Skincare School in Session! Hollywood Facialist Gina Mari On What You May be Getting Wrong in Your Skincare Routine

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

0:07Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carleen Higgins.

0:20Hello and welcome back to Breaking Beauty Podcast, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. I'm your co-host, Carleen Higgins, and I'm here with my delightful co-host, Jill Dunn. Hey, hey, PodFam. Hey, Carleen. I am so excited to be talking today all about skincare. It's like of all of the topics that we do, it's just like, I can't get enough of this topic. And I feel like that's our audience as well. And I'm really excited about our guest today, who's here to help all of us reset for fall. It's Gina Marie, named top celebrity facialist in Los Angeles by Allure Magazine, one of the best red carpet facialists by Violet Gray, and bonafide skin expert.

1:02Yeah. And Carlene, I don't know if you know this or not, because Gina Marie is a modest individual, but her background, she was actually on screen. She was an actress and she was like a stunt person. Like she's badass. Wow. I had no idea. Yeah. And I think that is what sets her apart in Los Angeles. There's plenty of incredible estheticians and facialists, but they may not have been on the big screen themselves. So she innately understands what that's like to look at your pores on a 4K 60 foot screen. So no wonder that it keeps the people coming back, you know? Absolutely. That and she's just a steel trap when it comes to she will not name names who her celebrity clientele is.

1:47She's really kind of old school that way, which I'm sure a lot of celebrities appreciate that kind of discretion. Yeah. And when it comes to Gina's skincare approach. It's all about skin renewal and preservation being the key word, you know, really taking care of your skin, holding on to what you have for as long as you can. Gina, she's a product guru. Sometimes we will interview these experts and they have one line that they love and they really stick to it. But she's trying all kinds of different lines. And she introduced us to some new skincare in this episode that we hadn't heard of before.

2:20And she was talking about some of our more recent favorites, like One Skin, the Mineral sunscreen, Agent Natur. She's just curious, right? And I love that. And she's all about getting the best results and will try a lot of different stuff. She's always on top of the latest research-based methods to reverse signs of aging, acne, and stress as well. So tools like LED photo modulation, dry and wet dermabrasion, everything to achieve hydrated, glowing, plump skin without makeup. Love that. I mean, it was really funny too when she walked in the room, And Carlene, she was like, I just saw you on TV because I have just done a TV segment.

2:58I think that also shows her Gen X nature because she was watching television. That's true. That's true. Instead of YouTube, although you will be able to watch this whole conversation on YouTube. I hope everybody has subscribed at Breaking Beauty Podcast. Yeah, you got to see how good Gina's skin is in person. I just really love chatting with her. In this week's episode, we're getting a bit of a skin school tutorial, I would say. just a bit of a fall reset. We're going to find out which sneaky habits might be making our skin worse in our own skincare routines at home. We're talking about common mistakes that might be exacerbating breakouts, what might be contributing to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, the real cause of your perioral dermatitis, blackheads, so much more.

3:46Yes. Including how to exfoliate sensitive skin without making matters worse. I was listening in for that one and any potential sunscreen missteps we might be making. And finally, Gina will share which products and ingredients have best stood the test of time in her 25 years as a trusted esthetician. And everything we talk about will be listed over on our website at breakingbeautypodcast.com. So here she is, Gina Marie.

4:26This episode is brought to you in part by Medicaid, a clinically proven British skincare brand known for age defying results. So today we're talking all about back to skin school. And Jill, you and I know as longtime beauty editors, it's all about the ABCs of skincare, vitamin A, vitamin B and vitamin C. Tell us the latest that's in your skincare wardrobe. I love when a vitamin C kind of gets a new twist on it. And the C-Tetra Advanced Gel Serum, it actually pairs 20 % music to my ears, 20 % powerful and stabilized vitamin C with barrier supporting phytoexasomes to visibly brighten smooth skin texture and improve wrinkles in just one week.

5:08So those little sunspots that kind of creeped up on me on my forehead and around my eyes during the summer, it's just like, I feel like this is treating them so well. and you really see a difference after a week yes okay i know you're a big fan of medicaid so i don't doubt and we love that all of medicaid's products they undergo clinical testing they have amazing before and after results and everything is dermatologist tested so if you'd like to try it for yourself medicaid c tetra advanced gel face serum is available online at medicaid.us that's M-E-D-I-K and the number 8.us use code BREAKING20 for 20 % off your order.

