The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 111 - Looking after your skin with Votary’s Arabella Preston

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

In this episode, Dr Louise Newson talks to Arabella Preston, co-founder of Votary skin company, about her background as a make-up artist and what prompted her to start creating cleansing and facial oils from her kitchen table. Together they discuss how to best care for your skin and how to know what products to buy among the crowded skincare marketplace. Arabella discusses the almost taboo topic of female facial hair and how to deal with it. She also talks openly about recognising her own early signs of perimenopause and what she has learnt about the impact of hormone changes on the skin.   Arabella’s 3 top tips for looking after your skin: Make sure you’re cleansing your skin properly using a non-foaming product and a proper face cloth, every day. The best thing to do for your skin when it comes to anti-aging is to wear a good SPF (suncream) that suits your skin and wear it every day, all year round. Explore active ingredients to help your skin, like retinol and retinoids, they are a vitamin A derivative and great for menopausal skin.   Find out more about Arabella’s cleansing and facial oils or her magic razors at the Votary website www.votary.co.uk

Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr Louise Newsome, a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity. In addition, I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Well-Being Clinic here in Stratford-upon-Avon. So today on the podcast I've got with me Arabella Preston, who I've known for a few months now. And I'm really keen to have I've been trying to invite her to come on just to talk various things really about skin and also about facial hair, which is something that many people don't talk about. So Arabella is the co-founder of an amazing company called Votari, which we'll talk about it's in detail in a bit. So just welcome Arabella. Really kind that you're giving up some time today. Thank you for having me, Louise. It's a total honour. I'm a big fan of the podcast. Oh, thank you. It's a me moment to be sitting here. Oh, so just remind me how we even met or were introduced to each other because I can't remember

I hope to say. My co-founder in the business, I don't think you'll mind me saying this, was a client, do you call them at the clinic? Customer. Of course. So my co-founder was a patient at Newsome Health. And she just wrote to the clinic and said, you know, I'm a patient, but I also happen to have a skincare brand.

I think probably our customers are your customers and vice versa. And we definitely want to be talking to those women. you know, is there anything we could do together? And you very kindly came straight back and were really keen and we ended up doing an Instagram live. And then I became one of your patients. Yes, in fact, that's right. Because we had, yes, so you very kindly sent a few of your products, which we can talk about some of it. I get lots of emails, as you can imagine, asking to be a face behind, a name behind, there's something behind, some menopausal range. And I just say no to everything. But actually you weren't asking for that, so it was quite easy to say, well, let's just find out a bit more.

And you sent some products which we all fought over in the admin room here because everyone just smelt them and thought, my goodness, he's just so wonderful. And then we did this Instagram live and you started saying a bit about your sleep, actually, mainly, I seem to remember. And afterwards, I think I said to you, oh, I think maybe I could help you a little bit. So, yeah, and this happens quite a lot, actually, that I see a lot of people who really aren't thinking about. their hormones at all. They're not thinking about menopause because they're still having periods. And then they're starting to get symptoms and think it's because of their life or their job or their work or their home situation. And it's not until someone actually says, actually, have you thought, then the penny sort of dropped sometimes, isn't it? Yeah. And I think I probably

did know I was perimenopausal. And I think I may have even said as much when we did our Instagram live. Didn't think it was anything that I should certainly be bothering you with. I thought maybe I might go to my GP and see if they'd give me some Easter gel, maybe, but I'm probably going to put that off and slightly dread going and having to have that conversation. So the sense of relief when you said to me, I think I can help you, and you should be thinking and doing something about it was huge. It was a huge relief. It's interesting, isn't it? And isn't it a shame that you felt that sense of dread, actually, because, you know, I think if you were found out you were pregnant, it would be very exciting to

go to the doctor and tell the doctor. And actually, when people used to come to me and say they're pregnant, actually there's very little I could do other than congratulate them because, you know, it's usually a midwife that takes on the care or whatever. So, but actually if someone comes and they're peri menopausal, also for those of you who aren't sure who are listening, the peri just means around the time of menopause, obviously, is when periods stop. So the peri menopause is the time when women's periods start changing even just in nature.

they might be still regular, but their periods changing slightly and they're starting to get menopoles or symptoms. And actually, these are the women who we really want to see and really want to help because the earlier they get treatment and they have some of their hormones topped up, the less they're likely to suffer, but the better for their future health as well. And too often I hear from women or speak to women who are told that their doctor just says, go away and come back when your periods have stopped. And that's often because of misunderstanding because actually HART is only licensed for postmenopal women. If you look at the actual licensing, it's not licensed for paramedicals or women.

