Latest / Another Bloody Podcast / Saving Face: Yes, Skincare Is Also Healthcare

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Saving Face: Yes, Skincare Is Also Healthcare · Another Bloody Podcast

0:33
Hi, Heather.
0:33
Hey, how are you? I'm good.
0:36
I'm good.
0:36
I have some questions for you.
0:38
Oh, boy.
0:40
Okay.
0:40
I'm a little scared.
0:41
The first one is a little scary.
0:44
Have you heard of period masks or menstrual masking? No, but I am now picturing that in my mind, and I have a feeling that this is something that Kim Kardashian might do.
1:00
Is this like a vampire facial? It's very similar to the Vampire facial.
1:06
Yes.
1:07
So, yeah, and I hope that you're using your own menstrual blood for that.
1:16
I never did.
1:18
I never did this.
1:19
No, I mean you collectively that they are not applying somebody else's menstrual blood to my face if I pursue this.
1:30
Correct.
1:31
So what it is, is it's a social media phenomenon mostly over TikTok, where influencers are using their own period blood as a facial mask.
1:45
The hashtag period face mask has amassed billions of views.
1:51
And the claim is that because menstrual blood contains stem cells and other really great stuff for you, it can help your complexion.
2:02
Okay.
2:03
First of all, this will never be my beauty treatment because I don't have a uterus anymore, and.
2:10
Yeah, sorry.
2:12
Love all the women out there, but I'm not putting your period blood on my face.
2:17
Right.
2:18
They shouldn't do it either.
2:22
They should not do it.
2:23
What are the benefits supposed to be? Well, the benefits are that because there are, stem cells in menstrual blood, and there are other beneficial things, in theory there are things within your menstrual blood that packaged in another way and, delivered onto your skin in a different way.
2:49
Could be helpful to, ensure moisturizing, to fend off, drying of the skin, aging of the skin and so on.
3:00
However, okay.
3:02
As you can guess, I have a couple questions.
3:06
Well, sure.
3:07
Okay.
3:08
Who cooked up this idea who was like, you know what? This Diva cup full of blood should not go to waste.
3:18
What I think I should do is spread it all over my face.
3:22
You know, I really don't know who originated it.
3:25
Obviously, I researched it a bit, but could not find any sort of, this was the original TikTok that started it all.
3:33
No idea where it came from.
3:35
Are you a regular TikTok user? I'm not, because it tends to drive me bonkers 'cause it cycles through so fast.
3:46
Yeah.
3:46
I, I don't, I don't think.
3:47
My attention span is the attention span of a different generation.
3:52
I guess we need another bloody podcast.
3:55
TikTok account.
3:57
So we can share these horrifying menstrual blood facial.
4:03
Videos.
4:05
Yeah.
4:05
Like one of us wagging our finger next to like a cup of red and going, or me, don't put this on your face.
4:14
Me vomiting into a trash can.
4:17
So just out of curiosity, how does one come across these videos? I mean, I assume that you weren't searching for them.
4:28
Is this in your algorithm? No.
4:32
How did I, I, I'm not sure.
4:35
How it came across, I think I was looking desperately for as I do, what should I put on my face to prevent aging and make myself look better because I do that.
4:51
And.
4:52
Sort of came across this and thought this would be good for the podcast.
4:57
I have a lot of ideas about what you could put on your face and that is at the very bottom.
5:04
I would love to hear about that 'cause I wanna get to that.
5:08
So just a couple more minutes on menstrual masking, just in case there's anybody on here who's saying, but I'm still gonna do it.
5:18
I'm gonna give you some reasons not to do it.
5:20
Okay? Okay.
5:21
All right.
5:22
First of all, the skin barrier is very strong, so unless you have any kind of fissure or cut, none of those stem cells and none of the other good stuff that's in period blood is going to benefit you.
5:37
It's not breaking through and it's not gonna help you.
5:42
Worse menstrual blood mixes with other stuff as it exits our body.
5:47
So bacteria and other microbes from the vaginal canal and the vaginal vestibule.
5:53
My favorite newer vaginal vestibule.
5:56
What is the vaginal vestibule? Why it is the entrance to your vagina.
6:01
Isn't that lovely? I love it.
