Skincare Trends Debunked

The most viral at-home skincare hacks — what's harmless, what's risky, and what's just flat-out wrong.

They break down the egg white, honey, coffee and toilet paper mask, the truth about DIY scrubs on your face versus your body, why refined sugar accelerates aging and inflammation, and why at-home microneedling is one of the most dangerous trends circulating right now — from needle depth and quality to infection risk and improper reuse.

They also tackle: potatoes, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, toothpaste on skin, ice depuffing, over-exfoliation, and the "burning means it's working" myth. Plus — how to spot filters and AI-generated before and afters in ads, why SPF is non-negotiable every single day, and how to actually vet a skincare trend before trying it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

You know, I saw this online that you should be doing this for your skin and they really shouldn't be. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 0:08

Love and hate relationship all over again.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Oh my god, so much. Because I do have some videos that I found of some like at-home hacks for your skin, and I wanted to get your opinion on it. Okay. See what you guys thought about it. Okay. Alright, so let's take a look here. Um, let's see. So this one is just the ingredients that go into something. I'm gonna show you the video right now. Oh my god. So it has uh honey, some egg white, it has uh just of the starting, like leave that up.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Go to the kitchen and make yourself a coffee. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Like so this is what she's doing here natural votes?

SPEAKER_05 0:50

What? Is that toilet paper?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

It is toilet paper. In between, you let it harden and then you peel it off.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

So I mean, I think this is great for TikTok uh for you, for people to get views.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

So, like, is do egg whites do anything for you when you put it on your skin? Or is there anything here that maybe you take away from it that might actually do something?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

So I was gonna go first because I'm like much older than these two beauties here. Um, I grew up where my mother and all my mother's friends would do egg white masks once a week. And an egg white mask will dry and tighten, like just crazy tighten. And then you physically peeled it off and then rinsed your face. And it was a nice way to tighten and temporarily brighten your skin. Temporarily. We're talking that night to the next morning, the effects technically are gone. Yeah, but you know, it was a non-harmful way to use a natural ingredient on your skin for a little booster. Coffee grinds are an excellent exfoliant. I don't understand where why why the toilet paper. What were you gonna say, Monica?

SPEAKER_04 1:58

Well, I was gonna say all of these ingredients, like honey or coffee, like they can be great ingredients in skincare products, and they are used in a lot of things. Like you see honey in a lot of like hydrating products or coffee, like Kim said, as an exfoliant. Um, I don't think that they're gonna provide you long-term results of if you're just you know grabbing the coffee, not just even once, but like if you're just grabbing coffee and you know, scrubbing, yeah, that can be a nice exfoliant, but it I don't know. I just feel like when things are from the kitchen shelf and have no uh prep proper preparation, there's just so much potential for irritation and for uh allergies or you know, too thick of a coffee uh grind, and then it's just you're gonna break the skin.

SPEAKER_06 2:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

It's not that it's bad, like all these are good ingredients, and like Kim said, like maybe an egg white mask might give you a boost for that night. Perfectly fine. If you're not allergic to it, that's great. But don't expect any of this to be a natural Botox, like it was not.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

If that was gonna work for natural Botox, there would never be a lot of people. There would be no Botox. But seriously, what were you saying about the the toilet paper?

SPEAKER_05 3:19

Because I don't understand why I feel like what she was trying to do was like a sheet mask. Yeah, that's why she was using the toilet paper to just like which did for me it didn't work because it came peeling off.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Well, because she did one layer, then the other thing that didn't look like most of it was on the outside of it? Nothing. I think it's the particle in it.

SPEAKER_05 3:37

Yeah, I didn't know what she was. The particle on the toilet paper itself would just clog. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

It's not well, because I think she put it first and then the toilet paper and then another layer, you see?

SPEAKER_05 3:49

Okay, she just would have done it without the toilet paper would have been.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

See, it looks like more of it's on the paper than under the paper. So I'm just like, what are you doing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

So for this at home, should people try this really or should they just pass?

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Pass. Yeah. I mean, don't waste your time. I don't think anything, I don't think unless you're like uh allergic to it, nothing bad will happen. But what are you achieving? Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

So this person decided to do an exfoliant to get rid of dead skin, and uh they're just doing these ingredients right here the cinnamon, the coconut oil, and they're scrubbing away. So, how do you feel about things that are scrubs that people make themselves? Should they not really be doing it because they can potentially be scratching their skin? Or because I see a lot of things with sugar and things like that. Like, is that something to they should do or no?

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Did you wanna? I mean, for the body to me, that's fine.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

I was gonna say there our body itself has different skin, you know, texture and its eyes. So our face is more delicate than our actual um skin in our arms and our legs. If you're using it, let's say, from neck down or declete down, that's perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Right.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

If you're using it on the face, on the other hand, no, I agree a hundred percent. You would have to be a lot more careful.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, I agree because where your sugar scrubs, um, unless you're using brown sugar like they did here, um, granulated sugar will give you more of a satisfying feeling of exfoliation on your body. But if your your declete is very delicate, your neck is delicate, so that should only be used, you know, from the chest down. Um, because I think we're all fans of homemade scrubs, but they're for scrubbing because I love this. What is this? It's actually not bad. Reduces cellulate.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So I've got to do it.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

Come on, man. Or it does it. It does not prevent, it does not prevent it, it removes dead skin. But it does remove dead skin. I might leave your skin glowy too, because it has you're not gonna prevent premature aging.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

You're it's not gonna reduce cellulite. No, you're not gonna repair UV damage. Um it might temporarily help with the appearance of stretch marks if you have ropey stretch marks. If you have just regular stretch marks that are flushed to the skin and they're the typical white lines, uh home scrub is not gonna do anything. You know, like my favorite one is um we have a patient, has been with us for like 15 years, uh, or whatever it is. I can't do the backwards, the reverse mouth, but she's been with us forever, and she's amazing. Like, she's down with all of the latest technology and the education on the why and the how and the where, and then you know, um, she sees the result and she loves it, and she's a huge advocate of our treatments. However, in the same vein, bizarrely enough, she will come in and be like, or she'll text me and or she'll ask um Melanie or Monica. I've seen that$20 new miracle cream, what do you think? And I've given her the same response over every single year, all the years we know her, and she'll still ask when a new product comes out. The bottom line is if there's a miracle cream out there for$20 or$40, and it's supposed to erase all your crepes or lift or tighten or remove your cellulate, if it worked, it would be sold out for probably at least 10 years. You would probably only be able to find it on the black market and um like the dark internet or whatever, and it would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_05 7:27

Millions.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So, and we would all be out of a job.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

So, like, we need to use a little common sense. The majority of your miracle creams are going to be occlusive, right? Where they're they can be moisturizing for sure. But if you're younger, um you know, like talking about extracting congestion for congested skin with acne. Um what the ladies were saying about that satisfaction of performing that for a patient, a lot of that congestion and breakout quite often is brought on by people trying something that's anti-aging and it's too strong for their skin because they're too young or their skin is too oily, they don't need it.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Now, do you think uh the consumption of like sugar causes you to break out or have worse skin?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

To me, sugar is the root of all evil. I love sugar, but it is definitely like the second coming there.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

So, this next video I think is gonna trigger you, and you'll see why. But at least in the beginning, she does comment about sugar being let's see.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Is that true? If you want to make your skin, cut that excess sugar because it's actually aging faster than time. Collagen, it is the holy grail. It's in that makes our skin look firm, bright, and beautiful. And when you get the 30s, it starts to decline rapidly and make it fast. So you need to look for ways and practice things that actually help display collagen. So here are a few ways that you can actually do that. Number one, microinfusion or microneedling, it creates tiny controlled injuries into your skin. Actually, tell your skin to produce more collagen. Another thing I like to do is supplement with hydrolyzed collagen.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So, what do you feel about someone promoting microneedling and it seems like to do it at your yourself at home? Like with the device that she was using. Is that considered microneedling? What is that?

SPEAKER_04 9:25

I mean, well, that one specifically, just because I see the the name, um, it's it comes in like a vial already with the serum. I don't know the exact depth. I don't think because they're selling it too for home, I don't think the depth is too, I don't think it goes very deep.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

They're usually set at 0.5.

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:42

So that's more like a treatment than I would consider to memorify.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be. I mean, she looks pretty red, so I don't know that that's what you would want to be.

SPEAKER_05 9:51

I don't think she's even figuring out where she started and where she stopped. Right. Yeah. She went to one side and then she went to the other.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Well, I'm not a fan of home microneedling. Right. Microneeling or laser. Right. Anything.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

People laser themselves at home.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Well, there are some devices in their devices. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

I mean, I don't think it'll do much.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

But I'm sorry, you're saying with microneedling at home, why are you totally against it?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Because there are certain depths that you should be not you should not be exceeding on certain areas of the face. You know, so 0.5 is aggressive around your eyes, especially and on your forehead, because obviously there's not as much cushion to the layers as there are on the other parts of your face. But when you're microneedling yourself at home, um, these are not single-use little packets usually. And even if they are, some people I've already heard of patients that will just refill them. They don't realize they're supposed to throw them away. You're supposed to put them in a sharps container and they're a biohazard. They're supposed to be medically disposed of. Who do you know doing micronealing at home is doing that?

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Very true.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

You know what I mean? So uh the quality of the needles, uh, there's certain companies that will guarantee that they're medical grade stainless steel, single-use, uh, sterile needles. But how many companies are not guaranteeing any of the above? So there's huge potential for excessive damage and for bacterial infections. And we've excelled at being able to revise these botch jobs. So I, for one, 100% against home microneedling. Um, but she is right that you know, we all know that um, or and for the patients, you should know that sugar is a fuel basically for cancer cells, and sugar also refined sugar accelerates cell death. Um, it it is a huge inflammatory ingredient, and the reason, the cause of cell death is inflammation.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Oh wow. So you agreed with her in the beginning until she whipped out that little microneedling pen.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Right. I'm not again, I mean, I think I believe this she is uh an Australian aesthetician. Okay. I believe she's a professional. So uh I d I I'm not sure why or how this whole thing came about. Her message is correct. Um just like I'm just like, don't do it at home.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Hire a professional.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

And then how do you feel about potatoes?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Because of what?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

God, it's her just to eat a glowing skin too. They brighten dark spots, calm, break out, and make your skin super smooth. Just slice potatoes, place them on your face for 20 minutes, then wipe with warm clothes. Hello, natural glow.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Do you know if there's any truth to that? No, there isn't. There isn't.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

I mean you can try. I I I I I dare people to go try put potatoes and see if that's if their skin in the looks like they just have it.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Right. There's some there's starch, um, certain kind of enzymatic action from certain starches and certain potatoes that might temporarily help around the under-eye area.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Like for a second.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Because I've noticed like I've noticed like a lot of different uh foods.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Cucumber, and then like putting it. We could take this to so many different places. That's a mighty big cucumber there, darling.

unknown 13:09

My eye bikes.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

So is but is there like things in certain fruit or vegetables or potatoes that like once interacting with your skin, it does do something for you?

SPEAKER_04 13:18

For sure. All these ingredients are used in skincare, but like putting a potato on your skin is.

SPEAKER_05 13:24

Probably have better results eating it than actually putting it out of place, to be honest. And grow up in a household that you don't waste food. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Well, this one specifically with the cucumber, I I I think it's frozen. And so probably the the the coldness of it, it's what's uh depuffing it a bit. That's sure, that's fine. You have no there's no harm in like grabbing, I don't know, a cold uh spoon or like uh, you know, something like that to like maybe drain fluid. Like you're not you're not gonna harm yourself.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

What about with just ice directly on your face? I heard that was just directly, no.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Yeah, so definitely always on like a tissue or something. Again, it's always gonna be temporary. I don't think it's going to but it it it's great, like it reduces inflammation. I specifically, I like if you see, like if there's a pimple brewing under the skin, not directly on the skin, but with like a tissue or something, I like icing it for a few minutes in the morning and at night. That's not gonna fully remove it, but it's gonna help reduce the inflammation. But then I combine that with, you know, treatments or skincare products or something. I wouldn't rely just on the cucumber or just on the ice.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Exactly. Like a tried skin. Right, exactly. Like a tried and true thing to do with your avocado when it goes bad. Not when it's mushy bad, but when it was just past the point of where you want to eat it, is again like Monica said, if you're if you're not allergic to it, you could use it with honey or other natural ingredients from your cupboard and your fridge for a face mask or a body mask or a hair mask, like Monica just said, like beer. If you don't want to drink it, you could rinse your hair with beer as a clarifying agent.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

But there are other things too that a lot of people do live by, like um, they say like lemon juice for cider vinegar. And like for dark spots. Is that true? Not true?

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Lemon for what?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Lemon juice for uh on the face for dark spots.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

No, that's gonna create dark spots. Lemon, if you if you put any citrus on the skin and you go to the sun, that's a recipe for disaster.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

And to the pimple queen over here that loves extractions. What about toothpaste on on pimples or anything like that?

SPEAKER_05 15:26

No, it's like you might as well just put an oxygen on it if you're gonna put no, no.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Well, toothpaste has a drying agent to it, but you could actually exasperate the area. Um, quite often if someone has like a contact dermatitis type of small papial breakout around their mouth, it's because they've changed their toothpaste to one that doesn't agree with their body pH. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Oh, wow. You can actually burn the area as well. If it's very sensitive, you can burn the rims where the breakout is as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I remember I was in eighth grade going or seventh grade going on a school trip, and that was a big deal. That's when you had to have your special outfit and everything at the cool lunch. And for some reason I broke out a little bit on my forehead, and I was so desperate. So I just took some and I smeared it on my whole forehead. The next day it was like almost like it's raised, like it felt like uh plasticky or like crunchy almost.

SPEAKER_06 16:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

And then it just started to break and like feel like crazy. So if the from there, I was like, maybe it does work, but I put too much. Because over the years I had tried, like, let me put a dot here, put a dot here.

SPEAKER_06 16:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

But uh, I tried to avoid it now because I heard that's not really too good to do often.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Right, exactly. I mean, I think just like too close off the whole food and thing of all these TikTok things. Most of these things are not gonna be harmful. Like it can be fun, like as an activity, like, oh, you know, a mother-daughter thing or with a friend, like let's do honey masks. Like it can be fun. Just don't expect Botox in the potato, you know what I mean? Like just that, like, do it for fun and do it like as a nice thing to do. But you know, if you really want real results, come to ITX.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Very good. And then another question, because you did bring this up earlier when you said, like, you know, you don't people don't want to feel anything, but you say you have to feel something.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

Sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

So one thing that I constantly see, like people thinking like irritation equals effectiveness, like, oh, it's burning, so that means it's really working. Is there any truth to that?

SPEAKER_05 17:25

That is not true.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Not true. If it's burning, like you should take it off.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

But if it's burning, no. I say more as a joke, and in that sense, yeah. I like, at least for me, for me, and this might be like more like an old school or like you know, like when they say, like, if you don't feel something, then it's not effective or anything like that. Not anymore. Um, that like when you used to get a chemical peel, if you weren't feeling anything, oh, that's not effective, it's not it's not strong enough or anything. Technology has advanced so much, even you know, products, ingredients, that you're you don't have to feel anything anymore. The the so the the effective stuff of how your skin is looking should be enough as to you to know what it is or to know how that this is working for you exactly. Um, we don't have to, you know, peel our skins off anymore to make sure that we're having that results that we want. I said it more as a joke in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Oh no, but also to clarify, you were right that with microneedling, you don't want to be in extreme pain, but your point was you do want to feel something. Yeah, feel something.

SPEAKER_05 18:27

More especially at a certain point. It's like it's like acupuncture in a sense. You might feel like a little bit between your glabella, or you might feel a little bit, you know, around the eye or anything like that. It's to the point of that you feel like you're in excruciating pain that somebody's just like slashing you alive or something like that. No, not at that point.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Right. That becomes an issue with patients in my age bracket and above, because in early aesthetics, we didn't have anything that was pain-free, that was downtime free when it came to anti-aging. Everything was no pain, no gain. That's the time frame that it came from, was back in the 70s and 80s at the birth of what is now modern aesthetics. So, you know, I always and the ladies too, that we always have to remind our older patients that you don't want to suffer through this. So, especially with some, we you should be comfortable. I was just gonna say we don't want you, you know, jumping around on the bed like a fish, or we don't want you white-neckling the sides of the mattress, and we don't want to see little beads of sweat or involuntary tears, like known to all of this. I mean, we pain manage for laser treatments. You know, we try we use pronox. There are legal ways to work together to keep you in a comfort zone where you still get the maximum results. So stop expecting to have to torture yourself through this. It's there's no point in it anymore.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

And then you mentioned somacelle, just for the people that are not so familiar with somacelle. Could you briefly explain what it is?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

I think we can all probably do that. If he knocked us over the heads and we ended up in the ICU, we could still pop up and say somicelle is. So somicelle is not heat, and it is a non-surgical facelift treatment that also does work on body parts for um improving the appearance of cellulate and for body sculpting to be able to work on like GLP1 loose skin to tighten it, or just loose skin from natural weight loss to help tone up those areas. But uh I my main focus for creating it was to lift and tighten the facial skin uh without pain, without downtime, without sun withdrawal time, regardless of your adult age, your gender, and regardless of your sun exposure. So it's easy. It's like literally easy peasy. You can come in, you get your treatment, you don't suffer your way through it. The results come through quickly, they're lasting, and you can go right back to your day. I love what you were both pointing out, though. It's like you can watch your TikTok trends, you can try a few things for fun, but please don't come in and be like, Melanie, here's a picture of this, and I want to look like this overnight. And it's a person that's of a completely different ethnicity, right? Completely different age bracket, completely different skin tones, completely different bone structure. Yum, you get this with hair all the time, right? Um, especially like, hey, give me Ferro Fawcett hair and your hair sticks straight back in the day, right? Like this is not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

So they want black hair, they have black hair, they want this blonde, like Chloe Kardashian look. Right. Just like that. Same thing. It's like a journey, it'll take a long time. And and sometimes you can't even get there because your hair can handle it, you know? So right.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

And your skin is the same. So uh we'll commit to the patient, and they, as Monica pointed out, also, they have to trust us that we're going to guide them to their goal. It might not be a straight path, it might not be the path they expected, but we'll explain why and we'll educate why, and we'll work together with their skin every single time they come in to get them to where they want to be in a safe and effective manner.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Very nice. And if you want to actually, I have a quick light. Round of myth or fact if you guys wanted to do that real quick. So just say myth, fact, and then just like one sentence of why that is. So natural products are always safer.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

Myth.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Myth? And why would you say that?

SPEAKER_04 22:15

Why why are natural products not always?

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Not always safer. Like, what is it that can be the situation?

SPEAKER_04 22:20

Well, people can be allergic to things that are in the natural products. Um allergy, I would say, is the biggest thing. Like people usually people who have allergic reactions will have stronger reactions to those natural products. Because, you know, if they have essential oils, those can be very reactive or you know, that sort of thing. Um and basically skincare is pretty safe for the most part, so people should not be terrified of them.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

What about that you need a 10-step routine for your skin?

SPEAKER_05 22:54

Myth.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Myth? And why?

SPEAKER_05 22:57

I mean, there's if you find the right product with the proper ingredients and you use it properly, which is very important. If you don't use it how you're supposed to use it, you can get an irritation as well. Basically, you're wasting your money at that point. You don't need 500 steps in order to achieve, you know, what you need in three or four. I would say what makes it more what makes it more effective is uh the consistency of using your products. You don't need 10. If you have three or four and you use it every single day or properly, how it's explained or how your statistician to you, then you're set.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Also back to irritation, like the more steps you have, the more likely that you can find something within the 10 steps that is gonna irritate you. So I don't think if it works for you and you love the routine and it gives you peace of mind every the night to spend 20 minutes putting every step, sure. Right, but it's not needed for good.

SPEAKER_05 23:55

There's also gonna be a product that it's not it's gonna work differently for Monica as it's gonna work for me. So if a product basically says in the instruction, oh you should use it every other day. If my skin is sensitive, you cannot use it every other day. You can still use the product, but you're probably gonna be able to use it maybe once a week or once or twice a week, give or take. For a person who has thicker skin, you know, maybe they can use it every other day. But it's more of how are you using as well the product?

SPEAKER_04 24:27

And I think also skincare is pretty simple for the most part. Like you don't need a 10-step routine, like you need just, you know, your good cleanse, possibly double cleanse every night, a good moisturizer, and you know, maybe an exfoliant depending on how your skin is, how the frequency, and then your antioxidants in the morning. And then those are the basics. Then you can add on other things to address the concerns you have, but it doesn't like if it's 10 steps, it doesn't mean that you're gonna achieve those things.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Right. You can add the toner to balance pH, but it also depends on your age and your skin needs. Like you were saying, you know, uh a lot of patients, um, their skin can handle having the serum and the moisturizer up not in your eye, but up close to the lower eyelash line instead of adding an eye cream. You know, the eyes you get, you will want to incorporate a specific eye cream that has stronger emollients for that area. However, the majority of younger patients can get away without using, for example. So that's exactly what um Monica and Melanie were saying. It depends on the patient, it depends on how you're using it and how often you're using it.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

And should SPF be always one of these things? Yes, yes, I learned that from someone.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

That is the number one.

SPEAKER_05 25:42

You can be doing everything else. Bible have to do it like that is something that it should be in your routine.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Chemical free every day, even on cloudy days, even on rainy days, even if you work in an office, uh, UV lights give off UV, overhead lighting. If you're near a window, yeah, you're going to be absorbing UV through that window or those overheads. So a little chemical-free every day will go a long way.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

And then last I have here, um, more exfoliation uh more exfoliation equals clearer skin.

unknown 26:15

No.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

No, myth.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Myth? Any reason why?

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Well, over-exfoliating the skin is gonna create sensitivity, it can make the skin barrier um impaired, and so your skin is just not going to be um healing properly for whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

Can cause even more impurities, right?

SPEAKER_04 26:37

Oh, gotcha. When you're when you overexfoliate, if the skin gets too dry, then the skin might overproduce oil, thinking that it needs that break out very easily.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

So you can break out and so sometimes too much of something is just too much. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

With skin and on your face in particular, it's a golden rule that too much of anything is always just too much and it's never good.

SPEAKER_04 26:57

Except sunscreen. No, okay. Right, that's true. That's true, actually.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

As long as it's chemical free. However, um, for example, most Korean, most top Korean lines, skincare lines, will never carry the ingredients retinol and niacinamide, which we've talked about on our social media posts before because they force cell turnover. And every American is gonna be like, oh my God, I'm not gonna watch this podcast anymore because I can't believe she just said retinol, niacinamide are bad ingredients. But we especially when you're stacking them and you're using them all the time, you're constantly forcing cell turnover, destroying the skin barrier, taking away your skin's natural protective, um, transparent layer, and it's too much. So when you are constantly exfoliating, you're creating a hyper-dry situation that turns into dehydration. And when you have dry, dehydrated skin, you look older. You you're wide open for fine lines and wrinkles prematurely. So, and then what happens when you're looking in the mirror and you're like, oh, now I look extra haggard, and where are these fine lines coming from? And I don't want to have wrinkles, so now you're going to force more cell turnover and use those products even more often, and maybe even exfoliate more often. And now your skin is probably irritated and has fine lines and wrinkles. So you're reaching for more products and more products and more products, and you get in that hamster well and you're trapped there.

SPEAKER_06 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

And you never end up with the results that you're physically looking for. So the point is less is more. Get some professional guidance, and um, you know, as both Monica and Melanie pointed out, and then take it easy on yourself because Rome wasn't built in a day, and you're not going to be able to change your face overnight. But with the right simplified, targeted skincare program and professional help, you can get to wherever it is you want to go and not create all your own problems.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah, so I have some, I have to be honest. So yesterday I did this zombie mask thing that's on TikTok that I got. I had a little bit of video for it. The not the coffee one. It's uh, I think it has an egg on the cover. So it's maybe based on the egg whites, it tightens your face, makes it really tight, um, and it starts to crack or whatever, and then you wipe it off.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Oh, but you bought it. You didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

It made my skin really red, and also then it made me like draw out two big bumps right here. And then I just like I don't know what to do. So then I was like, I don't want to really want to squeeze it. So I put pressure and I just received something, I don't know who made me sent it to me, but said, like, this is the danger zone with things you don't want to squeeze.

SPEAKER_06 29:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

So then I'm like, oh my god, I shouldn't touch it, now it's all red. And I was like, let me try one of the pimple patches, and I put that on there, and I'm like, it's making it red. Like, I was in mess yesterday. I did not know what to do. Luckily, I woke up today and it like subsided a bit, but uh, but it's so true. Like when you're home and you don't know what to do with your skin, you really do everything. And you I probably irritated the hell out of it, made it so much worse before actually leaving it alone and it like got calm again, you know?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Right, exactly. So stay everyone, please just stay away from the trends. Stay away from the trends, stay away from the trends. You can ask about trends, uh, get educated about trends. Some of the trends occasionally will be something that you could incorporate into your own routine. The majority of them are for clickbait and they're for shock factor to get you to watch. It's not something that's meant to work on your face. And the thing that always makes me laugh, and I don't understand why the general population doesn't notice quite often, is that this person that's like, oh, let me smear all this blah, blah, blah, on my face, right? And look at what we're doing, and then and then that after photo is like, ah, but then when you look at it, you don't even have to look closely, and it's like filtered and special. Like and it's like, dude, what are you doing? Like this, you're trying to sell everybody on this TikTok trend, but then you filtered the crap out of yourself afterwards. Like, why? You know, so please watch the trend to the end and notice the filter because if they needed the filter, obviously that stupid trend didn't work.

SPEAKER_06 30:59

So true, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

So just you know, just remember there's a lot of paid product placement, there's a lot of clickbait, there's a lot of shock factor. It's purposely meant to draw us in, to garner the views, the likes, and the subscriptions. So let's let a couple of these neurons fire properly and then utilize that information. You know, none of us have to be geniuses, just use your common sense. That's all.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Very true. So, overall, we shouldn't trust everything that we see on social media. I mean, I think that it's true that we have to be careful with what the people are trying to sell us, that people do add filters to things and and but it's just so hard to really establish, like, unless you're a professional. Um I would say you don't have to be a professional to notice some things, like it's obvious, but I think overall, like not having the same knowledge that you guys have, it gets a little scary. You buy these things, you don't know what's gonna happen, or like, does this trend actually work? That's why I had a whole bunch of them. It was like not just for fun, it was kind of like because I wanted to know. Not that not the potatoes, but some of the other ones I probably would have tried. So I just, you know, so I appreciate your input when it comes to things like that.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Well, absolutely. So I think our take and what we always try to educate our patients on is that especially in this realm of AI now, it's actually much harder. You can spot the filter, but with AI, sometimes it really looks real. So uh the best thing to do when in doubt is you could um share that story or that TikTok trends post, whatever it is, share that to us, tag us in it, and drop a comment and be like, hey, and then tag that whatever it is you saw for the trends and ask, what is this? Does it work? And we'd love to get back to you on that one.