Sex, Drugs and Skincare
Comedian and esthetician, Nicky Davis, along with side kick/boyfriend/assistant Sandro Iocolano, interviews comedians, actors and other practitioners as we learn about the latest, as well as the oldest techniques for staying young. We get weird but educational.
Sex, Drugs and Skincare
NATURAL SKINCARE: LEGIT OR GREENWASHED?!
When Rachel and Daniel Olvera found themselves in the high desert of Joshua Tree during the pandemic, they never imagined their homemade skincare formulations would evolve into Xēba Botánica – a brand now championing truly non-toxic, plant-based products that prioritize both human health and environmental sustainability. By the way, the SDS podcast is an absolutely no way sponsored by Xēba Botánica.
On this revealing episode, the couple shares their remarkable journey from backpackers to skincare entrepreneurs, bringing along their adorable baby who steals the spotlight more than once. Rachel's background as a chemist provides fascinating insights into what's really happening when we slather commercial products on our largest organ – our skin. From frankincense benefits to the dangers of "forever chemicals" in waterproof sunscreens, this conversation will transform how you evaluate what touches your body.
The discussion takes a hard look at industry greenwashing, particularly the meaningless "natural" label that appears on countless toxic products. Daniel explains why they refuse to use this term, preferring specific descriptors like "non-toxic" and "plant-based" instead. You'll learn why glass packaging matters (hint: plastic leaches chemicals into your products), why water shouldn't be the first ingredient in your expensive moisturizer, and what essential oils you should never apply directly to skin.
You are listening to, watching, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling sex, drugs and skin care. Like and subscribe. Hi, welcome back to Sex, drugs and Skin Care. I am Nikki Davis Jr, a stand-up esthetician Esthetician. I like that Esthetician.
Speaker 2:Nice, we've been watching a lot of Walter Matthau movies lately.
Speaker 1:So we watch estheticians, see. It was a good joke, I know. Thank you very much math on movies lately. So we watch the rest of Sushis, see.
Speaker 2:It was a good joke, I know. Thank you very much. Only babies laugh at your jokes. Well, I mean, it was a baby joke, it was a little joke, it was a tiny joke, yeah, I love how she's come alive as soon as the show starts.
Speaker 3:You get it, the camera rolls yeah.
Speaker 1:She. I am so excited about this episode. Stand-up esthetician 25 years esthetician, licensed comedian as usual with me is my boyfriend Sherpa set decorator and bride here, right here, yep. I put one in the meter too.
Speaker 2:You did this is interesting is this what's like a couch two shot, I think is in the industry is that what it's called? Also. It also sounds terrible.
Speaker 1:I'm not used to sitting this close to you. I know I don't like it. I don't think we even sleep this close. I think we have a texas king.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's way, it's way more fatter and we sleep way far apart you like to starfish when we oh, absolutely, yeah, like basically just uh when he's in the desert. I'm like yeah, it's totally spread out. And when he comes home. I'm like why are you so close to me? Yes, yeah, I'm miserable, um, but I'm really excited about her uh, this is.
Speaker 1:I've been so excited about this for the whole week.
Speaker 2:I think I was kind of like like rubbing up for this, but um, we were also in the desert a week before this and we were talking and we visited one of the guests locations there. So just let you know how how into it we were. We were, yeah, I'm pretty excited about it, and now no longer.
Speaker 1:But, we found out about, um, these, uh, this company and the people who are here to represent said, represent it um, through dean del rey, comedian dean del rey. I don't know if you guys remember him, but um, yes and uh. He told us all about you guys, and uh. So I would like to introduce you, daniel and rachel, uh alvera yep of heba botanical? Is thatiba Botanical? Is that?
Speaker 4:right Botanicals. Botanica.
Speaker 1:Botanica Okay, hiba Botanica.
Speaker 2:It's okay, we're going to bleep out everything you said after.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Nikki Davis, thank you, and at the very end we're going to keep the Thank you and then it's a good idea, yeah we're, we can't use them in the podcast. Wow, when you sit close, you do so many more jokes.
Speaker 2:I know, because I feel like I have to carry your weight. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:By the way, I don't know if the camera's cut over to Daniel and Rachel, but they brought Sochi, their baby, who is the sweetest, most beautiful little sweetheart who just perked up the minute we started shooting, and I'm so excited that she's here with us. She's 72, you guys.
Speaker 2:She looks amazing, the star of the show. It looks like a little Rambo.
Speaker 1:She's so cute A little cholita I like that.
Speaker 4:She's like Ecoparque.
Speaker 1:You guys have a store both in Pioneertown right and then also in Echo Park as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's why I was representing Echo Park.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that.
Speaker 4:She's rocking the little yeah, yeah, I don't know, you need a bandana, or whatever yeah. I feel like I need one. Yeah With a bigger bow. Yeah With a bigger bow.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the move, that's the bow Right. The bow is like because somebody sees you from behind and they're like oh man, you turn around.
Speaker 4:How gangster are you Exactly? But then you have to and a real heart.
Speaker 2:But then people who know are like oh, that dude's a real gangster, because only real gangsters would wear a have to own it I respect that oh big bow energy yes exactly that's like you'll
Speaker 1:love the arrow so tell me which of your stores was first um the pioneer town the pioneer town one. Okay, yeah, that's.
Speaker 4:That was when we, like, had no money. We still don't have that much money, but we had zero budgets wow and we. I built every shelf and everything in that store it's a beautiful store yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:That's such a cool location too, very pioneer town.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's cute and quaint and tiny and it's not owned by those ladies on sunset, whatever it's called oh, man, remember the selling sunset selling sunset situation yeah, everybody in pioneer town hates them it's a good talking point though everybody in the high desert did he do everybody in the whole high desert hates those people.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, yeah, the whole morongo basin, I've learned or whatever that area is. That whole it's a very, it's a. It's a big place but it seems like a small community yeah, I love that about it I honestly, I lived in la for before we lived in the desert.
Speaker 4:We moved there in 2019. I lived in la for I don't know 20 years and I have a you know lots of friends, but never felt the sense of community the way we do in in the desert. People like invite you to dinner and they like you go, and you you literally actually go to their house, not like here in la where it's like, yeah, let's grab lunch and you never see them so many.
Speaker 2:Plant the plans become the thing you did. Let's make plans. It actually happens. It actually happens.
Speaker 4:You actually have dinner with people and lunch and you, you build a community, and so, yeah, and that's, I think, why we've been able to do what we we've done is because of the high desert community. They've embraced us and they like and we love them for it.
Speaker 2:Oh, they want to support local.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:They love to support local and that's a good, because and it's a testament to who you are too because they don't just jump on is this person going to bail out? They're going to be gone soon, or you know yeah so that's that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Is that kind of uh, like a lot of like, um, the background for, like the company? Is it like something that you know like, or your business as far as, like wanting to give back to community kind of a thing, or is it just like a community kind of feel, because that's what it feels like? It feels like it's owned by two people that care about it, you know well.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think we, just we, we love what we do. Rachel's a chemist and so she has a chemistry background and so it's so cool we had moved there right before the pandemic, but even before that we we backpacked around the world for six months. I sold my businesses even before that, so I lived in la, met her out here in la, and then I was just burnt out and tired of the city yeah, and so, um, I was like, hey, we had just, we'd only known each other for six months.
Speaker 4:I was like, hey, I'm selling my businesses and gonna backpack around the world. You want to come along? And she's like, hell, yeah, and so that's ride or die.
Speaker 1:I love that. That is super cool. He's like hell yeah.
Speaker 4:And she ended up not hating me too badly because you know traveling together every day we like it was. That's a huge test.
Speaker 1:She's gonna either hate me or love me, or both yeah, and it was a little bit of both enough to not leave my ass and so yeah yeah, but, um, but it brought us closer, and then we we had to come back.
Speaker 4:Um, we had like a family emergency and so we ended up moving to josh retreat because I was like I'm done with LA and the city and I have friends that have lived out there for a long time and I was like I know it and I like it and I feel like it's good yeah and so we did it. And then we were there trying to figure out what we were going to do next, and we of course everything but the obvious.
Speaker 4:We were trying to launch as a brand or a business and then we were already making things for ourselves and so I was like, well, this could be a business and her sisters and her girlfriends, because we were making little things, like she was making like a moisturizer and I was making castile soap, but it was never with the intention of starting a brand, it was just like we want to make this.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, because we think we can make it better and um plus, when you're in the desert, you need so much of that stuff that you guys, yeah well, the pandemic and the pandemic. We had a lot of time on our hands everybody was making sauerkraut and kombucha and whatever else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did. You did too we did all of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, we didn't do that, so we were we were, you didn't. No, you weren't in the desert, we just watched TV a lot.
Speaker 4:Well, that's, and we did that too, we did a lot of that we ordered in.
Speaker 2:So. So then I noticed that her, like her, her sisters and her girlfriends were like hey, give me one of those, let me have one of these. And I was like, is this a business? And so, um, I don't know if I answered your question. I think I think you answered, uh, what you want you. I think you said what you wanted to say and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanted to find out where, the, what, the where, the origin, the origin, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, no so that that's really cool and that's what it seems.
Speaker 2:it seems like it's something that kind of came like organically, especially like, yeah, like being in the desert. First thing I thought was like you're like hell, it was too dry, so what I'm thinking about, you're just like I got to moisturize. You know, when she goes there, it's just Rachel, how do you deal with it?
Speaker 3:old when I go there. Uh, well, I I do think my my skin got a little worse when I moved there. Um, I don't know, I think you adjust. Um, we also have a good water filter on our house now, okay, yeah, it's good for your hair.
Speaker 4:Oh my god, it's a game changer yeah, it is a game changer.
Speaker 3:Like the water is just so hard is it bad?
Speaker 4:yeah, it's hard on your skin and your hair because there's ammonia, there's chlorine, there's all sorts of things in the water.
Speaker 2:I know in Morongo I have a friend out there and they said the water is so bad that they drop off like five gallon jugs, like three of them a month. At least something like that minimum.
Speaker 1:For free though right For free.
Speaker 2:yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's some areas out there that like there's like lead and arsenic oh my god in the like groundwater, because you know, however many years ago, like 100 over 100 years ago it was like mines everywhere that's right, we're mining and so they leached all these chemicals into the ground that are still there, probably wow, yeah, I like to ingest lead and arsenic on my watch.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I don't want it forced on me Sometimes if I have a weekend to myself, maybe, but not every day.
Speaker 4:You want to do it on your own volition. Exactly, I get it.
Speaker 2:I don't need heavy level, heavy metal, heavy metal, heavy levels. There we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then you guys, obviously you care about not only do they care about the environment, but you guys care about just like natural products in general. And maybe I should have said that in reverse order. Not only do you care about the natural stuff, but you also are super concerned about the environment, because I love that all of your packaging is just it's just glass for the most part, right, yeah, glass, and like craft paper labels. I love that Even labels have plastic on them. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so that ends up in the landfill or in your bodies or in the ocean or wherever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Just to add to like why we also started the brand was Rachel's got crazy sensitive skin and she's just acne prone, allergy prone, eczema, everything prone, wow, and she was trying. She was kind of having issues and so she was trying all these different products and she was trying like the the fancier, more expensive, better stuff from like nordstrom's or wherever and then comparing those ingredients to the stuff that you'd find in the skincare at wal, walmart or something and it's the same stuff just fancier branding and packaging
Speaker 4:sure yeah so that kind of inspired, I think, her to just and us to kind of just start making things. And so because we were like, well, why does it need all of these things? Why can't it just be these four basic ingredients?
Speaker 3:oh so why is water the top ingredient on all moisturizers? Yeah, that's so true. And then alcohol, a lot of times too right, because it waters it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, there's water down literally. Yeah, there is good alcohols. Oh, there is Okay. Is it plant alcohol?
Speaker 3:No, like cedar alcohol. It's not like ethanol.
Speaker 2:It's not like a drying like what you. Oh okay okay when.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay when it comes to mind like acetyl.
Speaker 3:Alcohol is actually like moisturizing and it's a common skincare ingredient.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:Just like all oils aren't oily.
Speaker 2:Right Some of them are drier, and so, anyways, there's different types of and this may not be the same thing, but also I've learned that schnitzel is not just sausage. Schnitzel is also like it looks like a cutlet. I'm not even kidding, it's true. What are you even talking?
Speaker 1:about. We're talking about the fact that not all oils are oily. Not all schnitzels are schnitzels. She's schnitzeling, so schnitzels can be.
Speaker 2:They look like cutlets sometimes, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, I see what you're saying of schnitzel.
Speaker 4:See Thank you very much See.
Speaker 1:All you have to do is let me keep talking.
Speaker 2:eventually See this bad schnitzel and there's good schnitzel. Yeah, this is like good people and bad people, just good people. Good schnitzel, bad schnitzel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that show.
Speaker 2:That's a good show Bad schnitzel, Bad Schnitzel it's called Up Schnitzels. I want to watch that.
Speaker 4:I want to keep saying that word all day long. Schnitzel, that could be your next hit, bro. Yeah, that could be your next hit.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, Go viral for schnitzel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean that could be the title.
Speaker 4:That's your tagline right there. Yeah, go, print t-shirts you ready.
Speaker 2:It's not just a German thing. What? What does that even mean? And then yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to ask you about I mentioned. Well, first of all, can we talk about frankincense.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, because everybody's talking about it now. Yeah, and I'm sure you guys have been into it for quite a while. When did you start your line, by the way?
Speaker 3:Like 2021 or two or something like that. I think, technically, like our first market where we like sold our first jar would be 2020, okay so, and now do you notice that suddenly everybody's talking about frankincense?
Speaker 1:or do you not even know that?
Speaker 2:no, I hear it on like, uh, you know, like the tiktoks and all those things like the beef, tallow and tiktok and uh and frankincense everybody's talking about, yeah, that one, that one's popped up a lot. Yeah, beef tallows popped upincense. Everybody's talking about beef tallow, that one's popped up.
Speaker 3:Yeah beef tallow's popped up.
Speaker 2:It's a trend, yeah, they even have beef tallow fries I've mentioned before, but so I don't understand they used to put in Oreo cookies a long time ago. Oh, that's what that was my friends used to always be like. You know, there's lard in those cookies.
Speaker 1:It's animal fat it's probably better than what they're putting in it now, but yeah, yeah it's simple.
Speaker 4:I think the more simple, the better we're not against beef tallow sure it's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah people, people love tallow.
Speaker 3:I don't think I would want it on a moisturizer though I don't know if I would either I I've heard like my friends are like they like to use it. But um, I've heard from like their girlfriends and stuff they're like they end up smelling like rotten meat by the end of the night.
Speaker 1:That's going in the teaser being.
Speaker 4:Mexican. I just had an idea of like grilling some carne asada and then, like you just say, the carne asada oil, and you're just like yeah, let me just Dude, that is absolutely an uncle move.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You go over and your uncle's like that's the deal, absolutely an uncle move. Yeah, you go over and your uncle's like that's the deal, bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the deal, absolutely yes, yeah, dude just yesterday I was sometimes I work as a delivery driver, just for, you know, for research and so somebody had like their gutters was messed you know they're messed up or whatever. So the guy I know he put, he put a two gallon, a two liter bottle on it and had to spigot and put, like you know, the tape around it and I was like that's, that's the uncle move, dude, I'm not gonna call the building manager, I'm gonna take care of this myself, I'll fix the gutter with a, with a soda bottle, you're gonna say with beef tallow.
Speaker 1:I call it max guyver, max guyver, max guyver. I like macgyver. Yeah, you might guy you macgyver it, but it's max guy for it, you know you like you gotta like I got toothpicks.
Speaker 4:I got some like you know, some, some what's that stuff called?
Speaker 1:some like black electrical tape and a screwdriver all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fix it yeah, that's all you need. Yeah, but you go. You have that mentality, but then your packaging isn't toothpicks and stuff like that it's like nice quality product you can reuse again. Reusable toothpicks.
Speaker 4:We're not Max Geiger-ing the skincare I promise. I mean if it was up to me we have. Rachel. So she's actually a chemist. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:She takes it and then has a refinement, and then it a refinement.
Speaker 4:And then it goes into I'm just like how can we do this quick?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 4:I'm more the like salesman guy, I don't know, getting us out there Business yeah yeah. She likes to make all the things and nerd out in the lab.
Speaker 1:What were you doing with your chemist-ness before?
Speaker 3:out in the lab. What were you doing with your um, your chemistness before um? I actually graduated, like maybe a year before I met daniel or during uh, during when we did like right.
Speaker 4:When we first met, she had just graduated or was graduating college so yeah it's.
Speaker 3:It's actually bio, like my main major is biology and then I have a degree in chemistry as well.
Speaker 4:She was actually studying for the MCAT before we like decided to do any of this and so, but anytime she would schedule to go take her MCAT, it got canceled because of the pandemic and because we couldn't, so we rescheduled and then they would cancel, and so she never was able to take her MCAT. And so then because everybody was just like at home, losing their minds.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 4:We decided to be productive and yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:You guys seem like you, you you met at both the right times for each other. Yeah, and then, like you know, just certain things, like you know they had to test, it just didn't work out, yeah, so that's just kind of uh, it's life and we get to benefit from it absolutely they sent us so many things, you guys okay, oh my god.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I was going to ask you about the frankincense, because I put it on everything the oil yeah, what is it good for?
Speaker 3:Tell us what it's good for I mean, like frankincense, it's great for skin texture, like if you're saying, just for your skin. A lot of people use it for like an anti-cancer.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean a lot of people like take supplements of it.
Speaker 1:What is frankincense? Even Like a plant, it's like the boswellia, something or other.
Speaker 4:I forget the scientific norm of the term of the tree, but it's boswellia something anyway. So it's like a it's a tree, it's a tree it's the resin from the tree, so like the sap. Okay, so it's like super concentrated stuff from the tree, right the sap or the resin from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I've seen that. What did you say? It was?
Speaker 4:boswellia something. I kind of look it up because I've seen that word on certain things.
Speaker 3:There's several different species of it. There's like Serrata. There's a few different species, but it's.
Speaker 4:Boswellia something and there's a few, but yeah, it grows mainly like in Africa, parts of Africa, that's where it's like native and it just has amazing healing properties and I think it's also known as like the oil, like frankincense oil is known as like the oil of cakes right, frankincense and myrrh and yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a good band.
Speaker 4:Yeah Do, yeah, we have burn one of our perfumes. Mm-hmm right yeah, number 19.
Speaker 1:Wow, I want to talk about that one too.
Speaker 4:Let's talk about Sunblock you guys knowing being in the desert, I know you Sun block so cheap. Oh, some sunblock. You guys knowing being in the desert, I know you need it Exactly sunblock. Sochi needs some sunblock. My goodness, if you need me to take care of you, I want to hand her over.
Speaker 2:Let's get her a microphone.
Speaker 4:I know Happy to help.
Speaker 1:This is the best. I'm so happy you guys brought her. She's so cute.
Speaker 4:She's with us all the time. She just, we just.
Speaker 3:Yeah no babysitters here we like to incorporate her into everything we do in our lives.
Speaker 4:That's part of why we have our family businesses. She looks so excited Because we really want it to be a family business.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:As soon as she's able to, I'm going to put her ass to work, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, start them young, all right. So tell me about sunblock. Um, because I'm obsessed. I used to completely stay out of the sun. My mom kept me out of the sun for my whole life, and then she would just put, slather me with zinc and stick me in the corner, and I wasn't allowed to play in the pool with the other kids because I mean, I'm pretty fair and I've had some serious, serious burns in my life, wow.
Speaker 1:So I'm glad now you know, almost you know whatever, almost 57 that she did that because otherwise I think I would have a lot more like sun damage than I have. But I feel like we've come so far since those days, even though you're probably using more simple stuff than you're going to get. I mean, I won't use for the most part, unless I'm outside for a long period of time. I don't want to use anything that's got sunscreen, you know, like the chemical sunscreens, because it just makes it in. But tell me, what is your sunblock right Technically?
Speaker 3:Technically sunblock. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so we actually only use zinc oxide um the non-nano zinc oxide. Uh, a lot of like natural brands use the titanium oxide I believe it's oxide um, I'm not a fan of that one because that that's what creates the really like white casts oh yeah the titanium, um, and it's not that it's like toxic or anything, it's fine, um, but yeah, it creates more of a white cast. It doesn't really go clear and then it also doesn't protect against uvb rays whereas zinc protects against both uva and uvb so it's just high.
Speaker 1:Have a higher zinc oxide percentage people, I think, need to know, like, that spf really only corresponds to the amount of time, right, that you can spend in the sun without burning, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the a-rays, right, correct? Yeah, yeah, because I I don't know. I think people think they go out and they buy spf 100, that they're doing themselves a favor.
Speaker 3:I don't think so. Yeah, and you always have to reapply after water like no matter how waterproof it is Exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a whole other can of worms waterproof. You don't want anything waterproof on your skin, god no. Pfos. What's that PFOAs?
Speaker 3:right, pf. All of them, yeah, all of them. Do they put it in sunscreen?
Speaker 4:now to make it so. Waterproofing is the use PFOS, which is a chemical. There's thousands of them, chemicals that were created by DuPont.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 4:Back in the I don't want to misquote, but I think it was either the 50s or the 70s, and they, they do a lot of. They use them for a lot of things, but, uh, waterproofing is one of them, and so that's what they put in sunscreen it's like forever chemicals so forever chemicals, what is known as.
Speaker 3:That's disgusting and then you put it in a plastic bottle to make it even better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah yeah, it's, I mean it's in like, almost like all the plastics it's in tons of stuff like all the fire retardants yeah, so the fires that we have in in california, and you see the helicopters dropping the red, that red stuff, yeah, pfos I do not know that, and that gets into our waters, our water system um, and there's farms, I think, all over the us um, mainly where the dupont factory is um over in like in north carolina that is just has insane levels of pfos and a lot of these farmers have to have had to like shut down their farm.
Speaker 3:They're like family farms that they've had for generations.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, like that guy that had the cattle farm and his meat was contaminated with it, Like the ground, everything there's like. There's lots of farmers.
Speaker 3:And they even say like no levels are safe for us to consume.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, if they're saying that, then it's got to be true, but it's still legal. They wouldn't tell you.
Speaker 4:It's still legal to put it in everything.
Speaker 3:Another Regulated in the US. Another reason for what Water filters?
Speaker 2:Yes exactly I know. So you're saying the skincare is not regulated in the US.
Speaker 4:Skincare is not a regulated Well, not like our food is regulated. Yes, we're still finding sketchy stuff in our food, so skincare is regulated even less than food, and so you're finding silicates and copolymers and phthalates and. Pfos and all sorts of just crazy things, that we don't know exactly what they're doing to us long term, because they haven't, we have all these autoimmune situations that are happening in us more than ever.
Speaker 4:Why Exactly? Why, yeah, autoimmune situations that are happening in us more than ever? Um, why exactly? Why that's yeah, and people are getting cancer younger and younger I just was reading something this morning, um about that it's, it's yeah childhood cancer.
Speaker 4:Childhood cancer like oh really higher rates of there's higher rates of just cancer in younger people like children and like young adults, people in their 20s wow like getting like breast cancer in your 20s, like that's that's crazy you know, or colon cancer in men in their 20s so it has to be something you're ingesting because you're not like just gonna get it's our food or it's our. It's our water, it's our skincare it's anything that we put, or even in our hair, right stuff, we breathe, we breathe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I feel like, especially now that you're I mean, you grow up now and you're on set, you're instantly online social media, you're exposed. Yeah, so you are, you know, conscious of how you look you put on skincare much younger yeah, that stuff gets into your skin, you know obviously like and uh, yeah, that's really just. It's just sad how it's just unregulated, um, because it's almost kind of like they're like oh, there's enough people to we can sell to and then you continue, but they put profits over people sure, yeah, yeah sure we, we don't.
Speaker 4:We put people over profits yeah, we don't we just love doing what we do and we're not trying to ever be l'oreal or anything crazy like that. You know, we just love doing what we do and we're not trying to ever be L'Oreal or anything crazy like that. You know, we just want to make things that are good for our family first.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And for our well, like what would we put on our baby?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:And if we wouldn't put it on our baby, then we're not going to make it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't know. It seems simple to me.
Speaker 1:I was just saying. Anything you put on your skin is going inside your body.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course. Yeah, your skin's your largest organ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, your skin's your largest organ.
Speaker 4:You're absorbing anything that goes on your pores Totally Into your bloodstream.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry I interrupted you, that's okay. Don't ever do it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hung out in the desert, like I was saying.
Speaker 1:She's looking at me like, do you let him talk to you like that? Absolutely, I make him talk to me like that All the time, exactly. Stipulation.
Speaker 3:We hung out in the desert.
Speaker 2:We had shows out there, so we had a little spot, we hung out and we just used your stuff all weekend. And we how do I say this? We took a bunch of adult aspirins, you know, like adult, like ibuprofen, how do I say it? Drugs, drugs and we took drugs and we like hung out and we like took walks. Then we came back and we used the. I'm not even kidding, we kept like the desert balm with us Like we had like all this stuff with us. It made us feel so good yeah.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. It was a nice home base. We were just like putting like yeah, we'd go back and like put the oils on, just like open the tin and you're just like, yeah, oh my gosh, yes, totally.
Speaker 4:I do that and I don't have to be on drugs to do that you don't, you don't, you don't you know, you don't it your experience yes, experience.
Speaker 2:It kept us uh, it kept us hydrated in the harsh environments and it felt like it was nice, like aromatherapy to it and it felt very like I keep like saying home, but it does. It felt like it was like okay, everything's cool, and it was like nice.
Speaker 4:Were you guys like walking through the desert naked or something it just had like skincare on you, or like through the harsh environment? We were, like you just embarked into the middle of nowhere. I felt like that.
Speaker 2:I would never do that, though, because I don't have enough pockets when I'm naked, so something about I don't know what it is but I think the better find one, the better shape.
Speaker 1:I am, the less pockets I have but but yeah, like just walking around enough, like just being out of our minds, just you know, like no dry lips no dry lips yeah, no, dry anything nothing also I noticed that um you sent, um you sent because there's three soaps or four of the bars right um we actually have more now, you do yeah so we got the facial one, and then there's a body exfoliating one, and then I forget what the other, just regular working hands.
Speaker 4:Is it like a brown one? Yes, yes, yeah, that one's a scrub.
Speaker 1:Yeah just having that in the bathroom when I walk in the house, I'm already feel. I feel like we're like so wealthy. It's like what is that beautiful smell in the house and and it's just soap in the bathroom. It's so nice, though I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if they get to a certain age where you're really like, you know like, or maybe a certain age, but just certain time when you really start to like. I never really cared about that kind of stuff, cause it was something my mom had or whatever.
Speaker 2:But now I see it, I'm like, oh, it's just a nice little thing you do for yourself and you also know you're taking care of yourself and it smells great. So you know again. I don't want to keep talking about drugs, but no, I'm kidding, I mean the Hebo Botanica. Yeah, well, yeah it's really soothing, it really is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It feels nice when you take care of yourself. Do you lather each other?
Speaker 1:No, we haven't tried that yet. We wish we could.
Speaker 2:That's a nice move Did you.
Speaker 1:Is he giving me the signal.
Speaker 2:He gave you a signal that you have 30 minutes left of your life.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect. Okay, so we talked about frankincense, we talked a little bit about the sunblock soaps, the oil. What about tell me a little bit about perfume and like why you have the formulations that you do and anything else that you want to tell us about the perfumes? Because I love perfume and I just bought some and now I'm like starting to hate the smell of it because it's it's top notes of just chemicals it's.
Speaker 4:Where'd you get it from?
Speaker 1:target I had a target gift card. You, you guys, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:You know you gotta use that gift card. I know it's a Target. You gotta be a mark.
Speaker 1:I know I also made sure to do it when nobody else in the building was around, so that they didn't see the Target guy show up at the house. Exactly, we're not gonna judge you, we're just gonna send you perfume. Oh, thank you God, and I know that that was a ploy for us to send you perfume.
Speaker 4:Thank you, we would have done it anyway, oh.
Speaker 2:See, they don't ploy around.
Speaker 1:They don't ploy around.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But I noticed you had a few different you have. How many do you guys have Three? We only have four right now. You have four, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:We were trying to come out with a new spring one, but babies and treatment rooms. We're opening treatment rooms at the are you really park store? Yeah, that's great thing I wanted to kind of touch base on. We'll go back absolutely. Yeah, I might actually see if you guys need some help over there so, uh, yeah, they're currently being finished, um, and so we built at the storefront first so we could generate. Just open the doors and generate some income yeah and so there's.
Speaker 4:Hopefully we'll be ready by next month, but construction never goes as planned. So we'll have four treatment rooms. You'll be able to book an appointment with our estheticians to get a facial and our skincare. That's really cool, do you?
Speaker 1:guys know what I do you're an esthetician, yeah, but I also specialize in facial massage and like the um, like I don't really use a lot of product, but I would use yours, but like um, because of that reason I don't really care use a lot of product. I would use yours but, like because of that reason, I don't really care for a lot of the stuff that people put in the products.
Speaker 1:But, I specialize in lifting and toning the facial muscles and then also going inside the mouth and like doing all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:What is that called?
Speaker 1:Like a buckle massage. That's what they're calling it now Something with a B I can never pronounce, yeah buckle Like, because this is the bucketator and there's like five different muscles that connect right there.
Speaker 4:I've never experienced that, but she has obviously.
Speaker 3:My job pops.
Speaker 1:I have a massage therapist.
Speaker 3:She's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's helping with tension, headaches and whatnot. All these little knots in there.
Speaker 4:She calls them, little goldfish, she just massages your. Did she stick her whole hand in your mouth or something?
Speaker 1:No, no no, no, that's, I mean like off the books, yes, but tax for tax reasons for tax reasons, liability reasons no anyways, I don't want to talk completely about me, but but I did want to get into, like, what is it that you guys don't like in your perfumes?
Speaker 4:we don't like in ours like what?
Speaker 1:No, I'm saying like the reason why you formulated yours the way you did was because to avoid certain things that do types of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, a lot of the spray ones have alcohols in them. I prefer oil-based just because they last longer, like on the shelf. They are better for your skin, yeah, and then all the scents are, you know, plant-based essential oils or extracts.
Speaker 4:so versus chemical fragrance, which is in most perfume and skincare, and um it's cheap, chemical fragrance is dirt cheap yeah that's why like a fraction of the cost really.
Speaker 3:That's why these companies.
Speaker 4:you know's in candles, it's in aerosols, it's in room sprays, anything fragrant. All the big brands. I'm not going to mention them, but all the big brands, and even smelling things can disrupt your hormones.
Speaker 3:That's what I was going to ask you about.
Speaker 4:So this chemical fragrance they have phthalates. Phthalates cause endocrine disruption.
Speaker 2:So you're, it's your hormones, it's just amazing to me that when you're smelling something, you're actually taking in that thing, it's not like looking at something.
Speaker 4:It's like micro-particles that you're inhaling and ingesting.
Speaker 2:And it's just going into your system Every time you go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1:I think about that. Yeah, isn't it bad going into your system Every?
Speaker 2:time you go to the bathroom, I think about that. Yeah, isn't it?
Speaker 1:bad.
Speaker 2:It is bad. Sometimes I'll walk by my toothbrush just going like this. I like to conduct the air. You know, it's just yeah, it's just really bizarre we did an episode about phthalates, though, didn't we? We did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talking about that because that's the stuff that really scares me and like the little girls are putting that on themselves too, and it's like we already have enough hormones in the water and the food. And then now the phthalates and the you know and these people who do the plugins my aunt Betsy does like those plugins and it's like it makes me feel like I'm gonna throw up. There's gotta be something wrong with those plugin things.
Speaker 2:Those things those are. I don't know if I'm super sensitive to them now, but like they nauseate me, give me headaches and I walk by people and they don't seem to. I don't know if maybe people are used to it or I don't know.
Speaker 4:I think people just maybe they're not around them long enough.
Speaker 2:They're literally burning whatever it is in that cartridge.
Speaker 4:It's just chemicals in the electrical socket and it's just like, and it's just like infusing the air with the crap.
Speaker 2:It's so bad it's like if we could see, like put like a filter on a lens to see all that stuff, yeah same thing with candles oh, I know you're like burning and like and the lead and the smoke and the oil, yeah, and like the wicks are sometimes dipped in chemicals oh I didn't
Speaker 1:even think about that. What?
Speaker 4:do they? What do they? Embalm people in?
Speaker 1:oh, the formaldehyde, yes, oh, and a candle they'll find.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they've found formaldehyde in candles and in the wicks and you guys do candles too, right we do, yeah, that's so cool, that's really nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I won't even bring the lead ones into the bedroom, yeah into the bedroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where lead bibs what are?
Speaker 4:we doing with candles in the bedroom?
Speaker 1:I don't know fire hazard, yeah, um living fun, yeah, nothing but uh yeah, my mom taught me early on, like you know the beeswax and don't use the you know whatever other garbagey candles out there. But I didn't realize how many other like you were saying like there's stuff on the wick itself. I didn't even think about like just what to keep it lit um I think it's again it goes down to like it's cheaper.
Speaker 4:It costs like nothing to make when you're using cheap chemicals. Right, and so have you ever bought a little tiny bottle of like a pure essential oil? Yes, like it, it's expensive.
Speaker 2:Very expensive.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we're putting like a lot of mini bottles inside one candle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's expensive, yeah, it's expensive. And so you know you have a bottle of, like you know, pesticide. You're like I might as well use this to cut it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Instead, they're like we should do pesticides. That's true, it's going to go bad on the shelf. Wait, take me back to here, to Paradise City. Yes, okay, cool, sorry, so.
Speaker 2:I know you want to. You know, move along, or whatever. I have one question, though. I do want to get to the name Hiba Botanica.
Speaker 4:Hiba Botanica.
Speaker 2:So how did that come about? Is that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we got. So how did that come about, Is that? Yeah, we got to, we got. I've told that story a million times.
Speaker 2:All right. Well then, nevermind, that's okay. I feel like I have.
Speaker 4:Rachel and I couldn't like. Everything we wanted was taken.
Speaker 3:And so Rachel was doing Like domains Domains, and we wanted our own dot com.
Speaker 2:And so not a dot co or a dot TV or you know a million other ones. Yeah, dot skincare or whatever, anyway. So we.
Speaker 4:I mean, I will say that's Rachel, she. I like to say she channeled that name, but I wasn't into it at first. She's like heba, I'm gonna make up a word. And then I was like, oh man, here we go and she had all these options and I was like I like this one, and she's like I like these three. And I was like, well, what about these? And she's man. And so finally she chose that name and I was like I, I don't like it. She's like I don't care.
Speaker 1:Rachel, I love you. Whatever, bro, stick to your guns.
Speaker 3:And so then I was just like, whatever you went to the Botanica part.
Speaker 4:Oh, so the Botanica. I'll tell you like where that came in. So Botanica is because when I was a little boy, I would go with my grandmother, my abuelita to to these stores that are called botanicas, and you find them in like latino neighborhoods in the barrio on the hood, and so have you guys ever been to one, you've seen them.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, you've seen them. Yeah, they're kind of scary sometimes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, so she would go to this one in particular all the time and that old guy was like the, like curandero or like healer guy, okay, and like he would do. Like he would do like these cleansing kind of ceremonies with my grandma and me sometimes, but anyways, he had like I just remember it was, he was very organized and neat, all these little brown glass bottles filled with tonics and tinctures and like potions and whatever I don't know and so, but some of it was like plant medicine, you know.
Speaker 4:And then prayer, candles on one side, incense on another, and then there was a section that I never went to that was very scary, full of witchy things and so anyways, so botanica comes from that and so, but botanica means botany in spanish so okay, the concept for the store is a modern take on a botanica.
Speaker 4:Okay, but an ode to my abuela oh, that's really nice so anyways, um, so yeah, we, we made up, rachel made up a word, hiba, and so it ended up. Later on we found out that it means gift, or gift of god in arabic, and this was a customer, that just was like hey do you know what this means? We're like nothing, we made it up.
Speaker 3:He's like no, actually it means gift, or gift of god and then either the way we pronounced it or the way we spelled it. We spelled it up. He's like no, actually it means gift or gift of god. Either the way we pronounced it or the way we spelled it we spelled it probably okay, because I think in farsi it's, it's zebra the way we we spell it but, that means like natural beauty, I believe, and then like some other customers some other customers said that in hebrew or old hebrew, I don't know that it means natural or natural beauty anyway.
Speaker 4:So, gift of God, natural beauty. We're like hey, it was meant to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, god, that's amazing. That's like a nice theme.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been going. It kind of just flows into it and just works out like in that way.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Rachel's got the magic. You just channeled that part.
Speaker 2:I didn't argue, and I'm glad I didn't too hard. Well, we love your stuff so much, um, so okay, before, we love the packaging as well. Yeah, we love the print, the packaging, everything. That's just yeah, thank you, I love glass, anything okay.
Speaker 1:So let's see we're gonna do a rapid fire. Five true or false, um false okay, perfect yeah should I just read it from my phone or look at the notes up there? It's harder, it's kind of harder to look over there do one.
Speaker 2:Do read it from your phone once and read it up there once and let me know how the difference. I hate you so much okay.
Speaker 1:So true or false? If a product says natural on the label, it's guaranteed to be non-toxic and safe for your skin. False, oh false. Yeah, I think Majorly false yeah you guys saw the answer, but yeah, they know for sure, major false yeah.
Speaker 4:Natural.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean arsenic's natural.
Speaker 1:Petroleum is natural.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, put that in your car. You probably shouldn't put it on your skin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's so many things out there that are naturally poisonous to you? Yeah, it doesn't mean you should ingest it yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not regulated and it could include synthetic or harmful ingredients. Okay, number two, true or false, essential oils like frankincense should always be used undiluted, directly on the skin. False, false, yeah, yeah false, false, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:What would happen if I put just straight frankincense?
Speaker 1:on my skin um some people break out in rashes.
Speaker 3:It's really concentrated um. People can get almost like burns from it yeah, I mean, it doesn't usually bug me.
Speaker 2:I've spilt many essential oils on my hands while making stuff um, but I do know people that have gotten like rashes from the more intense ones, like tea tree, oh god, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't use that without a little bit of a carrier oil. Yeah, you always want Um, but I do know people that have gotten like rashes from the more intense ones like tea tree.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, yeah. You can't use that without a little bit of a carrier oil.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you always want to dilute with, like a carrier oil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right True or false.
Speaker 2:That's right, sochi, you're right. Carrier oil yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:So some natural true or false some natural, it's like citrus oils can make your skin more sensitive to the sun. True, True.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they have like a certain chemical in them, and then there's also essential oils that they've removed that chemical. So some of those are safe.
Speaker 1:Oh okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's usually. There's usually like a certain time that you can like certain essential oils. A lot of the citrus is specifically from the fruit of it, like some of them. You know there's different parts of the plant like leaves, the rind, the you know, so it also depends the part of the plant and then it also depends on the time. So sometimes they're like, oh, you need to wait 30 minutes. Some are like eight hours oh, wow so somewhere like the sensitivity level is ranges greatly.
Speaker 1:This was a mentoring, like bergamot. Do you guys use bergamot in anything?
Speaker 3:Yes, you do.
Speaker 1:I love the smell of bergamot Okay, and can be phototoxic, it says.
Speaker 2:Never take a picture of bergamot.
Speaker 1:It's phototoxic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, they can't all be hey, as long as I heard myself say it, that's all that matters true or false.
Speaker 1:Natural skin care products are always better for sensitive skin that word natural, yeah, any comments on that?
Speaker 4:we never say natural.
Speaker 2:We always say non-toxic, plant-based and organic so we don't like the term natural, we always say non-toxic plant-based and organic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we don't like the term natural.
Speaker 3:We don't use it in our that's just a lot of greenwashing with natural. So we kind of want to be more specific to what our brand does train our staff and team to not use natural as one of the descriptors for our product.
Speaker 2:That's a really good point to yeah because you don't put all these words out there. It's like when this is so stupid, but like when people like they're like microwave, safe plastic. It's like it's safe. It's safe for the plastic like it's like that kind of thing where it's like you can say whatever you want and it's like double speak. But no, that's, that's cool or like natural flavors yeah, yeah, natural flavors actually like a brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like it's in capital letters.
Speaker 2:I'm like wait a second. Why is A lot of lawyers, yeah Double speaking for these brands?
Speaker 1:Okay, and then the last one True or false, plastic packaging can leach harmful chemicals into your skincare products over time.
Speaker 3:True yeah, absolutely. Whether heat is applied or not or not. Yeah, oh wow. And especially with essential oils.
Speaker 1:You're never supposed to put essential oils in plastic ever fat leeches right, like the oily things, like don't they leach plastic into them? I mean just essential, or does it break it down essential?
Speaker 3:oils that break it down. Yeah, that's why, like you, like, if you ever buy an essential oil and it's packaged into plastic, you should just return it, because it's like eating away the plastic or even a skincare.
Speaker 4:If you buy skincare, that's natural right or whatever that has real essential oils.
Speaker 1:It's in plastic, it's gonna it's gonna wear down the plastic yeah and then you're putting that micro, whatever plastic on yeah, I'm never going back, ever since we've gotten your stuff.
Speaker 2:So thank god you have one here and one there, because we're both places all the time, so we'll be visiting you, I remember as a kid I never realized like just how much chemicals had, like the power they do or what they're, that you can't contain them and just anything. I remember being a kid pouring gasoline into a water gallon jug and then leaving, going like what?
Speaker 4:and it's like the bottom is all like melted yeah, what so like, and then like that itself is like, that's like inhaling it as you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly it's it's a really yeah, what a, what a day uh just get a day. What a week um, uh, but yeah, it's just amazing how you know, and that's also uh an oil as well, right? Petroleum yeah right, see, I knew stuff all right cool.
Speaker 1:I feel good about that so yeah, so the endocrine disruptors like bpa is like what you were talking about, right, the microplastics is that's bpa, right, bpa is what does it stand for by polys.
Speaker 4:I don't remember what it stands for, but it's. It's a chemical in plastic that leaches out and it everything that's bpa now also contains other like bpfs or something like so, even though they made other versions without the aid, but it's bp and then some other. Oh, man wow kind of it's like a just a slight variation of the chemical it's the same chemical but just a slight variation. Like a molecule, like the molecules are slightly different, right.
Speaker 2:Like the isomer of it, basically just like the mirror image of, like the. That's such an interesting thing to again double speak, like in this. I don't want to get too scientific here, but we got ketchup once and it said no sugar added Right, you turn it over and it's sorbitol. Well, thanks. That kind of thing where you really have to pay attention.
Speaker 4:You kind of want to. Just actually, you'd rather get sugar than get whatever fake sugars.
Speaker 2:And that's why I love what you guys stuff. It's like you look at it and you're like oh, I can pronounce everything here. Oh, my God, and it all makes sense and it just yeah, that's huge, and that's one selling point.
Speaker 1:When we have customers that don't know anything about what we do. It's like when you turn any label over and you're like I can't read that sentence sentence word yes sentence chemical word I don't, I can't. Well, you probably shouldn't put it up if you can't pronounce it. By the way, I would like to make everybody know, uh, we are not being sponsored in any way by, uh, hebrew botanica so we're just fans, but we are huge fans, yeah and um, I'm just going to mention something else about that.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, did you have something you wanted to say?
Speaker 4:oh, you're switching babies.
Speaker 1:I brought the check, by the way, thank you it'll clear yeah, I was gonna ask if yeah, alright, well, yeah, thank you guys so much for coming and bringing your gorgeous baby and yeah what did you? What were you guys?
Speaker 2:I was gonna ask before we get out of here, just because people can get in touch with you guys is there like your social? Is there some place that you'd like them to be able to reach out to you specifically? Or we'll put all the information down here and then when you guys give us the check for $200, we'll release the information.
Speaker 1:Only $200? Oh great.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was fun oh wow, I wrote a $2,000 check, but I'll tear it up.
Speaker 2:I don't like too many zeros, I get to get a little.
Speaker 4:She's like what she's like. You're using checks. She's outraged.
Speaker 1:Where can anybody find you?
Speaker 4:Hibabotanicacom. That's our website that's X-E-B-A so Hiba like Mexico or Oaxaca, x sounds like an H and then you can go online and find all of the handles, but our social is Hiba Botanica at Instagram, for all the socials. It's a very healing name, even just saying it Hiba Botanica at Instagram for all the socials. Perfect.
Speaker 2:It's a very healing name, even just saying it Hiba Botanica.
Speaker 4:Hiba Botanica.
Speaker 2:Yeah, botanica just makes me think of like the rainforests and like trees and like just something you know, very natural stuff. So it's a nice visual Right Sochi, exactly. I just want to make sure everybody knew that the general response I get when I say stuff is like a baby Just looking at me.
Speaker 1:All right, well, thank you guys so much for coming, thank you. This will be out on Wednesday of next week at 3 am and that's about it. So thanks for tuning in, guys, and we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having us. I'm not sure which camera is going to where, but yeah, wave at.
