Latest / Skin Anarchy / E.368: Rosacea Management Skincare That Is Balanced in Nature & Nurture ft. MeridaSKIN

Transcript

E.368: Rosacea Management Skincare That Is Balanced in Nature & Nurture ft. MeridaSKIN · Skin Anarchy

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Elephant 4 has arrived.
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• 0:25
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• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi guys, welcome back to Speaker Anarchy.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is Ekta, and I have a wonderful line with me today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a wonderful brand and the founder.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm super excited to introduce you guys to Shannon Johnson, who is the founder of Merida Skin.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show, uh, Shannon.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be hosting you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so pleased to be here with you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's it's an honor to, you know, host you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I really love your line.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to get started though, with um understanding, like, you know, what really got you into skin health, the beauty industry.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you could walk us down memory lane about your your career and just how everything kind of transpired.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: So um I I'll confess that I haven't quite got this down to an elevator pitch.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: So you can interrupt me whenever you need.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's um yeah, the really simple um answer is that Merida's skin emerged as the solution to my own skin problem.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I developed a rose, uh I developed rosacea um at 30.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: And that was my first real experience with problem skin.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: I had pretty easy skin up until that point.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I was a nurse practitioner, um, albeit a fairly new nurse practitioner at 30.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was working in primary care.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I had some experience um treating skincare problems, but relied on my dermatology consultant colleagues a lot as well.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: So kind of knew what I was supposed to do for my own rosacea and went through the whole algorithm and you know, went through the metronidazole gel and metronidazole cream and azoleic acid and doxycycline, uh, you know, the oral tetracyclines, and frankly had no success.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um it was a really frustrating uh journey.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, you also have to take care of your skin, you know, at least a little bit with I was never one to follow a regimen really, but you know, I did wash my face every day and I did put moisturizer on.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: So um I just kept going through this revolving door of products, trying to find, you know, something I could wash and moisturize my face with that didn't seem to make it angry.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it was just a really frustrating few years and quite embarrassing, frankly.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I got to the point where I just was paying out of pocket for laser therapy and was willing to try anything.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: There was no amount of money that I was not willing to spend if I had it to try to deal with the problem.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I, you know, I'm uh an avid uh consumer of medical literature because I'm in the business and trying to kind of keep up on my keep my own practice current.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I was watching a literature on rhosacea, and it's not a well-understood condition today, but it was even less well understood.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um let's see, how many years ago is this?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like 15, 16 years ago.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: So you can do math and figure out how old I am now.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's not no, there's like no literature at all, really.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's even like that now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's just not well understood.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that's I started to see cropping up in the literature was um this common skin mite called Demodex folliculorum, which you know, most adults in a room would have, but people with rosacea seem to have um in, you know, seem to have it more, um, and certainly in greater numbers, like 15 or 20 fold higher concentrations.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's this, you know, does that mean anything?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: Is or is it just an association?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, is it like the skin of people with rosacea is more hospitable to that mite, or is the mite actually a causative factor, you know, in the pathogenesis of rosacea?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it really wasn't known, but it's I certainly was like, I I if that's a problem for me, I want to get rid of it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: So but I started to to look into how would you get rid of the skin mite?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: And what I found out was that none of the prescriptions that were available at that time, which was like 2016, killed a mite.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: So nothing we were using killed a mite.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I went, aha, like that makes sense to me, why none of these things are working.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: So um, I'm lucky enough to be married to a chemical engineer who runs a manufacturing company and has an RD lab.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I asked him to mix something for me.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: I said, This is what I want.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Can you make this for me in your lab?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: And he came home with it and I started washing my face and I got better like steadily, steadily better.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Maybe you're onto something.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: You should take cosmetic formulating classes.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of how it started.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: But once I that's a whole other story, like once once I took cosmetic formulating classes and realized how unregulated um the cosmetic industry is in the United States, I like kind of couldn't start from I I had to start from scratch.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I really felt you're gonna make me go on a rant.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know go on a rant.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I oh my goodness, but yeah, please continue.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to go on my rant.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, you can when he whenever you feel like it's appropriate or you got you're ready.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're no, but I mean you go.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you brought that up.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: See, this is the I feel like this conversation would not be happening if you were also not in the medical field.