“You are your own walking billboard. If you want to make a good impression, take care of your appearance.” – Andy Hnilo
(click to tweet)
Do you take care of your skin? Do you exfoliate on a regular basis? Do you use a good, nutrient dense mask? Do you even know what any of this means? Maybe you think that skin care is for women and ‘girly’ men, and that you’re too tough and badass to use any of that. If that’s you, pay attention to this episode of the James Swanwick Show, because our guest today, Andy Hnilo is here to change your mind.
Women understand that the way you feel about yourself and how you look affects your performance and how your personality comes across to others in dramatic ways. While this fact is often lost on men, the truth is that when your skin is vibrant with life you not only look better, but you feel and perform better. You’re at your optimal best, and that state of performance and vibrance is worth striving to attain.
But if you’re convinced about skin care already, don’t go to the drug store and start grabbing the first skin care products you find! Throughout this episode, Andy Hnilo will walk you through the potholes of finding a healthy, natural product to put on your skin. One that will not be leaking chemicals and synthetic materials into your bloodstream through your skin, but that will bring you all the benefits of all-natural, earthy, healthy ingredients.
So try it! After you listen to this episode, pick up some of Andy’s Alitura skin care products, and give it a shot, especially if you never have before! You may just find your mind clearing, your vibrancy returning, and even your perspective on life improving as you feel better about yourself every day!
“When you put things on our skin, it’s escorted into our bloodstream even faster than if you eat it. Don’t put things on your skin you wouldn’t eat.” – Andy Hnilo
(click to tweet)
Notes on the Show:
-
You’re your own biggest billboard. Make a good visible impression
-
Your appearance, and how you feel about yourself, can have an effect in the way you act, and how good the impression you make on others is
-
Exfoliate, nourish, and moisturize
-
Exfoliate: Acure Facial Scrub
-
Nourish: Use a good, nutrient dense mask: Alitura Clay Mask
-
Moisturizer: The Alitura Moisturizer
-
When products start getting into 20-30 ingredients, the likelihood of synthetic materials being part of it goes up
Resources:
Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast
Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Liquid Soap
Transcription:
[expand title=”View Transcript”]
[00:00:40] James: Why should you care about glowing skin? Especially if you're a man. Because let's face it: Society kind of judges men who take an extra special care or attention in their skin and their looks, because guys are supposed to be rugged and tough, and badass, right? So why do then feel awkward about our skin, and skin care? Well, today we're going to be talking to a pretty badass alpha male who is a former pro baseball player turned model and actor, about the importance of all-natural skin care. His name is Andy Hnilo, he joins us from Los Angeles, Andy, how are you mate?
[00:01:18] Andy: Hey James, I'm good, how are you?
[00:01:20] James: I'm doing very well, thank you. And you do have very luscious skin, I have to say. I'm watching the video, now if you're listening on the podcast, you can watch the video version here, or you can checkout this video on YouTube. Andy's got good skin. In fact, I met Andy at an event about four or five weeks ago, and I noticed that he did have good skin. And look, I used to make fun of David Beckham, the English football player, because he was always turning up to these red carpet events with fancy clothes and different haircuts, and I'm like, “That's not a damn alpha male!” But the funny thing is that now I take good care of my skin. I take pride in the fact that I've got good skin. So, why should we, Andy, just before we get into this, why should we take good care of our skin as men?
[00:02:07] Andy: You know, you're your own biggest billboard. When you walk around, you're making an impression about your health, the importance of your health, and usually your health and how you take care of yourself just shows that you take care of yourself and that you have some type of routine, and it speaks volumes about that without even saying a word. It's the first thing people see. Usually, with me personally when I had any type of irritation or a zit or pimple or anything like that, it affected my mood. And when your mood is affected you deliver an energy that may or may not be you. And when you meet people for the first time, I want to exude the best energy possible, whether that's business, whether that's personal, relationships or just meeting anybody for the first time, I want to exude Any Hnilo 100%, and the way I was able to control that was by counteracting that irritation and those pimples that kept showing up through all-natural products, not through ones that I created. I know coming from an athletic background and being an athlete, it was difficult to admit that I was doing things like scrubs and wearing masks and using cleansers daily to counteract that irritation. But now, it's my business, it's my baby, and it's what I do, it's what I eat, breath and sleep, and when you can make people feel better about themselves, that's what it's all about, and you're going to create a better energy to all those you encounter.
