Well with Arielle Lorre - 163: How to Treat Acne and Aging with CLEARSTEM Founders Danielle Gronich and Kayleigh Christina

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

In this episode I’m talking to Danielle Gronich and holistic nutritionist Kayleigh Christina, co-founders of nontoxic skincare line CLEARSTEM Skincare which uses premium ingredients to correct acne, acne scars, DNA damage and melasma. Gronich, the owner of the San Diego Acne Clinic, has been providing holistic solutions to those suffering acne since 2014 (with a 98% success rate), and is known as the country’s “acne guru.” We discuss root causes of acne; what healthy foods and lifestyle habits could be contributing to acne; why medications and topical treatments are often just bandaid approaches; how to recognize ingredients that could be breaking you out; how to manage acne scarring and pigmentation and so much more.    Use code BLONDE at www.clearstemskincare.com for 20% off of your purchase.   This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Sonderger Go to your Reisadviceor Orsoniccars. The following podcast is A Dear Media Production Hey welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to

achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits, and I'm bringing it to you real and unfiltered. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today's episode is all about acne. So, I have done a lot of skincare episodes, but I don't know if I have done any specifically on just this. So this episode is packed with helpful information on what can cause it and how to get to the root of the problem instead of using Band-Aid approaches like certain medications, lasers, etc. And as you'll hear in this episode, obviously there is a time and a place for all of that sometimes, but oftentimes it's unnecessary and it can make things worse. So I'm talking to Danielle Gronich.

She is known as the acne guru. She's the formulator and CEO of Clearstem skincare, which is a non-toxic skincare line that uses premium ingredients to correct acne, acne scars, DNA damage, and melasma. And after her 10-year acne struggle and returning to school to earn her license, she decided to open San Diego Acne Clinic in 2014. her clinic takes a holistic approach with a 98% success rate for getting people clear and keeping them clear. So we're also joined by Kaylee Christina, who is the co-founder of ClearSem and a former client of Danielle's. She's a holistic nutritionist and her journey into skin care started when she developed numerous health issues,

including severe cystic acne in her mid-20s and tried in vain to find a cure. And like I said, she then went to see Danielle, who cleared her first. her skin. I think they're going to post a before and after on their page. So go check that out because it's crazy just what a transformation it is. And in person, both of them have absolutely flawless, incredible skin. So that's a huge testament to Clear Stem, which is their skincare line. And as a bonus, they have a code for you guys if you want to try it. So you can use the code blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E for 20% off. And yeah, this episode, like I said, is jam. packed with information about acne, root causes, healthy foods and lifestyle things that you may be doing

that could be triggering acne, how to figure out what is causing it, and so much more. So I hope you guys enjoy. Welcome. I am so excited to have you guys here today. Thank you for having us. We have been so excited. Danielle and I've listened to your podcast for a while. I know I've gotten so much knowledge from it. I think you bring on an incredible guest. So it's an honor to be here. Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited to chat with you guys. I've heard you on other podcasts. And obviously, skincare is a huge topic with my audience and just with everybody in general, I think, and particularly acne. And I don't think that I've had any, like, true acne specialist that I can think of that approach it, at least in the way that you do. So I would love to start by just having you guys introduce yourselves

and tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you do. Definitely. So I'm so glad we're here. Yeah, We are the, like, acne experts. So I am Danielle Gronich. I'm known as the acne guru. It's trademarked. I am the owner of San Diego Acne Clinic, and I've had that clinic for almost eight years where all we do is hardcore acne treatments. We don't do lashes.

We don't do brows. Like, all we do is fix acne. I met Kaylee here as a patient about five years ago, and we just hit it off, cleared her skin in, like, two months with no scar damage. And this is when dermatologists were trying to put her on acutane, and we were able to fix it without that. And that's just like what bonded us and how we got to know each other. And then from that, Clearstam was born because we realize that there's a need for products that are anti-aging and anti-acne at the same time with no toxins because that had never been done before. And so Kaylee brought

her nutritionist mind and her branding genius to the idea and Clearstom was born. Why I love telling our story is, you know, five, six years ago when I met Danielle, in a matter of two months, my entire your face broke out in bright red cystic acne. It came out of nowhere. I was so frustrated. I was truly going to every doctor, dermatologist, esthetician. I was getting the same solutions on their end. I was told to go back on birth control or change birth controls. I was told to go on antibiotics or from dermatologists told to go on acutane. And because of my nutrition background, I was like, I know there's a root cause this. Like something is wrong in my body. Like it looked infected. It was so inflamed. I was like, this can't just be fixed by medication.

