 Welcome to Holistic Wellness Revealed. I'm Letitia Sharp and I'm your host today as we talk about holistic skin care. Is this a nicety or a necessity? Today my guest is Moani Hibbard. She is a trained esthetician, owner of Botanica Skincare, mama of two beautiful kiki, graduate of Mid-Pak here in Hawaii and also she is a formulator of her own natural product line. So I'd love to welcome Moani Hibbard. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for taking time. I know it's hard to find that time sometimes with two littles in the mix. How are you doing today? We're doing good. Just getting everything ready, ready for spring break. So they're both home. Awesome. So I really wanted to bring you on today to share with our viewers about, you know, skin care. People feel like skin care is this luxury that they just, they can only get a facial or get some kind of skin care special when they go to a spa or something like that. But really what we're finding out is that it's way more than that. What actually brought you to wanting to work with skin care and bringing this to many, many people. So my background is actually in plants. I worked in the conservation field here in Hawaii for about 10 years, getting to know working specifically with the native Hawaiian plants. So I really got to know them. I got to know their purpose, their uses, their traditional uses and their modern uses. I took, you know, a La'au, La'au, La'au class over at Wynward Community College. So I got to know them on a different level for healing as well as for unifying and restoration in your yards or out in the wild. And it really inspired me in knowing how plants have the ability to heal us, to give us nutrients from the earth. I wanted to then turn that and make it readily available to people. So I started mixing and formulating a lot by trial and error. But really hand selecting the ingredients that I chose to use based on what their purpose was. There's so many skin care or even not even skin care, just all products out there that have a lot of filler products. They're just trying to put something in there that doesn't have a purpose. And I really wanted to eliminate that. Everything that I chose to put into the products that I use or even the products that I choose to use, that I don't personally create. I'm really thinking about where it came from, what's the purpose of each ingredient, does it need to be in there, does it not need to be in there. So I'm looking for something that's really clean if I'm not formulating it and using it in my practice as an esthetician, as well as on myself at home. I love that. And I love that you bring the La'Aula Pa'au into it because that also speaks to what the show is all about and what we want to bring to our viewers, which is that relationship, right? A relationship between our organic being and the organic being of the earth, which is really just the same thing. That's what we came from, right? So that's it only makes sense that we use it. It does. So there's like this big, I'm sure a lot of people when they're looking at skincare ingredients and turning the bottles and looking, I feel like our average customer is a little bit more savvy now and more conscious about ingredients, but they may come across the words organic or wild harvested. And there's some key differences that I kind of want to just go over and what it means kind of decoding those labels. So when you see organic, a lot of times you'll see the USDA organic certified on the bottles, which means it is cultivated. So it's farmed organically under certain restrictions that the FDA has imposed. And that's what they're following in order to be an organic ingredient versus wild harvested. It's been harvested in the wild. So nature has grown it. Nobody planted it there. Mother Earth put it there. And it's plentiful. We're not stripping our resources, but instead we're utilizing what Mother Earth is giving us. And then from that, they're making that or refining that product. So it's really holding as much energy and mana that the earth can provide to us. So when I formulate things, I like to look for things that are wild harvested over organic because of this integrity. It's holding all of that energy. And I want to pass along as much as that energy into my product to be available for use when you use it on your body, because it's going to help you emotionally. It's going to help your skin as well. Maybe you're treating a cut on your skin or you have a rash on your skin. And you're we're going to put that energy into healing, that that wound or that rash or maybe you have a pimple on your face. But we're going to put that energy toward healing and restoring and reviving as much as possible. Love that. And I mean, I know I taught some nutrition and some different gardening courses and things in my daughter's elementary school. And the big thing was, OK, the least amount of ingredients, the best, right, the better. So it sounds like, OK, if we can just that's what you're talking about, right? Yes, trying to minimize and knowing what what you're putting in your skin. A lot of people forget that our skin is our biggest organ, our largest organ. So, you know, what's this saying? You are what you eat. You are what you put on your skin. So it all factors into that, right? It is a part of it is actually a living organ, even though we forget about it. We don't treat it as if it is an organ because it's not inside of us. It's not internal. Everybody always thinks of organs as this internal thing, like your gut or your heart or your lungs. But our skin is one of the most unique organs. It's our largest organ and it's one of the few organs that it sheds our dead skin cells and then it's reproducing new ones. So it's kind of unique in that way. And I mean, isn't it? Is this correct me if I'm wrong? Isn't it one of the most absorbent organs as well? Yes, it is. So pretty much anything you put on your skin, it's it's slowly absorbing like a sponge in going internal. Right. And I mean, yeah, down to like what kind of hand soap are you using? What kind of laundry detergent even correct? Yes. So all of those things can play a factor into our skin wellness. And it can even affect how you're even if it's your clothes, your laundry detergent saying you have sensitive skin, maybe it's manifesting in