Evan Healy Full Episode from Riverside
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[00:00:00] I wanted people to understand the most important thing about your skin is that it's constantly changing. And this is a good thing because I used to it as this white knuckle grass we have on youth is not serving us. It's unrealistic. Change is natural. I wanted to lift the dialogue. Around this anti aging and how unrealistic it is and how it's creating such stress for us to try to be younger 

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Mellisa: Hello, friends. And [00:01:00] welcome to this episode of this is aging. I have a quick announcement to make. I just want to let you know that the name of the podcast is actually going to be changing over the next few weeks from this as aging to threshold wisdom. Which just provides a little bit broader of a context for me to talk about all of the stages and changes that we go through in modern life and how to cultivate wisdom for navigating those thresholds. We'll still be talking with experts and elders and leaders. Two. Really hear the stories and the experience of how to walk through those thresholds.

Mellisa: And this episode is a perfect example of that. So when Dana and I first dreamed up this show, Evan Healy was one of the first people that we said we have to have her on the show. That would be so amazing to have a conversation with Evan. 

Mellisa: So Evan is the founder of the Evan Healy skincare brand, which is known worldwide. You can buy it at whole foods. You've probably seen it at [00:02:00] some point in time. Her mission is to change the way that people think about and treat their skin. She is a holistic aesthetician, a beauty expert, and a recognized pioneer. In the natural personal care industry. 

Mellisa: And in this conversation, Evan shares so much more than just how to take care of your skin or how to think about skincare, but really shares from her own personal experience. Uh, way of being with yourself and learning to really tend to your whole being.

Mellisa: This episode is definitely very educational. You're definitely going to learn some things about how to take care of and nourish your skin. But it's really a manifesto and a philosophy around loving yourself as you age. 

Mellisa: And just being really present with the process. Thank you so much for listening. And when you're done, since you're already going to be in your podcast app, will you please just leave a review and share this episode with a friend?

Enjoy this conversation with me, Dana and Evan.

Dana: When [00:03:00] I reached out to you, of course I emailed your like, generic support team. And they said, Oh, Evan's not doing interviews right now. And then I messaged you and I was like, yeah, she said, yes. So I'm going to be sneaky. I'm I was sneaky, but , I was truly, I was like aghast when you, uh, when you responded and we're just so honored to be speaking with you because , I mean, I discovered your, products many years ago and started using and loving them myself.

Dana: And my girlfriend and I discovered them around the same time. And the. methodology of your skicare completely changed my skin and then just learning about you as a person and the ethos behind the brand has been so Wonderful. And it's gotten us just beyond excited to share your story with our listeners and yeah, 

Evan: thank you. And, it's wonderful to meet you and Melissa. And when I got your, request for a podcast, I thought, wonderful, , I would love to, [00:04:00] um, I am. , in a sort of transition with my work, this is like, um, let's see, about my third career, , and , starting Evan Healy, I started myself initially, and then, , my, Then husband, almost husband, and husband, and now ex husband, um, a former husband, , jumped in and helped me get it organized, , and, , really begin to, Bring up what I had always dreamed of doing, uh, getting into skin care was such a natural evolution for me.

Evan: There's a, trajectory in our lives that no longer are we still following the same path that perhaps our families or grandmother or mothers or, or. Fathers and grandfathers did where you stay committed to a job for 30, 40, 50 years.

Evan: Um, my father didn't do it. He was in the fashion industry and my mom was, uh, took care of us as [00:05:00] children, , at home., and I think that's part of, that's part of what's shifting today is that we have the luxury of being able To grow and to expand and to also say this shoe doesn't fit anymore when I was changing careers, , all of the careers, when I look back on my life, it's like a tapestry, you know, when you're weaving together all these different threads, and I, know it happens to everybody.

Evan: We all have the same thing. There are threads, and Of similarities between who we are inside, who we are in the world, and how we want to express ourselves. And for me, today, right now, doing skin care, even, as the ship is. Maybe, uh, sailing into port or out of port, and I haven't quite made that decision yet.

Evan: But there are changes happening. I can feel the quickening. Now, I've never had a child, but I always [00:06:00] hear, I hear tell of the quickening, and that's where I'm at right now is something's changing. And I am letting go of , who I was and who I had to become. To do what I've done, and I'm not leaving my business, because it's become such a part of me.

Evan: And so, , I know that you have probably both had the same experience in just being like Cinderella, that she doesn't fit. 

Dana: Yeah, I like how, I don't know if you've ever read the book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Big Magic. 

Evan: I haven't read that. I've read a couple of her other ones. Yeah. 

Dana: Well, I highly recommend the book , to you or to any listeners because , the way that she describes creativity is kind of mystical and like it moves kind of like the wind and you can't really capture it.

Dana: It comes and it goes and that's exactly how it felt for me toward the end. of my tenure with our, , food business, Minimals Baker. I just felt like [00:07:00] that creative spirit had left me, and I tried to keep searching around in the dark for her, like, where'd she go? It would be so convenient if she came back, but then I could just tell that my interests were moving elsewhere, and I just had to trust that.

Dana: So it can be a little scary when you're on the precipice of a potential shift like that. 

Evan: Very scary. Um, I was just writing,, a revealing post on Instagram, which I usually don't do. I'm an introvert. So, , although I don't mind talking to people and interacting with people, But teaching, love to teach.

Evan: Once I'm done with all of that, I need to go home and rest for three days. Yes. But, but I was, I know, yeah, , I think there's a lot of us that do, especially women. And I just described it a few days ago. I've recently got into what, I'm calling a hobby right now.

Evan: Um, because I'm, because it's clay and because I'm learning how to do pottery and becoming a ceramicist or potter. A potter sounds a little more humane. [00:08:00] I don't know. I don't know the difference. But anyway, I love a potteress like the elderess I'm becoming both one i've already been and one i'm becoming but in this in my little story I reveal that uh, these past three years have been a little rocky for me been a bit of a rocky road And i've need the rescue of Finding another community to, to regroup and to find myself.

Evan: And I did it with finding a place in, in Encinitas, actually that's in Leucadia, that helped me. Uh, I just, it was a, potter's studio, and I just went in there one day. And really, it's one of those, you wake up in the morning and you go, I need to be a potter. And that's how I got into skin care. and I could tell that story later, but this, this one was, I'm going to become a potter.

Evan: And then I had a friend who said, come down to this woman's house and , I can show you what she does. And so she was the one that pushed me off [00:09:00] the cliff. And my story says is that the women at the bottom of the cliff were my community in this potter's, gallery. It's a gallery where you can go , and , throw clay or hand build. And so it was that precipice. And I'm not, drawn to jumping off precipices because I, , don't like to land. But these ladies, uh, symbolically caught me and that really changed, , what I'm doing now. It's very, very fulfilling.

