Cutting Through the Noise: Dr. Muneeb Shah Debunks Skincare's Biggest Trends

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is a very, very special episode and I am truly honored to be hosting our guest today. He is literally the trailblazer when it comes to dermatology communication and like educating us online. He has over 20 million followers. Many of you might recognize him. He was on our show very early on and I was so honored to host him back then. And since then, he's launched his own skincare line and has expanded so much in this space. So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Muneeb Shah back to the show. Welcome Dr. Shah. Thank you.

0:29Dr. Muneeb Shah:Thank you for having me back on. The first time was a blast. I have a ton of updates, life updates. You know, I think this is even before Remedy and before I had my daughter. So, you know, life is very different than it was the last time that we chatted. I know you've been absolutely killing it. And I mean, I am a huge, huge fangirl of Remedy. I mean, what you've created is extraordinary, genuinely. And I think it was when I first saw the line, I was so excited that you made it the way you did and the way the products just sit in this space and what they do. But all that aside, I want to get started.

1:00And I actually would love to learn more about what made you want to start the brand? Because I know we didn't get to talk about that last time. What made you want to go in that direction?

1:09Dr. Muneeb Shah:Yeah, I think there's the education piece, right? And initially, I was seeing patients in the office, right? And each patient I was educating in a very bespoke way. And then pandemic hits. I'm scrolling TikTok myself, seeing a lot of misinformation. I find this opportunity to educate people at large. and sometimes it's hard to get the nuance that you would in a patient room where you're knowing the person specifically and their needs, but you try to get a broad message that's generalizable and can have an impact on lots of people around the world. And I started to work with lots of brands in different capacities.

1:41Dr. Muneeb Shah:A lot of what people see on social media is when I do any sponsorship work, for example, but those sponsorship work a lot of times turned into consulting work, contracting work and development work. So I started to develop products for lots of brands and I realized that there was this opportunity to really take more risks with the brand, make products the way the dermatologist really treats skin in clinic, combine multiple ingredients into one formula so some people can get more impact from their formulas. And so I just saw this white space that similar to content where it's like, you can do one at a time in the office.

2:10Dr. Muneeb Shah:This is a way to basically get great products to lots of people with the nuances that I find important. And it's not just about what we put in the formula, it's also what we keep out of the formula, where we source ingredients from, how we look at allergens and as they emerge and they change how we remove them from our formulas. And so it just gives you a lot of control over the formulas to create better products for a large group that I was educating on social media. And so, I don't know, it's my new hill to climb, I keep saying. You know, content was a hill at one point and this is my new hill is building a brand that really becomes a legacy brand.

2:41I love that. And, you know, I think for me, when I first saw the brand launch, it was cool because for so long you were educating on like, guys, this works, this doesn't work, you know? And I remember the first time we spoke and you were on the show, I remember asking you a question. I don't know if you remember, but I was like, Dr. Shah, does the finger trick work for the eye creams? Because back then, everyone was using their ring finger to apply eye cream. And it was like, you know, a common myth. And I remember you were like, you laughed at the time and you were like, no, you know, that doesn't do anything.

3:09And that really speaks to like just how I've seen you in the space where it's like you've always been debunking myths. And so when I saw Remedy, I was like, this is such a cool brand because it's like everything that we know is tried and true, you know, from the dermatology side, like you've brought that forward in a very novel way. And I would love for you to speak on that, honestly, because as you know, right now the industry is so saturated, you know, and there's so many angles people are coming at dermatology with, you know, whether it's like biotech or whatever. And I'd love to get your take on that in terms of what are the things you've noticed over the years that are like, yeah, this is what works.

3:43This is what your skin needs. And this is what it just doesn't need.

3:46Dr. Muneeb Shah:Yeah, it's a good, it's a really good question. And I think it's becoming more and more important. To your point, it's actually easier than ever to launch a product. You know, there's contract manufacturers that have white labeled formulas. You as a brand, if you have enough capital or you have a distribution network, whether you have an audience or have an office, for example, you can just take products off the shelf, throw your label on them and launch them, right? So it's not hard to launch products if you have the capital and the distribution network to support it. It's hard to launch good products because they take a lot of nuance and development and time and stability testing, right?

