Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Wrinkles

Episode Date: July 7, 2017

If you've got a few decades on you, you've certainly started to notice a few of the telltale signs of aging. Well, not YOU, of course. YOU look great, but like, your friends and stuff. This week, Justin and Dr. Sydnee explore the incredible array of bizarre treatments for wrinkles. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones bones a marital turf misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McAroy I'm Sydney McAroy. Well, Sid. It's my birthday today. No, it's not

Happy birthday to me honey. It's not it's not your it's not your birthday That's easily discoverable information at this point people will know Yeah, but you it's not your birthday. That's easily discoverable information at this point. People will know Yeah, but it's not your birthday. Tell me the topic only with agreed It would be a lot it would be a very easy intro to do to the topic if it had been my birthday So I was just kind of going for it. Right. Well, I was just gonna say something nice like we just a year looking youthful today Oh, thanks. You know, it's the Slope Carb diet. Four pounds of eating nothing but beans and I've managed to lose like 20 pounds. You look like a baby.

Baby phase. It's like I'm sitting across from a talking baby with a full head of hair. And a night trap t-shirt. Like mini babies. It's a toddler size. Itshirt. The like mini babies popular. It's a toddler size. It was hard to find a toddler size, but you're my favorite. No, I was going to see your favorite baby. You're tied for my favorite baby.

Fair enough. So that would be a good, I mean, like I've already gotten us in. I said a bunch of words at the beginning to set the stage. And now I believe it's time for me to pull back the curtain and reveal Sydney McRoy to tell us what the topic is this week on Sobbing. Well, Justin, I thought we could talk about wrinkles. That's so ironic, because it's my birthday today. Oh, no. Okay. We're tied in really nicely.

We're not going back to that. Just a squeaky chair. I gotta fix this squeaky chair, but yeah, or maybe just sit still. Maybe just stop fidgeting. I'm a baby I can't help my vengeance So as a baby you don't have a lot of wrinkles. Thank you I mean not yet. I guess we're headed there We're headed there

But I you know wrinkles are Have I don't always think of them as a medical thing Because it's you know, it's a mainly a cosmetic thing. It's not like a medical condition. It's not like you have to do anything about them. But obviously, the medical world has been attempting to do things about them for a very long time. So thank you, Emily, and Anthony for both suggesting this topic. First of all, do you know why our skin wrinkles? I'm going to take a swing at it. Oh good.

I always enjoy this. Well, pretend somewhere in here I said collagen because I think that's important. You're just reading ahead in my outline. No, I'm just telling you my understanding. You have a collagen. Okay, collagen. I think that we either lose or gain collagen as we get older, and we're very young. Our skin is very elastic.

Mm-hmm. And then as we get older, our skin becomes less elastic and repeated actions because of the loss and or gain of collagen begin to wrinkle permanently because our faces are less pliable than they were in our youth. That's actually kind of right. It's the loss. You had your bets there and said loss or gain. Because my lottery ticket everybody, Jamie, I was 80% of the way there. So it's, I mean, that's kind of right. So part of it is the loss of college and Alaston over time. Alaston giving us our elasticity. So that was pretty

good. Part of it is also that these fibers in our... Alastin sounds like a made up chemical that elastic man infected himself to get his powers. It's a real thing. Broken down by elastase. Okay. Whoa, elastase breaks down elastin. You think this should be good along. There's so much coming. So these fibers in our skin are constantly being stretched and compressed as we move our faces. Well, anything, but I think most people focus on facial wrinkles more than anything else. I mean, obviously we could be talking about any skin, but largely face is what we're

focusing on. So as you smile and frown and laugh and you don't shrug your eyebrows, that's not really a thing. Raise your eyebrows. And so on and so forth, these fibers stretch and compress and sometimes they can stretch too far, sometimes they can break. And when this happens, sometimes they don't heal very well and you get some more like fibrous tissue in that place and things can become a little stiffer there. Other areas of the skin will become looser around it and you start to get wrinkles. And like I said, what adds to this is the natural loss of those fibers over time. And some things

make it happen faster than others because not everybody wrinkles at the same rate or to the same degree. Certainly. So there are genetic factors that we don't completely understand as to why one person may wrinkle sooner or more so than another person. And then there are things that we know definitely contribute. Sun damage, for instance. The more sun damage to your skin, the more likely you are to get wrinkles. Smoking definitely contributes to wrinkles. Okay, now I have to ask this because I actually don't know and I feel like I'm probably wrong.

