Most people think better skin comes from doing more, but the biggest impact comes from doing a few things consistently.
Dr. Lawrence Bass and clinical dermatologist Dr. Jennifer Vickers share the essentials that actually move the needle, from daily sunscreen to simple, effective skincare.
They cover what matters most for maintaining skin quality, where office treatments fit in, and why a straightforward routine often delivers the best long-term results.
When you keep it simple and stay consistent, your skin has a much better chance of aging well.
About Dr. Jennifer Vickers
Dr. Jennifer Vickers is a double board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist in Austin, Texas. She specializes in comprehensive skin, hair, and nail care, including general dermatology, pediatric dermatology, cosmetic dermatology, skin cancer screenings, mole evaluations, acne treatment, eczema management, psoriasis care, rashes, and autoimmune skin conditions.
She is also a principal dermatopathologist for Sanova Dermatology, reviewing skin biopsies to ensure accurate diagnoses, and serves as a co-investigator with the Austin Institute of Clinical Research.
Learn more about Austin dermatologist Dr. Jennifer Vickers
Follow Dr. Vickers on Instagram @jennifervickersmd
About Dr. Lawrence Bass
Innovator. Industry veteran. In-demand Park Avenue board certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Lawrence Bass is a true master of his craft, not only in the OR but as an industry pioneer in the development and evaluation of new aesthetic technologies. With locations in both Manhattan (on Park Avenue between 62nd and 63rd Streets) and in Great Neck, Long Island, Dr. Bass has earned his reputation as the plastic surgeon for the most discerning patients in NYC and beyond.
To learn more, visit the Bass Plastic Surgery website or follow the team on Instagram @drbassnyc
Subscribe to the Park Avenue Plastic Surgery Class newsletter to be notified of new episodes & receive exclusive invitations, offers, and information from Dr. Bass.
Transcript
Summer Hardy (00:01):
Welcome to Park Avenue Plastic Surgery Class, the podcast where we explore controversies and breaking issues in plastic surgery. I'm your co-host, Summer Hardy, a medical student in New York City. I'm excited to be here with Dr. Lawrence Bass, Park Avenue plastic surgeon, educator, and technology innovator. Today's episode is part of our beauty series and is titled Beauty Essentials. We've had many beauty episodes in this series, Dr. Bass. What are we covering today?
Dr. Lawrence Bass (00:27):
Well, we've had a number of episodes discussing how to think about beauty and how to make decisions about your beauty needs and options in a very general and conceptual way. And this is important and useful, but today's episode is a little bit more specific. We're talking about beauty essentials to help you have great looking skin and look your best. This means a couple of things. First, treatments, products, or categories of care that everyone should have in their beauty plan. And this applies across different ages and it's things that are more or less universal. Also, we're going to talk a little bit about things that everyone's going to come to and are likely to do if they're working with a core aesthetic provider, someone like a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. Some people choose to have facelifts, but many do not, so that's not a beauty essential.
(01:30):
Here, we're talking about things that everyone or almost everyone would and should choose if they have the time and budget to keep up their appearance. To add the detail and expertise in this area about the latest in skin health and beauty, I've invited the guest expert for this episode. Every time I meet with other doctors at a consulting activity or at a medical meeting, I always learn a tremendous amount from the other doctors, but there's some doctors who particularly seem to have a lot of insight, and that's how I ran across Dr. Jennifer Vickers, who's a board certified dermatologist and also board certified in dermatopathology. She's a clinical dermatologist at Sanova Dermatology in Austin, Texas, and participates in multiple clinical trials of new technologies and products for skin health. Dr. Vickers, welcome.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (02:31):
Well, thank you, Dr. Bass, and I appreciate you having me on. I'm very excited, and it is a pleasure.
Summer Hardy (02:38):
Yes. Welcome, Dr. Vickers. So let's get right into our subject. What is the number one line item on the list of beauty essentials, Dr. Bass?
Dr. Lawrence Bass (02:47):
Well, there's a pretty clear number one. This is something that's probably not a surprise, and it's a holy mission for everyone in dermatology and for plastic surgeons as well. I know Dr. Vickers is thinking the same thing that I am, so I'll let her say it.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (03:05):
Oh yeah. Sunscreen, for sure.
