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Demystifying Skincare Myths and Embracing True Skin Health with Dr. Sandy Skotnicki · Skin Anarchy

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, welcome back to Skincare Anarchy.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: This is your host, Ecta, and I have a wonderful guest with me today.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to learn from her, and I really enjoy her social media content because she's very dedicated towards education, and I'm always here to learn.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: I think all of us are about skin health and really what the real deal is versus all the myths out there.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Dr.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Sandy Scottnikke, who is a board-certified dermatologist, and she's an educator and also a best-selling author.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the show, Dr.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Scottniki.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to host you and to learn from you today.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's an honor to host you.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: And I'd actually love to start off by I'm always curious with dermatology, like what really sparks someone's interest when they go into it because it's such an interesting field of medicine.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: So I'd love for you to give us a little walk down memory lane, if you could, of what got you into dermatology.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: And did you always know that you wanted to pursue this field when you entered medical?
0:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, I have three sons and one's finishing, one's midway, and one's just starting.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: And I talked to them about it too.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's so much more difficult for I think for our kids these days because, you know, they have to be so focused.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: I was actually an athlete.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: I was a big volleyball player, and that's all I wanted to do.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: But I liked science.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: So when I was in school, I liked science, and I actually particularly liked immunology.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: That was what my degree was in, which interestingly, back in dating myself here, but in the late 80s, early 90s, immunology was a new science, if you can believe that.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Everything's immunology now.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: So when you know volleyball didn't work, I went into medical school.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: And then when I was in medicine, I sort of accidentally came across dermatology in my final year and realized it was this wonderful melding of immunology because the skin really has its own immune system.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: And I liked surgery.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: And I liked the sort of I was, you know, getting older, thinking about having kids.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: I like the aspect of, you know, maybe I could it would be easier to have a family.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, I just stumbled upon it, but it was really the immunology that really got me first interested.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: And then I applied, I got lucky because it's hard to get in, and the rest is uh history.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: That's so interesting that you have an immunology background because I feel like we're just now, as far as I can see, we're just now talking about the immunology of the skin.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: And this whole conversation keeps coming up of the gut skin axis and the gut brain axis, and then obviously that's all immunology, you know, that we're talking about.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: So that's very fascinating.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, my degree is actually a mix of microbiology and immunology.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: And I would say, you know, the immunology with all the biologics, all the targeted medicines now that we have, which are all basically picking off the immune system, and then of course the microbiome.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, my background really has set me up well for the direction that our specialty dermatology is taking for sure.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's it's really fascinating.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think also for anyone out there is not in STEM, like immunology is one of the most complex medical sciences, biomedical sciences, I think, because we all have to deal with it on some degree, you know, no matter what kind of research you're doing, it always comes up.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And so it's very, very interesting that you have that.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: I want to actually ask you like kind of general question to set the tone, because I think although we have so much knowledge out here these days about skin health, skin barrier, all this stuff, but no one really defines things.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge believer in like definitions before we embark.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to learn from you like what is actually the skin barrier in a way that is, you know, digestible for everyone to really understand.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Like, what is the skin barrier?
3:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, not to pump my book, but I mean that's part of what my book is about.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: When I embarked on writing this book beyond soap back in, I can't believe it's 2018 already.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: I should digress.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: My sub-specialty interest within dermatology is allergic contact dermatitis.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: So things that touch us that we can become allergic to or get irritated by irritated by.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to sort of write a book about why there had been an increase in reactions to personal care products over the past, you know, 20, 30 years in North America, around the world.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: But then it kind of morphed into this looking at part of the reason actually is our skin barrier dysfunction.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: So our skin barrier, as a definition, is this tiny little thing.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: It's it's like the diameter of a hair shaft.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: It's the very, very outer layer of our skin, which is called the stratum corneum.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: And I kind of liken it to when I explain it to patients or I explain it in articles or books, it's like a brick wall.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: So we have this brick wall that really protects us from the environment.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: And the bricks are the cells, the keratinocytes, and the mortar are natural oils or ceramides, people would know that name.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: And outside of this wall is this microbiome, this bacteria that actually helps keep the barrier functioning.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: So when our barrier is working well, it keeps out, you know, bad guys like pathogens and allergens and irritants and chemicals, and then it also keeps in our water.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: When the barrier isn't working, that or that brick wall is a bit crumbly, and by the way, that happens when you wash.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: When the act of washing our skin is damaging to our skin, detergent and water, the hotter the water, sort of diminish that mortar of the brick wall.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: So our barrier becomes damaged.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's all this stuff about overwashing now, which I've been talking about for years.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, really, to be hygienic is to keep your hands clean.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: The rest of what we do as a society is really about social norms and nobody wants to smell bad.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: We all want to look good and smell good, but that has very little to do with health.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: Um so then, you know, over the last hundred, like think about indoor plumbing only happened in 1950.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: So before that, you know, we sponge bathed and we washed once a week, maybe washed your hair once a week.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: And you know, then we've now we're washing every day.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: So this barrier, how have we affected it and changed it over the past a hundred years?