your face, even though it wasn't even touching your face, but because your body is a sponge like that, it's affecting your whole being versus just a pinpoint spot. And that's really that's what I love about the way you work, Moani, is because you don't just say, OK, here's your facial. Here's some things you can take home and try you really if someone's having an issue, whether it's an allergy, whether it's acne, whether it's a rash of some sort or any kind of like coloring or whatever it is that people have that's going on. You try to get to the bottom of it. Like you really do address it on a body, mind, spirit, emotional. You address all levels on a holistic wellness way. What are some of the ways that you feel like you could address it like just physically besides you said you are what you eat? Isn't that mean that's got to play a huge part also like physically into your skincare? Yes, it does. So a lot of times people will come in with acne problems. That's a big concern. And I kind of break it down like, OK, well, you know, are you a teen? Are you maybe older in your mid 20s? And now you're experienced acne for the first time ever. We kind of go down and break down like what's going on. Maybe you had an environmental shift. Somebody was on the mainland. They moved to Hawaii. Their skin's not used to like all of this humidity. So it's going through a transitional period. Or if it is hormonal, that's one of, you know, the hardest things to treat because it is an internal issue. So how can we balance the hormones? What are you eating? Maybe it's a tea that you drink every morning to help balance your your hormones. Or maybe it's the consideration of going off of birth control to help naturalize your body and going back to your natural balancing states. So kind of going down the line and talking about those things. But everybody's going to have a very individualized solution plan. Not there's not going to be one recipe that everybody can follow and it's going to work for everybody. You kind of have to make those choices like what are you willing to give up? Or what are you willing to incorporate into your routine to add in there to make a shift into the direction that you want to go? So it's really working on a one to one level with everybody and figuring out what the best answer is for you. So what would you say one easy, simple thing that people could do physically to be able to improve their skin and help it be more healthy? A good starting point is I would say cleansing once in the morning and once at night. A lot of people do this already, but then there's some people who just who don't. They're like, oh, I don't have time, but you know what? Take 10 minutes or five minutes every single morning, cleanse in the morning, cleanse at night. Put some sunscreen on in the morning. That is your number one best friend again. Any type of aging sign sunscreen is your best friend. And then at night, putting on some moisturizer. So those are some really simple ways to just start if you have don't know where to start at all. OK, that's great. And then what about like more of an emotional. Area or men. So what how can people help with like what is being expressed on the outside from what's really going on internally with them emotionally? So that's that takes some inner reflection as to what's going on. Sometimes when you're really stressed out at work, maybe you do financing at work, you do your bookkeeping at work or something in your year and fiscal year. And you're going through all your books, you're reconciling everything. So maybe you have your have a higher stress level because you need to meet these certain deadlines and that can come out in your skin. You can maybe start breaking out. Maybe you're not eating as healthy because you're you're stressed for time. So you're just grabbing something convenience. But all those things can come out in your skin. Maybe you start getting like a little nervous rash or something. So your emotional well-being can definitely affect your your physical manifestation of what's going on. So kind of taking like a mental note like, hey, wait, no, yeah, I kind of have been stressed out a little bit. Oh, you know, maybe I stopped at McDonald's, you know, like three times this week. And normally I don't do that. So kind of taking those notes and seeing like where you're at. Or even the holiday season, right? Everything's always crazy and you're running around. So just got to take a breath, calm down and kind of reevaluate what's going on. Yeah. And I think that that also, I mean, that leads us to the like kind of the spiritual side of it, too, because then you can get into meditation and really find that homeostasis within all parts. Like, how am I vibrating? How is my frequency on every level and doing just a quick meditation or something like that to be able to help reduce those stress levels or getting out in nature? Or, I mean, so meditation and getting out into nature can definitely ground you. There's scientific studies, actually, that going out and actually walking barefoot, not with slippers, not with shoes, but feeling the Earth's energy can actually help to restore your own energy and give you some wellness that might make you calm, depending where you are. You know, certain places you like to go to certain gardens, a certain place in your own personal yard or maybe you're inside the house looking outside and that place really calls to you, you know, thinking, why is it calling to you? Why is that your calm place? What is what are you getting from there? But Mother Earth is sending you vibes and letting you know where your space is. And in one of my facials that I do, the revive and balance facial, I do some energy work kind of helping to release maybe certain blocks that you have when I'm working with somebody and getting to know them. I can usually during the there's a facial massage part that I like to either use Gura Shah or my hands. And I'm working on certain Marma points on from like your your head up. There's Marma points throughout your whole body. But case I specialize in in your face. I'm primarily working on your head, your neck and your shoulders and hitting all those Marma points to check in with yourself energetically and where you are doing meditation, going out in nature can definitely help you connect to those points on your own. Because every everybody has the ability to hone into your chakras. Chakras are larger points. Your Marma points are smaller energy points along your whole body. So we all have this ability to hone in to these energy points along our body and using certain plants being out in nature can kind of fuel those energy points to kind of sparks them and can help enlighten them for you. Love that. And by the way, I am a huge fan of your neck massage. I've come in for work with you before and had the worst headache and called you later and say, it's gone. It's so gone. So you're welcome. Thank you. Yeah, it's amazing. And I'm not the only one. I I have lots of people who I know who see you as well. And they agree with me. Speaking of facials, the revitalized facial is a wonderful facial. But you also do like a it's basically a healing. I'm going to call it a cleansing facial where you use a lot of it. So there's micro needling, right? A lot of people have heard of micro needling and this this vampire facial. And this is similar to those. But it's using something in nature that's actually going into. And it's not pleasant. It's not like a super pleasant massage or I mean, facial treatment. But it does. It feels like it takes everything that's underneath out and and gets rid of it and also like feels like maybe it's getting my own body to replenish and be new. But I don't know. Will you explain about the bio micro needling? Yeah, the bio micro needling facial is is similar to traditional micro needling along with the vampire facial, the vampire facial. And traditional micro needling uses actual needles that are penetrating into your skin and creating little micro in. So the bio micro needling is actually using a powderized sponge spicules, so it's all natural. It comes from a sponge, a freshwater sponge, and it has it's been turned into powder and then all of the powder gets mixed with some liquid and put onto your face where hand massaging it into your face. So the bio needles that is the bio needle part of it and it's going into your skin. So maybe for the first 24 hours to 48 hours, if you actually touch your base, wherever you're touching, it's going to feel like little tiny pinprits because the needles are actually inside of your skin and it stays there. You know, the bio, the sponge needles are staying there. And what that's doing is it's creating all these little micro channels, these little micro wounds. So you do not leave bleeding. You don't have like a bloody face, but you look like you might have like a light sunburn, but the needles are there. So it's really it's not invasive at all. But what these channels are doing and what these micro wounds are doing is telling your body that there's something there. There's a wound that needs to get healed. Just like if you had a cut on your finger, your body is sending nutrients to help heal yourself. So that's what we're doing with our faith. We're purposely creating these micro wounds. So our body is telling us, oh, I need more collagen. I need more elastin. I need to make new skin. I'm going to revive this area. So we're pretty much tricking our body and using our own body's natural immune responses for skin rejuvenation purposes and which is really pretty cool. That we can harness our own body to do that. And we don't need these outside surgeries or real invasive facial treatments to have rejuvenate skin rejuvenation techniques. You can utilize it and harness what we have. And they go into like our dermis layer and you sometimes people peel. And when you're we peel, the needles are shedding with the skin that's peeling off. And if your skin doesn't peel, your body will naturally break down those whatever spicules that are in still and your body will naturally pass it through your through its own process of getting rid of waste. So but we still have the boost in and or collagen and elastin, which is what's going to help with fine lines, wrinkle, texture, acne, scarring and sun damage as well. Wow. So I mean, I was brought up with the kind of more is more. And like if it doesn't hurt, then it's not, you know, good for you. No pain, no gain, kind of a thing. And then as I've grown up, I'm like, you know, less is more and things. Is it do you think it's as effective as like, say, the actual needles going in for like an hour treatment or something? I feel for my experience, I feel like it's more effective. It's more effective than traditional micro needling. I haven't personally done perform like the vampire facial. So I can't directly correlate to that. But to traditional micro needling, it I've seen results in the patients a lot faster. Some patients can even see results after one treatment. So usually when somebody has like a certain goal in mind that we want to reach, I recommend that they do four treatments that are spaced two weeks apart and they're coming in regularly and getting those those four treatments on a consistent, regular two weeks apart consistency. And then at the end of it, we can kind of evaluate, like, have you reached your goal? Do you want to continue with another four treatments? Maybe you have reached your goal and like, OK, let's go down to more of a maintenance schedule. Let's you can come in every other month and we'll do treatments because just like anything because this is natural, where we're not putting Botox into your face or any of the Botox only last for so long to but our body as we age, it produces less collagen, it produces less elastin, our cell turnover rate decreases, which are all contributing factors to aging. And so by doing this treatment, we are increasing all of those factors. And if we want to maintain that level at which we've reached our goal, we need to continue and invest in ourselves and invest in our skin maintenance to to maintain that just like mowing your lawn. If you do not mow your lawn, the grass would just keep growing and growing and growing. And then when you have to mow it, it's going to be really tough to have that short, nice green grass. Perfect. I love that analogy. So where do you you have a clinic that that people can go to? I know, because I've been there. And you do actually work and do these treatments. And how often would you say do you suggest that people? Yeah, I mean, especially for people who feel like