I know there's something going on. And so I was really close to going on Accutane. I didn't want to. I knew how disruptive it was for the body, especially as you get older, too. And one last Google search, popped San Diego Acne Clinic. And it happened to be Danielle's last clinic patient of the day. So we had a lot of time together. And I brought in every supplement I had, every hair care product I was using,

every skincare product, makeup, you name it. And what my eyes were completely open to is the world of acne tricks. really. I mean, I always got my skincare from back in the day, magazines, and then, like, YouTube and Pinterest and Instagram, and I loved getting, like, the newest oil and serum and all the things, and I was just so susceptible to marketing like everyone else. Like, you look at the front of something, and if it looks really clean and it says it helps with acne and gives you those really, like, trigger words that connect with you, you want to buy it and you think it's going to help. And so my eyes were completely open to what acne triggers are and how they're.

There are so many, on the product side of things, so many ingredients that can trigger acne and clog your pores. I also had no idea how many supplements that are good for you, but in excess trigger acne, because they trigger hormonal imbalances, like vitamin D, zinc, B12, again, all amazing for us, but in excess trigger acne, I had no idea that they were even healthy foods that triggered acne, like eggs and just all these different things. So we found 12 different acne triggers that were in my lifestyle, diet, and skincare. So I eliminated all of those. And truly, if anyone's interested in seeing the before and after, it's insane.

It's on our website under the before and afters. Like, I had the type of acne that should have had the really deep scar damage. And we cleared it in two months just by eliminating the acne triggers and getting on a proper skincare routine. That's all. I didn't do lasers. I didn't do anything else to fix it. And it made us realize how there is such a disconnect in education with people, how

acne is made so complicated and how marketing. and how marketing really makes people choose certain skincare products that are really destroying their skin. So we wanted to be the most simplistic form of education for people so they could get to their own root cause, figure out what's going on, and then have the products that really heal and revitalize their skin. Your skin is incredible. Like, as you're talking, I'm just looking at it. And I can't picture what you're describing because it's like such. Yeah, it was everywhere.

Yeah. You would not believe her. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel, I'm on the picture. Yeah. Okay. Danielle, I'm curious, did you struggle with acne? Like, how did you become the acne guru?

I feel like usually when people get into like a helping position, especially something that they're so passionate about that, it's like because of their own experience with it. You are spot on. So acne, you have to have a genetic predisposition. And then there's a lot of environmental factors. But if you've got that genetic predisposition, you're going to have acne at some point. So by that, I mean, like maybe one of your parents had acne, right? both my parents had it horribly, like, grade four aggressive on both sides. So I never said a chance. So it actually blew up for me when I went to college. That's when I, like,

started wearing makeup, got on birth control. You start drinking. You're eating shitty dorm food. It's just the perfect storm, right? So I had horrible cystic acne, face, chest, back thighs, like literally everywhere. Like, you can still see scars. No one believes how bad it used to be until I like wipe my makeup off and show them. But anyway, I was actually, it can be pre-med at the time. I had studied genetics, biology, immunology, and was obsessed with the human body and how it works. But in that time, when I was going through intense, like, disfiguring acne, I was under the care of several different dermatologists. Not one of them could answer basic questions. I would show up with a list of questions like, hey, I know when I have alcohol, it gets worse.

Why is that basic fucking questions, right? Or like when I have dairy, I know it gets worse or et cetera, et cetera. Like I would come with a list of basic questions and not one of them could answer anything. They'd be like, oh, there's no white paper to suggest. that. I'm like, I'm asking what you think. So, and then one of them finally spelled it out for me. He's like, which prescription do you want to try again? And I was like, okay, you're a prescription writing monkey. That's how this goes. I'm not going to become a typical dermatologist. And not all germs are like that, but that is what I went through like a good solid seven to nine times with different germs.

So anyway, I became pretty fixated on it. And the only thing that I could reasonably do to get any relief was acutane. So I did try it out of complete sheer desperation. And there's a time and a place to consider acutane. When you're getting the kind of scarring that I was getting, and it's literally all over your body where you can't even sleep because it's on your back and it's painful, that's the time and a place to consider acutane. But anyway, I did it. And you go through hell for like three months. Insane. Insane purge, insane dryness. Like your knuckles are bleeding. Your vision's getting damaged. Like you go through all these terrible side effects. Your acne finally clears up a little bit and you're like, thank God. And then it's like this.

like glimmer of hope and then you're on it. And then what my experience was was then about four to six months after I stopped, it started coming back. So then the germ was like, okay, we should just do another round. Let's just do it. And I'm like, okay, this is going to be the last one, right? He's like, yeah, for sure. So I do it again. I am clear for maybe eight months after that, it starts coming back. I'm like, all right, third time's the try, I got to do this again. And they're like, there literally is no other option. By then I had tried lasers. I had been on sphernalactone. I had been on antibiotics for years. Like there was no other option presented to me. So I did it a third time. I could literally feel myself going blind. Like,

