The Liz Moody Podcast - How to Feel Beautiful, French Skincare Tips, and the Secret To Looking Like a Glazed Donut with Charlotte Palermino

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

I’m so excited to welcome Charlotte Palermino, licensed aesthetician, social media star, and co-founder and CEO of Dieux to the podcast. On this episode, we talk about: the problems with beauty marketing and how we view beauty a refreshing way to view aging how to stop listening to shoulds and live YOUR best life the best French beauty secrets her current favorite skincare products her morning and evening routine why you should stop exfoliating your skin how to avoid the retinol “purge” why your retinol might not actually work (and how to find one that does) the best moisturizers you can buy for both dry and acne-prone skin how to tell if any product you buy is actually going to be effective (hint: it’s NOT reading the ingredients list) the best sunscreens on the market a trick for reapplying sunscreen over makeup why you’re not getting the results you want from face oil the best super minimal skincare routine for stressed, busy people who still want to glow how to combat the effect of pollution on your skin how to tell if products you buy are truly sustainable her hot take on: ice rollers, lymphatic massage, frownies, face shaving, microneedling, microcurrent, gua sha Charlotte has generously agreed to give away 5 winners each 2 sets of the viral Dieux Forever Eye Masks. To enter, just follow @charlotteparler and @lizmoody on Instagram, and then comment on my most recent post one thing you loved or learned from this episode. This episode is sponsored by Olive and June. If you want to try Olive and June for yourself and have mani’s that last over a week, visit oliveandjune.com/HEALTHIER20 for 20% off your first Mani System! This episode is sponsored by AG1 by Athletic Greens. Visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today This episode is sponsored by Paleovalley. Head over to paleovalley.com and use the code LIZM for 15% off. 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. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning how to hack our focus to pay attention to the things that we want to, how to up-level our sex lives, or how to identify and eliminate stress. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. I am so excited to welcome Charlotte Palermino to the podcast.

Charlotte is a licensed estetician whom you might recognize from her incredibly popular TikTok or Instagram accounts, where she is constantly debunking beauty mists and encouraging us to wear more sunscreen. Also, if you've heard of slugging, she is the person who has popularized that. Or from the incredible skincare line, Do, which she co-founded and serves as the CEO of. Due has been lauded by everyone from Haley Bieber to Jonathan Van Ness. Charlotte was kind enough to send me the line to try after our interview, I will say that I am obsessed. The Instant Angel Moistriser is among the best that I've tried, and I love the eye masks.

With that said, we have a really fun giveaway to go along with this episode that I know that you'll love. So stay tuned for the end to find out how to enter to win some do of your own. I love this episode. It's a beauty episode, but unlike any beauty episode out there. Like, yes, you'll get specific skincare tips and product recommendations, but you'll also come away with a totally different perspective on the beauty industry, aging, and how to love the way that you look. In this episode, we talk about the problems with beauty marketing and how we view

beauty as a society, how to stop listening to shoulds and live your best life, the best French beauty secrets, Charlotte's current favorite skincare products, why you should stop exfoliating your skin, how to avoid the retinal purge, why your retinal might not actually work, and how to find one that does. This was like a life-changing secret for me. The best sunscreens on the market, a trick for reapplying sunscreen over makeup, how to combat the effect of city pollution on your skin, her hot take on ice rollers, lymphatic massage, frownies, face shaving, micro-neadling, microcurrent, guasha, and so much more. I am so excited to hear your thoughts on this episode, so definitely screenshot and tag me. I am at Liz Moody and Charlotte. She is at Charlotte Parley, so Charlotte,

Charlotte like the name and then P-A-R-L-E-R on Instagram. And don't forget to stay tuned to the end of the episode to find out how you can win some do for yourself. Okay, let's get into All Things Beauty with Charlotte Palomino. So you take a really anti-aging stance and I love that in general. Can you speak to kind of your perspective on aging? So I feel like for, and again, this is about beauty companies portraying women that, quite frankly, they have wrinkles. You are airbrushing people. Yeah.

Bar none. That's what you're doing. That's not realistic. It's not what we should be striving for. And I find it very problematic, especially in the United States. Absolutely, there are beauty standards that are messed up everywhere. Absolutely, this cult of youth is absolutely everywhere. But I have like a couple of different layers of where I get like really furious.

And the first one is, as I'm reading Girlhood right now, and it's absolutely like destroying me. But you're told. to grow up when you're younger and you become sexualized at an incredibly young age. Then you grow up and you're too old and you can be younger. But you're smarter when you're older. And you see the scams that were pulled on you when you were younger. And you felt bad about yourself your whole life. Oh my God. Finally hit your 30s. And it's like, okay, well, it's the end of the road for you. I'm trying to like think. Is there any age? Is there any age that we're like, that we're told like this. This is great.

Your great justice you are. And it's a form. And for me personally, it's like a form of like subjugation. And also like you, I also look a lot like intersectionality. And it's, I am a white, tall, privileged. I now make money white lady. And I'm struggling. So if you add any layer of intersectionality there, it's like for me, I immediately am.

This is so untenable and it's so unfair. How women can like deal with this kind of stress 24-7 or just feeling like, not enough. Not like that, but it's like, women are like my favorite. Well, it's like in the sense like I love my friends and like the women that I surround myself with. And like my grandmother is like somebody that I really adore and respect. And it just kills me that we have like these pieces of ourselves where we're like, we're not good enough. We need to better. Oh, if we buy this thing, we'll be better. And it's kind of like in the back of your mind. For me, it's really interesting that just looking at how people take agency away from women. And one of them is if you make all of her

value based on her beauty and then you tie that beauty to something that is ephemeral, which is youth, you got her locked down. Wow. That like sent full body shivers down my spine. And the thing is like I love costuming. And I think that this is something that is very much so nature. No woman in my family does glam. Nobody else had to do a cat eye. Nobody uses makeup. I think my mother had eyeliner. Maybe. I started buying eye shadow palest. That's when I was like five. I was like, I think I stole some samples from Sephora. I'm so sorry, Sephora.

I've always been obsessed with it. I did realize that there was a point where it was becoming a bit obsessive. And then we were talking about this earlier before we started recording, but it's like anorexia. It's like I think that eating disorders are like pretty much everyone probably had at some point some sort of an eating disorder. And you personally had one. Oh yeah, I had like full-blown anorexia. And so I think that this whole trying to. look a certain way, be a certain way, et cetera. It's like, I just kind of learned that those kinds of

things won't make you happy. Like, I almost got a nose job when I was like 18 because I hated my nose because I was made fun of for it. I realized that it's like all those things. I was spending so much time thinking about these things instead of like doing stuff that made me happy. And so I think that ultimately beauty is used or the kinds of beauty that we define or narrow forms of beauty that is a form of trying to subjugate women. So how do you think, think of beauty because obviously it holds this really large role in your life, but you aren't viewing it in that way. I mean, from my perspective, it's like never to look like someone else. It's to look like me. And also it's just to be comfortable with my skin. It's like I really like

it when it's like very heavily like moisturized. And like, there are people on the internet. I was like, ew, her skin's so greasy. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah. It feels fantastic. I love it. I love having a layer of grease on my face. It is really comfortable. for me. And so I think that approaching it from that perspective and also like it just feels really good to rub stuff on my face. And I like, you know, doing a little cat eye because I think it just looks nice on me. But it's not like I'm doing it for I can leave the house without makeup. You know what I'm saying? I don't do this every day. I do it because it actually does make me feel happy. And when it doesn't, I just stop doing it. What about in terms of aging? Like, what is your relationship with aging? So I look at my grandmother and I can only pray to be as cool as her. She's like the funniest person. I was like, this one that needs to do stand-up. Like, we got to get her like a little quick set.

She's French, right? Yes, at the comedy song. No one can speak French, but it's fine. I'll translate. But I look at her and I'm just like, I would be so lucky to be her. She's 89. Oops, sorry, I meant me. I told her age.

