In this episode, we uncover why the oils you choose for massage could actually be doing more harm than good to your client's skin, and what you can do about it. Welcome to The Conscious Practitioner, the podcast helping massage therapists align with purpose, create deeper client transformation, and evolve your practice even if you feel stuck. I'm your host, Dr. Jess, and each week we address your biggest problems. Practice challenges from boundaries to burnout and everything in between and together We uncover the inner blind spots behind these outer struggles that when mastered transform you from a skilled practitioner to a truly Impactful one today. I'm chatting with Marie now She is a microbiologist and a skin health expert in today's episode You'll discover how common massage oils could be clogging pores and irritating sensitive skin and what to use instead The surprising link between skin health and environmental factors like the quality of air and the detoxification process, and why integrating antioxidants into your practice could genuinely revolutionize your client's skin care. Marie shares her expertise on how practitioners can make informed choices to ensure their clients leave the table with glowing, healthy skin. So with that, let's dive into this awesome conversation with Marie.

Well, Marie, thank you. I am, I'm excited about this conversation because skin, skin is, is, It's the thing that manual therapists work on every single day, and I've taught anatomy and physiology at several different colleges, and I can tell you that the skin module is super short, and essentially it's like, memorize the layers of the skin. Done. And then maybe, maybe in a comprehensive program there's this little blurb in pathology about, and here's what shingles look like. Kind of. But what I'm getting at is, the education for massage therapists, manual therapists, osteopaths, is so minimal on the skin, which is bizarre because this is the stuff we're working on every single day. And how many times does somebody actually look at their back? Like, we're the people who get to see somebody's entire skin system. And we're rubbing stuff all over it. So, I'm super stoked to be talking to you the skin in general. And within the context of like, matters so much. So welcome and and let's jump in.

Thank you. Thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah. So if we were to start with just talking about assuming that people are listening, they've got some baseline awareness of the skin, right? Like they understand the epidermis and the dermis, like baseline anatomy. We can, we can leave that out. that, when we talk about people who are putting stuff on other people's skin. All day, every day. What do you think is like one of the most important things that they understand about that?

You know we take our skin for granted. We really do. And we have to, as, as therapists and, and, and people who are in touch with skin all day, every day, we need to be able to recognize that touching someone and touching their skin is, is very, it's a very vulnerable. It's something that's very vulnerable. Right. Your, your story, a reflection of yourself, your inner health, your, your lifestyle, your, your, everything is written on the skin and everything is a, everything that's going on inside is really reflected outside of the skin. I think it's important to um, recognize that whether we are. We are encountering a healthy skin or whether we are encountering diseased skin or skin that have disorders there are things that, you know, we can do in order to improve it. It's just a lot more complex than just applying, you know, You know, an oil or a cream on the surface of the skin. Now, we know a lot about skin, how it functions on a cellular level and a molecular level. And the, the greatest discoveries in science and in dermatology have really enabled us to understand the skin better and how it is truly a reflection of our inner health. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

I find, the idea of dermatology, of course, not a dermatologist, obviously, but I've been in the world of skin for quite a long time. One, because I work on it, but two, it's been a big issue for me in my life, right? Like, between the dermatologist. Random outbreaks of eczema and rashes and acne all throughout my adult life and it's been like this ongoing. Oh, this is super frustrating So I've been pretty deep into it. What I found so fascinating is up until very recently and quite frankly even in our current day The vast majority of the time you go to a dermatologist and they're like, yeah, just just put some put some steroid cream on it Off you go. Because it's like, so complicated. It seems it's so complicated that it's like, we don't know. You got eczema? knows? Throw some on it, because that's the best we got. But what I'm hearing you say is, if we take sort of this multifaceted, integrative approach, then maybe there's a little bit more insight into what's actually going on with the skin. Mm

Yeah. And there's also, like, everybody is so different. My first degree, Jess, as you know, is I'm a microbiologist. So, for me, whenever I have someone in front of me, I am trying to figure out, like, how their DNA actually impacts my body. You know their skin and the skin health. So what a lot of people don't know is that a corticosteroid cream is only meant to be used on a very short term basis because corticosteroids will reduce inflammation but they also slow down healing. And this is something that is very important, right? So this is why, when people are, become dependent on corticosteroids too much, the skin is never able to heal, even though the redness and the itchiness kind of goes away. When we have someone with eczema in front of us, it's important to realize that eczema is multifaceted. Of course, there's a genetic component to it, but there's also things like air quality. How hard or soft your water is. What you're using in terms of laundry detergent. The fragrances that you're staying away from as well. It's, it's, it's, you know, usually people who have eczema, they cannot, we need to be really careful, I have it myself, so, we need to be really careful, for example, with wool or mohair, or what we wear on our skin, because anything can be a trigger, including some certain foods. Thanks. Certain foods will go and, and, and trigger you know, eczema not flare ups as, as, as we call in DERM. So eczema flare ups, which are very uncomfortable. And I always say when someone has eczema in a family, Everybody has eczema, like you need to change your whole kind of environment. You need to adapt um, your, your, your nutrition and then you need also to be able to find, um, you know, which supplements are going to be appropriate to reduce the inflammation, but also recently we've, we've learned that because What we've known for a long time is that inflammation is kind of the root of all evil. You know, it's at the base of depression and you know, skin diseases, rosacea, psoriasis, you know, eczema, heart disease. And there's a topic that's really hot right now in dermatology and it's the gut. The gut skin axis, gut skin brain axis so having and finding a good probiotic has been very, very beneficial for a lot of our patients because reducing inflammation in the gut actually is linked to an improvement in inflammatory skin conditions.