I could just feel it ruining your body. Like, by then I was like 28 and I was really in touch with my body and I could just feel what it was doing. So I was getting such severe side effects that they're worried it was going to be permanent, like with the vision loss, for example. So I had to stop taking it. Acne came back immediately. So I was like, honestly, fuck this. I'll figure it out myself. I have a biology background. So I went looking for classes to just like get information about the skin. And lo and behold, you can't really access a lot of those unless you're in anesthetian school. So I'm leaving my six-figure corporate consulting job, going to beauty school at night,

talk about a culture shock. And I had no intention of really leaving my career because I had built up a good thing. But when I was in school, it hit me. I was like, this is the medical profession I always wanted, but didn't know existed. Saw a business model for San Diego Acne Clinic, figured out what worked, what didn't work. I shadowed under all the, you know, quote, taught people in San Diego, just literally went back to intern mode and just sat there like a sponge learning from everyone. Did that for about a year.

I worked at a med spa. Learned lasers, injectables, learned all the things of the industry. Because you never just want to go start your own shop fresh out of school. Like that's stupid. So I learned everything. It could started San Diego Acne Clinic on the side part time and it blew up. And since then I've just fine tuned to the process and the intellectual property of like my checklist and like what we go through and how I prioritize everything. And we've got it down.

So I took that and I was like, how could I make this mess? Like, how could I get this to more people who can't come to the clinic? That is the premise of clear stem. Amazing. Well, here's the before. Oh, yeah. Right? No way.

Where can everybody find this who's listening so that they can see? Is it on Instagram? Yeah, I think it's the very first one. What? Like, that little bit of redness that's left over is completely gone now that took probably a couple more months, but that was exactly two months later. That is still smooth, no scarring. Wild.

Insane. Well, the thing that kills me about that, too, is to, too, guy with a hammer, everything's a nail, right? So if you go to someone who writes prescriptions all day, they're going to just try to match you with a prescription. If you go to a laser place, like a different wing of dermatology, they're going to say, oh, this laser, this fractal CO2, blah, blah, blah. But if you're not addressing the inflammation that was causing that, you don't get the healing response that you're banking on. And that's when things go really wrong. I went through that to you. Laser things backfired because no one even talked to me about water temperature

when I was washing my face. So I'm so grateful that we met for various reasons, but your skin being one of them. Yeah. It was scary. And like my confidence was shot. Like I didn't leave the house for like two, three months. I bought the makeup that like the Miss America pageant women use that's literally like clay for your face. And I was packing like clay makeup on my face to even leave the house. Yeah, I had like triple cleanse you. Yeah. I like like a thick layer. And I'm not a huge makeup part. Like I like a lighter and natural look. And so it was so uncomfortable for me. And like I just, yeah, I didn't want to be around anyone. I felt. embarrassed. You know, you shouldn't, but I felt so embarrassed by it. So if somebody comes to the clinic,

what are some of the first things that you look for? I mean, we've been talking a little bit about triggers, or you guys have been talking about triggers. What are some of the kind of commonly known triggers that you would look for? And what are some of the more subtle ones that maybe people don't think of? Oh, I love this question. So the most obvious one that I think everyone here has heard before is dairy, dairy, milk, cheese, and that is absolutely 100% certain because insulin-like growth factor hormones is why dairy is a problem. It's not the lactose. It's the hormones in it. So it literally mimics hormonal acne. And you'll see it on your chin generally. You can see it anywhere, but you can have a bunch of pizza, wake up the next morning and you'll see the effects on your

chin. It's right where you'd have a goatee. It does that because it's where you generally have the deepest hair follicles. So dairy is number one. And the sneaky one for that that people don't always think of is way protein. People will, even if they don't buy it at home, they'll go to a smoothie shop. And a lot of times the first one offered is way. And that's one of the worst. That could break you out literally the next day. Interesting. Yeah, way is just like concentrated hormones essentially. And anything that has such an insulinogenic effect on your body is going to lead to just more systemic inflammation in general. So dairy is the most obvious one. I'd say the trickiest one that is the most controversial opinion that people are going to be like, what is excessive vitamin D? So there was a

study a while ago that was like, oh, people with acne have low vitamin D levels. Yeah, that's fine, but so does everyone. And in that study, they didn't take account anything else. They didn't take account birth control, diet, products, exfoliation, like all the things that actually really matter for your skin, we're completely ignored in that study. So people recommend vitamin D blindly for acne, but the thing is vitamin D is fat soluble. So it stores up in your system. Why that's important is because vitamin D in excess raises testosterone, and testosterone is the number one hormone that causes an acne flare up.

So if you've been told that you are deficient in vitamin D, granted, it's probably true, just like the rest of us, but then you start taking a vitamin D supplement and it'll have like 6 to 800% of your daily recommended allowance, and that's not counting what you're getting naturally from food sources, or if you're probably taking another multivitamin that has 250%. So when people come to the clinic, I go over their vitamins with a fine tooth comb, and I always see over-supplementation with vitamin D and the direct correlation to cystic acne on the chin. Those are usually the quickest turnarounds for getting rid of your acne,

taking a look at your supplements. One, poor-clogging ingredients, but two, your supplements. So like Danielle said, vitamin D, zinc, B-12, and biotin, all trigger acne in excess. Again, all are amazing vitamins, but you want to look on the back because B12, someone might have a Celsius in the morning that has like 40,000 percent of your recommended daily value. Then you might be taking a multivitamin that also has B12 in it. Then you might be taking like a focused neutropic throughout the day that also has B12. I also saw these like vitamin D and zinc lozenges the other day that have like 400% of B12

and vitamin D in it. And so all of those in excess trigger acne. And so the quickest fix is see what you're drinking in the morning. Like if you're having a type of energy drink, what it has in it, check all your supplements for those four. And then any little things that you take throughout the day, like even like a brain focused drink that you get from airwine, like amazing, right? But it might have really, really high levels of B12 or a beauty drink has really, really high levels of biotin in it. And again, in all of those in excess, trigger acne. There's some friends that come to me about struggling with acne. I take a look at their

vitamins, they remove it. And literally a couple days later, the inflammation already goes down. Like, it starts to just go down. So that's a quick one. What about matcha? Macha is good. Yeah, match is good. Mata's good. I don't touch Masha. I love Masha. I don't live in that world. And like, it's such a whole food source, too, because it has L-theonine in it. And it has so many antioxidants in it. So oysters, for example, are really high in zinc. But oysters aren't going to make you break out because they're a whole food source and your body knows exactly what to do with it. And it's coupled with other vitamins, nutrients, all things that are good for you in it. I mean, I guess you could technically break out from oysters, but you'd have to eat like it. I mean, it would have to be like all you can

eat night at the sushi place. It would have to be like it just such an insane amount. But when these vitamins come from whole food sources, you're not going to see them breaking out. It's with the over-supplementation. Right. What are some other like, I don't know if I want to use the word superfoods, but like foods, supplements, anything lifestyle that are actually really, really good for acne? love this question too. Digestive enzymes. Every single person with a pulse should be optimizing their digestion. And this is something that older, like traditional Chinese medicine, anything Eastern, they focus on digestion where it's usually completely ignored here. So anything that improves digestion is going to improve the entire health of your body. It's like if you're putting gas in your tank and it's not burning it properly or it's converting it to waste, what's that going to do to your engine, right? That's how we should think of digestion. So digestive enzymes, are fabulous. You don't need to spend a ton on them. Heck, you don't even need to buy them necessarily. You can do these things easily with hot lemon water, which is like a time-honored tradition all around the

world. Hot lemon water before meals or in the morning on an empty stomach. Also, anything tangy, like I do a green apple every morning. It just like wakes me up, gets me moving. But yeah, anything that's like tangy is going to activate digestive juices. So hot water with lemon is a sure thing. Apple cider vinegar, if you can grow to love it, that's also a sure thing. So doing these things before meals specifically is going to be extremely helpful because then you break down your food better, particularly protein. A lot of people, when they send them out to get lab work, they come back with a protein digestion issue. So helping to digest your protein better is going to give you better hair, better skin, and less inflammation overall. So absolutely support the digestion.

And then there's another vitamin that is good for immunity because everyone says take vitamin D for immunity. The alternative, aside from vitamin C, is something called L-Lycine. And that's also a collagen co-factor as well as being an antiviral. So I am a huge proponent of L-lycine. I think everyone should be taking that for immunity and for collagen synthesis. I'd say the third one would be a spore-based probiotic. So many people that are struggling with really, really bad cystic acne and they're doing everything. They're replacing their pork-clogging ingredients or checking for acne triggers. And if it is still persistent, a lot of times it's dysbiosis in the gut. And so taking a spore-based probiotic over a regular one.

