How To Glow Up Your Skin Without Botox & Filler + Wedding Skin Prep | @jamieanneaesthetics

What skin treatment should I be getting leading up to my wedding? I do actually have this in my book, is a event prep. Just getting a really good facial the night before. But you do not want to get any kind of treatment a week before, a couple days before, because if you have any purging effects that will come after a good treatment, those will come within a few days. So if you want to look your best and most glowy, you literally do something the day before. You don't want to do anything new right before something like a wedding. Ice rollers. Only for inflammation. You don't really need these every day. Red light therapy. Love. Face taping. The best ever. Beef tallow. No. Finish the sentence. Most overrated skincare product. Tretinoin. Most underrated. Castor oil. Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus. Every year, women spend billions chasing perfect skin, Botox, fillers, lasers, medical-grade skincare. But what if the beauty industry is creating customers instead of actually creating healthy skin? Today's guest spent over 20 years inside that world before her own health completely collapsed. After Botox poisoning, breast implant illness, years of gut issues, and rebuilding her health, she is exposing what she says the beauty industry gets completely wrong about aging, skincare, inflammation, hormones, and what actually keeps your skin looking young. If you are an OG culture apothecary listener, you may remember licensed esthetician, Jamie McGuire. She was one of the first guests I've ever interviewed. The interview was massive. So after this one, go back and listen to that episode if you want more skin and beauty stuff. Everybody loved Jamie. So I am stoked to have her back now that she has a brand new book called Skinfluenced. Watch this episode on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. Please welcome esthetician and author of Skinfluenced, Jamie McGuire to Culture Apothecary. You spent decades helping women chase beauty and now you're saying, hey, I actually think the industry is selling women the wrong dream. So what changed for you? I got poisoned with Botox. So that was a huge eye-opening experience that made me feel like I was going to die. It made me realize what I already had a inkling on, which was that a lot of the things that were told about beauty industries and their different treatments and different products are somewhat a lie. So I worked in med spas for 10 plus years in LA and I kept seeing these same treatments and women over and over spending thousands of dollars without getting real results or at least results that I found to be worth it. So when I put two and two together, after getting poisoned, I was like, well, maybe there's something kind of more sinister going on here. How does the med spa industry actually work? Is it similar to a doctor's office where like a pharmaceutical rep comes in and tells you this is the treatment, this is the machine. And then, I don't know, you guys are just supposed to do it and they take you out to lunch and smooze you. Like, how does it, how does it work? It's a little more casual because basically they're going to interact with you as if they're your best friend, meaning the front desk, the practitioner, to the client or customer. So they have more of a casual friendship kind of bond is the way that you start off. Think about any, you know, sales girl, right? So you go into like a clothing store and they're trying to get you to try on all these different outfits. You only want to go in there maybe to look around and browse. But yet the sales girl is like there to know this will look great on you and let me put this in your dressing room. Kind of similar to that, right? Where your guard is now coming down. They're either complimenting you a lot and they're giving you like these little, you know, little buildups only to get you in a room to talk about all of your insecurities and definitely play on those in order to sell you a bigger package, a bigger treatment. So I was one of those girls that did that. I feel bad about it now, but that's why I know the other side of it where a lot of consumers do not. What do you think the biggest lie women are being told when it comes to anti-aging? I think that it's not okay to age. I think that that's ridiculous. I think that it's okay to want to look your best and to want to be comfortable in your own skin and if you don't like something and you want to change something or improve, that's totally fine. I think that there is a lack of realistic expectations that is happening now where people are not okay seeing a wrinkle and I'm talking even girls in their 20s. You see a wrinkle and all of a sudden that's not okay. That's normal. That's life. That is literally what all of us are doing every single second, every day. We are aging every single day. Yet if we have a wrinkle, God forbid, and you have to inject yourself with a neurotoxin, at 20 years old, because you've been told that this is not good or it's something bad, wanting to look good and not wanting a wrinkle, I do understand. But putting ourselves through what we're willing to do to get rid of that, to me, is where I feel like we've lost our minds a little bit, where women have really given up their true, I guess it would be their own self-love or their own critical thinking to others who are telling them that these things are not okay or that they're not okay. Or that you could look better, you could do better. And then we all second-guess ourselves. And women are just second-guessing themselves all the time about what beauty is. If we didn't have all of this influence on the outside, we probably would be okay with how we looked and feel all the time. But it's the outside influence that's really changing everybody's perception. Tell everybody how old you are and what all you have in your face right now. I'm 43, almost 44. I don't have anything in my face right now. But I think when we talked about this on the first episode and I said I have nothing in my face, I mean that I didn't get anything in my face recently, right? So I don't have anything in my face for the last, well, when it comes to Botox, over two years. Filler-wise, over six-plus years. I haven't touched any of that. But I did have all these things done in the past, right? So I had Botox for over 10 years. I had fillers done back in the day. So when people like to say, oh, she still has filler left in her lips, yeah, I learned my lesson and I don't do those things anymore. But what's there is left there. I can't change it. I'm not gonna dissolve them, which I already have several times. So that's a good point as well, that filler never fully goes away. It is permanent. And so I'm a great example of that, but I'm also not mad at it, right? So I'm totally fine with the decisions that I made back then. I can have regrets about them today and I can also learn from them today. It's the same way that I used to have implants and I don't have implants anymore. I wasn't born knowing all the right things to do, all the things about toxins and everything that we do now for clean living. I've learned and I've evolved. And so claiming that somebody has, has these things still in their body, like a troll that likes to, you know, think they have a gotcha moment with me. Yeah, it's old. I don't get it anymore. And really, I couldn't tell you what's left and what's not. I definitely maintain what I have by the way that I eat, my skincare, my healthy lifestyle. So, you know, there's only gonna be a certain amount of things that are gonna be left in my face when you, you know, now become 43, 44. They go away real fast. So whatever's left from back in my 30s when I made a mistake back then, there's gonna be tiny drops of that left. And I mean, forehead moves. Forehead moves. I can vouch. Zoom in. I have the same exact story of several years of getting all that stuff and then now haven't done it in many, many, many years. And so, yeah, same thing. Like I haven't touched anything. If there's any, a little bit of filler left, it'd be a little in my lips, but that's all. But yeah, you know, you're now evil because you have that done and you talk about not doing it, but God forbid you learn your lesson. God forbid. People don't like that. I don't think hearing that, because then they, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is that they like wielding that against people. But what are you doing then instead? Because you look phenomenal. I know that you are an esthetician, so obviously you've got the skincare on lock, but I know you do other things too. So what are the other things that you do that are non-invasive that help prevent or at least minimize wrinkles? Well, it's gonna be a shameless plug, but I stand by this 1,000% is dermarolling. And that is my own thing that I've done myself at home for over 10 years. So regardless of back when I was getting, Botox and filler, this was something that was regularly in my routines. It's comparable to microneedling. It will have those similar benefits when you are consistent with it, right? It's not gonna have like the overnight or instant gratification effect of like an in-office microneedling treatment, but that's also way more expensive. There's a lot more downtime. There's a lot more risk. This is something that's kind of like cumulative that you can do at home. So what is it? I don't even know what dermarolling does. So dermarolling, again, like is a form of microneedling. So it's a small tool that has very tiny needles that are single needles. So there's kind of differences between good rollers and bad rollers. Ours actually have single needles. So you can see each one, not like stamped discs. So the ones you'll find on Amazon or different companies that are coming out with these rollers, if you can't see through the head, the base head, typically, I've actually done this on my social media where I'll crack them open and they're just a stamped disc that have almost like pyramid-like shaped spikes rather than a needle. So if you compare it to like a needle that you would get an IV, like you want a precise needle that's going in and out of the skin, not something that's a pyramid shape that could potentially open the pore and drag and cause tearing on the skin, which is what those bad dermarollers can do and why they can get a bad wrap, right? So this tool specifically, when you have the right one, has those micro benefits like a microneedling treatment. It's not gonna go to the same depths and that's intentional for us because we wanted to make sure that we're just creating tiny micro channels that allow products to absorb deeper. So the good products that you're using, great serums, you're using stem cells or exoskeletons, oxazomes or vitamin c serums anything that's like really the heavy-hitting game-changing serums that you're using regularly are only sitting on the surface so when you do the microneedling treatment or a dermarolling treatment at home you're allowing those products to absorb deeper now this isn't something you have to do daily i go through phases of like doing it two times a week and then i'll do that for a couple months then maybe i'll go down to like once or twice a month so it's not something that you have to always be like super diligent about because every time that you do it you are enhancing the results of those products no matter what and over time that is what helps actually drive and get those products to work harder so when you're talking about things that are going to help prevent that is something again that i have done for over 10 years on my own why i created my own roller and now why i feel like my skin has the results it does today because i'm already using really great products and now they're driving in even deeper and working that much harder besides helping your skin care penetrate deeper is it also like helping your face produce more collagen or is it also like helping your face produce more collagen or anything or no that's a little bit of a myth collagen is more produced internally right so i don't want anybody and i would never make those claims that it's collagen producing okay elastin is a little bit different so elastin can definitely build back over time and with the great products and things like derma rolling you can enhance elastin or at least maintain and use things that are going to prevent it from breaking down collagen as far as microneedling is concerned deep microneedling they do make claims that it can produce collagen by causing injury i'm kind anti-causing injury for collagen production i don't think that that is the ultimate route to take when you want to enhance and change your skin's texture sure but like when you're trying to produce collagen basically in a way people are thinking this is going to replace volume loss let's be real like this isn't going to replace fat that is kind of being dissolved over time as we age naturally that's just the natural progression of aging we're going to lose loss elasticity and loss of volume in our face but there are certain things you can start now that will help it slow down and prevent it from speeding up right so those are the types of things that you can do what is your opinion on facelifts i love them see i feel like i will want to do a facelift eventually that's where i think that it would have more results right so if you're talking about doing microneedling or even derma rolling or lasers to tighten skin miss me on that that to me is a waste of money and something that is that lie that big beauty can tell you to make you believe that these are the types of things that are literally going to pull your face tight again when your skin has lost that elasticity or collagen that is not realistic maybe a temporary effect some of these things can have or it can just make you feel better overall because your texture is going to look a little bit better or you're going to have a little bit of a glow but the thing is when you lose the skin tightness like when you have loose skin there is no laser on earth that's going to pull your skin tight again it's going to be an invasive treatment and it's going to be an invasive treatment and it's going to be an invasive treatment and even though some people might think oh my god a facelift would be so invasive and i never want to go that route that's totally fine i completely understand that but if you want those types of results that is the reality of it yeah you have to consider that it's either you spend ten thousand dollars on some morpheus eight package and believe all the bs about morpheus eight going to pull your skin tight or you put that money towards a facelift one day if it's something that really bothers you i would personally be okay getting a facelift one day if i choose a facelift one day to do so i don't have any problems with that do you think the beauty industry wants women to continue to get treatments like if they really were i don't know um working towards women fixing issues and not needing treatments then wouldn't it be a way smaller industry yeah of course they the whole system is designed to get people to a you know be very insecure and they play off of those insecurities and then they get you in a cycle where it's more more more and more and more and