Dr. Trevor Cates

Natural Skin Care Tips

Dr. Trevor Cates: Hi, I am Dr. Trevor Cates, author of the bestselling book, Clean Skin From Within and founder of The Spa Dr. I get questions a lot about skin care products, and there are so many skincare products available to us today. There are ones that are more synthetic and then there are ones that are more natural. Natural skincare products have gained a lot of popularity in recent years and skincare companies, manufacturers that have typically made more of the synthetic types of skincare products are now starting to make more natural skin care products.

So it is a huge trend, a shift that is happening because of the public’s demand for using natural skincare products. With that comes some confusion and a little bit of marketing hype to get your attention. I want to help you weed through all of that, so that you can understand the difference and what to look for when it comes to natural skincare products.

So some of the misconceptions about natural skincare products are that if it says natural on the label, that means it’s natural, that it’s clean, that it is made from all natural ingredients, but that’s not actually the case. The word natural, and the word hypoallergenic also are words that are oftentimes used with skin care manufacturers, and with marketing claims. But unfortunately there’s no regulation really around those words.

So the word natural doesn’t necessarily mean that it contains all natural ingredients or that even half of the ingredients are natural, or maybe even 10%. There really isn’t any regulation around using the word natural. I want to put that out there just to kind of explain that it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use natural skincare products because ultimately you should, and I will explain why, but it’s important to understand what you are looking for when it comes to natural skincare products.

When you are looking at skin care products, what you want to look for is, and the reason why people are choosing natural is because we understand that we want our skincare products to be free of toxic ingredients. But the other thing is we also want them to work. So you don’t want to give up the efficacy, the results, just because you start to use more natural products. Really, we want both. And I will break all that down for you today.

When we are looking at natural and why we want natural, there are many skincare ingredients that unfortunately can have harmful effects in the body. For example, there are some ingredients in personal care products that have a potentially carcinogenic impact. And then there are other ingredients that are known to be endocrine disrupting chemicals. That means that they could have potentially hormone disrupting effects in the body.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are a class of chemicals. What happens is they kind of look like hormones in the body, or they will bind to hormone receptors and turn off the function or change the way that they function. They wreak havoc with hormones and the body. We are exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals in our air, water, food, personal care products, and a lot of different endocrine disrupting chemicals that we are exposed to on a day to day basis.

The idea is that we want to reduce our total exposure to these because of the potentially harmful effects and how much of these we are exposed to. One of the places that we have really great control of our exposure is for our personal care products. We choose what personal care products, what skin care products we use, you have total control over that.

That is one way you can limit your exposure to these endocrine disrupting chemicals, which this group of chemicals have been linked to a number of different health issues in the research. We have seen them linked to certain types of cancers, like breast cancer, prostate cancer. We have seen them linked to hormonal problems like thyroid disease. Hypothyroidism, autoimmune thyroid disease, as well as infertility, early menopause, early puberty, or breast development in young boys.

The list goes on and on. And if you think about all the different ways that your hormones impact your health, you could see how the list goes on and on, because it’s not just your sexual health or your thyroid, or even your adrenals, but also your ability to maintain your weight because insulin is a hormone. Then there are also other hormones that play a role in our weight and keeping that weight off, also they impact our blood sugar balance.

The list goes on and on and our brain function, all of that. Hormones are so important as you know. And the last thing we want to do is interfere with their function. And again, we are exposed to so many of these endocrine disrupting chemicals. Unfortunately, we are exposed to more of them now than we ever have been, because there are new chemicals that are being introduced today that have this impact that are known. We are starting to see the research unfold on that.

There are chemicals that have been around for many, many years. And even the ones that may have been banned can continue to exist in our environment. For example lead, it continues to exist in the soil, even though it has been banned from gasoline and band from lead paint. It continues to exist in our environment. It gets on the soil. That means, it gets into our food supply, gets into our water. And it means we are also exposed to it.

Even if it is banned in the U.S., it could still be around in another country, like in China and can travel over in clouds and rain down into our environment. So I don’t want to spend time being doom and gloom on this, but again, endocrine disrupting chemicals are a big problem. And one of the ways that we are exposed to them is through personal care products. An example of this is fragrance is in so many personal care products and skincare products.

If you think about all the different products you use on a day to day basis, many of these probably do contain fragrance. The problem with fragrance is it’s not one ingredient, it’s a whole group of ingredients. These fragrances have endocrine disrupting chemicals in them. For example, diethyl Phthalates is a plasticizing agent. It is used in fragrance to help the smell last longer, but it is a known endocrine-disrupting chemical.

What we want to do is to stop using fragrance and use either fragrance free or those scented with organic essential oils. Organic essential oils are a really nice alternative to synthetic fragrance. This is just a highlight. I talk about in my book, Clean Skin From Within, I give a whole list of different ingredients to avoid and to look out for, and also alternatives to those that are more natural. What I love about natural ingredients is not only are they clean, but there are benefits to these natural ingredients, if you are using the right ones.

Essential oils are one of those examples of where you are not only going to be avoiding the potential harmful effects of ingredients in skincare products, but you are going to get the benefits of some of these essential oils. Some of the essential oils that we use in The Spa Dr. products, they are known to help lift your mood, make you feel happier, and what a great thing to add into your self care routine, because it can be a great addition and help be supportive.

There are other ingredients that I find particularly helpful, and I am going to touch on those in a moment, but first I want to share with you my experience with natural skincare products. I grew up on an organic farm in Virginia, and as a child I remember my parents tried to use as much natural as possible, and we would make some of our own things. We would use ingredients straight from nature for healing the skin, for example, we would use things like aloe.

We had aloe plants and anytime anybody got an abrasion or a mild burn, we would cut up an aloe leaf and use that. I remember the how soothing that would feel the moment my mom had put that on my skin. And I remember the benefits of that. We didn’t use a lot of over the counter medications or skincare products you might find from a drugstore or a spa or a dermatologist. We used a lot of things from nature.

I remember as a child, I had developed skin issues. I will explain in a moment why I think I had those health problems and why that got triggered in me, but I had a lot of eczema and itchy skin issues and hives. And one of the things that I remember so well, that was immediate relief was my mom would put me in a bath with oats. She would get just raw oats and she put them in the bath.

And I remember as soon as that would touch my skin, I would feel relief. And it wasn’t the water because just being in a bathtub, I would just get itchier. But as soon as the oats would open up and they get this kind of slippery feel to them that would coat my skin and I felt immediate relief. That was my experience growing up. I have always loved to incorporate the healing powers of nature in my own life. And of course, later on, as becoming a naturopathic physician, I have seen the healing powers of nature and how our body is so wise.

And when we are given the right tools and support, our body can heal beautifully. But most of the time we forget to do that. Oftentimes we forget, and instead we will use topical creams that just suppress the issue, or we will try and cover it up with more makeup. But really if we use more of these natural products and ingredients, and even using food as medicine, all of that from the inside out, it helps support our body and helps remind our bodies that it is wise and that it can restore health naturally.

There are some things to think about when it comes to natural, that you might call the dark side of natural. That just because something comes from nature, doesn’t always mean that it’s healthy or good. And an example in particular that I’m thinking about is mold. Mold of course grows naturally, but it could be extremely toxic to humans, to us and to our health and our vitality. Unfortunately, as a child, I had all this great stuff of living on an organic farm, but we had a mold problem in our home and mold would grow.

I saw little black specs on the walls that were painted white. We have to repaint those. I had a doll one time I left on the carpeted floor in my bedroom, and I left her there for a couple of days and I picked her up and she had mold growing on her. We definitely had mold in my home. When I look back now, I think that is where a lot of my health issues stem from. Thankfully we moved out of that house when I was still pretty young.

Between getting away from the mold and then also finding a holistic practitioner, that is what was able to help me to be able to get my health back on track. My skin problems resolved, my health overall improved, and that is what led me to become a naturopathic physician. And because of my interest in skin and that understanding of how our skin is an outer reflection of our inner health and how we restore our health, our skin improves, and our overall health improves because of my own personal experience of that.

I loved that I was able to incorporate that into my own practice and as what led me to write my book, Clean Skin From Within and create The Spa Dr. skin care line. That is my own personal journey. I am sure you have your story too, on why you are interested in natural skincare products. Maybe you have already read my book, Clean Skin From Within, and are also doing things to help your body from the inside out and you know, about the healing powers of nature.

I always like to hear your stories and your experience as well. Let’s go ahead and talk some more about ingredients, because there are the ingredients to look out for, and then the ingredients that you want to make sure that you are including in your skincare routine and your products. Just because something says it’s natural doesn’t mean that it is safe or effective. I want to make sure that we are talking about safe and truly natural, and also how to make sure that the product is actually working. The first thing is, is it safe?

When we look at natural skincare products, you want to look at the ingredient label, and just because it says natural doesn’t mean it’s safe. You want to look for things like synthetic fragrance. You will look for fragrance. That is one key that this is not truly a natural product. I have seen many natural products out there with fragrance still in it. That is one key. Parabens are another one, especially if they are multiple parabens listed on the label.

There are alternatives to these, and they are concerned about parabens and being detected in breast tumor tissue. That is another one that it would be good to avoid. There are also formaldehyde releasing chemicals. There are things like DMDM hydantoin, and there are other ones too, and I know it is even hard to pronounce some of these, but these are just some of the examples. Also oxybenzone is a chemical ingredient used in a lot of sunscreens, and it is also a known endocrine disrupting chemical.

Those are some examples of things that you want to make sure that you are trying to avoid because of the potential health issues with them. It is always great to have more research on these, but until we clear up some of the confusion and the concerns about these, I think it is best to avoid these and other ingredients that I talk about in my book. Mineral oil is another one. There are so many plant-based oils that are much better alternatives to mineral oil and any of the petroleum by-product types of oils.

If you see petrolatum or petroleum in mineral oil, those would be other ingredients that I am just concerned about because they come from the same place that gasoline comes from and they are refined to be approved for skincare product use, but there are concerns about possible contamination. I just think there are so many natural ingredients that are a better alternative that are going to help ease your mind about the toxicity concerns, but also provide nourishment to your skin.

That makes me want to turn then to looking at natural ingredients. I mentioned essential oils already. I prefer organic essential oils, and I think oils in general, I did a whole video series on oils as well, so you can capture that. I talk more than you would ever want about oils for skincare and have already covered that. There are definitely some benefits that you can get from plant-based oils. They are rich in antioxidants, they are rich in certain essential fatty acids that our skin needs to be supple and healthy and, and have that barrier function that the skin is supposed to provide.

All of these things you can get from really great plant-based oils. Some of my favorites are argan oil, seabuckthorn fruit, all pomegranate seed oil, raspberry seed oil. These are awesome. These are some examples of really beneficial oils that can help the skin. I mentioned as a child, I like to use aloe on my skin and we use that in my family. That is one of the ingredients that you will see in a lot of The Spa Dr. products, because it is such a powerful ingredient.

Aloe Vera is very soothing and healing to the skin. That is another powerhouse ingredient, and it can be used in cleansers and moisturizers and topical treatments and even hand sanitizers that are more of the natural hand sanitizers. Aloe is a great ingredient to make up for the fact that a lot of those have alcohol, which is drying to the skin. Aloe can add some of that protection and hydration back to the skin. I also mentioned as a child, I took those oat baths and oats are actually very soothing and healing to the skin.

I experienced it as a child, and I have also seen it. That is why I use it in The Spa Dr. body products, because of the soothing benefits. Now, if you are using natural skincare products, and again, make sure they are natural, that it doesn’t contain any of the other ingredients, just because it says it contains oats or oatmeal doesn’t mean that the other ingredients are natural. That is one thing you have to look out for because there certainly are certain products out there that say they contain oats that are beneficial, but yet it contains other ingredients that you don’t want.

The other thing is when you look at a natural product containing oats, you want to make sure it’s gluten free oats, because we don’t want that gluten exposure, especially if you have a gluten sensitivity, like my daughter, she is extremely sensitive and intolerant to gluten. I wouldn’t want her to have that exposure even topically. You don’t want that gluten exposure. You want to make sure that they are gluten free oats.

Those are some of the ingredients, and there are also things like CoQ10 is a great ingredient. It has been shown to be very protective and a beneficial antioxidant for the skin. I also really like certain teas, there are certain herbal teas that are good, green tea, white tea, black tea. These are all great for the skin providing antioxidants and some of the tannins and things in there can also be fantastic.

Turmeric is another ingredient that is anti-inflammatory for the skin both internally and externally. This is a fantastic ingredient. You want to be careful with using Tumeric in DIY skincare because of its bright yellow color. If you were to make a face mask out of it and you have fair skin, it might actually stay in your skin, if you don’t use it properly. In skincare products, you can find it in a way that the color has actually been diminished, but the beneficial properties of it still remain.

A good skincare manufacturer can do that. That is what we have at The Spa Dr., we use Turmeric but you are not going to notice that bright yellow color from it. Other ingredients that I think are particularly great is arnica, that is very calming and restorative to the skin. You may have used arnica gel in case of a bruise or a mild trauma, it is used in first aid. If you think about it, our skin is being traumatized every single day.

Arnica is a nice ingredient that helps soothe and heal the skin. Gosh, there are so many great ingredients to talk about, green algae is another one that you may, or may not be using in your skincare products. Green algae, chlorella has a purifying and energizing impact on the skin. It is also a powerhouse ingredient. Resveratrol, which actually comes from the skin of grapes. You may have heard about the health benefits of red wine, and that is because of the Resveratrol there, and that potent antioxidant is also great to use in skincare products.

Those are a few of my favorite ingredients. Now, when it comes to other ingredients that you might find in your skincare products that are maybe not as good for your skin, one example is the ingredient dimethicone. Dimethicone is used in skincare products to help trap moisture in. But the problem with that is if you put something with dimethicone on your face and you go to the gym and you are exercising and you are getting warm, it is hard for your skin because it is just trapping in that moisture.

It is also trapping in the heat. Your skin is not able to breathe. You might notice that you are more likely to get flushed and overheated, and also we are concerned about what that might do to the skin microbiome. The skin microbiome is a really important part when we are talking about skincare products, including whether or not to use natural skincare products and which natural skin care products to use. The skin microbiome is all about the microorganisms that live on and protect the skin.

They are different fungi, there is bacteria, there are little mites that live on the skin. These are all to a certain extent normal and natural. The problem is when they get out of balance. That is when we get problems where we get acne, we get rosacea, we get eczema, and a number of skin problems can be at least in part due to the skin microbiome and that barrier function of the skin, that mechanism that our skin provides is no longer functioning the way it should.

This can lead to problems with leaky skin. You may have heard of leaky gut while there can be leaky skin too, where the skin doesn’t have that proper barrier function. It breaks down and the skin microbiome is part of that protective functioning. Just like your gut microbiome is really important to your digestive health. There is so much we are learning about the gut microbiome and its impact on the skin and our overall health.

The skin has its own microbiome that needs to be supported and protected. Even if a product is natural, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to necessarily help the skin microbiome, or I should say, even if a skincare product is called natural, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily going to help. There are certain natural ingredients that help promote a healthy microbiome. Then there are other ingredients like dimethicone that are used to just trap in moisture, but they are not actually helping support a healthy skin microbiome.

It could set you up for an opportunity for imbalances in the skin microbiome. Just use caution with that ingredient and at least to be careful, if you are going to be somewhere where you are going to be perspiring, maybe you are in a warm place, or you are going to the gym, avoid products with dimethicone and realize that it is not really hydrating. It is just trapping in the moisture.

While you have products with this ingredient in there, it might be making you look moisturized, but when you rinse it off, it is actually not improving the quality of your skin. When we look at natural products, we want them to promote the health of the skin. We want them to present a healthy skin microbiome. We want them to feed a healthy skin microbiome and that barrier function of the skin.

We want to keep it healthy. The first part is to make sure that natural products are clean and clear of harmful ingredients. The second part is you want them to work. The way we ensure that they work goes back to the skin barrier function and the mild acidity of the skin and the skin microbiome. I just mentioned the skin acidity, our skin has this natural mild acidity to it that helps support healthy skin microbiome.

This is really key because a lot of the things that we do with skin, like cleansing the skin, using bars of soap, washing that actually has a high pH and it is disrupting the natural, mild acidity of the skin. We want to use natural skincare formulas that the pH is more towards a mild acidity. More on the 4.6 to five pH range or anything over 5.5 is going to be too high of a pH for our skin. It is not going to provide that environment to enrich our skin, to help the skin microbiome and the skin barrier function.

Check your skin care formulas and make sure even if it is natural, it needs to have that pH. This is part of why I created The Spa Dr. Skin Care line, because I knew that there were natural skincare products out there that were clean and free of harmful ingredients, but a lot of them had a pH over 5.5. The research shows that our skin does best with that natural, mild acidity, because it helps the health of the skin, which in turn keeps it free and clear of breakouts as well as helps it aging gracefully, which is what we all want.

We want that smooth, clear complexion, graceful aging. We don’t want sagging skin and lots of wrinkles before it is time. Over time that does happen. It is a natural part of the aging process, but we certainly don’t want it to happen before other people, our age. We want to age gracefully. All of that are things that play into the importance of supporting the health of the skin microbiome. You may be wondering where are the best places to get natural skincare products? Where can I look, where can I find out more?

There are a few good resources that I want to tell you about. One is, ewg.org, an environmental working group has a skin deep database where they have a lot of information. They put out there about skincare ingredients and ratings of different skincare products that are out there. You can go to ewg.org/skindeep, is a place you can go to check that out. They also have skincare products that they verify and they test them.

They look at them and they make sure they meet their criteria. The Spa Dr. skincare products are EWG verified in case you were not aware of that. There are other ones out there. That is one resource, a place where you can get information is, EWG. There are also other organizations that provide similar information that you can find online. In my book Clean Skin From Within, I also talk about individual ingredients more than the ones that I mentioned today, both ones to avoid, and then also natural ingredients.

I can go more in depth in a book, then I can in a video. I cite the research and explain exactly which ingredients are particularly harmful and why. I could not go into all of that explanation today. You can find that in my book, Clean Skin From Within. When you are looking for natural skincare products, as I mentioned, EWG have verified certain products and you can find resources. You could go to your local, natural health food store and see what is available.

There are natural skincare products online. You can find them pretty much all over the place. But here is the thing, you want to look at the ingredients. You want to be aware of what to look for and what not to. That is really the first step. Then find a manufacturer that you believe is going to be in for the long haul of really providing clean, natural, effective solutions. Who do you feel are the ones that are staying on top of looking at ingredients and making sure that they are really high quality and truly pure.

At The Spa Dr., we do a lot of quality control testing. Whenever we get raw materials in, we test those to make sure that they are what they say they are, and that they are actually clean. Then once we make the formulas, we test them again for purity, for pH, we test a number of different factors, and this is not standard. I can tell you my quality control person has worked in the industry for almost 30 years. She has worked for a lot of different companies.

She said that definitely not everybody does this. These are the kinds of questions to ask of the manufacturers if they have a brand that you really love their skincare products. Ask them questions about their quality control process, where their ingredients come from. Are they truly natural, truly organic? Are they listing everything on the labels or are they hiding anything? Because I think it is important to be transparent and always share what is in the skincare products.

We certainly do that as well. Also find out about the pH, if they can’t give you that information, you can get a simple pH strip and test the product yourself to make sure it’s under 5.5. Hopefully that gives you information that can be valuable today. Of course, you can find all of these ingredients, the positive, good ingredients I talked about today in The Spa Dr. skincare products. I have looked at the research carefully.

I want this for myself, my patients, my family, my friends, I want clean and effective natural solutions too. I know we have problems like skin sensitivity, skin eruptions and issues and aging, all of that. And we want our skin to be optimally healthy, just like the rest of our body. We want our body to be healthy, and we want our skin to reflect that because after all, you know, we are living longer, we want our skin to keep up with it. So you can find The Spa Dr. products at Thespadr.com. You will also find lots of information, free information. There are our blog and podcast and more. I hope this was helpful for you today. And I will keep giving you more information. Feel free to send us questions and feedback so that we can keep providing you with great content.