Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Bondi Sands Everyday Skincare.
Speaker 2: So I think collaborating and connecting with like minded people
Speaker 2: is really really helpful. So instead of being competitive, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of room for us. You realize that
Speaker 2: your struggles aren't unique. I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: tend to fixate there is the one partner and there
Speaker 2: is the one job for me. But I don't think
Speaker 2: that's the case. I think there's many possible ones and
Speaker 2: it's not like there is one part that you have
Speaker 2: to somehow fall into. There are many parts that can
Speaker 2: lead to happiness.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 1: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 1: makes the heart seeing.
Speaker 3: We work, then we.
Speaker 1: Rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's
Speaker 1: more than one way. So this is a platform to
Speaker 1: hear and explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 3: They adore the good, bad and ugly.
Speaker 1: The best and worst day will bear all the facets
Speaker 1: of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or A spoonful
Speaker 1: of Sarah, a lawyer turned entrepreneur who swapped the suits
Speaker 1: and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk
Speaker 1: bar CZA is a series of conversations on finding a
Speaker 1: life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy
Speaker 1: and fulfillment along the way. Welcome back, Lovely neighborhood. I
Speaker 1: hope you had an amazing Easter break, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much to everyone who' submitted questions for our very
Speaker 1: belated birthday Q and A episode. As you can hear,
Speaker 1: I recovered from the spicy cough, but somehow caught a
Speaker 1: cold straight after and still sound a little bit like
Speaker 1: a man, so we delayed it again, which means if
Speaker 1: you have any extra questions or good news stories for
Speaker 1: the episode, please shoot them over this week and we'll
Speaker 1: eventually get round to recording it. In the meantime, I've
Speaker 1: got a zinger today for you that are recorded when
Speaker 1: I sounded much nicer than this, from someone I've admired
Speaker 1: and learned from for a while now and whose brain
Speaker 1: I feel very lucky to pick. Today's guest is the
Speaker 1: perfect example of the many things at school that we
Speaker 1: often felt like would never find news in real life,
Speaker 1: but who has proven that wrong. Bringing science to the
Speaker 1: wild world of beauty. You may know her as lab muffin,
Speaker 1: but Michelle Wong is far from a lab rat, bringing
Speaker 1: her credentials ie a chemistry PhD, to explain what works
Speaker 1: and what doesn't in the world of beauty and cosmetics.
Speaker 1: Think of all the intimidating ingredient names and jargon in
Speaker 1: the beauty world, and Michelle has probably demystified it in
Speaker 1: an approachable, easy to understand way in one of her
Speaker 1: videos or posts, gaining her a booming audience around the world.
Speaker 1: Michelle is also a fellow lover of Ozzie's success story.
Speaker 1: Bondi Sans and we run through some of our favorite
Speaker 1: science backed goodies from the new everyday skincare range. I
Speaker 1: hope you all learn as much and enjoy this one
Speaker 1: as much as I did. Michelle, Welcome to Cca.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I am such a big fan.
Speaker 1: I think I've already just found gold over you, and
Speaker 1: let you know that I've been spending the last couple
Speaker 1: of days. I've been in isolation for seven days before
Speaker 1: recording this, and I've been balls deep in your incredible videos,
Speaker 1: just having my mind blown by the science of beauty.
Speaker 3: You are incredible.
Speaker 2: Thank you that's really nice to hear. And also I
Speaker 2: have terrible imposter syndrome like most people. I think our
Speaker 2: age that is really lovely to Oh.
Speaker 1: We will definitely get into that, and especially given how
Speaker 1: incredibly knowledgeable you are, and I just it's always surprising,
Speaker 1: even though it's not surprising when someone else has it,
Speaker 1: someone who you think you hold in such high esteem
Speaker 1: and who you think is so qualified and so infinitely
Speaker 1: able to do the things that they do, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, I feel like it's surprising how rife
Speaker 1: it is and how many of us it affects. So
Speaker 1: I think we should definitely get into that. That's a
Speaker 1: big part of this show. But before we kick off,
Speaker 1: I mean, you've kind of already done it by starting
Speaker 1: with that, but I start every episode with a little
Speaker 1: ice breaker just to kind of, you know, help shed
Speaker 1: that really glossy surface that we sometimes have throughout perceived
Speaker 1: identities in the media on social media. And you know,
Speaker 1: anyone who has a PhD, I should have introduced you
Speaker 1: as doctor Michelle. I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have PhD for not to use doctor. I'm going
Speaker 1: to use it because I think it's so cool. So
Speaker 1: it's very easy to think that you are, you know,
Speaker 1: infallible and up on a pedestal. What is something really
Speaker 1: relatable about you or the most down to earth thing
Speaker 1: about you?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it is like probably the impulse syndrome.
Speaker 2: Like anytime anyone asked me a question, like my first
Speaker 2: thought is did I get it wrong? I just assume
Speaker 2: my wrong and then like it takes me like a
Speaker 2: few minutes ago, No way, no, no, no, I did
Speaker 2: actually think this through and agonize over this for three
Speaker 2: hours before I posted it.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so we all got we all have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hand, it does make us like produce better
Speaker 2: content because we are so perfectionist. But at the same
Speaker 2: time it is not great for us as well. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll get into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually always well, particularly over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: I used to think because I had a big career change,
Speaker 1: I used to think that as I got more you know,
Speaker 1: further into and more accomplished or had more practice at
Speaker 1: this new career path, that eventually the marker of success
Speaker 1: would when the self doubt disappeared altogether. So I was
Speaker 1: kind of waiting for that day to happen. But now
Speaker 1: I've realized, as long as it doesn't topple you, it's
Speaker 1: actually it's not a bad sign that you're not complacent,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like kind of a good keeps you
Speaker 1: on your toes and it shows you that you're invested
Speaker 1: in doing a good job. So maybe it's not that
Speaker 1: we want it to disappear altogether. It's just that we
Speaker 1: want to learn how to channel it better or how
Speaker 1: to push it aside, rather than waking up one day
Speaker 1: like I kind of now think if i wake up
Speaker 1: before a podcast like this, for example, and I'm not nervous,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm too comfortable, Like maybe I should be a
Speaker 1: tiny bit nervous or a tiny bit worried about just
Speaker 1: invested in doing a good job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does help a little bit. But yeah,
Speaker 2: at the same time, sometimes like we just end up
Speaker 2: a bit too anxious. Yeah, you need to recognize that
Speaker 2: little good stage, that like little happy medium.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that little pocket of good self doubt and can
Speaker 1: the rest absolutely so. I don't know if you've listened
Speaker 1: to the show before, but the first section of the
Speaker 1: show is something I love doing, is going back to
Speaker 1: the very beginning of people's journeys. The first section is
Speaker 1: called your WAYTA and that's because I think often people
Speaker 1: walk into your life at the chapter that you're in
Speaker 1: now and see you incredibly accomplished, with such direction and
Speaker 1: clarity around what you're passionate about. And you know, cosmetic
Speaker 1: chemistry of all things is already on its face, combining
Speaker 1: two worlds that don't automatically come to mind as things
Speaker 1: that go together. But I think we often skip through
Speaker 1: all the chapters that it took you to get there
Speaker 1: and to figure out all those jigs or puzzle pieces.
Speaker 1: And I like to remind people that no one really
Speaker 1: woke up having it all together and knowing where they
Speaker 1: were going to end up. So can you take us
Speaker 1: all the way back to young Vichelle what you were
Speaker 1: like as a child, you know, your first jobs or
Speaker 1: your first ideas of who and what you wanted to be.
Speaker 2: I think I was a quiet, nerdy child. I had
Speaker 2: typical kind of tiger parents. I just had tutoring all
Speaker 2: the time. And yeah, eventually I became pretty rebellious as
Speaker 2: a teenager, partly because of that. I was a nerd
Speaker 2: and I was quite competitive, so I was still you know,
Speaker 2: doing really well at school while being really rebellious, which.
Speaker 3: Great combo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just stumped my parents, I think, because it
Speaker 2: was like, she's doing really well, but she's also really annoying.
Speaker 3: How do we cope with this situation? Yeah, so I think.
Speaker 2: Sort of like a typical Asian child with Asian tiger parents.
