The Liz Moody Podcast - Ask the Expert: Skincare Edition—Stop Exfoliating, Throw Away Your Hyaluronic Acid & Everything Else You Need To Know To Get Glowy, Healthy Skin

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

I’m so excited to welcome Jessica DeFino to the podcast for the Ask The Expert: Skincare Edition episode. Jessica is a beauty reporter covering natural, holistic, sustainable skincare rooted in science and spirituality. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Allure, Harper’s BAZAAR, and more. She’s currently writing her first book, and she knows SO much about beauty—she’s interpreted the science, interviewed the experts, and even gone through her own skincare journey, which we talk about on this episode. We also talk about: the #1 skin care myth the one free practice you can do right now that will scientifically make your skin glow how to optimize your gut for better skin health the best and worst foods for your skin health (including thoughts on dairy & gluten) why you’re dehydrated all the time the best practice to figure out if specific foods are at the root of your skin issues why exfoliating is hurting your skin more than helping it how to build up your skin’s microbiome how to build your skin’s barrier layer the best way to deal with acne at its root the best acne spot treatment whether botox is safe why she doesn’t use retinol or bakuchiol and what she recommends instead why hyaluronic acid isn’t actually good for your skin the best ways to boost collagen in your skin how to get rid of undereye circles speed round including jade rollers, CBD oil for skincare, facials, and coconut oil I can’t wait to hear your feedback on this episode! Screenshot and tag me—I’m @lizmoody— and Jesica (@jessicadefino_) and share your thoughts, feelings, reactions, and any follow-up questions (maybe we can do a live and answer them!). PS: My foodie preset pack is officially live. You can get all 8 presets, designed to make your food pics look as good as they taste, at lizmoody.com/presets. PPS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Lavva’s brand new Plant Based Milk. It’s some of my favorite plant milk I’ve ever tried—it’s super rich and creamy and made with pili nuts, which are a complete protein. Go to lovvelavva.com to find a retailer near you! This episode is sponsored by Garden of Life, whose Advanced Omega fish oil I’m obsessed with. By buying it with my link, it lets the brand know that you found them through me, and it doesn’t cost you anything extra: https://amzn.to/2TwrGPl This episode is sponsored by Kyoto Botanicals, the first CBD brand I’ve recommended on this podcast! Right now, I’m loving their Warmth tincture, which has turmeric and cinnamon, and the Warmth balm, which is so helpful for headaches and sore muscles. You can get a whopping 25% off your order (AND they always have free shipping!) by using the code “HEALTHIERTOGETHER” at kyotobotanicals.com. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a cookbook author and long-time journalist. Today is one of my most requested episodes, an Ask the Expert skincare edition. It took me forever to find someone to have on this episode because I wanted a guest who could speak to the range of things that encompass your skin, from what you eat to topicals to other lifestyle habits. I wanted someone who knew about traditional products and clean beauty, but I wanted someone who didn't have any brand affiliation and could really speak the truth. I was so stoked when I found Jessica Defino. Jessica is a beauty reporter covering natural, holistic, sustainable skin care rooted in science and spirituality. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, and more. And she's currently writing her first book. She knows so much about beauty. She's interpreted the science. She's interviewed the experts. And she's even gone through her own skincare journey, which we talk about on this episode. I tried to get her to answer pretty much every skincare question that I have ever had and everyone that you've ever had as

well. I asked you for questions on my Instagram and you sent through so, so, so many, but I attempted to get through as many as I possibly could. From retinoles to Botox to eliminating acne, the best and worst foods for skin health, your barrier layer and microbiome, why she thinks that you should not expoliate or use hyluronic acid, this episode truly covers it all. We also get a little bit more philosophical and talk about the why of beauty. Why are we against or anti-aging, for instance? And why are there such different standards for men? This episode forced me to reconsider both my own perspectives and my entire skincare routine, literally every single product that was in my medicine cabinet. I will share what I'm doing at the moment. I've been trying this new

routine for like two to three weeks since we recorded the episode. And I'll share all of the products that I'm using and what I think about it over on my Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. So come hang out there. We can talk about skincare. Jessica and I would of course both love to hear your thoughts on the episode. So screenshot and tag us both. She's at Jessica DeFino with an underscore at the end. Also, we talk a lot about stress relief in this episode. And in that, thing. I'm doing a giveaway over on Instagram this week with one of my favorite long-time brand partners, Kyoto Botanicals. We're going to be giving away a three-month supply of the best CBD that I have ever tried. You've probably heard their mid-roll spots on this podcast. I sing their praises all the time. It's

my favorite CBD, and I've pretty much tried them all. So we're going to be giving a three-month supply of that a way to you and a person that you love. So keep an eye on my Instagram stories to enter that. All right, this might be my last episode this year. It might not be. I'm considering doing a year-in-review episode where I kind of talk about everything I've learned this year, my emotional journey, my life journey, my financial journey, all of that. But I'm also tempted to, you know, say this is the last episode this year, take a little break for the rest of December and then come back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in January. So I don't know. Let me know if you'd be interested in sort of a year in review podcast from me or if you're like, no, cool. And I have an

amazing interview scheduled for the first episode of 2021. I cannot believe that 2021 is right around the corner. I have high hopes for 2021 for all of us. So if this is my last episode this year, I just want to say thank you so much to everyone listening, everyone who is on this journey with me, our whole little H.T. fam. This podcast has been one of the highlights of my year and getting to learn and grow and share all of this with all of you has been one of the greatest joys and honors of my life. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you immensely. And if I end up doing another episode, then I'll probably just say the same thing again then because it can't be said enough. I just have so much gratitude for every

single person who is listening to this episode. So I hope that you love it. If there's something in hear that somebody that you know in your life might benefit from, please don't hesitate to share it with them. I want everybody to be able to benefit from Jessica's wisdom as much as possible. And you know, I love growing our little H.C. fam. And I love you all. And I hope that this episode Ask the Expert Skin Care Edition answers all of your skincare questions. Enjoy. All right, Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me. So I was telling you before we got on, but I'm just so, I feel like you have such a different approach to your skin and beauty, certainly than any other beauty writer that I've ever met. And more than it's different than you hear in a lot of media and a lot of messaging. So I'm curious how you came across your approach and what you would say your approach is to beauty and skin care. My approach is very minimal. I'm more interested in.

supporting what the skin already knows how to do, what the skin is built to do, then kind of overriding those functions with a ton of skincare products. And the way that I kind of came about that was through a ton of research when I was going through some really intense skin issues. I feel like I've always had quote unquote bad skin. I really don't like to say bad skin or good skin because I think it sends these like terrible messages that we internalize. But I always had a lot of issues. You know, acne, really dry skin. I was in and out of dermatologists since I was 14 or 15. I was on acutane. I was on the pill. I was on antibiotics. I was on all sorts of like topical creams and cleansers and medicated ointments. And then it got to a point where I developed something

called dermatitis. The textbook treatment for dermatitis is steroids. Steroids, long story short, have very negative side effects if you use them for too long, and I use them for about two years too long, medically speaking. Yeah, so it caused something called skin atrophy, which is the thinning of the skin, and my dermatitis became steroid resistant. There's really not anywhere to go from steroids. Like that's kind of the strongest top of the line treatment. So if that doesn't work, your options are very limited. So I couldn't rely. on all the medications and the products that I used to rely on. And I dove into this research hole that I am still in four years later on how to support

the skin from within and kind of moving away from topicals because my skin was just too sensitive to handle it. And from what I learned, I just became so fascinated with how the body works and how the skin works and how our skin is interconnected and interplays with every other part of our body and our being and our mind and our spirit. And even though my skin is a little bit stronger now and I could probably go back to conventional products, I just don't need to because I found all of these other amazing product-free,

sustainable ways to support my skin health. What's something you learn? Like what's a fact or a myth that was busted or something that just like blew your mind and you were like, oh my God, I cannot believe more people don't know this? Oh my gosh. I think the biggest thing for me is when I learned that about the gut brain skin axis, like it blew my whole just perception of skin care out of the water. So the skin and the brain form from the same piece of embryonic tissue in utero. And they are connected for life.

Like the brain and the skin are constantly communicating with each other and talking to each other. And I think we can see those connections through things like pain. Like when you feel pain in your skin, it signals to your brain. Or, you know, when you get embarrassed and you blush, or, you know, when you are scared and all the color drains from your face. Like the skin brain connection is very much a part of our daily lives. But once I found that out, I discovered something called psychodermatology, which is the study of the skin brain. connection. And I found all of this research showing that you can actually make that connection go the other way. Like you can change your mindset and it will have actual physical effects on your

skin too, which is so cool to me. And like just the fact that we have hard data and scientific research to back that up is the most exciting thing in the world. Wait, okay, I want to unpack that more. First of all, I'm a person who struggles with anxiety and I'm immediately like, is my anxiety going to make my skin, like, less glowy because my brain is anxious? Does that impact my skin negatively? A hundred percent. I mean, there's also like, there's pretty sex to have anxiety. I know, right? But the upside to that is, is that when you learn how to manage your anxiety, because I'm very anxious too. When you learn how to manage your anxiety, it doesn't only benefit your anxiety. It also benefits your skin, which is kind of the glass half full way to think

about it? So that would mean like stuff like meditating would have a direct impact on your skin and that's scientifically not just like I feel glowing after I meditate. Right. No, scientifically proven that meditation lowers inflammatory markers in your body. So basically all skin issues involve some form of inflammation. So meditation lowers those markers of inflammation in ways that are measurable on the skin, both in scientific studies and just visually after a while. Same goes for deep breathing. Like you don't even have to do full-on meditation. You can do five minutes of deep breathing exercises.

And what it does is it stimulates the body's relaxation response, you know, your rest and digest state. It lowers your stress hormones. It oxygenates the body. It boosts circulation. All of these things have profound effects. on your skin and how you physically look. That's so interesting.

Okay, so that's the brain part, but you said it's the gut brain skin access. So how does your gut health impact your skin and maybe vice versa? Yeah. So there's not too much on the vice versa that I can see yet. There's one really interesting study. But yeah, I think we've all kind of started to learn that gut health and what you eat and your diet and getting the right nutrients are very important to skin health. There's also a connection between the gut microbiome and the skin microbiome.

So that's like the connection of symbiotic microorganisms that live in your gut. There's a different collection of microorganisms that live on your skin and they are always communicating with each other. And for instance, like what you eat, the microorganisms on the fresh fruits and vegetables that you eat will in turn affect the colony. of microorganisms on your skin. Things like when you disrupt the gut microbiome, that causes inflammation throughout the entire body, including the skin.