6:04
I have never heard that term before.
6:07
Yeah, it's a medical term.
6:08
I ran into it and I was like, it's so poetic.
6:11
I love it.
6:12
I had never heard the word vaginal cuff until after my hysterectomy, when I had to get mine tightened.
6:21
When you have a full hysterectomy, how they close you up after a full hysterectomy is then called the vaginal cuff.
6:32
Okay? Because otherwise, you know, a penis or water or whatever, whatever you like putting in your vagina, would.
6:45
Have access to like your liver.
6:48
'Cause then it's just like an opening into your full innards.
So after my surgery I had a lot of bleeding and my doctor was like, we need to take you into the ER and sew up your vaginal cuff.
And I was like, go for it also.
What is that? Oh, well, I'm glad that that was taken care of.
Yeah.
Less cute than vaginal vestibule? No, it's not as poetic sounding is it? So as the menstrual blood and other material leaves your body and passes through, and maybe even makes contact with the skin, it's picking up bacteria and other microbes that if you do have any kind of.
Sensitivity on your skin or a scrape or anything else potentially could be very bad.
You could have a very bad reaction and infection from that.
So not only were any, would any of the good things come in unless you have an open cut or something on your face.
If you do, then you could be really.
Putting yourself in danger, right? Because I assume that you don't have a lab at your disposal where you can take your menstrual blood and they can put it in the centrifuge and, make it all, beautifully sterile.
The other thing is you could even have an unknown, sexually transmitted infection.
And that could get into your menstrual blood and then that could get onto your face.
So you do not want that.
And then in theory, it could all be benign.
If you isolated it in a lab, and had it delivered to yourself in a sterile container, but then there's no evidence.
No data, absolutely no studies that say yes.
And if you could somehow do that, we found that it actually prevents wrinkles.
No.
Don't do it.
I would rather have wrinkles.
Yeah, don't do it.
Don't do it.
Girls.
Yeah, there's some good facial creams out there that don't have any blood in them whatsoever.
Okay, so that brings me to my second question.
So you anticipated me, which is what's your skincare routine? I would love to know like what products do you use? What's your ritual? So I'm pretty bad at rituals.
During the pandemic for some reason, I guess.
'cause I had more time on my hands.
And also 'cause I turned 50 during the pandemic and all of a sudden you're like, holy shit.
I'm staring at myself on zoom 24 hours a day.
What the hell's going on here? Like I was so sick of my own dumb face that I became a little.
More focused on skincare.
My routine that I've had for years, which is barely a routine, is I typically wear, this IA tinted moisturizer? Sure.
But it has SPF 30 or 40 in it.
And I am a very, very white girl, so I need that living in California.
'cause the sun is, even when it's cold, is so much stronger than the East coast.
So, usually in the morning I wake up, I wash my face, just water on a wash cloth.
Then I put Argan oil on my face.
Which a lot of people think is weird because as teenagers, I feel like we're all.
Raised to believe that putting oil on your skin is gonna make you break out.
And I don't necessarily have dry skin, but it just feels really juicy and nice to me.
And then I put my tinted moisturizer on, and then if I'm gonna wear makeup, I'll put that on.
And then at the end of the day, I kind of do the whole thing in reverse, except for, I do have an eye cream that I use.
I don't do it every day because I forget, but I love Go eye cream.
Oh, okay.
You know, it's stupid expensive, but it.
Is one of those products where I apply it at night and when I wake up in the morning, my under eye area still feels moisturized.
Oh, I might have to get this.
It's good if you don't mind spending $75 ish every, you know, quarter.
Then there's this other skincare line that I love that.
I learned about from Chelsea Handler called Liz Earl.
And it's a British company, currently, and I don't know why.
My guess is that it has something to do with tariffs.
They're not shipping to the US anymore.
But they do have an Amazon store.
I love their night cream.
That one I'm kind of in love with right now 'cause it's got a nice tingle to it.
Oh, it's like it's working it.
That's what I was gonna say is whether or not any of this is true.
I like the idea that something is working, even if it's just 'cause they stuck some eucalyptus in it or something.
So that's kind of it.
Oh, and sunscreen.
What I wish somebody had told me when I was a young woman was not to forget to put sunscreen on my chest.
