Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the Uncomplicated Perimenopause Podcast. I'm Kate Grosvenor, your friendly perimenopause expert and life coach, and I'm Gabriella, kate's daughter, representing all the women who are nowhere near perimenopause but want to understand it better. Whether you're just starting your perimenopause journey deep into it. Whether you're just starting your perimenopause journey deep into it or you're a loved one trying to support someone who is, we've got you covered. We'll be answering all of your burning questions, exploring the ups and downs and sharing expert advice and personal insights. So grab a cup of tea, get comfy and let's dive into the wonderful. Get comfy and let's dive into the wonderful, sometimes wild, world of perimenopause together. And remember, no matter where you are on your journey, you are not alone. Welcome to the Uncomplicated Perimenopause. Hello, my darlings, and welcome to episode 16, imagine. Uncomplicated perimenopause podcast. Gosh, brain fog's hitting hard this week. Sweet 16, they're so cute, I know. I feel like we're doing really well. I feel like, oh, look at us going up speaking of babies growing up.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Rowan's back to uni this week. So anybody else, has anybody else got kids going back to uni Because it's year two? It's year two for Rowan, and then that's it. One more year and Joan's gone as well. And then it's like oh, my babies are grown up, you're going to have an empty nest. Well, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, I was going to say empty nest, my left foot, the oldest one, is going to stay. But the thing is it's like, you know, people say empty nest but they don't really go because Rowan's already like.

Speaker 1: 1:49

I took Rowan to the physio today and she was already saying well, I'm back in about three weeks and then I'll be back. Why is she back in three weeks? Because that's what Rowan does, and then I'm back again in reading week, so that will be week beginning the fourth, and so she's booked her next physio in on the week beginning the 4th of. She's also booked to go, yes, on holiday with me, apparently, okay, so, so I don't know what this empty nest is all about, because I don't feel, maybe, when you've all actually I don't know wait till we're all married, maybe, and then you're bringing the children back to look after, 100%, what are grandma's for? Um, I might move to antamongolia. I'll follow you. Anywho, I digress. I hope you've all had a fabulous week.

Speaker 1: 2:28

And what is the question this week? My love, I really, really like this question. You say that every week. No, but this is just. I really like it for it, and it's prepare yourself, though. Oh gosh, have I got to girdle my loins? If that's your preference, yeah, whatever. So it's from marianne. Hello, marianne.

Speaker 1: 2:47

She lives between holland and the uk, oh nice. So she travels a lot. She's a, she's a traveler. She travels for work as well.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Okay, and it's already tough in perimenopause, yeah, and because she travels a lot, it's very difficult to get into a skincare routine, food routine. She stays in hotels. It's a bit difficult to look after herself. Yeah, yeah, and she's now in the perimenopause too. Yeah, and she says she looks and feels horrible. Every time she looks in the mirror she sees an old woman with wrinkles, blotchy skin and doesn't know where to start and doesn't know how to look after herself. So it's good, don't you just want to give her a big hug? Yeah, yeah, oh, I just want to give you a big hug. It's so, listen right, spades, a spade on this one. Okay, we're not all in the same boat, but we're all in the same sea when it comes to this one. No woman in perimenopause has not felt like this. Now, genetically, some, some women are more blessed than others when it comes to skin. Yeah. So if you had all your skin when you were younger, you're gonna fare better in perimenopause than if you had dry skin. Okay, so that's the thing. But we're all in the same boat. So, no matter what your skin was like before perimenopause, at some point you're going to look in the mirror and go, oh, for goodness sake, ew.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So I remember I have always looked after my skin. I was going to say you're very blessed actually, but you've looked after yourself. I've always looked after my skin, because I had cystic acne when I was younger. So I had horrific skin. Up until I was pregnant with you actually, you're welcome. No, no, not you skin. Up until I was pregnant with you actually, you're welcome. No, no, not you.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Up until I might, kind of late 20s, I had really horrific cysts and painful, painful, painful cysts, bumps, lumps all underneath my skin. So I had to look after my skin a lot. So I didn't, I was forced to, if you like. Then what happened was because I took really good care of my skin, I presumed that I would sail through perimenopause with nigh a worry, with never an issue. Yeah, I was shocked when I started getting red kind of bumps, yeah, and almost like a rosacea type reaction on my skin. I was like, excuse you me, when did that start? Mid perimenopause? It's only a few years ago. A few years ago, and I didn't get any lines or any wrinkles or any kind of typical signs of aging. I got perimenopause skin.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Okay, perimenopause skin is kind of redness around the nose around. Yeah, it's why. So this is the thing about perimenopause. So as oestrogen leaves your system, you get these, as you know, hot flashes. So where your capillaries are in your skin, typically around your cheeks, could be around your nose. You get these when your veins dilate and then they contract again. You get these this flushing on the skin because it flashes and then constricts, it leaves behind its mark and so when it does it a lot all the time and you get sweaty in those areas, you sweat underneath your makeup or it just flashes whether you wear makeup or not you end up with this kind of redness to your cheeks, redness around the nose, and that's one of the symptoms.