The smoking contributes to wrinkles because you're doing the same action with your face when you smoke over and over again. I'm sure that doesn't help but no. It actually has to do with the toxins in the cigarettes. Oh, okay. And the chemicals in the smoke. That makes more sense than my thing. Yeah, no.

I mean, any repetitive movement with your skin would be more likely to cause a wrinkle, but that's not really with the smoking. That's not it. But smoking, sun damage, generally poor hydration, although you have to be pretty poor for a long time. And then, you know, they're also just a normal part of aging. You know? Yeah.

It's like, it's like my man, Jimmy Buffett says, wrinkles only go where the smiles have been. That's so true. You know? It's so true. That's true. No, my elbows. Let's talk about that because I don't know James. Do you know it's actually, it's actually a completely different mechanism from like when we think about age-related

wrinkles to the wrinkles that you get when you've been in the bathtub too long and you get pruny? No, I did not know that. Totally different mechanisms. Because nothing new to each other. No, has nothing to do. I stumbled across this as I was researching this and the mechanism for that is fascinating. It's not just like your skin absorbs extra water and so it gets like kind of folded.

It has to do with changes in blood vessels and nerve endings. It's really interesting. I'm not gonna talk about it because it's just interesting. That's not burn that show. But anyway. It's a whole other path of physical.

Is everybody going to get in pruning? This seems like it might be colloquial. No, in the articles that, the scientific articles I was reading about, why does your skin get wrinkly in the bathtub? They put in quotes or pruny often so So what have we done throughout history to try to combat this the scourge of wrinkles? I don't really think it's a scourge, but clearly some people do so Cleopatra

Obviously famous for being beautiful and seeking to maintain that beauty. Also very powerful, probably kind of intimidating. She took daily baths and donkey milk to try to keep her skin silky smooth. Is that what? There are substances in milk that have been like studied to see if alpha hydroxy acids are something that supposedly can keep the skin a little smoother. I don't know that it's ever actually been proven to make a significant difference in preventing wrinkles, but there are active compounds that I guess maybe would have made it feel softer

or something. But what I thought was interesting is to maintain her daily donkey milk baths. She had to have a stable of 700 donkeys. That was a kid on slew your shorts, right? Donkey milk? Is that how you think? Donkey lips. Ah, it's, of course.

700 donkeys for her baths. It's a lot of donkeys. It's a lot of hay, too. Like, you got to have that donkey's you hay? I'm assuming. This isn't a show about donkeys, people. I'm going to ask for donkey tips. Uh. In addition, you find a lot of these among royalty throughout history rulers who had access and time and money. And also like incentive to make people

think that they were if not a whore. Ageless. Yeah, Ageless. Sure. Sure. The ruler of the Tang Dynasty Empress Zedian would wash her face in a mixture that she called fairy powder, which I think sounds magical, but was really just mother-wort and cold water mixed together. Not really magical. And not a powder, kind of liquid. But if you call it fairy powder. Yeah, it if you, but if you call it fairy powder, yeah, sounds would be cool. Sound magical.

The much less magical, both the Greeks and the Romans used to make mud masks. Specifically, if you really wanted to get rid of wrinkles, mud wasn't good enough, you should throw some crocodile dung in with the mud, paint that on your face. Don't go out in public because you've got crocodile poop on your face, but wash it off and then you'll look great. You look fantastic. Actually, I think they did this at like Roman baths and stuff, so you would actually be in public as you were smearing crock poo on your face.

But you know what? Everybody's doing it. So you got to peer pressure thing. It's fine. Yeah, I guess. I mean, not fine, but it's like every's doing it. Justin, if all your friends were smearing crocodile poo on their faces, would you too? I mean, I'd have some questions for us for sure.

Namely, were you getting this stuff? Did you sell it? Did you buy this from somebody? Did you trade the magic beans for it? Are you sure to crack it out? Maybe you were ripped off. Did you watch the's crack it out? Are you sure it's crack it out? Maybe you will rip it out. Watch the crocodile do it. Galen made his own mixture. It was kind of like the original cold cream with beeswax, olive oil, and water. So that's a little nicer. That's fine, I guess.

Yeah, that's fine. That might be, that might kind of work, right? I mean, what do you mean when you say work? Okay, well then I don't want to get ahead of us here. Because I remember there are lots of ways that you could moisturize your skin and it would look, you know, fresher or smoother immediately after you did something. But what people were also attempting to do is eliminate or prevent wrinkles.

