Ihave been doing speaking and book-signing appearances at bookstores around the country over the past several months. It has been wonderful meeting women who have known me for a long time as well as women who are just getting to know my work. The feedback and questions I get range from the basic fundamentals of skin care to the challenging scientific queries about formulations. That’s what I love about the up close and personal interactions. That’s the upside, but there is a downside.

What I can live without are the women who want to tell me what they know about skin care and makeup that is as far removed from the facts as you can get.

A perfect example of this happened recently. I won’t tell you the city, but this woman came up to me and said that she just used olive oil because Cleopatra used it and ancient information is the best source of tried and true skin care. She was so certain she was right. Her emphatic tone made me hesitate responding. It isn’t my goal to get into arguments (I know that’s hard to believe given how opinionated and critical I can be, but all I really want to do is present information based on research and then let women decide for themselves what they want to use).

This time I couldn’t resist. Her comment was so wrong and silly. I just let it fly and said you’ve got to be kidding, you don’t really believe that do you? Cleopatra? Do you really know anything about her? No one has ever seen a picture of her. What did she wash her hair or face with, brush her teeth with (or if she lost a tooth what replaced it?), use for toilet paper, tampons, sunscreen, or acne?

Cleopatra died young so maybe her beauty was fleeting. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful at all and she was just politically advantageous for the men involved? If she was beautiful it certainly wasn’t about olive oil any more then it would be for Beyonce or Angelina Jolie today.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t use “ancient” information that was even a decade or two old more or less a few thousand years old. Research, technology, science, knowledge, capacity, and on and on are light years ahead of where we have come from and still have yet to go. (Had she never heard of the genome project?)

Relying on ancient information, whatever that means would suggest the world is flat, the gods are appeased by human sacrifice, body sweat and mud makes a great skin care product (really, that’s what the Greeks used), and lead in powder was a great makeup base (which caused necrotic skin and that was only from the 1700s).

Facts are so much better then bromides and myth. I hate the term ‘old wives tales’, but when the phrase fits, it fits.

Hi Paula!

I’ve never written to a company before regarding their products, but I feel compelled to do so with Paula’s Choice! Throughout my life, I’ve struggled with mild acne and oily skin that can be super-dry in certain areas. I’ve tried it all – Proactiv, Murad, Clinique, Philosophy, prescription topicals, antibiotics, Eucerin, Neutrogena; you name it. I decided to try Paula’s Choice on a whim, ordered a bunch of samples, and am loving it. Your products are state-of-the-art, made with some of the finest ingredients out there, including antioxidants, and non-irritating. I no longer feel like I need to dry out my skin with harsh products to get it to clear up; with your products, my skin is the healthiest, most hydrated and most balanced it has ever, ever been. THANK YOU SO MUCH! You also operate on a wonderful business model. I love the fact that you sell samples and provide honest reviews of products other than your own. My favorite products of yours are: any of your cleansers, Healthy Skin Refreshing Toner, Skin Balancing Moisture Gel, and 2% BHA Lotion. I’m so glad I’ve found your products; no more searching, no more wasting money on awful products–just clear, soft, healthy skin! I actually look forward to my skin care regime every AM and PM! You are the best.

Thanks again so very much,
Jodi

Dear Jodi,
What a great letter to start the week with! Thank you very much for taking the time to share your Paula’s Choice experience with us. Paula is thrilled to know your skin is in such great shape now. Testimonials like yours are a key reason Paula and her Product Development team strive to offer our customers the best products possible. It is incredibly gratifying to know that we’re succeeding and making people excited about skin care without false claims.

Thanks again for your comments,
Bryan Barron

Can a friend tell a friend she doesn’t like her hair?  makeup?  shoes? outfit?  Some might say, “Who are we to judge?”  My response, “We’re women, and we all have an opinion about how other women look!”

After reading hundreds of fashion magazines and watching countless celebrities walk down the red carpet, we judge other women’s appearance all the time. Who wear’s this dress better?  Brittany, Nicole, Kate?  We comment and critique appearance all the time, but it seems to be okay only if it’s a stranger or a celebrity or someone we’re “gossiping” about, not someone we care about.

As a psychologist, what I find most fascinating is that I can tell my friends something I don’t like about their husbands, their jobs, their kids, or the way they handle splitting a restaurant bill, but I can’t tell those same women to lose the black hair dye, stop over-bleaching their hair because it looks like straw, or change foundations because the one they use makes them look like they’re wearing spackle.

How do I tell a dear friend that her bulky unplucked eyebrows look like a forehead moustache, or tell another friend that her thick gray mane that she thinks makes her look like a feminist, actually makes her look like she’s ready to go out Trick or Treating.

So, what’s a beauty critic to do? Just ask my sister, which is why she reviews products and not the way women look?

My recommendation is to be open to feedback. Talk to your friends whose beauty sense and compassion you trust and ask them “What do you really think?”  Then listen openly, undefensively.  You don’t have to take anyone’s advice.  You can do whatever you want.  But, most importantly, know that if a friend doesn’t like something about the way you look, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.  Quite the contrary, I believe loving friends tell each other what they think.  And always remember, that whatever you might do, hair grows back, roots grow out and makeup washes away.

I had an interesting discussion with a producer of an infomercial last week. Because of confidentiality I can’t tell you which one, but it really doesn’t matter because they are all the same and they all lie through their teeth the same. This producer knew that the script she was going to be videotaping was mostly misleading or untrue. Don’t get me wrong, she was very nice and she appreciated my research and critique of the topic, but of course there was nothing she could do about it. And nothing I could do either.

There are things I put up with in the world of beauty that just drive me crazy, and I mean a lot of things. Of course I put up with it because what else can I do? I can’t struggle with everyone I encounter (well I could, but there just isn’t enough time!).

One of the more irksome moments outside of the industry is the number of women I encounter who love bragging that the skin-care products they use that are all natural. Once they tell me what products they are using I know there is no way in hell what they are putting on their face is all natural or even part natural, except for the 70% to 80% water content the product contains. There just isn’t time to explain why what they believe isn’t true.

Or women who insist that they simply love the $$$$ anti-wrinkle product they are using. I bite my tongue because what I want to say that I can’t say is, you’ve got to be kidding. Can you really be that clueless? And of course the answer is yes, lots of women are that clueless. There is no way that product is worth the price (and it’s often in a jar package which makes it practically useless). No one should love anything that costs that much money when it’s just a moisturizer and often it isn’t even a well-formulated one at that. What does it take for women to realize that expensive doesn’t mean better in the cosmetic industry? There just isn’t time to explain this to the women I meet who don’t know my work.

What most women don’t realize is how everyone in the beauty business knows how the marketing and advertising for cosmetics is all BS. They all talk about it. They all know it. They shrug their shoulders and say, well it’s a living. Or they laugh about it. Either way, they meet women every day that are being suckered into products that can’t possibly perform as the claims on the label assert.

See what I mean about frustrating?

Over the past several years I have done media interviews and speaking engagements to women’s groups around the world. I have done presentation for thousands of women from places as far flung as Jakarta, Indonesia; Seoul, Korea; Stockholm, Sweden; Mexico City, Mexico; Singapore; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and on and on.

From Toronto to Dallas and every place in between, no matter where I’ve gone, I’ve never had to change my topic of discussion. I don’t even have to do extra research because the cosmetics industry is so universally crazy, the advertisements so entirely deceptive, and the claims so utterly bogus all over the world that women ask me the same questions wherever I go. They want to know why a product they bought didn’t work. Why their wrinkles didn’t go away. Why their scar didn’t fade. Why their skin color didn’t change. Why they’re still breaking out or just starting to break out. Why they still have dry, flaky skin after buying so many products promising to change that. What is the best skin care ingredient? The exact same questions all over the world!

What almost always happens during my presentation is I see women get a look of understanding come over their face as they grasp how they have been duped time and time again by the cosmetics industry. There isn’t a part of the world where the cosmetics industry works any differently, or the products are any better (not in France, India, Japan, or anywhere), or the claims are any less farfetched. What all women want is to take the best care of their skin and look great as a result. Unfortunately, what most women fall into is the trap of believing the falsehoods propagated by a vast part of the cosmetics industry. Because of that,I am more than happy to get the truth out there and let women worldwide know what really does work to improve their skin.

Economic times are hard now. However, in the midst of all the bad financial news an uplifting study released by the Center for Women’s Business Research caught my attention. The following statement was simply very exciting: “As of 2008, there are a total of 10.1 million firms owned by women, employing 13 million people and generating $1.9 trillion in revenues.” (Source: http://www.womensbusinessresearch.org/assets/1059_pressreleasewomenown20per.doc)

I am proud to be part of that statistic. I was born an entrepreneur. I have worked for myself since 1980. A potent mix of genetics and personality has shaped my career as far back as I can remember.

In essence, I’ve just always wanted to be the boss. Just ask my family. Just ask my boyfriend. Just ask my employees.

Tedious rules and onerous work environments have always fit me like a pair of one-size-fits-all panty hose, and let me tell you, those only go up to my knees.

There are three phenomenal things about being a business owner. The first is being able to steadfastly adhere to my philosophy about skin care without having to compromise my values, integrity, or ethics.

The second is that I can create the kind of office environment I want to work in. I treat all my employees as valued partners and everyone else must do the same with their coworkers. No job is trivial and no job is more important than someone else’s.

And last, I have the freedom to create a dog-friendly office. There are eight dogs who come to work every day with their owners. While some companies have coffee breaks we have doggie breaks with our coffee. It’s spectacular fun and always a breath of fresh air when we need it most.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t easy being an entrepreneur. It has been quite a journey, with ups and downs, successes and failures. But beyond any shadow of a doubt, it has always been worth every minute of the effort it takes to keep going. Being a woman business owner is my identity and for the years that I have been able to stay doing it, I am truly, truly blessed.

“We only use natural ingredients; synthetic ingredients are bad for your skin because they are fake and made from gasoline, such as mineral oil and petrolatum.”

I have yet to see any cosmetic that is “all” natural. Some synthetic ingredients are awesome for your skin, and regardless of the protestations of cosmetics companies to the contrary, every cosmetics product in the world contains its share of synthetic ingredients.

Synthetic ingredients are derived from many sources, but they all start as natural because everything comes from our environment; nothing is created via alchemy. Petrolatum and mineral oil are indeed by-products of the gasoline industry, but what is unnatural about that? Ironically, gasoline, which is derived from crude oil, is decidedly natural in and of itself as it comes from organic material, such as tiny aquatic plants and animals, that has been buried in the earth for millions of years. Petrolatum and mineral oil are remarkably good skin-care ingredients; they are also recognized by cosmetics chemists the world over for being superior emollients and completely harmless (Source: Dermatologic Surgery, June 1998, pages 661–664). Even the claim that these ingredients are occlusive (blocking) and, therefore, bad for skin is also without proof (Source: Contact Dermatitis, September 1996, pages 163–168).

A story on MSNBC.com caught the eye of an associate of mine. Her email to me was simple, she included the link to the story and said “This is a little creepy”. At first I read “creepy” as “crepey”(meaning wrinkled skin, questions I get asked about a lot), but a quick look at the content when I clicked through proved she was talking about something else.

A bold headline read: “FDA receives 930 reports of wrinkle-filler issues” and then the subhead drove the needle in deeper, “Some suffer facial palsy, disfigurement and other problems after injections.”

The story went on to explain that “U.S. regulators have received reports of serious and unexpected problems in people treated with wrinkle-fighting injections known as dermal fillers, Food and Drug Administration staff said. The problems included facial palsy, disfigurement and rare but life-threatening events such as severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock.”

Okay, now that is creepy, but the way this story was being reported was at best superficial and more sensationalistic than the facts warranted. Although there are risks for any dermal filler (and there are over a dozen different FDA-approved dermal fillers a doctor can select), given the millions of dermal injections performed every year, statistically your risk of problems (especially from an experienced doctor) is incredibly small.

Just in case you don’t know, dermal fillers are natural or synthetic injectable materials that a physician fills a syringe with and then typically injects into a wrinkle, a depressed acne scar, or the lip area to make it fuller or plump out the wrinkle. And the procedure works, and almost always, works really, really well.

But back to the risks and the 930 reports of problems. What went wrong? One of the typical problems with dermal fillers is the potential for lumps or bumps to occur in the injected area, or the material can migrate to areas it wasn’t intended for. These are part of the risks but these potential side effects are often poorly communicated by the physician during the consultation. Instead, all that’s paid attention to are the anticipated positive results, as in no more wrinkles or visible scars.

It is also important to note that of these 930 complaints 739 were from the U.S. and 135 were from other countries including China, South Africa and Brazil with Australia, France, and the United Kingdom reporting the most complications

Some of the complaints were actually minor in nature, including reactions that are expected after treatment such as swelling, redness, bruising, some amount of pain or headache, blistering, and itching, all of which resolve in a few days. What should not happen (and it rarely does) are such occurrences as severe hypersensitivity reactions, serious infection at the injection site, and facial paralysis.

Again, there absolutely are risksyou need to know about to make an educated decision about any cosmetic corrective procedure but the MSNBC.com article made it sound far more ominous for dermal fillers than what the reality is. What you can take away from this report is the reminder that any cosmetic treatment performed by a physician (laser, Intense Pulse Light, Thermage, Fraxel, Botox, etc.) has risks that you need to consider before deciding to move forward or decline having the procedure done.

Here are some basic considerations to think about before you decide to use dermal fillers as a way to deal with stubborn lines around your mouth, the crease that runs from the corner of your nose down to your mouth (called the nasal-labial folds), the frown lines between your eyes, or acne scarring:

1. In general, any single dermal filler should not be used to treat all the problems you want corrected on your face. Different fillers offer improved benefits for certain areas compared toothers.
2. Some dermal fillers have limited applications, but often doctors who either don’t know better or consider going outside the limitations to be low risk go ahead and inject it in a questionable area anyway.
3. Dermal fillers should not be used on people with known sensitivities to the filler material, those with severe allergies, or persons with bleeding disorders.
4. Doctors who don’t take a complete medical history risk injecting someone who is a poor candidate for the procedure. If your doctor doesn’t take a complete medical history, find another physician who knows better than to proceed with a dermal injection without this important step completed.
5. Never inject skin when it is inflamed or irritated (that means don’t rush from your facial peel or microdermabrasion to dermal fillers).
6. Injecting someone who has recurrent or recent herpes breakouts in the area being treated will likely cause an eruption.
7. Injecting a patient with a history of keloid scarring, hyperpigmentation, or hypertrophic increases the chances of an undesirable outcome.
8. Be aware that some fillers only last about 6-18 months (with the average duration being 9 months to a year) which means that most bumps or lumps would resolve in that period of time. Semi-permanent fillers would result in problems such as these lasting indefinitely or would require being surgically removed.

On a personal note, as someone who has used dermal fillers, I have experienced some minor problems. I chose to use a semi-permanent filler fully aware that any problems could be longer lasting. I elected to take the increased risk because I loathed the idea of having to go back to my physician on a regular basis to get injected again (not to mention the expense). The small bumps and tenderness around my lips have remained for several years. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the fillers really have lasted and look great. In hindsight, would I do it again knowing what I’d be dealing with? Yes. But as I said, knowing the pros and cons is a must before any cosmetic corrective procedure. The final decision is yours.

“You have nighttime free radicals and daytime free radicals. Daytime free radicals are the sun and pollution, the nighttime free radicals are, um, I’m really not sure what those little boogers, the little nighttime pesticides, are that damage your skin at night, but they are there!”

Free radicals are destructive molecules that cannot tell time! Yes, it is true that sunlight is a major source of free radicals generated in the daytime, yet pollution, whether coming from auto exhaust or industrial pollutants, is ever-present. The level of pollutants may be higher during daylight hours, but it certainly doesn’t disappear when the sun goes down! And what about the fact that the oxygen we need to live is a potent source of free-radical damage, and that’s around all the time, too?

I don’t know what to make of the “nighttime pesticides” comment, but unless you are sleeping in a field or on farmland that has recently been crop-dusted, I wouldn’t be too concerned about pesticides on your skin at night.

Regardless of whether it’s day or night, antioxidants are state-of-the-art ingredients to look for when shopping for skin-care products, and there are dozens available (with no clear-cut “best” choice among them), but none of them can distinguish between daytime and nighttime free radicals. In theory, antioxidants in well-formulated skin-care products should perform regardless of the time of day.

Almost eight years ago I sat in Paula Begoun’s office in my red sport coat and tie having a conversation (OK, an interview) that would drastically change my future. I was working as a retail manager in cosmetics, and was ready for a change. Having been a fan of Paula’s books for years, I decided to visit her Web site, something I had not done in several months. As luck would have it, there was an employment ad on the home page for a makeup artist/journalist. I knew the makeup part quite well, and journalism was what I studied in college, so I applied. I had no idea if I would hear back from Paula. I didn’t know if she’d be comfortable talking with a man about cosmetics, seeing as her readership was predominantly female. But you never know unless you give it a go, so I did. About a week later I was meeting the Cosmetics Cop in person, being quizzed about ingredients, what I like and don’t like about working in the cosmetics industry, even which fashion magazines I routinely read. Although I was nervous, it was the first interview in my working life that felt natural rather than stilted.

The original interview actually turned into several more, with various job-related tests being assigned. Paula was nervous about hiring a co-writer, and had doubts that she’d be able to work on a book project with another writer without egos and viewpoints clashing. One of my assignments was to review the cosmetics line I was working for at the time. Paula wanted to see how well my writing style would blend with hers. I took to the project with gusto, turning in my “review” the next day. Paula was impressed, and that led to the next interview, which I’ll detail in another blog. Shortly after I began working for Paula, she told me that she initially thought my review of Aveda was just a minor re-write of what was in her book. She exclaimed I had some nerve if I thought she wouldn’t notice I just gave her own words a slight tweaking. But that wasn’t the case—I wrote the review from scratch (every writer’s fear: a blank computer screen save for the flashing cursor) and hoped for the best. It wasn’t until Paula passed my piece to others in the office that they pointed out I had not simply retooled her review. Rather, my writing style just happened to match hers in a nearly seamless manner. In essence, we had the same “voice” and I officially became Paula’s “mini-me”. So nearly eight years later, with five books, countless newsletters, and pages upon pages of Web content written with Paula, I’m still gainfully employed! Despite Paula’s concerns about sharing writing responsibilities, our working relationship has rarely been strained. Her experience, perspectives, and unfailing sense of humor blend perfectly with mine, and have seen us through many daunting projects. And she isn’t shy about celebrating, which is always a treat!