over production of of oil and people don't even understand that they're overproducing oil because they're using the Benzel peroxide on a daily basis and this is a really interesting thing is they'll use Benzel peroxide be super dry during the day maybe they won't use it at night um or even if they do they'll wake up in the the morning and they'll say why are my pores enlarged I have dry dead dehydrated skin but I have large pores those two don't add together if you have enlarged pores that means you have a naturally oily skin type right that the oil is leaving the skin through the pore so why is your skin dry you wash your skin it feels super tight you go on about your day it feels super tight and dry but your pores are large it's because you're overproducing oil and it's trying to it has to leave the skin somehow welcome to the clear skin Chronicles the that takes you on a journey to uncover the secrets of achieving glowing acnefree skin we believe that knowledge is power and by understanding the root causes of your acne we can create a solid foundation for long lasting clear skin I'm Katie Stewart registered holistic nutritionist and founder of the clear skin solution where we help women just like you get to the root cause of their acne and I'm Chris Brown registered holistic nutritionist and program director in the clear skin solution through functional testing we we pinpoint where the body system imbalances lie so we can dive deep into your Acne Clearing Journey we work virtually with clients to clear up their skin from the inside out and have helped thousands of women worldwide regain their [Music] confidence another skin care episode we know you guys love this the stats on these are always fantastic cuz as acne suffers skinc care is kind of something we're all obsessed about right and of course we had to bring back our lovely Ashley she is our OnStaff holistic aesthetician in the clear skin solution and a topic we really wanted to cover Ashley was the medicated topicals this was actually an audience request um a number of people in our community on Instagram asked us to talk about medicated topicals so today I want to break down some of the most common ones we see with our clients the impacts that they can have on the Skin Barrier and the skin the skin of course really discuss that fear of coming off of it and then tactics they can take should they decide to stay on it or should they decide to come off so Chris I'm going to let you break down what are would you say are the most common medications that you see clients coming in with topical wise guaranteed I'm going to see a Trent and Owen for sure I'm going to see Benzel peroxide oh I had my days I had my days with that no worries uh sometimes we see more in the American clients I see topical spirolactone clomin and a bunch of different even some new ones that come in like a bunch of different acid-based ones however if I had to go for top core we're going to go trentino we're going to go Benzel peroxide clomin and topical spirolactone and when we look at the Clint clintom and that's a topical antibiotic the Tran is a prescription retinoid and then the Benzel peroxide there's a number of different brand names it's really just going to depend where you are what country and and what your doctor prescribed for you or it would just Benzel peroxide from the brown bottle on a cotton swab oh yes that is or or if you live in the US you just go to your local grocery store and you get 10% vensil peroxide which is what they pres where which is what they're hesitant to prescribe in most countries that's lovely yes yeah oh I got some acne I'm just going to go to the local grocery store and pick up a benel peroxide wash and then maybe we'll add some benel peroxide moisturizer with it too and it's totally fine because it's got whatever shea butter in it as well so I'm cool yeah we see that often right and it's because it's not just the one because when we look at prescription topicals they can be they are quite harsh to the skin they can really irritate the the Skin Barrier and when they're you when you know you're choosing to use a medicated topical and then you're using like a salicylic acid and then you're using a cream with acids in it and then you're using that like it's it's not just the medication alone it's also the combination of all of the other harsh topicals of the more is more I just need to dry the crap out of my skin and then you're left with a very raw irritated skin and a destroy Skin Barrier exactly 100% so let's kind of break down how are these impacting the Skin Barrier and what are some things that we can start doing to be repairing that Skin Barrier so let's say for the topical antibiotic uh this is what I tell our clients all the time is think of an antibiotic working in your gut right we're we're normalizing the idea that oh antibiotics can be good at the right time for the right scenario but they're also killing off all that good bacteria that our gut has all the bacteria that we love it's the same thing with our skin with our face it's an organ it's the second uh largest organ uh that carries bacteria right second to our gut is our our face our skin has so much bacteria on it so why are we killing off uh this layer of bacteria that's healthy it's there for a purpose and we want to kill off the bad but we forget that we're killing off the good with it yeah because the skin so now you're completely