Skin Care for Men | Audio Interview with Sam Hossa of LePA Skincare

RMRS-SAM-Hossa-Interview-Male-Skin-Problems

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Antonio Centeno: Hi, this is Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style. And today we're going to be talking with Sam Hossa. We've had Sam on before, he's over at Lepa Skin Care down in Austin Texas. A really quick intro about understanding skin care which we covered in our last episode in greater detail, but he's really going to get into the details of skin care problems particularly redness and acne. So if you had any issues, something that maybe you haven't felt comfortable talking about you know, with anyone about because hey, isn't this stuff supposed to be over with once we go through puberty?

Sam is going to talk about this, he's going to give you some tips on shaving as well, so stay tuned, it's a jam packed episode.

Sam Hossa: I guess the way I want to start this conversation off is a lot of men, you know, including me years ago, don't really understand how to take care of our skin. You know, we don't get it. It's not something that kind of – our father kind of pass down to us when we're younger. But you know, we've learned. And what we talked about last time was just kind of those basic home care steps. And so – yeah, I kind of want to talk about that just a little bit before we get into the discussion about skin care problems.

So again, you know, those three very important steps are cleaning, cleaning your skin with a cleanser, and men following that up with a toner, and that's going to basically replace the natural shield of your face, and then moisturizing which is going to do the hydration. And so those are the three basic fundamentals. You had mentioned last time something – I forget what the saying is, an ounce of prevention – can you help me out here?

Antonio Centeno: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sam Hossa: Right, right. Yes, so that's the saying. And that really applies here because you know, we'll see here in a second that if you do these – you know, if you basically perform this basic home care routines, you're going to really help yourself out in the future and avoid some of these problems. Okay, so kind of to follow that up, we have to really understand what our skin is telling us. And you know, we're all different, we are different kinds of skin. Some of us have oily skin, dry skin, combination et cetera, so we're going to have to pay attention to kind of just the natural state of our skin.

Another important part of the discussion is, you know, what kind of environment are we in? Some of us work in construction and so we have to be aware of the fact that we're our in the elements all day, or we might be exposed to the sun. And so that's an important part of this whole process is really understanding you know, what is your day to day environment. And then finally, you know – our skin is very much a living organism. And it's kind of – it's going to give us signals when something's wrong.

And so it's very important to first realize if there's changes in our skin, you know, dealing with you know, how – whether it's itchy or whether it's dry or sensitive, or even you know, kind of when we break out if we break out et cetera. And so I think if you kind of really just lean back on those fundamentals and you kind of just pay attention to what your skin is telling you, our going to be able to prevent a lot of the problems that come up down the road.

Antonio Centeno: Alright, well this sounds great.

Sam Hossa: Yeah, yeah. So I guess the first – I guess the most important category is skin care problems for me is going to be those related to shaving because most of us shave, and most of us shave on a daily basis. And so what happens when you shave is, in addition to just you know, getting rid of the stubble, you're also removing I guess the top layer of your skin, and you're removing your natural shield, the body's natural shield. And so it's important.

That basically protects your skin from the elements and such. And so when you remove it, you're more vulnerable to irritation. So some – yeah, go ahead.

Antonio Centeno: Sam? Could I ask – okay so we're shaving, are there different types of shaving which are worse for the skin?

Sam Hossa: I guess – I talked to somebody, I talked to a barber one time about this. And what he mentioned to me and he of course uses the straight razor and what he mentioned to me is that when the – the basic fundamentals of shaving is first, you have to lubricate your skin so that when you shave you're not – your razor doesn't get caught up on your face, second is just have one fluid motion. And you don't want to – kind of repeat and go over the same area multiple times because that's just going to – you know irritate the skin even more.

And so just kind of one fluid motion is where you should be. If you follow – if you use a quality you know, shaving cream and a quality razor, you should be good to go in that concern.

Antonio Centeno: Okay, got it. And we – so I guess – with a quality cream is that going to be – or is there a difference between those gels and the actual – the shaving of – the white cream?

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Sam Hossa: There really isn't. In many cases, it's a matter of preference. But what you're going to want to pay attention is kind of you know, each one of the big shaving cream companies let's say has different subsets of creams. So there's going to be one for sensitive skin, there's going to be one for oily skin, and dry skin. And that's kind of where you want to step back and think about you know, what is your skin telling you. You know, some of us have dry skin in the winter, but then in the summer it turns oily. And so it's – you're just going to want to kind of regulate that and really use the kind of – the kind of shaving cream to sooth your face at that particular part of the year.

Antonio Centeno: Got it.