That's just speaking English. Nobody texts her. I would be so lucky to be her. And so when I look at that, I'm like, you can't be her if you stay 25 forever. What are you doing? I know like Botox and fillers and people talk about that a lot. Maybe I'll do it one day, but it's like right now, it's like I just have like no desire to do any of those things. And for me, it's when I see a wrinkle crop up, I'm like, okay.

I literally did a podcast with an aging expert and she said you can add eight years to your life, literal years to your life by having positive views of aging. And she said the best way to do that is to have these aging role models and these people who you can look to and say, that is what they're being revealed. for their wisdom, they are living a wonderful life. And I think it's hard to find those role models. So it's really beautiful that you have one like in your family. I know. I feel very, very lucky. But I also, there's also just like the realization where you're like, if I'm not aging, I'm dead. And what's funny is that men also are scared of aging. It just doesn't control their lives in the way that it can for women. Well, and I also think it manifests really differently. My husband and I were talking about that recently. I think for women, we try to fight our fears of death, essentially, by trying to look

young forever. And I think for men, it manifests almost in terms of the traditional midlife crisis you see or where somebody goes and, like, dates a younger woman or something like that. Verility or whatever. Like this idea of catching youth in that way. And I think they all come from a fear of aging and a fear of death. I 100% agree on the aging and fear of death. I do think for women in particular, all of our beauty ideals are around super young women. I'm sorry, but whenever I see like an 18 year old and a lingerie ad, like, I want to vomit. Leave women alone. Leave young girls alone. The fact that we even have 14 year old models in like underwear ads, I'm like, this is fucked. Stop it. It's like very like pedophiley. Yeah. And then you have like a woman who's topless in her 40s. It would be like,

oh my God, like disgusting. And you're like, make up your. mind. And then you go to France and you see topless people all the time. And they're like in their 60s and 70s. I'm down with that shit. I find the U.S. is very twisted in how we portray women in media. And so for me with beauty, I look at ads. I look at film. I look at television. I look at culture. I look at magazines. I look at Instagram, all these things. I'm like, how are things being portrayed? And then how does that then impact? Not only me, a 35 year old woman, well, May 16th is my birthday. So almost 35. Happy almost birthday. Thank you. But it's imagine like 14-year-olds on social media. And how is that melding their brains? And I also think that there's

the notion that, like you said, if you're not aging, your dad and like that's not preferable. But beyond that, the second that you realize that it's a game that's not designed for you to win, there's no achieving, like you said, when you're young, they want you to be older. When you're older, they want you to be younger. If you know you can never win it, it's kind of like the only way to play is to opt out to just pull yourself out of the unattainable standards. And then just really do what you want to do. I mean, I think one thing that's been interesting is like ever since I left Snapchat about four or five years ago, I started dressing really like the way that I want and costuming again. Like I had like a brief like Victorian period. And I was like, I'm just going to wear like these weird like bustle things.

I love that. I don't like saying cosmetics. It's like the way that like you must like self express yourself. But I do feel I can't remember the creator that did this Instagram, but it was more about reclaiming all the things that people made me feel horrible about for years. I love my eyes. It took me forever, too, because when I was a kid, I was made fun of. For what? They're bulbous. They're huge. They're popping out of your head.

Oh, my God. I think they're so gorgeous. That's wild. And then my nose. Like, I really like my nose now. All these things that the amalgamation of generations of my family led to me. And the fact that we like, make people hate those features makes me really bad. Because ultimately, like, when I meet people, I'm always like, wow, you're so beautiful.

Like, I really do. I really believe that. with everybody. And I think that one thing that's been really challenging is just like with weight, because especially with French women, it's very disordered, the approach to eating, right? Like, people talk about intermittent fasting. I'm like, you mean French women? They eat at 10 p.m. A lot of people in America, like, point to how can we learn about how to look like French women, how can we steal their body secrets, et cetera. I don't eat and they smoke cigarettes. Spoiler alert. Genetics is a huge part of it.

Like my body type, this is genetics. But I think that that's like one thing that also it's like your body changes that you get older. It's just a reality. Yeah. I know. I always think about that when I see fitness influencers who are like 22. And then I think about all the women in their late 30s and 40s who are like, oh, if I just do this workout, like I'll have her body. And I'm like, well, no, you won't.

And it feels unethical for her to sell that as a possibility. It's like, what you're talking about where my goals were with my trainer. And I just like showed up. when I was like, I don't want osteoporosis. That's the fitness goal. But that's huge. I do think that flipping how you think about working out, for me, I don't work out at all for my body to look a certain way. I mostly work out to assuage by anxiety because I just rely on it for that.

And then to have energy. And then I'm hoping it'll make me live forever. And I think that. No, you have to change the script. Yeah, 100%. And I think that the narrative I have when I work out has shifted entirely based on that. So instead of being like, oh, you have to change the script. if you're so fat, if you just run a little bit more, you'll be like a little bit skinnier. And it's such a

mean internal dialogue. And now I'm like, you're so good. You're making yourself live forever. Have you read the body keep score? I haven't. So there's just this one that I haven't read it. My friend just told me this piece. And I'm talking about this chapter. It's next on my list. It's next on my list. These are very dense books that I'm reading. Work won't love you back is dense. But there's this one piece that really has stuck in my mind. And it's actually changed how I approach relationships. And it's about basically pain. And so they took. war veterans and they put them in a room, made them watch puppies and rainbows, and they put their hands in ice. They were able to keep their hands in the ice for about six minutes. They then showed them like platoon or some like

traumatic war video. They were able to keep their hands in the ice for 12 minutes. Your body is just trying to keep you alive and it will do everything it can to make you just survive. And so when they were put into that trauma response, they were able to actually tolerate pain more because pain is familiar, especially when it was something that they had already experienced. Wow. Your body keeps score. And so for me, I realized that I had a couple of real awful examples of relationships when I was younger in terms of because I did let men and treat me a certain way that I realized

like, oh, wow, like you are so used to pain. You are so used to being treated badly that you think that that is actually normal and you go back to it because it's more familiar than somebody actually being nice to. Wow. So you almost need to like acclimate your body to the puppies and rainbows? You need to acclimate your body or you need to acclimate your body or you need to physically think take your hand out of the ice and get out. Yeah. Whoa. With beauty, it's almost comfortable to think that you're not beautiful enough because we've been told this for so

long. And now I'm just like, no. You learn these things about how your body literally will wire itself to kind of plan these. And that's why I was saying with consumer perception and just with marketing in general, I find it can go unethical very quickly. And even for us, like, I don't think we're perfect. Like we're constantly trying to work things out. Like, okay, like, we worded it this way. We can probably do a better job. But for me, I'm like, there has to be a world where you can actually get across what your product does, make people feel good about themselves, and not make them panic by something because they think that they're ugly. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues,

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That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. Can you speak to somebody listening who is still like, I am ugly? I have to work out to be more beautiful. I have to buy skincare to be more beautiful. I have to buy makeup to be more beautiful. I would say, where did those ideas come from that you are not enough? And you're usually going to think about an ad. You're usually going to think about maybe like a movie. You're usually going to think about a comment that somebody said to you. Maybe you'll think about your mom and something that she said to you. It's not coming from you. Okay. So then how do you counter those? Because those are power, even if they're not coming from you, they're powerful.

They are powerful. The only advice that I can give is like, and basically what I've told kind of. of like myself is those aren't coming from you. Like, how do you actually feel? And for me, it's been really hard for me to distill how I feel about things, even particularly in relationships. When I'm in relationships sometimes, I'm like, oh, do I like this person? I'm just going to keep going. I'm just going to keep going. I have no idea if I like this person. I think we've been taught to not trust our gut on anything. I think we have so much external messaging that it's really hard to get in touch with what we think about anything. Like, I've had so many jobs where I'm like, I don't like this, but I just kept going because I thought it's what I had to do.

And I think that, and let's, let's be clear, I'm not all rainbow and sunshine. Like, sometimes I'm like, ugh, like, I hate how I look. I hate how I feel. I hate all those things. But it's like, you just have to remember that there's also another day tomorrow. And it's like, if you sit in that feeling, then it's never going to get better. So I don't really have any, like, great advice other than when that happens, I just turn off my phone. I don't look in the mirror as much.