I was always told that your pari menopause was the one year before your period stopped. Were you? Which didn't make any sense to me. Because how do you know that anyway? How do you know when your periods are going to stop? Exactly. You only know that in hindsight. And also, of course, it doesn't make any sense.

That's not how bodies work. You know, tapering off and fluctuations. in hormones over a period of time and that's surely different for everyone because we're all different. Of course it is. And I think this is what's really difficult. So despite what people might read, there's no blood test. There's no actual test to find out if it's your hormones because I could take your blood

test now and I could take it again in an hour's time and the results would be different. And when actually women are perimenopausal, they often get low hormone levels, but they also get very high hormone levels. It sort of swings in peaks and choffs. So there's lots of people that talk about. about estrogen dominant and then that gets very confusing because then they think, well, I can't take HRT because I've been told I have Eastern dominance or something. But actually, it's only at that time, their level was very high.

But at 3 in the morning when they're having a night sweat and feeling dreadful, their level will be very no then. But obviously, we don't normally take that test at 3 o'clock in the morning for obvious reasons. So it's very important that women try and pick up their symptoms early, actually, and monitor their periods if they're having them, because the sooner you pick it up, the sooner you can get help hopefully. But it is difficult because so much of what we prescribe in medicine is actually done off licence. So a lot of medications we prescribe for pregnant women are off licence, but also for children, they're off licence. And that doesn't mean they're dangerous.

It just means that the licence hasn't caught up with the evidence. So if we've got evidence and we've got guidelines that say it's safe, then actually we're going to be fine as doctors. No one's going to sue us for prescribing something to a child or pregnant woman. And that's the same with a lot of other medications as well, but certainly for menopause, we often prescribe HRT in an off-license way because we go on the evidence. And as long as we have evidence to support what we do, then that's absolutely fine. I had no qualms about taking HRT. That's partly, well, no, in fact, it's wholly down to you because I remember a couple of years ago hearing you on the radio, probably on Women's Hour or something similar that, completely debunking

that study came out 20 years ago making the link between breast cancer and taking HRT. And you did it in such a clear, positive way. And ever since then, I've thought, well, of course I'm going to take HRT, you know. And so the work you've done has been so important. Oh, well, you're very kind. I've still got a lot more work to do. But it is, I think we've been fed wrong information. You know, women have been fed wrong information. So have healthcare professionals. And so then it's very hard, actually to know what to do as a woman because you want to feel better and you want to feel well. And, you know, a lot of symptoms are very subtle and like you were saying the sleep that was going. And actually when you were talking even on the Instagram live, you were saying it's only sometimes of the cycle that you're getting the symptoms.

And often it was just before you were having periods, which is actually when hormones naturally decline. And so that's when often women experience symptoms. Yeah. I should point out, I was having, I still do have very regular periods. that was not a symptom of mine, but yes, I'd have the lack of sleep. And then the sort of the anxiety and the kind of the two days of, you know, veering between feeling really anxious and frankly feeling full of rage towards life, husband, children, or whoever was kind of in my way.

And I used to think that those two days a month were all my kind of real, true feelings coming to the surface. And actually, I should spend the rest of the month kind of acknowledging those. which is just, you just turn that on its head for me in a really helpful way. We're like, no, no, that's not normal. You don't need to feel. But I think you do and I think you get used to it. And I was talking to a friend recently and she said, actually,

it used to be just a few days before my period and now it's about 10 days. I actually text my husband when I can feel it coming so that he's prepared and the children are prepared and the family prepared. And that's how we've lived for the last five or six years because I didn't know I could get any help. I was waiting for my periods to stop. And that's really hard for partners, actually, and also work colleagues. If you're working or living with someone and then you see them change and you've got no control over that, it's really difficult, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And I think I've got much better at recognising it. I mean, since I've been saying you, it's got a lot better. But, you know, it doesn't, recognising it doesn't take the symptoms away. No, of course it doesn't. And, you know, the power of hormones in our brains are huge. And I know when I was experiencing some perimenopausal symptoms, I felt like I had some demon in my brain telling me to be cross.

