The “Quiet Luxury” Facialist’s Skin Bible: A Face Oil Reset For Acne, “Burgundy” LED Face Masks and is Salicylic Acid “Out”?

25:38Yeah. And they're sort of often at this desperate point. And so they're sort of they're excited to try something that they haven't tried. And right. And then it works so quickly that they stick to it. Yeah. What's in the gold oil just briefly? Like what's the magic? What's the gold touch? So there's something in it called geominic acid. I don't believe there's any other product on the market that contains this acid. and that's not an active acid. That's an omega acid. It's really hard to source. We get it from Australia and it comes from the sandalwood nut, not to be confused with sandalwood nut or sandalwood, the perfume oil.

26:21This is taken from the nut and it's the only plant in the plant kingdom that contains this super anti-inflammatory omega. and what's it called again i'm so sorry she a minute it's with an x okay and then the raspberry seed that we get is from marin if you think about what it takes to extract oil from a raspberry seed it's pretty crazy right so that's also a very fancy oil if you will full of vitamin a even more than the high you know oh gosh what's the ingredient that had a really great PR team for hyaluronic acid what's that hyaluronic acid no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no the natural one bakuchiol bakuchiol yes so it's higher than it's actually higher than bakuchiol oh interesting yeah but it's so expensive okay so it kind of functions like bakuchiol in a way Yeah, performs better.

27:26And that's the majority of that product is those carrier oils, raspberry seed. You normally see them lower in the ingredient list. Yeah. And so what's that doing? Is it working on cell turnover, collagen rebuilding? Like what? Yeah, absolutely. All those things. Yeah. Okay, great. all right.

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29:11That's timeline.com slash beauty30 while the offer lasts. That's timeline.com slash beauty30. We'll link to this offer in our show notes and on our website. Now back to the show. Today's episode is brought to you in part by Quince. Okay, quiet luxury is the topic of the day. When it comes to fashion, everyone needs to know about Quince because truly it's about capsule wardrobe building with quiet luxury items that aren't going to cost you a fortune. So let me tell you about my latest purchase. It's the 100 % organic cotton fisherman crew sweater. I got it in navy to match my suede navy tote from Quince that I still wear all the time.

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31:40I was reading about the Athena facial on your site, which sounds heavenly, of course, named after yourself, given by yourself. It reads that the facials are a mixture of ritual, sensorial journey, choreographed massage technique, technology, and a personally developed and highly effective extraction technique. So I'm so curious to know what this extraction technique looks like and how you kind of went off. Because I know you kind of went to the top in terms of esthetician school. I forget what the acronym. SEDESCO. SEDESCO. go. So you, you went straight to the top and then you kind of have veered off and you have your own extraction technique.

32:22So tell us about that. I didn't really realize that it was special or something different until I started training estheticians and yeah, they mentioned it. So I lean on the bones of the face and I, you, that's my, my support system. So you're like your cheekbones I put all my all my weight on your on your bones and I use them and then that way you're not putting too much pressure around the actual people and you just interesting yeah you use that that pressure to leverage yeah to go down and I think that that's for some reason something that no one else is doing I also use a really special needle to open things up and most the time they've never seen this needle before but yeah it's all about the the weight I find that too many estheticians are going in more like yeah they're pushing the skin and you use pressure to pop it out right actual like finger pressure right so weight of the body I'm guessing that can create more I don't want to say damage trauma oh yeah that will create more damage for sure when you're using just the right when you're using just your fingers because you're not really feeling things yeah when you're using just your fingers okay yeah interesting yeah no I want to ask you about your no-no list for monastery because when I saw it I was like whoa this is different than the normal you know Sephora clean list or lots of other lists there were just things on there that I was like oh okay tell me more so I'm gonna let's do a little rapid fire okay about why these ingredients are on your no-no list.

34:06So no squalene. Oh, that's the shark. Okay. So you would use squalene, but not squalene. Okay. That's an easy one.

34:15Athena Hewett:Yeah. And salicylic acid is on your no-no list. Yeah. I don't like it. So here's what salicylic acid does. It closes. So then your bacteria is trapped underneath and your body will create a wall of cells to protect the rest of the cells from the bacteria spreading. So you've got a nodule underneath there of cells that have wrapped around this bacteria that was in your pore. So you're going to have pigmentation for possibly up to a year. Wow. I've never seen it really work on anyone, honestly. Maybe a 15 year old with really large open pores. Like their pores might be so large and open that it really would, there's no way for it to close them.

35:05But normally it wrecks skin. I've just seen it so many times.