sterilizing you're literally sterilizing your skin and then clients say well you know that then my skin freaks out if I stop my prescription yeah it's going to because you're it's going to be introduced to to the world to literally every bacteria that's that's out there because you've completely sterilized the field right it's like a newborn baby baby's gut right everything's so it's brand new it's raw and then it compounds right it's not just that antibiotic that they're going to put on it then they're they might clean that up again with one of these other things or put some kind of retinoid on top of that and that's what we're seeing it's oh Ashley like you know I am by far not any close to the Realms of an esthetician in fact I am a poor excuse for a woman when it comes to makeup skin care skincare makeup is Chris's wheelhouse she'll get there though doing so much better I'm doing so much better you know give us a couple more podcast couple more podcasts Ashley's rubbing off on me um however you know it's one of those things is absolutely like you said it's that bacteria it's taking it off if you are using a clomin and it takes away which is it's actually it's not going to take away cystic acne I'll tell you that now but it's going to take away those tiny little Braille like bumps that is telling you that yes you do have a bacteria and since the skin is the largest organ but second to the gut for that microbiome that's telling you that your microbiome needs some TLC so what's going to happen is you come off that that topical antibiotic and what happens to your face within weeks tidy bumps everywhere and and then we're like but I need it and I'll hold there because I get that's what I get but I need it but what if my skin I remember when see the connection with all of that yeah it's really that excuse me that fear of coming off of that medicated topical because it it can be reducing the severity of the skin and of course when you're dealing with acne it's so impactful emotionally and mentally because you're constantly worrying what what people are thinking about you and I remember when I was dealing with acne um I was actually little like too embarrassed to go to my doctor and ask for like a topical of some sort but my younger brother he was dealing with acne and he was in high school at the time so anytime I would I would go home because I was living you know with Frank my boyfri who's my husband boyfriend at the time anytime i' go home I would like steal some of his uh medicated topical I put it in like a little jar and take it with me and I would use it because I was like oh my gosh this is helping to reduce how bad it is and you know I remember being at um where I was living at the time and I ran out and I was like oh my God I need to go home I need to steal my brother's medicated acne stuff again because my skin my skin was relying on it but at the same time my skin was also really irritated it was red it was dry it was itchy it felt just so inflamed but it was like I was battling I was between a rock and a hard place do I want all of this acne or do I want the red irritated skin I have a question what is it that you are putting on I actually don't even know I actually couldn't even tell you cuz it doesn't matter right it doesn't matter it it it was taking some of the severity down it was it said Tim maholic on it it was my brother's medication and I was like screw it I'm taking it don't care I I I honestly couldn't even guess what it was that I was putting on my face this could be one of those things where like Tim is going oh here's another one I didn't know Katie let let me add it to my he doesn't listen to the podcast don't worry he well Paige let's not put that don't tell your husband don't tell your husband and this but this is a common thing that we see even today like I see this all the time people either borrowing or taking some of of their PR friends prescription I see it with retinol all the time it's like Oh retino is amazing for you I read all the blogs all the socials why should I go and buy a $100 retino in at Sephora when I could just get it from the dermatologist and get it you know claimed through my insurance oh but wait my dirt most of the time they'll give it to you just cuz it's great for the skin but sometimes if they don't give it to you I'll just go to my next friend who can get it who can get unlimited refills from uh their doctor and they'll just give me a bottle for 20 bucks and there you go right it's it's like that black market retinoid juice for acne sufferers because troan is a prescription retinoid and um Ashley what's made really the difference between a prescription retinoid and say like a retinol or retinal hide serum you would be getting from an aesthetician well first of all it's like a 100 times stronger more potent it's synthetic vitamin A right keyword synthetic there um and it is your your skin essentially has to go through a couple different conversions of of tretinoin to get to retinol dehy to actually be used by the cells and encourage that cell turnover um and be used as that raw ingredient so that's where all of the irritation comes in because your Skin's trying to go through all of that conversion you're adding this ingredient all at once it's freaking out it doesn't know what to do it it's synthetic it doesn't recognize right it doesn't fit the puzzle absolutely where much stronger and it's going to be way more