Dr Sophie's 2025 favourite things (from skincare to supplements and everything in-between)

0:00This show is sponsored by Primadine, a clean, natural and science-based spermidine supplement that's been a long-time staple in my own longevity stack. Because studies suggest that through autophagy, spermidine increases healthspan and upregulates a range of health markers, from memory and cognitive function to heart health, hormone balance, fertility, and even hair growth. Plus, you can be assured that all ingredients undergo rigorous third-party testing. Buy Primadine now at OxfordHealthSpam.com and use the discount code DrSophie, that's D-R-Sophie for 20 % off. This show is sponsored by Microbes, an award-winning liquid probiotic that's now a staple for me because Microbes, with a Z on the end, is different.

0:47For one thing, they source directly from the soil on their Wiltshire farm, meaning more diversity with at least 15 strains of good bacteria in every single shot. It's brewed so it can survive in the stomach and a remarkable 92 % of customers say it makes a difference. Plus they offer micro-friendly cleaning, gardening and even microbes for dogs. Buy now at microbes.co.uk and use the discount code sophie20 for 20 % off. Hi I'm Sophie and this is Age Well with Dr Sophie Schotter, a space devoted to all things health, wellness and longevity. Because for me, aging well is about looking and feeling like the best possible version of ourselves inside as well as out.

1:31So together with my producer Fee, I'll be deep diving into the latest research sifting fact from fiction. I'll also be talking to all kinds of trusted experts tapping into their knowledge, along with bringing you conversations from a range of interesting women and men finding out how they age well. So this is my show. Welcome along. And as always, thank you so much for listening.

1:59Dr Sophie Shotter:Ah, well, Sophie, I'm really looking forward to this episode because we did a similar one a year ago and I got so many great tips and ideas from you. So let's start at the top. What are these skincare products that remain an absolute favourite? What's currently in the rotation for you? And have there been any brand new skincare discoveries this year alone in 2025? So yeah, there are always going to be ones that don't budge from my shelf. And I absolutely love Elastin's H-A-Immerse. That just is incredible. Mida's Circa Night Cream is still a staple on my bathroom shelf that doesn't go anywhere.

2:35I've played around with a few different cleanses this year I have loved Sarah Chapman's The Ultimate Cleanse that's beautiful I've also been playing with one by a brand called Mimetic called Skin Cloud I actually love the name as much as I love the cleanser and I also love Verdi Labs Cleansing Balm that's just beautiful Murad launched some great innovations this year they have an amazing retinal product for the body which anyone who struggles with laxity on the body have a look at it's brilliant revision launched a tinted version of their youthful lip replenisher which is my go-to lip product i really rate that one and the tinted version is just lovely just gives this subtle kind of slightly pinky hue oh another one a moisturizer that i've really enjoyed is called future veil by sachi skin and that is gorgeous really nourishing but not heavy and my skin seems to love it and then is there anything else that I've really rated this year I love skincare and I'm fortunate to try so much one other one I'll give you an amazing brand called Alpha Science and again really evidence-based and research-backed and their antioxidant and the Tannic CF in particular is incredible and really blows some of the science on really older tried and trusted antioxidants out of the water.

4:00It's quite exciting.

4:01Dr Sophie Shotter:Love this list and can I ask the same questions for hair and nails whether that's products or tools, places, people, stylists. So basically what are those sort of the absolute favourites, what's in the rotation and any new discoveries when it comes to hair and nails this year? This year I have switched hairstylists and I see an amazing hairstylist called Tom Smith and I have to say he's really transformed my hair the color just looks much more natural much more appropriate for me I think he's phenomenal and through him I'd used a product called K18 for ages but he also recommended that I use Olaplex and so I've been using both and again I think that's really helped the strength and condition of my hair and I actually use a couple of products from them one for working with my what I now discover I have naturally wavy hair so that's been brilliant and I guess it's not an entirely new tool but as part of that wavy hair journey I've had the Dyson hairdryer for ages it's brilliant but I've been using the diffuser and again that's just let me embrace my natural wave in a way I never had before so yeah I really love that.

5:23Dr Sophie Shotter:Lovely, love it. And the same question again for makeup this year. So I'm always really loyal with makeup. I tend to stick to tried and trusted and play around a little bit. I was gifted a beautiful Lisa Eldridge liquid eyeshadow by Attractor Courtney, who's an amazing makeup artist. And I have to say that is gorgeous. I also really love the Armani liquid eyeshadows as well they're amazing one of my team at work when I went on a business trip to Japan she asked me she's called Mel and she asked me to try and get her these Shiseido eyeliners which in the colors she want just she can really she struggles to get them in the UK and I couldn't get them for her she's blonde and uses different tones to me but I did get them for me and they were fantastic they have a beautiful dark brown which just worked so well with my coloring long lasting precise really nice and another gift that I fell in love with was from my friend Lucia Ferrari who's an amazing journalist and she gifted me Victoria Beckham's under eye concealer and that was an absolute go-to it just sat so beautifully and definitely made my eyes look a little fresher What about aesthetic treatments or tech?

6:44Dr Sophie Shotter:What's excited you most in 2025? What have your patients really gone mad for and has there been anything really new and exciting in clinic that you've noticed this year? So I'll say the tried and trusted treatments haven't gone anywhere and they're still as important as ever in a routine. But there are things that have come along this year that have been really exciting. So one introduction for me towards the start of the year, which has now become a true staple in clinic is Sunacos. And this is an injectable blend of hyaluronic acid and amino acids, which you can use all over the face, but also on other areas and around the eyes.

7:22and I think that really delivers particularly for crepey skin it stimulates many different types of collagen and in a similar but different vein another skin injectable SkinVe by Allagan this is a true skin hydrator and the science behind this is amazing and it up regulates the levels of a channel in our skin cell membranes called aquaporin-3 and this allows water and glycerol into our cells so we all know hyaluronic acid holds a thousand times its own weight in water most of us know that now but it goes beyond that by actually boosting the intracellular hydration levels of your skin cells so that is a real go-to for hydration i've also loved something called mct metacell technology which we talked about previously you have a sample of prp and then we amplify it so we make it more powerful that is again really exciting has been really popular great for hair great for skin great for the under eyes and they also have an interesting technology called rexinage which is all about really working yes it has aesthetic benefits but it again really works on a cellular level at improving your cellular health and cellular longevity so i think that's exciting even though i don't have that at the moment so you know this isn't to say that these things have replaced what I was already doing but they've been exciting additions I've made in the last year and you can kind of hear that the theme very much is this shift towards regeneration and wanting to stimulate our own skin cell responses.

8:58Dr Sophie Shotter:Yeah okay and what about at home beauty tech? I think there's a new LED mask that you rate I think I saw that on your insta yes i'm very lucky that as i judge various awards i get to try new things and for the recent get the gloss beauty awards i judged the led mask category and the nuance elite x 600 is incredible they have thought of everything so it has more than double the number of leds that i've seen on any other home use device. The power that it emits is openly declared and is very good. All of those bulbs are red and near infrared so you're not diluting the power by having multiple potentially gimmicky colours.

9:44It sits, it's moulded and sits beautifully close to the skin which is important and they've even considered the angle of inflection, the angle at which the light comes in so that it enters perpendicular to your skin and from what I understand they've got clinical trials coming so it's the first mask that's really made me go wow yeah I saw that and

10:04Dr Sophie Shotter:I was definitely drawn in thank you for that and of course we'll link into lots of these things as well I know we both love our supplements but I also know that you are really selective in what you add in and it's based on personalized testing has anything new been added in 2025 whether that's in gut health or protein based or any functional mushrooms anything collagen related and I will say we do have a supplements episode way way back which has the majority of things that you do take this is like anything new for 2025 yeah so do you know I'm not someone who chops and changes all the time I stick to things unless I need to switch around and you know many of the ones that we have talked about on our podcast are things like for example the Zoe Daily 30 I've been taking that for probably about two years so again it's you know there are some amazing supplements that we've talked a lot about this year but they're not new additions I think beam minerals is a really interesting one and this is a liquid plant-based mineral supplement which has very bioavailable minerals and is a different approach I've added more functional mushrooms in so I've tried the Bristol fungarium tinctures and also an amazing brand called Hifasta Terra.