that is what the med spas are basically about now i don't want to like demonize all med spas out there i'm speaking from personal experience from the ones that i've worked at which were the top ones in la i worked at plastic surgeons offices and at med spas and i find med spas to be a little bit more sinister like i said where you get trapped in these cycles of not only the upsell but more packages more things because one treatment doesn't do it for you then you need this treatment then one treatment does something bad to your skin you have like a side effect oh then we have this treatment that you need to get there's it's a vicious cycle that you just get stuck in because the minute you step foot in that office they want to get you in there for life that is the whole point is to have a regular customer that is going to be spending money on every single sale that you have every package that you you know promote and get them in there getting treatment after treatment because that's why you know they have packages not just a one-time deal it's always like oh you need six sessions or you need you know 10 of these treatments or even three of these and then once you're done with those they need you to re-up those or change it to something else do this laser maybe you don't want to have this fat right here so let's get this frozen off like there's it's just never ending it's literally never ending have you ever watched little kids play t-ball it's less of a sport and more of a hostage situation i mean one kid's picking dandelions one's crying because the other team has orange snacks one's running to third base because he felt called there meanwhile every parent is pretending this is the world series the real athletes are the parents that's why i always laugh when people think wellness is only for people training for marathons no i mean sometimes your workout is surviving a saturday of youth sports if you've ever heard me talk about taylor duke's wellness products you will notice they have a new name if you follow taylor duke's on social media taylor duke's wellness is now sava same founder taylor same clean products that i have used and recommended for years now just a new name and even more products to choose from if you are a sports family you need to try sava's sport complete protein mix it combines 100 grass-fed bone broth with whey giving you 25 grams of protein in one scoop there are a lot of other popular brands out there of protein powders and they include pea protein powders that is terrible for your gut i don't care how clean it is i love that taylor duke's is exclusively grass-fed bone broth protein powder it is way better for your tummy whether you're actually working out or you're just sprinting after six-year-olds who refuse to stay in the dugout sava has you covered go to sava nutrition.com use code alex clark for 15 off the new name of taylor duke's wellness is sava nutrition.com code alex clark for 15 off here's something that sounds like a conspiracy theory until you actually look into it in a lot of homes the air indoors can actually be more polluted than the air outside think about it you would never stand behind a city bus and take a deep breath but then people come home and they spray like five different things you know ocean breeze mountain mist cashmere vanilla chemical cocktails all over the place like they're trying to fumigate the family we've become nose blind to living inside a yankee candle if you care about what you eat what goes on your skin or trying to lower your overall toxic load why would you stop at your cleaning products this is why i use and recommend branch basics they're completely fragrance free made with plant and mineral based ingredients so clean if your kid drank it you wouldn't have to call poison control but you shouldn't drink it but you know what i mean and they actually disclose every ingredient on the label which believe it or not it's still pretty rare in the cleaning world the coolest part their whole system is built around one powerful concentrate you just mix it at different strengths for your kitchen bathroom windows laundry you don't need 17 mystery bottles under your sink anymore i wash my produce with it okay you can find branch basics at target target.com amazon and of course branch basics.com but if you want a discount you got to go to branch basics.com click the premium starter kit that gives you all the basics you need to start out and if you use code alex 15 you'll get 15 off that's branch basics.com code alex 15 for the premium starter kit what is something that a lot of women are doing that they think is helping their skin but it's actually making it worse a lot of lasers out there they can be good for some people and when i talk about that i think most lasers are bad it's because the main or the guess the general woman is using it as a quick fix meaning they're already not on top of their skincare game they're kind of doing all the wrong things they're using a bunch of different products they're you know getting influenced by this treatment or that product and what they're doing they're using a bunch of whatever they're doing they're they're mixing and matching and they're never sticking to something consistently so what they do instead is they see this miracle laser and they're going to go get this insane laser done and what happens is they are using that as a crutch as like a quick fix thinking that overnight this is now going to give them beautiful skin like the influencer that posted it when in actuality you weren't on top of your skincare game to begin with and now you're relying on this super invasive laser that's going to create more damage more downtime cost you thousands of dollars because you just want this overnight fix or how many women are like sucking down 12 diet cokes a day yeah and then they're like why does my skin look so dull well that's the thing they're they're relying on quick fixes and instead of putting in the work giving it time and consistency and really sticking to a good routine being healthy taking a look at their diet their lifestyle no they want some miracle bbl moxie laser combo that they saw their favorite influencer post and all of a sudden it's going to look you know glowy and beautiful and it's like most of the time when the influencers are even posting it they're already on top of their skincare game some of them or they already had good skin and so you're going to see the after result but the after result was already what their skin looked like anyway it was just really nice skin and maybe there's like a teeny bit of difference that you see and it's temporary it's like i'd rather put in the work every day to get the best skin possible and really know that it just takes consistency and time and patience rather than relying on quick fixes the quick fixes is where where all women are getting stuck in this trap. Any beauty trend that you can think of right now that we're going to look at in 20 years like we do tanning beds? Yeah, again, go back into the lasers, to Morpheus A, CO2 lasers. I think that all of those more invasive treatments that people are thinking they see a good result now, later on, they are going to regret it. Their skin is going to be more delicate, more sensitive, more thin. They're probably going to be stuck in this vicious cycle forever. Once they start, it's very hard to get out of. You got Botox for 10 years. If somebody is driving and they're listening to this and they're on their way to their appointment, what do you want them to know? No judgment, just because of what happened to me, right? People are always going to do what they want to do, regardless of my horror story