Speaker 2: They wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, or
Speaker 2: an accountant. They actually weren't super keen on the doctor
Speaker 2: part because they're nurses.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I had a lot of pressure to do
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, and I went to a school
Speaker 2: where everyone became doctors and lawyers. So being a bit
Speaker 2: of a rebel, I actually wanted to be like a
Speaker 2: journalist or a novelist.
Speaker 3: Or humanities no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really into history. But I still did
Speaker 2: one little bit of chemistry. And the reason I got
Speaker 2: into chemistry was actually again not you know, the sort
Speaker 2: of path you would think, but one of my friends
Speaker 2: went to this after school chemistry class and so ashlely
Speaker 2: was lunchtime and so it was more of a social event.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and we ended up like learning chemistry, and
Speaker 2: because I went to that class for so long, I
Speaker 2: ended up getting good at chemistry. Even though I wasn't
Speaker 2: really naturally into chemistry, and I think that was sort
Speaker 2: of helpful because I've always loved teaching, and if you're
Speaker 2: really crap at something and you had to work hard
Speaker 2: to become good at it, you become a much better
Speaker 2: teacher of that particular subject because you've gone down all
Speaker 2: the wrong rabbit holes. It didn't come naturally to you.
Speaker 2: You can remember the path you took, right.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's so interesting. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know, in my background, I was adopted by
Speaker 1: a Caucasian family, so I don't have the tiger parent experience,
Speaker 1: which always makes it really interesting because I think some
Speaker 1: people assume I went into law because of that, but
Speaker 1: I didn't. And then hearing about that experience, it's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I, you know, think, particularly for
Speaker 1: women in the science now, is that they're often dissuaded
Speaker 1: from scientific careers, especially back at school for children of
Speaker 1: tiger parents, that's not necessarily the case. Often you're kind
Speaker 1: of pushed towards the sciences, towards medicine and chemistry. But
Speaker 1: it's so interesting that even back at school that wasn't
Speaker 1: your pathway. It wasn't a conventional, like I was made
Speaker 1: to do chemistry and then I loved chemistry, Like it
Speaker 1: wasn't that straightforward. It was a lunch club of all
Speaker 1: things that got you interested in it. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like chemistry is one of those subjects at school that
Speaker 1: you know when whenever we sort of say, oh, nothing I.
Speaker 3: Learn here will ever be relevant in real life.
Speaker 1: That's often I think what we say about chemistry of
Speaker 1: all subjects, but you've obviously gone on to prove that
Speaker 1: very wrong. What about that subject that you initially, you know,
Speaker 1: weren't pulled to ended up being so interesting to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right, Like it's a really good point.
Speaker 2: A lot of girls especially don't really see sciences. It's
Speaker 2: something that's interesting because a lot of the examples they
Speaker 2: give are kind of male tinged. A lot the time
Speaker 2: they talk about you know, planes and stars and space
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's just not stuff like it's quite gender coded.
Speaker 2: And I've actually got some lecturers who are lecturing chemistry
Speaker 2: now and they've like, like they were friends with me
Speaker 2: and my PhD, and they've email me saying, do you
Speaker 2: have any examples, because like I want to get rid
Speaker 2: of some of this star stuff.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is definitely the fault of the educators.
Speaker 2: I think partly that we don't see their applicability in
Speaker 2: our everyday lives. But I think some of the things
Speaker 2: that really interested me was like, as a child, I
Speaker 2: used to stare at the window a lot, so I
Speaker 2: would notice little things and be like, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 2: Like you know how rain drops merge on a window? Yeah,
Speaker 2: in the car that sort of thing. And chemistry explains that.
Speaker 2: Chemistry explains all these little things that you notice, like
Speaker 2: why does ice float on water? Why do you have
Speaker 2: condensation on the outside of the cold glass? Why is
Speaker 2: it if you have a head and you take a
Speaker 2: panadol pill, why does the panadol know to go to
Speaker 2: your head? That sort of thing? And so I found
Speaker 2: that bit really fascinating about chemistry. Just there are things
Speaker 2: that are relevant everyday life, even though it takes you
Speaker 2: a while to find it because they don't really target
Speaker 2: that now when you're in school, it's mostly.
Speaker 1: Mas Yes, Oh my god, that's so interesting. Like I
Speaker 1: always think about the panadol thing.
Speaker 3: I'm like, how does it know where to go? How
Speaker 3: are you doing this? This is so cool?
Speaker 1: I think there are so many people in the show
Speaker 1: who reflect back on school, and it's often like a
Speaker 1: particular teacher or a particular person that just explained it
Speaker 1: in a different way or that just gave you a
Speaker 1: different perspective on how chemistry could actually apply in real life.
Speaker 3: And similarly, I.
Speaker 1: Think the increased visibility of women in sciences and the
Speaker 1: less male tinged career paths, the increased visibility of that
Speaker 1: for younger women is what's making them more excited because
Speaker 1: they just see one person or one story, Which makes
Speaker 1: me so excited to have you on the show because
Speaker 1: I feel like you're already doing that for so many
Speaker 1: women by showing the really really cool ways that you
Speaker 1: can end up using it once you did realize that
Speaker 1: level of interest. So converting that into an actual career
Speaker 1: path in practice is probably one of the biggest hurdles.
Speaker 1: Like it's one thing to kind of see, oh cool,
Speaker 1: the panetl thing, oh cool, the window thing, but obviously
Speaker 1: there is a study path involved to get there, but
Speaker 1: also then finding the job. You know, from a young
Speaker 1: school kid who often sees like three jobs that exist
Speaker 1: and doesn't know that there's all these gray areas in between,
Speaker 1: how did you choose your degree from that and then
Speaker 1: kind of forge the pathway into where you are now.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of getting lucky and sort of
Speaker 2: like being in something and realizing I didn't want to
Speaker 2: do particular things, so I did sort of fall into it.
Speaker 2: So out of high school, I graduated and I didn't
Speaker 2: know what I wanted to do with my life as usual,
Speaker 2: and most of my friends did law because like the
Speaker 2: ones who were into humanities did law, so I also
Speaker 2: did law, and in Sydney have to pretty much choose
Speaker 2: a second degree to do with law. And it was
Speaker 2: really just well, what degrees can I combine with it? Well,
Speaker 2: I hate money, I don't hate I love money, Please
Speaker 2: give me money, but I don't like dealing with money,
Speaker 2: So commerce is out. Science seemed more useful than arts,
Speaker 2: which in reality it's not really, but yeah, it just
Speaker 2: sounded a bit more useful. So little seventeen year old
Speaker 2: Michelle was just like, yeah, that sounds that sounds good.
Speaker 2: I'll just do that without looking into it. And then
Speaker 2: I started studying science and law. I loved studying both
Speaker 2: of them. Partly why I chose science as well is
Speaker 2: because I did that lunch club thing. I actually got
Speaker 2: to skip first year chemistry, so amazy I could. I
Speaker 2: decided not to. I was like, well, if I've loved
Speaker 2: you already, I may as well just like sleep through
Speaker 2: lectures and ace it.
Speaker 3: Easy distution.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was like a sort of pragmatic slash
Speaker 2: lazy route. I do tend to go for like the
Speaker 2: path of least resistance a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: PhD student, I don't know about that, but yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not doing yourself justice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe the PhD wasn't the part of the police resistance. Said, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I chose science and law. I studied them both.
Speaker 2: I loved studying both. But then I worked in a
Speaker 2: law firm as a paralegal for a bit and I've
Speaker 2: discovered I really didn't like it.
Speaker 3: I hear that, girl, I hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was quite lucky that I discovered it at
Speaker 2: the paralegal stage and decided to like look for a
Speaker 2: way out. I just realized I had a big issue
Speaker 2: with trying to help a client that I disagreed with morally. Like,
Speaker 2: I know that in law, you get taught you are
Speaker 2: just an advocate, Like you advocate for whatever client and
Speaker 2: then the court decides and you know, everyone deserves the
Speaker 2: best representation they have and then it works out in
Speaker 2: the end. But yeah, just morally, it just didn't quite
Speaker 2: work for me, which was something I didn't realize I
Speaker 2: had a problem with until I was in that situation.
Speaker 2: It didn't help that the client at that point was
Speaker 2: a tobacco company.
Speaker 3: So wasn't that It.
Speaker 2: Really wasn't the easiest thing to compartmentalize for me personally. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I ended up doing science and dropping the law,
Speaker 2: and again, at the end of my degree, I didn't
Speaker 2: really know what I wanted to do. I did a
Speaker 2: project for my honors which I found really interesting and
Speaker 2: that could be carried on to a PhD. So I
Speaker 2: just decided to do that. And again a lot of
Speaker 2: my friends were doing a PhD. So I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: even if I don't know what I'm doing, I'll just
Speaker 2: see what they're doing and then maybe that will give
Speaker 2: me an idea. Yes, I sort of fell into it.
Speaker 2: It was like a combination of passion and just falling
Speaker 2: into what I ended up doing.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So this is what I love about this show so much,
Speaker 1: because if you walked into your life now, you could
Speaker 1: easily assume passionate chemist, wanted to be a chemist, you know,
Speaker 1: was fascinated by test tubes by the time she was
Speaker 1: in grade five. Like, you know, you could so easily
Speaker 1: assume that you wouldn't necessarily assume law degree or that
Speaker 1: even like had worked in law for a little while.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just so many ways that I love
Speaker 1: reflecting back on the moment of even deciding what degree
Speaker 1: you did, and you know, literally often it's just because
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I probably should do that, Like that
Speaker 1: sounds cool, Like that's why I.
Speaker 3: Chose law, arts because I was like, well, law because.
Speaker 1: You know, I hate blood, not going to do medicine,
Speaker 1: so like, prop should do law because I went to
Speaker 1: a similar school to you. And then arts because like,
Speaker 1: well I don't want to do straight law, and like
Speaker 1: I kind of want to travel.
Speaker 3: And do languages.
Speaker 1: So you know, like the way we make our decisions
Speaker 1: in life is just so often so crazy, not necessarily
Speaker 1: because we have direction or clarity or anything, but it
Speaker 1: still sometimes can lead you to the right place.
Speaker 3: And I think it's so important to remind people.
Speaker 1: That, like so much of the decision making and even
Speaker 1: like incredibly successful and driven and directed people's lives is
Speaker 1: just like a process of elimination rather than actively choosing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's also quite reassuring as well. I
Speaker 2: think because I think the fact that a lot of
Speaker 2: us just accidentally fell into our careers sort of shows
Speaker 2: that for every person, there's probably like a good bunch
Speaker 2: of great careers out there that you can just end
Speaker 2: up in. I think a lot of us tend to fixate.
Speaker 2: It's also happens in relationships too. We fixate there is
Speaker 2: the one, there is the one partner, and there is
Speaker 2: the one job for me. But I don't think that's
Speaker 2: the case. I think there's many possible ones, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people like who are very happy in their
Speaker 2: jobs have just found one of the ones. And I
Speaker 2: think that hopefully is a really reassuring thing for people
Speaker 2: who don't know what they're doing, because yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: like there is one path that you have to somehow
Speaker 2: fall into. There are many parts that can lead to happiness.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I feel like that's the SoundBite for
Speaker 1: the whole podcast. Thank you very much, Michelle. You can
Speaker 1: leave now. It's the most amazing interview anyway ever. But no,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly what I try and show, especially with
Speaker 1: this section the Wagta, that like, no one gets where
Speaker 1: they get to you in a straight line. But also
Speaker 1: even once they've got to where they've gotten to, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's the last one that they'll have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can be multiple ones kind of along the way.
Speaker 1: So before we move on, I'd love to focus on
Speaker 1: the PhD because I also think that in this day
Speaker 1: and age, it is wonderful that the landscape has been
Speaker 1: very democratized. You can start businesses, you can make career
Speaker 1: jumps without necessarily having studied, you know, in a linear
Speaker 1: fashion in the way that perhaps you did have to
Speaker 1: you know, some generations ago, or maybe even just some
Speaker 1: years ago. And I think maybe that has pushed us
Speaker 1: away from focusing on the academic pathway when it can
Speaker 1: still be a really incredibly enriching, enlightening and important experience.
Speaker 1: So what was a PhD like for you? Firstly, what
Speaker 1: was your thesis, what didn't involve and how has it
Speaker 1: benefited you in ways that maybe you didn't expect or
Speaker 1: ways that you did expect.
Speaker 2: So my project was on medicinal and super molecular chemistry. Basically,
Speaker 2: what I was making was structures called cyclic papt ties.
Speaker 2: These are like little rings based on amino acids, and
Speaker 2: because they're based on amino acids, they're very nat for
Speaker 2: your body, which is important when you're taking a drug
Speaker 2: because a lot of drugs have unpleasant side effects. But
Speaker 2: if it's quite natural, then your body can break it
Speaker 2: down into things that your body is fine with, and
Speaker 2: so it was like a path to less toxic medicines.
Speaker 2: It was also cool because the little rings are good
Speaker 2: at finding particular things and so they can interact with
Speaker 2: different parts of your body in very interesting ways. So
Speaker 2: there were things like applications like possible cancer drugs, possible
Speaker 2: hormones as well. Yeah, so I was mostly looking at
Speaker 2: making these rings and then trying to get them to
Speaker 2: do things I wanted. So in reality, what that kind
Speaker 2: of looks like is you turn off have the lab
Speaker 2: every day and you pour a lot of things into
Speaker 2: other things, and then you have to move a lot
Speaker 2: of test us from right to.
Speaker 3: Left amazing, and.
Speaker 2: You go to a machine sometimes and you also go
Speaker 2: there and you wait for the line to go up,
Speaker 2: and when it goes up, you have to like rush
Speaker 2: and get a test tube under a particular piece of
Speaker 2: metal and then collect some stuff and then when the
Speaker 2: line goes down, you pull it away. So yeah, in
Speaker 2: the day to day is quite boring, even though it
Speaker 2: gets to a very interesting place. Yeah. So that's what
Speaker 2: a chemistry PHG typically looks like. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: moving things around.
Speaker 1: I love that so much, amazing. I mean, I love it.
Speaker 1: You're being real about it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, in terms of where you go from a PhD,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the time when you're in
Speaker 2: the PhD, you don't really see much of a career
Speaker 2: path outside of academia, which makes sense because everyone you're
Speaker 2: surrounded with is in academia and has found a good
Speaker 2: place in academia and they either happy about it, or
Speaker 2: if they're trying to leave academia, they're not going to
Speaker 2: tell everyone about it. So it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: narrow sort of view, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: PhD students are stuck in that view. So there are
Speaker 2: actually a few websites and podcasts now where it's all
Speaker 2: just focused on careers for PhDs outside of academia.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think the main thing about doing a
Speaker 2: PhD that tends to help is that you develop analytical
Speaker 2: skills and lots of critical thinking, problem solving skills which
Speaker 2: are very transferable to lots of different things. So some
Speaker 2: of the typical career paths out of a PhD apart
Speaker 2: from academia, management, consulting, patient law, yeah, those are the
Speaker 2: typical ones. Mine is very non typical, earthly.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Okay, so tell us about that then.
Speaker 1: I mean, I also think if anyone's listening and is
Speaker 1: interested in those kind of resources for someone who might
Speaker 1: be in a PhD or has finished a PhD and
Speaker 1: is looking for a pathway, then I'm sure I can
Speaker 1: get Michelle to share those and I'll pop them in
Speaker 1: the show notes. But in terms of your a typical
Speaker 1: way out of it, this makes me so excited. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, like the fusion of two seemingly not the
Speaker 1: most straightforwardly related areas. How does one get into cosmetic chemistry?
Speaker 2: So my path into it was when I was doing
Speaker 2: my PhD. I'll sit around a lab waiting on experiments,
Speaker 2: and so I was also looking at how to improve
Speaker 2: my skin at that point. So I was looking up
Speaker 2: different skincare products and there just wasn't very much on
Speaker 2: the Internet about the science behind skincare products at the time,
Speaker 2: this was twenty eleven, and so I started looking into it.
Speaker 2: And because I was doing medicinal chemistry, a lot of
Speaker 2: my PHG work was looking at how different things interacted
Speaker 2: with the body, how different drugs worked, and so with
Speaker 2: skincare sort of very similar. It's like, how does this
Speaker 2: ingredient interact with your skin? And I wasn't finding that information.
Speaker 2: So I was going deep into journal articles and like
Speaker 2: the academic research behind these ingredients, and I realized a
Speaker 2: lot of people probably had the same questions and just
Speaker 2: couldn't find this stuff because they didn't have access to
Speaker 2: these papers, or if they did, they couldn't understand what
Speaker 2: was going on. So I started writing a blog with
Speaker 2: that sort of info in it, but translated to something
Speaker 2: that everyone could understand. So that was part of it.
Speaker 2: Another part of it was I was in a few
Speaker 2: skincare groups and a lot of people would be asking
Speaker 2: questions about, like, AH sulfate's really toxic? Should I be
Speaker 2: using parabins in my skincare? And I would like type
Speaker 2: long replies to people, and I was like, this is
Speaker 2: very inefficient. If I have it all on a blog,
Speaker 2: then I can just paste the link and I don't
Speaker 2: have to like rewrite a new thing for every person.
Speaker 2: So that was also part of my I guess being
Speaker 2: lazy being efficient, efficient efficiency, my rebranding of lazy.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that is so cool that it literally
Speaker 1: just came out of like a personal journey combined with
Speaker 1: just you know, I feel like sometimes ideas drop on you,
Speaker 1: not because you were looking for the next big idea
Speaker 1: or the next big pathway, but because you were literally
Speaker 1: sitting there trying to solve a problem for yourself and
Speaker 1: then thought, oh, like, if I'm sitting here thinking that,
Speaker 1: obviously quite a few other people might be sitting there
Speaker 1: thinking that, and then turn it into like a full
Speaker 1: career and it makes so much sense, Like obviously I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I did a mini series
Speaker 1: on women in science and had never really connected Obviously
Speaker 1: it makes sense now, but had never connected that, like
Speaker 1: to make beauty products, there needs to be science, Like
Speaker 1: science is related to beauty intimately, so then of course
Speaker 1: going backwards that you know, we would also want the
Speaker 1: scientific explanation behind why some things work or why some
Speaker 1: things don't. And I think it's just so amazing that
Speaker 1: you've realized it and did something with that information, Like
Speaker 1: I think you started blab muffin when blogs weren't like,
Speaker 1: were so new.
Speaker 3: Was that ten years ago?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I think it's ten years and five
Speaker 2: months now.
Speaker 3: Congratulation, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So did it just start getting traction or sort of
Speaker 1: how did it become now what you actually do?
Speaker 2: So I think back then, yeah, blogs were a sort
Speaker 2: of niche thing, but there was like a very small
Speaker 2: intimate blogging community, which was great. We would all like
Speaker 2: go around and comment on each other's blogs. And this
Speaker 2: wasn't like an algorithm boosting thing because back then there
Speaker 2: weren't these social media algorithms. It was really just community.
Speaker 2: It was really just supporting each other and encouraging each
Speaker 2: other to keep posting. So it was really lovely. And
Speaker 2: then of course you would link to other people's blogs
Speaker 2: when they were interesting and when they were relevant, and
Speaker 2: so I built a bit of traction with that, and
Speaker 2: a lot of Facebook groups people would be sharing my
Speaker 2: work because it was quite unique, and yeah, there just
Speaker 2: wasn't really that much info. So it was actually kind
Speaker 2: of nice and easier because it was a lot easier
Speaker 2: to develop your own niche and be the only one
Speaker 2: in that niche. Back then, around twenty fourteen was when
Speaker 2: Instagram got really big, and I started using Instagram to
Speaker 2: just promote my blog posts, and then I realized Instagram
Speaker 2: itself was really a whole niche. This was back in
Speaker 2: the days when people would just post like really old
Speaker 2: school looking photos of like their toast.
Speaker 3: Save I was there.
Speaker 1: I was the toast, but I'd have to toast in
Speaker 1: like a crazy filter with like a with a corner.
Speaker 1: Oh the glory days.
Speaker 3: Oh man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, I started post promoting my blog on that,
Speaker 2: and then I started making post just for Instagram, and
Speaker 2: I developed a following from that, just like making little
Speaker 2: bite sized nuggets of information for people who weren't going
Speaker 2: to read a whole blog post. And I think there
Speaker 2: was a boom time for like skincare signs around I
Speaker 2: think twenty seventeen eighteen when The Ordinary launched. And the
Speaker 2: Ordinary is a brand that's very budget friendly, and I
Speaker 2: actually have one here. It's like very budget friendly and
Speaker 2: they actually have the names of their products on the label,
Speaker 2: so you can't just buy, you know, anti aging serum.
Speaker 2: You have to buy ethylated a scorbic acid fifteen percent
Speaker 2: solution so that was when people started going, well, I
Speaker 2: don't know what this is, but it's all ten dollars,
Speaker 2: and now I want to know which ten dollar things
Speaker 2: to buy. And I think that's when it really got
Speaker 2: really popular. And around that time I also started a
Speaker 2: YouTube channel because I kind of got sick of like
Speaker 2: drawing fifteen drawings to try to show how something worked,
Speaker 2: and I could like just hold up some molecules and
Speaker 2: like make them like smash into each other. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think everything sort of developed quite organically. It was
Speaker 2: just like when I got limited by one medium, I
Speaker 2: just kind of started looking into another thing. I think
Speaker 2: it's also partly because I get bored quite easily, and
Speaker 2: I really like new things. So when I got bored
Speaker 2: of one thing, I started doing more of another thing,
Speaker 2: and I kind of, yeah, just progressed from there.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I love that so much.
Speaker 1: And now, I mean, even just on Instagram alone, you
Speaker 1: have like three hundred and fifty thousand followers of people
Speaker 1: just soaking up your knowledge and like waiting for the
Speaker 1: next video and requesting things for you to explain, and
Speaker 1: like you're really demystifying a whole landscape in such a
Speaker 1: like approachable and interesting, but still it's not dumbing it
Speaker 1: down so much that we can't then like take away
Speaker 1: the science from it either, which I think is also
Speaker 1: really interesting.
Speaker 3: It's not just like buy this, don't buy this.
Speaker 1: It's like by this because this ingredient does this, which
Speaker 1: is you know, like such an education piece as well.
Speaker 3: When did it become a job for you?
Speaker 2: So, I guess like when I was doing my PhD. Actually,
Speaker 2: all through my life I've really loved teaching. I don't
Speaker 2: know why. Maybe I just like having authority. I've always
Speaker 2: really loved teaching and I've always found it really rewarding.
Speaker 2: So I think most of my jobs in high school
Speaker 2: were tutoring. During UNI as well, we're tutoring. And then
Speaker 2: when I finished my PhD, I started also teaching. There's
Speaker 2: this tutor in college in Sydney that hires mostly PhD
Speaker 2: students to teach science and maths and stuff, and so
Speaker 2: I started working there and it was amazing. I was
Speaker 2: really sad to leave that job actually, but yeah, I
Speaker 2: started teaching there while doing lab muffin on the side,
Speaker 2: so it was like I would learn skills in that
Speaker 2: job and take it to lab muffin and then I'd
Speaker 2: learned skills and labmuffin and take it back to that job.
Speaker 2: So I think it was around twenty nineteen that was
Speaker 2: the breaking point. So I was growing both jobs at once,
Speaker 2: and I got in my first sponsorship to go to
Speaker 2: France with Biodoma, and I remember, like, I went to France,
Speaker 2: I had to skip a particular teaching period, which my
Speaker 2: job were really lovely about, and then I went back
Speaker 2: and I was telling my boss about like, oh, they
Speaker 2: took me in a helicopter. I got to see all
Speaker 2: of this stuff. I got to go to this lab.
Speaker 2: It was amazing. And he was like, Okay, so when
Speaker 2: are you quitting? And I was like what, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't want to quit, And he was like, look, so Veritassium,
Speaker 2: who is this YouTuber who does a lot of science stuff.
Speaker 2: He was actually working at the same workplace as me
Speaker 2: and at the same time as my boss, and he
Speaker 2: was like, look, I saw what Derek went through when
Speaker 2: he was trying to transition to a full time job,
Speaker 2: and yeah, like going on an international trip like this
Speaker 2: is a sign that you are going to end up
Speaker 2: with a lot more on your plate and you should
Speaker 2: really think about stepping back.
Speaker 1: So Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So my boss was super supportive. He's still super supportive,
Speaker 2: and he was like, look, at some point, you're going
Speaker 2: to have too much on your plate and you need
Speaker 2: to know when to step back, and it'll be healthier
Speaker 2: for you. It'll be easier for me because I can
Speaker 2: have someone who's there full time. Yeah, let's build a path.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that was when I started looking at dropping
Speaker 2: back my day job. At that point, I was also
Speaker 2: starting to earn enough money to look like it would
Speaker 2: be a viable full time job. So yeah, at one
Speaker 2: point I just had to make the leap and quit
Speaker 2: that job, which I'm still quite sad about because it
Speaker 2: was actually the best job of my life until now.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that is such an extraordinary story. And
Speaker 1: lab Muffin is also the cutest name ever. Did that
Speaker 1: just come to you?
Speaker 2: Oh? It was one of those things where I wanted
Speaker 2: to start a blog for ages and I just couldn't
Speaker 2: think of the name, and I was letting that just
Speaker 2: hold me back forever. Yeah, and at some point I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, I'll just make up a name. I'll
Speaker 2: use it and then I can change it later. So
Speaker 2: it was like I was working in a lab and
Speaker 2: my partner at the time called me muffins. I was like,
Speaker 2: put them together, kind of goes together. Done, and then
Speaker 2: I just never thought up a new name.
Speaker 3: So that is because it's so new. That's the best
Speaker 3: tame ever Lovely Neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You might remember our incredible guest from episode one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen, Blair James, who started out in a town
Speaker 1: of just one thousand people, only to grow Bondi Sands
Speaker 1: to over fifty products in a whopping thirty thousand retailers worldwide.
Speaker 1: Since then, Bondi Sands has launched an incredible everyday skincare
Speaker 1: range packed with Australian botanicals. It has something for every
Speaker 1: skin type, even the sensitive ones like mine. I love
Speaker 1: an Aussie business, as you all know, especially one that
Speaker 1: serves up that glow all within one hundred percent recyclable
Speaker 1: post consumer packaging. And the range itself has options to cleanse, treat, hydrate,
Speaker 1: protect and mask, with packaging colors and shapes to identify
Speaker 1: each one, and there's a skincare quiz online.
Speaker 3: To help you choose what's right for you.
Speaker 1: My favorites are the Golden Hour, Brightening vitamin C, serum
Speaker 1: bond Dibabe purifying clay mask, especially with all the travel
Speaker 1: and makeup at work at the moment, and most importantly
Speaker 1: the sunny days hydrating spr fifty plus moisturizer. Suncare is
Speaker 1: so incredibly important for our skin, as we all know.
Speaker 1: I'll pop the link in the show notes for you
Speaker 1: to check it out. I really want to get into,
Speaker 1: particularly around the career, the full time leap and the
Speaker 1: career change. I think that's where the self doubt, conversation
Speaker 1: and comparison and all all those kind of burnout and
Speaker 1: just like the fear, all those kinds of things are
Speaker 1: really important to talk about. But while we've got you here,
Speaker 1: I also feel like it would be remissive me not
Speaker 1: to ask you to just dish the dirt, like along
Speaker 1: the way, what are some of the more practical like
Speaker 1: either things that you think would really surprise us or
Speaker 1: big myths that you've busted, or tions that you get
Speaker 1: asked the most, like what are some of the lab
Speaker 1: muffin top five facts that you think we all should
Speaker 1: know about, like the cosmetic chemistry behind like the things
Speaker 1: we use.
Speaker 3: What would they be?
Speaker 2: I think the first one would be where sunscreen, which
Speaker 2: I know everyone says in skincare, but yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: Sunscreen is the best anti aging product you can get
Speaker 2: because it prevents aging. It prevents the UV that comes
Speaker 2: in and makes your skin prematurely age. And of course,
Speaker 2: like it's always, prevention is better than cure. So if
Speaker 2: you're preventing your natural collagen from degrading, it's much easier
Speaker 2: than trying to build it back up later, and it's
Speaker 2: much cheaper. There are tons of sunscreens out there now
Speaker 2: that are really nice and light and comfortable to wear,
Speaker 2: so don't be afraid of sunscreen. It is not all
Speaker 2: greasy and heavy. It is actually really great. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there are lots of really nice options out there now.
Speaker 2: Boder nice sands as one, which is the fragrance free
Speaker 2: lotion that is super popular everywhere, because yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: really hard to find really light products. There's also so
Speaker 2: if you are the brands like Ultra Violet, which is
Speaker 2: a bit more upmarket, but it's very light and it
Speaker 2: performs really well under makeup. Australian brands have a whole bunch.
Speaker 2: There are also lots of Asian sunscreens and European sunscreens
Speaker 2: that are really lovely and light, so that's probably the
Speaker 2: biggest one. Yeah, there are nice sunscreens out there. Please
Speaker 2: wear sunscreen before you start buying expensive anti aging products.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the Brando sund sunscreens are my all
Speaker 1: time favorite, all time favorite. But also you recently did
Speaker 1: a video on whether you need to wear sunscreen inside
Speaker 1: as well, which I think is really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's this sort of kind of two
Speaker 2: extremes with skincare. It's like you either don't wear any
Speaker 2: sunscreen or you start wearing sunscreen, and then you start
Speaker 2: thinking you have to wear it all the time, like
Speaker 2: do I need to wear it to bed in case
Speaker 2: shines on me when I wake up? Yeah, which I
Speaker 2: guess is like a legitimate fear, because once you start
Speaker 2: getting too skincare, you start hearing all the stuff about
Speaker 2: how the sun is a deadly laser and you need
Speaker 2: to avoid it at all costs. But I think it's
Speaker 2: not quite that bad if you're quite far away from
Speaker 2: a window, actually not that much sun that can get
Speaker 2: to you. So if you work indoors and you work
Speaker 2: next to a really big window, or if there's direct
Speaker 2: sun shining on you, then sunscreen is a good idea.
Speaker 2: If there isn't, then you probably don't need to wear
Speaker 2: sunscreen unless you want to wear it as like a
Speaker 2: habit so you don't forget to put it on when
Speaker 2: you leave the house. There is this new thing in
Speaker 2: skincare where everyone's going on about screens and how like
Speaker 2: the light from your monitor will age your skin. The
Speaker 2: evidence doesn't support that so far. There's no good evidence
Speaker 2: that it's intense enough to cause any sort of permanent damage.
Speaker 2: There is like a little bit of evidence, but it's
Speaker 2: not very convincing. But a lot of brands are seizing
Speaker 2: on that little bit of evidence and trying to freak
Speaker 2: you out so you buy their product. So don't fall
Speaker 2: for that. Screen light protection is just not necessary at
Speaker 2: the moment, even though sunscreen is very necessary when you're
Speaker 2: outdoors amazing. I guess another thing is I can't think
Speaker 2: of any cosmetic product that is worth over two hundred dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's over two hundred dollars, I wouldn't recommend it
Speaker 2: unless you love it, like if you love the texture,
Speaker 2: if you love the packaging, like I mean, I have
Speaker 2: candles that are very expensive, but that's for sure. If
Speaker 2: you find joy in it, then it is worth whatever
Speaker 2: it's worth to you. But in terms of effects, I
Speaker 2: can't think of anything. Maybe there is one, maybe there
Speaker 2: will be one in the future, but right now I
Speaker 2: don't think there is anything that is in terms of
Speaker 2: effectiveness worth more than two hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: In terms of products, procedures is a different thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: tools is a different thing. But yeah, just skincare products
Speaker 2: that you put on your.
Speaker 3: Face, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: That is like that in itself is like whoa industry shaking,
Speaker 1: which also I think ties in really nicely to the
Speaker 1: fact that you are also now a Bondi Sands ambassador.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I think is extraordinary
Speaker 1: about this brand. We've already had Blair on the show.
Speaker 3: I think it was god quite early on.
Speaker 1: Then he actually grew up in the town of one
Speaker 1: thousand people next to the town where my mom grew up,
Speaker 1: so lots of connections. They're extraordinary human but also doing
Speaker 1: amazing things in the Australian landscape. And one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things has been how affordable they are for such
Speaker 1: high quality products that are also using Australian botanicals and
Speaker 1: exporting the beauty of Australia to the broader market. And
Speaker 1: it's just absolutely amazing, particularly being someone as discerning as
Speaker 1: you are but also bringing so much knowledge and science to.
Speaker 3: What you do. Why are you so proud to be
Speaker 3: a Bonde Ambassador?
Speaker 2: I think it was a really easy choice for me,
Speaker 2: to be honest. So I've been blogging since twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: I think Bondi Sands launched in twenty twelve, and Bondi
Speaker 2: Sands has sort of like always just been the tanning
Speaker 2: brand that you go to since they launched. Their products
Speaker 2: are really much a friendly I think back then the
Speaker 2: competing channing products were twice surprised, but in terms of
Speaker 2: effectiveness and in terms of how even they were and
Speaker 2: how nice they were, Bondie Sands was already like comparable
Speaker 2: or better. So it was sort of a very easy
Speaker 2: choice when they said, oh, hey, we're thinking of launching
Speaker 2: some skincare, can you give us your thoughts and would
Speaker 2: you like to be involved? So yeah, that was the
Speaker 2: very easy yes, because I mean I don't really do
Speaker 2: fake tan anymore that much, but when I was it
Speaker 2: was all just Bondi Sands. I would post about them
Speaker 2: on my blog all the time, and then they would
Speaker 2: send me more products and they would have a new
Speaker 2: products which were really cool. So yeah, very easy choice
Speaker 2: in terms of the brand, in terms of the line,
Speaker 2: the fact that they were butter friendly was super important
Speaker 2: to me because yeah, I think having very financially accessible
Speaker 2: skincare is really important, especially if you're a teenager. Back
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager and you as well, I'm
Speaker 2: sure we just had like clean and clear, three step
Speaker 2: supermarket skincare. It was so hard to find good products.
Speaker 2: It was always just like really harsh cleansers, really alcohol
Speaker 2: tona's that stung your face and you were like pain
Speaker 2: is good, beauty is pain.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that phase. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just like gritted our tea through it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the Bondi Sands range I wish I was around when
Speaker 2: I was a teenager because it's just so user friendly,
Speaker 2: it's so budget friendly. All their products are really nice.
Speaker 2: All of them are a really nice experience as well,
Speaker 2: So I think that is really underrated in skincare. There
Speaker 2: are so many products that are just awful to use,
Speaker 2: Like you'll have cleanses that like stick to your hand,
Speaker 2: and don't really foam up. You have moisturizers that peel
Speaker 2: off your skin or like they just look really bad
Speaker 2: or they don't sit well under makeup. But the whole
Speaker 2: range that I've tried, well, I've tried the whole range,
Speaker 2: the whole range. Every time I've tried it has just
Speaker 2: been a pleasure to use. Their moisturizers are incredible. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've tried them.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, So everyone context the new everyday skincare
Speaker 1: range that they just brought out.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Bondi Sands have.
Speaker 1: Been doing amazing things in self tanning and then sun
Speaker 1: care for a really long time, but they've just introduced
Speaker 1: skincare and the range is not only a pastoral dream
Speaker 1: like absolutely beautiful packaging or recyclable as well, which is incredible.
Speaker 3: But they've brought out like the textures of.
Speaker 1: There's a whipped moisturizer, there's an SPA fifty plus moisturizer,
Speaker 1: there's a night moisturizer, there are all kinds of I
Speaker 1: think there's five different serums in the range. There's a
Speaker 1: hero oil, like there's just one of everything, and the textures.
Speaker 1: I've got actually a video about to come out where
Speaker 1: I have like all of them in a line on
Speaker 1: my back of my hand so you can see all
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: They're just exquisite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are like some of the nicest textures. Like
Speaker 2: I was not expecting nice textures when I heard it
Speaker 2: was going to be budget friendly, because I mean, something
Speaker 2: has to be a compromise, right, No, it's not. The
Speaker 2: textures are so good, especially with moisturizers. It's so hot
Speaker 2: to find a budget friendly moisturizer that I would comfortably
Speaker 2: recommend to people for any skin type. And they've put
Speaker 2: out two, So yeah, incredible range.
Speaker 1: Are there any sort of of those big facts or
Speaker 1: myths or key tips or things that tie in around
Speaker 1: the ingredients or the layering of the serums, because I
Speaker 1: actually one of the things I did think was that
Speaker 1: the range is so expansive that I kind of for
Speaker 1: someone who's like a little bit basic in skin, got
Speaker 1: a bit overwhelmed of like, oh my god, Well, if
Speaker 1: there's an oil a serum, there's an amazing chemical exfoliant,
Speaker 1: which I think is really cool because going back to
Speaker 1: that pain is beauty thing, the harshness of microbeads for
Speaker 1: exfoliating my skin does not like that. So a chemical
Speaker 1: exfoliant is so cool, but again, like there's so many
Speaker 1: different things like what order they do they go in?
Speaker 1: And also what ingredients should you use on which days
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, Like is there anything
Speaker 1: around your trial of the range that you can tie
Speaker 1: in with some lab muffin top facts?
Speaker 2: So I think the biggest tip for approaching a range
Speaker 2: like this is think about what your skin is, Like
Speaker 2: what do you feel your skin needs the most, Like
Speaker 2: do you need to deal with uneven texture? Or like
Speaker 2: if you've got fine lines, do you need to deal
Speaker 2: with uneven tone? So do you want your skin to
Speaker 2: be aes more one color the whole way, or what
Speaker 2: do you want out of your skincare. I think that's
Speaker 2: probably the best way to approach it. So if you think, well,
Speaker 2: I have some fine lines, then you go off and
Speaker 2: pick a product that will address that. So for fine lines,
Speaker 2: for example, I would probably recommend the exfoliant and or
Speaker 2: the Fountain of Youth serum, which is a big qutrer
Speaker 2: product which is really good for anti aging. So then
Speaker 2: you would pick those two and then you would put
Speaker 2: one into your routine at a time, so you maybe
Speaker 2: start off on the exfoliant and use that every two days.
Speaker 2: If your skin is fine with that, then you can
Speaker 2: build that up more so you can use that every day.
Speaker 2: Once you're happy with that and you look at your skin,
Speaker 2: you reassess it and see what your skin looks like now,
Speaker 2: and see what you want to change about it then.
Speaker 2: So I think that's usually a smarter way of doing
Speaker 2: it than just getting too excited about products and using
Speaker 2: them all. One will simplify your life, and two it
Speaker 2: will save you money because then you're not just like
Speaker 2: every time someone suggests a new product, you just add
Speaker 2: it to your routine and you end up with like
Speaker 2: twenty three steps, twenty three products, of which twenty you
Speaker 2: actually don't need. Yeah, So I think that's probably the
Speaker 2: best way of approaching it. I think in terms of layering,
Speaker 2: generally the rule of thumb is thinnest to thickest. It's
Speaker 2: both practical and also scientific in a way. Thinner things
Speaker 2: tend to absorb better into your skin, and usually they
Speaker 2: tend to have systems that, yeah, are designed to absorb
Speaker 2: better into your skin, and so if you layer it
Speaker 2: that way, you will probably end up with the correct order.
Speaker 2: I think that's probably the least confusing way, because then
Speaker 2: you don't have to think about a million ingredients. With
Speaker 2: the BONDI Sands range, all of the SEMs can be
Speaker 2: used together. So yeah, just see how thick they are
Speaker 2: and then just go with the thinnest first.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, thinnest to thickest is like the most
Speaker 1: practical hack you could ever have given me, because otherwise
Speaker 1: it's just like so overwhelming, so many different layers of things.
Speaker 1: But that really, like, yeah, that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: Before we move on, because I did interrupt you before.
Speaker 1: Are there any other big hacks or like most watched
Speaker 1: videos or most asked questions, like little nuggets of wisdom
Speaker 1: that you have from a cosmetic chemist perspective, I think.
Speaker 2: In terms of Australians and sun protection. I think one
Speaker 2: of the things that kind of blew people's minds when
Speaker 2: I talked about it was I think about layers of
Speaker 2: sun protection. I think a lot of people who get
Speaker 2: into skincare end up hyper focused on sunscreen, because again,
Speaker 2: sunscreen is the most important thing. But then people are
Speaker 2: not really stressed about it. They're like, how much do
Speaker 2: I put on? How often do I have to reapply?
Speaker 2: What can I use with it, And I think the
Speaker 2: answer is really just try to use a generous amount,
Speaker 2: so about a quarter tea spoon for your face, or
Speaker 2: you can sort of measure it out as like two
Speaker 2: finger links, that's around the right amount. But then after
Speaker 2: that just think about layering different types of sun protection
Speaker 2: because then if you mess up your sunscreen, then make
Speaker 2: sure you're also wearing a hat or try to stay
Speaker 2: in the shade when the sun is really high. So
Speaker 2: I think that's yeah, that's a bit of a destressing
Speaker 2: sort of approach to sun protection.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's a great one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just have a fallback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And are there any like big rife you mentioned
Speaker 1: before about the screens and the effect of that, like
Speaker 1: aging us. Are there any other kind of not rumors,
Speaker 1: but just like things that are going around at the
Speaker 1: moment that you've busted recently.
Speaker 2: Brief safe sunscreen is a big one.
Speaker 3: I watched that video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a lot of advertising around brief safe
Speaker 2: sunscreen at the moment. But sunscreen is not a cause
Speaker 2: of bleaching of coral reefs. There's pretty much no evidence
Speaker 2: that that has ever happened in the wild. And one
Speaker 2: of the top sunscreen scientists in the world who is Australian.
Speaker 2: He studies the Great Barrier reef. He said that if
Speaker 2: you put a list of everything that's bad for coral
Speaker 2: reefs in a list, sunscreen would be about number two hundred.
Speaker 2: So yeah, don't stress about, you know, the sunscreen you're
Speaker 2: wearing every day hurting coral reefs. Maybe if you're going
Speaker 2: to dive near coral, if you're going on like an
Speaker 2: actual tour of coral, maybe then just use the sunscreen
Speaker 2: that they recommend. Try to wear less sunscreen, so wear
Speaker 2: a wet suit instead. But for every day sunscreen where
Speaker 2: even at the beach, don't worry about reef safe, just
Speaker 2: use the sunscreen that will protect your skin.
Speaker 1: WHOA, Oh my gosh, that's fascinating. I did find that
Speaker 1: so interesting, especially around the chemical versus physical sunscreens, which
Speaker 1: also is something that people should go and watch your
Speaker 1: videos for because if that was only a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago that I even knew the difference between those
Speaker 1: two things. So much to learn, guys, go and hit
Speaker 1: up blood Muffins on Instagram, because there is just so
Speaker 1: much to learn, and I would love to use this
Speaker 1: entire episode on that just for selfish purposes. But I
Speaker 1: didn't promise we would come back to the whole imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome and self doubt and how that's played out for
Speaker 1: you along the way as well, because particularly when you
Speaker 1: are growing a really devoted audience who is really leaning
Speaker 1: on you and trusting you for advice and like you've
Speaker 1: grown this, you know, enormous community, that can be really overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and of course, naturally along the way, especially if you
Speaker 1: fell into your career path and didn't kind of you
Speaker 1: know in advance, think how am I going to arm
Speaker 1: myself to feel really well equipped to do this? You know,
Speaker 1: it can be really hard not to experience self doubt
Speaker 1: along the way. So how has that played out for you?
Speaker 1: And in the worst moments, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that have helped you kind of get through it.
Speaker 2: I think I've always had a lot of self doubt,
Speaker 2: so I'm not sure I really have any great tips
Speaker 2: for getting out of it. I think for me personally,
Speaker 2: just doing things and then proving to myself that I
Speaker 2: can do it because I've got this hard evidence that
Speaker 2: I've done it has been very helpful. So for me,
Speaker 2: it's one of my big problems is just procrastinating and
Speaker 2: not doing stuff because I'm scared, and I've just found
Speaker 2: that forcing myself to do it and then dealing with
Speaker 2: it later tends to be quite good. I'm sure there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people who are very much the
Speaker 2: other way around, and they should go the other way,
Speaker 2: But for me, it's very much I need to do things.
Speaker 2: In terms of dealing with pressure and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not great at it, to be honest. I think
Speaker 2: having a good sleep schedule helps a lot with me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, as someone who works on the internet who
Speaker 2: lives in Australia, it's quite difficult to have a good
Speaker 2: sleep schedule and a good work life balance because I think,
Speaker 2: like my peak time for posting is midnight, so.
Speaker 3: Inconvenient, very inconvenient. What about the fact I love.
Speaker 1: That idea also of the rip the band aid method,
Speaker 1: because I think that, you know, everyone's method of getting
Speaker 1: through self doubt will be different, and it's really important
Speaker 1: for everyone to kind of learn to tweak, you know,
Speaker 1: what works for them. But often the rip the band
Speaker 1: aid method does kind of just help you push through
Speaker 1: it now, but it doesn't give you enough time to
Speaker 1: think about it too much before you do it. Just
Speaker 1: do it and a lot of the time you'll surprise
Speaker 1: yourself and that gives you a lot of then anecdotal
Speaker 1: and empirical evidence to be like, oh, well, I survived
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 3: So maybe I should go again next time.
Speaker 1: But the other one, I think as we moved started
Speaker 1: our first business and I moved out of law in
Speaker 1: that same time as you around twenty fourteen when you
Speaker 1: first started kind of using the Internet and social media
Speaker 1: as a platform, was the same time as we did,
Speaker 1: and in a totally different field and way. We were
Speaker 1: also kind of first to market with much of powder
Speaker 1: at the time, so really had to adjust from a
Speaker 1: good couple of years as the only market leader without
Speaker 1: really any competitors, to then a very saturated market very
Speaker 1: quickly in an increasingly busy landscape where everyone was coming
Speaker 1: onto these platforms. And I think it's quite a unique
Speaker 1: thing to have self doubt when there's no one else
Speaker 1: around you. But then to add comparison onto that a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, when suddenly everyone's doing similar things,
Speaker 1: that's also it kind of throws you all over again.
Speaker 1: So in terms of comparison, I think it's something we
Speaker 1: all fall into it very easily. Just looking at the
Speaker 1: minute details of everyone else's lives. How have you stayed
Speaker 1: on track now that I mean you want the industry
Speaker 1: to grow, that's a good sign, But without worrying too
Speaker 1: much about like it invalidating what you're doing.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really tricky balance. I found that
Speaker 2: collaborating for my particular field is really good. I feel
Speaker 2: like with skincare science, there is so much room for
Speaker 2: people to come on and have their own little niche,
Speaker 2: So I think collaborating and connecting with like minded people
Speaker 2: is really really helpful. So instead of being competitive, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of room for us. If anything, we're
Speaker 2: competing against the pseudoscience rather than competing against each other.
Speaker 2: So let's collaborate. And it's also really good in having
Speaker 2: friends because then you can have your little group chats
Speaker 2: where you complain about things and you realize that your
Speaker 2: struggles aren't unique. So even little things like being able
Speaker 2: to complain about like the same issues and that sort
Speaker 2: of community building is really really old. But in terms
Speaker 2: of comparison, I do tend to just not really look
Speaker 2: at a lot of similar content because then I find
Speaker 2: that I don't want to inadvertently plagiarize and I like
Speaker 2: coming up with my own ideas and that really does
Speaker 2: help with the comparison. I have found that when I'm
Speaker 2: creating rather than consuming media, I am happier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that that kind of blinkered method is you know,
Speaker 1: that's why racehorses were blinkers. That they're not you know,
Speaker 1: they're running their own race. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: analogy I think of is that sometimes it is best
Speaker 1: to not look at it.
Speaker 3: Like it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: If there are things that you know, you tend to
Speaker 1: know in your landscape, people who are doing similar things
Speaker 1: around you, and it's actually, you know, maybe good for
Speaker 1: you to create an environment where you're not seeing that
Speaker 1: all the time rather than you know, I think sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like a car accident. You don't want to look away,
Speaker 1: like you just keep looking and you can't, and you know,
Speaker 1: it makes you feel crappy. You keep going back to it.
Speaker 1: That sometimes curating your environment so that you can just
Speaker 1: focus on creating in your own lane and doing your
Speaker 1: own thing is a.
Speaker 3: Really good strategy. I find that really helpful as well.
Speaker 1: So we've spoken a lot about your incredible path Ya
Speaker 1: to lab muffin and cosmetic chemistry. But I think another
Speaker 1: thing that's a really big part of this show is
Speaker 1: that we get very consumed by our working identities and
Speaker 1: productive output related identities, and when what you do is
Speaker 1: also part of your everyday life, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: get any kind of balance or division. But I think
Speaker 1: having things in your life that I just play that
Speaker 1: aren't productive, that are unrelated to your work, that are
Speaker 1: just for joy are so important.
Speaker 3: So how do you play?
Speaker 1: Is there anything you do that you just do that
Speaker 1: would be otherwise considered a waste of time, but that
Speaker 1: just brings you joy.
Speaker 2: I do try to relax more now, because yeah, I
Speaker 2: have been working quite hard and I was quite close
Speaker 2: to burnout recently. Still kind of at but I'm trying
Speaker 2: to introduce more elements into my life. So one thing
Speaker 2: I really enjoy doing is cooking, So I try to
Speaker 2: cook a nice dinner pretty much every night and just
Speaker 2: have that time where my hands are occupied and I
Speaker 2: can't be on my phone. I've also found that I
Speaker 2: started doing crochet, which is really nice, and yeah, it's
Speaker 2: very meditative because you're just focusing on I mean, there
Speaker 2: are hard projects and there are easy projects. So it
Speaker 2: depends on what I want. But like, if I need
Speaker 2: something to just occupy my hands while I watch TV,
Speaker 2: then an easy project is nice. If there's something I
Speaker 2: have to focus on, then again that gets me out
Speaker 2: of the what I'm doing and into that. Before the pandemic,
Speaker 2: I was also doing pole dancing as my leiser activity.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really fun. It's pretty much the only exercise
Speaker 2: I've ever been able to stick to for a long time.
Speaker 2: So I started doing that actually back in twenty eleven
Speaker 2: when I was choosing, like I wanted to do a blog,
Speaker 2: the choice was actually skincare like or beauty science or
Speaker 2: pole dancing. Yeah, it's kind of lucky that I got
Speaker 2: into skincare science. It could have very well been pulled down.
Speaker 3: Sliding doors moment. Oh my gosh. I love that.
Speaker 1: So this is really interesting to me because in this section,
Speaker 1: most people who have a career doing something they absolutely
Speaker 1: love and that they're passionate about. Because a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't necessarily combine their passions with their career. There's
Speaker 1: always something to help the brain unwind or the body
Speaker 1: unwind that is so unrelated, and I love that. It's
Speaker 1: something like manual or physical that's like wholly consumes your brain.
Speaker 1: Like crochet makes me so happy. This episode should be
Speaker 1: called Seize the crochet, Like if there's a pun to
Speaker 1: do with play, it makes me so happy. But it
Speaker 1: is often those really manual back to basics like knitting
Speaker 1: or cooking, or for me, it's gardening randomly. I'm so
Speaker 1: bad at it, Like I don't do it properly, but
Speaker 1: I just ripped it up in the yard just because
Speaker 1: it makes me so consuming. I can't look at my phone.
Speaker 1: I can't, you know, concentrate on anything else. And I
Speaker 1: think that's so important that we all have that outlet
Speaker 1: that's like off your devices you don't have to worry about,
Speaker 1: like when we're quite a type, you know, it's so
Speaker 1: easy to want to be the best at something or
Speaker 1: to turn that into a job. But I love that,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you're like, I just do it because
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. Like my gardening is terrible. I don't
Speaker 1: need to win at gardening. It's fine. Second last question
Speaker 1: for you before I let you go, what are three
Speaker 1: interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm allergic to everything.
Speaker 1: That would be so hard in beauty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not everything, Like I'm being dramatic. I like, I
Speaker 2: have terrible hay fever. So I'm allergic to like dust
Speaker 2: pollen cats, which is really sad because my family have
Speaker 2: these gorgeous cats that I'm very allergic to. No, the
Speaker 2: more I love them, the more they run away. Oh
Speaker 2: I guess another one would be like I used to
Speaker 2: do a lot of pole and before I became super
Speaker 2: a type with blab muffin, I was super a type
Speaker 2: with poles. I was doing a lot of competitions and.
Speaker 1: I was just saying, it's not a competition. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be the best. You do have to be
Speaker 1: the best. You do have to be the best.
Speaker 2: I think it's just that a type personality. Like at
Speaker 2: some point I sat down and I was like, right,
Speaker 2: I can't be a type of both. I have to
Speaker 2: chill out on the pole. So, yeah, I stopped doing
Speaker 2: competitions I think twenty oh, twenty eighteen. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: used to do pole comps and it was tons of fun.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: I wasn't that good. I was good at an amateur level.
Speaker 2: I wasn't like a professional level, but yeah, it was
Speaker 2: heaps of fun. I highly recommend doing it. I think
Speaker 2: I've heard so many people tell me they've been thinking
Speaker 2: about doing pole, and yeah, I guess this is back
Speaker 2: to my rip the band. I think, just do it,
Speaker 2: just try.
Speaker 1: We did a segment on House of Wellness on Channel seven.
Speaker 3: It's a show I co host.
Speaker 1: We did a segment on fitness but not in a gym,
Speaker 1: like all the different ways that you can work out
Speaker 1: if you don't like gym or if you don't like running,
Speaker 1: and it was like aerial yoga, roller blading, haula hooping,
Speaker 1: and we did.
Speaker 3: We went to do a pole.
Speaker 1: Class and it was insane, like the women holding themselves
Speaker 1: up without their hands, like the strongest legs ever, like
Speaker 1: hanging upside down. It's so athletic, it's insane.
Speaker 2: It's so much fun as well, like it combines so
Speaker 2: many things, because I think me anyway, I'm terrible with
Speaker 2: repetitive things. I get bored very easily. But because pole
Speaker 2: has like elements of dance in it as well, like
Speaker 2: remembering choreography and that sort of thing, it's really good
Speaker 2: you like accidentally get fit.
Speaker 1: While yeah, that was kind of the criteria for what
Speaker 1: we were doing. It was like what are the things
Speaker 1: that you do for fun? And then the exercise part
Speaker 1: is just incidental, Like it's like, oh, I happen to
Speaker 1: have sweated, but actually I was just taller, hooping like
Speaker 1: a child for an hour and having the best time
Speaker 1: of my life. And the smiles like it's just grown
Speaker 1: adults like jumping up and down like children when they'd
Speaker 1: get a new move or like you know, it's just
Speaker 1: that's why it's called. Like the idea is to be
Speaker 1: a little bit childlike and to kind of like get
Speaker 1: that childlike sense of wonder back for an activity in
Speaker 1: your life. Very last question, since I love quotes so much,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite quote?
Speaker 2: I don't really have one. It's terrible. I really should
Speaker 2: have one, But I think it's like, have you got
Speaker 2: one of those things where you like have core values
Speaker 2: for your business? Yeah, I've been trying to do that
Speaker 2: and I'm still slowly trying to get whittle it down.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's why I don't have a favorite quote.
Speaker 1: My god, that's so fine. What about like a core value?
Speaker 1: What's a core value or a call like even just
Speaker 1: like a mantra or like a philosophy of your life
Speaker 1: by do you have any like rules for life.
Speaker 2: I think for my business at least one of them
Speaker 2: is just educate with empathy. I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that that we kind of don't feel like is
Speaker 2: great for business, but it actually is, is empathy. I
Speaker 2: think it's always dismissed as just, you know, some fluffy thing,
Speaker 2: but I think having that empathy and having that connection
Speaker 2: is really good for just being humans really. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, it is like a good sort of
Speaker 2: business value to have. There is value in it because
Speaker 2: connection is what makes us human.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Oh my gosh, that was all. That was so
Speaker 3: much better than a quote. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Michelle, thank you so much. This has
Speaker 1: been absolutely fascinating. I do this thing at the end
Speaker 1: of every episode where I realize, oh my god, my
Speaker 1: big epiphany. Today's I want to be a cosmetic chemist.
Speaker 1: I just like it's so excited about seeing other people
Speaker 1: do what they're excited about that it makes me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to do it too. Oh my gosh, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: It's been wonderful.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, what a clever cookie.
Speaker 1: You must go and visit Michelle's page to learn the
Speaker 1: inner and outer workings of your beauty regime. What an
Speaker 1: absolute game changer she is for the industry. As always,
Speaker 1: please thank her for sharing so generously with the neighborhood
Speaker 1: by sharing the episode and your learnings or any further
Speaker 1: questions you might have for her tagging at lab Muff
Speaker 1: and Beauty Science and the podcast, so we can keep
Speaker 1: growing the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I promise you'll get the next dose of Yays of
Speaker 1: our Lives.
Speaker 3: But don't forget.
Speaker 1: There's still time to submit your questions or any stories.
Speaker 1: If you haven't yet done so, you might have seen
Speaker 1: that last week's incredible episode with Alison Gordon was the
Speaker 1: result of a yeghborhood nominations. So if you do have
Speaker 1: a beautiful community hero or story to dob in. I
Speaker 1: love whistleblowing in the good sense, please shoot it over.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope you are seizing your yay