+ 1. When is your book coming out?

I have finished translating Dr. Utsugi’s original bestselling Japanese book, which is the culmination of 1000s of clinical assessments, and was published throughout Asia. I have also written another volume to supplement his book, with the concerns of beauty-conscious women and scientific evidence. I am now spending time shortening the volume. I hope to publish the combined work by the end of 2020.

+ 2. WHY WOULD I LISTEN TO YOU WHEN SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD ARE TELLING ME TO USE PRODUCTS? - ANISTON, JOLIE, DEGENERES, VERGARA, MIRREN, GARDNER, WASHINGTON, VIRTUE, PALTROW ETC. ETC. ETC.

These women were already beautiful before the products (that’s one of the reasons they are in show biz). And their beauty is further enhanced by lights, cameras, photoshopping, and a team of talented people. If you ever get a chance to see them in person without all that jazz, check how many still have perfect looking skin. During CoVid-19, many showed us their bare faces. Ahhh! They are just like us, with many of our problems.

I love these women's work (except for one), and am enamoured by their talent and attractive genes. But what they vaguely imply in these commercials are just that – vague claims, and not the whole truth. They themselves may honestly have been sold a bill of goods as well. These beautiful women are also paid big bucks to sell you the goods.

So why should you believe all that they say and take their advice, when you know it’s all about you buying the products? And why would you suspect Skin Sobering when we have nothing to gain when you buy or don’t buy the products? To paraphrase Nassim Taleb, author of Skin in the Game, “You can sell me something or you can give me advice, but it’s unethical for you to do both.”

+ 3. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SKIN CARE PRODUCTS? IS IT JUST LOTIONS AND CREAMS? DO CLEANSERS COUNT?

Skin care products include cleansers, toners, lotions, creams, etc. If you have used them for a while, you will need time to adapt to life without them. Don’t worry about quitting everything right away, because natural processes take time, and you need time to get your skin’s optimal metabolism back.

If you feel dry, get oily, suffer sensitivity, have acne, etc. these are the ‘tip of iceberg’ signs that your skin has been altered. How skin care products that are meant to correct these problems actually disrupt the skin’s normal functioning will take some explaining. For now, just know that every day you reduce chemicals on your skin, your skin gets a break and re-learns how to function.

Natural or organic products are all processed, and not much different from synthetic ones. They are in the same category as chemical products – just more expensive.

+ 4. Am I ever allowed to use makeup/ Is it okay to wear makeup sometimes?

We have a much healthier relationship with makeup than skin care, strangely. We know what makeup can do for our face, but we also know how it can harm our skin. So we don't deliberately keep makeup on when we’re done for the day. Instead, we drag our tired ass to the bathroom sink, and take off our face before bed. So although makeup does the same harm as skin care products, it is less harmful because it is on our skin for a much shorter time.

When you use makeup, do you use it to conceal your problems, or to enhance your beauty? You will be surprised to find out that as your skin corrects its own damage while free of chemicals, it will regain suppleness, evenness, smoothness (benefits are specific to your own particular issues). Your need for makeup to correct these problems will slowly diminish, and makeup will truly be an artistic means to jazz up your looks for special occasions.

As long as the rate of harming your skin is less frequent than the rate your skin regenerates, the damage is minimum, and you can enjoy an enhanced look with makeup from time-to-time. Hopefully, no one puts makeup on 24/7, like skin care products - your skin will be in trouble.

+ 5. This Skin Sobering idea sounds so backwards to me. Are you just an au-naturel, granola-type who doesn’t care about beauty and style?

I happily accepted the label, ‘Beauty Obsessed Scientist’ because I almost care more about beauty than health – shame on my health scientist credential! Even at 6 years old in Communist China, I cared more about how my hair and the ‘little red scarf’ looked than how devoted I was to the party. So being a self-admitted vain and beauty-obsessed person, I choose to use NO skin care products purely for my skin beauty, not fear of chemicals or laziness. The Utsugi Skin Sobering Method is based on science which has proven that not using skincare products results in healthier and better looking skin.

+ 6. I’m in my 50s. Is it too late for me to try Skin Sobering?

It’s never too late to start doing what’s right for your body. If you had smoked all your life, quitting at 60, 70, or even 80 would still have a positive effect on your health. My mom quit skin care products at 82. Her skin no longer feels dry or itchy, nor looks textured or dull. The only downside of quitting later is the longer ‘withdrawal period’- the time your skin needs to adjust back to its normal metabolism. Once your skin adjusts, you won’t need products to make it temporarily smooth, plump, bright, or moisturized. Your skin will regain those on its own.

I quit skin care products at 52, after using for 30+ years. My most prominent problems were black heads, fine lines, dark under-eye circles, puffy eyes, pigmentation, dullness, uneven tone, dryness, oiliness, dehydration, sensitivity, and breakouts. All of them, even dark spots (hyper pigmentation), which I would have never believed could go away if I stopped using bleaching cream or laser, went away!

There is skin anatomy, physiology, and product chemistry to explain why my skin issues appeared and worsened, and how my skin revived when given the chance. If you are interested, the science behind this is all in the book. With a much better base, my makeup routine is just a thin layer of mineral powder foundation, mascara, and lip gloss. That’s what you see in my pictures - my simple enhancement.

If you are younger than 50 or have young kids, quit now, and don’t start your kids on cleansing or skin care products.

+ 7. I stopped using products and my skin feels worse than before! Why is this happening?

Quitting skin care products is very similar to quitting smoking or any drug. You use substances to get the brief kick they afford you. You use skin care products to get the temporary ‘radiance’ they provide. But unlike smoking, you believe that skincare products are actually healthy and necessary to maintain youthful looking skin long term. This is the message you’ve been sold all your life. Unfortunately, the temporary plumping from these products also causes long term harm.

When you quit anything you depend on, there will be a ‘withdrawal period’ - the time your body needs to adjust back to its normal functioning. Like a drug, when you are first off it, you will feel and look worse, until your skin is done the adjusting/withdrawal period. Depending on what your skin issues are – dryness, oiliness, dullness, fine lines, etc., they may seem worse before they get better (as in the Herxheimer reaction, a healing crisis). Once your skin adjusts, you won’t need products to make it temporarily smooth, plump, bright, or moist. Your skin will regain those on its own.

So why keep chemicals on your skin when without them your skin will eventually be healthier and more beautiful? If you have used products for a long time, you may not even know your true skin type because products alter skin functioning. Give it 30 days, and start seeing the change for the better.

Too bad there’s no AA for Skin Sobering, so you will need a book to guide you through all the skin glitches while it’s adjusting. Subscribe here and get answers to your specific questions before the book is out.

+ 8. Are skin issues mostly a problem for vain women? Why should men care about Skin Sobering?

In general women talk about skin issues more than men – acne, acne scars, age spots, allergic reactions, bags under eyes, black heads, blemishes, blotchiness, contact dermatitis, chapped lips, clogged pores (here is just a short list of issues from ‘A’ to ‘C’). This could be why skin issues have been dismissed as shallow and vain but they are in fact an epidemic affecting all ages and genders, starting with very young children.

The condition ‘atopic march’ is a group of allergic symptoms of asthma, hay fever, food allergies, and eczema, which are strongly associated with over-cleansing and the use of chemical products on the body and around the house. Does it make you wonder why childhood contact allergies were almost non-existent prior to the 1940s, and in non-industrialized countries where skin care products were also almost non existent?

Very old and vulnerable people who depend on others to care for them also have a high prevalence of skin problems such as dry, itchy, and irritated skin. The link again is product use on the body.

‘Tough men’ may not care about the look of their skin, but they care about having hair! Scalp is skin, and using chemicals like shampoo causes the same damage as using makeup or moisturizers on your face. Dandruff, itchiness, oiliness, AND eventual thinning of the hair all are a result of irritated and inflamed follicles. Removing chemicals will restore the healthy functions of your scalp, get rid of the above problems, and keep the strands thicker longer. So men should care and learn about Skin Sobering. And short hair adjusts to the withdrawal reaction much easier than long hair, so this should be easy for most men.

+ 9. Give me an elevator pitch about why I should NOT use products to nourish my skin.

The skin is our body’s largest organ, an excretory (exit) organ! It is designed to poop out waste, not eat or absorb nutrients. Exit only! Like Gortex – stuff goes out, nothing comes in.

Nourishing skin comes from within – good food, good liquid, good lifestyle, good protection - not from applying stuff from outside.

The skin is also our body’s protective barrier, so it is non-permeable. Marketing claims that lotions and creams can ‘penetrate’ your skin to give you nourishment are misleading. These products are actually breaking down your skin and making it ‘leaky’. That’s how moisture escapes, and your moisturizer just caused your skin to be dehydrated.

+ 10. Besides UV rays and poor lifestyle, aging is skin’s biggest enemy. I want to do everything I can to slow down aging, so why shouldn’t I be using good-quality products?

The most important thing about skin beauty and health is its ability to repair, renew and regenerate. Baby skin looks so perfect because it has perfect reviving and healing capabilities.

Is it age that makes your skin unable to heal well? It is and it isn’t. It is TIME, time you’ve had in your life to mistreat, disrupt, and damage your own skin’s metabolism, and weakening its optimal healing abilities for as long as ‘your age’. The older you are, the longer you’ve had to bother your skin, and the weaker your skin is. That’s why old skin looks aged – it is the longer time you’ve had to pack in a larger amount of damages.

Think of this simple and cliché hypothesis – two people (or even better, twins) of the exact same age, one allowing all the damage – sun, smoke, lifestyle and SKIN CARE product, and one has done none of that. Do you think they will look the same just by being the same age? Age is not the main factor, but QUANTITY of damage. And quantity is correlated with time (age). So it is the amount of damage, not aging per se that makes you look old. Remove the damaging factors if you want to slow down ‘aging’ (not pile on skin care products), and a lot of these signs of aging will reduce. You will still age, but more gracefully.

Some damage even Skin Sobering can’t help - deep wrinkles, sagging skin, volume loss – so don’t get your skin to that stage. The big question you need to sort out is, does putting chemical products on this excretory organ, that is designed to be impermeable, help or harm our skin? Read my book Skin Sobering before you decide.

+ 11. There are hundreds of books on beauty. Why should i pay attention to yet another skin-deep book?

Almost all of the beauty books try to sell you something (not counting the book). The book is just a carrier for other products. The Skin Sobering method doesn’t need you to buy anything else besides the book to learn and follow the Utsugi method. This is also not a beauty book, but a book on a public health issue dressed up as beauty. See answer to ‘Elevator Pitch’ on the impact of chemical products on skin of all ages and genders, especially the most vulnerable – very young and old.

And if you are an ethical consumer, you will have even more reasons to adopt the skin sobering method because it is organic, natural, locally-obtained, ethically-sourced, non GMO, free of animal cruelty, environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, gender neutral, pocket friendly, time saving, life simplifying, AND it makes your skin more beautiful and healthy, all just with water.

I understand how hard it is to throw away all that you believe to be true and have been told for years. Things that the skincare industry and its collaborators have spent billions of dollars marketing to you. My best chance to help you see through the sales and promotion is with systematic explanations of science and the beauty of skin.

Skin Sobering is a completely different book that is the result of extensive clinical experience but also stresses the importance of beauty. It doesn’t bore you with medical jargon, nor is it just a skin-deep beauty book. Skin Sobering incorporates 3 voices - a brilliant clinician, a beauty obsessed girly girl and a health scientist, to take you from skin-deep to deep.

+ 12. Do you think many will buy in to this idea? How successful do you think your book, and the use-no-product Skin Sobering concept is going to be?

I don’t think we can even put a dent in this behemoth called the beauty industry.

Despite the fact that our message is backed by science and has clinical proof, we will get flak, hate comments, hostility, and attacks from all angles. This is because the Skin Sobering concept is threatening the livelihood of too many people – aestheticians, beauty bloggers, makeup artists, beauty magazines, product retailers, manufacturers, spa and beauty school owners, marketing specialists, cosmetic researchers, cosmetic nurses, doctors and surgeon. The list is too long. The beauty industry is one powerful giant with all its collaborators.

Even worse, those who drank the Kool-Aid already are people we love, and want to listen to – Jennifer, Angelina, Ellen, Sofia, Helen, Kari, Tessa, Gwyneth... Gosh, this is an impossible battle! How can we ever get across this message that skin care products are only going to make things worse, after making skin temporarily look better. We are going to try, using science and beauty. And we hope that when you try Skin Sobering and see results, you will give us a shout out. Marketing is unfortunately way louder than science, so we need your help to make some noise, to back a method that speaks to a simpler life, and healthier more beautiful skin.