or anybody's horror story. You couldn't have convinced me back when I was getting Botox if I had heard my story that I would have stopped getting it. It just doesn't work that way. People have to learn their own lessons. I will say to at least take what happened. Take what happened. Take what happened to me into account and know that that is a possibility, regardless if you're getting one unit, 20 units, and really weigh the pros and cons of that and see if the wrinkle or the line is worth what potentially could happen. Sometimes people just don't understand it until it happens to them. Again, no matter how many times you hear a scary story, it might not matter and they'll still go get it done. And God forbid that could happen to them one day. And then it's just like you wish you had known better when it happened to me. I had a lot of shame and guilt over the fact that I did this to myself, even though I had never heard of anybody else getting Botox poisoning before it happened to me. And then the floodgates opened up with all these people that it happened to. It's kind of a scary thing to think about that. It's like, OK, I don't even know if I would have changed my mind had I had this knowledge. That's really sad. That's a really sad thing. And that aging is OK, that it's OK to have a line and a wrinkle and that Botox is not going to fix this long term. You can't get it forever because you're going to eventually become. Really old and you're only going to be able to freeze what like the tiniest bit. Nothing's going to stick. You have to get a facelift at that point, you know, so it's just one of those things you want to keep doing this forever. Do you regret ever getting Botox? No, because it taught me a lot and it's where I'm at today. And what happened to me is actually the blessing in disguise, right? Because now I have this different kind of lens on the beauty industry. So I can't have regrets about that. I do think it did help slow things down. We've talked about this, I think, on the first podcast. That we did where we said, do you think that it helped prevent some of the fine lines of wrinkles? And sure, if I got it for 10 years, definitely those fine lines of wrinkles that maybe would have formed deeper, it probably did slow things down. It really did. But if I had known then what I know now, I just would have started face taping back then and gotten the same result without having to put a toxin in my body. So we did cover this in the first episode, but briefly tell everyone who didn't listen to that one yet. What happened to you after your last Botox injection? It wasn't right away. It was about eight. Eight days later, I was actually going on a podcast, The Well Podcast with Ariel Lohr. And so it was going to be a filming podcast. And I had to make sure I was looking fresh. And I had done a little bit of Botox. And I ended up doing like a Gua Sha treatment the night before the podcast on my face and tried to even out the Botox because sometimes it doesn't set in evenly. And not the next day, luckily, during the podcast, I was OK. The day after that, I ended up having like debilitating panic attacks. I felt like I couldn't move. I couldn't. I was bedridden for weeks. The panic attacks are beyond what people would probably think a panic attack is. They were so horrible that I thought that I was going to die. Like it was one of those types of things where you I felt like I couldn't breathe. I would have my my throat was kind of closing up. My heart's racing out of my chest. I had such low blood pressure that I would start blacking out when I would start trying to just go to sleep. And I was trying to be in bed and rest as much as possible. And I would like black out when I would start to sleep. Did you go to the hospital? No, we we knew that there was really nothing that the hospitals could do. So you knew immediately it was Botox? No, we actually I'd reached out to Ariel and asked her if this is what happened because she had just had Botox poisoning. And so it clicked to me that maybe this is what it was. Whoa. She confirmed it. Then we did a lot of our own research and found all of these Facebook forums. There were so many people this has happened to. All the symptoms I was experiencing were textbook. Basically, there's nothing that hospitals can do. They won't even really recognize that it is Botox. They don't even really think that that's a thing. So we didn't bother with that because also what they could potentially have given me could have made the symptoms worse. How common are adverse reactions to Botox? Well, I wish I knew the exact number, but they are not reported. I mean, people do not report them. Doctors don't report them. And from what I've seen, it's very common and they don't have to be as extreme as mine. It could be as simple as I get headaches or my eyes are a little bit more dry or I don't know, like something's off. I don't ever correlate it with Botox because the timing of when it happens, it's not like it's right after getting a Botox treatment. It's maybe a few days later, maybe a couple of weeks later. And people when I when I talk about it more openly, people like I've actually started to look back on the timing of my Botox appointments to my eyes being super dry or not focusing or, you know, having a crazy rash or something like that. And now they're starting to correlate it. But it's I think it's happening way more than we realize. Would you ever get Botox again? Never. I couldn't. Yeah. Don't risk it. I'm terrified. Like it's I it's genuinely I'm terrified. And I'm just I have a different headspace around the whole idea of worrying about a wrinkle. You know, I really do. Let's talk about fillers for a little bit. Yeah. Do they actually migrate? Yeah, absolutely. They do. So think about it. If you and I knew this even when I was getting fillers is I would be very strategic about where fillers went because I never wanted them to move and I never wanted it to be super heavy. So I would actually get only little droplets of things when I would get them. So that I made sure that I wasn't like weighing down my lips and things that were going to move or cause things to go downward, you know, with gravity. So you just do tiny little things that were in the borders or something that was going to actually help lift and maybe have a placement that would stay better. When people are getting things like crazy cheek filler, all of that can not only move and migrate, but it will start to pull and drag down the face. So you're going to end up looking older. What do you think is happening to all these girls in their 20s who are getting preventative filler? Just wait, they're going to start looking crazy because it's going to just pull down. It's going to pull down. It absolutely migrates. The good news is you can get, you know, filler dissolved, but it doesn't all dissolve it and it's very painful and it's also a toxic thing that you're injecting. But I mean, that is the one option as opposed to Botox, right? Botox there is no option. You stick it in there and it's there. There's nothing you do. What about the sun? What does healthy sun exposure look like? It is very good for you. It's just how you about it. Baking in the sun is not necessarily the healthiest. Right? Like you don't want to be laying out in the peak hours with, you know, UV index being, you know, at 8, 10. I know you are a sun baby. I am. I love being a little rotisserie chicken just spinning around. But here's the thing. You have kind of built up that tolerance in your skin. I can't say for later what that would look like on your skin. You might be a little bit of a raisin kind of situation. Maybe. But some