Evan: And the way it ties into skincare is because of the clay connection. I'm working with clay in my hand, , on a wheel, hand building, but in skin care, clay was the active ingredient. There are three who I call heroes in skin care that are very, very simplified and very, very natural to, our life on earth.

Evan: And clay is probably one of the oldest healing modalities on earth. So in each area that we live in, Has a [00:10:00] personality of clay, very much like our microbiome,

Mellisa: that's amazing. we want to hear about the microbiome and the clay and the earth and all the things. So. 

Evan: So, , let's just weave it back and forth. Um,

Evan: When I first started my line, and this was already after being in private practice for 12 to 15 years, which as, as a psychologist. No, sorry, as an esthetician. Oh, esthetician. Gotcha. Yes. There's a lot of psychology and aesthetics and, um, and I think that actually in answering your question, it, it brings in the psychology, the nature of beauty, and that's what we're dealing with, right, is where does this need, where does this shortage, , where does this belief system of us not being enough, where does it come from?

Evan: and I didn't realize this getting into skin care. unlike many Estheticians or business owners that start a skin care line, you often, [00:11:00] very, very often will hear the story. Well, I started it because I had a skin care issue. So I dove into that. I didn't have a skin care issue, at that time. And. so I didn't, I wasn't fulfilling a need in that way, but I was fulfilling a need in the way where it was literally again, one of those wake up in the morning and this epiphany , and I had been working, in retail fashion, moved down from San Francisco, moved down to San Diego, helped my dad, , open up a natural food store in 1984, which in those days, it was a 20, 000 square foot natural food store. One of the first in our, area in San Diego. Um, very much like Whole Foods in the day, which at that time was Mrs. Gooch's, but um. Um. I came down because I had gone through a retail training program, and I'd been a buyer and an assistant buyer, and I knew how to buy, but I didn't know much about math, the same way I don't know much about technology. Hey, you're in good 

Dana: company here, because I couldn't [00:12:00] do a math problem to save my life.

Mellisa: I'll take care of the math, ladies. Yeah. 

Evan: You helped with the technology, so. Yeah. So I said, okay, I came down and I thought natural foods and dad said, I need help with, the getting together the skin and body care, skin and body care in those days, 1984 was folded into, supplements.

Evan: So supplements was a big area and maybe an eighth of it was skin and body care, shampoo, body lotions, cleansers, et cetera. I came down. From, I always say, came down, it sounds like I came down from the, , a roof or something, but I came from San Francisco to, yes, I got floated down from heaven, and I defined, developed, and integrated natural ingredients from reading the labels, and I, too, didn't know much about labels.

Evan: So I'd get a label and I'd go, What on earth is this? And so I'd have a dictionary, a [00:13:00] cosmetic dictionary in one hand, and a label in the other, because I thought, my dad gave me the, , instructions, make it good for the health. So, I analyzed. I began to analyze, and that's how I grew to, get into skin care, become interested in skin care, and to educate myself in skin care and the importance of ingredients.

Evan: I didn't have a clue before then. I was a clinic girl. Bar soap, and, then that, uh, dramatically different. Moisturizing lotion, and then the toner, which is like acetone, like taking stains off a driveway, and I have really Irish sensitive skin, and there I was scrubbing my skin and my blaring red and irritated.

Evan: So, luckily, These things all fell into this path, and like Joseph Campbell says, when you're on a path, you sort of know it. You feel like, I need to just keep putting one foot in front [00:14:00] of the other. It's a very steady, path that we follow. Anyway, long story short, I Got the, department together, found a couple of skin care lines in particular, one in particular that was just, incredible.

Evan: Changed my life. our sales in the United States were, , probably one of the highest retailers in the United States at the time, and I was invited to Germany to do some studying. And I, at that time, I was not an esthetician, but that changed my life. Spent , six weeks, , in a homeopathic environment learning about, crops and bees and cycles, uh, circadian rhythms, um, just a fascinating trip.

Evan: And I came back completely transformed and said, And plus, I'd been helping people across the counter. So when you get, when you're going to a skincare counter, which we don't do so much anymore, right? We have the internet. But I was one on one with a lot of people who were coming [00:15:00] in and having skin issues and allergies and so forth.

Evan: And I I had a love affair with this one line, so I was recommending the line because one thing, one primary reason is when you start a skincare line, you want it to work. You want it to feel good, smell good, and have, an improvement. It's like you're in a relationship. with your skin and with the skin care line the same way as you are with the diets that you eat and I don't like what I used to call the boomerang sales, which meant that I would Sell somebody something and they turn around and walk through the door again and say it didn't work And so we we take it back and say okay, so this line rarely had any returns because it had plus I understood it well enough to say, here's what's happening.

Evan: All of the information we've been getting in the past. 50 years? 40 years? When did Halita Rubinstein or, Coco Chanel [00:16:00] start their skincare lines? All of the years of skincare, beauty care, perfumery start is all predicated on the fact that the skin is a static, never changing organ. And the fact of the matter is that your skin is constantly changing.

Evan: It's constantly adapting you to your environment. And you want To product line, and this was my idea initially, I thought. I got a lot of competition out there. What can I do that's different? I started a line that allowed the skin to breathe, which is why I had the skin breathe as part of the tagline for my skincare line.

Evan: It also allows, the skin create and maintain, homeostasis, so it helped , this always adapting to your environment. And as an esthetician, um, in those days we were using a lot of glyco, well, I say we but as an esthetician, but I didn't use it in my practice.

Evan: Glycolic acid was very popular. my primary, lecture for people was [00:17:00] your epidermal layer is there for a reason. So constantly dissolving it is not helping the buildup of the premature cells that are taking over the job of the mature cells, which are part of the very important part of the epidermal layer, which is the layer of skin you can feel and touch and see.

Evan: And that's the layer that we work with with skin care. Skin care doesn't often go down to, over the counter doesn't go down to the very bottom layer, but it does have an effect, a calming effect, a stimulating effect, a drawing effect, a hydrating effect, a moisturizing effect, all of these effects from skin care and from your own healthy skin reacting are things that you want to happen.

Evan: Uh, what gets in the way of healthy skin? Stress. Number one, genetics. Food and diet, digestion, the, efficiency of digestion, the, assimilation and [00:18:00] elimination of foods, all of these things you can see happening on the skin. And here was the most remarkable thing that I found out not too long ago, and not too long ago is probably about eight years ago, because I've been in area of skin care industry for about 35 years and , in my own skin care line for 20 years. But the organ of the skin is the only organ you can see in your body. And when you really think of it, and they're always saying the organ of your skin is your largest organ. Not only that, it's the only organ you can actually see and that's how I got a read on people's skin.

Evan: Yeah, I'm not a diagnostician. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. I am a theorist, and so I would have an idea, or a theory, or a feeling, or I would have experience with, , both the touch, the way I would feel your skin, and be able to, look at it with a magnifying lamp, and be able to see what's going on.