And neck.
And neck.
I have a lot of sun damage on my chest for years.
If I got overheated or upset, you could see like a perfect V-neck.
What's yours? Well, I use like the most gentle, sensitive skin cleansing wipes I can find to take off makeup, and to wash my face at the beginning of each day.
And then I.
Put, like just a lotion on my face.
I try to have, what is it called? A hydro luronic acid, which apparently, according to some dermatologists I was reading like that doesn't do anything.
And then I try and do that, and then when that runs out, the next one I get, I try to make sure it has a vitamin C in it.
The vitamin C, it does seem like there are more dermatologists on record saying, eh, there's actually something to that.
Maybe.
Maybe there's some clinical evidence that that does actually work.
I also have Goops vitamin C serum.
Which I really, I like it a lot.
I don't know if it does anything, but yeah, GU Paltro skin looks really good.
I know.
And she's nearly our age and she looks pretty lovely if you ask me, and what did her mom do? 'cause her mom is gorgeous.
I mean, this may all be genetic.
I have pretty good skin for my age, and it's not because of all the hard work I've put into it, that's for sure.
I also use Liz Earl's.
Exfoliation.
I use that in the shower a couple times a week.
Me too.
I do an exfoliation in the shower kind of thing, and I think, think the thing that I have done.
That's been the most successful.
Also the most expensive, is that when I was working full time and making good money, I had my face lasered, I think every six weeks.
Really? Yeah.
Like I have lasered the shit out of this thing, and that takes discoloration away.
So I'm a really freckly.
White person and I was developing big age spots, which for many women are hormonal.
Yeah.
So some people get them when they go on the pill.
Some people get them when they're going through perimenopause.
So I think mine was related to perimenopause.
And then.
I don't know.
It just made my face look bright and clear.
I had just started getting it done on my chest and then I lost my job and I was like, I can't really justify this anymore.
I'm going to the dermatologist next week, which is part of why I thought this would be a good topic.
And that was one of the things I had talked to her about last year.
She'd actually done a biopsy on an age spot I had.
'cause she was, like, that's a pretty big one.
Let's look at that.
And she did something that kind of made it a lot less visible.
And then she said, you know, let's see how that goes.
And then next year when you come in, I'm gonna take a look and she gave me some products that were supposed to cut out.
Pull some of that off, some of the discoloration.
And then she said, after a year of you using all that, then let's reassess.
And maybe, so I might actually be having some of that done.
So there's lots of different kinds of lasers.
First of all.
So there's IPL, which, I believe targets the brown spots, and then there's another kind that targets the bread.
A lot of what happens to my face.
Because I'm so pale is that you can see broken blood vessels.
Like I get them around my nose, I get them on my chin.
So there are two different lasers for the red and the brown.
And then I started doing one called the Gemini, which targets both.
I kind of justified it a little bit by.
It pulls things out from under the surface.
So there are these, like think about like 3D glasses.
Mm-hmm.
There are these machines that you can stick your face in and see the sun damage that has yet to rise to the surface.
Oh.
These lasers pull them up.
So typically after I would have a laser treatment, I would have a new brown spot on my face that wasn't there the day before, and then it would just flake off.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's what she said would happen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I kind of see it as preventative.
My father has had melanoma and other kinds of skin cancer removed? I don't remember if my mother did, but you know, we're white Irish people who haven't been super careful about sunscreen.
Right.
And I felt like the laser was a little bit proactive and possibly.
Taking care of things that might later turn into an issue.
I can see that.
And my dermatologist, who I liked very much, she's new, so I've only had her for a year now.
But she did talk about that, you know, that it's.
Yes, it can be cosmetic, and yes, it can give you kind of the ego boost, but a lot of what she's doing, it's real medicine.
It is designed to help, with your cancer risk.
So, I don't think we need to justify things that are good for us.
Just because they're on our face, I mean, I feel like.
Do what you want with your face.
I don't like the way a lot of surgical procedures wind up looking on people.
Sure.
But if they like it, then fantastic.
I agree.
I overall have sort of an issue with the idea that we're not allowed to age at all, and that we have no kind of, I don't know.
We no longer have.
An idea of what does it look like to be a person who ages naturally and that's okay.
