Ep 32 - The Peptide Perspective (feat. Benjamin Knight Fuchs)

Pharmacist Benjamin Knight Fuchs of Truth Treatment Systems

Peptides are an extremely broad subject with many areas of opportunity in skin care. Recent research indicates that some types of peptides may have a beneficial role in slowing the aging process, reducing inflammation, and even destroying microbes. A vast array of peptides can be found in many skin care products, promising everything from tighter, more youthful skin to longer, thicker lashes. So, how do you sort through the hype to understand what each peptide does and whether it will even be effective? In the ASCP Esty Talk Ingredient Decked Out subseries “The Peptide Perspective,” we explore many opinions and perspectives to help bring clarity, answer questions, and dispel misinformation. In Volume 3, we discuss peptides with Pharmacist Ben Fuchs.

Author Bio: 

About Benjamin Knight Fuchs

Benjamin Knight Fuchs is a registered pharmacist, nutritionist, cosmetic chemist, and the founder and formulator of Truth Treatment Systems. Benjamin has been compounding custom prescription medications and skin care products and has been consulting with physicians and patients for more than 35 years. Benjamin is nationally recognized for his work as the on-air pharmacist/nutritionist host of The Bright Side radio program and lectures nationwide on the importance of strategic use of cosmetics and nutritional supplementation for healthy skin and wellness.

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0:00:49.8 S1: You are listening to ASCP Esty Talk, where we share insider tips, industry resources and education for aestheticians at every stage of the journey. Let's talk because ASCP knows it's all about you. 

 

0:01:05.1 Speaker 2: Welcome to ASCP Esty Talk, the Ingredient Decked Out Series. Here, we explore the fascinating world of ingredients and how they work within the skin. I'm your host, Ella Cressman. I'm a licensed aesthetician, certified organic skin care formulator, and owner of the HHP Collective, in addition to being a total and complete ingredient junkie. So today, what we have is Volume 3 of the Sub Series, The Peptide Perspective. Peptides are an extremely broad subject with many areas of opportunity in skin care. Many skin care products contain different peptides, promising everything from tighter, even, youthful skin to longer, luscious lashes. So how do you sort through the hype and understand what each peptide does, and if it will be effective? To help us sort through the subject, I'm thrilled to explore peptides with Benjamin Knight Fuchs. Ben is a registered pharmacist, nutritionist and skin care chemist for over 38 years coming up and has been developing pharmacy-potent skin health products for aestheticians, dermatologists, plastic surgeons and savvy customers. Welcome, Ben. 

 

0:02:13.8 Speaker 3: Hey, Ella. Nice to talk to you. 

 

0:02:15.8 S2: I always love talking with you because I find you fascinating, and I thought you're the perfect person to talk to about peptides. 

 

0:02:22.8 S3: Thank you, Ella. 

 

0:02:24.0 S2: So with that said, what is the peptide?  

 

0:02:27.7 S3: Well, here's the thing, we take our bodies for granted, but think of all the things the body does. The body makes things, it breaks things down, it defends us, it protects us, it moves, it's got all of these activities. And all the activities that the body does are done not by the body, but by the cells. And this is really a distinction that seems like it's obvious, but we don't really apply it or take advantage of it when it comes to how we treat ourselves and how we take care of ourselves. We don't distinguish the cells from the organs. We don't distinguish the cells from the parts of the body that we can see doing the work. 

 

0:03:08.7 S3: So we think about our skin, we never think about our skin cells. We think about our skin, we think about the way our skin looks, the way our skin... The tightness of our skin, or the coloration of our skin, or the rashes on our skin, or the pimples on our skin, or the dryness, or hydration of our skin, but we never think about the cells. When was the last time when you thought about taking care of your skin? I'm not talking about you, but when was the last time somebody who wants to take care of their skin thought about taking care of their cells? We don't usually think of the body as being made of cells, or the skin as being made of cells, or any of the organs of the body or any of the parts of the body that are so visible to us as being made up of cells. Nonetheless, it's not the skin that is responsible for how we look, it's the skin cells. So that's point number one, all about the cells. 