Most ones don't even make it to your gut. Won't really do anything. It's kind of just like dumping in seeing what sticks. But a spore-based one actually teaches your gut how to rebalance bacteria and how to regrow good gut bacteria. And it's going to make it down as well. So spore-based probiotic, digestive enzymes, elicine is definitely like the three big ones. We don't like to overwhelm people.

So it's like the three, like, core ones that really help. Yeah. And there's other ones that are, you know, great to supplement with. I take a really concentrated vitamin C as well. But I mentioned L-Icine in there because it's an essential amino acid, so you actually have to supplement with it. It's not something you produce enough of on your own. NAD is also a really good supplement that, like, I think it's like one of the anti-aging

holy grails. Yes. Yeah. I just did NAD IV for the first time. How did you feel? Pretty good. I didn't really notice a difference that much, maybe like a little more energy. But my girlfriend does it and she said like that it's really good for anti-aging.

So I was like, sign me up, tell me how often I have to do this. And I will be there and I'll do it consistently. Yeah, I did it twice. And again, I didn't really feel anything different after, but you know you're doing good for your body. So it's like, I know this works. Like I'm going to do it. A placebo effect can account for up to 12% of results studies in a lab. So it's a thing. Fitting fact. Okay. So I want to get to some of the listener questions before obviously we talk about clear stem, but just some of like the really common issues around acne that people struggle with. So we could almost do like rapid fire a little bit here. Love it. I love rapid fire. Okay. What about healthy foods that trigger acne? I mentioned eggs. Yeah. Eggs dairy. Eggs has a protein in it called albumin protein, which is really hard to break down. So a lot of times you'll see breakouts around the lymphatic area around your jaw. Kind of everyone can't see me right now.

I'm like pointing to like under my jaw around my ears, a jaw line right there. So eggs is a big one. I know we mentioned dairy already. Caffeine in excess. So we love coffee. We love matcha, all the things. But in excess, it's also going to trigger testosterone, which is triggering a hormonal imbalance. And so it's going to throw off the progesterone and estrogen as well. So coffee, just being really mindful about how much you're drinking throughout the day.

And if you are struggling with acne, try to limit it to just one cup a day or switching from coffee to matcha. That can help as well. Yeah, and another food that it's just come up recently, peanuts, if you look at the nutrition label of something, you're not going to see what you really need to see in order to determine the inflammation potential of that item. So you don't see which omega's and which types of oils are in things from a nutrition label. So that's why eggs look like a perfect little pot of nutrition, but you double click on it and you see that their protein is actually a harmful protein to us to a lot of people, right? Peanuts are another one where it seems really attractive.

I've been flying like crazy, so they always try to give you the peanuts. And it seems great. It has a high amount of protein. They're salt. They're yummy. But they have an androgenic effect, meaning they can spike your male hormones. And if you have acne, that is the nut that causes the biggest problem. If you have, you know, like a rhesas peanut butter cup, like once a month, it's not going to get you.

But if you're doing peanut butter in your smoothies or in your yogurt regularly, it'll absolutely catch up with you. A healthy alternative is the mixed nut butter from Trader Joe's. I always turn people onto that one and they never look back. What is that one? I just had a couple clients that were like, I love my peanut butter. What can I do? So I went to find them as an alternative. And I was like, this one's great.

It doesn't have any peanuts. And it wound up being delicious. Oh, I try that. It's just a nut butter with no peanuts. But yeah, on the topic of nuts, though, macadamias are like the best. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Those have like almost no omega-6 and they're even healthier than almonds. If you're looking for a little nutty snack, go get some macadam. Amazing. Okay. Dealing with acne. scars. So maybe break it up into two. Some people asked about scars and then other people asked about just like pigmentation and redness. So what's the best approach for those? So there's different types of scarring. There's post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, long way of saying a red or dark

spot left over from acne. And that's going to be really prevalent in people who tan very easily or have just a darker skin tone in general. So if you're smooth but you have spots, what you want to do is find someone who can do like a series of little chemical peels on you. If you have darker skin, like say you're Filipino or African American or you just, you have darker skin that scars very easily, I don't recommend the laser route at all because it can backfire on you in a major way. So what I recommend, if you can't start with like light chemical peals, go get microneedling. Microneedling is amazing. There's very little downtime. You see results every time. Yes, you'll probably want a series, but you should see results every time. You'll be

pink for like two days. On the third day, you'll get a little bit of sloughing. And then you're back to normal. There is no heat used with it. So you don't run the risk of hyperpigmentation the same way you do with an aggressive laser treatment. I hyperpigment very easily because I'm half Peruvian. You would never know it. But I did a lot of lasers to try to get rid of macnecars. And it actually made me hypopicment. So there are real consequences to doing lasers. And I don't think it should be anyone's first stop. I recommend light chemical peels and then microneodeling. And scar damage is actually what started clear stem in the beginning. So Danielle would get her patients clear at San Diego Acne Clinic.

And then, you know, after you get clear, then you're working on the scar damage after that. I mean, you saw my before and after even that light pink pigmentation was like leftover scar damage. And so Salernut right here, that was our very first serum that we developed. And it has stem cells in it. And then bounce back is the upgraded version of Salernut. It also has peptides in it. So that is going to be your everyday product. for helping with scars. The stem cells are going to help re-plump out those areas. Danielle was on the call

yesterday because we have to have this person record a testimonial, but someone at our marketing agency was like, you know, I just tried Bounce Back for the first time. I can't believe it took me this long just to try this product. She's like, I've had this line. It's like a mix between like a scar and a wrinkle right in between my eyebrows. And she's like, I've had it for years and years and years. Couldn't get rid of it. She's like, I started using Bounceback about like a week and a half ago. she was like, it's already like 50% gone. She's like, I don't understand. I'm so confused. I'm like, it's the stem cells and the peptides. Like, that's what it does. And that's why both those products help with both scars and wrinkles because it's DNA damage to the skin. So you're going to want to

revitalize and restore your skin berry and restore that DNA damage that's been created there. We pride ourselves on, I mean, every skincare person is going to tell you they love ingredients, but we really love ingredients. And it's not just what you add. It's what you don't add. Take this lotion for example. If you're just shopping at Sephora, you see all these lotions, it's going to tell you the marketing ingredients. Like Bukuchel, Squalai and Semcell, those are all fantastic. We put them in the highest possible concentration. That's why our stuff's a little more expensive. That's why our stuff's not cheap, right? We put the highest concentration of everything that is good in your skin. We're not putting 0.01%. We're putting like 2%, like the maximum of certain things. And then it's also the filler agents that we choose not to use and the textures that we want to use. Like bounce back, for example, it's a serum. but it's a little thicker. We did that on purpose because as soon as something dries on your skin, it stops penetrating pretty much, right? So something is staying on your skin and it's coating it a little bit longer.

Those actives are going to be able to kind of swim through your skin and permeate better than if you put something on that is maybe alcohol-based and dries really quickly. Like the activity has stopped once it's drying. So we've thought out like every detail with these things. And the fun part is the same stuff that causes DNA damage and scarring is also the same stuff that ages you and there's ingredients that fix both. So that's what we really focus on with this line. Yeah, so tell us about the line. So you guys have an interesting story about how you started. Like you were doing everything yourself, right? Yeah. So in the very beginning, it was,

we didn't even have names for the products. Salvin was the very first one, but it was just called Clearstam. So it was like the Clear Stem Scarversing Serum is what we called it. I had found these blue cobalt bottles from like U-Line or something like that that like has these blue cobalt bottles. I sourced caps for all of them. We would get the product shipped to us in massive jugs, and then I would get labels printed out. And so we'd have to self-apply every single label one by one, hand-fill everything, seal it, package it up. At this time, we were both shipping on our website ourselves every single day. So I'd like a label maker plugged into my computer, printing out every day. Oh my gosh. Anyone that's done this knows that it's like everyone uses the same label maker. You get it from

like Staples or Office Depot or Amazon. And it breaks like every two seconds. Like I have so many videos and pictures of it like going haywire. I do. I like never want to touch one ever again. And then we'd package up huge boxes of like a couple hundred to ship off to Amazon. And we did this for about a year, year and a half. Like non-step, we would get in my kitchen. We would fill it up every time we'd like spill cell renew. We'd just like put it on our bodies. Those were the best days. I know. But we would glow. Yeah. But we did that for years just like straight out of my kitchen fulfilling orders, but it all started with the cell renew. Yeah, I mean, I would get patients clear really quickly and I can't do aggressive peals. Like, everyone in this room is

kind of fair. I can just peel the shit out of you and you're new in a week, right? But like, for other skin tones, you cannot do that. So I was like, how do we heal this from a different angle? And that's how the cell renew was born. So we've kept that inclusive mindset throughout our line because it's so important. Yeah. Yeah. There are some ingredients that just work for people and then how you use products. Like we're really big on like telling people specifically how to use things so that they get like their unique results. Because some people can go aggressive from the get and then some people need to phase things in. And that's all so important. And it gets totally lost when you're just like at old to shooting in the dark. Yeah. We truly created this out of something that like we both had a

problem with and so many other people did too. Like our entire line is anti-acne, anti-aging and non-toxic. Because you have acne products that just completely dry out your skin and actually cause accelerate aging because they're so disruptive to the skin barrier. And then you have anti-aging products that a lot of times are filled with both toxins and pork clogging ingredients that are triggering acne and causing hormonal damage. So you have that. And then you have toxic versus non-toxic. Like everything you put on your body gets absorbed into your bloodstream. So that can cause hormonal imbalances leading to acne. So we're like, we need to do it all. Like we need this for the woman or the man that is still struggling with the occasional breakout or just want something really clinical

that's also clean and helps with anti-aging. I mean, I'm 37 and I'm still totally acne prone, but I would like want to age well. So it's a very selfish motive for the line. And you look so young. So clearly it's working. So for people who don't really know how to like navigate skincare, because obviously it's so overwhelming with everybody, but they want to try clear stem, should they just, is there like a full system to just get or are there certain products that they should

start with? No, obviously it's not like universal because everyone has different concerns, but what would you recommend? So we did create a skin quiz on our website, which will really help. But to make it really simple for people, we have our clear kit. So it's our vitamin scrub right here because that's going to help really refine the skin. It's going to get rid of that top layer of dead skin cells. And also prime and brighten the skin for everything else you put on top of it. So help kind of clean out those pores for maximum absorption. And then the clarity serum. This is the game changer. This is our Mendelic acid serum. So it's going to help. We nicknamed it our blackhead dissolver. So gets in there and literally dissolves what's in the pore. We've also coupled it with vitamin C. The mandelic acid helps drive the vitamin C even deeper into the pores. So you're going to get a brightening effect. And it's also going to stimulate collagen production. So helping with wrinkles. So it's like the jack of all trades, you will see a difference. And I mean, a lot of people see

like an overnight difference. Yeah. That was the benchmark for it. I knew it was possible to get an overnight difference with that. With some things you can, but with that, you can. And then our next two in the clear kit is the cell renew and the hydroglow moisturizer. So we keep, and I'll let Danielle explain those too, but we try to keep the intro one at four products. It's not really overwhelming. And then the other ones are really fun. It's literally positioned as these are the four minimum steps you can do to get maximum results. It's like, I don't want a 10-step routine. Like I just spend two hours a day doing like theater makeup to cover my, you know, like I had to like do so much over the course of my acne struggle that I'm like, I don't want to

spend any more time than I have to. So the kit is literally the max amount of results in the fewest steps. So yeah, the scrub, basically a scrub, you can use it anywhere from like two to five times a week. It just depends on your skin, whether you're oily, where you live. And then using it for like even five to eight seconds can be enough to just polish the dead skin away. Because when you have acne, one of the root causes, the primary root cause is hypercaratosis. Basically, we produce too much keratin protein. So a physical exfoliant is the antidote to that. So you polish away dead skin cells and then that there's like oil or, you know, someone was using a makeup that had like coconut oil or isopropyl palmitate or some other poor clogger in their stuff, that needs to be dissolved

with an acid. A scrub can't take that away, but an acid is the only thing. And that's where clarity comes in. So for the stuff that's in your pore clogging the follicle, that requires an acid to break it down. So you put clarity on after you scrub, go chill for 10 minutes. Then you come right back. Cell Renew is the scar reversing like hormone balancing serum. And that is a moisturizing step. It's just not a moisturizer. And that's where hydroglow comes in. Hydroglo is like lux, but not greasy. It's like thick, but it's not too thick. Like we made it such that like, no matter what you're looking for from a moisturizer, you get what you want out of this one. And this one actually is the one product that has Bukuchio in it, which is a retinal alternative. A lot of

people rely on retinol, but it's not on the non-toxic list. And I'm personally just not a fan of it. Every time I use retinal, I notice that I get burned faster and my mobile. plasma flares up and you have to change your lifestyle. You can't be outside as much. So that's why we put Bukuchiole in the moisturizer. What are your thoughts on oil-free for oily acne-prone skin? So oil-free is generally a marketing term. That's very tricky. I believe that it stems from a misunderstanding of acne that we have more information on now. So not all oils are poor clogging. Let me just start there. There's a comedogenic rating scale. If you want to know what the particular comedogenic rating is, if anything, just type the thing into Google and the word comedogenic.

