Well with Arielle Lorre - 170: Skincare 101: A Simple Routine, Basic Anti-Aging Tips & Beauty Myths with Dr. Ranella Hirsch, FAAD

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

In this episode, I'm talking to Dr. Ranella Hirsch, a board-certified Dermatologist, and we're getting back to the basics of skincare. She breaks down a super simple (and affordable) approach to your skincare routine and explains why we don't need as much as we're often sold. We discuss skincare myths and her thoughts on the "clean beauty" industry, along with ways to care for your entire body's skin - not just your face.   Sponsors: Drinksound.com code BLONDE for 20% off Sakara.com/BLONDEFILES20 for 20% off your order Athleticgreens.com/blondefiles for a free 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 free travel packs   Produced by Dear Media.See 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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Go to your rise-adviseur or Sunnycars. 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. I have such a good and entertaining episode for you today. I'm talking to Dr. Rinella Hirsch, who I found through Dr. Danielle Blardo, who was on the show a while ago. And I've loved following her on Instagram ever since because she shares just such valuable information about dermatology and skincare, but from a scientific and no bullshit approach. And she's super funny as you'll hear in this conversation. So Dr. Rinella Hirsch is a board certified dermatologist called an expert derm by Allure and a beauty guru. by Marie Claire. She often lectures to physicians in the fields of laser surgery and cosmetic

dermatology and is the author of many scientific articles, abstracts, and textbook chapters. Dr. Hirsch serves on the editorial boards of several leading dermatology journals. She is presently at work on several clinical trials for novel skincare products to improve the condition and appearance of aging skin. And her innovative research continues to develop and foster new cosmetic dermatology technologies and techniques. Because of her access to the latest technologies and ingredients, Dr. Hirsch is frequently asked to collaborate with the media and serves as a media expert for the American Academy of Dermatology. She is also a principal investigator for several emerging technologies in laser medicine.

Dr. Hirsch is the author of several articles and book chapters on the subject of injectable neurotoxins and other soft tissue fillers. and she is the co-founder of Atola, which is an innovative skincare brand, which utilizes AI to develop personalized skincare serums. So she knows her shit, basically, is what we're saying here. Okay, so in this episode, we are getting back to the basics of skincare. She breaks down a super simple and affordable approach to your skincare routine and explains why we don't need as much as we're often sold. And we also discuss skincare myths and her thoughts on clean beauty, along with ways to care for your entire body's skin, not just your face, and so much more.

It's such an interesting and funny conversation, so I hope you guys enjoy. Welcome, Dr. Hirsch, so happy to have you here. So thrilled to be here. Thank you so much. I love everything that you do. I cannot wait to have this conversation and just talk all things, skincare. But to begin, why don't you just introduce yourself to the audience, let them know a little bit about yourself, who you are, and what you do. That's great. Thank you. I'm quite thrilled to be here. I'm Rinella Hirsch. I'm a board-certified

dermatologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My advanced training and the bulk of my practice is in laser surgery and aesthetic dermatology. I also have the good fortune to be a co-founder of a company called Atola Skin Health. And we were acquired last year by Function of Beauty. And we've just had a really good fun time with it. Can you explain a little bit about the laser part of your practice? You mentioned laser surgery? Yeah. So that's a big part of what I take care of and do in my practice using lasers for pretty much everything you can imagine on the skin and using them in combination with other treatments.

Using them in combination with chemical peels, injectables, without home treatments. It's really about finding that custom fit for the patient. Speaking of laser, I just got fracksel two weeks. weeks ago. You look pretty fantastic. Thank you. It's like my favorite, probably my favorite treatment. I just get such good results from it. Not to really like just dive into things, but I guess we can. So many people ask me about FRAXL and I don't really have the expertise. I'm like, I don't know. It's kind of resurfacing. It makes you really glowy. But can you tell people what it actually does because it's kind of top of mine since I just did it and shared about it? Absolutely. So FRAXA is just a brand name for the

greater concept is an thing called fractional resurfacing. And the idea was back in the day, they used to resurface skin, meaning that they would take really the top layers off of the skin using a laser to get rid of cumulative sun damage and wrinkles and kind of all the things that people come to get rid of. And the issue there was that you have quite a bit of downtime when you do that, as you might imagine. You're literally taking off layers and layers of the skin. And there was a brilliant idea by Rox Anderson at Mass General Hospital where the idea was to use very specific areas of damage in the skin and treating them every, I'm showing on my fingers, if this is going to reflect on a podcast, not really sure why I'm doing that. But you're treating

individual areas with some spacing between them. And that was based on the realization that you can actually get improvement without wiping out the whole thing. And the beauty of this is that it leaves a lot of the ability of the skin to heal intact. So you're able to get still some downtime. I'm sure you were read for five, six days, but it really is diametrically different than when we would have people for two months who looked like they had just come from a sunburn and were greasing themselves up and had to hide. And so it just really moved the needle entirely on what it was. Is there a laser? I know that it's not like universal. Everybody's skin is so different. And people age differently in all of that, but I think the majority of my listeners are like in their mid to late

