Transcript
Speaker: following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Maybe it's not a very stable vitamin C. So like one of the problems with vitamin C is it loses potency, it oxidizes over time. And so if you are buying a liquid vitamin C and when you take it home and it's been sitting on the shelf for six months,
Speaker: It's been dying on that shelf because if it's not a stable sea, it's probably now not even that effective when you take it home. This episode of Two Kids and a Career is brought to you by Elemental Aesthetics. You can be guaranteed that your experience is going to be unique and customized to your specific needs. See how they can help you focus on natural beauty enhancements by visiting elementalaesthetics .com.
Speaker: Hi there and welcome to Two Kids and a Career. I'm Jill Devine. As an entrepreneur, wife, and mama, the daily grind of trying to build a business while taking care of kids and trying to maintain a healthy connection with my hubby, it's a lot. With this podcast, you're going to hear candid conversations with other moms.
Speaker: parenting experts who can share their knowledge and insight, or you'll just hear me rambling to get it all out. There's going to be tears, there's going to be laughter, but most importantly, there will be support. Take a listen and connect with me so we can grow and learn from one another. This is Two Kids and a Career.
Speaker: Welcome to this week's conversation. It is a continuation from last week's conversation with Jennifer Warman -Bloss. In last week's conversation, we really talked about some of these hot words that are happening when we're talking about weight loss and peptides and amino acids and all of that. So if you are interested in learning a little bit more and learning about Jennifer's take on that,
Speaker: Please go back and listen to last week's episode. Now, Jennifer is joining me for this week's episode to talk about anti -aging and how to do it on a budget, some stuff that we should talk about.
Speaker: The thing with Jennifer is she is an aesthetician who is so amazing. She is the CEO of elemental aesthetics. This is where I go for all of my facials and beauty needs and elemental aesthetics has been a sponsor of the podcast.
Speaker: for quite some time. And what I'm learning in just even talking to my group of friends is this idea of going to a place like elemental aesthetics to get a facial. When I say facial, it's like, oh, we're going to clean your face and maybe do a little bit of this and then just be relaxed, which is totally fine. But I have learned over the years that I need a facial that is going to
Speaker: keep my skin good and get it young. So I think it was, I mentioned this in another episode that you had told me, Jennifer, tell me if I'm wrong in this, but that, well, one of the things that you pride yourself in is that you can help anyone do this naturally, aging naturally. And was it you or the age of the woman
Speaker: Was she in her 80s or in my 80s? Yes, I have one. Tell me about her, yes. She is in her 80s. And the thing that's so amazing about her is she hasn't done a lot of like cosmetic surgery or any of those kinds of things. She has been diligent about getting facials, getting a couple lasers a year.
Speaker: and using good skincare, and she looks 60. I mean, but she has done this forever. I mean, she has been on it since her 20s.
Speaker: And that's my goal. It shows up. It definitely shows up. I want to look 60 when I'm 80 and I want to keep coming. And I've talked about that because sometimes people think that in order to look your best, you have to get fillers and you have to get surgery. And you don't have to. If you choose to go that route, that's fine. And you want to make sure you talk to you because you want to make it look natural.
Speaker: I mean, I do, like my personal protocol is a regular facial at least every six to eight weeks and a couple big lasers a year. And I do do a little bit of, I do the Botox alternative that's called JAVO, which is more natural looking, but maybe twice a year. So I'm not the, like, I'm not the person that's coming in every three months for Botox. And, you know,
Speaker: And I'm almost 52 and the goal is that I don't look 52, but I also am not trying to look 25. Right. And I would say that when, again, we talked about this in last week's episode, but coming in and seeing real people.
Speaker: you look beautiful to me, you don't look fake. And that's huge. Yeah. And honestly, everyone in our office is like that. True. Very true. If you come in and we do have a lot of staff with filler and stuff, even that can be done in a beautiful and natural way. It's just all about the injector's hand and
Speaker: And that makes a huge difference too. So those things even can play into the long -term goal for somebody, but it doesn't have to make you look like a weird Hollywood actor that doesn't look like themselves anymore.
Speaker: Yes, we all know. We always play the game in our house when we're watching a movie of what did they do to their face? Nobody wants that. You don't want to just be that person. Talk to me though when you mention lasers. I know what that means, but what does that mean to
Speaker: the average Joe walking into your place and you're like lasers and people automatically, oh my gosh, lasers, what? Okay, so talk through that. So like most of them are pretty passive. They use light energy or they use maybe a gas to help
Speaker: uh, restructure the tissue. And essentially what we're doing with the laser is we're intentionally doing a little bit of injury to trick your body into fixing itself. And that produces a really beautiful and natural result because that's your body doing the work. Um, so it might be worth trying to remove age spots. It's crazy how removing age spots off of a face can just dramatically make someone look younger.
Speaker: Maybe we're fighting wrinkles, maybe we're fighting acne or texture. We have one that does, it will permanently remove under eye bags. Like if people have those big heavy bags, we can now without surgery, get them off your face. Same for like under chin fat. We can now with a laser, remove that chin fat for good.
Speaker: And so that stuff is amazing because here you are, you don't have to be under anesthesia, under a knife, and there's these amazing options to improve how you look with a little downtime, but most of them are not terrible. And you just feel that you have a little more pep in your step, basically. And would you say, and I know we talked a little bit about
Speaker: anti -aging on a budget that those options are doable. Yeah. If you set it aside or like one thing that we do when people are trying to budget for a laser, because there are some that are kind of, you know, they're, they're expensive, maybe in the six to $900 range. But the advantage to them is that
Speaker: you do them one time and you look fantastic and it holds for a long time. So then we have people that will literally just put $100 a month on a gift card to themselves, you know, and just budget and set it aside. Like it's amazing to me how people of all economic echelons find a way to fix this if it is in their heart to fix it. And it's fun to be a part of that.
Speaker: I kind of want to transition into, and I know I'm going to use me as the example, but I think that there might be other women like me, you know, on a budget, very concerned about my skin and definitely have taken care of it diligently over the years. And a lot of that has to do from my painful past of having acne and
Speaker: What's it's, it's hard because I will try a bunch of different skincare regimens. And I'm like, gosh, I cannot afford this skincare advertising chaser.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes. And then I'll think, okay, well, if it's sold over the counter at my local pharmacy, then is that even doing anything? And so you and I had a really long talk about this. And I think it's important for the listener to know like, you are not a salesperson.
Speaker: No, no. Shoot it straight. And so that's where I want to talk about this. Because again, I kind of almost wish we had recorded our conversation yesterday and just presented it here. But one of my big things, and again, this is me. I am traumatized from my past and my acne. And everything that I see is magnified.
Speaker: I'm getting better. I'm trying to get better in my skin. I mean, I'm trying. You have acne PTSD. I do. Yeah. And so then when I see things and then I feel dirty and I'm like, I do all the things. I clean, I moisturize, I tone, I do everything. And then I just, I feel gross. And then
Speaker: it takes you to come in and talk to me and talk me off the ledge and what I see is completely different than what you see. We've talked about this before, but I want to promote healthy versions of my skin and I just feel like I can't figure it out. Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, the reason that we talked about this yesterday is, and it's hard for me to preface this because this comes from 22 years of experience. There are good over -the -counter products. There are good MLM products that your neighbor's selling to you.
Speaker: But there is a couple of flaws. If they are able to just be sold to the general public without intervention, meaning there is no esthetician or like in our case, we have to have a physician to even carry the products that we carry because of their potency, that you aren't getting as deep in the tissue. So when you go to Sephora, you buy a great new serum.
Speaker: and you put it on your face, it's most likely just sitting on the surface. It's in the, what's called the epidermis, they're the top layers of the skin. But when you buy a, what they call them pharmaceutical grade product, and like I said, we can't even carry the lines we have without having a physician, these get to the dermis. And we're essentially prescribing it almost to you by saying this is what you need.
Speaker: And so what we talked about yesterday is there are shortcuts around this. Like I'm not particularly crazy that someone has to use my face wash because that isn't, that isn't trying to go to the dermis. So like, this is not, we don't need to kill ourselves, you know, to buy an expensive face wash from a spa.
Speaker: Um, however, if someone's having a problem like acne, then maybe that would be the time to intercede and, and switch to a little stronger pharmaceutical product. And I say pharmaceutical. That's a tough word because they're not prescriptions. They're just, the strength is very controlled and they have to, they have to clear their products at a higher level, um, to get them through the system.
Speaker: And so like some of the tips I was giving you yesterday was let's just look at your face wash. Is it a good face wash for you? Let's look at your toner. So one thing we had talked about was the downside to toner is if you're buying the wrong toner, like if you are acne prone and you're buying a hydrating toner, you're probably breaking your skin out more.
Speaker: where I'm going to guide you and say, okay, why don't you do this instead? This one has a little medication for you. It's going to control your oil a little bit better. It might exfoliate you a little bit more and it's getting deeper. So it's really working on your acne. So something
Speaker: As simple as toner, if you're an ordinary person with dryer skin, you can probably just buy a toner over the counter and be fine. But then there are other places I'm like, really, you should go this direction. For example, I truly believe treatment serums should be bought from places like us. If you really want it to work and get a good bang for your buck,
Speaker: I mean, the treatment serums on the market are crazy expensive. I'm sure you've experienced that. So even over the counter, you're spending a lot of money on, let's say, vitamin C. So let me give you a great example with that. So you go buy vitamin C from CVS or Sephora. It's expensive. It's not cheap.
Speaker: It is maybe a type of vitamin C that's not very effective. Maybe it's not a very stable vitamin C. So like one of the problems with vitamin C is it loses potency. It oxidizes over time. And so if you are buying a liquid vitamin C and when you take it home and it's been sitting on the shelf for six months,
Speaker: It's been dying on that shelf because if it's not a stable C, it's probably now not even that effective when you take it home. But if you come to us, they do all kinds of things to keep either the bottles from oxidizing or like we have one that's super cool. You take it home and you activate it at home. So now you know your vitamin C potency started today, which is super cool.
Speaker: Now, this is something, and I don't know if it is a new word or it's just being hyped up more, but it is something that you and I talked about because when I've been doing all this research, trying to find out the best stuff for me, and I kept seeing serums come up instead of moisturizers, I'm like, well, what the heck? And I don't feel like I've ever really
Speaker: approach serums as much as I have lately. I know it's not new, but do you find that it's becoming more, I don't know, popular now or I don't know. Well, I mean, skincare of the past was face wash, toner and moisturizer. Exactly. Okay. And those things are still good things to have. But skincare of now is
Speaker: really more treatment serums that's targeting your specific needs. And so it's interesting because there's a company, ZEO, it's the new version of Dr. Obagi's skin care line. And
Speaker: His philosophy is not to moisturize, but to just use treatment serums. So years ago, as an experiment, I was like, fine, I'll try it. I thought he was crazy, but what happened was my skin was better and I was spending less money. So by skipping my moisture, by finding the right serum,
Speaker: or two, then now my skin is better balanced, it's healthier, and I don't need the moisturizer. A lot of moisturizers, though, they market with the SPF. So I'm a big believer in having your SPF be separate. Okay. Generally speaking, when you do moisture in SPF, one or the other is being sacrificed. Either the moisturizer isn't that great or the SPF isn't that great.
Speaker: So we sell just straight sunscreen. We don't really sell moisture with sunscreen. I understand that you're feeling like you're short cutting things, but on the sunscreen side, you only want a sunscreen with zinc or titanium as their active ingredients. And a lot of the moisture sunscreens are filled with chemicals.
Speaker: which A, don't hold up long -term. Most of them break down within the 90 minutes of you putting them on. And they're toxic. You know, we're talking about trying to be a little more natural. Sunscreen is definitely one of those areas. You want a good zinc -based or titanium dioxide -based sunscreen. And all you have to do is flip your bottle around and see what the active ingredients are.
Speaker: Okay, so tell me again what we should be looking for in our sunscreen. Zinc or titanium dioxide. They're basically rocks. So rocks repel sun. So you're taking micronized rocks, elements, and using it and then the sun is bouncing off of you.
Speaker: And then a lot of them are waterproof naturally too. And a lot of that is in people's makeup too. There are quite a few makeups that have a zinc sunscreen base in them that are good for you. So there's a lot of choices, but getting away from anything you can't pronounce like avobenzoyne and oxy blah, blah, blah. Those guys are actually like,
Speaker: I have no data on this. And again, I always say I'm not a doctor. But I do worry about cancer risks with some of those weird, not natural sunscreens. How can you not when you start to see all this convenience stuff that happened and what the results are now? So that's, yeah, of course it's concerning. It's very concerning.
Speaker: With the sunscreen, I want to ask this, when you are typically getting ready in the morning and you wash, and then what's the steps for that? Because that's where I always get confused. I'm like, what am I supposed to put on first and second and last before my makeup? And how does this work? So an easy way for anybody sitting at home is you put your thinnest
Speaker: to thickest product on. So you wash your face, you use your runny toner and then you do your next runniest and then your thickest one goes on top. However, the exception to that is sunscreen. If you're using a zinc or titanium sunscreen, they need to be the last product. They need to be the top product so that they're sitting there reflecting the sun for you.
Speaker: And then makeup on top of that if you're doing makeup. Okay. Okay. And I am a 365 day a year sunscreen on my face wearer. And I absolutely, when you're talking about being the 80 year old that looks great, I'm telling you that zinc titanium sunscreen is one of the biggest secrets. Like if you just want that young face in the future, this is such a simple step and it will make a huge difference in your, in your long -term.
Speaker: youth.
Speaker: I wrote this down, it's kind of going all over the place because it was something that I remembered that we talked about because I went to you again, inundated on social media about these wrinkle pads. And I did ask you about them. Not this last time I saw you, the time before I'm like, so should I buy these wrinkle pads that you apply for a certain amount of time and then take off? And your answer to me, do you remember?
Speaker: It works. I mean, even the cheap Amazon chest, silicon pad, under iPad, they actually are a very effective tool, like especially the chest, because if you lay on your side while you're sleeping at night, you are scrunching everything together there and causing some wrinkles.
Speaker: So those are great. And again, there's like a million shortcuts through all of this. My overall opinion is you are able to go with a less expensive face wash, toner, maybe sunscreen if it has the right ingredients.
Speaker: However, what happens I think with the cheaper sunscreens with those ingredients is they're kind of white and pasty and thick and people don't like them and they don't want to use them. But we have ones that are like micronized and actually I use my sunscreen as my makeup every day. It has such good coverage. It has a little color in it and it's all I need because my skin is healthy and it makes a big difference.
Speaker: But then I think the other thing that we talked about too, that's a tough subject is your friends selling you your, the products that they have. Yeah. And I'm not like Arbon and Rodan and Fields and whatever is cropping up, you know, today are, they're not bad products, but they aren't going to the dermis.
Speaker: and they are very expensive. So if someone is buying a full ARBON set of product and they come to me and say, this is my budget, I can get them a much better, much more effective product for the same amount of money. So it isn't that they're bad, it's that they're kind of overpriced. So if you're trying to work on a budget, that's definitely something to think about.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. And while I'm sitting here thinking, I mean, I know that you're local to St. Louis, but do you offer any kind of virtual kind of cult consultation or like, Oh, yeah. Okay, so that you can say, Hey, this is what we have, and you can work out some sort of scenario there.
Speaker: And we have like, everyone in our office is highly educated on skincare. And what's cool for us is like, if you do a consultation, either virtual or in person, and you buy even one product, we don't even charge you for the consultation. So your consultation is free by purchasing anything that we discuss. And we do mail all over the country. I'm constantly mailing to my daughter at college.
Speaker: And you know, my mother, who's a couple hours away, but we do it for clients too. So you don't have to be in our neck of the woods to do that. And you can reach Jennifer at elementalesthetics .com, also on social media, any last minute
Speaker: pointers, tips you want to provide, and then I'll let you go about your day. It's tough because there's so much in my head. Oh my gosh, I can tell you all the things. But I think the flyover is, it's worth it to spend a little more on a good product that's going to work. Honestly, they're also more concentrated, so you need less of it to work.
Speaker: You know, my typical serum I'm using, a lot of times I don't even use a whole pump of it and it lasts me months and months. And so a lot of times you need to use more of the more over the counter products and it may be a wash on cost for you. So just know, even though you might be looking at some things that are more expensive, but we can cut around by pulling your moisturizer out. We can cut around by, there's ways, like we aren't a place that's like,
Speaker: Oh, you need these eight products right now. We tend to be more try this. Let's see how it works because then you can actually see is this product working for me. And then let's add something else and see how it works.
Speaker: or let's extract something else that you're using or whatever, just kind of working through the process. And that is true because we are doing that right now. We did that yesterday. You recommended one thing for me to try.
Speaker: and then we will take it from there. So that is exactly what you're doing. And I said to you, I was like, hey, I, yep, I only have a certain budget. And that's, I am so refreshed by knowing that too, that I don't have to buy all the things because typically that's what I do. Yeah. Well, and if you think as women on all the money that we waste chasing these things that don't work, that's the real travesty, you know, that you,
Speaker: I mean, I get sucked in by wellness advertising and definitely there's things that I'm like, why did I buy this? And it's the same for people when they're working in the skincare arena where you're like, oh, this looks so amazing. That model looks so amazing. And yet, I mean, they're 20 years younger than you and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: It's definitely easy to get sucked in by that, but if you are working with an esthetician, even in your own area, even if you never speak to us and you can build a relationship with someone that knows your skin in person, that is a wonderful thing to do for yourself, even if it's just a skincare consultation.
Speaker: I am so, so appreciative of you. I am just always lifted up whenever I see you and of course talk to you and I just want to thank you. I mean, you have not only helped me
Speaker: in my confidence, but I know that you are touching so many other women out there and we just need more people like you keeping it real, but also being there to offer a little extra love and a little extra boost if you need it. So thank you, Jennifer. Absolutely. And then you're out there fighting the good fight for all the women of the world too, which is an amazing thing too.
Speaker: See, listen to you, always making me feel good. I will have, like I said, everything on the show notes at JillDivine .com on how to reach you, how to make an appointment, how to learn more. And I just, again, thank you so much, Jennifer. I really, really appreciate it. Absolutely. So happy to have spent this time with you.