irritating and your skin not going to recognize I knew like anyways long story short is I just want to say I I knew some concepts of that but that just put all the puzzle pieces together and how that looks so that was good that's why we got Ashley Ashley's our skincare expert we love her don't come to Chris yeah I'm not going Chris that's why you get dry skin with trano and too it's because your Skin's going through the cellular turnover and it's producing speeding up the rate of you producing more skin cells which in theory sounds amazing and then but what happens is it's then you're getting all that dry skin all that skin that's supposed to be slothed off but amp it's just sticking on so that's where you get those patchy dry uh dry patches with with troan okay so another one that we see of course like we mentioned earlier was the Benzel peroxide and it coming under under different brand names benzil peroxide is just drying the crap out of your skin so do you want to talk a little bit about benzo peroxide Ashley oh me and Benzel for she's like please don't make me please don't we all have our stressors need a game face when somebody says Benzel peroxide I need to like have like a your Poker Face serious poker face because I I I cringe um it's drying out your skin because again it's sterilizing out the skin it's completely free squashing your sebaceous glands your your oil production right that's there for a reason we have these oil gr glands to produce oil to keep our skin lubricated to keep it nice and healthy and provide nutrients and all of the good stuff um and the theory with benel peroxide is it reduces bacterial caused acne so you think of that kind that acne that you're bursting out with um pulle like well pus will tell you it's bacterial filled caused by a bacterial overgrowth so Bensel peroxide could help with stuff like that but if you are you know you've got those cystic bumps here and there you get them around cycle you don't know why they're there for a month they never heal that is you know they never come up to a head they're never extractable I can't get anything out of them that's where you have to stay away from medel peroxide that's where the biggest miscommunication happens um because you're then drying out it can't reach it and it's an inflammatory condition so you're now adding something topically that's causing more inflammation to already inflammation that's happening Under the Skin So maybe in the dermal layer it won't do anything but topically it's still drying out your skin so now you have the inflammation but you've also added all the dry dehydrated dead topical layers of skin so now you just added another issue right because if you're drying out your skin like you're just signaling for the skin to produce more sebum which could in turn increase another type of breakout yeah exactly uh over production of of oil and people don't even understand that they're overproducing oil because they're using the benil peroxide on a daily basis and this is a really interesting thing is they'll use benel peroxide be super dry during the day maybe they won't use it at night um or even if they do they'll wake up in the the morning and they'll say why are my pores enlarged I have dry dead dehydrated skin but I have large pores those two don't add together if you have enlarged pores that means you have a naturally oily skin type right that the oil is leaving the skin through the pore so why is your skin dry you wash your skin it feels super tight you go on about your day it feels super tight and dry but your pores are large it's because you're overproducing oil and it's trying to it has to leave the skin somehow so in large pores over production of oil you're over stimulating enlarged pores all the time I would say like almost daily somebody is asking about enlarged pores I even have girlfriends be like K why are my pores like this why what is going on me and that's a thing right is is it needs to come out some way the other thing I just wanted to mention is let's take a like let's take this back from a body system perspective so when we have prolification so that's the over production is the cell turnover at a rate that the body isn't able to keep up and that's how it it that you know we get that dry skin however we're sterilizing the face with some of the products like Ashley said then we have the prolification because the body's trying to reproduce we've just taken out all of the sebum the oils everything we're like woohoo look at us go the body goes oh my gosh I need more oil I need more hydration go go go sends it and now we have prolification dead skin hanging out we have the seum production underneath it and now we just created a Mandarin Buffet for the opportunistic bacteria so we're feeding them at this point how did I do I can't tell you how to apply shea butter but I can tell you that well said this is why we make a perfect team yeah as long as somebody understood that it's okay I speak fluent Chris so I always understand what you're trying to say yeah Katie honestly every day she starts the day off with three gold Chris stars because nobody else understands what happens up in here nobody no but if you listen to the if you listen to the podcast though by like episode three you can speak flu and Chris you like you you get it yeah there you go I'm gonna tell clients hey welcome welcome to clear skin I'm your coach oh by the way by the here I