The Oncology Aesthetics Podcast

Skincare Guide Overview

• Ricardo Fisas Natura Bissé Foundation • Season 1 • Episode 2

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When facing cancer treatment, the smallest comforts can make a profound difference. Our conversation with Josanna Gaither, Executive Director at the Ricardo Fisas Natura Bisse Foundation, explores an invaluable free resource that puts control back into patients' hands – the Oncology Aesthetics Skincare Guide.

This comprehensive yet surprisingly digestible guide serves as a lifeline when everything else feels overwhelming. As Josanna explains, "Once someone gets diagnosed and they're in the midst of treatment, they feel like everything they used to know to be true is different." The guide bridges this gap with practical, actionable advice that addresses the unique skincare challenges cancer treatment presents.

What makes this resource particularly valuable is its accessibility and brand-agnostic approach. Rather than pushing specific products, it educates users about beneficial ingredients like organic aloe vera, allantoin, and shea butter while focusing on the three pillars of oncology skincare: cleansing with pH-balanced products, proper hydration, and diligent sun protection. From managing radiation-affected skin to addressing treatment-induced rashes, surgical scars, and hair loss, the guide provides specialized knowledge for each phase of the cancer journey.

Beyond the physical benefits, proper skincare during cancer treatment can significantly impact treatment outcomes. When skin integrity is maintained, patients experience fewer treatment interruptions and infections, potentially improving their medical prognosis. Download this free resource today through the link in our show notes, and discover how simple skincare strategies can restore comfort, confidence, and a sense of normalcy during one of life's most challenging journeys.

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Raejan:

Thank you. Welcome to the Oncology Aesthetics Podcast, where we explore ways to enhance well-being, self-esteem and resilience while navigating cancer. We bring you expert skincare tips, practical self-care strategies and inspiring stories to help you rediscover strength, radiance and joy. Welcome back everyone. I'm your host, Raejan, the National Educator for the Ricardo Fisas Natura Bisse Foundation. Today I've got Josanna Gaither, our Foundation's Executive Director. We are going to discuss the foundation's really great resource, the Skin Care Guide. So, Josanna, tell us what the intention of the skincare guide is.

Josanna:

Well, first, I love the skincare guide. It is an amazing resource that helps to provide helpful, practical tips for someone who's navigating cancer. It is the one tool where our goal to get into as many hands as possible. I would say, think of it like a pocket guide to the key things that you need to know about how to care for your skin during treatment, with also tips on managing hair loss and ways to apply makeup during treatment. It also has tips on what not to do during treatment, which I think is really lovely, and I just love how practical and simple it is. You know, oftentimes when someone's going through or first getting that diagnosis, everything kind of spins out of control and the things that they may have known were important about caring for their skin in the past kind of just disappear, so I love that this is a tool that helps to bring that back to the forefront with additional tips and knowledge that's really important and specific to someone who's going through cancer treatment.

Raejan:

Yeah, I love the skincare guide because it's really digestible. First and foremost, it breaks everything down into really easy steps to care for the skin, so you don't feel like you're going through this really long, exaggerated skincare routine. But what my actual favorite part about the skincare guide is is that we have this free downloadable version of it, and we'll put the link in the show notes. But this downloadable version again is free, so it makes it super accessible. And personally I'll literally keep this open on a tab in my Safari Because, as an esthetician that works with oncology clients, inevitably, you know, I'll be on a plane or at a party or at a dinner or something and someone will ask what I do and when I talk about this, it's almost impossible to not interact with somebody who has some sort of experience with cancer, whether it's their friend or their mom or their friend's mom that just got diagnosed, whoever it is.

Raejan:

You know, oftentimes people will ask me what can I do? And I'll keep this open on a tab in my phone so I can just send it to them and they can send it to whoever it's beneficial for. So it's a really great tool to have to kind of bridge that gap of not necessarily knowing what to do or how to help someone while they're going through their journey. it's a really simple, sort of easy and caring way to give somebody a resource. So, after that initial conversation of holding space for that person and just listening to what they're saying, you actually have something tangible that you can give them that provides some sort of assistance.

Josanna:

I think that's one of the things I love is it provides that assistance or it gives them something that they can kind of control. I think one of the things we hear a lot from patients is, once they get diagnosed and they're in the midst of treatment, they feel like everything that they used to know to be true is different, and with the skincare guide you're able to remind practical tips or simple skincare strategies that help someone be able to make a difference on their skin. We know that when the skin is cared for, it helps to reduce the risk of infection.

Josanna:

We know that not only does caring for the skin provide benefits to the skin, potentially helping to minimize the side effects that they experience from treatment but, it also has the ability to help someone feel better, when the skin isn't so itchy, when the skin isn't so uncomfortable, when they're able to be dressed and kind of go about their daily life without their skin bothering them.

Josanna:

That also plays a huge role into them being able to adhere to their medical treatment. We talk a lot about an example with radiation is that when there's a break in the skin barrier, then they actually have to stop treatment. The goal is how can we get through treatment on schedule. And that's one of the things I love about this is how can we have simple recommendations that, obviously in accordance with what their medical team is telling them, they're able to have this sense of control. And I think that's one of the things that I love the most about it. And what makes it a joy to share is that you're giving someone something that they can then take control of and go and do as much or as little of it as they want, but helps them kind of feel better.

Raejan:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really great resource, too for caregivers. You know, sometimes we interact with people that might be caring for either their parent or even children and they don't really know how to address the skin concerns that their person is dealing with. So it's even just a really great resource to have on hand for somebody who may not be experiencing cancer themselves but is, helping someone else with what they're going through and helping to try and mitigate those side effects. Another thing is it's also brand agnostic, so there's nothing in here that's going to pinpoint you to what to buy from who, but really it focuses on those ingredients and I love that about it because it helps people really kind of take that and put it into either their own budget or their own accessibility so they can find something at a store nearby or they can look up these ingredients online and order something that actually aligns with what they have the capability of getting.

Josanna:

I think that's a key part, because, when we were looking at creating the skincare guide, we don't want it to be a marketing tool that says, hey, these are the items you need to go buy, but using the knowledge we have of different studies that are out there, knowing what ingredients have great effects on the skin, and just giving people the tools of how they can go to wherever they normally purchase their product and they can understand what is the right thing for them, with the goal of understanding these are key ingredients that we know either are great at hydrating the skin or great at helping with inflammation or great at helping to calm the skin, and so I think that's another key point, just that you pointed out. The idea of that brand agnostic is huge because it gives the information but then still allows everyone their own kind of independence and ability to utilize and buy product from wherever they want to.

Raejan:

Yeah, it's a really of sort of simple tips and tricks that you wouldn't really even ever think of unless you were going through this. And then it's kind of like, oh wow, I literally never would have thought about that.

Raejan:

For example, one of my favorite things in there talks about if you're going through radiation in the breast area and you still need to wear a bra with your shirts. You can always use a cotton tank top first to kind of put a barrier in between the skin and the bra and then have the other shirt on top of it. So even simple things like that that I wouldn't have necessarily thought to recommend to a client prior to this skincare guide. Um, it has all sorts of things in there and we'll have podcasts that are a deeper dive into things like radiation and caring for the skin during radiation and things like that. But just these simple tips and tricks are again something that people wouldn't necessarily have in the front of their mind when they're first going through this. So it just helps mitigate some of the discomfort that comes from these treatment options.

Josanna:

Yeah and I think, having an understanding of you know, focusing on, okay, I'm going through radiation, what are some things that I can do? Or I'm taking chemo, what are some different things that I can do. I think that's one of the things that's great about the guide is it kind of has these different sections that meet you wherever you are in your journey and help you be able to have some really easy to read bullet points on things that you can do to make a difference that we talk a lot about just throughout the skincare guide. There's kind of three things that we focus on, regardless of where you are in treatment, and that's just a simple, effective routine of cleansing, hydrating and protecting.

Josanna:

So we know that it's important to keep the skin cleansed with like a pH balanced cleanser. So once you've cleansed with something that's nice and neutral, we know that it's really important to hydrate the skin. Depending on what you're experiencing through your treatment, you may need even more hydration than normal, which we will dive into, but looking for ingredients like organic aloe vera, allotonin, shea butter. These ingredients help to keep the skin feeling hydrated, but also feeling better.

Josanna:

And then we always want to talk about the importance of protecting the skin from the sun. You know protecting your skin from the sun is always important, but especially when you're going through cancer treatment, the skin can very easily become more sensitive to the sun due to the treatments that you're experiencing. So it's important to make sure you're always protecting the skin with a broad spectrum sunscreen and that you're reapplying it throughout the day, Especially when you're going through cancer treatment and you're taking either chemo or radiation things that make the skin more sensitive. We really would like to double click on that, because you want to make sure you're protecting the skin as best as possible.

Raejan:

So I think now's a good time to just kind of go through the actual index. What does the skincare guide cover in totality? What can people expect to actually find in here?

Josanna:

So, within the skincare guide, it's going to have some basic information about how to care for your skin, either on your face, on your body. How to address, really dry skin on the hands and feet , at the end of the day, it's all the body but we experience it in different places and in different ways. We talk a little bit about that dryness on the scalp, which tends to cause itchiness, and what you can do.

Josanna:

Sometimes the medication that you're on may cause rashes or blemishes that look like acne but are not acne, and oftentimes you want to treat it in a certain way, because you don't necessarily want to treat it as if it's this crazy oil caused acne, but you want to be able to treat it the right way. So we talk about that. If the skin's just more irritated or sensitive, there's a section on that Scars. That's a key thing that a lot of people end up experiencing when they're going through oncology treatment. So how to prepare the skin, but then also how to help treat the skin after surgery. You know there's a time period after you've had surgery where your doctor is going to have very specific guidelines, but then you hit this point where the doctor allows you to start doing your own skin care, and that's where we come in and try to help, both in our services that we provide, to help the skin heal really well, but also how you can work with that at home. We talk a lot about protecting the skin from the sun. Like I said a minute ago, we talk about how you can prepare your skin before medical treatment. So if you know that you're going to start radiation or you're going to have surgery, there are things that you can do to help get the skin in a healthier condition prior to that.

Josanna:

We also have some great information in there about what you should and shouldn't do when it comes to makeup. There's some different recommendations out there. You may have people that are like oh well, if you've lost your lashes, put fake eyelashes on, and we talk about how that's not necessarily the best thing to do because the eyes are so sensitive and having adhesive around the eyes isn't great. So just kind of tips of what you should and shouldn't do. And also, for hair loss, how to you know properly shave the head. If that's something that you're interested in, what are different things that you can do just to help minimize the effects of hair fall? And so it's a small book. It's an easy download, as Ray mentioned, but it has a lot of information and it's a lot of just different tips and recommendations that I think are really helpful.

Raejan:

It definitely is, and, again, we have that available in a digital form for free. So, if you would like to, we're going to have the link in the show notes. You can also find it on our website at wwwricardofesasfoundationorg. Thank you for joining us. We hope you found this information helpful. It's your reviews and feedback that help make this podcast even better. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who might benefit. Until next time, take care, stay radiant. Leave a review and share it with someone who might benefit.

Raejan:

Until next time, take care, stay radiant, and we'll see you soon.