I don't pick apart things. And I just remember that most of these ideas came from corporate America. So anything that you actively do, other, you mostly disconnect or is there anything else you do to feel beautiful in moments where you're not? I don't know. I mean, like working out has been like pretty life changing. Working out is such a powerful way, though, to feel your body. Your body is for living, not looking is something I say all the time. And working out is just a powerful way to get into the living versus the looking. 100%. I also don't use filters. I actually. actively don't use anything. And anytime I want to, I'm like, nope, because that will actively

make me feel bad. So that's actually my advice. Don't do things that actively make you feel bad. Don't pick it a scab. I do give myself a little pep talk sometimes. A little cute outfit. And I'm like, but the bigger thing is that I don't pick at my scabs. Your metaphorical scabs. Probably your physical ones on your, you know, because to keep the skin looking down. I have some KP. I have some KP that I've been using an exfoliator on because I'm like, ooh, this is itchy. But yeah, metaphorical scabs. So I worked at Snapchat. for two and a half years. But I was there when the filters, and this was pre-instagram stories.

But that was when they were launching all the filters. And I noticed how it was really vomiting rainbows and really cute and cartoonish. And then it went into like sexy dog, like real quick. So I saw how like people were just using it. And then they wanted to get plastic surgery to look like their filters. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. Or even like just like the simple Paris filter. I used to use it like a couple years ago.

Then when I started making a lot of videos and I saw people were taking my advice. I was like, you can't use this shit. And so I stopped using filters. And now every once in a while, I just want to see what it looks like. I'm like, that's not, that doesn't even look real. I heard that a plastic surgeon say on a podcast that he used to get requests for people to look like celebrities, like you want Angelina Julie's lips or whatever. And now they just bring in a filtered version of themselves. 100%. Or even like your skin. I'm like, skin just doesn't look like that. I'll hear somebody in like their late 20s be like, yeah, I have these really deep foreheadlines. I'm like, change how you're talking about that. You do not have deep forehand.

lines. They are expression lines and they are normal. And so that's another thing you can do. Don't exaggerate what the thing is. You do not have deep forehead lines. Some people do have genetic disorders. So, okay, taking that aside, it's like, I'll look at it. I'm like, have you been drinking a lot? Just drink a little bit of water. Like, those will go away. If that's something that you're concerned about. Have you had any water today? Exactly. Like, right? Like, where you're just been looking at your forehead, freaking out, just staring into the abyss of your reflection. Takes some of the mirror time and turn it into water. Totally. Exactly. I think the phrasing, too, that we use day in and day out is really important, both internally and externally as well. What about do you bring this strong getting rid of the should's energy to the rest of your life? Do you feel free of the idea that you should be like married or having a baby right now? Okay. So that's like another place where I'm like with work where I was like where I'm super confident. I've never felt the urge to have children or babies. If that happens for me,

Excellent. Love to see it. But it's like I was never no. When people tell me I should, I'm like, why? Because you'll be fulfilled. And I'm like, but how do you know? You're not me. Is there anything you would tell somebody who's really struggling with the shoulds and like,

you should be doing this by this age? You should be doing this by this age. This is what a good life looks like for you. You always have time. Unless if you're dead, you have time. I remember the panic that I had in my mid-20s and late 20s about the Forbes 30 under 30 bullshit. Oh my God. Don't get me started on Forbes 30-30.

It makes me so angry. It makes me so anxious. Yeah. I know. It's interesting, though, because it's not a guarantee of success. It's also who you know. A large part of it is who you know. I will say this.

There are a lot of people that do incredible things before they turn 30. What I do not like is this idea that you have failed or that you are not special if you don't achieve something by the time you're 30. If anything, if you are a woman or person of color or any sort of intersectionality and you managed or anybody and you manage to achieve something in your 40s, 50, 60s, fuck. Yes. Like that is impressive.

Yeah. And so my advice is you have time. That is what I will say. You have time and start doing the things that you want to do. do. That little voice in the back of your head that you always hear and you're like, oh, I can't do it. I can't do it. Obviously, there are some extenuating circumstances. Like some people have families, things like that. Like you need to rest. You need to take time. But it's like I always had this like nagging voice of you want to be in beauty. You have a lot of things to say about beauty. You want to start your own company. You want to do something in product. I really wanted to get out of technology and like just the tech space and publishing as well, even though I love those industries. I always had these like little nagging voices in the back of my head. And my first company did not ever make like a penny. but the next one did. I love that. Yeah.

So you have time, probably also don't be deterred by failure, I heard in there. And then also, again, that continuing theme of listen, tune into that little nagging voice. That is your you telling you what your you should want. I think, I can't remember what book this was, but it's like your goal when you get older is to be more like yourself as a kid. And I find children very, like, precious beings because I'm like, oh, like you just are this. distilled raw soul and you haven't been morphed by the world yet. Basically, the idea is like if you go back to who you are as a kid, like, who is that? And what were all the things that used to do?

And how do you want to live your life and like what makes you happy? And I think it's a really beautiful thing to think about that because when you were a kid, you were just doing you, like truly distilled. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, let's talk about the French thing for a second. I used to do this editorial series about 10 different things. wellness secrets from different countries and people who live there with share like this tea or

this product. Is there anything from France that you think we could all steal? It can be a perspective. It can be a product. Barrier repair. Barrier repair is basically the idea that your skin should be intact and moisturized and healthy and functioning for the one thing that it's actually supposed to be doing, which is keeping your insides in and protected from the outside world. And so I talk a lot about transepidermal water loss, which is when you're basically, your hydration evaporates from the skin, but then happens that your skin gets dry and cracked. And then what happens, pathogens and things can actually get in. And that's when you start to get dermatitis and rashes and all this thing.

And so if you just moisturize well, and if you protect your skin, then it's going to be functioning better as a barrier. And when you go into a French pharmacy, most of the products that you will find are different variations of excellent moisturizers. And that is a thing where it's like a very simple thing. It's not about exfoliating your skin off. It's not about burning your face off. It's not about, oh, this retinol will make you look 80% younger.

Like what is it like the 80% reduction in wrinkle depth? And I'm like, that's such a variable. We cannot talk about percentages with clinical studies. I'm like, why we don't publish our numbers, even though they're fantastic. Because it's like, what does an 80% reduction in a wrinkle mean? Oh, like from what is like the question sort of? Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, like an 80% reduction in hyperpigmentation.

Okay, but what do you, did you do that by malination? What's that number? What does that number actually mean? Interesting. So you can really start picking apart the numbers. And again, it's like this idea of like overpromising. I'm like, I don't ever want to over promise. But with French skincare, a lot of it is just protect your skin.

And part of that is making sure it's moisturized. Somebody's like, okay, I want to go work on my barrier. Is moisturizing the secret to that? Like, are we just looking for a really great moisturizer? Looking for a really great moisturizer. is you're being really careful about anything that's like a carotillitic, which basically is anything that like speeds up like cell turnover or basically like cause like exfoliation. Basically you're having that shedding of the skin cells. And it also depends on your skin type.

But basically what I find that a lot of people do in the U.S., they go ham on skincare. And then after that they have like rashy, red, raw skin. And it's like if you're just making sure that your skin is protected, it's like that's going to actually take care of like a lot of things. Okay. So do you exfoliate or no? mostly my body. I don't really exploit my face. Maybe once a quarter.

Okay. And would you kind of recommend that in general to people? Depends. If you're more acne prone, probably, because part of the issue with acne, if it's something that bothers you, is that it is that cell turnover. So sometimes it's like a hormonal imbalance, right? So there's like so many different reasons why acne occurs. That's why you can't do a one-size-fits-all solution.