Speaker 1: 6:08

The other symptom of perimenopause skin obviously is, as oestrogen leaves your skin, you end up with a kind of hollowness to your skin. So oestrogen is the thing that you need in your skin to make collagen. You know I'm doing this one. So collagen is the thing in your skin that makes it bouncy, gives it that pillow-like. So if you think of a pillow, it's shaped outwards. And so if you think of a little kid jumping up and down on a pillow, doink, doink, doink, doink. So when you have oestrogen in your body and it produces collagen, you have that pillow-ness of your skin. It gives it that bounciness, that life, that fullness to the cheeks. When oestrogen leaves your system and don't forget, oestrogen is declining all the time, but the speed of which it leaves your body increases.

Speaker 1: 6:53

In perimenopause you'll see that women have a hollowness to their cheeks. Instead of their cheeks going outwards, they then sink inwards, so you go a bit like Gone. So you see women, women, like suddenly their cheeks look sunken rather than billow out. Yeah, they go inwards. I thought stuff like that was a weight loss thing, or well, it can be. I mean, obviously, if you are way less, if you're more underweight than overweight, it can look more exaggerated. But just in general, you don't have that plumpness, that rosiness, that kind of glow to your skin. Do you physically feel it? You don't physically feel it, but when you look in the mirror you don't see a youthful plumpness, you see a kind of gauntness. That's number two. Number three because why not?

Speaker 1: 7:42

Obviously sleep deprivation in perimenopause is huge. So what comes to sleep deprivation? Bags, dark circles, yeah, just general kind of drawn skin. Then, obviously, as we get older as well, we're going to have fine lines, we're going to have wrinkles, we're going to have droopiness that's another oestrogen thing. We're going to have droopiness, which then can lead to jowliness, jowls being these just explained like growing older to us actually. Yes, isn't that lovely, aren't you happy? So the problem is, when you mix all these things, when you add these things together, they can kind of creep up on you.

Speaker 1: 8:19

But in perimenopause, because of oestrogen decline and because of all these factors like lack of sleep and other things that are going on as well, you suddenly can take. It can just seem like one day you look in the mirror and, snap, you don't recognize yourself and it's really distressing. Yeah, so that's what marion. So that's what marion's going through. Right, what do we do?

Speaker 1: 8:43

Hmm, first and foremost, what I need to explain is you start from the inside out, when you look in the mirror and you feel like my skin has aged or my skin doesn't feel like me anymore. I wouldn't start with the skincare. I would start from the nutrition side of things. I go inside out rather than outside in, because you're going to get much better results If you go to a skincare counter. They're going to sell you the world and you're going to get much better results. If you go to a skincare counter, they're going to sell you the world, yeah Right, and you're going to fall not fall prey. That sounds mean. But they're going to sell you all these lovely jars of potions and lotions and mention big words and numbers and numbers and retin. You know all these fancy kind of compounds and stuff.

Speaker 1: 9:28

The reality is that your skin in perimenopause can also be quite thin. It can also be quite fragile. So what we want to do is the first and foremost we want to strengthen your skin and give it some oomph back in it. So we want to start with nutrition. So we're going to start with collagen. Collagen is the thing that's been missing. So we want to start with collagen. We want to start with hydration and we want to start with fat.