Sam Hossa: Yes. So again, so just going back to – to what shaving does and removing that protective layer, a lot of us, you know, we'll get up in the morning, we'll shave and we'll walk out the door, and we won't have any problems at all. And if that's – if that's you, you know, that's great, you know, you're blessed with great skin, and your skin is already health. So I'm not going to say too much in that regard. But for a lot of us, you know, when we walk out that door, later in the day we'll get you know, we'll get irritated, you know our skin will get irritated.

Some of us have you know, breakouts, related to that and redness and all that kind of stuff and so you're just going to want – you're just going to want to see what happens to your skin and kind of again, just pay attention. And the biggest, you know, the biggest advantage or the best thing that you can do for your skin after you shave is just to use a quality after shave. Okay. And again, after shaves come in many shapes and sizes, but what you're going to want to do is, you're going to want kind of really pay attention to the ingredients in there.

If you have irritated skin, you know, be aware of all these fragrances. You know, you're going to want to stay away from anything with a lot of alcohol or a lot of fragrance. Look for vitamin B and look for just kind of other natural elements and vitamins.

Antonio Centeno: I'm sorry what vitamin was that?

Sam Hossa: That's vitamin B.

Antonio Centeno: Vitamin B. Okay.

Sam Hossa: Uh-huh. And that's really going to help out for acne prone skin or if you break out there's natural elements in those shaving creams that are going to kind of refortify your skin after you shave and really going to deal with the pores in such a way so that you're not going to develop bacteria in there and you're going to kind of reject some of the buildup of dirt and such.

Antonio Centeno: And is it something that a man should try to go longer periods between shaving? I've heard you know, about some men, they talk about giving their skin a break. Does that really matter? Or does it really matter how – every time you shave you do it correctly?

Sam Hossa: Well I'm going to say both of those Antonio. It's – they're both important. I would say that really, you know, if you can get away with shaving every other day instead of everyday, then I would definitely do that because again what happens is you're removing the natural you know, the natural shield of your face. And so between shaving is when your face actually gets an opportunity to repair itself. And so that's – you know that's kind of the logic behind waiting a couple of days.

I also wait on the weekends. You know, on the weekends I give – a chance for my face to replenish itself as well.

Antonio Centeno: Alright, so if I were to summarize this, it sounds like you need to be very in-tuned with needs of your skin, pay attention to the shaving cream that you're buying and make sure that it has vitamin B as you mentioned and also pay attention whether it's for sensitive skin, oily skin or you know, if it's – if you never have any problems you can pretty go with the regular. There's not really much of a difference between the creams and the gels.

Now let me ask about the razor. Is it something that you really want a sharp razor? How long can you go between – is it something – at what point do you know to change out a razor?

Sam Hossa: Well speaking from personal experience, I use mine until I see that it's not working very well anymore. Definitely, you know, you're not going to want to, you know, go more than a month or so with the same razor. I mean – and you're going to be able to tell just from how well it's – how well it's doing its job. I wanted to also go to the other extreme and say you need one – you know, every time you shave. But there's a lot of different technologies out there are you know, Antonio in terms of how many blades you know your razor has, you know, there's a lot of argument that using a single blade is better than three et cetera, so that again, is just a matter of personal preference.

But definitely, I think you kind of, you know, touched on that point just staying in tuned with what's best for your face. You know, there's a lot of products out there. And my only recommendation is do what works for you and pay attention to what you know – what you're doing with your face.

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Antonio Centeno: And I think it's beyond the scope of this discussion actually start getting into razors and razor types but – so we'll save that for a later point. Alright, well we've talked about shaving and a bit of the irritation. Was there anything else particular to this one?

Sam Hossa: No I think we're ready to move on from shaving.

Antonio Centeno: Okay, perfect. And we're going to move on.

Sam Hossa: Okay. So the next thing I want to talk about Antonio is those of us who have excessively dry or excessively oily skin. And you know, it kind of – there's a lot of us out there that have dry skin, so let's start with that. Generally when you have dry skin, your skin is more fragile, you'll notice a lot of itchiness and irritation. And what that means is that you more than others are vulnerable to the elements that I spoke of earlier specifically the sun, wind and pollution and dirt and all that kind of stuff.

And so you know, it's important just to kind of – to understand you know, whether you have dry skin because down the road if you don't kind of treat it or address it, you might develop problems like rosacea, you might develop problems like broken capillaries which causes redness, and we'll talk about those a little bit later. But before we do that, I just want to mention that if you have dry skin, you know, those products that I told you about that you use during your home care routine, it's important to choose those that are gentle.

