Far 2 Fabulous

Living Toxin-Free: A Guide to Natural Skincare with Caroline Lyons

August 15, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 31

Share episode

Are your everyday skincare products silently sabotaging your health?  In this compelling episode, we sit down with Caroline Lyons, a seasoned holistic therapist and innovative skincare brand creator, to uncover the hidden dangers in your beauty routine.  With over three decades of experience, Caroline takes us on her inspiring journey, from working with cancer patients to developing her all-natural skincare line.  She introduces "Love Your Pit," a revolutionary deodorant that keeps you fresh and encourages regular breast health self-checks.  Listen as she shares her early experiments with homemade products and emphasizes the critical need to reduce exposure to toxic chemicals.

Discover the unsettling truth behind common terms like "parfum" and "fragrance," often used to mask a host of undisclosed and potentially harmful chemicals in your beauty products.  Caroline explains how these toxins can lead to hormone imbalances and other significant health issues.  Learn why even those without allergies or sensitive skin stand to benefit from switching to genuinely natural ingredients.  Caroline's insights extend beyond personal care products to the broader implications of daily toxic exposure from water, packaging, and household items.  By making informed choices, you can significantly reduce your toxic load and promote better health outcomes.

Simplifying your skincare and household routines can lead to a healthier lifestyle, and Caroline shows us how.  She advocates for a minimalist approach, sharing the story behind her versatile face-to-feet cream, perfect for clients with dry skin, especially menopausal women.  Her personal anecdotes about family dynamics add a relatable touch, reinforcing the idea that fewer, more effective products can lead to a less toxic life.  Join us to learn practical tips on detoxifying your skincare routine, scrutinizing labels, and embarking on a cosmetic bag detox for a safer, healthier you.  Don't miss this episode, which is packed with valuable insights and takeaways for achieving wellness through natural skincare.

You can find Caroline on Social Media at Ollogii Therapies.  Don't forget the special offer she created, especially for our Far 2 Fabulous listeners!  Just go to Caroline's website, choose which fabulous products you would like, and use the code f2f15 to get 15% off them at the checkout.  Make sure you come into the Far 2 Fabulous FB group and tell us what you've bought! 

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.


For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing.

Speaker 1:

Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Far Too Fabulous podcast. Now we have a very special guest with us this week and it's linked with the episode we did last week on chemicals. So we have Caroline Lyons with us today, who is both a friend and a very experienced therapist, and the reason why we thought we'd get her on is because she's got quite a lot to say about chemicals. So, caroline, I'm not going to introduce you anymore. Please tell us where you're from and, yeah, your story basically.

Speaker 3:

Well, hello everyone. So, yes, I'm Caroline and I now live on the sunny Isle of Wight Although it's not so sunny today, it's a little bit rainy today, but, um, I used to live right around the corner from these lovely, fabulous ladies in Whitstable, um, and yeah, I've been a holistic therapist for probably around 30 years and along that journey I decided to create my own skincare brand and basically this kind of came about because I was working a lot with cancer patients through a local charity and so I had all different people coming to see various different types of forms of cancer. No-transcript, like everybody knows this, but I realized that actually people don't. And you know, me and Julie were just speaking a moment ago and saying how you know what you put on your skin. You know it directly goes into your body, into into your whole system, flying around the whole body, and so it makes sense.

Speaker 3:

People, sometimes they are starting to realize about what they they need to eat. But we need to think about the other toxic chemicals around us and, as you ladies have said, you've had a great discussion last week about, you know, toxic chemicals elsewhere around the house and things that perhaps people are not so aware of, and then you know, there is, there is the skin. So I thought, well, I've actually always made my own product, you know, from a little girl I've, you know. It started with the perfume, the rose perfume that I'm sure most of us did did you do that?

Speaker 3:

please tell me I'm not there. So you know the rose petals in the water and you used to think that that was just like.

Speaker 2:

I think the rose petals is probably the best thing that I used to put into those mixtures yeah, so you know, and I always I used to make loads and loads of face masks.

Speaker 3:

Whenever I do like a nice soak in the bath and a kind of like ritualistic treatment in in the bath, I like to do a nice face mask and and scrub and all of that, and I've just always, you know, I was always using like a mashed up banana with honey and salt and sugar and all these sorts of things, and so it's just always fiddled around making me own stuff. And so when these cancer patients I mean I had a lot that were breast cancer and they were starting to sort of discover really about deodorants, and that you know there was some talk about this link with deodorants and breast cancer um, you know, and if you think about it logically, you know you're, you're putting these hundreds and it can literally be hundreds of toxic chemicals on your spray deodorant in your armpit or on your armpit and that's right where your lymphatic nodes are. You know it's, and then it's just going to go, it's leaking into that system and then being fed around the whole of the body. So I'd actually been making my own natural deodorant at that point, just playing around with different kind of recipes really at that time and I thought, well, why don't I just get this out there into the the real world, not realizing it's not quite as simple as that? Um, so I then went on to actually train to be a proper skincare formulator.

Speaker 3:

I used lots and lots of my uh patients were sort of trialing my deodorant and we sort of did lots of blind tests of various different options and you know the feedback had had been fantastic. So one of my first products that I launched was this natural deodorant, and at the time it was called love your pit and we I wanted to try and get the message out there for people to check their breasts. At the same time, it made sense to me that the deodorant that I was making it was like it's like a paste, so you'd apply it with your hands and you'd be rubbing that into the armpit. So why not just move the hand a little bit more and know what you're checking for and and do all your usual regular breast check? So I sort of would give some free information out through Breast Cancer UK charity of literature on how to check your breast properly. And so, yeah, it kind of escalated a little bit from from there.

Speaker 1:

Really, I think it's important to note here that these the deodorant that you made was way before all of these brands now that are.

Speaker 1:

You know that was very original to do some like a paste at the time, because you know we were all used to roll-ons or sprays and really when you went to look at natural products in your local health food shop because I'd always as well that, like you know, use natural products would be the crystal stick, that's right, the roll-ons and things, and they wouldn't necessarily work brilliantly, but this paste or putty or whatever you want to call it was really original at the time and you won awards for this.

Speaker 3:

I did. I really should have gone on dragon's den back then, shouldn't I? I would have been at the forefront, really, wouldn't I? And many people did tell me that at the time. Hey ho, you live and learn. Yeah, it was before many of the other brands. I mean, this is a good thing. You know, people are now recognising this and it is much more accessible to be able to buy natural skin cares now, so that that is, that can only be a good thing, right, because that's actually, at the end of the day, what what I want people to be able to, to do and just not be piling all these chemicals onto their body and into their body, through, through their skin so after you did the deodorant, you ended up creating quite a massive range and I know that you're very particular about how your products were tested and certified and I know that you get quite cross when you see other products that aren't necessarily meeting those high standards.

Speaker 2:

And you're quite right to be cross, because and now you see why caroline's a friend of ours. Yeah, exactly I do.

Speaker 3:

You know like I look back on those. I mean, I don't know the exact year I started doing this I tend to not write note these things down particularly but it's quite a few years I've been doing this now and when I first started going to various markets, there's always somebody at a market who's mixed up some body scrub or something or other. They may have even made soap, all different things and I can spot it a mile off that it's not properly cosmetic tested, because your telltale sign, first of all, is that they haven't listed the ingredients, or they may have listed the ingredients and it says it all in English. It should be in what we call the inky names, which is all your Latin words for everything. So if you see something and it says the ingredients as I don't know, let's say sunflower oil, lavender oil and geranium draining it, I could pretty much put money on the fact that that's not been tested, because that's not how we are legally supposed to put the labels on such things. And also, then there'll be the price. These, some of these people will sell it for a pound or something ridiculous, and let me tell you you can't price it at those kind of prices when you've gone through all the correct testing and everything, because it costs a lot of money to get every product tested. It has to be sent off tested by a proper cosmetologist and they give you all the breakdowns of all the chemicals, everything the chemicals being the naturally occurring chemicals in products. But some of those some people can find to be an irritant. You know these are.

Speaker 3:

I sent all my products with aromatherapy oils and people think, oh, just because it's aromatherapy it'd be fine, which it is to a degree.

Speaker 3:

But and let's not go into a whole conversation about aromatherapy oils, because actually that's another thing I can get cross about, right but you know there are naturally occurring allergens in those ingredients and this is quite commonly. People be allergic to linalool, linalool and those type things. We have to legally list those on on our product. You know, again, if you've got somebody who's just mixed that up and there's nothing against mixing it up in the kitchen, let me tell you and they're not labeling it properly. You know somebody who I've met, people who are highly allergic to, like linalool, and they specifically look out for that ingredient because, as I say, even on a natural product they may be able to tolerate it naturally, but at least they know if it's in that product and I've seen people not listing that and then I know, you know, they're going to have a flare-up on their skin or whatever because they are allergic to that just because these things are natural doesn't necessarily mean that they are not going to have effects.

Speaker 2:

I know with rosemary that people can't have if they're hypertensive. That's right. Yeah, and most often people will know these things. So if they can't look out for them because somebody's whipped it up in their kitchen and just written lavender soap on the side, yeah, absolutely so, you know so it is.

Speaker 3:

It's very important to get the laboring correct for those those purposes. But also, you know, I get natural. I mean, we think you could just put an image on packaging Right and it's got like a leaf and lots of green stuff and you think, oh, that's a new product and it looks so wonderful and eco and all this, that and the other. But actually when you look at the ingredient oh my word, you've got your you realize that labeling can be so misleading, so so misleading. It's all about the marketing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it is all about the marketing, and we've said that a lot with food and things, but with products that you put on your skin as well, you can get away with terms like pure and simple and it doesn't mean anything. We think it means something, but it doesn't mean it's really interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

because it's like that subliminal messaging, isn't it? There's a rather large brand of makeup, the cosmetic things I won't name a brand, but I think you can smell it. What are we talking about? Well? Well, if you walk past a lush shop, right, I think many people think that that's very, very natural and that is their marketing, because they're handmade doesn't mean they're natural.

Speaker 1:

No, this was the same with the body shop as well, wasn't it?

Speaker 3:

Or something can be vegan and people will think, oh, because it's vegan, it's good for me, it's OK and it's saying it's vegan. It's not saying all the rest of it.

Speaker 1:

This is so funny. I have such an issue with this vegan labeling because in food sugar is vegan. Issue with this vegan labeling, because in food, yeah, sugar is vegan, yeah, and so people think, oh, I can eat a vegan cake, because then that's healthy because it says vegan.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, sugar is vegan it's so misleading and this is something I really want to be able to try and teach the world and teach our younger children through lockdown. Those years ago I set up a little kind of skincare club where I was educate. You know like young kids were wanting. You know they like buy a lip balm. And if you look at a lip balm a simple lip what you think is a simple lip balm? It can contain something like 20 different ingredients. Well, a lip balm can be made with something like three not completely natural ingredients, you don't know most of it we eat.

Speaker 3:

Right, most of it we eat. This is what I like, I I still go back to as a, as I was a child thinking, well, I'm not going to put it on my skin unless I can eat it, and I have always had that kind of ethos I love that.

Speaker 1:

That's great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, don't put it on your skin unless you would eat it yeah, and even I mean I'm not recommending you eat my deodorant, but you actually could. You could Because most of the ingredients in I mean I'm not sure I'd want to eat the essential oils on that, but but the actual other ingredients, you know, they are all from your kitchen cupboard, essentially.

Speaker 1:

Let's go back to the breast cancer side of it for a minute. You know the links between chemicals and the impact on things like oestrogen, so we know that there's chemicals that are used in everyday products that drive an oestrogen dominant world. So I know some of them, like parabens and things.

Speaker 3:

But what should we be looking out for, caroline on on labels oh, dear, there's a lot right, but there is a lot, yes, um, maybe can I send a link even of of some of a list of of things that would be useful blurb and things we can put, some of the show notes caroline, get, get the word, it's right, I'm sorry show notes. Sorry, I forget. We're really professional here, aren't we? So, yeah, so the show notes. I can put you a list of things to look out for. That would be great.

Speaker 2:

I bet even if you could remember them, you still wouldn't be able to pronounce half of them. That is the other thing that is the other thing.

Speaker 3:

That is the other thing. You know, one of the big things to look out for is the very simple term parfum and fragrance. These are simple, simple things that you can look for. Those words can actually be translated into something like 500 different undisclosed toxic chemicals that we have no idea what they are and how you're going to react to. So that's the first thing I would say to people if they.

Speaker 3:

You know, I didn't create my range for people with allergies or sensitive skin. I didn't even because I've not ever had experienced it. I didn't really feel like I was knowledgeable enough to create something like that. But actually the feedback from my products has always been oh my God, it's cleared up this redness I've had or all these different skin complaints that people have had, and I put it down to the fact that when I say my products are natural, they are completely natural. It's not just a tiny smidgen of it and I don't have those key ingredients, parfum or fragrance it's all scented with pure oils. So many, many of those perfumes and fragrances will be these, these ingredients that you're talking about, julie, that are pretending to be oestrogens, and they're very similar. You know work in in those ways. So that would be the key things to look out for I think people don't.

Speaker 1:

Again, they don't necessarily relate to putting something on their skin could impact something like their hormone balance with oestrogen do you know what?

Speaker 3:

this is probably going to go a little bit off tangent, but I know you girls don't mind going off tangent. Even my son the other week said to me oh my gosh, there's, there's hormones in the water, and he discovered this off tiktok or something or other. You know it's like well, yeah, that's why we have filtered water. You know there's hormones just everywhere the packaging, what apples are in, it's everywhere, it is everywhere. So I just I know we can't live in this perfect world where there's, you know, chemicals make up the world. Right, we have to get the terminology right as well. It's not chemicals per se, it's toxic chemicals. Yeah, and if we can change some of these things around us and or some of these things we put in us or on us, then we can cut down our risks of these things. So you know somebody who potentially supposing they're quite at high risk of breast cancer, for example you might want to specifically look more at a natural deodorant, but you might not be so bothered about the natural things going on on your face. I'm not saying you shouldn't be. I think doing both will be great, but if you're making a choice because you particularly like your particular brand that you're putting on your, on your face, but you're you know then that will. It will be better than nothing changing one thing.

Speaker 3:

But there's been lots of information about, like, if you think about how many different products we put on our skin on a daily basis, you're a person who has your shower every morning. Are you a person who washes their hair every day? Now I'm lucky, I've got curly hair. I don't wash it every day, but many, many people do, right, right. And so you're having a shower, so you're going to have your shower gel probably. Then you're going to have your shampoo, your conditioner. Are you going to put a hair mask on.

Speaker 3:

Then you come out of the shower and you're going to brush your teeth. You're then going to put your deodorant on. You're going to put some body lotion on. Then you're going to have your hair products. You're going to put some I don't know some serum thing to make it go the way you want. Styling thing. You're going to style it. Then you're going to spray it. Then you're going to put some other thing to zhuzh it up. You know like, and then you haven't even put any makeup on yet. So then you're going to cleanse, you're going to tone. You're going to put on another half a dozen things that the beautician has told you you need to put on your skin before you put your makeup on, which could be several other layers. You start adding these things up. How many toxic chemicals is that?

Speaker 1:

I think the average is 200, isn't it for a woman? It's 200 chemicals in a day yeah, easily.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I mean. So you know some people will say it's 500 or more, like going back to if you've got. If you think about if every single one of those products you buy has got this parfum or this fragrance in it and each one of those ingredients is containing up to well, even let's let's go on the safe side say that's up to 150 or 100 undisclosed ingredients.

Speaker 1:

It's just so enormous yeah, that's before we washed up, we put our hands in the you know the fairy liquid and before we've decided, oh, I need to put a bit of bleach down that toilet, or yeah, all of those things, it all adds up and it's the toxic load that's never, ever been studied. Individual toxins have been studied, can't you do one you like a little research? That's gonna be you did.

Speaker 2:

you hear on one of the podcasts she's got a PhD in the pipeline. Perhaps that will be her study Exactly.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I feel like a PhD is calling me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I've let that drift out into the atmosphere at the moment, into the universe, and we see what comes at me.

Speaker 3:

I can't wait for that, I definitely want to see Dr Julie.

Speaker 2:

Could you imagine it would actually terrify you, wouldn't it?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I wouldn't be able to get funding for it, because let's not go there yeah, you would not be popular.

Speaker 2:

No, no, you imagine it's kind of beachy and would be gunning for Julie.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll tell you, what one always bothered me was Johnson's.

Speaker 3:

Oh, my word.

Speaker 1:

Johnson's baby stuff was absolutely full of chemicals and it just breaks my heart to think that people would use that product and not realise.

Speaker 3:

I mean, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

And they've only just come out. Fine, I mean, I feel like we have known that um tap was carcinogenic for like for my entire life, but literally it's what been in the last month, hasn't it that they've finally come out and officially said it?

Speaker 3:

it's just crazy to me. It is crazy to me because, like you said, when you're in this world of you know, and like I say, I've been a therapist for sort of 30-odd years, I just assumed everybody knew this Like why would you know when I have? My children are growing up now Gosh, one's nearly 20 now. Anyway, I've never put talc on them and you do still see people putting talc on. But yeah, it's bizarre.

Speaker 2:

It used to be in the hospitals it used to be on the wards all the time and I think what what was interesting was when you were talking about the cancer patients that would come for treatments with you and so many of their treatments are going to be. I mean the toxic load of your chemotherapies, drug regimes that they're going to have to have, that they're going to have to have, and so to be able to control what you can control, like what you put on your skin, like what you clean with it gives you a bit of empowerment.

Speaker 3:

Also, one of the things with my brand is is about keeping things simple. Do we really need I've been to to again another large brand for facials before and you know in the past and you walk out of there and they give you a list of like 12 products you need to put on your face. Really, I just don't believe that. So thinking about those small things that you can actually change can make a big difference. So you know, one of my products is is award-winning, I will just say is my face to feet cream. I'll just tell you a little bit about how that came about if you don't mind, ladies, that's why you're here.

Speaker 3:

That's what we want to hear about. Well, I personally, because I one of my main therapies I practice is is various forms of massage. So over the years I I've always just put various different oils on my skin. So I'm I'm a real oil lover. I love oils and I've realized that actually lots of other people are not so much into oils.

Speaker 3:

I used to get loads of people ask me me oh, have you got a cream? I want a face cream. And I thought, oh, that's a bit scary making a face cream. I started playing around with face cream and I was getting really great feedback from my testers because I'd have a large pool of people that was testing new products on and I kept putting it on my face because everyone kept saying how great it was. I kept putting it on my face and I'm like, oh, I'm just not a cream person, I just don't like the feel of cream on my face. So then I would sort of have the residue on my hands and I'd rub it into my hands and I'd be like, well, it's nice as a hand cream. And then, being a reflexologist, I thought, well, if it's nice on the hands, it'll be nice on the feet right.

Speaker 3:

And so this is how face to feet cream was born and I started to, especially for my menopausal women who have drier skin, really needed a lot more hydration, and so I've got some really luxury butters and oils in that product which will really nourish the skin, and vitamin e in there to help replenish, and antioxidants and all this lovely stuff. And so a face to feet cream. You don't need all those different products. So thinking a little outside the box can be useful in terms of well, do I need? I mean, even with your hair, for example, if you are washing it every day, could you get away with washing it every other day? Could you get away with conditioning it once a week rather than every week or every day? Try and think about some things that you could cut down on. If we can try and cut down the number of products, yeah, do you need a different cream on your hand to your body? It doesn't have to be my product, obviously.

Speaker 1:

That would be great and your product is very good. That face to feet cream is brilliant.

Speaker 3:

My daughter loves that product she's still in mine now I hear this a lot about children stealing products from their mums yeah, I think it's good because raise the children with minimal exposure to toxins.

Speaker 1:

Where I've got the control yeah they are really well aware of it, and so the fact that she comes and steals those creams is perfectly fine. I don't have an issue with that at all yeah that's great, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

they'll steal everything those daughters. Honestly, I spent. I spent half my time. I know that my timing is terrible anyway, but it doesn't help when I have to walk around three bedrooms to try and find the thing that used to be in my bedroom that has now disappeared off with the girls, and the girls would really advocate, uh, not washing your hair every day. Now.

Speaker 2:

Obviously, I have to have a shower fairly frequently because I'm exercising most days yeah, but I have, and since I've had it cut, actually I I sling it up in a very stylish shower cap and um, and I I don't wash it and I just, and I just sort of wash my body off.

Speaker 3:

And yeah, the girls are always going on about not washing my hair every day yeah, I mean there's there's quite a lot of studies I think isn't there on on that. But you know, actually it should be kind of self-cleaning and you should not need to know what it's doing at the end of the day, doesn't? It does, it does know what it's doing, so we don't necessarily need to be washing.

Speaker 1:

We don't need to be so clean for everything, really, because we know that that impacts the microbiome. We know that there's an issue with all these antibacterial over cleaning, bleaching, etc. So, yeah, I think, reducing the number of products and it's the same with cleaning if you go with natural cleaning products yeah it's the same ingredient. You don't need a bathroom cleaner and a kitchen thing you know, don't get me started don't get me started on this one.

Speaker 3:

I've just recently moved in with my in-laws. Oh my gosh. So I mean the first shopping list. Sorry, this is really on the tangent, but you know the first shopping list there was fly spray on the list. I mean, I was like we're not in the 19th century, people still use such things. All these other like say, you've got to have a wood floor cleaner apparently, and a laminate floor like a different cleaner for each flooring, and a bathroom cleaner a kitchen, and I'm like no, it's marketing again, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

You can have that stuff in your space.

Speaker 3:

When you say fly spray, caroline, yeah, do you mean literally, like, literally, like a spray, the at the flies I don't really know what you do with um, yeah, yeah, I mean my husband's asthmatic and I'm like that cannot go anywhere near me, or my fat. Like you could spray that in your own room and you could spray in your own space, but not in my space.

Speaker 1:

I don't want those chemicals here.

Speaker 3:

Thank, you no. But you know, as I say, you can again, you can cut down on those. You know why do you need a different bathroom, one to the kitchen? A friend of mine was like, oh, I get caught up with all the different. They've brought out a new scent and I've got to have it.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, oh my god, no, a whole load of other. There's got to be better things to collect, yeah, yeah so my motto really is keep it simple.

Speaker 3:

Keep it simple and cut down. Some see what you can cut down or cut out. Do you really need, you know, my facial oil, for example?

Speaker 2:

you can love your facial oil.

Speaker 3:

Oh, thank you. So facial oil you can. What's good for the hair, it's good for the skin, it's good for the nails, so we can use it as as a nail cuticle, you know, into your cuticles. When we went through that period of our lives where we had to wash our hands 10 million times great on the hands. So it's not just a facial. If you've got a beard, you can put it on your beard. Beard oil, hair oil, all sorts of things same thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you know what the washing of the hands during the pandemic is actually a good one to? I think people will understand because they experienced yeah, the impact on the skin, and especially the kids at school. I had so many people messaging me with primary school kids that have come out in eczema yeah, and they were doing those antibacterial. Um yeah, gels strips the skin, right, yeah, strips the skin. They got alcohol in them as well, haven't they?

Speaker 3:

so yeah, really high levels, so and so the alcohol is really drying on the skin. So, going back to my little list of ingredients to avoid that is one of the ones as well, especially if you have very sensitive skin, look at the amount of products you've got that potentially have alcohol in them, because think back to those times it's drying on the skin. So cut out everything with alcohol in and cut out alcohol right.

Speaker 2:

Well, all things in moderation.

Speaker 1:

We might have been a bit quiet, then we did.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking about all all of the skin products I can give up just so I can have gin, that's true, that's a good balance.

Speaker 3:

Right, that is a good balance. Right, that is a good balance.

Speaker 1:

Well, the thing is, something to remember is that all toxic chemicals have to be processed through the liver, as does alcohol, as does pesticides. You know so when you're, when you're thinking about certain times in your life where hormones are really starting to change, hormones are really starting to change, whether that's going through puberty or pregnancy, or menopause your hormones are recirculated and processed through your liver. Yeah, so if you've got a high demand on your liver at that point and you've got toxic chemicals coming in and alcohol and too much sugar, then the poor liver is going to struggle and then you're going to start to see skin issues coming out, because the skin is your largest detoxification organ, especially women of a certain age, that are not dealing with all this as well anymore.

Speaker 2:

I certainly know that if I, if I choose to drink alcohol, then uh, have you heard mel robbins say if you choose to drink alcohol, you choose not to sleep?

Speaker 2:

um and I think you certainly, if I've I've had too much, then that certainly is is the way that it happens. But if you think you're not dealing with the alcohol as well, you're then not dealing with anything else that you're putting through your system as well. You're not able to clear, clear it through. And so if you're continuing to pile the same amount of stuff on as you have done throughout your whole life and now suddenly you're not able to deal with it, yes, as well it is, it's all going to come out on your skin, it's all going to come out through your health absolutely, and I and I think you know this has a big impact actually on menopausal women.

Speaker 3:

this whole concept of this estrogenic world that we live in and all these hormones in everything Like I say, you know, my apples were in some plastic there, you know like everything around us, and if we can just make some changes to those, I believe that we can hopefully sell through periods like the menopause a lot better than perhaps if you are exposing yourself to many, many different overloads like, say, for drinking and eating rubbish, the fly spray, the kitchen, the kitchen spray, the bathroom spray, all of those things. Let's just try and go back to nature, go back to nature.

Speaker 1:

I think the best advice we said this on our recording last week is, just as things run out, just think do I need to replace this? If I do, can I replace it with something natural?

Speaker 2:

yeah, definitely I mean, it's not that's where it even started on the amount of plastic. But all of these products are in as well. Yeah, not like caroline's that are all in lovely glass jars.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they are or tins.

Speaker 2:

Do you still make the whitster balm?

Speaker 3:

well, it's not called whitster balm anymore because obviously I don't live in whitster anymore and I re sort of branded everything. So I do still make that product.

Speaker 2:

It's just my multi-purpose balm, you're going to need the Isle of Wight balm now.

Speaker 1:

You need a new name. It is multi-purpose, though, that works on all sorts of things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that was great for lots of people with eczema, psoriasis, dry skin patches. It's an unscented balm, again, you know. Going back to natural. Why do we want? Why would we want to put something scented on some skin that's really quite damaged and sensitive? So it's like a maceration of lots of different herbs that are known for their benefits to relieve itchiness on the skin.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, yeah, I found it was good for bites, it was good for burns, it was all sorts of things.

Speaker 3:

It was just cream that you need in like a mum cream. You know. Emergency, yes, great for like nappy rash, and all of that when you've got young babies well, I think we need to tell people where they can find you and your product.

Speaker 3:

Well, they can find me at ologycom, which is spelt very unusually and just really unusual it's o-double-l-o-g-double-i and I'm gonna do a special offer as well. Can I tell people about that? Tell us about your special, about this code, right? Because, um, obviously far too fabulous. F2f and I have this cream called face to feet cream, which I also call like my f2f cream. So your code to get 15% off any of my products is f2f 15 and the full code and the full details will be in the show note yeah, now she's got it.

Speaker 2:

I love it was obviously meant to be then, wasn't it the f2f?

Speaker 1:

exactly, exactly is there any final words of wisdom that you want to put across to our lovely listeners?

Speaker 3:

final words are really think about what you don't need in your life that you're putting on your skin. Just if you can give up one product, let's do a little detox, a little cosmetic bag detox. There you go, cut something out.

Speaker 1:

Have a look at the labels. I want people to start looking at the labels and going, oh my goodness me, yeah, I'm always wearing every of the parabens, the sodium lauryl sulfate, yeah, the perfumes and anything that isn't fully listed, all the e numbers, preservatives, I mean we used.

Speaker 3:

We used to kind of say if you can't pronounce it, then don't don't use it. But we can't really say that anymore because we have to use these inky words. A lot of them I still can't say and they are natural, so, so, sadly that's. That's not so true. But I will, I will give you a list for your, for your show notes, and I will have some homework off how to pronounce them so that we can, um, do another one in the future.

Speaker 3:

Let's just just do that label labels everything, food labels because actually there's such a similarity in food labels and cosmetic labels, and how. How that's done. So let's, let's make that happen in the future and I just have one small request.

Speaker 1:

Is there any? Chance that you can make a sun cream, the sun cream, because again I'm thinking to myself I want to protect my skin from the the rays from the sun that are cancer forming, but the sun creams have ingredients in them that are cancer forming. So the natural product that I like, less discontinued.

Speaker 3:

I do get. A lot of people ask me you know, has it got an spf in it? Has it got? Yeah, and it's something I have to sadly say that I, I won't ever be making a sun cream. I'm afraid, julie, because the the natural product we're talking about zinc, really zinc oxide is what would need to be in the product and this is like a really thick kind of. It's not an easy product to work with and this is why, when you get those natural sun creams, you look like a snowman, because it's like, just like somebody's emulsion painted you and the problem we have is to actually mix that into your product in a safe fashion to make sure that it's spread into your product evenly.

Speaker 3:

Is is like you're talking mega, mega bucks of equipment like proper serious stuff. That is just way beyond my capabilities of purchasing really. Um, and that is something actually I would highlight to to your listeners. Actually, if they are, because there are some people who do make sun creams, naturally I've seen them at markets. So, whether they're tested or not, it's a whole other kettle of fish. Right, be mindful. I'll just ask a bit more questions really about how they actually have had it tested in terms of the spf. It's. It's a very, very complex topic actually. So, sadly, not something I'm going to be making.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry so it wasn't a small request and it's never going to happen.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I've been very clear, yeah yeah, sorry, julie but it's a really difficult decision. I get I hear you because, like you say, you know what which type of cancer do you want? You know, the one from the sun or the one from your product? The?

Speaker 1:

one from the chemicals, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I'm sort of a bit of a believer of like a little bit of sun is good. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because we've got to get our vitamin D right. It's a fine balance and it's especially difficult with you know, if you've got children and you want to protect them from sunburn. Difficult with you know, if you've got children and you want to protect them from some burn.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I'm sorry my time. I shall stick with the green people they've got the.

Speaker 3:

They've got the fancy equipment amazing.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for joining us. Uh, caroline is definitely in our far too fabulous facebook group so, although she's not very good on social media, so just give her a little while she is terrible on that, I do apologize.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to try and get back onto that no, I was going to say.

Speaker 2:

However, don't apologize for it, because a lot of it is on purpose for you, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

it is. Yes, I mean I hope we're not going to go on too too long in your timing. But yeah, I mean I I've really come to realize in in part of my move that really I'm kind of recovering from burnout myself and so part of looking after myself really has been purposefully keeping myself away from some of those distractions of social media. You know you go on it and it turns into a whole rabbit warren and you know running a business is not easy and you ladies know that too it's. You know there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that people have no idea what we do just to try and be seen in such a crowded busy market. We do just to try and be seen in such a crowded busy market. So part of looking after myself has been really about what things I can cut back and social media. For me it's just quite a relief to not not put it, keep it in my life so much yeah, absolutely yeah, it's, and it's interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

it's another that your top tip was to to look and see what you can take out of your life. And again, if you can do that with social media in big or small way, then it's yeah, just a toxic detox.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, could mean things like social media, as well as what's in your makeup bag.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, do it all, detox it all Interesting.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but so if, if she doesn't answer, we'll keep an eye on it. Yeah, yeah, what's up?

Speaker 1:

but yeah, just just message me speak to me properly.

Speaker 2:

It's a great yeah, absolutely find her. We'll put all the links as well in the show notes so you can find her on social media. You can send her messages, but we can talk to her in the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group. If you've got any questions or you just want to carry on this conversation, you can do so in there, and we would love to hear from you.

Speaker 3:

Lovely.

Speaker 2:

So, thank you so much, caroline, thank you.

Speaker 3:

Thank you from you, lovely. So thank you so much, caroline, thank you, thank you. It's been a real pleasure and I'm sorry I kind of can't pronounce the names and look up those toxic toxins right doesn't matter if you can't pronounce it.

Speaker 1:

You shouldn't be putting it on yourself.

Speaker 2:

End of story thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first year, so share with your friends and family. You might just change a life.

Speaker 1:

Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.