[00:03:48] James: So we're talking about men obviously, and you and I are both men, but we've got women listeners, women viewers too so I don't mean to say that this isn't for women as well, it's for men and for women but really, as men of course, like I said, we're supposed to be rugged and tough and badass and so there's a little bit of an internal mental struggle. At least there has been with me, over wanting to look good, and how much attention do we pay to our face, and how do I groom my perfect beard here, or do I just like, “I don't care” and that's attractive, or is the attractiveness actually grooming and taking care of myself, so what are your thoughts on it?
[00:04:28] Andy: Believe me, I completely agree. Sometimes you want to get that scruff going – you've got a sweet beard going – I mean sometimes I did think about that. I mean, I had a beard going until our coaches made me shave during game time and stuff like that. But it's a totally tough way to look at it. But the main thing that I focused on was just : What I was most happy with. I didn't really take into account what others thought about me, and what their opinion was going to be. It brought out the true me, just being myself and being most comfortable in my skin. And sometimes that's growing scruff, with the beard and hair disheveled, it's just whatever I'm feeling that day. But for the most part, when I'm locked in, when I'm ready to go, it's when I'm happy with my appearance, and I'm clean cut, and I'm just ready for that meeting with that date, whatever it may be. I want to bring my best essence out.
[00:05:35] James: So Andy, you used to be a baseball player, and now you're a model and an actor, and now you've created this skin care line, which we'll talk about in a little bit called AlituraNaturals, but you actually were in an accident and you had some scarring which kind of was the impetus or the catalyst for you becoming particularly interested in skin care in general, right? So just tell us a little bit about that.
[00:06:00] Andy: Yeah, absolutely, so March 20, 2011 I was crossing Melrose and I was hit by a westbound heading SUV, and then hit into the eastbound lane, and run over by a Toyota Tundra. Shattered my jaw from the middle of my chin, just to beneath my left ear, had two titanium plates inserted, woke up with bone exposed in the bottom of my mouth, bottom of my chin and, it could have been worse, I broke 7 ribs, collapsed lung, and so I had done things, I'd walked the runway for Calvin Klein, Levi's, Under Armour, Oakley, I mean you name it but, to have all of that taken away really rocked my word. It was hard to look in the mirror, I went to all new grocery stores, I looked unrecognizable. I really did. A product through my research, ingredient by ingredient, I would study spa treatments, I also just added a few things into it that I'd never seen used in skin care products, and I still haven't, but I just used myself as my own biggest science experiment, I moved everything out of my bedroom and living room, and I made my bedroom my lab and it was just my creative outlet and so fast forward 18 months later we're in 39 countries and it's going really well. It's my purpose, it's why I'm here. I'm not here to be a model or an actor, I'm just here to help others hopefully feel better about themselves that have been in similar situations.
[00:07:28] James: So when you got out of the hospital after those horrific injuries, you had noticeable scarring then? Like around where your chin is and your face? Because as I'm looking at you now, I don't see anything
[00:07:41] Andy: Yeah, I mean there's still a bit of scarring right here, it's about an inch and a half long, but it used to be it felt like 3 inches, it looked like a railroad track, because just from sewing up that wound, it was huge, and I have a lot of abrasions, I still have some scarring on my right side from point of impact and road-rash and stuff like that, but I really took this down to a science, I mean every single minute of every day I was like, “How am I going to beat this thing?” I didn't want to leave the house, my jaw was wired shut, by teeth were nubs, I was really banged up and I'm extremely lucky to be here, but there's so much information out there, and ingredient by ingredient I put together something that helps accelerate the process you know? A lot of the stuff that I was eating internally, a lot of my smoothies helped as well. I hit it from both sides: Internally, externally, and I really feel like that helped accelerate the healing process and the skin cell growth. It led into my obsession with it now, just from nutrition, skin care, everything. It's what I eat, breath and sleep.
