Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign
- [00:04]
B
welcome to ASCP and the Rogue Pharmacist with Benjamin Knight Fuchs. In each episode we'll explore how internal and external factors can impact the skin. I'm Maggie Stasik, ASCP's program director. And joining me is Ben Fuchs, skincare formulator and pharmacist. Hi Ben.
- [00:20]
A
Hello Maggie.
- [00:21]
B
Ben. I hear a lot from clients and online that their skin is quote unquote purging whenever they start a new product. And some even talk about the skin detoxing. But I know it's not that simple. Break it down for us.
- [00:33]
A
No, it's not that simple. So here's the deal. Skin purging only occurs when you use ingredients that pull things up. So you know, estheticians all know this, but the average person doesn't realize that the skin, skin cells are at the bottom of the skin and then everything rises up to the form the barrier. So you got your keratinocyte, it lives in the basal layer and then the keratinocyte kind of shape shifts up to the squamous layer and all the way up until reaches the barrier. This movement upwards is where skin purging begins. And yes, skin purging is a thing, but it has to, it is only associated with ingredients that pull things up, that speed up cell turnover. And it only occurs when there are microcomedones inside a follicle. So just quick review. You got your pores, Pores are like, I think of them like the opening to a rabbit hole. And then you have a follicle which is the rabbit hole and the follicle itself. And this is kind of not really intuitive, but makes sense. The follicle itself is lined with keratinocytes, it's lined with cells. And those keratinocytes under certain conditions can overgrow, particularly when there's certain nutrients that are missing. They, they grow really fast, they hyper proliferate. We say they secrete proteins and this is what causes a clog. The clog itself is exacerbated by sebaceous secretions. The sebaceous gland lives inside the follicle and that's where you get your comedone. If you have bacteria that are trapped inside, you get a full blown zit. Microcomedones are comedones that are beginning to form inside the follicle, but you don't see them yet. They only become a comedone over time. Purging is the end result of microcomedones being pulled up to the top of the, of the follicle. To the pore. So it is a thing. But it only occurs, A, when there are microcomedones present, that is in acne patients, typically, and B, with ingredients that pull things up. And there are a few of those kinds of ingredients. The most common, the most well known are the alpha hydroxy, I'm sorry, the retinoids like retinol and retin A. And this is where most purging comes from, because retinol and retinoic acid are very significant or they speed up cell turnover, we'll say. So it usually occurs with retinol and retinoic acid. But alpha hydroxy acids can do the same thing because alpha hydroxy acids also pull things upwards. They speed up cell turnover. Do you know, by the way, speaking of retinol and retinoic acid, that effect of pulling things up can actually be leveraged for mosquito bites. And you can actually use retinol to speed up the healing of a mosquito bite or, or to help remove splinters simply by speeding up cell turnover. But if you have a microcomedone inside a follicle, it's going to speed up the formation of a comedone. And that's what the purging effect is. So purging is a thing. It typically will only happen with retinol, retinoic acid, alpha hydroxy acids, to a certain extent, azelaic acid and then sometimes urea, sometimes vitamin C. Ascorbic acid will sometimes do that as well. It only occurs when there is microcomedones present. So it's basically tomorrow's zit coming out today, which is a good thing, because once the purging is eliminated, once those microcomodones are eliminated, the microcomodones that comes to the top, you don't get any more purging. And that's a beautiful thing. So it's worth it to go through the purging effect. Or you can minimize the purging effect. So a, you can kind of rip the band aid off. You know that saying where you can just let it go and purge and then be done with it. Or you can slow down purging by using lower doses of retinol or hydroxy acids, increase or decreasing the frequency, increasing the time, the days off between the use of your hydroxy acids or your retinol. And also what I found is if you mix your retinol with a little bit of bentonite clay or kaolin clay or any kind of clay really, you'll slow down the penetration of the retinol and subsequently slow down the purging effect for the microcomedones. And you can also slow down or eliminate purging entirely if you use nutrition. And that's one of the really important points that estheticians and skincare professionals have to recognize is that internal nutrition or systemic nutrition is really the key. The best topical products are going to be topical nutrients like vitamin C for example, or, or retinol, both of which are vitamin A and vitamin C, both of which are nutrients, also ionic minerals. That's what my two treatments are really about. It's about topical nutrients. But along those same lines, internal nutrition is really important. And so by using vitamin A internally, you can slow down the formation of microcomedones and thereby slow down or help prevent purging. By using antioxidants like vitamin E or N acetylcysteine or vitamin C, you can also slow down the formation of microcomonones and mitigate or completely eliminate the purging effect. And by the way, now that I think about a Sulfur and sulfur masks can sometimes cause purging along the same lines of bringing, of rising thing, bringing things up to the top.
- [05:37]
B
Now, some people will say they are detoxing.
- [05:41]
A
It's not detox. No, that's no detox. It's a. It's a purging effect in the sense that the microcomedones are being brought up to the top. But toxicity in the skin is not going to cause a real terrible reaction because it'll come out in your sweat. It's not really a detox reaction. The skin is a detox organ. I mean, stuff comes out through the skin. But I don't know that necessarily. There's. It's stored in the skin so that it will come out through the skin. It's more of a microcomon issue that has to do with acne more than it is a purging effect. Now you also want, if somebody breaks out after these retinol or hydroxy acids or something stimulating, and they don't have microcomonals or they don't suffer from acne, that's not a purging effect. That could be an irritation effect. That could be an allergic effect, an immune reaction of some kind. And sometimes you get little bumps from certain products. Those are, that's an immune system reaction. And the skin is an immune organ. It's not purging, it's not detoxification. It is an immune system reaction which can happen. Now I will say that if an immune system reaction happens on the skin in response To a product, it's probably not the product as much as it's a destabilized immune system. The immune system is systemic and it lives in the intestine. That's the headquarters. But you have satellites throughout the body, in the tears in the eyes, in the lungs, and also in the skin. So if you have some immune problems intestinally, if you have leaky gut issues, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, you may end up with a sensitized immune system in the skin. And that may cause you to break out when you use, say, retinol or vitamin C. And the tendency be to blame the topical product or the topical ingredient when it's really an unstable immune system that is starting off most of the time in the digestive system. I think you and I have talked about histamine in the past, right? So histamine, like, you know, for people who don't maybe don't recognize the fact that histamine is made in your body. And when you take an antihistamine, you're actually blocking a histamine response that may not be caused by your, by pollen, but as much as it's caused by histamine secretion from the intestine. You have cells that live in the intestine called mast cells. And these mast cells can become destabilized under certain conditions, certain foods or food triggers or dysbiosis, bacterial issues in the small intestine. And that can lead to histamine coming out into the blood. Once histamine is in the blood, not only are you going to be prone to a histamine response internally, but, but you're also going to be more sensitive to pollen or hay fever or topical products. So you'll have a high histamine level in the blood following, say, some condition in the intestine. Then you put your retinoic acid or your retinol in your skin and you break out from a histamine response. And the immediate thought is going to be, oh, it was the retinol or the retinoic acid, not understanding that the system, the entire body has been destabilized systemically from something like a leaky gut or, or dysbiosis changes in gut bacteria. So it's always, always, always instructive for a skincare professional as well as for a consumer who's breaking out in an allergic type fashion from a topical product to see what's going on systemically first so that they may be able to use the topical product rather than immediately jumping to the Conclusion that, oh, this topical product made me break out. So you may be able to use the, the retinol or whatever product was the vitamin C if you correct leaky gut or correct for histamine foods, histamine containing foods. And by the way, a lot of so called good foods are histamine trigger triggering foods like avocados and citrus and seafood. And these are kind of foods that you wouldn't think would be a problem. Cruciferous vegetables that you would think are really good foods, but they could be triggering a histamine response that's making your skin more sensitive. And by correcting it, the histamine secretion at the level of the intestine, or by changing your foods, you may be able to use that topical product or ingredient.
- [09:42]
B
So I think you touched on this already. But just to go full circle here, how do estheticians, or even the client for that matter, differentiate between what is irritation, what's a breakout and what is acne progression or, or even purging for that matter?
- [09:58]
A
Right. So irritation is going to be red and irritated and you can actually tell it'll be painful to the touch. A purging effect is going to be a zit or it's going to be stuff that's coming out of a follicle, pus or infectious material. That's different from irritation reaction, which is going to be red and sore to the touch and may not involve the follicle as much as it involves the skin in a macular sense, in a rashy kind of sense, versus a papular sense, which is follicular. So if it's follicular, if you're seeing secretions, follicular pus or breakouts follicularly from the follicle and the pore, you're probably dealing with a purging response. If you have redness or inflammation or painful to the touch and it's more macular, more rashy, chances are that's an immune response also. Little tiny white bumps can also be an immune response. And also an immune response is going to be quicker. An immune response will tend to happen within one or two doses. Purging takes a little bit longer to occur because there's a, a fixed amount of time for the, for the cells to turn over. So if it happens quickly within one, like one dose or two doses, you're probably dealing with an irritation, I'm sorry, an immune reaction. If it takes time and it's follicular and there's pimples and pus, that's Probably a purging effect. And if it's just kind of red and raw, then you're probably dealing with some kind of irritation.
- [11:18]
B
Now, sometimes you hear clients say, or at least I know I have when I was practicing, that they don't get facials or they don't get facials often because they, quote, unquote, react.
- [11:30]
A
That's what I'm saying. Don't blame topical products for reaction. When you think about topical products, really what's happening is you got a stratum corneum, which is like a fingernail. It's very difficult for things to get through the stratum corneum. That's in the first place. There are ingredients that will do it and there's accessory ingredients, supportive ingredients that can help active ingredients penetrate. And that's true. So. But you really should not be reacting from topical products because the skin is designed to be a barrier. That's its role is to protect you. So if your skin is reacting from topical ingredients, particularly reacting from a lot of topical ingredients, almost guaranteed you have a destabilized immune system. And the immune system's headquarters, as I mentioned, is in the intestine. And if you have a destabilized immune system, hone off to the intestine. And given the fact that, I don't know, 80 to 100 million Americans have digestive issues or our food supply is entirely. Has been entirely corrupted over the last 100, 150 years, most people are nutritionally deficient. It's pretty much a good bet that if you're having a skin problem that is manifesting as something that appears reactive, chances are something's getting into your blood through a leaky gut. From the intestine through a leaky gut, there's a really cool supplement called Dao Diamine Oxidase, which is a natural antihistamine. Secondly, when a woman's estrogen drops, she will be more prone towards a histamine response. And this accounts for premenstrual breakouts as well as menstrual breakouts and night. Night sweats and hot flashes and I'm sorry, menopausal breakouts as well as premenstrual breakouts, as well as menopausal symptoms. Also vitamin C, zinc, melatonin, bioflavonoids, and something called quercetin or are also natural antihistamines.
- [13:15]
B
That concludes our show for today, and we thank you for listening. But if you just can't get enough of Ben Fuchs, the ASCP's rogue pharmacist, you can find him@truthtreatments.com for more information on this episode, or for ways to connect with Ben Fuchs, or to learn more about ascp, check out the show notes.