And we have a category of beauty that fits that too, you know? Right.
I think we had it once upon a time and it's kind of disappearing.
And I think that's, that's really a shame.
And it has to do with sort of, we're undermining.
Wisdom and age, just generally as a culture.
And I think that's quite dangerous.
But yes, do what you want.
My mother and I look remarkably alike, and in her late forties she had an eye job.
And then in her early fifties, I believe she had a facelift.
And both of them were very tastefully done I mean, I wanna find out whether her surgeon is still alive.
'cause he did a great job.
You know, the typical thing that you hear where like people were like, wow, you just look so well rested.
That's what you want, right? You don't want them to say, oh, you've had work done.
No, she didn't.
I mean, she looked.
Weirdly surprised for a few months after the eye job.
Sure.
In a way that I found disturbing.
But I don't know if like the average person on the street would've done a double take about it.
But it did kind of disturb me in that up until then, I had a real breadcrumb trail about how I was gonna age.
Oh, now you don't know.
And now I don't know.
I mean, she died at 60, and her procedures started when she was younger than I am now.
So I am like, well, this will be interesting, I don't know what the hell's gonna happen here.
And there is such a double bind, right? Where, especially at this moment, it's sort of like.
You're almost expected to have work done because that's what we've kind of projected as the norm with all of our celebrities.
We don't even know what natural aging is supposed to look like anymore.
So you're almost, you know, what are you lazy that you're not like keeping up with yourself? On the other hand, if you do it, you're vain and horrible.
I feel like I eventually will have something done.
I happen to be with a man who I, I won't say is vehemently against plastic surgery, but it's not his sensibility.
And he's very squeamish.
So I think that there would be pushback from him to just, I mean, he once told me that I wore too much makeup.
You don't wear much at all.
I know.
And this, this is a guy who grew up in Hawaii where everyone was just like.
Wearing nothing but a bikini and some flip flops.
I would never keep something like that, a secret, but I did get Botox once and I didn't tell him, and he didn't notice.
Hi, Byron.
I got Botox.
Oh, and a little bit of filler.
The filler I'll never do again.
It felt weird.
This is kind of a funny story because I've always been told that I have good skin.
I don't have a ton of wrinkles.
You and I walk into the doctor's office, I think for my laser treatment, and I said to the nurse practitioner, I'd like to speak to the doctor about.
Whether or not he thinks I need Botox.
And I think there was a part of me that thought he was gonna breeze in and be like, you're perfect.
Don't worry about it.
This guy walked in and I hadn't even gotten the word Botox out of my mouth.
And he is like, oh yeah, right there and right there.
Oh my God.
And you can use, you can use a little filler right there.
I don't even know what happened to me, but I was like, give it to me baby.
And within 45 seconds, I had spent a thousand dollars in injectables in my face.
Oh my God.
So the filler, I did like the way it looked, but I could feel it.
And that freaked me out.
Did you have that thing where sometimes actors and actresses who've done it and it's like, oh, you're not able to emote and I don't know how you feel and when you smile it looks weird.
I don't think so given that my life partner did not notice that my face looked any different.
The only thing that I really noticed and.
So I don't have like forehead wrinkles.
The long way.
I mostly have like the frowny face.
And I get this dimple in my forehead when I'm stressed out.
And Byron can see it from a mile away now.
Like he can walk into a room and be like, oh no, what's going on? I didn't have that after the Botox it takes like a couple of days for it to set in.
And of course I was staring at myself in the mirror like a psychopath for three days after, and it almost felt like a time lapse.
I could see my forehead smoothing, but it didn't make such.
A difference that like I felt like I looked different.
I can't even remember when this was.
I think it must have been during the pandemic because as I said, I was working a lot during the pandemic and I was on Zoom constantly and there was something.
Really disturbing to me, and I've read that this was a phenomenon for a lot of people.
It's not normal to stare at your own face No.
For that many hours a day.
And I read that facial surgery and injectables were skyrocketing because everybody was quote unquote in a meeting.
But really dissecting all of the flaws in their own faces.
Yeah.
No.
'cause it's.
Broadcast back to us on a big screen.
Yeah.
And it's really weird.