And that's a whole other matter than just, oh, your skin looks so shiny right now. Plenty, of course, plenty of the elder. We haven't talked about him for a while. I'm glad he's been missing that full. Plenty of the elder had his own theory on how to get rid of wrinkles, and it is, of course, awful. Yeah, Rob. Well, you know what I'm going to guess, because his will be worse than whatever crap I make

up. Take some leaves. Okay. Steep them in the urine of a boy or a girl if that's all you can find. What is wrong with you that you can't listen. I've known a lot of boys. They all will pee on whatever you want them to for sure. You may not even have to ask. Preferably one that's not yet adolescent.

So get the leaves, get the little boy to pee on them, then pound them with salt, Peter, and just kind of paste them all over your abdomen. And you won't have wrinkles. There, I mean, is it an abdomen specific treatment? No, it's just plenty. He just makes it up. He just makes it up, you're right.

There you go. In the 1400s, they had an interesting theory on what in France, on what they thought caused wrinkles, specifically chewing. Now, that's not, again, movements. So just stop that. And movements of the facial muscles, repetitive movements over time.

Yeah, yeah, that tends to be places where we wrinkle, which is why we see them around the corners of our mouth or you know above our forehead, those kinds of places where the face has more movement. Right. Chewing is probably still worth it. I would say if you're looking at the grand scope, if you zoom out a little bit, I think that you would see that chewing is probably still working. The result was that many fine women and noble women women of royalty would only eat soup to avoid chewing all the time. So you could just sip daintyly on your soup and not use those chewing muscles. I mean, that's why I, that's why I stay so wrinkle free. It's my

love of soup. You do eat a lot of soup. I love I do love soup It's my favorite food You like more of a chunky style soup though. I'm not sure this would pay off for you That's the most boring thing by the way anybody could ever say my favorite food is I'm sorry. That's who you've been listening to everybody my favorite food is soup I'm sorry, that's who you've been listening to everybody. My favorite food is soup. This is Neemac Roy story. An eight-part special event coming to HBO. My favorite food is soup. We've mentioned the use of lead before, specifically just because there was this time in the 1500s where a pale face was thought to be very beautiful and something that you would try to replicate to make your skin as pale as possible.

So lead and vinegar and to create, they would use different paste to create like this white facial kind of paint that you would just put over your face that would leave it pale and smooth and kind of expressionless. Cushillac it now. Exactly. I mean, that's what they were kind of doing. And the result of this was twofold. One, you would have that weird porcelain doll face.

And then two. It drives the boys crazy. That's what everybody goes for. And then two, you couldn't really move your facial muscles once you did. I mean, you could, but you would crack the paint if you did. So you had to keep your face very still, which also had the double purpose of trying to reduce the formation of wrinkles because you can't move your face. Sure, yeah. I was like before Botox, you just didn't move your face. Just don't move your face. Not that you can't, you just don't.

Just don't. Just choose not to. If you didn't like that in the same time period, the women would try just putting strips of raw meat on their face. That's grody, and I don't see why that would work. I mean, I'm not saying it did. I'm just saying women did it. But people do that for black eyes, don't they? Yeah. Hmm. What? What did they know? Still not a thing. I never, I've never

once told a patient, hey, you know what you should do. Go home and grab a raw steak and slap it on that bruise. Yeah, that seems more like a 1950s dentist a minute kind of thing. Yeah. than an actual thing before doing. It's like a cartoon. Also, who can afford that? Nice day. Nice day. You can have a nice day. You can have a nice day. Grill that up, Dennis.

And then of course, we're moving in the same time period where you've probably heard of Elizabeth Bathory, one root of some of the vampire legend, not the only. Oh, to the only. Yes, who would bathe in the blood of young virgins in order to maintain her youthful glow and her skin's unwrinkled appearance. If you didn't like that, you could use bat blood instead, just kind of rub bat blood all over your face,

but it's essential that if you're gonna use this treatment, you also drink some arsenic. So, one, two, I thought for a second you were talking about, you said, try it with bats. I thought you were talking about filling up a bathtub with bat blood and it's like, man, I hope you're back to a lot of bats. That's way more bats than I've ever encountered, like caught in my lifetime, probably. I wouldn't do that. Generally, if you even come in like, like you make a close brush with a bat, then we start talking about rabies vaccination.

