Why you should listen –
Trina Felber is the creator of Primal Life Organics skin-food, a complete line of quality skincare products that don’t just moisturize, clean or rejuvenate, they actually feed your skin and all the cells of your body with the nutrients to create optimum health. She’s also the author of Beauty’s Dirty Secret: 3 Simple Steps To Super Power Your Skin. On this episode of Bulletproof Radio, Dave and Trina talk about skincare ingredients, acne treatments, skincare while traveling, battling inflammation, skincare for guys and the differences between Primal Life Organics and the products sold by “Big Cosmo.” Enjoy the show!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Follow Along with Interactive Transcripts!
Click here to download a PDF of this transcript
Speaker 1: Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.
Dave: Hey, it’s Dave Asprey with Bulletproof Radio. Today’s cool fact of the day is that your skin can cover quite a bit of area. On average, it’s about two square meters when it’s stretched out and why you need to know that, I have no idea but it’s still cool.
The reason I bring that up is that on today’s show we’re going to talk about skin. We’re going to talk about how to hack it and how to help it perform, because it is the largest organ in your body. Although you could probably argue that your intestines might be larger if you flattened all of the little villi but we’re not really going to go there.
If you want to hear more about skin, you could certainly finish listening to this episode but there’s been a few other episodes with guests you might want to pay attention to. Andy Hnilo’s been on several times and I’m helping Andy with Alitura his company which is doing really, really well, the green facial mask that you’ve seen. Trevor Cates has been on, the Spot Doctor, and Susan Bennett.
If you can’t remember all those names, that’s okay. Just Google Skin Bulletproof Radio and I promise you that you’ll see things about skin care and nothing else that you shouldn’t be seeing. No not safe for work stuff here, all right.
Today’s episode is with Trina Felber who’s a Paleo Skin Care Expert and International Bestselling Author of Beauty’s Dirty Secret and CEO of Primal Life Organics, which is a Paleo oriented skin care company. She’s been a RN for 20 years and the last eight years, she’s been a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist.
Now, Trina, how does taking care of your skin have to do anything with knocking people out for a living, because isn’t that what you do?
Trina: I did it a lot for a long time, yes. I like to put people to sleep but I like to feed their skin even more. It’s just interesting, I started my career in the burn center as a nurse and that’s where I fell in love with the skin. That’s where I really learned what the skin is like and what an injury to the skin can look like but I also learned that it regenerates and it’s really cool, because really everything regenerates every seven years.
I really got a passion for the skin and when I went back to school to do anesthesia, I learned at the cellular level what things can do to the body. I have discovered that I like biohacking skin care and that’s what I do. I learned how to feed the cells of the skin, the nutrients that they need so that they can perform normally and function normally so that you have beautiful skin.
Dave: This is something that’s oftentimes not something that guys are going to talk about. It’s one of the reasons that I’m a fan of this is that the skin is an organ in the body, right, and we’ll go into more of what it does …
Trina: Right.
Dave: A lot of guys don’t really take care of their skin and I’ve been one of those. I’ve been asked a few times, maybe more than average, “Dave, how come your skin looks so good?” I actually didn’t notice it that much and I’m like, “Ah, butter. It’s called the Bulletproof Diet,” but I’ve had a chance to work with some of the people behind that facial scrubber company, whose name I’m forgetting now … Clarisonic.
For a little while there, I was like, “I’m going to scrub,” and I’m like, “This is a lot of work.” I do the facial mask, the Alitura thing on occasion and now I use some moisturizer stuff but I’ve definitely noticed that having just a minor level of care, other than, “Oh, I used soap today. Woohoo, I win,” which is how I used to be, that it does actually make you look less haggard.
This isn’t masses of make up in 45 layers of stuff like a lot of women do, and also that’s probably not good for you, but …
Trina: Right.
Dave: What do you see? Because that’s what essentially about you do, it’s Paleo but it’s also skin care. I imagining cave men in mud baths or something. What’s the connection here? I thought skin came from the inside out and what are you doing from the outside in? Walk me through that.
Trina: Oh, no, no. You know what, it does. It does come from the inside. You have to feed your body good things, you know that, for the cells the function right, but it also comes from the outside. If you take a look at what Big Cosmo is feeding you, the diet … I like to call it the Diet of Big Cosmo … It’s carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and all sorts of toxins that can cause a plethora of diseases or skin irritation problems.
Dave: Big Cosmo, what was that?
Trina: Yeah, Big Cosmo.
Dave: What is that? Like Cosmo Magazine?
Trina: No, Big Cosmo is you walk into this department store or any store and you purchase any kind of product and it’s even grocery store, it’s any mass produced products. It’s also, you have to be very careful because products that are labeled natural and organic, also contain ingredients that are harmful, because there’s no regulation, federal regulation for skin care. You really only need to have a very small amount of an organic or natural ingredient to be able to label it as natural and organic.
Dave: Also, just because it’s natural, my favorite natural organic plant protein is?
Trina: What’s that?
Dave: Sarin, the nerve gas. Right, it comes from beans, right.
Trina: That’s true. You know what, I like to talk about water, because water’s natural and water’s organic. When you look at your skin care, almost all the time, the very first ingredient is water, which means that’s the primary water, but it’s not even that they purify it or distill it to remove the things, the heavy metals and any kind of toxins that are in there. What you’re actually putting on your skin or purchasing is polluted water.
Dave: That’s what’s coming out of the tap, too, which you’re probably washing your face with as well and that’s … It seems really complex when you look at this. I have a lot of experience in anti-aging in that realm and there’s some crazy lasers and things like that you can do on your face and all sorts of things. I may hold my breath when I’m in my cryo chamber and get my face …
Trina: I was going to say, yeah, cryotherapy. Yeah, yeah, aha.
Dave: Right, and I’m almost directly above it right now and so there’s all those crazy stuff but, okay, then you go to a hotel room in whatever city, like I’m going to LA later this week. I’m going to be showering in chlorinated water that’s probably full of pharmaceutical chemicals, different people, like they can find Wellbutrin in most city water now and I’m smearing it all over my face and the rest of my body.