But when dead skin cells are getting trapped within the follicle and you're basically getting that inflammation, it gets trapped. then creates the whitehead except. That's one form. Excloting can help. Absolutely. But then it's like people overdo it because you want fast results, but also skincare takes like a really long time to work. It's an organ. If you were testing a skincare product and you wanted to see... Two to three months. Okay. Same with working out. Your skin is an organ. I mean, it's really the same with literally anything. It's that you really need to do it. And it's healthy eating and like literally anything, a mindset shift, a habit. Like you wouldn't work out once and expect to feel stronger. Yeah, no, you wouldn't, you can. Anything that's going to make

you feel good is going to be about consistently doing it for an extended period of time. Exactly. Can you walk me through briefly your morning and evening routine? I want to do, like, products that you're using, but also like any lifestyle practices that you're doing, things that you're doing to make you feel as good as possible. Okay, so the one thing that I've been doing, because I'm, in addition to us, I'm really concerned to like off my bones, but it's like tooth decay. I'm so nervous about it because I have my mother's teeth and like they're made of crayons as far as I'm concerned. I actually listen to my sonicare on the beeps. So you're doing each quadrant? Yes. And it's so hard because I just want to move and I'm trying to like, I want to brush and it's like you have to

like, just hold it. And I'm like, this is a practice of patience. So I do that. And I feel great. I feel like very accomplished. I am an adult. I drink like a lot of mint tea. I love a mint tea before bed. Okay. So we're talking about nighttime routine. Nighttime routine. We'll start with night time routine, I put my phone into like a vault because I don't want to look at it. Because anytime I look at my phone after 10, I don't sleep until 2. I'm obsessed. They sent this to me to be clear this was gifted, but higher dose has an infrared mat, the mat. Oh, the mat. I haven't tried the mat. Tell me about the mat. Okay. I have some people that come over sometimes and they're like, what is this like space station

that you have? I have this infrared sauna mat. I don't know what it does. I don't know if it's just a heated blanket. It has these like crystals. I don't know, man, but I love it. And it helps me fall asleep. I go under that with like my Dermelux red light. It has infrared, near infrared, and then it also has red light. I just sit under that for like 30 minutes while I'm on my thing. And then I fall right to sleep. And then I finish my sleep in my bed. I think I spend more time on my higher dose than I do on any other material in my apartment.

So you're like out of bed when you're doing this whole routine and then you get really sleepy. Exactly. And so for skincare, what I do in at night is I've been really into the Claren's oil. cleanser, it is incredible at taking off makeup and cleaning your makeup brushes. Incredible. Hot tip. And then I'll go in with like just like any gel cleanser, any foaming cleanser. Do we need to double cleanse? Like is that necessary? We're makeup. What about sun? I mean, I wear sunscreen every day. If it's waterproof. If it's not waterproof, then I'm good. The reason why I use oil cleansers is because they're just hyper effective and they're

fast. Yeah, I know. I just, yeah, for some reason. Because like sometimes I'll use these like gel cleansers and like I'll see so much makeup on and I'm like, I guess I have to do this again and again and again and again. And then I'm like now my face is so dry. So if I'm just washing with a normal cleanser and I feel like my face is clean, that's cool. I'm good. Okay. Next step. This idea that you're going to get everything off your face. I'm like, but also it depends on your skin type. If you have more acne-prone skin, then you might want to use like something that's going to have like a little bit of like an exfoliating vibe. It depends on your whole routine. But for me, I love double cleansing because it's fast. Then after that, I'll go in usually with deliverance. or my retinal, depending on how I'm feeling. Sometimes I'll use deliverance first and I'll let it dry down. Sometimes I'll use any vitamin A derivative that I'm using. Right now, I'm using tritone.

But I'll only use the trot maybe two times a week. Okay, so how does that fit in? Tretanoin is sort of an exfoliant, right? It's like encouraging cell turnover. It's encouraging cell turnover. It thickens the dermis. It actually compacts the stratum corneum. It's why your skin's a little bit shinier.

There's this idea that retinal thins your skin. Yeah, that's what? It's actually like a, that's like when people don't understand skin histology. Okay. Which I don't. Well, the thing is like neither did I quite frankly. Yeah. I went to aesthetician school and like, so basically you have multiple layers within the skin and

the top one's the stratum corneum and it's the dead skin cell layer. And like there's almost like this misconception that you needed to get rid of the dead skin. And it's like, no, that skin is really keeping all your body juices in. So keep it. But what it does is that it actually compacts it. So it actually makes it stronger with time. So the reason why retinal will give you. I hate saying the retinol uglies, but when you get the redness and the peeling and stuff like that, that's because of like two potential things. It might be like this pro-inflammatory response that eventually goes away. And then the second piece is that kind of like exfoliation piece. But once you get past that, you actually have like a stronger. It's almost like a basket that's like loose. It tightens up. And so if you're carrying something in a basket and it's all loose, things fall out, you want it to be tighter. So it actually compacts it and makes it stronger. People overuse tread. You don't need to use it every day. Yeah. So two times.

a week you think is great. And some people can, and it always depends on the person. Some people can use it every day and be totally fine. For me, two times a week, anytime I try to do more than that, it's playing with fire. I'm just not going to do it. So I do it about two times a week. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimizes, optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattress is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium

firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even the fanciest hotel beds. Having a mattress that supports your joints and your body and feels good is going to help you get more sleep and better quality sleep. But then, on top of that, avocado mattresses are made with certified organic cotton, wool, and latex, and they are made safe and green guard gold certified. They're also Okotech certified, which is the gold standard. I look for it in any mattresses, sheets, or towels that I buy, which means the materials have been rigorously tested for harmful substances. You can actually look for the Okotech standard 100 label right on the product, and I love this part. It includes a traceable certificate number and the name of the testing lab

so you know exactly what you're getting. There are no toxic chemicals, there's no harmful off-gassing. It does smell like it's going to kill you when you unbox it. This is what I mean. I'm not going to swap out all of my clothing, which is that top 1% of optimization. But by making sure that my mattress and my bedding are as good for me as possible, I literally reduce my exposure during a third of my life, which is a huge needle mover for a one-time swap. I will also note, and this is a me thing, but I sleep super hot and avocado's materials are really breathable and it makes me sweat the least of any mattress that I have slept on. And Avocado is a certified B Corp and a 1% for the planet member

because caring for yourself and caring for the planet do not have to be separate things. You can get up to 20% off organic mattresses and more by shopping Avocados President's Day Sale right now at AvocadoGreenmatress.com. That is avocadogreenmatress.com, no code needed. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to

tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning, but refuse to die. They sit there, releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells, and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how, how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides

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It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now, and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare.

You want to always see a real difference. And you're kind of like, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that like sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that.

But it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. OneSkin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies and over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.c.com slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. Wait, so does, just like I want a very clear answer on this,

Does retinal negatively impact that barrier layer that we talked about? Or is it positively impacting it because it's making the basket weave tighter, quote unquote? It can be both. Okay. And that's the thing. And this is the thing. People want definitive answers. I'm like, how are you using it?

The way I use it, my skin's stronger now than it's ever been. Which I don't get rashes as much. I don't. In excess is the way that it can if you, so if you don't use it in excess, it can help your skin's barrier layer. But if you use it too much, you basically. Well, if you have constant inflammation and rashes and peeling, I'm not. I'm not going to say that that's good. But most people get over that.

Okay. And is there anything we can do to get through that initial two-week period with retinal? You start low and slow. I always say treat it like edibles, right? Like, if you eat a bunch of edibles, like... You're not going to have a good experience. Godspeed. I can't help you. One of my first jobs was in Amsterdam and I was like the person who would go, I rolled joints, but then I went and comforted people when they inevitably ate too much and then smoked a joint while they're waiting. That must have been. You must have had some tales, some stories. Some tails and a lot of vomit.

Exactly. And so I would say that it's like, you know, if you see that, because people want fast results. And it's kind of like what we were talking about before. You want fast results. So you overdo it. And then you're like, this is terrible. I hate it. I'm never going to use it again.

