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Thankfulness in 2021 owes a huge debt to the marvelous scientists and medical professionals who developed and delivered effective vaccines to counter the Covid-19 threat in record time. On another medical front, a development that has gone under the radar is a brand new malaria vaccine that was recently approved; lest we forget, mosquitoes and the diseases they carry kill more people than any other creature in the world. (Step back, sharks! Insect vectors and microorganisms win again.)

At the end of every year, we at Marie Veronique seek to shine the spotlight on a hardworking, overlooked part of nature to be grateful for – microbes, for example. Invisible to the eye, but we cannot live without them. This year we're giving thanks to mycelium, the root-like structure of fungus, and a tremendous source of life on this planet! 

While making high quality skincare products that deliver the essential micronutrients for skin health is complicated, some are appropriately DIY. Bath salts fall into this category. Taking a warm bath with salts is a smart way to improve circulation, which benefits all internal organs and pathways of elimination — especially the skin! In fact, boosting your circulation via exercise, proper hydration, eating well, and yes, taking a warm bath, has a positive effect on your overall systemic health. 

Our Director of Skin Health, Kristina Holey joined Rose Los Angeles founder Nathan Cozzolino in a conversation about the skin health benefits of CBD, Rose's ingredient-driven approach, its alignment with Marie Veronique's formulation process, and the values both brands share.

Quite a few people ask me what my skin care regimen looks like, perhaps with the idea that they might be able to gauge from my routine whether they are doing too much, or perhaps too little. Given my advanced years I am a good person to ask, as age is definitely an important factor when deciding on a routine. As you get older the rubric shifts from ‘less is more’ to ‘more is more.’ Let me explain what I mean by that. 

Today is World Microbiome Day, and out of all the commercial holidays that pop up, this is one we can get behind. While we’ve written volumes on how the microbiome influences the skin, there’s so much more that it has to teach us. In lieu of throwing a rager or exchanging gifts, co-founder Kristy Moore-Jeffress asked Marie Veronique Nadeau if there was anything she’d like to say to mark this occasion. Here’s what resulted.

We frequently receive questions about sunscreen, as consumer understanding of sun protection is often clouded by misinformation. With the abundance of conflicting advice online, it can be difficult to discern fact from fiction. At MARIE VERONIQUE, we are deeply committed to skin health and to addressing the harmful effects of sun exposure. Our mission is to dispel common myths about sunscreen and challenge long-standing misconceptions, many of which persist despite significant advancements in research.

Acne isn’t only for teens anymore—in fact, it affects more and more adults (primarily women) at an alarming rate. 54% of women over 25 experience some form of acne, which means that around half of us are attempting to tackle issues related to acne and aging simultaneously.

We’re often asked about supplementation with collagen peptides— topical and oral—and whether it works. With the right approach, supplementation can be very effective; it just takes a bit of know-how to get it right (and understanding how-not-to). In our newest blog, our Founder Marie Veronique Nadeau shares her response to the latest science and research, her thoughts on oral supplements + injectables, and how to build a smart, impactful strategy for supporting collagen and skin longevity. 

I didn’t realize until after I’d written the previous blog post that it begged for a sequel; knowing which micronutrients are necessary to maintain healthy skin is of course important, but if micronutrients don’t travel to where they need to go, not to mention be in good shape and ready to work once they’ve arrived, then they’re useless (even worse than useless in some cases, when being in the wrong place can harm the skin). So, in a follow-up to the discussion in Part One concerning which micronutrients to use we focus this time on where micronutrients need to go, i.e., to which layers of the skin, their mode of transport, and what they do once they’ve reached their destination. The short term for all this eventful activity is Dermal Delivery.

In our quest for radiant, healthy skin, we often overlook the simplest, most natural solutions. Whether you struggle with rosacea, acne, or simply want to optimize skin health, incorporating yogurt into your skincare regimen can yield remarkable results. In this blog, Marie shares her experience with using this beloved ferment topically, the science behind yogurt’s benefits for your skin, and specific friendly bacteria that make it effective.

The second annual microbiome conference was held in San Francisco recently.  The talks ranged from scientists investigating individual microbial species that call the skin microbiome their home, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Proprionibacterium acnes, to entrepreneurs with biome-based products designed to improve skin health. 

At Marie Veronique, we focus on learning everything we can about the roles the various microbiomes in our body play in keeping us, and in particular our skin, healthy. We’ve become so familiar with microbes like Propionibacterium acnes and Staphylococcus epidermidis that they practically feel like our next door neighbors.

In actuality, these bacteria and millions of others like them are even closer to us than our real next door neighbors because they live in and on us—in our gut, our pores, our eyelashes, you name it. There isn’t a crevice, cranny, or fold on the inside or outside of our body that isn’t inhabited by tiny microorganisms ranging from fairly large mites to microscopic microbes.

When the goal is to prevent aging and correct existing damage, virtually all dermatologists will agree that daily retinoid use is the answer. The term "retinoid" refers to vitamin A and the various molecules derived from vitamin A—which itself is also known as retinol (ROL). This can lead to great confusion because while the official name of Vitamin A is retinol, the derivatives, called retinoids, belong to different categories. Beta carotene is a pro-vitamin A, while retinyl palmitate, unlike its successors in the conversion chain to retinoic acid, retinol and retinal aldehyde, does not convert to retinoic acid. This means you do not want to use these forms of vitamin A (unless you are looking for an oil-soluble antioxidant).

Beyond Topical is an informative series featuring interviews with authentic Marie Veronique users sharing their expertise across a variety of topics that impact total skin health and wellness. As leaders in their respective fields, we value the informed decisions that have brought these friends of the brand  to Marie Veronique Skincare. Because while supporting skin with well-formulated and strategic topicals such as the ones we make at Marie Veronique is imperative, we also want to bring attention to other contributing factors that can influence skin health.

We are thrilled to unveil our latest product, a true innovation in skin health: Multi-Retinol Night Emulsion. This creamy, luxe night treatment offers a more intelligent and comprehensive way to address aging than anything currently on the market.

Created to address the need we saw in our ongoing work with clients for a highly effective, microbiome-friendly alternative to prescription retinoids, this product is designed to provide a smart, strategic way to address and heal the declining function that is characteristic of aging skin. 

At Marie Veronique our strategic formulations utilize novel surfactants, emollients, and probiotics; deliberately including ONLY ingredients that work synergistically to support barrier function, even the emulsifiers. With this in mind, we are so pleased to introduce our latest innovation and first body product ever: Body Barrier Emulsion.

A year like 2020 inevitably prompts radical change, and it’s this kind of kicker that has us making an important commitment to the greater good: putting an end to single use packaging, which in our case means samples.

When asked about her most essential products, it’s no secret that Marie Veronique Nadeau will reveal she uses yogurt as her daily cleanser. In fact, it was a muse when we formulated our oil cleansers to be a shelf-stable version of it. In honor of Marie’s dedication to the source and her legendary influence over many of us, we feel compelled to elaborate on this effective DIY step so you may experience the wonders of Mother Nature’s fermented topical if you wish.

Watch Founder Marie-Veronique Nadeau and Director of Skin Health Kristina Holey reflect on why we decided to create Multi-Retinol Night Emulsion. 

As part of our ongoing collaboration with Julia Sherman, we are sharing a series of recipes exclusively for Marie Veronique. Our first recipe was a savory breakfast, next we shared a reimagined way to snack. Now we offer a simple, flavorful way to boost your daily greens.  

At Marie Veronique, we talk so often about how to get and keep your skin healthy that we thought it would be helpful to take a step back and share some fundamental information about the skin. After all, if you want to understand how our products work, it’s helpful to understand how the skin works. 

This overview of the structure and function of the skin may take you back to your high school biology days (no passing notes!), but we’ll try to keep it on the interesting side. 

Having healthy, beautiful skin means different things for each person, and requires a holistic approach that takes into consideration your skin and health history, as well as your current skin state and significant influences from your everyday life. As with anything health related, there’s a certain amount of self-discovery necessary if you want to make impactful changes that support healthy skin function and symptom-free skin.

In honor of our 20th anniversary, we took the opportunity to reflect and give you all our best knowledge and advice for getting and keeping your skin as healthy and beautiful as it can be at every stage of life. It also happens to be the advice we follow ourselves.

We made Rescue Tonic at the request of people suffering from dermatitis-type symptoms that kept returning, no matter what they did. In fact, the more they tried, the worse things got. By targeting the cause rather than suppressing the symptoms we broke the vicious cycle of flare-ups followed by temporary relief followed by even worse flare-ups, and in addition dispensed with the compounding of symptoms that can accompany microbiome dysfunction.

As part of our ongoing collaboration with Julia Sherman, she is creating a series of recipes exclusively for Marie Veronique. Our first recipe was a savory breakfast to start the day, now we’d like to share a reimagined way to snack: Coconut Egg Custard. This dish transforms a snack into a nourishing bridge between other meals. 

As part of our collaboration with Julia Sherman, she is creating a series of recipes exclusively for Marie Veronique. Since we so often talk about the importance of good nutrition to skin health, we are often asked about how to eat in a way that is both supportive of your health *and* delicious. So we thought, who better to work with? We can’t wait for you to try them! First up is a breakfast recipe: Savory Buckwheat Crepes.

As part of our ongoing collaboration with Julia Sherman, we’re sharing a series of recipes exclusively for Marie Veronique. Our last recipe was a versatile green sauce, as encouragement for boosting your daily greens. Our next recipe offers further inspiration, Jammy Squash & Tomato Pasta, a main dish that offers more vegetables, with a twist. 

At Marie Veronique, we consider product formulation as a way to problem-solve. We're always watching the industry, noting trends in the treatment room, as well as at-home skin care. In recent years we’ve noticed an increase in clients who are experiencing symptoms related to heat in the skin, including redness, discoloration, and flushing.

This motivated us to think about all the ways we encounter heat on a regular basis and what to do when it impacts skin health. We’re so pleased to introduce our latest product, FACE TO CHEST HYDRATION MASK.

Marie Veronique products are designed to repair, restore, and protect the skin from unavoidable stressors in the environment that everyone experiences. In LA, that typically includes photodamage (damage from the sun and other sources of UV light), arid climate, and pollution.

We are leaning more about the skin microbiome every day but it’s a relatively new field of investigation compared to that of the gut microbiome, which explains why, to date, much more has been written about the gut microbiome, with the skin running far behind in second place. In lieu of studies directly involving the skin microbiome some researchers have made assumptions based on gut research and applied them to the skin microbiome as it contributes to skin function. Rather than taking that approach I suggest it would be more helpful to examine the skin microbiome in its own right, starting with a few basic facts.

The tidal wave of handwashing that has occurred since the arrival of the novel coronavirus has constituted a pretty significant change in our lives! Even the most diligent hand-washers among us have increased the frequency we were accustomed to, often by orders of magnitude. Since we’re in the business of helping you take the best care of your skin possible, we offer the following tips to make sure you are not only protecting yourself from Covid-19, but also improving the overall health of the skin on your hands.

We are increasingly aware of the link between health and beauty, and in no place is it more apparent than in the skin: When your skin glows with health it, and you, are automatically beautiful. This intuitive reaction to a lovely complexion is biologically hardwired; healthy skin is a profound attractant, one that we are instinctively drawn to. It’s no wonder then that we spend so much money and time on gadgets, gimmicks and expensive spa outings that promise to return our skin to a Shangri-la state of skin glow. However, these quick fixes quickly fade, and you’re back to where you started. Why? Because skin beauty—that glow I was talking about—is predicated on skin health, which is itself a product of overall health. If we are healthy our skin will show it, whereas if we are struggling with health problems our skin will show that. In fact, our skin can be an excellent barometer of our health in general. Happily, as we learn more about the connection between health and beauty, not only are our notions of beauty evolving, so is our ability to support and sustain it.

We’re all familiar with hyped skin care ingredients that promise the moon—or at least subliminally suggest that we’ll look as if constantly bathed in moonlight with regular usage. Of course, some superhero ingredients, like retinol, stand the test of time. Others, like vitamin C derivatives SAP and MAP, have improved tremendously over their earlier versions thanks to excellent research and development. And others, like peptides, excited formulators at first, then disappointed once it became obvious that they weren’t living up to their original promise. Still others, like plant stem cells, were silly from the get-go—we are not plants, so it’s unclear how plant stem cells (undifferentiated cells that foster new cell growth) are supposed to improve mammalian skin. Plants and animals don’t even belong to the same Kingdom, so it’s a stretch.

Over the years we’ve had countless women shopping for the men in their lives (and even the occasional man) inquire about which of our regimens are best suited to male skin. It seems that men’s skin care options remain limited to chemical-laden products and higher-end products with questionable efficaciousness. Somewhere between a lack of products designed to fit into a man’s lifestyle and an absence of education around men’s skin health, most men either don’t know—or think they’re not supposed to care—about their skin.

Between Kristina Holey’s practice and my experience with customers, we’ve seen a major surge of inflammatory conditions like acne, rosacea and dermatitis over the last few years. In fact, it’s reached epidemic proportions in Kristina’s female clients in their 30s and 40s.

Suppose some of the approximately one trillion microorganisms that live on your skin are finding their living conditions objectionable, even intolerable. How would they let you, their god-like host, know about it?  If you were a commensal microbe living on the skin, Staphylococcus epidermidis, for example, and you just wanted to go about your business keeping your little part of the world relatively pathogen-free, you might consider sending a message in the form of an acne breakout, a rosacea flush or an undesirable rash.

Consumers have had a considerable impact on the food industry by demanding more organic, natural, sustainable and local options. And since consumers have turned their attention to the cosmetics and skin care industry, demanding better accountability and more stringent safety standards, we’ve seen real progress when it comes to cleaning up our cosmetics and body care products, especially in the last decade.

There is no denying that climate change affects every aspect of our lives—even skin care. At some point in the upward trajectory of levels of heat, pollution and UV emissions, protective skin care will transition from a cosmetic option to a health necessity. And because we aren’t used to thinking of skin care in that way, it will be a non-trivial leap.

We are diehard enthusiasts for the benefits of vitamins A+C on skin health. Decades of academic research supports their efficacy and safety—administered properly, their positive effects are unmatched, especially when used together. Our skin and our systems need appropriate amounts of both of these vitamins to function, so we generally suggest a combination of topical and internal supplementation and diet. 

Warmer days and brilliant bouquets are around the corner. But for allergy sufferers, springtime is no picnic. Those joyful transitions can also translate into an annual ritual of sneezing, sniffling and itchy skin. The first step toward relief is to identify your position on the rash spectrum and to remember that pollen in the air is only one factor in the skin irritation equation.