So if you bat then bat blood, you're definitely. I hope bats don't have ghosts, because that's gotta be hard to watch. Like what, what? I died, wow, come on. How about bats that literally fall down? Just leaping just leave just up there and they're moving really quick and they're making Yeah, just leave them alone leave those Skyrats be In the 1600s uncooked egg whites were pretty popular to just kind of smear all over your skin to smooth over wrinkles

and in the 1700s Wine was fashionable just pour wine on your face. Just pour wine on your face. Oh, I don't know. It was just better because as we move into the 1800s, you see mercury was a popular treatment for everything. Not for you. So why not also rub it on the surface of your skin.

It was thought to remove wrinkles and blemishes, which if it was doing that, the reason would be because it was kind of corroding the skin somewhat, not maybe not the best way to do that. Empress Elizabeth of Austria used to use a her own concoction. It was a sperm whale wax that she mixed with sweet almond oil and a rose water and then make it she made a cream out of it and she would put it on her face in the day. And then at night her routine involved raw veal and strawberries chopped up and she would put them on her face and then she had a specially made leather mask that she would strap over the raw veal and strawberries and sleep in every night. That's

setting. I think she was a famed beauty. I mean, I guess I'm working for. I bet that little plan was devised by someone in her court that did not enjoy her very much. Oh, you know what you need to do. Oh, you know, hey, need to do. Oh, you know, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, look at her. Look at her. Look her face. Do you know what it is? Shh. No, no, no, no, no. Shh. Don't laugh. Don't look, don't look, don't look. It's sperm whale wax on her face. Yeah. At night, yeah, for sure. Veal and strawberries on a leather mask. It's, it's baffling. How do you even order that? I need a leather mask. The kind that you would maybe put raw Veal and strawberries underneath to strap to your face. And that's from my face. And then add like a steaks worth of veal, steaks worth of space. And then a- And strawberries.

Strawberries, let's- This is all very well and good to- but I want to know what we're doing today. Because it seems like I've- I've seen more of two treatments. We're getting there. We're getting there, but before we get to today, why don't we head to the billing department? Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God before the mouth. All right, Sid, we were cruising through the 1800s.

If I recall, are we just kind of, but before you back into it, are we just kind of taking crap shots here? Is this just kind of us taking a swing at it? I mean, I think it's like, you know, when you're dealing with something like wrinkles, which you're gonna have such a variable response, right? Some people get really wrinkly, is they get older?

Other people don't get particularly wrinkly. So you're gonna have somebody who uses one of these weird concoctions and looks great. And so then it is thought to work. And especially if they're royal or famous, then everybody's going to want to do whatever they did because they look great. So it catches on and it's popular for a while. And then a new factorizes.

Some of these things, there is some thought that maybe there was some science behind why they persisted, like I mentioned with the milk, but then other things, I mean, like the raw meat were probably just... Just taking shots. It seems like meat, it seems fresh, I don't know, cold, I don't know, I really don't know. Well, I mean, the blood thing, that's going to persist. We'll get to some modern day there. But stuff just sticks around too. One of my favorite wrinkle treatments that I came across is it's from 1889 and it's still around today. It was developed by Margaret Croson because she noticed that her daughter Alice had developed frown lines. Can you imagine that conversation?

Sweetie, sweetie, we need to talk. How? The boys won't come calling. We'll go, your wrinkles lines are showing. How rough is that? That's the same kind of mom is like, girls, boys don't wear passes that girls wear glasses.

Not gonna be. So. like, girl, boys don't wear passes and girls that wear glasses. Not going to be. So, Alice, sorry, I'm gonna have to do that. So poor, poor Alice's mom said, I need to help you get rid of these frown lines. And I need to so badly that I'm gonna create a brand new product just to eliminate, I mean, wrinkles in general, but your frown lines. Okay, like it's so wild to me I mean, this is still thinking that like you notice that your daughter is frowning it up that she has frown lines and your first thought is

I gotta get rid of those frown lines cosmetically. That's that's wild like man Your daughter seems profoundly upset. Like, maybe you should address some of the underlying. Yeah, but you should ask her why she's so sad. Yeah, your daughter's so sad. She's so sad because you're mad at her for having wrinkles and you have developed a new product, which are essentially, they were like these adhesive pads.