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I really don't feel like people get it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I literally say this every I feel like every episode I say this, at least in some way, shape, or form.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I swear the FDA is gonna be knocking on my door at one point because they're like, be like, what are you doing?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, there is no like non-toxic viable option um available for like, you know, uh in terms of prescription strength skin health products, in my opinion.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then also when you come to it comes to skin health that's over the counter, why is there not something in place that's like a peer-reviewed something, you know, like just an organization that's not about clean beauty, green beauty, all that stuff.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just simply about does this cause certain reactions or not?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: We know enough about the skin at this point.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: We know that, you know, in terms of like allergies and you know, you can do genome testing and figure out if you're allergic to something or if you're you know predisposed to having inflammatory response to something.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: There could easily be something that exists, but it's just it's not, and it it drives me crazy.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, uh yes to all of that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's um as an outsider to the beauty industry, like this is a totally foreign land for me because I'm like a clinician first.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it feels scary for me to say those things out loud.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, to say, like, wow, the big C brands are allowed to say that they're gentle and sensitive.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing to me now that I know what I know.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it's there's there's nobody watching over that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, our regulation in in skincare land is like 80 plus years old.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: And all the attempts that have been made to update it, and there have been many that have been met with lobbying resistance that is formidable, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I I wish that I think it has to come from it has to be consumer driven.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Ultimately, what matters is what consumers want.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: And if consumers get savvy enough in great enough numbers, they'll start shopping based on like, do you have your patch testing results on your website or your bottle?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have, you know, you can't just like the word gentle or sensitive means it means nothing.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Hypoallergenic, non-communogenic, those terms have no meaning.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I completely agree with you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that um, you know, I think not even the consumers, I think it needs to fall on the shoulders of, I mean, the people that actually come up with the the solutions, which is the researchers, you know, and I and I always say this, you know, um, just to your point about the consumers, I always say we're all scientists um in our own right.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we all have this innate curiosity about ourselves.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um, if you're somebody who's just a curious person and you're, you know, you're trying a product or something and you want to test it, why not?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, send it in to figure out what the biochemistry profile of it is.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can do that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's companies out there that allow you to do that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you it do some digging, you know, do digging into ingredients, do digging into why things are being used in the products.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I, you know, honestly, Shannon, I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed a brand or I've you know seen a brand or come across a brand that I'm like, I'm really shocked that no one's like calling you guys out at this point, you know, because it's like you got some stuff in here from a toxicology standpoint that I don't think you should be mixing like in this formula.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there there's a lot of like uh, you know, things like that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: For you I could really, really go on a rant about this, but yeah, you're right, there's no regulation, and there I don't think that there's going to be anytime soon because let's be honest, you know, the beauty industry has been monetizing on the naivety of consumers for the last what 100 years, like hundred plus years.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna change, you know, that's never gonna change.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I hope it does, but it's like, why, you know, why is it still a problem?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: No one knows, you know, other than whoever has money runs the show.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, well, you're you're absolutely right.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I really appreciate um something in your beauty matter uh episode, the um the private label proposition that that really stuck with me because there's you know kind of this this cookbook of of formulas out there that just get reused over and over again.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's kind of the same, you know, every time you get an influencer or somebody with a megaphone who wants to be a beauty founder, they just take a what do you got?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'll buy the formula and I'll put my label on it.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: And people don't, I it's amazing to me that that doesn't get called out more.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and this pre-made formula shit.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I like curse, so I hope that doesn't offend anybody.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not gonna offend me.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but I honestly, this pre-made formula shit, like I hate it because I've actually talked to a few other people about it in the sense of like that's why I ask people, honestly, Shannon, on this show.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, where did you come up with your formula?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like who made your formula?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And half the time, I could not, if it's a brand founded by somebody who doesn't have a passion for skin health, doesn't know the their science, or doesn't have you know what I mean, like any real scientific um input coming in, usually the answer is very roundabout.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, yeah, well, you know, I just wanted something like the text, like just you know, they'll come up with some BS.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because they don't know.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's because they don't have any idea.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, it's it's a giant problem.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a giant problem.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, my formulas, I have the pictures of of um the very humble beginnings of my prototyping lab in my basement, which uh did not meet um the FDA's uh CGMP standards at the time.