Well with Arielle Lorre - 378: The Internal and External Causes of Acne & Hidden Habits That Are Affecting Your Skin with Danielle Gronich and Kayleigh Christina

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Danielle Gronich is an esthetician and co founder of Clearstem Skincare, along with holistic nutritionist and acne expert Kayleigh Christina. They join the show to discuss the internal and external causes of acne, including specific foods, supplements and sneaky ingredients in our diets and topical products that contribute to breakouts. They share how to map the acne on your face to know what is likely causing it, their takes on trends like beef tallow and castor oil and the ideal morning and nighttime routines for clear, glowy skin from within.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.Go to clearstem.com/WELL and use code WELL at checkout for 20% off. 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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would auto-hue without your rice-adviseur or SunnyCars. The following podcast is a dear media production. In a world of ever-changing wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel Lorry and I'm going to explore this with you.

I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I am so excited about today's episode because it really is kind of this comprehensive guide to skincare, to clear skin, and also to anti-aging or pro-aging, however you want to look at it. But I'm talking to Danielle and Kaylee. They are the founders of Clearstem. Clearstem, of course,

is an amazing skincare line. It helps you treat acne and aging at the same time without using skin irritants, parabins, thallates, or poor clogging ingredients. So if you've dealt with breakouts, you know that the typical acne products dry you out and damage the skin. We talk about this in the episode, all of the crazy things that we've done when we had acne to try to dry it out, including but not limited to using toothpaste on our face, using head and shoulders, even using jacuzzi water on our faces to try and clear up that acne. So the three of us have been there. And I really love their entire line because it's clean, it's comprehensive, it's an all in one approach. It addresses, like I said, both acne and aging without compromising your holistic health.

And we just have so much fun in this episode talking all of the things that contribute to acne and breakouts, both internally and externally. So we talk about diet, we talk about sneaky foods and ingredients like stevia that might not be causing your skin to break out directly, but are actually impacting your hormones. We talk about how food impacts hormones. So a lot of people think they have hormonal acne and they go on medication to treat the hormones, but they're not addressing what is causing the hormonal imbalance, which could be something like their diet. It could be supplements. We talk about ingredients and supplements that we might be taking that can cause us to break out. We talk about topical products

and ingredients, of course, that contribute to breakouts. We also talk trends like castor oil and beef tallow and so, so much more. I learned so much from this episode and just had such a blast recording this. So I know you guys are going to love it too. And I do have a code if you guys want to try Clearstem for 20% off your first order. When you go to Clearstem.com slash well and use the code well. So enjoy Danielle and Kaylee from Clearstam. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. We're excited to be back two years later. I know. I'm excited to have you guys back. Yeah. We were just talking about what angle we wanted to talk about when it comes to acne and skincare. And I think, you know, it's really great to have a general overview because there's so many misconceptions when it comes to acne. And I think that a lot of people have experienced this where they feel like they're doing everything right and they're still struggling with acne. And I've learned so much from you guys. and listening to you guys on other podcasts. So maybe we can just start at the beginning

and then we can get into some of the more niche stuff. Absolutely. God, it was almost three years ago. So, okay, you have grown so much and I'm sure your audience has to. So we'll just remind everyone like why we are the experts in acne. We both struggle with acne. We're both extremely acne prone.

I had a really long and traumatic, like decades long battle with cystic acne. Got really bad when I went off to college, like talking cystic acne, face, neck, chest, back, back of thighs. You can imagine what that's like when you're trying to date and become the adult, you know, when you go off to college. So it was really traumatic and, you know, dictated a lot of like how I saw myself and kind of how I grew up and was constantly in doctor's appointments, constantly on medications, spent years on antibiotics, years on sparyinolactone, did acutane three separate times. My acne would come right back every single time within like a month or two because of poor

clogging ingredients in my skin care, but nobody was having the conversation back then. So basically I went through all of that with my skin. And after I was 30 and the third round of acutane failed, so I was like, I'll have to figure this out myself. I happen to have a biology background. Studied biology, genetics, and immunology. So I knew I could figure it out. I just needed that particular information. So I went back to school, became an estetician and made my soul focus, acne and sponged a lot of information. Worked at med spas for like a year just to learn everything about the industry, and then I started San Diego Acne Clinic. Still have that clinic today. It's been almost 11 years, and we have an insane success rate, just clearing acne, and we put all

of that into Clearstem. And I met my angel co-founder, Kaylee, as one of my first patients. And when I met Danielle, I had never known anyone who had had a similar story to me. Now I feel like people are very open and vulnerable and social for their skin journeys, their health journeys. But at the time, I was one of those people who hadn't aggressively struggled with acne. I had typical teenager acne, but in my mid-20s, decided to get off birth control, and my whole skin just completely erupted. Bright red cystic acne of both sides of my cheek, down my neck. And I was working a full-time corporate job, but I had gone to get my certification nutrition

on the side and integrative health practitioner. So I was putting myself through so many different protocols. But I feel like everything I learned was just really focused on weight loss or gain or macros or well-balanced diet. But nowhere did I learn about acne or any of the nuances of acne or even how, yes, acne is internal, but there also is a lot of external causes of acne. And that's something that's not covered when you go to someone who's focused on the internal. And so I was trying so many different diets, so many protocols, every skincare you could possibly imagine that marketed towards acne from DIY at home to clean.

