← Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Skin Barrier Protocol: How One Reset Makes Every Other Skincare Step Work
00:31:58
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- [00:06]
A
Welcome back to Biohacking Beauty Podcast, your go to Anti Aging skincare podcast.
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B
We're your host, Anastasia and Amitai, the founders of Young Goose Skincare.
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A
And we are here to cut through the noise and bring you real science on skin aging, longevity and what it actually takes to age younger.
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B
This isn't just about products, it's about protocols. Because skincare is whole body care.
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A
Each week we dive into evidence backed strategies from cellular repair to full body biohacks. Helping you optimize your skin, your health and your life.
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B
Let's redefine what aging looks like starting now. So before we start this episode, we as usual. What are we doing? Anesthesia.
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A
We are going to read one of our listeners reviews and the reason is,
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B
is because this podcast is designed to provide value to as many people as possible. Whether they're, you know, your friendly neighborhood esthetician plastic surgeon or someone just starting out. And the way that we're going to reach as many people as possible and help, you know, guide them through this journey, this biohacking skincare journey is by, you know, appeasing the gods of the algorithm. And we're gonna do that by getting many reviews. That's one of the. Just recommend us to your friends as you are doing. We really appreciate it. But also reviews are important.
- [01:36]
A
Yep. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And honestly, I mean it always makes our day to read your wonderful reviews.
- [01:43]
B
Yeah, and it's gonna make your day too because we're gonna give you a free gift.
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A
But yeah, yeah, that's right. Yes. Okay, so this one, I'm trying to remember if we already read it again.
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B
There is a new. There's, there's two recently back to back by like estheticians.
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A
That's the one I want to read today.
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B
But just read the latest one.
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A
Okay. Long review warning. Haha. But I found this podcast a few years ago and it's changed everything. I'm a registered nurse with over a decade experience in surgery and have personally been and Avita skincare aficionado since my early teens. I've tried many different brands and been in the health care field. I've tried many medical grade products and heard all the science behind them. Not really much innovation until Janus for the listeners.
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B
Anastasia does is doing air quotes after every yes.
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A
Then the review is much much longer and there is a lot of feel.
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B
The review is a blog.
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A
Yes. Well, she did say long review warning but I'll just read this last part, last paragraph. Each product is worth every penny and has seriously improved the quality of my skin. I've never been complimented more on my skin. At almost 41, I never thought that would happen. I absolutely love this company and the owners are just a gem to listen to. I appreciate how much research goes into all they do and also the integrity of the owners. I've never met them nor am I affiliate, but I'm a huge fan girl and I pray they continue doing such amazing work and podcasts.
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B
Well, your prayers have been answered because this is a podcast you're going to listen to. However, I'm just saying, what is her name?
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A
This lovely lady, lovely nurse, Soulful, sexy Steph.
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B
Anyway, soulful, sexy Steph. Either you can send us a message, a DM on Instagram, slide into our DMs, or you can send an email serviceangoos.com let us know. Slide to our email too and let us know. And then you're gonna get a free product sent to you because we read your review. If you want to have a chance to get a free product as well, write us a review. And yeah, okay, this was a mini podcast. A mini pod. Okay. If your skin burns when you apply moisturizer, that's not active, that's damage.
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A
And if your routine only works when you're using five calming products at once, your barrier is not resilient.
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B
Most people are trying to stimulate their way to better skin when what they
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A
actually need is to rebuild the protective layer.
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B
So today is Protocol School Skin Barrier Edition. That's something new we're thinking to do. Let's see if it, how, how much you guys are liking, are liking it and we can do more of those. So today is a new type of episode. It's called Protocol School Skin Barrier Edition. Because if your barrier is weak, nothing else works.
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A
Yes. Not your retinoids, not even your infrared light mask, not your peptides, nothing.
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B
Yep. And here's what's happening. You know, right now, people are over layering actives, over exfoliating, overusing devices, actually even over going to their professionals. And then they're wondering why their skin is reactive.
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A
Yeah. The barrier is your skin's primary defense system. It regulates water loss, it blocks irritants, it controls inflammatory signaling.
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B
It's literally your biological firewall.
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A
When it's intact, skin looks calm, hydrated, smooth and reflective. When it's impaired, you see redness, flaking, breakouts, tightness, uneven texture.
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And here's the important part. A damaged barrier makes aging worse because chronic low grade inflammation accelerates collagen breakdown.
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A
So today we're going to build a barrier Protocol, because we know you guys like and really respond to when we give you actionable protocols. And this protocol, if you follow along, will actually increase tolerance of your skin over time. Increase resilience of your skin over time, not just temporary suit the symptoms.
- [06:14]
B
That's the difference between, I believe like biohacking or longevity skin strategies, rather than just trying to solve the apparent issue. But first, I think we should define this thing properly. When people say barrier, they think moisture or moisturizer.
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A
Yes. And it's much more specific than that. The barrier is primarily the stratum corneum, which are basically your corneocytes embedded in a lipid matrix.
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B
Bricks and mortar, if you would.
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A
Correct. Exactly. The bricks are dead keratinocytes. The mortar are ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids in specific ratio.
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B
And what if that lipid ratio is off?
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A
Yeah. You increase transepidermal water loss or tewl, as you probably guys have seen it in literature, which leads to dehydration and inflammatory signaling.
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B
Translation, your skin leaks. What I coined a long time ago and now it's ran away from me, which is called leaky skin.
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A
Yeah, yeah. We were at like one of the wellness events and the speaker was talking about leaky skin and we're like, what?
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B
Hey, what the.
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A
That's. But yeah, now it's something going to stay anymore.
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B
The baby, you know, got wings, I
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A
don't know, fly away.
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B
We say in Hebrew, the carrot got up and hit the farmer on the head.
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A
Wow. Okay. Either way, leaky skin is not fun to have. Basically your skin will have micro trauma, like micro channels open micro wounds, microscopically speaking. And that of course will let bad things in good. Like things like water out. It becomes overreactive.
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B
Okay. So let's make it practical. Three signs your skin barrier needs repair.
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A
One, stinging when products are applied and they shouldn't sting.
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Two, tightness after cleansing, even if you moisturize.
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A
Yes. And three, redness that lingers longer than it should.
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B
Bonus sign breakouts that show up after you in air quotes. Like upgrade your routine.
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A
Yes. And that's often barrier disruption masquerading as purging. So you would hear people say, oh, you know, I started using the skincare and my skin is purging. And a lot of the times it's not that good reaction of your skin detoxifying. It's actually that your skin barrier was so disrupted that now your skin cannot tolerate the actives of this skincare you're applying.
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B
And it's. It's definitely enticing. It's Definitely a normal reaction. But time and time again we see people respond by adding more products or adding stronger actives. And it's almost like a knee jerk reaction. Like every person we talk with that has a skin, a skin barrier dysregulation, they can even come to us and say, hey, hey, this is what I have. I have skin barrier issues. Time and time again. The next thing that comes, that comes out of their mouth is, I tried these 15,000 different products. What do you think I should try next?
- [09:32]
A
Yes. And I mean, you can't really blame them because, like, one customer in particular that we helped repair her skin very recently. So she used to do lasers once a year, and she's been doing it continuously for a number of years until one time it backfired. She suspects the setting has been changed because she did it with the same provider that she's been doing years and years prior. So as a response, she knows she got skin barrier disruption. I mean, her skin was burned and now she gets bumps and she gets redness and she gets irritation one when she travels, when any kind of like, weather condition changed. Like, her skin is extremely reactive. And as you pointed out a lot of the times before coming to us, what she tried, she tried different skincare actives to get rid of the bumps because, you know, she's like, I never had to rely on makeup, but now I cannot leave the house without makeup. So then here we go. She tries chemical pills and she tries alcohol acids to get rid of like, the bumps and breakouts, which is her skin is trying to like, it's not even handling, you know, the skincare.
- [10:46]
B
Yeah. And I'm going to take. I'm going to say two things about that. First of all, this podcast really, you know, the big overarching thing that we're trying to do here and the reason we are giving, we're really going to double down on that protocol, school type messaging or, you know, quest is because we really cannot just, you know, I get so many messages on Instagram and it's my personal account. You know, people find you people if. Unless you want to see photos of me sweaty in jiu jitsu gear, it's not much. There's not much there. But I do get a lot of DMs. It's like, hey, this is my issue. What should I do? And I really want to help those people out. But, you know, I allegedly am supposed to run Yungoos. They don't know behind the scenes you run Yungoos. But allegedly, I also have other things to do. And this is why we have this podcast. This podcast should cover 99.9% of people's, you know, issues within that bracket. Right. So that's number one. Number two, is that one of the things that we talk behind the scenes about and that we're, we, we want to try and propagate is like, what does it mean skin longevity or what does it mean, you know, skin health or wellness? And there are these three pillars which is first of all like how your skin behaves now, how it performs, how it looks basically. Another pillar is resilience and another P pillar is like, how is it going to longevity? Which is like, how is it going to look in 30 years? Right. And a lot of the times you need to find a happy medium because if you want to go all out on a specific pillar, you're actually going to make other pillars worse. And to your example, the example of oh my God, I have bumps. I'm going, you know, completely crazy on removing those bumps or not even completely crazy, I'm going to, that's the thing that bothers me. I'm going to make sure these bumps go away. A lot of times you're sacrificing things like resilience or how your skin is going to look like in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years on the background. And the major thing that you want to think of is how do I, how do I develop a strategy that at least income, at least addresses these all three pillars and not just do like not just serves one for sure.
- [13:01]
A
And I will say that one of the reasons we are recording this episode is because people actually asked us a lot about the ways to, in protocols to rebuild the skin barrier. And one of the things that I think is catching on and I hear more and more on social media is that skin barrier is the foundation of, of skin health. And you know, if you are suffering with pigmentation and bumps and maybe lines and whatever else and you're like, what is it that bothers me the most? What do I want to tackle first? It's actually, you know, it's non negotiable that you have to tackle skin barrier, repair skin barrier before you can address anything else. And that's why, you know, so important.
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B
Yeah. As you often say, that's what biology needs.
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A
Yes, yes. So here's the rule. You build tolerance before you build intensity. So we'll share with you how to approach, you know, the approaches for pigmentation, wrinkles, etc and other protocols called additions. But the reason the first one is the barrier because it's the most foundational.
- [14:10]
B
So what should they be able to do?
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A
Okay, they should be able to cleanse my moisturize and apply SPF daily without any reactivity before adding heavy stimulation.
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B
Yeah, it's fun. You know, the way you customize your routine is are serums for the most part. Okay. The other parts of your routine should be very steady or very, you know, like staple things that you use. And that's kind of what you alluded to when you said, you know, you add things after that. Right. If not, you know, if you add them too soon, if you add them too, whatever, too heavily and you start reacting, you should really pause the intensity.
- [14:50]
A
Yes, yes. So the barrier capacity determines how much stimulation your skin can actually handle long term. So if long term you are looking to get those maybe lasers and do more with your skin and go more full power, you have to build that skin resilience and tolerance.
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B
Yeah. And I'll quote you quote something you said a while back as well that I like. We're not chasing a 10 day glow, we're chasing a 10 year outcome.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So let's build that reset.
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A
Okay. So step one, remove irritant load, pause retinoids exfoliation and strong actives for at least five to seven days, not forever,
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B
just long enough to calm inflammatory signals.
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A
Yeah. Step two, gentle cleanse only once at night if possible. So no cleansing in the morning. In the morning. Rinse or use, you know, just kind of lukewarm water.
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B
Yeah, super. If it's super necessary. Maybe like very low amount of like a little bit of cleanser.
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A
Sure. And make sure your cleanser is like soap free. You know, just the most gentle cleanser like baby cleanser, like suitable for baby skin.
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B
And step three is basically like lipid replenishment plus hydration support.
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A
Yes. So we need to replace our ceramides. We talked about skin compositions and the lipid matrix composition. We need to support cholesterol balance. Use controlled humectants like glycerine or hyaluronic acid, but always sealed with lipids because
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B
you know, humectants alone can worsen transepidermal water loss in dry environments. Right?
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A
Yes. Hydration without sealing is not barrier repair.
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B
This is where something I think like Biobarrier, our serum, Yongo serum, that's called Biobarrier, fits in perfectly because it contains biomimetic lipids that are designed to reinforce structure. And instead of just coating the surface like we see in most strategies around around like lipid replenishment. Right. And that's also one of the reasons we're telling people to apply it before a moisturizer.
- [17:14]
A
Yes, yes. And yeah. If I had to like pick just the one product that will help the most with barrier repair will be the bio barrier, hence the name.
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B
But you don't need to pick only one product.
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A
No. Also speaking of other things, you could pick at night, you could use something like hyperbaric mask as the final step to create the occlusive repair environment while supporting glutathione and mitochondrial repair. If you don't have the hyperbaric mask, but you have a facial oil that you like, that can be your occlusive of choice. Just put it over the either bio barrier or the moisturizer. If you lay a moisturizer over bio barrier.
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B
Yeah. Calm skin, reduce water loss, reduce inflammation. I think this is the perfect starting point.
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A
Yeah. That should be on a T shirt.
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B
Yes.
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A
So do that consistently for at least five to 14 days and you'll see measurable improvement in tolerance and the way your skin reacts. So you're going to see less reactivity, less sensitivity in your skin. That's. That's the, you know, the baseline, basically.
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B
Yeah. And once the barrier is improved or calm, we can actually improve how it regenerates, not just how it feels.
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A
Yes. And that's the shift that most people miss.
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B
Morning barrier logic is different from PM logic.
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A
Yes. So we often say morning is a defense, night is repair.
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B
So morning looks like day. Gentle cleanse, even just water. Antioxidant support. Barrier moisturizer, Mineral sunblock.
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A
Yes, always, always. Spf, always. And that matters because UV degrades barrier lipids directly.
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B
Night is when you focus on rebuilding lipid balance and supporting mitochondrial recovery.
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A
Which is why nighttime moisturizers should be slightly richer and more lipid dominant.
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C
I want to take a moment to tell you about something we've been working on for years here at Yungoos. Our newest innovation, vampire exosomes. You've probably heard us talk before about how most skincare focuses on surface fixes. A cream here, a peel there. While ignoring what's actually happening inside your cells. Vampire exosomes are different. They are PRP derived exosomes, meaning they come directly from platelets, the body's natural repair system. Each exosome carries micrornas and growth factors that tell your skin to repair, renew, and reorganize collagen. Basically, it's how your cells communicate healing
- [20:04]
B
directly to your tissues.
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C
What makes this launch so special is that we finally have quantified potency. Each 30 milliliter bottle contains 3 trillion exosomes, or 25 billion exosomes per drop. And every batch is third party tested for both exosome count and microrna profile.
- [20:32]
B
That's true transparency.
- [20:34]
C
You know exactly what you're getting and that it's active, stable and real. The formula is shelf stable, gentle and designed to protect the exosomes. We've even paired it with Rejuvenation nad, a cosmetic active that boosts the skin's NAD economy, the molecule your cells use for energy so the exosomes can actually do their job once they've been delivered. The results have been incredible. Early human imaging shows visible improvements in tone, redness and fine lines within weeks. Not because we're forcing change, but because we're giving your skin the right signals for repair itself. If you want to experience it, go to yungoos.com and use the code podcast10 for 10% off your first order. That's yungoose.com code podcast10. The link and the details are also in the show notes. And now let's get back to the episode.
- [21:48]
B
We need to talk about exfoliation culture, though. I think this is something. Even if you were talking about all those positive things, there is a huge exfoliation culture and even in some companies, not throwing any company under the bus here I see exfoliation as part of systems for barrier support or repair.
- [22:09]
A
I know, I've seen that too. And well, honestly, yeah, like you said, it's been exfoliation culture, just the acid kind of culture, you know. And you know, the funny thing is that a lot of the times this overly exfoliated skin temporarily, in the first few days of this stimulated kind of like shedding of the upper layer of the skin looks really good, especially looks really good on camera. It kind of looks perfect. Perfect because the skin is very tight because it's this. You just remove the upper layer and temporarily it's brighter. It looks like a baby skin. So again, it just, it looks very appealing. And this is the, the skin that is going so viral on the Internet a lot of the times also with people who follow influencers and bloggers of Korean skincare. So it's this glass skin. It's a lot of the times it's over exfoliated skin. But what people don't know or don't realize that few days later they're not shooting content every single day. Like you don't all of the content you see, it's like a lot of the videos can be shot on the same day on this good skin. Day and then they will have, you know, all of the adverse effects that we're talking about. And sure, there's also kind of different types of skin and there could be very acne, very oily prone skin that again, temporarily can look good with more frequent exfoliation. It's still not a good strategy long term but daily exfoliation is not necessary for most people.
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B
And listen, I meet, we meet those people, we meet those people and as you know, I'm a starer. You are stare at people.
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A
Guys, it's horrible. We're in elevator and I just, I can't, I'm trying to look away because my husband is just staring at the person.
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B
But yeah, it's very hard for me not to stare. I know these are skin oriented influencers and you look at their skin and like wow, you're doing such a great job on camera. Like you are doing your job so well, but you're definitely not doing the job of improving other people's skin.
- [24:24]
A
But anyway, actually on that note, I will say that recently I saw the first time and the only time I saw something positive in that regard. I saw an influencer with over a million followers and she did the ama, like ask me anything and the person said, wow, your skin looks so good. Like what is this?
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B
You want to shout her out?
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A
Yeah, her name is Vita Sidorkina and I just love that instead of. And she has paid collaborations with number of brands. So instead of plugging in any brand that she's working right now with and sharing her coupon code, she was just like, well, I wear makeup, I have good lighting and not every day my skin looks good, but I choose to film content on the days that I feel confident and I look good to myself. And that's so refreshing. It was such a nice, honest, refreshing answer. I've never seen anybody else do it and I.
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B
My refreshing answer is I don't have both makeup or good lighting anyway. No, I'm kidding, Jackson. We have good lighting.
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A
I know, like we just spent some time here.
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B
I just want to say, I just want to. To your point, daily exfoliation is definitely not necessary for most people. And also, especially if you're also using retinoids.
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A
Yes. So the barrier needs intact corneoside layers to function. If you consistently strip them off, you disrupt the lipid organization.
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B
For most skin types, exfoliation once weekly is more than enough.
- [25:51]
A
Yeah. And if you're somebody like me with extremely thin and sensitive skin, even just once or twice a month is more than my skin can Handle. So just psa, you know, once a week is not for everyone either.
- [26:04]
B
Exactly. You work within a schedule. You know, don't freestyle it.
- [26:10]
A
Yes. I love that parameter.
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B
Translator time. You added a new active. Now you're breaking out.
- [26:18]
A
Yeah. Oh, my God. That happens. I feel like to all of us at least once in our life. So first question, is it inflamed or is it congestion?
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B
If it's inflamed and red, that's likely barrier disruption.
- [26:32]
A
The move is not to add more acid. The move is barrier reset for five to seven days, as we previously suggested.
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B
Yeah. Let inflammation come. The reintroduction. Or should happen slowly. Introduction or reintroduction should happen slowly with new actives.
- [26:51]
A
Yes. And as you move slow and low, that's where it gets interesting. Repairing the barrier is one thing. Teaching the skin to generate a stronger barrier is another big difference. A compromised skin barrier often reflects dysfunctional cellular signaling. The keratinocytes aren't producing lipids efficiently. Ceramide synthesis is. Suboptimal inflammatory pathways stay elevated.
- [27:16]
B
So you can keep patching the wall
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A
or you can improve how the wall is built.
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B
That's where something like vampire exosomes come in, Right?
- [27:26]
A
Exactly. Exosomes act as cellular messengers. When formulated properly and used strategically, they can influence how keratin sites communicate how lipids are synthesized and how inflammatory pathways are regulated.
- [27:39]
B
So instead of just sealing the cracks,
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A
you're helping the skin regenerate a more organized barrier structure over time.
- [27:47]
B
Yeah, I think this is a completely different category than just a moisturizer.
- [27:53]
A
Oh, for sure. I mean, that's exactly what you were saying before. That we want to correct, not just change the coating.
- [28:00]
B
Yeah, not correct. Not coat.
- [28:02]
A
Mm.
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B
Because really, moisturizers. People need to understand moisturizers. They're. Although they might have like a user experience to where you feel you have more moisture on your skin. This is in the user experience land. Their real job as moisturizers is stopping or preventing or slowing down transepidermal water loss. The thing that we mentioned, they're a barrier, actually, from your skin outwards that, you know, holds water in. That's why we call it coating. Right. But we need to correct the natural barrier that your skin has that. That your skin uses to do that. So how would someone integrate it?
- [28:37]
A
Yes. If the barrier is actively compromised, first they would need to complete a five to seven day reset, as we talked about. And then they can introduce vampire exosomes three to four nights per week. So those are going to be their recovery nights. Keep the rest of the Routine simple cleanser, exosomes, moisturizer, optional occlusive support, as we mentioned. And always, always spf.
- [29:00]
B
Yeah. In the beginning. Not on exfoliation nights. Right. Vampire exosomes less on exfoliation nights because it also. Exosomes. Because there are stimulants. They can also dry a little bit the skin. Yeah.
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A
I mean, personally, I don't like to mix exfoliation with exosomes. I just feel like exosomes are such delicate ladies. I just, you know, I create the
- [29:21]
B
person, don't call them ladies.
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A
I create, I'm like all about creating their. The most. The best environment for them. So, you know, I put it. And we suggest that on our website as well, we apply exosomes on cleansed skin, cleanse dry skin. We have exosomes up to like 10 minutes. You know, I go do my errands, then come back, put a moisturizer. That's just the best use of exosomes where you don't mix it with too many other things.
- [29:50]
B
Okay, so now your. Your protocol or our protocol looks like. Stabilize, correct signaling, then reintroduce stimulation.
- [29:59]
A
Yes. And when the skin learns to produce lipids more efficiently and calm inflammatory pathways, then that tolerance that we are after increases that resilience.
- [30:09]
B
Which means stronger barrier.
- [30:10]
A
Yes, finally, that's what we're all after here. And stronger barrier means higher performance sealing.
- [30:16]
B
Yeah. You can push the skin more.
- [30:19]
A
Yes.
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B
So quick recap.
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A
Barrier structure is not just moisture.
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B
If skin stings, tighten up the protocol. Don't intensify it.
- [30:29]
A
Yeah. So if you again, like translation, reset first, then rebuild capacity.
- [30:35]
B
Calm skin is high performance skin. One thing I would say is we're going to prepare some kind of recap, a protocol that you guys can follow. Follow along, print it, you know, hang it on your mirror and make sure that you can follow what we talked about here with actionable steps.
- [30:58]
A
Yes. I hope this was helpful. Please let us know because we want to create more protocols for you. And this is our first episode. So the first episode really was the Elastin episode. Elastin protocol, correct? Yes. And because you guys had just a record number of positive feedback and questions that came from that episode, we are now trying to make serious of it. But it is for you, with you in mind. You're at the center, so please let us know if you like the format, if you want any tweaks, we'll do it.
- [31:29]
B
And until next time, see you next week.
- [31:32]
A
Thank you so much.
- [31:33]
B
Bye bye. It.