant or something. Yeah, I was going to say it has to be Arawan. Usually it was an Arawan thing, and he'd comment every single time. So I'd, like, I'd just be in San Diego, and I'd make him think I was in L. It's like a Google image photo. Because then he'd always reach out and then he'd ask me to hang out. And that's how I like trick because I like, he was like, I don't think you

had to trick him though. Because if he thinks you're in L.A. And he's constantly reaching out to hang out thinking you're in L.A., that's a good sign. Yeah. So. I think it's just effective branding, marketing, making shit happen. That's manifesting. I just branded myself that I lived in L.A.

Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. That's convincing. Yeah. It works. Genius. Yeah.

It works. Yeah. Yeah, it worked. God, you little Taylor Swift. I feel like that's something she would do. Totally. That's amazing. Oh, my gosh.

I loved having you ladies here and talking about all this. Again, clear stem, Instagram. Yeah, clear stem skincare across every platform. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And then I can't wait to get the app and be able to look at all these ingredients. I think that's so genius. Let us know how we can help too.

Okay, I will. Toothpaste? Just kidding. Okay, okay, okay, I'm done. Okay. Mel and Kaylee know what they're talking about when it comes to acne and skin care, and they even gave us a special little code for 20% off clear stem products. Use code off the vine at clearstemskincare.com for 20% off. I'm Caitlin Bristow. I'll see you next Tuesday.