Evan: Just topically, , nothing deep, , I'm not doing [00:19:00] a deep dive into the basal cell layer of your skin, which is where the, deepest layer of your skin is, but the microbiome, I mean, I'll, I'll pop up to the microbiome and mention that right now because it's such a current and such an important part of our skin care and it does interact with all of the organs, our skin interacts with all of the organs of digestion.

Evan: So, it is a constantly changing organ because of what we eat. The microbiome which usually refers to the gut. They're finding out just recently that there's just as big a diversity in microbiome on the skin. In fact, some of the skin has a, more diverse microbiome than the gut.

Evan: Not that that is saying the gut is more important than the skin. It's not. It's just saying we have such, we have beneficial bacteria and we have bacteria that's not beneficial. [00:20:00] So the health of the skin is backed up by the beneficial Bacteria, and that's what you want to keep healthy on your skin.

Evan: And, um, I'm going to pause there and let you maybe jump in or ask some questions. 

Dana: Yes, first of all, I loved hearing a bit about your history and how you came to skin care, and I love that it had a Family tie with your father in the natural food store. I can just, see you behind the counter in there dishing out skincare products.

Mellisa: I know. I'm picturing you at one of the health food stores that I know in San Diego. It's like I can't get it out of my mind now. 

Dana: And honestly, that's like, maybe when I die that's where I want part of my ashes to be spread as a natural food store because I just feel so at home there. I'm like, something about it just makes me feel at peace.

Mellisa: I got you, Dana. 

Evan: I'll take your ashes. Um, 

Dana: so I guess one of my questions, Evan, is, um, you were kind of mentioning how your philosophy on skincare was, , differing from [00:21:00] the mainstream, I guess thought or lines that were available at the time, and Um, one of the things I wanted to talk about was that products have taken a decidedly anti aging turn, especially in the last decade, but I'm sure it's been going on for quite some time.

Dana: And I love that one of the mission statements that you shared with us prior to the, interview is that your company believes aging is natural and something that we shouldn't be afraid of, , and something that should not be fought because it is, beautiful. And I'm just wondering if you could speak a bit, about how you developed that philosophy and how it's influenced Evan Healy Skin Care. 

Evan: I mean, that's a, great question. And for me, answering it is, it's so all encompassing. It, was the foundation of my skin care line. And it wasn't because I went into skin care saying, I want to change, I want to reframe the anti [00:22:00] aging slogan. I didn't go in with that in particular.

Evan: But in 1988, when I graduated from, my aesthetic training and passed my state board, I wanted my practice to be, natural, clean, um, the no boomerang sales. In other words, I wanted people to understand the most important thing about your skin is that it's constantly changing. And this is a good thing because I used to it as this white knuckle grass we have on youth is not serving us. It's unrealistic. It is driving us to, situations and, philosophies that aren't realistic. And then I was watching, I had a good role model in my own mother. Um, my father sadly passed away, when he was 69.

Evan: My mother lived to be 97 and as I, I think I sent you a picture, Dana, of my mom. Yeah, she's so [00:23:00] beautiful. It's 97 years old and I thought she looked great and I mean, there was this tandem as I proceeded along the path of living my life and seeing my own skin age. I thought, This is okay.

Evan: And, this is actually cool. One of the other things that I say about my skincare line is I got into the business because I wanted people to, understand that change is natural. That I wanted to lift the dialogue. Around this anti aging and how unrealistic it is and how it's creating such stress for us to try to be younger and the publicity, a lot of publicity, magazines, movies, of course, the movie industry.

Evan: I was in San Diego. I wasn't in L. A., but I have a lot of friends in L. A. who, Had these, jobs where they were in movies or commercials, and there's a lot of stress around that. And the [00:24:00] most unrealistic stress is that they're going to try and maintain this ageless, composed skin. The composure, of course, is from a botulism toxin.

Evan: I don't know about you, but once you pass a certain age, and you really begin to see the markings of the age on your skin, you step into another world, and you step into the world of Being pragmatic and being philosophical and understanding. What am I most afraid of? Why am I afraid of aging?

Evan: What is it about aging that challenges my belief in my life? Well, you can answer that a number of ways, whether you've been fulfilled in your life, whether you're happy. With children or no children, marriage or no marriage, uh, a job or a business or a career or a hobby that you absolutely love, people and community, so important.

Evan: And I saw that really uplcose and [00:25:00] personal with my mother as she lived alone for a while in her aging years without community. And she did, we did encourage her and finally brought her into a community which really lifted her. Her, spirits, but you look at that and you say, pull it down into, again, this philosophy.

Evan: Where is the bottom line in this philosophy? If I'm truthful, I think. talk for myself. I was afraid of death. What does aging mean? It means we're getting closer to the aspect of death, the specter of death, the end of our life. And I think Whether you have a belief system or a spiritual path or a religious path, regardless of , what answers your question, I would say stick with that. Anything that answers your questions and makes you feel whole and good and kind and loving. These things I have just learned. In the [00:26:00] past three years of my own life, and my mother passing , was a big lesson for me because I was her primary caregiver and luckily we had two, full-time, lovely women that helped her and helped me, which created her community.

Evan: But I saw the aging. I mean, it was like I was there for reason. I was photographing her. Photography's another hobby of mine and I would photograph her. With little makeup, a lot of makeup. Well, never a lot of makeup. That's one thing I'll, I'll hint to you girls, girls. I hope I'm not offending you.

Evan: But no, I'm telling you that I am not I am older than the man upstairs. And I can tell you that aging is something to welcome. When you figure out what it is you're afraid of, look it in the eye and say I'm not afraid of you anymore. I am cool with aging. I was cool with my hair going [00:27:00] gray and I have, loved every moment of my hair turning gray, which has been more than 20 years. And it started with an introduction. I was at a class at,, Columbia University, I was invited to a women's leadership conference in Columbia University, and in those days, I was coming from Toronto, and I had done my hair the night before, done it means color it, and I said to my husband, Uh oh, this is a kind of a different color.

Evan: What color would you call this? And he looked at it and he said, purple. Not what I was going for. That wasn't the look I was going for. All my, oh, anyway, traveled to New York, did the conference, had a great time. And as I was driving, as we were on the bus, um, and I was sitting next to the woman next to me who we, we introduced to each other.

Evan: And I said, And I asked her, I said, what color would you call this? And she goes, yeah, it's a little on the purple side. Oh Lordy. So I got home and I never touched it again. And it took a couple of years for it to, you know, first [00:28:00] trim it and let it grow out and let it grow out. And at one point my hair was gray, a little bit of purple, red and the brown that my hair is naturally colored.

