Thank you first of all for inviting me. It's been quite a journey in terms of the skincare journey that I had. I was never really into skincare since young age. I did go through a bit of acne here and there, I resolved it with a dermatologist, but then very minimal there. But once I moved to Dubai about seven years ago, my skin completely changed. Back in London, my skin was combined, normal, nothing much there. Coming here within the first six months, eczema patches coming here and there, dryness coming through. And I did go through a lot of different iterations of trying different skincare, pharmaceutical as well, but it was not cutting it through. I am a bit of a... I like to research things on my own. So I do like to look into... I looked into natural first of all solutions, which were like essential oils, how can they help you, right? That led me down to a path of researching a bit more, getting a couple of courses in terms of essential oils and aromatherapy. But that opened a next door of looking into the natural skincare because yes, oils are good, but oils are not just the one thing that your skin needs. It needs also water. And when water and oil combine, they don't mix. So how do you mix them? And there where the natural skincare path came through as a formulator. So I got a second certificate, which is in formulation from the School of London. And that pretty much taught me about how natural products work. What are natural, what are not, right? What is deficiencies of natural products? And there is always a tradeoff, that's what I learned in my life. There is nothing 100% absolutely correct. There is always a tradeoff. And the question is what is the tradeoff? And whether that tradeoff is what you need. For each of us, it's so personal, right? There is no one size fits all. So finalizing that part, I did go down the path of like, I know natural ingredients now, I know how to work with them, I understand them, but what about the synthetic ingredients? It's a huge part. All the vitamins that we use, retinol, niacinamide, everything is synthetically made. Natural identical, but synthetically made. So it's like, how do you know which is good, which is bad? So that led me to my third degree actually, as a cosmetic chemist, where you learn how to... you actually understand much better, much deeper what synthetic ingredients are. Are they so bad as everyone says? Are they so good as everyone says? Where is the truth? And for me, I'm always... I like to know the truth if that makes sense. Like the objective truth and from there on share that truth so people can make the best decision for themselves. Because I do believe that this is where our strength lies, in terms of like, you have an issue, but no one should be able to tell you what you should do. You should be given the options and then you decide for yourself what is right for you.

Hypes. The moment I can see someone, especially this thing with the Korean hype... I have a lot of strong opinions on that.

What skincare actually can do and what not. There is one of the main reasons I started my own skincare line. It's because there is so much... when you learn as a chemist, when you go through the training, you learn the logic of added extras, which is the marketing story of the product. Which means you put inside different substances, could be natural, could be synthetic, but they are the story of the product. It's not actually what delivers the result. It's like when you go and buy your hair mask and you're like, "Oh, the Argan oil is going to nurture my hair." The Argan oil actually works against the efficiency of the mask because the mask needs to wash off. It combines with the oils of your hair and then it washes off. If you put too much Argan oil, it cannot rinse anymore. So it works against it. It doesn't deliver anything. The actual things that deliver for your hair, it's the proteins inside, the hydrolyzed proteins. It's the additives, small molecular additives that actually penetrate deeper into the hair. But nobody's really talking about that because it's easier to sell something which is people can associate with, if that makes sense. Argan oil, "Oh, I know it, that's what it is." It's not that. But for me it's very important and that's what I'm trying to do also through my work is that trying to create this awareness. Know where the benefits come from because then you are in the driving seat. You know how to choose your next product or you know why that product worked for you or why it didn't work. You can start making more informed decisions for yourself.

Whenever I start working with a person as a customized skincare development or we just having a conversation within the consultation part, I never start of what... I always start with the part of where are you now? What are you happy about your skin? What you're not happy about your skin? I cannot diagnose anyone's skin, I'm expecting them to share where they are. And the very first part is that you need to have a healthy base. You cannot build anything unless the base, the skin barrier is healthy. On that, you can start working because if your skin barrier is healthy, it can handle inflammation better. It's going to be able to absorb and retain all the nutrients that you're going to put in it. And it can heal faster.

So a healthy skin barrier would mean that there is no irritation, there is no redness. If something, if you touch your skin, you don't get straight away pimples for example. Since I became more dry, for example, as I sit on work and I usually do this, I hold my chin, I always get here and here pimples coming through exactly as my hands fall on it. And that has to do with if my skin, if I had more of an oily skin here, my barrier would be able to protect me from the aggressors, right? The moment you become a bit drier, you have more reactive skin overall. So in terms of healthiness, it's all about how dull is your skin? Do you feel it like it's dehydrated? We all know when we look and we see, not in the pictures in terms of marketing nowadays, but you can see a healthy skin where it's like it has a natural, a bit of... we are supposed to have a bit of oil on our skin to protect us. We first strip it away with all AHAs and BHAs and then we slap on it all these like from Korean skincare to make it back shiny and over shiny sometimes. So.

So in terms of the way we make it at the skin, we manufacture everything at house. So we start from scratch with a product, we create the formulation and we adjust it based on how what your skin needs. In terms of... we first analyze your skincare routine. How many products are you using? What are the actives of these products? So we actually going into the INCI list of each product and understanding how they compliment or not complimenting each other. And based on that, we create something which is complementary to adjust on whatever is your skin concern at this current moment. The compromise is always that not all ingredients go together. I cannot create for you a product that does all the five things that you need at one. We have to have a bit of prioritization there. And the second part is that you can have some results which are faster, but it's not going to be a natural product. So if you want to have 100% natural, you're going to have compromise a bit of an efficiency. You're going for something different there. But if you want to have something much more intense in results, within the world of what is skincare can deliver, you can go and use a bit synthetic. But also that's what I'm trying to do also through my work is that I think there is a lot of misconception like it's one thing to use a synthetic ingredient which is 10% niacinamide for example versus using a preservative which is not natural, which is synthetic. I think most of the times I did a couple of quizzes in the past and were like, if you choose a product which you know it's 10% synthetic or it's 0.1% synthetic, which one would you choose? And everyone is like, well I would choose the 0.1. Well if the 0.1 though comes from the preservative and the 10% comes from niacinamide, what do you choose now, right? And most of the products when we look at them, they say 89% natural. It's not how much the natural is there, it's also where is it coming from. And it's a very important aspect to start being owning that, not like I don't know, but there are so many tools online for free, you can scan the product and they analyze it for you. So I'm just trying to create that awareness like don't jump on the marketing hype of natural or of this. Know clearly like be more proactive in understanding what you put on your skin. It's our biggest organ, right? At the end of the day.

Oof. I would say sunscreen. Sunscreens are tedious to make. It's much harder because of the filters. Nowadays more and more filters coming through which are more nicer in the touch, in the skin feel because we had natural sunscreens long time now, but because they are very hard on zinc oxide, you would get this white cast and then it will... you will try to get it off, it just doesn't get off, right? When you try to wash it out. Nowadays we have many more filters that are better. But also, like my personal stance, I would not work with new ingredients that are currently just out no matter how much innovative they are. In terms of like I am more on the safety side in terms like give it at least five years to see once... a lot of ingredients go through a lot of hard regulations to get released. But usually we talking about small sizes groups. 10, 20 people, 30 people. They do have studies, yes, but again, we do see more and more things, especially when something is coming now quickly, innovative. Usually you need to give it a couple of years at least to see how what's the true data through a bigger population showing.

I'm going to forward you a photo of a driver, it's a very known photo. A driver who was sitting by the window because he was driving for hours, truck driver, and how half of his face is wrinkled and the other half is aged but it's different. Yes, sunscreen, it's one of the biggest things you can do well for your skin. Like if you don't do anything else, a good cleanser and a sunscreen, it can get you through for long period of time. I'm sure after 30s of course more and more things would be needed but it depends on what you need. One thing that I'm very much against, skincare for children or skincare for like at the age of 14 or what I see, unless it's acne, there is no reason for you to do anything. Cleanse and put a sunscreen. That's all you need. Your body does everything very well.

I am quite science driven, so for me what matters much it's not just what is out there but also how much studies are done on those ingredients. And things like azelaic acid like retinol, niacinamide, they have been studied for long time period. I think that back then we did have those ingredients like they were available but there was not so much hype about it back then. Like I don't remember back then, nor myself nor friends of mine to be so, unless you had like an acne problem or something in a skin kind of like illness problem, you would just even not put sunscreen, you would put your powder, your makeup. Makeup was important. But who cared about the rest? Like cleansing, yes, but even that was basic.

It depends on the makeup. And it depends what type of makeup. There are... it's a big spectrum. You can be on very light, you can be very heavy on it. If you are on a heavy side of it, you just need to be aware that your skin is not breathing. It stops from breathing your skin. Which means that you still need to, once you cleanse it, just give it time to breathe. It just, it's an organ. If you cover it constantly with a lot of stuff. Especially the moment because makeup is oil based most of it. It has oily ingredients inside. Oil doesn't allow all this thing to be... all the natural process of your skin to go through. That's why they say never sleep with sunscreen. Like if your moisturizer has a sunscreen, don't use that moisturizer to sleep with. You do need to have more... your skin is revitalizing itself during night. It has its own circadian rhythm. Actually we have cells that are communicating with our sleeping patterns and aligning everything. So in terms of your makeup, it depends where you are. If you everyday heavy makeup user, good for you, bless you, just make sure you have a very good moisturizer and definitely would need a bit more exfoliation. You would need to be aware of how your skin feels first of all and just adjust to it.

So my objection about Korean skincare... 100% true what you're saying. They are working with new ingredients and they do have one of the most... they have different regulations as well, right? This is a big part. So in Europe for you to develop specific actives and the percentage of actives that you can put into products is heavily regulated. Korean has a different structure of regulations, which means it allows you a lot of times to use higher potency of ingredients inside. Secondly, they do have a lot, a lot investment in research and they do have quite new ingredients coming through which is great. My objection comes to the part that Korean skincare is developed for specific Korean skin. Their skin is different than a person in Mediterranean, than a person who is in a Nordic country, and it's completely different than a person living in India or in UAE where we are. And the needs are different. Our skin is actually metabolizing things differently. As a cosmetic chemist, you do learn to adjust how much oil or oil you need in a product based on the ethnicity of the skin. And this is not in terms of being, don't get me wrong, of being racist or anything, but your ethnicity matters.

Most of them have bleaching ingredients inside because this is their trend of beauty. But they definitely have some amazing ingredients like mucin. I love mucin. And but again mucin is working with your skin biome, that's the trick there. It has all the different bioavailability for your skin to be healthy and nurture your skin, healthy skin biome. But my main thing is that whenever you go for as you said Korean, make sure your skin is loving it. Like if you are an oily person, I can see how Korean skincare could suit you better. But if you are after 35, coming from West, white skin, be more... pay more attention how your skin reacts to it.

The first month you start barely seeing something and especially for someone if you have everyday life you have your problems, you're not going to pay that much attention. You need to use at least a product for three months. This is pretty much when your cells are... the turnover of the cells is whatever you put today, it goes and feeds the different levels of your skin. It will impact the very layer on the down rather than the top. The top needs to go away so you can start seeing whatever the impact of the product is. That's why they say you need at least 60-90 days, it's the best time for you to see it, the impact of it.

The truth is that this is pretty much what I am using currently. I do use a cleanser. This is... I find that about 70 to 80% of your skin healthiness comes from your cleanser. How you cleansing. If you start wrong, you cannot do much afterwards. So a good cleanser, would sunscreen be a part of the three products or is it considered an extra one?

Okay. So four sunscreen. And then in the middle, what I do need... I am quite active overall which means that I would go to my yoga, I would go to the class or something, a lot of times I will wash and I don't want to carry all the makeup that I need or so I do have like a mist which I like to use even at office when I'm working to refresh during day because a lot of times... especially about

I'm using my own mist. Pretty much it's all about hydration and skin barrier hydration. In terms of making sure it has five different humectants inside. And they are all supposed to work together synergetically. I don't use hyaluronic acid at all. Because hyaluronic acid...

It depends on what type of hyaluronic acid you use. Most of them out there are high molecular so they don't penetrate deep. And hyaluronic acid has been shown to perform very well in specific environments. If I put you to use a gel which is just hyaluronic acid and let you go out for example, I will put an extreme here, either stay long hours under AC or get you out in the cold. Your skin will start cracking. Because hydration puts water. But if your skin doesn't have oils to support that water, keep it inside, it just gonna get out. And not only that, but hyaluronic acid, humectants are ingredients that bind hydration from the air inside. And if you are exposed to an environment where the environment is more dry than your skin, it starts getting out. So whenever you're using actually hyaluronic acid, make sure always you layer it either with cream on the top or with a sunscreen. Something that has a bit of oil inside to make sure that everything is protected and sealed in.

It depends on the molecular weight of the hyaluronic, 100%, but most serums there they are usually combination. But again, if you want hydration, get yourself a lactic acid. You gonna get many more benefits in terms of hydration and actually skin tone and overall healthiness of the skin. Rather than hyaluronic acid. I would never advise anyone to go buy and stand alone product of hyaluronic acid.

What ingredients go in. So the logic of why sheet mask would be not as good for example as the gel one, it's because the gel just sits on the top which means it seals all the hydration in your skin. So your skin pores will open easier to absorb more. The sheet mask would not have the same effect in terms of deliverable. But at the end of the day it all matters what is in the essence that this mask is covered in. And usually masks, any ingredient... ingredients that help penetration it's hyaluronic acid, low molecular hyaluronic acid. It would...

So most of the times the companies whenever they have low molecular, they try to say that because it's more expensive. So that's one part. The second part it's in the ingredient list, it's not always 100% accurate but overall your low molecular weight hyaluronic acid will be lower in the list because you don't need much of it. Your hyaluronic acid... a lot of times you will find two hyaluronic acids in your ingredient list. The top one will be the high and the lower would be the low. So in terms of the percentages and how they should appear in the ingredient list.

One good bulwark mark that I like to share with my clients is that glycerin overall usually goes at 3% in products. It's one of the best humectants you can find. It's been long studied, very cheap, underrated in terms nobody really like... glycerin, but it's actually very good at what it does. So glycerin is around 3%. So whenever you buy a product and you see for example actives like niacinamide lower than glycerin, it's a good bulk point for you to understand if it's gonna be less than 3% or more than 5% for example. And in general ingredients that would be above that, not always but it's a good benchmark usually to see there like what's happening.

If you young, and I'm talking about young like young, like less than 25, less than 18, let me be more... there is no need for those things. You can just wash your face with a normal cleanser and your skin is doing what it's supposed to do. You can introduce acids as you grow, of course, mildly. Mild acids. You don't need strong acids. Like 3% acids, usually combination of acids is the best way to go. And lactic is one of the most... it's one of the best in terms of like it increase hydration, it works on your smooth tone of... it gives you this glow a bit. And it's very gentle with the skin as well.

Exactly. Yes. It's within the same sphere. 100%. BHAs for example salicylic acid, it's more if you have more like pores. It helps that. It's very good at it. But again I would not introduce it too many times. A lot of people layer a lot of products that have acids inside without even knowing that they have acids inside. And then you layering again and again and again and then your skin reacts and then you becoming...

Exactly. Yes. And especially if you your cleanser, imagine you cleansing, you over cleansing and then you adding acids and then on top of it let's add a bit azelaic acid and then let's add a bit of retinol. It's too much for anyone to take.

I... that's a tricky question. How do you answer that? I am not a very influencer kind of person and that's why I have not decided to take that path for my brand as well. I find that influencers can do what they think is right for them. I just don't think... I would not take an advice from an influencer. I may take... they may put something on my radar but I will do my research afterwards.

For me for example right, you can have doctors having nowadays their own channels and their own... I would see five different doctors for example and I will hear what they will say. I'm not saying they saying wrong things but I would apply my critical thinking. Does that make sense to me? What they saying, does that validate the experience that I had with my skin? And depending on that I would navigate that hey I don't think... I don't very much align with the aesthetics or the approach of that doctor. A lot of doctors go and say for example have preventative botox at 22. There is this and there is a merit to it. Does that merit align with my what I would do on my skin? No. I will not follow that doctor for example because their approach to life is completely different than mine. And I think it's very important to apply this critical thinking on who we decide to get into our lives because with the devices we do allow a lot of noise coming through. And when you are constantly around noise, noise, noise, you start believing that noise because this is all you hear, this becomes your world. But being more critical about "I like that, I don't like this, that makes sense to me, that doesn't." We know our skin best. No one knows our skin.

I realize that in this life there is a path that we all have to go through. We have to make mistakes and we have to learn on them. And that's why you are here today doing this beautiful podcast of creating this awareness for people that you know what, if you feeling lost or here and there, start listening more to your own internal voice. We always have this internal voice inside of us like I wanna do that or I don't wanna do that or that scares me or that doesn't scare me. There is a part of you have to overcome fear but there is also part of truth in that voice right. Of like if you feel like I'm not sure about it, then maybe don't do it. Take a month, think about it and do it later.

So my day job is I'm a data scientist so I work in the world of AI for the last 11 years now. The next part where all this is trending for it's personalized. And we talking about personalized to your own sequence of DNA, to we talking to the very depth of it. I don't see how we will still have creams because we all like to do that right, it's just a pampering routine, but in terms of getting down that hole, it's all gonna be done by AI. They can just take your skin in terms of... because wrinkles and especially if you don't wanna have wrinkles, it's a biological process. If you wanna stop it, you don't stop it from the top, you stop it from the inside. So we talking about probably different type of supplements that are tailored for you specifically but tailored to you based on your sequence of DNA. And there is a lot, a lot of research happening at that level now. Especially with AI, it helps sequencing and understanding our DNA exponentially fast. There are so many things coming up every day, I have lost track of it.

It is doing it. It is doing it. The thing is that whatever we are exposed as everyday people to as AI, this is the least what they have. What actually the research is happening on it's a much more advanced part. So people don't even know what's going on. Really AI will be like the future for so many good things happening. I'm 100% sure. I mean maybe there will be also a few bad things happening but this is always when you have a new technology it applies to almost everything you know. I've been listening a lot of podcasts the last one month or so where we talking about the absolute knowledge of like creating actually an AI that can be cleverer than us. And a lot of...

I think the conversations that are happening out now it's whether we wanna reach that or not but the prediction is that if if the development of AI is gonna continue on the pace that it has, we are approaching that singularity moment in 2027 approx.

We can. We can definitely could. The thing is do we want to. But this is too far maybe for this episode. But anyway very interesting so for skincare also this would make sense you know to use this technology for as you said personalized skincare especially for people who have real problems like let's say eczema or other like medical conditions not like just preventing wrinkles.

But eczema it's... skin is related to your biome, to your gut. And especially eczema. And eczema has been shown again and again most women are suffering from it and that's because a lot of women we don't express what we need, we always keep it inside. Then we have stomach problems then we have our gut problems and so forth. So eczema it's... whenever you wanna solve eczema most of the advices is like stop sugar, stop carbs and then your eczema will come down because a cream can alleviate a symptom, it's not gonna solve the problem. It can maybe cool down your itchiness. It's topical. It's on the top of the skin. It's not gonna solve what's happening underneath it. So unless you start looking into your diet, unless you start looking into how you live, how is your your soul you know, how's your inner part doing like are you stressed today, are you not, how do you attend to yourself? All those are manifesting in our skin. If I'm too stressed for a long period of time I wake up and I look like not my best. Not my best. But if I have a happy day, if I'm on holidays and I have good holidays I don't even need to put anything, my skin is glowing.

Creams and skincare has its purpose in terms of maybe taking care of the surface of your skin. 100%. There are some creams that some ingredients that can work as they interrupt for example for wrinkles. You can have like there is like B-tox for example where it stops the so we have electric signals between our muscles so interrupts the signals so your wrinkles when you talk it's a bit having a botox effect but it's temporary. As long as you put it for four hours five hours or so once you wash it off it's gone. It's not botox, it's botox-like. So you do have some ingredients that work for wrinkles, for the healthy for the health of your skin 100%, there is a lot of things like that. Very good ingredients. Panthenol, mucin, niacinamide, ceramides. Beautiful ingredients making sure your skin is healthy. But it's not gonna solve the problems of your life. It's a tool, it has its purpose but if you going and eating crap, not exercising, living a life of no care for yourself, I don't think you gonna find any cream to solve any skin problems that you may have if that makes sense.

Tune into your skin. Like it's talking to you. If your skin feels if you have I don't know darker circles this month, something is happening in your body. Don't go against it, don't go "Oh my gosh I need to go fix that now." Tune in what's your habit, what you doing and then go solve the problem fast if you want through a treatment or something but tune in to the problem. I find that once you start looking at your skin or what happens to it in terms of this lens of "it's talking to me now, it's there communicating a need that I'm not aware of and how can I embrace that need rather than saying oh no I'm gonna fix you, you wrong." Because it's attacking to your own body while it try to convey a message to you. And this is something that I very very have a very strong stance on. Like don't do things on you, do things for you.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's been lovely to be here today with you.