to, I don't even want to say toxic because it's more just like traditional, conventional, right? It's like conventional acne treatments. I had tried at all. And I really leaned in on the clean. I had no idea that clean did not mean acne safe. Clean does not mean acne safe. And so, you know, here I am rubbing coconut oil all of my face. And coconut oil is a notorious pork laugger and I was making it worse. So fast forward, I had struggled for about a year. I eventually went to the doctor for it. My only solutions that were given to me was go back on birth control, go to antibiotics, spiroinolactone, or acutane. I truly wanted to get the root cause. I understood why those things were being prescribed to me, but no one could answer what was causing this internally. So I decided to not go the prescription route. Finally,

I found Danielle at San Diego Acne Clinic, and she cleared my skin in two months. And the most revolutionizing thing to me was how simple acne care can be, but how overwhelmed we are with so many different options, avenues, and opinions, it really does distill down to just a few things. And that's what we really like to focus on and educate about is that acne and solving acne, clearing your skin doesn't have to be overwhelming. There is a bit of a checklist to it. And some of it takes time and it takes discipline. but you can clear your acne on a simplified approach. You don't have to jump on every single

trend. You don't have to, if you don't want to, be on a prescription for years to just mitigate your acne. What a lot of people don't realize is that prescriptions don't work right away. You have to give it like three to six months. And even if you're on acutane, like the process to get on it requires you to be on two different types of birth control and take antibiotics prior to. And then And after that, it's like, you know, usually a six-month course of treatment. And it generally gets much, much worse before it gets any better. And it's really intense to go through. So the thing that people don't realize is that you can do that route and decide, like, okay, I'm done.

I'm done trying all these DIY protocols. I'm just going to do the meds. It still takes time and it's still going to come back if you're using poor clogging ingredients or having the same triggers in your diet or the same underlying condition. So you can't just like take the batteries out of the smoke alarm. you know, aka like go on spyrinal lactone or something like that or, you know, birth control for your acne and expect the root cause to not be there the moment you get off. And a lot of the times actually the root cause is made worse because it's been ignored this whole time. And if the root cause

is something in your diet, like eggs, eggs is a huge trigger for people, especially cystic acne in the lower face. It looks hormonal. But it can be just like your lymphatic system clogged up from eggs. You can do a bunch of acutane. And then if your diet still contains that, you can still break out, like immediately. And that's kind of what happened to me too. Mine was mainly caused by by poor-clogging ingredients in my products. I think that's what most people's acne is caused by, or at least in a large part being contributed to. So that's why we made no poor-clogging ingredients, the whole ethos of our line. So let's break down some of those topical ingredients and then some of the common internal causes, because we all hear things like hormones and gut health. And as far as

foods go, you know, I think that dairy is a common one that people know, sugar, but there are some more hidden things. So let's break down the external and the internal. Yes, the internal. Okay, so there's diet. Internal is really important because even if your acne is, quote, hormonal, your diet impacts your hormones. Everything you do impacts your hormones. And that conversation is completely ignored in most conventional doctors visits, right? The average physician gets between 11 and 20 hours of any nutritional education in their entire program. It's just not what our medical system focuses on. So people go see their derm or their doctor about their acne. They're told it has something to do with hormones and they have no other information or next step after that.

What we know now is that our food impacts our hormones drastically. Sugar impacts our hormones. Sugar impacts our sleep quality, which then impacts our hormones. Hydration impacts our hormones. Dairy is an acne trigger because it contains certain hormones as IGF1, hormones. So if we think that our food doesn't directly impact our hormones, we need to go back to step one and realize that food is the medicine and also the answer to a lot of these things. I like to view it as a checklist. I like to say we do because we put our checklist out there all the time on social to remind people, like how to go through it. So if you're looking at the checklist and categories of, and let's start with internal, food, supplements, and overall

stress on your body. So on the food side of things, and I'm going to preface by saying that, all of this has context to it. I feel like, you know, people love the sound bites. We're like, never have this and never have that. We are speaking in the context of acne. So someone that is really struggling with their skin, all of these foods that I'm going to list off contribute to acne for most people. And they are really the biggest internal food triggers for people struggling with acne. So if you're struggling with acne, this doesn't mean you can't ever have these foods again. but it is really helpful to remove an elimination diet for a few months and then bring them back in one by one to see how your skin reacts. So dairy is at the top of that list. That is a huge trigger for

people. And if people are already dealing with gut issues, dairy is just going to exacerbate it. So dairy's up there. The biggest thing to not forget about dairy, because some people think, oh, I'm not having milk or cheese, weigh protein, that is dairy. And colostrum. Colostrum has, you know, taken the world by storm recently. It's a big new trend. Colostrum is dairy. So if you have removed dairy from your diet and you're still putting colostrum in your coffee or smoothie every single day, you are still adding dairy. So dairy's a big one. Eggs are the next one. Again, you don't have to give it up forever, but eggs really, really contribute to people's acne. And quality matters when it comes to what we're putting in our bodies. But as far as eggs go for acne, quality actually doesn't matter. You could be

having the best pasteurase, corn-free, soy-free, all the things, or you can have conventional, they're still going to contribute to acne from the egg perspective in a similar way. It has to do with the type of protein. Yeah, exactly. So you have eggs, you have dairy. Gluten is up there for people. This one really depends. Gluten is inflammatory, so it could contribute to people's acne.