20s, like 30s, maybe early 40s, not to exclude anybody, but is there a laser treatment that you love in that kind of age range, or is it just really dependent on people's skin? So yeah, it really depends because some people like me are fighting redness all the time. And that's just an altogether different proposition than lots of people who I'm in Boston, you're on the other coast where I think people are probably fighting sun damage or all the time when I have this conversation with colleagues all around geographically. That plays a lot into it. My friend in San Diego probably does, you know, treatments that damage 98% of the time.

I've got a lot more kind of flushers and people with weather in the winter and stuff like that. So it definitely factors in. I think a lot of people are surprised how often we'll combine technologies, how rare we usually go after a single thing. And I don't mean to just include lasers with that. It also includes other things like injectables and skin care and all the other wonderful things that are now available to us. Not to go off onto a tangent, but I'm from Rhode Island. So I'm from New England and all of the sun damage that I am currently erasing all over my body or attempting to is from growing up in New England and doing tanning beds, which luckily is like not very trendy anymore.

Oh, you'd be amazed. Oh, really? Oh, there's still, it just you have to look in the right places. So college campuses are an enormous thing. They actually give you, when you go in and you get like, you know, welcome to university of whatever and you get your like welcome kit. They have often these 10 packs of tannin kids and it's still quite big in many high schools. We see this a lot, which doesn't, which explains a lot about why we see these spikes

and who is getting, you know, young women getting terrible things. Like melanoma. Right. Unfortunately, it has not gone the way of the, it has not gone away. Maybe just because I'm in California, so everyone is just getting natural sun, but in places where, you know, it's colder. But yeah, that was like my personality trait was how tan. I could, my dominant personality trait, how tan could I be?

Crazy. For me, feeling my best starts with what I'm putting in my body and I truly thrive when I'm eating, really nourishing, nutritious food. It can be super hard with a busy schedule and being on the go all the time. And when I start skipping meals or ordering out all the time, I really start to feel it. And that's where Sakara comes in. Sikara is a wellness company anchored in food as medicine on a mission to nourish your body through the power of plants. They're nutritionally designed chef-crafted breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are made with powerful plant-based ingredients,

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So definitely go check it all out. Right now, Sakara is offering my listeners 20% off your first order. If you go to sacara.com slash blonde files 20 or enter the code blonde files 20 at checkout. Again, that's sacara.com, sakaara.com slash blonde files 20 to get 20% off your first order. Sakara.com slash blonde files 20. Hi, I'm Pia Barangini, a creative director of LPA, an entrepreneur, a wife and a dog mom based in Los Angeles. This is my new podcast. Everything is the best. Where we basically ask interesting people, how did you go from zero to yacht?

I'm always curious how the hell people became successful, and I figured you would be too. Get on the internet with me. Let's laugh, let's cry, let's overshare, and let's get inspired to live our best lives. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. It's all for you, baby. Thanks for listening.

Love you, Mean It. Well, we have a lot of topics that we want to get into, but I wanted to ask you, if there's anything off the top of your head, kind of in the wellness space, in the online skincare space, like skincare myths that you see a lot of or trends that you see a lot of

that are just completely not like evidence-based. Oh my Lord, I don't think they have that kind of time. This is going to be a nine-parter. Oh, my goodness. Sonscreen is harmful that you will not get enough vitamin D if you use sunscreen properly. Pretty much pick anything in the category of clean beauty, that there are things that are toxic,

in your skin care, that you are in fact needing to use 30, 60, 12, whatever large number it is above two or three products to get where you want to go. The fact that if you drink water, it will somehow magically clear any skin disease that you could possibly have. The fact that you can take, you know, food and that will just solve your skin care problems. The fact that you should have skin care that should be edible, the fact that you should be able to apply your skin, I mean, yeah, to answer your question, yes, there's a couple. Okay, well, we're going to break some of those down, but why don't we just start with like, I don't know, start at the very beginning. So if people are wanting to, I don't know, switch up their skincare, if they're wanting to treat their skin, if they don't know where to start, because there is so much information out there. I think for people who don't have any background, it's so overwhelming because where do you start, you know, and even for me, like I don't have a background in it, but I'm a skincare. fanatic and even I don't know where to start. I have so many products and, you know,