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now that I'm in production, everything is totally perfect.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: But when I was just trying to grind this out and figure out, you know, how to get the moisturizer to be stable, um, you know, if it got frozen and thawed on the tarmac someplace for five times, or if it got, you know, sat in Arizona and got heated to 130 degrees on a hot day.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: I I've I've tried and failed many, many times, and it is a very humbling process, I will tell you.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um I know exactly where they came from.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: And they came from my basement originally, but they've grown up from there to a lot of things.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I really I I think that you, you know, have really done it right.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's one thing that I wanted to mention is that, you know, I think with your line, it's three for everyone listening, it's three products and it's very to the point.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about just maintaining good skin health.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say that, I mean, you know, keeping inflammation at bay, which is something, you know, Shannon, you brought up with the, you know, the inflammatory conditions that a lot of people deal with, but we don't have we don't hear about nearly enough.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Rosacea, you know, I mean, how many people chime in about rosacea these days?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even with with our listeners, very few of you have emailed me saying, hey, I've got rosacea or I've got this.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you can speak up about it.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: My point is, I mean, it with if you do have a condition like that, most likely you don't need a skincare line that's going to do all these crazy things, like you know, all the actives and all the, you know, just the fluff, you don't need that because really what your skin is like craving is balance.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where I really, really enjoy the fact that you've kept it to the point.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think um, you know, when I go onto Reddit, I go onto forums and I see people that are really frustrated because of these kinds of conditions, whether it's rosacea, psoriasis, any kind of um inflammatory disease, even people with lupus who have flare-ups, you know, of their lupus rash, like something like that.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I always um see them wanting to try these like really um extravagant products that are just not for them, you know.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's very, very important, especially now in the industry, for us to push the message of inflammation is a real problem and how you combat inflammation is balance.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that you have what you have and it it is a simple routine, you know, in that sense.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I really think simplicity in some ways is is like the key.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's just get back to basics.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: I I I have come to believe that the best place to start for people when they're having skin problems is to figure out if there's something you need to subtract before you add new things.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, okay, wow, you're using 10 products and they have 30 ingredients each in them.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a lot of potential irritants and allergens in those products.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: And and irritants and allergens are just so ubiquitous in our products that I really think you almost have to kind of just go back to basics and like start peeling back the layers and figure out if there was something that you were introducing that was causing the problem before we start prescribing and and you know just layering on more potterns, which is a whole other rant I could go on to, which is you know, clean formulating has definitely not made it into our carrier uh vehicles for our prescriptions, for our topical prescriptions.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean I think that it's very important what you said because this process of elimination is actually a very medically and clinically based process.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's it's it's uh criteria of exclusion.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you can exclude other disease processes and you can exclude other things, that's sometimes how you come to a diagnosis in medicine for everyone listening.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know you know this, Shannon, but like for everyone listening, that's what we do, you know.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like we, if you see a patient, you don't know what's wrong with them, where do you start?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you start where you you start with the things you do know, you know, and you rule them out one by one till you come to a realization of what is happening.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you don't know, you know, and we call that idiopathic.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's like at the end of the day, that's really the protocol in science.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the closer we stick to that, um, whenever it comes to anything with health-related things, you know, especially with skin health, I think it's very important.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it makes life easier, you know, not only for the consumer, but also for brand founders, because then you know what your audience is looking for, you know, that's very important, also, is being in touch with your customer and being in touch with their needs and and what's working for them, what's not.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I often see a lot of brands that are just churning out products.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, did you even ask your customers if they want this?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, if they need this.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it, it's a big problem for sure.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I really like your line.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting that you um, you know, kind of kept it like with this this spray and like the spray, for example, the toner, it's a spray, right?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I like the the ease of um use of the products, is my point.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, I think it's important for us to be able to put things in our bag and go, you know, put things in our you know, travel case or our purse or whatever we're doing, because like we we talked about earlier, it's about maintenance, right?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't do maintenance if you can't take your products with you.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know there are people who, you know, love the ritual of spending a lot of time on their skin, but frankly, I'm one of those people who just I kind of want to get it done, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: I want the effect to be gorgeous at the end, and I don't and I don't like covering my skin with makeup.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it which is no offense to the color cosmetic fans um out there.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: I just I don't love the feel of it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I just kind of want to keep my skin healthy, but have that process take me no more than like two minutes, you know?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that this is, you know, for me, what I when I try to approach skincare, it's like there's two different types of consumers.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's consumers who are very, very interested in like, you know, what's the new thing, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the new thing coming out and how is it really gonna affect my skin?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and that's fine.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's there's a curiosity about that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's a lot more people in in that realm of what you described because I'm definitely there, you know, I am because I'm the same way.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't wear makeup, I don't do the extra fluff.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's no time, you know, in the medical profession.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know that there's no time.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: If we put on our makeup, there's gonna be three patients that don't get seen in the morning.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just letting everyone know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, I think that there's a lot of value in, you know, um identifying that.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, I really wanted to talk to you about your line being a really great start starter place for, you know, a lot of custom like a lot of customers, especially um, you know, individuals who don't have time to shop around, you don't have time to figure out what's gonna work, it's a really, really great line for that because of what we just talked about, where it's you know, it's made for sensitive skin, it's made for skin that you know um could react to things.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not gonna make them break out, it's not something they're gonna have to think about, but it's maintenance, you know, so it's a great starting place.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so for everyone listening, if you're somebody who still doesn't have a skincare routine, you don't know where to start, well, this is it, you know, start with merited skin, buy the whole set, and then it's simple, you know, you cleanse, you tone, you moisturize.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the three like hallmarks, right, of skin health.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure your skin is balanced and then you put a moisturizer on, keep all the all the you know, uh water and the moisture in.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if we start there and then you incorporate your favorite sunscreen, you know what I mean, you're you're already hitting 80% of what we need in our skin, you know, in your in our skin routine is my point.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're already, you know, more than 80%, 90%, I think, because that's really what it's about.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I I really encourage everybody, you know, just you have to find a starting place.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I find your line to be very, very interesting, is I don't see that a lot these days.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of lines that even when they launch, they're launching with five, six different products.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh gosh, you know, you're you're confusing people right out of the gate, you know?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's a lot to take in.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I purposely um picked names that are like really simple for the products and it not they're not meant to be cute or sexy.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like this is just what it is.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's a foaming face wash.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I see I because I go into Sephora or Ulta and I get completely overwhelmed by the La La Retro, whatever cream.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: I, you know, I'm not I'm not picking on any particular brand, but I just some of the names to me, I'm like, it does not convey to me what it is.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I then you lost me already.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, like the you know, like the Himalayan extracts, you know, of whatever.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, I don't need this.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need this in my life, you know.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but that's just my sensibility.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I recomm I I recognize that there are people who just they uh love immersing themselves in that.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And and there is, you know, more power to you if but I just feel like I have so many other things in my brain that I just want to have my skin be the easy part of my day, you know?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wanted to talk to you about your um quieting, it's literally called for everyone listening the quieting serum.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's wonderful because I recently had a chemical burn happen.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: It well, not a I don't know if it's a burn, but it was more of like a really, really bad reaction because I really hate benzyl peroxide.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I didn't know a product had it in it.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a huge by the way, everyone listening, I don't like it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Don't if you know, you have to be careful with these prescription strength treatments for dermatology, you know.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I use the serum and it really helped me a lot because I couldn't put anything on my skin.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to understand, yeah, like it was like when I say red, I was like literally a tomato.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I couldn't put anything, I could barely cleanse my skin.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was like washing it with cold water, just trying to cool it down.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, maybe um I was using like a uh like the most gentle form of cleansing, you know what I mean?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just like a little bit of like olive oil to just get like sunscreen off and stuff like that.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it was um something where I had to really take, you know, the the reins for my skin in my own hands and really guide it because it was a very, very like touchy situation.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what I was doing was I was using your serum because it was actually helping me calm down that inflammation.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love that story.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: So the serum is based on its um organic aloe vero juice, and then it has red sage root extract um sourced from France, where they there's a countr uh company named C Lab.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: They have found that it has um these properties that just really decrease the hyperreactivity of um all those inflammatory pathways.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so I can see why that might have worked for you in that particular situation.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I have to be careful what I say here, but uh uh because I, you know, don't want to get sued with people using the serum outside the recommended or labeled instructions, but I do have customers tell me all the time that they use it in this, that, and the other place in other situations.