I mean, yeah, if anybody looked in the mirror that much, they would be probably hospitalized.
I mean, it's just not normal.
Right.
So I think that I got a touch of that and then I don't know I got over it.
But it's not off the table for me.
I always said that too.
I did contact lenses for years and I always used to say, well that gives me the right to at least one eye lift.
Right? 'cause you're pulling, and there is some evidence that, you know, if you're constantly kind of pulling the skin around your eyes, you know.
It could lead to you being a little more wrinkled than you might've been otherwise.
And so I always thought like, well, you know, I get to have like my coupon for 1 free eye lift for that.
I probably would, we were talking earlier today about me possibly doing Botox, more for migraines, but the side effect of maybe a few less wrinkles.
Is nice.
So I wouldn't rule out anything at the same time.
Part of me is like, and I also can't wait to be an old crone and to be this powerful looking old witch that scares the shit out of everybody.
I want the power of that archetype.
You know, I'm all over the place on it.
So my ideas about what needs to happen to my face have changed with the weight loss.
I had a very big double chin before and that's gone away a bit.
But I have these gels that they're hereditary.
No amount of weight loss is gonna.
Take those away.
My mother had them, her brothers both have them.
And that's just my lot.
So that was really what I wanted to deal with in the beginning.
But now I just got my new head shots taken and I realized my eyelids have hit the fucking deck.
One eye is like half the size of the other.
Well, I saw your headshot and I thought they were beautiful.
Thank, well, we're talking about, well, thank you.
But this is a structural issue and it needs, I think eventually we'll need to be addressed.
I mean, I may be blind in one eye if I don't deal with it, and I'm only kind of being funny, but No, no, I, I know people who are a little bit older than us who have had that particular procedure done? Mostly for vision.
And for health.
And the bonus was, it also looked great.
Yeah.
And I think I'll just need to do it with my sister and like go to some med spa and recover.
Mm.
That's because Byron will project eye vomit if I come home after a facelift.
Well, the thing with the eye, a friend of mine just had it done.
She's a bit older than us.
Insurance covered it.
She was getting to the point where she was told like, you're not gonna be able to drive anymore.
Like, it's serious.
And she looks wonderful.
And it was 100%, you know.
It was deemed medically necessary.
Yeah.
Covered by insurance, whole thing.
It's almost hard to know what to root for in these situations.
I'm like, do I want this to get worse so that my insurance covers it or would I like it to stop so that I don't look like this anymore? They might deem it preventative, you know? Speaking of preventative, so i'm a sucker for getting like the cream and being like, this is for your eyes and this is for your neck.
And apparently what a lot of dermatologists say is like moisturizer is moisturizer.
Mm-hmm.
All you need is a basic moisturizer, but it is important to do it.
So there's evidence that using a daily moisturizer.
Hopefully twice a day, but you could be using it once a day, not allowing your skin to get very dry, and dehydrated.
It can stave off dementia.
Really yes, dementia, systemic inflammation, vascular disease as we age because.
Dehydrated, irritated skin comes with a wide range of health risks as we age.
And this is according to a lot of clinicians, but also researchers, that have done peer reviewed studies on the effects of having very damaged skin because very damaged skin can lead to skin.
Irritations can lead to things that become systemic.
So we don't want any of that.
Really interesting.
I've never heard that before.
That's almost as surprising as when I learned that your dental health can affect your cardiovascular health.
I think it's similar, right? It's all related.
We can't sort of single out one part of our healthcare from another, and.
Of course we don't wanna have dried out skin that's gotta have consequences.
Well, this has gotta be why men die younger, earlier than women.
I said to Byron on the car ride home from Oregon how.
Is your face still attached to your body? Because I don't think that guy has put moisturizer on his face in the 20, almost 21 years that we have been a couple.
I mean, I am a fanatic when it comes to moisturizing.
My friend Amy gave me this moisturizer.
It's basically like putting Elmer's glue on your face.
That's how thick this stuff is.
Oh, and I was applying it twice a day because it's so dry out in the high desert.
And I got in the car and I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh my God.
I look like an old prune.
So I give John moisturizer every Christmas and But does John use the moisturizer? He does, because then he'll say, oh, I'm out of it.
And then.
Years went by and it's not, I never watched him put it on and I was just, I happened to be next to him, like as he was putting it on one day, and I'm like.
Is that the amount you put on, he's putting on like, like a dime a like aime, a D's Worth.
And he's, you know, and he's pushing it like from let's say his nose out to the edges of his face.
And I'm like, it has run out like by the time it's near your cheeks, honey, it's not doing anything.
You gotta use more.
I'll buy you more.
I promise.
Yeah.
One bottle a year.
No.
So you wanna moisturize every day.
Any basic moisturizer, they say, I'll do it.
You wanna put on sunscreen every day, at least on your face.
Mm-hmm.
And your chest, ladies hands, neck.
I was very bad about not always putting it on my neck.
Really, really wish that I had.
There is another thing that I wanted to mention that, is a real misnomer that's out there and that's that, and I'm half Puerto Rican, that brown and black people don't need to put on sunscreen every day.
And they absolutely do need to put on sunscreen every day.
It is true.
That a lot of skin cancer research up until lately has tended not to include brown and black people in the studies.
Which is not good.
We need to have inclusivity in all ways.
Gender, race, everything when it comes to medical studies.
But.
Dermatologists are saying, you know, yes, the cancer risk, the skin cancer risk is slightly lower, but there's still risk.
And then there's risks for other types of, outcomes for sun damage for everyone.
So absolutely everyone should be putting on sunscreen every day when they go out of their house.
And that's why I just buy.
Makeup that contains it, because then it's not an extra step.
It's just all there.
I have a moisturizer that has like it.
The moisturizer itself is like a 50 and so I just like slather that on.
I love this IA product.
This is not an ad.
But it makes my skin look dewy and pretty.
And it doesn't feel thick or I don't think that you would look at me and think, oh, she's wearing makeup.
But it gives a little ju and also it has, I can't remember if it's thir, I wanna say it's 40 SPF and that's great.
It all, it just feels nice.
Right? Makes you wanna put it on.
Yeah.
And when I typically, when I like go to a party and I have, you know, a full face of makeup on, I cannot wait to come home and scrub my face and this doesn't feel like that.
Well, that brings me to the third thing.
So these are the only three things according to dermatologists you need to have in your skincare.
Routine.
That's it.
Just one basic moisturizer, a sunscreen, and then a gentle soap free cleanser.
You should not be washing your face with soap, but you can use any kind of cleanser that you can find that's soap free and gentle.
And that's it.
That's all you need to be doing.
But of course I'm still gonna be buying the neck cream and the eye cream.
One other thing that I wanted to mention is, there's a lot of very expensive products out there that claim, you know, they're clean or they're organic.
Not always the case, just like we've mentioned in other episodes with supplements.
There's not a whole lot of regulation going on.
So what it says, none says it has.
Yeah, almost none.
So what it says is there might not actually be there.
The other part of that, is that if you happen to be allergic to anything that's in there and you can be allergic to organic things, it could irritate your skin and actually start to do the opposite.
So I'm allergic to retinol.
Which sucks 'cause retinol actually does help with wrinkles.
Mm-hmm.
There is evidence I can't use it.
But I am also allergic to eucalyptus.
Oh.
Which means there's a ton of organic products I can't use.
So just be aware of your own skin.
You can really save some money by using very basic products.
And if you're like my husband and you're not doing anything like.
Do start to take care of your skin.
It's true because my two most important men in my life both had surgery for melanoma in 2025.
It felt almost impossible that both my partner and my dad had it practically at the same time.
And it's no joke.
I mean, whatever you think you're.
Spending to, shell out money for daily sunscreen or daily moisturizer with sunscreen.
All you need to do is take a look at their hospital bills and the scars on their backs to realize like, this isn't something to mess around with.
Right.
You do need to do something to take care of your skin.
Do I need to spend the amount of money I spend on it and try all the different crazy things I've tried? No.
So I enjoyed hearing a little bit about your skincare routine.
And I think I got some, possible future products.
Yeah.
Liz Earl Ilia.
Okay.
And bargain oil.
Those are my And the goop, goop eye cream, you said.
Oh, and the goop eye cream.
That's good stuff.
Well this was a fun chat.
Thanks so much.
Okay.
Bye hun.
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