for the majority of them, they don't really do anything for me. So what tips do you have for people who are finding themselves in that position? Start simple. Keep it simple. Skin care should not be difficult. It is really about just approaching it from the perspective of what do I need to do to maintain, what do I need to do to prevent, what do I need to do to treat. And people are surprised how simple that question can be answered. Just to get started, gentle cleanser. That's going to be what you use morning and night. In the morning, at a minimum, you want to follow that up with SPF. That is the single greatest anti-aging advice anyone like me can possibly give you. In the evening, again, same cleanser. And then you just want to swap that

out for the thing or the ingredient or the ingredient grouping in a product that is going to address the specific concerns, excuse me, that you have. So like you mentioned, sun damage or redness or breakouts or whatever there is. And depending on what that is, you can be directed towards an active or a product that's going to address that. And that's the best time to do that at night. It really starts there. And for the great majority of people can end there. If you do something as simple as that, you will have fantastic skin. I think people are always amazed when they walk into bathroom of people like me. And I have like you boxes and boxes of stuff sent all over. And if you actually look at the two or three things that are open and in use, I think people are just constantly thrown by the fact that the people who do know aren't actually using 900 products.

I was having a conversation with somebody recently. I think it was a makeup artist actually. And she was talking about one of her friends, also a makeup artist who is in that same position, gets sent everything from, you know, super high end, crazy expensive products down to like drugstore. And she has the most flawless skin. And she has the most flawless skin. she uses Sarabay. I think people are often struck and there's always this sense of like it has to be the most expensive to work or there's value in what you spend. And to an extent there is, right? I don't want to completely knock it because there is something for some people who really do like to have a beautiful jar. And you do have a sensorial experience sometimes that you're paying more money for.

But as far as active ingredients that are doing the heavy lifting, no, I can give you a really wonderful skincare routine for $30, for $300. And if you really want to go nuts, for $3,000, it's at the end of the day, the simple thing. And the most trite of Ronella isms is you can spend $8 on sunscreen or spend $80,000 on me. I mean, it's really just, it's a very amazing thing, how much you can do with a very little layout of spend.

I think you hear from a lot of other people, especially online, that it can be simple, that you have to have, like the key ingredients that you need are cleanser, vitamin C, retinoid, some kind of retinoid, what are the other one, like hyluronic acid. So are there other ingredients that people should be adding on or what ingredients should people look for that treat these specific concerns like fine lines like acne, like redness? Redness is also an issue for me. Hyperpigmentation, those different concerns. So I'll just start by coming to what you're talking out because I think that's one of those places where people really do tend to get off the rails,

this idea that if you're not using X ingredient, all hope is lost. And the thing is, it's one of those things I find really unfortunate about social media with so many good things. It's just this idea that it's like, yes or no, that if you're not using these ingredients, you're toast. And that's just malarkey. A lot of people can do perfectly fine with certain ingredients and just can't tolerate others. I have plenty of people who will just never be able to tolerate a retinoid. I have plenty of people just will never tolerate a vitamin C, and you're still going to be able to achieve many, many things. So this idea that you have to have all such things is really a wrong one to begin with. I will start there. That said, a retinoid is always a good idea. What is that?

That's a vitamin A derivative. You can find it in a number of different strengths, prescription strength, which you get from someone like me. And then we classify it by how many steps it takes to convert into that prescription product, how strong it is. That's a general simplification, but a pretty good one. And so over the counter, you can find things called retinols. You can find retinoles, the aldehyde, and you can even find now in the United States, a product that is a former prescription strength retinoid that is now over the counter here. So you really have a very broad spectrum of products that you can use. And the beauty about these vitamin A products is the number of things that they address. So what they do is they help to turn

skin cells over. What does that mean in English? It means it helps to kind of get rid of that sun damage, helps to give you some smoothinging of the skin, helps if you're dealing with discoloration after some old breakouts. It helps with also even some breakouts. It actually is an ingredient that has a proven track record for acne. So it's a great kind of all-purpose agent. Vitamin C you mentioned, we love it for a couple of reasons. We love it because it's a really lovely antioxidant. It's also got a role in the production of collagen, that magic structure that we all spend our money and lives trying to improve on our skin. Now, it should be said that I'm a dermatologist, I'll do it again. The single best thing you can do for your collagen is keep what you've been

given. And that is always the lifespan of sunscreen. But in terms of making new collagen, particularly as we get older, vitamin C serves as a co-factor, is something. something that kind of is like giving the assist in the reactions that actually make the collagen. So that's very helpful. It also acts as kind of like a backup door to what the sunscreen does. In that when you have UV light, what it can do is create free radicals in the skin. Free radicals are little scavengers looking to make trouble in the body. That's pretty much what they do for a living. And antioxidants, in addition to the sunscreen, can actually help to neutralize some of those for radicals. that does not need to be vitamin C.

Vitamin C is especially popular because it does have a bit of a track record. There's some research on it. But there are many, many products that you can use. It does not have to be vitamin C. And as I say, there are many people who just will never tolerate it. And that's completely fine. It does a nice job for discoloration. It does a nice job for fine lines.

I tend to tell people to use it in the morning. But there's a case to be made in using it anytime because it has multiple. benefits. For pigmentation, lots of different things that you can use. The gold standard is a product that you would normally get from someone like me called hydroquinone. Unfortunately, the United States is doing some unfortunate things with hydroquinone. There are other products that can help that you can get out. There's a licorice derivative. There's cochic acid. There's trinexamic acid, which some people are more enthused about than others. There's niacinamide. So the point is that there are just kind of lists of ingredients you can go to. I have a whole post on Instagram that's called

How to Get Started in Skin Care, and this is what it does. It just kind of lists each of these for each category. And what you really want to do is try to pick one or two. You're really not looking to do what kills people in skincare so often is this fear that they're not using everything or that they have to try every new thing. And the single best thing you can do with skincare is give it time. There is no magic ingredient that is more potent than consistency. Picking something and sticking with it, even if it's not the newest, the hottest, the most publicized, will do more for you than changing it up constantly. And that is a hard and fast rule that I think people are sometimes really surprised to hear, but completely true. If you know me, you know I love a sparkling beverage.

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The code is blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E, for 20% off your first purchase. I'm curious if these same ingredients and everything applies to skin on the body because I know that when we think skincare, we think of our face. I know for myself though, like my face I always protected. I don't know why. But my body is where I have a lot of like the sun damage and I notice like, you know, loss of collagen and elasticity and all of that. Is there like, can you use the same products that you use on your face on your body?

Yeah, it's actually great advice. Yeah, you're pegging into something great. It's funny. I often catch patients off guard with that because they'll come in and they'll just be in a dot-dard. I've been wearing sunscreen on my face. It's so great. Look. Look how good. And I'm like, that is so awesome because there is no skin below your neck. And they realize the absurdity of it. And that, yeah. And so in fact, it's often a great tip to just take what you're using on the face and use it anywhere that gives sun exposure. Derms will tell you, we rarely can tell, especially a savvy person who's seeing someone like me from the. face someone's age. It's the back of your hands and gives you away every time, the sides of your neck, the decolete. So all of those are great places to use some of the same active ingredients. The one kind of asterisk I put on that is just a little extra care in the neck. The neck skin is a little delicate. So especially with your sort of really active actives, if you will, want to be careful that you're not doing something that's actually going to cause irritation, which is just a lower threshold to do that on the neck. I have a girlfriend who's a nurse practitioner,

she works at a plastic surgeon's office here and she does all the skincare and she told me years ago, she's like, your face ends at your boobs. Yep. It is. Or the legendary Carolyn Highlands line is take it down to the tits. That's classic and true. And she's absolutely right. It really, I have so many women now who are coming, you were asking about laser.

That's a place where people don't think of it, but we're really using a combination now of often injectables peeling and laser because decalit is such a kill. It really is just people don't realize it's not just the discoloration. It's, you know, you get that wrinkling of the skin. You get that really poochy kind of looking skin. And if you're, especially if you're someone who's, you know, the kind of person who's taking care of someone wants to wear clothing and wants to wear bikini. It really is just a dead giveaway for age and sun damage. So we, great advice you're giving. Yeah, I had so much sun damage. That was the main area that I had it on my chest. And I did like, rounds of IPL and then a few rounds of fractal. And obviously it's different for everybody. Don't just do what I'm doing. Go see a dermatologist. But, I mean, thank God for laser because it's like night and day.

It can really make such a big difference. This is such a tangent. People don't often realize this. One of the sort of side gifts I have is I sometimes work on film sets where, so I've learned all kinds of things from makeup artists. And something I think people don't often realize is, a common way that people will impart age to a character is painting on sun damage because even though we don't sort of intuitively think of it, when you see someone who has collective sun damage,

you automatically put years on them. And I remember seeing that for the first time because I always thought, and to an extent, you know, it's prosthetics and all the things brilliant makeup artists and talented people do. But when I saw them doing that and painting age, I was just so struck by that because indeed, it's so true. Yeah. This is very random, but I'm curious if you saw this. So many people sent me this article this morning from BBC News. And it says researchers rejuvenate 53-year-old women's skin cells to equivalent of 23-year-olds. I have not seen it. What did they use? I was like, this is Christmas morning for me. This is incredible. I know we're so far away from really being able to do that without complications, right? What was the methodology that they described? The technology is built on techniques used to create Dolly, the cloned sheep, more than 25 years ago. That's just the headline. I haven't read the actual article. But maybe encouraging, maybe in our lifetime. Ah, so stem cells. Oh. I'm assuming that that's what you're talking about is probably,