Some people will get sinus issues. Some will get joint pain. Some will get eczema rashes. is. So gluten is an iffy one for people, but I always recommend it's something great to remove and just seeing how your body reacts to it. Process sugars. So just taking an audit of everything you're eating on a daily basis. What is in your greens powder? What's in your protein powder? What's in the little bars that you grab when you run out of the house? And just seeing where you are maybe overdoing it with the processed sugars or even overdoing it with the sugar alternatives and just cleaning that area up a little bit.

Another big one we've seen recently is overuse of stevia. So a lot more studies are coming out about stevia in high amounts the impact it has on progesterone. It can serve as a bit of a progesterone blocker and has been seen in certain studies to act as a bit of a birth control for people. So overuse of stevia has actually even been contributing to some fertility issues. So it's definitely something to look at. I don't think stevia is a bad. thing. It's just now in everything it seems like. So how we were having stevia 10 years ago, three drops in coffee. It is now in every greens powder, protein powder, electrolyte powder. So it really is just overuse of stevia. And I would say the last one would be ashwaganda and Chlorella and spirulina. So all of these can contribute to testosterone in different ways and have impact on your hormones, and it's more the overuse. By no means are these bad things. It is just the overuse in which people are having them in high amounts in certain powders. Again, you may see Ashwaganda in a greens powder and a protein powder because it's a part of all these different

complexes. So that's a bit of a checklist on the food side to go through, and then we can hit supplements next. Yeah, a lot of people are taking supplements. I don't know anyone who isn't taking a stack of supplements, myself included. So there are four common ones that nearly everyone is taking that have a side effect on hormones that they weren't anticipating. And I see this all the time in my clinic. It's kind of surprising, but too much vitamin D. Most people are legitimately deficient. We need more sunshine. We absolutely do. It's critical. But when you take a high amount in supplement form, because you were told you were deficient, that's when things go wrong. That's when you're getting like six to eight times what you would normally get in a day. And if you don't have

the right cofactors, it's kind of just building up with nowhere to go. That can spike testosterone and also interfere with a couple other enzyme processes. And it creates hormonal acne on the chin right where you'd have a goatee. I always tell my clinic patients, dairy and D is where you'd have a goatee. That's a good one. That's literally. Literally. It's those two things 99% of the time. Why in that spot? That's so interesting. It's because we have really deep hair follicles there. It's right where you'd have a goate if you were at. I don't know. guy. So yeah, and then the next hormonal spot is above the lip. And that is zinc is another supplement that I, every single year I see this during cold and flu season and we really saw it during COVID.

Everyone was taking a ton of zinc. You don't want to be deficient in it because that can throw your hormones off. But when you start supplementing with it, and it's a standalone zinc supplement, it generally has triple the amount you would normally get in a day. That can spike testosterone. And this is not like information that you can't easily go verify. Like it's well known. It's just never put in this content. for the acne consumer. So if you're taking a supplement for immunity or focus that has a lot of zinc in it, check the amount. If it's under like 150% RDV, you're probably fine. But if you're getting mysterious acne on your upper lip, it's definitely from that. If you notice that and it's in your supplements, that is what's causing it. Another supplement that causes hormonal acne is vitamin B12.

It's in obscenely high amounts in a lot of different things. It's in energy drinks. It's in focus products, anything that's marketed for, like, your brain or memory or focus is generally going to have a ton of B12. And it can be in doses. We've seen it as high as, you know, 80,000 percent RDV, up to 275,000 percent RDV. We've seen crazy. Crazy amount. And it does. In one dose? In one serving of something. This was in a really intense prenatal. So, yeah, and people, companies put that amount in there because it does give you energy. It can spike testosterone and, like, give you that energy boost that you want. It can also break you out like crazy right along your jawline. And you will be correct in thinking it's hormonal acne. And then you'll go to your derm and you get

put on spiroinolactone. But really, it's being caused by your B12. In my clinic, I advise my patients, if they're breaking out in that area, stop taking any supplement that has B12. Because especially if you're not like vegan, you're getting enough of it through your animal protein, right? And everyone's eating steak nowadays. So basically, if you have a supplement that has a ton of B12, stop taking it right now and then give it like give your body about a month and a half to detox it out and you should watch your cystic acne on your jawline go way down. The other one that causes acne, not necessarily for a hormonal reason, but for a skin protein production reason is biotin. Most people are catching on to this. I don't know. Do you think it's common knowledge that biotin

can create acne? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's in so many hair growth products. It's in all of them. Yeah. Yeah. And it'll be in again obscenely high amounts like 10,000 percent RTV. And a lot of people start taking a neutrofoil for hair, and then they, you know, DM us because they're breaking out. And we're like, it's because of the biotin. There are other things you can take for hair that don't do that and that are actually better for you. We may or may not be formulating that right now. But yeah, biotin's a huge one. So, you know, just because it's for hair, skin and nails, that doesn't mean it's going to, like, help your acne.

It just basically, biotin can stimulate your keratin production and hyper-carotin production is part of why we get acne in the first place. So that's why it's like gasoline on the fire. It's so interesting because you listen to this and you can see how people get into the situation that they're in thinking that they're being healthy and doing things that are good for their bodies. And, you know, really it's just fueling this issue. Yeah. Well, our bodies are so complex. You know, it might be really helpful for two or three chemical processes in the body and it might have an unwanted side effect on another. Like nothing is 100% perfect for 100% of the people all the time. When I met Danielle, like I viewed myself as really healthy. I was making egg bowls every single day for. breakfast. I had a stack of vitamins I was taking and I just didn't realize the nuances with acne, you know? And it's just like, it's tinkering with a few of those things. It's auditing your supplements and then removing eggs, dairy, and gluten, if that's your choice for a period of time. Yeah, the elimination diet is huge. If you go and work with a naturopath or a functional medicine person, they're going to help you first and foremost by having you do elimination diets with those things anyway.