And it was fine to be irrational. And there were times that I shouted at my husband and my children. And I didn't really care. I didn't. If he had said to me, I'm going to leave you. I would have just said, go then. I really don't need you. And of course I need him.

I love him desperately. But at that time, one, well, in fact, a few ladies now have said to me, they get so angry that, you know, if they had a knife in their hand, they would kill the first person they saw. And the first time I heard it, I thought, this is a bit dramatic. And actually, I can see this uncontrollable rage that happens is really scary. And you don't know until you've been there how you just change into something. And I'm not saying all women do, but there are a lot of women that do.

Yeah, I mean, I would find that my fuse would just get very, very short. My tolerance. You know, living in a family, you need to be with ages, particularly. Really tolerant and forgiving. and calm. And, you know, for that two days a month, I just couldn't cope with normal family life. No. And it's really hard. I remember one time I'd had my second child, so I had two children under the age of two. And we were going to see my mum and we'd pack the car. And you know when you've got young children, you're packing with their boots just full, isn't it? It's a military operation just to

get out of the house. And I'd lost my car key. And we were all ready to go. And clearly it was my full. I think it was in my pocket. But I couldn't find it. And I was so cross with my husband. And then I suddenly just said, it's all your fault because I've, you know, I'm still breastfeeding. I'm getting up in the night. I'm, you know, held this family together. I've done all the cooking. And it just suddenly every single thing that annoyed me about him came out in the middle of the road. I didn't seem to care that the neighbours were listening. And clearly it wasn't even his fault because he hadn't lost the car key. And I sort of think back. And obviously I had low estrogen then because I was still breastfeeding. I'd recently been pregnant.

And it's exactly the same as the menopausal rage. And, you know, when I felt better afterwards, I thought that's completely unfair for him and unjustifiable that I acted like that. But once I started, I couldn't stop and it just kept coming out by mouth all these awful torrent of abuse. And it's funny now, but actually it's not funny

for these women that are suffering and suffering and not getting help. So I think we have to see how important hormone replacement is. stages of life actually and we should be recognising it earlier. At the end of the day when it is just two days a month you know I can cope just about and I can cope. Imagine as I get closer to the likelihood is if I wasn't under treatment those days until it gets to a point where that's your life. That's how you're living. Totally. Yeah. And you can see how marriages break up and really

awful things happen. So the important thing about perimenopause is that you're topping up your hormones and as your own natural hormones decline, you just increase the dose of your own. So it's very simple, but it's just not thought of in that way. It's always been, and I think a lot of people think HRT is a bit like the contraceptive pill, it's a fixed dose. So you either have it or you don't have it. There's no sort of greyness in between. And for me as a clinician, I don't, as much as I love seeing patients, I don't want to see them all the time. I want them to be in complete control of their bodies and have the autonomy and the confidence to alter their hormones themselves. And the more, the longer they're on HRT, the more they have that control. And I think that's really important.

Do you mean by that, you know, for example, you might be taking one pump of the gel every day and a few days before your period you might go up to two or three or four, whatever. Absolutely. Yeah. And the dose is so low. It only lasts in the body for the day. That's why it has to use every day. So if a woman used too much, for example, then the next day she can use slightly less. But you can just sort of play as really sounds a wrong word when it's a prescription medication. But it is sort of, I went often in tune with them bodies. You know, a lot of women come to me and say, look, I've had a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, long COVID,

migraines, depression, but I know it's my hormones, but no one's listening to me. And so the first thing I was taught in medical school is listen to the patients because they'll give you the answers if you listen. And they're there. You know, women, we're not stupid. We often know. So the most obvious thing then is to give them back their hormones

and then see what else is left. And if people are still experiencing symptoms, obviously, then we look at other things. It's a lovely bit of common sense. Yeah, it is. I just wish it was, you know, applied. It's getting there. It's certainly getting there. So going back to you, tell me about your company then.