Mm hmm. I've certainly seen the same thing in myself, right? Like, like, my, way of describing it when I teach integrative medicine principles is everybody's got a weak link, you know, so inflammation is going to pull on their weak link. For some people, like me, my weak link is skin. As soon as I start to get inflammatory stuff in my gut and digestive system, it manifests within skin. But for other people, it might be muscle aches. For other people, it might be brain fog, right?

Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm

regardless of what, what, what one's individual weak link is, not too many links down that chain. Skin is pretty much always involved when we talk about the inside out, you know, people having poor nutrition, they might start with brain fog and then eventually get to muscle aches. But inevitably, it's going to come out on the skin. And I think it's a pretty profound reflection of what's happening on the inside.

hmm. Absolutely. Lifestyle is huge. I can tell when someone comes to see me if they're smokers or not. I can tell right away. There is a grayish undertone to the skin, like an oxidative stress, right? So this is why we want to have, you know, Antioxidants in our supplements and anti, you know, antioxidants in our nutrition as well. But you see that kind of grayish undertone of the skin. And that oxidative stress I've seen from lifestyle, you know, from poor sleep quality as well. I think we tend to underestimate the power of a good night of sleep. And and at the same time You know, oxidative stress can also come from lifestyle, but also from poor detoxing. So this is something that is very important. We know for a fact, and this is something that is published, that you know, 50 percent of the population have a mutation in the, in the MTHFR, like of the MTHFR gene, which is a detox gene. So people who are not detoxing properly will tend to have more swelling, more redness, and more swelling. Puffier looking and also more oxidative stress because they are not able to properly detox. The liver gets overburdened, the lymphatic drainage is not optimal, and then you really see it on, on the face, even for acne, for example, huge lymphatic drainage is huge for acne. And the improvement of acne prone skin.

Well, I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot of threads. There's a lot of threads in there that I want to pull on. One that I want to pull on in particular was, let's, got a couple mental pins. We'll talk about oxidative stress, sleep, I mean, beauty sleep, right? when you're talking about smokers and kind of the, the grey pallor to the skin,

Mm

about this. So there's this, there's this technique, and it's called cupping. You ever seen or heard of

hmm. Mm hmm.

you know?

I get it every week.

Beautiful, beautiful. Okay, so you know it well. Now there's this interesting thing. So I've, I've taught cupping for years and years and years. And every once in a while, when you're cupping, the oil turns gray. And it's, it's like my first thought was maybe this person just hasn't showered in a little bit, but I started you know, without being rude. It's like, Hey, listen, I don't mean to be rude, but when was the last time you showered? And it's like, you know, this morning. Okay. But it's, it's common and it tends to be more common in smokers, but it's not exclusive to smokers. And

Mm hmm.

is great.

Mm hmm.

I'm curious about that. What do you think? I mean, we can hypothesize if you don't, if you have answer, great. But if even if you have a hypothesis, I think I'm super curious.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, oh my goodness, this is such a great question. What I can tell you, like you said, you know, I haven't done, like I, I haven't done a clinical trial to test and then, you know, to take a little bit of the sample of this graying oil and then analyze it with chromatography and everything. We haven't done that. What I can tell you is, when I do a facial, or I do a treatment on a smoker, I can smell, I can smell them of course, if they're like kind of hardcore smokers. But when we do, for example, like a deep pore cleansing, we unclog pores, we can see that the the sebum, uh, is, ranges anywhere from like grey to black, to kind of an oxidized, like, yellow mustard. Like a nicotine, you know, like the, the color that you get, the color that smokers get, like we see that in, in, in their pores, literally. Another thing, yeah, so if we see it here. Chances are, you know, we're detoxing through our pores, so chances are we're going to see that as well. So that makes a lot of sense. There's another thing that I have noticed over the past, I would say five or six years, is we're located in Alberta here, so Western Canada. One thing that has made a huge impact is forest fires. So when we get into like June and July and we start having forest fires, we are able here to, to see it like we cleanse people's skin. And it literally you can see a grayish tone when you when you wash people's skin and sometimes they're not even wearing any makeup or anything and you cleanse their skin and it's kind of this yellow mustard you know when when the the air quality from forest fire you look at the horizon and it's kind of this yellowish gray like we find that on people's skin. We also have linked and once again, this is not a scientific experiment. It's just observation. But I always say science is slow. You know, logic is fast. Another thing that we see is a lot more dermatitis. When the air quality from the forest fire is kind of lower, we see a lot more eczema, we see a lot more skin barrier issues, dryness, excessive, like, irritation, and from the toxicity of, from the poor air quality. So, yeah, it's very, very interesting. I haven't seen anything. It's fascinating. And what's been published. What's been published years ago, actually, is they are now linking air pollution with an increase in skin pigmentation. And they've tested that actually in China, so Fitzpatrick 4, like Asians. And they can clearly see that even the air quality has a huge impact on the skin, on skin reactivity, on your skin barrier, but also on the process of hyperpigmentation. It's absolutely fascinating. So if you do cupping and it comes out and it's like gray or it could also be that the skin, it could also be that they're, the air quality is poor and you're, you're literally kind of drawing things out of the skin or the oil is, is mixing with debris. And toxic heavy metals, and, so it could be that as well.