And then you have this mausoleum of products that are just like a graveyard staring at you because you just kind of cycled through them. For retinol, when you're first starting out, one time a week. That's it. Okay. And then on the other nights using like a good moisturizer. It's a good moisturizer. And then maybe in a few weeks, maybe you go to two times a week. Maybe in a few weeks you go to three times a week.

And then you just see how your skin feels. And it's always going to depend on the kind of retinal that you're using. Like I would actually argue that most retinol in the United States is like unstable. There's actually a study on this. We're going to do a whole thing for due and like publishing it around active. But we always talk about vitamin C stability and like degraded vitamin C and like, oh, vitamin C is so unstable. So is vitamin A. That's retinal.

And so a lot of retinoles when you get it, like it goes a gentle. 1% retinol, like, doesn't exist. So if I'm getting, I get the prescription tritone, is that stable? So prescription drugs, they have to go through stability. They have to go through challenge testing. So that's like, I do it because I just like having that ingredient. I don't need, like, a bunch of extra stuff in my retinal. And I like that.

But it's really interested. That's essentially more quality tested. Of course it is. And it's kind of like with sunscreen in the United States, it's treated like a drug. So that also has to go through stability testing. We made a hand sanitizer, which was a very, sorry, RIP awakening. It's no longer in being sold. But it's like we had to go through insane stability testing on the hand sanitizer that cost like 60 grand.

Because it's promising that it'll get rid of stuff. It's making a drug claim. And you have to make sure that it's 70% because anything lower than 70% may not kill the actual bacteria. And so if you're going to be actually making the claim of sanitization, then you need to hit that 70% after you crank up the heat and throw it in an oven. And then you're actually testing it at the one, two, and three month time checkpoints. Would you say that's a really great reason to just? just go with a prescription tritonoin versus an over-the-counter product. Yeah.

And like, I oscillate between Medicaid and I oscillate between Trette because Medicaid is fantastic. They encapsulate. It's like they basically use an ingredients called Icon A. Iconic A or Icon A. But basically, it's this encapsulated retinol. So basically when you look at retinol with an O, and you look at Tretanone, Tretanoin is retinic acid. That is the active ingredient that basically talks to your retinic receptors and actually

speeds up that cell turnover thickens the dermis. When you thicken the dermis, it's the layer underneath epidermis. And basically, it is like when you thicken that up, that's what reduces wrinkle depth. It plumps it out, right? It's like, where all your collagen and elastin is. So when you're looking at retinol with an O, it's a couple of conversion steps away. So it's far more gentle. There are some people who cannot use TRET. There's some people where their eyes will swallow shut, it's a huge problem. So my business partner, Joyce, who does all of our formulas, used to work at skinciticals and all that, she physically cannot use Tread. She can't even use retinol. So we're looking at a couple of ingredients. So Iconi with Medicaid, it is encapsulated in

cyclodextrin. So it is incredibly stable as an ingredient. So it's like one of those things where if you don't want to get a prescription or if it's not covered, that could be a nice one. It's 50 bucks. There is a reason to go back and forth. My thing is, is just do your due diligence. Is the brand talking about stability? What is their stability? Do they have any receipts? For us, we actually encapsulated our cannabinoids in cyclodextrin as well. We've also mentioned a few. We've also mentioned a few times using a good moisturizer. Is there anything that you can point to that would make something a good moisturizer? Like when you're looking for ingredients, what are you looking for? So with a moisturizer, personally, I really like something that is very humectin and amoliant rich.

Okay. What does that mean? Humectants are ingredients that love water and draw them close to the skin, right? Natural. And then amolients are things that basically condition and fill in the cracks. Right. So reducing that transepidermal water loss, but it's also softening the the skin. It's also making it really like pliable and nice and juicy. Supple. Yeah. Supple. And then there's occlusives. And occlusives just like trap it in. And whenever somebody says that petrelatum is like saran wrap, I'm like, y'all sound wild. Because imagine strapping your face in saran wrap and then making some eye holes and a little cup of breathing holes. It's going to feel real different to using a little doll up of petrelatum. And there's actually been a lot of research that

with petrelatum, it actually does occlude. An occlusion. is basically trapping. It includes up to 99% of transepidermal water loss. Okay, so it stops 99% evaporating. But that 1%, it actually is teaching your skin to actually hold on to more moisture. It's allowing it to heal. Whereas if you occlude 100% and you peel it off, it's actually going to revert back. Interesting. Okay. Wait. So what are some examples of humectins? What was the other one you said? Glacrine is my favorite humectin. Okay. So looking for glycerin on the label. Unsung hero. It's very valuable priced. And I hate when people say, oh, it's a cheap ingredient. Yeah, it's cheap and it works better than all the other fancy ones.

I would rather. It's like so bizarre. I wouldn't, please don't buy pure glycerin and put it on your face. That's actually not good. Like, you need it diluted. I love glycerin. I mean, panthenol is really nice as well. And then you have actually things like lactic acid, which actually at lower doses, it is

hemectin. Okay. Interesting. What about, we hear about hyaluronic acid? Hyaluronic acid is fine. It's just quite expensive. We actually have it in instant angel, but it's not like something that's like a star in our formula.

It was in this complex that we wanted to use that basically boost hydration and has like a whole blend of different ingredients. But hyalronic acid is great. I feel like it's the one that you hear about all the time. Like have dry skin and go for it. It has a great PR. It has a great PR. It has, wait, Shereen Idris says this all the time. It has a great PR team. Yeah. So, okay, so is there any other ingredients? And hyalorine acid's naturally found in your skin. So it's like, it's a good marketing story. It is good for me. Do I look for hyluronic acid at this point? Eh. So you're looking for glycerin. Is there anything else that you're looking for? So that's on the humectin sign. And then on the humectin sign. And then on

emolion side. I love seeing basically fractionated oils. Like I don't want coconut oil, but like I love coconut alkanes. I love, and that's in our moisturiser, instant angel, I love ceramides. So a ceramides actually naturally found in your skin and it's basically just like waxy lipid that basically fills in the skin. Okay. And it basically, again, it conditions. It's really, it feels amazing. And it really does soothe the skin. What I would say, though, is that a lot of ceremonies, you want them at certain percentages. And this is where it gets tricky. So this is why I'm like, this is why I actually don't recommend looking at an ingredient list and being like, ah, it has this ingredient so it's good. Because guess what? The skincare companies know that you're doing that. And so what do they do? They add something at a percentage that doesn't even work. And they then say, oh, it's a seramide for it. We have a seramide in Instant Angel, the moisturizer that I use. But it's not the star of the show. It's just one of the many ingredients. And it's part of, again, a blend that we tested. And for me, I'm more interested.

And I hope, I feel like there's a trend towards this. What are your claims validation? So if you see a moisturizer, somebody's shopping for moisturizer, they should be looking for what, studies that somebody's done? How are they supposed to be validated? So I would say first figure out your skin type. If you have dry skin and you are not acne prone, you can go for a rich moisturizer. And what I would always say is you want to start with watery, water, and then you work your

way to the richer, or more amolium, buttery products. Okay? You start from, and because people say thinest to thickest, but I find that very confusing. Water to oil, right? Think about it. If you condition a piece of wood with some oil and then you put water on it, it'll roll right off. It'll roll right off.

So this is why when people put on face oils first, I'm like, God bless, good luck. I don't get it. Like you're reinforcing your lipid barrier, but go crazy. People get really mad when I say that. I'm like, it just doesn't make sense to me. So even if it's impeding it just a little bit. So I would say that. And then if you have more acne-prone skin, you actually might want to be looking at more jelly textures, right?

Much more water forward, much more humectin-rich, right? Those are those water-loving ingredients. Because if you have oily skin, you probably don't need a super rich moisturizer. You also have to look at your climate, right? You move from, you're coming to New York. My skin freaks out every time I leave New York for a month and then I come back. And so you have to also look at your environment. New York is this like ungodly union of humid, but also super drying and polluted.

And so it's like I need a lot of product to operate. But like when I was in Paris, I was like saying, I was like, I actually don't need that much moisturizer anymore. So it's going to change based off where you are as well. But I would say the general rule is is that if you have more acne prone reactive skin, you're going to want to probably stay away from anything that's too rich. Like we was like say with our moisturizer, instant angel, which is a richer moisturizer, be careful. Be careful. Be careful. Be careful. Acknowledgeer, be careful. Patch test. Look at the return policy. of a brand. For us, if you have the issue, please, we don't want you to spend your money on that. But we'll give you a refund. Should we be expecting every skincare company that's making claims to be, like, running studies to back those claims up? Should that be the norm? Or is that the norm? It depends. For some companies, and I hate when people make me defend corporations, but at the end of the day, large corporations have money to do claims validation. And what I will say is that in Europe, claims validation is a requirement to launch. When you go to Europe,

you have a dossier. And for every claim, you either have to show a study or show the study that you did. So it's funny how in the U.S., like we always talk about regulation and we're like, oh, like Europe is so much better. And what no beauty company is talking about is the reason why cosmetics are better in Europe is you have to validate your claims. You have to prove the receipts. You have to prove the receipts. That's not a requirement in the U.S. Okay. So if there are a lot of products that are doing that, you're kind of saying instead of just going through and looking for check, check, check ingredients, if possible, look for brands that are validating. the claims that they're making. And also, yeah, look at the claims because, like, for us, we say it's a richer cream for dryer, more normal skin types.

If that's the case, you're like, well, I have super oily skin and I'm very reactive and I have acne. I'm like, well, why would you even buy this product? You'd like consider that. And don't just buy it because it's, like, trending and cool and you're seeing it everywhere. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Okay.

So bring us back to your evening routine. I have done my retinal or my retinoid, whatever it may be. I then go in with a moisturizer. I'm going to list a few that I like, right? Because I use Instant Angel. I really like skin fix as well. It's fine they call themselves triple lipid, though, because skin suiticles is triple lipid. And so it has seramines, but skin fix doesn't have seramines.

It's a shay butter base cream. It's a really great shay butter base cream. I love the Jordan Samuel moisture recovery cream. It's super rich. That's what I'm using right now. I love it. It's beautiful. It's like butter.

That is a very rich cream. And then also, I love skincidicals triple lipid, but people know I'm biased. My co-founder, Joyce did the patent on it. I didn't know this, though. And I was telling her how much I loved it, like, two years ago. and she's like, sure. I need to stop you. Oh, that's so sweet, though.

I know, and I was like, fang going over her. I'm like, I love you. You're so smart. She is a genius. And then, do I have any more that I really like? No, we'll stop there. Four. Four is good.

Less is more. But those are super rich moisturizers. Okay. And what about for somebody who has more of the acne prone skin? Is there one of that jelly type that you like? It's kind of like a blend between the two, but Kay Beauty actually has, like, K beauty brands have some pretty amazing moisturizers. And I believe it's Soon Young.

Etude. They have the 2X barrier recovery cream. That one's pretty great. And I've heard it works really well for acne-prone skin. And based off the ingredients, it should be pretty much like okay. And then honestly, the Nutrugina, hydro boost, no fragrance one is a pretty decent. I mean, it's super. People are like, it's just silicones and water.

And I'm like, yeah, and that works for some people. And then is there any other steps of the routine? Sometimes I'll use a little bit of an inclusive at night. So I'll use like a little dollop of Vaseline or a little dollop of aquifor. I really like, oh, chemist Confessions actually has a really great moisturizer for drier skin types. I think it's called Mr. Reliable. It's very light. But they also have a petrelatum-based occlusive that I'll put a tiny bit on. We'll talk about ruining their bedding. I'm like, you've gone too far. Put it down. And then what about like, do you use a silk pillow case or anything like that? Yeah. Actually, I do use a silk pillowcase. self-pillocase. Do you find, do you think that's helpful? You know, when you wake up and you have, like, this pillow that just, like, glued to your face and you have, like, all the deep lines, I find that that's probably a little bit better. And the red light, you mentioned that you're doing red light therapy. I love Dermalux. I love Dermalx. Do you think that that's good for skin? What's that actually doing? So there are some studies that it helps with kind of overall texture and just basically kind of like plumping out the skin. For me, I have so much photo damage. I tend so much as a youth. And it's just like. I just don't think. anybody young, maybe it's changing, but nobody I know was wearing sunscreen when they were younger as much as every adult in our life was telling us to. Exactly. And I regret it deeply, but I still did it. Exactly. And so for me, it's like, it's really funny when, because also like we're talking about aging,

and it's like, well, the reality is is that when you have less melanation, you see the signs of aging much more quickly. And it's just because of photo aging. L'Oreal did a study. And it was like this really splashy headlines. Like 80% of aging comes from the sun. And then I was like, one of the Fitzpatrick's, Fitzpatrick are the scale of melanation. I was like, or the Fitzpatrick's on the study? And it was like under three. And so anything under three is like white. And I was like, okay, so the actual study is for white people, 80% of aging comes from the sun. And to red lights help with sun damage. In theory, I'm going actually into a Durham office to get a Vizia scan. And so a Vizia is like basically a camera that looks at like basically different elements. And we're going to see if it actually

reverses my son damage. Is there any other reason that you're using it or have you seen like a baby. Okay. It really relaxes me. And I don't know. And is this near from like what types? I know there's different types of red light. It's near and then it's red light. Okay. Do you have to wear like the glasses when I do? I definitely wear goggles. Like, when people don't wear goggles under it, like I used to not. And then I was like this feels weird. Yeah. It makes me very nervous. Also, I feel like my eyes are purely decorative. Like I have really bad vision. It's like I, so I have contacts on right now and they're at negative six. You just like don't want to mess with that more. I feel like I'm at like, I feel like I can't read things, though, with my negative six prescription.

And I'm terrified it's going to go up to negative nine. Because, like, I have my glasses. And it's like, I, it's bad. It's bad. So I was, like, not wearing those goggles. And I was like, you literally can't take the risk. I'm genuinely confused how master class gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes.

I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class. It's 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors.

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What are we doing in the morning? In the morning, I splash my face with water. If I work out, I do a very gentle cleanse. I'll do like a very gentle phone cleanser. And then I will use deliverance. I'll then use boom boom milk from violette. It's just really, like, juicy. What does it do?

It moisturizes. It's one of those things where I use skincare more than makeup. Like, people are like, how is your skin so glowing? I'm like, it's moisturized. You don't need to use highlighter and, like, all this great stuff. If you're just really moisturizing your skin, I think I'm wearing a highlighter right now, though. Anyways, so I use that. I then pat it in, right?

Like the Korean method. It's really, it's really soothing when you just like do like a pat. And then I'll use Instant Angel. and then I'll use an ungodly amount of sunscreen. Yeah, I've seen you apply sunscreen. And you're like, ma'am? Do you have favorite sunscreens right now? Yeah, I do.

So I love Beauty of Joe Sun. It is Korean sunscreen. And then I love everything from Europe that's from La Roche Pose. The U.S. ones are okay. How do you reapply sunscreen throughout the day over your makeup? Is there a secret? Like, are there sunscreens? You can use a beauty blender.

Okay. What I sometimes do is I will – because, like, your sunscreen will still be on. It'll just be, like, a little bit patchy. You know what I mean? Just, like, the film starts to break down. So what I do is I'll take a big beauty blender. I'll take a very, like, light sunscreen, like a isn't tree, watery gel is great for reapplication because it's so, like, almost like watery. And I just, like, dunk the beauty blender in it, like, really soak it.

And then I lightly tap it over. Okay. Yeah. And then you said that your glow, it's not due to highlight or anything like that. I feel like that's the thing that's missing for me is I feel like my skin looks fine. It looks good. But I don't glow. Am I just under moisturize?

It's again the look that you like because I think it's funny that we're having these conversations now and it's like, you know, when we were growing up, it's like look matte because if you're oily. I know. I had the dream Matt Moose foundation. We all used that Play-Doh on our faces. And it was honestly like jail. They need to go.

Those product developers like need to think about what they've done. But if I want that look, I feel like that's the thing. that's like missing. That's like moisture sandwiching. So, you know, moisture sandwiching is a term that like came about in like on the internet. But again, it's like I was talking about where it's like you start with the hydration with the water and then you work your way towards those like oily or richer products. And that's actually what's going to give you that reflective glow. And then you have that hydration underneath that's slowly evaporating. So it's like held there if not being pushed into the skin. And I've seen you say that you use face oil to get like you love using face oil as a cosmetic. And not to say

that it doesn't have skin benefits, like I will use body oil because it feels great and it also looks amazing. It's just like taking one piece of a moisturizer. So you in general, if somebody was like, my beauty routine is all of these different oils, you would say that's not sufficient. Depends on if they're happy with their skin. I'm not one of those people where I'm like, I used to be this person. And now I'm just like, do what makes you happy. But it's like funny when people are like, yeah, I use like a face oil. And they're like, but I have all these dry patches. And I'm like, yeah, because you're using just a face oil. And why wouldn't, can you just explain in layman's terms?

What I would say is like you probably would want to use something like a little bit more hydrating underneath it. So if you're just using a face oil, if you're using a face oil first, you're actually stopping water from really saturating the skin. So if you're using some, it's like a bit more watery underneath it. And before you let that fully dry down, then you use the oil, you could probably get away with that. Again, it also depends on your skin type. But for me, it's like I absolutely need something buttery or I need wax or I need, I want like free fatty acids. I want all the lipids. I want all the things like kind of like blend together in a moisture.

to make something a little bit more well-rounded. Okay, so but if you are, I used to get out of the shower and with damn skin, I would like pat on face oil. Is that you're trapping? I would do that for my body, maybe. But even with my body, it's like new level unlocked is when you get out of the shower, you put on a moisturizer, then you put on an oil or a shay butter. That is new level unlocked. Because then you're doing the same thing. You're trapping in the moisture.

It's about trapping those humectins in there because also glycerin, it plumps out the skin. So if you trap glycerin, it's going to plump out the skin. If somebody's listening and they're just like. I'm stressed, I'm busy, I don't have a lot of money. What would you suggest as like the most minimal skin care routine if they want to glow? I would say for the most minimal thing you could do is that would be, and it depends on your skin type, but if you're like, you know, a little dry skin husk like me, dampen your face with water. You don't have to use an essence for a toner. That's just a nice to have.

Get a little moisturizer on there and then use a little bit of gasoline. And that's morning and night, or do you think we should add in some sort of trest or something? or something like that. You can get a trap prescription. They're quite expensive. I didn't, I mean, if you don't have a lot of money, you probably don't have health insurance. I mean, when I didn't have health insurance, it was $250 a bottle. Okay. So just, just if we're looking for the most basic most quick. A sunscreen. Oh, yeah. Always sunscreen. For sure. For sure. Okay. What about do we need to be doing anything to combat city pollution? That's a tough one. If you're washing, that's why it's really actually important to wash your

face and like well at night. So when you're asking about double cleansing, I'm like, well, if you live like, you know, in like the Rocky Mountains or the Catskills and it's just a beautiful environment. You can probably just like run through the field. You're just like helping your skin microbiome. I'm like, don't touch your face. Like, you're, that's beautiful. Like, can I come visit? But like in New York, part of the reason why I wash my face is I just like think about like all like the dark shit I saw that day.

And I'm like just never can be clean. It's also why like I shower like at night because I used to shower in the morning and now I shower at night because I just I cannot get into my bed. Okay. So you think cleaning off the city pollution is important, but we don't need to be like layering antioxidants on in the morning. Well, everything, there's so many antioxidants already in your skincare. And that's where, like, brands get a little bit tricky. I think it's a marketing trend to say, ah, like anti-pollution from the city. And it's like, okay, that's actually, yes, you can absolutely market that.

And that is an important thing. But it's like when people make products specifically just for that, it's like, okay, well, literally any vitamin C. Literally any, any. Like, I can keep going. Like, you know, it's like any product. But it's like, do I think that pollution is yucky and you should? that's a scientific word.

Do I think it's gross and you should like put some antibiotics on your face? Oh, yeah. Okay. So if somebody is worried about pollution, they live in a big city, maybe look at your skincare, see if there are vitamin C in it, see if there is Niasinine. I know. And it's just so hard because then Niasinamine is actually the gold star there because that is really hard to destabilize.

Vitamin C degrades very easily. Is that what Niasinamine is? I always, it's such a trendy ingredient. Well, it's a vitamin. Is it vitamin B3? But like what is it, is it, it's an antioxidant. I'm always like, I always hear about it and I'm like, what is it doing? Now, I said to mine does a lot of things.

It's one of those things where it does everything, but it doesn't do anything like as spectacularly as its counterparts. Okay. So it's a well-round ingredient. So you're looking for like a workhorse. But, and here is the subtext. Because it is very stable as an ingredient, you can almost guarantee that if it's in your product, it's there. Got it. A lot of vitamin Cs, I'm telling you, it's just not there.

A lot of retinoles. It's just not there. And so you're like, wow, it's so gentle. My skin is doing so well. And I'm like, it's just not there. It's not working. And I also find a lot of like anything that has like K Beauty does this a lot in like Japanese beauty, but like teas.

T's are antioxidant rich. So if you see like tea extracts, those are great. And a lot of plant extracts actually have antioxidants. My issue is when people are like, I'm using this antioxidant rich face oil and it's cold pressed. I'm like, well, because it's cold pressed, it's going to go rancid pretty quickly. It's not stabilized. And so this is where it's like so hard for. me to say like an ingredient, which makes me probably the most annoying person ever to try and

like get a direct answer from. But it's like for me, if you're looking at something and you want something for like an antioxidant, I would just say like go something like a nicenamide or like, you know, like you're the bigger the brand and that they sell in Europe, it's much more like that they have their stability testing. I'd love to go through like a few other base things people can do and get like hot take on it. We'll do like a little hot take session. Okay, ice rollers. Hot take. They feel great. Are they depuffing, anti-inflammatory?

It depends. Like, if your face is just like, I have a round face, it's not going to sculpt. It's not going to sculpt. But yeah, if you have inflammation, like, I could have used a nice roller after my debauchrous weekends. Okay. What about lymphatic massage for your face? Oh, yeah. Super fun.

Okay. We love that. What about frownies? I actually wrote an article about frownies for Cosmo years ago. It really does. It just stops you from dynamic wrinkles. There are two forms of wrinkles. is dynamic and static. Static is just aging, right? When we all hit menopause and your hormones and

your estrogen just fucking like just ghosts you, like you're going to see much more rapid static aging happen. But dynamic wrinkles are just like, I'm like raising my eyebrows. It's like from just expressions. Expressions. And so part of the reason why Botox basically helps with wrinkles that it stops that motion. But it's, they work, but it's a bit temporary. You have to use a lot of them. So you wouldn't like necessarily add it in? I actually wish that I was using them during the pandemic when I was at home, doom scrolling through Twitter. Also, if you stop yourself from frowning, it can actually help you with tension headaches.

So those fronings actually can help with that. Oh, that's interesting. So, you know, it's like I have some friends who get Botox and they're like migraines are gone. And they're getting Botox like in their shoulders and like everywhere. But I find that I get the craziest headaches when I'm really, when I read that IPCC report from the UN on climate change, I had the worst headache of my life afterwards, and I really should have used a frowny. Okay. What about face shaving? I have a complicated view on face shaving because I have a hairy face and I have darker hairs on my face and I was made fun of for it. And the one time I tried it,

I got a crazy rash. And it was one of those like, one of those like knee-jerk reactions where I was like, why am I shaving my face? Like, I never noticed that I had facial hair. It was some fucking dickhead that told me it. What about it for exfoliation? It's a chemical exfoliator. Okay. What about microneedling? I love it. In like a nutshell, what would one microneedle for?

If you have acne scarring. If you have like those deeper scars, texture, things like that. I use it because I think it gives me like a nice little like temporary plumpetness. Okay. What about I know you love microcurrent. I do love microcurrent. And what's that doing? For microcurrent, I think for me it just gives me like a slight lift in tone. Is there anything that I didn't mention that like tool-wise you think is amazing that

people should know about? Well, I think that guasha gets a lot of really bad rep, but I do think that it's a really nice thing to use and it feels really good and it helps with lymphatic drainage. And it's a much easier tool to use because like some people are like, you can just use your hands. And I'm like, yeah, but it's actually easier to use like a guasha. But it's also misconstrued. Like if somebody's telling you that's going to sculpt your face, like that's also not true. What is it going to do? Lymphatic drainage. Okay. And circulation. And circulation matters. Like, because the thing is, it's like, as you get older, your body's triaging, like, what to keep alive. Like, as we were saying, like your body's just trying to keep you alive, but we're all like slowly dying.

And that's also okay. Do you have any advice for like the average person who doesn't want to spend like a huge amount of time researching everything? But they want to know whether the brands they're buying or sustainable. Is there anything that they can do to kind of quickly, easily find that out? So I can tell you what we're trying to do. And I'm seeing a bunch of companies are using this. We're trying to get to our lifecycle analysis.

Okay. So what is that? Life cycle analysis is looking at a material or an ingredient. from cradle to grave and measuring it and showing you what it is. So could you reach out to a company and ask them that? Like literally that question. What is your life cycle analysis? Yes.

Okay. Okay. So that's a good start. That's a good way to start. Dude doesn't have it yet. We're working all this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I believe Cocoa Kine does do a life cycle analysis.

They try to do a lot on that. And I think that they're like, again, it's like it's really hard because it all depends on what you're measuring. Okay. And what people care about. Yeah, for sure. And then can you just speak to CBD in skincare briefly? Because I know that due came about from kind of the idea of putting CBD in skincare. Yeah. So deliverance has cannabinoids in it. CBD being one of them. And we did one of the first clinical studies to understand what actually happens to the skin when you induce inflammation and then you apply cannabinoids. And what we found is that it actually does help kind of calm and soothe the skin, tackle that redness from irritation. Not all redden. Not all redness is created equal. Right. If you have like an autoimmune issue or things like that, it's going to be different. But what we found is that. also the dose matters, just like for vitamin C, it matters, just like for retinol it matters,

and more does not necessarily mean more. And so we found it's actually the lower doses. We're working better. And so that's actually how we then ended up creating deliverance, but it actually kind of created the ethos for our brand where it's like we just really want to vet what we're saying, what we're doing. Because CBD when we were studying it, like, we started in 2018, the studying of cannabnoids, it was the Wild West. Like we were getting extracts that had like full on detectable levels of mercury and lead. Horrifying. Yeah, it's terrifying, especially because people also have it internally, you know. I used it. And I'm like, oh, just me. Like, ooh, like, what was it, Marie Antoinette that was like shoveling lead

all over her face. I'm like living out my French roots. But yeah, so I would say that it led the ethos of like, you really need to vet things. You really need to understand where things are coming from, not just from a life cycle analysis standpoint, but also like, Is it stable? Is it going to survive in the formula? Because when you're talking about sustainability, like another piece is like, are you going to throw it out when you're halfway through because it's gone off? And so that piece is, that that piece really kind of like helped us kind of like develop a lot of like dues brand background. Can you just leave us with one skincare homework assignment, like one thing that we can either start doing or stop doing to get the skin that, you know,

that we want? If you have a magnifying mirror at home, throw it. it the fuck out. Why? Nobody is coming up to your face of the magnifying mirror. It's a bit weird. And if they do, like, that's another problem. And then the other thing I would say is be nice to your skin. Don't yell at it. And literally, figuratively, how do you mean that? I mean, don't, because the thing is for me, it's like I, you know, I'm 35. So it's like, you know, I'm starting to see, like, things change. And just instead of like, I literally will stop myself. If I start to beat myself, self up before I start to say, oh, this is that, this is that, this isn't good. Why isn't this like this like, just stop it. Just walk away from the mirror. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit about Do and everything you guys are

working on over there? Yeah. So Doe is clinically vetted in price transparent skincare. And we created it just because we wanted to create a space where like what does it look like when you create a brand that clinically vets their products, but also tries to market it in a different way where we aren't going to tell you, we're not going to shame you. We're not going to make you feel about. We're not going to scare you into buying so that's the new trend now where it's like all of your skincare is killing you and I'm like okay that's I want to listen what testing did you do oh we didn't use these ingredients I'm like oh okay but those ingredients aren't those ingredients are allowed in Europe and they'll have like in the next paragraph we don't we we follow European guidelines I'm like no you don't I'm like you're this is market again it's just marketing and you're marketing to us for one of the worst

levels which is fear and when you're saying when they're giving themselves cancer I'm I we already have enough to worry about like moving on not to say that all things are good like right and all corporations are good they do bad things but nuance so yeah so basically with due we've launched a forever iMask which is a product that really for us from a sustainability standpoint I'm like what if you just don't buy a product again from us no I love it I like in the olden days yeah yeah yeah and like we really don't want you to come back people are like oh so it only lasts a year I'm like well that's how long we tested it but like now it's been like two years almost since it's like since we've started testing it.

So I guess it could be two years. So that's our first product. You just pair it with your existing creams and serums. This is meant to be fun also. And it does work. So, and by work, I mean it just temporarily plumps and hydrates. And it's really the product that you're pairing with it. We are coming out with an eye cream.

And we're doing a double-blind placebo study with the eye cream paired with the masks. We're really excited. I love that. Validation. That validation we're looking for. Little claims validation. Yes. And then for deliverance, our serum, it's like a calming and soothing serum that has like really

nice peptides that like plump out the skin. And really with that with that serum, we wanted to have a lot of like benefits for it. So you were asking me what niacinamide does. It can help with hyperpigmentation. It can help with barrier repair and strength, like all these different things. So we did include nicenamide in it because it's such a well rounded ingredient that's very well tolerated by most people. So it actually can help with like texture and tone as well. But hyperpigmentation is a pretty complicated beast. So it really depends on your skin tone, your skin type. So we launched deliverance back like about a year ago almost. And then we recently launched Instant Angel, which is a really fantastic, richer moisturizer for our drier, normal skin babies out there.

And where can people find due and where can people find you? You can find due at D-I-E-U-X skin on Instagram or do-skin.com. And then me to Charlotte Parlay. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share all of your incredible wisdom with us. Thank you so much. It was so nice being here. I hope you loved this. episode with Charlotte, she has kindly agreed to give five winners each two sets of the viral due reusable IMAs. So you'll get one and then you can gift one to somebody that you love. And these are so cute and they are so giftable. To enter, just follow both of us on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and she is at Charlotte Parley, Charlotte like the name, and then P-A-R-L-E-R.

And then comment on my most recent Instagram posts, whichever one is up there does not have to be about this episode, something that you loved or learned in the episode. I will DM winners in the next few weeks, but there will be five of them so you have lots of chances, so definitely enter. If you are new here, make sure that you're subscribed so you don't miss out on any upcoming episodes. We have amazing ones coming up, including an episode about how to be happier at work and a wedding regret and favorites episode, which is going to be so much fun. So definitely tap that follow or subscribe button so that you do not miss out on anything.

If you love this episode, I would so appreciate you sharing a link on your social media. or with somebody in your real life who you think would benefit from the information that we talked about here. There is so much good stuff in this episode. Like, I am never going to use non-prescription retinol again and, oh my God, all that stuff about how we're never allowed to just be the age that we are. And by sharing, you massively support the podcast and you get somebody to talk about all of it with. So it's a win-win. Also, if you did love the episode, I would so appreciate a quick rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I am literally, literally 100 reviews away from my goal of 2,000 reviews.

And I would be so grateful for you taking a quick moment of your time to write one. It really helps other people find the podcast. And also, I read them when I'm feeling sad and they make me feel better. So that's nice. Okay. I love you and I will see you next week on the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast.