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- [00:02]
Gwyneth Paltrow
When I travel, I'm always curious about where people are staying. Especially the places that feel like someone's actual home. Maybe there's fresh herbs in the kitchen or someone's favorite books on the shelf. That's the true essence of a lived in space. It made me realize so many of us already have those kinds of spaces. And even if you're not using yours for a few weeks, someone else might be dreaming of exactly that. You don't have to become a full time host to use Airbnb. Just a smart way to make the most of your space while you're off exploring. Maybe even finding something beautiful to bring back with you. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host@goop, we talk a lot about healing, how we pursue it, how we hold space for it, and the people who make that possible. Our obs, our dentists, our acupuncturists, our estheticians. These are the people we trust with our bodies, our stories, our care. So it matters what they wear while doing that work. That's why we partnered with figs. They make scrubs that feel as intentional as the people who wear them. Thoughtfully designed to support healthcare professionals while they support all of us. The fabrics are beautiful, lightweight, high performance and made to last. They come in elevated essentials like black and navy and limited edition colors that are playful, fresh and just really lovely to wear. And the fit, it's flattering, comfortable and made to feel good in. If you work in healthcare or wellness or love someone who does, these are the scrubs. Use code FIGS RX for 15% off your first order@wearfigs.com.
- [02:00]
Dr. Julius Few
When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized.
- [02:06]
Gwyneth Paltrow
You do? Yeah, did you hear about that?
- [02:09]
Unknown Guest
I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one.
- [02:14]
Dr. Julius Few
In the sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic.
- [02:19]
Unknown Guest
Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled.
- [02:26]
Dr. Julius Few
I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life.
- [02:35]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the GOOP podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. This week we're sharing a gem from.
- [02:59]
The GOOP Podcast archives. Today I was fortunate to sit down with Dr. Julius Few. He's a renowned plastic surgeon and a close friend of mine. Over the years, Julius and I have had many conversations around beauty, vitality and finding the balance as we grow older. His subtle approach to aging astounds me. I have learned so much from him. Today I got to ask him the big and small questions about aging, his philosophy on longevity, and the future of the facelift. We talked about recognizing our emotional states when we're thinking about cosmetic surgery. And Julius shared his honest advice about popular procedures and the new non surgical advancements he's most excited about. I should also mention that we teamed up with Julius on our new Youth Boost Peptide serum. It's an amazing collaboration, years in the making and we couldn't be more proud. I'll let him tell you more about it. And finally, before we really get into it, I'm thrilled to share that the Goop podcast hit a major milestone this month. We surpassed 100 million total lifetime listings. I cannot believe it. So thank you to everyone listening today and who have followed along with us on this very special journey. Let's get to Dr. Julius Few. Thank you for joining us today. This is very exciting to have you on the GOOP podcast.
- [04:33]
Dr. Julius Few
Thank you for having me.
- [04:34]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I feel like we have had and continue to have over the years, so many conversations around beauty and longevity. And so I guess as I want to know from you, more like as a person first, what does longevity mean to you?
- [04:54]
Dr. Julius Few
Well, I, and you're right, we, for so many years now, we, we've had a chance to have these deep philosophical conversations about a lot of things, life and kind of inner peace versus outer kind of projection of appearance and so on. I, for me, longevity really boils down to really living our lives to the fullest potential, meaning that we are at a spiritual place of peace. We're at a place of peace with friends and family, that the work that we're putting into being healthy, we can see that translation and kind of our appearance, our body, not necessarily according to what a book says or what your eyes say, but really what that individual feels is kind of their best kind of foot forward. And that's, that's really what longevity boils down to. I, like you, have met, you know, many people who outwardly look perfect. Everything in their world looks perfect. And then when you, you kind of start to peel it down, their, their inner reality is the exact opposite. And they're trying to Find something. So to me, I think there has to be that balance of, you know, as a person, balance, living life to. To its fullest, its fullest balance. And that's where I think all these things come together.
- [06:22]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And do you bring that to the office? Like, I know you were. We were talking the other day and you were. You were talking about how being a plastic surgeon, it's. It's like being a. Or a therapist. Like, people come in and kind of confess everything to you as if it's part. You know, I was thinking after we spoke, like the confession, it's almost like as if it's a part of what they're trying to change or become. Like in some way it's conflated. Like it goes hand in hand. Do you. Do you find that. That there's a. An interweaving of the story?
- [06:57]
Dr. Julius Few
100%. And I think as I've gotten older and I've done this longer, it has been impossible to separate the story that somebody has to tell with the journey that they're willing to take to, in the case for me as a plastic surgeon, for them to look better. So a classic case in point, this was. I had a very busy clinic yesterday, and I saw somebody and she ultimately confided in me all these different things that were going on in her life and ultimately how she really wanted to do something just for herself. She said, look, I'm not trying to look better for anybody but me. I feel like I've given everything and I just want to get something for myself. And can you give me kind of your. Your perspective of what I may want to do to. To look better and feel better? And in that case, and in all the cases that I, you know, who I encounter, these. The people who I ultimately, many of them I consider friends over time, I gave my honest advice that I would give to my own. My own brother, which is, here's what you technically are asking for. Here's what I think, given all the things that you've shared with me, I think you can handle. Here's how we. Let's try to reconcile or kind of come up with a compromise of balancing what your goal is, because at the end of the day, you want. In her case, she just wanted to feel a little refreshed, but she kind of came in based on things like social media and etc. Okay, what about. What about this deep plane lift or what about this or what about that? And she was just rattling off all these things that she had heard about instead of just saying okay, this is what I want to. To get to. This is my final. My final feeling that I want to get to. How can you, Dr. Few, help me get there? And so I think too many times you have people who go in to see a doctor, and they're saying, okay, I've read about this or heard about that, or this is what I want to do. And they don't take into account any of the other dynamics in their life. And ultimately, that sets the stage for disappointment at the end of the day. And so for me, I do feel. And you've known me long enough to know this, I mean, I don't look at my work as just while I'm cutting on people. I look at it as, okay, I get a significant amount of gratification matching up that inner kind of balance of wellness and what somebody's looking for relative to the change that I believe I can achieve. And. And also that the third dimension, which is the idea that I don't want to do anything, that draws too much attention to the issue that they're after for people around them. And that's one of the biggest things. That's the reason why I'm. I'm so against the idea of people. Be people being overdone. Because. Because ultimately that does the opposite. It actually. It creates more attention in a negative way.
- [10:11]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Yeah. It's funny, you know, I have a couple of people that I know in my life that sort of had plastic surgery in response to either a breakup or infidelity. And I. I said, you know, I wish. I wish the surgeons would say, you know what? Come back to me in a year when you don't have a broken heart. I think that would be sort of the more ethical thing to do because there. There really are a lot of women who are making big choices about big surgeries coming from a place of heartbreak or weakness or deep distress.
- [10:48]
Dr. Julius Few
I ask the questions that I think most people would consider obvious. I do ask, which is. And not as obvious from a doctor's perspective, but obvious as a person. I ask why now? What is driving? And the most common answer I get is, well, my. My life is calm enough that I can do. I want to do something or I have something I'm trying to build into. Like, I, you know, there's a big wedding that I want to go to, and I feel like I haven't taken care of myself or some of them. But it's not because, like you said, it's a broken heart or they're dealing with something that that has destabilized their sense of balance. And how if somebody has like you described a broken heart from, from infidelity or broken relationship or the like, a change on the outside is not going to change that anyway. So they can do all these things and they're still, it's, it's going to almost be a double hit because then they'll look and they'll say, I really don't feel any better. I have, I've had all these changes, but I still don't feel any better. And so that confounds the level of, you know, despair. So.
- [11:59]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I think what's so wonderful about you as a surgeon is that you are really taking the less is more approach always. And I love your philosophy around, you know, these kind of smaller things that you can do. As we talk about the importance of keeping your skin healthy and doing your threading, which you help pioneer, which I forced you to do, live in front of a huge audience at the first in GOOP health, which was still the highlight, those stacking treatments as you call them. But you do eventually believe in a facelift, right? You know, as I think a lot of the, the women who listen to the GOOP podcast and men, you know, I think we are probably a group of friends even though we all don't know each other personally, but we're like minded group of people who I think are interested in kind of aging as best we can. A lot of us who are in our 50s, I think are and, and those of us who are thinking about when we get to our 50s and what can we do today and you know, at age 32 or like we want to be ourselves, we want to live long and healthy and we want to look great. And by the way, as, you know, like I don't judge anybody, everybody should do exactly what makes them happy. You know, I, I, I do think if you want to do stuff that's, you know, more power to you and if you want to age like a fabulous French actress who never, you know, or grandmother who never does anything great, I think most of us are probably somewhere in the middle. So what do we start to do in our, even in our 20s and then into our 30s to kind of preserve the longevity of our skin, the vitality of our skin as it relates to health. Like, do you also believe in a sort of a lifestyle nutritional component?
- [13:54]
Dr. Julius Few
Yeah, it's no secret that I'm also, I'm like minded with kind of how you look at, at this subject. For me, the highlights would be, I do think in the, in the 20s for sure. That is the low hanging fruit. Time to do good skincare. You know, my boys, I hound on them, I hound on them to do basic skin care of a cleanser that exfoliates, to try to use products that, that help to balance the natural kind of changes and both hormonal balance and so on. The obvious thing of hydration, I mean one of the biggest things that people who are young kind of stress the skin because the skin is, it's really our biggest organ is just hydration, drinking enough water and so on. I think that from the standpoint of the big, big picture and taking advantage of where we are technologically today versus when I was in training more than 25 years ago is the idea that you don't wait until things are broken down so badly that you feel like you have to do surgery. But really, I think plastic surgery, slash dermatology, cosmetic dermatology have up until recently largely been more of a you see the problem, you fix it instead of what the rest of medicine is doing. And ultimately what I've been moved to do is think more preventatively. So one of the things that appealed to me about doing threading because to be completely transparent, when threading was being introduced to me as something that the main manufacturer wanted to launch in the US about eight years ago, I said no, I said surgery is the gold standard. I'm not really interested in the threading idea and so on. But ultimately when I really started to think about, okay, well what about somebody who is younger where doing a facelift is too much, what about for them? And could this be the tool that could help to slow the outward signs of aging and actually give a bridge where somebody who otherwise maybe would have pursued a facelift at 45 or 50. Can we push them out to 60, 65.
- [16:17]
Gwyneth Paltrow
What is a thread lift for?
- [16:18]
For those of us who.
- [16:20]
Dr. Julius Few
So a thread lift is basically using a. It's a fully absorbable surgical grade stitch material that has little anchors on it. It's passed non surgically. There's no cutting, it's just a needle point of access, similar to what you'd do with the filler placement. But this thread is woven under the skin. It's painlessly done. Once a little bit of local anesthesia is put in, the person's totally awake for it. And it goes under the skin in a kind of in a structural way to lift the skin up and you know, kind of much like a mini facelift would do, it works best in somebody who has very early signs of like sagging. If somebody has a lot of sagging, it's not going to do the job, or it would only do part of it. So. But conceptually, using that as an approach, for me, that really started down the path for my journey as a plastic surgeon of, well, what can we do to prevent. And so the way I look at fillers, the way I look at things like Botox, the way I think about lasers, all of these things are really into. I put them in. In one of two categories, one being preventative versus truly therapeutic. So if somebody has gotten to the point where you say, look, I really don't want to do fillers, I don't want to do Botox. I'd rather wait until I get to the point where I see something I don't like, and then I do surgery and I have those patients. And so I have an example of that. A woman, very nice woman I've known. I take care of her daughter. She waited until she was 66. And just at 50, I did her eyes. So she had heavy eyes. I did her eyes. She said, I'm not really interested in the other stuff. And then she waited until she was 66, and then she said, okay, I'm ready to do a facelift. In that case. That. That's a model that's tried and true and it works. But, like, for this person's offspring, they're wanting to do it a little differently. They're saying, well, how maybe I want to push off a facelift until I'm 70, 75, as an idea, you know, what are the things that I can do to go that direction? And so I think doing conservative replacement, conservatively lifting and addressing things certainly in the 30s, I think is a sweet spot to really get in there and think about, you know, and that's why I applaud what you've done with your goop, you know, goop jeans line is kind of thinking about things from the outside in. And then, of course, balancing, you know, nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, all those things.
- [18:57]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Do you talk about that as well? And from a nutritional aspect with patients, we do.
- [19:03]
Dr. Julius Few
In a matter of fact, what we are embarking on right now is, and I've been working through it over the last year or so is. Is actually really an integrative medical approach to this. So having a nutritional lifestyle slash component mixed in with what we're doing, doing IV therapy, for example, to enhance the results of some of these external treatments, you're going to hear a lot more about that. You know, at the end of the day, I'M a scientist also. So a lot of these things have been done and done very well. And I think, you know, certainly in New York and California there are some very well known outlets for this stuff. But up to now it really has not been studied. Okay, so if you're doing an IV drip of like a glutathione for examp, how could that help enhance a Botox treatment? Or how could that help enhance a hydrafacial treatment, hydrafacial being a microdermabrasion treatment, or how is it going to enhance some other minor surgical procedure like having an eyelid left? And so these are real questions that I've had. And really the reason, you know, kind of the question I've had over the years, you know, of how, you know, I've done over 8,000 eye lifts. How is it that somebody can kind of go into it and have almost no bruising, no swelling, look like in a week, like almost nothing was done. And then I could have someone who had just as easy as surgery and they look like I hit him with the bat. Like, how is it? Why is that the case? Like, you know, and so you, you start to look at it. So I've, over the years, I've started to dig into, okay, well, what do you do? What is your lifestyle? What is it? And I've learned things from patients. I would advise everyone to start to look into and research nutritionally what can be done to augment or enhance an outcome. And that's certainly what we do. So that's a huge part of it.
- [21:02]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And are doing eye lifts, is that like your specialty?
- [21:07]
Dr. Julius Few
I love eyes. I'm a sucker for eyes. I've always loved, loved. I just, I think it's just. And one of the prettiest features for a woman, one of the most, you know, dramatic features for, for a man in terms of conveying confidence, I've always thought was the eyes. I wanted to initially in medical school become an ophthalmologist, but then I got snagged or snared by the, the surgical bug. So then I went the surgical route and then ultimately did a fellowship in oculoplastic. So that's. Yeah, so eyes are, that has been my thing. I've contributed chapters to the encyclopedias and plastic sur country. I've written probably over, over 20 published papers on the subject. So, yeah, I, this is, this is a super specialty. I developed some operations around it. Not trying to pound on my chest, but the eyes I've thought an awful lot about and kind of just the mechanics and how to allow them to look their best and most natural.
- [22:09]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And it seems like they're sort of the first to go. Like you hear a lot, oh, I did my eyes first and then I waited 10 years to do anything else. I've only done my eyes. Is there anything non surgical that works for eyes or not really?
- [22:23]
Dr. Julius Few
Absolutely. I think we kind of touched on this a little bit when, when I last saw you in person, I started thinking about fillers, for example, in, in people of color, primarily because the risk is, is higher for things like scarring with surgery. And so really using filler in the under eye, for example, in the right person, very small amounts can be a hugely powerful tool to make, you know, kind of dark circles look like they're better or going away.
- [22:55]
Gwyneth Paltrow
What the hell? Why did you never pull me aside on that?
- [23:00]
Dr. Julius Few
Because you don't have any dark circles. You know, I, I, you got to have the problem to, to, to actually talk about it. But you know, and so, you know, that's a great thing. I mean, doing something to improve the appearance of skin. Up until probably five or ten years ago, you would never think of lasering the upper eyelid skin, but that is a great way to help tighten up or make the upper eyelid skin look less crepey without cutting. Using Xeomin, for example, a form of Botox, you can use that to actually lift the eyelid and the brow. And again, so there, there are different things technically that can definitely buy time and what I'd advise anybody, especially if they start, because you're right, that's like the area you start to see go first and most people is prevention. First to push off surgery.
- [24:00]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I want to talk about our, our peptide serum that we created together, which is so exciting. So. Well, the reason why we wanted to create this together. Well, I know why I wanted to create it with you because you're a above everything, a great friend, but be one of the most respected plastic surgeons in the country. And again, we have this alignment around skin health, keeping the skin great. And it was, it's such an honor that you were able to do this with us. Why did you want to do this with us?
- [24:39]
Dr. Julius Few
Well, I, this, the starting points were, were very much so for me, the same. I, I've always thought that you are a frustrated doctor, actually a frustrated surgeon. Not even, not just a doctor, a frustrated surgeon, plastic surgeon. And we've had conversations where, and I say this all the time. I teach, I taught lots of students, residents and other doctors. You ask questions like, like a colleague would. And so, you know, besides just being a dear friend, I realized that you would be able to, and through your. Your team, to be open to different ideas of how to come up with something that is clean but yet effective, and that you'd be willing to allow me to subject it to clinical study. And I think there are lots of brands out there that would not necessarily want to undergo the scrutiny of a controlled clinical study because you don't know what's going to happen. And so we were tracking the results on a regular basis. And in the process. And I'm going to step back because really this started a couple of years ago, and when I talked to your Akshay, your chemist, I mean, we were brainstorming for ingredients, we were brainstorming for things that people often probably don't think about, like smell and so on. I think that coming up with something that would be really uniquely kind of dynamic and doing it with one of my dearest friends at the same time, that's like a dream. I mean, I couldn't ask for a happier thing because at the end of the day, that's. It's just. It's a really beautiful thing.
- [26:28]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I just cannot believe how well it works. I've been using it now twice a day since I got my bottle. I mean, I do not need a facelift today.
- [26:41]
Dr. Julius Few
Well, that's the thing. I mean, you never know what you're going to see with the study. But the results at a week, people were reporting to us because in the study, we had all the, all the, the people who volunteered for the study. And by the way, nobody was paid to do this. This was all voluntary. They recorded.
- [27:01]
Gwyneth Paltrow
People dropped out of the study. Right?
- [27:03]
Dr. Julius Few
No one dropped out. No one dropped out.
- [27:05]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Is unheard of.
- [27:06]
Dr. Julius Few
It is unheard of. Any kind of study. You could have a study of three people, one of them is going to drop out. So, you know, we. And we had many more than that. So I think, you know, that that was a. A testament to the product. And we even had a question in the diary, which a percent said it was easy to use. Over 90% said they would recommend it to their friend or family member. But I think at the, at. At the end of the day, what surprised me the most is that people were reporting across the board and we saw this in our graphics one week it took to start to see signs of improvement. So it just. Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing concoction.
- [27:52]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So. And. And what I loved seeing in the before and afters in the study was the diversity of the patient's skin tones, genders different, you know, sort of quote problem areas, whether it was rosacea or pore size, even. Even fine lines. Like, I could see the improvement in the photographs, like, of the studies. It was so amazing to see. Were you surprised?
- [28:18]
Dr. Julius Few
I was very surprised. There were older people in the study as well. We had individuals in their late 60s in the study, and everyone. The data that we're talking about includes everyone. And so, yes, we. We did pull some before and afters because we wanted to show diversity. I personally, as a person of color, I think so much of what is shown in the cosmetic space prior to you, you do this more with your. With your. With the GOOP site, but lots of other outside entities, they do not show diversity. So, yes, I wanted to show people of color because this is something for everyone, not just somebody who has fair skin. I think the other part is that we wanted to, you know, we wanted to show. And this study included men and women and we had diverse ages. So, I mean, this was probably the most mixed, diverse study that you could hope to get.
- [29:15]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So cool. Why does it work so well?
- [29:19]
Dr. Julius Few
I think that the. The combination of the coals and the peptides, the way that they kind of, if you will, coalesce into kind of this balanced effect. Each. Each component of the given peptide is designed to target kind of a different. A different issue, if you will. So, you know, having, you know, for example, astaxathen, which is a peptide botanical, that is for the skin to maintain its moisture and elasticity. That's. That's a powerful thing. Or having a ceramide, for example, or series of ceramides that can help keep moisture in. Because we talked about moisture earlier. I just. I think it's the combination of all these things firing at once that makes the difference. But the other thing. And, you know, you talked about stacking, because I had a patient asked yesterday, well, how should I use this? Or how would you recommend I use this? Right now I'm using, you know, a clean retinol, and then I use the vitamin C during the day. And I said, well, it's additive. You can. Actually, there's not an issue at all. I mean, we didn't study that per se, but there's absolutely zero reason why you couldn't add it in. And actually, I think the advantage, especially at nighttime, because nighttime is the best time to apply a serum, even though this is meant to be morning and night, is the fact that that's when the skin undergoes its greatest effort to repair itself. So you know, when we sleep, we're not only allowing for recuperation and recovery on a mental level and also a physiologic level, but our skin actually is doing that too. So I think having that with for example, a clean retinol, making sure to during the day have a sunscreen because you want to protect against the sun. Even though this has some sun protective properties in it, which is why you want to use it during the day. It's just the more, the more the better. And at the same time it doesn't mean that you have to use 20 things, but I think using the kind of a strategic combination, it's powerful.
- [31:34]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So, okay, so peptide serum. Yes. Vitamin C of some kind, Vitamin C serum, a retinol. So these are all three things you recommend at various points in the day?
- [31:46]
Dr. Julius Few
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's an easy thing to do. It's, it's a fast approach.
- [31:52]
Gwyneth Paltrow
What do you do?
- [31:53]
What's your, what's my.
- [31:55]
Dr. Julius Few
Yeah, I do, I have my, the nurse in my office will sprinkle a little, a little bit of dysporter XM and in the frown area just enough. I can still move it or frown, but enough to soften it so I don't have a chronic like a scowl on my, on my face. I love, I love doing hydrafacials. I try to do those every other month to every three months.
- [32:20]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Those are in the office, right?
- [32:21]
Dr. Julius Few
That's like, those are in, that's in the office. It's like a, think of it like a vacuum cleaner for your face. It just feels good. But it does, it does look good. Like I come home and, and Miles or Max will say, oh, you get your, your face is, is glowing. So but I love, I love that. And then the skin care, you know, I kind of how we came to this is I've been in the skin care world or business for the last decade and we, the lab that, that, that I have under me, you know, we've done a lot of research and development and again it was a huge honor to have our product and on the GOOP site as a clean product. And now we've had, we have, we.
- [33:03]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Have several for a brand new.
- [33:06]
Dr. Julius Few
The F4. The F4. A brand. Exactly.
- [33:08]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Good. I just bought your retinol actually, because we don't have one.
- [33:12]
Dr. Julius Few
Well, I think you'll love it. Putting them together.
- [33:16]
Gwyneth Paltrow
How young is too young for like a zmn. A filler if somebody comes into your office. Like do you have a. Yeah, yeah.
- [33:26]
Dr. Julius Few
I mean I, I, and this happened. I mean, I had somebody come in at 20, they just turned 20, they didn't have a line on them. They barely could make a line if they wanted. I said, it's too early. Come back to see me in five or six years. And then we can look. And if there's something that is starting to happen, then you can look at it. I do get credit for coming up with the idea of what's called prejuvenation, which is where all this came from is the idea that if you stop the frown line before it happens, then it doesn't tend to form. So there is an advantage to. Especially if somebody genetically, because things like. And a lot of people may not realize this, but things like frown lines or heavy lines, there is a genetic component. So if you know, for example, your mother had, you know, when she was 25, a deep frown line in her forehead or something like that, then coming in at 22 or, you know, in that zone, to have something to potentially ward that off is a smart thing. And, you know, we're super conservative. If you do things in a conservative way, they.
- [34:40]
Gwyneth Paltrow
There's a place for it culturally, do you think? Because we see in the media, social media, you know, there are some very, very successful, wonderful, popular people who've done quite a lot to their face and, and have created sort of a template, right. For kind of what that version of beauty is. And it's. It's pretty pervasive. I guess what I'm asking is, do you perceive that there is a. An aesthetic shift in culture? Are people coming in and asking for this sort of particular look?
- [35:19]
Dr. Julius Few
There, There was, and I think especially during COVID there was a significant shift in what I call the filter face. A major shift. And really what you're. Towards a filter towards. Towards a filter face. And, and I think it. It. There are multiple reasons for that, which I won't eat up our time trying to dig into. But yes, I do think there was a cultural shift to a perfect looking face where you had women who. And men on social media who were aspiring to a perfect norm, which was universal, which was very stylized, very gender kind of fluid. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, our skin was designed to protect us from the outside world and in terms of interaction, to move with the aid of the muscles under it. That's it. So to pull things or do things, accentuate things in a way that I can, I would say is kind of suit. We would use the term super physiologic or unnatural going beyond what is the natural zones of the body or the face, it's going to create problems. It's just like if, you know, for somebody who says, I want to have, you know, a thousand cc breast implants when they're like 100 pounds, it's not going to work, there are going to be problems with it. And so I think that the bottom line is now we're seeing a shift kind of away from it. Now the other thing, if you push the tissue too hard, you actually age the tissue. It's like the analogy is like a pregnant abdomen. If you have a woman who has had 20, 20 kids, that that abdomen is going to be destroyed. And so the same is true if you have somebody who has their cheeks overfilled time after time after time, when they get tired of it and they let it start to wear off, it's going to look really bad. So to me, the design and I helped run the Juvederm Voluma trial and was very involved in the development of that filler product. The goal and the purpose of that study and what we did was purely related to replacement, not dramatic, stylized overfilling. And so that's just one example.
- [37:50]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Right. Are there cool things coming down the pike in your field that you're excited about? I feel like these things sort of sweep through. I wonder if there's anything coming that you think is interesting.
- [38:13]
Dr. Julius Few
The big thing that I was very excited about and then Covid kind of happened was kind of along the lines of skin tightening. I think the holy grail of all things related to cosmetic medicine is coming up with a good non surgical skin tightener. At the present time, that technology is limited in my opinion. And I think really where we are going to be headed is down the line of using internal augmentation, meaning giving somebody something through an IV and then delivering an external treatment that then creates a treat, that creates a synergy.
- [38:56]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I'll be your guinea pig.
- [38:59]
Dr. Julius Few
So that, that to me, because it, because the skin laxity issue is such a challenging problem. Like I had a conversation with somebody this morning who wanted, who's older, who wants. She doesn't like her wrinkled skin. She's in great shape, lives great, you know, all the things that are ideal for wellness and beauty. And you know, she was contemplating having a tummy tuck at a later age. And I said, well, you know, that's a big undertaking. Maybe you think about something else. And so to me, I think having a non surgical approach for the skin tightening that will be forthcoming. I had heard some inklings of some things and then Covid happened. So I'm hopeful to see those. Those come back to life and then for us to kind of start to investigate. But the way this, all this stuff works, Gwyneth, is it takes years to, like, do the proof of concept. Just like, for our, our deal, you know, I hope to have access to something in the. In the new year as a. As a prototype, and then, you know, it's a couple years in the making.
- [40:09]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I've tried a couple lasers a couple times and haven't really seen any major improvement. But you think that there's going to be some advancement there?
- [40:24]
Dr. Julius Few
I definitely do, and I don't think it's going to be in the form of putting a needle in and putting energy through.
- [40:29]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Right. Oh, interesting.
- [40:31]
Dr. Julius Few
Yeah. Yeah.
- [40:33]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I can't wait to know more about that.
- [40:37]
Dr. Julius Few
That'll be the secret sauce. That'll be the secret sauce. So what about you? I'm going to ask. Am I allowed to ask you a question?
- [40:45]
Gwyneth Paltrow
If you'd like.
- [40:49]
Dr. Julius Few
So for you, like what? I mean, you're a curious mind. Yeah. I mean, you have an active curious mind. How or when did you become so curious? When did you decide? I'm going to dig in really deep and try to kind of air out things in the beauty space.
- [41:08]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I remember having a moment when Apple was a baby and I was changing her diaper, and someone had given me a very expensive, like, baby lotion, and I was putting it on her, and the smell was so strong. And I just was sort of struck all of a sudden by curiosity around, why does this smell like. It does. Why does it smell so strong? Is this a synthetic fragrance? Is it. Is it safe to put on my baby, like, and this is a, you know, long time ago. So she's 19 now, so the clean beauty conversation was not happening at all. And I think that's when I started researching around synthetic fragrances and how they can really disrupt your endocrine system. And it sort of put me down. The beginning of, like, a long process around trying to understand clean beauty. And then one of our first hires at goop, an amazing woman named Blair. Who? Blair Lawson, who I'm still very close with. She was obsessed with clean beauty, but really knew her shit and gave me this incredible education around, you know, because I was completely bamboozled by all the greenwashing. If it said, like, green or natural, I was like, oh, it must be safe. And she was like, this is all bullshit. And. And then I started to get really angry when I saw how many Women were having fertility issues and you know how there are all kinds of chronic health issues that have gone up into the right since we've introduced a lot of this stuff. And, and of course there hadn't been legislation regulating the beauty industry. There finally just was. And so I thought, well, what's going to need to happen is, you know, people should be able to know this stuff and make decisions for themselves. And in the meantime, I would like to make product that is safe by our standards and kind of start to change the conversation. So that was sort of the multi pronged approach and long path to get where we are today. And also, you know, having made friends with people like you along the way who are scientists and educators and being able to ask questions and really get into stuff. And it's, you know, I mean, you know me because you know me, but you know how curious I genuinely am. I always want to learn and I want to learn something every day and I want to, you know, deepen whatever knowledge I have. So, you know, I thank you for being one of my teachers and mentors in the beauty space. And you know, you're, you're, you're such a great teacher.
- [43:52]
Dr. Julius Few
Well, it goes both ways and that's why I asked because back when I was kind of figuring out the whole thread lifting concept and you're right, we did it in, in your first summit. But you, you, I never fully probably gave the, the proper credit to you, but you asked such thought provoking questions that made me really have to think about what and why I was doing what I was doing. And I do think conceptually it made kind of that technique better. So I didn't put your name on the papers I've written about it, but I probably should, but I should, but I have to, you know, so it's, it goes both ways. It's like curiosity is curiosity and most people don't realize that most things in, in science and in medicine have come from curiosity. And, and so this is no, this is no different.
- [44:49]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Well, I thank you so much, so deeply for your friendship, for this incredible collaboration on our peptide serum. For you just being such an amazing thinker and listener. And thank you so much for joining the podcast.
- [45:07]
Dr. Julius Few
Gwyneth. I adore you. Thank you for letting me be part of this and couldn't be prouder of you.
- [45:17]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Thanks for listening to Today's conversation with Dr. Julius Few. Our new YouthBoost Peptide Serum is available on goop.com I've been using it twice a day, by the way, and it is so good.
- [45:31]
Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts.