The Future Of Skincare Longevity: Why You're Getting Sun Exposure Wrong, How To Track UV Damage & Age Better Ft. Stacy Salvi of The90

0:01Welcome to The Bossticks, starring Lauren Bosstick and Michael Bosstick. Together, they are the Bossticks.

0:14Stacy, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. We are using sunscreen more than ever. Everyone's using it. My daughter's even putting it on her legs. I've never seen so much sunscreen. Your dad's putting on his lips. My dad's putting on his lips. Sunscreen is literally everywhere. You can't get away from it. So why is the sun cancer rate up? The sunscreen paradox is really it's real. And we are using sunscreen more than ever. But one in five women get skin cancer and one in seven men get skin cancer. It's the most prevalent form of cancer around. but nevertheless we are still getting it and I don't think there's a good understanding of why and it's not until we start measuring what our actual exposure is that we're going to be able to do the necessary research to try to reverse that trend.

1:08Is it because of tanning beds? Is it because we're out in the sun? Is it because of blue light? For a problem like this you have to start by measuring it. And we have never had a tool to really measure the exposure that we've had on a long-term basis. And that will shed a lot of light, no pun intended, on, you know, on why this is happening. Why are you so passionate about the subject of the sun? Well, I was raised by a dermatologist. So, you know, he really imparted on me the importance of always putting on sunscreen. I mean, I was the kid at summer camp with, you know, spackled and pasty white sunscreen.

1:48So it's really second nature to me. I think where my passion really lies is in health and overall health. You know, starting from a long time ago where I had an experience where I got super sick. After my first year of law school, I was really beaten down. My body was, you know, just weaker than normal. My immune system was shot. I ended up getting a rare strain of meningitis. And it put my body into sepsis. And I was critical unstable. I was in the hospital for nine days. It was totally crazy. But I walked out of there. And the doctor said, as I was walking out, that I had only a one out of 10 chance of living.

2:37What caused, looking back, do you know what caused that to begin with? They will never know. They will never know. But my system was really weakened by, you know, the stress and the work that I had just put in through law school. And, you know, that really imprinted on me how important it is to stay balanced and to stay healthy. And it reminds me of a quote. When you have a healthy body, you have a thousand problems. But when you have an unhealthy body, you only have one. Um, so when, you know, when wearables came out all of those years later, um, I immediately was drawn to them. I was like, what's better to connect with your body, um, and, and wear something that helps you understand, you know, at the time it was activity through steps.

3:26Um, but it's only grown from there, right? Heart rate and sleep cycles and all of these things. So, um, it's been a real passion of mine. So let's, let's talk about your career a little bit and how, cause obviously you started in law. Yes. And then you made a pivot out of law. I did. How did what did that look like for you? It was a it was a hard fought battle. I'll be honest with you. You know, a lot of people in my family didn't totally understand why I would leave such a prestigious career. But I didn't really see myself as general counsel. I wanted to be more on the forefront of, you know, building features and building products that people would love.

4:09So satisfied, actually, whenever I would see somebody wearing a Fitbit device, because I worked at Fitbit for a long time, I would see their wrist and I'd see that they'd be wearing a Fitbit and ask them, what do you love about this? What, you know, what makes you happy? What have you learned? So it was always a real passion of mine. um and but I I was met with some headwinds along the way so obviously legal background doesn't necessarily mean that I'm technical and I was told you don't have the right background you're not an engineer not a computer science you don't have a computer science degree so you're not going to be able to build products um and instead of listening to that I really just kind of fought back against it and befriended a lot of engineers and learned the language because it just was so important to me.

5:03I was really, really drawn to building something that people would love and that would make them healthier. And Fitbit gets acquired for$2.3 billion. Is that right? Yeah, that's about right. So what does that look like for your life? I was a Fitbit lifer even before I worked there I was a big fan of the product but and and so I got my dream job and I started in their legal department when I was relatively small and there did come a point in their trajectory where one I was personally wanting to leave the law and and do something different but also I saw that Fitbit should align itself more closely with the Android ecosystem now I know that you know we all use Apple phones, but 80 % of the world uses an Android phone.

5:55Because we're so here in this country, we're using the Apple iPhone so often. Totally. You know, so I saw that as a major opportunity. So I wrote a white paper, you know, expressing that notion that we should align more closely with the Android ecosystem. And it made its way around to leadership. And I was put on a Tiger team to essentially pitch Google. So before was the Fitbit, it was integrated with every phone or more with Apple or what? No, it was with both. And there were actually product features that we could have gleaned more with Android. So it was really kind of a better together story.

6:32So I ended up working on a product narrative that blended the Fitbit ecosystem with the Google Home ecosystem and pitching that to the Google hardware division. sun. And then, you know, that precipitated the purchase of Fitbit about nine months later. Wow. Yeah. When did you start to see that the sun wasn't just something that was a problem when you were on vacation, but it was also a problem when it was incidental sun exposure? Well, I will say that this is where your book really changed the way I was looking at things. Wow. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah, I mean, I think your book was really transformative for me.

7:13I mean, I was sitting with, looking at my routine, I think I had six or seven anti-aging products on my counter. But then I also know that 90 % of the aging that happens to our skin is because of UV exposure. and then I read your book where you brought to light not only preventative beauty but also incidental sun exposure is really the the majority of what we're exposed to and I was thinking well how can we possibly fix that or know when we need to reapply or get out of the sun if we don't measure it and so that's where you know that's where the idea was born. I will never forget when I first noticed the incidental sun exposure.

7:56I just got a peel. I was 19 years old. Did not need to be doing a peel at 19 years old. I was doing a glycolic peel at Morgan Run. Didn't she used to send me to get those things? Is that when they burn her face up? Yeah, a pumpkin glycolic. Oh my God, I hated those so much. I didn't know what I was doing with that pumpkin smell. My skin was burning off. But what a trooper. She's like, this is good for you. And I'm like, my face is falling off. But anyways. And I left the treatment and I walked the long walk through the parking lot to my car. And just by walking from the treatment place to my car, I wasn't supposed to do that after appeal, even though it was so little.

8:37And then I started to think, wait, I'm going into the bank. I'm going into 7-Eleven. I'm going into the supermarket. And like you said, all these little things add up. It's not just going on vacation and laying in the sun. It's all the little times we're exposed. And I think my message, and I feel like yours is the same, it's like the sun is not the enemy. I love the sun and I am in the sun. Of course. But I want to be able to know what the UVA and UVB is when I'm in it. And like my kids were swimming the other day and they have to wear a hat if it's that really high. And if it's super low and it's zero, let it rip.

9:17So I think like just knowing it and being aware of it is so important. I think that's exactly right. I mean, awareness is really the first step. And we really want to, you know, take some of that decision fatigue away from people and help them understand based on their unique skin type when they should be in or out of the sun. And one of the things that we've learned along the way is that the sun is not all bad, that this is not a black and white issue, that there's a lot of opportunity in the gray to learn more about how sun impacts our overall health. I think one of the opportunities, too, is the vitamin D.

9:57And I would love for you to speak on that to the audience about you mentioned that you were walking down the street and the device told you when you had had your vitamin D. Can you explain that story? Yeah, absolutely. So yesterday, actually, I was walking down Congress and I had been outside for a bit. We were walking back and forth to a restaurant and my device told me through my phone that I had met my vitamin D target. That was actually a really exciting moment. I am low on vitamin D like so many of us. And we know that vitamin D can be a precursor to all sorts of scary illnesses. so getting that notification really kind of reinforced the behaviors that I had taken that day and I think is just you know another exciting thing to celebrate.

10:45Well I was talking I told you before we started I was talking to my one of my AI bots the other day asking the most efficient ways to get vitamin D and obviously you can supplement for it and people do that but it was saying you have to get the right sun exposure at the right times or the right amounts and I think a lot of people are so afraid of the sun now because they don't want to burn. They don't want cancer. They don't want to ruin their skin. But to your point earlier, and many people are talking about this now, the sun is also critical to human health, but it needs to be the right dosage at the right times.

11:15And I think like we, to your point, we haven't had a tool to figure out how to measure that. But I think a lot of the reasons many people are so low in D right now is because they're indoors a lot more. They're under these lights. They're not getting outdoors. And then when they are, they're scared, obviously. But with the right dosages, increasing your vitamin D levels. And I think it's the most bioactive form, right, if you do it through sunlight naturally, not supplementation. It'll have the greatest impact on your overall health because we have a chronic issue with people being low in D. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

11:47So we brought on Dr. Richard Weller. He is really the world's expert on how sunlight impacts overall health. He's a dermatologist himself, and he is a professor at the University of Edinburgh. So he doesn't contradict the notion that sunlight ages our skin, but his mission is to prove that we are not harnessing the power of sunlight in the right ways, that there is indeed an optimal level for everybody. it's too early for us to say today exactly what that is but by measuring it we will be able to get to what it means for each person because it varies depending on your skin type your age all sorts of different factors that we would we include to make sure that we are giving the proper guidance it sounds like what you guys are doing is empowerment over fear because there has been a fear around tanning beds and the sun but instead you're giving the user it's making them feel empowered definitely I mean that is a cornerstone of what we're trying to build here so we are starting with this as a beauty tech product that's really targeted towards women and wanting to keep our skin looking beautiful and fresh you know just to start but that's really a Trojan horse as we move forward and better understand the overall health story that Dr.

13:24Weller will work on with us. But this is all about empowerment. People don't want to wear a device that makes them feel bad about themselves. So we are going to be celebrating healthy habits and really encouraging you through a gamified experience. Are you a big circadian rhythm person, meaning like I like to wake up and go outside immediately with my kids and they look forward to it. And then I like to walk at the end of the night when the UV is low. I definitely believe in circadian rhythm and the power of the release of melatonin in your brain. Again, you know, we haven't been measuring this.

14:05We don't fully know. But I definitely see a future where we are combining data with other wearable data to better understand how circadian rhythm is actually impacting our sleep. Do we get more deep sleep? Do we get more REM sleep? So I think that there's a lot of exciting opportunities. So you think in the future, this text, some of the things it'll be able to do is inform other wearables. Like if you have a bad night of sleep or a higher HRV or heart rate or whatever, this will be an indication of potentially why some of those metrics exist the way they do. Right. You know, it's not currently collected on any other wearables.

14:42So this is really a first of its kind. And there's a lot of opportunity to blend the data with other wearable data to really impact people's health. What is something that you have found out about UVA and UVB that would blow people's mind throughout this experience? UVA in particular is undercounted that we are being exposed to UVA which is the aging UV UVB is the burning UV that UVA is through comes through windows that UVA hits us when we're running errands and that UVA can hit us even on a short walk and short stints and that it accumulates over time. And I think one of the biggest surprises that I had was really how the UV index, you know, the free thing that we can get through any weather app on our phone, is really insufficient for telling us whether or not we're accumulating UVA in our skin.

15:46You know that meme that's all over the internet of the guy that's the truck driver? Have you seen that? It's not a meme. It's a picture of a guy, right? Yeah, it's not a meme. Excuse me. What is it called, Michael? It's the proper verbiage. confused meme culture learned it's like it's a picture of a guy who was a truck driver he's the left side of his face and arm compared to the other because of what's been exposed as he's been driving compared to the other side that hasn't been as exposed it's like a bolt it's like completely it aged completely i mean no doubt no doubt he probably wasn't even thinking about it that one of the things that really surprises me is through windows i was sitting at a restaurant the other day and the sun was glinting in but it was i was at a very high or almost extreme level.

16:27You know, my old car before I was married to you, I got protectors on my car. Like I got, I went and bought the tint and I had to tint my office too, which I'm so happy about. So it didn't fade my pink desk, but I'm like, you get the benefit. You get the benefit. Well, a lot of people think the glass has been blocking, but what you're saying is it's not. It's not blocking. I mean, certainly there could be a filter applied two block, but it is coming through at all times. And when UVA accumulates in our skin, it breaks down collagen, it breaks down elastin and causes the dreaded sunspots. We were just talking about that.

17:10I will be getting the filter on my next car. So add it to the bill. Have you measured yet what it looks like in an airplane when you're higher up and closer? I haven't. I've measured in the snow. It's really high in the snow. Is it because it's reflecting or because you're higher? Both. Someone told me it's the worst in the airplane. I would love for you to do a test and I will do it on my way home. For sure. That's why I always make Michael close the window. But here's the thing that's hard. If it's in the middle of the day and we have to close the window, then you're in the dark. So it's like, is that good for you?

17:43No. It's a tough one. It is a tough one. It is a tough one. But, you know, that's what we're looking for, right? We want balance. and it is going to be personal to each of us because all of our skin type is slightly different. So UVB is the one that burns you. This may be a dumb question. Is UVA and UVB high at the same times or not? That's a really good question. So not necessarily. If UVB is high, UVA is probably going to be relatively high too, but UVA stays consistent throughout the day. And even when it's cloudy outside, UVA can be high. I actually got that notification on my phone this morning.

18:22It's super cloudy here right now. And I was using the tech and it says that the UVA is extremely high right now, even though it's a full cloudy day in Austin. Right. What are the massive blind spots that dermatologists are missing? Interesting. Well, the dermatology community has been very black or white on this issue. You apply sunscreen and you supplement with vitamin D. Right. And so I think the blind spot is the lack of data. And we're going to be providing that data to people so that way we can evolve our thinking on it. You know, that's the best that we know up to this point is to stay out of the sun to prevent aging and prevent sunburn.

19:05We don't want any gnarly sunburns. You know, that is definitely not a goal. But to do it in a, to get exposed and be outside in a healthy way is really, you know, the optimal solution. Let me ask you this. So I sometimes, and maybe I'll get shit for this, will not use sunscreen at all. But I will go out in the sun for a short period of time and then come back in because I want to get the sun in my skin. with the tech, will I be able to figure out like a period of time without sunscreen application where I will actually get a healthy amount of sun without burning? Yeah, that's exactly the goal.

19:46So you have a personal skin profile that tells us, you know, about your skin and how your skin behaves in the sun. And then by passively collecting the data when you go outside, and it connects with your phone and it will tell you essentially how much you've accumulated that day and where we've landed. We want to keep you, you know, far from burning, but still at a healthy level. This is strange. We were just down for her birthday in the islands and I was out in the sun and I was doing just fine. And literally one day I went out, it must've been like 15 or 20 minutes and I didn't feel like I was burning at all.

20:27I was as red as a lobster. That usually doesn't happen to me and I don't know why because it was a short period of time. It must have been peak. Yeah, so I just like I got nailed, but it was strange because we were there for four days and I was perfectly fine until that one period of time where I just got crushed. How much real protection are we getting from foundation or moisturizer with SPF 30? So SPF 30 protects 99%. Of course, we want to go even, potentially even higher. But that is the general idea behind SPF. Now, all sunscreens decay at a different rate, meaning they become less effective over time.

21:11Mineral sunscreens decay slower than chemical sunscreens. And chemical sunscreen is actually impacted specifically by how much UV you're getting. That was another surprising fact that I learned that I can put on great chemical sunscreen, but if I'm in super high UV, then it's going to decay even faster. And our algorithms take all of that into consideration. I didn't have my skinny confidential sunscreen the other day at the beach so I had to use whatever they had at the beach and I put it all over my face and I came out like after I was taking it off and it got in my eyes and it was horrible I was like I'm never using random sunscreen again and it felt like it was burning my eyes and I would have rather just worn a hat like it was like so i feel like it is important the brand of sunscreen that you're using of course of course how much does clothing protect you because i'm a big rash guard fan we have all different kinds of rash guards in my family is that actually protecting the skin it it does it does serve as a block i think it depends on the essentially the thread count of the clothing but clothing uses a different system it's a upf system and that will that's something that you can wear that absolutely protects your skin it doesn't always look super cute but i have a couple cute ones you do yes i do have to get those names from you i have a couple cute ones like i like to go to the hotel where i'm staying and go get the branded rash guard oh nice it's kind of cool my kids wear rash guards they love it my daughter has a long sleeve bathing suit i think like it does it's it's nice not to have to just slobber them in sunscreen absolutely you know what i mean I think for kids especially because they're running around all day long trying to catch them and put sunscreen on them for the parents listening.

23:06You know what that's like. And I don't trust those spray can sunscreens. And I don't think you should necessarily. And by the way, when people are spraying the sunscreen around you. Please don't do that. That's so, that's like projecting. I want to physically fight people when they're spraying sunscreen around me. And it's drifting in the wind. No, it's crazy. That's it. It's not really. You should go to jail for that. It's not really getting arrested. When people are spraying sunscreen or they're spraying Windex when I'm eating or they're projecting their cologne onto me, it's rude. I'm sorry.

23:35I hate to break it to everyone. In that order, Windex, sunscreen, cologne. The sunscreen when you're at the beach, you're trying to like eat a chip and someone's spraying all that nasty ass sunscreen. Yeah, that doesn't, that feels like it's just X that. No, I mean, I think for kids especially. I mean, what I like about this is, you know, our kids were just running around on the beach. And obviously, whenever you bring your kids on vacation, you want them to go have fun and swim. You don't want to like pull them in. Be active, yeah. But I think it would be helpful to know at what points would maybe be good for a lunch break or good for a snack break, whatever it may be.

24:09Exactly. I mean, one of the features that we want to build is a family timer. So you would put your kids' different skin types in there, and then we would track when it's time to reapply for your children as well. So we see that as a future feature. A little plot twist. What has it been like for you in the tech world that's so heavily populated with men? For the most part, it's been good, but it hasn't always been easy. Right, I'm sure. At my previous company, I was building a smart ring for women designed with women in mind, specifically to try to help them better understand their menstrual cycles and help prepare them for perimenopause.

24:5493 % of women feel unprepared for menopause. and uh when i would pitch to investors a lot of times i would get you know maybe a glazed over expression um or a comment of why why were we targeting a niche market to start which sounds insane right this is half of the population and they are really incentivized to help fix the problem and I have a story for you so one point I was pitching live to about 30 30 men in a room in Los Angeles and we were talking about the product features and the impact that it was going to have and one of the prospective investors raised his hand and he said so is the app going to tell me when my wife has her period so I know when to stay away from her and you know my my heart just sank right um we're doing so much research on how much people want these devices they want help talking to their doctor with actual evidence and um it just felt like there was more work to be done i have a psa to guys if you don't want to have sex with your wife when she's on her period you're immature you're immature this is like it's it reminds me of like high school taking a turn down a windy road that is such an immature thing to me if i was hooking up with a guy and he said i don't want to do it because you're on your period yeah i'd be like you're it's it's it's like a little boy no go down there and rub it like war paint on your face no i don't need you to do that that's a little i feel like we're learning more about michael than you right now no but i if you said that to me i'd be like i'm not commenting on this yeah but no i get it you're not well one i just i think that's a wild comment to say in a public setting especially in front of 30 other people he looks horrible and well and everybody in the room started laughing including my leadership and so you know it's just it's so hard when you're working so hard on something and you're kind of met with that type of headwind it's not always easy to build so how did you respond you just kind of kept it moving you know it wasn't a great pat him on the head i mean i think i i definitely may have like secretly rolled my eyes in that moment um but it just proves that there's more work to be done.

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28:05They have these two incredible products that I take on a regular basis. They're Propolis Immune Support Throat Spray and their Nasal Spray Max. What they're both going to do is they're going to give you an immediate boost to immune defense and they're also going to help you manage daily assaults on your immune system. I personally take these products anytime I know I'm going to be around more germs, anytime I know I'm going to be around more people, anytime I feel like I have a good chance of getting sick. This includes plane flights. When I get on the plane, I take the throat spray, and then I actually use the nasal spray as well.

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