So if your gut microbiome is imbalanced, the effects of that will show up on your face. Do you think that there's specific foods, like when people are like, eat oranges and your skin will look better or eat probiotics? Like, do you think there's specific food categories that are better for your skin? do you think that there's specific food categories that people with skin problems should be avoiding? I'm thinking like dairy or gluten. Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. So my approach to eating for skin health is less about like you having to be on a strict diet or eliminating certain foods and more of just adding skin healthy foods

and vitamins and nutrients to your regimen. So the biggest one for me is omega fatty acids, omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. This is an essential part of your skin barrier. So the barrier that basically locks all of your hydration in and keeps foreign invaders out, keeps pollution particles out, you know, basically helps protect your skin from the outside world and keeps all the good stuff sealed in. That is made up of a bunch of different kinds of lipids.

It's called the lipid barrier. But omega fatty acids are a big part of that. They're considered essential fatty acids. because the body can't synthesize it on its own. Like it has to get these fatty acids from your diet. So if your diet is lacking that particular nutrient, your skin barrier is not going to be as strong as it could be. And skin barrier issues are linked to, you know,

pretty much any issue you can imagine from acne to eczema to psoriasis and rosacea. Like the barrier is kind of the most essential part of skin health. So to me, like adding omega's into your diet, number one, like, skin care via diet hack that there is. And that's like fatty fish and things like I take, I don't eat seafood, but I take an omega supplement. And then do you think that the omega is found in plant-based omegas, like walnuts and stuff? Do those convert in a way that's helpful for skin? Or do you think it needs to be the type that converts to EPAs, I believe, in your body? Yeah, no. Nuts and seeds are so helpful. That's kind of like,

the basis of my morning routine is I do seed cycling. I do it for hormone support, but it's also a really great source of omegas. So I have flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds. And then I'll also throw in chia seeds to my morning smoothie. And those are all really great sources of omegas that translate to the skin. I do also eat a lot of salmon. And then I take an omega supplement as well. Okay. And any other sort of like favorite? best of foods for making your skin wonderful from the inside out? I think a big, a big thing that annoys people is when you say to drink water for better skin.

And I get it because it's like, that's way too simple. But drinking water is super important. But the thing I think people miss there is that our bodies are often lacking in the minerals that we need in order to hydrate. the way that we need to. So like in order for yourselves to really absorb all the hydration that you're getting from the water you're drinking, you need certain minerals. And we're lacking in those minerals for so many reasons.

Just like we don't, like the soil is depleted. So we don't, we're not getting the minerals we need from the soil from our fresh roots and vegetables. It's a whole thing that goes back to farming and processed foods and yada, yada, yada. But if you're not getting the right minerals, you're not going to be absorbing the hydration the way that your body is supposed to be and you're not going to see those effects on your face. So getting your minerals is very important too. I like to do that by eating organic water-rich fruits and vegetables. So celery, cucumber, these all have the hydration factor plus the minerals.

And then of course you can supplement with minerals too. I do zinc. I do magnesium. Those are really important for skin health. So just to clarify, those don't need to be like, Like there's those mineral drops that you specifically add to your water. And people say that helps you absorb your water itself better. But you're not, you don't need to consume the minerals directly with the water. But to be hydrated from all the water you're drinking, you need to have minerals within, you know, the 24 hour, seven days span. You need to have a good amount in your body in general. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not a super expert on that specific connection. But from, from my own research, you don't need to put a supplement. of minerals in your water. There are many other ways that you can get your minerals. If a supplement in your water is like the easiest way for you to make sure you're getting them, like that's great. But I don't know. I'm also a big advocate of like you don't always need to buy a product.

You can just. Right. I know you are and I love that. I think that's amazing. I also think people get like I get annoyed by the water thing because it feels like every movie star says it. And I'm like, I know you have a team of experts and you're spending thousands of. thousands of dollars a month on facials and dermatologists. And it's not just drinking water.

Like it just bothers me when people who are literally, it's their job to have their skin look a specific way. And it feels like they're gaslighting me by being like, oh, you know, like drink a lot of water. It really makes a difference. It's so funny. Yeah. I mean, when you know that there are other factors at play that are just inaccessible to the average person and, you know, not even necessarily advisable. for the average person, it's definitely annoying. I will say that when I reached the point that I was saying before where I just couldn't use products and I started thinking about my diet and I started thinking about mindfulness, I started drinking water and it sounds so silly. But this was maybe five years ago.

I wasn't into health and wellness at all. I was subsisting on like coffee and diet Coke. like I don't even know if I drank one glass of water every day. Like it was just not part of my life at all. I don't know how I was living. But somehow I got the bright idea to set eight alarms on my phone per day to go off. And whenever that alarm would go off, I would drink a glass of water. And within four days, like the difference in my skin, I can't even tell you.

So, I mean, obviously, if you're already properly hydrated at, more water is not going to change that. You know, there's a level of hydration, like a threshold where you just don't need more. But if anyone out there is like me and is not drinking water, once you just get that daily recommended amount, like the difference is wild. It does make a huge. So I just got this like sippy cup from Target. It's the best way I can describe. It's a grown up sippy cup. And I'm like this, I drink constantly and I feel so much more hydrated just because it's so easy to set and sip through the straw. And also because I feel like I was trained by like a million kids meals to enjoy by liquid beverages through like a cute sippy cup. And it's made me, it's not only in your skin, but in like your energy.

And just I'm like, oh my God, I was functioning at 70% for years. And now I'm functioning. Not at 100. You know, it's pandemic, but like 85, 90, certainly, which is good. Right. What about going dairy free or gluten for you here? hear, I mean, I am guilty of this. I feel like this is going to be, I don't have a fear of this on this episode, but I do think that there's going to be a few things you're going to say that

will go against things I've been preaching to my audience for years, which is cool, which is cool. I mean, I love, I love learning constantly from experts, but I say all the time, if you're having acne particularly or inflammation-based issues, that dairy is a great thing to experiment with cutting out. Am I wrong or am I right? No, you're totally right. I think it's great to cut out dairy if you can for so many reasons. Environmental impact is one of them, but also skin health is another one. I think there's so much like muddled research on the effects of dairy on the skin.

And even experts are like in disagreement about it. But the main thing that I found from my own research is just that it's pumped full of hormones. You know, you're getting hormones from the animal that it's coming. from. A lot of these animals are also pumped with artificial hormones to get them to produce more. And like we all, who among us has not experienced a hormonal breakout. Like we know that our hormones are linked to our skin health. So to put more hormones that don't necessarily belong in your body via dairy into your system, like it's bound to cause a bunch of issues. Another thing is sugar. Like sugar is just highly inflammatory. Anything that's,

an inflammatory food has the potential to impact your skin as well. So cutting out dairy, cutting out sugar, cutting out anything that causes inflammation is going to help. Do you put gluten on that list or no? Personally, I don't. I don't have issues with gluten. There is like a skin component to gluten intolerance and to celiac disease that I find really fascinating. So you might not have like the typical symptoms of a gluten intolerant. Lawrence, but it might show up on your face. So that's something that I looked into when I was trying to

figure out what was going on with my skin. That didn't end up being my particular problem, but I think for a lot of people, it probably is. So would that be like something you'd experiment with, you know, cutting it out for a while? And then if it doesn't make a difference, that's probably not your issue and you can go back to it just fine. Yeah. So what I would do when I was going through all of my skin issues, like three, four years ago, I did elimination diets and I used a tracking journal and I tracked everything from my food to the products I was using on my face to like, oh, I meditated today or I did a gratitude practice today just to see what was working. And I know that that's not the healthiest habit sometimes for people who have had disordered eating in the past or any sort of like body

image issues. I know tracking can be triggering. So I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone. But if you can handle that and tracking your diet and your daily activities doesn't trigger you or make you feel badly about yourself, then I think it can be really helpful. And what was super interesting that I found when I was tracking was that my body was having some inflammatory responses to traditionally healthy foods. And like that's the fascinating thing about the diet skin connection is that it's so individual. People can have reactions to something that, you know, in theory is a good food or in theory is like a healthy skin food.

For example, like I cut out nightshade vegetables and that helped a ton. I started eating almond everything when I cut out dairy. So I was doing, you know, almond butter, almond milk. I was eating almonds for snacks. Like there were just a lot of almonds in my diet. And I researched it and I found that like that can actually be inflammatory if you have too many. So I stopped using so many almond substitutes and my skin got better. So it's not always like the unhealthy foods that are going to affect you.

Like there are plenty of plant-based, natural, good for you foods that just might not react well. with your individual body. We alluded to this when I mentioned the celebrities, you were like, well, and some of the stuff they're doing probably isn't even good for your skin. But you've talked a lot about how many of the products that make our skin look good in the short term aren't actually good for our skin in the long term. And I think a lot of that has to do with breaking down your barrier layers, which I want to get more into that.

But I struggle with this with, for example, stuff like the drunk. elephant baby facial or the facial peel thing. And you look so glowy right after you use it. And I want to look good right now. So how do you balance or navigate the looking good right now effect that a lot of stuff has while protecting your skin in the long run? It's so complicated. And I think it like requires a lot of research. So for instance, something like baby facial, that's an exfoliates. facial. Just there are so many myths around exfoliation and even like do we need to exfoliate that are out there.

And once you look into the skin's inherent function and you start analyzing your products in regards to how they support what your skin already does, like, I don't know, to back up a little bit, I personally believe that our skin already knows how to protect. itself, you know, the basic functions of the skin are in place for a reason. And if we can support these basic functions, our skin is going to be good. One of those basic functions is something called desquamation, which is self-exfoliation. So your skin is shedding dead skin cells all the time once they're ready to be shed. It's on a 28-day cycle. I love the idea of a 28-day cycle. I don't really want to speed that up.

That's the skin's inherent cycle and it's inherent timing. You know, certain things like lifestyle factor diet can slow down this cycle. So in some cases, exfoliation is good. But in most cases, if you're leading a fairly healthy lifestyle with daily movement and, you know, a non-inflammatory diet, your skin is self-exfoliating. And actually, your dead skin cells, it's such a misnomer. Like I hate whoever came up with the name dead skin cells because they serve a biological purpose. Like your skin needs dead skin cells. Dead skin cells are the cells that hold on to what's called NMFs are natural moisturizing factors.

And other skin cells, the new fresh skin cells underneath that we're revealing when we exfoliate, are not equipped to hold natural moisturizing factors yet. They haven't matured to that point. So when you're sloughing off these, you know, quote unquote dead skin cells, you're actually leaving yourself with cells that cannot hold the amount of moisture that you want them to hold. So over time, you end up looking drier, older, duller, because you're taking away this vital layer of skin that is there for a purpose. Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah. That's like, okay, wait. So I have three immediate questions about explain. The first one that I hear all the time is that as you get older, your skin doesn't shed as quickly. And so that's why you need to start incorporating these exfoliants as you get older to go back to what it was doing when it was more youthful. Is that true? Yeah.