11:22They have a supplement I discovered, again, judging the Get the Gloss Awards, called Optimum, which is a blend of functional mushrooms with other things like even with collagen in there. And I thought that was really interesting. And I'm also just exploring a new supplement, which I haven't started using yet. It literally just arrived with me this week, but I think that's quite exciting. So I'm going to give that a go and it's a probiotic but with a difference it's a liquid probiotic that's creating a bit of a buzz there's lots of similarities with Simprov but where Simprov has four different bacterial strains this one called microbes has at least and it's spelt microbes it has at least 15 different strains and I also like the fact it doesn't need to be kept in a fridge and it's sourced from local Wiltshire soil rather than cultivated in a laboratory.

12:14So lots of bacterial diversity and I think that is really interesting. I will always try new things but I try them cautiously and particularly when it can interfere with my internal health. I try not to chop and change too much.

12:30Dr Sophie Shotter:Yeah okay I'm looking forward to this next question. I know that you adore and collect fragrances has anything new made it to the dressing table this year only one so i was given a birthday gift by my partner and we went for a his and hers fragrance creating session at floris so this is very bespoke it's with a perfumier and they really break down which fragrances you've loved and used before what is it you like about them and then you go through a process of trying different things adding different things in and you walk away with a fragrance that's literally yours and so my partner phil and i did that together and you have to come up with a name for it so ours are called philosophy for him and for her which we thought was quite nice and so that is now I adore it and I wear that all the time.

13:31Dr Sophie Shotter:Do you like the one that he's got for him as well? Oh it's gorgeous, yeah really lovely. Oh what a gorgeous idea, I love that. Okay so anything new for bath and showers? I mean anything from deodorant, toothpaste, bath oils, whatever kind of is bath related, shower related? Not really in all honesty. I've really stuck to my tried and tested here I just adore as you know the olvarin bath oil and the smell of that just makes turns my home into a spa and I love it I love the Locitane just their normal shea butter bubble bath if I want bubbles haven't changed anything with my shampoo and conditioner I still use purology's hydrate range which I really rate shower gel I'm not that picky on and again deodorant and toothpaste I haven't changed around what I'm doing here this year.

14:23Dr Sophie Shotter:Okay what about facials or facialists who do you see if anyone who do you love if anyone? So to be honest I really struggled to find the time to go and see people but I did have a lovely facial with Sarah Chapman's team this year which was beautiful and when I do get the time to jump on the couch with one of my team I do that I might do my own home facials often using a mixture of media beauty products and in all honesty you know I'm getting married in two weeks tomorrow and I haven't had the time to have anything or even by the time I thought about it my team's diaries were full so I will be doing my own pre-wedding facial and this is all with stuff that you can buy freely I will always make sure whether it's a light peel or whatever my skin needs that I bespoke it to my skin so yeah as I said very lucky to have been on Sarah Chapman's couch this year but apart from that I don't think I have managed to sneak in enough treatments which again you could say is that deprioritizing my self-care but I'd say I've managed to get out on dog walks which I never have managed to do before so I'm just doing myself care a little differently.

15:40Dog therapy.

15:41Dr Sophie Shotter:Let's talk health, longevity, any biohacky products or tech or devices. Have you discovered anything new or what do you keep going back to? I know you love your Neurosim and I'd love to know if your cold plunge protocol has changed since our chat with Stacey Sims who said that basically women do better in heat not in cold different kind of cold so the other one that I sort of discovered this year is the alpha stim and my partner and I have both played around with both of them and we obviously love the neuro stim it's also how we met but we also have the alpha stim and that you maybe feel a little bit more and I think in the moment I find that one more immediately relaxing at least on a psychological level so my theory is that the alpha stim is maybe more immediately calming for almost mental stress while the neuro sim has these really tangible benefits for physiological stress so I've got both of those on the go now I've also just recently bought a set of Oslo sleep buds I used to have the Bose ones years ago which they stopped making and the Oslo ones are lovely and just fit in your ear so nicely and you know I adore my stepchildren who are six and seven but I'm a lighter sleeper than my partner so if they come downstairs to the bathroom or something like that I hear them so these sleep buds have been really good for me.