suggest you go to the podcast because by you know episode three you're going to be Chris love it got be fluent Chris so now that we've talked about the different types of the topical prescriptions let's kind of talk about the impact to the skin and the Skin Barrier so Ashley what is the Skin Barrier and how are these topicals impacting it so our Skin Barrier favorite topic is that layer of healthy uh one healthy bacteria all the bacterial cultures that invisible layer that we don't see and the layer that's built of our oils our ceramides uh our skin cells um but essentially like our oil uh production or oil layer it's like your your Skin's first defense system so that's kind of what also filters out bacteria will neutralize uh you know the pH when we talk about the pH of the skin uh right so when we add something that's very acidic and how does the barrier not let that get deeper into the skin um and kind of just neutralize the the pH so a couple things that we could do to keep that barrier healthy is not over dry obviously not overwash our skin uh not overuse any product now I know we're we're talking about topic like you know topical prescriptions and that's of course 100% we don't want to overuse those but even overusing our topical um you know traditional salicylic acids or exfoliators that feel so good and we feel like we always have to exfoliate that's also we've talked about this in the past going to impact that um that barrier so remove is number one right take it back a step and then to just keep it overall healthy we just want to use nice nourishing ingredients so your emolient like your you know aloe vera uh maybe some shea butter um parts of a coconut any oil hoba rose hip we talk about the oils all the time how amazing they are for our skin I do want to ask one thing about the oils because some you know the question I'm going to ask I know the question all three of us know the question I'm we're gonna say it until we can't speak anymore yes we need to talk about Co coconut because when acne sufferers see the word coconut anywhere they have a borderline panic attack so can you just break down Ashley the coconut oil situation absolutely well it's and it's not even a coconut oil situation the way it's been put out in the world it's like so first of all coconut oil is incredibly Chris is going to love me for saying this but it's incredibly antibacterial an antifungal oh so there you go you have an oil that's actually kind of doing the same thing as your maybe prescription but in a better way you know coconut in its in its whole but when we add coconut into formulations first of all we're using parts of it fractions of it we're not using the whole raw coconut oil because the raw coconut oil can be quite poror clogging for some it can be because it's so rich anything that's very rich same with shea butter right I can't put shea butter it's shea butter no no no it's when you put a tub or you know raw shea butter on your skin that already is healthy it's producing its natural oil production it doesn't need anymore it's saturated so obviously if you're going to add more then it's going to congest but if you have fractions of these oils into a formulation nobody picks up their bottle and says this has coconut derivatives but it also has alcohol but it also has you know salicylic acid and all these acids that change the pH so when we take something into a formulation we have to consider first of all the pH of it a lot of the the times these ingredients that are in there they'll kind of neutralize each other right so you're adding something that's very drying very acidic but then there's also the coconut uh alkalines in there that are balancing it out if you're going to go if you're going to put raw coconut oil on your skin then yeah it can be pork poror clogging and all of the research that's out there the the very minimal research that's out there it's not even clinical uh is on the ingredient alone nobody has taken a product a formulation and said this actually clogs pores they talk about taking just coconut oil just shea butter I don't I don't know what else just olive oil or whatever oil it is that's really rich and putting it straight on the skin for days not considering anything leaving it there and leaving it just leaving it there for an extens extended amount of time and that's not even a new process right they do that with heavy metal compounds in Foods they don't isolate the compound or the load is what we're talking about so it's the load of what it's doing so when somebody goes to the FDA for an approval of a product they're not looking at you know they're like oh this percentage is a okay but if it goes over say this PPI or this whatever ever it is the the PSI the um all of these different factors it's toxic but it's not looking at the lead within range with the Mercury that's in range within the actual product itself right because that would push it out of range same things with topicals and everything it's kind of frustrating actually it's one of those things that gets me a little annoyed Chris is annoyed that's okay and I I know because we I I ask this question because we get in our DMS whether it's clients it's community members they're like I can't believe you would recommend this product it has a coconut derivative in it and we're constantly having to reeducate them on exactly what Ashley just said Ashley actually has we get the question so