They had like a vegetable-based adhesive on them and like see through adhesive pads, and you would just put them on your face, places that there were wrinkles, idea being that you would sleep with them on, and then wake up the next morning, and they would have mechanically smoothed the wrinkle out of your face, and she called them frownies. Okay. Which is a clever name, I just say. So frownies still exist today.

I didn't know this. I read about this. I just assumed it was one of those kind of funny patent medicine things that a lot of medicines like this that existed in like the late 1800s and early 1900s and then we figured out how to actually do science and we stopped buying them. No, frownies are still around today.

You can go buy them. They are just little adhesive pads that you just stick on your face. I mean, that's what they are. Now the company has come out with a whole line of other beauty products to try to make you look younger. But they also list because they've been around so long, they have this long history of being used like in Hollywood. This is Hollywood's greatest secret. How do the starlets all look so young? Well it's frownies and if you go to their website you can find like every movie they've been in like you can see frownies in Sunset Boulevard. They're featured in a scene in Cacoon. Do you

remember in death becomes her when when Meryl Streep uses a frowny. Sorry, do you? They're in Mars attacks. Can you imagine? So Tom Jones. So the idea was that you would leave them on overnight and then take them off or you would wear them in public. Yeah, no, you don't wear. I mean, you can see them. So you wouldn't want to wear.

I mean, I guess you could wear them all day if you want a more effect, but no, if you're going out and about, you wouldn't want to keep wearing them. But a lot of celebrities have and continue to buy into these. You'll see that there are all kinds of like celebrity endorsements or at least people who have done them. I don't know if they're endorsements there, but they're people who have used them and said like, yeah, I use frownies. Yeah, I've tried them out and it's just fascinating to me. Raquel Welch included them in her book. Raquel will be on the

cleavage that she loved them. So frownies you can buy them today I'm not saying you should I'm just saying that they're out there and they were all inspired by poor Alice's frown lives. Yeah so in 1950s, we started to kind of try to use science to look for what might actually help to increase. We didn't always know, we didn't quite know college in yet, but we had some idea that there were substances in the skin that we were losing. And we started using things like protein-based creams, like albumin-based, which is like a protein. This one I think they got from eggs.

It is an egg. This one wasn't from eggs. This one was from the blood of cows or some animal. I don't remember which one in particular, but they had a specific place they harvested it from and they made different wrinkle smoothers, became pretty popular in the 1950s. In 1995, a big breakthrough was retinay, which you may also have heard of as used for acne. Yeah, it's not familiar. It's a Tretenoan, which is a metabolite of vitamin A, which is retinol. What's a metabolite?

It's just a breakdown product of vitamin A. And it can smooth wrinkles, it can treat acne, but it can also cause your face to be really inflamed and like peel. Not great. So it's a rough, it was a rough treatment, but they did see some improvement with it. In the 90s, you also see laser resurfacing. Introduce where. Like you're trying to attach your removal.

Sort of, they're, I mean, they're removing some of the dead skin cells. So same idea, kind of removing skin cells, hopefully stimulating growth of new cells in collagen at the same time was the idea with the laser resurfacing, which just sounds like a thing you shouldn't do to your skin. Like laser resurfacing sounds like something you do to like your deck. But like, so does a chemical peel,

so does a lot of this stuff. Like, it's a lot of this stuff. Like, it's a lot of this stuff. Like, it's a lot of this stuff. It's crawl this is like, it's savage out there. That's very fair point, fair point. One famous treatment for wrinkles that everybody is probably seeing like, I think it's mocked horribly on TV shows all the time,

or collagen injections. Right. So those actually date back to the 1970s. And when they first came out, they were considered, you were considered this giant breakthrough in anti-wrinkle technology. They were initially made of cow collagen, and the idea was pretty straightforward.

You would inject them in a wrinkle to try to kind of fill it out. Okay. You know, there's a dent, let's put some stuff in there and fill in the dent, and then it will be full and smooth, and the wrinkle will be gone. It's only a word to exactly like that.

You had to initially, when they introduced the product, if you wanted to try it, you had to be tested to make sure you're in allergic, because it was a foreign substance that we were injecting into your body. And so if we didn't check you to make sure you weren't allergic to it first, you could have a, yes, you can imagine pretty horrible reactions to this stuff. We're injecting in your face. The other problem is that it just didn't last very long. So you would have this done. And then you see the horrible results

when things like kind of drooped or fell or got really swollen. And then you would have to do it again eventually. The swelling was a big complication with it. In 2003, they came out with like a human collagen. The idea just being that you wouldn't have to worry about the allergic reaction. But same problem in that is still in last very long. So that's why in the same period of time in the 2000s, hyaluronic acid took over as a different substance that we already have naturally occurring in our skin and our joints. We do these injections and joints as well for like

arthritis and stuff. But that kind of took over in the 2000s because it lasted longer. You didn't have as much problem with reactions to it. And so they started doing injections of that. And then finally, there is now some like semi-synthetic fillers that they can actually inject into wrinkles, especially for bigger wrinkles and thicker skin areas, you can use that. We don't use collagen much anymore. That's kind of fallen out of favor just because we have better products now. It seems like such a, I don't know, established thing. It's surprising.

It's not a anymore. Yeah, it does. It's very true, but it's just not nearly as common as it used to be. I guess it's a planet by other stuff That's invoked and stuff that's probably better, I guess lower risk and Longer lasting like Botox like Botox so Bautilism was discovered in the 1820s Initially because you know it could cause disease right?. That's why I found it. We are

being the elite beer tomatoes open. Got the botch. You get botchalism toxin. It's a neurotoxin. It's like a bad it's a bad thing. What followed was a lot of study and experimentation. We kind of had a few interesting. We dabbled with biological warfare using botulism toxin for a while, we moved away from that. And we figured out that there were different kinds of botulism toxins, and then finally we figured out some practical uses from all this study in the 1950s, and that's when we discovered that if we injected botulism toxin A, just one of the toxins into a contracted muscle, it would make it relax. Now there were actually some really important medical implications for this.

Things like torticolus, which is a condition where your neck can get stuck, like turn to the side in a position, that muscle gets contracted down and your neck is actually stuck. Injecting botulism toxin into that muscle could help relieve that spasm, and allow you to move your neck again. So some really important medical uses for facial muscle spasms, vocal cords spasms, any kind of contractures contracted muscles,

you started to kind of experiment, could we use Botox as it began to be known at this point in history? Could we use Botox to use Botox? Botox just being botanolism? Botanolism toxin? Botox. By the 90s, though, people began realizing that

in addition to all these kind of more medical applications, there were also some cosmetic implications from Botox. When you injected it into your face specifically, things like frown lines seem to disappear. Why? Because it paralyzes muscles. Oh, okay. So it's good to move.

Are you being supported by muscles? Like, are wrinkles being created by muscles? No, but if you make everything still, then the skin isn't going to move. Okay. Yeah, everything just relaxes and holds still. Okay. So then you're not going to see them. That makes sense. Yeah. Everything just relaxes and holds still. Okay. So then you're not going to see them. That makes sense. Yeah. And this, when they, when they noticed this, this created a huge demand for

the project, for the product, obviously, because, oh my gosh, this could fix wrinkles. It was actually not approved for this use until 2002, even though it was probably being used somewhat before that. Yeah. But in 2002, and initially it was just for those, and actually I still think to this day, it's mainly supposed to be used for the wrinkles between your eyebrows, globular folds, those wrinkles up there. So forehead bow talks, I don't know if people are doing it for things like frown lines, but you're really not supposed to, it's really mainly for the forehead. But it is now the number one non-surgical cosmetic treatment in the country.

Congratulations, Botox. You did. You did. And you can tell because if somebody's had it done, you can see like the skin, like it doesn't move much. The forehead looks very smooth and still. And that wears off too, right? Yeah, it does wear off over time. So you need repeated treatments.

There are all kinds of new things since then there are new creams that include again eggs are popular eggs shell membranes Retinal that I mentioned vitamin A your vitamin A derivatives are still very popular Hmm, it's backwards. That's still's still around in different forms. Placenta is a pretty popular treatment for lots of things, including wrinkles. Sheep placenta is in some creams that are supposed to help with wrinkles. I guess your own placenta could be used as well. It's just going to go to waste otherwise. So placenta is in a lot of creams. I think like J.Lo was a big fan of placenta facials or something.

There are some who advocate for what they call a vampire facial, which is when you get some of your blood. However, you choose to do that. I guess it's up to you and you just kind of dab it all over your face. Sure. That makes sense to me. Dry there, I guess, and then wash it off. Him Kardashian actually posted a picture of herself getting a vampire facial. I found pretty upsetting a picture of her would just blood all over her face. I stumbled across

it in my research and it was very unsettling. Yeah, I don't need that in my life. No. Thank you for not sharing that visual with me. Others believe in leaching your face for a youthful appearance. Doesn't really track. Yeah, I think Demi Moore was a proponent of that. Did you share upset with Slobz on Blast? Well, I'm just saying that. Again, like I said, a lot of this stuff

becomes popular because somebody who's considered beautiful whether they be royalty or famous or whatever starts doing it. And so then everybody goes, why I want to look like they look, because they look amazing. So whatever they do, I'll do too. All we're saying is if you're going to put your stamp

and prove on something in your celebrity, you better make sure it actually works. Are you going to correct? The sensor is going to correct you. Or you could just make an entire career off of it and name yourself Gwyneth Paltrow. Boom. Uh, or this is one of my favorites, four skin cream.

It's not actually unfair to Gweneth. She's her entire career is acting and she is extremely gifted. Yeah, that's fine. There's also the whole goop thing. Yeah, there's. So, uh, or four skin cream. Oprah actually has endorsed four skin cream in the past. Um, there are many makers of four skin of something that, uh, that it contains four

screen, four skin cream now that insists we do not put force skin in it. It's based on a cell line from an original force skin from a long time ago that we continue to grow and put in our creams. The ancestor, like the great, great, great descendants of that foreskin. But we are not continuing to do this.

I do not advocate this. I do not think this is a good idea. I don't think you need to remove the foreskin at all, so certainly don't turn it into a cream and put it on your face. I mean, there's also a variety of creams available now that we try to fix what actually is going on, stimulate collagen, repair the cells that are damaged. There are all kinds of like new things, fruit acid peels, dermabrasion, microbration,

and of course there are surgeries for this now. But again, it's genetic, it's variable. I don't know, personally, I'm fine with it. I don't bother me that much, but I'm in my mid 30ss. Who knows? Maybe I'll get more pictures by a second older. That's fair. It might bother me more later. I don't know. But that's, man, that's a lot of just bad stuff, huh? We just really took a run at it. I guess since it's exterior, we'll just kind of try anything.

Well, I think that's really it. And a lot of these things are just creams, and they might have moisturizers and things in them that do make your skin feel nice or look, you know, firmer, like it's glowing after you put it on. And so it's really easy to sell a product that you'll look in the mirror after you use it and go, oh, I do look a little better.

And it doesn't actually do the long term things that it's saying that it does. Yeah. So there's a lot to be Game by something feeling like it's working. Yes, and it's not hard to do that when you're applying it to your whole face Folks that's gonna do it for us this week. I want to mention because we don't enough. We have an email address People ask this all the time. I forget to mention it. Solbones at maximumfund.org If you want to suggest a topic that we haven't done before, then go for it.

You're right there. Now, I hear you wondering what's MaximumFun.org. You asked, well, that's the home of MaximumFun, our podcast network, full of a ton of great shows that you can go enjoy right now. I mean, literally hundreds of thousands of hours of high quality content are waiting there for you at the click of a mouse at the push of a button All for free and You can go check it out right now maximumofund.org

What I think the taxpayers a band for the use of their song That's I think you should change the name of that taxpayers a band For the use of their song medicines. It's the intro and outro for our program And thank you to you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it'd be great if you would tweet about the show or talk about it to somebody and iTunes reviews, subscriptions, all that stuff. It's really helpful. And we really appreciate everybody helping to spread the word.

We got some great tweets this week from Melissa and Fox and Sean and Joan and Sarah and Catherine and so many others Tweeting about the show. We also have a live show next week. That's true. You can still come see us I think there's a few tickets left bit.ly for it's as Saul bones Philly is the is the address for you to go and purchase tickets. It's going to be Sunday July 16th At doors at 130 p.m. Show at 2 p.m. All ages at the Troke D'Aro theater tickets are like 22 to 25 bucks And come check it out because it's part of the Philadelphia podcast festival So you can come see our show and check out a lot of other wonderful podcasts as well.

Our buddies for the flop house are going to be there and so are all of their. So come see us and come say hi. It's a good time for a show. It's like right in the middle of the afternoon. Sunday, come kick it. Yeah. Have some brunch. Come to our show. And that's going to do for us folks until next week. My name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. MUSIC All right. Yeah. MUSIC Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture. Artists Don't. Alright!

Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artistone Listener supported Well, whoopity top, top, scoopity, dig, top Whoopity top, whoopity, whoopity, whoop Whoopity, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, Find it on MaximumFund.org or wherever you download your podcasts.