I'm happy to say I think the average consumer is way more educated. I will hopefully use my platform to continue to educate, but I think science is about to take focus. I think, you know, drms are becoming the influencers, which I think is so interesting and fascinating and I love that people want to educate themselves.
Hello. Everyone, this is Martha Stewart. In February, I interviewed doctor Dan Belkin about cosmetic procedures and was thrilled to see the response from our listeners. People are clearly hungry for scientific, fact based knowledge about skincare as we continue to explore this subject. Today, I am speaking with my friend, doctor Dobel Bono Sali about the science behind skincare. Doctor B or Doveel as I call him, is a Board
certified dermatologist based in New York City. As a doctor, he is known for his work on scars, including several cases that went viral, and also he's known for his work and hair replacement. He's also the founder of three companies and the developer behind Hayley Beaver's fabulously successful skincare line Road. Welcome to my podcast, doctor B.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so happy that we're finally sitting down in this charming little recording studio in Rockefeller Center to talk about your kind of skincare. Absolutely, I met doctor B how many years ago was.
It probably six or seven years now.
In Miami, Miamia at an event and we started to talk about skin and skincare has always been a big interest of mine, and of course it is also yours. You went to medical school at what age?
I got into medical school at seventeen.
Oh my gosh. And he is the son of a doctor, the brother of a doctor. Any other doctors in your family.
Brother in law, uncles, cousins.
Oh wow, So destined to be a doctor, and he has focused his entire career on skincare and hair care. Well, welcome to the podcast. It's very exciting to talk about different aspects of skincare because I am fascinated. As you know, it is something that I think about every single day.
I do have to look in the mirror at least twice a day, once in the morning when I wash my face and put on my skincare for the day, and also at night when I have to wash my face again, cleanse it and put on more skincare the best habit. It is the best habit. And I have told people over and over again that I have never that I can remember gone to bed without cleansing my skin. Is that the good habit, right.
It's one of those few things that adds up over time. I mean, a couple bad nights and you see it. People's skin starts breaking out, you start having different issues, texture changes. So it's one of the few things, along with sunscreen obviously, that we try to educate patients on daily.
And where did you study for your undergraduate.
So I did my undergrad med school, both at Michigan State. The blessing I was given was that I was already in med school, so as an undergrad, I was able to take classes from everything from art history to packaging to economics human psychology. So you know, I think, especially nowadays, you need a little bit of everything to really like even approach patients, right. You need to understand who they are, why they think, what they think, and all these things become more and more important.
How did you launch your career after school?
I spent about two years just working at practices in the city. I think I ran into you again right before maybe like a week before I opened up my new office in Hudson Yards, which has been now I think four or five years or so. My joke was I used to walk around with homemade cookies to all the dormant in the area because I'm not a business guy, right, so I would give him my little card and hope to God that they would give it to the residents of the place. You know, you fast forward now I
don't even know what my next available appointment is. But it's like, you don't forget that kid who's giving the homemade cookies to everybody, Like that's it's kind of part of who you are.
So it's been quite the journey.
Well, you have a thriving practice in New York Hudson dermatology and laser surgery, So tell us about the specialized services that you actually provide at that office. I've gone there for a facial, fantastic facial. I've gone there for consultations.
We're lucky enough to have some of the top doctors I think in the world that work at our practice now have different specialties, whether it's cosmetics, whether it's more medical related things, even allergy patch testing, which is importantespecially when we do skincare projects and formulations. I love the hacking part of things, right, So we did a laser recently.
Part of why we did a laser was to deliver certain ingredients with you, right, And so that aspect of it is a little more nuanced than just do a laser or just do a facial.
Right, even the facial.
When you say you do a laser, what does that entail?
So for example, the one we did with you, we use a long pulse and diag laser to deliver. We wanted to heat the dermiss. So if we were going to do a facial and deliver certain ingredients, I want to optimize the surface of your skin so that you get the most out of those ingredients. And we do other different technologies and treatments to help improve the overall effect,
not just short term but long term as well. And so I think the idea of comboing technology with all the things we traditionally do in science, that's like the magic that you see where people want that extra oof. It really does exist, but you have to really understand all facets of this stuff. And it's fascinating, but it's changing so fast.
But the lasers is that what we read about when like an actress for a big award comes into you to get her skin looking absolutely luscious.