Evan: I looked like this sort of aging rainbow, but I thought I was getting all these compliments people are going your hair looks fabulous What are you doing to it? I said absolutely nothing And I just let it alone. So the the fear of aging is with us all and all I can say is what's going to save you is your connection to To your community, to your family, to what matters in your life, make your life meaningful. Do what makes you happy, and eat what makes you happy. These things, we are dealing with, a rampant, proliferation of depression. and, I think number one, depression has, creates stress, creates depression. And these are the things that lower and [00:29:00] change things like the microbiome, both in your, the gut, skin, brain access, all of these things change. If you don't, if you can't find a way to exercise, relax, deeply relax, have a good sleep, and enjoy the people that you're around, and accept that life is constantly changing, much like your skin, then these are the things that really matter.

Evan: How I am different from the other skin care lines is that I'm not trying to save your life by telling you that I can rid your skin of 45 percent of your wrinkles. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give you skin that is vibrant, that is healthy, that reveals the beauty of yourself, and that says I don't need to wear makeup.

Evan: Have you seen the recent, publicity with Pamela Anderson? Yeah. It's stunning. I love that. And it's like, thank you. This is going to continue. I think to grow, I think there is an evolutionary [00:30:00] context to humanity today. And, as I mentioned, um, I think Melissa, you were the one that said, , I was talking about, um, Frances McDormand and her quote, and what she said was.

Evan: I want to be an elder. I want to be an elder. I want to be an elderess. I want to be someone who is the wise woman of my community, who is the wise woman of my family. And if you look at all the traditional cultures for a millennium, more or less many, many years. Anyway, you will see that it is the woman who is the carrier of the flame of life.

Evan: She is the one that keeps the heart. She is the one that gathers the family together. She is the one that cares for the family and. Lifts the spirits both philosophically and physically. So I think that these things are all missed by such a huge industry. and beauty care industry is 60 billion industry.

Evan: Do you think that cosmetic [00:31:00] chemists want to dive off into Let's stop producing so much skincare and beauty care and makeup. Let's stop creating chemicals that will dissolve that epidermal layer of your skin, that will actually thin this protected, this absolutely critical protective layer of your skin, that is doing the job of fighting bacteria and microbes that you don't even know is going on. And that's the skin's job. 

Evan: And every time I used to hear a client come in and say, Oh, I hate my skin. I drink too much coffee. I had chocolate last night. I felt like the skin's advocate. I said, you know what? Your skin is doing so much work on your behalf. Let me tell you what it is. It's beautiful. It fights infection. It's your diagnostic organ. It wraps you in a, breathable, both, uh, very delicate, but also very strong organ that constantly is regenerating itself. The most important thing you can do for your skin, [00:32:00] besides the other things I've mentioned, of course, is, and I'm in Southern California, you're in Austin, you've gone through a hellish summer.

Evan: Um, climate change is what I am declaring as the number one. Enemy against healthy skin and healthy humanity, but also the sun itself, uh, I'm Irish, Scottish, a little bit of Sweden in there. So I have the most impossible skin to go out and, and what did I do? I grew up in Laguna Beach in California. What did I do when I was 14 to 17 and graduating from high school? Laid in the sun by the ocean. I fried myself and today at my august age, should I tell you? Absolutely, please. I'm 25. I knew it. I knew it, I know. I'll be 72 in November. Okay, so we didn't know back in those days, we thought band [00:33:00] of soleil and sitting, you know, with a tinfoil around our faces.

Evan: My mother used to do that. And Coco Chanel convinced me that tanning made me look better, and it did, until today, 30 years later. That's the problem with tanning, and I'm just going to talk about the importance of sunblock and that the number one problem with sunblock is that we don't put enough on when we're just working with this amount of territory and I leave the rest of the body to the body lotion. Companies, but I work with this real estate area from your decollete to your forehead, behind your ears, and you need to be at least a teaspoon of sunblock and the issue with it is that we're making. sunscreens, and putting them into makeup. And so when you put on your makeup, you're using, a few drops or, maybe an eighth, maybe a quarter of a teaspoon, maybe more, but you don't want to look like pancake face. If that is the only sunblock or protection you're using, you're not using [00:34:00] enough. And someday is you wake up and I look in the mirror and I look I didn't have that spot there yesterday. That hyperpigmented spot was not there yesterday, and I can't tell you how many times I had clients come in and say, look at this. This was not there yesterday. And I said, that's right. And in five years, you'll be coming back to me saying, now there's all these new things coming up. I love the skin for the story it tells about our lives and for who we are. And one of the most important things that Thich Nhat Hanh said is that a smile exercises hundreds of muscles in your face. So that tells you the philosophy and the importance of skin and smiling and keeping, um, a realistic pulse, finger on the pulse of, of beauty, health and happiness.

Mellisa: Yeah. I love, I love how you talk about the skin being the only organ that we can see [00:35:00] and, your description of being an advocate for the skin actually made me feel like even more like my favorite grandmother because it's such a beautiful image actually of , you know, the skin being in some ways maybe neglected or even abused you could say and treated in this way that is seeing it as something that is not part of who we are, that isn't acknowledging the beauty or the function. It's, we're, we're missing both of those things in a lot of cases, and so. I love this idea of, really paying attention to what our skin is showing us and telling us and not in a, here, you need to fix this so you look better kind of way, but in a, just being able to appreciate yourself and maybe listen if your skin is telling you that something is out of balance in your body. Right? 

Dana: I also just wanted to add that in my personal experience, I'm 37, so haven't started to see a huge, appearance of, fine lines are much visible signs of [00:36:00] aging on my skin, but like, sure, I've seen sunspots and a few wrinkles creeping in here and there, and one of the things that I I am so curious about, is what we miss out on when we feel that we need to edit these parts of our, skin off of our appearance, be it a sunspot or wrinkle.

Dana: Are we missing out on a lesson, a piece of wisdom there when we try and erase those things away from our appearance, because for me personally, when I wake up each morning, of course, I notice new things on my skin every day, but I almost make it a bit of a daily meditation of noticing, Oh, I have a new little freckle or mark or something's different here.

Dana: And I just take a minute to I'm meet myself new in the morning and show myself some gratitude and appreciation versus an, Oh God, what happened since yesterday? And how can I possibly, how can I possibly change this or minute manipulate this in some way? Because occupying that type of energy [00:37:00] of resistance just feels like you're almost making. Stress and physical signs of aging worse, but also on the inside, it's kind of rejecting yourself and your human experience. And it's not really showing much compassion or love back to yourself or your skin. And so I know it's easier said than done. And maybe in 20 years from now, it will become more difficult.

Dana: But if I allow aging to happen a little bit at a time. Hopefully, by the time I get to my 60s, 80s, if I'm lucky to live that long, it won't be this jarring thing that I wake up one day and feel that I have to suddenly adjust to. 

Evan: yeah, both of you bring up a lot of good points and, feedback for, me from someone in your age group to someone in my age group.