At least I’m not drinking it, but, okay, how do I deal with that? Because you’re a skin care expert and I feel like I’m, first, I soak it in jet fuel. I get no oxygen under my skin. I get dehydrated and then I take a shower in crap water, and hopefully not with hotel soap, because I’m not going to go there but, okay, how’s the normal person deal with all this stuff.
Trina: Okay, it’s like anything else, you have to optimize your health. I’m sure you talk about this. I’ve heard you talk about optimizing your health so that when you are exposed to something that’s not natural or to the level that you would eat it, drink it, put it on your body, your body is able to metabolize it and get rid of it. Your liver’s not overloaded to the point where it can’t handle anything that you ingest or take in, same concept.
Dave: Okay, so handle yourself on a biological level from the inside out so you take your toxin binding things and you increase your antioxidants and you do some deep breathing exercises and you do gratitude and forgiveness and so now you’re not stressed, but you’re still coating your skin in chlorine, killing all the natural bacteria in your skin. What can I do from an external skin perspective to basically not look like such a zombie? I was on CNBC Squawk Box last week, national media, huge hit. My flight was two hours late out of Chicago. I slept three hours and woke up at six AM, New York time which is three AM, my biological time …
Trina: Ouch.
Dave: Went on TV and I think actually kicked ass but they had this beautiful make up department full of all sorts of crazy ass chemicals and they smeared them all over my face, actually did a live video while they were doing make up. I’m like, “Here’s how you look so great,” right, but, okay, that’s just odd. At least there wasn’t sparkly lipstick but it was pretty well caked on but that’s what they do for everyone, so all right, when in Rome.
I wiped it off with this facial thing afterwards, like a handy wipe and it was covered, like a little mask, my death mask of make up and it was gross. Given that I’m not going to do that when I’m say going to LA this time but I’m still going to fly for several hours and I’m probably not going to look my best. If I’m going to go on camera when I get there, like a movie star, what do they do? What do you do for people like that? How do I look good but also it’s important for my longevity and for things like that to not let my skin get all clogged up? What should I smear on my face or what should I do?
Trina: What I have done with my line, what I started doing was making things out of food. It’s all food based. It’s from the earth. I like to call it Mother Earth or Planet Earth giving back to me. I decided that if food is what I need, the antioxidants, the vitamins, the minerals to eat and feel better, then just imagine what my skin would look like if that’s what I used on my skin. I was actually really nervous about giving up Big Cosmo because I bought into exactly what they were selling me and I had acne for 40 years.
Dave: Oh, wow.
Trina: I couldn’t … Yeah, I mean I couldn’t get rid of it. I was 40 years old. I had acne and my skin was so oily and I finally … The reason I started my company and the reason I found skin food is what I like to call it, is because I suffered a mysterious miscarriage. Being a health nut, both my husband and I are very healthy, eating healthy and I was at 40 years old. I started to examine everything around me that could possibly be polluting me. I mean you do, that’s what you do.
I knew that there was … I would never know what the reason was but if there was something I could do, I would alternate something that I could in my environment. I think that’s called biohacking, right, or something along those terms.
Dave: It is indeed. In fact, my very first book was The Better Baby Book, which was everything you can possibly do to increase fertility because my wife was infertile when we met. There’s a whole chapter on make up and household chemicals because if you’re going to expose yourself to those, especially when you’re trying to get pregnant, the body’s sensitive. We have a rule, in fact, the rule came from that book and it’s that if you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, don’t put it on your skin.
That’s one of the things that I really appreciate about what you’re doing is you’re like, “Okay, what are the things going in your mouth do on your skin?” which is cool.
Trina: Yeah, that’s exactly it and make up, everything is so polluted and you don’t realize how much, how many things you’re using every day. I mean even your toothpaste. I like to talk about toothpaste and the fact that it’s good to clean your teeth. Your teeth will get clean with it but everything else that it does to you, totally outweighs the cleaning and there’s better alternatives.
I developed a tooth powder made from dirt, made from clays because the clays have the healing minerals that your teeth need to re-mineralize so that they don’t break down. I made it for my daughter who had a defect in her tooth when she was born and it’s amazing. It literally will re-mineralize and heal your teeth but it’s the same concept. What you won’t eat, don’t put on your skin. Your cells need those vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and if you want to look younger …
When I was 40 and had oily acne infested skin, I was afraid to put oil on my skin but when I was … I got pregnant again almost right away and I was seven weeks along. I glanced down at a moisturizer one morning and a light bulb went off. I knew that the ingredients that were in there were very harmful to me and that is when it connected that I wasn’t as healthy as I thought I was. I thought I was this guru in health and here I am polluting my body and I never gave them permission to do that to me.
I ended up going to my kitchen and just slathering my face with olive oil because that’s the only thing that I knew at that moment that would work well and was not going to pollute me. I literally threw out my make up, I threw everything out and I thought, “If I can’t make it or find an alternative that I trust, I’m not going to use it.” I got busy because I didn’t want to live without make up for long.
Dave: What’s in your tooth powder? What’s it called, by the way? By the way, there’s a rule on Bulletproof Radio which is you’re not here to sell stuff. You talk about the stuff you make because obviously, you wouldn’t make it if you didn’t believe in it.
Trina: Right.
Dave: It’s actually a huge axe to create something that didn’t exist before and it’s not necessary to make stuff that’s sub par when you’re running a small company you make because you care, but don’t over sell the stuff. Just tell me what’s in it and why people care.
Trina: It’s made with three different clays, bentonite clay, white kaelin clay, and French green clay, and then it’s got just a little bit of baking soda because that will also help clean the teeth and if you want it flavored, we use the essential oil. Peppermint is the most like your commercial toothpaste taste.
Dave: It feels good. I’ve used it. I use a variety of things on my teeth but I’ve absolutely used your stuff.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah, it’s a different clean feeling. It’s smoother than normal toothpaste.
Trina: It is and it doesn’t lather. It’s called Dirty Mouth. Actually, Liz Wolfe named it for me because I was having a hard time and I texted her.
Dave: It’s much better than potty mouth, so you went on a …
Trina: Yeah, we went with Dirty Mouth, but it really does. It feels good and it … The thing that … I don’t know if you know this. You might. Your teeth, in order to be re-mineralized, the process all has to happen in your mouth. It cannot leach minerals from your bloodstream. If you don’t have the minerals in your diet and most people on a Paleo Diet probably have a sufficient or good amount, but we all know that the soil is depleted.
The only way to get those minerals in your mouth is to either eat them through your food and your diet or to brush with them. Since you look … If you look at your Big Cosmo toothpaste, you’re going to find zero minerals in there. They’re cleaning your teeth but they’re not really feeding your teeth anything.
Dave: Fluoride’s a mineral?
Trina: Yes, that’s not a good one.
Dave: Okay, why would you tell people not to Fluoride in their mouth?
Trina: It’s just toxic. It’s toxic in numerous ways. It’s not good for your liver. It’s just not good for you body and it’s not good for children.
Dave: I fully agree. I’m just always gathering opinions and data on that. My biggest one is it’s a prescription drug to slow thyroid function.
Trina: Right.
Dave: Which is … Yeah, that’s a problem.
Trina: Yeah, little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You were talking about men using skin care and I have to tell you. I have a lot of male clients. A lot. It’s amazing. I didn’t think that men were going to be as interested. My husband is a skin care junkie. He’s my number one fan, but men are getting more and more concerned and interested as they should be because breast cancer is on the rise in men as well and it’s actually growing faster than women.
The endocrine disruptors that are in Big Cosmo products can disrupt your endocrine system and your hormonal system is responsible for a lot of things that can cause cancers, all sorts of things.
Dave: We have an advantage in that we can look distinguished but there’s another word for that which is old. I think a lot of guys, and not just middle aged guys, but even younger guys are just saying, “Wait a minute, I like to look reasonably good. Okay, I feel better when I look healthy, when I don’t have pimples, when I have giant pores and that stuff, so I’m going to do a few simple things,” but I get the impression that there are very few guys out there who are willing to spend an hour in the morning preparing their face and there are a lot of women …
In fact, there’s … Who is that? Michelle someone or another with a billion Youtube views on how to have pouty lips. I’m like a billion pouty lip videos like, “Oh, my god.” I don’t know a lot of guys who watch those things but clearly there’s a market. Why do you have so many guys who care about what you’re doing versus the average skin care thing which is like, “Oh, my god, we have a lavender scent. Oh, and it’s so delicious.” You’re like, “Okay.” What are you doing different?
Trina: I’ll tell you. I service the people that … I call them the elite of the skin care pyramid because it’s the people … If you get to me, most likely you have changed your diet. You’re eating healthy. You are looking for things that are polluting you in your environment and in your food.
The people that, my customers really are the elite of the elite, they really take care of themselves and not to say that other people don’t but that’s who finds me. They’re looking for me and when they find me, it’s an overwhelming sense of relief that they can trust somebody. I’ve formulated everything myself. I formulated everything for myself and for my family.
Dave: Yeah.
Trina: We talked about kids and my biggest concern is that today, kids are being polluted from the minute they’re conceived because there have been … The ingredients in skin care like falates and peramins have been found in the core blood of newborn babies and that scares me. I’ve done OB Nursing anesthesia. I’ve been in the operating room. You see those little tiny babies coming and it’s just scary to think of an environment that started in toxicity as opposed to years ago when that was a clean environment.
Dave: If you look at even just what’s in modern feminine care products, you’re like, “You’re putting those chemicals where?”
Trina: Right, exactly.
Dave: It just doesn’t make sense.
Trina: I know. It’s really scary.
Dave: Now you’ve got this ability for the skin to absorb things, which is important in that it’s … In fact, all right, this is a little known fact but how old your son, daughter?
Trina: My daughter is seven and I have twin boys that are five.
Dave: My daughter’s eight, my son is six, so very similar.
Trina: Yes.
Dave: You know in the first two years of life, because you’re a skin care expert and because you have medical training that 50% of the calories that babies consume are not through the mouth. It’s actually through the skin on their face, which is why they rub the food all over their face, so it can absorb, right.
Trina: Right.
Dave: Okay.
Trina: That’s right.
Dave: Maybe that’s not entirely true but …
Trina: They know more than us. They know that that food is good for their skin and, “Mom, stop putting that crap on me.”
Dave: Right.
Trina: “What I really want is this avocado smashed on my face.”
Dave: It’s so funny, but it’s true in that if you were to put some weird lotiony crap all over your baby, which a lot of people do, it does get absorbed very rapidly. It does mess with things and you have the most leverage right around the month before conception and the first trimester. From then on out, throughout your entire life, you have less leverage. It takes more work to cause change, but that also means that if you do something in early on, that first three months of life, and I think skin care for babies is one of the more important things you can do right.
Trina: Absolutely.
Dave: We haven’t talked about the biome here, the natural bacteria that live on the skin and do you do anything when you’re smearing your food based products … I say smearing but you’re just using that … They look and feel like normal products.
Trina: They’re beauty products.
Dave: They’re based on things that actually are biologically compatible with us.
Trina: Right.
Dave: Have you done any research into what those do for, say, the natural bacteria on your skin, for yeast, for all the other problems like that? Just walk me through what happens when you put your stuff on versus normal stuff.
Trina: A lot of that is with some of the ingredients that are in the Big Cosmos soaps and lotions can destroy your normal flora, your normal bacteria that live on your skin that protect you. It’s really your first line of defense before your skin is those little biomes, microbes, things that live on your skin. If something comes along they’ll eat it and destroy it before it becomes you but most of the soaps that have sodium lorasulfate on it, triclosan, things like that in it can destroy your natural bacteria and then you are susceptible or more susceptible to having invasion through your skin.
What I did is I produce … None of my products will destroy any of your normal microbes or bacteria. My soaps do not contain SLS. They’re all oil based soaps.
Dave: Cool.
Trina: It’s amazing the difference that you feel on your skin when you’re not stripping your natural oils and bacteria, because you need that. Your skin is in much better health from the very beginning, from the outside, and then you start feeding it from the outside to the inside as well as the diet that you eat. The more oils and high fats or good fats that you eat, as well as the other nutrition, your micronutrients that you eat, the better your skin’s going to look and the faster it’s going to heal when something does happen to it.
Dave: You can speed up skin healing and, all right, here’s a question. When you travel, you clearly take your stuff with you, right.
Trina: Yes.
Dave: Do you see that a lot of people are now traveling with soap? I have for years, because if your skin’s used to a certain soap, then when you go to a hotel and you put their … The world’s cheapest soap in the world’s most expensive wrapper, which is what you find at hotels, you’re totally messing with an organ in your body, but do you see that most of your clients now travel with their own soap or do people still use those little hotel bars?
Trina: I think most of my clients take their own, take either my products or whatever they’re using from their own. Mainly because I’ve had people contact me that said they totally forgot to take their tooth powder with them and they had to use nasty tooth powder or toothpaste and they couldn’t stand … They were gagging on the foaming in their mouth. They couldn’t believe that they would gag on the foam that was being produced. The soap as well, people would say, I’ve had people comment about how dry … Immediately they noticed a difference in how dry their skin was.
Dave: I would recommend that just for anyone listening right now, if you’re going to travel somewhere, take whatever soap you’re using and the Prime Life Organics is … Like we’re talk about … It’s good stuff. You take that and you throw it in your suitcase. You can take a knife and cut off a little bit of it, if that’s necessary. That’s what I do. I keep it in little zip lock bags. The same little crack baggies I use for my supplements, actually.
Then that way, my skin’s used to what it’s used and I’m probably getting crappy city water instead of the ultra filtered well water that I have at home, but all right, fine. That just makes a difference. I don’t think most people do that. Like people go, “Oh, I got free soap at the hotel,” so they just do it but I think it’s an unconscious act and it’s not that hard to do that and when you just have consistency for your skin like that, it reduces one of those 10,000 tiny little burdens on your biology that you didn’t have to do.
Trina: I agree and there is a stress when you travel. I mean environmental stress from the airplane, if most people will travel by air, but you’re getting bombarded by free radicals internally and externally so the more you can do to stay normal, the better. Like taking your supplements with you, taking your protein drinks or your green drinks, the things that you do daily. Take enough for you to take with you so that your body can still function normally and you can defend that stress a little bit better and reduce the inflammation that it’s causing.
Dave: One of the things that I used to do, a long time ago. I’m going to go on vacation so I’m just going to eat crap and drink beer and, funny, I felt like crap the entire vacation. Now it’s like, I’m going on vacation, I’m absolutely packing butter, Brain Octane, Bulletproof coffee beans, and I wouldn’t imagine going somewhere and doing things to lower my energy level and, yes, I have a little kit that I … A little zipper thing with the TSA approved baggie size.
Trina: Yes.
Dave: By the way, neat trick.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: If you have two baggies, because you need two baggies and they’re in separate bins, you’re almost certainly going to get away with it.
Trina: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Dave: Oh, sneaky, huh.
Trina: Sneaky.
Dave: So I’ve heard, I’ve never done that, but …
Trina: Okay.
Dave: What you could do though is just you bring this stuff that’s with you and I have one and this is another trick that I’d recommend for people. If you travel at all regularly, just keep a bag of stuff that you have to pack each time so it has your tooth powder. By the way, tooth powder is not a liquid or gel so it doesn’t have to be inside that bag. You have all the stuff and then you just take that and you travel with it rather than going into your bathroom, dismembering all your daily ritual stuff.
Because what it’s about for me is I don’t want to spend an extra minute planning and doing stuff every morning because my stuff is all over the place. I just want things to flow effortlessly so I don’t have to pay attention which allows me to pay attention to something more important like I’m working on my next book right now and things like that.
It’s like, “Okay, am I going to think about packing crap for my next trip is or it just going to be packed?” It should contain what you use on your teeth. You shouldn’t use random stuff whenever you go. You shouldn’t use random soap and random shampoo and random other skin care products. I just, I don’t recommend that.
I want to shift gears to an entirely different thing. Going back to what you put in your mouth.
Trina: Yes.
Dave: Not eating but in terms of tooth powder. Are you familiar with the nitric oxide effects of bacteria in the mouth? Is that something that you’ve ever covered?
Trina: I haven’t covered but I’m familiar with nitric oxide.
Dave: Cool. In the last Quarterly Box or maybe the one before that that I do. I do this box with Quarterly where every quarter, I ship out like a gift box. I put nitric oxide testing strips and this is really cool stuff, because when you have enough nitric oxide in the body, it acts actually as a signaling molecule and no one had any idea about this 10 years ago. It’s probably one of those breakthrough things that we’re going to just keep hearing more and more about.
In order to get nitric oxide, the good kind, not the inflammatory kind, you have to eat your vegetables and you have to have bacteria in your mouth. If you kill the bacteria in your mouth, you won’t create nitric oxide the way you should. If you’ve seen the crappy toothpaste and antiseptic mouthwashes, you’re actually totally changing your body’s ability to cause vasal dilation. You can’t get vasal dilation … Where would you like the most blood flow to be in your body other than your brain? That’s kind of important.
There are effects that come from using bad toothpaste in the mouth and the effects will come out in other parts of the body that experience large things and blood flow, in both men and women.
Trina: Interesting, interesting. Speaking of blood flow, this is a cool product that I developed, if we’re speaking about blood flow and food.
Dave: Yeah.
Trina: I made this … I suffered from acne for years and I wanted something that actually would heal a zit almost overnight so one day I was going to bed and I had been making this muscle serum for my neck. It had cayenne pepper and menthol in it. I had this big juicy zit that was growing on my cheek by the minute and I thought, “Huh,” being the inventor that I am, I said, “I wonder what cayenne pepper does for a zit.”
I put a little bit on my zit and went to bed and as I was going to bed it was stinging and burning like crazy, but it was the best feeling because I felt like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s burning the crap out of that zit.” Finally, finally, something’s going to burn the crap out of it. I got up the next morning and I happened to glance in my mirror and had to do a double take, that zit was gone.
Dave: Wow.
Trina: I was like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s what cayen—” Then I turned around and I started researching. Why the heck did cayenne pepper do that, besides the fact that it’s hot? It’s the capsaicin in it that creates that heat but it also, during that heat is when the blood flow’s being increased to that section, that area that you put it on so that zit is being fed all these nutrients.
What I did was I created, I went back and I made this again and formulated it with a bunch of essentials oils that would actually decrease inflammation, decrease redness and speed healing like you wouldn’t believe, regenerate the cells. I’m telling you, I call it Banished because literally it will banish anything very quickly, but it’s so cool to see what food can actually do on your outsides and how your skin actually responds to it. It’s so important.
Dave: People who are listening in their cars, a lot of people, some that are driving or at work but if you’re not watching this on Youtube, you can’t really tell but, Trina, you have super clear skin, right.
Trina: Thank you, Dave.
Dave: For someone who had acne for a long time, you’re doing really well and I had a similar problem. I used to get these subterranean zits up into my adult life, till I was about my early 30s and I’m like early 40s now. This is 10 years ago.
Trina: Isn’t that when you changed your diet, too?
Dave: Yeah, I really started developing this and I changed my diet a lot before that but I was still getting the deep pimples. I was getting less of them, but it’d be like, “Oh, wow.” There’s a redness and then a day it hurts and then this thing would erupt from the really deep layers of the epidermis. I never understood what was going on but what’s going on there is systemic inflammation and for me it was eating certain foods and it was exposure to certain toxins.
The only way I get zits now, I’d maybe get three a year. It’s very unusual. I go and I’m like, “Oh, my god.” I can tell you, if I go into a water damaged building, which for me triggers huge amounts of systemic inflammation, I did a whole documentary about this common problem. Then three, four days later, I’ll get them and it’s like, “Oh, my god, I actually have a pimple. I think I remember how to take care of this.”
What you do, you treat it from an inflammatory perspective and that’s just what you’re doing with the formula you made, is you’re looking at this, but I’ve got to ask, there’s capsaicin in it, right? If you get near your eyes …
Trina: Ah-woo.
Dave: Or certain other areas?
Trina: Hey, this is interesting, yeah. I just did a little blog interview with a girl that I met when I was in Austin last weekend but she said she uses the Banished when she wants to either, one, get back at her husband or, two, when she’s not in the mood.
Dave: I will …
Trina: Oh, my gosh.
Dave: I’ll confess something. I grew up in New Mexico where we eat these really hot green chiles and they’re called Hatch Green Chile and they’re fire roasted and in order to eat them, you have to peel them in the sink. You just get covered in green chile oil. I think everyone in New Mexico, at least who’s male, has experienced the problem doing that and then going to the bathroom. Then you have to handle certain things and you’re like, “Something really bad just happened,” and then there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m guessing Banished might have a similar effect?
Trina: Very similar and if you get it in your eyes, it will sting and it will burn and you won’t be able to see for about 20 minutes but it will be okay. Because actually there is capsaicin or the cayenne pepper eye drops and it’s very anti-inflammatory, very healing. I don’t make them because I’m not going to touch that but if do get the Banished in your eye, because it does … and here’s the other thing that’s really amazing to me.
What Banished really shows you because you feel the heat is you can, a day later, sometimes if you sweat, you’ll get that sensation it’s like, “Wow, it’s still in my skin. It’s actually in my skin, still.” You do know that it’s working and you do know that things seep in there and can sit there and … but anyway, you’ll be fine.
Dave: Substance pee is the primary signaling and inflammatory molecule in the body, we actually share it with slugs.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: It’s funny, because capsaicin, that chemical in cayenne is a class of chemicals called a vanilloid and it’s called vanilloid because they discovered the first one in vanilla so you can actually use vanilla and capsaicin similarly but vanilla doesn’t burn.
I tend to put a teaspoon of Vanilla Max, the lab tested real vanilla, not the fake vanilla which is 95% of vanilla you can buy. There’s like ground up, whole herb vanilla beans and I put that in my Bulletproof coffee because you want to basically exhaust your supply of substance pee and doing it topically is really well established, even for things like arthritis and joint pain and you’ve found out for skin inflammation, then you added some other things for it, which is pretty cool.
Trina: I’ll have to check out vanilla, I’ll be putting vanilla in something soon.
Dave: It’s totally worth it. Just make sure you get a good supply, because it’s a dried tropical product. When you dry things from the tropics where it’s moist, you typically get mold and I’ve been to the grocery store and seen the $12 for three vanilla beans, and you can see the white stuff growing on them and that was what inspired me. We use a different curing process for the Bulletproof vanilla.
Trina: I know, I’ve used yours in my coffee and I love it.
Dave: You’ve used … Okay, cool.
Trina: Yeah, I’m a big Bulletproof fan.
Dave: Ah, thank you.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: Even just tiny amounts of it, the aroma of that and you could probably get some pure vanilla oil, that might have a concentrated, that I have not looked at that topically but have you ever used coffee as an exfoliant? I have a few Bulletproof fans who are like, “Oh, my god, I don’t want to waste the Bulletproof coffee, after I brew it so I take it into the shower and I scrub my face down with it.” Is that a good idea?
Trina: Oh, my god, it’s awesome. I actually have a coffee serum that I made that is amazing. I technically only sell if January, through the winter months because it’s really good from the winter. It’s coffee bean serum. People love it so much that I keep it hidden on my website, but available to the people that know it because they want it all year round.
Dave: It’s not hidden anymore. There’s 40 million people have seen this.
Trina: That’s okay, because it’s such a good serum. You know what, I’ve actually wanted to make a scrub, a coffee ground scrub and I would love to use Bulletproof as my coffee so we could collaborate.
Dave: Let’s talk.
Trina: We could collaborate, that would be fun.
Dave: Yeah. I mean, right now, I think we compost our grounds from the Bulletproof coffee shop. I don’t know how many grounds you need but if you’re … I think you want just used, spent coffee if it’s the exfoliant part. It’s a sin to take perfectly good coffee that you could drink and then smear it on your skin but you could …
Trina: It has good … Coffee has such good … You know, it has such good nutrients in it, though. I don’t know that it would be a waste to use real coffee grounds.
Dave: Yeah, I’ve used real coffee in soap before and it’s an interesting one and I want to try your serum. You’ve got to send me some coffee serum.
Trina: Oh, I will. I will. I’ll send you a whole package.
Dave: You just inject it straight into the vein? Is that how it works?
Trina: You can, you can, it works really good that way or you could put four drops on your face.
Dave: That sounds like less work. I’m on the side of needles. I like talking with a registered nurse, this is cool because I can make needle jokes and you don’t freak out.
Trina: No, I love needles, not for me, but I like to give them to other people.
Dave: The first time I ever did a vitamin injection on myself was probably 13 years ago. It was a Vitamin B12 intramuscular injection and I had ordered the stuff from Europe. I was sitting there with a needle looking at my thigh and I must have sat there for an hour, just holding the needle, looking at my thigh going, “I’m going to do it. I’m not going to do it.” It was incredibly difficult and then when I did it, I was like, “Actually, it didn’t really hurt very much,” but it is an unnatural act to stick a needle into yourself but once you’re used to it, it’s not a big deal.
Trina: I know and the people that are diabetic that have to do that every day, it’s a small needle that they use, but still, it’s hard to do it to yourself. You almost need to have someone walk up behind you and just jam your hand down into it, right.
Dave: Yeah. It’s a lot easier on someone else and I’m not licensed to put needles in but I might have helped doctors get needles in their arms when they needed nutritional IVs as well. It’s just how you roll.
Trina: That’s right.
Dave: All right, I want to talk about what I should do? I’m all about increasing my performance. I want to feel really good and there’s times when I’m … sleep three hours and go on TV shows in New York. What should I do when I’m probably going to be a little bit inflamed, right? How do I make myself look all right and this applies to a lot of people.
“Oh, I’m a salesperson,” do you want to in looking like a zombie or do you want to go in and look like you’re going to sell that day or whatever you are. There’s times during the day where looking your best is actually going to increase the results you get and it could be you’re going on a date and things just aren’t right.
It could be you drank too much last night but there’s times when I need to be rescued, from the way I look and if you share my values and we have the same beliefs there, you don’t want to smear whatever preparation over your face or whatever chemicals you’re supposed to use. Just give me the down low. What should I do when I look like a zombie and I want to look like I’m super good?
Trina: I always tell people that in the middle of the day is the perfect time … Especially when you’re making dinner. If I’m using coconut oil, I just start smearing it on my face, too. I don’t let any go to waste. I’ll just take right off the spoon and put it on my face. Anytime you can add oil to your face, your face will love it.
I like to tell people, the fastest way to anti- age is to get rid of the water that’s in the products because the water’s going to dehydrate your skin and accentuate your wrinkles that is in all the Big Cosmo things and put oil on your skin because your skin loves it. The oil is actually going to plump up your cells and make your cells healthier. You’re going to have a little bit of a better toned skin and it’s going to be a better color, too.
Mid-day, anytime you can, put a little bit of extra oil on your skin. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I save the fancy stuff for bedtime or first thing in the morning but in the middle of the day, a little slather of oil or butter.
Dave: Here’s what I do. I have those little backpacking travel bottles of Brain Octane, because I travel with those anyway and I have a little one that I carry with me in my backpack, so during the day, whatever I’m having for lunch, I pour some on and I put my finger over the lid of it to modulate. I once, I’m like, “Oh, no, I got some drips of oil and then you rub it on your hands or rub it on your face, rub it in your arms because why would you waste it, right?
Trina: That’s right. That’s right.
Dave: I do it all the time.
Trina: That’s perfect and it’s got added … I mean that’s even better because it’s better than just straight coconut oil or anything straight, yeah, anything, anything you have.
Dave: Okay, but I’ve also when I had really chapped lips one time, I smeared avocados on them and I probably looked like The Hulk or something, but you’re talking just pure oil, not like oil containing foods like peanut butter on your face isn’t a good idea.
Trina: I don’t know, you could try and see what kind of looks you get. I don’t know. It just depends on what kind of … if you’re trying to impress someone or not.
Dave: Nice, all right, so a little bit of oil and you said something there that’s a little confusing. Why would water dry out your skin?
Trina: Oh, I love this topic. This is one of my favorite topics. Water as it doesn’t get absorbed into your skin, so when you bathe or go in the swimming pool, think about when you’ve been in too long and you get out and you’re hands and your feet are all wrinkly. The water is actually pulling the moisture out of your skin and when you’re using commercial skin care that’s primarily made of water, if you look and it’s the first ingredient, unfortunately, it could be up to 90% water.
When you put that on your skin on a daily basis or multiple times a day because it’s in almost every product, the water itself doesn’t get absorbed. It evaporates and as it evaporates, it takes your natural oils and strips your natural micromes or microbiology that is going to protect you. It’s actually dehydrating your skin a multiple of ways, because it just depends on how many things you’re using every day.
Dave: Okay.
Trina: If you’re putting oil on, the oil is actually going to be protective. It’s going to keep your natural biology there and it’s going to be absorbed much better.
Dave: All right, so that’s because the cell membrane is made out of fats?
Trina: Fats, yeah.
Dave: A lot of people think membrane and you imagine saran wrap or something or some solid thing but it’s really many tiny droplets of fat. Fat can stick to fat and things like that. I’m not sure that I buy that water’s always dehydrating because we have this thing called osmotic pressure, right. It depends what’s in the water, because if there’s more stuff in the water on your face than in the cells, then it’s going to pull water out of the cells. If there’s more stuff in the cells than outside, that’s going to pull stuff out of the cells, essentially, the dirtier or water has more things in it will want to essentially create a pressure to move towards the water that’s cleaner.
Trina: Right. Yeah, it goes from high to low concentration.
Dave: Yeah.
Trina: Back and forth, but that’s more from the inside. I mean drinking water, we know, is extremely important but on the outside cleansing with water is about really all you need. Your skin doesn’t on the outside need water, like the insides do.
Dave: All right, now in order to not look like a zombie, I am supposed to smear oil on my face. I’m down with that. What else can I do? Okay, I woke up in the morning, I’m like, “Ohh,” there’s bags under my eyes, I’m not looking so happy. What do I do?
Trina: Eat a good breakfast, drink a lot of water, and there’s some of my products that I’ve put together are anti-inflammatory. They have all the nutrients in them. Every time I use my Beyond Serum, it’s got so many good things in it. It automatically gives me a little bit of a glow and it’s the ingredients, it’s the things that you’re using. If you’re feeding your skin good things on a daily basis, you’re not really going to notice those ups and downs as much.
Dave: Okay, so eat, stay hydrated, and maybe use a serum thing and get some oil on your skin.
Trina: Yeah, I think serums are a good quality moisturizer that doesn’t contain water, try it. It makes a huge difference. Serums are awesome. I love using them, especially at night because they’re really concentrated and the nutrients are just … While you’re sleeping, your cells can just absorb that all in. They don’t have to be trying to fight anything else off, you’re just sleeping, you’re regenerating.
Dave: It’s okay if the label says aqua instead of water, right?
Trina: No.
Dave: I always notice that on labels. I’m like, “Because it’s skin care, why do use Spanish or French for water?” Actually, that’s not French but aqua, what … Okay, anyway, that just makes me laugh. Marketing is marketing.
Trina: Yeah, it’s a marketing ploy but, no, it’s not okay.
Dave: Fancy water, add a zero to the price tag, there we go.
Trina: That’s right.
Dave: All right, now let’s say it’s not a disaster, in fact, tell me what you do for your skin every day. You wake up and what do you do?
Trina: I wake up and sometimes I don’t even wash my face. It just depends how I feel, sometimes the natural oils that your body creates is more protective than washing it even with a protective soap. Sometimes I’ll just put a little bit of the … One of my serums that I usually use, the Beyond, the moisturizer I’ll use in the morning, so the Beyond moisturizer and that’s about it. A lot of times I don’t even wear make up anymore because my skin has really … It really looks really good.
I’m 47 today and my skin has really never looked better. 10 years ago, I wouldn’t go a day without make up. I wouldn’t go anywhere without make up and today, I rarely wear make up, unless I’m doing a video or interview or something like that.
On a daily basis, I don’t, so that’s really about it. I’ll put a little bit of oil and then midday I might spritz my face and put a little bit more oil, with a toner I spritz it, and then in the evening I’ll wash my face. Sometimes I’ll do a face mask. Sometimes I’ll do … I have a Fire and Ice face treatment system that uses the cayenne pepper … Theory behind it again to increase blood flow and then it’s a two step …
The ice has menthol in it to help cool and increase the number of nutrients, since the blood flow will be there from the fire and I go to bed and you’ve got to get eight hours of sleep. Have to … My husband just …
Dave: I thought that people who sleep eight hours a night die more than people who sleep six and a half hours a night.
Trina: Yeah, but they look better when they’re dead. My husband just got this device called Beddit. Have you heard of that?
Dave: Oh, yeah, I’ve had them for a very long time, yeah.
Trina: Yeah, have you had one? Yeah, and so I’m now obsessed with how well I sleep and last night I did not sleep well and it’s bothering me but I think I know what happened. I started doing this new Meditation Muse … You’ve met Gaiam, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, I think I have number nine, the ninth Muse off the assembly line I have.
Trina: Oh, oh, really, oh.
Dave: Yeah.
Trina: I just met her this past weekend, she’s amazing.
Dave: She’s great, yeah.
Trina: Yeah, Josh, my husband had the device, so when I got home, I’m like, “I have to use that.” It put me … I don’t know what happened but I meditated, went to bed, and my brain was so alive that I couldn’t fall asleep. I said, “I don’t think I can do this.”
Dave: Some forms of neuro feedback can totally make it hard to sleep.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah.
Trina: It was really cool but I was like, “This isn’t good, it’s one o’clock in the morning. I’ve got to go to bed.” Anyway, I’m going to try and do my meditation in the morning now instead of in the evenings.
Dave: Yeah, you can change. I think the Muse has some settings you can change, as well, like what you’re targeting and you can also just change what you do during the meditation, even if you’re still getting a Muse score but it’s very complex. I know some people who’ve done poor quality neuro feedback who actually couldn’t sleep for months afterwards.
Trina: Oh, wow.
Dave: Their sleep quality went from amazing to, “I’m a zombie and I don’t know why,” and it actually took more, very specialized neuro feedback to tune that so it’s a double edged sword but I’m stoked that before you just meditate and have no idea if it was working and now you’re like, “Oh, I got a score,” and I think that’s very meaningful.
Trina: That is what is so cool is that you get to see exactly how you did and how many birds you got. Last night I had a ton of birds, I think I had 29 birds which might not be much for some people but, for me, that was a lot, because the day before, I got zero birds which was devastating.
Dave: You’re basically learning how to have more control of your brain.
Trina: Yeah.
Dave: When you learn that, something else is going to happen. You’re going to realize that what you ate and what you smear on your skin actually, all of those have an impact on your ability to control your brain. That whole biohacking changed the environment around you so that you have more control of your biology.
You have cellular control, you have hormonal control. You have electrical and magnetic control and you have control of what’s going on in your head which is psychological and emotional and spiritual. All of those are control layers you can hack so you’re just gaining more awareness of those so just keep getting the bird.
Trina: Yes, I can’t wait. I’m going to do it again today, as soon as we’re done, I’m going to go do my … so I don’t interrupt my sleep tonight, because I need to get it.
Dave: Yeah, sleep is …
Trina: Because I’ve got a good score in Beddit. Everything is giving me my feedback now so I’m in tune more to what I’m doing and how it’s affecting me, which is so cool.
Dave: Yeah, the idea of getting a really good quality of sleep score is amazing. I had the Beddit Commercial, Coach Edition for a long time, that hooked into an Ethernet port, so there was now Bluetooth, and that was really cool. I miss that one. I have the Bluetooth one now but I don’t always sleep with Bluetooth on. I have concerns about continuous Bluetooth all night long. I will do it when I’m testing something.
Trina: Right.
Dave: I even used to use the ZO, which was the original one years ago when I first started blogging and same thing, okay, I have a headband on. It’s like really getting all those EEG data but I don’t want to cook my head so I try to use it in concentrated bursts but not all the time and I’m hoping that Beddit comes out with one that allows me to plug it into the wall so I don’t have to have a radio signal next to my sleep all the time.
Trina: Right, right.
Dave: Awesome. We didn’t get too much into your book which is probably my mistake here. I should have talked more about that. Will you tell me a little bit about why you wrote a whole book on this stuff? I mean granted you have a skin care products company so people write books because they know about a subject, they care enough about it to start a company instead of just getting a job which is frankly easier. You’re doing the stuff, what’s in Beauty’s Dirty Secret like? Why should people pay attention to it?
Trina: My goal is to educate people. Of course, I have a business, and it’s an alternative for people but I really want people to understand what’s going on inside them. The way you metabolize or what happens inside your body when you put products on your skin that contain toxins, your body metabolizes it different. It goes through a different process as opposed to when you ingest it.
I talk about that. I get more in depth with the different ingredients that are harmful, what they do to you. I really want people to pay attention and start flipping their labels over, just flip it over. I’m going to coin that. Just flip it over and read your ingredients and if you don’t know what they are, there’s a great website, EWG, that … or Think Dirty, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, I support them. I donate to them I’m a working group.
Trina: Yes, they’re awesome. They will tell you exactly how toxic it is on a level of zero to 10, a product or an ingredient. You can look up either or, so if you’re not sure what an ingredient is, you can look that up. If you want to look up the entire product and see what the rating is, you can look that up. I just really want to increase awareness.
I’m doing more speaking events. I think it’s really important. It’s amazing the light bulbs that go off when I talk because people connect diet with health but have yet not made that connection with skin care. It’s coming along and especially with the Paleo movement, that has brought it to the forefront even faster, but for a lot of people, they’re still not … That connection hasn’t been made and I really, really … That’s my mission. I really want to educate people.
I’m a Nurse and I’ve always wanted to help people, that’s why I went into nursing so my way to give back in this type of setting, and a business setting is to educate people. Be your spokesperson, let you know exactly what’s going on and that way, you can make your choice. You can make it yourself, you can … You can do a lot of different things but you don’t have to contaminate your body if you don’t want to.
Dave: Okay, where are you going to take Primal Life Organics? You’ve got a cool line of beauty products and things like that and what are you going to do next?
Trina: Oh, I’ve got lots of ideas. I have a ton of products that I haven’t even released yet that I’ve made but there’s an idea to do … Branch it out into something even more, like possibly jewelry or clothing, something along those lines. I’m a real fashion girl. I love to just be real clean and pure. I’m not really a high maintenance girl but I like high maintenance health. I don’t know. The sky’s the limit.
I’ve got lots of ideas. I have a great support of network of in my family, my husband, my kids are amazing at bringing up ideas. I might even do a pet line. I don’t know. I’ve got a pet … A bunch of pets, I have dogs and cats and of course I use my products on them but I wouldn’t even mind making things for them, that’s specific for animals because I think that’s also very important and I don’t know. Sky’s the limit, sky’s the limit.
Dave: Awesome. I have a question for you then and it’s the final question that has been on every episode of Bulletproof Radio and that is, given all the stuff that you know, all this that you’ve experienced, if someone came to you tomorrow and said, “I’m going to perform better at every single thing that I do. What should I do to kick more ass every single day?” Three most important things?
Trina: Eat, eat natural. Eat real food, real food.
Dave: Okay.
Trina: I say it has to have a relationship with dirt, so it has to either grow from the dirt. It has to eat the dirt or the grass that grew in the dirt or for my skin care, I say that it can be the dirt itself. You don’t really want to eat the dirt but …
Sleep, get some good sleep, seven to eight hours a day and meditate. I’m learning that the power is in your mind and it rejuvenates you way more than you know.
Dave: Beautiful. Eat, sleep, and meditate. Very sage advice. Trina Felber, where can people find out more about your company and your book?
Trina: Primal Life Organics is where my business is. I have a blog. I’m going to have a new blog coming out pretty soon called the “Healthy Me,” which is going to be more than just skin care because I am way more than just skin care. I am all about the healthy lifestyle so it’s going to be a lot about the things that I do to keep myself healthy. Skin care is just a facet of that.
They can find my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and Twitter. I’m on Twitter at Primallifeorg. Instagram is a big one for me, Primallifeor and Facebook, Primal Life Organics so they can find me there and I’m going to have special that I’m going to be sending you guys, for the listeners, of my products. I have a started package. If anyone’s interested because I know skin care, for me, it was overwhelming when you start to look at the skin care, I’m going to give a 50% code or offer for people that are interested because it contains the things that are really important to start with.
Dave: Cool. Thank you very much. Have an awesome day.
Trina: Thanks, Dave, you too.
Dave: If you enjoyed today’s episode, you know what to do. Check out Beauty’s Dirty Secret and while you’re at it. I just did my own Instagram account. We’ve had the Bulletproof Instagram account for a while but now there’s Dave.Asprey so if you want to see all the photos that I don’t put up on Bulletproof, ones that are a little bit more personal but still interesting, Dave.Asprey on Instagram.
While you’re at it, sign up for a monthly subscription of Bulletproof coffee. We’ll get you your Brain Octane, gives you your coffee beans fresh, shipped without any headache and you don’t even have to think about it and you save money that way.
Have a beautiful day.