 

0:04:00.3 S3: So how do cells do their work? Well, first of all, cells do all kinds of things, dozens, hundreds, thousands, probably, of different things cells do. They're all done under the commands or the signals of molecules. Molecules are like... Molecules that tell cells what to do are kinda like words that tell people what to do. Right now, you and I are talking, words are coming out of my mouth and they're entering into your ears, and they're going into your brain. And if I say "Sit, stand," if I give you a command, "Eat," do whatever I tell you to do, those words come out of my mouth, they go into your ears and you get the message and you do whatever it is, presumably. Well, that doesn't sound right, necessarily, but you get what I'm trying to say here. 

 

0:04:43.1 S2: I do. 

 

0:04:44.0 S3: We do behaviors based on commands and based on words, and cells do the same thing. A cell is the miniature version of a human being, and it is regulated or controlled by words, except we don't call them words when we're talking about cells like we do with people, we call them chemicals. Certain chemicals act like command signals the same way words act like command signals person-to-person. Cell-to-cell signaling, is what it's actually called, is accomplished by molecules the way person-to-person signaling is accomplished by words. So the molecule, there are various types of molecules that function in this word-like, command-like, signaling-like sense, but the bulk of these molecules are little fragments of proteins called peptides. So for example, a very common peptide that nobody even thinks of as a peptide that tell cells to open up so nutrients can come into the cell is called insulin. Insulin is a peptide. It's a very large peptide. Insulin goes to a cell, sits in an ear of a cell... You know what you call an ear of a cell?  

 

0:05:54.2 S2: No. 

 

0:05:55.1 S3: A receptor. Okay. A receptor on a cell has the same function as an ear on your head. So my words that are coming out of my mouth and going into your ears, the analogue in the cell would be insulin going into a receptor, sitting in a receptor. Every word has a certain command associated with it, like there's a word "run," there's a word "sit," there's a word "stand," there's a word "eat." And every molecule or peptide has a certain behavior that's associated with it. In the case of insulin, insulin sits in an insulin receptor on the outside part of a cell, and it tells the cell to open up so nutrients can go in, especially sugar; that's the job of insulin. There's another peptide, word, molecule, that sits in a receptor of a cell called thyroxine, also known as thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone is a word or signaling peptide, a signaling molecule, that sits in the receptor of a cell and tells the cell to move. It's a stimulator. 

 

0:06:53.6 S3: It's a very broad stimulator, and it will upregulate or stimulate lots of different behaviors in a cell. That's why if you don't have thyroid hormone you feel sluggish, your cells aren't getting the signal. They aren't getting the message, if you will, because there's not enough words, there's not enough thyroid hormone. So you have to take a drug called synthroid, which duplicates the words, a synthetic version of the word. But sometimes you'll have synthetic words, you ever hear a fake voice, synthesized voices, they don't sound right. They go... Like that, they just don't sound right. That's kind of what synthroid is compared to regular thyroid hormone. It's a fake word. 

 

0:07:29.7 S2: So it sends a message, but it's... 

 

0:07:31.4 S3: Kind of a little off. 

 

0:07:32.7 S2: A little off. 

 

0:07:33.6 S3: It's a little off, it's not exact because it's a synthetic analogue. Similar, it's very close, but it's not exactly the same thing. Can you kinda see what a peptide is doing here? Peptides are words, they're command signals that sit in a receptor on a cell, an ear, receptor equals an ear, and they tell a cell to do different things depending on what that peptide is. Interferon, you've heard of interferon, it's an immune system peptide. It sits in a cell, an immune cell and it turns on the immune system. And there's zillions of these peptides, these bioactive peptides. They are found abundantly in various foods. And in fact, peptides being so biologically active are very problematic in certain foods, and some people are allergic to foods. If you ever heard of people being allergic to eggs, they're allergic to the egg peptides. It's the peptides that cause allergic reactions because the body is very sensitive to foreign peptides. It doesn't like foreign peptides, so the immune system is geared to respond to peptides. 

 

0:08:34.4 S3: And peptides are the bulk of the allergenic compounds in foods when people are allergic to foods. So peptides are command molecules, they're signal molecules, they tell cells to do certain... They tell the cells to do different things. And there's various peptides. There's thousands upon thousands of peptides, they're found throughout nature. And they're especially found in biological systems and foods. So when we eat foods, a large part of what we're eating are peptides. Our body makes peptides, makes all kinds of peptides. And when they were discovering... I don't know if you remember this, but about... In the late 1990s, they were discovering genetics, they were discovering all the different things that genes make. Remember the Human Genome Project?  

 

0:09:15.0 S2: Yes. 

 

0:09:15.9 S3: So the Human Genome Project was to identify what genes were associated with what peptides. Peptides are made up of... I should tell you what peptides are basically, they're strings of amino acids and they're formed in response to genetics. Genes make these peptides. And when they were doing all this genetic discovery, trying to figure out what genes made what peptides, in the late 1990s they started to identify various peptides that did various things. And they found a lot of these peptides could be used in skincare because just like peptides tell cells to open up or close up or to secrete things or to make things inside the body, they can do the same thing for the skin. And they found that there's various peptides that stimulate collagen production, that cause cells to divide, that change pigmentation, have pigmentation properties that have muscle relaxing effects, that stimulate elastin and various moisture factors. Pretty much anything a cell does is gonna be regulated by some kind of peptide. 

 

0:10:17.0 S3: So the skincare business got all excited, they figured, "Well, hey, if we could take peptides that are responsible for making collagen and put them in skincare products, we can have a skincare product that can make collagen. Sounds great, right? Or if we could find a peptide that is associated with muscle relaxation, we can put the peptide in skincare products that will relax the muscles that are associated with wrinkles and wrinkles would go away. Or we could find peptides that make skin cells divide or we can make peptides that stimulate pigmentation or we could use peptides that block pigmentation." In other words, every single thing that you want a skincare product to do could be accomplished theoretically, and I'll tell you what I mean by that in a second, by just using a peptide. Because the whole process... All the processes that... All the things that cells do are done by peptides. If you just stick them in a skincare product, now you have a skincare product that can do whatever you want, basically, depending on what peptide you put in the product. 

 

0:11:14.6 S2: Makes sense to me. I'd buy that product. 

 

0:11:16.4 S3: Okay. So that's the logic. However, there's a couple of problems associated with. First of all, you have something called the stratum corneum. The stratum corneum is the barrier that sits on the surface of the skin. Peptides are hydrophilic, they're water-soluble. That means peptides aren't going to get through the stratum corneum very effectively to the lower levels where the living cells are. Peptides don't work on the skin, they work on skin cells. And they don't work on any skin cells, they work on viable or living skin cells. Living and viable skin cells are located in the dermis and in the bottom of the epidermis. So you gotta get your peptide a long way, relatively speaking, a long way through the stratum corneum in the upper layers of the epidermis to get to where the viable cells are, right? That's problem number one. Now that can somewhat be controlled by putting a fatty molecule in with that peptide. And that's why you have things like a acetyl hexapeptide. You know, they'll always be a fatty molecule attached to that peptide. 

 

0:12:19.8 S3: Or sometimes they'll put some kind of transdermal ingredient in the cream to improve the penetration of that ingredient. But for the most part, peptides are not going to get through the skin to the skin cells very effectively. And this is why most of the research on peptides and on the effect of peptides are done in vitro, in a test tube, in glass, in a petri dish, not in real life. So when you hear about the effects of a peptide, what you wanna be asking, are these... When they tell you how, oh, it improved collagen production 23%, improved moisture factor production 10% or stimulated keratinocyte cell growth by 20%, blah, blah, blah, and all the things that they tell you it did, you wanna know does it do it in vivo or does it do it in vitro? Most research on peptides are done in vitro, not in vivo. They're not done in real life, they're done in a test tube, because it's very difficult to get the peptide to the skin cell. That's problem number one. 

 

0:13:11.4 S2: Hey, guys, stop. Let's take a quick break. 

 

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0:13:47.5 S2: Let's get back to the conversation. 

 

0:13:49.5 S3: Problem number two is the interaction between a peptide and a cell depends on its ability to ligand or attach itself to the receptor. I could talk to you all I want, but if you're deaf, you're not gonna hear me, right? So you can put as much peptides as you want, but if the receptor is not receiving the peptide it's not gonna have an effect. Receptors live in cell membranes, the outer part of a cell. If your cell membrane is not healthy, you're not gonna get the same kind of binding of the protein of the peptide with a receptor that you would need in order to get the effect. So it's not just the peptide that's important, it's the health of the cell membrane that's important. If you don't have healthy cell membranes, you're not gonna get the effect of the peptide because the peptide has to be interacting with the cell membrane via the receptor, which is in the cell membrane. Not only that, but if your cells are not healthy, you're not going to get the reaction or the response that you want from the peptide. The peptide is only gonna do its work to the extent that the cell can perform the duty. If I tell you to run but you're in a wheelchair, you're not gonna be able to run. 

 

0:15:02.3 S2: I'm not in a wheelchair and I still can't run. 

 

0:15:05.0 S3: Okay. [chuckle] Alright. But you get my point, a peptide can only work to the extent that it's able to bind with the receptor in the membrane, number one, and the extent that the cell is healthy and strong enough to do the work. So number one, you got a problem with peptides, you have an access problem. Number two, you've got a receptor problem and these are potential problems. And number three... I should say... I won't say problem, you have an issue, you have a penetration issue because the peptide has to get to the cell. You've got a receptor issue because the peptide has to bind to the receptor, which is sitting in the membrane and you've got a cell issue because the cell has to be healthy enough to perform the function, which is all to say that just because you put a peptide in a product doesn't mean you're going to get the effect. 

 

0:15:48.8 S2: So when we're looking at melanocytes or melanin inhibition, and that's already unhealthy, and we're... 

 

0:15:55.6 S3: Yes, yes, if you have an unstable cell, a cell that either, the melanocyte will stay, the membrane is not effective, for whatever reason. Your membrane just has the wrong fats in it, your diet is wrong, so you're not making healthy cell membranes or you have inflammation around where the cell is so the peptide can't bind with the receptor for whatever reason. Or if the cell is unhealthy, you're not gonna get the effect from the peptides. When people tell you how wonderful their peptides are, what they're missing is, is the peptide can only work if the cell is healthy. The first thing you gotta focus on is the cell being healthy, that's the most important consideration. Peptides are only going to work in a healthy system. If a cell is not healthy enough to make melanin, to make collagen, to divide correctly, to produce moisture back because you could put all the peptides you want, you're not gonna get the effects. So when people advertise peptides, they don't tell you that, "Oh, your cells have to be healthy enough to do this, to do the work you're asking them to do." 

 

0:16:54.2 S2: No, they leave that out for sure. 

 

0:16:56.0 S3: Yes, that is an important point. Now, another thing that needs to be considered is... Well, let me just put it this way, when I'm working with skincare, I much prefer to work on the health of the cell. And the reason is, is because there are things that a cell needs to perform its duties to be healthy, that the body cannot make. The body makes peptides. There's no peptide deficiency diseases. Nobody is not making peptides, but the body can't make vitamin C. The body cannot make retinol. The body cannot make electrolyte. Peptides are not essential to skin health, vitamin C is essential to skin health. And many people are deficient in vitamin C. Vitamin A is essential to skin health, and many people are deficient in vitamin A. Electrolytes are essential to skin health, and many people are deficient in electrolytes. On the other hand, nobody is deficient in peptides. The real problem is not peptides, the real problem is essential nutrients. 

 

0:18:03.9 S2: Now, would this normally come from diet, or... 

 

0:18:06.2 S3: Theoretically, but the way we eat today, most people are deficient in most essential nutrients. When you're deficient... Even if you're not totally deficient, if you just don't have enough essential nutrients, your body's gonna take them away from the skin, redirect them to your heart or to your liver or to your lungs, which are more important to the body than the skin. You know, we may love our skin, but to the body, the heart is more important than the skin. So under conditions of, not total deficiency, but low levels of vitamin C, your body is gonna reroute vitamin C to the more important organs in the viscera in the center and away from the skin. The body will always redirect, under conditions of deficiency, the body will direct resources to the center. This is why people under conditions of deficiency, the first things that happen is they have skin problems, or they have scalp problems or hair problems. 

 

0:18:54.3 S3: They have problems at the extremities because the body reroutes nutrients that are in short supply to the center where the more important organs are, the organs that are important for survival. So most people are going to be, unless they're supplementing and they're taking really good care of theirselves, are not going to have abundant nutritional resources for healthy cells so peptides can do their work. So to me, peptides are like icing on a cake, you gotta have a cake first. And the cake is vitamin C, the cake is retinol and retinoids, the cake is electrolytes. Even alpha hydroxy acids are more fundamental than peptides. So peptides are, you know, they're cute, they're theoretically they make sense. If you put them in a petri dish, you stick peptides, you can up-regulate certain behaviors if you have a controlled environment. 

 

0:19:41.8 S3: But in the skin, you're not gonna get tremendous results from peptides. Yeah, there are a couple of... Unless you're totally healthy and then you may be able to up-regulate a little bit, but most people are not completely healthy. Now, there are a couple of exceptions. One is... So a class of peptides that are called neuropeptides. There's two main neuropeptides, one is called Argireline, which is the first one that came out, the second one is called SNAP-8. And basically, they don't work to create changes in the health of the skin, what they do is they relax wrinkles by inhibiting certain neurological systems that relax wrinkles. There are neurological systems that are involved in tightening the skin and causing wrinkles, neurologically speaking, and then when you relax them, the wrinkles relax and loosen up a little bit. So it looks... They have an appearance benefit, these neuropeptides. 

 

0:20:39.1 S3: So that's one exception, you can get some... No matter how healthy or unhealthy you are, there are some neurological benefits that you can get for wrinkle relaxation with these neuropeptides. And then there's another peptide that's a carrier peptide that carries copper into a cell, that's called copper peptide which I'm sure you've heard of. Copper peptide will deliver copper into a cell. The three main classes of peptides are carrier peptides, neuropeptides, and signaling peptides. Everything I just told you about with commanding the cell to do things, those are signal peptides. And signal peptides are limited by, number one, their ability to penetrate through the stratum corneum, number two, the health of the cell membrane, and number three, the health of the cell. So that's the signaling peptides, in other words, you can't signal a cell to do something if it's not healthy enough to do it. You can't signal a cell to do something if the ears are not healthy enough to receive the message and you can't signal a cell to do something if the peptide can't make it through the skin to the lower levels of the epidermis and in the dermis where the living cells are. 

 

0:21:38.7 S3: Those are signaling peptides. Neuropeptides will work pretty much no matter what, and they do work for relaxing wrinkles, the problem is they're very... It's a temporary effect, so they have a little bit of an appearance benefit like if you're going to a party or something, or you're going out on a date, you wanna relax your wrinkles a little bit, but the effect is only a few hours. And then the third type of peptide is the carrier peptide, and the most important of those are the copper peptides. Now that will deliver copper to the cells, and that can get you some... Copper is very important for the production of collagen so you get some wound healing benefits from copper peptides, as long as you have a formulation that will allow delivery of that copper peptide to the fibroblasts, which are in the dermis. 

 

0:22:23.2 S2: So the whole formula... And I love to emphasize that part, especially with my background. It is the entirety of the formula that lends to efficacy, it's not just one or two star ingredients. 

 

0:22:36.4 S3: Yes, yes. Not just the formula, it's the entire system. The formula, yes, but also the skin system itself. The formula is a system but the skin is a system too. So you have to have healthy skin for peptides to work. And by that I mean healthy skin cells. Your skin cells have to be healthy, you have to be nutritionally sound. You have to have abundant nutrients present, you have to have healthy cell membranes. And this is really why our skin doesn't look as good as it should, not for lack of peptides, but for lack of skin health, skin cell health. Our skin is not looking as good as it should not because we're missing patties. We can make all the peptides we need, we can make all the peptides we need. There's no need for additional peptides. There is a need for Vitamin C, there is a need for retinol, there is a need for electrolytes, there is a need for basic nutrients and not just topically, but internally. 

 

0:23:32.0 S3: That's what we wanna be focusing on, and it's kinda like we've been bamboozled by the skin care business, and I'm in the skin care business, to think that all we need to do is rub something on our skin and we can have beautiful skin, and it doesn't work that way. Topical skin care is the tip of the iceberg. You've gotta be healthy internally, and by that I mean you have to have healthy cells to have healthy skin. Peptides will not make skin healthy. Topically applied peptides will not make skin healthy if it's not already healthy. They can make skin cells do things but if the skin cells are not healthy, you're not going to restore them back to health with peptides. I'm a health care professional. Yes, I do skin care, but I'm looking at the skin as a part of the body. You have to have a healthy body to have healthy skin cells, and you have to have healthy skin cells to have beautiful skin. 

 

0:24:24.7 S2: Amen. [chuckle] 

 

0:24:26.4 S3: And that's really important, that's really important because people selling peptide products won't tell you that. They're not gonna tell you about the need for healthy cells, and about how you have to make sure that you're eating correctly. And by the way, inflammatory foods, and many of the foods we eat today, packaged foods, boxed foods, processed foods, fried foods, deep fried foods, all of these are very highly inflammatory. Inflammation is like a airbag, inflammation's a good thing actually, because it's like an airbag protecting cells. But if you have a lot of micro-inflammation around cells, the peptide is not gonna make it through that micro-inflammation. Not only is the peptide not gonna make it through that micro-inflammation, but nutrients and oxygen aren't going to make it through that micro-inflammation and toxicity isn't gonna get out of that micro-inflammation. 

 

0:25:12.2 S3: You could put all the peptides you want on your skin, you can spend all the money you want on topical peptides, but if you have these micro-inflammatory pockets in your skin, surrounding skin cells, you're gonna be wasting your money. Much better to take care of the inflammatory issues by using nutrients and by staying away from problem foods and by improving circulation, also, through movement, through exercise and lymphatic drainage, for example, than waste your time and money using topical peptides, in my opinion. 

 

0:25:39.7 S2: I love it. I think that is exactly why we wanted to have this sub-series peptide perspective, because you're offering insight in helping to ask, helping to encourage the listeners, the practitioners, the consumer, helping them to understand what questions to ask, because I think that's super important. 

 

0:25:58.9 S3: Yeah, because people hear peptides and they say, "Oh well, this peptide will increase collagen production by such and such percent," but what they don't tell you is that it'll do that in a petri dish or in a perfectly controlled system, not necessarily in your skin. 

 

0:26:12.9 S2: And I think the other point that you brought up today that's very important is skin health, and I think what we've done in the last 30 years has challenged that sometimes, but I love where we're at as an industry now, and I think in the coming years, we'll see more and more about the importance of skin health instead of just... 

 

0:26:31.6 S3: Yes. Healthy skin is beautiful skin. Healthy skin is beautiful skin. And you don't need a lot of topical products. You need topical nutrients for the skin, topical essential and nutrition. I'm sure you know this, but just for your listeners maybe, essential means, in the world of nutrition, essential means you have to have it. Your body can't make it. And there are certain key nutrients that you can't live without but your body can't make them. Vitamin C is the classic example of an essential nutrient. The body cannot make vitamin C but without it, you suffer from deterioration of connective tissue. In fact, vitamin C... You know I love vitamin C. The reason I love vitamin C so much is because when I was studying vitamin C, when I was first studying it in pharmacy school, and we were discussing vitamin C deficiency disease, it dawned on me... By the way, you know the name of vitamin C deficiency disease, right?  

 

0:27:18.7 S2: Scurvy. 

 

0:27:19.3 S3: Scurvy, right? When they were telling us the symptoms of scurvy, it was things like your blood vessels would become weak, and you would hemorrhage, and your connective tissue would deteriorate, and osteoporosis, your bones would become brittle. And I was thinking all of the signs of scurvy are the same as the signs of aging. Scurvy is an accelerated form of aging. So aging is like a vitamin C deficiency disease to the extent that it's accelerated. And when I first heard that, I said we could be using vitamin C everywhere. Vitamin C is the quintessential anti-aging ingredient because vitamin C deficiency disease has almost the exact same symptomology as aging. And when I started to think about it, I was like, "Why aren't we using it in topical skincare?" And I started working with vitamin C, particularly fat soluble vitamin C in the early 1990s before anybody knew what it was, before anybody had even heard of vitamin C for the skin. Because I've realized that the same things that go wrong with the body when you have scurvy are the same things that go wrong with the body when you have aging, and that includes skin problems. Wrinkles are a form of scurvy. 

 

0:28:24.1 S3: So if you really wanna take care of your skin topically, and you're not using vitamin C in its fat soluble form so you could penetrate and so it's stable, you're missing the boat. Peptides can't even touch that. Likewise, with retinol and the retinoids in general which are a major, major cell growth and up-regulating signaling molecule. Retinoids are way transcendent in terms of their skin health benefits to any peptide you can name. Now, I will say the peptides have a certain high technology ring to them, and they sound really high-tech, which they are. So, for people who are kind of bamboozled by high technology... Yeah, I can see the allure of peptides but to me, it's the basics: Topically, vitamin C, Vitamin A, alpha hydroxy acids also, I forgot about those, up-regulation with alpha hydroxy acids is really effective as well as electrolytes. But internally, staying away from inflammatory foods is really important. Moving the body and moving the circulatory system is really important. Oxygenation is really important. And making sure you're nutritionally sound with supplementation and good foods. 

 

0:29:33.6 S2: Well, I'll just take this opportunity to remind everyone that one of the first Ingredient Decked Out podcasts features Ben Fuchs talking about vitamin C [laughter] so tune in. Go back and check that out too because we covered that. That was fun. 

 

0:29:49.0 S2: I want you to come on my podcast too. 

 

0:29:50.7 S3: I would love to. 

 

0:29:51.4 S2: Yes. 

 

0:29:52.0 S3: But that was... Yeah. Well Ben, thank you so much for... 

 

0:29:55.7 S2: Thank you, Ella. 

 

0:29:56.3 S3: Providing a very insightful and valuable peptide perspective on the Ingredient Decked Out Etsy Talk series, and we'd hope to have you back to another one, if you don't mind. 

 

0:30:06.1 S2: I would love it, Ella. I love talking to you and you are truly an ingredient maven. 

 

0:30:11.0 S3: [laughter] Thank you. Okay, well, check us out next time on Ingredient Decked Out in ASCP Etsy Talk. 

 

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0:30:19.1 S2: Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you hear and you want more, subscribe. If you wanna belong to the only all inclusive Association for Estheticians that includes professional liability insurance, education, industry insights, and an opportunity to spotlight your six skills, join at ascpskincare.com. Only $259 per year for all this goodness. ASCP knows, it's all about you.

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