If you're listening to this podcast, you or someone you know is experiencing angry skin in some form—super dry, red, itchy, burning, cracked, etc. Did you know the ingredients in your skincare products could actually be harming more than they help?
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To speak more about this, I am joined by Rachael Pontillo, a holistic skincare innovator, author, and educator. Rachael is the bestselling author of the book Love Your Skin, Love Yourself, and co-author of The Sauce Code. She’s a functional nutrition practitioner, AADP and IAHC Board Certified International Health Coach, licensed aesthetician, and natural skincare formulator and educator.
She’s the president and co-founder of the Nutritional Aesthetics™ Alliance, the creator of the popular skincare and healthy lifestyle blog, Holistically Haute™, as well as the much-loved online course, Create Your Skincare. She’s an avid herbalist, skincare ingredient aficionado, and lifelong learner.
Rachael is also my good friend, and my go-to person to ask about the ingredients in skincare products—which is actually our focus for this episode. We'll be talking about surprising skincare ingredients that can really aggravate the skin.
Have you reacted unexpectedly to supposedly soothing ingredients in your skin products? Tell us about it in the comments!
In this episode
- Why products at the drugstore for “sensitive” or irritated skin often make things worse
- Are mass-produced products actually effective for skin rashes?
- How to read and understand ingredient labels
- The most harmful ingredients to look out for in a product
The most harmful ingredients in your skincare products
- water
- fragrance (aka parfum) Note: “Unscented” is a fragrance!
- In cleansers, shampoo, body wash, conditioners: sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), ammonium lauryl sulfate (ALS), ammonium laureth sulfate (ALES)
- soap
- preservatives
- parabens (methylparaben, butylparaben, propylparaben, isobutylparaben)
- phenoxyethanol and phenethyl alcohol
Quotes
“Colloidal oatmeal is a good example of a natural ingredient that is actually an FDA-approved anti-inflammatory.” [6:04]
“Typically, what you see first on an ingredient list is what's primarily in the product, and then it goes down in descending order.” [9:50]
“I don't recommend products containing water for people who have really irritated and angry skin.” [17:56]
“‘Unscented' is a fragrance. ‘Fragrance-free' means there's no fragrance.” [19:54]
Links
Follow Rachael on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram
Interested in trying Rachael's online classes to create your own skincare? Click HERE!
024: Most Harmful Ingredients Hiding In Skin Care w/ Rachael Pontillo FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Healthy Skin Show. I've got actually a good friend and when I say a good friend, I don't mean just like somebody I know from online. Rachel actually lives near me. We have hung out, we have gone to see Taylor Swift together, so we are actually good friends and I'm excited to have her as a guest today on The Healthy Skin Show because she is, I kid you not my go to person. We were literally just having this conversation by the way, I'm going to her to ask about ingredients and so she is my go to person when it comes to skincare products and ingredients that are used in them and all the different things that can make skin either feel soothed and calm or really make it angry and pissed off and that we all have been in the camp. I mean you guys are here because you have angry skin in some way, shape or form, whether it's super dry or it's just super red, itchy, burny cracked, what have you.
Jennifer: It's all over the spectrum. I've been there. I know what that's like and so does Rachel. She has a lot of experience in this department, so I'm excited to have her back. She's also a guest on my eczema and psoriasis awareness week. So if you remember if you actually tuned into that, you may remember her amazing interview. So if you haven't met Rachel before, let me just introduce her. She is a holistic skincare innovator, author and educator. She's the bestselling author of the book. Love Your Skin, Love Yourself and co author of The Sauce Code. She's a functional nutritional, she's a functional nutrition practitioner and a board certified international health coach, licensed anesthetist and natural skincare formulator and educator. She's the president and co founder of the Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance, the creator of the popular skin care and healthy lifestyle blog, Holistically Haute.
Jennifer: And she also created this amazing course if you want to make your own skincare guys, which is really cool. It's called Create Your Skincare. She's an avid herbalist, skincare ingredient, aficionado and a lifelong learner and she's also really fun to hang out with by the way. I have to add that in. Rachel, thanks for joining us.