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a great serum, and it's really, really great for people who, you know, um that you don't like, you know, it really is like if you don't know, then don't go for the harsh stuff, you guys.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like for example, that that product, like I don't know why I always read the ingredient list, but I didn't even realize it had benzyl peroxide in it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when I used it, I was so upset, you know, and I know there's a lot of customers that can relate with that out there and consumers.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just urge you, you know, start start where you know there's simplicity, start in a place where there's you know, minimum, you know, minimum chance of reaction, minimum chance of uh, you know, something adverse happening.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And those kind of lines are very, very hard to find.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I really value what you've created here, you know, because I I think that, you know, there's maybe two or three lines I've interviewed this uh this year that are actually more geared towards sensitive skin.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I find that to be a very valuable niche in the skincare category where it's like a whole line is revolving around this idea of keep it simple, but keep it for people who have sensitive skin.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I I really, really love that that you've done this.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's hard to do well, and I hope that um that a lot of people benefit from it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: As you know, like in medicine, you're never gonna knock it out of the ballpark for every single person, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: But if you help a substantial proportion of the people who encounter you, then I think that's a huge win.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then the you know, the people who don't feel helped, you just have to make sure that you you treat them right.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I 100% agree.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think that all we can do as scientists is do our best, you know, and the rest is uh I mean, you know, it's up to consumers to figure out what they want.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you know, I urge everybody, you know, really do your homework.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do your homework, please.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, we're reading labels.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And read labels, yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Read labels and and you know, really kind of go out there and seek that knowledge.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's all that's my goal with Skincare Anarchy, is just inviting on, you know, brands and people that resonate with this idea of just spreading knowledge.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like the more we can learn, I mean, knowledge is power, you know, we all know that, but it's like how many people actually live by that principle.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully, for everyone tuning in, you guys are learning something from this podcast.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because I've learned a lot from your episodes.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: The the episode with Varonique Gabai and the Beauty Matter, those really stuck in my head recently.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's I that's my goal.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm I'm a huge fan of of you know just science-driven technology, whether it's for skin or anything, and I really love your brand um very much, Shannon.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that Merida Skin is a really much needed brand in this category of skincare, in this niche of just you know, skincare for everybody.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's really the niche, something for everybody.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, I really urge everybody the holidays are coming up.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you know somebody who doesn't have a skincare routine in place, they don't have anything they're using currently.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a great line for you to just get them started with, you know, get them on a schedule, a routine.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: It takes 21 days to form a habit.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: For 21 days, tell them these are three steps.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: You wash your face, you use the, you know, the serum, which actually is it's wonderful because it's a spray serum, which I love.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you're in the car or something and you're driving to work, just spray it on, tap it into your skin, you know, wonderful.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So just you know, serum and then moisturize.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the moisturizer is actually wonderful because it's lightweight, so it's not going to make your face really greasy and like weighed down, which is also amazing.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, just start there and let's see, you know, how it works.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I really, really urge everybody.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is how we spread awareness, right?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: About skin health, about preventing skin cancers, preventing, you know, um premature aging, those kind of things.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's very important to get on our regimen.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, again, merit of skin.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: If for everyone listening, you can go to the website, check out the whole brand.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be linking everything um in the concept art for this episode.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the website is www.m-er i daskin.com.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you to genuinely go check this brand out.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're real, you're really, really gonna love it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tag everything, like I said.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, Shannon, thank you so much.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: This has been so lovely hosting you.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Dr.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: Ect.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: I really appreciate your time and uh I'm glad that you liked the line.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I love the line.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's a wonderful, wonderful line.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's been uh quite the honor.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: All right, likewise.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, so I hope you love that episode.
• 29:28
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• 29:32
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• 29:35
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• 30:00
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• 30:05
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• 30:07
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• 30:11
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• 30:16
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• 30:21
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• 30:27
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• 30:32
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