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Because when you do something so fast and our genetics and body don't have a chance to sort of catch up, that's the whole hygiene hypothesis, right?
5:48
SPEAKER_02: So that's a very long answer to the barrier, but the barrier is really a very tiny brick wall that keeps our skin working properly.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: That's so interesting, though, what you said about cleansing, because I've always wondered, you know, is there like a self-cleansing mechanism that the skin has?
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Because we hear that a lot with so many different parts of the body that there's this obviously, I think the whole body, you know, is self-regulatory.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: But then with the skin, like, is there something that where it's regulating itself?
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but then also the cleansing aspect, like it's is there something there that keeps the hygiene intact with the skin?
6:19
SPEAKER_01: I guess my question is when is cleansing actually necessary?
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, cleansing, if you again, I'll just say like for hygiene purposes, like the stop of spreading of infection is the only thing you really need to do is wash your hands.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: Now, like people listening to this are gonna be go, like, that's gross, right?
6:35
SPEAKER_02: But uh, that's at the very, very one end of it.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: But to wash your, like if you're out, you know, digging in the garden and you have dirt on yourself or you have sunscreen or you're sweating, like obviously you want to wash that stuff off.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Your question about self-regulating, our skin barrier actually has a large capacity to repair itself.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: So when you wash and you use soap and you use detergent and you use hot water and you damage that brick wall, the skin can then sort of release something called phalagrine, which is a natural moisturizing factor, and then it repairs that barrier.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: But the question being, if we're overwashing or if we've washed so much in the last 100 years and our skin hasn't had a chance to sort of catch up, like when you do it as an infant, right?
7:13
SPEAKER_02: When your skin barrier isn't quite functioning properly, then have we maybe created some problems or some disease?
7:19
SPEAKER_02: There is a theory, I haven't read it recently when I researched for my book, that food allergy may be actually coming through the skin barrier.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: That's possibly where the allergy has started to develop first, because if we are overwashing our skin and that barrier is leaky, chemicals, allergens can come in.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: But the skin can repair itself, most definitely.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: The microbiome also helps regulate the skin barrier because it acidifies the skin.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's another thing.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, have we altered the microbiome over the last hundred years?
7:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we certainly have changed our gut microbiome.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: We know this.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: The skin is the science on the skin microbiome is lagging behind the gut, but just as important.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And like you said, we can't determine what is abnormal until you know what normal is.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: So we don't really have a great definition of what normal skin microbiome is, and it's varies around the world, right?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Because your environment changes it and washing and cleaning.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: No, that makes sense though, because like honestly, like the microbiome, it's kind of it blows my mind.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you brought it up because it blows my mind how people are now talking about the microbiome like it's a one and done thing, you know, and it's like very much similar to you know other things in the body.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Your microbiome is like a fingerprint, you know, it's not a like one size fits all.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I get very intrigued when I look at even like, you know, some of the more kind of mainstay therapies, right?
8:37
SPEAKER_01: In in dermatology, like we have the antibiotics that are prescribed, you know, for acne.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: And we have like when you look at the OTC world, we've got all these products now that are like, yeah, we're gonna balance your microbiome.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: But then my question always becomes like, how do you really do that?
8:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, because everybody's microbiome is different.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, when you're talking about it, like it matters where you live, it matters what you ate your whole life, you know what I mean?
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Like it all of these things come into play and it just makes you wonder like, is this like something we're just making things up at this point?
9:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, when it comes to like we're, you know.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: I think I told you I started my own podcast and we were talking about sort of clean beauty, and these are marketing terms.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: So when somebody's saying, you know, this is gonna balance your microbiome or this is clean or this is hyperogenic, these are not regulated medical terms.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: You can't balance something that we don't even know what the normal is.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: So it's words used to sell products.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, beauty is a business, it's not medicine, and there's nothing wrong with that, but the consumers don't necessarily know that.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: So what they better language would be this could potentially like you can't write this on a bottle.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: This could potentially not harm your microbiome, or this might help feed your microbiome.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: Like if you put something like acidic, like it could be a prebiotic, right?
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, prebiotics like food for the bacteria in your gut or on your skin.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: But the it's much easier marketing term to say balancing your microbiome.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: But I totally agree with you.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: These are marketing terms, and as far as skin care and the microbiome, we are nowhere understanding what normal is, or we do know that the microbiome of the skin functions best at an acidic pH.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: So you know that acidic pH is, you know, zero to seven or under seven, and the skin pH is usually around four to six, it's a gradient.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: So if you have something that is like you use a traditional organic type of barb soap that is made with lye, which a lot of people want to use because they think it's better, it's actually very damaging to your skin because it's usually a pH of 10 or 11, and that's gonna hurt your microbiome.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, we already said your skin can buffer itself, like you injure it, you injure the barrier, you damage the microbiome, and then it can sort of help repair.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: But if you do that over and over and over again, you're going to potentially like it.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: We don't know actually what we're doing.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: No, I completely agree.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's kind of it's interesting because now we like, I think in the last like 20 years, we've started discussing things like the pH, you know, of not only the skin, but like all over the body, we've ha started having a conversation like publicly about this on social media and everywhere.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like even things like this, like I'm a firm believer in like you we have to evolve, you know what I mean?
11:18
SPEAKER_01: The more information that comes out, we need to evolve with it.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I think when people use these like older, we had mentioned the soap, older things that have just been around for a long time, right?
11:29
SPEAKER_01: It makes you wonder, like, well, then there is also a need, you know, for products because we're always evolving, we're always learning, and new data is always coming out.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: But then it's also like, you know, it's always gonna be a snowball effect as well, because there's never gonna just be like a stopping point for people that you know, where consumers go, okay, I have had enough of skincare, I'm good now.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Like they're always gonna be like, No, I need the next best thing.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: But then it's also yeah, but that's about self-care.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I love skincare too.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, skincare and beauty is about self-care.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: Very little of it, unfortunately, is about skin health, and they're quite different things.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Now, some products can be helpful for it, like obviously sunscreen, and you know, like if you use something like retinol, and but you know, the the vast majority of things are they're fun, they they make you feel good, like opening a package and smelling something, but they have very little to do with your skin health.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you said that actually, because that is something where I have a question about like moisture, because the thing is, you know, as you know, that's what another big marketing thing, right?
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Is this whole like lock-in moisture and you know, this is the best humectant and all that stuff.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think I have seen a claim on I don't know which brand it was, but I seen a claim like 400% increased moisture, you know?
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that means you just brought a cadaver back to life, you know.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't like it doesn't make sense to me as a living person.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to ask you, like, you know, when it comes to things like and I think these are fundamental skin health questions that people have, is like, how do we truly moisturize our skin?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And do we really need to do all that much to keep make sure that we're, you know what I mean, keeping the normal level of water retention going.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: So there's a couple of things I wanted to unpack there.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: The first one is, and I think it's an important point, and I like to talk about skincare regulation.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: And you know, skincare is not, they're not drugs, so they're not regulated.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: So a company can put increased moisturization by 400%.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Like nobody's there's no legal body stopping them, right?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important that consumers understand that.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: So they they're selling beauty, is selling a dream, is selling a need.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's not regulated.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, as far as what makes a good moisturizer, a good moisturizer, I look at it from a scientific point of view, and a good moisturizer should contain three uh types of ingredients: a humectant, which you already alluded to, which is something that helps draw in moisture.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: So, an example there would be hyaluronic acid or glycerin.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: So that's sort of like you know, it grabs water and you know, another good moisturizer is trimella mushroom.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: I just did a whole thing on mushroom ingredients.
14:03
SPEAKER_02: So then you've got this one part of the moisturizer that's drawing in, and then you want to make sure that it doesn't escape, right?
14:08
SPEAKER_02: So then you want to have an occlusive.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: So that would be like a petrolatum and or you know, a mineral oil or or something like that that seals in the skin.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: And then the third is emollient.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: So emollients are like that part of the brick wall, they're the mortar of the brick wall.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: So the one that most people would recognize would be a ceramide, and there's others.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: So if you have all three of those, then you have a very good moisturizer.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: And one of the examples there is if you had a moisturizer with just a humectin and you were drawing in lots of water, but you weren't sealing it in, you could actually dry out your skin because it's escaping.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: So you want to have a bit of an occlusive in your moisturizer.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And then your their third question in there was do we need to moisturize?
14:47
SPEAKER_02: And actually, in the absence of skin disease, this is going to be sound very radical coming from a dermatologist, but I've always been a bit radical.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to moisturize.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: I don't ever really moisturize my body because I don't have any skin disease.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: I moisturize a little bit in the winter when my lower legs get a bit dry or after I've shaved.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: But you know, your skin again is very capable of repairing itself, of moisturizing itself.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: It's the cleaning and the washing and the scrubbing and the rubbing and using your body soap over your whole body when you're not dirty that's drying your skin out.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: So if you have eczema, psoriasis, if you're, you know, some medications can dry you out.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: As you get older, you get more dry.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: You might want to moisturize.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: And then the face, there's that sort of, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to say that that's politically incorrect.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: This tail that if you moisturize your face, it helps decrease wrinkles.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: There's there's no absolutely no evidence to that.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, you look you look better for 15-20 minutes, and then your skin will be, you know, the way it is.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: You can you can repair some dry skin, but dryness in of itself doesn't lead to aged skin.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting that you say that.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: And I like that I thank you for being so like straightforward about it because I really just some it's so hard to get these answers.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like even and and I it shouldn't be.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And you know, you would think it wouldn't be, especially in the thinking of medical science and the ethics, right?
16:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like you should be able to get these answers, but I feel like now it's become this norm of like, well, you might not need it, but then here's five recommendations like the younger dermatologist might offer or whatever, you know, or like an aesthetician might offer.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: And it gets so confusing because like consumers are told if you strip your skin, you have to put the moisture back.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And I think by saying those kind of things, it's scary, like, but there is some truth to that.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: So, like when people do come in, you know, I'm in Toronto, Canada.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: So in the wintertime, or as the weather starts to change, we do get a lot of people coming in and they call it we call it winter itch.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: The reason they're getting itchy, they don't you don't see much of a rash.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: It's often in men, I hate to generalize, because they're the ones that take, like, you know, they take their body wash and they get this squeegee and they wash their whole body like feet, like head to toe, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And then they wonder why they're all itchy because they've just removed all their mortar and they don't moisturize.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Men don't typically moisturize, often because they're hairy, they don't like it.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not, you know, con it's not a sort of thing that they typically do.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: And so all I have to do, I could tell them to moisturize.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: I just say, just wash your bits, wash under your arm, wash your groin, wash your feet.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Don't wash your body.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, unless you've been rolling on a mat at jujitsu or digging in the garden, uh, you don't need to.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: But we've been conditioned, you know, and when you go to Europe, they don't they laugh.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: They go, we don't do that.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Why would you wash your whole body?
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Like they don't get that.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: This is the marketing kind of the guy in the with the Irish spring bar in the shower washing his whole body and the women coming over to check him out, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Because he smells great and he's clean.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: That's in a lot of what I say sometimes it gets taken out of context.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: I want to just reiterate that when I mention these types of, you know, do you need to moisturize how to wash?
17:50
SPEAKER_02: It's about I'm talking about health.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about health of your skin.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Now, is it fun to get out of the bath after you've sat in something that smells really great and it's made you feel your it's lifted your mood?
18:03
SPEAKER_02: And then you put on a moisturizer that smells nice and you feel silky.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: And that's about feeling good.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: That's about self-care.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's okay to do that, but that's not about the health of your skin.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: And also, you asked me, is it necessary?
18:17
SPEAKER_02: It's not necessary for health, but it might be for your well-being.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: If that makes you feel good and it makes your mental health good and it's self-care, then by all means go ahead.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: But I would like to make sure that I distinguish the two.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you said that because I think, you know, for me, I can honestly, it's kind of a testament to what you said because when I started getting into skincare, you know, even with a medical and STEM background, I was never really doing it for like truly a health reason.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: It was because of like personal care, self-care, you know, and that feeling of just, yeah, okay, I want to like unwind or I want to have a routine for the end of my day, you know.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: And it's so interesting to hear you say and you know, to kind of define these things because that is something I think is severely lacking, you know, in the industry.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: And also like what's the information that's put out there is this kind of this okay and you know, green light for people to feel okay and saying, you know what, I just bought it because it smells nice.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: I just bought it because it's pretty on my counter.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Why is that so bad?
19:15
SPEAKER_02: Like it's not it's not bad.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: And you know, so and that's some of the pushback I get.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: I just part of the reason also I sort of got on this educational path is again going back to my subspecial interest, which is allergic contact dermatitis, because for the vast majority of people, they don't have any problems.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: But what happens when you have a problem?
19:32
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what happens when somebody has a rash or they have a problem, they go out and they buy more product.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Or they they're like, okay, I'm gonna go get something clean, I'm gonna get something non-toxic, which has nothing to do with rashes, it has to do with cancer causing or hormone disrupting or hurting the environment.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: It's got nothing to do with rashes.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: So when you distinguish the two, like, okay, well, all right, I don't really need to do this for my health.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: So maybe I lay off a bit and I don't do all this stuff and I, you know, use less stuff and use things that aren't fragranced.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: And well, lo and behold, your rash actually goes away.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: So that was part of the impetus of the book as well, was to understand why people were gaining rashes and they didn't realize it was actually their products.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense actually, because honestly, like I can't tell you the last time I got a rash for no reason.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: It's always a contact.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, think about when we were kids, we would get what poison ivy, you know, you rub up against a plant.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, I remember I used to roll around in grass and get those big welts everywhere.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And it was always an allergen, you know, and I that's something I feel like over the years has just kind of faded out.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about it anymore, is like what is actually causing things like rashes and you know, to recognize this kind of stuff.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, back in the day it was what was it, like an oatmeal bath or something that you would take if you had a rash and just calm the inflammation down and you know, relieve the itching.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: But now it's 15 different products, you know, and that are like I don't even know what they do.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's out there.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I want to know, I I actually want to ask you, and this is something I saw on your socials, and I would love for you to speak on it is like the concept of like fragrance because fragrance, obviously, you know, people say I like my products to not have any fragrance in them, you know, whatever.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: But really, I want to understand how can we recognize if something does have a fragrance?
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Because isn't it like hidden sometimes?
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Like they they can be hidden behind different words.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, so fragrance is very fascinating.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: First of all, the history and the perfume history, and it's it's a very fascinating perfume.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: Actually, it means per means through and foom means smoke.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: So the the original perfumes were put into the air, and then it and again, the history is very fascinating.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: Perfume was supposed to put a little dab on your wrist and a little dab behind your ear.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: Now it's in everything from laundry to a blade, it's a plug in to everything.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: But there are probably over 3,000 plus fragrance, individual fragrance molecules.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: So, what makes pantene smell like pantine is 30 different individual fragrance molecules coming together to make that proprietary scent.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: So when you see fragrance or perfume on a bottle, that is What we call a placeholder ingredient that means you don't actually know what's in that fragrance because it's a proprietary scent.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: But now the legislation around that is changing, it's actually going to change in Canada this year, and it's already changed in Europe.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: So there are of those 3,000 plus fragrance, individual fragrance molecules that a perfumer has at their fingertips to make their whatever scent they want, right?
22:24
SPEAKER_02: There are certain ones that have been flagged by societies like the one I belong to, the North American Contact Dermatitis Group or the European Union, that are more problematic, that are more fragrance allergic.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: So there is an original 26 individual fragrance molecules.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Now there's about another 80, and many of those are coming from essential oils.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: So you can make a fragrance to put into your shampoo or your perfume or whatever that doesn't have any of those 26 plus 80 and have it be less problematic, less fragrant allergic.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of information here, but the public doesn't know this.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: So what you're talking about is something called a masking scent.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: So again, most consumers won't know the difference between unscented and fragrance-free.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: So when you buy a product that says unscented, that means it doesn't smell when you open it, when you sniff it.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: But inside it could contain fragrance molecules that are called masking scents.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: Because you know, when you mix a bunch of chemicals together, they can smell bad.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: So they're gonna put a masking scent.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: So for the vast majority of people, that's not a big deal, but if you're fragrant allergic, it can be.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: And the big the big problem that we're having, and the EU is starting to look at this now, is essential oils.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: So you can go right now to a health food kind of grocery store, without naming names, and buy a shampoo that says fragrance free on it.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're this happened to me just last week with a patient coming in.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: It says fragrance free.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, but it has lavender essential oil, which is being used for medicinal purposes.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Um medicinal for the listeners, that means like some sort of medical use, right?
24:02
SPEAKER_02: So it's not categorized in the formula as a fragrance.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: So the label says fragrance free, which is it's not, it contains lavender and it's actually quite high percentage because it you open the bottle and it smells like lavender.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: So the issue here is the regulation, it all comes back to regulation.
24:20
SPEAKER_02: So uh you have to look for if you really want fragrance-free products.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: There are usually it can go on to the eczema society.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: I have a website, the Canadian Dermatology has a website, the North American contact.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Like there's a lot of groups that have websites that'll say which products are fragrance-free.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: There's a also a great website called Skin Safe, which is made by a colleague of mine.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: But it can be difficult for consumers, and you know, essential oils contained fragrances.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's actually really fascinating, though.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: I didn't really think about that.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: The unscented versus fragrance-free, and then the oil, because I think with oils, I've always had a problem with oils because, and this is something, you know, I've done a lot of research on like lung pathologies, and one of the things that really kind of blew my mind when I was first getting into it was how many bacteria survive in oils?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Like it kind of blew my mind, and it made me think of when I now think of like skin issues and what you said, makes me also think like, don't oils also in some way act as preservatives?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: So if you're putting them in something that is maybe like if you're preserving the wrong things, right?
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Or if you're like trapping allergens inside of them, and then you're just putting that on your skin over and over again, you're bound to have some sort of allergic reaction.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it doesn't even make logical sense why they would allow any kind of oil, you know, in any kind of a product.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't, I mean, maybe from the chemistry side, yeah, there's like purposes of oils, but like essential oils that isn't added.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Essential oils are like really the main proponent of many clean skin beauty brands.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: And we haven't really chatted about that.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: That's a big thing for us in dermatology and contact dermatitis circles, is this whole clean beauty push.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there are some really great brands that are clean, like they don't have essential oils, they don't have you know the things that consumers don't want.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: But there's a lot of them, again, this isn't regulated.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: So if you can sell a product by slapping a clean beauty label on it, then you will, right?
26:14
SPEAKER_02: Because if it's not regulated.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: So, what do you think about like the word clean?
26:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, honestly, like what does that elicit for you?
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Because it for me it makes me angry.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: So this whole movement really started from consumer frustration of not knowing what's in their products, right?
26:33
SPEAKER_02: They want more transparency.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: This really happened in the US because you know, the FDA until I don't know if you know about the law that was just passed, the modernization of Cosmetic Regulation Act was just passed in the US in December 2023.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: The last time the Cosmetic Act had been updated in the US was 1938.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, consumers are frustrated, especially in the US.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: The EU, we all look to the EU because they have great regulations and Canada, you know, follows a lot of what they do as well.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: So this is a trend.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: This is a trendy name.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not, again, it's not regulated term, just like hypoallogenic isn't regulated or sensitive skin on a bottle.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's really, you know, out of this frustration of wanting to understand what's more.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: So we don't want to use parabens, we don't want to use toxins, we don't want to use things that are endocrine disrupting.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: But then they put essential oils.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: And this is the problem is is that there are people are that are doing or making, or you know, even the chemists, the chemists aren't necessarily knowledgeable about everything about an ingredient.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: It's that hidden inside essential oils.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: Actually, let's digress.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: An essential oil is when you take a lavender plant and you distill it or steam it and you get an oil extract from it.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: That's not one chemical, that's 50.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So that's a great point.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hidden inside those essential oils are things called linalule, lemonine, geranil.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: And there's actually been some studies now looking at some of the ingredients inside many essential oils can be hormone disruptive or cancer-causing.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: So they're very complex, complex molecules.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: And so the thought by the public is well, this is from a plant, so it's clean.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, poison ivy is clean, arsenic's clean, they're natural.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: You'd say nickel is too.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: It's from the earth's crust.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so it's just, it doesn't mean much to me as a scientist.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: It is a marketing term.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: Again, there are some brands that are very good at being clean.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: They are fragrance-free, they don't have hormone, they don't have essential oils, you know, they try not to parabens is a controversial topic, but they're being phased out anyway, so it doesn't matter.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: So, like, they actually understand the science, they've read the papers, they're not just trying to market a product.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I mean, it makes sense though, because like I often find that people who believe in clean beauty, they'll cite literature and they'll say stuff like, well, you know, turmeric extract was found to decrease my inflammation by X amount.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: And I actually, like, many years ago, I published a paper on natural extracts.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: And you know what the funny part is?
29:00
SPEAKER_01: You have to actually extract the stuff properly.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, you it's like, you know, if you're gonna cite a study that's showing you the benefits of mint, well, you need to figure out how that lab extracted mint, you know what I mean?
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Like whatever they're using, and then actually figure out if the formulas that you're referring to validate their efficacy, you know what I mean?
29:20
SPEAKER_01: If that's actually going in parallel with that.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where consumers also get lost is this like translation of the science, you know, because I think there's a lot of great data out there about the true potential of like botanicals and all these great things that are naturally occurring and out there.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: But are we actually applying that?
29:38
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I'm actually curious is a follow-up question.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you feel about?
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like we need to make a new term up, you know, we need to call it like clean science or something, where it's like, okay, yeah, we're still gonna reference the whole clean thing where you don't want 15 ingredients that you don't trust in your formula, but the ones that you are saying are from nature and you know, all this stuff.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Let's actually do it properly with the right biotech.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, again, that has to come down to until it's regulated, people can put on and say whatever they want.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and it's hard for consumers to know which ones are actually truly, you know, clean or following their, you know, they've done everything that they said they've done, or they understand that the essential oils are not necessarily clean.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, I was being interviewed for something, I can't remember what it was, but we were talking about this whole area of plant-based and botanical.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to make a proprietary ingredient, let's take Mexerol, like that's a sunscreen, or a metrixol, it's a peptide.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, they do a hundred zillion million dollar study and show that this is a great molecule, but they own it.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can't own turmeric.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: You can't own Tramella or something else.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: So there's companies aren't going to spend millions of dollars to do a study on something that they can't proprietor, like because they can't own it.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: So there is a lot of great natural type products that are like a lot of our medicines come from plants, like aspirin comes from willow bark, morphine comes from poppy, penicillin came from a mold.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: But the studies are not going to be huge for these types of ingredients because there's just no money in it.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: So unfortunately, we're going to always have this 10 people studied with some concentration of turmeric that wasn't maybe extracted properly, or you know, we're just not going to see it.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: And it's unfortunate.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know what the answer to that one is, but because I think a lot of those ingredients do have promise.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, one thing that came to mind when you're talking about that, like the things that we have derived in medicine from these plants.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, also one thing to keep in mind for anyone who is super pro clean beauty out there is a lot of times these things took a long time for them to develop as chemicals in these plants.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: So, like, penicillin doesn't just get created as soon as a mold starts to grow.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
31:53
SPEAKER_01: So, like, and same with tree bark, it's a long process that happened.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: And then we came out with this byproduct of a lot of reactions that took place, you know.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing is like it kind of gets me because now we also have terms like green chemistry, and you know, okay, cool, but you know, at the end of the day, are you gonna mimic a millennia worth of chemical reactions to create something that's actually you know feasible to use?
32:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just a lot of questions for me, you know, that come up from a science side because I don't know, it just doesn't add up.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying don't do it, but like at the end of the day, like you have to follow scientific protocols, I feel like.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious to see how that works, you know, in the coming years with regulation and stuff.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be interesting.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you feel about like MoCra?
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Because you mentioned it.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about that?
32:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think they're on the right track or yeah?
32:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, did you look at it?
32:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I didn't read the whole thing, but again, just for the listeners, when the act was written in 1938, all it said was cosmetics are left to be governed by the cosmetic companies themselves.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: There was very little government oversight.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: So the FTA didn't really have a lot of power.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: What I read was just the beginnings of it, and I think the majority of it is just that they could ask a company, where are you manufacturing your stuff?
33:05
SPEAKER_02: Is it sanitary?