[00:08:55] James: Well we're talking to Andy Hnilo who is the creator of a company called AlturaNaturals, you can check it out at AlaturaNaturals.com. So let's get into a few practical tips here that our listeners or viewer can implement to try and get luscious skin. Or, if someone's got scarring, how to improve or reduce the visible signs of maybe an unsightly scar, how do we do this whether it's topical stuff that we put on our skin or whether it's through the foods or the liquids we digest. What's going to give us the best skin. Give us an action plan, Andy.
[00:09:33] Andy: Absolutely. I'm big on three things: Exfoliate, nourish, and then moisturize. So when I say that I use a mild exfoliant myself in my product, kale and clay, but I also combine that with three types of clay, which is a little over 70% basilica, which is a building block in collagen, so I add that with things like, first 6 hour milk and grass fed colostrum, ascorbic acid which is a high potency form of vitamin C which crosses endermins. A very potent topical cleanser, sodium alginate, organic hemp powder, american ginseng and freshwater propowder which helps mildly bleached out sun spots, whatever type of abrasions or scarring that you've had. Say, if you have a fresh wound, I would wait until it closes and then start to gently exfoliate that area, and then nourish that exfoliated area with a good moisturizing agent, like say cocoa butter.
[00:10:39] James: So let's go back: I'm going to stop you there because I'm already a little bit confused, so you said exfoliate, nourish and moisturize, ok? So let's deal with exfoliate first: What's the first thing we do? How do we exfoliate?
[00:10:52] Andy: So there are really good scrubs out there, there are really good masks out there, that are just a couple simple ingredients that you can just gently exfoliate skin cells, so a lot of dense dead skin cells are just on the surface of our skin, never fade away. We want to exfoliate, say a couple times a week, just to generate new skin cell growth and brighten up our complexion with that freshly exfoliated skin. So you can do that through a scrub, or a mask, I do both, but a couple times a week – you don't want to over do it because if you over exfoliate it can become very irritating to the skin.
[00:11:36] James: So what are these things called? Can you go into a Rite Aid or any kind of pharmacy and find these things called a skin exfoliator? Is that what it's called?
[00:11:45] Andy: A facial scrub. I wouldn't go to Rite Aid or Target – I mean you can find some decent ones there I guess – but I would go to your local natural health food store – Whole Foods is great, Trader Joes probably has something a little cleaner than say Rite Aid or Target, or a drug store. But anything that is really dissecting ingredients – the less the better. The more natural, the better. If it's from the earth, I want to put it on my skin. Your skin is your largest organ so you want to treat it almost like another mouth. I'm very big on staying away from chemicals and synthetic man-made ingredients in my products.
[00:12:30] James: Yeah. Well we're going to talk about your line in a second. In general, the first tip is to exfoliate, and buy a scrub, a facial scrub. Preferably going to a natural health store like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. We're looking for the more natural the better. Stay away from chemicals. I'm assuming that you have a face scrub in your line. Do you?
[00:12:53] Andy: Well, we're working on it. We should have it in by May or June.
[00:13:00] James: Coming soon to AlituraNaturals is the exfoliant and the scrub. OK, so that's good to know that only 2 times a month.
[00:13:08] Andy: No, two times a week.
[00:13:08] James: Two times a week, I'm sorry that's what I meant. It's funny, I went to the Sundance film festival about 3 years ago. Actually, went again recently, last week, but I went 3 years ago and they hand out all these free gifts there, and one of the gifts that I got was this face scrub, and I keep it in my New York apartment, because I have a New York apartment, and I was back in New York a couple weeks ago, and I was going through my old pantry, and I found this scrub, and I was like “Damn, I haven't exfoliated in like 2 years, I should do this thing!” And I exfoliated, and afterwards, man, I felt so good, it was like my skin just felt so soft. It was weird, it was like, “Dammit, what the hell did I just do?” 2 year of not exfoliating and all the sudden I exfoliated and it was like, “That's as smooth as a baby's bottom.” You know?
[00:13:58] Andy: Absolutely. It just feels better. You feel more alive. You're waking up, you're really getting that circulation flowing to the surface of the skin as well, so that helps brighten up and makes your face more vibrant, really it makes you feel all around more vibrant as well. It's just a good way to wake up and to use part of your skin care routine.
[00:14:21] James: OK, so, first one is: Exfoliate. Number two you said, “nourish,” so how are we nourishing?
[00:14:27] Andy: So it's part of using a good nutrient dense, with hopefully superfood extract, or good, nourishing, essential oils, growth factor rich ingredients. There are starting to become more and more products out there that are legit. There are some great all-natural brands, again I'm big on not using products with a lot of synthetic ingredients or chemicals. So, I mean there are really good, potent superfoods. For instance, cocoa butter. I'm also big on beet products, oil jelly, beeswax, good raw honey. We can create it at home, there are a lot of good brands out there as well, but that's how I got started with it: basically just doing my research. Finding potent ingredients, buying them, one by one, and then just mixing them up in my bathroom and seeing what I could come up with. But one that that was consistent with all of it was just undeniable results. Beeswax and Manuka honey are so healing.
[00:15:36] James: So you're saying we actually buy these things and we just stick it on our face?
[00:15:44] Andy: You mix them together as a paste, and you can also just apply directly. Cocoa butter usually comes in a chunk, and I just would use my body temperature to get it smooth, so it would apply, and I would just apply directly on my face on my scar and now cocoa butter is one of my main ingredients in all of my products. That's incredibly anti oxidant rich, but also loaded with good essential fatty acids. The chocolate pod in general fascinates me.
[00:16:22] James: So to be clear, you started by saying, “using nutrient dense masks.” When you say mask, are you actually saying you get a mask and you put all of these ingredients in? I mean I'm sure that I'm sounding like an idiot asking you this, but I'm sure the average person doesn't really know how to do this. I've never put on a mask with cucumbers or whatever like that. I've never done this stuff, so I don't know. But are you literally saying, “Go out to a store and buy essential oils, buy cocoa butter, buy beeswax, buy Manuka honey, buy raw honey, and mix it all together into one concoction, and put it on the inside of a mix and then stick that mask on your face?
[00:17:00] Andy: Well that's what I meant by just nourishing that freshly exfoliated skin. Believe me, there are products out there that do that for you, so you don't have to sit at your kitchen or in your bathroom and try to mix up cocoa butter, beeswax, but that's what I did. I love doing that stuff, I still do. But obviously my moisturizer and night cream is professionally formulated. But there are really good moisturizers and skin serums, and that's what we want to apply because we're constantly absorbing toxins and we're constantly getting depleted of our minerals as we age, and that just accelerate the aging process in general, so it's used to replenish that skin with really good essential fatty acids and serums.
[00:17:53] James: So if we don't want to buy all those ingredients separately, which 99% of the people listening I'm sure are on the same wavelength, they don't want to do that. Maybe some people do. Maybe it's a fun little Sunday afternoon activity, you know? But it's not for me. It doesn't sound like fun to me. But I want to get all the benefits of that. I'm willing to put it on my face but what's easy way to do that and how often do we do that? What's the easiest, simplest, most time efficient way for me to put cocoa butter or beeswax, Manuka honey, raw honey on my face, and how often should I do it?
[00:18:28] Andy: Find a good brand that you trust with no chemicals. They're out there. They're out there. We're starting to see more of it.
[00:18:39] James: A good brand of what, though? A good brand of what?
[00:18:42] Andy: There's skin nourishing masks. There's skin nourishing serums. There's skin nourishing moisturizing agents, night creams. For nourishing the skin, I use my product. I don't want to sound like I'm here just to promote my product, but that's what I use.
[00:19:13] James: No, no, that's ok. But just in general, the terminology for the nourishing. Is it a moisturizer? Or is it literally called a skin nourishing mask? Or is it called a skin nourishing serum?
[00:19:28] Andy: I would say serum. Skin nourishing serum. Facial serum. That's probably a good way to go, and they're out there. There's some really good ones, with good cell turnover ingredients.
[00:19:49] James: Well look, thank you for being humble enough to not push your brand, but I want you to push it now, because it sounds like it's a one-stop shop, and I want it because I don't want to be going to Whole Foods looking for something called “Skin Nourishing Facial Manuka Honey Things.” Just tell me what yours is so I can get it!
[00:20:06] Andy: Well, yeah, that's the reason why I did it, was out of convenience. I'd never seen it, there aren't many other things like it right now in stores so that's why it's going really well. But that's what I wanted to do. Things like colostrum, things like the propowder, everything in there has an absolute purpose to create that circulation on the surface of the skin and create that blood flow. And then feed that freshly exfoliated skin with the growth factor rich ingredients like colostrum, which is loaded with IGF1 growth factors, which really helps skin cells repair themselves and helps the cell turnover. That's what I do a couple times a week, and then I just moisturize that area afterwards with my moisturizer.
[00:20:55] James: OK, so then we exfoliate first, which we're not using your brand because it isn't out yet, you don't have an exfoliator, oh hang on a second I accidentally turned on your website. I just went onto the AlituraNAturals.com website and there is a handsome face there… So we're looking here and if I go to store, your product, which the second part – is it called the clay mask?
[00:21:28] Andy: Clay mask.
[00:21:31] Is that the one that's got all of the things that you just talked about?
[00:21:33] Andy: Yes, so a good brand that I would recommend is Acure for the scrub. So the first thing we were talking about. A-C-U-R-E. Extremely affordable. Killer scrub. And so ideally what I would do is do the scrub, do my mask, and then I follow up with my moisturizer to condition, moisturize and hydrate.
[00:22:03] James: When you say the word “mask,” are you talking about actually like a mask, like batman? Or are you talking about just putting on products? Because I don't understand the terminology.
[00:22:12] Andy: It's clay powder, and then I add an emulsifying agent whether it's Bulgarian Rosewater, apple cider vinegar, it really acts like an astringent.
[00:22:24] James: So it's not actually a mask like batman would wear.
[00:22:28] Andy: No, no. It's something you apply to the face and neck, and it dries, and it does take over your whole face, almost like a mask or, like you said, a batman mask, but it dries and then I just hop in the shower and rinse it off. But it's great to really just feel those capillaries circulate underneath the eyes. A lot of people get dry bags and dark circles. This is a good way to really get that area circulated. For years I'd pull all-nighters all the time, and I used to work at night time in the service industry and I wouldn't get much sleep, but I swear that really helped, because I stayed diligent with that routine, just getting that area constantly circulated. I don't have bags, and I swear it was because of that.
[00:23:21] James: OK, so we're exfoliating with Acure scrub, and then we're nourishing with your brand, the Alitura clay mask, right? And then, third, we're moisturizing with what?
[00:23:36] Andy: I use my moisturizer. It's 95.4% certified organic. I know exactly what's in it, I source every ingredient. I added different botanical ingredients, essential oils, things like German Blue Chamomile, Australian Sandalwood (lots more) – everything in there. It's an all-star in it's own right. A lot of other brands that would use these as their heroes, but I just wanted to see what it would feel like on my skin if I would combine all these big expensive oils and extracts, and it costs a lot, but I had no intention of creating a business at the time, I was just creating it for myself.
[00:24:26] James: Is that the Alatura Night Cream? Is that what you call it?
[00:24:28] Andy: That was my followup product to my moisturizer.
[00:24:35] James: What's the moisturizer? It's called Alatura Moisturizer is it?
[00:24:35] Andy: Yeah, that's it right there.
[00:24:37] James: Ok, so I got a question for you: I had a guest on my show, guy called Ben Greenfield, Ben Greenfield Fitness, he's a good friend of mine, he has a cool podcast, Ben Greenfield Fitness, and I told him a few years ago that I was using moisturizer, and I was just getting whatever moisturizers from the store and putting it on my face. He's like “dude, don't put that shit on your face” I'm like “what are you talking about?” He said “it's full of chemicals, it's full of parabens, he basically said never put on your skin what you wouldn't put in your mouth.” And I was like “Damn, I've never heard of that before.” And then I started looking at the moisturizer, and it was – is it Neutrogena?
[00:25:21] Andy: That's what you were using?
[00:25:21] James: I think I was using Neutrogena, and they use these big Hollywood stars to promote their products. I think they've got – I don't want to say it's Jennifer Aniston, but there's some Hollywood actress or star that says “Use Neutrogena.” So I'm putting this stuff on my face thinking, “Great, my skin's going to be looking good,” and then I took the time to look on the back of it and look at the ingredients and it's like “holy hell,” there's like names of things I couldn't even pronounce, so many chemicals and parabens and all this kind of stuff, and what Ben Greenfield told me to do, he said, “Throw that shit out, just put extra virgin olive oil on your face, or use coconut oil.” I'm like, “What? What are you talking about putting olive oil on my face?” And he's like “Dude, trust me. And the best thing about it is that Italian women want to lick it off your face.”
[00:26:13] Andy: That's what he said?
[00:26:13] James: Yeah, that's what he said, and I was like “That's good enough for me. I'm going to go and buy some olive oil now, and find me an Italian woman who wants to lick it off my face. Sold!” That's the best marketing ever. And I'll tell you what happened: I was in San Francisco at the time, and I was staying there. It was July of 2013 and I was staying with a mate of mine Maneesh Sethi, who is a good friend of mine, the creator of a company called Pavlock. The first time I tried this I put the olive oil on my face and Maneesh said “come on man, we're going to this part up the road.” and I'm like “OK,” so I took this olive oil, and I soaked my face in it, and we're in the back of an Uber and he looked at me and he said, “what the hell is on your face?” I'm like “what?” he goes, “you're a grease ball!” And so what I realized is that I just put way too much of this olive oil stuff on my face, right? And so I went to this party, and these people are looking at me funny, and I went to bathroom finally and I was like “jeez,” I had to wipe it all off. Subsequently after that, I would just dab a little bit of this olive oil and put it on my face, and then after that I moved onto coconut oil, because I was told coconut oil was pretty good as well. So, what I've done now, I haven't used a moisturizing product since then, since Ben Greenfield told me that, I've only used olive oil or coconut oil. Now coconut oil I think clogs your skin up just a little bit, and the olive oil I think is the best thing. The only thing with olive oil is that you have to put it on like 30 minutes before you go out because you do look a little bit shiny and it takes a little while for it to soak into your skin. But since I've been doing that I've been very comfortable and feeling like I've been getting the benefits of moisturizing my skin. Am I right?
[00:28:02] Andy: Absolutely. And olive oil is one of the central carriers in every one of my products, and it's going to be because of that reason. I'm actually using ozonated olive oil while helps oxygenate your skin cells in my activated oil blend that's coming out here in about a month. But yeah, olive oil, that's my carrier. That's probably my number 1 central ingredient percentage wise in my moisturizer because of that reason. It's great. Coconut oil, maybe I would throw it in a body lotion, maybe – but I don't think I would, and I would definitely not use it on the face, for that reason, that it clogs, but it's ok, I mean it's better than using Neutrogena – anything is, I mean like yourself I used Neutrogena, Clearsol, Dove, you name it, all the heavily marketed brands with that celebrated presence that I would read about, see in magazine, oh Alex Rodriguez is using Clinique and I went out and bought that moisturizer he was using just because of that. And who knows? Maybe down the road I'll be able to afford somebody like that but I don't know, because I want to put that money into my ingredients, not my marketing. I love letting the customer speak. Word of mouth is my marketing, that's all we've done so far.
[00:29:24] James: Yeah, I'm just looking online, I'm looking at the celebrities that these big brands use, there's an actress called Hayden Panettiere. She uses Neutrogena. What's another big brand that we can have a look at which celebrity. Besides Neutrogena, what's another big one?
[00:29:48] Andy: Johnson and Johnson. Let's do Aveeno. Aveena – they claim to be all natural, they're another big one.
[00:29:57] James: Aveeno Skin Care – let's have a look here. OK, skin care – Jennifer Anniston – there you go. Jennifer Aniston, A-V-E-E-N-O, helps reduce the look of brown spots in just 4 weeks. Beautiful skin, and it's got a big picture of the Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston.
[00:30:22] Andy: They're huge and – good for them I'm all about ingredient decks and toxicity, and like Ben Greenfield said, me and him are aligned. I've been using all natural products for years now. If I were to use something like that, I would go through a full on detox. I would be in a fog. And something like that that you put on your face and that you apply so close to your brain – that just scares me. I don't want any part of that.
[00:30:51] James: Well I'm clicking on Aveeno – it says “Our Ingredients” and they say “Ingredients are carefully selected from nature and uniquely formulated through the power of science to deliver visible benefits for skin and hair.” And then it lists these things but I'm assuming – I can't see it here – but I'm assuming that this is going to have a lot of chemicals and parabens in it, right?
[00:31:13] Andy: I don't know about parabens, I've got to be careful I don't want to get in trouble, but I know for a fact that they've got to have somewhere between 20-30 ingredients, and you know, when you get to that point, it's just all about minimizing costs, and you're so mass producing – that just becomes untraceable to me in my mind. You've just got to narrow down that cost because you're distributing to the Walgreens, to the Targets, and that's where they are, they're all about the big names. It's understandable.
[00:31:54] James: But here's the thing: When I was talking to Ben Greenfield about his issue, I was getting my testosterone levels checked, and my testosterone levels were down a bit. And he said to me, “one of the things that you should do James is stop putting that shit on your face, right? That moisturizer.” I was using a little bit of hairspray at the time as well, he's like “Dude, stop spraying that crap on your hair as well because you're just spraying chemicals onto your body.” And I'd never thought to look at the ingredients until he told me. I looked at the ingredients and I just completely changed my bathroom habits. Now I have all natural products, I use Doctor Bronner's
[00:32:37] Andy: Do you use the peppermint?
[00:32:37] James: Yeah the peppermint stuff. It's like shower gel, so instead of using a soap bar like from Dove or whatever, I now use Doctor Bronner's, which is excellent. It comes in a really big, heavy bottle. You can actually buy it on Amazon. And it's all just natural oils, so I clean myself, I shower, I shampoo using that stuff now, and you just feel a lot cleaner and a lot nicer, you know? And I'm not putting any chemicals on my body. For you the listener, whether you're male or female, whatever, taking care of your skin is important, but what's most important is that you're not putting chemicals that are lowering your testosterone levels, secretly messing with your labido, messing with your hormones, and – your bathroom is a chemical plant if you don't have natural products in there, right Andy?
[00:33:27] Andy: Oh, absolutely, you know, you do not want to escort those toxins into your bloodstream. And the thing is that it is easier to escort those toxins into our bloodstream than it is to eat them. Because we digest with our gut activity and stuff like that – sometimes certain toxins aren't absorbed, and sometimes certain toxins are, but when we put stuff onto our skin it is escorted much quicker to our bloodstream than it is if we were to eat it. So we just have to be very careful with what we put everywhere. Like you said, our scalp, our face, our body. Check the ingredient list, read those carcinogenic – those government recognized carcinogen lists are on it, the artificial colors, there's so many beautiful, essential oils out there, and just super food nutrients. It may be a little bit messier, so like you said, maybe do it a little earlier before you head out so that you're not wiping your forehead at night at dinner. But it's worth it because you're going to feel better and the labido is going to be a lot more enhanced. The endocrine levels, like you said messing with our hormones, that's one thing that really really scares me, and you know it's all over your body every day, because that's one thing that we're doing sometimes daily is showering, and we're just escorting all those toxins and synthetic ingredients into our system. It's just going to wreak havoc on us.
[00:35:02] James: So if you're a guy watching or listening, if the threat of parabens and chemicals on your body is not enough, then maybe I can inspire you to exfoliate and scrub and moisturize by saying that women are going to want to lick your face. That's a good enough reason, right? The guy listening right now who's so tough and like, “I don't moisturize, I don't put freaking moisturizer on my face, I'm not exfoliating” and then you go, “well, chicks love it.” You know what, if you're as handsome as Andy, women appreciate a man who is well groomed, it's like you know? Take good care of yourself, at the same time you're going to be making sure you're going to be raising your testosterone levels because you're testosterone levels won't be lowered because of all the crack that you're putting on your body, and you're going to look good doing it, so there you go. David Beckham, I'm a big fan now all of the sudden. I used to make fun of him but now I'm like “oh, he was onto something right at the beginning.” All right, well Andy, thanks so much mate! And to the listener or viewer, just checkout Andy's website, go to AlituraNaturals.com, you can't get one of his exfoliating products because he hasn't got it out onto the market yet but he suggest, you do you pronounce it? Is it Acure?
[00:36:28] Andy: Acure is great. A-C-U-R-E. And they're everywhere, they're extremely affordable, I don't know how they do that but, yeah they're a good price point, and it's a great ingredient deck, a very good ingredient roster and that's what I use.
[00:36:42] James: Ok, so the Acure Scrub, and then you can go to AlituraNaturals.com and grab Andy's mask, which is the Alitura Clay Mask, which you would put on your face to nourish, and how many times a week would you do that, Andy?
[00:36:55] Andy: I worked my way up to every other day, but I worked my way up there because I've been doing it for years, so I would recommend doing a mask once or twice at night, it's very stimulating, but it's a lot better to go onto say a med spa and doing things like chemical peels and microderms which have unpredictable downtime.
[00:37:16] James: So once a night. So nightly.
[00:37:19] Andy: Oh no, once or twice a week.
[00:37:20] James: Oh, I'm sorry, one or two times a week and then the moisturizer with the Alitura Moisturizer, which you can get from AlituraNaturals, and how often would you do that? Do you do that in the morning and the night, or just the night?
[00:37:32] Andy: Daily in the morning, after the shower. And there's a lot of food-grade ingredients in there, it's bottled in maroon glass, UV rays can't penetrate it, it's preserved by the bottle, not by toxins, I don't use any preservatives.
[00:37:47] James: OK, and if all else fails, if you don't do that for whatever reason, put some extra virgin olive oil on your face, just a little dab, not too much because you'll look like me in San Francisco, looking like a shiny beast. It's not a good look. Andy Hnilo is his name, thank you so much for joining us, Andy.
[00:38:07] Andy: James, thanks so much for having me.
[00:38:09] James: It's been great. If you enjoyed this episode, you got a lot out of it, please do send me a tweet now at @JamesSwanwick, just a reminder you can follow me on social media @JamesSwanwick. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm going to put up where you can follow me. I'm on Snapchat these days, doing a lot more Snapchats which is the same thing @JamesSwanwick. If you’re listening on the podcast, you want to see the video version of this and just see the beautiful glowing skin of Andy Hnilo, go to YouTube.com/JamesSwanwick and you can see that there, and then also I took a little screenshot of Andy and put it on my Instagram @JamesSwanwick, so there you go, you can find me on wall social medias, @JamesSwanwick, thank you so much for listening, thank you so much for watching, happy glowing skin, catch you on the next one, see you!
[00:38:51] Andy: See you guys.
[/expand]