How did you set it up? And tell me a bit about what it is, because some people are listening, I'm conscious, won't know what it is. Yeah. So Voterie is a skincare brand. As you can tell by my accent, we're a British skincare brand. We're a maid here in the UK. We're only about, we're coming up for six years old, so we're still relatively young. I used to be a makeup artist.

Okay. That's my background. So I spent years, you know, working with a lot of private clients, actually, a little bit of sort of magazine shoot work, but actually the bulk of my work because I had young children at the time was doing private clients, which I really liked because I was living in London at the time and I'd be able to drop a child at a nursery or something like that, go off, do a job. I'd sort of be brought a door in about two hours. And actually I really liked working with, you know, it wasn't all 16-year-old models with amazing bouncy skin. I was working with real skin and seeing the full kind of run of skin conditions, skin hang-ups. I spent all day talking about skin. I think that, you know, you think of makeup artist as the person that comes along and applies all the glyph more and the red lipstick and there,

but actually, the kind of work I was doing, it was mainly about skin, about making skin look as good as it possibly can and make sure it's really, really healthy. Because then your makeup always looks good. It all falls into golf. Of course, yeah. It's a bit of a cliche, but, you know, your makeup is only ever as good as your canvas. So I'd always been interested in skincare for that reason. I had discovered oil cleansing, actually.

And that was a big eureka moment in my own personal skincare. Because removing your makeup with an oil cleanse, you honestly, once you try it, you won't go back. It's so effortless. It cleanses the skin really, really thoroughly. But without stressing the skin out. So you're not using any kind of soap or anything that foams, any kind of surfactant on the fles, which is particularly as we age, is really important because you don't want to be stripping any natural oils from the skin. You want to keep as many as you can.

Yeah, totally. You know, we have an internal moisturiser and if you use foaming cleansers. And it's always, actually, I think cleansing is the most important stage of skin care, because it's where things can go quite badly wrong or really, really well for your skin, getting your skin properly clean, but without stripping it, that can be quite transforming. So very often the first thing I say to someone when they say to me that they want to try something from Votory or that they've got a particular skin concern, they might be a bit sensitive or they're breaking out, the first thing I would ask was, how are you cleansing? And I tend to get that fixed first. And then we can use the other fun stuff, the serums and the actives and the oils and the everything else. So how did you start to put together your formulations? So we started as a pure oils brand. So that's really what Votery is known for. We're known as being the Oils Specialist. We have diverse. in a major way now, as you know, and make all sorts of things. But when we started, it was pure oil. So we had a

cleansing oil and we had three face oils. You know, my skin changes daily, seasonally, hormonally. So there are different plant oils for different situations. So we just had the four products. I was self-taught. So I was ingredients obsessed. Alongside being a makeup artist, I'd also done a little bit of beauty writing. So I was sent a lot of products to try. And the first thing I do before I even opened it was whip it around and read in ingredients. So I'd learnt what my skin liked, what was in the products I liked, what my clients liked. And really in a slightly ill-advised way, looking back on it now, I started blending my own oils. Now I know what I know about proper product formulation. I wouldn't advise anyone to do that necessarily. But I was making little face oils and I was

making cleansing oils. And at that point, I had lunch with an old friend of mine who is now my business partner, Charlotte, brilliant business woman, an entrepreneur. But, you know, also loved to talk about skincare, like a loss of women. And we were sitting at lunch and she said to me, come on, what's the latest thing? What should I be using on my skin? And at that point, I told her what I was doing with the oil cleansing and the facial oils. And the next thing I knew, we were setting up a business. Wow. She's not someone that sits around thinking about things. She's a doer. And I think that's why the businesses work really nicely because of the different skills to bring to it. And that's where Votry started. But, you know, still that kind of skin,

health, really balanced, happy skin is still the kind of rotary philosophy. That's really what I'm interested in is in your skin being the very best it can be at any different life stage. And having skin that you can rely on, because it's so awful to go to bed and wake up in the morning and sort of not know what you're going to wake up. So that's always my goal is to get skin as really as healthy and as strong and as nourished as it can be. And actually, as we head into perimenopause and menopause, that becomes even more important. Absolutely. And it's really hard, isn't it, I think, because when we think about perimenopals and menopause, most people think about hot flushes, they think about sweats, they don't always think about skin changes.

And actually, hormones, estrogen and testosterone actually are very important in our skin. And skin can become more dry, more sensitive. A lot of women find they get acne, especially if they had acne as a teenager, it can come again when they're perimenopausal or menopausal rosacea. Sometimes skin allergies can become more apparel. as well and that's partly because the skin texture changes and there can be hair changes as well and nail changes too and we've already sort of mentioned before we started recording about hair changing as in hair on the head becoming thinner and hair on the chin might be coming a bit more

thicker and that's a real problem for a lot of women and as you know one of the common symptoms of the menopause is low self-esteem if you've got reduced self-esteem and feelings of low self-worth and then you look in the mirror and your visual appearance has changed, then that's just awful, actually. And there's also a huge market, which is getting bigger by the second, for products for women who are especially sort of mid-life or menopausal. And it really scares me because even those products that are fairly cheap,

they want you to buy three or four different products for different times of the day or for different purposes. So people, I don't know, you probably know the figures, are spending billions of pounds, aren't they, on their skin? And a lot of this, I think, is just good advertising, but actually not very good for the skin either. Yeah, in a moment of slight defence for the skincare industry. I mean, there's something good, I think, about what's happened, particularly in the last couple of years, because the focus, and we can see this in our, you know, we get reports from our retailers and they talk about categories, which is makeup

versus skincare. And I think when we launched five years ago, we were still mid-send, of Kardashian fever. And it was all about car breakup and that was what was selling. There's been a shift that actually happened pre-COVID and lockdown but then was really amplified during lockdown where the skincare is the category

that is now outperforming all others and is really the area that's, you know, a focus for customers. And that's, I think there's a huge part of self-care involved in that. And it comes back to healthy skin, you know, actually being interested, instead of just buying the latest foundation to cover up what's going on,

actually trying to fix stuff. And I think that's a good thing. I do think that people are being sold routines that are far too complex. Yes. I am partly because I'm a bit of a lazy girl, ultimately, but I'm a three product girl. I fends, I serum and then I moisturise in a whatever way. I would add in a fourth step of SPF, obviously, in the morning.

But really, for most skin types, that is all you need. and very much skin is happier when you're using fewer products. And particularly, like you say, coming into menopause with issues coming up like rosacea, if you're overdoing the active ingredients, then that can really exacerbate those skin conditions. It's something to be, I think you do need to be really in tune with your skin as you approach menopause and noticing even very small changes. You know, if you suddenly just felt like you were a bit flushed in the cheek, that would be a literal red flag for me.

And I would suddenly be thinking about what actives I was using made. dialing back. Maybe, you know, you don't have to treat your face all over with every product. So if you've gone active that you love, but your cheeks are going a bit red, maybe just don't use it there. You know, you can still use it on your forehead and around the nose or the eyes. Yeah, I'd get quite intimidated with all the products that are available, actually. And then I end up just doing the same because I think all it works. But then I'm thinking, well, my skin's changed and what should I do? And then I know when you kindly sent those products that I mentioned right at the start and I said to my teenage children, wow, this cleansing with an oil is incredible. Just the smell for a start,

but the texture is just beautiful. Try it. My teenagers have known my skin's really oily. Why an earth would I put on an oily skin? And I remember at one stage, I just emailed you actually to say, oh, who's this? And, you know, when you don't know, then you sort of think, oh, and it's that sort of doing something different, I suppose, can be feeling quite scary, actually, especially when products are expensive, because the last thing you want, and certainly I know 20 years ago, I used to have probably three times the amount of products in my bathroom cupboard than the ones I use. And you'd buy something and then it would be pushed back because you'd realize it wasn't quite right. And now I buy less and I really use the ones that I have.

So it's not always the cheaper ones are best. And it's working out, isn't it, where you're going to spend your money. So some people choose to spend it more on maybe a cleansing oil and less on the moisturiser for their legs. And it's all about choice, isn't it? I think it's really important. Yeah. I mean, there's a general sort of wisdom would say spend your money, you know, on the serum, on the kind of active products.