17:10My cold plunge protocol actually changed before Stacey Sims because when I moved house I just did not get round to filling up my cold plunge and then I kind of realized I actually think I felt better for it and then we had our chat with Stacey so I now have a defunct cold plunge sitting in the back garden which I will at some point figure out what to do with and obviously everyone is different but yeah for me I did just realize I think I actually felt better I liked the way the cold plunge woke me up in the morning but obviously that's not necessarily doing it in the best way for me and apart from that I still have you know I have a sauna blanket I have a pemp mat I have my body balancer at home but I don't manage to get into these as much as I would really like to I'd love to have a room dedicated to all my gadgets that I could just dip into whenever I wanted to like a little mini spa

18:06Dr Sophie Shotter:yeah and are there any clothing brands you've discovered this year whether that's nightwear gym wear winter wear beach wear underwear and you know all the standard clothing and anything that you've discovered that you want to pass on? Nothing really new this year that I've discovered again. I always switch around a little bit because brands can sometimes become a little samey. I found myself for my workwear going back to the fold this year after having had a break and not getting so much from them. I love Eberjay pyjamas. I just love how soft they are. They're just a dream. And for me, gym wear, I still find Sweaty Betty just really nice.

18:43Lululemon I like as well. and beach wearing I still keep going back towards Melissa Roderbash got a little bit of Heidi Klein but I prefer the Melissa Roderbash so no and I mean underwear again not a new discovery this year but I love a French band called I don't know exactly how you pronounce it whether it's Obard or Obeyed but it's really lovely.

19:03Dr Sophie Shotter:Anything new exercise related? Not really I have for various reasons tamed back my exercise a little bit the last couple of months. We now finally nearly have our home gym all sorted and set up so that's great news. We also have new tennis courts about to open near where I've moved to so I'm going to be back on the tennis court very soon which I can't wait for and the reform of Pilates has just stayed a total mainstream for me and just you know that benefit of getting out walking in nature. And I met your incredible Pilates teacher at your hen celebration earlier on this year so let's give a little shout.

19:44Dr Sophie Shotter:Does she have a website or an Insta? Should we give her a shout out? On point with an E on the end, Pilates. Right, brilliant. Is there anything bedtime related that you will never give up whether products or brands and have you again discovered anything new this year for your sleep? I mentioned the Oslo Sleepbuds so they are new. I'll be honest nothing else really crazy new this year. Grounding sheet I have been using for quite a while now and I really do like my grounding sheet. I've had blue light blocking screen filter on my screen for years. I always have invested in good bed linen and a real treat set for any of you is the Yves de Lorme bed linen.

20:26It's expensive but it feels like you're getting into a hotel bed and that's just the ultimate treat for me at night and then my my Apollo so again not something new this year but it really works for me and gets me in a sleep space

20:41Dr Sophie Shotter:let's move on to hotels and spas firstly here in the UK and any wellness type places have you made any new discoveries in the UK it's not new and I talked about it last year as well but I am going to mention the gill pin again because I'm going back very soon and that's always a measure of how much I loved it. The setting, the restaurants, the spa treatments, the whole place is beautiful. There's one I have discovered which I want to go to but haven't yet managed to go to, which is in Dorset and is called Luma. I've heard really good things from people I really trust but yeah I haven't personally been yet.

21:21I really like a country spa. Spas in London are lovely but I like to go somewhere that feels like an escape.

21:28Dr Sophie Shotter:Anything beyond the UK, have you had time? Any hotels and spas abroad? I had an amazing holiday to Six Senses Lamu in the Maldives. I just love their sustainability ethos. And the nature around the island is just beautiful. Even if you're not a diver, you can snorkel there. And, you know, we had, you know, this incredible encounter with three huge green turtles just snorkeling from our villa. so I really did enjoy that I went to Sardinia this year which I also thought was beautiful but nothing that was kind of like a spa focus particularly this year and then again a couple of kind of more kid-centric holidays which were fabulous but I'm not going to plug those from a relaxation and wellness perspective so you're getting married very soon at the time this episode goes live you will in fact be married can you tell us about any wedding prep what are you doing?

22:24Dr Sophie Shotter:What are you buying? And also let's do a shout out to Motorino where we all had the most wonderful and elegant hen celebration organised by Chief Hen Emma Bassey Wright. So let's say hello to Emma as well. But anyway, wedding prep, what's on the table? So yeah, wedding prep, sadly, I really haven't had time to do a lot. And that's partly because we only got engaged at the end of July so going from that to wedding in early December has been a bit of a rush and the fact that it's also my busiest time in clinics so I haven't had and my team's busiest time in clinics so I haven't had the time to get treatments in with them but the good news is I've been so consistent with my treatments and my skincare for a really long time now and so my skin's in great condition.