33:06
SPEAKER_02: You've got to report adverse reactions, they have the power to recall a product.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: The FTA did not have the power to recall a product.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: So it's very actually rudimentary.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: I think as it goes on, there'll be more and more, you know.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: I didn't read the whole thing.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, California, I think Minnesota have the proposition 65.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Like they've gone even further.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: They've banned a lot of things, but I think it's a step in the right direction, but I still think they've got a ways to go.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I thought about it too, because I think it's a good place to start.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: I think initially I heard about the manufacturing side of all of it, and I was like, okay, cool, you're gonna regulate manufacturing, but then what about all the backdoor science that's occurring and all these like private studies that are being published that don't really have any, you know, validity?
33:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, before that, that they didn't even have the authority to ask about the manufacturing practices.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's pretty shocking.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I gotta show you know, for big companies like PG and Unilever and all like, okay, fine, but you've got all the little ones, all the mom and pop shops, you know.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: And I had somebody saying, Well, I made this in my garage, it's really great, it's clean, and I'm like, No, you know, you know, if anything, that speaks to the resilience of your actual normal skin without anything on it because it's dealing with it, you know, and it's responding to it in a positive way rather than an adverse reaction.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know, I always find those stories to be funny too, because people are like, Well, I just made it in my kitchen, it's fine.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, for you it's fine.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, don't give that to somebody who's immunocompromised though, please.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, exactly.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's interesting, it's definitely an interesting place we're at right now, I think, in this industry.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: And I find it to be, I'm sure it's a unique perspective from the dermatology side, you know.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, how do you feel about like how products are evolving and people are do you have patients now that come in more so that are bringing their products with them than before?
34:51
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, how is the landscape evolved?
34:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I looked at a few stats before this because I wasn't sure what you were gonna ask me, but skincare is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's just the graph is going straight up.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: And during COVID, the only thing that was really increased was skincare and makeup, right?
35:09
SPEAKER_02: There's no signs of it stopping.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: And the sector that is going to grow the most is this whole clean beauty sector and sustainability.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: Like the new generation wants more transparency on ingredients, wants sustainable packaging, sustainable sourcing of ingredients.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Like palm oil destroys, you know, millions of hectares of land and people's environments, and especially in small countries.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: All that kind of stuff is good, but these terms need to be regulated because when it's trend and there's a lot of money to be made, you're gonna have bad players.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: Right?
35:39
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have people that are like just throwing something together or they make it in their garage, then they get bought out because they're a star or celebrity.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: And it's like the Wild West.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: It just keeps getting more and more and more because people want it.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: So we continue to see people with problems because they want to use a lot of products and they do use a lot of products.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: And we have this whole issue now with the tweens in support, right?
36:01
SPEAKER_02: We got the 12-year-olds wanting, you know, they I was watching some show where they was some 12-year-old was buying something and they were like, What does it do?
36:07
SPEAKER_02: They go, I don't know, but it's cool.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: And so and so on TikTok uses it.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, this is not going anywhere, and the problems will continue unless the regulation continues, which again, we're starting to get more of it.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: But people bring in products, yeah.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: They ask me, people are very knowledgeable, especially the younger generation.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: They ask me very specific questions, they're well read.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the information is misinformation that they've heard on social media.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: That's what bothers me, is the misinformation because there is a lot of good information, but it's often drowned out.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: Like you go onto TikTok and someone will be saying something that a dermatologist is talking about sunscreen and how it's safe and this and that.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: And then you've got another person saying God would never use this, it causes cancer, it kills people, and they get all the likes.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't get that.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't get that because yeah, because it's the age of misinformation.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: And these questions, like, are sunscreen safe?
36:58
SPEAKER_02: Is skincare regulated enough?
37:00
SPEAKER_02: They're very nuanced discussions.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: You can't answer them at a 30-second reel.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: And then if you've got somebody who is fairly well known and they say something, even if it's not correct, people are gonna listen to it.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, just to add to your point, I mean, market research is now coming out where extensive studies have been done to figure out how, for example, teenagers are buying their products, like where they're actually getting recommendations, and it's strictly like you can see it, it's directly from specific outlets, you know, like TikTok, obviously one of the big ones.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, think about what they're consuming at that point.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: It's literally what you said 30-second reels that are maybe for dermatologists with the best intentions is on there trying to educate, even then, you're not gonna get the knowledge that you would get from like reading a paper or like, you know, really sitting down having that discussion with your derm.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, I just don't get it because I think right now we're in this weird transition phase.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a millennial and I talk to a lot of my friends who are parents, you know, I ask them, I'm like, well, what about your kids?
37:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you educate them, right?
37:59
SPEAKER_01: About like this whole skincare thing.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them say, Well, I grew up where I was restricted.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, my parents didn't let me do anything.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: So I don't do that with my children.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: And the side effect of that, unfortunately, you know, one of the cons is that these kids are now being given free reign.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: And so they're gonna go find their own stuff.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, you know, we're not safe enough yet for them to just go and pick up whatever from Sephora and then put it on their skin and be like, well, I've been using this product meant for like a 50-year-old, you know?
38:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's like there's like a lot of education.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: I feel like that needs to happen even for parents at this point because it's crazy to me.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: And if your kids are on TikTok, like we need to figure out what they're watching, you know, because a lot of the people out here that's a tough one.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have discussed this, I think I talked about it on my podcast as well.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: But if you have tweens, try to keep the laundry, the shower gel they're using, like you can do like CeraVe, Bioderma, things like that, you know, their shampoo.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Keep those all because that's going over their whole body.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: If they want to experiment with some makeup, they got lipstick, a little gloss, maybe Hello Kitty, something, you know, fine.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: But keep the stuff that they're using on their whole body and in the house and try to limit like sprays and stuff.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people are very sensitive to fragrance.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: So all these sprays and body sprays and hairs, like things that smell, they're not good for the environment.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Those aren't certainly clean, you know.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: Fragrance chemicals in the air are not clean in my books.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: So that's definitely something that should be avoided.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's hard.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: It is very hard to combat that.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: It's the age we live in.
39:28
SPEAKER_02: I think that's why I'm hoping I see a little bit of an uptick in podcasts.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: I think podcasts are a better venue to explain in 30 minutes, you can really get a deep dive into fragrance per se, or clean beauty, or regulation, or sunscreen safety.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's so much controversy about sunscreen.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: You can't really explain it in the way you can convince somebody that yes, they are safe, because you have to explain what this meant and what the FDA meant when they said this and that.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Like you've got to explain it.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: And you can't do it in a minute.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And also, like, you need to be able to actually like explain why, you know, like go into the science.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's another thing.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: I feel like scientific literacy is not attainable by watching seven-second clips, you know.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, I started this episode with you.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: I wanted you to define it for me because at the end of the day, definitions matter, you know, and you have to know what things mean.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: And there's a reason why your dermatologist has 15 years of training behind them, you know, before they're able to diagnose you or prescribe.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these are all things that I look at the industry and I just wonder, like, I don't know, I mean, what kind of culture are we really creating?
40:29
SPEAKER_01: Because very few times do I see, you know, really qualified people kind of being amplified is my point, you know, where it's like, oh yeah, because I heard Dr.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: So-and-so, that's why I'm making this decision rather than, oh, my favorite influencer loves this.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna go buy it.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, like it's just it's mind-blowing, actually, for me when I watch that.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: So very interesting, I think, landscape that we're in.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: But I would love to get some feedback from you and some advice from you actually for anyone out there who might be an aspiring dermatologist.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, if they want to go into dermatology as a field, I know we have a lot of young professionals that tune in.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: So any words of wisdom you can share with them.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: Gosh, you know, we were I had my 30th medical school reunion last Saturday.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: It was crazy.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: We were all commenting that we didn't think any of us could probably get into medical school anymore because the bar is so hot.
41:15
SPEAKER_02: I think it's very hard for young people.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: I mentor a lot of people, girls in particular, in my city and in my clinics and my hospital clinic.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, obviously you have to do medical school.
41:26
SPEAKER_02: And you know, nowadays you have to sort of know what you want to do out of the cradle.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: Like it's tough, it's challenging.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Like I stumbled upon dermatology.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: You can't do that anymore.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: You have to sort of be, you know, working with people, maybe publishing a paper in your, you know, undergrad and then in medical school, you have to sort of start looking at doing electives in dermatology.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: There's also really great programs in Europe.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: I had a couple students who just couldn't get into medicine here, and they went to the UK.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: The UK has very great medical programs, and then you can always do your dermatology training after, but because they take 50% foreign students to help pay for their, you know, their programs.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: And I've had a couple people go through that way and then come back to Canada to do dermatology.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, unfortunately, you have to start early.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: It's a great specialty.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: I love what I do.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, you get to see babies, you see elderly patients, you have skin cancer, you have chronic rashes, you have the cosmetic aspect, you have the skincare aspect.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: It's a great specialty.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: But it is frustrating in this whole sort of marketing of beauty.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: We're on an uphill battle as dermatologists to try to educate with social media disinformation.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: So that part can be frustrating.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: I bet.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: No, I bet.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: But that's great advice, though.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: And I agree.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: I think now it's like none of us would get into medical school.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: I look back as well, and I'm like, wow, yeah, I don't have any of those credentials off the bat, because these kids are required to have like 10 papers.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: You made a great point there.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as a concert pianist has volunteered in, you know, some foreign country and has a 4.0.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that wasn't me.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: They already have a PhD before going to get their MD, you know, a lot of them.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, kind of crazy world.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: But thank you so much, Dr.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: Scott Nikki.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: This was so great and refreshing, actually, to have this chat with you and to learn from you because we could never have enough education, I think, you know, in this world.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: And I really applaud you and I thank you for really promoting true education and knowledge on your platforms.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: I really admire you for that.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: For everyone tuning in, make sure you check out the socials.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: I will tag all of Dr.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: socials in the notes for this episode.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: So make sure you check them out.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: And also, if you know anybody who doesn't know a lot about skin health or they have questions, make sure you're referring them to the right resources.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, I try to do that as well in my day-to-day.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for having me on.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: And thank you for everything you do.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
43:36
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