So we're basically giving you like the first half of your functional. medicine protocol right there. Eliminate dairy for, I think two months is like what they recommend. Dairy for two months, soy for two months, eggs for two months. And then they go down the list. They include like nuts and all that. But for acne specifically, it really is dairy and eggs that are really getting people. Glutin, I would say it's about 30% of people where that's their main trigger. It's not everyone, but it is the main trigger for about 30% of people. Interesting. So let's talk about topical ingredients and poor clogging ingredients because again, like you said, a lot of people are like, okay, I'm going to switch to clean.

because clean means healthy and safe. And a lot of those ingredients are pore clogging. Same thing with makeup. So what are some of those common ones to look out for? Yeah. So clean, such a like trick on people. You think you're doing the best thing and getting products that in your mind, like, it couldn't be bad for my pores because it's clean, but it actually has nothing to do with acne.

So the main core clogging ingredients that you'll find in clean and organic skincare are coconut oil, like what Kaylee was saying earlier when she was on her natural kick and was doing coconut oil everywhere. Literally everywhere. Oh, my God. The extractions we got out of you. Oh, my gosh. So coconut oil is the top one. Avocado oil.

Great to eat. Don't want it on your face. But I do see that in a lot of clean skin care. And then algae derivatives. And then shay butter is also in there. What about castor oil? I feel like now everybody's putting castor oil and like beef tallow and on the castor oil.

It's fine, actually. It'll just make your facial hair gross. Yeah. It's great like on your eyelashes. Yeah, I do it on my eyebrows. On your eyebrows. But then I have a mask. Like a silk mask that it's not moving around my pillow.

Yeah. Believe it or not, castor oil, it's very thick, but it's not pork-locking. Interesting. Yeah. I just wouldn't use it as a facial moisturizer because it will make your hair grow. And then you'll be like shaving a little more. Yeah, we don't want that kind of growth. And then beef tallow, that's the new one, right?

Beef tallow's new. One, it's, I'm great like cooking with beef tallow as long as it's from a really quality source. But just reminding everyone, it is like rendered fat from an animal. It's the stuff left over in your pan that hardens. Yeah. So, like, if it's from a really quality source, feel free to cook with it. It's great. It has a high smoke point.

But if it's not from a quality source, the same way you're getting like eggs or meat, you're rubbing a really low quality animals rendered fat where a lot of toxins were stored in for that animal on your face. Besides the point, the breaking out part of it. So when we're looking at pork clogging ingredients, we look at them on a scale from zero to five. Zero, meaning, it will not break you out. Five, very, very high probability it is going to be breaking you out. Beef tallow falls around a two, which means it has about a 40% chance of breaking you out. So that is why there are some people that swear by beef tallow.

No, it's so amazing for my skin, my skin thrives on it. It's the same people that can rub coconut oil on their face and not break out. But the community that we speak to is the acne consumer. So the acne consumer, I don't want a 40% chance of something breaking me out. I'm just going to choose a better solution. So there's a lot of other great moisturizers besides beef tallow to be putting on your skin. And, you know, it is different. Like, I've heard it's really great for baby eczema.

And so, like, we're really speaking about those acne prone parts of your body, which is mainly your face, neck, and chest and back. You can do beef tallow on your knees and your feet. Go for it. If that's your thing. Have fun. Yes. You're romantic.

You're going to get that ring. Smells great. I never thought about the smell. I've never actually tried it. It's regular beef tallow would smell exactly what you think it would smell like. So if it doesn't smell like that, it's because it's whipped with fragrances in it. But yeah, I don't want to smell like that. Every decade, this is so funny because being an estuition, we all just kind of like have to sit back and laugh because every decade there will be some trend like this that gets like boosts.

And, you know, nowadays the social media, it's just wild. Anything shocking gets boosted, and then people can, like, make money off of it by talking about it. And suddenly it's this whole storm. But, yeah, Beep tallow is the one of this decade. Last decade, it was the coconut oil craze. Everyone was rubbing it. And coconut oil is really, really bad if you're acne prone because, and again, this is

just topically, it's a five. On that scale of zero to five, it's a hard five. And I've noticed that it hardens into, like, this orange ball of wax. And it will just stay there. and it's so thick that you can't sweat it out. That's part of how we should be thinking about poor cloggers. If I'm looking at this oil and it's solid at room temperature, is that thicker than my own sweat? Yeah, it is. I probably can't sweat this out very well. It's going to clog my pores. That's the most simplistic way for us to be thinking about these random oils and fats and things like that that that we may want to experiment with. But coconut oil will, if it's in your skin care or your hair care, it will just keep you broken out no matter what.