So the cycle of the skin does inherently slow down. A lot of skin functions inherently slow down as you age. You know, your collagen production decreases, your hyalronic acid production decreases, things like that. but you can speed them up to an extent and get onto that that inherent natural cycle with a lot of lifestyle factors that don't necessarily involve physical manual exfoliation. I also love to point out that the percentage is debated, but most dermatologists will agree that 70 to 85% of what we consider signs of aging is not due to chronological aging, but due to exposure.

So you're exposed to more things as you age. So that can be pollution, that can be sunlight, that can be, you know, the effects of our diet over time, that can be a sedentary lifestyle. All of these things like build up over time and they cause a lot of the signs that we associate with aging. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way because. Many, like a large percentage of these aging factors are actually exposure factors and not because you're chronologically older. Okay. So what are the natural things you can do to speed that up? You mentioned there are lifestyle factors. Mm-hmm. So daily movement is a big one. Exercise is so good for so many reasons, but for one, it helps drain your lymphatic system. It helps kind of boost your circulation when things are circulating, when nutrients are circulating to your skin cells.

That keeps everything kind of on track. So daily movement is huge. Anti-inflammatory foods and just cutting out pro-inflammatory foods is big for the same reason. Eating vitamin C, you know, I think we're all obsessed with vitamin C serums for the face because we've been told that vitamin C helps stimulate collagen production. and that's true, but there's actually no proof that putting vitamin C on topically is more effective than just eating vitamin C rich foods. So you can save your skin barrier a little bit of grief and just load up on vitamin C in your diet and that will help stimulate your collagen production.

That will help keep your collagen production from slowing down. Sleep is a huge one. I know it sounds so silly. It's like saying drink water, but getting eight hours. hours of sleep is major. This is when the skin kind of, it doesn't have to play defense anymore. So throughout the day, your skin is, is protecting you from environmental factors. When you're sleeping, it doesn't have to do that.

That's the, I mean, the whole body is resting and recharging while you're sleeping. But so many of these processes due to like circadian rhythm and just, you know, your body shutting off for a little bit, kick into effect when you're sleeping. So desquamation, the self-requent. the self-exfoliation, that happens while you're sleeping. So if you're not getting adequate sleep and you're not giving your body that time to really perform all these processes, you're going to see it show up on your face. Okay, so now I'm on like a tangent from a tangent from a tangent.

I promise I'll get back to my three initial questions about explanation in a second. But with that de-escalate, how do you say it? Desclamation. Desclamation with that process happening while you sleep, would you recommend having your face be product free to most enhance that natural process? Like when you put serums and creams on it, does it impede that natural exfoliation process at all? Or is that okay to do? I'm so glad you asked that. You know what?

I have not found a study that specifically says that. But because of just like the logic of that, I don't use skincare at night, probably four or five. nights a week, I use nothing. Yeah, it kind of like inherently makes sense, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Okay. And then... Yeah, I can't prove it, but I do it. Okay. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. There's something new and so exciting that just launched in the non-dairy milk world. You might have heard of lava. They're famous for their super creamy plant-based yogurts. Well, they've just launched lava plant milk, which is going to be your new favorite non-dairy. dairy milk. It's totally different than any other plant milk on the market because it's made

with peeling nuts, a super nourishing food that's high in magnesium, vitamin E, and mono-unsaturated fats that support heart health and brain function. Peeling nuts are also a complete protein, making this honestly some of the most nutrient-dense plant milk I have ever tried. Beyond that, the texture is unreal. It's super rich and creamy, not at all like some of the other plant milks you find, which essentially feel like white water. It's also got the best in greener. It's also got the best ingredient list that I have seen in a long time. It's made with all real food ingredients, including coconut water, which provides a nice, gentle sweetness. They also have a chocolate lava plant milk, which is sweetened with dates and gets its delicious chocolatey flavor from

unsweetened, fair trade cocoa. It even has maca, a hormone-supporting superfood in it, which I thought was bananas, like, how above and beyond can you get? None of their plant milksawks contain any emulsifiers or sweeteners. I've been using the unsweetened milk as a base for lattes now that the weather's getting cooler and I love having the chocolate one as a little protein nash after my workouts. And for you coffee lovers out there, I'm talking to you, Zach. They're launching a plant creamer too. You can find the lava plant mugs at Whole Foods and you can find out more information about them at love lava.com. That is love with two Vs and lava with two Vs. They're going to blow your mind. They are so unique and so delicious. I can't wait for you to try them. Now, let's

get back to the episode. Back to the second tangent, which is exposure is causing this slowdown of exfoliation or this natural, like the signs of aging. And some exposure we can minimize, but a lot of exposure we can't. I've lived in cities with a lot of pollution. We are exposed to the sun. And I think that's one of the reasons people are like, oh, try these anti-pollution serum, use this SBF. So I'm curious what you think about topicals.

to protect from that exposure? Yeah, I think antioxidants are wonderful. You can get a lot of antioxidants from like natural plant oils, vitamin C serums. Those are all helpful for exposure to. Obviously, sunscreen. I prefer a mineral zinc-based sunscreen. So, yeah, those are factors.

But for me, the biggest thing that I try to do for exposure is to build up my skin barrier. and support my microbiome. So there's really fascinating research that's come out in the past, I don't know, maybe decade. And there's a new book. It's called Clean by Dr. James Hamblin. And it's all about the skin microbiome and its inherent functions and how our daily lives

and lifestyles and most of all, skin care, are impeding the microbiome. but when your microbiome is diverse and thriving and not interrupted by your skincare routine, it creates all of these chemical compounds that actually protect us from pollution, protect us from sunlight. There's some really fascinating studies in mice where they have populated the mice, their skin with some of the beneficial bacteria that can be found on our microbiome, expose them to UV light, and they had fewer instances of, skin cancer when this beneficial bacteria was present.

So that's something that's really fascinating to me, and I really want to dive more into the research of that, is if we focus on building up the barrier and focus on cultivating a diverse skin microbiome, it does so much protection for us. And it really helps mitigate the effects of that exposure. And to build up the skin barrier, again, that's the edie. the essential fatty acids and sort of not attacking it. And then to build up the skin microbiome, you're not talking about, there's like a number of skincare lines these days that have probiotics in them. You're not talking about like adding in more topical probiotics, right? You're just talking about

letting your natural skin probiotics thrive. Right. So, I mean, there's conflicting research on probiotic skin care. Like in theory, I love the idea of probiotics. I do yogurt face masks. I do yogurt face masks, just plain yogurt for that reason, because yogurt has live probiotics in it. And all of the research we have about probiotics is on live probiotics. When probiotics are put into skin care products, they're mixed with a preservative because you, in most instances, have to have a preservative for safety. And a preservative is there to kill bacteria. So the probiotics in most skin care products are dead and theoretically useless. Yeah, I've also. always wondered about that. There's one line, I forget what it's called. Oh, Mother Dirt, where you

actually keep it in the fridge. Yeah, I love Mother Dirt. That makes sense to me intuitively because you, yeah, probiotics aren't inherently shelf stable in the way that they would be packaged in skincare. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's so many things that you can do to build up your microbiome lifestyle-wise to, like I mentioned, eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, organic if you can. exercising actually builds up your microbiome. Being out in nature is a huge one. So we are picking up beneficial bacteria from the soil, from plants, from animals. People who have pets have more diverse microbiomes.

People who have roommates have more diverse microbiomes because you're basically like trading bugs with the people around you. So it's really fascinating. Do you think we're all going to have like worse skin as a result of this massive hand sanitizing period of our life from the pandemic? Yes. Yes, 100%. Just straight up.

So those are, that's something that's, you have to, you know, weigh the pros and cons. Like, yeah, it's going to affect our microbiomes, but it's for a very important reason. Obviously, I think if anyone's interested in learning more about that, the book that I mentioned, Clean by Dr. Hamblin is incredible. He is actually the coronavirus correspondent for the Atlantic. So he's a medical reporter. And he's written a lot about hand sanitizer in the time of coronavirus and how it's affecting our immune systems because the skin is actually a huge part of the immune system. And so, yeah, I would recommend reading any of his articles to dive more into that.

Yeah, I also think he's adorable. I know that that's not here nor there. He's like the most adorable person that I think is the big, like adorable to expert correlation. I would say he's among the highest on my list. I've been taking the approach of just like hand washing, sanitizing, and then rolling around in dirt as much as possible to try to replenish that which I'm losing, which has been working out well. I love that. Going back to the expliation, the second thing that people always tell me is that having that micro bit of damage actually causes you to build collagen and results in a better, more enhanced,

healthier skin. So you're intentionally causing microdamage to have that better result. Do you agree with that or no? Yes and no. Like, that is happening. It's the same thing with microneedling. So, you know, microneedling is when you like roll the tiny, tiny needles over your face to cause damage and it causes collagen to surge to the surface. It causes hyalronic acid to surge to the surface because these are part of the body's wound healing response.

So same with exfoliation. So two things. One, that really tricks us into thinking that these products are doing good things for our skin because what happens is we're damaging the skin. it goes into repair mode it sends all of these beneficial nutrients to the surface to repair it and of course you look glowy and fresh because you have all of these nutrients all of these compounds with collagen this hyluronic acid all to the surface you look dewy you look glowy you love it but it's because the body is fixing a problem that you cause and like that's not a good thing in my opinion like i'm very opposed to

to the hurt your skin to help it theory. Like I do not think we need to be damaging our skin at all. Because like I mentioned, it's part of the body's immune response. So there's very limited research on this. It's something that I'm really trying to look into more. But in other areas of the body, we know that when you stimulate the immune response too much and you trick the body into an immune response

or you boost the immune response for no reason. It can cause autoimmune disorders. You know, it can cause a lot of problems in the body because you're just not supposed to trick your body into thinking there's an invader when there's not, especially every night if you're exfoliating every night or, you know, every week if you're microneadling once a week. So I'm very concerned about the potential long-term effects

that have not been studied of tricking your body into an immune wound healing response for the sake of aesthetics. That just bothers me. Well, let's talk about aesthetics for a second because my third reason for exfoliating is just when I look in the mirror and I'm like, my skin looks dull and not cute. And would your reaction to that just be like, I've exfoliated too much in the past, which is causing that perception of dullness now? and if I fully stopped, perhaps I wouldn't look in the mirror and feel that?