Rachael: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.
Jennifer: I know. So we were literally just talking about that, about like ingredients, right? So we were having this whole side conversation and now we're kind of diving in because I think it would be great for some, some listeners to know that yes there are these issues with ingredients that are inserted into formulas that you know, your skin's really upset. Let's just pretend. Okay so it's winter time. Your skin gets super dried out really thin cause you've been maybe using steroid creams and it cracks all the time. Like I remember I went to Boston and my fingers every joint cracked and it was super, super painful.
Jennifer: And I'm running to the store going, oh my gosh, what can I get? And I see all these dry skin formulas but they burn, they don't really help. They keep drying out. I'm applying and applying and applying and it burns and it hurts and it's not really helping. So is it true that the stuff that you're going to find in the grocery store or at the pharmacy, is that even though it says dry skin or you know, specific to eczema or what have you, like is it, is it really formulated to help those of us that have these really serious skin rash issues?
Rachael: So what's interesting about it is that, you know, from an allopathic western medicine perspective, which is see a symptom, find a drug to calm the symptom. So these medications, because most of them that you find at the drug store or the grocery store are medications, they'll have some type of corticosteroid inside of it, which is an FDA approved anti-inflammatory.
Rachael: Or they'll have some other anti-inflammatory in it. That active ingredient, which is typically a drug. If it says eczema, if it says that it heals or cures any type of skin condition or disease, it is typically going to be a drug. Otherwise it's a cosmetic making, an illegal drug claim. But that's kind of another conversation.
Jennifer: So there's, wait, so what you're saying is, cause that's actually a good point. I didn't even, I didn't even know that. So basically there is a difference when you're going for these creams, right? We're just looking at cream. So some are cosmetic and,
Rachael: And some are medications.
Jennifer: Are medications. Okay.
Rachael: Right. Okay. Yes, so cosmetics are products that by definition are intended to cleanse or improve the appearance of the skin. The improve the appearance of. Right. And you could even when it comes to like herbal cosmetics or herbal skincare or herbal remedies, you can support the function, support the organ or the function, which the organ is the skin.
Rachael: The function is the things the skin does support or improve the appearance of, you cannot say heal, you cannot say cures prevents any of that language implies that the product actually alters the physiology, which so alters the form or the function of the skin. And that is a drug or a health claim, which then must be FDA tested and approved. Now that's not to say that there aren't a lot of cosmetic companies still making those types of claims. And what I can say about that is that the FDA starting to crack down. They're starting to send out warning letters. And this is happening in the natural skincare and cosmetics world as well as the larger, bigger conventional companies. They're starting to get letters. The FDA started to say, hey, if you're going to say that you need to actually come through us and get that approved as a drug.
Rachael: So keep that in mind. And then there are cosmetics that do actually contain some drug ingredients. So colloidal oatmeal is a good example of a natural ingredient that is actually an FDA approved anti-inflammatory.
Jennifer: Really.
Rachael: It is.
Jennifer: Wow.
Rachael: Right. Zinc oxide is a natural ingredient that can be very soothing, but it's also an FDA approved sunscreen. So if you're using it in a product that mentions the word sun in any way, shape or form, you have to go through FDA approval. But if you're using it just in another type of way, then you can still use it. But if you're making a claim that has to do with the health at all, the changing the health affecting the health, that requires FDA approval and that is an expensive process. It is a lengthy process that if it's a small company, they really can't. Most small companies can't afford that.
Jennifer: And so and so these products, so you've got these two different categories.
Rachael: Yeah.
Jennifer: Which we could find, you know, you go to the grocery store or the pharmacy and you're like, Oh my skin's really dry. Let me try this. I saw, I read about it on a Facebook group and this really helped this one woman. But I, okay my, I have to tell, share my bias here I guess. And, and it might be partially your fault cause we've talked to life before guys about this. So it's not like this is my first conversation, but I want to make sure that with multiple conversations, cause I really want to have Rachel back multiple times. That you understand that as I, as I've talked more and more with Rachel about this and learned from her that I don't feel that a lot of these formulations, which by the way are typically formulated by drug companies, like the things that were really fancy bottles are not necessarily formulated to make us better essentially.