Speaker 1: 9:50

When I say fat, I don't mean lard, I don't mean like butter, I mean omegas. I actually thought that's what you meant like eating fatty food. I was like, yes, please, yeah, a bit odd, but okay, collagen is is thing that is kind of like script. But I mean, you've heard me talk about it before whether you're with your knees and your joints and stuff, and it's the kind of glue that holds your joints together. It also does the same for your skin. It kind of holds the infrastructure together. So if you take collagen, it's going to give you that bounciness, that kind of like pushiness, that pillowness back into your cheeks. When will you start feeling that with taking collagen? So I'm going to be biased and say collagen that we have.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Um, when I started, obviously I I trialed the collagen first, um, before we launched our own collagen, and it was around three, three to four weeks. I saw other people started noticing it on me. I'm going to say about six weeks. Yeah, they were like what are you doing? Because you can, yeah, and you can feel the effects rather than see yeah, makes sense. So I would say around six weeks. Other people start saying to me what are you using on your skin? You look really glowy, what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 10:54

And that's based on bovine collagen, not marine collagen, because there's two different types of collagen that well, there's more than two different types. Mainly, people use marine collagen or bovine collagen. In perimenopause, I would always encourage people to take bovine collagen, which is the type of collagen that we use. But we use a specific type of collagen because you want to use a very, very high quality collagen that your body can use. So I would say to start with collagen, and it's not an expensive fix as well. It seems like the key to everything. Yeah, yeah, it really seems like such the solution and you'd pay anything, wouldn't you, to feel and look just that little bit better. Well, it's going to make a massive difference to you.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And for Marianne, you said she goes between the UK and Holland. So if she ordered it in the UK, it's going to cost like, is it 21 quid a month? 21.60, yeah, yeah, 21.60. I was like 21.60. And that's including postage, so it's not going to cost you very much. It's going to it's less than a pound a day. It's like 8.62, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, when you think of it like that, yeah, so it's not going to cost her a lot. So that would be my first solution. Okay, obviously it's a little bit more. I can't remember. It's like eight, nine pounds or something like that, if she delivers it to holland, but if she's in the uk, yeah, it's obviously free postage.

Speaker 1: 12:07

So, so that's a really, really good solution. And it's so easy to take. It doesn't taste of anything. It doesn't smell of anything. Couple of teaspoons in your coffee and you're done. Even put it into water because it's so tasteless and she'd be able to travel with it, wouldn't she? And you can travel with it. Yeah, exactly, so it's not a big deal.

Speaker 1: 12:23

That's a really, really easy solution, as as is hydration. So your skin needs to be hydrated to look, you know, you can tell when your skin is dry. If you press your skin and it bounces back anywhere on your skin, you know that it's hydrated. If you pushed it and it literally doesn't bounce back, you know that you're dehydrated. Am I hydrated? Yes, really. But if you pushed your skin and the mark still stayed and it took a long time, it, if you, if you pushed your skin and the mark still stayed and it took a long time. It's like if you pinch your skin and it doesn't snap back into place. You're very, very dehydrated. So you need to make sure that you're okay. I didn't know that. No, it is a school day, darling. I thought I was, just, bless me, a bit bit pale at times. But if you put literally, if you pinch your skin and it doesn't snap back into place, then you're really dehydrated. So you need to make sure you're really dehydrated.

Speaker 1: 13:18

And then, with a VAT, you want to be taking omega-3s. Now, omega-3s I think I've probably mentioned it before but you don't want to be taking omega-6s. Omega-6 before perimenopause is fine. After perimenopause, you want to be taking omega-3s because that again, it's that great for your skin. So that's the inside bit. Now the outside bit you have to learn to love your skin again.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Women will come up to me and they say I don't love the way I look anymore. I just don't love the way I look. I look ugly. I hate the way I look. It absolutely, absolutely breaks my heart. They'll go. I'm just an ugly woman. I'm an ugly woman, I'm an old woman and it. I find it really hard. Yeah, this is not me, this is. It's not who I am anymore. I don't like me, I don't recognize me. I'm an old woman.

