Healthy Skin for Healthy Hormones with Jodi Scott of Green Goo

Jodi Scott was pregnant when she opened her first aid cabinet and started reading the ingredient labels. What she found surprised her. The products people trusted for cuts, burns, and skin irritation contained ingredients she no longer felt comfortable putting on herself or her family.

So she built Green Goo to prove that plant based first aid works.

Jodi is the founder of Green Goo, a plant based first aid and herbal wellness company built from family remedies, herbal medicine, and a belief that what we put on our bodies matters as much as what we put in our bodies.. 

Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox for a conversation about skin, hormones, inflammation, and why the products sitting in your bathroom may be affecting your whole health and fertility.

You'll learn:

• Ingredients like parabens, phthalates, petroleum, and synthetic fragrances are still found in many skincare and first aid products.
• These chemicals are now being found in follicular fluid, amniotic fluid, and placental tissue.
• How the skin and nervous system are connected.
• Why chronic inflammation and high cortisol can affect fertility.
• Three to four months before conception to reduce toxic exposures to eggs, embryos and fetus.
• How your skin sends signals that prioritizes survival or reproduction 

If you've cleaned up your diet and supplements but never thought much about your lotion, this episode will make you look at your medicine cabinet a little differently.

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs  

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Health University, where we talk all things women's health from fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum, and prep for perimenopause. And today we're going to talk about something that is appropriate for all of those walks of life for a woman, and it is about the importance of healthy skincare. And I'm delighted to have as our guest today Jody Scott. She is the founder of Green Goo, a plant-based first aid and herbal wellness company built from family remedies, farm-chrone grit, and a deep belief that what we put on and around our bodies matters. I couldn't agree more. With a background in pre-med and an MS in health psychology, she brings a whole person lens to health, blending science, herbal wisdom, and practical to's for everyday wellness. Her work focuses on reinventing first aid, reducing harmful chemical exposures, yes, and helping people understand the powerful connection between skin, the nervous system, the immune system, and overall well-being. So welcome, Jody. It's a delight to have you here. And we do talk from time to time on the podcast about sort of environmental uh uh toxins and how they affect fertility and certainly pregnancy and our hormonal health. So delighted to really, you know, sort of drill down a little bit on what you learned and what had you discover and create green goo.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Thank you. It's fantastic to be here with you. And I'm excited to cover all things green goo and skin health. So yes, let's dive into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I always like to start with the origin story. Was you know, was there an incident or uh or a background that had you say, this is this is where I'm going to be putting my life's work?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Our family was always very focused on wellness, and we were athletes at a young age. So we made that connection that food is fuel and that it was related to performance. And so that really impacted us as we grew through, grew up, chose our careers. And so I was pre-med, got my master's in health psychology, uh, specialized in psychoneuroimmunology and was training resident physicians on the biopsychosocial model. And what does that mean in practice? Really truly educating and forming the physicians to collect more data points rather than simply prescribing so that they could offer more resources for their patients, in addition to psychoneuroimmunology, very much sounds like it is, meaning I was very interested in the mind, the nervous system, and the immune system and how they were all interrelated. And my sister is an herbalist and a midwife. And at the time I was pregnant and we were living a very clean life. And oftentimes, when you're pregnant, that is really when that vigilance gets elevated. Yes. And I got a cut and I went into my first aid cabinet. And my first observation was that my first aid cabinet was an absolute disaster with the majority of the products being expired. But then I also kind of had that like image where I was like, there's a lot of chemicals in here. In addition to, I looked at the ingredients on my first aid and I thought, oh my gosh, how have I overlooked this? Isn't that something? Yeah. And I thought, I don't want to put this on my body, and I definitely don't want to put this on my child. And when you think about a lot of the first aid, you mostly do use them on your children.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

They get a skinned knee. Uh, yep. And and yeah, which isn't which is an open wound directly to their bloodstream.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Absolutely. And I've just kind of considered this as the norm. And I went back to my sister and I said, and my sister's a purist in terms of her ingredients and and awareness around chemical load. And I said, Do you use these first aid solutions? And she's like, I do. And I thought, oh my gosh. And I found out we weren't alone. The natural consumer was willing to abandon the natural ethos because they were told these one-time used chemical solutions are the only ones that get the job done. And we have this idea that if it doesn't sting, burn, or dry it out, it must not be working on your wound care. And then to take it even further, we discovered chronic skin conditions are at an all-time high. And where do they go? They go to the first aid set. And the first aid set was really designed for more acute skin conditions. So bug bites, cuts, great, poison ivy, cold sore, blister. Not the chronic skin conditions that we're really facing today.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Like eczema and psoriasis and the things that really are not from an external, an exogenous source that we you know brushed up against or got stung by. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

And you can only use these over-the-counter solutions for seven to ten days and then go see your physician if symptoms persist, which they often do. And so the efficacy was also questionable in terms of how the consumer was looking for those solutions. And so that's when we huddled up, my mom, sister, and I, and we thought, what if we can make a plant-based solution that is first superior in efficacy? And oh, by the way, it's also plant-based. So Green Goo was born.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Amazing. And so it uh what is in Green Goo? And I and I don't need we don't need to, you know, sort of go into a deep list, but just so people can get a sense as to what it means by a plant-based uh first aid. And I also want to ask, tell me about your reinventing first aid. I I think that we're having that conversation right now, but I think that it is uh probably even a little bit more than what we've said, spoken to so far.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Well, a couple of things there. So the first time I went to a national pharmacy buyer and I said, I have a plant-based first aid. He goes, those two words do not go together. Because how we know plant-based is that it's a compromise. It doesn't work as well. And I want to give some light here in terms of why green goose specifically and why this process and these ingredients work, 40 solutions, which is most of the plant-based solutions that people, consumers have had so far, they're only getting a fragment of those plant compounds, the plant integrity, because these plants have been exposed to high heat or uh chemicals and solvents that have denatured and compromised the integrity of the plant. So just a little bit of those compounds are available in what we know is natural on the market, in addition to they're being combined with these parabens and petrol.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Exactly. And they're sitting on disrupting chemicals, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yes, and they're sitting on the surface of the skin or they're compromising, creating more friction, which we can we can lean into more. And so what we do at Green Goo is we actually still to this day make it the same way we did in our kitchen, except at our manufacturing facility, where we bring the whole plant to the manufacturing facility and we take it through an extraction process that protects the integrity of the plant, yields the highest amount of the medicinal properties from those plants, and then puts them in plant-based carrier oils that are easily absorbed through your epidermal layers so that you can get that systemic response and bring the nutritional resource into your body. And so some of the plants that we're using, our favorite plant is calendula, which is an astringent, antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-yeast, but also has strong skin repair components. But then we have a plethora of other herbs. So yarrow, chickweed, comfrey, St. John's wort, Arnica, chamomile, helicrysom, rose hips.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

And so I'm recognizing them all, and I'm and I'm listening for aloe.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yes, aloe.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And I'm listening for, I can't remember the name of the actual plant, but they call it uh tiger grass in by its uh by its sort of like vernacular name. But it's it sounds like you've got quite a lovely formula. And and is it the is this one formula designed to be a you know, one first aid fits all kind of thing? Will this work equally as well on eczema as it will a bug bite, as it will a hive? So you'll appreciate this.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So when we were going into our product development, there was a couple goals in addition to providing great results, was that we wanted to declutter your first aid cabinet and we wanted to have more versatility in the use case of the formulas. And so in doing so, we started looking at sort of the human anatomy and how it responds. And what's interesting is when you have a blister and when you have a cold sore, they both present for very two different reasons. However, the body's response to both of those is very similar. So when we were selecting the plants, we were looking at the plants from a more body response standpoint to see if we could have a more universal uh formula for broad spectrum solutions. And so we did. And so our first aid solution is like your first aid kit on the go. So for blisters and bug bites and beesings, cut scrapes, and then also cold sores, poison ivy, anything that burns, stings, itches, or bleeds is your first aid kit on the go.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

And in Chinese medicine, we would say any anything that is producing heat. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

And then, and then we leaned in a little bit more on some of the other ones. So, like our repair formula is an afterburn and scar. It is wonderful for eczema because we, as we know, some skin types with the eczema really need that cooling and that hydration component to it. And then it's also a wonderful anti-aging because it's rich in hydration and antioxidants and flavonoids, along with being able to address sunburns and scars and fine lines. And then we also have because eczema is so pervasive uh right now, there is a lot of evidence that bringing in herbs that actually calm the nervous system can have a direct yes, and this is where we can even segue into these chemicals. But what's so interesting is that our skin, being our largest organ, is not just the largest organ, it is born from the same embryonic tissue as our nervous system, it is rich in neurotransmitters and it is our first communicator to the rest of our systems. So when our skin is in a state of fight or flight, it responds and says, nervous system, fight or flight, cortisol goes up, inflammation goes up. And when that happens, and when I talk about inflammation, it can present itself not just in achy muscles, as a lot of people recognize the term inflammation. It can show up in your skin. It can show up in your sleep disruption, it can show up.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

It can show up in your ovulation too. For listeners who are, you know, a lot of times listeners here are uh their focus is fertility. Uh, and so yes, hot chronic high cortisol definitely impairs the hormonal cascade right down to the levels of a timely and healthy ovulation.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, so when you can manage your inflammation, it is directly related to fertility, postpartum, perimenopause, all because it's so interconnected with your endocrine system, because of course your endocrine system is very involved in that communication factor of which hormone should I be releasing, when and and how much.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

And so when this dry skin formula has actual herbs in there that calm the nervous system. So chamomile being one of those. And what we have found is when you calm the nervous system, you start to see that inflammation in the skin go down. And it was really fun, a recent study came out where the Journal of Dermatology partnered with the Journal of Behavioral Medicine and found that when um the patients practiced uh a frequent and consistent amount of mindfulness. And they they called it gratitude and some other different uh mindful acts, they actually saw the inflammation go down and it was measurable. So you think about that, you know, when you're having mindful moments from a fertility standpoint, and why some of these herbs that are directly connected to calming your nervous system can have such a positive impact on your inflammation.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It seems to me that the dry skin formula is probably not exclusive to dry skin. It's for skin. Would that be correct an accurate? Because we're always, after our showers, you know, applying, you know, lotions and potions. And I'm always uh um preaching to make sure that they are, you know, fragrance-free and that they are, you know, sort of as healthy as possible. So, so this uh uh hydration cream sounds like it would really fit the bill.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

It's a wonderful replacement for your lotion. And you nailed to two points to highlight, which is it doesn't have the fragrances, the phthalate, the petroleum, the parabens that are causing friction in your system. And when you insert those chemicals, you're having your body swim upstream, which is why you're getting that response, that inflammation, which then puts your body into a state of I need to take care of itself first.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Please connect with us for a fertility assessment call at the link below. We'd love to learn a bit about you and share our resources. And make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you never miss an episode.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So that's why another reason to think about ovulation, it's like I I am not in a place where I want to prepare the body for pregnancy. I want to prepare the body for survival. And so that in itself has that response that we're referencing in terms of these chemicals. And then also they mimic, they bring in hormones with these phthalates and these endocrine disruptors, where your endocrine system thinks, oh, I've already produced that hormone. I shouldn't be producing that. Or I need to produce more of another hormone.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

And then that hormonal imbalance just then obviously disrupts the symphony of a healthy ovulation uh system and and and and and further ability to not only conceive but carry a healthy pregnancy because we know we're seeing these uh chemicals, these hormones uh and the inflammatory processes in follicular fluid, in amniotic fluid, in placental tissue. So I'm always saying, and I'm so glad to have you, providing a a simple solution to, you know, just really immediately rid. I I've heard other people say, oh, you know, get rid of it as you can, but I think that we need to get rid of it immediately.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Because that compounding impact on your body, it's gonna continue to keep your body in a low grade state of fight or flight. And in that low grade state of fight or flight, it is survival mode, it is not procreate mode. And you just you overlook so simply how your skincare is involved and directly connected to that homeostasis. You want to get your body back to a place where it is in rest and resilience, rest and recovery. And that is when your body starts to thrive. And then when you can feed it nutritional skincare, the same way you take your supplements, all of a sudden you're giving your body fuel again and you're igniting what it knows already to do, which is why we know when we look at someone who has radiates radiant skin, you're like, oh, they're so healthy. Yes, because it shows up in your skin. And unfortunately, we have just been misled by marketing and products that have harmful ingredients. And I'm gonna back up real quick too, because I think this is an important fact that these man-made ingredients have only been introduced into our systems in the last 100, 120 years. They are a product of the industrial revolution. So we're only learning now the impact of these chemicals. However, the data is here today that is validating what has been sort of hypothetical, I'd say, in the last 15 years, which is these chemicals are harmful. And no one meant to hurt anyone. We didn't have the infrastructure or the technology or the science or Amazon same-day shipping that we did when this renaissance of consumer packaged goods became available. And of course, more value meant more volume. So once you put water into these formulas, they have to put these stabilizers in there in order for the lotion to not arrive at the consumer's door moldy. Rancid. Exactly. And that's where a lot of these man-made chemicals were born, and they were inexpensive and they were a way to produce at a large quantity for these consumers. And so, of course, we don't need those today, and we know better. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

And and we again, we know the, as you say, the data is there as to just how harmful they are, not only for our skin, but for you know, our longevity, for our whole health, for the for the health of the babies we we're hoping to conceive and carry and and grow. Um, so yes, getting getting those things out of the picture is is critical. And uh especially as I say, if you're if if you are in family planning mode right now, this is not the time to say, well, I'm gonna wait until that toothpaste tube is is finished and then replace it with a healthier one. You know, this is time is a bit of the essence here because we're working within, you know, about a three-month time frame to make to make significant changes. So you so you you mentioned that, you know, the the the general consumer products, you know, their first ingredient is water. What is Green Goo's first ingredient?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

It's going to be a plant, depending on which ingredient, uh, or depending on which formula you select. And so we actually don't put water in our formulas, and that allows us to also create a more stable formula that eliminates the need for a lot of those ingredients. And from a sustainability standpoint, the benefits of not having that is that you're reducing your carbon footprint by transferring a much smaller, more portable version of your lotion compact. And that's why that little jar goes a long way. And I always love to recommend to just coming back to that notion of we want to bring our bodies to a place of rest and resilience, and we're not spending enough time with intentional moments. When you think about putting lotion on, you rush out of the shower, you put it on, it absorbs really quickly, and that's the way we live. Everything is just fast, fast, fast.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

And that contributes to our cortisol and our inflammation. And when you can butter up with a nutritional salve, put your bathrobe on, let your skin just drink it up for 30 minutes, read a book, call a friend, go outside, listen to the birds, have a 30 minutes of an intentional moment.

unknown 19:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

You will feel the difference. And you'll go, that's what it feels like to have my body in a state of grounding homeostasis.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And your body will thank you and serve you for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

It becomes a bit of a sacred ritual where you're really connecting with yourself and you're anointing yourself almost and appreciating that I have this amazing body and I'm going to give it um some love and attention and and and new nutrients. This is this is amazing. This is amazing. So you mentioned that you've got a couple of products. How how many products are in the Green Goo Apothecary, if you will?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Oh my goodness. I'm in the teens or 20s at this point. We've we've added to it and we've added some brands. So now we have uh Ova Moon, which provides supplements for our hormonal journey from menstruation to prenatal and perimenopause and on. And um, and this was an opportunity to really lean in more with how our skin changes so much during our hormone changing throughout our life, because it really does reflect a lot of the changes that we're going through. Sure. And then uh, and we've got our prenatal, postnatal, and and even pet. And so in sexual wellness, uh, it was our customers that came to us who said, Hey, can you please provide a plant-based solution? Because we're finding the same pattern in the intimate industry as we did in the first aid, where we all just accepted that these ingredients were the only ones that could get the job done. And so that was a fun code to crack in terms of creating some formulas that really nourish the skin. And what's interesting is you'll find even in your most intimate parts is that when you nourish the skin and give it the nutrition that it needs, it changes, it softens, it becomes more sensitive and it becomes more hydrated. So a lot of these things, and then you're eliminating the endocrine disruptors that do impact that create a dysbiosis, especially if we're talking about intimacy.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

You know, there, there, there are biomes there that we're that we're living with and we want them to be healthy. And we this is where we're seeing a lot of sort of chronic, you know, uh bacterial vaginosis or candida, you know, yeast infections, things like that. So to be able to assist the tissue, support and nourish the tissue without then creating the imbalance of healthy and unhealthy bacteria or or or other flora, I think. That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And I'll say, I'll share this as uh a prenatal exercise, which is also nourishing that tissue down there, your baby, and preparing it for birth, because that also can help in the birthing process to create that elasticity and healthy hydrated skin that you often just don't think of. Here we're nourishing our entire bodies, but somehow we decide to avoid um, you know, the intimate area.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Right, right, but that's amazing. So I I've I've gone gone through some of my questions and uh, but I want to make sure that there's nothing that I miss. So forgive me while I'm making sure that they're I think we covered all the points here. So I'm just gonna turn it over to you. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you want to say, oh, you know what, this conversation has evoked, you know, this other thought or this other message? And before I do that, you mentioned 30 minutes. Is that the time it takes for the for the green goo to um to soak into the skin, or is there an ability to shorten that time frame? Because I'm I'm I'm listening to the listener who might out there say, I don't have 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

You don't need 30 minutes. Okay. When I do a sanctuary Sunday, I just like to lather up and just butter up from head to toe because your skin, the way your semi-permeal membrane is structured, along with bringing in these particular oils, they need a moment to just absorb. So by all means, you don't have to lather up in the way that I'm describing, and you can do a thin layer and get that nutritional resource and be on your way in a much quicker way. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I'm sure that a lot of people went, okay, good. And then and then given that these are so nutrient dense, how what's the frequency with which you recommend people apply? Is it daily or is it every third day? What is there a protocol like that?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Initially it's daily, and when you're pregnant, daily, because you really want to keep nourishing that skin as it's stretching and that and provide it the moisture it needs for the elasticity. But what I'll tell you is we have been compromising our microbiome and our skin for so long, it takes a moment to rebuild that skin barrier. So I initially encourage really being intentional with the the applications in the early days. But what you'll find is your skin gets to a place of balance and homeostasis. And so you get to a place where you just don't need it as often. I can do it once a week now, and that's it. And I don't use any lotion in between, and my skin doesn't get dry. And then, of course, if you're exposed to chlorine or you know, more temperate air, then that's when you'll have to start to pick up the pace. But then you have a really intimate relationship with your skin to know when it needs more of that nourishment and it's nourishment that works.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Amazing. Amazing. Well, listeners, viewers, we're gonna definitely have the links to how and where where to purchase, and maybe um with I'm I'm presuming within the website that there are instructions as to what to purchase, given you know a diff a different need and a different time of life. Um, and and I I I really like the idea of planning, because we do the same thing with fertility, planning to be diligent with it for, I'm gonna say, at like four months. Does that sound about right? Absolutely. And knowing that, you know, it's it's an incremental exponential healing that's taking place, so that by the fifth month you might be able to say, Oh, you know what? I think I can do this twice a week. Um and then buy yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. Well, I I'm really, really grateful to have had this conversation. I think that you know, we do need to know that there's so much more uh available to us than what, you know, as you said, Amazon is offering when we when we call up, I need, you know, when we type in in the search bar, I need a lotion. Um so I'm grateful to to know that this is available to all of the viewers and listeners and to my patient population as well and my client population as well. So thank you very, very much for your time. Any parting words of wisdom that you want to relay?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

I think clean out that first aid cabinet and start your journey of simply by avoiding those chemicals, because that in itself is going to have such a positive impact on your wellness and your longevity. And of course, when you can insert the nutritional skincare and look at your skin and nourish it the same way you do with the food you ingest and the supplements you take, you'll get some great results.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Yeah, you will. You will. And people are gonna say, What is I'll have what she's having. Thank you so very much, Jody. I really appreciate your taking the time. And I will, as I said, we'll we will uh have the show the uh links in the show notes. Um, do you have any like social media um links that people could also access? If so, I'll add those to the show notes as well. And yeah, we'll we'll make sure that we you know collaborate on getting this out because the more people who know this, the better.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Perfect. And if you want to share welcome 15 for 15% off, they can use that code as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Beautiful. I didn't want to suggest that because if you didn't have a code, then I I didn't want to be forcing it, but that's lovely because I do think we all like to have an incentive to say, you know, we we we know you're making an investment here and we want to help make that um make that a little more doable. One last question, because we talked about the expiration date at the at the opening. What is the expiration timeline for the green goo products? Is it you know do you expected to be a year, two years, something like that? Typically three years. Three years.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

So I'll tell you though, I have tins that are 10 years old that still are in amazing shape. But we we go ahead and we we put three years.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yes. And I imagine if people are using it as they should, they've they've used it up before that that three years expires. Yes. Yes, yeah. That's probably more for the the one-off bug bite kind of thing. So yeah. Well, once again, thank you for your time. Listeners, viewers, we want to thank you for your time. We know you could spend it anywhere. If you found this useful, and I can't imagine that you wouldn't have, please like and share, comment, and forward because this is not this is a conversation that should not go on the shelf. This should this should not have an expiration date. We all need this, no matter if you're trying to conceive now, considering uh you know, getting pregnant in the future, pregnant right now in perimenopause or in menopause. Like we all have skin and we all need to take care of it. So thank you for your time. Until next time, we'll we like to say at Health University, class dismiss, and we look forward to seeing you at the bell.