23:10I had some IPL and laser at the start of the year. I had soft wave in the spring. I had harmonica earlier in the year. So all of these things are still active and working. So my plan is to give myself a really beautiful pre-wedding facial on the morning and I'll pamper my own skin a little bit.

23:31Dr Sophie Shotter:Are you doing your own makeup for the wedding or do you have someone in? no I my long-standing amazing makeup artist Elizabeth Joseph Love is doing my makeup for me she's phenomenal she just knows my face really well yeah yeah oh that's good so you don't have to do it so what about food and drink any new food brands or drinks brands that you have discovered this year yeah so I guess a couple of interesting ones living proof which is a prebiotic soda I thought that was really lovely and the rhubarb and apple has actually become a favourite for both Phil and I. There's also another one which was recommended to me by a friend and colleague called Hip Pop, that's quite nice as well.

24:13I think that one's got some of them have got some CBD in as well. Professor David Nutt's brand Sentia is an alcohol-free botanical drink which is really interesting designed to kind of mimic the relaxing effects of alcohol so it kind of has this blend of different herbs that enhance the brain's natural GABA system and this promotes calmness and sociability but without you having the negative effects of alcohol. I'm not a big drinker anyway but it's always nice to have alternatives that aren't just your standard things and you know I drink a lot of water but sometimes it's nice to have something different.

24:49Oh another one I can mention actually Mo Kombucha. I really rate that one and their elderflower and their ginger one is delightful.

24:58Dr Sophie Shotter:But I will agree in all of your drink suggestions because I use pretty much all of those too. And Living Proof, mine is the watermelon, love it. Can you recommend, we're going to have a bit of a swerve here question, can you recommend a podcast? One that launched, I think it did launch over the last year and has been amazing is What's My Age Again, which is Catherine Ryan's. And my good friend, Dr Nicola Conlon, who's been a guest for us a couple of times as well, has been the aging expert on there. And she's now also got her own spin-off called Dr. Nicola's Second Opinion. So I will definitely give that a plug.

25:35I also think Women's Health's new podcast, Just As Well, hosted by Claire Sanderson, the editor-in-chief, and also Gemma Atkinson. That's brilliant. I was also absolutely delighted to be one of the first guests on to the independence new wellness podcast called well enough which is hosted by emily lavinia and i have to say i think she's doing an amazing job of curating some

26:01Dr Sophie Shotter:amazing conversations and i'm going to recommend it to you parenting hell with rob beckett and josh widdekombe because i think as a step parent you will really enjoy it's very funny but very different to the other ones that we've just mentioned. Have you had time to read or watch films or TV? And if so, do you have any recommendations? So reading I do on holiday because I can get so lost in books that I'll stay up reading till 3am, which isn't great if I need to be on my best form for clinic the next day. But I did read a lot on holiday. I tend to like a crime type novel. So I did read the latest Richard Osman while I was away.

26:43So I've been doing a little bit of reading also this year on breath work and a book about a field guide to lucid dreaming which is something I find really interesting I read a book called meeting the shadow about our shadow selves and that was really interesting an interesting one that was really recommended to me by someone called Sebastian Fitzek called therapy and another one that I've recommended to quite a lot of people this year a book by Atul Gawande called being mortal it's essentially about growing old and it sort of says illness medicine and what matters in the end and it's very much I think it's really eye-opening for anyone who isn't in the medical profession the sort of things we should think about as we get older so I think that's a really good read I read a lot more than that but those are the ones that spring to the front of my mind impressive any films or tv tv I loved mob land I don't know if you watched that quite gruesome but absolutely brilliant pierce brosnan helen mirren tom hardy like this stellar cast but absolutely i mean phil and i were waiting every week for the episode it was one of those where i was like why can't they just have released this for me to binge watch and films the number of times i've managed to get to the cinema this year have not been numerous so yeah i can't really think of masses right now and I don't think bad guys too counts.

28:09Is that one of your stepkids

28:12Dr Sophie Shotter:choices? Yeah where we took them to see yeah. I will say that tomorrow in Bristol myself and the family are going to see the new knives out for my my stepdaughter's 18th birthday and it has been really well reviewed so I'm keeping everything across for that. So should we talk about people who inspire you or people that you love to follow online? I think there's an amazing scientist called Daisy Robinson. A lot of what she posts actually isn't about all her professional work but she is such an inspiration and what she's doing in the women's health research field, fertility medicine, menopause is really exciting.