What every city transplant needs for their skin care
Due to the universal pull of abundance I’ve been manifesting I recently had a considerable amount of new clients. One thing that most of them had in common was that they were recent transplants to LA. Without even seeing them I already knew what they would be dealing with. Each individual had a completely different background and circumstance yet they all were experiencing a common Skin Food Talk category of skin imbalance. Since I’m co-founder and lead the skincare side of Skin Food Talk I already knew what would be common symptoms because they were experiencing compromised detoxification organs that led to inflammation and irritations. So why is it that this happens to nearly every city transplant? As someone who has lived in 3 states, 2 countries and countless homes, I can confidently say I’m the expert of this topic. Here are my top 3 skin care tips for new city transplants:
Why makeup is a luxury, not a necessity.
If you’ve ever had a treatment with me you know that in my consultation form my very last question is what is your ultimate skin goal? I wrote a post about year ago about becoming makeup free and since then the most common answer to my skin goal question still remains the same - to be makeup free. I may have done a few of you a disservice by immediately exclaiming how easy that goal is because of my personal relationship with makeup. I grew up obsessed with makeup to the point that if I could translate the equivalent of my obsession to the current time, I would 100% be one of those instagram/snapchat/youtube tutorial gals. I loved creating looks, doing other people’s makeup and I was praised for my natural ability in this department. I booked jobs all the time in the beginning of my career that I can safely say that the spring and summers of 2007 and 2008 were spent with me at my makeup counter dolling gals up for events like prom, graduation and weddings. I loved it but it also taught me a lot about how many people lacked confidence, self awareness and even struggled with a little body/facial dysmorphia. My love of makeup started because of artistry but my relationship to it on an everyday basis changed because of my own evolution of self love and acceptance. So with that, I want to dive back into how being makeup free has nothing to do with skincare, it has everything to do with acceptance.
When the roles reversed...
Last week I had my first session with a health coach and within 10 minutes I was a sobbing mess. Many people may not make the connection of emotion and nutrition but for me the two go hand in hand. I have never really had a beautiful connection with my food even though I love food, cooking and everything about social dining. When you pretty much always feel shitty, are bloated and followed by a case of nausea or diarrhea - you start to dread your next meal. Over the last 5 or 6 years that started to change, and I thank my husband for that. James introduced me to a new style of cooking and meal prepping that I began looking forward to eating together and it’s one of our greatest past times. I finally felt a connection to food unlike I have before. And if you’ve ever eaten with me, you know that I eat well. I’m healthy and gravitate towards options that are balanced and not too heavy. It never mattered to me that my new relationship with food meant that there would be weight gain because I finally felt like I could eat and not suffer.
Healthy Skin vs. Perfect Skin
As a person who heavily identifies with the struggles of being a perfectionist I do notice that I tend to have a physical response to the word itself - "Perfect". When someone tells me they want “perfect” skin, it really hurts my heart because it creates an emotional block that we have to investigate. I have tried to overlook the term as it has followed me around my whole life, but it’s gotten to the point now where I am doing you a disservice if I don’t correct this terminology. Healthy skin does not equal perfect skin. I’m going to repeat that: HEALTHY SKIN DOES NOT EQUAL PERFECT SKIN. Health is an ongoing journey to bettering yourself for the sake of feeling good while having love, acceptance and appreciation for yourself. Perfection is not attainable and generally comes from a place of low self worth, self loathing or simple delusion that you have to fit a mold. As someone who has struggled with anxiety their entire life, it’s easy for me to fall into my perfectionist trap and unknowingly use the term with intent on delivering a positive message. So today I want to breakdown the differences of why healthy skin doesn’t equal perfect skin and advice on how to shift your mindset towards acceptance in being your true self.
My social media anxieties
I go through the typical love/hate stages with social media often. Most of the time I can get past the obvious social media sensitivities like “how come this person is always on vacation?” or “this person posts so much better content than me.” but sometimes I get triggered and it’s taken me a little perspective and self care to uncover what those fears were really stemming from. First, I am a firm believer that we are all in it to win it so my comparison attitude is based from a deep rooted crippling perfectionism that I have only started shedding over the last 2 years - obviously something I need to work on a little more. I do feel like we all can be successful and it takes for me to see how someone else is successful to remind me that I can do it too. Trust me there are times that I have woken up from dreams that all of a sudden the new trend is to not treat your skin and I would be completely out of work. But after 11 years I still manage to get more questions, new clients and seem to be increasing in my success with each year. So why does an instagram sometimes make me want to give up? Or at least crawl under a pillow for a few hours.
Sun Care SOS part 2
To follow up from last week’s post I wanted to discuss the most positive thing I noticed over Memorial Day weekend. Over the years I have heavily influenced my husband’s relationship with sunscreen. This is a man who grew up in Texas and can tolerate sun and heat unlike many other auburn haired, Irish descendants. Reason being is that his skin has been trained to tolerate heat because of where he grew up as well as having other heritage factors that make him more tolerant of heavy heat levels. So regardless of all these factors, James has unfortunately experienced some gnarly burns over the years and after enough wife nagging, he has shifted many of his old habits. During our camping trip he was the first person to apply sunscreen prior to heavy sun exposure and to reapply throughout the course of our time in the sun. He turned to me at one point and said “I think I just have to apply every 30 minutes in order to not burn”. I almost cried tears of joy in that very moment. YES! HE GETS IT! This type of attitude can infectiously spreads because once you see someone caring for their skin it triggers the thought that maybe you should do the same. As soon as the sunscreen was out, others would start asking for a round of cover up. When I talk about sun care, I don’t necessarily only mean sunscreen. Sun care to me means how you are caring for your skin from the sun. Sunscreen is a huge and non-negotiable factor but I am talking about extra preventative steps such as the following:
Sun care SOS Part 1
I went camping for a few days over Memorial Day weekend and as fun as it was it also honestly felt like a case study in sun care. Don’t worry, this isn’t a post to chastise anyone on their sunscreen use, it’s more of an observational piece about the different educations people have about sun care in general. When it comes to sun care, regardless of where you are from, your skin color and whatever else comes to mind as an excuse to avoid daily care - you need sun protection. So before you tell yourself your melanin activity is enough to avoid reading this think again. I’m going to break this down into two parts. Part 1 will be about the common misconceptions, old myths and what’s commonly neglected. So let’s begin:
I'm so not a salesperson...
My husband and I realized something about me recently. If you get a chance to sit with me for a lunch, facial or just a brief encounter in the grocery store - you may end up indulging me with your life story. The name “therapeutic skin coach” is not 100% based on my experience as an esthetician. For as long as I can remember I have the type of personality that immediately comforts someone to have them share their life with me. It makes sense that when I first signed up for college I simply put “psychology” down as my option for a major since I have sort of always felt like a bit of a therapist. That being said it hasn’t always been easy to be an esthetician. Estheticians wear many, many hats that unless you walk in our shoes, you may not realize how much we have to do. First, we need to be able to analyze just about any skin condition. There are many party conversations that turn to “you should take a look at this thing on my back” or a text with attached photo that says “what do you think this might be?”. Secondly, we need to be able to run our businesses. I have to place orders, manage my business accounts, set up projections for myself and have to keep my permits, licenses and insurances all up to date. Things I never thought I’d have to worry about or rather even know anything about. Probably one of the most important parts of the job however is sales. I have to sell myself, sell you on my service, sell you on my products, sell you on everything. And you know what, I’m so not a sales person.
Stop Picking Your Skin!
I think we can all agree that one of the worst skin habits to have is picking at one’s skin. Actually, it’s THE worst habit to have. I can live with a “I forgot to wash my makeup off” every once in awhile or even a “I use cetaphil to wash my face”, but there is no good reason to pick your skin. Trust me I’ve heard it all; “It was ready” - How do you know? Are you a licensed esthetician? “I did it mindlessly” - Perhaps in your sleep but most scabs indicate to me that it wasn’t just a mindless attack. I’ve fallen victim to picking at my skin from an early age and since I obviously made a career out of it, I understand the urge to do it. The truth is that it comes down to two theories:
A - You actually think you are an esthetician and after watching enough Dr. Pimple Popper youtube videos so you feel confident you can extract your skin flawlessly.
Or
B - There is an emotional connection to why you are attacking your face. It may be anxiety or the need to control something when your life feels out of sorts however there is an underlying issue that your face doesn’t deserve to feel the retaliation from.
So what can you do? There are so many ways to transition out of this habit and I’ve broken it down into 3 simple steps.
Girl Boss all day, everyday
Over the weekend I was gifted a day off by the universe as I was attempting to squeeze too much in and once again my body said; “slow down and take care of me”. Why I have to learn this continuously is something I am working on, I promise. However, I cancelled my day and my bed was my new office and rest was my new assignment. I gave in and pulled up one of my favorite recipes for rest - Netflix. I’m really impressed with Netflix nowadays for being able to constantly rotate content as well as have new shows and movies. I mean we’ve all fallen in love with “The OA” and “Stranger Things” so the bar is set high, so when I hear the reviews of “girl boss” I was a bit bummed because I wanted it to be great. I love the Nasty Gal story and so I figured I would give it a shot since I was sequestered to my bed anyway. With 30 minute episodes, it was easy to move through the series quickly (and shamelessly) and once I was done I felt I related to the story so much. A few days before I started watching the series I felt a little down on myself for having dedicated almost 11 years to a career and to only feel like I am just starting to grow. I might be a late bloomer, or a slow bloomer, but I was starting to fall down the spiral of comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t able to achieve certain goals yet. My dream vacation is still awaiting me, hello! So as I’m trying to manifest my Therapeutic Skin Coach empire I realized that the story of Sophia Amoruso really spoke to my young entrepreneurial journey. For one, we both started in 2006 and secondly we were both so young (I - 18 and she - 23). So instead of allowing myself to be swallowed by the pit of comparison and jealously what I took from the series was a few basic lessons and reminders. Here is what I learned:
Retrograde Madness...
Ever feel like the universe is working against you? The answer is most likely yes and if not, I want to know your secret. No matter how zen we try to be sometimes it feels like no matter what is going on it can just feel extra difficult. For the last two months we have been experiencing some universal pulls because a couple of our planets have been in retrograde. If you are wondering what a planet being in retrograde means, it is when a planet decides to reverse its direction or simply move backwards. This universal pull messes with our typical flow and can mess with communication, relationships and tons of other important aspects of your day to day. Retrogrades are a concept that I was introduced to my very first month of working as an esthetician. I don’t know why folks in my industry are hyper aware of the shifts in our universe, but we are. I blame the fact that we need a reason for late cancellations, clients forgetting appointments or technology blunders. I admittedly have always been one of those typical retrograde weirdos that try to avoid certain behaviors during these shifts.
WRKSPC Oasis Launch and what I learned
Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to participate in the launch of WRKSPC Oasis, A women's coworking + wellness popup at the Parachute Hotel in Venice with Skin Food Talk. WRKSPC Oasis was founded by two bad ass entrepreneurs bosses that I’m so grateful to have met. Kristine Lo, who was also my wedding videographer and SFT’s ebook photographer and Mikayla Mitchell, whom I had met previously through conscious city guide. These ladies were paired together at a meditation workshop (how cosmic!) and manifested their creation together so flawlessly. All day Tara and I got to sit outside on the rooftop and meet with women who were either self employed, in between careers or attracted to a women run wellness popup. When I get to meet with people all day long and talk about their health there are a few themes that consistently come up; we tend to overwork, under eat/sleep and lose track of that little voice within that says “slow down”. Women led companies are changing the world right now and it’s incredible to be apart of it while we are seeing a lot of darkness rise. We bring the light to all aspects of life - our friendships, family dynamics and our workspace. Many of us are empaths or sensitives that feel a lot of what’s going on and start to notice the physical and emotional symptoms that don’t seem to have a root cause. The reason the launch of WRKSPC Oasis was so successful was because they found the root which is how to care for ourselves and each other while balancing our super woman responsibilities. I wanted to take the chance to share the practices I learned from the event and how they have immediately impacted my life.
Reassessing our standards
I was in an energy session recently where I was faced with a question that hit me like a ton of bricks. “Are you standards too high for yourself?” is exactly what I needed to hear to let go of the physical anxiety holding me back from actualizing my goals. My standards for myself are astronomically high. They have been since I was a young girl because I showed signs of emotional depth, intelligence and empathy really early on. If someone was mean to someone else on the school playground, I would mediate. “How would you feel if you were in their shoes?” was the first question 6 year old Hayley would ask. Immediately I set my standards high and so did everyone else around, not leaving much space for me to crumble down if I needed to.
What constitutes an expert?
Over the last few years I have seen an incredible growth in the wellness community. We have evolved our hippie, woowoo reputation to a reliable source of transparency and natural health care. Since I’ve been in the game for over a decade, and that may just be long enough to recognize patterns, I’ve realized the most extreme pattern is how sick people are getting. With the amount of knowledge I’ve acquired over the years, I feel as though I constantly have to research and ask questions. I’m lucky to have a great group of wellness practitioners that I collaborate with so we can create a whole health wellness plan for just about any case. If a case gets a little tricky for me to solve on my own I have many estheticians who I can reach out to for advice. The collaborative effort creates a safe space to explore endless possibilities and potentially help catch something I would have normally missed in an assessment. So if it takes a village and a decade of experience among the leaders of this community for me to find success, than how come everyone is all of a sudden an expert?