I love the concept of Dr. Brunner's body wash, and it's fantastic for certain people, but if you get body acne, make sure you avoid it. Something that I've heard you talk about too is conditioner, especially like people think, okay, acne, my face, they've hyper focused on what they're using on their face. And you've talked about how like what you're using in your hair. I would imagine hair oils and things like that, but especially conditioner because it's what getting, I mean, my hair right now, you can see is on my face, on my jaw. and then if you're sleeping with your hair down, you know, it's getting all over your pillow. Conditioner is sneaky. That was getting me really bad because I was the normal consumer when I found Danielle. So I didn't know what poor cloggers were. I had heard of non-comedogenic, but I could, if you asked me to

describe it, I couldn't tell you what it meant. It was just a marketing term like that's what you're supposed to look for. But I would have never thought poor cloggers, hair conditioner, hair conditioner, acne. My conditioner that I was using when I found Danielle had like many notorious poor cloggers in it. Most conditioners do. And if conditioner's breaking you out where you'll notice it is heavier on your sleep side or on your neck and upper back. For some people, there's scalp and their hairline too. So some people get aggressive scalp acne. I've actually seen a lot of men that get scalp acne. Like my friends tell me their partners are struggling with it. And then they switch over to our shampoo and conditioner and their partner's scalp acne.

acne completely goes away. But upper back acne, neck, hairline, and sleep side is where it'll really get you. And it doesn't really matter if you wash your pillowcase every single night. It doesn't really matter if you sleep with a hair bonnet on. Because at the end of the day, you're moving, you're sweating, it's touching your face. There's no reality where our hair, like if you have longer hair that it's never not touching your face at some point. And with your pillowcase, pillowcases always get demonized to be always joke. Because it's like you don't need to buy a $200 pillowcase and wash it every single night, you just need to be using hair conditioner and hair products that don't have poor clogging ingredients because it'll rub on your pillow and then

you toss and turn throughout the night and it gets on your skin. Yep, this happened to me again. I ran out of my dry shampoo when I was traveling, so I popped into the pharmacy and I got one, I won't say the name of it, but it had isopropal mirror state. A lot of dry shampoos have isopropal mirror state, so that's like one of the main ingredients to look out for with dry shampoos. And it was far down in the ingredient deck. That's why I didn't see it.

And sure enough, within a couple of days, I'm getting these random little hard ones, like by my ears and only on my right side. Most people are right side sleepers just because of the way that blood flows. So if you're like, if you feel your face right now and you have more bumps on your right side, there is something in your hair products that is working against you. So we make it easy for people, though. You can just copy and paste the ingredient deck to whatever you're using into our free checker. It will tell you in red if there's a pork locker. And then, you know.

Yeah. So helpful. Well, when I was struggling with acne, it was back in 2022. It started suddenly. And I had no idea how to treat it. And so I was like, well, maybe it's fungal acne. So I'm using head and shoulders on my face. And then I was like, well, I'm breaking out. So I can't be using anything moisturizing because my pores were so enlarged and clogged. And so I was not hydrating at all. And then I was using all these harsh things. My skin barrier was F. What were you using? I don't even remember at that time. You were you on retinae? No, I wasn't on retinae. I don't remember. Like, quote-unquote medical grade. I think I was using some ZO or ZO and some skin suitical, like things like that that that I just had that I was like, maybe this and maybe that. And I'm like, I'll dry it in there.

You know, toothpaste and I'll sit in the sun, like all of these things. Been there done that. Literally. Yep. So let's talk about some of the misconceptions around how people think of treating acne. And then also let's talk about the importance of the skin barrier because that's ultimate, right? Skin barrier is ultimate. Yes. We love taking care of the barrier because that is how you age well and clear some. We're like the first brand that's both anti-aging and anti-acne simultaneously. And that's never been done before because the old way of thinking acne, one of the myths around it is that you have to like basically blow torch it to kill the bacteria. That's where you're relying on like benzoporoxide and like really harsh clearing pads. Hot water. Hot water. Sun. Yeah. Oh my God. This is so embarrassing. But I'm to tell you guys, when I was in the throes of it, I was so desperate. I got jacuzzi water from my mom's public jacuzzi and was washing my face with that. Because you're like, it'll kill all the bacteria. It'll kill the bacteria. It's that we think, truly, I've done it. Same. I was just like, fuck it. I'll try it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we've graduated from that way. Yeah. We noticed it care of I think everybody has been there. Yes, I agree. In some way, shape, or form. We get so desperate that our brains are

really wired to think drying it out, harsh things. If it burns, it works. Like, we're, we're just so trained by that. Scrub it off, burn it off. Well, the thing is, is it will literally scrub it dry. So you have nothing left. Well, those little, like, zapping potions and salicylics and stuff, they have their time in place, but it's also harming the skin right next to the acne that's actually healthy. And the skin right next to that, that's the scar tissue that needs to be babied. So we really have to be thinking of like four different types of skin. You know, we have the active breakout, we have some scar tissue, we have healthy skin, and then we have skin that's, you know, somewhere in the middle, right? So the thing with acne products is they

traditionally just dry you out and that causes accelerated aging. If you're relying on drying things like over relying on benzoporoxide, for example, which is so common, you're going to damage your barrier and you're going to age faster. It makes you get UV. It like magnifies UV damage and it can create hyperpigmentation, hypoigmentation, it can trigger melasma, and it basically just makes you age faster. So then you find yourself being 30, your skin is peeling, your barrier is dry, and you're still breaking out, and now you're just like trying to use anti-aging products, and those have poor clogging fillers, and you're in this cycle. So that's why clear stem exists. So other myths around acne that we love to dispel is you can use moisturizer. You can use

thick moisturizer. It just has to do with the ingredients. Even our thick moisture mask doesn't have poor cloggers in it. And you would feel like it would break you out if you didn't know any better. Definitely. Because it's that rich. Yeah. Because we've been so trained, if you've struggled with acne, we've been so trained to think we can't moisturize, we can't put on thick products. But it's not about the thickness of the product. It's about the poor clogging ingredients inside of it. So you can make a formula that's so thick and nourishing and moisturizing that's going to help rebuild and protect the skin barrier and help to heal the skin without poor cloggers. It just hasn't been done before.