We have that aspect of our office, the cosmetic side. I myself personally, I love my scar case, as you mentioned my hair cases, both because they're very emotional conditions. But it's like, how do we approach cosmetics? For me, it's artistic. What bothers somebody? And how do I fix it? And so if it's a red carpet, we might use
a certain kind of laser. If I'm doing resurfacing, if there's wrinkles, if I like there's something called a blade of laser, I can literally remove the top layer of your skin and give you almost like a facelift type result. The downtime is decently significant, but you don't go under the knife. So there's so many things we can do. But I think the idea is again like as the world evolves and technology evolves, what are our best options?
Well, you are very well known for your work repairing scars. He is a very important case that he worked on. A young boy. Bridger was rescuing his sister from a dog and dog who was biting her.
It's an inspirational and very tragic story. His sister was being attacked by a dog and he got in the way.
Was this the family dog?
I think it was the neighbors.
Yeah.
And this is after everything happened and the dog had ripped off a good part of his face. They asked him, like why he did it, and he just said He's like, if somebody has to die, it has I'd rather it be me than my sister. He was five years old, right, And it's like, how do you not want to help somebody like that?
And you know it's been touching. It happened during the pandemic.
I remember back then if I talk about it now, but we were even scared to bring him in because back then nobody was flying. It was very like, we don't know what to do. But it's like, what do you do when you need to help somebody?
How soon after the accident were you able to work on his face?
Traditional dogmas, you wait up to a year to treat somebody after surgery or procedure for repair. But that's old school and part of like kind of where my technique is, and I think a lot of the dermatologists now it's treat as soon as possible.
If you like.
There's times where if I'm doing a surgery on a skin cancer, I might do a deep layer of sutures laser and then put a top layer of sutures on top to get the best cosmetic outcome. And so with him safely, legally ethically, the quickest we could get him in that was what we did.
We treat him aggressively.
So it was doctor Mahon and Utah Corey who also helped with that case as well, and we had to kind of figure out how do we get him because Bridger was based in Wyoming, how do we get him to one of us, because you know, in those situations, a couple of weeks, a couple of months can make all the difference. And this is the rest of his life, right, So we was just five years old. Yeah, and so I saw him recently. It was super sweet. So I'll
never forget his dad. Just his only requests. I hope to god he can smile one day like that was the only request from the family, And it was fun to see him in the family catch up. You know, now he's smiling, laughing his own person. So it's been really fun to watch.
Did you have to do skin grass? From other parts of his body or.
No, we were lucky because we got it pretty early. And so the idea is we we resurfaced really aggressively. And I don't get emotional often. I still remember I tears in my eyes when I was lasering him because it's like you feel it, right, you know he feels it, but you feel his father felt that we were all kind of just like doing our best, and the poor guy he took it like a champion.
He was a charming boy and he looks very, very good.
That's a case that for the rest of my life I'll remember. That's kind of the why, right, why do we do this stuff? And that's definitely a why.
Well, it's nice that there are doctors like you who can tackle such a really devastating situation like that. So he's been healing for how many years now.
I think it's for three years.
Yeah, and so, and like I said, as he grows, we're going to keep watching the scar and see if we have to do anything else.
In your office. The office, by the way, is very different from most doctors' offices.
The spaceship.
It is like a spaceship. It's white and red. It is like a spaceship inside. You know what impresses me about offices is the equipment, and you have the latest of the latest of the latest, and that's what that's what I'm looking for. I am looking for youthful enthusiasm and knowledge and good equipment. And I was very impressed with your office and even and in the last couple of years it's even gotten more impressive.
We get to help develop some of the lasers as well. Like I always think about the people who are in my office, but those are four walls, right, and it's like the people beyond that. So impact I think can be measured many different ways. And when you help with developing technology or even doing clinical trials, which we do a lot, of your impact then go beyond those four walls. And I think that's a really important thing as a doctor that you should think about, which we didn't traditionally
do for a long time. It was always like one foot front, the other head down, do your work. But now you know, the world has become a lot smaller, and so I think it is an opportunity for us to advance much quicker as we than we otherwise would expect to.
Well, I always also look I mean when it comes to skincare, I always look at the doctor and what kind of skin does the doctor have? How's the doctor taking care of himself or herself? And you also you have this practice in hair replacement, and you also did a video on your Instagram about you getting hair replacement.
Well, we were doing it on one of our patients. I think it's important to educate people. A lot of the stuff is there's a like cosmetics itself is a wild wild West.
Like let's be honest.
Our expertise is in our education and part of our job and much now you do it. You educate or you've been educating for a long time in terms of like how to take care of yourself, how to you know how to cook well, how to take care of farms right? And our job as doctors to educate. So I use social media honestly as an education tool and to demystify a lot of these things because I know I can't see everybody right. Like again, I don't know maybe a year, two years, three years, I don't know
what my next appointment is. But it doesn't mean I can't help somebody who's going to go see a dermatologist or a local doctor be educated to go, you know, get the help.
That they need.
Can we talk about the hair replacement a little bit? What is your procedure? So because I have so many friends who are you know, getting you know a little older and really want to do something about their thinning hair and men and women. But it's very interesting because they're talking about going to Nepal or to India or starchy.
So it's interesting. We do two different things.
So one is there was a project we called Hairstem that works on my Skin Medicinals platform, but we create a tech platform where doctors can custom compound ingredients for hair growth really anything. And what happened was a lot of these patients who were not getting their traditional results with the traditional medications, the doctors were starting to use certain ingredients that we help put together and their patients
started growing hair. So I think they did a really good job of providing that next layer in terms of innovation. Because hair, we've had the same two FDA ingredients for our all like twenty years or so, and so the idea was like, how do we use technology to provide better options for a patients. So that took off quite a bit. So that was a topical, non invasive option for transplants. Let's say you want to lower your hair, or if you want to fill in the back area
or whatever that is. We actually can take hairs from the back of your head and place them wherever we need to. The art of it is how do you place them in a way that a the person looks like a normal like how they should kind of like a like a cosmetic procedure. Right, nobody should not look like themselves, and so the idea is like even with your hair, like, you have to kind of visualize what is this person going to look like?
How is going to be natural?
You can do a strip method, which is a little bit more old school, or you can do the FUI, which is we take individual once we kind of hide the scarring so you don't really see much of anything, and then we place it. The only kind of downside their long procedures. We did one last week. It was sixteen hours long. I think fifteen hours.
Wow, that's a long time.
So there, it's quite the process, but the results are worth it.
I think you.
Did it, and I remember seeing the pictures of you with your your you know, your face got a little swollen from afterward, But your hair looks amazing, thank you.
My reasoning was a little bit different partly than most because we teach it and we educate people and you kind of have to go through it.
To I always ask doctors, have you done this? Yeah, like you have you had cataract surgery or have you had you know?
For me, I did a little like just kind of like a shaping, if you will, and I thought it made such a huge difference. But also I gave feedback to the company and we help kind of design different things that different elements that would improve.
That's innovation, right, you're.
A guinea pig. But also and you're learning tremendously from this kind of absolutely, and as a result you can do it very successfully. On people will cause this hair loss in the first place.
That's the thing. There's so many factors there.
I mean, obviously genetics is number one, but it could be anything from hormone issues to vitamin deficiencies, vitamin dia. I tell everybody check the vitamin DM very big on that. I think things like iron people forget that. A lot of people aren't efficient these days. I even had a patient I'll never forget. She came in she had been losing a lot of hair, and I've seen her for years for cosmetic stuff, and I was like, no, no, no, this is not a hair loss consultation. I need you
to go see your primary doctor. We to do blood work, do this. She came back three months later, double miss it to me. She had breast cancer and a lot of times your hair. My kind of thoughts always the hair is a window to the soul, not the eyes. The hair can tell you stuff, so it's always worth seeing an expert because that's.
Where you start finding hairs on your pillow.
Correct.
Yeah, And I mean, look you have like you probably one of the more iconic hairstyles I think out there. But also I would argue one of the things you do better than most people. You are healthy, right, You minimize exposures to things, you eat well, all these things, everything plays a part in your body and your body's reflection.
With you totally ru with you, and you have to find the things that maybe you're lacking and replace those things, add them to your diet whatever. I'd like to get my blood tested twice a year just to see that they know if I'm feeling hired me. I work so hard but and tiredness is just part of overwork, I think for me. But I did find out that I was a little low on iron, so it was such an easy fix. Yeah, and so those things are extremely important.
I think more doctors should really stress the fact that a few good, but you.
Were proactive, right, so maybe like two three, four months, but you start noticing more hair break if you didn't get it fixed or treated right, hair break age, you might notice other things fatigued, tired. I'm a big proponent. So again I've shifted my practice a bit less about chasing. Again, that's why I have a different cosmetic I think angle than most people. I like to think of proactive like what do you do like I like to build structures.
If you're going to get botox, okay, putting your calendar done, don't think about other things that's in their calendar for fillers. If you're going to do fillers once a year, put in the calendar, have it situated.
Don't chase other things. Always as bad aest.
But can you help your patients with those with placing it on the calendar. I mean you can tell them when they should do it, you can. Yeah, And I think I think people don't realize that too. They could ask the doctor when's my next visit?
And I think you make the is it's a year ahead of time and put in your eyical or whatever it is. Even lasers, right, I have a role with my patients, Like I might do a laser once a year when you're in your thirties, twice a year once you get forties, and then I tweak bending on like whatever issue we're looking at. But I but the problem is we live in a world where you see something on Instagram or TikTok and you're like I need this, And you know, I think you're a great example.
You're very structured. Right. We look at a lot of like again, we've talked.
About sun damage before with you. We did the imaging of your face with the visia.
Oh yeah, that was very interesting.
Yeah, but we can people can't call visia. Yeah, but we were looking at the sun damage underneath your skin.
Right.
That is one of those things where like I, as a doctor, not cosmetic a doctor, have to be aware that you have sun damaged. Like this is the reason why ingredients are important. This is the reason why we look at even with sunscreens, what is the evolution of it is this the best we can do? Are there are different supplements we can take to enhance our UV protection. This is why, like again how we do our practice.
We're more looking forward as opposed to backwards. And the idea is like, how do we create a plan almost like a workout plan?
Right?
People do their like food planning ahead of time, their workouts sead of time. This is like I think aging well nowadays is also about living well and creating that structure in.
Place beyond your practice. You can see that doctor thinks about a lot of things, not just not just giving fillers and botox and making people feel better about their looks, but really going to the crooks of skincare. You've been called a doctorpreneur. Do you identify more as a doctor nowadays or as an entrepreneur?
Always doctor doctor.
Where our job is and even the way we use business, it's really it's a means to I think, reach a broader audience. But I will always identify as a doctor because our job is to serve people, and you know, every project I do has that in the back of the mind.
But you at the same time, you have pulled together the resources to get four companies off the ground. Tell us about those companies.
Yeah, so, I mean I've been fortunate. Maybe it's addntioning working add but skin medicinals I'm insanely proud of. That was a project just to lower drug pricing. Back in twenty eighteen. If you remember drug the generic drug pricing skyrocketed, and you're the patients that came in, you'd have a twenty dollars medication that's now four hundred dollars.
And so what we did is we looked at like.
People who had to take that medicine were feeling terribly impoverished.
Yeah, they couldn't they couldn't do it, they couldn't afford it. Right, I'm not going to let somebody choose between food and their medication, right, So we did a little bit like at that point, compounding was just starting to take off. It actually had been the predominant way of creating medications before I think nineteen mid nineteen nineties, but it was very like kind of an old school approach with the
facts and all that. So we built a digital platform to make to use technology to improve the access to these compounding medications, which could be literally one hundredth the price. The second part of that was that we can create personalized medication so I could pick and choose what ingredients you need for whatever condition it was.
We've already saved healthcare.
I think about probably almost five hundred million dollars maybe more. We have about fifteen thousand terms around the country that use it. And it really was a project to get lower pricing. But the number of people who've written in who said like, hey, this is saved me, you know, it's it's it's been very humbling, but that's why you build things, right.
You don't what that company is called skin Medicinals.
Skin Medicinals.
Yeah, we're now doing more generic meds. We're doing we're trying to work through with actual like branded medications as well. Like the whole idea is access right and how do we also build with a dermatologists as well because part of people what people don't realize it's very difficult as a doctor to get access to these medicaid It's not like we don't want people to get these medications. So
we're building infrastructure to make the doctor's life simpler. But it's a tough process because there's a lot of red tape around that, and for good reason, but I.
Guess the best way.
But it's it's it's it's a big patience pusher, if you will, because you have to do everything the right way, which I'm a big advocate for.
But it takes time.
But I wounded my foot or actually my cat and my dog wounded my legs, and one doctor recommended me that I go to a compounder and get a special kind of painkiller. Boy did that work?
Yeah, No, compounding is it's really like part of the analogy. But it's like a cook in the kitchen, right, like for you mixing and matching ingredients. You can do what you want to versus getting something pre made and just warming it up right, and the idea. I think as doctors it's our duty to understand ingredients and formulations and then being able to utilize that for the best of our patients.
So you worked with Hailey Beaber, the beautiful, beautiful wife of Justin Bieber, my friend who I roasted and his twenty first vers just.
Still the funniest five ten minutes of TV I've ever seen.
Oh my gosh. Well you did develop with her a line, a very successful line of lovely skincare. What were her priorities for skincare?
So, Haley, I mean you've met her. She's a brilliant mind, very creative. I think with her growing up in her generation, there's a lot of marketing and kind of noise, right, and she wanted to simplify everything and provide almost I think she said the white T shirt, if you will, of skincare, where it's just basics that are essentials and then utilize the scigence aspect of it. So it was
very ingredient based, right. So there are things from peptides to nice cinemi to polyglutamate, Like each product had very specific ingredients, but really just what you needed, right, not putting all the excess things in it. And it's been really fun to watch that grow.
We it's a simple packaging, good packaging, but simple, not overdone. You don't have to open fifteen boxes to get to a tiny little tub of I cream. You know, it's very nice. It's very nice and artistically designed.
Yeah, I think, but that generation, I think they want authenticity and transparency. And you know, she's been great about connecting with her audience and she's very involved. I mean she I've gotten text messages her with from her who knows what time about ingredients and studies and things like that. But you want somebody who really does care about it. And that aspect of it, I think is it resonates. That's why people can kind of see the authenticity of the brand.
So you're very passionate about formulations of products. What makes a good formulation, So.
There's a lot of things again, much like cooking. I love that comparison, but it's not just a pinch of that or a little bit of so and so. The percentage matters, right, A two percent nice in the mind, for example, might be a really good fanti inflammator. If I want to brighten, I might go at higher concentrations. How you mix and match ingredients, right, So we talked about hair and we did a lot of compounding.
For hair.
I would use let's say monoxidal. Traditional monoxidal, you get x amount into your scalp. If I put something like retinoc acid, I can enhance the penetration this monoxida.
It's been shown in study.
They figured that out exactly. So a formulation really is much like a recipe. It's a grouping of different ingredients that can get you a one plus one equals three at least. I like to think about it, right, where these ingredients can synergize and also like you keep all the other things in mind, tolerability, efficacy, and even the potential side effects, right, I mean, anything can have side effects.
People can have allergies. My old thing with fragrance. For example, four percent of able people have fragrance allergy, which is not a lot of people.
But if you have a million people, try.
A product people, but four percent, only four, But that means forty thousand people out of a million people can have an allergy.
So it's a lot more than you realize.
Particular, really, if you're formulating brands for the world, so you can have specific allergies of specific ingredients. There might be a certain scent or whatever it is beyond the traditional fragrance, but there's a baseline population. No matter what fragrance you give them, they'll start getting that kind of that reddish we call the macular popular type rash, or the itchiness around the neck and eyelids and things like that.
In an interview, you said that we nerd out on ingredients. Let's talk about some of the ingredients that you use and what science says about them.
So peptides, So peptides are fun.
As it's been picking up steam over the last two years or so, there's a little fragments of amino acids. Think of them as almost parts of proteins. Their job is actually to trick your body into going to production
motor signaling your body to do stuff. So whether you're producing collagen or lastin or telling a muscle contract a little bit less, they kind of almost like I just getting little messengers that go in and tell your body, hey, maybe you should consider doing this without having the over ingredients that you would otherwise be using.
Yeah. So on just this morning, I put on super peptide serum. Yeah, I don't know what it's doing, if it's doing anything, but so it speeds things up.
Yeah, So I mean, depending on whatever. There's so many different types of peptides, so it's really what you're targeting. But I think it's a good point where with peptides all these different products, it's interesting to see who's saying what because there's a science the right people. Anybody can say peptide, but what does that mean?
Right?
And it's worth looking into, like what the literally they've done in these studies and if they actually work.
But you know, all of a sudden there were peptides and I had never seen them before before, as you say about five years ago. What about nian and cinemides?
Nice?
It's a nice and it's a great formulation ingredient, it's anti inflammatory.
We use it all Actually, what's skin of medicine?
We use it a lot for improving tolerabilitycause a lot of these medications can be a bit harsh. So I love it almost as like as like a stabilizing type ingredient to help people kind of just keep everything at bay, even for acne.
Cowuld you use it for rerittinal with retinal y.
Yeah, so we with our skin medicinals we have a formulation with trettono and a lot of people get irritation with trettonoid, so we have hyaluronic acid in their term which is an anti inflammatory, and then nice cinemite as well to help hopefully keep the tolerability at base that people can work their way up and then they don't have any issues.
Okay. Vitamin C that's been a big big thing for skincare.
Yeah, so vitamin C.
You and I have talked about this a lot, so vitamin C is a fascinating ingredient. There's been two articles and I think the last six months questioning of vitamin C actually does anything. I look at it kind of like milk, where we were told for years and years you have to drink milk. Out drink milk, or your bones were all break. We stop drinking milk, and somehow we're all okay.
Vitamin C.
I think certain brands do a very good job with it, but the vast majority of the don't do the research. A lot of vitamin c's within minutes of putting it on your skin, they don't work. So think about somebody who is using it for anti accident protection. You're going out in the sun and you're you just spend one hundred dollars on a product, one hundred dollars in a product and it's not doing anything. Let's say you forget your sunscreen, be like, oh okay, I have this, this
and this, and it's not doing anything. Some of them within the bottle themselves are inactivated, so they're not working right, and you're spending so much money. So a lot of the stuff that we've been you and I have been kind of going in and you know, again, not to
go too far into it. You and I have worked don you're a student of the game, if you all right, and you like to learn about ingredients, and we've gone through deep dives of certain products and formations that I made stuff for you, but around the anti accident world, because I do think that we've evolved from iPod to iPhone and with technology, even with ingredients, Can I stabilize vitamin C longer? Can I find something that's better than
vitamin C? And the answers yes, And again I'm not saying all vitamin c's are bad, but I am saying that the vast majority of the ones that are on the market are not doing what you think they are. And again I think Dan had mentioned that as well. Oh yeah, and part of like you know again, I look at somebody like you who's wearing sunscreen, doing things the right way. Maybe you have been using vitamin C for a long time. Maybe that's why we're still not getting, you know, the results.
Now, a few years ago, you and I worked on products containing CBD. Without the government backing of these of these products, it's very difficult to put them out on the marketplace. What about CBD Does it really work in skincare with youth?
So say, it's a good question.
That's a great example of like I think, sometimes marketing gets a hold too fast and it doesn't allow the science to catch up.
CBD actor is a great anti inflammatory.
It's one of those things where their actual clinical trials going on. I've heard they're all doing very well. I'm sure they'll be publishing over the next couple years, but they take you up to seven years to these trials to go through. I think there's something there, But the problem is all these people start, and it's with anything, they'll start claiming crazy things without the science to back it up. People start questioning the integrity of these things,
and then you kind of lose the audience. And so that's why, yeah, we started looking at CBD. I think the government regulation and again there's reasons for why people do certain things, but I think it got kind of caught in the crosswinds, if you will, of a lot
of different places. But in a weird way, it kind of worked out because then we started looking at other ingredients, and again I think with your concerns and us talking about antioxidents, it kind of pushed us through a different direction, but in a weird way. That's why we found really cool discoveries along the way.
Toners.
So I got kind of yelled at on the internet about this. I'm a not a big fan of toners.
So what areners in your mind?
So, toners were initially created to balance your pH whatever that means. Right after you cleanse your skin, your body does that naturally, like it normally does that. It might take a couple of seconds, but it does it. But a lot of skincare brands are like, okay, we can just market this thing is going to rebalance yourph. And they're very alcohol basically tighten your skin, so you feel like they're doing something you don't need it, right, And so the traditional toner is not what it is today.
Now they're more like essences essences. I look, I think it's just a great step for improving the skin barrier. But the current toners are just hydrating ingreens. They don't use alcohol, they don't use any that stuff. But they're just marketers to things.
They're soothing.
Yeah, but that's not what a toner was, right, and so people still use the name toner. The reason why I say you don't need it because the toner in its previous form no longer exists. Really just using an essence, which are fine, and a lot of times even with
road we have a glae. I actually brought you something, but that glazing milk is really an essence that you can use to kind of nurture your barrier and use it kind of pre makeup as a base, and I think it does help overall, just whether it's the appearance of your makeup but also your skin health throughout the rest of the day.
Are any other ingredients that we should avoid?
I think generally speaking, I mean, look, there's all these there's a whole laundry list of things out there. I think it's more like the trends, the TikTok trends and Instagram trends and people doing do it yourself masks and.
Do well not only ingredients, but procedures too.
Even procedures.
I think one of the big things is that you have to know who you're going to like more FISA. It's gotten really big, right and I'm not against me.
What is that?
It's a radio frequency micro needlenks. They use a certain kind of energy and then with micro needling to deliver results deeper into your skin.
The problem is where do we use it? How do you use it?
There's so many nuances there, and really the issue is most people, again they just say I want more VSA A twenty something that does not need more VSA. Somebody who has maybe some crapiness around the stomach, around the knees, would they benefit, like probably, But again, who's doing it? How much energy are they delivering? There's so many nuances stuff, And that's where I get really nervous, because we start seeing, like a part of my early practice, I built it
on fixing kind of mistakes from other places. And when you see so much, you become a bit wary of everything, and you get almost like you're again. Probably why I educate so much on social media is because I've seen more than I probably should, and so we try our best to prevent it.
Well, some ingredients, as you just said, deliver holidays from other ingredients. What does that mean in.
Terms of enhancing ingredients? So there's a lot of different things we do. Let's say, for example, there's you know ingredient A and it's known and traditionally as an antioxidant, right ingredient B might be combined with ingredient A, and actually the combination of those might be anti inflammatory. And we do this a lot in formulations on the medical side,
but also on the OTC side. So a lot of like what we do now with ingredients is looking at again downstream function and how do we make complexes that can really get you the result you want, not just the marketing of it, but scientifically, can we show that these ingredients are complementary, just like again like a certain taste in a recipe where if you put a little bit of this, maybe the salt pulls out a little
bit more tape, you know, whatever it is. That's how we look at a lot of these formulations.
And do you ever teach? You're such you're so eloquent about all this stuff.
I used to teach a lot more. I teach at Mount Sinai, which we're both fans of. I teach their the residents once a month. I use my social the best I can. I give lectures I to give I think two lectures are of American Academy of Durham next week in San Diego. So I do my best to teach, but I think the fun part about social media is that I think it gives me an ability. Like even today I post something you know, within a few minutes
has ten thousand, twenty thousand and three thousand views. That's a whole Madison Square garden with the people who's just been educated. It's incredible, right, And so you can touch so many more people and so many more lives, I think through social and that's how I try to teach. And I think that's like again, that's the future of how.
We're going to be communicating and how do we find you on social media.
So my tag is at doctor Bonasali d R B H A n U S Ali for those who might not be able to spell it, but you know we're in Hudson Yards.
We have some incredible doctors.
Definitely. Oh so let's let's just do quickly basic skin care for a twenty year old.
For twenty year old, I would keep it simple. Cleanser, moisturize with SPF, and you can consider starting your retinol at nighttime, but you don't have to yet.
Okay, thirties, I would.
Definitely have the retinal or retinoid. And then again, just as a quick reminder, retinoids help you with your texture, your tone, pores, pigmentation if you have it, the increase cell turner's almost like expliation and with wrinkle prevention or slowing down. So you should be on it and obviously acting as well, because a lot of people use it
for acne. That would definitely do. And I would consider then an antioxidant, especially if you're out in the sun quite a bit, and forties forties, I would definitely have an antioccident. I think at that point now you start looking at what are the things that bother you? Right? So the way I look at like your serum is your active. Your active can be hydration when you're younger or when you're older, but when you're in your thirties and forties, is it pigmentation? Is it redness?
Is it?
What is that pathology or trying to solve. So you have your cleanser, your moisturize or your serum and then your SPF on top and at nighttime again, your retinoid is something you don't give up.
Okay, and how do you get retinoid? But what do you look for?
So retinoid's just a vitamin A, so it could be retinols which are over the counter or retinoic acid, which is prescription. I will always push their prescription because it's just stronger and it works better. Again, formulation is fun, right, So you can use retinyls and add you know, an alphydroxy acid or beta hydrox to get better drying. It is drying, but actually one of the reasons why it makes your skin look more taut and the poorest smaller.
It removes excess oil. So it actually is part of the job of the retinoid to reduce the oil make you a little bit dry. But you can do different techniques, techniques like the sandwich technique, which I think I posted about before. We can apply moisturis before and afterwards. I like argon oil, so after you use a retinol, put a little bit of argan oil which actually helps keep acneat bay and also helps keep your skin hydrated after a retinol.
So there's a lot of little tricks we can use.
Yeah, boy, write a book.
You're a number one hundred, right, I'll get to one and we'll please.
Let's write a book about skincare. We should. Can you talk about some of the products that you've recommended for me?
Sure?
One of the things you and I have done I think again, more as scientists than and educators. We've really looked at the science. I have worked on that. I mean, I've worked on a new antioccid and complex with you. But we looked at antioxidants because for somebody like you, I like you are real. You really are out on the farm. I've I've come to your place and you're on the tractor doing who knows what, and I'm running
around and like, ow, she had so much energy. But you were a living, breathing example of being active, and so we looked at, you know, antioxidant. My big concern with you is always going to be sun protection, right. We've talked about developing like a supplement that actually helps protect you with the in addition to sunscreen, not to replace it.
Yes, a supplement that you would ingest correct.
Yeah, And the science is there, right, Like I'm not a big supplement guy, but there's science where certain things work. The problem is because of marketing and social media, people put out god knows what, and our job as doctors kind of debunk what the you know, the non factual information is versus the factual information, and we've played with the stuff. Maybe one day, we'll bring it to the masses.
But I think, you know, with us, like it's been kind of fun to discover things, and even that facial we did with you, like we delivered specific ingredients. I remember Daisy called me like a week later and she's like, what did you do to Martha? Like her skin looks insane? But that's the fine. I don't think people realize that are Martha facial? If you will, it's unofficial facial that we have in our facial lab. You're the only person who gets it's not available to the public.
So people are talking about protecting the skin barrier, what does that mean?
So the skin barrier itself is really interesting. It's kind of like you know, you've seen you saw that big push with the biome and the gut biome and how that can really affect your overall health with.
Your skin bearer.
It's very similar so rosetia, for example, it's an inflammatory condition and they found more recently that it actually is a compromi there's a kind of a disfigured skin barrier or a dysfunctional excuse me, skin barrier that might be a root cause in the entire roseesia picture. Even acne or infections and a lot of different things that we don't realize are actually caused because our skin barrier is off.
We spent decades exfoliating ourselves to death, and what happened is you compromise this barrier whose job was singularly to protect you. And so that's why the goal of a lot of skincare now is to moisturize, hydrate, protect, because that's what's going to protect your skin long term, so it can do what it's supposed to, just protect you.
And is social media more harmful or helpful when it comes to skincare education, it's.
A loaded question.
Yeah, I think it's harmful and that people compare themselves a lot. Right. It's there's a lot of negativity on social media, and we've talked to you about, you know, in with you people. Every time you post something, it's always like it's more negative in the beginning and then it becomes positive. But I think the opposite is true too.
It's inspirational. Right, you did the SI cover. I've never told you this, but the number of people who've come to my office and have been like I needed to see that because they've hit a certain age and they almost feel like they can't live a certain way. The number of my own patients who have been like that has changed my outlook on life. Like that is impactful, right, And they see this picture, it's not just a picture.
It represents so much more. And I think social media, when used well, can be equal parts inspirational, equal parts educational, and it's a net positive, but you have to put
the kind of levers in place to control it. And with kids and stuff, I do like that they're looking a little bit more about how kids are affected, because again, you don't want to compare yourself, you know, Again, we treat some of the more well known people on earth, they don't even look like some of the victures that are out there, right, sometimes the best representation of them.
And I think that authentic conversation needs to be had, whether it's with parents and you know their kids, or even doctors with their patients.
How would you like to change the future of skincare?
We're asked us in a couple of different interviews over the last couple of weeks in media, and they're like, what do you think is going to happen over the next decade with skincare? And I'm happy to say I think the average consumer is way more educated. I will hopefully use my platform to continue to educate, but I think science is about to take focus. I think, you know, germs are becoming the influencers, which I think is so interesting and fascinating, and I love that people want to
educate themselves. And I think the next decade is going to be defined by science and all the fluff is going to go away, the marketing, all that kind of stuff. It's gonna people are still gonna market, but the quality will rise to the top. And I think people will now look at much more efficacious formulas that actually work and say what do what they say, as opposed to maybe trying to trick people into hoping that something actually occurs.
One day. Well, all this is such great information. We could talk and talk and talk and talk, but I think I would like our audience to digest all this information. And you can follow doctor Vonisli at doctor d R capital B h A N s U A l I on all social media channels for more skin care expertise. You could change that to doctor.
B listen if you know somebody at Instagram, or take that and get me doctor B. I'm down to the take of it.
Thank you so much, doctor B. And I look forward to my next facial at your beautiful offices in Hudson Yards and UH and I look forward to continuing to work with you on extraordinary, fantastic, useful products. Absolutely, thank you, Thank you for having me