often we have it saved so we just copy and paste copy and paste because it's asked that many times so Ashley essentially what you're saying is you don't need to be afraid of coconut derivatives in products because they're formulated with other ingredients to have a proper pH balance so it's not going to impact the skin exactly I I I'll say it right here I do not subscribe to the subscribe to the whole uh acne clogging pore pore clogging ingredients list and would you say that's pretty common in the aesthetici very it's very common and and honestly in the AET in the aesthetic and the blog aesthetic world it's become very click baity because it's something that just the word poor clogging it just I don't know it triggers you it causes it's triggering anxiety so obviously somebody's going to want to read that and follow it tremendously because they're they already have clogged pores feeding into that that mindset but they're like oh my God I can't make this worse so they will do anything and follow any list out there that has those ingredients on there then if you take it back and try and look at the research it's not really there and I also find that a lot of this can even come down to marketing I find like some brands have their own list of poor cining ingredients and it's really used in marketing to deter you from using other brands products and specifically using dares because oh my gosh theirs doesn't have any of this list but that other brand does yeah and it creates trust if it's a marketing strategy because it creates that trust with uh the consumer that you know we we don't believe what else is out there you know we everything out there is bad for you but what we've created is good and I what okay so one more question question about this and then we'll move on to um some more tactics is what do you say to those clients are like anytime I use a product with a coconut alkaline alkaline in it my skin breaks out so why would you say that could happen to some individuals so that ties perfectly into this topic is when they have that impaired barrier anything's going to trigger Their Skin So it it might not even necessarily be the the coconut or the pore clogging ingredient that's in there it can be the formulation as a whole it could be the acids that's in there right it's not just nourishing coconut or sh Butters that uh CL clog or ingredients or that cause harm it could be why does nobody talk about the salicylic acid that could be causing the harm and maybe even causing the Breakout we never talk about that it's always about oh it's this natural ingredient that's that's uh Haring the skin the poor coconut if you don't have that healthy barrier anything is really going to trigger your skin and you're going to break out we hear this a lot with sunscreen for example yeah sunscreen like we we get it all the time it really is a mass of fear so I'm glad we were able to break that down and help dispel and maybe calm some fears around that ingredient so now I want to move into there's really two two Realms we have with clients there's those that are like Ashley there's no way I'm coming off of these topical medications and okay Ashley I think like I'm ready to come off H how do I transition from them to um Regular skincare so let's kind of run down some quick tips for each one of these uh groups yeah so amazing so this is where we kind of meet people uh where they're at if you've been using a prescription every day for years then we're going to go down to using it every other day for a couple of weeks right because I we also want you to feel comfortable with what you're doing and your skin to ease into it you can't stop cold turkey with these prescriptions just like you can't with maybe your medication right um so we take it down and so I guess Ru of thumb is just to take down the uh frequency of your prescription for the first week or two see how that's doing then take it down a little bit more and take it down a little bit more uh until you are comfortable not using it at all all if somebody does not want to go off their uh topical prescription that's uh fine as well we just have to um take into consideration their whole skincare routine make sure the topical is not overruling uh all the nourishing antioxid Rich uh hydrating ingredients that are in their routine so balancing those out if you're going to use your benil peroxide make sure you're also using a really nice hydrating serum and maybe um an oil a face oil and Are there specific ingredients are there specific ingredients you would love to see in products for because when when I'm thinking about it whether you're staying on them or you're weaning off it's still the same damage so I would assume it's the same ingredients that need to be utilized to repair that Skin Barrier so what would you say are some of those key ingredients you'd love to see clients um add in if they've been using medicated topicals absolutely so this is where you'll see the hype word uh ceramides ceramides are like uh little lipids that will build that barrier up again any type of oil like your hobas your rose hips your St buckthorns uh prickly pear oil all the nourishing oils that are out there um we want to give it actually a little bit of a light exfoliation so this is where I talk about some kind of enzymatic exfoliation just uh so it's going to be something like fruit enzymes so cranberry enzymes pineapple pumpkin that are found in any