Or what do I do when I just look in the mirror and I'm like, blech? When I feel dull, I automatically think, okay, my barrier is not able to do its job. Because when your barrier is intact and your lipid layer is intact, it is hoarding all of the moisture, it's keeping it sealed in and you get this very naturally dewy look. So my initial thought now, after doing all the research I've done, after reporting on beauty for the past couple of years, is dullness is equal to potential barrier damage. And if you focus on building up the barrier, you will get the glowy, dewy look that you're after. Like I mentioned, because exfoliating, you're taking away the cells that are able to hold on to more moisture. Over time, you will look drier.

and you will say, oh, I need to exfoliate, and it starts this really vicious cycle because you keep exfoliating because you keep feeling dull and dry and you think taking off more layers of skin is going to help. And in reality, it's exacerbating the problem. But because you get that first initial beneficial boost of nutrients and, you know, wound healing compounds to the surface, it tricks our brains into thinking, oh, this is working. because for the first day after exfoliating, you feel like you're so glowing and gorgeous. But in reality, it's not leading to the long-term effects that we really want.

Of course, there's also the potential problem that your desquamation is too slow. And you do actually have a build-up of dead skin cells. And that's actually very likely with our modern lifestyles, with all the exposure we have, with all of the skincare we're using that damages our barrier. you know, with more sedentary lifestyles, with maybe not eating as healthy as we used to eat, you know, pre-pandemic or whatever. Maybe you're doing more postmates. I know I am. So in those cases, like, yeah, you might actually need to exfoliate.

I would never exfoliate more than like once or twice a week if that happens to be the case. And I would also experiment with adding in more circulation boosting practices. is facial massage is a huge one. I massage my face just with my fingers every morning when I apply my face oil. And that's great for natural desquamation as well. Do you do a specific pattern or do you just kind of like go at it to increase the circulation in your face in general? So the pattern I use, it's not like an official pattern. It's not like a guasha pattern or anything like that.

But I really focus on where the lymph nodes are. So that's in front of and in back of the ears and then the lymphatic drainage channels are like kind of down the front side of the neck and then through the collarbone. So I start by massaging in front of and in back of my ears for, you know, 30 seconds to a minute. And then I take that massage down my neck for 30 seconds to a minute. And then I kind of wiggle my fingers over my collarbone for the same amount of time to kind of stimulate that. lymphatic drainage passageway. Because if you're starting like under your eyes or at the top of your face, the lymph fluid that you're trying to drain is just kind of going to pool at the bottom.

Like you need to open up those channels first. So I start at the bottom and then I work my way up. And are there topicals that help with your skin's barrier layer or do you think it's just sort of the lifestyle factors that we've covered and not, you know, messing it up too much? I think there are definitely products that can help. So oils for sure, like just simple plant-based face oils, I love hajoba oil. Hojoba is a 97% match, 97% chemical match to the skin sebum. And sebum is one of those fatty acids that helps create our lipid barrier.

So if your lipid barrier is compromised, you can add in a face oil. I would keep it simple. Personally, I don't like to use products that have more than like five to 10 ingredients in them. Usually I'm just using single ingredient products because my skin is so sensitive and you never know what's going to set it off. So whatever oil, you know, works well for your skin, I would say, is helping the barrier. Hohoba, Rose hip. I even like mixing a little bit of caster oil in with my hajoba sometimes. I cleanse my face with manuka honey, with pure manuka honey,

because it's just very soothing, but it's also a prebiotic. So prebiotics are food for the good bacteria on your skin. So anything that has a prebiotic component, I'm a fan of because that is feeding your existing microbiome. And if your barrier needs a little bit more support, I'm really interested in the research around seramides right now. So seramides are something that your body produces naturally. It's actually a byproduct of some of the microorganisms of your microbiome. So if your microbiome is healthy and

diverse, you're producing seramides already. If your microbiome is compromised, you might need to add a topical seramide into your routine. And I think that really helps strengthen the barrier. Are there seramide examples or seramide products that you would recommend? There is a really great base oil from Marie Veronique that I love, and it has the same chemical composition of the skin's lipid barrier. So there's ceramides in it, there's fatty acids, and there's cholesterol, or omega fatty acids and cholesterol. And those are kind of the three big components of the lipid barrier. So I think it's called like lipid repair serum or barrier repair serum or something like that. So I really love that because it's pretty bio-compatible.

Yeah, I love her. She was like my first person I discovered when I was getting into natural skin care years ago. And I use her sunscreen and a lot of her products. I think she's a genius. And she also looks bananas. So good. Yeah, she has an amazing book. I don't know if you've read it.

It's called The Acne Answer. If anybody struggles with acne, oh my God, this book was like a lifesaver for me. I mean, it's like a textbook for how to deal with acne holistically and with products and with diet. I mean, it's great. Okay, well, let's talk about. I got a lot of questions from my audience about acne. And I know that it's something that you've personally struggled with. So if somebody had acne, I have people who have hormonal acne specifically and people have more general acne and a lot of people these days who have mask knee.

And if somebody came to you and they were struggling with acne, what would be like the first three? three things that you would be like, look at this, try this. This is what I recommend. So first, I would look at their skincare routine. Anything that's super harsh, anything that's like super antibacterial, I would look at that and consider eliminating it or experimenting with like a little skincare elimination diet because a lot of these ingredients do not support like chronic acne havers. So something like a salicylic acid or a benzoyal peroxide. might be helpful to get rid of like one lone pimple overnight or over the course of a couple of days. But if you're chronically inflamed, those types of antibacterial and exfoliating products

are actually exacerbating the problem over time. Something that I always like to keep in mind to a little tangent about the microbiome is that acne-causing bacteria is actually found in healthy acne-free skin. Like your skin needs this bacteria. As part of a healthy microbiome, the problem is when you don't have enough of the good beneficial bacteria to balance it out, it can cause acne. So like antibacterial products aren't necessarily the best long-term solution because you don't want to wipe out that bad bacteria. You just want to have a better balance of the quote unquote bad bacteria to good bacteria. So first I would look at product.

Okay. Second, I would look at, you know, inflammatory foods in the diet and adding in those foods that I mentioned earlier that will help with hydration and with barrier repair. And then everyone's hormones are different. So I don't have a ton of suggestions when people have hormonal acne. You really have to work with a professional who is a hormone expert because there are so many factors that could have your hormones out of whack. I recommend the book Woman Code by Alyssa Vitty. That was a huge help to me. I recommend checking out Dr. Jolene Brighton, who is an expert in hormone health. A lot of her practices have been super helpful to me. I also, I love seed cycling. Have you used seed cycling ever? Yeah, I have a little bit for sure.

And I think it's really, really interesting. I haven't asked the doctor hormone edition episode of the podcast with Aviva Rom, who's another hormone expert doctor that I love. And she doesn't recommend seed cycling per se, but she thinks that incorporating seeds in general into your diet is one of the absolute best things you can do for hormonally based skin conditions. And I've been doing that since she said that. And I've noticed a really big difference.

I don't have acne issues, but just with my general sort of like appearance and glow. Yeah, that's so cool. I kind of feel the same like seed cycling was here. huge for me when I first was starting to heal hormonal issues that stemmed from, I had been on the pill for 10 years. I got off the pill. I got a hormonal IUD. All of these changes just like really threw my body out of whack. And seed cycling for a couple of months really helped get it back on track. And I saw a huge difference in my skin. And I've written articles on it before. And what's interesting is the hormone experts always say like seed cycling is not a long term solution. Like you

don't want to have to be doing this for the rest of your life. But what's good about it is that it shows you the power that food can have on your hormones. And if you are eating a diet that supports your natural hormonal fluctuations, like you can really solve and suit a lot of your issues. Well, I also think that like ritualizing it is really helpful too. Like I think if you just tell people like, oh, incorporate more seeds in your diet, that can be too broad to stay. And But if you're like, oh, eat this seat at this time, eat this seat at this time. It makes it more of a ritual. And I think that can make it more easy and fun, frankly, to incorporate.

Yeah, that's so, that's so true. And that's like probably the third thing that I would say to somebody is things like ritual, things like stress relief practices, mindfulness practices. One thing about having acne is that it is very stressful, you know, like you don't want to have it. You're constantly looking for ways to get rid of it, or at least that was my experience. And on top of all of the stress of the world, you're stressing about how you look and you're stressing about acne and you're stressing about the products that you're using and am I eating the right thing. And all of this can cause just more stress, more of a hormonal cascade, more of the effects

of stress on the skin. And by incorporating some mindfulness practices, maybe some affirmations, some mantras, daily meditation, a gratitude practice. It helps with the stress of having acne, and it actually helps physically soothe your acne. Well, that goes back to the gut, mind, skin connection thing, which I think is so powerful. So two things on that. One, I do always encourage anybody who has hormonal anything. They're like, oh, how do I cure my period cramps? And I always think of anything hormonal, like period cramps or skin stuff to be a symptom. And the sooner you can address the root cause versus just trying to chase around the symptom, the better off you'll be.

So if your hormones are out of whack and it's evidencing through your skin, it's almost like a thing to say thank you for because it's your body being like when hormones are out of whack, you know? Oh my gosh. I say that all the time. Like the skin is communicating with you. it is like your connection from your inner world to your outer world and like it's such a way that your body can get your attention like if something is off balance in your body and it shows up on your skin like how amazing that your body knew how to show you in a way that would get your attention and hopefully get you to look at the root issue and and give it the things that it's asking for

and that's a really powerful thing to incorporate into a gratitude practice too so like when my skin was, you know, really going through it, I would, I would do like a gratitude meditation. And like, for instance, if I was upset about my acne scars or something, I would say, thank you so much skin for all that you've done to protect me. Like, these are signs that you've protected me so well. Or, you know, for my hormonal acne, it would be like, thank you skin for alerting me to this issue for asking me for what you need, I promise I'm going to figure out what it is that you're asking for. So yeah, just like having a positive way at looking at these traditionally, you know,

quote unquote negative things is so helpful for your mindset and for your physical health. Well, and not just like bopping them down. Like I picture that arcade game with like the alligators that came out when you're kid and you'd like hit him with the hammer. And I'm just like instead of being like slam the hammer down, slam the hammer down, slam. the hammer down as all these new things come up be like, why are you, do you have a message to tell me? Like, why are you popping out in the first place? Probably not to just be slammed down with a hammer, you know? Exactly, exactly. And then second, I'm curious, are there topicals, even within the natural

realm that you would recommend for acne to have a more immediate effect? I know people talk about like tea tree oil a lot, which is antibacterial, so maybe that falls into the negative camp. But if somebody wanted, I don't know, just feel like they're expediting the process a little bit. Is there anything you'd recommend topically? Yeah. So I use tea tree oil sometimes. I try not to do too much of it because like you said, it is antibacterial, but sometimes I find it very soothing. So I'll do like a tea tree oil mist that I just DIY, just water and tea tree. What's been most healing for me is Manuka Honey. I'm obsessed with Manuka Honey. It's so healing. It has so many beneficial properties and I use it as a spot treatment all the time.