Yeah, we did that. And then we added other things. We want everyone to age well, be clear age well. So you'll find that in all of our products, there's also like collagen stimulators, barrier protectors. We have peptides, plant stem cells, Buccio, which is the natural alternative to retinal. So it gives you that collagen regeneration without the purging that you would get from a traditional retinal and doesn't give you the unwanted sun sensitivity because we're not about that. Yeah. So let's talk about what does work. And obviously your whole line is dedicated. to this and it's so effective. I mean, your before and afters are incredible. But what are like the foundational things topically when it comes to actually treating and healing acne? You want to make sure that you are exfoliating the right amount and the right type for your skin. So expoliation is one of the strongest levers that we have of our skin's behavior, both for acne and anti-aging purposes. So you don't want to do too much. You don't want to do too little consistency is key. Our vitamin scrub is a medium-sized, like, bamboo pearl that doesn't scrape your skin and it sits

in a hydrating base. So it's, like, more of a polish. You're making your skin immediately smoother, making your poor be able to, like, you know, quote, breathe a little bit better and removing the likelihood of congestion by doing a gentle daily scrub. Some people do it daily for like five to ten seconds. Some people do it every other night for like 20 to 30 seconds. Some people just do it a couple times a week when they're feeling it. Everyone's different and it's going to change with the seasons. So there's no perfect recipe. But the right formula that won't damage your barrier is why it works for everybody. And then so that's your physical exfoliant. And then your other exfoliant, your AKA chemical exfoliant is you're going to be your alpha hydroxy formula. And ours is mandelic.

It's a blend of mandelic acid and lactic acid. It also has turmeric in there. It's anti-inflammatory. it physically unclogs your pore. So you would use that after you scrub. If you have a toner, you would use a toner after that. But then, so basically on bare, clean skin, preferably after you've exfoliated with a scrub, you would use mandelic acid. So it goes directly into the pore, unclogs the congestion. It like melts the stuff that's in your pore clogging it.

You leave it alone for about 10, 15 minutes. A lot of people don't know to leave their acids on for about 10 minutes. And then you follow with your next step. The moment you put something else on kind of neutralizes it. So that's why you want to give it that window. That's the only thing you really need to give a window, though. And that one's our clarity serum, the yellow one right now. Yeah.

And what about retinol? So you mentioned Bucciol. Let's talk a little bit about like trinone and retinoles. Tretinoin, I think, is something, or retinae, is something that a lot of people are told as like the Holy Grail for anti-aging and anti-acne. But I think there's kind of a misunderstanding about how it actually works. I've heard you talk about how it's really just hyper exfoliating your skin, which isn't always a good thing. So let's get into that a little bit.

We're not huge fans of it. For some people, they've gotten past the hump and they're in a happy place with their skin. That's fantastic. At the end of the day, just do it works for you. Where we have an issue is that you'll generally get prescribed retinae if you have acne. But the white one, the white cream version actually has isopropyl-miris state in it, which if you are an real acne specialist, you know the isopropal Mirate, breaks people out. So what I've seen and experienced myself personally for the last decade, when people use the white version of retinae, they tend to get a really massive purge.

They will break out like crazy, but for some people, the purge never stops. It'll be seven, eight months later, and they just keep breaking out. And it'll be cystic. And it like may have made some acne a little bit better, but they still have new acne forming. And the scars, this is with both versions. I feel it's too harsh for the scars. So it's, The scar tissue, we don't want to keep exfoliating it with something that's strong. It needs to be babied. So if you are on the retinae path and you're three, four months in and you're not where you want to be and you're like, my skin's not any better, it is not working for you.

Just stop, switch to mandelic acid. It works every time for nearly everyone and it works on every type of acne. And you also get the collagen stimulating benefits that you were hoping for anyway without all the damage and purge and peeling and gnarliness that comes with the stress. strong version of retinae. Another big reason we love Mendelic versus going the Trinoteno and route is Mendelic's getting in there and dissolving the clog versus more of a retinae, just hyper-exfoliating your skin. So you can have your own exfoliation cocktail, again, with the physical scrub that's physically exfoliating it off and then the chemical scrub that's dissolving. We love that because

you can dose yourself up, you can dose yourself down. It plays nice with other things. We're big fans of microneedling and we're big fans of like light peels where where it's necessary in a routine. And you can't really do those things when you're on a retinae. And we have just seen so much lack of education around retinae that people are doing retinae and then they're relying to their esthetic or nurse practitioner and then getting micrneedling or getting a peel or getting a laser and it just completely destroys their skin because they're like, oh, it's not a big deal. or they're using retinae. Yeah, they forgot. They just forgot to mention it. And then they get horrible side effects from their laser.

Or they live in a really sunny place and outside a lot. And if you're using a retinae, you really do have to apply a mineral, not chemical, mineral-based SPF every two hours. Most people aren't doing that. And so there's not proper usage around it and we've seen a lack of education. Okay, so I saw on your Instagram you had a post about like the ideal morning for clear skin. And I love that idea because so many of us. us, myself included sometimes, wake up as soon as our eyes are open, we're looking at our phone,

we're making the coffee or the matcha on an empty stomach, we're off to the races and the email, like all of these things. And that's going to obviously affect our hormones, our cortisol, things like that. So maybe we could walk through the perfect ideal day, like from when you get up, your makeup, what you're doing with your hair, your skin care, any kind of lifestyle things. I don't know if you guys are fans of like red light, things like that for like the ultimate skin. I love that. I'm like the perfect day, wow, this will take all day. I'm like, is it my perfect routine if I need to be working within an hour or if I like can have you?

Because like if I could do what I wanted to all the time, my morning routine would be like three hours. But it can't be because I like to sleep. So I'm not getting out of bed until. I'm not a 5 a.m. waker upper. I was in my early 20s and that just like doesn't serve me in my 30s. I don't get out of bed until 7. So we forget how much stress really does impact acne.

It's many times forgotten. And where we get to really see the impact is we have a membership within ClearSem. And it's everyone who's gone through our blood work. So you have an acne lab panel that people can order. And then everyone that's gone through that because they've been educated so much on their own blood work, we have a membership for them to chat, to share resources. And many times people have done all the things. And the very last thing is addressing their daily stress.

And people just put it off because they think like, oh, me drinking on coffee isn't that big of a deal. And solo one at a time, these things aren't the biggest deal in the world, but compounded. They really do impact our stress levels, which impacts just our energy, our mood, our skin. Are we feeling bloated or not? And so I'd say the perfect routine is really getting eight to nine hours of sleep. I mean, us as women need so much more sleep than nine. And nine, I know, nine is ideal. And we need different sleep during different times of our cycle.

I mean, you know, during some times of our cycle, we need like 10. I get that's not ideal. Like, that's not always achievable for everyone. But I think it's just important to release the pressure from us that we don't have to just sleep six hours and wake up. And if you do have the ability in life to get more sleep and make those changes, definitely prioritize that. I would always prioritize getting sleep over a 5 a.m. workout any day. For us as women, too,

our bodies are a bit more sensitive and they do change with our cycle. So being really calm and gentle to our body, first thing in the morning is going to be the best. So if you truly can avoid looking at your phone for the first 30, at least 30 minutes of day, hour would be ultimate goal. But if you can avoid blue light from your screen so close to your face within the first 30 minutes, It also allows your brain to just think when we pick up our phone and absorb so much information, our brains are so powerful first thing in the morning. And I like leaning into my own thoughts versus everyone else's thoughts first thing in the morning because I notice once I pick that phone up and I'm reading texts and emails and going on social,

my brain is no longer my brain anymore. I am now a servant to everything on my phone. And I find I come up with the greatest ideas and everything when I can just not have any distraction. So eliminating your phone, I tongue scrape first thing in the morning. Toxins build up on our tongue throughout the night. If anyone's into Chinese medicine, there's a lot of fun readings on this subject. But tongue scraping to get all of that out, brushing my teeth immediately. That way, when I drink water first thing in the morning, I'm not drinking back down everything that my body was trying to detox in the middle of the night. And then skincare, super simple in the morning.

kind of depends if I'm working out or not. If I'm working out, I'll usually splash my face with cool water and either use skin spray or a light moisturizer. If I'm not working out, I'll do my full, like, barrier restoring routine. So I'll use like our cell renew. I'll use our moisturizer, hydroglow, and I'll load up on SPF. And if you can do something slower in the morning, that's ideal for a workout. So hit is typically better a little bit like afternoon-ish. But whether it's Pilates or walking or yoga or weight training, definitely best in the morning. And then getting a high protein breakfast in and whatever feels good for you on your style of protein. But trying to get between 20 and 30 grams, I know that can be challenging sometimes.

But at least prioritizing protein over sugar and carbs. Yes, to everything you said. One thing that is so easy, is such an easy switch for people to make, especially with regards to the coffee macha thing, add a scoop of vanilla protein powder to it. That's what I do. I immediately go, I've been alternating between the rise coffee mushroom blend and then a couple other variations of that, between that and macha. Regular coffee doesn't agree with me all that well. It does make me break out, so I'm very careful with it. So I like to do the little blends with the mushrooms in it. So I'll do a huge cup. So it's like mostly water. It's like at least

12 ounces of water straight away. And then, sorry, I just got back from London. So I'm saying things like straight away. It would be British for the rest of this. She's saying pharmacy. I heard that too. I was like, yeah, you're going to the pharmacy. I'm literally still in London time. I woke up at 3 a.m.

Okay, so, yeah, so the biggest cup you can get, fill it with a bunch of water. And then whatever plant milk you're into, I like milk adamia. And macadamia nuts are fantastic for you. So I do that. And then I'll do a little bit of like whatever non-dairy creamer, where you can follow your whimsy, whether it's a lairds or, you know, the vegan cooking. keto one, like whatever. And then I do the Bewell by Kelly protein right now. I'm really into that one. It tastes really good and it doesn't have stevia. So I'll do that and then I'll do some either

matcha or like the functional coffee type things and just sip on that. That way you're not getting so much caffeine in a straight shot. It's a slower delivery. Slower delivery matters for everything, especially first thing in the morning because you're a blank canvas in terms of like your blood sugar. So slower delivery for caffeine means you're not going to have the crash. You're not going to get as much of the unwanted cortisol spike that's associated with early morning caffeine. So I literally just go. And what I've started to do now, I have puppies now. So I take them out first thing in the morning.

And it's great because I'm just sitting outside with them. I'm just like sitting outside. You know, snug as a bug in a rug with the sweats and the ugs and stuff. And just like being outside first thing in the morning, sitting my, sipping my coffee protein concoction. And it's fantastic. And then the five-minute journal, I've been doing that for like 10 years. Sometimes you flow in and out of it.

And that's okay. You can always come back to it. But the five-minute journal is arguably the best five minutes you can spend to have a cascade positive effect on the rest of your day. I like to focus on things that have force multiplier effect that you do it. It's the minimum amount of time and creates the maximum amount of impact. So I generally habit stack those things. That can also include apple cider vinegar. My sweet boyfriend makes me celery juice with parsley in the morning. I love celery juice. Yeah, especially on an empty stomach. And you can do that throughout the day. If you find yourself on an empty stomach, go get some celery juice from whatever juicery is near you. It's really great. And I know it's kind of like associated with like quacky medical medium stuff, but the benefits of it are pretty obvious if you just give it a shot. So I love that. I've been doing that for about two years now. Other things I do to have the perfect skincare day. In the morning, I don't wash my face. That is something that I learned fairly recently. And I think that's an important thing for people with. acne to understand is you don't have to over cleanse, especially in the morning. Once you've understood the poor clogging ingredient concept and you've gotten rid of that, assuming your moisturizer that you went to bed with doesn't have poor cloggers in it, you don't need to do a deep cleanse in the morning. You can just splash off with cool water or do a toner cleanse or a little like clean towel club,

like whatever you want to do, but you don't need to do some gnarly cleanse in the morning. And you never want to use heat because then you're going to strip your barrier and go outside and get UV exposure. So just a gentle splash off in the morning is what I do. And then I follow it with skin spray because I freaking love it. Skin spray is our hypochloris spray that has magnesium and peptides and milk thistle and it has a cooling effect. So that like physically wakes me up. I've been using that to physically wake up in the morning. It's the best. It's on my next day. Yeah. Yeah. I'll just do it first thing in the morning. And it just helps me wake up like caffeine would without the caffeine. Yeah. And as a midday caffeine substitute too. So yeah, it's just a gentle cleanse and that or sorry,

the gentle splashing off cleansing situation and then the skin spray and then depending on what I'm going to be doing, I will generally just do our UR Sunshine mixed with a little bit of foundation. Our UR Sunshine is our SPF. It's 21% zinc, which is like surfer quality zinc. So even if you cocktail it with a little bit of your foundation, you just make your own like custom CC cream and it's amazing. So that's just what I do. It takes less than five minutes and my skin's never been happier. amazing. And what about nighttime? Nighttime is when you want to actually cleanse. Yeah. Because you have

16 hours of sweat, not just, you know, eight hours from the night before, right? So you have sweat, you have debris, you have your, you know, makeup has been oxidized, et cetera. We do need a really good cleanse in the evening. So that's where our gentle, clean cleanser comes in. This cleanser has become like a superstar because it like gets makeup off so well, even eye makeup. And it just hydrates your barrier. Like it hydrates your barrier for even eight hours after you're done washing. Wow. Most of their cleansers, I'll just say it, are garbage. And most people are like, I can't even get my makeup off. So then they're tugging their eyes with a makeup wipe, which is the last thing you want to do. Never tug your eyes again. So at night, you cleanse with gentle clean, gently take off your eye makeup with it. And then just lukewarm water only. And then after that is when you would do your exfoliation, whatever exfoliation you're on that night. You can do the scrub after you cleanse. You can go straight to clarity, whatever works for you. And then before bed, you just do either sell renew or bounce back. I do bounce back because I'm about the wrinkle prevention. I just turned 40 and I don't love doing Botox.

So that's why I do bounce back. And then seal it with hydroglow. I need to get on the bounce back. Oh, we got you. It's fantastic. Put it on the back of your hands too. Oh, yeah. All left over.

What about like? Yeah. Everywhere. You should actually be based in it. Yeah. We'll create a bulk discount. Just pouring your bathtub. Bigger bottle maybe?

Yeah. Hands, neck, and chest are so overlooked. So all my excess skin care, I'm always. Of course, bringing down neck and chest. but then rubbing on my hands too. So I feel like that's the first thing to age for a lot of people. And I want to preserve my hands just like I am my face. Yeah.

Amazing. Well, I could talk to you guys forever. But we're out of time. So tell everybody where they can find you guys and find Clearstem. You can find all things across social channels where Clearstem skincare. And then our website is just Clearstem.com. We have our poor clogging checker on there. we, if you're someone that loves to dive deeper and read blogs, we have so much blog and blogs

and education on our website, as well as a skin quiz that offers up some of the items from the checklist that we talked about today. So when you go through the skin quiz, not only does it recommend products, but it recommends a lot of the food, supplement, lifestyle eliminations that we talked about today. So if you'd like those in a bit more of a written form, take the skin quiz. And then Danielle and my socials are both also filled with a lot of education information. So Danielle is Danielle the Acme Guru. And mine is Kaylee Christina. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode and if you like the show in

general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Lori. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes, and we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch in entirety. Thanks for listening. Please note that 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.