natural product natural or clinical really and that's just going to eat away at the layer of dead skin because your Skin's exfoliating from the inside from the inside especially if this is a case with troan um you're exfoliating from the inside out so that all that dead skin that's topically you want to remove just to encourage you're always getting that clear glowy complexion and that the products you're putting on are actually penetrating they're not just hydrating dead skin um right so we've got the enzymatic exfoliation in there as well uh what else the S so we got ceramides enzymatic exfoliation do you ever recommend things like probiotics to help rebuild that microbiome of the skin yeah there's a lot of uh moisturizers out there with probiotic but that's where even like you know you'll see a lot of products with like yogurt extract extracts now are there's some acne brands that have specific probiotic strains in there anything that's probiotic rich but your your Skin's going to um build that that barrier itself just like your gut does with food yeah it's like when you when you stop the assault the the body wants to be in a state of homeostasis it wants to be in a state of balance it wants to repair it doesn't like feeling like crap so when we give the body the reprieve it needs and then support it with some tools it does a wonderful job of repairing it it its o uh its own components and it's not immediate like don't expect that you're going to slowly just like anything we're doing with lifestyle please please please we've seen it a thousand times right oh my gosh I went to every other day and my skin is drier on the day than I didn't take it yeah because your skin is going uh where where's the trigger like I'm used to this routine what's happening it holds memory so just watch that so a question on this this is asley two questions here would you say that the skin can get worse before it gets better when you're building through the Skin Barrier and what would you say is the typical average length of time it can take to see that to see that skin barrier repair absolutely it does can get doesn't always happen it can get worse before it gets better also depends on how extreme um the situation is but I would say in terms of time anywhere from um two three weeks to two three months so give it time it's not an overnight by Saturday afternoon my Skin's going to be back to the repaired Skin Barrier because you've been doing assaulting it for for months or years yeah in two three weeks I'm being generous but with the first couple of weeks you'll definitely notice um your oil production maybe balance a little bit your skin will just feel really nice and soft and and supple and you you don't have to like scrun like crunch your face and and it feels tight and dry uh just those things will change and I love hearing this all the time with clients on the program when I introduce oil cleansing oh my gosh they love it they love oil cleansing I the other day I had somebody a client of ours that was like completely anti oil and I woke up to a message saying I just bought the 100 ml of this oil because I love it so much y you're creating you're creating a cleansing oil cult just like I have a matcha cult you're creating a cleansing oil cult my cleansing oil cult I love it and it it's something I love doing personally and for anyone that's never used a cleansing oil I really like it um any days I wear makeup right you know really helping to break down any of the makeup and then I wash it off with uh warm water and then I'll do a double cleanse to get any lingering um components off so Ashley do you want to give your a your Aesthetics side of why you really love an oil cleanser when it comes to things like Skin Barrier and acne sufferers because you are using uh that oil which has all of the ingredients all the raw ingredients that Your Skin Barrier needs to be nice and healthy you're using it as you're cleansing you're massaging it in you're emulsifying it with water so now you're getting the water uh molecules and the oil right that's the perfect combination to build that barrier build that H that long lasting hydration in the skin and you're also ensuring that you're not um completely drying out your skin which happens with a lot of cleansers out there especially those targeted towards acne so this is what I do sometimes with a lot of clients is okay you want to stick to the prescriptions that's fine but please let's make sure that your cleansing routine is very gentle very nourishing maybe it's oil cleansing something that's you're using daily that's building up that barrier maybe you're not comfortable with putting on an oil and leaving it on but at least the oil is the the oil cleansing you're still getting those ceramides in there those oils and I I love because I find it also helps really break down just the day-to-day dirt and oil that you're collecting throughout the day as well doing a like my face always feels so fresh when I when I do my oil cleansing absolutely and oil actually oil pulls out impurities yes oil pulls out oil it's the the science of like dissolves like so oils actually help pull out congestion from your skin so blackheads oil cleansing will help with that not your drying salicylic benel peroxide wash and when you're talking about um like oil cleansing what would you say would be some of your favorite brands or products that you recommend to our acne