this is just a luxury. What do you feel? What would be your recommendation of how often people should try and get? Or maybe they're just really busy and they don't take that time for themselves. If you can get in once a quarter, so four times a year or even twice a year, if you can just get in and get a facial, you don't have to do the bio microneedling facial. You can kind of come in for like a revive and balance facial. So you're getting a good cleanse, a good exfoliation. If there's some stubborn acne areas that just need to come out, we can kind of purge those and get them out. And then do a good scrub, kind of reboot your energy. So help you to realign or help you maybe bring focus to an area that is blocked. And you can kind of work work on that kind of note to yourself, like, OK, I'm letting you know, like, hey, you know, I feel this blockage. There's something like you're holding a lot of tension in your shoulders. We're going to work on it. But as everybody knows, we need to put work into things. And sometimes one treatment isn't enough. But it's always a good starting point, like, to do to check in four times a year or twice a year is a good starting point to put. Just like you do an oil change, however many miles your car drives. You know, is there ever? Yeah, is there ever? I'm sorry, I intend to interrupt you, but is there like ever too much? Can you get too many facials? Even never too many facials and you are never too young or too old to start thinking about healthy skincare. And a lot of it, you know, for for younger kids, like, you know, they have really nice skin, their cell turnover rate is really high. So they don't need as many things, you know, a simple cleanse, a little moisturizer, sunscreen, and they're good to go. But a lot of times, unfortunately, people don't, you know, start investing in themselves or investing in their skincare, nutrients, nutrition, until later on in life when they start seeing things that are not so appealing to them in the mirror. And you can start then. There's can never be too old to start. But if you start when you're young, like earlier in your teens or even in your 20s to have a good, healthy routine, it will your 40 year old self, a 50 year old self will thank you later. And also, I mean, it even it does go even more than just what we see in the mirror. It also goes to the health because especially with all of the three radicals roaming around and the UV rays and all the things, it actually is a health concern to keep our skin healthy and protected and to keep an eye on it. I'm sure that you've caught things that maybe people hadn't noticed and then they were able to go and have, you know, someone else take a look at it and maybe catch something before it got too far to be able to take care of. Yeah, so if I do have regular clients and I am working on them, there was I won't share names or anything, but I was working with a client and, you know, like, I noticed that their skin was really taut and it was out at first. I was like, oh, maybe this is just like a one time thing. But as I got to know her and I saw her more for treatment, you know, I figured out like, OK, no, her skin is always like this. And I brought it up through my research and knowledge of the skin. You know, I brought it up like, oh, you know, your your skin shouldn't be this like taut all the time. You know, you might want to seek a health care professional because it could be an underlying reason for a sign for an autoimmune disorder in which she took the recommendation and she did seek a doctor consult. And and sure enough, she did have some underlying autoimmune disorders, which I'm happy I could assure along to her path of discovering that and helping her increase her her healthiness. That's that's great. I mean, so it almost is like a preventative care, right? It is or there are certain spots, you know, like sometimes you look at yourself every day and I see you maybe once a month or once every other month. And I'll notice certain things on your face that, oh, you know what? That bump or that patch, it's starting to feel like a little rougher than normal, or maybe it's growing, but you didn't notice it. And I can let you know and you can go and seek a dermatologist's opinion. It's never it doesn't hurt to be overly cautious. There's so many people in Hawaii. We have, you know, high UV rays. And to be aware of those skin cancer. Science. That's that's great. Thank you so much for that, too, because I think people overlook that. And I know that we could go on and on and talk. I mean, I could about, you know, the Earth's natural ways of healing us and all of the ways to be able to help this largest organ of our body. But getting out into nature and meditating, managing our stress levels, drinking water, finding happiness, all of those things contribute and doing sunscreen every day, moisturizing. Those are simple ways that we can choose to be able to help our skincare and help us find that holistic well-being in all parts of ourselves. So thank you so much, Moani, for coming on today and taking time out of playing with the cakey this morning. Thank you. And then I just wanted to let everybody know, too, from we're doing I'm doing a giveaway so you can get a chance to win a free revive and balance specials. So you'll just have to tune in. Check out my Instagram at Botanica, Hawaii, along with Pono Living with a Tish. And I'll be giving that away. And then also, if you have come and watched our lovely chat session, I also wanted to share with all viewers that you can book from now all the way through the end of April and say Think Tech and you will get 20 percent off any service. I work on Fridays and Saturdays, and I'm located in town. Oh, my gosh, that's so generous. Thank you so much. I can't wait for people to be able to take advantage of this. Thank you again. I'm going to let you get back to water play with the little. Thank you. And enjoy this beautiful day and to all of our viewers and to Think Tech, Hawaii. Thank you so, so much for providing this platform for us to be able to have these kinds of conversations about our well-being and our holistic health to our donors and our sponsors. Thank you so much for constantly supporting us. Don't forget to subscribe and like. And we will see you when we see you next time. Aloha.