Revolutionary Skin Science: How to Reverse Cellular Aging with Dr. Alessandra Zonari

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Hey, I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout, sorry mom, turned 4-time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer, and globally recognized leader in health, I'm driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health. Into actionable strategies that help you thrive. Want an ad-free experience? You can now subscribe to my exclusive VIP podcast at subscribe2jj.com for just $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. It's like your daily latte, but better for your health. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here's the fun part. When you send me your review, I'll reply to you using my on-demand virtual me. That's right. My team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my books, speeches, and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here's how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review, text it to 813-565-2627. That's 813-565-2627. My virtual JJ Virgin will reply directly and trust me, This will make your day. So subscribe now at subscribe2jj.com and text me your review. Let's keep thriving together. One of the things you don't know about me is that I am a self-proclaimed skincare junkie.

I am.

I have literally got boxes and boxes of skincare products now. A lot of cool stuff gets sent to me, um, so I feel very fortunate about that.

And some stuff I just buy, but kind of—

I'm a little bit of a hoarder with all this stuff. But here's the thing, if I actually reorder it and continue to use it, it means something. It means I noticed a difference. And I am always looking for those things that I notice a difference from. And I'm also trying to whittle my skincare down to as close to, uh, 5 products as possible.

And I think I've managed to do it, and I've managed to do it because of OneSkin.

I am going to be digging into a new way to think about skin aging today and a new way to reverse it. Yes, you heard it here, to reverse skin aging. And I'm going to be talking to Alessandra Zonari. She is a PhD who is a leading expert in stem cell biology and skin regeneration. And she is on a personal mission to transform the way we age.

And she got into skin because she was struggling with her own skin issues. So she has taken her stem cell biology training, and with 3 other female scientists, they have gone deep into how to reverse skin aging.

And they found this super cool connection between cellular health and longevity all around cellular senescence.

We've talked about that before on the show in terms of zombie cells and what they can do to your body. Now we're going to be talking about what happens in your skin and really looking at this as one of the hallmarks of skin aging that, again, you can actually reverse. How cool is that?

So we're going to go through what happens as your skin ages, what you can do to turn it around, what else matters beyond just what you put on your skin. And I'm going to ask all the questions I've always wanted to ask about skin and hair. We're going to get into that as well, which I'm excited about.

So stick with me.

I'll be right back with Dr. Alessandra Zonari.

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Dr. Alessandro Zanari, welcome to the show.

Yes. Thank you, JJ, for having me here. I'm very excited for our conversation.

Well, I will tell you, I'm obsessed with your products and I totally love the fact too, since I got to meet you and I think a couple of your partners over at Eudaimonia last year in Palm Beach. And I love the fact that it's also women, female scientists doing all of this. I'd love to know what got you into Skin.

So, um, me and my co-founders, we are 4 PhDs from Brazil. We met when we were doing our grad school, and our background was always on tissue engineering, building organs in the lab. Me specifically, building skin to understand more of the wound healing process and how to use stem cells to promote better wound healing. So all of us, we were working with something related to promoting regeneration of our body. And we shared this common, like, dream and idea of one day translating some of this science to improve people's health. So after we finished and completed our PhDs, we started this company, OneSkin. We moved to San Francisco, California. And because we had the background in skin biology, We thought it was a good opportunity to understand better how products are acting at the biological level of the skin. I had a lot of concerns with my skin. Was always hard to find the right product to use. Skin very sensitive. And it was a pain for the majority of the consumers, and still it is, where you don't know if that marketing claim will do what it's saying that it will do, which product should you trust. So the company evolved a lot throughout the years. We started in 2016, it's almost 10 years, and started, um, as a platform to understand how products are really addressing the root causes of skin aging. And that was a whole evolution from like testing products to identifying a new molecule and eventually becoming a brand and culminating to bringing a product that is powered by our science to the consumers.

I have been obsessed with skin, not in a good way, honestly, since I was a teenager, because I started breaking out as a teen. And I remember thinking, well, as soon as I get in my 20s, that'll stop. And it never stopped, you know? And then all of a sudden you're in your 40s and like you're breaking out with wrinkles. You're like, what is going on here? And I feel like a shift finally happened, so I stopped breaking out. But then you have the skin aging piece of it. So what is going on? Because clearly the things that I look at for my skin now in my 60s and starting at around my 40s is very different than what I was doing in my teens and 20s. What happens? Like, what is that shift that starts to happen in the 40s to our skin?

Yeah, so there are a lot of changes that start happening with aging, and one of them is that we start to accumulate some damage inside our skin. So some damaged cells that are cells that stop dividing and secrete inflammation. When we are young, our body is good on like eliminating those cells, but after 30, more 40, 50, we start to accumulate more of those Scientifically, we call them senescent cells, but we can also— we— some people probably heard about zombie cells. So these are cells that were supposed to be dead, but they are— they don't die, and they stay there secreting that inflammation. And on the skin, that inflammation, what we'll do, we'll start breaking down more collagen and thinning the skin barrier. So with aging, you accumulate more of those old damaged cells, and that accelerates the process of declining the function of the skin. And what we see is that perception of, of the skin becoming thinner, more fragile, the fine lines appearing, the wrinkles. You also have dysregulation on the melanocyte, so we start having some aging spots as well. And one of the root causes is the accumulation of those damaged cells that our body is not eliminating on the skin.

Yeah, I heard you talking about this and I've been taking some Synalytix to help with that internally, but I was like, oh, that is happening on your skin as well.

Yeah.

Wow. So that was also when we started to test the products back in 2016 and '17. And we were looking like to the aging markers, these markers of cellular senescence in the skin, we were seeing a lot of companies, startups starting to approach this longevity science to treat our body internally or specific diseases, but no one was looking to the skin. And the skin is an organ like all of our body, and this accumulation of cellular senescence It's also happening on the skin. So when we realized that, we saw that there was missing a specific product or ingredient that would reduce those senescent cells in the skin, because the skin is, is another organ similar to everything. So what happens to our body, like, also happens. And, and there was like a clear opportunity there to investigate more and to start doing research on how we can reduce those senescent cells on the skin.

So were you guys the ones that discovered that this— like, was that your discovery, finding out that skin had these senescent cells?

We did not discover that the skin has senescent cells. This was already described. But I would say that we were one of the first that start to address that problem, looking at skin aging. So at that time, you would not see— there was no single brand in the market talking about cellular senescence in the skin, and there was not much research even on ingredients or molecules of ways of reducing cellular senescence on the skin. So we were one of the first to start this research, and it's so exciting to see that 9 years later, uh, we were able to validate our research. But we also see now more and more people, uh, going through that route of researching cellular senescence in the skin and seeing and confirming that it really plays a role on the skin aging, but plays a role as the skin is an important organ. It contributes to our overall health as well. So maintaining a skin that's more resilient throughout our lifetime, it helps reduce inflammation in our overall body as well.

Yeah. So we're going to talk some about the product as well. But it seems like then whatever you're doing with your skincare, this would just be something you'd want to make sure you're doing as well, just like in my supplement stack, when I learned about Sinalytics, I'm like, oh, I must do this. What's interesting is when you take it orally, when you take some Sinalytics to kill off these zombie cells, that doesn't have any impact on your skin. Like you need to do topicals for your skin or what?

So when you take topical, uh, when you take orally, that Sinalytic will be going, uh, sometimes even more directed to places where you have more accumulation of senescent cells and will be distributed to your whole body. So it may have some influence on senescent cells on the skin, but probably because, uh, it's so systemic, it will not affect exclusively or as efficient as a topical application to the skin. So it can be very complementary to do both approaches, and the topical one is just— it's being more ensured that you're being targeted exactly where you want to see the benefit.

Yeah, it makes sense. Now, you mentioned collagen when you were talking about what these— what the senescence does, but I would assume there's probably more at play here because of when collagen is going down with aging. Is it just because these zombie cells, or are there more things happening to take your collagen down?

Yeah, there are more things happening, uh, senescent cells being one of the players in this process, but especially when, uh, as women we go through the menopause process and the decrease on hormone levels, estrogen specifically, we are also like, uh, like accumulating more of this decrease in collagen production. So throughout the aging and the changes with menopause, we are also decreasing the amount of collagen that we are producing, and you are also with, um, you're also inducing more senescence formation. So the senescent cells plus having less hormones, they are all stacking to accelerate this process of collagen degradation.

Could you really— like, I, I'm thinking about this now, and, and if someone was not addressing senescence, could they really get their skin as they're aging? Like, it seems like they're missing one of the key things you'd want to hit with aging skin.

Yeah, so if, if you're like lacking this senescence component, you may be targeting and doing things to your skin that will improve the appearance momentarily or for a while, but the underlying cause of like the tissue and the function of the tissue is still being, uh, aging and is still being declining. So the, the decline on the function that later on, uh, if you're not taking care, you will see not only the lack of the collagen going down but the skin becoming thinner and more fragile and dry, itching. And the skin is this, is this barrier to our body. It protects our body, the internal body, by regulating our temperature, keeping the water inside, uh, the water content of our body. And when— and also is our first immune response to things that are coming from the external world. So When you're having, like, the function of the skin, the skin barrier declining, you're more susceptible to inflammation on your skin and to this itchiness. And because of the size of the skin, again, uh, later on, this less resilient skin is contributing to the overall inflammation of your body. And we know that after 60 years old, the more inflammation that you have inside the body more likely you can develop a chronic age-related chronic disease. So what we want is to lower those inflammation from all fronts.

So if you are combating senescence, you're doing it internally and you're doing it topically. Would things like the sagging, the dry skin, those things start to reverse, or do you need other, like with the dry skin and, and, and some of those slow healing, is that more of a sign of senescence?

This is also a sign of senescence, the dryness, because the dryness means that your skin barrier is not intact. So you're losing water on your skin. And when you eliminate senescent cells and you're able to increase the skin barrier function, you are helping to reduce dryness on the skin. So targeting cellular senescence, it really targets one of the root cause of a lot of what you're seeing. And what we like, I mean, there are other ingredients that can help and be combined with this senotherapeutic ingredient to just boost more, even the hydration on the skin, having a good layer of lipids and moisturizer helps you to maintain that moisture on the skin as well. So there are other ingredients that can be associated with the, uh, the one that's targeting cell senescence in order to have a more smooth, radiant skin, and most importantly, a stronger and more resilient skin.

But it seems like this is an entirely different way to approach this. Yes, it's amazing. So I know you've done research. Can you Can you unfry the egg? So you've got someone who's 60, speaking for a friend here. Is it just gonna slow down the aging process moving forward, or can I actually turn back the clock?

So from our research, when we tested on skins in our lab, so we are able here in our lab to cultivate skin samples that are leftover of plastic surgery outside the body. And that gives us a tool to see how the skin would respond to different molecules. So we are able to measure what we call the biological age of the skin, meaning that's how that skin is functioning. So even if you're 60 years old chronologically, your skin could be 58 or 64. So that's a biological age that depends on how it's functioning, right? And what we see is that when we treat with our molecule and reduce cellular senescence, the biological age is actually reversed. But it's not a process because also when you— this is done in the lab in a very controlled environment. When you apply this topically on your skin, the most benefit, I— it's on the prevention side of like start to have this stronger skin. You can repair, and we see that there is an improvement on repair, but that repair, it does not go down. I would not say that you're able to repair all the way to an 18-year-old skin when you are already 60 plus. So there is still a limitation there.

How far can you go?

How far you can go. And, and the science is evolving. I think like later on we'll be able to go more further. But there is a, there is a lot of still some biological limitations to really slow down and reverse completely, to reverse completely. But slowing down from today to later, it's already like a huge benefit. Sometimes we don't think that much, but if you put yourself and think 5 years ago and now, the goal is that your skin now it's better than was 5 years old, especially 5 years ago, especially if you were having like big concerns with your skin.

So you can get back a little bit of time. You're not going to get back like And so what are the types of things that someone using this would see? What types of benefits and in what type of results and in what timeframe?

Yeah. So for all our products, we run clinical studies that goes to 12 weeks and we start seeing on the first days of use, you already start feeling like a little bit of the skin being more hydrated. And after After 6 weeks, what we measured— this, I would say, first what we measured on clinical studies. So when we measure on clinical studies, after 6 weeks we already see an improvement above 10% on the skin barrier function, meaning that the skin is really becoming stronger. We start to see improvements on the smoothness of the skin and on the radiance of the skin. And after 12 weeks, we see also an improvement on fine lines and wrinkles and the overall appearance of the skin. So, um, in a period of 3 months, you are even— you are able to see improvements in mainly all the aspects of your skin. And this will all depend on the person, on other things that they are doing in their lives. Some people see faster results, some people take a little bit longer to see more pronounced results. But the results, what's interesting is that it keeps adding, and with time it gets— you're, you're seeing your skin getting better and better. It's not a huge dramatic change overnight, but it's a consistent change of like slowing down that pace of aging.

And speaking because I have so many different things at home, which I think most women, if you go to their, their house, you're like, what is all this stuff? Are there other products that could complement this? I'm thinking of things that I have at home like vitamin C and retin-A and glycolics. What are some of the things that you might want to use with it? Or even things like, do you guys have a scrub? I think you might have a scrub.

We have a cleanser, but not a gentle cleanser.

Yeah. Yes. I'm traveling with your gentle cleanser. Yeah. What are some of the things that you would want to do? First of all, do you need to use anything else with this? And if so, what would be the things that would be an additive or exponential effect by adding them together?

Yeah. So we, when we build our formulas, we try to maximize what that formula does. So our Moisturizer, aside of delivering the peptide, also delivers some antioxidants and there are other ingredients that helps retaining more the hydration of the skin. So they— for a simple routine, I would say if you can, the OneSkin can offer you a very simple minimalist routine. We don't have, for instance, retinoids, Retin-A, on our products, and glycolics that exfoliate a little bit more the skin. So for retinoids, um, they can have a benefit on like smoothing the skin and really improving the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. And that can be, uh, very complementary with our products, uh, because it just accelerates more seeing that visual benefit of the skin becoming more smooth. But the retinoids, they are not targeting cellular senescence, so that's why it's very good to combine them. There are a lot of people that are sensitive to retinoids and cannot use, cannot tolerate them. In that case, if you can also have good benefits without using retinoids, some glycolic acids and some more things that can exfoliate your skin can also be a good addition to remove more of the, uh, upper dead layer of the skin. I wouldn't overdo on those type of products but they can be beneficial and you can, you can improve more the visible results if you are combining a good, like, exfoliation once per week, retinoids 2-3 times per week, and our daily use of our product. One other thing that can be complemented from our line that we don't have yet, when the skin, it's especially in wintertime or if someone has really dry skin, Our moisturizer is very lightweight. It's supposed, like, to help you build up that own internal moisture. But if your skin is too dry, you may, especially at night, add a more heavy moisturizer to lock the moisture while your skin is still on healing processes.

Even that is a streamlined skincare routine.

Yeah.

But the big thing takeaway here to me is that there's a place for something like a glycolic or a Retin-A alongside this. Yes.

Okay.

Now, the other piece of this is all the nutrition and lifestyle stuff, because I'm sure if someone's smoking and staying out late and drinking and eating a bunch of sugar, there's only so much one skin can do. But if you wanted to have this, the best skin ever, you were using OneSkin and then you were gonna do all the diet and lifestyle, what would that look like?

So I think the number one thing would be make sure you improve your sleep quality and your type of sleep, your time of sleeping and the quality of the sleep. Because during the time that we are sleeping is when our bodies really cleaning up damage that is accumulating and making sure it's like performing well and optimizing the function of the cells. So being better on sleeping is one. Exercising is one as well. It's also number one as well.

And— Okay. Question on sleep. Question on sleep.

Yeah.

Before we go over to exercise, because of course I'm thrilled you said exercise. I got sent this pillow that I'm obsessed with. Did the— because, and the whole takeaway of this pillow was the way it positioned you was you weren't going to get like face creases. Um, does that matter? Is that, is that, does that impact your, this, your health, your skin, or is that just not waking up with the skin crease?

I think, I mean, that's more like because you spend hours there and if your skin is kind of like tightening, will, will forms, will get some marks from the sleeping. Um, I don't know any study that that is really impairing the skin function, but you just like, you help to wake up to a more smooth skin if you're like sometimes like using either a pillowcase or something that's more smooth.

So, you know, because you've heard too, the silk pillowcases. So none of that stuff really is going to impact your skin.

They will not reverse your skin biology, but they sometimes they can help like improving how your skin, the smoothness during the sleep, that time and things like that.

Okay, now let's move to exercise. So sleep.

Sleep is important.

Sleep is extremely important. Exercising every day is extremely important for your overall health. Not only your skin is the number one thing that you can do for your longevity that actually have data showing that improves your longevity and your diet, nutrition.

Well, any type of exercise that you're keen on?

So, um, exercising daily and making sure, uh, at least 3 times a week you have some weight lift as well, especially when we are like getting older. The muscle decline can really impact how you're moving later on. So making sure you're keeping that, uh, muscle lean, it's important. Then Start from like even walking 30 minutes, already better than anything. And then you can improve to improve your cardiovascular condition. But the best exercise is something that you like to do and you enjoy doing it. So number one, do something. And then you can be optimizing to make sure you have a strong body throughout the aging process.

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Okay, so sleep, exercise, now let's get to—

And then the nutrition. And nothing super crazy in terms of nutrition. Aside of like reducing processed food and reducing sugar, uh, big intake of alcohols, all those bad things, like they really can impact your skin as well. Processed sugar or like high amounts of fructose can really spike the glycemia in your, your body. Your blood, and that can, um, that can really affect on your skin, your collagen on your skin, because excess of sugar can bind to collagen and then can reduce the function of the collagen on your skin. And that's very pro-inflammatory as well, not only to the skin, to your whole body, but there is a correlation with direct with the skin. So avoiding processed sugar, excess sugar, um Intakes of alcohol, smoking. They are all like the, what we call the basics. But like sometimes like people just, it's hard to do the basic, but I will go, I would start from there.

I always wanna make sure that when you put these things together, it's like an exponential effect, right? Like you do, you don't wanna say I'm gonna do all this skincare and then I'm, and I, I used to look this, I see people spending so much money on makeup and skincare and then they're eating a bunch of sugar and I'm like, come on.

So, and then I do question.

Yeah. The good thing is like when you take care of your health, you improve your skin to the level that then you need less makeup because your skin is already like showing up so much healthier. Uh, so I, for me, that's a, it's very, I'm a very practical person, so I love to have like a short routine and I don't need to, like, I feel good on my own skin.

Well, on that note, you have— I love tinted sunscreens.

Yeah.

To me, a tinted sunscreen is the fastest makeup hack there is because you've got both things covered. Tell us about your tinted sunscreen and sunscreen in general, because there's, you know, there's, there's a lot of bad sunscreens out there.

So, yeah. So sunscreen, UV radiation, UV coming from the sun. Is the number one cause of accelerating the aging process of the skin, because excess of UV accumulates more damage inside the cells, and you end up accumulating more of those senescent cells. So, uh, protecting your skin from UV radiation, especially strong UV radiation, it's very important to maintain your skin healthy. And then that's when The sunscreen comes as a way of you protecting your skin from the UV radiation. There are two types of sunscreen. Like, people are talking a lot of chemical sunscreen, mineral sunscreen. At OneSkin, we chose to, to develop mineral sunscreens because they are more safe in terms of the data that you have. The chemicals, there are some studies that can show that they can disrupt, your endocrine system. But those studies also, you need to take care of how you're looking to the studies, because a lot of times this is associated with a large amount of those chemicals being applied to you to see the negative effect. But even though, uh, for us, safety is something very important, so we chose to develop sunscreens that are mineral, uh, that we know that they can be used on sensitive skin as well, and they not have any side effect. So, um, we, we have this line of— now we just launched 2 more tints to our sunscreen for the face. Yes, we added 2 extra tints. It was just launched last month. And our sunscreens, they're combination of the zinc oxide for your UV protection, but a lot of antioxidants. We have vitamin C on our serum, the most stable form of vitamin C. So we even see that, uh, by using our sunscreen, if you want, you can avoid using a vitamin C serum because it already has like enough antioxidants in that formula and also contains our peptide. And we ended with a formula that's very gentle, hydrating at the same time, and protecting from the UV radiation.

It's actually— it's a fantastic product. I didn't realize it had all that, so now I can only use that, and that simplifies things. But a lot of times you'll use these and they're, they're thick.

Yeah.

And they look weird. This actually, I've been using it as a primer if I'm doing things where I have to put on anything more than that. But most time I just use it as the thing, leave it.

It's a very good prime, like before makeup as well, or, or, um, a little bit of the tint A lot of times I also just use that and I feel like, oh, my skin has a little bit of a glow and feels healthy.

Yeah.

And we're getting everything that we need.

Yeah. It's, it's got the best texture of any of the ones I've ever looked at. So good job on that one. Now, one other piece that I'm going to take a little sidetrack over to hair, because I was very excited when I got this hair kit because my hair stylist was trying to convince me I needed to get extensions. I'm like, I'm not doing that. And I think for a lot of women, a couple things happen, and, you know, maybe their thyroid function starts to go down and they start to lose a little bit of hair, or the texture of their hair starts to shift. So how does your hair product work? I'm assuming it's kind of built on the same philosophy of senescence, that this must happen in your scalp as well. So let's Let's talk about hair and what happens, because a lot of weird stuff happens to hair with aging.

Yes. Yeah. And you, you got the hint already, like, the aging process happening on our body, on our skin, is also happening on our scalp. So we do accumulate cellular senescence in our scalp as well. And with aging, like, the more senescent cells in the scalp, it's secreting inflammation, and then taking, it's taking the hair follicle out of that anagen phase. That's the phase where the hair is growing. So it's removing from that phase faster. And then what happens, the hair becomes thinner and then it does not grow that long as well as we were supposed to see when we, we were able to grow our hair longer when we are younger. So what happened when we were doing all the research on skin and developing the products for the skin, we came across some of this data. And it was naturally the thinking, right, that senescent cells are accumulating with aging on the hair follicle as well. And there is a lot of data showing that, that aged scalp has more senescent cells. And even sometimes in areas where you have hair loss, you have more accumulation of cellular senescence. There. So we spent 2 years doing research. Okay, can our peptide also target and reduce the burden of the senescent cells in hair follicles? And we tested this first in the lab, and we were able to see the decrease of that inflammation. And then we developed this topical serum to apply on the serum— on— to apply on the scalp. And we ran a clinical study for 6 months, and we were able to see incredible results after 6 months that improve on the thickness and on the density of the hair when using this serum. So, uh, and the serum, again, the way we think when we are processing, when we are developing our formulas, is a very scientific and rigorous process. Takes long. We take like almost 2 years to finish a formula from start to get to the market because we think a lot on the ingredients that are coming together as well. And for this Hair Scalp, we also add some prebiotics that helps with the scalp microbiome. So that also helps with reducing some dandruff on the scalp and improving the scalp health. And this consequently improves the quality of your hair. And we also have other that can improve also the blood circulation, everything to promote some hair growth. That of course needs to be when someone is experiencing the shedding or hair loss, you need to follow up and understand what's, what's leading, what's the main cause of that, and try to solve that as well, because the topical application will just be one extra step for that stack that will boost and help you have better results.

Yeah, I'm assuming like if you had PCOS or you have thyroid issues, like, you got to get that solved. That needs to be that as well. But, you know, someone who has a thyroid issue and it goes on for a while and doesn't figure it out, and then they figure it out, now they got to get their hair back.

So, and then what happens?

Yeah, does something happen during menopause? Because it sure seems like a lot of women's hair starts to thin then, independent of thyroid issues.

Yeah, it's all the hormonal regulation, uh, that started decreasing as well that can contribute to the hair growth. So we all will go through this natural aging phase of like the hair start to becoming thinner because also accumulating senescent cells there. And one interesting stat is that a lot of time when someone noticed that they are having hair loss, they already lost 50% of the volume of their hair. Wow. Yes, which is kind of like, we take too long to start thinking about taking care of our hair, uh, hair growth. We start early taking care of our skin, preventing the damage, but we don't prevent that much the hair loss. And that's one thing that we at OneSkin, we believe that can be key as well. If you are starting earlier on your hair care, you will probably, uh, experience less hair shedding and less of this thinning as well.

Well, is that because I would think with the, the skin formula, the earlier you could start it, the better? Like, what age should someone start using these products?

So, um, we usually— there is— when you, you start, like, when we look to data that we start seeing a shift on the skin, if you analyze a big data set of skins from different ages 30 years, there's a shift there. So more or less around 30 years is where like—

Everything happens at 30. 30, just like this cliff.

Yeah, it's the cliff. So 30 is the main mark, but it will all depend on how you were, like your lifestyle to get to 30. Some people 27, they already seen some of these changes. Some people go all the way to 35 and they don't notice yet that these changes but it's there, and it's in between 30 that, uh, you will start noticing some declines. So the earlier you start, it's always easier to prevent than to repair, although we can repair as well, but we're always more slowing down to the future. So prevention, it, it's a key, but it's also anytime that you start, it's a good time to start.

Man, if I had had this at 30 But so that's the skin part. With the hair part, would you only use this hair product if you start to notice a little bit of thinning, or should everybody be using this as a preemptive strike? Because it's kind of a known factor of aging is that your hair is going to thin.

Your hair is going to thin. I think like after 30, you should be using to already to prevent, because as I said, is sometimes it's hard to perceive the hair thinning and loss, and it takes— when you, you're noticing, it's already like, okay, a lot of damage already happened. So, uh, even if you're not noticing, it's thinning. So after 30 years old, like, it's happening either like slower or more rapidly. It's happening somehow. So start being proactive. I, I think it's a, it's a best approach.

Now with the hair product, the way I'm using it now is, is everyday kind of scrubbing it into my scalp. Is that— once you're in maintenance, do you still do that every day, or do you shift it to less often?

Yeah, the best is to have it every day, once a day, and then just, just do a little bit to like go around.

Yeah, I don't use the thingy that the— there was something cool that came with it. I couldn't figure out how to open it, so therefore I didn't use it. But I have great nails, so I've just been in there scratching away at my scalp with it. Okay, so that works. But that's interesting. Now, I'm assuming it can't do anything. Gray hair is a different situation.

So gray hair, there is also some association with cellular senescence. And in our, our clinical study, we saw some improvement on the gray hair, but not to the extent that's like a proof that this product that can reverse gray hair. It's just like when you have a healthier, like, environment on your scalp, on your skin, the cells function better. And depending on the— if you're starting the grayness process, if your cells are feeling happier, that can be like a little bit reversed and can, can help on that. Um, but so it can help, but it's not specifically— it's not in a concentration or something that targeting to reverse gray hair.

Okay, we'll figure that out next.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. Marching orders. Ask every woman everywhere, like, figure that out. All my friends are going blonde because they've got gray hair now and they don't want to have dark hair with roots. It's like, it's a, it's a real thing.

I know, I know.

Doesn't look like you have any of that at this this point. You'll probably—

I still— and I'm like, I still— I don't have the gray hair, but I know it's— it will come pretty soon. So I'm using OneSkin and see if I will delay the— I can get like more time without starting to have the gray. Because yeah, some people embrace the gray hair very early on. I kind of like the colored hair, so I hope I can now with OneSkin delay a little bit more. Yeah, let's see.

Well, If you figure out that whole thing, we, uh, we would be very grateful. Enough. This is, uh, this is quite exciting. I mean, really, the only, the only bummer is I didn't know about sooner because you guys hadn't figured it out. But I'm glad you did figure it out. And we are going to give everybody a 15% off all these different things. Walk us just through the line. And I know you have a very simple— you talked about this minimalist approach. I've never been a minimalist in anything, but I am going to attempt to be more minimalist. But walk us through the different products that you have and how you would use them.

So yeah, so we try to— we are creating a line of products that they can do more with less products. And we— but we have a cleanser, a gentle cleanser that helps eliminating all the makeup pollution, a little bit of the dead cells that are sitting on top of your skin. So cleanser number one. Then we have the face moisturizer that contains our peptide. It's also, um, hydrating and contains hyaluronic acid and can hydrate your skin. We have a specific one for around the eyes, for those that has already more concerns around the eyes, because the skin around our eyes are— is thinner and accumulates more damage. When we— there's a study that measured the biological age of the skin on the eyelid and under eye and compared with the temples, and the skin around the eye was 20 to 30 years older than the— wow, that was like mind-blowing for us as well. And that's why it gets those fine lines. It's the first place, right, that you start Later on your 30s, the first, like, on your eyes starts the fine lines. It's because it's accumulating more cell senescence there as well. So we have a specific eye cream for around the eyes that has a high, a higher concentration of the peptide as well. So you have the moisturizer for the face, the eye cream if you, if you are more concerned of the eye. Otherwise, you can also use the face around your eyes.

How could someone not be more concerned after what you just said?

Yeah, I know. I know. I was also like not super aware and learning. The more we learn, the more things like come out. And that's— we first, when we start creating the line, we thought we wouldn't have an eye cream, but then we specifically— and when we developed the eye cream, we partnered with a dermatologist and the whole The formula development, we tested on eyelid, uh, skin that came from blepharoplasty surgery. So we were able like to see more benefits with the eye cream on that skin compared to the face. It's like a stronger benefit. And, and after moisturizing your skin in the morning, you apply sunscreen and you're ready to go if you don't want to put makeup, or you can add makeup on top of your sunscreen.

Um, and then that's a body lotion. I love your body lotion.

The body lotion is my favorite, and I'm loving to see, uh, getting more momentum and now more awareness of people seeing that they— one, they need to take care of the skin of their body. It's not only the face, but also seeing like a lot of people using and having the benefits of like improving the texture and reducing crepiness, uh, and the thinning of the skin in the body. The Body, what I love as well, we ran a very interesting clinical study with The Body where we recruited participants that were 60+, um, so that has already the skin in the body more thin. And aside of analyzing throughout 3 months the changes on the skin quality in their body, we also collected their blood and measure the systemic inflammation on their blood. And what we saw was that after 12 weeks, the skin was more resilient, like improved the skin barrier, um, and all— and you also see reduction on some inflammatory cytokines in the blood. So meaning that because our skin is this protective barrier, and because you are reducing inflammation coming from skin, you can really help your overall health and body to the extent of systemic levels of like protecting your body. And that for me is a really— it's a game changer in terms of assessing your skin with this lens of improving my health. Um, and the, the benefits are there. We published this study and we are seeing more and more people using and giving the feedback on how improves, the, the quality of their skin in the body. I, I use the, the body lotion once a day, uh, after I get out of the shower, but it's one that I, I think I never skip, right?

Yeah, yeah. So it's my— I do my chest and arms and hands because I think we forget our hands. Although I think I'm gonna start putting that sunscreen on my hands.

Yeah, sunscreen on the hands. Yeah. It's areas that we, we forget. But then at night, what you would do is clean your skin and moisturize again, and you don't need sunscreen anymore. That's the, the most simple. If you want to add a Retin-A or something, you can add before applying the One Skin if it's in a serum form, or you can also add at night a richer cream to lock more moisture if you have dry skin and you feel that your skin still needs a little bit more of moisture.

And then once a day, the scrubby hair stuff, the hair serum, and you scrub it in.

Yeah, you scrub it in, uh, once a day. Uh, I usually do at night as well.

Okay.

And one thing of the hair that, uh, I love it, it's because it does not— I don't know how it's been your experience, but it does not leave your your hair greasy. It's very lightweight, which makes easier to complement, to add to your routine, because you can even if, even if you don't wash your hair on the next day, you, you don't feel that your hair is becoming greasy from the application of that serum.

Yeah, I've actually had a couple different serums that I've tried in my hair and I've never been able to use them because I get a blowout twice a week and it completely takes it out. And I'm like, you know, so when I first got it, I let the box sit there for a bit because I'm like, this will wreck my blowout. It doesn't. I did it this morning and it does nothing. So I was like, this is the greatest stuff ever. It doesn't do it. It doesn't mess up anything that I've got going on. So yeah, good job on that one because all the rest of them have been— they had something in them that all of a sudden you went, well, just lost my blowout, you know.

Yeah, exactly. That's why I like that. It's so important you would not Yeah, lose your—

this is what happens when women create skincare products and haircare products. This is the difference. They get it.

We get it. We do the same points. We want something that will work on us. And, and we really, at OneSkin, I mean, I'm so proud of the team. We, we take the time to develop, to get to products that we love and we think like can deliver what we are— we want to deliver, right? And and can create a good experience and people will see results. So yeah, it's a lot of teamwork. It takes time, but at the end you have products. What we want is that our customers can trust our products. They can understand, they can see the data that's coming from the research that was done to develop that product, and then they can experience the benefits of that product.

Product. Yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, I know with me it was pretty quick. You start to notice the difference. Yeah. So you feel it, you notice it. The texture is great, smells great, the whole thing. So everyone gets to try it. 15% off. Use the code JJ15. We'll put the link in the show notes. I'm going to put everything at jjvirgin.com/skinlongevity. So jjvirgin.com/skinlongevity. Skin Longevity. And I so appreciate your time letting me ask all the questions I've always wanted to be able to ask.

So I appreciate it. I'm so glad I was able to answer to your questions. But if anyone listening to this podcast still have questions, we love to hear feedback. We love to hear from customers. Or any doubt, go to our website. There is like our customer support. There's a message box that comes out. And you can— we love answering questions, showing the data, showing the research, bringing educational content if you're still in doubt about something. So check our website for more information.

All of that, your social, your websites, all the stuff in the show notes. So everybody has access to all of it. Thank you.

Thank you so much, JJ Virgin.

All right.

Yes, full disclosure, I have become obsessed with this product, both the topical for the face, but also the hair. They really do work. Like, I totally see a difference with them, and I saw it pretty quickly with the skincare. So I'm whittling down my skincare routine. It is possible. Now, let me give you a couple things I think are important takeaways here from this talk.

And it's one of the ones I've always been adamant about.

Don't think you can go start using some topical skincare routine and eat a bunch of crap, stay out late, et cetera. And I think you know better if you're listening to this, but sugar is such an aging thing. When I think of the biggest things that you can do that will age your skin, it's like eat sugar, eat high glycemic, eat high sugar impact. So if you are not sure if you're doing that, get the book, JJ Virgin Sugar Impact Diet. I'll walk you through how to get off sugar. And then the other thing that's really aging for your skin is eating things that are inflammatory to you. Now, the Virgin Diet walks you through how to figure out which foods work for you and which foods don't. And then also, one of the things that can be super helpful is making an oil change and getting away from some of those more inflammatory and toxic— and it's toxic because of the way they've been produced— seed oils. And then really focusing on eating clean protein, digesting it well. That helps your skin as well. That's where protein digestive enzymes come in. And getting in that collagen. My bone broth shakes, my collagen powder help there. And also getting in a lot of polyphenols, a lot of those plant compounds for the antioxidants.

So all those things help.

And then get yourself some One Skin. And oh, sleep important. Exercise actually helps with collagen production and getting rid of wrinkles, etc. And so does creatine. How exciting is that? So shea teen can help there as well. And then of course, one skin, one skin, one skin. And so JJ15 is the code to save 15% off. Go to jjvirgin.com/skinlongevity to hook yourself up and let me know how you're noticing it because we might be well beyond 40, but we're gonna be looking well beyond 40 too. So there you go. You're hooked up for that. I'll see you in the next show. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Would you prefer an ad-free experience? Join my VIP podcast at subscribe2jj.com for just $4.99 a month or $49.99 $19.99 a year to unlock uninterrupted ad-free access to all the episodes and insights you love. Also, I'd love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here's how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review. And third, text to 2-813-565-2627. That's 813-565-2627. When you do, I'll reply using my brand new Virtual JJ Virgin. It's my on-demand virtual self built from my books, talks, and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You'll make my day and I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode. Hey, JJ here, and just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health-related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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