5:48Once again, that's Medicaid, M-E-D-I-K and the number 8.us and use code BREAKING20 for 20 % off your order. We'll link to this offer in our show notes and on our website. Now back to the show. Hi guys, it's Jordan from the Balance Blonde Soul on Fire podcast. On my show, we go deep on all things astrology, awakening, motherhood, channeling, healing, and so much more. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, and the healing journey I embarked on at that time set me on the path to radical awakening. Let's just say I had no choice but to change my energy, and that opened me up to the most beautiful healing of my life.

6:24On my show, you can expect to feel like you're sitting in my living room chatting with old friends. Tune in every Wednesday to connect and hang on the Balanced Wand Soul on Fire.

6:41Welcome to the show, Gina. So happy to have you with us. And today we're going to be talking all about the common mistakes that people might be making in their skin routine. So, and it could be lifestyle habits too. It might not even be the products that they're using. And I read that your approach to treating the skin is all about skin renewal and preservation. So when it comes to preserving the skin, what's the number one mistake people are making? I would say the number one mistake that people make is not washing their face at night. It's so simple. It's so basic, but we really have to prep our skin for what our body's doing when we're sleeping.

7:19So when you're sleeping, your cells are repairing and restoring, and that's when your body is super busy. So much cellular activity happening. So why combat that? Let it do its thing. So not washing your face before you go to bed, I would say is the number one thing. Can I tell you something that I'm guilty of? I do wash my face every night. However, if I'm not going out or doing anything, I don't wear makeup. Like I'll just, you know, and in on those days I give myself a pass and I don't wash my face at night. But I am starting to understand that even though I'm not wearing makeup, I still should be washing my face at night.

8:01Is that true? Absolutely. A hundred percent true because you're out there in the environment, whether you're in the middle of nowhere or you're in the basiest city on the planet, you're still getting environmental stressors. You're still getting UV exposure. You're still getting pollution on your skin. So even if you feel like you're just, I'm just walking around the house today or doing chores or whatnot, you still have to wash your skin at night, even if it's just a quick one, but just, you know, not a double cleanse if you're wearing a ton of makeup for sure. If you're just at home chilling out still, at least use a micellar essence or something to just kind of wipe it away.

8:37Take the day off, as Clinique said, all those years ago. Exactly. The three-step program from Clinique. 100%. I understand your passion for skincare, Gina, was sparked when you yourself got adult acne in your late 20s. I suffer from adult acne. It's way worse than teenage acne, I'm telling you. And in this day and age, we know there's so many different types of acne. What's sort of that sneaky self-sabotage move that people might be doing without even realizing it? Or for you personally, maybe you were doing something and you were like, oh, this actually was triggering my acne. Okay. So physically, one thing to not do if you're struggling with acne is pick.

9:16Picking at home is the worst thing on the planet. Second to that is a magnifying mirror. We don't need to see that. I always tell everyone if you're dealing with your skin and you're insecure about it at all, don't look at it like this. Yes. Look at it like this. So most of the world sees us from this length. And arm's length. Arm's length. So if you're struggling with something or you have a skin condition that you're battling, if you look okay from me to you, you're fine. Right. Leave that up close scrutiny to a dermatologist, to an esthetician, to a professional. Let go of it, essentially. And then when it comes to barrier repair, taking care of your barrier, for myself, I had hormonal acne when I was a teenager and in my 20s.

10:05Mine was in my T-zone and I would try to avoid applying moisturizer in that area. Now we have so many different options. So what would you say would be a do for taking care of your barrier if you are acne prone? Like I know some people avoid shea butter. What would be like the ingredients to look for and avoid? Well, I would say it would be less about the ingredients to avoid and a way to treat it overall. I think one of the worst misconceptions that people have about dealing with oily, acne prone or full-blown acne skin is to dry it out. Overdrying the skin is not going to be helpful at all. I love to treat acne slightly wet.

10:48You know, for a definition of wet, I would say is hydrated. So if you're crusting up that top layer of skin, you're not letting it, A, escape, if you will. And also you're sending all these crazy messages to your skin that produce more oil, essentially, as you're completely drying it out. So I would not be afraid of hydrating acneic skin at all because you also want it to breathe and kind of release. That sounds really gross. But get rid of like the clogged pore, the stuff that's clogged in there. The stuff that's clogged in there. And then, you know, oftentimes when you're looking at previous acne patients, you'll see a lot of scarring like ice pick scarring and stuff like that.

11:35Most of that is not from the actual pimple. It's from the time that it's spent in there or picking it and squeezing at it and whatnot. So I really strongly believe in taking care of it, that, you know, your acid mantle, all of it, and also treating it with also there's really great products out there that are really focusing on prebiotics, probiotics, healthy bacteria for your skin. So it's not about just stripping everything away. It's about letting your body kind of function. Do you have a favorite? Well, I'm really obsessed with this new line called Editrix. She's also a beauty editor. And it's a four-step line.