Jennifer: So Rachel, what's your take on that?
Rachael: So when we're looking at a mass produced product which is what you're seeing at the grocery store or the drug store, these are things that are made in giant labs with a lot of machines. People in lab coats formulated usually based on studies that were done maybe 50 to 80 years ago on little animals, not on human beings in real life conditions. They are made with that active ingredient, which is that drug usually. But the rest of the product is usually water. There might, there's probably an emollient of some kind, usually a, some sort of a petroleum based product or which it would be a mineral oil or White Petrolatum. Uthat's going to be your kind of Vaseline kind of feel where real thick and gloppy you're putting it on. It's not letting anything in. So it's protective in that way, but it's also not letting it at anything out.
Rachael: Okay. So if there is some sort of irritation that is active in the outer layers of the skin, it's going to get trapped there and pushed deeper into the deeper layers into actually the bloodstream, which then is going to contribute back to whatever that initial cause of the skin issue was. So you have active drug ingredients, you have water, that's primarily the number one ingredient. Now I want to do a brief aside here, you're going to see an active ingredient box or it might say drug fact, either active ingredients or drug facts that's going to be in a separate little box on the package or on the bottle. Just because that has the most prominent display does not mean it has the most concentration. So if you're getting a steroid cream, it's going to have the steroid in that box. It doesn't mean that you're getting a lot of that steroid, which I mean we don't want a lot of steroids, but I'm just saying people, a lot of people do know now that typically what you see first on an ingredient list is what's primarily in the product and then it goes down in descending order.
Rachael: But then you see a drug facts.
Rachael: You might be like, oh, active ingredient. This whole thing is the steroid. This whole thing is the colloidal oatmeal. No, it has to be listed separately because it's a drug in that active ingredient or drug facts box. A good example of that also is homeopathic dilutions. Homeopathy is semi regulated by the FDA. The FDA has gotten a little bit more involved because of some of the claims that have been made. I've actually done a lot of work with one of the homeopathy companies that's here in Pennsylvania, and they have their own Pharmacopia that they have to adhere to by European standards. And then there's also US standards. Homeopathic remedies are required to be listed in a drug facts box. Okay. But homeopathy by definition is extremely diluted to the point where there's like no physical component of the actual ingredient left.
Rachael: It's all energetic. Okay. So this is really plant energy medicine that has been put into something. And I'm not going to debate the efficacy of that because there are some people who are hardcore against it. There are other people who claims that saved their life, their life. I say, you know, you do you whatever works for you. But if you see something, cause some of the drug stores do sell homeopathic products.If you do see something that has a drug facts box, homeopathic things, but there's going to be a whole bunch of Latin plant names and then it's going to say 3 X or 10 X or a 10 C or that's the dilution. There's very, very little of that actual ingredient. It's mostly the water and it's it's a water alcohol base that it's in. Just like there, it would be like an herbal tincture that gets diluted and diluted and diluted and diluted where it's just water and alcohol with tiny little percentage of the actual plant.
Rachael: So that's almost nothing of that plant, but it appears prominently because that's how it has to be listed on the label. Then look at the inactive ingredients. That's when you're going to see water. That's the number one ingredient. And that tells you that that's primarily what's in it. Anytime you have water in a product, there has to be a preservative. Now a lot of the preservatives on the market are irritant to the skin.
Jennifer: Well I was going to say even water itself is too high of a pH cause it not burned my hand. Like I got afraid to wash my hands. It was funny like to even think about getting my hands dirty cause I couldn't even wash them. Just water alone burned horribly.
Rachael: It does.
Jennifer: All right, so we've got water and then we have preservatives and then we have alcohol.
Rachael: We have alcohol and then we have an emollient which is pushing all of this irritation deeper into the skin and not letting the skin purge it out.
Rachael: So these are made like, okay drug suppresses symptom. That makes sense. Put in bottle water makes product spreadable makes it also cheap. Put in bottle emollients technically adds protective layer to skin is cheap. Put in bottle. Now we have preservative put in bottle. That's what it's designed for. Does it on paper address the symptom. Does it suppress the symptom? Probably. Is it cheap for the company to make? Yes.
Rachael: I was going to say whatever they want for it. Yes.
Jennifer: I was going to say can, can does it work? Well if you can get past it burning.
Rachael: Yeah, depends on the person. Depends on what you're dealing with, but yeah, I mean the problem, you know I had an experience with my older daughter when she was a baby. She had terrible eczema and it was explained to me that it was her body purging my hormones from when she lived in my belly.
Rachael: And this was actually what got me into, I would say got me into it cause I was always in into skin for my own reasons because of acne. But beyond acne. Her experience with the eczema is what really showed me, oh, these ingredients are bad because my stepmother worked for a very large company that manufacturers the most common baby products on the planet, gave me a massive gift basket of all those products. Even their gentle line, all of them made it worse, all of them. And it wasn't until I started studying herbalism more and I started studying aesthetics more. When I went to aesthetic school, that's when I started learning about, you know what these ingredients actually do in a product. We a good amount of cosmetic chemistry in my program and I looked at the bottle like, this is making her worse. And then I would take her to the doctor and they would give us something with just another version of the same product.
Rachael: It was literally, I was comparing ingredient labels. It was almost the same exact ingredients, just different brand names. And I asked the doctor, I'm like, how this is the same thing? She's like, no, no, no, this one's better because it's coming from the doctor. I'm like, it's the same thing there. I mean, so I stopped and I actually started shopping at places like whole foods or Trader Joe's, where at least I could see the, okay, those may, those ingredients that I know are not working for her or not on this product. And I see plants here. So let's start with that. So that's how I started getting into natural skincare, not for the face and what started to show me, oh my gosh, not only do these products not work, but they're making it worse. And she was a little baby whose skin is so sensitive anyway.
Rachael: So it was really eyeopening. And yeah, it's really alarming that there are so many toxic chemicals in these products that are meant to sooth, especially ones intended for children or babies. And these companies have come under fire for having ingredients that are known carcinogens in them, in the United States, versions of the products. But in the ones that they send to Europe that have different, more stringent guidelines, they don't have those ingredients in the European products. So the European people don't need the cancer causing ingredients, but the American people can have them.
Jennifer: So this is a really interesting point that you're bringing up because you know when people are sensitive to things, they go, oh, I'm going to use the baby version.
Rachael: Because I trust it since it's for babies.
Jennifer: Right. It's for babies. So what you're saying essentially is you can't even trust the baby version because the baby version is also loaded with junk that can cause problems as well.
Rachael: It's just a different way to market the same product. Pretty much.
Jennifer: So. Okay. So if somebody is looking at a label, what would be the five most toxic ingredients? I don't know. I'm just throwing out five. But do you have a list of just you could share with us real quick of ingredient names, even if they're sciency sounding? Yeah, that, well, it could be like, Oh, this, I shouldn't be using this.
Rachael: Yeah. Okay. So let's just talk about water briefly, because I don't consider water a toxic ingredient in general because it's water. But as you said, the problem is the pH is too high because the skin healthy skin is a little bit more acidic. It's typically from the range of four to 5.5 which is slightly acidic. So if you're using water, which is neutral at seven, that is alkaline for the skin. So you are more likely to get a chemical burn from too much water than you are from actually using something that's more acidic, like a facial toner regularly.
Rachael: Now. So I, I don't recommend products containing water for people who have really irritated and angry skin or if it, if it does have water, less of it. And there are.
Jennifer: And I was going to say too, yeah, the microbiome on your skin eats lipids or fats. It doesn't eat water.
Rachael: Right? So you're not, you're not helping it do its job.
Jennifer: No.
Rachael: Right. And we'll talk about that in a little while too because prebiotics which are in plants are what make us happy and those are some ways that we can substitute water. So synthetic fragrances is really my biggest issue for people who have upset skin. And the reason for that is because in a single synthetic fragrance, so let's say lavender fragrance, that sounds very friendly, right? Lavender, it's known to be very soothing. Lavender is also very common baby products because it helps them sleep.
Rachael: Sure. If it's real lavender. The problem is is that it's not, if it says lavender oil, or lavender fragrance on a bottle, it's synthetic. And in a single fragrance that can be made of 900 different chemicals, many of which are known carcinogens. But the problem is there's such tiny percentages of these that they don't require to be listed on a blend, on a label and they're also still protected by trade secret. Now that's something that might be changing, because laws are starting to require, laws are starting to change. There's a couple of different bills being passed around Congress and the Senate and the house that are looking to have more transparency and cosmetic labeling. Drug labeling that has yet to be determined because drugs also have synthetic fragrances. Even if it's, here's the kicker, even if it says unscented, unscented is a fragrance.
Jennifer: What? That's a fragrance .
Rachael: Fragrance free means there's no fragrance in it. But unscented is a fragrance.
Jennifer: I didn't know that. You have blown my mind is actually exploding right now. I didn't know that unscented is actually a fragrance.
Rachael: Unscented is a fragrance.
Jennifer: Okay.
Rachael: Yeah. So up to 900 individual synthetic chemicals making up these, any of which can be carcinogenic if not carcinogenic. A lot of them are known endocrine disrupting chemicals, neurotoxins associated with you know, organ dysfunction. A lot of problems. But we will never know as consumers because you will never see them on a label and you can't call the company and be like, can you tell me what's in your lavender fragrance? They won't know. They won't know because they're buying it from a supplier that also probably doesn't know. Okay. So anytime you see the word fragrance or the word parfum P, A, R, F, U, M which is French for perfume run like the Dickens because that means it's synthetic.
Rachael: Even if the word natural is before it.
Jennifer: Or if the product is the label makes it look very natural. It does not mean that it is a natural product.
Rachael: No, and that's another good point. We can't trust what we see. We do have to look at the labels and we have to know what these words mean because it can be very misleading. Fragrances are a massive problem. So another one is in your cleansers or your body washes or even your shampoos and conditioners. Sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, ammonium lauryl sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate, SLS, S,L , E, S, or ALS a. L, E. S. these are surfactins and their job is to separate oil, dirt, and grime from the skin. They basically, you know, here's your oil and your debris. Here's your skin. It's job is to go through this and be swish, wipe it off and wash it away.
Rachael: What that does, it disrupts the microbiome. It also really strips the skin of the lipids that are meant to protect it. And that also, as you said, the microbiome feeds on. Okay, so what that leaves your skin with is complete susceptibility to any external aggressors, an activated immune system. Because now it's like, oh my gosh, okay, we've lost our protection. What do we do? What do we do? It just makes skin that's already upset, even more upset and it drives me nuts. I was actually just at a spa show, I was looking at this a, there was a vendor there that their products are supposed to be for people with sensitive, irritated skin. I'm looking at them and they still have some of these ingredients. I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? So those two sort of those two to four, they're in the same family.
Rachael: There are coconut derived surfactants. For the most part, they're starting to even change the labeling to say something like , they might even say coconut derived surfactant. Coco sulfate is another one. It's the same thing. Okay. Laureth Lauryl comes from Lauric acid, which is the main fatty acid in coconut oil. So those are coconut derived, which also if you're allergic to tree nuts might be a problem. Avoid those. They are too strong for the skin. They're actually industrial grade detergents that are meant to like degrease.
Jennifer: Wow. And that's no wonder that is so irritating. And I'll also put, tell you guys this much. I did find out that companies, there are certain green companies that are very famous. I'm not going to say what they are cause I don't know if I'll get in trouble by saying the company's name but be very careful because they are in like some of the stuff that's in your big grocer.
Jennifer: That's the green options. They do use those ingredients, and they mark them as we're the natural. We're the green we're the healthy alternative to you know all these other things. And in reality they're putting those in there even in soaps in dishwasher detergent and all sorts of things that we're touching in laundry detergents. So you really have to look at the ingredients list and not just trust the label on the front and the way it's designed because it's it, there's a lot of greenwashing that's going on.
Rachael: Its a big problem. A really big problem and I'm glad you actually brought up soap because that's one that I was going to mention because soap is even more alkaline than water. It might have stuff in it that might be like a soothing thing. I'm sure you've seen a certain soap companies that are like even for the most gentle skin cause it has moisturizer in it.
Rachael: No soaps are actually made with fats, which are moisturizers, right? The saponification process, it takes an alkali usually lye and then it takes a fat. You put them together, you agitate them, turns into soap. It's still very alkaline. It's not going to be as alkaline as the lye, which is like all the way at the top of the pH scale. But it's not going to be, it's much harder to control the pH because it really depends on what's happening in that process and what ingredients are used. Some soaps are a little bit lower in pH if they're intended for facial use. I actually make soap myself. I know how to adjust that. But the soaps that you're finding at the store that are mass produced, that are meant for, you know, gentle skin or that are gentle for the skin, they're not. So I would say avoid soap. Even in the natural products and cleansers, you might see castile soap. I love castile soap. For some people, not for people who have irritated or dry skin. Okay, so that's one we got to talk about preservatives. There's a lot of formaldehyde releasing preservatives that are still on the market. They're, they have several names. I can't pronounce most of them, but they're bad.
Rachael: Parabens are still on the market. I don't want to get into a lengthy paraben discussion because it is a lengthy discussion, but what I can say is that methylparaben, butylparaben, propylparaben, isobutylparaben, all of these started coming into light as being bad in 2004 when a study came out that linked it to they found parabens in breast cancer tumors from and linked it to a deodorant that was used containing it. Further studies have come out, a new one just came out last month that it continues to support this link, but it's not just to the cancer. It's also now known as an endocrine disrupting chemical in general. It mimics estrogen in the body. So hormone imbalance, estrogen dominance, these are big causes of skin issues for many people.
Jennifer: Including men by the way.
Rachael: Including men, not just women. Absolutely. Men can be estrogen dominant and they can also throw off the testosterone production.
Rachael: So if the products contain parabens, that is something that can contribute and a lot of companies do still use them because they are very cheap. They're very easy to manufacture with. It's like you can use a very small amount, but the problem is that it doesn't leave the body soon enough before more comes in. Another ingredient that I want to discuss in the preservative world is phenoxyethanol, and this is one that I might get in a little bit of trouble for because a lot of the natural companies that have moved away from parabens have replaced it with phenoxyethanol. Now phenoxyethanol on its own is kind of known as a skin and eye irritant. I can't really use products that have it. A lot of products still do have it. Like, I can use hair products that have it because I wash it off, but I can't use like I make up the has it.
Rachael: A lot of the eye makeup has it. It is used at a slightly lower percentage than some of the other natural preservatives on the market. Well, it's not natural. Other preservatives on the market that are used in natural products, it's not allowed to be used in organic products. So a product cannot have that preservative and call a self organic. It doesn't, it's not allowed. But it's irritant. Now here's what's funny about that. Like yes, it's still used by a lot of natural companies and they claim it's safer than the parabens, maybe in terms of the endocrine disrupting risk, but it's also known for other problems associated with organ toxicity, in addition to the skin and eye irritation. There is a natural version, a bio identical version called phenol ethyl alcohol.
Rachael: Okay, so the the synthetic one phenoxyethanol. Then the bioidentical is phenol ethyl alcohol and this is a byproduct of the process used to make Rose absolute, which is a natural Rose type essential oil that is used primarily in fragrances. You don't see absolutes use therapeutically very much. You see more steam distilled. We're CO2 extracted use that way. Absolutes are primarily used for fragrances. Now it is from roses so that one can, you know the nature identical version of that is a copy nature, identical bio identical of the compound that's extracted from the roses. It will still smell like roses and it's a common fragrance fixative even in natural perfumes. Me personally, I got a whole bunch of samples of it from a lab cause I make products and I teach product formulation. I opened the bottle, I almost fainted and this was the natural one.
Rachael: I almost fainted from the overpowering just fumes coming out of it. This is a product that is approved for use in some of the safer cosmetics. Watch for it. It'll say phenol ethyl alcohol. Or phenethyl alcohol. I would recommend that with sensitive skin, you avoid it and you're probably not going to hear that elsewhere because it's, it's kind of a new thing that I did some research on because I was curious if I should be recommending it to my students.
Jennifer: It's so crazy that there are these ingredients that are being used in both the conventional skincare world as well as in the more holistic or organic or natural skin care lines. It's crazy. But I think what's most important. So if anybody's like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can remember these words. Don't worry. I'm going to make sure that in the show notes, I write these out for you guys so that you, you know, because I'm a visual learner and I know it can be difficult to listen to scientific terms and chemical terminology, and even be able to recognize that.
Rachael: So our brains don't like them for a reason.
Jennifer: Yes. but I don't worry, they will be in the show notes for this. And here's the other thing I would, I would love Rachel is for you to come back and talk to us this next time about what we should be looking for. Because I think that would be great.
Rachael: Not sure if we are going to have time for that today.
Rachael: But I don't want to look like there's no hope. No, there's so many things you can do.
Jennifer: Yes. And so I think that's what we'll do. I think we should have you back. So you guys told you she's a wealth of knowledge. I told you that. This is why I go to Rachel, but I think that would be the best thing so that people can have this balanced way of, okay, this is what we want to avoid right now.
Jennifer: Here's what we're going to start to look to.
Rachael: Now here's the bad news. Now we're going to give you the good news.
Jennifer: Yes. So, so A Rachel sounds like you're on board with this plan and I just want to make sure everybody can find you. So they can visit, you know, first of all, you've got a really cool free DIY skincare course that they can check out. So if somebody is like freaking out, like, oh my gosh, I've got to throw everything out. They can go check out your boutique skincare basics and you're going to start teaching them how to make some stuff at home.
Rachael: Very simple. And I'm going to teach you how to choose ingredients that are customized for your skin. There's a lot of DIY recipes online that are just like bad because they're not necessarily appropriate for the majority of the people who might be reading them.
Rachael: Because most people who are looking for DIY skincare online are people who haven't found something in a store because they usually have some sort of a condition. So a lot of the stuff that you'll see is not for people who have irritated skin or who have acne or who have eczema. So if you have something that's going on, I have you're going to get a little chart in this course that is going to help you choose the right ingredients for yourself.
Jennifer: Cool. So I will put a link to that in the show notes and then you can find Rachel over at holisticallyhaute.com.
Rachael: Actually it's rachelpontillo.com now we made it easier because nobody can say Holistically Haute, although you did a really good job, but most people can't. It's because you used to be in fashion. And so did I. And that's where it came from.
Jennifer: Yes.
Rachael: So we know the word, but a lot of people don't. So it's just Rachel with an a R a c h a e l p o n t i l l o.com. That's where you can find that. And then,uthe free courses at createyourskincare.com.
Jennifer: Awesome. Yes, we'll put up links. So it's super easy for everybody to find you to follow you. I'll put links to Rachel's books as well as her social media, her different accounts so you can find her and then we're going to have her back everybody. So don't freak out. Stay tuned for another episode. Thank you Rachel for joining us. I appreciate that.
Rachael: Thank you for having me. It was awesome.
I’m confused that unscented is a fragrance. What ingredients go into an unscented product to make it unscented?
Thank you and thanks for a very informative show.
Hi Marjorie, that’s the thing–there is no way to know. Just like any other fragrance ingredient. At this time, fragrance companies are not required to disclose their ingredients at all. Just like they would use synthetic chemicals to create other fragrances, etc they use synthetic chemicals that would mask whatever scent they are trying to remove. Certain scents cancel each other out.
Awesome information. Thank you.
Christine