Summer Hardy (03:07):
Can you tell us a little bit about why that's so important?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (03:10):
Yeah, sure. So sunscreen is going to be your number one protector against skin cancer. Of course, we always recommend using sun avoidance and sun protective clothing, things like that. But let's be honest, that isn't always practical when you're at a school event for your kids or you're out on vacation. So you really want to make sure that you're regularly using sunscreen. We get an accumulation of sun damage over time. So even if you're not a sun worshiper, driving in your car, getting out of your car, going into the grocery store, you're accumulating sun damage little by little during that time and it does add up. So regular sunscreen use where you're using it daily is what we recommend, even if you don't feel like you're outside that much. And if the skin cancer aspect isn't enough, which to be honest, it isn't always, it does help us to prevent aging of the skin as well.
(03:59):
So that accumulation of sun damage that we get over time will also lead to pigment changes, wrinkles, collagen, breakdown, as well as sagging of the skin. So we have all of those signs of aging because of sun damage.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (04:13):
And a hundred percent, this is the number one and it's the biggest along with smoking, the biggest controllable factor in skin aging. But let's talk about some of the controversies with sunscreens.
Summer Hardy (04:27):
Yes, we like to debug myths on the podcast.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (04:31):
So there have been some concerns about the effects of the chemicals in the sunscreen that they could have on those of us using it. And those are concerns about toxicity of those chemical sunscreens and concerns that the chemicals in the sunscreens can cause cells to prematurely age or age more quickly. So is there any validity to these concerns and how should that affect our behavior when it comes to using sunscreens?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (05:02):
So sunscreen definitely has its share of controversy. I think a lot of the public's concerns were sort of surrounding a study that came out in 2020 in the JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. So this study was looking at, with daily application of common sunscreens, does our body absorb the chemicals that are in those sunscreens? So they had participants put the sunscreen on, and then they checked their blood to see if those chemicals were within the bloodstream. And what they found is that they are in fact there. So while I think this is a really important study, it also begs to kind of qualify those results. So let's talk about kind of the design of the study. They had participants put on approximately an ounce of sunscreen on all uncovered areas. So an ounce of sunscreen is generally about the size of a shotglass.
(05:57):
And I, with a full confidence can say that most people are not going to be using that much sunscreen, myself included. I don't use a full ounce of sunscreen, even though that's what's recommended. So they were using quite a bit of sunscreen at that point. They were also asked to apply it four times daily. So let's talk about that because I don't know very many people who actually put sunscreen on four times a day. It is recommended to reapply every two hours, so I understand why they designed it that way and that every two hours over an eight-hour day is going to be about four times. But for the average person, that is a much higher frequency than what we would normally see. So all in all, this study had a higher amount and higher frequency than what the average person would use. So I do think that's worth noting.
(06:41):
Additionally, it did show that those chemicals are in the bloodstream, but what it doesn't tell us is what that means. Is there actual toxicity with those chemicals? And the study doesn't say yes and it doesn't say no. So I don't think that there's enough evidence there to justify not using sunscreen based on those results. What I think of it as a jumping off point for further research. So you said something about sunscreen aging cells, but actually what evidence tells us is that sunscreen helps us to slow down the aging of cells, and there really isn't a lot of sound evidence out there to justify not using it.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (07:16):
And I think that's an example of where the headline of a research result, which you often hear in the news can be very deceptive and promote a fallacy rather than a fact, and you have to take a deeper dive in the details. Unfortunately, almost everything in life really turns on the details and not the headline. But based on that, can you say a little bit about how you should use the sunscreen, what to look for in an SPF number? An SPF, by the way, means sun protection factor, and basically it tells you how many times longer it will take to get a sunburn compared to unprotected exposure. So an SPF of 15 means it will take 15 times longer for you to burn if you're wearing that as directed, which Dr. Vickers just talked about. So give us a little bit of guidance on that, please, Dr. Vickers.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (08:23):
Of course. So that is a really common question that I get from patients is what sunscreen should I use? And that is a difficult question to answer. There is a wide variety of sunscreens out there, lots of different vehicles, and a lot of it really boils down to patient preference. So some people want something that's heavier, or some people want something lighter, they want tinted, they don't want tinted. They prefer a powder or a gel or a stick. So there really are a lot of things out there. And the main thing that I tell patients is if you like it, you'll use it. So do some trial and error, find something that you like, and you'll be more motivated to use it if it's something that feels good to you. There are some general guidelines that I give people. So 30 SPF or higher is what's recommended.
(09:07):
Broad spectrum, which these days, most sunscreens are broad spectrum. And then that reapplication every two hours, particularly if you're going to be out in the sun, you're supposed to do it when you're not directly in the sun for a long amount of time, but especially when you're out in the sun for a long amount of time. I have a lot of patients that come in and say, "I don't understand. I got a sunburn. I have a tan. I put my sunscreen on. " Inevitably, I always ask, "Did you reapply?" And they say, "Oh no, I didn't." So it is really important to reapply as well. So those are kind of my three things that I tell people to look for on a sunscreen, the 30 SPF or higher, broad spectrum, and then making sure that they're reapplying every two hours.
Summer Hardy (09:46):
Okay. So we've settled on sunscreen at the top of the list. What else goes into my beauty self-care?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (09:52):
So I like to keep things simple. I will say that. I recommend kind of a top three products because I feel if things start to get overwhelming, then compliance is compromised. The more things that people have to deal with, the more overwhelmed they get. They don't know where to start. They don't know what to pick. There are also limited resources in terms of money and time. So I tell my patients that my top three things, we've already covered one of them, being one, and then also a good moisturizer and a retinoid, preferably a prescription retinoid, which I can explain a little bit more into that as well.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (10:27):
So before we get to what should be in it, what are the goals of having a moisturizer in your program, and then what kind of ingredients should people look for or at least consider?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (10:39):
Sure. So the basic aim with the moisturizer is to, for one, keep the skin's barrier up. Two, it allows the skin to be more pliable. And when it's more pliable, you're less likely to start forming wrinkles. And so you can think of brick and mortar in a way, and your skin cells are sort of the bricks, and then they have a mortar that holds them together. And when you use a moisturizer, you're really fortifying that. You're really giving your skin a chance to protect itself. In terms of what to use, again, that question is very similar to the sunscreen question. There's a wide variety of moisturizers out there, and what a 20-year-old is going to use for their moisturizer is different from what a six-year-old would use. So basic things that I recommend, a cream, not a lotion. Lotions tend to have alcohol in them, and so they can be irritating and drying, which is counterintuitive, but they are.
(11:31):
So a cream, something that's bland, something that doesn't have a lot of fragrance in it or a lot of extra ingredients, and then something that's non-comedogenic, so something that's not going to clog up pores or cause congestion. So if you're looking for a moisturizer, those are the things that I want you to look for. In terms of more specifics, we can tailor that to the patient's needs. So for example, if it is somebody that's in their 50s or 60s and they're looking for more anti-aging properties, then you can look for a moisturizer that has peptides or growth factors in it. Whereas again, maybe a 20-year-old wouldn't necessarily want those ingredients. So you can get a little more specific depending on what the patient needs.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (12:07):
That's a really important point that the moisturizer needs to be in there as part of the program, but you're going to vary that depending on how your skin is behaving, what your skin's issues are. And that's partly a question of your skin type. Everyone's skin is a little different, and that's part of the challenge, in my view in dermatology, that you're trying to solve the puzzle of your individual skin and what works well for you. And that's trial and error, but in as few steps as possible. And then it's partly your stage of aging. And also important to remember, if you've done some kind of in-office medical treatments, having just a general moisturizer and not necessarily a medicated product is really important during the recovery period because some of the medicated products are irritating and skin doesn't tolerate them well right after an in-office medical treatment for the skin.
(13:12):
On the other hand, some products are specifically formulated to help skin heal after an in-office treatment like an energy treatment with fractional lasers or with radiofrequency microneedling. So it becomes very specific to that time and that treatment in selecting something special for that point in time.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to hit on, again, the wide range of things that are available out there in terms of products, because I think that's important to touch on as well. Again, it sort of comes down to patient preference. So coming back to moisturizer, if some people want something that's heavy, some people want something that's light, but sometimes there's medical grade products which are typically physician distributed or you have to get them on the website for the company that makes them versus something that you could get in say a grocery store or a drugstore. And so I think you also have to take into account what your budget is and what you're willing to spend there because not everybody can spend a fortune on skincare products. So kind of coming back to that, tailoring to the things that you need, like you said, do you need something post-procedure, keeping it bland and not having a lot of extra ingredients when you are trying to heal, as well as finding something that sort of fits to your budget and time.
Summer Hardy (14:31):
And then kind of on that note, we're looping back to prescription retinoids, you specifically said prescription. Why exactly? And does that mean that an over-the-counter retinoid at that corner drugstore that Cosmetics counter won't do then?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (14:45):
Not necessarily. The reasons why I prefer a prescription retinoid is because those are typically retinoic acid. So it is the active molecule that interacts with the cell to tell it to produce collagen and do the things that it's supposed to be doing. When you buy something from the grocery store or the drugstore, it's generally not retinoic acid. It's going to be one of the precursors to it. And so it has to undergo a conversion process before it becomes retinoic acid and before it actually becomes active. So with a prescription retinoid, you have an element of potency there. The trade off with potency sometimes is some side effects. So the more potent it is, the more likely you might experience some irritation, but there are things that ... I use a compounding pharmacy, for example, and there are things that I can put into the retinoid that make it a little bit more tolerable, even if it is a prescription.
(15:37):
So at the end of the day, cost-wise, the prescription, if I use the compounding pharmacy is oftentimes less than what a medical grade product would be, and sometimes it's even less expensive than what the over-the-counter products are. So if I can get you something that is very efficacious, but not necessarily very expensive, then why not?
Dr. Lawrence Bass (15:59):
And I think the other important thing about doctor's office products, prescription products is you know you're getting an effective dose when you're using those products where many of the over-counter products have some of the active material, but it's harder to know for sure that the dose, and as Dr. Vickers pointed out, the form of the medication is adequate to really create a therapeutic effect. So you may feel good knowing you're using something good on your skin, but you may not really be getting the effect you're going for. And the prescription products are more likely to let you know that. Most of the cost of the over-counter products is related to marketing or advertising the product and not the expensive special ingredient. A lot of the cost of the prescription products is the regulation of getting it FDA approved, but at least you know with that cost that you're getting an effective dose of the requisite medication.
Summer Hardy (17:11):
Exactly. And I know at the beginning of this, you said three products, very simple, but are those three products enough?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (17:20):
Yes and no. And I may have some dermatologists who disagree with me here, but again, I think simplicity is important. Again, I think it's a little overwhelming with the number of things that are out there. So in kind of talking about my top three, what I'm essentially doing is giving permission to people to use something simple because they still will get benefit from it. Some people like to have that multiple step skin regimen. I think it's kind of part of their routine. It sort of centers them at the end of the night. I know some dermatologists that have a two-hour nightly routine. I am not one of those. I feel lucky if I can wash my face, slap on some moisturizer, brush my teeth and fall into bed at the end of the night. So I'm one of the people that needs that sort of simple regimen, but there's nothing wrong necessarily with having a multi-step regimen if that's what you like, if you have the time to give it and that's something that you enjoy, but there's also nothing wrong with having something simple.
(18:13):
So again, I just want to give people permission to use a little bit more simple of a regimen and find things that work with their schedule and their time and their money.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (18:24):
I couldn't agree more. I like simple, simple gets done and complex often is very hard to execute consistently over time. And unless you do this day in and day out, it's not going to reap the benefits you're hoping for. So I always try to look for a simple approach like what Dr. Vickers has shared with us here today. It saves on time. It's easier to accurately follow the program and a simple program is probably going to give you 80 or 90% of the benefit you'd get from something considerably more time-consuming and expensive and complex. Now, if there's a specific problem in your skin that you need to address with an additional product, it's okay to add something temporarily or even long-term in your skincare program. So for specific problems and needs, and the skin is always changing, always doing something new, it may be worth adding something, but your day in, day out routine, month after month, year after year probably is better off focused in a simple way.
(19:43):
And that's more likely to keep your skin where you want it and realistically give you what a home skincare program can accomplish for you.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (19:54):
Absolutely.
Summer Hardy (19:55):
This has been really insightful so far. Previously, you mentioned washing your face at the end of the night, but I noticed you didn't say any specific cleansers or any information about them. Do you have anything to add about cleansers? I
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (20:08):
Feel like a broken record, but I'm going to come back to a lot of it just depends on what the patient's need is, what the person's need is. Again, I'd recommend something gentle, something that doesn't have a lot of extra ingredients unless you're trying to specifically address something. So there are a lot of preferences with cleansers as well. Some people like things that foam and some people like things that don't foam. And at the end of the day, I think just finding something that's nice and gentle is probably your best bet.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (20:34):
And there's a specific reason for that advice that I think is really important. The skin has an emollient barrier. That's how the skin protects itself from the environment, from dust and dirt, from dry, low humidity air in wintertime, all kinds of things. And an excessively harsh cleanser is going to strip away that emollient barrier that your skin needs to protect itself. Just like having alcohol in a lotion, same idea that may take away more of the barrier and be drying than is good for your skin. And so a gentle cleanser will help your skin stay clean while minimizing the erosion of that barrier.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (21:27):
Yeah, absolutely. If I can kind of expand on that, I'd like to talk a little bit about exfoliations. I do think that people tend to overexfoliate these days. I don't know if that's a result of social media or if that's just been a trend for some time, but a lot of people feel like they really need to kind of scrub their skin clean. And what they end up doing is very much irritating the skin, sort of like what you were saying, Dr. Bass, kind of stripping that skin barrier down. So for example, I'll have patients who come in who want me to treat their acne and what I'm finding is that their skin is extremely irritated, very red, upset. They're attributing that to their acne, but at the end of the day, it really is just the products that they're using. So sometimes I say, "Okay, let's take a step back, let's simplify your regimen, let's use gentle products, and then you can come back and we'll revisit the acne aspect of it.
(22:20):
" And when they come back, a lot of times their skin is much happier, it's calmer, and we can sort of tease out what is actually something like acne and what is actually just due to the products themselves. So I like to tell patients exfoliation really needs to happen only about one to two times per week tops. And I prefer medicinal or chemical exfoliators. So as opposed to like a mechanical exfoliator, which is a brush or some sort of scrubber that they use that they really can irritate the skin with. But something more like an alpha-hydroxyacid wash, beta-hydroxyacid wash is a good sort of medicinal or chemical exfoliator that works well as long as you're not overusing it.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (23:00):
And I'm a little bit older than Dr. Vickers, so I'm going to tell a story from skincare in the 1990s. And at that time, that was when things like alpha and beta hydroxy acids were relatively new and people were experimenting with how to incorporate them into skincare programs. And there was a huge trend for aggressive exfoliation and pushing the skin as hard as you could for more results. And there were prominent dermatologists at the time who advocated pushing this hard enough, this exfoliation to leave the skin red. If you weren't doing that, you weren't getting the best result in terms of wrinkle improvement and texture improvement in the skin. But if you're doing that, it's a very mean way to treat your skin because for sure you're eliminating that protective barrier, you're making the skin much more reactive. So it's a very heavy-handed and crude way of approaching skincare, which I think we've really transcended and moved past in the decade since then and a softer approach encouraging good behavior from the skin rather than punishing the skin for bad behavior.
(24:20):
It philosophically, I think, is a more constructive way to approach skincare. And I see this just as Dr. Vickers mentioned with a lot of patients, both young and old, young patients who are breaking out are frustrated with their skin and they want to punish the skin for the bad behavior and do something harsh, thinking that's going to get them to a better place, but it really often just stirs up more reactivity in the skin. And in older people who are trying to chase aging changes, same thing, it's resetting some of the youthful biology in the skin that's probably going to be more constructive than just taking this already older, less metabolically active skin and trying to speed up metabolism while totally stripping it of all its defenses.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (25:11):
Yeah, I agree.
Summer Hardy (25:13):
Okay. So shifting gears a little bit, what are some of the in-office things people should think about?
Dr. Lawrence Bass (25:19):
Well, we know that neuromodulators like Botox and injectable fillers are extremely popular once you've reached a certain stage of aging, but that's really only part of the equation.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (25:33):
Yes. I think that one of the missing aspects of the equation is what I like to refer to as skin integrity. So I feel like a lot of people are familiar with the neuromodulators, fillers. You see a lot of that online, and so that's the first thing they ask about. But I do find that a lot of people forget to address skin integrity. So preserving collagen, building collagen, things that sort of help the skin have the scaffolding that it needs beyond just the injectables. So examples of that would be like microneedling, laser treatments, particularly ablative or even partially ablative laser treatments, and then even biostimulants, these substances that we can use that we do inject, but rather than just filling, they stimulate the fibroblasts in the skin to produce collagen. So you're actually building on your own collagen. And so in that way, you are maintaining skin integrity.
(26:25):
There are tightening procedures, things like radiofrequency or ultrasound. There are varying opinions on that that I feel like are becoming more diversified recently, so I'm not really going to get too much into those. Dr. Bass, you may have some opinions on those tightening procedures, but those are out there as possibilities to help build collagen and maintain skin integrity as well.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (26:47):
Yeah. I mean, I think those treatments are beneficial for the right person at the right time with relatively early in the aging process with a modest need for improvement. And I think as we start to understand actually a lot of the body treatments, it's contributed to our understanding of face treatments because I think a lot of those laxity treatments using energy, these are things like Softwave and Althera, but there are others as well. They're really changing the fibroceptal network, the connective tissue matrix in the subcutaneous fat in between the skin and the underlying fascia or connective tissue. And so you're adding collagen, organizing, thickening, strengthening that fibroceptal network, and that helps with laxity modestly. But I think actually you raised a really interesting point, Dr. Vickers, you used the word maintain skin integrity, and that's an important concept to understand because it underscores the recurrent nature of these treatments.
(28:05):
And we're Americans, we're in a rush. We've got a busy schedule. We want one intense treatment to give us a really big result, and that's really not how anti-aging is going to go. These are recurrent treatments. They help restore and maintain modestly, but they need to be a repeated part of any kind of beauty program to help you age the slowest to help you look your best at any point in time, rather than just expecting you're going to pop in and everything is going to be fixed. And I draw this analogy recurrently with my patients and on the podcast that it's very much like taking care of your teeth. It's not enough to brush your teeth or get a really good dental cleaning. Once you have to brush your teeth every day or you're not going to keep your teeth for very long. And this is the same thing.
(29:03):
These treatments need to be employed periodically and everyone does this based on how much time and energy and money they want to put into it, but it's important to recognize that that kind of process is what's going to work and trying to just hit it once is going to pretty uniformly be disappointing.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (29:29):
Yes, absolutely.
Summer Hardy (29:31):
So that was also insightful to hear about in-office options. Dr. Vickers, can you tell us a little bit about your projections for the future? What are the products or treatments that will be available to patients in the next few years and what treatments are further off, but you see as a possibility for the future?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (29:48):
So I think the phrase du jour right now in skincare is regenerative cosmetics, regenerative skincare. We're especially interested in what's called the secretome. I recently went to a conference here in Austin. It's called the Science of Skin Summit is put on by one of my colleagues and really that was the topic that came up over and over and over again. So the secretome, it's sort of an umbrella term for things within the cell that stimulate other cells to heal and produce collagen and overall help with anti-aging. There's some controversy behind those products because we don't always know how it's regulated right now. It's still kind of new. So how are they harvested? Where did they come from? Is it a safe product? Because it's kind of the wild west out there with those right now. Specifically, people are really interested in exosomes. So there's a lot about exosomes and platelet-derived growth factors as well.
(30:49):
And there's a lot of mixed opinions on those things. But all in all, that regenerative medicine, that regenerative cosmetics is what's sort of in the pipeline, I think. That being said, there are some companies that are looking into plant derived products, so plant-derived growth factors, plant-derived exosomes, which being from plants tend to be a little bit less risky than something that's say human derived. And lastly, a thing that I kind of keep hearing about a lot is supplements for skin. So we have a lot of supplements out there for hair, hair loss, hair thickening, but there are a lot of companies that are really trying to focus on sort of healing the skin from the inside out. So really tailoring supplements for the skin itself to kind of help with protecting against the sun, anti-aging, building collagen, all of that.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (31:36):
So I'm curious, since you mentioned plant exosomes, the safety issues, clearly it's more controllable, more predictable where you're getting it from and what you're getting. But do you think there's data that shows there's response to these plant messages by human skin or are human products more likely to have a message that the skin is able to receive? What do we know about that at this point?
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (32:08):
I can't really say I know the nitty gritty behind the science with those, but I will say that they've done some studies with plant-derived products where they even looked at ultrasound to see how the skin was responding to these products. And the results have been very promising, even with something like ultrasound, which it's very difficult to get a noticeable result with ultrasound technology. So I do think there's a lot of promise there. I think the skin is responding to these treatments, but in terms of the nitty-gritty science, not sure.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (32:43):
Yeah. I mean, clearly this is an evolving area and very exciting because the potential seems huge, but it's hard to know at this point as much about it as we'd like to. So stay tuned, but there's a lot of potential there. I think particularly relating to skin integrity, as you termed it, skin quality, these are things that these products really may be able to reset. And if I go and do a facelift, I reposition skin back to a youthful location, but it's still your skin that has three or four or five decades of aging since your twenties when the skin was youthful. These products can work on the skin to behave more like young people's skin, and that's really what this regenerative approach is targeted at. But I see a lot of patients confusing this and trying to use these treatments as major laxity treatments.
(33:49):
And they probably at this stage don't have much promise for that as we're doing it in 2025. But for skin quality, skin integrity, helping restore and maintain collagen in the skin and some of the connective tissue elements in the skin, there's a lot of potential to help with your beauty plan.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (34:12):
Absolutely. I think everything ... We've touched on this a bit, but it has to have a multifaceted approach. You can't really expect that one element is going to do everything that you want it to do for your skin. So you have to take care of it on multiple levels, just like you were saying, and also have realistic expectations.
Dr. Lawrence Bass (34:30):
And also, there's no one size fits all or no magic bullet that's going to fix even a single problem for everyone, and certainly not every problem for everyone. And that's why an experienced, talented, skillful dermatologist who can look at your skin, see how your skin is reacting to the products you're using and adjust your beauty plan is also an important part of that beauty plan. Everyone wants to do it themselves. Everyone tries to read on the internet and decide they're now a skin expert. And things like this podcast are designed to help improve your expertise in making your skin plan, but it's very hard to substitute for the expertise of somebody who has spent years, years studying this and then decades treating people's skin to try to help their skin to be its best.
Summer Hardy (35:28):
I agree. And Dr. Bass, can you share your takeaways?
Dr. Lawrence Bass (35:32):
So I'm just going to reiterate a couple of the central points that we've discussed during this episode. A simple program is going to give you most of the benefit you can get, even from a much more complex, time-consuming and expensive program. Sunscreen is central to that because one of the biggest preventable factors in skin aging is sun or ultraviolet light exposure, along with moisturizers to protect the skin and if need be to add a medicated product. And in terms of medicated products, a prescription retinoid, as Dr. Vickers explained, is probably the mainstay in almost everyone's beauty program. There's an occasional patient that just can't tolerate them, but most patients, if the regimen is adjusted and they work through a break-in period can be on that. And that product probably has the most data, the most experience at the ability to restore collagen, connective tissue elements, which is ground substance materials, that mortar, that glues together the collagen in the skin.
(36:48):
And so retinoids, particularly prescription retinoids are key for that and that's a mainstay. And every dermatologist I know has been on them since their 30s, if not sooner. So they not only say it, but they live it. And I think it's been great having Dr. Vickers on the podcast today to share her expertise. It's very practical down to earth information that you can put to use in planning your beauty regimen every day. So Dr. Vickers, thank you for joining us and sharing that knowledge with us.
Dr. Jennifer Vickers (37:24):
Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been fun.
Summer Hardy (37:26):
Thank you, Dr. Vickers, for sharing your secrets to beauty essentials. I loved hearing them, and I'm sure our listeners did too. Thank you for listening to the Park Avenue Plastic Surgery Class Podcast. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, write a review, and share the show with your friends. Be sure to join us next time to avoid missing all the great content that is coming your way. If you want to contact us with comments or questions, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected], or DM us on Instagram @drbassnyc.