So if something pops up overnight and I'm trying to, you know, get rid of it as quickly as possible, I will do a dollop of manuka honey and I'll sometimes put like a Band-Aid over it, like kind of like a DIY natural pimple patch. And that's always super helpful. Another thing that I use a lot is camomile tea bags. They are so great for inflammation. So if I have, you know, any inflammation on my skin from hormonal acne to just like a white head on my cheek or whatever, I'll soak a camomile tea bag in hot water for a couple

minutes and then I'll just press it onto the area, like kind of as a spot treatment. And the effect is, you know, almost the media. I kind of want to, could you make like a mist out of camomile and spray that on? Because I just feel like that would smell so good. Mm-hmm. It's so good. Also, what I'll do is I'll take dried camomile and I'll grind it up with like a pestle and mortar or you can put it in a food process or whatever. And then you can just mix that with water and make like a paste and do a face mask.

You can mix it with honey. You can mix it with yogurt. So I do a lot of dried herbal masks. Camamil is huge. I sometimes mix the camoil with lavender, rose petals. There's so much you can do. And they're really soothing. They won't irritate your eyes.

already irritated skin. Yeah, that's a go-to. Can we talk about the Manuka Honey thing for a second? Because I want to try it. One, my two issues are that it seems incredibly sticky and messy. And I don't know how to do with that. And then two, I do wear sunscreen every single day. I don't wear makeup all days, but I wear makeup some days. And I'm curious if when I'm wearing something like a sunscreen, is the Manuka Honey enough to actually get that off? I think it depends what sunscreen you're using. me, it's fine. If I'm wearing makeup, I'll do an oil cleanse first and then I will cleanse with Manuka honey. It's actually not as sticky as you think it's going to be if you're using it as a

cleanser. So I'll put damp, I'll damp in my face, warm water on my face, and then just like a finger full of Manuka from the jar, massage it onto my skin for about a minute and rinse it off. And it's fine. But I also use Manuka as like a 20 minute, 30 minute face mask all over. Like I said, I'll use it as a spot treatment. That gets sticky for sure. But for me, the results are so amazing that it's worth it. Like, I don't mind a little stickiness because I know that it really works. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast.

You already know that I love my Garden of Life products. The mood plus probiotic is my absolute favorite, and I use the grass-fed collagen all the time in my smoothies. But ever since I interviewed Aviva Rom for the Ask the Doctor hormone edition episode of the podcast, I've been trying to get serious about incorporating a fish oil supplement into my diet, since we talked about how important it was for women's hormones and mood in general. I chose to use the Garden of Life doctor formulated advanced omega for a few reasons. It's a high potency 1,290 milligram omega-3 formula containing EPA, DHA, and DPA. It's made from sustainably sourced anchovy that's non-GMO project verified

and includes specialized pro-resolving mediators, compounds that naturally support, normal inflammatory responses in the body. The capsules are lemon flavored and I can attest to the fact that they don't give you any fish burbs. I actually really hate the taste of seafood, weird fact about me. So I need a product that doesn't leave a fish taste in my mouth at all and these definitely don't. Finally, they're certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, an independent

nonprofit organization which sets the standard for sustainable fishing. They also donate 1% of sales from the product to ocean cleanup and preservation efforts and they purchase 100% certified renewable energy to match 100% of their manufacturing and headquarters electricity consumption, which is so cool. Basically, I love the values behind this product, and I love the product itself. I've been taking it for a few months now, and I highly recommend it. I'll leave a link to the doctor formulated advanced omega in the show notes. When you buy it with my link, it doesn't cost you anything extra, and it tells Garden of Life where you found it. If you've been looking for a fish oil, I highly recommend this one. Now, let's get

back to the episode. And if you're oil cleansing, do you have to do a second cleanse? Because I know that they say that you're supposed, like, I once posted about a brand on Instagram and I was like, this is what I'm using as my cleanser. And they were like, oh, that's a great first cleanse. And I was like, no, no, no, that's just what I'm using. I'm far too lazy to do two steps here. But do you, like, could I just oil cleanse and leave it at that or do I need to do another

one? No, you can just oil cleanse. I mean, as long as you're getting all of, if you're wearing makeup or are you wearing sunscreen as long as it's getting all of that off. Yeah, you don't, there's no reason for a second cleanse. I think, you know, double cleansing is another marketing thing to get us to buy more products that we don't necessarily need. And if you're not wearing makeup, you know, you don't always have to wash your face. Like, I, I don't wash my face very often at all. What does not very often mean? I don't, I don't wash it in the mornings. And I would say I do like,

a manuka cleanse, probably four or five times a week at night. And then if I haven't been, you know, doing anything during the day, if I'm just home, I'm not wearing makeup at night, I'll spritz my face with just rose water or I'll just splash it with water from the sink. And that's it. I go to bed. My husband doesn't, so I was out in L.A. before the pandemic and we were hanging out with my younger cousin and he was talking about how he had gotten this whole skincare routine. And I turned to my husband and I was like, look, see, Joe has this whole skin care routine. You should use this as inspiration. And my husband was like, oof, that sounds really exhausting.

So he went fully in the other direction and stopped washing his face entirely. So he now, he went from his only part of his skin care routine was washing his face to literally doing nothing. And his skin looks phenomenal and it's so annoying. Right. It's so annoying. It's like when we are thinking about skin care and all of these things that we think we need to do for our skin, something that's really helpful to me is asking, are men being told they need to do this? And, you know, not to reduce it to like male-female, but like in beauty marketing, the gender binary is very much there.

Like there's very much marketing towards women and there's very much marketing or not marketing towards men. So if men are not being told that they need to do this, the chances are you don't really need to be doing it either. So much of this is just preying on women's insecurities because of the society we live in that tells us women are more valuable when they are more beautiful. And that's a construct that was created specifically to keep us one consuming products and, you know, keeping the economy thriving. and one preoccupied with our appearance so that we stay in the positions that we're in economically and politically, which is a very long-winded and perhaps too deep way of saying, like, you don't need to use all of this skin care. Like men have beautiful skin a lot of the times, not to generalize,

but they have great skin without doing much to it. And I think we can all learn something from that. there are biological factors at play. So I don't want to like say don't use any skin care. Like men have just thicker skin, you know, thicker skin barriers and things like that. They don't have the hormonal fluctuations that women have. So there are other factors at play. But surely one factor is that they're not told they need a 10 step routine twice a day. Right. Well, and I also, I mean, but it's complicated beyond that too because it's also like men are societally allowed to age in a different, like Zach can get wrinkles, he can get fine lines, and he'll be like, George Clooney and everybody will be like,

oh my God, he's so sexy. And then women aren't allowed societally, they're not celebrated for having their skin change and grow. And so I think that when I'm like, oh, you don't need product because Zach doesn't need product, I'm like, people will respond to how I look as a 45-year-old, 55-year-old, 65-year-old human so differently than they'll respond to Zach at those ages. It's so true and there's so many layers to that and it's almost like impossible to deconstruct. And it requires like a lot of emotional labor for us to get into that and to decide, oh, I don't want to feed into this standard.

So for me, a lot of the times I, you know, am pretty dedicated to not doing these anti-aging things. You know, I personally will not get Botox. I personally will not get fillers. I'm not going on retinol. I'm not part of the anti-aging machine because it really concerns me what beauty standards are becoming, especially with social media and Photoshop and filters and FaceTune and all of this. I'm like so concerned for future generations of how they're going to perceive themselves and how they're going to feel beautiful as they are growing up in a society that is, you know, has told us we have to change everything about ourselves.

And it's a natural response for us having been fed that marketing to want to change all of these things about ourselves and look completely different and manipulate our faces and get rid of all these signs of aging. But I'm like, the psychological impact on future generations really concerns me. And so I think if there is a way where you can find beauty in other ways and kind of resist this pull of marketing, I see it like as a service almost, like to yourself because you're going to find worth and value in other parts of yourself. But also to other women around you who are absorbing all of this information and all of these unrealistic beauty standards. like what if we all just like let our guards down for a day and we saw what we really looked like when we weren't filtered or photoshopped or botoxed or fillered up or whatever you know like how how much like what kind of sigh of relief i know it's such a it's just so tricky like it's

i think it's such a powerful sentiment and on my best days i can tap into that and then on my so many other days i'm comparing myself to all the people who are still anti-eastern and and I'm like, I look, I feel like I look objectively worse, you know? Mm-hmm. I mean, there are just so many psychological layers to it. And one thing that I was researching a story and I was talking to a psychologist about it and asking, like, you know, what is it that's happening in our psyches when we are feeling this way or we feel like we have to show up in the world a certain way or we have to look a certain way? And she pointed out to me something that should be really obvious, but I just had not thought of it. And she said, well, women have more human rights and are treated better when they perform beauty.

And it just like, it really kind of hit me in the gut because it's not just this psychological thing. Like, oh, are you strong enough to resist the pull of Botox and makeup and whatever it is? It's like, oh, I actually make more money at my job. Yep. I'm actually treated like a human being when I'm actually treated like a human being when I'm out in the world when I look these ways and, you know, one person resisting, you know, getting plastic surgery or getting a facelift when they're 60 is not going to change this system that has really made it so that women feel like we have to and we have to because we, you know, make more money.