clients because I know we're going to get that question and I think Chris is also going to ask you that question in slack later I'm totally down in but I'm gonna make my daughter test it out you're a guinea pig yeah oils it could be anywhere from your uh hoba oils uh marula so you're thinking like a single ingredient like a single ingredient oil and it wouldn't necessarily matter the brand that they're getting it from you could absolutely do a single ingredient um just to get comfortable with it I guess in the beginning before you want to invest in something but uh the one I'm really loving it right now is from living Libations it's a local um Canadian company created by a holistic dentist and it essentially is uh hoba and cbuk Thorn based so it's very rich in antioxidants that vitamin C from the hoba and then it's got some essential oils in there so it has a little bit of vver um a bit I think tea tree some lavender so all these nice essential oils to also add those antioxidants and to calm down the skin adding to cart cart add to cart add to cart it's already purchased well you were talking it's on the way yeah no it's going to be getting dropped off later this afternoon you know I love my shopping okay so you really love the living Libations um for their cleansing oil is there any other you know camiz serums or you know gentle cleansers or moisturizers that like brand or product wise that you could recommend or that you find that you recommend quite often to our clients we love lately our um three ships because their whole uh build of the brand is you know being gentle to that barrier so they have a really nice um barrier repair um serum and moisturizer they also have a coconut face cleansing oil oh don't you say that Ashley they're MCT cleansing oil cut this out cut this out cut um but start sweating we'll see it a lot lately because we'll see a lot of um products be marketed towards building the Skin Barrier but we've had a Skin Barrier for as long as we've been existing so uh we didn't just come out with these products and these ingredients now they've been around forever uh but we just went through a phase of let's use all the drying and all the active ingredients on their and now the industry is very oh oh we shouldn't have been doing that let's build this barrier back up again we all have you know dehydrated freaked out skin I guess this is what we need to do so a lot of the products out there will be targeted towards um building the Skin Barrier but I want everybody to know that it could be any product out there so even your gentle soothing uh cream okay so we got a living litian cleansing oil we got a three sh ships I think it's called their Blueberry Blueberry repair seum BL other any other products you generally find yourself recommending quite often um I know I'm putting you on the spot I didn't tell you to come prepared with product wrecks but I I always like to give at least a few product wrecks just so people have an idea of where to start or even an idea of the pro of the formulation so even these recommendations you can go in and like look up the ingredient list see what's being included you're like oh there's these ceramides in it oh there's this ingredient this seems to be common so that way you can really start to empower yourself and being able to read your own skin care ingredient labels to be able to be a better detective for yourself yeah a cost- effective one that I recommend often is um the beauty counter the counter start uh Coco boost I think it's co yeah it's called cocoa boost uh so it's really cost- effective nice moisturizer um that's a nice one for people that are already on uh a prescription because very gentle very simple ingredients the less the ingredient list the better when you're on a prescription um absolutely and we're putting this in the show notes so don't worry I'm going to link them for you beautiful we love our Eminence oils any Eminence oil the um recovery I believe it's called oh I I love the recovery oil I've used it myself recover right it's it's it's an investment but it's so beautiful yeah but with o with oils that are that rich and that high quality you don't use a lot either no they last forever drops and they last a long time I think my bottle of the recovery oil lasted me like eight nine months cuz I was only using one to two drops in the evening yeah and then you'll notice with an oil your skin becomes so nice and saturated and and and and hydrated that you wake up one morning and you don't need to use it or you go to bed and your skin feels great you don't need to use this oil non-stop for your skin to feel normal MH right those are some great recommendations Sephora stuff uh we've got like the Kora Organics oil that's also really amazing um we've got costeffective stuff like can we just go to Sephora for a second because I know that clients usually hit me up until I'm like please go talk to Ashley please don't ask me shopping questions you're you're making me have stress feeds in my eyes and it's burning no um I I know some of the stuff right and Sephora is very local and easy to get and for like EAS accessible right so I often see people with a couple Brands so the ordinary brand as a whole ordinary the inky list the inky list yes my husband came home with some Inky list because he listened to a podcast it's podcast yours Katie you mentioned it somewhere and he's like coming home like as a happy Shopper