35:10Athena Hewett:Okay. And it's the number one ingredient that is touted in all anti-acne skincare. Yeah. It just kills me. Do you ever have any spicy conversations with dermatologists about that ingredient? No. i'm sure i'm sure some could be had but yeah so so do you use or on the internet you know oh yes yes so do you use like a natural version like willow bark extract or do you what do you what would you use instead yeah we haven't gone down the willow bark extract route i'm not opposed to that ingredient i still don't like the idea of constricting which you're basically your your philosophy is like get it all out of the pores.

35:55Athena Hewett:Like if there's bacteria in the pore, don't, don't hold it in there. My philosophy is like relax and open. Yeah. Not. Yeah. Close. Okay. You're basically saying that salicylic acid is kind of like a bandaid solution. So, okay. Yeah. There is only one time that I would recommend salicylic acid. If it is your wedding day and you really want to flatten something, but just know that there's going to be fallout, But maybe you're okay with that. Yeah, hyperpigmentation later. So salicylic acid is meant to decongest. That's the main reason why skincare like chemists would use it. Is that right? I suppose.

36:37So what would you do instead? Like what's your tactic? For decongesting? Yeah. More oil. More oil. Oh my gosh. People, so many people are probably like what? Yeah. Yeah. Oil flows with more oil. Okay. Yeah. So our skin is made up of oil. Right. We let it just relax and then things will come out. Kind of like oil pulling. Yeah. Idea. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. So this would go back to like your gold oil, for example. Is that sort of the key or do you have a different? Oh, you mean, yeah, the face oil. Yeah, that is our most nutrient dense oil. So, yeah, you're getting a way to balance your skin with all of these incredible ingredients.

37:24The rose cleansing oil is really just made to balance and restore, whereas the gold is going to add. Okay. No petroleum products? Yeah, we don't use crude oils. I mean, are people still doing that? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah.

37:45Athena Hewett:Petrolatum. you know and an aquaphor you know going out skiing slather and they slugging like slugging has been the biggest term right in the last like three years it's not for everyone but like if you live in a dry climate tons of people are still slugging with so you kind of use like a petrol atom alternative in a way to create these bombs right like caster I mean the extraction of those products is just not super great for the environment That's where that comes from. Right. And do you find that your kind of alternative balms are less pore clogging than petrolatum, would you say? Yes, absolutely.

38:29None of our products have anything above like a four on the comedogenic level. Yeah. Okay. Scale. Okay. Great.

38:38Athena Hewett:And no shea butter. I'm with you on this one. You are? Yes. I love that. I hate shea butter. Oh my gosh. Dead to me. I feel like a lot of people don't. It's an inexpensive, easily accessible product that really just doesn't contain any nutrients except for its moisturizing ability. I find it to be really comedogenic. The only persons I'll give a slight shout out to is Mae Lindstrom's in that blue cocoon. She's got the shea butter in there, but she said she is sourcing it from I don't know where. And I do trust her. Okay, you know what? That's funny. When I saw that, when I saw Shay and her product, I was like, oh, this is a really nice bomb.

39:20Athena Hewett:Right. OK, we're giving a hat tip. We are giving a hat tip times two. So we love her. I also saw no cinnamon oil. I mean, is cinnamon in skincare? That's that's kind of that was my reaction. I have been seeing it in skincare. Really? Yes. Because I think they want it to like brighten, bring some life to the skin. And when I was making the line, I was lucky to have my clientele. And I was really trying out every formulation on them. And that oil somehow made it into some product because I was, whew, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Okay. All right. You're clear. And no coconut oils. Yeah. Another comatogenic, like the farming of that ingredient is not great.

40:07Squalane is a really nice alternative. Yeah. and the derivatives too

40:12Athena Hewett:there's coconut based surfactants that's what you're talking about in cleansers which you don't have cleansers like that so that makes sense okay but I will say something if something was a coconut based surfactant I would be definitely more appealed to that one just because I'd be intrigued by the fact that it's naturally made that could be interesting and tea tree oil it's another one of those high high limonene high linalool when you think of a plant as as having a sharpness to it you also feel those effects on the skin sharpness to the skin and you're just not really wanting to create a reaction you know sure it has antibacterial properties but you have to weigh those antibacterial properties with the other of things that come along with it.

41:03I mean, most people put tea tree on their skin and they can feel the burning.

41:07Athena Hewett:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That ends the rapid fire round, everybody.

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43:07One thing I thought was interesting about your Attar Concentrate, which we talked about earlier, and this is a really, to me, it almost looks like Elizabeth Thardin eight hour cream because it's got this beautiful amber tone to it and it feels like a bomb, but it's almost like a bio ointment in a way. And I was going to ask you about that. Okay. I know what I was going to say. And it's quite aromatic. And I think that some people assume that when you're using a highly active botanical or highly potent botanical formula, and it is aromatic, that surely it must contain essential oils. But I read that a tar does not include any essential oils.

43:50So I'm just curious, like, honestly, maybe this is a really basic question, but what makes an essential oil an essential oil versus something like a rosehip oil, which I guess is not an essential oil? There's essential oils and there's absolute oils and then there's carrier oils. Carrier oils are taken from nuts or seeds and they're large, they're much larger molecules. Molecules. Okay. So like a castor oil is a carrier oil. For sure. Yeah. And then you're going to have essential oils that are taken from flowers. Okay. Plant leaves, even sometimes sometimes bark, things like, yeah, sandalwood, essential oil is going to be taken from a bark.

44:37And those are the life force of that plant and that flower. So they're the thing that, you know, it's the food. It's essential. It's essential. So you're going to get a lot of good, but you're also going to get the things that might be irritating as well. So you have to really pay attention to the levels of things like limonene and linalool, whereas carrier oils don't contain any of those terpenes. So they're more potent for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that helps us explain that. So yeah. So there's no essential oils in that particular product, which I guess, as you're saying, like could be irritating if depending on how you

45:22Athena Hewett:formulate, right? Okay. And I've also read that you have this no water cleansing method, but there's a bit of a twist because this doesn't even involve like a misslar water in the morning. So, and you even advise some clients to avoid tap water altogether. Is that true? Yeah. When I was going through my healing stages of my acne, I wasn't using water on my face at all. And it took about six weeks of doing absolutely nothing to my skin, not even allowing water to just re I just didn't trust anything. Honestly, there is so much in our water. And how do how do we know that that that mineral is not setting off an imbalance in our skin?

46:09So I really just want people to avoid that when trying to heal their acne with the rose cleansing oil i know exactly what's going on their skin we're wiping it off what's what's left over behind is nothing harmful and it's still healing and it's just going to allow things to the good bacteria to regrow

46:29Athena Hewett:are people wearing makeup during this process or no yeah i'm supposed to rose cleansing oil removes makeup beautifully. Oh, yeah, they can still. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. So and so you'll recommend if they really want it, as you say, like put water on a cloth as they as they wipe it off distilled water, right? Yeah. If they're really going through like an acne healing, we don't you don't have to go to those extreme measures if you don't have something that you're trying to fix. I have rosacea myself. So I like micellar cleansers because then I don't have to use the water because I find even just water can make me wet.

47:08So I have thought about like water filter, but they're just ugly. Like I don't want to see it. You know what I mean? But I love this idea of a water filter because I do think, as you say, like minerals and just just throwing off my pH, I think is is a big part of it. You could try the cleansing oil without any water, just a soft cloth.

47:31Athena Hewett:I feel like that's very European. And of course, in France, like they don't. That's why they say Missler water was invented is because they didn't want French women using the tap water on their face. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. And even before milks got popular in skincare in North America, like the original cleansing milks were French. Right. Right. And the idea was that you would use this milk in a cloth and wipe it off and you didn't necessarily need to use water. Yeah, like Toleraine is like that from La Roche-Bosay. It's still like that. They say tissue it off.

48:08Athena Hewett:Yes. Tissue. That's what they would always say. And I'm sure clean water at that time was really hard to come by. Yeah, exactly. You couldn't pop down to the Vichy Spring. Anyway. Yeah, there's a whole thing with Paris and the water. That's another story. It's good for your hair, bad for your skin. Anyway. Yeah. On TikTok, there's a big focus on layering and you often see like people talking about which way they order their products. So for listeners who might be new to face oil, how do you work this into your application order? Like where would sunscreen fit in or can you put a primer on top of oil?

48:44That kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. It should start setting into your skin within minutes so you can apply anything on top of it. Yeah.

48:52Athena Hewett:And what are, you know, I was really interested on your website about your gadgets as it were. So you have a red light therapy device and I swear to God, this is like the question we get more than any question over and over because investment, these pieces are investment pieces, gadgets or skincare tools at home. and people want to know if they work. And I noticed that yours almost has like a, what you're calling like a burgundy wavelength. Like it goes a little deeper than a traditional red light therapy mask. So I was very interested in that. Can you share more? And did you make this or how did you, because it's quite a jump to go from creating skincare, handcrafting it to then getting into tools and devices.

49:34Yeah, so he'd made this guy in Palo Alto that we came across. I think he'd had someone who'd been into our spa. He'd made some pretty well-known pieces out. And at the time, he was just kind of testing this idea of not using an orange diode, but a more darker diode because it was going to be, the more that you can saturate the skin with the red light, the more effects that you're going to get. And it does make sense that the deeper hue that you use, you're going to be able to saturate something more than on the orange to red scale. Because I think he was showing me that all of them are using the orange to red scale light.

50:27So we started testing it in our spa for years for him and seeing great results. And yeah, we made a mess. Amazing.

50:37Athena Hewett:So yeah, it's technically, yeah, you're calling it burgundy light. Yeah. Yeah. Have you tried our mask? Not yet. It is. I don't think there's a strong, it's the strongest one. It's where everyone, everyone's like, oh my God. Okay. I mean, but I would love to. I love masks. It's like professional at home. Yeah. Or it feels. Legitimate, professional. When do you like to use it in your routine personally? I mean, I think what is easiest for someone is the only thing I would suggest. consistency is key with these things. So if you can only do five minutes a day, this, this thing can produce enough energy in five minutes.

51:17So whenever, you know, you, you've got the little eye things and you can do, you can work. I mean, we should just relax, right? But I'm often, you could read any, leaving it by the side of the bed, uh, is an easy way to just do it at the end of the night. If every day, five minutes, because then you're getting in the habit. I find that you might not really need to use it every day, but there's something about not doing something every day. I agree.

51:47Athena Hewett:So what personally have you seen in your clients if they are using it? If like, you know, you have your A student clients, I'm sure, where you're like, they're going to be a good tester. So what have you seen them come back with? Lower pigmentation. I mean, the pigmentation, literally it looks like they've gotten a fraxel. Incredible. Yeah. The texture is different. I asked my mom about a month ago if she got a fraxel. She was like, no, I've still never gotten a fraxel. Should I get one? Incredible. I keep doing what you're doing. So does it, is there a blue setting for acne or it's just the burgundy light you'd recommend for everyone or?

52:25It really lowers the strength of the red to be able to do the awesome because you have to have the blue lights in there along with the red. So you're not getting full saturation mode by having, you're losing half the lights by having the blue light in there. I see. So it combines both. No. So our burgundy is proven to be the most healing. Okay. And what you're trying to get out of the blue is healing anyways, right? So if you have a color that is the most healing, maybe you should just stick with that. So I could use it and my teenage acneic daughter could use it too. 100%. Okay. So we don't need the red and blue, everybody.

53:12Athena Hewett:Looking ahead, you're launching something new, right? Yes. What are you launching? Yeah, this is a new ingredient that has never been seen in skincare in this way. My father-in-law is a scientist and he came across this ingredient that they were using in cancer. And he said, I think that you should take a look at this. It looks really interesting and maybe you'd like it on the skin. We've been working with it for, this was a very long time ago. So we've been working with it for about two years now and are really excited to introduce it to the skincare world. It creates hydration while creating also a web.

53:56So it's hydrating, but it could be a standalone because it really just creates this barrier.

54:02Athena Hewett:What is it called or the name of the ingredient? Tagua. Oh. Yeah. Where does tagua come from? Is it a plant? Yes, it is a plant and it comes from, it is one of the hardest nuts in the world. They use it as like if you've seen fake ivory and stuff. Oh, interesting. Yeah. But when you take it down to a nano level, it really creates this really even web that's still breathable, but can hold things in. Yeah. Ecuador it comes from. Oh, interesting. So the product's called Hydra. And will it be an oil or what is it? No, it's not going to be an oil. Okay. Yeah. All right. Is it an essence or where does it sort of fit into your routine?

54:53No, it's going to be sort of like acting like an oil, like the power of an oil in a water. Okay. So it is a water. It's moisture holding ability is that strong that it holds up next to a raspberry seed oil, which is really incredible for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So you'd put that on maybe right after you wash? Yeah. You can. Or cleanse? Yeah, you can put it on standalone. It could be your first step. You could also use it at the end as like a holding, you know, a barrier. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I can't wait to try that. Your origins in Greece and your grandmother kind of sparked this passion for you and the original monastery inspiration came from Greece.

55:41So if you were to go back, what herb would you bring home? What would you use it for? You know, I've never worked with mastic gum. And there's an island in Greece. I want to say it's Ischia, but I'm not entirely sure. But it's known as like the mastic island. And this particular super healing gum looks really interesting to me. Okay. Yeah, it's the only place in the world that grows it. I love this. I'm looking up how to say thank you in Greek. Aferisto. Aferisto.

56:19Athena Hewett:Thank you for being with us. Thank you so much. We got to come check out your space in San Francisco. Thanks for listening. You can find details on every product mentioned in today's episode, along with our exclusive promo codes on our blog at breakingbeautypodcast.com. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Every episode will be delivered directly to your inbox so you won't miss a single thing. and get social with us. Let us know what you think of the episode. You can follow us on Instagram at Breaking Beauty Podcast. And did you know we also have a private Facebook group?

56:56Just search Breaking Beauty Podcast chat room. You can even leave us a voicemail at any time with questions or feedback at 1-844-227-0302. And don't forget to subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts fixed. Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts, where you can show us some love by writing a review. See you next Wednesday.

57:45referred to in this episode.