We get treated like humans. We have more of a, you know, stance politically when we look a certain way. Yeah. So it's it's just such a widespread thing and it feels impossible to tackle sometimes. Okay. So this feels almost, it feels really shallow to ask now. No, it's just it's like, it is hard because it's a systemic issue. But you mentioned that you haven't gotten Botox and I haven't either because it seems insane to me to inject something into your face that could kill us all if it got into our water supply. However, it seems like it's safe and so many people are getting it. And from your professional opinion outside of the systemic problems

with how we perceive women's power and beauty, do you think that Botox is a safe thing to do? Yeah, I think it's pretty safe. I think as far as like cosmetic procedures go, it's, it's fairly studied. It's not causing like horrific side effects for a lot of people. At the same time, we don't have a ton of long-term studies. I think the longest study of Botox from when I last researched it, and this was about a year ago, the longest study on the books was like 11 years or 12 years. And we have gone way past that point now. So from when Botox became, you know, somewhat mainstream to now to where we're headed. We're looking at 20, 30 years, you know, when we are 50, 60 years old, you know,

50, 60 years of continuous injections that we actually don't have studies for on these long-term effects. So that worries me because for most people, Botox is not like a one-and-done thing. You're going to keep getting the injections twice a year or three times a year, however long or however long in between appointments you go. And so it concerns me that we don't have long-term safety data for this behavior that is presumably going to last for the rest of your life. And there's also a little bit of data about Botox potentially triggering autoimmune

conditions. So that's something to consider as well. I think if you do want to get Botox, just do your research, you know, do deep, independent research, figure out if you feel safe doing it. But I do think for the most part, you will probably be fine. You want to know what I think is the scariest thing about Botox? I don't know if there's any studies about this. So I'm just going to say it to you in hopes that maybe you'll write an article about it someday. But there's been a lot of research around the expressions that we have dictate our emotions as much as the emotions that we have dictate our expressions. So like if you

smile, you can make yourself happy as much as if you feel happy, then you smile. And what freaks me out about Botox is that because it's limiting your range of expressions and probably even more so your micro expressions that you don't even know that you're making. So even if you're smiling, maybe you're not smiling with your eyes completely or there's all these little tiny muscles in your face that you don't know are moving to convey an emotion to your brain. And I worry about limiting the breath of my emotions or the depth of my emotions by phrasing things that I don't even know are attached to those emotions. I think that's a super valid fear and there is some data on that, especially in the like vice versa scenario. But also there's some there are some studies or at least one study that I

remember researching where besides you not feeling the full breath of emotion, people don't perceive you the same way because, you know, our brains are picking up on these, like, like you said, little micro expressions from people constantly that you might not register consciously. You might not have like a conscious thought about it, but our brains are picking up signals from other people. And yeah, limiting that range of expression interfears with how people perceive us and the emotional depth of the interactions we're having with others. Whoa. Mm-hmm.

And what's, I mean, what's cool to me about the fact that there are studies that show that, you know, if you don't have a furrowed brow anymore because you got Botox, you're, you feel emotionally happier. Like, you can get that same effect by smiling for a minute in the morning, you know? That's not the only way to achieve that one positive effect of Botox. You can alter your behavior in other ways and still keep your full range of it. expression and and you know you don't have to choose between one or the other you said that you don't use retinal too and retinal is sort of like my one ride or die active that I use because I feel like I've been so told that it's the number one anti-aging thing that'll make you look young forever what are do you not use it because you're kind of taking a stand in that way or do you not use

it because you actually don't think it's good for your skin I actually do not think it's good for your skin. And also I'm taking a stance, but for the most part, I don't think it's good for my skin in particular. I have a very compromised barrier still from years of steroid use. And like retinol is very studied for its quote unquote positive effects. You know, it's going to really be that active that works in terms of anti-aging, in terms of acne even. So it works. We know that. But we also know that, even though it thickens the lower layers of the skin, it thins the skin barrier. And the skin barrier is the most important thing in the world to me because I know what it's like to live without a skin barrier and it is not good. And it exacerbated every one of my skin issues.

And building up my barrier has been, you know, the focal point of the past basically three years of my life. So any ingredient that thins my skin barrier is just a no from me. I actually just interviewed a dermatologist a couple of days ago for a story about stress and the effects of stress on the skin. And she, even though she believes in retinol and even formulates products with retinol in them, she recommended if you are experiencing chronic stress, your skin barrier is already compromised. Don't use your retinol. Because retinol, we know, alters the lipid barrier. You know, it depletes the lipids from your skin's barrier. So if your body is already doing that through stress and then you're adding a retinal on top of it,

just the stress that you're putting on your skin barrier, the amount that you're thinning your skin barrier and limiting your skin's ability to protect you and hold in moisture, to me, is just not worth it. If you feel like you have a strong skin barrier and you want those effects that are studied, like in my mind I'm like okay I'll do all the things that take care of my barrier health and then I'll add in a retinol to get that active effect is that would you say that's a healthy approach personally I wouldn't say it's a healthy approach it is an approach that you can take so okay here's my thinking of that like I've made clear I don't think it's a good thing

ever to thin the skin barrier I think ultimately over time and we have studies showing this that if you have a thin barrier, if you have a compromised barrier, you show signs of aging sooner. So I'm not convinced of like the long, long term effects of the health of the skin if you are constantly thinning your barrier. I also really don't like the theory of, oh, I'm going to put this one kind of irritating ingredient on my skin, but I'm going to balance it out with another ingredient. Like to me, that just says, like, you shouldn't maybe use that first ingredient that causes a problem you need to balance out with another product.

Like to me, that just is like, it's keeping you in the consumer cycle. Any product that does something to your skin that necessitates another product to mitigate the damage is just like, wait, why are we doing that? Why are we doing that? Like, you see it with hyaloronic acid a lot. Like, you put a hyalronic acid serum on your skin, but you have to follow it up with a moisturizer and a face oil. Otherwise, it's going to dehydrate your skin or

cause irritation and inflammation. I'm like, if you're trying to sell me a product or an ingredient that makes me purchase two other products, no, that's not going to work on me. Well, but what about people who say, like, hylerotic acid is, like, the thing that makes their skin look plump and good, and they can see the effects, and that's how they know it works. Yeah. That's another one of those, like, exfoliation, temporary fix things. I wrote an article in hyluronic acid for Harper's Bazaar for anyone who wants, like, a deep dive

into the science of hyluronic acid. But basically what hyluronic acid does is it pulls moisture from the deeper layers of your skin up to the surface. So yes, for some people, it'll make you look temporarily very glowy and hydrated. But once moisture is on the surface of your skin, it can evaporate. So it evaporates and it's depleted the moisture from the lower layers where the moisture wants to be. And now you're left with dehydrated, dry flaking skin.

And so you say, okay, I'm going to put on more hyluronic acid. And it does the same thing. And you get that temporary glow, but long term, you're dehydrating your skin. The way that I like to think about hyluronic acid is, like, it is a miracle ingredient in your body. Like, we make our own hyluronic acid. It is in the dermal layer. So naturally, it's found in the deeper layer of your skin. It does not show up on the skin surface unless it's part of, like, the wound healing response.

talked about earlier. And like, it's in that lower layer of your skin for a reason. That's where hyaluronic acid does its best work. It was never meant to be on the surface of the skin. If it was meant to be on the surface of the skin, it would be there. And also, I think we need to think about some of these claims in terms of what our skin wants and needs. So the big thing about hyluronic acid is, you hear it holds a thousand times its weight

in water. do you want a thousand times of weight and water on your face? No. Well, I think when people, they hear that, they hear that and they're like, my skin feels super dry and parched. And the opposite of dry and parched is a thousand times it's weight in water. So that sounds cool. It's too much water. Like when your skin is constantly wet, when your skin has that much hydration on the surface, it causes problems.

Like that becomes a breeding ground for, you know, like we talked about the microbiome, for some of the less beneficial species. It can cause something called maceration, I think it's called, which is some form of like microbiome feeding frenzy. I can't remember the exact mechanisms of it. But there are consequences to having so much water on your skin. and that's the reason your skin doesn't naturally hold that much water. Like when your barrier is intact and your microbiome is thriving, the amount of water that it holds is the ideal amount of water. Okay, so what if what if I like am like, okay, you don't like retinol, you don't like pylorotic acid. But like Jessica, I want to look like young forever.

I don't want to have little baby wrinkles. How, like, what should I do about that? I would recommend a simple face oil and like honestly just focusing on barrier health and focusing on microbiome health. Like I know I sound like a broken record and I don't think you need a lot of products to support your barrier and to support your microbiome. But like honestly, from the research that I have done over the years, I'm writing a book on it now too.

the skin barrier and the microbiome are like the original skin care products. They provide your skin with everything that it possibly needs to thrive. And it's a long game and it's not like, oh, I boosted my barrier. It's good now. Like you have to constantly keep doing it. And there are a lot of lifestyle factors like because my barrier is still compromised. Like so much of my life revolves around. Okay.

How am I supporting my self? skin from within today. Like, I think about it with everything I eat, you know, every time I exercise, every time I do facial massage, like it takes up a lot of my time. But the wonderful thing about my skincare routine being pretty much product-free and relying on diet and lifestyle factors is that the benefits reverberate throughout every other part of my life. You know, it's not like I'm just thinking about my skin. It's like my body works better. It moves better. I feel better. I have less dress. So to me, that's worth it. I know it's not for everybody. And, you know, people do love the ritual of putting on products. And I think there is some value in that. So I would just recommend,

like, a really great face oil to support your barrier. And, uh, and that's kind of it. I don't know. I know that's not a satisfying answer. Some dirt for your microbeio. Yeah, just like, go roll around outside. What about Bakuchia? Have you done any research on that? It's a thing that's being touted as like the best retinal alternative in the clean beauty world. I did a little bit of research on Bakuchial. I wrote one article about it maybe about two years ago. So I'm a little, so I'm a little rusty on all of the details. I remember my research at the time being like pretty great. I think I wrote a very favorable article on it and on the research. It doesn't work the same. way that retinol does, but it ends up having a lot of the same effects, apparently. I don't know if there have been any new studies in the past two years that I haven't reviewed. But again, the interesting thing about an ingredient like that is that Bacuchial is going to be

formulated into a skincare product. So, like, retinol is a little different because sometimes you'll get it from a dermatologist, and it's like a prescription cream and whatever. but Bacuchial is is less clinical. It doesn't count as a drug who knows what it's being formulated with and how it's being formulated. So there's a potential that you could pick up a Bucchial product and you look on the back of the bottle and it's the last ingredient listed. Like there's hardly any Bacuchel in there. And maybe it's mixed with like silicones that mean the Bacuchial is not going to penetrate as deeply.

So that would be my concern is like Bacuchial as an ingredient may be. great, but you have to be really careful about how it's formulated to get the results you want to see. And is there any way that you would recommend for a layman who's just shopping for product, be able to interpret labels or interpret ingredient claims in a way that's beneficial for them without having to spend way more time on this than a normal person who's like shopping at CVS wants to? Right. It's tough. I like using the environmental working group Skin Deep database. I know that's a little controversial. Some people don't love it.

I have found it very helpful. So basically what that database does is you plug in the ingredient name. It'll give it like a safety rating from one to 10. And then it'll link you to all of the studies that it used to come up with that safety rating. So I don't always necessarily pay attention to the rating because I really love to dive into the research. So I'll go through all the papers that it links, you know. but if you're not into that,

you can just look at the rating and the little blurb about, okay, this is what the ingredient does. Here are potential concerns and kind of make up your mind that way. I've also used the Think Dirty app, which is really great resource if you're interested in clean, natural beauty.

