On the latest episode of #NoFilter, Danielle (and Jodie!) interview their dermatologist, Dr Ellen Marmur, who is the first female Chief of Dermatological Surgery at Mount Sinai. She's won three humanitarian awards for skin cancer prevention, and is a serial entrepreneur as founder of Marmur Medical and MMSkincare. Here, we share seven of the best takeaways from their conversation.

 

 

1. BE GENTLE TO YOUR SKIN

"Over time, skincare has been treated like haircare or nail care. And hair and nails are dead tissue. We've been using harsh soaps on our skin which is tearing our skin apart, and then we use heavy creams to compensate for the fact that we were using a harsh soap. Part of the reason we were using big foaming cleansers and toners was because makeup was so thick in the past. And makeup has become more elegant over time, so now our skincare can be more gentle." 

 

2. SWEAT IS THE BEST CLEANSER

"I like to say that sweat is the best cleanser, because sweat is 100 percent natural. It lifts everything up and off your skin and is kind of rinsing your skin. The difference between sweat and water is that sweat is pH-balanced for your skin. Your skin is actually slightly acidic and water is not, so rinsing your face with water is pretty good, but sweat is even better. Even if you do a 30-minute cardio workout and you get that sheen, that is cleaning your pores."

 

3. LEAVE YOUR ZITS ALONE

"You all know if you pop a zit it lasts for weeks, and it can leave a little scar... And then you just hate it, and you're like, 'Why did I do that?' There's all that self-shame, and then you want to pop it out even more... All you're getting out is the inflammation that's zoning in on that zit, but the zit itself isn't something that pops out like a balloon. It's actually part of your skin, so you can't just excavate it. So just don’t.

"[Yesterday] I had a terrible pimple... [and] it is on its way out and it's because I didn't touch it."

 

4. SPF 50 IS BETTER THAN SPF 100

"SPF stands for sun protected factor and it means how long you can stay out in the sun without turning red... UVB causes sunburn, so SPF is only protecting you from UVB. Broad-spectrum sunscreens now have UVA and UVB protection, and that matters because UVA penetrates a little deeper and can cause suntans - which are a form of injury - and more likely to cause melanoma, which is a very, very, very bad thing… When in doubt, buy SPF 30 to 50 - that's your sweet spot, and then reapply it [because] it's only going to last you one to two hours.

"SPF 100 is more protective but it's not FDA approved... and it has more chemicals in it, so for all of us who are trying to be a little bit healthier it's better to use an SPF 40 or 50 mineral sun protection and then reapply it."

 

5. BOTOX AND BAD TOX

"Tox is my nickname [for neuromodulators like Botox]. So Tox works on wrinkles, but not every wrinkle. It only works on wrinkles of expression, like lines across your forehead or if you get big crow's feet... And it does prevent, so it is not a myth. It really does prevent.

"Largely, it's incredibly safe and it's like a miracle molecule, but if too much of it is done, you can get [something] like a droopy eyebrow. You can get one eyebrow that looks up and one that looks down. You can look like Spock with arched brows, or like the devil."

 

6. WITH LIP FILLER, LESS IS MORE

"I think the fear factor [with] filler is that it automatically makes you look like a chipmunk, and that's bad filler... If people come to me and they [show me pictures of] a model whose lip they want, you can't always achieve that because lips have a natural form to them and you can't really change it that much... If you're going to do your lips, less is more, but also you're not locked in. You can deflate it using an enzyme that reverses it.

"The key is your lip shape. The cupid's bow should be the same distance as between your eyes and the base of your nose... There's this inner column of the face, so if you go too wide on the lip, if you get too forward, that's where you start looking like a platypus and it looks very strange." 

 

7. AGING GRACEFULLY IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

"Aging gracefully is the most beautiful thing. In our office we have a huge portrait of a woman who has a thousand wrinkles on her face and she's smiling because that's her character. That's who she is. We love her. We pay homage to her."

 

Download to the full podcast, as well as past episodes with Brooklyn Decker, Jenny Mollen and Noor Tagouri here.