That's super fascinating for a number of reasons, but you know, with my background in traditional Chinese medicine, I can't help but go this way because each organ in the body, we say manifests some way. and the the lung manifests on the skin, or like the skin is one of the organs connected to the lung. and I've always found that connection interesting, you know, but it's never fully made sense. And the lung and large intestine in TCM, they're paired organs. So we got like this lung, large intestine, skin connection that we see that, that is like one TCM theory. So as you describe this, it's like, huh, I don't know. That's fascinating. We're starting to see this it anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence that, hey, it turns out when you're breathing poor air quality, it comes out on your skin. And when you eat poor, poorly, it also comes out on your skin. Fascinating.

Mm hmm, mm hmm. And once again, like you said, it's anecdotal, but, you know, when, when something repeats and comes back over and over and over again, you start to

that's it. And with, with

Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm

of one thing, find you, you loosely hold it. I'm, I'm a fan of that. You know, it's like you get enough people or experts like yourself who've got these anecdotes. It's like, okay, yeah, we're not going to set it to scientific study, but it's worth having in the back of the mind. Anyways, I certainly appreciate it. One of the things that I found super fascinating during our past conversation was this. I'm all about nutrition, inflammation, right? And I'm like, I want to dig deep into that. But I, I eat like pretty, pretty spot on. Of course, I get my sugar binges, right? I'm not perfect. But as I mentioned, I eat poorly, manifest on my skin. Awesome. But one of the conversations that I was having with you that was super duper eye opening for me is I'm all about this inside out. And From what you're hearing, what I'm hearing you say is, yeah you agree, but what you brought to light for me is like, yes, but also, in. So you're, you're educating me and helping me understand that the, the The idea that stress due to poor diet can manifest on the skin, and we can help resolve that by eating antioxidants and reducing inflammation from within, and also we can help deal with that by what we put on our skin, going the outside in approach.

hmm,

I'm curious about that. Can we dive into how application onto the skin itself to help resolve things like it acne or rosacea or just typical aging, right? Oxidative stress.

mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I always say, there's only so many oranges you could, you could eat in order to get, You know, a 10 percent concentration of L ascorbic acid in the skin. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not. One thing that we need to remember as well is that the, the, the skin is like the last. It's the, it's the limit, right? Everything's going to get fed. Everything's going to be fed. And, you know, Before it kind of, it gets to the skin. So what we want to have is, yes, we want to have something, you know, like an internal approach, but it's, it's not going to be enough because we need higher concentrations of antioxidants topically, whether it's vitamin C, vitamin A, whether it's green tea, whether it's resveratrol, there's a lot of different combinations that you can, that you can find in the market that when you apply, it's, it's really going to help have that anti antioxidant effect. You know, I always tell my patients, I say, so let's say if I'm a cell, right. And I have one job to do, I have one job to do, and I want to do it as, as, as best as I can. If I'm on the side here fighting the free radicals. I'm doing 50 percent of my job and 50 percent of my energy, I'm, I'm, you know, fighting the free radicals there on the side in order to be able to do half of my job. That's not going to be very optimal. So you want to have topical antioxidants to be able to fight free radicals during the day, but also at night to repair the skin when the skin is in repair mode. You want to have a different set of antioxidants as well to go and repair the skin from the damage that it's been, that it's been encountering during the day. So It's, I mean, it's, it's a fascinating it's absolutely fascinating, and just like we were talking about, you know, inflammation being the cause and the root cause, and the cause of, the root of all evil, I call it, it's the same thing topically. Right? Like, you could drink a ton of green tea. How much of an anti inflammatory approach are you going to have on the skin? It's, you could drink all the green tea in the world, all it's going to do is you're not going to sleep and then you're going to have, you know. So yeah, what we want to do is based on what we see, based on patients concerns, I would say that probably from the analysis that I've done over the past 18 years, I would say that 85 to 90 percent of people Even if it doesn't show to the naked eye, have some sort of moderate to severe Inflammation in their skin, and this is why we always recommend an anti inflammatory Aloe is a great one Green tea is a great one Niacinamide Azelaic acid. There's a lot of zinc oxide, even zinc oxide, which we can use as a as a sunscreen is a natural anti inflammatory as well. So there's a lot of things we can do to approach aging and to approach pigmentation to prevent as well through topical anti inflammatories. Yeah,

here in a moment about what are some things that practitioners could include into their, maybe they make their own motion. I want to dig into that. But what I'm really curious about first is what I remember this one day, I was teaching at a massage college, and it was within the first couple months of school or something like that, and one of the students, this guy, he comes in he says, Hey, hey, Dr. Jessica, I talked to you. And he's, you know, kind of got that like embarrassed look. And we go into this little treatment room and he says, can you take a look at my back? And he takes his shirt off. And it was like, it was just neck to glutes, Acne. Like, my eyes almost bulged. I'm like, holy jeez, like, wow, I've never seen anything like this. And I said, well, what happened? And he said, this has never happened before, but I'm pretty sure it was some of the oil because I got a massage two days ago and it started yesterday and by today it's like this and I'm like, oh my God. reflecting on my own experience, I remember when I was in school, there was this one type of herbal ointment and every single time I'd get a couple like cysts on my back. And this is something that, that we just kind of take for granted, right? A lot of practitioners are just like, eh, I'll buy whatever, it's cheap and affordable, you know, whatever, and I'll throw it on the skin. So what do you have to say about, about the idea of being more mindful of harmful ingredients that have the potential of causing a reaction like this?

so it's, it's not going to happen to everyone, of course but there are a lot of massage oils out there that are, that are comedogenic. You know, your olive oils, your castor oil, your, your coconut oil, unfortunately can actually, actually on the scale of comedogenicity, they're actually quite high. When I have.

define com committed to,

comedogenicity. Yes, of course. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's the potential to it's a comedogenicity is the potential to cause clogged pores. So when we talk about how acne happens, so acne, you know, in 95 percent of cases starts with a clogged pore. So you get either an open comedone that looks like a black head, or you can get just kind of a bump, like no inflammation attached to it, but like a closed pore that is, that is clogged. And this is the first step to acne. What happens from there, this is what we call non inflammatory acne, comedonal acne, okay? Then what happens is that there's, there's a tipping point. So there are elements that can have, that can be involved in the Development of acne. The first thing is hormones, of course. You know, if you have stress hormones, sex hormones, your hormones are changing. You get, you get an IUD in, or whatever. Things that are shifting. It can actually you know, latch on, or the change in hormones can make the, the, the comedone. The clogged pore inflamed. Then there's a bacteria. So as a microbiologist, I get really excited when I talk about bacteria and acne. So there's a P. Acnes, which is a type of acne bacteria that actually loves clogged pores because it's, uh, you know, lipophilic. So it loves oil and it's and it's an anaerobic bacteria. So by definition, a clogged pore is in oxygen deprived environment. So there's that bacteria as well that's going to start to, to, to, to multiply. And then there's inflammation. Inflammation can also, from the diet, from exercise, from scratching, from having a body scrubber, Any type of inflammation, whether it's, it's self or whether it's you know, your sugar, your bad fats, your dairy can create inflammation from the inside and it can lead to acne. So, when we see that someone has acne, On their face, or we see that there's textural issues as well. Like you can see, I would be really careful with I would ask, Are you prone to any breakouts at all? Oh, yes, yes, I do get breakouts. Okay, so then I would make a different choice like a grapeseed oil. Or maybe like a grapeseed gel, or you can mix both, you know, together to have a little bit of a better slip as well. So I would go, so in the comedogenicity scale, so the tendency to clog pores, grapeseed extract is, uh, is a lot less. clogging than an olive oil or a coconut oil or a castor oil would be. So this would be my choice. If I needed to do a massage on the face, then it, so that would be, I'm sorry, my choice for the body. If I needed to do, if I wanted to do a a massage on the face, First of all, I would be very very careful about not using additional oils on the skin, because people who have acne usually have more oils naturally. So if you add an oil to the face, you're going to get more congestion. You're going to get more acne in the future, or in a short or long term future. So I would use something that's more to the likes of water based, like a hyaluronic acid, or, or like a lotion, or something that's more water based, so that you will hydrate, you know, without clogging, so this would be Thank you. You know, my choice and it, and it is my choice actually when I do like facial massage, it's not as fancy and it's not as therapeutic as what you do. But if I, we do a lot of facials, we do a lot of facial massage and we need to be really careful. I mean, in a pinch, like in a pinch pinch, another thing that can work is ultrasound gel.

Interesting.

It's kind of bizarre, like to think about it, but ultrasound gel actually has I've never seen anyone react to ultrasound gel. Ultrasound gel, there's no oil in it. And in a pinch, you know, if you don't have a hyaluronic acid, but you have access to like an ultrasound gel, this is something that can work on the skin. And if you put enough, it gives you a nice glide. And after that you can remove with with a nice warm towel. And so, in a pinch, that's a little trick.

I like it. I like it. And, and that naturally leads into this next curiosity that I have. I, a really big fan of making one's own gel or lotion or whatever they're gonna put on the skin to a certain extent because yet another horror story is making their own beautiful herbal ointment. And it's like all of these beautiful herbs that seem to be perfect and putting it on a, a patient's skin, and it just creates. an absolute nightmare. So this balance between, I think it's a really good idea to know exactly what ingredients are in the lubricants and lotions and oils. And also being mindful that you can cause problems. So for those people who are like, cool, I'm in, I want to make my own. Let's, let's like. Imagine a perfect recipe that's like antioxidant and it's got good glide and it's healthy for the skin and all of the above. How does that sound?

Oh my goodness, it sounds awful! No, no, it doesn't sound awful, but there are things that we need to know, and that we need to take into consideration. So, You know, I'm a microbiologist, and I worked for L'Oreal, the biggest cosmetic company in the world for many, many years, and I have my own skincare line, okay? So which is called Aliquot Skin. Anywho, one thing that is really important to, to remember is that there's two types of ingredients that comes in a product. There are oil based ingredients, and there are water based ingredients, okay? So, if you're going to choose, so if you want to make something you can choose both, you know, oil based ingredients and you can mix them with a water based ingredient. But as soon as you put oil water in the product, there is a chance for bacterial contamination. If you only have an oil, if you say, listen, I'm going to make an oil and you do olive oil, rosehip oil, a little bit of essential oil You know, you just put oils in your mix, then if you don't have any water, you don't need a preservative, because bacteria does not grow in oil. But as soon as you have a mix, like as soon as, let's say, you put aloe in, You know, you could try to make your own like I don't know, you, you know, shea butter, you put, you know, a little bit of glycerin in there, you put a little bit of olive oil in there, you shake as soon as you try to put something that is water based, because you might want to put an antioxidant that's water based inside of your Product you absolutely need a preservative system. Otherwise, it's not going to be stable and you risk, you know, the development of bacteria and fungus and all sorts of stuff that can grow in there. And then it just becomes a little bit of a nightmare for yourself and, and, and for your client as well. So I'm not a super big fan of, you know, when people come to me and they're like, Oh, I make my own product. I'm like, There's a lot of things, you know, if it's a, if it's a, if it's a facial oil and it's only a blend of oil, no problem, you know, you don't want to keep it for too long, you know, like I would probably, you could probably keep it fresh for like a month or two but if you're going to have any type of water based ingredient in there. You absolutely need to have a preservative system, and then that's when it gets complicated, right? Because you're talking about, like, phenoxyethanol, you're talking about there's, so then it becomes less natural, and more, more, like, you, you absolutely need to put a preservative in there. Because otherwise, yeah, yeah.

Okay. That's fascinating because a lot of the, the home recipes that I'm aware of there, they're largely oil based, you know, like you'll start with like, I don't know, fractionated coconut oil base base, or I've heard of oil, and it's, it's a couple different oils in there, things when it comes to working on the body is you want, you want glide, but you also want Right? Like you want to be able to but not like slide off the skin. So then will throw in like, like a shea butter or like a little bit of beeswax or something

Yes. Yes.

what I'm hearing you say, it's like when we throw in the shea butter, that's water based. Is that what you're saying? No.

No, no, no, no. So that's oil based as well, so that would be good. If you want more grip, yeah. So this is, this is waterless. So there's no problem. If you add shea butter, no problem. If you add aloe, or water, or rose water, or Orange flower water or things like that or hydrosols, hydrosols. I don't know if you've heard of them. So hydrosols are like water based distillate of essential oils,

Okay. okay. Okay, Okay. I'm with you now.

like, like a rose hydrosol. Then you're introducing water. So potentially if there's a bacteria that's hanging in there and you're on your, on your hands or, you know, In, in the jar that you're compounding all these things in, it could lead, it's, it's, it's problematic.

Okay. Okay. So let's let's play with this, this previous recipe, which is just, you know, a vague recipe, but I feel like it's missing an antioxidant. And when we talk about things that we can put on the skin that has sort of this outside in effect from what I'm understanding through this conversation is an antioxidant would be a darn good thing. So what, what could, is there any antioxidant that we could add into this magic recipe that isn't water based so we don't have to worry about? Present.

So it would be oil, it would be oil based. Um, and then, thank you for bringing that up, because then it brings, so one thing, for example, would be, uh, vitamin E. Vitamin E is oil based, right? You could do that. You don't want to use too much, though, because vitamin E, for certain people, can be pretty allergenic. And you don't want to put, like, if someone has an, like, an open wound, or a sore, or something like that, you don't want to put, interestingly, vitamin E on it, because you can get an allergic reaction. But you could do vitamin E oil. You could do vitamin A as well. Vitamin A is oil soluble so you could do a vitamin A. You could do a CoQ10,

Interesting.

right? So, Coenzyme Q10 is soluble in oil. So, but, please, do not use So, there's a difference in my world between food grade

Mm hmm.

and cosmetic grade.

Mm.

Years ago, I had a patient, she did her own kind of little facial oil, and she said, And, Marie, I went to Costco, I bought myself some CoQ10, and then I took a little needle, and I squirted, you know, I squirt the the, the the CoQ10 inside of my mix. And then she developed this, this contact dermatitis. It was red and inflamed and bumpy and itchy and it, it lasted for a long time. And that's because she had put a food grade CoQ10 in a topical product. So if you're going to go for know, an antioxidant that is, I would highly recommend that you get a cosmetic,

Mm hmm.

You know, a cosmetic grade. You can find, there are some places online that actually sell the individual ingredients. So, you could definitely do that but Yeah. So you need to, you need to be careful.

yeah, because it's, it's like, there's this balance that I'm, I'm beginning to feel here where we need to understand that the skin is wildly important. It's a reflection of what's going on the internal environment. And it turns out that we can affect the body by putting things onto it. We went through that when we're talking about putting some sort of random oil and a person having breakouts, face being more. prone to it. But then there's this, there's this other thing where it's like, okay, well then what, you know, like I'm working with these oils every single day. I'm putting these oils on my hands every single day. So I want to know what's going to be getting in my body. But also there's like this delicate balance between, Hey, if you're making your own stuff, you got to, you actually got to be pretty mindful about it. You can't just like willy nilly throw a bunch of random stuff in there. Right. So it seems like it's just a sticky place to be in.

Well, yeah. And there's another thing as well that I've seen quite a bit from patients. Patient tell me, Marie, I have, I have dry skin. Like I feel my skin is pulling, it's flaking. It's like really irritated. Like it pulls, you know, throughout the day. So I bought, or I made myself, but let's say I bought like a facial oil. like an olive oil or something like that, like a facial oil, you know, from Sephora or whatever. And they're like, I'm still dehydrated. I'm still dry Marie. One of the things, and it's actually a myth, it is a myth that oils hydrate. Hydration is related to water content of the skin, okay?

makes That

and actually, oils actually repel water. So if you use, if, if the balance, if your skincare is too heavy in oils, you're using too much oil. You're never solving the problem. You're never feeling very hydrated for very long. You need to introduce ingredients that will bind water because a healthy skin barrier actually has, you know, some water, but it has some oils. So it needs to be a blend of both. Not just the oil or not just hyaluronic acid. You need to kind of have that balance. And a lot of people think, Oh yeah, I'm just, you know, my body is so dry. I'm just going to put an oil on it. And sometimes it's not, it's not a long term solution because if you want to restore the skin barrier, you need water and oil, not just oil. Okay.

I mean, that makes sense on a number of reasons. Like, to hydrate your skin. Hydro, literally, water. But also, chapstick. Like, I'm pretty confident. Every time my lips get a little bit chapped, this time of year it's getting drier, I put chapstick like, it gets worse. It feels 20 minutes that Don't get me wrong, it's a great 20 minutes, but then it feels like, well, now I'm stuck in this cycle. Or if I don't put it on every 20 minutes, I'm going to get cracked lips. But reason I don't have ChapStick around for a couple of days, then miraculously, everything seems to be okay. Right? So it's like

Exactly. so

thing. Okay.

oil, right? It's a type of oil. You're going to get some glycerin in there. You're going to get that. So you apply it, you get an instant comfort. But remember, oil repels water. So what's going to happen is after 20 minutes, you're, you know, the oil is going to not do its job anymore. And then your, your lips are going to be cracked and chap because You basically, you know, took the water away, and then when you don't use it, your body is smart, and your skin is smart, and it starts to produce its own natural moisturizing factors that are molecules and ingredients naturally present in your skin that is going to that are going to bind water, and so then it will, you know, it will come back after a while. This is what happens as well when we fly. Right? So we go in a very, very dry environment that is like a, like a plane is like there's no humidity in the air at all in there. So this is why when we come back from flying for two or three days, like we have really, really dry skin because all, like all of a sudden, You know, the body's like, Oh my God, I need to start producing more natural moisturizing factors in order to compensate for the dehydration that was experienced in in altitudes. You know, in, in, in, on the plane. So it's very, very, skin is very, very finicky. It's a, it's a, it's a very, very, it's a very subtle balance and it's different for everyone. Mm

yeah. that that's the part that I both I really appreciate. I'm a big fan of individualized medicine. Like, it has to be that way. But also it's kind of like, oh, man, that's hard that it's so challenging for some people who have skin issues, right? That it

hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

specific interventions.

hmm.

This might seem like a bit of a non sequitur, but I'm, I'm quite curious about this because between meeting you in person and having, excuse me, and having a session with you and through this conversation, like you're, you're super passionate about this and knowing your background in microbiology and now moving into the skin. I'm really, really curious about, about that passion. So if you're comfortable with it, I'd really love to hear about why you're so passionate about this and how you keep that zest good gracious. You seem super excited and passionate.

Yeah, always. Always. You know, it's, it's, it's when I started, I started Skin Science 18 years ago. I'm going to tell you, Dr. Jess, when I stopped worrying about my bottom line and I started doing what was right for patients, even if it meant that I need to, you know, not treat or send them home with a, with a, with a sample or my internal Ethical compass is extremely strong and my desire to accomplish whatever God and the universe or, you know, whatever is out there, you know, watching over us I am I am But I really want to make sure that I develop my gifts and that I put them to good use. And this comes back to actually 9 11. So during 9 11, I was living in Washington, D. C. I was working at the National Institutes of Health. And when 9 11 happened, it was a big wake up call for me because I was doing research in the best research institutes in the world. Having plenty of money doing fantastic research surround and I was completely empty inside. I was doing the work. I was doing it very well, but I was not making really a difference, you know, in the world. So that was a big wake up call for me. And. I remember thinking to myself, wow, you know, I could have like literally 18 hours before 9 11 I was like in front of the White House, you know visiting, you know museums and stuff like that And it was just so it was just so bizarre. There's no coincidences. So I thought you know what I could have died yesterday and this hit me very very hard and I decided that You know, I wanted to make a difference in the world because I did not want to You die without having made a difference in even one person's life. And that's where I kind of looked inside and I said, okay, what is it that I love? What is it that can, I could wake up every day and, you know, be thankful and be happy. And so, yeah, this is what I decided to do. I I worked for L'Oreal and then I moved to Calgary and then I started my own clinic and it's, you don't need to see the whole staircase, right? When I graduated in, in microbiology and immunology at 24, you would have told me, Marie, in eight years, you're going to have your own medical spa. I would have said, no way. There's no way that I'm going to have my own medical spa. And if at 32, you would have told me, Marie, in 10 years, you're going to have your own skincare line. I would have said. So I think finding your why and implementing it and being fearless is the key. is the key. We don't have any time to waste. There's no time to waste.

I really appreciate that story. Thank, thank you for sharing it. And there were, there are a few points at it. Were go goosebumps and a few that stand out was, I imagine you working at and H, right? na, national Institute of Yes, of it's, it's NIH. It's, it's a prestigious position, right? Like on, on paper, this is, this seems pretty good. You're, you're working in industry, you're probably making okay money. And then there was that moment, right? Of like, I want to, I want to actually do something. And part of the reason I love it so much is that's, that's actually a good part of why I do this podcast is finding the thing in this world that That really makes you feel like I'm contributing, like I'm following my, my purpose. And there was the, the opening moment, right? 9 11 is happening and you're thinking like, there's not a moment to waste. But I'm curious about like, how did you know? Like, how did you know the next step? Like you said, we don't need to know the whole staircase. We don't need to see it all. But was it about like, Okay, I'm not going to do this, but I'm going to do this, if my question's making sense. Like, how did you

Yeah, absolutely.

the wherewithal to actually take that step?

You know, it's a very, very good question. So you don't need to see the whole staircase, but when the next step is clear, you need to act.

Mm

And it's almost like a fog that lifts. It's almost like something happens and you're like, Oh, this is where I should be going. But then you need to implement, because if you don't implement, You're going to be stuck where you are and you're going to be miserable and you're not going to make a difference in the world. And I really truly believe that, you know, if God and the universe have given you A gift or multiple gift, it is your responsibility to, it's like, it's like a flower, you know, you can pluck it and then it's gonna die or you can nurture it and love it and cultivate it so that it becomes, you know, beautiful and it makes other people happy whatever that looks like. So you don't need to see the whole staircase. So what you do, what I did is I said, Okay, clearly something happened. It was an event. You know, I don't want to die without having made a difference in the world. What is it that I like? So, I liked skin because I always had problem skin ever since I was a young adult. I had adult onset acne. I wanted to help people with that. I love to educate. I love to do public speaking. I am a creator. I love, I'm a science, I'm, I'm a science girl, but I love to create. For me, creating is just, it's absolutely amazing. Like what, what, Like the possibilities are completely endless. So I said, okay, this is what I want I want to teach I want to be in skin and I want to and then I went online and I found this job for L'Oreal medical relations and training Director for Vichy and Laroche Posay, which are two skincare lines that are worldwide Very well known and this is how I started so I didn't know That I would end up, you know, 25 years later, here I am, right, 50 years old, I'm in business. I have, you know, a great skincare clinic with a great reputation. We change people's lives. We've developed expertise is over the years that have added on to, to one another. And then I'm like, you know what, there's this product here. It doesn't exist. And I, my patients need it. Let's create it. Let's find a lab and let's create it and you can do whatever you want. So some people are very You have to be bold. You have to be bold in your approach. Have I failed? Holy Of course. I've failed more times than I've succeeded. But, you know, you either win or you learn. And so, you know, I'm fearless because I'm 50 years old, time is running out, and I still have a lot to share. Yeah,

Yeah. Once again, there's a lot of, a lot of threads that we could pull on that, but what I'm, what I'm really hearing is you had this passion and even if it wasn't a passion at the time, if it was an interest and you just, you just did it, you just followed it. And my experience with people who have had success in their life, and I want to be very clear when I talk about success, I mean, success in their eyes, not whatever my definition is of success, but. Individuals who are fulfilled in their life that they have meaning and purpose and you know that they are maybe monetarily successful, but nevertheless. of the characteristics I see very often is taking action is just just doing it and like you said failure Oh God Like if you fail over and over and over and over and over and over and over again And I suppose that's the next criteria for success that I'm getting from your story It's like you're gonna fail but keep going because it's worth it.

you're going to fail. So what?

hmm.

Fail fast, fail fast and then get up, you know, like it's, it's so, so, so important. We're so, there's a lot of people who are so paralyzed, you know, by fear, fear of failure, fear of success, whatever. Like, it's like, you cannot, if you start listening to that little voice inside of you that tells you that you can't do this, that you're not good enough, that you don't know what you're doing, that you're not, you know, You know, you don't have any. No, just do it. Don't think about it too much. Just do it. Just go and Another another thing a lot of people are like Marie. How do you do it all you have your clinic? You do public speaking you have your own skincare line now You're launching your skincare line in a lot of different medical spots So we're going kind of wholesale with that project like how do you do it all? Like I don't, you know, and so what I do is that I actually make sure that I forward two. So outside of my like day to day, like I'm about eight hours hands on like four days a week. And then I have my admin day. But one thing that I do is every day I forward two projects. And it doesn't need to be a lot. It can be like just a 10 minute, you know, a little email that I'm sending to my branding expert in New York City to ask him a couple of questions. It's 10 minutes of my time, but that's forwarding that project. So every, every day I forward two projects.

Right. It's you're, you're not taking, you know, you're not like trying to get to the top of the staircase. Every single day, you're just taking the next step.

that's right. Little bit, little bit at a time. And before you know it, it's, you know, the, the, the work is done and you're proud of it. And you're, and this is another thing that I've really, really, I really had to catch myself, Dr. Jess. Like, I am such a go getter that I did not, I did not enjoy. You need to enjoy the process. Not only, you know, the apple at the end. And this is, and you need to enjoy the apple at the end, not just go to the next. Celebrate your wins. Celebrate your small wins. Celebrate your big wins. Sometimes we just, okay, so this is done and, you know. No, like just sit. Sit with your success. It's so important. Sit with your success. Congratulate yourself. You did it. Well done. Enjoy.

like, we all know the saying, right? It's not, it's not the destination, it's the journey. And it is the journey, but you know what? It's also the destination. both things.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's the destination, because some days you'll be excited about the journey and some days you won't. Some days you go in and you're like, wow, this is, but then you think about your destination and you're like, okay, this is one day I had a, I had a bad, I had a, you know, less than stellar day and it's okay. But it's the why, like the destination and how that destination fits inside of your global why is yeah, it's really, it's, it's very, very powerful. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

And it's, it's really interesting to hear you say, because the steps that you're describing are, they're, they're classic, right? Like, there's nothing revolutionary about identify your why, figure out what you're passionate about. I'm not a fan of follow your bliss. In fact, the guy who said follow your bliss, he said it should have been follow your blisters, right? But follow your curiosities, take the next step, right?

Yes.

all these, these little things that you're saying. And they're very simple in theory, but they take a lot of courage and they take a lot of wherewithal in practice. And one of the things that came up as you were saying that was imposter syndrome, like as

Yes. Mm hmm.

they get a little bit broader and they start to build a reputation. I hear this all the time with the people I work with, the coaches, I feel like imposter. My opinion is perfect because if you're feeling imposter syndrome, that means you're at the edge of your capacity. Because there comes this point where you're like, I just can't do it. And that's when you're over the line. But when you got imposter syndrome, it means like you are, you're there, you're pushing it. So long as you're not actually being an authentic and fake, right? And it's just part of the process. We all feel it. I mean, I've talked to multi millionaires who are duper successful, and they're still like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I feel like an imposter half the time. It's just part of the process.

Oh, there is so much vulnerability in that, you know, and that's an another piece of the puzzle. Yeah, so you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, I can't do that. I don't know. I've never, I think that, you know, there, there are steps. In what is perceived as, as you're perceived as a successful person, there are steps. I think one of the step is the imposter syndrome step that you need to get over that. The other step is mastering emotional regulation. Not to be triggered by everything that comes your way. Because if you get triggered by everything that comes your way, you are going to be miserable. You're going to burn out. You're going to, so really, you know, seeing things for what they are and not Putting meaning to them and saying, you know, is this, is this worth me getting upset over? Is me getting upset over this going to change ever anything of the outcome? So that emotional regulation and the third, another third thing is when you start having enemies, when you start having enemies, you know, you're doing something right.

Mm

Because your enemies very often will be jealous, they will be envious, they will think that you don't deserve the success, you don't deserve the profit, that you, that you're, like, it's just, and it's like, once you start having enemies, you know you're on the right path.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that for sure. Means you're also doing something new too. You're doing something unique.

Yes. Yes, that's right. Oh, they misunderstand me. Let them. Let them. That's part of the emotional regulation and the, you know. It's really important.

We've been going at it for about an hour now, and I'm pretty sure we could go at it for another couple hours because I feel like once you and I get chatting, that's it. But I want to, I want to mention a few things because you did mention throughout our conversation, your skincare line. And

Yes. Aww. Aww.

something, but I honestly got to say for anybody who's listening. got super sensitive skin and I've been dealing with skin stuff for pretty much my entire adult life and genuinely a game changer. So I just want to say thank you for following that intuition and that that perceived need because for me it's made a huge difference and anybody listening seriously you got you got to check Marie's stuff out it's it's 11 awesome stuff so. Thank you for, for doing that,

Dr. Jess, thank you so much. And you know what, for me, I was coming here today and I was not going to promote anything. I just wanted to share my heart, come with like vulnerability and authenticity and, you know, the, the, the, the, the skin care line is just It's, it's on the side, but it

to

is a game changer. I'm a little bit biased, so we'll thank you for saying that.

Yeah. And, you know, we got, I got this, this closing tradition at the end of every episode. what, what I do is, is the previous or one of the previous guests they fill out a form and it's an anonymous form. So we don't know who this came from. I know who this came from, leave a question. They leave a question for the next guest. And the question with a struggle through in their professional life, maybe a bit of crossover. And the whole I'm going to ask you this question from a previous guest, and give, give your thoughts, advice, and suggestions.

You got it. All right, let's go. Let's go.

All right. So the question is whether or not to truly scale down my clinical practice to pursue another venture more full time. More importantly, when will I know I'm ready to take the leap? And

So, okay, so if I understand correctly, the person has a business, has a clinical practice, and wants to phase in, phase out of the first one and phase in into a second one, when will you know?

the idea here is it's like you're talking to a good friend. You're just giving, not advice, but just like, Hey, here's what I got to say to you, good friend.

Oh my goodness, there's so many things. There's so many things. So first of, so, so first of all, you have to make sure that of course, you know, like financially that it would make sense, right, that as you're phasing out the first one, and the other one is going up, that you're going to be able to financially be stable, you know, to do the, the, the transition. You know inside, you know, when, when you're ready, and I know it's scary because you don't know if it's going to work, if it's not going to work, but you need to listen to your gut because there's nothing worse than, I, when I die, Dr. Jess, I never want to be in a situation where I said, I should have, I should have started my own skincare line, I should have started my own, you know, and sometimes it takes a long time. It took me a long time before I started my own skincare line. I thought about it for at least eight years, and then something happened and I was like, that's my cue. So listen to your gut. If you're, if you're not ready, make sure that it's not that you're not ready because of fear is that you're not ready. You know, it doesn't feel right, but make sure that you, you are able to put that fear to the side. And I really believe that if you listen to your gut feeling, you will know when to transition. Yeah, it's very yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a feeling inside, but you just need to make sure that you're not stopped by your ego, and you're not stopped by your pride, and you're not stopped by fear. Once you've analyzed those, you put those to the side, what is left? you'll know if you're ready or not.

Beautiful. That's a brilliant answer. I love it. I love it. And thank you for participating. All right. Well, before we go, anything, anything else to add? I'm going to put all of your contact info in the show notes. People can get a hold of you, follow your stuff. But anything else you'd like to add before we we tie a bow

Well, you know, I'm ready for part two of our podcast.

Great. Let's make it a thing.

Thank you so much for having me. It's just such a pleasure and you're a great interviewer. You're so great. You're so great. You know what? Well done, my friend.

I really appreciate that. Thanks for your time.

Thank you so much, Dr. Jess. We'll see you next time.