12:17It's an oil cleanser, a foaming cleanser, a spray, and then a serum. And I'll tell you, I know you guys do too so much product testing. And most of the time it will go awry. Yeah, that's right. And whenever I use this product line, it writes me in like 24 hours. So it's really great in terms of handling kind of, you know, issues that you're dealing with. Okay, interesting. And I liked what you said about keeping your acne wet, for lack of a better way to put it. But it reminds me of, it reminded me of a conversation that I once had with, it was actually like a kind of a publicist in-house for La Roche-Posay.

12:58And they were talking about the Cicaplast. That's La Roche-Posay, right? Yes. And she was talking about how the whole thinking behind wound healing is that you don't actually want it to get dry. Like people think that the best thing to do is to dry it out when if you have like a wound, but it's actually the opposite because that actually allows the wound healing to happen versus like just scabbing, which is going to lead to a scar. So you kind of want to like take care of it. as opposed to just like leaving it. It's kind of like multi-folding there because, you know, if you're cutting yourself on your hand and you're going to keep reopening it, yeah, you got to cover it for a little bit, but then air it out at night, right?

13:45That's what we do for our kids or knees or whatever. Your face, you're never going to really cover it fully. Yeah. So you don't want to completely dry it out because also when you're dealing with wound healing, you're also dealing with scabs coming off too fast. And so that's really where the scars are coming from. when your scalp comes out too fast and sun exposure or you're getting, you know. Right. So I agree with you on that, but I just don't like anything being overly dry. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think a good line, honestly, that kind of treats the skin with that sort of 360 approach is the Fin line from Indeed Labs.

14:20PH-IN. It's all about barrier support and health and not drying out the skin. Yeah. Right. And no shea butter in there and all of that. It's one of the first lines that have come out that don't have benzoyl peroxide and like a lot of AHAs and stuff like that. Even though it's for acne, the main focus is on, sorry, probiotics. And hydration. Yeah. Really think that, you know, with the wonderful explosion of social media and TikTok and all of it, there has been a lot of misinformation that's been spread. And I think it's really valuable, you know, ladies like yourself, where you can kind of reprogram the education of how to deal with problematic skin.

15:02And like you just said, it's unfortunate that, you know, some young person or an older person that doesn't really understand what the ingredients are or what they're doing are going to go exactly what you said, sea breeze back in my day. And just strip everything away. Oh, this brand Editrix is beautiful. Former W and Allure editor. Oh, Dahlia. And she's lovely. I love the branding. The branding is beautiful. Call me, Dahlia. Call me because it's all about microbiome. Yes. All right. I could see the editor eye here. Can you? Yeah, for sure. Love it. Okay. Now, apparently trending on TikTok right now, you were just talking about this, like young people are sharing with their peers that turmeric soap is the answer to acne.

15:52What's your take on that? I think turmeric is an amazing ingredient in terms of ingestion. It's really great for inflammation and all of that. Throw it in your smoothie, throw it in that. I don't think that we have enough information about what it can do topically. So, you know, like we're talking about editrix, we were all taking prebiotics, probiotics in our gut, and now we're discovering that it's great for our skin. I'd like to kind of hang out and see what turmeric is going to be doing in the future. Turmeric on its own, I'm not going to jump up and down and say, yay, we have a cure. However, I'm curious about the topical inflammation benefits.

16:33Yeah. You would presume that it's like calming, but what do we know? One would presume. And if it is, that would be wonderful. But I'd like to see that more in terms of eczema, psoriasis, those really inflammatory issues. So let's test it out on something gnarly like that and see if we can start putting it on our face. What do you guys think? First of all, the word soap and face, I just, I don't know. I'm still not there putting a soap of any kind on my face. There's one bar soap that I'm actually a huge fan of. I've started using it myself. It's a Caldera Lab. It's actually a line for men. It's specifically created for men, and they have a bar soap, and I've been testing it.

17:18And I will say, I kind of love it. Oh, why? Why? Why do you love it? Tell me more. I love the, it's super clean, super natural, and it's not stripping. Okay. And it's easy. One thing that I love about soap, just to kind of sidestep this a little bit. No, I want to hear it. Yes. If you can get a teenage boy to wash his face, that's like a major win. So if I can get a bar soap in his hands and he'll actually use it in the shower, or any teenager, anybody who doesn't like washing their face, I'm really into giving them something that will make them happy to do it as opposed to make it a chore. So the Caldera Lab soap, that's the only soap so far I've been like, oh.