people, it also depends on your ethnicity and things like that that can tolerate more sun exposure. I'm Irish, Swedish, Dutch. Like I am light, fair skinned. I can. I can get a very nice tan, but I don't want to be laying out or baking in the sun longer than 20 minutes at a time. I, when I talk about getting responsible sun exposure, 20 minutes on the front, 20 minutes on the back, no SPF. I personally just don't use any. You can, there's better non-toxic ones out there. Shout out to Primally Pure for having a really good non-toxic SPF that you can use. But being aware of the UV index, morning sunlight's great, evening sunlight's great. Both of those times of the day, you can lay out for longer periods of time or at least get more exposure, having nothing on your skin. And being totally fine. If it's going to be like in the peak hours of the day, then you want to make sure that you're, you know, maybe changing the time that you're doing it. You don't want to be laying out for, you know, hours at a time. It's just damaging to your skin. Botox wasn't the only thing that was making you sick. When did you start noticing maybe my breast implants are also harming me? When it had been some time after Botox poisoning and I still had lingering side effects of something. I didn't know if it was still maybe lingering side effects of Botox poisoning, which turned into it. So I now have MCAS, right? So I now have MCAS that it goes away and comes back. What is that? So mast cell activation syndrome. So it's basically your immune response not reacting appropriately. So it's basically like your body's in constant fight or flight and attacking itself. And you have these mast cells that will react to anything from a toxic fragrance to a high histamine food. It's just, it's very annoying, but it comes and goes. So it's not something I have to deal with all the time. But that was one thing for me that I was noticing some improvement. But not full improvement. And obviously, we already know that the implants in a foreign object and a plastic foreign object in your body is probably not the best. And if I'm not getting past a certain point with my health when I know I'm so healthy and so on top of everything that I'm already doing, why am I not at 100% that maybe it's this foreign object in my body? And, you know, so many different podcasts and experts that I listen to really open my eyes to the potential of breast implant illness. So that's why I did it. I always say if you're somebody who has. History symptoms. I'm in like some kind of weird chronic pain. I can't get out of bed. I'm doing all these like neurological studies and tests and like nobody can figure out what's going on with me or I don't know any other symptom that's just like weird and bizarre and nobody can figure out where it's coming from. But you have breast implants. You need to look there. And I don't know why so many women like completely overlook that it's a foreign object in your body. And you make such a good point that I've never even thought about is that it's plastic. Yeah. The capsule itself. People always say, ask the question well i have saline or you know did you have silicone i had silicone but it had nothing to do with what was inside it doesn't mean that you can't get breast implant illness from that part as well that can leak and you can obviously get sick from that as well but it's the capsule yeah it's the plastic capsule we know on the show we've had so many guests talk about the dangers the plastic just reek on human health yeah and wondering why people can't get pregnant and all these things and then you just like you have a giant plastic object in your body i mean that's like a no-brainer to me you would think but i understand why people don't realize it until you say it like that and until i i think i said this before um was when a client of mine said it's like having a plastic water bottle in a hot car i mean it's essentially the same thing it's warm to 98.7 degrees 24 hours a day seven days a week when it's in your body after your explant surgery what were the biggest differences that you noticed in your health i felt just lighter you could just tell that the things that i was dealing with whether it be brain fog fatigue mystery rash symptoms um just overall response to my body and i think that it just genuinely like made everything just lighter in my body just the toxic load and i you know i wasn't dealing i wasn't bedridden from breast implant illness in fact my implants were intact my capsules were all healthy and good so i probably didn't have any of that and i was like oh my god i'm gonna have to do this and i was like oh my god i'm gonna have to do this i didn't have a lot of the poisoning kind of symptoms that come with really aggressive breast implant illness like a lot of other women will deal with i think mine had to do more so with botox poisoning and my body trying to heal from that and the implants made it hard to heal from that yeah so it just helped me get to like the next stage of feeling that much better do you think overall women should avoid getting breast implants yes yeah i think if you want to change something about your breasts i would look more towards doing a lift which i had an explant and a lift and when i did my implants i had an implant i had implants and a lift put in or done um so i think the lifts are an option fat transfer is an option there's risks with everything or you just enjoy having a smaller chest which i think is also very beautiful i travel so much i mean tsa and i are basically in a situation ship you know i've got a whole system down window seat my hoodie up folklore by taylor swift on repeat and it absolutely never gets old i don't care it's one of the best albums of all time and then i open my book i'm reading that week so everybody around me thinks i'm mysterious but one other thing that is permanently in my backpack now is my tech wellness air tube headphones look i spend enough time on airplanes marinating in recycled air somebody clipping their toenails in 22b and a guy named brent watching tiktoks at full volume i'm trying to control the things that i actually can these air tube headphones from tech wellness are designed to help reduce emf exposure while you're talking on the phone listening to podcasts or playing your folklore by taylor swift so instead regular earbuds these are what i travel with and they sound amazing if you are just starting your emf journey tech wellness has their emf protection starter pack which includes the air tube headphones plus their wi-fi kill switch you just click a button and your wi-fi turns off at night while you sleep because you don't need wi-fi cooking you while you sleep they also make the august faraday bag which i love because it actually looks really chic instead of making me look like i'm transporting classified cia documents use code alex clark for 15 off your air tube headphones the faraday bag or protection starter pack at techwellness.com now if you'll excuse me i have six more hours of folklore and pretending i can't hear the man next to me explaining cryptocurrency to his seed mate one thing about me that has not changed since i was eight years old if i am getting ice cream i'm getting cookies and cream every single time now people act like this is some big personality test you know oh have you tried lavender honey basil no i have not i don't need my dessert to challenge me intellectually meanwhile my fiance vance's favorite flavor is mint chocolate chip now i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip i love it i'm a fan of mint chocolate chip going on internally acne for sure acne rosacea eczema any of the like red alarm bells this is a big component to anything internal going on rather than it being a topical issue the one thing that has both components is like a rosacea that can have internal and external aspects to it but i would say acne is like the number one that is something is going on inside and it's literally your skin telling you that something's wrong inside that you have inflammation something's off balance we need to look internal what is the gut skin connection that everybody needs to stop ignoring well if you have any gut issues meaning if your bowels are not regular if they're you know the stool itself is loose or you're bloated or you're you know if your digestion is just not on point and you have any skin irritation or anything on your skin happening even accelerated aging sometimes it doesn't even come out in just acne it could just be i look so old for my age it is definitely something worth looking into the gut for and then just the natural signs of any kind of type of gut dysbiosis i've heard of people seeing their acne totally go away just getting regular colonics even yeah and you know it's going to be kind of different for everybody because sometimes somebody will have a really healthy gut and then it's more of a hormonal thing so that can also play a role in what they're experiencing with their acne so it is something you want to get internal testing done i recommend working with a functional practitioner i don't think it's as easy as just saying like go get a colonic like those are also yeah like i personally never had a colonic i you know i think that there is a place for them i just don't think that that's like the end all be all but for sure it's just as easy as saying we need to cut out processed foods sugar the things that are already causing a lot of the inflammation and gut issues to begin with then if you're still not seeing a result by just changing a few things in your diet you want to get a good testing done work with a functional practitioner see where the dysbiosis is and then get those things those levels optimized and get those markers fixed what are some of your favorite examples of healthy meals that will give us gorgina skin simple steak any okay let's just say people don't like red meat i would say meat in general or protein so it could be a really good quality salmon really good quality chicken really good quality steak so one of those salmon's really good if you struggle with dry skin yeah salmon i mean the omegas are great and i actually use cetopia salmon i find them to be incredible they're super i'm obsessed with cetopia but they won't notice me why i don't know i just keep shouting them out i'm like i love you guys not a peep listen that makes me want them more now you know what i mean that like they're not just giving it away they're not they're not they don't even give me a free box no they're incredible yeah i love so that's like my my salmon is my cetopia salmon is my favorite um so the main source is like a good quality protein and then always butter i gotta say it butter there you go it's it's true it's such a like great superfood that people are so anti because they think it's you know this super high in fat it's like guys it's actually healthy fat and it's really good for your skin i hear you talk a lot about the skin barrier what is that so the barrier of the skin is kind of like a bodyguard right so it's basically like a little brick wall that has these lipids right that's made up of collagen it has um cholesterol actually in it and that holds everything together so you really want a strong healthy barrier this is what holds your moisture in it also helps to protect against any pollutions outside elements that are going to you know create your skin to be affected by it so that's where those irritants come in so if you're dealing with like redness dryness things like rosacea eczema that's your barrier telling you that it's a little bit broken and it's not working as well so it's your protective layer that's why having a strong barrier is literally like the best thing you could ever focus on when it comes to your skin health overall like how do you improve it well what you don't do is the things that will break it down over exfoliating doing you know when i talk about only cleansing once a day over cleansing doing harsh treatments using harsh products using toxic products things with fragrance in them there people don't realize that yes you might have this amazing serum but it might also be a super toxic ingredient serum and then that is eventually going to break down your barrier what do you think about that clarin serum you know the one yeah i think it's garbage garbage that is so popular you know courtney kardashian buys that stuff this little bottle and uses it all over her whole body she loves it so much oh god yeah i mean definitely the double serum that's what it is yeah the double serum um just smell it and it'll tell you it's it's basically putting perfume on your face like you may not notice these things right away but i'm curious to see what her skin looks like in person and i would i want to know how balanced it is how dry it is those are different things so you may not experience all the worst cases but i'm curious to see what her skin looks like in person and i would i want to know how balanced it is how dry it is those are different things so you may not experience all the worst scenarios of a broken barrier just by using the clarin serum but other things that you can do over time will break that barrier down and it's so important to have that barrier be as strong as possible for you to actually have really amazing healthy skin it's like all i focus on is feeding the barrier the best things and nothing to break it down no over exfoliating no lasers no chemical peels nothing no chemical peels same thing breaks down the barrier within connection to the barrier we actually created a barrier repairing oil so it's interesting because it's a barrier repairing oil because people will think or have a negative condensation about facial oils and specifically one that is castor oil avocado oil it has sea buckthorn and it has rosemary and pomegranate co2 extract these are actually all barrier repairing oils and product and ingredients and they're all 100 organic certified organic made in usa wait where do i get this at jamie and go okay i yes i'm putting this on my list and i was going to bring you some we're changing the packaging i'm like i'm not giving her crap i gave you one of the old bottles i didn't get i don't know if i have that i did i gave it but i will send you but i want to give you the new packaging as well okay because we it's much better you know one thing well i have that pillow yes that you wear yeah that helps your boobs not wrinkle yeah and which is coming back oh okay so i sold out of it and didn't we're not going to do it again and i've had so much demand for it i'm like we have to bring it we have to bring it back and then um also you partner with that company young goose yeah they sent some kind of like free shipping to us and we're like oh my god we're going to do it again affirming lotion yeah oh my word you like it that stuff slaps okay yeah i thought that was a great product well it's smart for them because they're so high tech and so it's almost like having a serum for your body yeah because that's really important like most lotions are just lotions right for hydration this is actually like doing things for anti-aging so that's really cool of them too they're so great oh it's been a minute since i got to talk about this brand and if anybody is an og you're gonna be like wait i remember you're gonna be like wait i remember you're gonna be like wait i remember you're remember when alex talked about them they went away for a minute and they are back and i am so excited one of the biggest blessings of my single season was that i had time to become completely unhinged researching things that i absolutely did not need yet okay i'm talking about baby mattresses car seats first foods bottles i was basically preparing for children that don't exist yet right but one thing i'm really thankful that i researched early was prenatal vitamins because whether you're trying to conceive you're already pregnant or you're just planning ahead like i have been i think it matters what you're putting into your body for the past three years the prenatal that i've trusted is bloom from birthright what makes bloom different is that it is a whole food prenatal instead of relying on synthetic nutrients it's made from grass-fed beef liver hokey fish roe oyster bone marrow colostrum like these are the foods that naturally provide nutrients like heme iron folate choline and dha in forms that your body recognizes it is one complete formula designed to nourish you from preconception through postpartum it is gentle and digestion it is trusted by more than 10 000 mothers and it's endorsed by dr olivia lessler visit birthright.co that's birthright.co use code alex for 15 off that's birthright.co with code alex for the prenatals that i trust again go to birthright.co that's birthright.co use code alex for 15 off your first order are we accelerating aging by washing our face too much i think so if you're definitely affecting the barrier over time it depends on obviously what kind of cleanse you're using i think over cleansing is not going to break down the barrier fast but over time i think that that will accelerate the aging for sure because dry skin and a broken barrier will show fine lines and wrinkles that much more can too many active ingredients make acne worse acne is more of an internal condition so what you're putting on topically could potentially cause more irritation or inflammation but actives themselves they can either help maybe get down some of that inflammation if they're not active they can either help maybe get down some of that inflammation if they're not if you're noticing that they're causing more irritation or inflammation then use common sense and start scaling back i don't i think with acne less is always more and it's all an internal focus and the less that you use on top of your face to prevent your acne from exploding and getting even worse is better until you get that under control and then you kind of focus more on the actives to heal anything that's left over so are you a tea tree oil girly benzoyl peroxide salicylic acid or retinol for acne none none zero so then what internal i don't just diet just just fix your gut figure out and it could be hormones not just diet it's not just one thing but it's diet lifestyle could be sleep could be stress it's so many different factors and it's all going to break down to that first and foremost i could care less about what you're actually putting on your face to you know singe something off because guess what let's say you heal one pimple then oh next month another five come out right because it's not about the pimple it's about the pimple it's about the happening topically it's about what you're doing internally and the thing is i would rather have people do the least amount of things i want you to do less before never worrying about the topicals that are going to, quote unquote, heal your acne. So ideally, somebody who's struggling with severe acne should be getting like a GI test done, like pooping in the French fry box and then figuring that out and sending it away. Yeah. Yeah. And working with a functional practitioner, I think that having somebody that you're working with that can read those markers and really know what's going on internally is very valuable. And it tells you a lot. And if it's not the gut or you don't see any difference with healing the gut, then look to hormones, too. What should oily skin people do? It's a balance. So it's odd because some people think that if you have oily skin, you have to strip down the oils more and more and more. It's the opposite. I would die to have oily skin. Also, I feel like your skin's balanced. Literally, this is the era for oily skin girlies. You've got Hailey Bieber talking about looking like a glazed donut. It's never been cooler or hotter to have oily skin. Exactly. We love a glow. And people that have serious oily skin into adulthood always age the best. They age the best because they don't have dry skin. People like me are going to age the worst. Well, you're also you live in Arizona. I don't think your skin is chronically dry. It could be where you live. Honestly, when I had clients out here, everybody's skin was dry. It's just the nature of the climate. So I think oily skin is something to embrace, not try and strip down. And a lot of people are like, even if they say it's just in the T zone, because that's technically not really where you want to be oily, even if you do want to have a glowy look, instead of stripping that down and let's say using a toner, you're exfoliating more, you're cleansing twice a day. It's the opposite effect. You want to actually do less because your body's natural oils are going to always be producing. And if you constantly are stripping them down, they're going to overproduce those oils. And that's what's going to create more oily skin. So stop trying to strip it down. Let your skin balance out. Do less. And again, the washing once a day is usually the tip that I give anybody dry or oily. And they see their skin start to balance out because that natural oil production is what our skin does on its own. And your skin actually needs to be more balanced, not doing too much. If you're somebody who's chronically dry like me, and it's like, man, I'm doing everything. I'm using the more hydrating. Cleanser, the moisturizer. I've got hyaluronic acid serums. But I still feel like I'm so dry. What are your recommendations? I still think like you might be doing possibly too much. Like I'd have to take a look at like your whole lineup. It might just be too much. And that's also why we created a product that was meant for extra hydration and sealing in the barrier and giving that hydration back to the skin. Because actually, it's the products that you use sometimes. So if you're not using the right products that are actually feeding your skin hydration, then they're constantly basically exiting the skin. You're not getting that moisture barrier that is actually holding it in. So that's kind of the difference. And it doesn't mean that your barrier is broken or that you have a damage barrier, but it's the products that may not be doing the job that you want to do. Tell everybody your thoughts on dermaplaning because I posted how I have this, which I still haven't done, but this little peach fuzz buzzy thing that you told me to get instead of dermaplaning during a facial. You said that was bad for me. So I got this and everybody wants to know what the trimmer is, where do they get it and yada, yada, yada. Yeah. Do you like it by the way? I haven't used it yet. Oh, you haven't used it yet? I just had Vance get me some batteries and then. Oh, that's right. That was the test. Yeah. And so I haven't done it. I'm going to do it tonight. Okay. So try it tonight. I'm curious your thoughts. Dermaplaning isn't bad. It's just when people go and get dermaplaning done and they end up with a skin irritation or breakouts in this area, which can happen a lot and why I never did it to clients in office because