Same, it gives like a rating system for products and ingredients. So you don't have to go ingredient by ingredient. You can just like get their overall view of the product too. But what about like what you say? said where Bakuchel could be on the label, but you don't know how much of it's in there, what it's combined with or things like that? So a very quick crash course is that ingredients on skincare products have to be labeled from highest concentration to lowest concentration.

So the first couple of ingredients are going to be what the product is mostly made up of. usually the first ingredient is like water. Usually after that it's like a silicone. And then you get into the active ingredients lower and lower and lower. So a lot of times and then anything that's used at 1% or less doesn't have to be listed in order of concentration anymore. So usually like the last few ingredients listed on an ingredient list are just like a jumble of things that are in there. at less than 1%. I've heard that could be like a really big issue with skincare products though because a lot of

times in skincare products you don't want more than 1%, so they can kind of put things in any willy-nilly order. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the other thing. And that's why it's like you kind of do have to dive into all this research if you want to be an informed consumer. Like for instance, hyluronic acid, safety testing of hyalronic acid recommends using it at 1%. So you want only 1% of hyluronic acid in a hyloric acid product if you're using one.

Personally, again, I don't recommend using one. But if you are, you don't want it to be more than 1%. But for things like what I'll see a lot is like botanical oils will be used on the label. So brands like keels do this all the time. It'll be like avocado face oil. And you turn it over and it's a bunch of filler ingredients. and then avocado is all the way at the bottom. So they're using it to promote the product.

And you could use 100% avocado oil on your face if you wanted to. That's not really a safety concern. So they're using this like star marketing ingredient to sell the product, but they're not really putting too much of it in there. So, yeah. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. This has been quite a year to say the least. I know a lot of us are feeling stressed and anxious,

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your face was not meant to be penetrated. So like pores are outgoing channels biologically. Like they expel sweat and sebum. They were never meant to be incoming channels. Things like penetration enhancers. That's like a class of ingredient to get ingredients to go deeper. those, that's like a code word for disrupts your skin barrier. So there are very few active ingredients that can get past the skin barrier safely. Like they have to have a lot of different qualities in order to do that. Like vitamin C is one. That goes to deeper layers of your skin and it does so in a way that doesn't really disrupt

your skin barrier. But for the most part, like you don't want your ingredients to penetrate and, you know, cosmetic chemists formulate that way as well. good cosmetic chemist. Like, they know that things are kind of supposed to work on the surface level. And if you're going any deeper, there's a very big chance for irritation. So oils, yes, all they do is they sit on the surface. They do not penetrate.

But that's a good thing because your lipid barrier is on the surface, and that's what oils are reinforcing. So you're building up the strength of your skin barrier. You're helping to seal in all of the internal hydration of your skin cells and keep it from evaporating by putting a little layer of oil on your face. And what about essential oils? This is a big debate. Essential oils can be very irritating. So if you have super sensitive skin, I would recommend avoiding them.

I personally have had pretty good experiences with some essential oils. So I can use them sparingly and not. see any issues. Frankencence is one that I love to use. I'll put a drop of frankincense in with my hajoba oil sometimes. And that's really good for brightening. I have a lot of hyperpigmentation from old acne scars. And for frankincense has been really good for that.

I mentioned sometimes I will use tea tree oil. But in general, I don't think you should use too many essential oils. If you have sensitive skin, I think you can cut out essential oils and not really be missing out on much. But yeah, it's very individual. And there's a few essential oils that are like, I look for ingredient labels that I'm like, that's a no-go. Like I'm thinking of citrus oils particularly, which are commonly used in natural products,

but are photochiccinogenics? Can you speak to sort of the flip side negative element of essential oils? Sure, yeah. I mean, some essential oils will make your skin more photosensitive, so more susceptible to damage from sunlight. like you said, citrus is, I think that's the big one. Like any sort of citrus oil will do that. And like, they're also a sustainability issue for me too.

Like I feel very guilty if I use too many essential oils because it takes so much plant matter just to get one little drop of essential oil. And a lot of the times these plants and ingredients are not farmed sustainably. or regeneratively, and you're really just kind of like ravaging the Earth's resources to get this teeny tiny little bit of oil that might actually irritate your face and might actually make you more sensitive to the sun. So it's like, there's got to be a really great upside. I mean, the upside for a lot of people is the aromatherapy component of it, which is great. Like that's why I love frankincense. Like the scent just really does it for me. It's so calming. I love using it before bed.

But again, that's like one of the only oils that I will use and I will use it very sparingly. And it's, yeah, it's definitely a red flag for me. If I see like natural face oil and then I flip over the ingredient list and it's got like 10 different essential oils in it. Like that's kind of a recipe for irritation and disaster. Well, I think it just brings me, I think a core problem people have in the clean beauty and just sort of in the beauty industry right now in general is that there's, I, I want, at least the problem I have is I want to trust experts.

I want to trust dermatologists and doctors. And I really don't like in the wellness world that we cultivate sometimes the distrust of people who are experts in their field. But at the same time, dermatologists are recommending products all the time that wouldn't pass muster on EWG or that feel like they have ingredients that I would not want on or near my skin. And then you have on the flip side, these clean beauty brands who are like, oh, because. it has celery in it or because you could literally eat it, it's good for your face. And I think it's really hard to, and I'm like, well, I don't need to eat my skin care. So why is that, you know, a pro? So I have a really hard time navigating between those two extremes. Right. So, okay, there are, there are a couple things that I like to address when this kind of concern comes up.

One is that dermatologists know what they know, but they don't know everything and nobody knows everything. And there is a lot missing from dermatologist training that is actually very important to skin health. So like for instance, dermatologists really do not get trained on nutrition. That's a huge part of skin health, but you're not going to get the answers that you may need or may be helpful to you and your conditions from a dermatologist in a lot of cases if you're going to. going about healing holistically or internally. They also don't really learn a lot about natural ingredients. And that's because there is a lack of data on a lot of natural ingredients. But when I tell you the amount of dermatologists who have emailed me back when I'm

researching a story and said, I don't know anything about this. They don't teach us this in school. Like I get that response constantly. Like, I'm not trained on this. This is not what dermatologists do. and they just don't have the knowledge on some of these ingredients besides like the negative effects of essential oils or the negative effects of, you know, some irritating botanicals. Like they'll always give you the poison ivy argument. Like not everything natural is good.

Look at poison ivy. That's kind of the extent of the training there. So it can be very difficult and it's been very difficult for me as a reporter to report on natural ingredients, to report on holistic skin health, to report on. diets linked to skin health because, you know, depending on their training and depending on the dermatologist, like, these just aren't areas of expertise. So what I try to do in my research and in my life is cultivate, like, a stable of experts with different backgrounds and training. So, for instance, in an article, I will quote a dermatologist, but I'll also quote a nutritionist.

I'll go to an esthetician who has different training than a dermatologist. things like that. So just getting like a wide breath of information from a wide breath of people and then doing my own independent research with what they bring to the table. And then the other thing to know about natural ingredients, and this is not like a pro natural ingredient or an anti-natural ingredient, but like we're we don't have the data on a lot of them because you can't patent a natural ingredient. And studies cost a lot of money. And so usually the motivation to conduct a large scientific study on an ingredient is that you can make money off of it in the future. And you can't make money off of natural ingredients in any sort of, you know, real way that, like, a pharmaceutical brand would be able to justify, you know?

So the data just isn't out there. So a lot of the times it's not that, like, oh, this natural ingredient isn't good for you or it's not helping your skin. It's just that we don't know. So if you're, let's say, reviewing a product that is from a clean beauty line and there isn't that data there, how would you approach deciding whether it's an effective or good product? I always err on the side of caution and I don't really use anything that doesn't have data. So, like, and, you know, I mean, if a brand is using it, it's in a brand's best interest not to, formulate with things that are going to cause problems with you. No brand is really attempting to pull one over on you. They usually believe wholeheartedly in what they're putting out

there and they will have information or they will have an expert speak to it or they'll have some sort of data that they can give you or they'll be able to point to some sort of study that they have used to determine what ingredients to put in. So if you can like email their customer service and ask for more information, that's always a good starting point. I use PubMed a lot. I use PubMed a lot. So just pubmed.com and you can type in the ingredient or the scientific name of the botanical ingredient and just look up what studies are out there. You know, sometimes it's just one study and maybe you don't feel comfortable with just data from one study. Maybe there's 10 studies and you feel a little bit more comfortable with the data that's there. For the most part,

I just try to use like very calming, soothing, innocuous science-backed ingredients. So like I mentioned, Hohobo oil, ton of data out there on that. Manuka honey, ton of data out of that on that. There's no kind of like risk to reward ratio I have to weigh there. Well, and I also think- You've said it a number of times both here and in your articles, but like when brands come out with new products, they need to come out with new products for their marketing to keep their company afloat.

It doesn't mean your skin has new problems that need to be addressed or even that there's new formulas or crazy ingredients that have been discovered. It's really just they need to come out with new products. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, 100%. It's all part of like the larger marketing machine. And yeah, there's, it doesn't always relate to something that your skin needs, but it's

something that brands are interested in getting you to want. Right. So, I mean, resisting that pull of marketing. marketing is huge. And then if you're trying to determine if it's something that your skin needs, I will tell you, you know, 99% of the time the answer is just no. You probably don't need it. You don't need another product. Yeah, that's fair. Especially if you look in most women's medicine cabinets, there's a lot of, I mean, when was the last time, you know, most women emptied out a product completely. It's like, for me, at least, I'm confronted with something new and better and

and more effective before I even get to the end of most of my products. And then I'm like, oh, well, I want to be more beautiful and younger. So I'll go for that. Right. I mean, something that I like to do and to think about and that really helped me get over the pull of, you know, pretty bottles of skin care to collect is I like to think this sounds so cheesy. It's so corny. I like to think about all of the things that my body can do on its own and how that would be marketed as part of a product.

Like all of the compounds my body naturally produces and like apply the marketing language to that. So like so many of the things that we're buying in pre-bottled products, we already make. Like we already have hyluronic acid in our bodies. Our microbiomes produce peptides. Our microbiomes produce seramides. we produce sebum, which is the world's best moisturizer because it's your body's inherent moisturizer. You know, like, we produce so many of these compounds that are being sold back to us.

And like, we don't need to buy it back. It's there. It's there already. It is within us. And we can take steps to support the body's inherent function to create these compounds that we are craving, you know, do we need the vitamin C serum or is there another way we can build up the collagen? Like, what's the point of putting on that vitamin C serum? If it's to build up your body's natural collagen, can you find a way to do that that's separate from a product? Yeah, there's a ton of

ways. So, I don't know. I just try to think about like all of the cool things my skin already produces and I don't need to get them from a bottle and get them from my body. Wait, what are the ton of ways to build up the collagen inherently? Vitamin C rich foods. Like I said, there's no evidence that putting vitamin C on your face is any better than putting it in your body in terms of the collagen producing thing. So if you eat a diet rich in vitamin C, that will translate to plumber skin. Boosting circulation has also been shown to help produce collagen. So exercise is a big one.

Facial massage is a big one. And sleep. What about collagen supplements? Collagen supplements, I am skeptical on because, I mean, you're not, it's not just you're going to inhale this collagen and it's going to zoom to your collagen layer within the body. Like it goes through the process of digestion and getting broken down into its component parts. So it is just broken down into amino acids in your body. Amino acids are going to help your body build collagen because collagen is a protein.

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Theoretically, it will help you create more collagen. But you don't have to get those amino acids from a collagen supplement. You can get them through any food that is feeding your body protein. Zinc is also big for the collagen producing process, so making sure your body has enough zinc is key. So you need vitamin C and you need zinc to create more collagen. Okay.

Time has gone crazy. I feel like I have a zillion question to you, but I'm going to jump into a speed round just because I'm trying to be cognizant of your time. Okay, I'm just going to say stuff and you tell me your innate inherent reaction. I feel like I can already guess some of these, but I'm curious. Jade rollers. Love it. And you love it because of that circulation boosting? Yeah, I think it's relaxing.

It can boost circulation. It can help with lymphatic drainage. It's not going to be a dramatic change by any stretch of the imagination. But I think it's fine and it's not putting a product on your face that's going to mess with your barrier. So that's a plus from me. Face shaving. No. No, just a no. Hard no on the explanation. Okay, coconut oil is a moisturizer for either, I think I've steered away from it from your face, at least personally, because I do believe it clogs pores, but I hear about it as a body moisturizer all the time.

I love it for both, but you have to use cold centrifuge coconut oil, not cold pressed and not heat pressed because that, breaks down some of the constituents and can possibly make it comedogenic. I have a lot of thoughts on comedogenic even being a thing that we maybe don't even have time to get into. Wait, can you say briefly? I'm so curious because that's, it's such a buzzword. It's a buzzword. The studies that we base these comedogenic tests on are like, they're just not valid. They're done on rabbit ears, which is not comparable to how human skin reacts to an ingredient.

some studies are done on human back skin, which is also not comparable to how human facial skin is going to react to an ingredient. And then it has a lot to do with how the ingredient is processed. It has a lot to do with how the ingredient is formulated. So something that would get like a high comedogenic score could be formulated with other ingredients that actually make the product overall non-cometogenic and vice versa. So there are a lot of factors at play and comedogenic and non-communogenic basically don't mean anything. Yeah, it's really interesting.

I just, as you said that, I realize how much I view the rest of my health as holistic and systemic. Like I'm not going to eat all cookies and crap and then eat like a carrot and be like, oh, I'm healthy because I consumed vitamin A via this carrot. Right, right. But I do view my skin care as way more piecemeal. Like I view the health of my skin as piecemeal while I view the health of my hormones as holistic and systemic and needing all these other factors, which is really interesting, just cognitive dissonance happening there. It's so true.

Like we've been trained to think of our skin health as this completely separate thing when it's so much more nuanced than that. And also something I want to. just add quickly on coconut oil is that all of these oil derivatives and fatty acids that are in pretty much every skin care product on the market, so things like triglycerides, etc. These are separated from coconut oil and palm oil because those are cheap options. So there are a ton of products that have coconut oil in them, but it's not listed as coconut oil. And like, your skin is fine.

these all contribute to like the so-called comedogenic ratings of ingredients as well. But like when you separate the triglycerides and the fatty acids and the whatever from the coconut oil and put it on an ingredient list and you don't have to say it's coconut oil like magically, oh, it doesn't cause any problems. So we're a yes on cold press as a moisturizer. On cold centrifuge coconut oil. Okay. CBD oil as skincare? I think it's fine. I don't think it's everything that it is cracked up to be.

I think it's like a buzzy ingredient that is like on par with some other nice natural ingredients, but it's not going to change the world. What do you think about consuming it internally to get those sort of anti-inflammatory benefits and having that have a positive effect on your skin? I think, again, I think it's fine. I take CBD sometimes, but I'm going to sound again like a broken record. It's really interesting because your body produces its own CBD. Like the reason that CBD works is because we have this endocanabinoid system within our body already.

And I have not looked into this in a while, but I wrote an article on how to create more of your own CBD through diet and lifestyle stuff like about a year ago. So that's on the internet somewhere if you're curious. but you can boost your own CBD. So that's always my go-to. Well, and other foods actually tone your endocannabinoid system as well. So like rosemary and cacao offhand do. So it is, I'm a big believer in CBD because I do think that most of us sort of don't have a toned endoc...

I always say endocanabinoid, but I don't know whether it's... I think you're right. I think I'm pronouncing it wrong. But that's really interesting. I need to ask you more about this. One of my best friends wrote a book on CBD and she's like my go-to. I pepper her with questions all the time because I do think it's a lot more complicated than people talk about.

Like you need to take it for a long time to get the homeostasis state where you actually can have acute effects and stuff like that. But a lot of thoughts on that. What about facials? Not a fan. I think for some people they can be fine every once in a while. For me, I have always been like very inflamed afterwards. They just feel so nice though.

They feel so nice. Saying like having the mental image of somebody touching my face right now makes me want to cry. Mm-hmm. I know. I think like if you got a facial that was mostly a massage based, like a facial massage kind of facial, that would be lovely. I think my skin could handle that. But again, it's like a want, not a need. Okay.

What about products that protect your skin from the blue light from your phone or your computer? There's a lot of talk these days about that being the new sort of pollution or skin damage thing. Yeah. Most of our blue light, like quote unquote blue light exposure actually comes from the environment and the sun. Like the amount that we're getting from our devices is not a lot.

So I think it's fine to protect your skin from blue light, but like it's not it's not necessarily like your devices are messing with your skin as much as just like the blue light exposure from the world that you've been getting forever is. What's more concerning with blue light is that being on our devices and getting this blue light into our eyes messes with our circadian rhythm, which messes up your sleep, which messes up your skin. So it's less about a skincare product to protect against blue light for me and more about protecting my eyes from blue light and preserving my circadian rhythm and sleep patterns. So are you not like a sunscreen every day, even on days you're not going outside person to have that sunscreen barrier between you and the blue light of your devices? Yeah, I mean, I personally believe in getting some sunlight. So I try to get 15 to 20 minutes of morning sunlight every day. I think sunlight exposure is just so important. It's great for vitamin D.

It's great for a lot of things. And it's literally our life-giving force. So sometimes I think that this this like all out need by the beauty industry to never let sunlight touch your face is a little misguided. There's also some research on on sunscreen that, you know, is very long and nuanced. and complicated, but there are some benefits to some sunlight exposure. I'm a big fan of that. Personally, I would never recommend that to anyone. Like, I'm not telling anyone else to go out and get sunlight.

Like, protect yourself if you believe you need to protect yourself. But personally, I like to get a little bit of sunlight per day. After I get my 15 to 20 minutes, I'll put on sunscreen if I'm going outside. I don't wear it indoors. Okay, good to know. And then this one is personal on two. two counts for me. One is I completely rant against eye cream. I think it's bullshit and that you can like use any skincare under your eyes that you'd use on the rest of your face. But then on the

flip side, my number one beauty issue I have is dark under eye circles and it drives me nuts, even though I get like a lot of sleep or I sleep pretty well as a human. So I'm out there telling people not to waste their money on eye cream, which I think are so overpriced. But then I'm also like, my eyes aren't cute what do I do so what are your thoughts on eye cream and are there any ways to actually get rid of under eye circles um I don't use eye cream I don't think you need to use eye cream which is probably not shopping because I don't think you need to use very much at all um a lot of times under eye circles are genetic so there's that but what's really fascinating is that under eye circles can be a sign of allergic reaction so I've read so

many stories from doctors and from patients of being like, I just thought I had dark undereye circles and I was really allergic to something. And when I removed that trigger from my diet, the undereye circles went away. So to anyone who has like chronic dark under eyes and you're sleeping enough, I would recommend maybe seeing an allergist. That's, so I'm allergic to my cat, which is problematic. Because she is my baby child and I love her. And I also, you know, she's diversely. in my microbiome all the time, so that's a plus. But I am definitely in a low-level inflammatory state because I am allergic to my little baby. Yeah.

Well, that might be it. That might be it. It's one more thing I'll blame her for. Totally worth it. Totally worth it. And then last one. Do you think silk pillowcases are worth it for your skin? Yeah, I do.

I use a silk pillow case. I haven't done like a ton of research on it. but I like mine. Yeah, I love mine. It makes me feel like a fancy lady when I go to sleep every night. Exactly, exactly. Which I think is worth it unto itself. Well, this was so incredibly informative.

I feel like I took way too much information from your brain. I want to like patch it up with some stuff now or something. I feel like we could talk for hours. I love talking about this stuff. It's so fun and you're just so informed. If people wanted to find you, where would you like them to come and hang out? I have a newsletter. So you can find my newsletter on Jessica-Defino.com.

It's called the unpublishable. So you can sign up for that there. Or, you know, I'm on social media. So Instagram is a great place. I'm at Jessica Defino underscore on Instagram and Twitter. And your newsletter is where you like kind of go off about stuff that you wouldn't find in standard beauty beauty articles, right? Yeah. Yeah. Generally, my, my newsletter is the place where I put the thoughts that are a little left of center, maybe too controversial to be in mainstream beauty publications

at the moment, ideas that I've really wanted to write about but haven't been able to get placed anywhere. So yeah, it's called the unpublishable because nobody else would publish it for me, so I had to do it myself. No, I love it. It's like hot take. It's a newsletter filled with hot takes. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. Thank you so much for having me. I loved it. All right. I hope you loved this episode with Jessica Defino. I don't know if your mind is as blown as mine was when I talked to her. I feel like I was just like, oh my gosh, I learned so much. Even when I was listening back, I was taking notes on things because I was trying to kind of organize all of the new information that I'd assimilated. So I hope you love the episode. episode definitely do a little screenshot, tag me and Jessica on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. She's at Jessica Defino with an underscore at the end. We would both love to hear your thoughts. If you have any follow-up questions or things that you just want a little bit more clarity on, we're both,

of course, happy to answer all of those. And I love you all. Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing stuff in the same arena, is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you

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