Ep. 182: Healing Dry Winter Skin

On today’s episode, I’m chatting with my dear friend and safer skincare expert Liz Wolfe all about how to heal dry winter skin.  In these cooler months, our skin needs a little extra love, and we’re hear to tell you how to support it!

We’re back with our 182nd episode of the Fed+Fit Podcast! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes!

Find us HERE on iTunes and be sure to “subscribe.”

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Episode 182 Links

• Visit Liz’s website HERE.
• To find out more about the Baby Making and Beyond online program click HERE.
• To read Eat the Yolks click HERE.
• To listen to the Balanced Bites Podcast click HERE.
• Find out about Beautycounter’s Overnight Resurfacing Peel HERE.
• Find out about Beautycounter’s Facial Oils HERE.
• Find out about Countermatch Intense Moisture Serum HERE.
• Find out more about Countermatch Adaptive Moisture Lotion HERE.
• Find recommended Primally Pure products for dry skin HERE. (use the code FEDANDFIT10 for 10% off your first order)

Episode 182 Sponsors and Featured Partners

• Capilano Beeotic – 100% Australian Honey with natural prebiotics to support gut health, Click HERE to get your own!
• Primally Pure – One of my favorite safer skincare companies, use the code FEDANDFIT10 at checkout for 10% off your first order!

Cassy Joy: Today’s show is brought to you by Capilano Beeotic Honey! Beeotic Honey is 100% pure Australian honey that contains naturally occurring prebiotics. It’s my favorite sweeteners for tea, a key ingredient in my jalapeno lime margaritas, my secret to chewier cookies, and it’s perfect for dressings or for drizzling over my morning yogurt. Best of all, Beeotic helps support gut and digestive health with 340 mg of naturally occurring prebiotic oligosaccharides per serving. These prebiotics nourish good gut bacteria, which is even more important for keeping us healthy during the winter months. You can grab your own Beeotic Honey at Walmart and Walmart.com starting at just $9.98.

Cassy Joy: Welcome back to another episode of the Fed and Fit podcast. I am your host, Cassy Joy Garcia. And today we are joined by a dear, dear friend of mine. I love her so much, and I look up to her in so many ways. She is the author of the amazing runaway bestseller Eat the Yolks. If you don’t have it, you should absolutely add it to your holiday wish list. Cohost of the Balanced Bites podcast. She’s a safer skincare expert. Y’all; she started talking about this before anyone was talking about it. She is who I learned it all from. And she’s the founder of the new program, Baby Making and Beyond. Talking about none other than the Liz Wolfe. Welcome to the show, Liz!

Liz Wolfe: I had to mute myself because I was like; {laughs} runaway bestseller! You’re too nice to me. I like you.

Cassy Joy: {laughing} That’s what I remember. You just cheer for your friends, and when you come out with something, you sit there and watch on the edge of my seat. I remember watching Eat the Yolks do so well. And I was just like; aahh!

Liz Wolfe: We did ok. Yeah, we did alright for a book with that many words in it. {laughs}

Cassy Joy: It had a lot of words. I’ll be honest; I think I read 75% of them.

Liz Wolfe: It’s ok.

Cassy Joy: Maybe I read it all. I feel like I read it all.

Liz Wolfe: The good news is there’s an audio book. Right?

Cassy Joy: That’s right!

Liz Wolfe: You can listen to me read all day.

Cassy Joy: And you have the best voice. I want to listen to you all day long.

Liz Wolfe: Oh geeze. That’s funny. My kid does not agree.

Cassy Joy: {laughs} What you could do, also, if you agree with me. You could tune into the Balanced Bites podcast. Which, Liz cohosts with Diane Sanfilippo.

Liz Wolfe: Indeed.

Cassy Joy: Well thank you for joining us today. I wanted to chat about; pick your brain {laughs} on safer skincare approach to dry winter skin. This is something that has plagued me personally for years and years. And I would get so excited for the holidays. It’s my favorite time of the year. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. And then all of a sudden, when I’m going out to parties and slathering on my sparkly eyeshadow and all my fun makeup, I’m also looking in the mirror and cringing because I have a dry forehead, dry cheeks. It’s just awful.

Not to mention dry arms and legs. It just feels like, sometimes when you suffer from dry skin, you just can’t get caught back up until the weather changes. So I would love it if you could share some pearls of wisdom. So y’all listening; Liz is the one, when I have a brain buster, Liz is the one that I call, Vox, or email, text. Asking her questions. So I figured I would ask her these questions, but record our conversation {laughs}. And share it with everybody.

So what would be some of your tips? I know there are some environmental things we should probably consider. But what’s going on? Why does our skin get so dry in these cooler months?

Liz Wolfe: So it’s actually really simple. Infuriatingly simple. And this is me every year. The day we have; that one day where you have a nice day, and it’s fall, and it’s 68 degrees and you have a fleece on but you don’t need your scarf yet. And then the next day it’s like 26 degrees. It’s literally; that’s how long it takes for me to all of a sudden look in the mirror and feel like; what happened? All the moisture literally got sucked from my body! And that’s actually kind of what happens. Way over simplifying it.

But, literally, the second it gets cold. And I don’t know what the temperature threshold is. But the second it gets cold, the air also becomes much less humid. So when there’s less moisture in the air, basically the moisture balance of the air around you and your skin; the air starts literally stealing moisture from your body.

Cassy Joy: Rude.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So rude. Why? So you get really dry. So you kind of need to; there’s no one way to fix that, unfortunately. You kind of have to; I think in the summer and fall we kind of are getting away with stuff. Especially skincare in the summer. I mean, obviously, nobody likes sweating off their makeup all day long. But at the same time, we have nice, plump, dewy, glowy skin because in most places the air is much more humid. And we kind of get away with it. Like, maybe we don’t hydrate as much as we should. Or we don’t eat the right foods. Or we’re not being as consistent with a skincare routine.

And we get away with that until the temperature drops. And then all of a sudden, all manner of sins are revealed. And we must atone for all of them at once.

Cassy Joy: {laughs} Oh my goodness, that’s so interesting. There’s probably a small handful of listeners out here thinking; gosh, I’ve never had that problem. It’s probably because they’re much better about their skincare routine, they stay more hydrated more diligently than I do.

Liz Wolfe: Could be. Yeah.

Cassy Joy: Very interesting. So does diet; I mean, I’m about to deep-dive a bunch of pie, and some eggnog amongst other goodies this time of year. Does that have an impact on skin as well? Or is it really environmental?

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} No, diet has no impact on your skin whatsoever.

Cassy Joy: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: I’ve just been trying… No. Thinking about the Thai food that we ordered last night because I needed it. I needed it. Yeah, diet absolutely does. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a pretty foundational thing. I mean, in particular, how hydrated you are. Obviously, you want electrolytes as well. We get those from eating healthy, nourishing foods. It’s not just Gatorade or bone broth or whatever you want to drink. It also is, if you’re eating enough fruits and vegetables. You need to be eating nutrient dense foods in general, because you’ll get all those lovely electrolytes and the cofactors that helps your body use them. Things like that.

And it’s interesting; there are some supplements that can help with your skin. In particular, I would say ceramides can help a little bit with this whole moisture problem. But at the same time, I don’t know enough about ceramides as a supplement to confidently say we know this is completely safe. Go right ahead, it will fix the problem. So I know some people right now are talking a lot about ceramides as a dietary supplement. I’m still not sure how I feel about them. So if anybody is wondering, I’m still on the fence about that.

Cassy Joy: Very interesting. I’m taking notes. I’m going to look into that as well. Maybe cutting edge of all that literature and research coming out.

Liz Wolfe: I mean, it could be the best thing ever to happen to skincare. I don’t know. And I’m certainly a fan of ceramides at the surface of the skin. Like in skincare products. I just am not 100% sure how they work internally. So I think you’re probably better off, versus taking a bunch of supplements, probably just concentrating on being well hydrated. Eating nutrient dense foods. Eating healthy fats. Which would be a spectrum of fats; it wouldn’t just be one thing.

It wouldn’t just be downing olive oil, or eating a lot of pumpkin seeds. Eating butter, or tallow, or whatever it is. It’s kind of a little bit of everything is the approach I would take. Not only because different fats do different things. But also because different sources of fats also tend to contain different nutrients.

So pumpkin seeds have good, healthy fats in them. But they also have zinc, and they also have other good stuff. Grass-fed dairy fats. So ghee or butter would have a little bit of vitamin A, and a little bit of vitamin K. So you’re also getting a broader spectrum of nutrients if you’re focusing on different types of fats throughout the day.

And that’s not to say that you have to eat tablespoons of tallow every morning. Just cook your eggs in some ghee, and then have some pumpkin seeds for a snack. Have some coconut oil on your salmon. Whatever it is. Just normal stuff, but just making sure it’s varied.

Cassy Joy: I really like that. That’s a great tip. And then hydration wise, do you have a rough rule of thumb that you go by when it comes to calculating how we really stay hydrated throughout the day?

Liz Wolfe: I don’t. I was having this conversation actually with a trainer at the gym the other day, because we were kind of giggling at the guy carrying around a full gallon of water all around the gym. And I’m like; that seems excessive for one workout. The trainer was like; no, he’s making sure he drinks a full gallon of water at some point during the course of the day. And I was like; ok. But maybe just refill one water bottle four times. Splitting hairs, but the guy was carrying around a full gallon of water, and I thought it was kind of funny.

And I also thought it was excessive. I guess it kind of depends, obviously, if you’re a performance athlete or depending on who you are different people might need significantly more than others. But my rule of thumb is; A, you probably need to be drinking more than I’m drinking on a regular basis. Because I’m very bad about hydration. But you probably just need to focus mostly on really hydrating foods.

And drinking water or something water-ish. Whether that’s broth, or some kind of nourishing tea. Nettle tea, something like that. Something that’s basically water and nutrients, consistently throughout the day. And if you’re working out, or doing something really rigorous, then hydrate well before and after.

I really, really think that this idea that we need to be peeing clear; I do not agree with that. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think it really particularly comes out of any science that I’ve seen. So that to me is just total overkill. And I don’t want to be peeing 75 times a day. That’s excessive. And it’s hard on your body.

So generally, hydrating whole foods. Whole pieces of meat and whole vegetables and whole fruits. Those are all water rich foods. Making sure you’re getting some hydration throughout the day and before and after rigorous activity. And then if you’re still thirsty, then drink.

Cassy Joy: Mm-hmm. I love that. So just keep it top of mind, and not necessarily something to obsess over. Just curious; this is a teeny-weensy bit off topic. But where do you fall on sparkling water? Do you have a take on sparkling water? It’s a question I get a lot, Liz.

Liz Wolfe: Really good, question. I was kind of; you know how people get kind of scared of it. Like; oh, you shouldn’t drink that.

Cassy Joy: It causes cellulite. That’s, I think the biggest Google result. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Seriously? Oh my god. {laughs} Is this correlation or is this causation? People get kind of freaked out about that. And I used to be in camp don’t freak out about stuff like that. And I also used to be in camp coffee is not actually dehydrating unless you’re drinking 8 cups per day. Which I guess is probably what some people are doing. Maybe I’ve been there, maybe not.

But I did actually stop drinking sparkling beverages when I realized I was experiencing heightened tooth sensitivity. So I cut those out, and relatively quickly my tooth sensitivity decreased. So, I’m kind of back in that middle camp where it’s like; that’s something to enjoy with a nice dinner or intermittently. But I definitely had to pull back from the one or two or three sparkling beverages every day. Because I was really enjoying them. Because water can be boring.

Cassy Joy: Yes. That’s so interesting.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it was interesting to me too. And kind of sad.

Cassy Joy: Maybe I need to self-assess. Because I’m definitely in the 2-3 sparkling waters a day camp.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I mean, there are worse habits.

Cassy Joy: It’s true. It’s better than the diet Dr. Pepper. Which is what I evolved from.

Liz Wolfe: And see, my problem recently has been that I discovered the Live Soda Dr. Pepper canned beverage they’re doing now. Because I don’t do caffeine at all anymore, so I’ve stopped drinking kombucha, as well. It’s incredibly sad. But Live Soda has come out with a beverage that has probiotics in it, and it tastes like Dr. Pepper. And it’s carbonated. So I was getting a little bit too into those.

Cassy Joy: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: So I had to pull back from those, as well.

Cassy Joy: Oh, so interesting. Ok, but as far as we know, it’s not going to further dehydrate your skin?

Liz Wolfe: As far as I know. I don’t know why it would. And in fact, there’s some interesting stuff I’ve read about carbon dioxide, bubbly drinks, and how those might be beneficial to the body. But none of it is settled in my mind.

Cassy Joy: Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. Ok, so we’ve covered what’s going on in the environment. Food approaches, nourishing from the inside out. Now. Can we dive in; this is probably the part that most people are like; uh-huh, uh-huh. Alright. Eat healthy. I know. I get it. {laughs} They’re like; what can I slather on my face right now? So what do we need to be looking for once we’ve crossed off the low hanging fruit of eat well; stay hydrated, and just be aware that the seasons are changing?

Liz Wolfe: Yes. I really like this question.

Cassy Joy: Oh good. What are some things we can start looking for in products in particular that we can start putting on our face that will help with that? I don’t know if we need to repair moisture barriers, or if we just need to keep more moisture on our skin in general.

Liz Wolfe: Well, it’s both, Cassy Joy!

Cassy Joy: Did I give away too much? {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: No, you nailed it! That was so good. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Oh, and I forgot one thing that I was going to say earlier. Get a humidifier. If you don’t have; even if you have a whole-house humidifier somewhere in the dungeon of your basement attached to the thing that circulates things in your house. I don’t know, I’m not a handy man. I don’t know all the words.

Cassy Joy: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: But even if you have a whole house humidifier, it’s not enough. Get a separate humidifier and put it in your bedroom. Because nighttime; that would be a wasted 6, 8, 12, however lucky you are in sleep. That would be wasted hours where you really could be protecting your skin from further moisture loss while you’re sleeping. So get a good humidifier.

Cassy Joy: That is such a good tip. And you know another thought flashed in my mind when you were talking about moisture in the air is much lower, yadda, yadda. I have this image of women who are really, really on top of it, wanting to put a space suit on {laughs} to walk around in a goldfish bowl.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, like what wrestlers do when they’re trying to cut weight. Yeah. Like a breathing tube; like a straw out the; yeah.

Cassy Joy: Ok, sorry. I digress. Ok. Yes. Tell me more about what I can slather on my face.

Liz Wolfe: Ok. Slathering. First of all; I just wrote an email about this, and I actually put exfoliating at the end, and I probably should have put it before the other two things that I’m going to say. So one of the things that people probably notice during the winter is just kind of that; that tightness. Not flakiness. But it just looks like you’ve got a layer of dead, dry skin on the top of your face. And I get that kind of around my nose and inner cheeks and my forehead. You can almost scratch it off, which is kind of gross.

But that is not always something that you can moisturize. You can’t necessarily fix that, even using the best products possible. Sometimes you need to get rid of that. So you need to either exfoliate gently with something at home. I’m not a big fan of physical exfoliation, where you scrub. Because I have very sensitive skin, and it always makes me look like I’ve run 10 miles. My face gets red and it stays red for quite some time.

I like an at-home peel. And for years, I was using this lactic acid. Not pure lactic acid, it was like 10% lactic acid peel to use at home, because there were no at-home peels that I really liked and felt like were safe to use. And I didn’t want to go to the dermatologist for this stuff, because that gets expensive. But Beautycounter came out with the overnight resurfacing peel this year. And that has been the best tool. Because it uses really gently concentration of varying acids to basically break up and enable you to slough off that dead skin overnight. It takes a little bit of time. But it totally works. So that’s an awesome at-home tool.

You can also; if you really just feel like the skin is just sitting there and preventing your products from absorbing, you can go to a great esthetician and talk to them about dermaplaning. Which basically they take a little razor and they scrape off that top layer of dead skin cells. Google it, it’s pretty interesting. But it actually works really well.

So, exfoliating, and just making sure there’s not that basically barrier on the top of your skin that’s preventing all of your products from absorbing.

Cassy Joy: Ok, that makes a lot of sense.

Liz Wolfe: Good.

Cassy Joy: For today’s show, we really want to feature one of our most favorite natural and safer skincare brands. It’s called Primally Pure. Y’all; I have been at the Primally Pure headquarters in California. I have seen the care they pour into their hand-crafted products. And I’ve witnessed the way they thoughtfully select each and every ingredient. A few of my personal favorites from them are the baby bar, which is actually what we use to bathe Gray. I love the body butter. It’s a tallow-based body butter that smells fantastic; especially the vanilla almond scent. It’s what I used on my belly when I was pregnant. It’s what I use on really dry skin in the winter.

I love the charcoal deodorant. It’s a safer deodorant with activated charcoal in it. It’s wonderful; it does not stain your clothes. I love the everything spray is another one of my favorites. It’s just an all start toner with so many thoughtful ingredients. And, last but not least, the dry shampoo is my favorite. They have one for dark locks and light locks. And I actually like to apply it to my hair right after I blow dry my hair after washing it, because I feel like it really helps to extend the life of my styles.

And I’m thrilled to let you know that Primally Pure is offering a 10% discount for you on your first order if you use the code FedandFit10. That’s all one word. So head over to the link in the show notes, or you can go to PrimallyPure.com and use the code FedandFit10 at checkout.

Liz Wolfe: Ok, so after that. Are you ready for me to move onto the next part?

Cassy Joy: I’m ready. Yes.

Liz Wolfe: OK, excellent. So after that, you want to do exactly what Cassy said just a moment ago. Nourish the skin and apply moisture. So the way you nourish your skin is with oils. And I feel like this is more popular now than it used to be. But skincare oils are one of the most underrated tools out there. I love talking about active ingredients. I love talking about all of these kinds of really cool discoveries; extracts and things like that that do amazing things for the skin. But, just a really simple skincare oil can go miles.

And the cool thing about your skin’s lipid barrier; and when we say oil, oil is a lipid. Your skin has a lipid barrier. Lipid-based barrier. And when you nourish that and reinforce it with lipids in your skincare, you enhance your skin’s ability to hold onto moisture from water. And I don’t know what all the cool sciency terms are for that. If it’s polarity. This side hangs onto water, and this side hangs onto oil. I don’t know. But it’s really, really cool.

And you can do that, like we talked about with dietary strategies. Getting good nourishing fats, so your body can build healthy skin cells. But at the same time, you can use topical oils to really nourish the barrier of your skin.

Now, this is something that I did not know for a long time, and did not realize. The structure of the oil that you’re using is important. And coconut oil, the structure of that fatty acid chain in coconut oil is too short to really nourish the lipid layer of your skin.

Cassy Joy: Hmm.

Liz Wolfe: Isn’t that interesting?

Cassy Joy: That’s so interesting. So a longer chain fatty acid.

Liz Wolfe: Yes.

Cassy Joy: Like olive oil?

Liz Wolfe: Even longer. Borage oil. Or any of the rosehip seed oil, or; oh gosh. I’m going to say this wrong. Meadowfoam I think that’s what it’s called. But almost anything that’s used in the skincare oils that you can buy, for example, from Beautycounter or any of the other brands that we love will have some kind of appropriate long chain fatty acid in it.

Cassy Joy: Oh, that’s so fascinating.

Liz Wolfe: Coconut oil is good for other stuff. I mean, it’s great for infections, and fungus. And it can improve your skin, but it’s not going to actually nourish the lipid layer of your skin.

Cassy Joy: That makes a lot of sense. When I was using only coconut oil, back in the day, before I knew anything and my skin felt like it was getting dryer and dryer. Because I wasn’t actually adding any moisture.

Liz Wolfe: Yep. Exactly.

Cassy Joy: That the lipid bilayer could use.

Liz Wolfe: Exactly. Which is totally fascinating. And you know, tallow is one that’s also really good. Because you also can use some of the; and I’m going to forget what the technical term for it is. These might be shorter chain fats, but I do know that tallow does match some of the lipids found in the skin. So tallow is also a good one. I never had success with using that on its own. The really longer chain liquid oils are what has always done a lot of the leg work for me. But a lot of people love tallow. And I think tallow has a unique ability to restore certain protective aspects of the skin’s barrier. So that’s why I think it’s great for rough elbows, or for eczema type conditions, that type of thing.

Cassy Joy: Mm-hmm. You know, I used a tallow-based cream from Primally Pure for my growing pregnant belly.

Liz Wolfe: Perfect. Yeah.

Cassy Joy: And it made a huge impact. But, I cannot use a tallow-based cream for my face.

Liz Wolfe: Yep.

Cassy Joy: I don’t have the kind of results that I’m looking for. That’s so interesting! I’m so fascinated by this. You are such a whiz. Ok, so we want to exfoliate, ideally chemically. And I can attest; that peel that Liz referenced really is wonderful. I have very sensitive skin, also. But I also am a fan; and I remember, every time I tell Liz that I like mechanical exfoliators, I feel like I’m kind of bashful when I say that. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} If it works, it works.

Cassy Joy: You know, it’s just kind of like my sparkling water habit. I’m just probably not going to kick it. {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: It’s ok. It’s ok we can still be friends.

Cassy Joy: Ok good. But that being said, the peel really, really does work for me. And it’s helped wean me off of that crutch that I felt like I had for a physical/mechanical exfoliator. And I really love it. I use it twice a week, and I have a lot of success.

Ok, so after we do that, and maybe I’ll call up my dermatologist and get some dermaplaning done because that sounds fabulous. Then we nourish with oils to help rebuild/fluff up our lipid bilayer.

Liz Wolfe: Do some fluffing.

Cassy Joy: Get some fluffing in there. Is there another step, or are we pretty much good to go?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, so the other thing I like to do is to recommend some kind of cream or serum. Whichever one you like better. That contains hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is a really, really, really cool molecule. It can hold, or I guess bind over 1000 times its own weight in water. So you want that sidled up to your skin cells, because it’s going to bring, attract water to your skin.

And a lot of products have this. It doesn’t have to say hyaluronic acid serum or hyaluronic acid moisturizer. A lot of moisturizers will have it, but it will be under sodium hyaluronate. Which is the form of hyaluronic acid that your skin can use.

Cassy Joy: Got it. Ok, that makes a lot of sense.

Liz Wolfe: So you’ll look for that. I personally use the intense moisture serum, which has sodium hyaluronate in it. There are a couple of other options that I know of, but you could very easily Google hyaluronic acid serum. Or hyaluronic acid moisturizer. Look for something like that. Because that is what; first you nourish the lipid bilayer of your skin so it can hold onto moisture. And then you add lots of moisture, and that’s what that’s for.

Cassy Joy: Got it. Ok. And the intense moisture serum, is that the Countermatch one?

Liz Wolfe: Yes.

Cassy Joy: Ok, got it. That’s also a Beautycounter product, for those who are wondering.

Liz Wolfe: Yes. And the cool thing; Beautycounter has on the website, not to make this a Beautycounter advertisement. Because it just happens to be the brand that I use for the most part, as well as Primally Pure and a couple of others as well. Mad Hippie. Sorry; is that ok for me to be dropping brands?

Cassy Joy: Duh! Go for it!

Liz Wolfe: OK good. But one cool thing about Beautycounter’s website is you can go select and ingredient, and then find out which products actually have them in it. So intense skin has it, the dew skin. Which are both a foundation type product. So that’s helpful.

Cassy Joy: I did not know that, Liz. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Yeah!

Cassy Joy: I did not know that you could click on an ingredient on Beautycounter’s website and it would bring up a list of all the products that had it!

Liz Wolfe: The one piece of useful information that I can contribute regarding Beautycounter. Everything else; I know nothing.

Cassy Joy: {laughs} For those who don’t know; Liz and I are actually both consultants with Beautycounter, and Liz is my mentor. We get to work together all the time.

Liz Wolfe: Yes!

Cassy Joy: Ok, that’s great. That’s pretty minimal. Do you put a moisturizer on top of that or anything else?

Liz Wolfe: I personally prefer to do oils; so this is, and I will swap my skincare routine day to night. I’ll do one thing in the morning and another thing in the evening. Because there are a range of products that I’m addicted to. And I just like to switch it up.

So in the morning, on clean skin, I use that intense moisture serum. And then once that’s had time to soak in, then I use the Countermatch adaptive moisture lotion, which I think goes on beautifully underneath makeup. In the evening is when I will exfoliate. I will give that some time to soak in. And I usually use the resurfacing peel, probably twice a week. But when I’m not using that, I will use my oils. I will give that some time to soak in. And then I will use my moisturizing cream. The hyaluronic acid cream.

If I were to use another hyaluronic acid serum at night, I would do that first and then oil and then cream. But this is just me. Most estheticians will tell you to use a cream before you use your oil. I just find it works better for me the opposite way. And it’s ok. You can edit at will. It’s totally up to you on what works best for your skin. If something isn’t working and you switch it up and it does, then stick with what works.

I sometimes get stuck in; that’s not what so-and-so told me to do! Yeah. Feel free to go rogue on that stuff.

Cassy Joy: This is so wonderful and so helpful. Ok just a really quick question before I let you go. I’m sorry this is running a little long.

Liz Wolfe: No worries.

Cassy Joy: What if somebody is listening and they’re like; ok, this is all well and good, but I get very dry spots. What would you say for an emergency; more of the same? Chemical exfoliant, repair lipid bilayer with nourishing oils, and then try to apply some sort of a serum/moisturizer that contains hyaluronic acid? Do you think the approach is the same if they’re imagining a couple of really dry spots that pop up, maybe on their face or body? Or is there anything else you would employ at that point in time?

Liz Wolfe: That’s such a good question. And I think it kind of depends; obviously, that’s the answer to a lot of questions. But is everything I say have to be safe, or can I say something that might get me in trouble?

Cassy Joy: {Laughs} Please say things that might get you in trouble. In all reality; I feel like Fed and Fit listeners know this is a gather information and apply where you feel you want to.

Liz Wolfe: Well look; I kind of look at it as, sometimes I’m going to have Thai food. Or, some whatever fake brand of healthier M&Ms is. I’m going to have those. I’m not going to ask people to put motor oil on their skin. I’m not going to tell you to eat airheads and M&Ms all day. But every once in a while, there’s just something that works, and you can solve the problem more quickly and reliably. Then we can move on.

Cassy Joy: Yeah, I want that answer.

Liz Wolfe: OK, that’s the answer I will give then. For the dry spots that pop up. I really, really like Aquaphor. It’s that old diaper rash, healing, I think it’s petroleum based. But I think it works wonders at conditioning the skin. I use it; when I had eczema as a kid, and my skin every once in a while will still flare up a little bit just right around my elbows. And I will use that on those spots. And it is so helpful, within a day.

So those really frustrating dry spots; it can really help to condition them. So either you can exfoliate them a little bit more effectively, or it will just kind of solve them altogether. It should not be comedogenic. It should not cause you to break out. But obviously, spot test and see how you do with it. But on those little dry spots, it’s really, really been helpful to me. I think you do all the normal stuff, but sometimes you just need a little bit of extra help.

Cassy Joy: That is so wonderful. Very reassuring. I hope everybody took a deep breath with that answer.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Alright; it’s going to be ok.

Cassy Joy: Yeah. Liz said every once in a while, do Aquaphor on the dry spots.

Liz Wolfe: {laughing}

Cassy Joy: {laughs} So this is so helpful. Thank you so much. So I’m going to recap as far as topical applications like we said for the face, those three steps that Liz talked about. For the body, maybe pursue some sort of a tallow-based moisturizer. My favorites are from that Primally Pure brand, the body butter. The almond and vanilla is my personal favorite scent. But I think that’s been great for body.

And then yeah; I love your approach to skin. And like Liz said; do what works for you. Wonderful! Any other pearls of wisdom or nuggets?

Liz Wolfe: I think you got all of them.

Cassy Joy: I got them all?

Liz Wolfe: I’m just happy that I remembered everything. {laughs}

Cassy Joy: You did so great. Liz, thank you so much.

Liz Wolfe: Any time. Please ask me to come on more often. This was lovely.

Cassy Joy: This was lovely. In total transparency, I texted Liz about 4 hours ago. {laughs} And asked her.

Liz Wolfe: And I was like; yay! Improve hangout! We like to mix work and play.

Cassy Joy: We do, yeah. That’s what it’s all about. Well I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for sharing everything. As always, y’all, you can find Liz over at the Balanced Bites podcast. Again, you can grab a copy of her book, Eat the Yolks, which has even more good geeky science in there, because I know y’all love that. You can find her over at www.RealFoodLiz.com. And give Baby Making and Beyond a quick Google. We’ll have all of this linked up in the show notes.

Liz, thanks a lot. It means the world to have you come on and share so much with this audience. For everybody else, we’ll be back again next week.