And you're going to be able to read up on that, you know, when you're out there looking for products, or when you're out there at the store buying your facial soap and all that. There's going to be a lot of products out there that are for dry skin or that are for gentle skin, and that's what you want to go with. Also, you know, it's very important to moisturize your skin. That's one of those three fundamentals that I talked about. And what happens if you have dry or irritated skin is that your body isn't doing a good enough job of hydrating itself. And so you just kind of want it, you know, kind of emphasize the moisture part of that daily home care routine so that you could avoid those problems down the road.

And then kind of moving on to the other side of the spectrum if you have oily skin. And if you think about that, if you think about those of us which – I'm included in that group. Those of us who have oily skin, you know, oil builds up on your face during the day. And what that does unfortunately, is it attracts and kind of – it kind of holds on to the dirt that kind of passes by. And that dirt, you know if left untreated or if you're not washing your face, et cetera, can lead to the build up of bacteria. And then I talked about this in my last interview with you, if that bacteria and dirt just stay in there, and you don't clean it out, it's just going to get in your pores and build up over time.

And so really what we want to do, it we want to put a lot of emphasis in our cleanser. And we really put a lot of emphasis in cleansing in the morning and in the evening. So in the evening when you cleanse, basically you're cleaning your face basically giving your face a shower from all you know, the day's problems or the day's dirt build up and in the morning, what happens at night after you go to bed is that your skin is naturally renewing itself and it's doing a lot of those biological processes.

So in the morning you just kind of want to refresh and renew your skin so that you're good to go for the rest of the day. Cleansing is really important for those of us who have oily skin again. Also, and this is kind of what a lot of people overlook including myself is that when you have oily skin, what you want to do automatically is clean your skin. A lot of us in the shower just use hand soap et cetera or body soap. And what that does is it – again it strips your face of its natural shield and what we don't do – what we fail to do it follow that up with a light moisturizer.

And so what happens is that it just exacerbates the problem because we already have oily skin, then we get out of the shower with this kind of you know, rough skin that we just kind of applied our hand soap too, and our body gets that signal and it says, oh, I got to produce more oil. And so it exacerbates the problem and now you have a lot of oil that could eventually lead to problems down the road.

Antonio Centeno: Now last time, you weren't able to give us specific recommendations that we could if we went into a pharmacy or like a Wallgreens of something like that, but I know you all carry products. Can you tell me about the products that you carry that are great for cleansing?

Sam Hossa: Yeah, so again, like I spoke of you know, that all of us have different skin and we should really kind of stay in tuned with what's going on with our skin. The biggest, you know, kind of indicator that you have a quality product, ours and others out there, is that they're going to be customized.

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So the cleansers that we have on our shop, some of them are like cleansing foams that you use in the morning and that's basically for us that have oily skin.

But there's also items that you know, cleansers that are much more gentle and that'll be either like a cleansing milk or something to that effect to where it's not going to – you know, be as harsh on your skin because it takes into account the fact that you have very dry or irritated skin. And so those are the kind of things that you're going to want to look for. Also, a big kind of indicator of quality products is the presence of natural elements versus alcohols or fragrances.

You know, a lot of the products out there on the shelf if you go out there, they're going to smell great and all these kind of stuff. But they're – you know, that could cause a lot of irritation if you – you know, if you have any kind of problems or underlying problems. And so you know, stick with products that are going to show lots of natural ingredients and less fragrances and alcohol.

Antonio Centeno: So what are some of these natural ingredients that we should be looking for again?

Sam Hossa: Yes, so really, nowadays, there's a lot of products out there and there's a lot of great, you know, elements that we found in nature that kind of – are used in these products. Particularly, one of my favorites is aloe. Aloe is one of those you know, kind of wonder elements that has all these health benefits. And I kind of deferred that to a later conversation but aloe is just something that's very good for skin and specifically problematic skin.

Another one that is really important for those of us who have irritated or red skin, is chamomile. And it's an herb that is infused in a lot of creams and even a lot of serums that you could put on to your face if you're having those you know, really red spots or if you're having a lot of irritation or a lot of dry spots. That's another really good element, chamomile and aloe.

Antonio Centeno: Okay, perfect.

Sam Hossa: Yeah.

Antonio Centeno: Alright so in summary, talking about oily skin and dryness and redness, this – it's about the cleansing correctly and making sure that your body doesn't react which I didn't even know, you know your skin would actually do, but it makes a lot of sense that it would then over-produce the oil. So about choosing the right ingredients and – now is that something that we could visit your guys' website and look at some of these products that are out there?

