Welcome to the Rabbit Hole
When I was 11 years old, my mother started taking me to an austere cosmetics counter in the local department store to buy their gentlest, three step system: face wash, toner, and moisturizer.
For years, I used this three step system because my skin, I was told, was problematic. It was over sensitive, prone to drying and explosive reactions. I would often have dry patches in my t-zone and flakey skin with little red bumps around my nose.
Clearly, the product I was using was too good for my weak skin.
Eventually, I moved to more and more expensive product lines – the last being an Eastern European line that featured botanicals and high prices.
And then my post-pregnancy skin went into a crisis previously unseen.
Enter the Rabbit Hole.
(It’s a warren, really.)
After even the most expensive “hydrating” moisturizer failed to help, I turned to the internet and read NIH published research papers about skin. I looked for everything I could understand about the structure and function and regenerative cycle. After understanding that skin has a PH balance, a microbiome, a dead surface, a rich underworld, and a huge role in our life decisions, I started to realize that the skin care industry is full of it.
Then I began to read maker blogs, take online classes, and buy “formula” DIY beauty books. None of which seemed to be rooted in reality.
After a lot more research (yeas!), I began experimenting from my perspective as a chef, working with different ratios of essential fatty acids profiles
As my face began to heal, I continued to read the science and learn how intricate, vast, and complicated skin is. I continued to follow influencers who insisted that all skin could be perfect.
In the years since, the balms I created helped people whose skin never seems to settle down.
Every ingredient I experiment with gets a wrestling. I’m a skeptic who reads vendor descriptions with caution. I don’t believe marketing copy. (I don’t believe the ding dang dalai lama.) But I believe in science, empirical knowledge, and curiosity.
Rabbit hole reads can be a lot. They take me years to create. Literally. So if you follow them, thank you.