18:03Interesting. This is reminding me of my conversation with Katie Denno, the makeup artist, and she recommended Jeanette All Natural Skin Care Green Tea Superfood Facial Bar. Now this is a$53 soap. Oh, that's great. The owner did send one to me and it is meant to be used on your face. And I do trust Katie. So maybe I'll test it out. Anecdotally, she said it's worked wonders for people. And so why not? We'll try it. We'll try it. I like that. OK, moving on. How about any other post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation habits, sneaky habits that people might be doing that are exacerbating the situation?

18:45Yeah. So melasma hyperpigmentation is harder to work with than acne. I would say that melasma and hyperpigmentation are by far one of the hardest things to fix. So when I'm dealing with somebody who has active acne, coaching them through the process, I say, we're not going to worry about color yet. We're not going to worry about any of that. We just want to worry about flat. I want your texture to be flat. We'll tackle the color later. Meanwhile, we're tackling it all along, you know, but just to kind of like talk to people about pigmentation because it's very difficult to work with. One thing is a lot of people will think if they're sunbathing or they're out, you know, oh, I put sunscreen on my face, but you didn't put it on your arms and your legs.

19:36so it's not like you can just activate you can pick one area to activate a melanocyte cell they're all going to get active and happy and want to come out and play and melanocyte cells which are the melanin essentially cells they're like little octopus that kind of crawl up to the surface when they're activated with light yeah so and that can be blue light too computer light from everything. So really paying attention to not using too many AHAs, BHAs, or retinoids when you're going to be in the sun. In California, everybody's in the sun. It's like, forget about it. I was just in Oklahoma with my stepdad.

20:15He's bald and the sunroof was open and I was like, not to say that vitamin D isn't good. It's great. We need sunlight. It's healthy for us. However, be very mindful of if there's, oh, my forehead has a melasma patch on it. Don't go bake in the sun right now. If you want to fix it, we have to be careful. Also, snow skiing, you know, it's multitudes of things like that. I don't think I answered your question now. No, I think that was helpful. What I was going to go back to is it sounded like what you were saying is that if you have melasma and you're only applying sunscreen to your face and you're allowing the sun have have at it with the rest of your body, let's say you're by a pool or whatever, that it actually can create, it can exacerbate the melasma that shows up above your lip.

21:05Everywhere. Yeah. Really? Well, it's an organ, right? Yeah. It's, it's, it's activated. Like if your legs, that's why people will say they get, let's say melanoma, they'll get it on the bottom of their feet, between their toes, on their ass, whatever. They're like, I've never had that in the sun of my life. Well, it's all connected. It's all connected. Exactly. And a really good friend of mine, an esthetician, she's been in the business for 40 years almost. She had a melanoma on the back of her calf. Very common. In women, it's supposed to be very common there. Yeah. Interesting. It's interesting.

21:41So in terms of if you're dealing with somebody that has acneic skin and they're concerned about the color or the pigmentation or all of that. I do love retinoids. I love vitamin C in the daytime and vitamin A at night. Those are my two powerhouses, that combination. They're both also, besides like maybe coenzyme 10, cookie 10, whatever, they're the only real actives ingredients, you know? And so our actives are super, super, they're my best friends. And I will say that the one, number one thing that I really want to say to people who are maybe suffering with melasma or whatnot, please don't get a laser.

22:21Please wait. I've seen IPLs just destroy pigment and just make it so bad. So in terms of any treatment for pigment, I really love people to go slow and steady with it. However, my favorite treatment, and I think they've just reformulated it again, is the old school Cosmolone. Okay. What's Cosmolone? Okay, so it was launched by a Spanish company probably, I don't want to say 20 years ago. And it is one of the only treatments that I've seen that really does work. They've changed the formula throughout the years. It was really intense in the beginning and everybody was freaking out. So they took it down and then they've brought it back up and, you know, toyed with different versions of it.

23:07But the latest version of it, I've seen really beautiful results. So any dermatologist, nurse, physician's assistant can do it. It's tedious because it's a mask that you leave on your skin for 8 to 10 hours. Oh, wow. Yeah. What kind of a mask? It's called a deep pigmentation treatment, right? Yeah. Is it a topical? Is it a physical mask? It's a physical topical mask that you put on. And then the aftercare, you do the Cosmolone 2. I think it's three times a day, then two times a day, then one. You step it down. So it's very tedious and laborious. Right. But it's more like an inhibitor. It's more like kind of sitting on those little octopus that are coming up.

23:47And it's like, no, no, no, stay down. And they're like, no. Okay. What's in it? What is it? Cozy acid, vitamin K. Yeah. I'm not clear on all the ingredients right now because the formula has changed. And again, I'm not a practitioner of it. I've just seen it. So, yeah. We'll link to that, everyone.

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