Speaker 1: 14:03

So I'm going to say it's okay, start with one thing that you love. So look in the mirror and find one feature that you love, that's a good start. So, do you love your eyes? Do you love your lips? And focus on loving that one thing. So what can you love about your face?

Speaker 1: 14:20

And look in, look in the mirror, and the woman will say I love my eyebrows, okay, it's your eyebrows, it's your eyebrows. How can you take care of your eyebrows? And they'll say, I say, okay, maybe you could use an eyebrow serum, yeah, okay, that's a start. Yeah, keeping them groomed. Keeping them groomed go for an eyebrow trim, put some eyebrow serum on them, cut trees them. Learn how to use an eyebrow pencil, fill them in love on them, take care of them. Start there, that's a good one.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Okay, what else can you love? Well, I love my lips, okay. So how can you love your lips more? Well, lips also need hydration. So can you use a hydrating lip balm, right?

Speaker 1: 15:00

Well, let's stay away from the petroleum balms, because the petroleum things, like a Nivea balm or what, are the ones that everybody uses. The ones in the sticks? Yeah, I the the ones in the sticks. Yeah, no, you know the ones, I mean lip salves in the bar. Yeah, they're actually got petroleum oil in petroleum oil is in petrol. Yes, petroleum oil, and they dry your lips, but don't even go there. But they're really, yeah, and you've been using them for years probably. So they're really really bad for you. They're really unhealthy for you and as you keep applying them, it makes your lips dry and drier. So you keep applying it more and more. So switch it out. Use a really healthy one again.

Speaker 1: 15:36

That's why we only use natural products in in the lifestyle brand, but use a really natural one and apply it before you go to bed. So when I go to bed at night time, I apply almost like a mask of hydrating products. You've got a good night time routine, but it's part of your night time ritual. So when you've done your skincare at bedtime, I keep it next to my bed. It's a little pot, and before I go to sleep at night, I hydrate my lips, because then the next day when you want to apply your lipstick, you don't have crusty, dusty lips.

Speaker 1: 16:09

Okay, because when we again, when we go through perimenopause, our lips dry out and our lips shrink, feel like they're getting smaller because the line, the line around our lips, gets dotted, yeah, the line, as in the natural lip line, starts to erode and starts to get smaller, yeah, and doesn't, it's not as much of a definite line and our lips get dehydrated. So they start like the game. I've seen some women like it chipping off and yeah. So if you hydrate your lips at night time, the next day when you apply your lipstick it feels more plump, it feels more supple, the lipstick goes on better. So you can love your lips by applying a really lovely hydrating, maybe one with vitamin e, maybe one with calendula I think that's how you pronounce it.

Speaker 1: 16:56

What do you look out for? Not to have? No paraffin oil, no petroleum jellies no, I mean just always look out. No sulfates, no para, you know, parabens? No nasty, something that's based on natural ingredients. Okay, that's why I started. The lifestyle brand was just so that, because I was just fed up of spending all my time reading labels. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:16

So again, when you're in perimenopause, I understand how she feels, because everything that you've learned to do for your skin before perimenopause may no longer work. I used to go to one of the big skincare companies and I would buy my retinoids, or I would buy my vitamin C products, or I would buy some of these products with lots of active ingredients in and they would be absolutely fine with for me before perimenopause and then in perimenopause, because my skin was more reactive, because I had all these little pimples, you know these little red dots all over my skin. Suddenly, if I put those products, those active products, so things with vitamin c and things with retinols in, if I put them onto my skin, my skin would just go whoosh and react to them. If you're really out of love with your skin, you might have to start again at the beginning. Start with things with no active ingredients in at all and start off at really natural, really caring, really beautiful, loving, kind, soft ingredients and and if you want to work back up to the more active ingredients, maybe start really really slowly, strip everything back and start with a massively simple cleanse even avoid toner, maybe double cleanse, use something like a cleansing melt oh yeah, what's that? Do you know when? If you see me take my makeup off in the evenings and I use like a beautifully smelly kind of melty thing, I've seen you use it, yeah, yeah, first and then I use. So I double cleanse, so I cleanse twice. So you don't use makeup remover, you just use that. I use a cleansing melt and then I use a cleanser, so I use a cleansing melt, then I use a creamy cleanser and it just feels really luxurious and spa-like, and I take it off with a warm face cloth every night, so I feel like I can get that little spa treatment type thing. Nice, I'm not using and I use muslin cloths, um and again, because muslin cloths are very, very soft on the skin. Yeah, that's what you used with us when we were babies, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, so I use a muslin cloth on my hair, so I have muslin towels for the hair. I use muslin cloths on my face. All of these tiny little things are things that are very gentle. They're very loving, they're very caring.

Speaker 1: 19:46

It's just approaching things in a different way, but it's saying to yourself, instead of saying I hate where I look, I hate my skin and I get it. I'm not having. Honestly, I'm not sitting here saying, oh well, that's a ridiculous way to think. I have so been there. Yeah, you know me. I, in 2016, I unrecognized. I was just gonna say you probably wouldn't recognize yourself then to now, and that was. You were eight years younger and that was eight years ago. Yeah, I looked older then than yeah, 100%, no offense, I came out rude. Yeah, I've got a question.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Do you know because people say it's all about mind, body and soul and feeling good do you think when you look after yourself and do this whole ritual for yourself, do you think because you feel good on the inside while doing it, it shows on the outside? Absolutely okay. The whole point about self-care is not just what it does for you on the outside. It's about saying I'm loving me, I'm taking care of me, I'm taking care of myself. It's about self-worth, self-care, self-love. It all blends together at the end of the day. And taking care of yourself is really really important because you're sending a message to your own brain saying I'm looking after me, I'm taking care of me, I'm worth something, I'm worth looking after, I'm worth loving, yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:01

And it's really really important, as we go through paramount pause, to be sending that message to ourselves and saying looking in the mirror and saying it's really hard for the soul. Yeah, it's really, really hard for the soul. And we do it too often because we don't look like we used to, we don't feel like we used to. But if we carry on saying which is all too easy to do because, you know, none of us are going to look like we did when we were 20 ever again. But it's getting worse as well in our generation, even because social media gives you like an impression of what you're supposed to look like and how you're supposed to look and feel and everything. So a lot of young girls have started looking in the mirror and going, oh, I wish I had bigger this, I wish I had less this. Yeah, what scares me about your generation is that people are saying, well, I have to start my Botox now so that I don't end up aging like, yeah, whoever.

Speaker 1: 21:54

And then women who are my age. I see some of the comments on posts of Jennifer Anderson saying what has she done to her face, you know? Oh, my god, what is that? And I'm thinking she's 60, she's not, she's my age. No, courtney cox has just turned 60, yeah, but jennifer anderson's younger, yeah, she's like like 50, yes, something 56, 57, something like that. I'm not sure. But do you know what I mean? It's like we were quick to pass judgment on each other. So if we judge ourselves less, yeah, we can then afford to judge, judge other women less. But when we judge ourselves harshly, we then judge other people, other women, harshly as well. So it's a bit of a problem. But someone with mariette like someone like her who travels a lot and does a lot for work and stuff, how can she fit in all these little things for herself while on the go? This is the thing. So it's it's having a routine that is not too complicated. So this is what I'm saying. Pair it right back.

Speaker 1: 22:51

If I was starting out again on my skincare, if I had got to the point where I'm out of love with my skin, I would start again with a really beautiful cleansing routine, the muslin class like. Again, I sound like a broken record, but we sell them on the lifestyle brand and the reason that we do is because I highly recommend them, because they are the best thing in perimenopause. But they're tiny little spots you can. They weigh nothing, okay. So I would get a brand and elemis do a great one, temple spa do a great one these cleansing melts, and you can get small pots of them as well. So I would start off with a simple double cleanse routine, so one cleansing melt and one creamy cleanser, and then I really wouldn't almost bother with the toner, I would just double cleanse and then I would use some kind of serum, a strengthening serum or or some kind of serum that's not too aggressive, something that's really going to sit well on the skin, and then a night moisturizer and an eye cream doesn't sound complicated when you put it like no, you know you don't need 29 million products and when you're buying these products, buy products where you can. You can have small.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Go somewhere like that you can actually get sample sizes, travel sizes. Find a brand that you can actually get sample sizes, travel sizes. Find a brand that you can actually get. You know a brand like Elemis, for example. You can buy their big sizes, but they often do travel packs and they do these giveaways and you can always get their little pots. Do you know what I'm saying? Like Estee Lauder, for example, they're always doing offers. Where you buy this one, you get these ones for free. So do that. Collect them, find out, invest in a travel kit, invest in travel sizes, and it's what brand works for you, isn't it? And it's what brand works for you.

Speaker 1: 24:37

But go and let them do your facial at the counter. There's a lot of these places that offer a free 15-minute facial offer. A free 15 minute facial offer, a free 30 minute facial. Don't be afraid to take them up on this. Don't be afraid to like, say yes, I'd like to have a free facial, yes, I'd like to have the consultation. And don't be shy to try some of their products and say I'll. Can you write me down the prescription? I'll come back in a few days, if it feels nice on my skin, and say to them I'm trying it out because I I'm in perimenopause. I want to see how my skin reacts. If my skin reacts well, I will come back and I will purchase these products. Please give me your name and I'll make sure I purchase them from you. Nice, are you with me? Like, be honest, be upfront with them.

Speaker 1: 25:20

People don't mind that we're so worried about putting people's noses out of joints. We're so worried about thinking am I going to offend people or not? Yeah, and it's the same with your makeup. You know, if you go to places like Dior, if you go to places like Charlotte Tilbury, if you go to places like Givenchy or Chanel, yeah, you can have a makeup lesson and they'll say minimum spend is 50 or minimum spend is 100. Yeah, and you can have a makeup lesson and you can tell them I have mature skin.

Speaker 1: 25:47

I want a very quick, no makeup makeup look or I want an evening makeup look. Please can you set me on with like five products that I can do quickly for mature skin? Yeah, so I look like I've got a glamorous makeup and you, you'll need to change the makeup that you feel like. You know you don't want to be wearing heavy foundation, so I wear a makeup called NARS light reflecting foundation. I've heard it's amazing. It's very light, it's very dewy, it's very thin. I used to wear like thick foundation back in the day, but that's who you were like at the time. This is what I'm saying. So when you get into perimenopause, you start changing, yeah, and start thinking about different types of products that are going to give you a different type of glow. And I only do that by going and saying can you test this product on me? Can you show me what this looks like? That's really good.

Speaker 1: 26:45

And if you, if you haven't got the courage to go with one of your friends, yeah, or one of your daughters, yeah, yeah, we've gone to it. Yeah, we've gone to a couple together. Oh, I do love my it's a treat yourself day. It is so, so necessary. I've got my next treat yourself day on the 5th of October, spending the afternoon with Dior. Well, I mean, it has. Dior has to be Dior. Sponsor me please. I really like your products I buy every month. Please just sponsor me now. Shameless plea, no shame, yeah, completely no shame. Come on, dior. Oh, bless you. So I hope that helps. Yeah, I think that was very, very good advice and I think it's good encouragement for women.

Speaker 1: 27:24

Yeah, start from the inside out. Start looking outside the nutrition side. Get all that structure back into your skin, that hydration, that goodness, that collagen, the omegas and the hydration. Then try and start loving your features, even if it's just one by one. Fall back in love with them and start looking after them and then start your skincare again. Start simple, start natural and do a routine that you can keep up, no matter where you are and how much you travel. All right, take care, my darlings. As always, if you have any questions for us, we're always here to help, sending you buckets full of love, and we will speak to you again next week. Take care, my darlings, bye, bye.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Thanks for joining us today on the Unplicated perimenopause podcast. We hope you found this episode helpful and inspiring. Don't forget if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover. You can reach out through our perimenopause group or on whatsapp for more information on my coaching per perimenopause, supplements, books or upcoming events. Please visit wwwkategrovernercom and if you've enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. It really helps us reach more listeners, just like you. Until next time, remember perimenopause doesn't have to be complicated. We're here to help you every step of the way. Stay uncomplicated.