Sam Hossa: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, Antonio, I'll give you the URL of our products page, and there's a lot of discussion there about some of the different products that are out there on the market and specifically, you know, if you have oily skin what you can look for, if you have dry skin what you can look for et cetera.

Antonio Centeno: Okay great. That sounds – that's perfect. Alright.

Sam Hossa: Okay. Are you ready to move on to the next topic or did you want.

Antonio Centeno: No, I'm ready. So I'll go ahead and put a little note I'll cut out this little part for us, and yeah, I'm ready to go on to part three.

Sam Hossa: Okay so the next big topic that I wanted to go over with you was some of the more serious or advanced problems that some of us are experiencing and how we can address those problems. So they kind of fall into some major categories. The first I'll talk about is severe redness. And you know, what happens sometimes is you know, our fragile – if we have fragile skin or dry skin or very sensitive skin, it can undergo something like physical trauma.

So if you're itching a lot or if you kind of happen to be rubbing on a part that's irritating, a part of your space that's irritating you quite a bit, then that can break the capillaries and the layers of your skin and those can, you know, can lead to a lot of redness. So that's kind of the first thing we want to look for. And you know, an important distinction here is whether the redness kind of stick around. If the redness is prolonged, then it's definitely you know, capillary – broken capillaries which can be treated. If it comes and goes, you know, then you might have – be dealing with an issue like rosacea, and that's something that you're going to want to talk to your dermatologist or to your doctor about.

So let's start with that prolonged redness or those broken capillaries. The one thing that you're going to want to do is make sure to protect your skin. And you can – you know, the biggest kind of issue that comes to mind is exposure to the sun. And I can't emphasize this enough, specially if you're outside, really kind of choose and select a good sun block that you're comfortable with and really put it on all the time because if you're – if you have redness, that's a sign that your skin is sensitive and you really want to protect it from the sun.

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I also talked a little bit about natural elements like chamomile and what those elements are going to do is they're going to strengthen or rebuild those capillary walls. And so that's another thing that you want to look for on the shelf is natural products with chamomile. I'll also suggest that you go in – if you're having a lot of redness to just go into a professional skin care center that you kind of trust and just talk to a esthetician about it, and they're going to give you some really good recommendations as well.

I guess the last point on the redness is – if it's painful, or if it's really severe, I really recommend seeing a doctor. You don't want to – kind of let it go untreated and just say, “Hey, you know, I'm good to go, it's a little redness.” You know, go see a doctor, get a checkup and he or she's going to help you out. The second category of kind of those serious problems out there is acne. And I want to spend a little time on this because a lot of us think that it's kind of something that we go through when we're a teenager, and then we grow out of it.

But a lot of adults are experiencing acne, and you know we get a lot gentlemen that come into our place actually and say, “Hey I have these breakouts, but you know what, you know, it's not a big deal,” or “You know what, it's just because my skin is oily.” Or some of them just kind of – they learned to live with their acne if it's a little bit more severe and they don't even worry about it. What I kind of want to tell you and what I want to inform you of is that a lot of the times, acne can be cured all together, buy yourself through your basic home care and through checkups with a skin care professional.

Some worse critical cases or severe cases, you'll need to see a doctor. It could be due to hormones and things like that, internal issues like that. But just to speak a little bit about it, acne in most cases is the result of what I was talking about earlier, oil building up with dirt that goes untreated.

So if you think about it, if you've never really seen a skin care professional before, if you don't really take are of your skin, you know in terms of what I was talking about earlier is cleansing, toning and moisturizing, then there's dirt and bacteria in your skin and your pores that could possibly have been building up there for months or even years.

And so what happens is, as your body is trying to reject that dirt and oil, and it can result in breakouts and acne. And so you know, something that you can do that's really easy is just to go in and see a skin care professional or an esthetician. And what those people are going to do and you're going to want to look for some good reviews and you're going to want to look for somebody that specializes in it, but if you go get extractions and I talked about this earlier, it's just cleaning out your pores, you're going to see a really, really big decrease in those break outs.

And then you're going to just want to follow it up with again, I go back to those three fundamentals, cleansing, toning and moisturizing and you can basically get rid of acne even as an adult. And so the third and kind of the last issue I wanted to talk about is you know, it's just a little bit more severe – severe issues like rosacea, some of us have blisters or kind of scabbing that doesn't go away or just kind of painful sensitivity on our skin.

And I don't want to talk too much about that because I'm not at a place of authority on that. All I can say is, please, please go see a doctor about it, or at least talk to a dermatologist about it on the phone, and they're going to really – going to be able to diagnose some of those issues with you by just a conversation. And you're going to want to take care of that now versus later because those problems left untreated can lead to some pretty big issues down the road.

Antonio Centeno: So do you see older men suffering from acne, rosacea? I know you – I'm just wondering what age point – dp you ever grow out of this or is this something that you see 40, 50 year old men suffering from this?

Sam Hossa: So we see quite a bit of adults. Basically in your 20s and 30s if you still have acne that means that you kind of have what's called adult acne. A lot of times, the oils in our skin and just the natural processes in our skin deteriorate significantly in our 40s and 50s and so older men, you know, it's very rare to see older men with acne, but it still is you know, it still is possible and we do see some men, older men with acne. A lot of times though, Antonio, is we'll see the results of acne left untreated.

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And basically what that means is you had acne when you were younger, you didn't do too much in terms of correcting it or treating it, and now you have, you know, possible you might have cysts or you might have really irritated skin that isn't able to repair itself as well. And so that's kind of the – you know, some of the other issues I was talking about that is more prevalent in older men like redness or flaking or you know, cysts and problems like that.

Antonio Centeno: Alright, got it. Okay, so we talked about rosacea, we talked about acne, you also brought up – and do I say this right is it camocille?

Sam Hossa: Oh no, no it's chamomile.

Antonio Centeno: Chamomile.

Sam Hossa: Yeah, it's actually spelled, C-H-A-M-O-M-I-L-E. It's actually an herbal tea that you know, you could find in – on the shelf as a tea as well.

Antonio Centeno: Anybody that follows me knows I'm horrible at pronunciation. But I've got camocille.

Sam Hossa: Chamomile.

Antonio Centeno: Chamomile. Okay, so a lot we covered here. And it sounds like that they're – what you all cover is up to a certain point, and that's when the dermatologist steps in. And can you talk about – you know, just maybe end this – to go ahead and end this conversation kind of what the – a little bit more of the breakout – who someone should be looking to as an authority because you talked about having a trusted figure for your skin.

But I think most men, we never actually spoken with anyone in this industry and we're a bit hesitant too because many of these type of spas or places, one we don't like to go to the doctors, and we sure as hell aren't going to walk into a place that looks like it's a haven for women. I mean so that's – I mean probably one of the big stereotypes as men, we're just very hesitant to ask for help here. So can you maybe help us understand the different places where we could go for help.

Sam Hossa: Yeah, absolutely. So skin care for men is still a bit a of – I don't want to say a taboo, but it's not very common here in the States. But I will say this, you know, men in Europe are a lot more likely to go into a day spa or to talk to an esthetician because I think that they've sort of understood or sort of realize that you know, taking care of your skin doesn't have to be only for women, or it isn't only you know, a cosmetic thing. It's very much linked to health.

And so if I were to give you advice, I would say, you know, look it up on Google, of look it up on yelp, and just do a little research and find out, you know, which of those skin care facilities in your local area are geared towards a more clinical approach versus a relaxation, flash spa type situation. And so you know, as a man, I can definitely understand that you know, you wouldn't be comfortable going into a place that's kind of catered to women.

But there are more and more skin care facilities out there that are catering to men. And so you just want to do a little research and kind of – and ask around, ask you know, other men in your life or other women in your life that might be able to point you in the right direction. They're definitely out there.

Antonio Centeno: Got it. Okay, Sam. Well thank you for your time today. I greatly appreciate it. And you know, to end this, can you go ahead and tell me a little bit more about your business and you know kind of what you guys are doing down there in Austin, Texas and what makes you so qualified to talk about this?

Sam Hossa: Yeah, absolutely. So I spent a couple of years in Europe. And when we're over there, we saw you know, kind of this big trend of men and women really taking care of their skin and going to the spa not just for relaxation purposes but also for clinical purposes. And when we moved to the States, my wife and I saw an opportunity to bring that here to the States and bring that to the market. And so we opened in '08, and we really kind of differentiate ourselves as quality care.

And somewhere where both men and women to go and kind of get that European experience and really get the results that they're looking for and not just sort of this relaxation atmosphere, but also a results driven atmosphere.

Antonio Centeno: Perfect. And where can we find you guys on the web?

Sam Hossa: Yeah, we are at www.lepaskincare.com, and that's L-E-P-Askincare all in one word.

Antonio Centeno: Got it, lepaskincare.com, very easy. And I'll link to you in the article and that we'll be supporting this.

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And Sam, that's all I have for today, I think we definitely have some other points that we can cover at a later time period, but – this was short, sweet to the point. And Sam, thank you for your time.

Sam Hossa: Yeah, thank you, Antonio.

Antonio Centeno: Okay, bye-bye.

Sam Hossa: Bye-bye.

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