All these lists pop up. We've got a very, very robust one on our website. But for example, like water is a zero. Coconut oil is a five. So the scale goes from zero to five for how likely something is to clog your poor physically. So water is a zero. Coconut oil is a hard five. Like, do you have acne? Stay the hell away from coconut oil in your products. You can eat it. That's fine. But it does not go on your skin. But then there's other oils that are totally safe, like hemp oil. Hemp oil is amazing. I still have to bring my own oil if I go get a massage somewhere because whatever they're using is for sure going to break me out. So I bring hemp oil. You can slather that on your face as much as you want. It's not going to do anything bad to you. Then there's

argon oil, which is safe, rose hips oil, which is safe, safflower and sunflower oil. Those are safe. Then you get into the gray area, like olive oil. Olive oil is fabulous to eat. But if it's in your products, olive oil on a scale of zero to five is like a two. So two out of five. That's like a 40% chance is going to clog your pores. I don't know about you, but that's too high of a chance for me, so I don't use that in my products, right? Then there's avocado oil that's a three. So nothing is black or white. Things are on a scale. That said, there are a lot of filler agents that don't say the word oil that are far worse than any oil you could put on your skin, like isopropyl mirror state. That is a really gnarly poor clogger that no one knows unless they're looking for it,

but it's worse than spreading Crisco on your face. I've seen products say oil-free, but that have isopropyl mirror estate. And I'm like, this is trash. So that's what you really need to watch out for is all those filler agents that are a little mysterious. And don't worry for everyone listening that's like, they're driving and they're like, oh my gosh, I need to write down isopropylmira state. I need to write down all these oils. So again, one of our huge missions is just clarifying all this and making it really simple for people. So we made something on our website, it's under the poor-clog ingredients tab. And it's a little search bar. So you can take any product that you use, hair conditioner, typically has a lot of poor-cloging ingredients that cause back acne and on the side

of your face that you sleep on, makeup and skincare. And what you can do is you can just Google your product, go to where you bought it and just copy and paste the ingredient deck and do the search bar on our website, click search, and it'll pop up red if there's any pork ly ingredients in it. So you'll know if that product is breaking you out or not. Because again, we want to make this really simple for everyone. Huge mission of ours is education. Yeah. And we tell people, before you buy anything, if you're struggling with your skin, before you buy anything from anyone, check what you're currently using. that's how you identify what the problem is. So you can change your entire skincare line. But if your

makeup is the thing clogging you up, you're never going to get clearer. So education first. Amazing. Okay. Well, I like to ask my guests, one thing we should stop doing and one thing we should start doing today. So I don't know if you guys each want to take one or both do them. But what do you think? I love that. I think things we should stop doing is being so hard on ourselves in all different areas, like judging ourselves for where we are in life, for what we have, for what we don't have. We put so much pressure on ourselves. That's not even from other people and force ourselves into these different timelines or how we should feel about certain things or how we should act. But at the end of the day, like, your life is your life and no one else is living it.

So doing the things that make you happy and releasing that external pressure, even that internal pressure that you put on yourself to be a certain person or be at a certain step in your career or be married by a certain age or by a house by a certain age, just releasing that truly makes life so much more enjoyable. I was going to say the same thing. Yeah, I think comparing ourselves to other people is something that is a recipe for emotional turmoil. And it's really hard to know when we're even doing it. So I think we should start being more aware of of the little thoughts that creep in, just awareness, not judgment of the thoughts, but just aware thoughts that creep in of does this thing that I'm looking at seem better than my life and

is what this person's doing seemingly more important than what I'm doing? Like all those little things like it's normal for the brain to work like that, but just to be aware of those thoughts and not dwell on them any more than is helpful or healthy. And just like what Kaylee said, like sit down and like write down your life. What do you love about your life right now? What Would you love more of? What does happiness look like? What are things you think you should be doing and how do you actually feel about them? But just getting in touch with your unique self and what makes you thrive and glow and what brings you joy. Like focusing on joy is what we should all be doing. And not focusing on joy. It's what we should stop doing. And then I should be doing drink salt water every

morning. That's my favorite little hack. Electrolites. Yes. Get the electrolytes in. It helps with the absorption of water. I swear, it wakes me up way more than any type of caffeine, energy drink, anything else. When I drink my salt water in the morning, I am ready to go. I'm like ready to take on the day. You got me hooked on it and I'm about it now. It's awesome. Yeah, once you get over the initial, like a little bit of like the flavor thing. Yes. Yeah. Then it's great. Exactly. Well, where can everybody find clear stem and more information and buy it and find you guys, all of that? Yes. So again, we love to put out so much free-ed. We continually are hosting Instagram lives. We host free masterclasses where people can literally

get on a Zoom. We'll talk about a certain skincare subject and then open it up to Q&A for free for people. So always doing this stuff. So our Instagram is Clearstem Skin Care. You can head to our website. We have a ton of resources, skincare learning center. We have a ditch your acne protocol that helps you get to the root cause of your acne. And then the skin quiz. And that's just clearsendskinkare.com. And then my personal Instagram is Kaylee.com. And mine is Danielle, the Acne Guru. amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more

about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie.