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Hi, pod fam! 

It’s the end of Virgo season, and we’re tapping into that efficient, organized, meticulous energy with this week’s guest: a fellow Virgo rising (with a ton of creative Pisces & Aquarius vibes). You all are gonna LOVE Nadine Artemis. Nadine is the creator of the natural beauty & lifestyle brand Living Libations and author of ​​Renegade Beauty and Holistic Dental Care: The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums

This season is all about getting in touch with, listening to, and supporting your body—and that includes your skin. For example, did you know your skincare routine might actually be damaging your skin or preventing it from doing its job? Spoiler alert: Our skin is pretty good at taking care of itself, and we often do too much. Good thing Nadine’s here to help us pare down our routine to let our skin microbiome thrive.

She explains what the skin microbiome is, her “stop, seal, & seed” philosophy, and why vitamin D is so important. Plus, she’s sharing tips to help improve your oral health (and why that matters to overall wellness). Let’s get juicy!

First, what is the skin microbiome?

We’ve talked a lot about the gut microbiome on What’s the Juice. While it’s huge and impacts basically everything in your body, it’s not your whole microbiome. As Nadine puts it, we’re “just hosts to a bacterial banquet.” Yum. Essentially, your entire body is a microbiome—and all this unique-to-you bacteria is essential to all kinds of processes like the immune system and the endocrine system. 

So, different parts of our bodies have different microbiomes. The bacteria inside your gut is going to be different from the bacteria on your skin. And what’s more—the bacteria on your face is going to be different from that on your palms or armpit.

But wait, I thought bacteria on my face was bad? Doesn’t that cause acne? 

Here’s the thing: healthy skin comes from a healthy, balanced skin microbiome. And that’s made up of bacteria. Anything that’s imbalanced with your skin (acne, included) is usually due to an imbalance in the microbiome. So it could be too much bad bacteria or not enough good bacteria or not enough bacteria in general or some other imbalance of the bacteria and microorganisms that create a healthy skin environment. 

What does our skin need to be healthy? 

Less is definitely more. Our skin microbiome knows what it’s doing. “Let the bacteria be the beautician,” says Nadine. Using harsh cleansers or other harsh actives on our skin can cause micro-tears, over-exfoliation, and imbalances caused by stripping our natural oils and microbiome. 

So, what does it need then? Nadine’s philosophy is mixing/melding from these four categories each day (the second two being optional or not needed every single days):

  1. Water
  2. Lipids
  3. Botanical biotics 
  4. Natural treatments (like honey, probiotics, or clays)

She’s got an easy-to-remember approach to our skin’s needs, too: “stop, seal, and seed”:

  • Stop using surfactants/soap on your face
  • Seal up skin with oil
  • Seed the skin by repopulating the microbiome 

She also swears by oil cleansing.

Remember Danna Omari from Season 2 Episode 8? (Psst: Check her ep out for a more in-depth explanation of oil cleansing!) Danna’s favorite oil to cleanse with happens to be Living Libations Best Skin Ever – Sea Buckthorn. LOVE seeing connections between our podcast guests!

To cleanse without stripping your skin, opt for a nourishing oil, which is just as good (if not better) than harsh cleansers at removing makeup, dirt, and other impurities. 

Nadine’s How-To: “Splash water in your face, squirt a few drops of oil and a face cloth, and then go over your face. Splash with water again. And you’re done”

And let’s not forget about vitamin D.

You all know I love my morning walks. Nothing like a healthy dose of vitamin D first thing in the morning. Nadine stresses that we should all be getting in a dose of sun each day (even if it’s just 5 minutes to start). Vitamin D has antimicrobial properties for our skin, as well as helping with the production of melatonin (which helps with responses to sunburn, ATP conversion, and other functions). 

Our skin was designed to function and thrive with some exposure to sunlight (not overexposure, but not no exposure). We’ve got to find that happy medium that helps us produce vitamin D and get all the different wavelengths of light without damaging our skin. We love the dminder app for tracking this!

Nadine recommends getting this exposure without sunglasses to give our eyes the full spectrum of colors and light. Bonus: We can absorb some near infrared light/energy through green plants, too, so go get into nature as often as you can! Another great source of this? Infrared light therapy. SO many benefits beyond your skin!

Nadine’s oral care tips

Speaking of things beyond your skin… Nadine’s expertise (and her beautiful product line) extends into oral care, too. I asked her to share some tips for improving our oral health. It’s so important to practice good oral hygiene, especially since your oral health is connected to the rest of your body (including your lymphatic and immune systems). Here are her 7 steps (#s 1, 2, and 6 being the most important):

  1. Rinse with baking soda water or sea salt water to neutralize acid
  2. Brush manually with a soft-bristled brush (brush in one direction: gum to tooth only)
  3. Use an electric toothbrush to essentially “power wash” your teeth, hitting from different angles than a manual toothbrush
  4. Scrape your tongue
  5. Floss
  6. Use a dental syringe (like a manual waterpik) to flush out your gum lines. You can add a dental serum or baking soda water to calm and reduce inflammation, too.
  7. Rinse once more

As always, tune into the episode for allll the juicy goodness in this ep! Be sure to share your thoughts with me on IG: @shoporganicolivia.

xoxo,

Olivia

Connect with Nadine Artemis:

Follow @nadineartemisofficial on IG

Follow @livinglibationsofficial on IG

Discover the dminder app
Read the book Light: Medicine of the Future by Jacob Liberman, OD, PhD

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