if you're talking about Dolly, that you're, there's, so it's interesting. I don't know this particular story, so I really can't comment on it yet. But I will say stem cells is one of those things that, you know, if you didn't ask me, so let me volunteer it nonetheless. One of the things I get asked out all the time is stem cells, because it's constantly something you're seeing in these very expensive potions and lotions, and I'm always being asked, is it something? And for the most part, the answer to that's a pretty strong no. And the reason is stem cells, as they would be described,

I again, haven't read this article, but I'm imagining if they're talking about that kind of stem cells, if you go and look at what they're doing in the lab, those are stem cells. They're alive. They're being kept in a media. there's all kinds of things you have to do. You actually don't have that in skin care. You're either using what is kind of the, for lack of the better term, almost the leftover material, or you're using something from plants or you're, in other words, you're not using the stuff that the headlines kind of go to in a story like this. And very few people get that. The marketing really

isn't, I would say the marketing. Marketing is so good. Most people just kind of this inference of like, oh, I'm going to be looking like, you know, neonatal skin. But no, skincare will not turn you into a fetus. That is not how it works, unfortunately. So that's probably one of the biggest places

where I think people throw money that just does not bring you a return on investment. Stem cells just sounds sexy. You just think like, yeah, like baby skin. Totally. And, you know, then when you read the fine print, oh, it's from an apple or from a fern. And it just turns out that we are not fruit. So, you know, shockingly, I mean, there's this huge myth. So you were asked

about myths. I mean, that's kind of what I do on social media as I debunk this. So there was this thing going around a couple months ago about chlorophyll that, you know, you should just drink. Yes, because apparently secretly we're all living the lives of plants. I mean, yes, that's a great theoretical, but the extrapolations that people make, someone just sent me, I'm actually making a video right now to debunk, this woman who is saying for your acne, you know, you should just take a cucumber and like rub it up across you. First of all, it's not really a video that's suitable for work, number one. Number two, I mean, you know, number two, because people walked in on me and I'm watching this video and I saw like a lot of side eye from my. Some kind of like weird fetish.

What did you guys think I was doing here? But it's also just this idea that cutting a cute somehow. And by the way, this isn't even the worst advice. Cucumber actually has some evidence of cutting a cucumber from your fridge and, you know, and, you know, massaging yourself with it, talked about him is not really the best way to deliver the, so, yeah, it just, so much is often extrapolated from so little in skin care. Let's kind of get into that. How much does something like diet affect your skin care, your skin, I'm sorry, if at all. So it's a really fantastic question. And the unfortunate answer is it's not really as black and white as you would have it

believed to just kind of go on TikTok or Instagram because, you know, people are like, well, don't eat this, don't eat that. And you're golden. And the problem is the studies haven't really completely kind of proven that. And there's a really strong case to be made that when you try to be giving people these prescriptive diets to treat their skin. You know, you also really send a lot of people into very bad ways of eating and very disordered sort of eating. And I've seen that enough times that I think it's very good idea to follow generally good advice and my simplest advice for people. And we have a

mutual friend in Danielle Bellardo and she'll love what your cardiologist likes, your dermatologist likes. I want you to get the bright fruits at the bright foods, the antioxidants. And so as you're going to be helpful as a general rule. Eating a well-balanced healthy diet, which doesn't mean excluding any given thing. You can do a healthy diet as a vegetarian. You can do it as a vegan. You can do it as someone who is gluten-free. You can do it as someone who is omnivorous. You can eat whatever you would like. It's just really about balance. But to be more specific to your question, the popular ones I'm asked, you know, the glycemic and if it's just kind of like sugar, sure. I think that if you really made a diet out of Kit Katz, no, great things.