You're actually going to potentially create some kind of change in the skin. But, you know, for example, the votary cleansing oil, it lasts a really long time because when you're using a pure oil, you use so little. Don't need much, yeah. So actually, when you work it out on a kind of cost per use basis, it performs really, really well compared to much cheaper products. But just going back to your teenager, what I would say is persuade them to use a facecloth, even if they're not using a cleansing oil or use a facecloth,

it really is the only way to get the skin properly clean is to physically lift the cleanser, the makeup, the pollution, whatever it is off the skin. And particularly, actually, while we're recording this in summer, SPF can be a real issue. You know, it's designed to stick to our face and stay there for as long as it possibly can. And so effective removal of SPF is really important.

And it's why I see a lot of people with breakouts at this time of year. And it's very often either using the wrong SPF just simply doesn't suit their skin or they're not getting it off the skin properly. Yeah, that's really, really simple advice, but really good advice as well, isn't it? Because it's so easy to think you've cleansed your skin and then realise that you haven't,

especially if there's layers of things, especially, as you say, when the sun's out, yeah. You need to be doing a double cleanse every evening. If you've got SPF or makeup on your skin, you need to do a double cleanse. And I think a lot of people get confused about double cleansing. They think it means you'd need two separate products, and you don't.

It's simply the act of washing your face twice. So you'd do the first cleanse to remove the SPF and the makeup, and then you'd have a second cleanse to make sure the skin was really thoroughly clean and actually clean a bit deeper into the skin. And that has the added benefit of meaning that your serums work harder. Because if you've got a really loving bean base to the skin, you've exfoliated using a facecloth, then your serums are going to be able to penetrate and absorb into the skin more effectively.

Yeah, which makes so much sense. So before we finish, we mentioned a bit about facial hair. So tell us about your latest problem. project that you've brought out. Yeah, that's why I'm here today, isn't it? Because you said, I told you we just launched our Magic Razor ones. And you said, why did we go on a podcast and talk about facial hair? And I'm so pleased you did because I know, I mean, I knew this anyway before we launched these,

but it's really been amplified in the last couple of months since we launched them, that pretty much every woman I know is doing some kind of facial hair removal at home or getting it treated in a clinic, but they're not really talking about it, even to close with it. I've done everything, right? So I've had an electrophilysis probably 20 years ago. I have had laser. I've used bleaching creams. I've used hair removal creams. Hair removal creams, what I was using most recently, I'd say up to about five years ago. But I started getting sensitized. And it would be almost like getting a chemical burn to the skin. You know, the skin would be really, really hot and irritated afterwards. so I knew I needed to find something else.

And that's when I discovered little safety facial razors, which are designed really for women and for our particular type of facial hair, which is a little bit finer, hopefully, quite a bit finer than... And I've not looked back. That's all I do now. I might do the odd little bit of plucking in between if there's one of those sort of more, like, you know,

the terminal chin hairs, let's say, the whiskers. And I will happily talk to anyone about those and how brilliant, I think, you know, shaving is for women. So do you use shaving foam or what do you use in your skin before? It's like the cleansing oil actually, which also men actually use our cleansing oils to shave with. So that just means it glides really beat you over the skin. Again, it's not dry. It's shaving foams are drying. Just a little bit of cleansing oil. But they actually came about because we had a votary team Zoom call at Christmas. And at the very end of the session, we were actually talking

about skin care and makeup and we're having a really fun sort of relaxed time. And one of our lovely team members said, you know, can I just ask, what do you do about your lady, Tash? And at which point, I kind of knew it was going to come up, so I whipped out my little razor. And then we just decided, gosh, why on earth aren't we making our own? So that's why we've launched the magic razor ones, they're called. And they're very simply, I'll show you, I know people listening can't see, but they're a very simple little wand with a safety blade on them. And they're also known, you might have heard of derma planing,