with his bag and he's like well Katie said Katie and like they're like secret BFFs like they up husband Steve and I are BFFs actually oh my God imagine you make Steve like a skin care junkie no I I sent I sent chrisa reell to hide uh for her birthday last year and Steve stole it and now he one person died oh wow it's him the girls got get from somewhere just so Chris knows that's a very expensive serum I know he took a very expensive serum so he well he he's hooked now since that serum oh wait till he sees the price tag on it as as we all know I'm the bougie Shopper Chris is the the budget Shopper so actually oh now I'm stressing now I got to go look at up and now I have to send you money don't do it no you know I'm A Gift Giver I'm A Gift Giver so actually I do want to go through for those that are on a budget because of course you know skin care can get outrageously expensive what would you say for those on a budget that want to repair Their Skin Barrier so they're going to this Jam budget Jam go to your local health food store get you use some get yourself some hoba oil or some seabuckthorn oil like single ingredient like single ingredient or sing sing's amazing as well it's very acne safe uh it's derived from olive oil so any just pure your sing there you go you're going to use that a couple times super easy super simple you're going to use it a couple times at night um from the inky list we have um a moisturizer called bioactive camide repair repairing moisturizer repairing cream they also have their Omega water cream so same idea it's got those omegas those healthy fats and water so it's like a balance of the two because your needs your skin needs the water the hydration needs the oil for the barrier um I'm taking notes here I'm writing all these in the show notes everybody so if you hear me typing away that's what I'm doing the ordinary has a lot of stuff sing based so they have a sing moisturizer they have Squan oil they have rose hip oil so they're one of those Brands that's why they're so accessible and easy to get to is because they just have single ingredient stuff yeah yeah so they make them a little bit more cost- effective for people as well and I will say for clients that um they have food intolerances or histamine like reactions that are high please please please please please go to single ingredient first I know this because we've seen it time and time again outside of that I love Eminence it is very food-based so again if you're struggling with food intolerances don't start there mhm right right it's it doesn't mean that more is better or more expensive is I mean actually when it comes to skinc care if it is more expensive and it's good quality and we know it it's absolutely worth the money because it's the science behind it it's what you're paying for same with supplementation you're paying for that quality so I totally appreciate both sides of that um just be cognizant of that food based and food intolerance or histamine like tolerance or autoimmune we might want to start a little bit less aggressive with all the great things and single source and then we can build from there awesome well this was a jam-packed episode today actually is there any thing that you wanted to add that we hadn't yet covered when it comes to the medicated tops topicals for acne and repairing the Skin Barrier uh I would want to say that it should not be your first Resort dare I say that the medicated topicals should topicals yeah I I really want to put this out there because we see a breakout and we are to the Derm wanting a a topical um and this I guess this is just my message for today is look a little bit deeper look you know into your body what's going on before you know all these antibiotics become your first Resort because then you get stuck on them and then you have to repare the damage y that's so true it's like it's I don't know think of blood sugar and when you're uh you have blood sugar imbalances and then they're all of a sudden you're at the doctor and you're getting your metformin and you're on it for the rest of your life when you could have just changed a couple simple things and you know your blood trigle is back to normal and you could have avoided that um prescription the you avoid avoided all the prescriptions in the first place so if you guys are wondering well where do I even start on this of course go over the show notes download our gut loving cheat sheet this is like the beginning Foundation tips that we teach they seem simple but they need to be in place and this allows you to start building and repairing those internal imbalances so you're not having to stay on these medicated topicals for the rest of time with irritated dry cracked uh red skin we can really repair the body from the inside out and nurture and nourish it to repair that Skin Barrier as well all right everybody another episode here at the clear skin Chronicles next week's a super fun one we have uh the lovely page fir fman the COO of KW Inc coming in because we are asking the nutritionist she has uh about 20 Questions she's going to come in that we receive from our audience uh we pulled Instagram so we're answering your questions in part one next week thanks for hanging out with us this week on the clear skin Chronicles we'll see you next Wednesday with a brand new episode remember to subscribe to the show and drop us a review sending glowing vibes your way Katie and Chris [Music]