Evan: And one thing I, I do wanna say about the getting up, waking up and looking at ourselves in the mirror, I mean therein lies the issue. We wake up and we look at ourselves in the mirror. Right? I train [00:38:00] Jennifer and, my other estheticians and I, train our other estheticians, and they themselves have the, mirror addiction.

Evan: Um, there is nothing wrong with looking at yourself in the mirror and taking, a reasonable assessment of where you are and what you're doing, especially if you're not well. And that is where you're going to find some of the first signs of illness. Redness, pallor, dryness, dry areas, kidney imbalance, adrenal imbalance.

Evan: I always feel when I've been sweating too much, my skin gets really, really dry. And the other thing about sweat that's very interesting is that we all have our own particular smell and that I can tell when I'm stressed because my underarm sweat, I hope we can talk about that. Oh, yeah, we can talk about armpit.

Evan: Yeah, we're all girls here. It's just the three of us, right? Nobody else's underarm sweat. Yeah. I can smell it. I could smell it on my husband. I can smell it on myself. I think I could pick it up on other [00:39:00] people. So, stress is what happens when we look in the mirror. And I wish I had kept this article I read so many years ago.

Evan: This was a beautiful article about the distance between your face and your mirror. So, you're looking, what is happening between this distance, what realities, what philosophies, what are you thinking that's going on between looking at yourself and then looking at your, beautiful reflection?

Evan: The answer was in this article, which I don't have, but, but I don't need that answer. The answer is going to be different for all of us. So when you think of looking at yourself in the mirror. Think of who you are looking at more than oh hell there's that pimple again or Or I've got you know, this this is happening or that wrinkle is deeper than it was yesterday We want to wipe the self [00:40:00] criticism and bring in, without it sounding too, sugary, the self love, , we're frankly are not doing that enough, we're way too critical and that is the motivating factor between, a 16 billion dollar industry, cosmetics and makeup and treatment lines, and so the, other thing is that, We do use the mirror more than than we need there are times Recently, where I have gotten up and I don't look at myself in the mirror and it's actually a conscious, it's sort of conscious, not conscious, getting up too late, not having enough time and going, I'll look later.

Evan: I can't possibly have changed that much overnight. So, I was like, nah, there isn't gonna be anything new there. So let me go do what I, you know, let me shower. Let me do this. Let me do that. And that, so that's something that I bring to, the party is think of the relationship between yourself and your reflection and [00:41:00] name a few things that come up for you.

Evan: The other thing is, the resistance rejection, as, you mentioned, is this rejection, um, this is a dialogue that I want to raise. Uh, in skincare is, this judgment. Are we good enough? That is what I hear so often from clients the self criticism, the self judgment. And so. at one point, and frankly, I don't know if we're still doing it, but I used to put positive messages on our hydrosol, and that came during the Gulf of Mexico crisis when the, The oil rig blew up, and I'm, going to mispronounce his name, and I apologize ahead of time, Massimo, uh, he was a Japanese, I believe, philosopher or scientist, and he would say that if he, yeah, he wrote a book, and if you put, , I hate you on a glass of water or a plant, the plant would eventually, Die, and if you put, I love you, the plant or the, [00:42:00] snow crystal would bloom and look beautiful.

Evan: And so I started putting the, who you are is enough label on the water as positive reinforcement. Affirmations, everything we put on there, people love it so much. We started changing the affirmations and so every time you would look at it, you would say, lavender or frankincense, and I see it's not on the label today, but you'd say frankincense, and you would spray it, and it will have had that beautiful affirmation on the back.

Evan: Um, I I don't know why we're not doing it, but you can do it yourself. You you know, make an affirmation on water you drink, soup you make, things like that. 

Dana: Well, we have some of your products, and we do see those affirmations on there, and they just Make our hearts sing. So they're there and we love that, that that's integrated into the messaging in your skincare products, because on the other hand, if you're picking up a product that says anti aging fight wrinkles, you're [00:43:00] going to, that's going to get in your head and think, yeah, I do need to fight these wrinkles.

Dana: Oh, I shouldn't have any signs of, sunspots or discoloration. And that starts to weave its way into your psychology and the way that you view yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And when you were talking about, mirrors, one of the things that I did this year was at the recommendation of a friend is I spent an entire month not looking in a mirror at all because I was becoming a bit discouraged by, um, I was dealing, have dealt with hair loss off and on for the past 10 years.

Dana: And it was really impacting my self esteem and the way that I felt about myself. How I interact with other people and so that experience of disengaging with my reflection was actually extremely healing. And I ended up having one of the most fun, best months of my life because it wasn't necessarily a direct result of that.

Dana: It just so happened that I had an amazing month and it didn't have anything to do with how I looked or how I had prepared myself for the outfits that I was [00:44:00] wearing. And I was having amazing interactions with people laughing, smiling, and it was revelatory. And then when I came to the end of that experience, I actually almost didn't want to put the mirrors back up because it had changed.

Dana: I'd saved so much time, I didn't even, I wasn't anxious, I wasn't self conscious, there was nothing, I had no evidence to be self conscious. And then a couple weeks after that, I went on a date with my husband and I thought, Oh, I'll put on makeup. And when I put the makeup on, I actually didn't even like how it looked because I couldn't see myself.

Dana: I couldn't really see myself there. And so now I do still enjoy putting a little color on my lips. But other than that, that experiment made me. Um, really appreciate, who I am at my core and my natural reflection so much more than the ways that I was used to altering my appearance to feel more confident. So it flipped a lot of things on it on their head for me.

Evan: That's a great story. Yeah First of all replying to your last comment about[00:45:00] looking at yourself in the mirror makeup on and saying oh my god I don't recognize myself. It's jarring. It's upsetting Some of my training was in paramedical camouflage makeup where When I started out I was working with women who had had facial surgery, so facelifts, rhinoplasty, eye, lip, cheekbone implants, things like that.

Evan: And my job was to, uh, quote, unquote, normalize their look, minimize signs of bruising, and work with them and show them how to use makeup and choose their, you know. Choose colors that would work so that they could go out without, large bruises and being self conscious that way. What my first client that came in was a client I've been seeing for many years.

Evan: And she said, I'm going to have all this work done. And I'm like, you're going to do it all at once. Uh, is that something you really want to do? This was a number of years ago. Probably more than 20 years ago, and she said, yeah, I just want to go in and get it all over. I said, okay. Okay. So I'm no judgment.

Evan: I didn't have any judgment about it, but I said, let's get your skin as healthy as we [00:46:00] can before the surgery. So that when you come out, things will already be up to, you know, to a certain level of equality. She said, great. So we did that. And she had her surgery and, the first day back in my office, when we were going to start, measuring her for color and camouflage work, when she first came in, I'm like,, I wasn't wearing glasses, but I was, I. Almost didn't recognize her. I mean, I knew she was coming in, but her face had changed quite a lot, and I said, so, how are you feeling? Well, I'm feeling okay, but I have to tell you, my children and my husband, they're having a really hard time with it. 

Evan: And I said, wow, so what about that is the hardest for them? And she goes, they don't recognize me. And she says, and I don't see myself all the time in the mirror, but they see me all the time. Right. And, when my kids come home, they're like, where's mom? Uh, it's stressful. It's stressful for the [00:47:00] husband, stressful for the woman because she thought she was doing herself , a favor by refreshing the, the look.

Evan: Yeah, it's just, of course I didn't say anything. I said, you know what? Things are gonna, first of all, the swelling will get down. Um, they will change. You will change and, things will, will normalize. Again, , I didn't want to put any judgment on it because I, I had no judgment.

Evan: Um, except, except that it, it never works the way we want it to work. I was going to say it doesn't often, but I, I think it almost never works the way we want it to work. Um, and. I think that that's where we lose sight of who we are. It's that first step back where, you put makeup on, or you put a little mascara on, or lipstick, and I never wear makeup either.

Evan: And today, I'm, I don't know why with, I wear glasses anyway, but, I have mascara on and I feel like I'm bat winging [00:48:00] my way through the, hello, um, I am so used to myself now without makeup , and working with clients in different types of, stages of their life. Do I need this? Do I want to do this?

Evan: And the feedback that, you were saying Dana about how happy you felt was just this release from your own level of expectations. No one else is out there going, your right eyebrow is a little bit, you know, it's a little bit lower than your left. one. How about if you, how about if I just do a little on the left to even it out?

Evan: No one. That is something that I can say for 100 percent sure. No one looks at us as critically as we do. Yeah, absolutely. And so the other thing that, that is really important to say, because I think that when, when our lives change, when things happen that are jarring, disturbing, the period of time we're in now, you get to [00:49:00] appreciate the small things that are happening in our lives.

Evan: And for me, taking care of my mother and my mother having a lot of fun towards the end of her life, um, friend of mine would come with me and, do some of the makeup with my mother and she'd say, your mother, this looks so much better with the makeup on. And I, and I said, well, I, I'm going to erase it all.

Evan: I think, and my mom's like, I don't want this on. And she was very opinionated, but what we, about is that Right now, those of us here at our age, in this epoch of our evolution, we have the luxury to say, I can change the way I look. I have the money to change the way I look. I have the willpower. I have the, desire to change the way I look. That is a luxury. And I also think that the luxury of, being able to change who we are is sometimes taken for granted. I think that we need to be grateful.

Evan: I think the word gratitude [00:50:00] is really an important word to fold into our lives these days. and getting back to climate change, um, we have right now the luxury of being in a climate that has not drastically changed. Having said that about climate change and the challenge that it's going to have on skin, I happen to be a climate optimist.

Evan: I happen to think that things will work out for the best and I trust in the greater wisdom, the greater good, I think that things will work out. And I think it's better for me, and I hope others, to look at it positively rather than go around, it doesn't help anything to criticize it or have a judgment about it, but it does help to be optimistic about it.

Evan: And that is, what I want women to know about their skin, because it's a great thing for you to Cover your skin up, put a hat on, make sure it's covering the sides of your face, not a baseball hat, but a big hat that the, you know, The bigger the better. Yeah, the bigger the better. Like a little sombrero.

Evan: And Uh, [00:51:00] a nice big sombrero, long sleeves, long pants, and go out and enjoy your life, , swim in it, swim in your life. At the beach, so I'm thinking swim in the ocean, but these are all things that we take for granted, and I think we have a luxury of taking these things for granted.

Evan: So I, I like to remind people that That you're, beautiful, it really bothers me when people say, I wish my, this were more or this were less. I mean, I look at myself and I have all, I have a, I have a long list. , and then I get a grip and say, you know what, you're still breathing. You have wonderful friends. And if you really get down. Go throw some pottery. And that, pottery has saved my life so many times. Yeah. 

Dana: Or go throw yourself in the ocean and swim. That always gets me in a different place. 

Evan: Energy. Whether there's that saying, salt water is good for you. , tears the ocean. And what's the other one? There's salt water is, is what remedy for all depression. And there's a great saying. Anyway, 

Mellisa: I believe [00:52:00] in that saying I think what you're saying is so important tonight and I also think that it feels like there is an invitation to not just Accept that we get older and that our appearance changes But to also somehow acknowledge that still beautiful, right?

Mellisa: It's only the idea that the anti aging industry wants us to think that to have wrinkles is less beautiful than to have a smooth face, right? And so I think that there's lots of people that are on a journey, and I can even say this for myself, you know, I have kind of deep lines under my eyes, and I feel like I've lost some collagen.

Mellisa: And there, there are moments on my journey where I look in the mirror, and I feel really deflated by that change in my skin. And I can do a whole song and dance of like, Yes, but my life has meaning, and I love being a mother, and I have vibrant Other things going on, , almost to [00:53:00] say that these things will compensate for the fact that I am less attractive because My skin has changed, and who says that I am less attractive because my skin has changed It doesn't we don't have to think that we don't have to believe that that's the part that I guess feels the most Maybe impossible or difficult, but also feels like maybe the most exciting and hopeful because when I look at you or like you talk about your mother You didn't look at your mother at 97 and think well, well, she looks good for her age or you know She's quite ugly now, but she was a great mother. You're not you're not doing that with your mind You're just looking at her and thinking you are so beautiful So beautiful. 

Dana: Yeah, the picture you shared of your mom is stunning and you're stunning Evan I can't wait to be silver headed. I can't wait for wrinkles. I look forward to it. Aging just needs a rebrand. That's really all it is. 

Evan: That's exactly it. It just needs to be rebranded. I see more people gray haired and, like our favorite Frances McDormand, [00:54:00] um, Melissa, go ahead. 

Mellisa: I was About to bring her up because I think that maybe there's a key in, in what we're saying and connecting it to what she says, which is.

Mellisa: I want to be an elder. And she's talking about the broader concept of being an elder. She's not just talking about, the physical changes of appearance as we get older. She's talking about the reverence and the wisdom and being really held in esteem by her community and her culture. So that's a bigger thing, but it takes a generation of people.

Mellisa: It takes a culture saying, I want that. I want to not just Accept that I'm getting older, but actually live fully, and actually want to be an elder. Want to be wrinkled, want to be all of these things that we may consider to be negative or some kind of diminishment of who we are, you know? And it's not just like, oh, I accept that it will happen I want it to happen to me.

Evan: Yeah, you're walking [00:55:00] towards it with open arms and a welcoming embrace. That's important. That's an important image to keep in your mind as you go through your life. Accept your aging, accept your beauty at all ages and, work towards it with, pure water. Happy thoughts and now I'm sounding like, I don't know anyway, but you know, you know what I'm saying?

Evan: Yeah, I don't want to go off the deep end too much, but I mean really Positivity, gratitude. Gratitude, I think is what really rings true for me and Also feeding your body. Choose the food that you want that makes you happy And enjoy standing out in the backyard on cold winter mornings with your feet standing in the grass getting wet and freezing and just taking deep breaths.

Evan: Breath work, very important for stimulating, the skin. Very, very important for increasing oxygenation and blood circulation in the whole body, but especially in the face. And that's one of the [00:56:00] things, interestingly enough, that clay does. You put clay on and clay's a very energetic, element and it has this very healing ability to draw metabolic impurities out of your skin and then also to, stimulate. As I said, oxygen, oxygenation and blood circulation in the face and that alone really makes you feel better. 

Evan: So, that's another reason why you don't want to really change the anatomy or the microbiome or the epidermal layer of your skin. By moving things around, , you are challenging all these mucous membrane openings that are infection fighters. , the skin is your number one, barrier to, infection and to protection against the environment.

Evan: And the saliva, mucus, tears, earwax, sebum on your head, all of these things capture and neutralize [00:57:00] and, help heal the skin and keep it protected from the constant onslaught. Um, I was reading, 

Dana: can we actually jump in there, Evan, on the epidural layer, am I saying that right? Epidermis. Okay. Yeah. So I'm kind of thinking here toward the end of the conversation, if we could get into some more, practical questions about skincare and you've mentioned the epidermal layer a couple of times. And you'd mentioned. Wanting to, disrupted as little as possible and one of the temptations, uh, when at least I'm engaging with either advertisements or influencer routines, I see people doing laser treatments. They're using, retinols are using things to increase the turnover of skin cells.

Dana: And I'm just curious if those things are doing a disservice to our epidermal layer, or if those are actually stimulating collagen, I'm just a little bit confused as to whether those are positive or negative things for the skin. 

Evan: Uh, first of [00:58:00] all, collagen and elastin are proteins that are produced in the epidermal layer and the collagen and elastin form a scaffolding effect on the skin, which as we get older, regardless of whether we have germ abrasions or glycolic acids or whatever, laser treatments, it is because, Collagen and elastin are geared more towards hormonal, uh, when your estrogen starts to drop, it weakens this, substance that holds the structural integrity of our skin.

Evan: And then in terms of you know, I call it. um, dissolving the epidermal layer. And my mantra is the epidermal layer is there for a reason. It is protective. It's the only thing that's protecting your skin. It's not the glycolic acid. It's not the laser treatment. It's not the Botox. It's not the collagen drinks that you're drinking. It is the skin and it is the skin's ability to fight microbes. And it is also the microbiome, the strong. , diversity of the, the skin's [00:59:00] ability to be, to welcome the microbes that are helping and to reject and fight the microbes that are causing, are creating disease.

Evan: The problem with dissolving the epidermal layer and renewing it so that you're getting all the, the languages, you're getting all fresh new skin cells. The truth to that is, far different and a little bit more alarming. The epidermal layer has curatin cells, like a roof, you know, one after the other and they're dead. They are protective, they're waterproof, otherwise, every time you took a shower, you'd drown, but so they're waterproof, , so you can be wet and you have seen the sebum is the oil that the sebaceous glands secrete. So when you get wet from rain or shower, anything, you see it ball up on your skin. That's good. And, dissolving of the epidermal layer dissolves away the mature. Keratin cells on the surface of the skin. This is not good [01:00:00] because it leaves immature cells which are not ready to take over the task of protecting the skin and protecting the microbiome and protecting the, sebaceous secretions and the pH balance.

Evan: The pH balance of your skin, your entire skin, which is different than the microbiome, but they're all both very related. The pH of the skin. is approximately 4. 5 to 5. 5, so it's slightly acidic, with the area around your mouth being a little more alkaline, but the pH is also what helps fight uh, infection and bacteria and microbes. So the more you fiddle around with the skin and its perfect ability to balance itself, and that's part of my statement on most of my literature, is I developed evanhelae skincare based on the, The premise and the philosophy that uh, the less you use on the skin, the better, and the more it is able to self correct it. And it [01:01:00] does. I've seen it do it over years of working with, cancer. Women that have undergone radiation treatment, cancer surgeries on myself and my mother and clients. So you want the strength of the skin. So constantly dissolving this is. Working against the skin's own ability to keep you protected.

Evan: That's the beauty of clay. Clay is, by nature, cooling and, has a drawing effect. So, wouldn't necessarily use it for a snake bite, but it has that same, ability to pull, to draw out toxins from the skin. We're covered. With thousands of tiny dermal pores regulating the inward movement of, helpful vitamin, helpful, air and water microbes, a lot of helpful microbes in fact, the more complex our microbiome is, the healthier we are. And then the outward moving, so there's an inhalation and an exhalation, the exhalation through the. Pores [01:02:00] of the skin releases the metabolic impurities. Those are the blackheads that you see on your face. And clay just Draws them out in concert with using the hydrosol and an oil serum. Those are the three winners of basic skincare. And I've had many people come in with boxes or bags of beauty care, skin care that they're using saying, I don't know what's going on with my skin. I've just, okay, so set it aside. And I say, I'm just going to simplify it. I want you to use. Hydrosol, spray, I want you to use an oil serum, and I want you to use clay once or twice a week, more if your skin feels this way or that way, and come back and see me in, two weeks or a month, and we keep track of the changes that occur, and 99 percent of the time the change is positive because you've removed the irritating factors, the retin, the retin A, I mean these things are tetragenic, these things [01:03:00] are poisonous, the vitamin A, retinoic acid, not retin A for skin. I don't believe in it. I can't personally use it. My skin is too sensitive. But there's rosacea, there's, Psoriasis, eczema, all of these things are a hypersensitive skin.

Evan: The fourth one is acne. And most people come in after using peels and scrubs and they use a scrub, as I mentioned earlier, like scrubbing stains off a driveway because they have been told that they have acne because their skin is dirty. No, I have seen so many cases of acne that actually make my eyes water. And the problem with acne is instead of being hardy and really oily and, and strong, it is very, it is a picture of a very sensitive skin. Acne is very, very sensitive. So the first time I saw a woman come in and um, she got tears in her eyes. She was saying, this is so frustrating. And um, I said, yeah, [01:04:00] your skin is just so sensitive. And she goes, do you know, no one has ever told me that about my skin. And I said, it's, it's a picture of sensitivity. It's bright red, slightly oily. It's fighting. It's really fighting against whatever you're doing.

Evan: So, the products that I use that are most successful are three products, the facial tonic hydrosol, an oil serum, and we have a number of our favorite is pomegranate repair serum, and we've changed the name to it. But all of our serums work in concert with. the hydrosol and the clay mask. 

Dana: And the clay mask is basically you're saying the safest way to do a little gentle exfoliation. We shouldn't be exfoliating with anything else. 

Evan: You don't need to. You don't need to. Because what you're doing. The combination of oil and water, after you've cleansed your skin, you spray hydrosol, and I don't use the word spray, I use the word drench, or saturate your face with this [01:05:00] hydrosol, so that it's dripping off the nose, and then I press it in. To my skin or your skin, and then a few pumps, two to three pumps of the oil serum. You can mix them together or not. I press that on top of the hydrosol. I spray again, you've got an oil and water sandwich, basically. Water, oil, water, or the other way around. and then, what happens is if you're doing a clay mask weekly, or monthly, or depending on the season, your type of skin, and What's going on with your skin?

Evan: The clay mask, because the oil and water are now softening and loosening the sebaceous gland secretion, it makes it soft, and the clay goes in and has an ability to draw out this softened, metabolic impurity, sebum and a blackhead. All a blackhead is is hardened waxy deposits, and it's black because it's been exposed to oxygen, and it's black because it's catching the sebum and the, impurities.[01:06:00] 

Evan: So the three of them work. In any way, it's an easy way to change a skin, and we have a lot of estheticians that use it because it changes, it's like the old Vidal Sassoon saying, as I told a customer once, she said, I just love your skin care, and I said, well, if you don't look good, I don't look good. So it's my motivation, right? Yeah. 

Mellisa: So, can I ask a quick follow up question to that? How would you cleanse your skin before doing the hydrosol and the oil serum? Just on a daily basis? Because you're not using the clay every day. That would be more periodic. How would you cleanse it just at the end of the day?

Evan: Our cleansers, we have three cleansers. In our cleansing line, we have the rose cleanser, we have the blue lavender cleansing milk, the rose and the blue lavender are cleansing milks, and then we have the third one, which is a tea tree gel cleanser. All of these are non soap, no saponic acids in there.

Evan: They are pH balanced and they're very easy to use and you [01:07:00] can mix the tea tree gel with the cleansing milk. So you get a creamy gel cleanser, and when I'm doing a facial, I just dribble a little water, and that is the introduction to your face for me.

Evan: And that's the introduction of your skin to you, is use your hands as these magic tools that are able to sense and feel what's going on in your skin. So our cleansers are suited To cleanse the skin and lift the impurities from the skin, and your skin feels lighter, cleaner, clearer. I recommend you do it twice a day in the morning and in the evening, uh, removes makeup, sunblock.

Evan: Um, we also have an oil makeup remover or sunblock remover. So, those things, the oils really, , they get into the pore and really reduce the, connection of the makeup or the sunblock to the skin. 

Dana: Yeah. But do you also use personally, any shea butter moisturizers? Because that's been an ingredient that I've introduced into my skincare, regimen in the last year and I just feel like [01:08:00] it's profoundly changed my skin. It's so calm and happy. 

Evan: Thank you. Shea butter was my number one product that I made when David and I were living in Toronto and I wanted to make a shea butter product. I tried eastern African shea butter and western African shea butter and I found that the western African shea butter was more suited to what I wanted.

Evan: So, one steamy summer in Toronto, I was in my kitchen with a cake blender, whipping up shea butter with other oils and other things. And shea butter is quite hard. . I wanted it to be that sort of souffle like feeling. It is absolutely my number one favorite product.

Evan: I use shea butter for everything. Anything and everything, it goes all over your body, top to bottom, it can go anywhere. I had a woman who was going camping once, she said, I'm going to be gone for six weeks. I can only bring one product in my backpack. What can I bring? I said, shea butter. And she [01:09:00] said, it's in a glass jar.

Evan: Put it in a plastic bag. And just smash it in a plastic bag, roll it up, stick it in and, and it, Does there's since there's no water in there. It doesn't go bad. She came back six weeks later and she's going my god this scrapes bruises Shoes that were too small bug bites, you know all these things Um, so shea butter does everything but I am glad you like it.

Evan: It is my favorite product 

Dana: Yeah, and it almost seems to reinforce that waterproof like It seals in the moisture so that if my face gets wet or sweaty, it just kind of feels like a nice, calming, sealant, like a moisturized, sealed balm on my skin and it feels like a warm hug. 

Evan: It does. It's giving you a hug. It does the exact opposite in the winter. When I was in Toronto, the weather in Toronto, also brutally cold. And so when it's that dangerously cold, you would just slather on the shea butter and it has this, again, it's a [01:10:00] balance of homeostasis. It works on either side of the fence for you. 

Dana: Yeah. Well, Evan, as we've learned so much, and I honestly probably have a hundred more questions and I'll just save those for another conversation that we have, but as we come to a close, do you have a number one tip for our listeners of how to nourish your skin, to take care of your skin?

Evan: Oh, yes. Use less, not more. Trust your skin and your body's wisdom. There is an inner physician in your body that knows what it wants and what it's doing. So when you see or feel or smell something going on in your body, pay attention to the wisdom of your own body. It is always working for you. 

Dana: I love that. Okay. Well, where can people find Evan Healy products? Are they widely available? Should they order online? 

Evan: They are absolutely welcome to order online. We are sold [01:11:00] in, Most all, as far as I know, all natural food stores within the United States, Canada for branching out, and all natural food stores, full foods, of course, sprouts, many more than my memory can, can tell me, but our websites open 24 hours a day.

Dana: One of my, one of my favorite things about your line is for people who are curious about. Your products, you generally at the stores have a little sample kit that comes with little miniatures of each thing. So if one of the, line speaks to you a bit more, you can try it for a very affordable price before you commit.

Dana: And I have a friend who honestly for like almost six months, she just kept buying those little kits just to make sure that it was the right one for her. Um, so it's a really great way if you're next time you're at Whole Foods or, you know, grocery shopping, just to pop in and try something, um, from your line.

Dana: I highly recommend it, because products in your line and very similar products that align with the philosophy that you're talking about have completely transformed my skin and [01:12:00] even helped me usher into a place of being at peace with my skin and, my natural appearance. And so it's, a really wonderful thing when you can come to a place of peace and calm with your skin and know that you're really taking care of it well.

Evan: That's lovely, Dana. Thank you so much. 

Mellisa: So wonderful to meet you and see you and get to share this beautiful conversation. 

Evan: Thank you, Melissa, and thank you for being there this morning when I was in my pajamas going, where am I? 

Mellisa: Oh, I was there. I was there for you, girl. I know, I know you were. I got you.

Evan: I know you did. I had so much fun. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been really wonderful. Yes. So good. I hope to see you again soon. 

Dana: Yeah. You're just a wealth of knowledge and we appreciate your time and we know that we'll talk to you again and we can't wait to meet in person someday.

Evan: Good. In person. Take care. 

Mellisa: Thanks ever. Thank you. Bye-Bye.

[01:13:00]