which is more, tends to refer to removing like a full, face of fine vellis, which does. I don't tend to go in for that. I mean, I don't know, I might do it at some point in my life, but I just use these for upper lip and chin hair, maybe a little bit of tidying up of brows. I would never shape my brows with them. I think that's a recipe for disaster. But they're so quick and easy. They are cheap. You don't need an appointment. It's always there for you. Don't irritate the skin. And I think there's a misconception that shaving the face means that your hair will grow back thicker, darker, faster. That's all a myth. Of course, the ends of the hair might be ever so slightly blunted instead of tapered, just like, you know, it is one leg. And they may appear darker initially because, of course, the hair hasn't come into contact with the sun. And so they will lighten over time. But honestly, they are really transforming. And again, since we launched these, you know, I've had conversations with close friends that I wouldn't have had. You know, one friend has said, oh, I get my whole face threaded. I was like, I've always thought your skin looked amazing, maybe. That's why.

And then another friend said to me, yeah, I do. I'm a plane at home. And, you know, this is what I mean. Everyone is doing it in some way. So have you had good feedback? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Again, it's just given us this space to talk about facial hair, facial hair removal. We're all different. We've all got different skin concerns when it comes to facial. For some women, it might be the color. It's just too dark. For some women, they might want to get rid of the peach fuzz. Some women have kind of more pronounced sideburns. You know, it can really vary. And this is just really, one way of removing it really easily without causing any stress to the skin that doesn't cost very much at all. Yeah, I think that's really important because the costs can be so eye-washing sometimes, but also just having the time, you know, I work far too hard, so I don't have time to go off and get my partash sorted every so often. And like you say, it's always when you're doing something that's important or you want to look better is usually when you haven't got any time to go and sort yourself out. And so you want something that you can do at home that you're in control of, I think it's really important. The last thing I want to do is make people feel

like they need to worry about their facial hair because there is also the option of leaving it alone, which is a totally valid option. So if it bothers you. And the other thing I will say is take a step back from the mirror. Don't judge yourself in one of those magnifying mirrors because no one needs to see their skin that close up. So take a step back from the mirror, then decide do I want to remove my facial hair. I mean, I'm of the age where I'm starting to get those thicker, random chin hairs. I just want those gone. They bug me. Otherwise, I sit stroking my chin and Zoom calls. Not a good look, is it? You know, I think women are really squeamish about shaving their faces because it's what men do. And it's seen as somehow masculine, and it makes the

whole facial hair thing seem like more of a masculine complaint. And I think women are squeamish about that. But, you know, there's a reason men do it is because it's quick and convenient and cheap and it's always there for them whenever they need to do it. So why we can't do it, I don't know. Absolutely. So no, it's great, really good. So we'll put a link to your products in the notes at the end. So that's been a really useful. And I know skin is something that we will keep coming back to. And I've got another podcast planned with the most amazing dermatologist. Some of you might have heard before, Dr. Sajd Rajpal. And it is really important. So just to have access to different experts and different products is great. So thanks ever so much for your time today,

Bella. Just before we end, I always ask for three take-home tips. So I'd just like to pick your brains really and just ask for three things that you think women should be maybe thinking about that they might not have thought about before about their skin as they approach their hormones changing. Yeah. Make sure you're cleansing properly. I'll come back again, you know, especially at this time of year with SPF. So I mean, we should be wearing SPF year round. So make sure you're cleansing properly. And actually, I'll then come on to find an SPF that suits your skin. Ultimately, that is the number one. thing you can do for your skin when it comes to anti-aging is finding an SPF that suits your skin that you're prepared to wear every day, even in winter in the UK. And then I think my third one would be to explore some active ingredients that will really help your skin as you approach the menopause and probably the number one most researched and clinically proven ingredient is retinol or retinoid, so the synthetic form of vitamin A. And that is the best anti-aging ingredient. And that is the best anti-aging ingredient you can look for. So obviously being votary, we put ours in an oil, but there are all sorts of retinoid and retinol options out there. So cleansing, SPF, retinoid would be my three. Great, great advice and

really lovely to talk. And thanks so much for sharing your journey as well, because I think that one really helped so many women too. So thank you. I hope it's helpful and maybe we should check in in five years time. Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you ever so much. It's been really good. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Louise. more information about the perimenopause and menopause, you can go to my website, menopause.com, UK, or you can download our free app called Balance, available through the App Store and Google Play.