Episode 142: Taking Care of Your Skin Naturally

doTERRA: Using natural skin care products allows you to avoid the synthetic chemicals found in traditional skincare options. But how do you know that the skincare you're using is truly natural? Today, we'll discuss how you can make the best decisions when it comes to your skincare.

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA, the podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful, and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. If you like what you hear today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. We always appreciate hearing from you.

Today, we're excited to talk to Jennifer Gilman about choosing the best natural skincare options. Jennifer, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Jennifer Gilman: It's great to be here with you!

doTERRA: To start off, can you help give us a little bit of clarification on what does natural skincare really mean?

Jennifer: That is such a good question. First, I do need to dispel the myth about the word natural. Natural doesn't always mean “good for us.” And so, calling any kind of beauty product or skincare with that label “natural” legally means nothing. So it becomes important for each person to define what natural means to them. So I'd love to share with you what it means to me. Is that OK?

doTERRA: Yes, please!

Jennifer: The word natural skincare to me means reducing my skin's exposure to any toxins, whether it be environmental—like synthetic fragrances—or topical—like products that may use animal byproducts, where the animals could have had hormones and antibiotics—or toxins like internal—like the foods that we eat or the supplements we take.

Five Steps to Building a Skincare Success Formula

So I don't strive for perfection, but definitely reducing all of these toxins is important to me. As a Wellness Advocate, I love, love, love to coach, and mentor people to create their success formula for their skincare goals. And we work on five areas to develop a plan of action. And this, honestly came from me having successes over 20 some years of what has actually worked for me. And now I just kind of pay it forwards to others. So we look at things like nutrition and hydration.

The second thing is how they move their body, which is also known as exercise. I don't like to use the “e” word, exercise, so much. But how do you move your body? Because, you know, sweating is important, and moving your body has a big part of that.

And the third thing is creating a calming environment and getting a night of restful sleep. And, you know, the big heroes there are doTERRA oils.

The fourth area is which doTERRA products, you know, can help support our skin health both inside and out.

And finally, the fifth area that I help people dive into is what are the best ways to enjoy the sun without damaging their skin.

doTERRA: And once we have that definition for ourselves of what natural skincare is going to be, what are the benefits of choosing natural skincare?

Jennifer: Great question. The benefits based on that definition can be just tremendous. And for me, it is about healthy aging and paying it forward.

Paying It Forward

So paying it forward to me means, you know, teaching others what has worked for me. And let's figure out, again, their success formula. But what came about in my life in my family was unexpected, but yet beautiful.

And that was my example, by leading by example—sure—you’ll affect other people, but I actually helped my teenage daughter. And that has just been wonderful for me. She found her own success formula by asking me questions and watching. What am I doing? What am I doing in helping others, you know?

Now, did my teenage daughter do everything that I would have loved? Did she fight me along the way? Absolutely! A couple of years ago, I remember her just packing up some of her oils and saying, “I just don't want to use these anymore,” you know?

But she got to a point where she was really struggling and it was hard to watch, you know, and I would gently try to help her. But she began to then go through these steps and discover for herself and now her skin is beautiful. And she's so proud of it because she discovered what foods worked, what didn't. She discovered that water was important. She discovered, you know, how to move her body and how to create that calming environment was huge, and we talk about it now, and I feel like she tells me, like really getting that down and getting a restful sleep through the use of the oils and diffusing that was a game-changer for her.

So really, helping—like what products and what lifestyle habits could help her inside and out? That's what worked for her. That was a huge benefit. When you look at what are the benefits of natural skincare really affecting this change within my daughter. And she’s figured it out at the age of 17 now, which took me many more years to figure out.

The Importance of Healthy Skin

So I think the big thing here is to remember like whatever is absorbed through the skin, can affect our entire body. What I mean by that, is it can affect the way we think. It can affect our behavior and the way our body functions. Just think, like if you choose, well, you may find wellness.

doTERRA: I absolutely love that. Now beyond knowing what to do for your skin, we also need to know what to avoid. So what are some ingredients that I should be watching out for when I'm choosing my skincare?

Ingredients to Avoid

Jennifer: Great, great question, and I couldn't possibly cover them all. But I do want to give you a nice list of things that I would recommend and encourage you to stay away from. But first, I have to say, just like with food, same thing with skincare, if it's a long name and you can't pronounce it, research it or phone a friend.

I'll give you a few of the things, you can kind of jot them down, and some of them might be a surprise and some you may not have heard of or realized it's in one of the products you're using. Be aware of parabens and the whole family of parabens, because sometimes it comes with the name methylparaben or propylparaben, so anything in the paraben family.

Next is the phthalates. So the phthalates. The next is any fragrances because those are synthetic or artificial. Really, I encourage you to avoid any fragrances or parfumes or perfumes. Sometimes it's labeled that way. Sodium lauryl sulfate is another ingredient. BHT, which is actually a preservative. And so we have to be careful of BHT. Retinyl palmitate, lead, believe it or not, is in some of these things. And formaldehyde, believe it or not, is in some of these things.

So those are some things to avoid. But I do—is it OK if I give him a list of ingredients that I'd love for them to look for?

doTERRA: Of course!

Ingredients to Look For

Jennifer: OK, so these are the yummy ingredients that nourish our skin. So the first thing is water. And often, especially with the doTERRA skin care products, you'll see water is the number one ingredient in some of the cleansers and things like that. That's good. Thumbs up. We need that hydration.

The next is amino acids of any kind, so any kind of amino acids. Fruit extracts, there's a lot of great fruit extracts in our doTERRA products. Those are wonderful for her skin.

Of course, the doTERRA essential oils that you'll see listed, are fantastic. And then onto some of the oils like shea butter and jojoba oil. Jojoba oil, a lot of people are like, “How do you spell that? How do you say it?” Whatever way you say it—potato, potato—jojoba oil is good. Thumbs up on that one.

Macadamia oil, aloe vera. Notice these are all coming from plants or trees, herbal extracts. And then the last wonderful ingredient I want you to watch out for that's a thumbs up is any kind of mineral extracts like malachite. And that happens to be in our Veráge® Toner.

So I really love those ingredients. I don't want to just tell you the things you stay away from, but what you should move forward towards when you're looking at some great ingredients.

doTERRA: I think that's great. You mentioned a couple of different doTERRA products as you were going through those ingredients. Can you tell us a little bit more about the options doTERRA has when it comes to natural skincare?

Jennifer: I’d love to! This has been such a great exploration for me over the past seven years, and I love that there are three skincare lines to choose from. There are three! And guess what? You can mix them up if you want. There are no rules. There are no hard rules to this. I encourage you to try and really listen to your body and see how you feel when you put things on. And that's just connecting to “how do I feel when I put this on?”

Verage Skin Care Collection

So I go back to like one of my first experiences with Veráge, and oh my. I mean, I just like I felt like I was at the spa. And yes, I would have loved to have somebody putting the stuff on me because that would have completed the experience. But I really love Veráge that much. I feel like I'm pampering my skin when I put that on. And so really tune in to how you are feeling when you use certain products because that's a great way for you to start to realize which ones are working and which ones are not, especially when you're moving from other skincare lines into the doTERRA. Like, all right, which one do I want to try first and how am I feeling with these? Love the three skincare lines.

Reveal Facial System

They also have a great exfoliating system, and that is called the Reveal Facial System, and it has bamboo silk beads and pumpkin enzymes. These are all just so good because they're not harsh on your skin. Nothing should be so harsh that it tears it up. So you want things that are gently exfoliating.

doTERRA Spa Detoxifying Mud Mask

And then they've got a great detoxifying mud mask, and that I really like. I appreciate that there's like lentil seed oil in there, things to replenish the natural oils in your skin instead of just stripping it out like some other mud masks on the market. I like that ours is actually nourishing while detoxifying. And I feel like that is what really leads to the results of feeling really reducing the appearance of the pores and the fine lines and the wrinkles. Love that.

Yarrow|Pom Capsules

But also not to forget to work from the inside out. So my favorite product there would be the Yarrow|Pom Capsules. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I really like the ingredients in those, along with some of the basics that sometimes we forget about.

doTERRA Lifelong Vitality Pack^®

But what's worked for me is that Lifelong Vitality supplements, giving me the optimal nutrition each and every day. My skin loves it.

PB Assist^®+ and TerraZyme^®

Then you've got the PB Assist+, which is a probiotic, and TerraZyme, which is digestive enzymes. I like how they synergistically work together to help my body rid itself of the toxins. Because if I'm not doing that, it will show up in my skin.

doTERRA Skin Care Lines

Those are some of the products in general with skincare. There are also spa products for the skin. I personally use the Veráge, as I mentioned. And when that came out, you guys, it was amazing because I live in Florida. All right? The tropical region, lots of humidity. Any time I travel anywhere else, never mind a desert region, my skin would suffer. And especially if I would go out to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, any of the arid areas, my skin used to—before Veráge—within about 48 hours, it would actually start hurting because it would be so dry. I struggled for years with this and when Veráge came out, I have not had a problem since. My skin really enjoys it. I use that line. It works really well for me.

There are two other lines: HD Clear® and also the Essential Skin Care Line. And there are some great elements of those to discover.

I definitely use that exfoliating system, which is the Reveal Facial System. I like to use it twice a week. That's what works really well for me. My daughter uses it once a week, but I also know some people who use it three times a week. So it’s just kind of figuring out what works best for your skin.

Anti-Aging Eye Cream

Now, one of the products I haven't mentioned, and it's in the Essential Skin Care Line, is the eye cream. And man, when that came out, oh, I made a mistake once of running out and not having got a backup, and I was really sad. I never let that happen again.

I love that eye cream, and I like the way it dispenses. It has this stainless steel ball that you just kind of glide along the bottom of your eye. And that has really been a huge change for me, to the point where I feel like my eyes were just starting to maybe look a little bit more aged.

And when I started using that, my daughter even said, “Mom, you're like, your eyes look younger or something.” And, you know, teenagers don't hand out compliments. So I had already kind of noticed, but I didn't verbalize it. And when she said that, I was like, “Yeah, really. I think it's this eye cream,” you know? And I've been using it for about three months at that point every day. And I haven't stopped using it. I really believe in the ingredients in that, and it's just doing so well for my eyes for sure.

Mud Mask Hack

I use the mud mask about once a month, and every now and then I actually put the mud mask in my armpits because I just want to detoxify that area too. So that’s a little mud mask hack.

But can I also give a recipe to everybody?

doTERRA: Absolutely.

Jennifer: If you are a person who struggles with the eyebrows, OK? I just want to share this with you because you can make this up really so easily. So what I did was I put together a roller bottle, 10 mL roller, with 10 drops of Lavender and 10 drops of Rosemary. I put those together—again, 10 drops Rosemary, 10 drops of Lavender in a 10 ml roller—and I filled the rest with Fractionated Coconut Oil. And I use that every day. So as soon as I'm done cleansing, I put on my toner, I put on my Immortelle serum and the moisturizer, and then I top it off with that on my brows. And so I just wanted to pass that recipe on to others.

doTERRA: Well, all of those recommendations sound so incredible. Jennifer, I have loved sitting down with you today and learning more about what I should be doing for my skin and how I can really make sure that I am avoiding the toxins that might be damaging my skin.

Jennifer: I love it. It's such a great topic and one that I think more and more people are learning more about and not afraid to learn about ingredients, those bad ones aren’t so scary anymore, and wanting to age well. So our skin is our largest organ. It's great to learn how to take care of it. And we've got some great tools with doTERRA, so I love it.

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Also, if you want to try any of the products you learned about, go to doterra.com or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.