it was too risky. It was too finicky. That's when you have other options. This is just a little electric tool that I found on Amazon and that's all I do to get rid of the peach fuzz and you just go with the hair. You don't go against it. And instead of getting such a close shave like a dermaplaning does, like actual in-office dermaplaning where it's cutting so close to the skin and it's really like an exfoliation and you're actually taking off skin as well. That to me is too much exfoliation. You don't need to have that close of a quote unquote shave. So the electric trimmer just does what it does. Like it just takes off a little bit of that peach fuzz. You only need to do it a few times a month and that's it. What are you on Google or what do you search on? On Amazon? Trimmer. Electric trimmer, face trimmer for women. If somebody could only own five skincare products, what are they? I would say a cleanser, one or two serums, a moisturizer and an SPF. I don't even think you need five. Do you like vitamin C serum? I don't personally use it. It's not that I find that it's not that it's bad. It's just that it's different for everybody and everybody's individual specifics are always going to change when it comes to a serum. I'm much more of a retinol stem cell girl and growth factors. Those are my go-to for anti-aging. I think that people that like vitamin C will like vitamin C, but as long as you have those in rotation that are effective and good quality serums and good quality products, then you'll be good to go. But again, it's going to be individual specifically what's good for somebody's skin type. How do women care for their skin during perimenopause? Don't freak out. What happens? Just you look in the mirror and you just don't recognize yourself. Oh, no. Anymore. So you just felt like you looked older or what? Yeah. I felt like I just didn't like how I looked, that I was not attractive anymore, that I just wasn't me. And nothing might change, but you'll see it differently through a different lens. It's just something in your brain changes and you really just need to find a way to talk yourself off of a ledge regularly. Maybe don't look in the mirror as often. It really becomes like this depressing place to be. It's sad. It's sad. And I'm there and I understand it now. And it's funny because the books that I'm reading about it, they say like their quote is like, I just don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognize myself. That is like the perimenopause like quote. So I felt validated when this happened. And the skincare wise or what changes in your skin is you're going to see the rapid aging process happen more rapidly. It really does. It really. Yeah. Buckle up, girl. Okay. It does happen. And there is it happens to everybody. It's going to happen to all of us. And I think it's going to happen to us. There's not much you can do about that other than getting your hormones fixed and checked and tested, which is why I'm looking into HRT for myself. I haven't started them yet. I've heard nothing but good things. I'm ready. As long as it's not synthetic. No, the bioidentical is what I'm looking at. But I am I'm so ready to just feel like myself again. It's it's been about a year of experiencing this and it all goes up and down. So it's like I'll have great weeks, great months, and then it'll be like this crash and burn. And lately it's been at a crash and burn for quite some time. Oh, gosh. Well, you can't tell. You can't like from an outsider. You look insane. Always. You always look gorgeous. And I don't see any differences. Thank you. Let's do some rapid fire skincare trends. Do you just tell me yes or no? Ice rollers only for inflammation. Red light therapy. Love face taping. One thousand out of I mean, the best ever. So do frownies actually work or face taping actually works to kind of train your face muscles? I've never used frownies, but it's kind of idea behind it. And for those who are diehard frowny fans and, you know, I met the founder and owner of frownies, but I think she's doing incredible things and I think it's an incredible option and product. I personally like face taping and it does wonders for me. I wish that I'd started face taping in my 20s instead of ever doing Botox. I swear if I had just done that, I would have never found the need for Botox. How many days a week? I do it five days a week. Really? Five nights a week. Beef tallow? No. You know how I feel about that. I know how you feel about that. But I love the intention behind the product like that. Just clean and better for you. But it's just not what I prefer. Slugging. No. Is this even a thing anymore? This was like so five years ago. I don't know. I've seen it. Are they still doing it? No. OK. Collagen supplements. Yes. Silk pillowcases. Yes. LED masks. LED and red light. I prefer red light panels. The LEDs are not doing much. And then now finish the sentence. Tretinoin. Most underrated. Castor oil. Love. Yes. Super big believer in castor oil. Biggest skincare scam. Tretinoin again. OK. What about CoolSculpting? I mean, that's a med spa scam. Well, it's not like a skincare treatment. Yeah. But it's body treatment. It works. It's just not great. You know what I mean? It does work, but I'd rather go spend it on light. Right. Yeah, I agree. Biggest skincare green flag. Consistency. One thing every woman should eat this week. Steak. One beauty purchase under $50 everyone should own. The Dermaroller. I thought you'd say that. One luxury beauty purchase really worth it. Red light. Beauty hill that you'll die on. Face tape. Fill in the blank. Beautiful skin starts with. In. What do you mean? Oh, within. That's good. OK. OK. What is the name of your new book and what does it cover? It's called Skin Fluence. It covers the big beauty lies that we've been sold and told. But if you do want to work with me, that is the way you can work with me is through the book. I mean, I give all of my advice. I even have my case studies that were with all of my different clients that I've worked with from acne to aging to how to switch out products. I give a ton of different tips and all the routines that I talk about from my personal daily routine to things that you can start implementing. So it's really it's a manuscript that also goes into my personal life and personal story. But it goes over so much of what we have been sold and lied to when it comes to the big beauty industry. OK. And remind everybody what it's called. Skin Fluence. And when is it released? It is available for pre-order and it will come out in September, late September. What's your Instagram? At JamieAnneAesthetics or at JamieAnne.co. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be? Be a critical thinker. Don't just listen to what everybody else says. Use logic. She's beautiful in and out, everybody. Well, listen to the first episode we did. If you want more, Jamie, thank you for coming back on Culture Apothecary. Thank you for having me. Whether you're a Botox loyalist, a skincare maximalist, or somebody who's been wondering why you're spending hundreds of dollars and still not getting the results that you want, I hope this conversation gave you a lot to think about. If it did, send this episode to the friend who is always influencing your Sephora cart. New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, wherever you listen to podcasts. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify to support the show. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions or decisions related to your health or medical care. Continue this conversation in the Keep Servitous Facebook group. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.