will not follow. The other one that gets a lot of controversy also is milk and dairy because you'll have people who swear on a stack of Bibles that it helped them. And I'm always hesitant to kind of question someone in their direct lived experience because people really do know their bodies and faces. Unfortunately, the mega studies, the meta studies are what we kind of call them an end doctor, just haven't borne out that putting everybody on this kind of set dairy, you know, restriction is going to cure things. Are there people for whom it's a balanced part of our approach? Yes. Are there patients for whom diet is the sole answer? I can't think of any. Certainly not, I should clarify, certainly not with acne. There are skin conditions that are specifically

involved with specific things. So there are skin conditions related to gluten, for example. example, different story for a different day. I'm typically talking about things like acne tend to be the big one where you really see that. So I am traveling this week and I have a few travel essentials that I take with me everywhere. And one of those is AG1 from Athletic Greens. In fact, I'm recording this in the morning. I just woke up. I did my meditation. I had my AG1 and I get this like buzz of energy. I feel like I'm getting everything that I need and I am ready for the day. So if you're wondering what exactly is AG1, well, one scoop of AG1 from athletic greens has 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. And this special blend

of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, aging, all the things. They have these travel packs that I bring with me whenever I travel, like I said, and you just mix it with water, and it's so easy. You feel like you're covering all the bases first thing, and then you can, like, go out and enjoy your day. So AG1 is lifestyle friendly, whether you eat keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free. It contains less than one gram of sugar. It has no GMOs, no artificial anything, and it still tastes really good. And it's just super convenient. It kind of replaces the need to take a bunch of supplements and especially back to the travel thing. When you're traveling, you don't want to be packing like tons of different supplements.

You can just bring these travel packs and it's super easy. So right now, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com slash blonde files. Again, that is athletic Greens.com slash blonde files to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Another huge one obviously is clean skincare, toxic skincare, toxic ingredients, chemicals. Let's get into that one. That especially in my space, quote and quote, you know, I am. I mean, you're right in like in Grand Central of Clean God. Yeah. I use like medical grade skincare and I don't really like I don't do the whole clean, non-toxic versus toxic thing.

And I got a ton of push back on that. I'm sure. Well, I mean, because you're so steeped in wellness and it's just such a part of the culture. So I can certainly imagine you'd be pounded with it. Yeah. Yeah. So is there validity to, you know, chemicals and skincare or ingredients in skincare being things like endocrine disruptors and causing skin conditions like acne and all of that?

Okay. So probably a good place to start is the question of are there chemicals in skin care? And the answer is yes. That is because everything is a chemical. I, you are just human-shaped batches-o-chemical. I mean, that's pretty much what it is. So, yes, there are chemicals and there's this terrible and very insidious thing where, you know, people use that as a way to kind of make things seem scary and make things seem awful.

So I'm about the word synthetic, which is not about it. thing, synthetic just means to make. That is all it means. And somehow it has been turned into this sort of very terrible sounding thing that has no basis in reality. People have to remember that, for example, if you want to use, let's, we went with vitamin C. Vitamin C in order to get from nature is unbelievably difficult on the environment, unbelievably environmentally and friendly, incredibly resource intensive, massively wasteful. Compare that to something you make in a lab, which I will point out, your body does not know the difference. To your body's receptors, the two ingredients are identical. So that's another one synthetic. As for toxic, I mean, I always come

back to a basic underlying premise, which it is a very bad business model in my understanding as, you know, not the tremendous business person, but just a doctor. But my understanding is that it is a very bad idea to kill all of your customers. So if in fact these conglomerates were in fact making skincare slowly but surely killing us all, I mean, it just kind of defies logic to me sometimes when we get into this at this level. The data just isn't there. I mean, the one that always gets beaten up the most is paraben's, which functions as a preservative. That's what parabens are.

They are just preservatives that have actually had a very long and heavy track record of being safe, being used, being used safely with minimal allergy, with using minimal amounts, and providing preservation. One of the problems that we've seen repeatedly with clean is that, you know, in the replacement of these, you know, products with other things, you're getting things that are untested, poorly proven. They have tremendously higher rates of allergy, and it really just isn't matched up to what we know about the safety of these things. In the case of paraben, much of the sort of detriment that caused it was back to this one paper. And it's now from about 17 years ago where

there was a paper where they reported that in some samples of breast cancer tissue, it was found. This has been debunked, including, I will add, by the author of the study, who has said that it was misread and misinterpreted always as this idea that somehow there was this one single demonic thing, i.e. paraben's that caused all hell to break loose. It's not the case. Skin care from reputable companies that you walk in and get that have been clear. They are so safe. And I think the classic example that we always kind of come back to is petrol atom or Vaseline, which somehow I find utterly fantastic because the questions I get all the time about, you know, oh my God, is it another.

The thing people like me love most about Vaseline is that it is inert. It is the most boring ingredient that you have ever encountered. That's what we love about it. It does nothing. It doesn't bother anyone. It's your meek little friend who just agrees with everything. you say, you want to get Chinese, want to get Italian? Sure, whatever you like. It is like this nice, easy-going friend who hurt no one, and people love to beat up on it. And the simple fact is,

you can make anything seem kind of bad if you really want to. And the fact of the matter is here, in this country, it's regulated as a drug. We actually have some of the most stringent protections on it. It's a skin protectant regulated by the FDA. This is the stuff people like me want you to put on your open wounds. What you're putting on your baby's tush? because it's so safe. And yet it just gets torn apart. I mean, it's gasoline. It's not gasoline.

It is a byproduct of the process. But I mean, a byproduct that would, A, go to waste anyway. So it's not actually something. It's the minutest amount of what it is. I mean, I think clearly, clearly as a society, we need to do better in terms of energy and all of those things, conversation for another day. But this idea that somehow not using Vaseline or petrolotum is

going to contribute in any way to that is just a bunch of complete malarkey. So I don't know why. And why am I using the word malarkey? I was watching Joe Biden this morning. I didn't get to your article in the BBC. Because they're in Boston. There you go. Well, I think I think even in Boston we're not uncool enough to use the word malarkey, to be honest, doing discredit to the mean down. It reminds me a little bit of like the medication versus supplements debate kind of in the wellness space where people demonize medication and push supplements or embrace supplements that can also have really harmful effects that are so much less regulated than medication and less tested and all of that. And people don't play the tape all the way through, I think, and realize that. a supplement industry as well is, you know, the wellness industry is multi-billion dollar, maybe more industry. So that's for profit also. I cannot love what you just said anymore.

Because what's amazing to me is how people will say exactly what you just said. And then look at supplements where they're saying, oh, are you finding that you're having, you know, breakouts? Are you looking for a longer erection? Are you looking for glowing? These are all, what do you think is in this non-regulated jar? Things that mess with your hormones. you're paying top dollar for as opposed to drugs, which undergo the most rigorous. It is absolutely amazing to me how just we've been taken down this road and people somehow, God, I love what you just said so much. I will be stealing it because it is so right on this idea that the people who are often planting these seeds of fear have an agenda to them. I mean, it's always amazing

to me. Someone's telling you, well, you know, this is this terrible, terrible thing. don't worry, link in bio, we have the solution. You know, I have the book that will sell it for you. I have the blender that will make the smoothie for you. I have the diet plan you can join. So, you know, I always contend and suggest to people one of the best ways is if you're really suddenly hearing someone give you this fearing, fearful kind of story, something to be afraid of, this, this, this, especially when it kind of doesn't go with the scientific kind

of consensus, you know, wait 30 seconds and just see. if maybe just maybe they're selling you the solution. Be very wary of people and their false prophecies who are then selling you the solution. Because that's 90% of it right there. Yeah, and this is like a conversation for another day too, but that's a lot of the quote unquote functional world is that there's something wrong with everything else

or everything that you're doing. But we know and we have the answer. And it really preys on people who are vulnerable. So, yeah, definitely something. So that's what I mainly debunked now, or just things people send me in. Someone sent me this video and the person in it is very popular in your neck of the woods. Talking about why people get dark under eye circles.

Now, as it happens, unfortunately for this particular fellow, I am a board started by Derminthalities. They know I figured too about actually what causes dark circles under the eyes. And there's a pretty clear subset of reasons. But the spiel went into, you know, Well, it's your liver is, is feeling sluggish and your adrenals are lazy. And we ended up with through this very bizarre pathway that, you know, your blood becomes toxic. And that's why you get underized circles.

And it just, the debunking was very simple. We have a name for what we call when your blood gets toxic. It's called becoming septic. And the usual endpoint to that is not dark underized circles, but, you know, death. So toxic blood is not something solved by juicing. Toxic blood is getting your ass to an emergency department as quickly as possible. Do not pass go. Do not turn on the blender.

Just get yourself to an emergency room. Oh, my gosh. I haven't seen that video, but I'm guessing that the solution was celery juice, maybe. Is it that person? It's almost like you spend a career in wellness. Yes, some magic potion celery juice. And, you know, of course, other things, that are not understood by medicine yet.

Medicine has not caught up yet. We're waiting until just the right time. I'll just tell a little anecdote about that. I started getting really bad tinnitus a couple years ago. I never really figured out what the cause was. My doctor said maybe it was post-viral because I was really sick before and then I flew. I also have TMJ and like a worn down. temper, whatever, bones. So who knows? But when it was, when it started, I was desperate to find a

solution because it was just so unbearable. It still is sometimes. Yes. And I went down that rabbit hole and I bought one of those books because I was so desperate, even though I know so much better. And I was like, yes, okay, I'm going to drink my celery juice in the morning and then I'm going to eat radishes all day. I was eating radishes all fucking day. Can never eat enough. And I can never eat enough. radish in my life. But you've just tapped into something so deep and profound and sinister. And, you know, you have to remember that the thing that I think makes me like my skin crawl with this kind of stuff is the people who are, you know, these are not stupid people. These are not people who, these are often people at their most vulnerable moments or at their most desperate. I mean,

I had 10th for a week post-firal. I wanted to jump out of a window. So my heart goes out to because it's awful. And I mean, but there's no, it's not a coincidence that so often they get women when they're pregnant. They get people who have young children. I mean, it's this idea that, I mean, I don't think I've had a lower point in medical practice than when I encountered a patient, wonderful, health-conscious person who exercised who was weeping.

convinced that the cancer she had was from the products that she was using. And I mean, I pray that the people who caused her to have that pain meet their maker one day. That is my, I wish for them, because they deserve everything they've brought. But the idea that you are marketing based on someone's suffering and someone's fear and this idea that, you know, the healthcare system has many flaws. And we certainly have a lot of things we could do a lot better in our health care and making sure everyone has access and making sure all of those things. But to then weasel in there and try to fill those voids with fear. And it's just, it's just something so awful and evil.

And like you say, it's, we all know better. My first pregnancy, I'm sitting here drinking a snapple. I wouldn't have a snapple. I mean, like I really know better. And, you know, you just, you hear it often enough and people look at you funny and, you know, the server is kind of looking at you like, are you drinking coffee? I mean, one of the biggest things that I get constantly asked online are can pregnant women use this? Can pregnant women use that? Can pregnant women use soap? I mean, what are we doing? What is going on here? I mean, no, you should not use things that are, you know, distinctively known to cause issues. But that does not mean that you have to hide, you know, undergrimely. ground in a bunker for nine months. This is just, we make people utterly crazy. And it just,

it's, it's also not, this stuff goes bad. I mean, it's, you start with questioning, you know, your body lotion. And that's how we end up with a lot of other things being questioned that really aren't that good for us as a society. So it matters that this stuff is, is out there and that, you know, sell this magic potion or drink this magic potion. You know, a hundred years ago, you know, they thought was the cure all for everything? What? Cocaine. It was in cough syrup.

They were giving it to babies. I am not making this up. Ten years ago, I would have agreed with that statement. Tusha. Well play. But yeah, a hundred years ago, it was what you would give your five-year-old who had a cough. I mean, we learn, we do better, we improve. But, you know, they had people who were, you know, the old medicine show and the trucks came

through and it's not different. So we kind of touched on this in the beginning, but how can somebody navigate maybe the information that they're being fed about this stuff and what's actually valid, if that makes sense, you know, without going to PubMed necessarily in researching ingredients and their effects on the body? I mean, is it just, do you have any advice for people? I have a few, actually. So I think one very important thing is that you vet the sources of your information.

And, you know, there's so many places to get information from. I think it's really vitally important to go to several of those that are actually reliable and able to give useful and good information. So I have actually another post on this, which is just reliable sources of actually good information. And it's generally going to be things that are like in specific indications of illnesses, they're almost always often societies like the Rosatia Foundation or things like that where you can go and get information like that. The American Academy of Dermatology has a plethora of patient-friendly user-friendly information. And even on social media, I always encourage people to really look at a

broad array of information. You don't necessarily really want to pang your head on any one person. It's really not that different from trip advisor and checking out a hotel. You know, getting more information and crowdsourcing, I find to be really helpful and really useful. And what you'll notice is there are always outliers, same as with the hotel. There's the one guy who had the horrible problem and the roof leaked and there's the other person who somehow managed to meet and marry the head, whatever. But everybody in between is where you get the real story from. And it's the same kind of thing with skin care and skin information. I think if you really broaden your horizons and don't just listen to one source or one set of information.

And then I think the other thing is what we were talking about, which is really be wary of what someone's ulterior motives are. If someone is selling you a product, that doesn't mean they're automatically bad, but it means you put that somewhere in the file as you're processing, the information. If someone is convincing you something is horrible because only they have the solution, that's kind of meaningful. Listen to that. That's probably something to also pay attention to. I think you can also find that it's very important to realize who you don't want to get information from. Once you figure that out, I think about 90% of your issues go away very, very quickly.

That's a great tip. And you have so much information on your Instagram page. And so everybody should go there and check it out. Where can everybody find you, find more information, all of that? For more information, I was saying, so the AAD, the American Academy of Dermatology, skincancer.org, the Skin of Color Society has great information. The British Dermatology Foundation. These are all sources that have fantastic free resources written for the regular person.

They're not meant in doctor. My personal plug, thank you, would be at Rinella, R-A-L-L-A-M-D. I principally am on Instagram, but that is my candle elsewhere. I just don't really tend to do as much elsewhere. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming. It was so fun talking to you. Such a pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me. 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 Lorry.