4:15Dr. Muneeb Shah:Like I have a very unstable vitamin C formula we created that, you know, after, you know, 30 different trials, we ended up with our stable vitamin C formula, right? So there's a lot of nuance to making great formulas that are not white label formula, which is a policy of ours. And so I think for me, it's been the same things that are tried and true over time have been consistent, right? There's lots of trends on social media, right? So you'll see some ingredient like PDRN, which I'm not saying PDRN doesn't have any value or efficacy. It's actually really big in East Asia. And a lot of the derms there are actually the champions of it in East Asia, right?

4:47Dr. Muneeb Shah:Especially the injectable form, right? So I'm not saying that that doesn't have validity or evidence. Time will tell if this is something that stands the test of time. But you have all these really trending and viral ingredients, right? And then you have these contract manufacturers that have stock formulas. And so what you end up having is all you keep seeing is these same products being launched over and over again is because brands go, okay, well, PDRN is popping off. Let me throw my label on this stock PDRN formula and see how it does within my brand, right? And so I think that works to get you a big sales bump, but it doesn't build a brand that people truly, truly love.

5:18Dr. Muneeb Shah:And so our formulation philosophy is we start with a patient need and it doesn't matter if it's trending or not, right? We start with a patient need and then if this is a product that basically would benefit our patients, then we know that eventually someone's gonna find it and benefit from it. And maybe it's not gonna do amazing at launch, but we know that people gravitate towards it because it's a real patient need. Now, there's always marketing, right? On top of it, there's a marketing layer, right? where it's like, okay, I have a product that patients need, but this concept is really trending right now, right?

5:49Dr. Muneeb Shah:Or people really care about like skin flooding. So how do we position our product within this like marketing language that's popular right now or insert ourselves into a trend? But I think the products have to be really great products that people will use forever. And they have to use ingredients that truly have the efficacy studies on them, like your retinoids, for example, that I've always been a big proponent of, your alpha hydroxy acids that have tons of evidence for them. Some peptides have lots of evidence for them, not all of them. Ceramides, you know, for skin barrier. Niacinamide is a tried and true ingredient.

6:19Dr. Muneeb Shah:Azalic acid is a tried and true ingredient. So we really leverage our formulas around these tried and true ingredients. And then maybe when it gets to marketing, we'll try to insert ourselves into a trend, but the formula has to be. And I think if you do it the opposite way, where the product comes from a marketing trend, I think that's where you become really problematic. Yeah, absolutely. No, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think I've definitely, as a consumer fallen prey to a lot of products like that, where it really does like hurt your skin health for a long, long time. And I remember like, even before I started this podcast, there were so many products I tried that were like that are very trend driven.

6:50And I found myself literally buying like 50 extra products just to heal my skin. And so, you know, I completely resonate with what you said. And again, like no hate towards ingredients like PDRN or anything, but it's like, I just wonder like in this industry, like when are we going to get to the point where it's like we have to understand like where the efficacy truly is and like let's hone in on that and like dive deeper you know like let's do more studies let's understand the more mechanistic aspects of these like like as lake you brought up as a lake we don't know nearly enough i think about as lake acid and we could you know definitely learn more so i hear what you're saying actually i

7:26Dr. Muneeb Shah:think the marketing side is actually so fascinating to me because when i talk to my team about a particular product they'll make they'll they'll say something about another brand for example They'll say, oh, this brand has a really interesting surfactant technology in their formulas. And I go, well, why do you think that? And they go, well, the packaging says next generation biomimetic surfactant technology on it, right? You know? And I go, well, what does that mean? So we start to kind of like, you know, work backwards on it. And the marketing element is so powerful, right? Like they're using the same surfactants everybody's got in their formulas, right?

8:00Dr. Muneeb Shah:You know, everyone's got the same surfactant bases. Like no one's inventing new surfactant technologies. And it becomes this marketing layer, right? That's very confusing to consumers. And it's very confusing to even like the more sophisticated consumer, right? Because there's just not enough knowledge about certain parts of a formula that you can really fall victim or prey to that. And it makes you think that this product is either more efficacious or something that you should be spending more money on. And this is, you know, where a lot of people spend a lot of their budgets is like coming up with terminology that is meant to make something seem more advanced or more sophisticated than it is.

8:31Dr. Muneeb Shah:and then you kind of fall prey to that. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the big things I really would love for you to educate us here is since we last spoke, the GLP-1s and like all the effects on the skin has absolutely blown up. You know, I think there's been some education on it, but there's definitely still a huge gap in understanding, like, you know, what are they doing to our skin? Obviously, short-term and long-term. I'd love to have you educate us on that. From your perspective, like if you are on a GLP-1, what are some things that we should know about going into it? And then while we're on their journey, What are things we should care about when it comes to our skin health?

9:03Dr. Muneeb Shah:Yeah. And I'm sure you've heard this before with GLP. GLP-1s are exploding in use, right? So I remember when at first, when people first started using them, like was coming out of diabetes patients who like, I lost a lot of weight. I'm on this GLP medication for diabetes. And then it started to become mainstream for people to lose weight, right? So they were specifically using it as a weight loss, which is not really fully indicated for, but, you know, people are going to do what they want to do to lose weight. And some people are on it for the right indications. But I remember when it was just a few patients that had lost weight from this, and then suddenly it was a lot of patients.

9:39Dr. Muneeb Shah:And then it felt like it was like every patient, you know, and it's probably not, it's probably about like 12 % of the U.S. population is on a GLP, which is a crazy, crazy number if you really think about it. And so now we really have to contend with like, what is the proper thing to be doing while you're on a GLP, if you're going to be on a GLP for whatever reason, medically indicated or not, what is the best way to basically support your health while you're on this? And so the main thing that we were seeing was termed ozempic phase, and they've come with all different terms for this at this point, but it really is just due to rapid weight loss.

10:11Dr. Muneeb Shah:And we used to see it when people would get gastric bypassed too, but it was so infrequent that we never really like thought to name it anything. But now that it's 12 % of the population, we have to really contend with this. Like, what does it really look like? And this is something dermatologists actually don't probably know enough about or spend enough time thinking about because we've never really had to contend with it. But there's also a nutrition element to this that I think is actually very important as a layer, right? Because I could talk to you all day about the skin stuff that's going to happen and we'll talk about that next.

10:38Dr. Muneeb Shah:But there is a nutrition layer here, right? About getting enough protein, you know, because you're not going to want to eat and you're going to be losing a lot of weight and you need to be making sure that you're getting the right nutrients. So you have to have the right, you know, amino acids that you're taking, the right, you know, other supplements that you're taking that maybe you're not getting. You need to be getting enough protein, for example, right? Because there's going to be a lot of muscle loss that happens during this period. There's going to be a lot of fat loss that happens during this period.

10:59Dr. Muneeb Shah:So there's a nutritional layer that's actually very important here. And I think anyone that's on a GLP really needs to optimize their nutrition while they're on it because you're eating less. But what you're eating really then matters and making sure that you have a balanced diet, that you're not under indexing on any particular really essential elements of your diet. So that's one layer that I think derms need to talk about and need to be part of the discussion when you're treating someone who's on a GLP. And then there's like the skin layer and the deeper layers, right? And so during the weight loss process, the weight loss is happening oftentimes so fast that there's nothing you can do to like really, if it was like a gradual, but I think a lot of people are on too high of a dose initially.

11:37Dr. Muneeb Shah:Sometimes even the starter dose is too high. Well, they'll lose like 30 pounds in a month. And when you lose 30 pounds in a month, there's really no skin treatment that can account for that loss of weight to make your skin snap back the way that it should as quickly as it could. It'll take a much longer time to keep up. And so there are a couple of things you can do from like a topical skincare perspective and then a more aggressive skin perspective. So I'll kind of start there, which is the topical skincare element of being on a GLP, which you should be on a retinoid, I think is probably the best collagen boosting or other collagen boosting ingredients.

12:07Dr. Muneeb Shah:So retinoids, for example, whether it's retinol, tretinoin, retinol, whichever one you choose, an alpha hydroxy acid, like a glycolic acid can help stimulate collagen production, your peptides like your matrixal and other peptide ingredients that have been shown to support collagen is something that you should also consider being on during this period. And anything that's going to support your collagen and elasticity, maybe even like a copper peptide, do the elasticity element of the skin to help your skin. But that's not going to, like if you've lost a ton of fat or a lot of muscle, your skin might be healthy on the top surface collagen and your epidermal layer, your dermis and your epidermis.

12:40Dr. Muneeb Shah:But beneath that, you've lost a lot of fat. So you're going to have that crepiness of the skin. You're going to have that undulations of the skin where, you know, your skin is loose. And so what can you do in that case? And that's where you'd probably need to have either wait a long time for your skin to snap back, which a lot of times it does if the weight loss is not as aggressive or, you know, procedures like lasers, deeper chemical peels, and then sometimes even filler in certain areas around the bony structures to really support that weight loss. But, you know, if you lose a lot of weight rapidly, topical skincare can help, but it's not going to solve the entire problem.

13:13That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, it's interesting that you brought up nutrition and I'm glad you did because I also would love to see dermatologists really step into the space of that nutritional component and really educate on like, I mean, all we really hear about is like X grams of protein a day, you know, and we don't really learn about how should you be keeping up? What should you be measuring at regular doctor's visits? You know, those kind of things like that conversation never happens. And it makes me wonder because we have this whole movement right now going on on the longevity side, right?

13:43Where everyone's like longevity everything. But then at the same time, it's like, guys, before we get to the injectable peptides, can we talk about fiber? You know, can we talk about, you know, these kind of things that I'd love to get your take on just longevity and dermatology at large. Like, where do you think we're going right now with this? And do you think we're putting that cart before the horse?

14:02Dr. Muneeb Shah:It's a good question. It is a really exciting time, really in health in general, we're in a really interesting swing, I feel, a very interesting part of the pendulum, let's say. There was a period in which, right, there was really this type of conversation, whatever you call it, whether you call it anti-aging or longevity, is longevity just another word for anti-aging? That could be debated. But these topics, right, of like, okay, I want to live longer and I want to live healthier and I want to do these preventative treatments in my dermatology office, for example, or I want to go to saunas or I want to do these cold plunging.

14:39Dr. Muneeb Shah:Like this type of stuff really only happened in a small subsect of society, right? And these aren't people that generally have a lot of means or have a lot of access, like a celebrity, for example, right? And we exist now in a time that's really, really interesting to me because the information is actually everyone can consume it. Like there is no limits to the amount of information, lots of bad information out there, but there's no limits the amount of information that's out there and the access that people have to it, right? So you could see how anyone lives, right? Someone can go watch a Brian Johnson video and see everything.

15:09Dr. Muneeb Shah:He's like a billionaire, right? And he is doing all this biohacking stuff, right? And he's trying to optimize his life so that he can live better. And he's testing and trying all these things. And, you know, you could, no matter what walk of life you're from, you can log onto YouTube and you can watch what he's doing, right? And so you have access to all this information. Even, you know, you have these AI tools that can give you good and bad information. You have all these influencers that are creating content online. You have all these celebrities that are being honest about the procedures and stuff that we're having done.

15:35Dr. Muneeb Shah:And so we're at this time where we have this like information access and it's actually starting to coincide with an accessibility piece where now you actually, not only do you have this information, but you almost kind of starting to have access to these things as well, right? Like you can just go online and go to a, you know, a peptide, you know, telehealth website and you can order peptides online, right? So now you have the information and you have access to actually do something about it, right? And it used to be, right, okay, if you wanted to get one of these really advanced laser procedures, you'd have to go to some really expert dermatologist that was probably booked out for a long time.

16:06Dr. Muneeb Shah:He's the only one that had the device or she's the only one that had the device and it was going to be very expensive. So it was off the table anyway, even if you heard about it, right? So you have all this information and you have more access because now there's med spots popping up everywhere. You know, anyone can go operate a laser device, whether that's good or bad. Anyone can go online and order peptides, right? So we're at this like really like, okay, what's going on? Like you have all this information and you have all this access. And so this, I think, is an exciting time to watch this happen because on this side of the pendulum, I think, you're going to need this regulation now to come in.

16:34Dr. Muneeb Shah:And this regulation layer, whether it's imposed by a governmental organization or it's going to be self-imposed, right? Because what's going to end up happening is a lot of people have bad negative consequences from injecting peptides, for example. And then they're going to go, actually, maybe I should try to figure out where I'm getting these things from. And maybe this should be regulated and maybe I should look for something that's FDA approved, for example. and then it's going to swing sort of back into a territory where there's like some regulation to this access. And same thing with like med spas, these unregulated med spas, people are going to get injured, unfortunately, and you see cases of that.

17:04Dr. Muneeb Shah:And then people will go, okay, maybe I should actually be vetting the people. Yeah. I know I wanted that laser procedure, but I should probably vet who's going to do it. Right. And here are the ones that are good because, you know, there's some vetting process in place and maybe they're credentialed in some way. Maybe they're board certified even. That'd be awesome. But the reality is like people are going to do what they want to do if they've heard about something and they're excited about it and their friend got it done, for example. So, you know, we're at this really interesting inflection point where I think, you know, experts like yourself, like doing podcasts like these are really helpful because they help people navigate all this information that's out there to make better choices for their skin health and health in general.

17:35Dr. Muneeb Shah:You know, I think longevity is interesting. You know, to me, it's really just what people have always been trying to achieve through anti-aging. And it's just become maybe a bit more of an extreme form of that kind of like looks maxing, right? Like, I don't know if you've seen this looks maxing trend amongst men, but it's really just trying to maximize your looks, which always existed in the bodybuilding community. And now it's just extended to like facial skincare, injectables, hair care, right? So it's just like instead of just the body now, it's extended to the face and they're taking very extreme measures to achieve that, right?

18:04Dr. Muneeb Shah:So longevity is really just similar to anti-aging and to bodybuilding in the sense that it's a more extreme form of maybe maximizing your health. And I think all of us are trying to aim for some degree of longevity. So I'm not against longevity. And all of us are trying to aim to looks backs also, right? But we just, what extent are we willing to go is a bit different, right? And so there's some middle ground here, I guess is what I'm saying. And so we're at this exciting time where there are these really new, exciting peptides that are coming to market that have some like initial preliminary, you know, phase one, phase two studies that are actually really exciting.

18:38Dr. Muneeb Shah:And if they end up panning out to be safe and effective, like they will help lots of people like GLPs. I think GLPs help lots, lots and lots of people. You know, I think there's an epidemic related to weight in this country, an epidemic related to diabetes in this country that was really damaging to health, right? In general, fatty liver disease, you know, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, for example, right? So it's like, these things are important. And so I'm excited about the technology that's coming out as a scientist. As a doctor, I'm nervous about the access and lack of regulation.

19:08Dr. Muneeb Shah:And once these two coincide with each other, I think we'll actually be in a better place. So I'm, you know, longevity is exciting to me. I'm willing to always try and learn about more stuff. I'm not like one of the fully skeptic people that you'll see online. And I'm not like the fully bullish people. I kind of live in like the middle zone. And so all my takes are always like a middle ground take, you know, on any of those things. I like that. No, I think I'm very much there with you, honestly. And I love everything you said because you know what, what really is very fascinating to me. I'm just wondering where all the immunologists are and this whole like peptide conversation.