How bad are those martinis for your skin?
I spoke to a dermatologist to find out.
Today’s letter is free because it’s presented by Eighth Day Skin! Hope you all enjoy.
I’m not great at developing new routines. A few weeks ago, I asked the Feed Me chat whether they thought people were born Type A and the responses were mixed. I am not Type A, but I can see the benefits of identifying that way. I fall asleep in my makeup, I skip sunscreen for weeks before returning to using it again. I complain about Retinol not working, despite using it solely on days that start with T. My inbox deserves its own month-long analysis. My relationship with my dry cleaner is developing.
But I’m more organized than a year ago, partially because I’m competitive and partially because I’ve asked for help but mostly because I’ve seen the benefits of getting your shit together. Today’s newsletter is presented by Eighth Day, a skincare brand I’ve been using for the last few months. I first became acquainted with them after the team at Violet Grey sent me some of their products – the Regenerative Serum stood out to me, and I used it as often as I could remember to.
When their team reached out to me a few weeks ago to work together on a sponsored newsletter, it was an easy yes. My skin has been a mess this winter. I saw a few recent photos of myself from Christmas parties and they all look like I’ve been snorting something because the skin around my nose is so red and dry, which brought me back to my beloved serum. I’ll take my Type A exploration one room at a time, starting with in front of my bathroom mirror.
Dr. Antony Nakhla, Eighth Day’s founder, is a practicing dermatologist, dermatologic surgeon, and clinical researcher based in Newport Beach. I write a lot about practicing doctors who also have skincare brands because their work so heavily informs their products – their patients tell them what they want their skin to look and feel like. It’s also a great business move. What I found impressive about Dr. Nakhla’s specialty is that he focuses on scar tissue, and the skin healing itself to look natural. He’s worked with over 10,000 surgical patients.
I spoke to him about building a brand that focuses on cellular health, how hangovers affect your skin, and skincare trends he’s exhausted by.
Let's start with your product line. It's a pretty limited offering in a world where there are thousands of options. Why did you choose these specific products?
Thank you for noticing. My goal when formulating Eighth Day was to create efficacious, high performing products that replaced multiple products on your vanity. With the development of my proprietary, patent pending Peptide-rich Plasma®, I was able to achieve this. Behind every product formulation, I always aim to fill a void in our customer’s routines and keep in mind individuals with busy lifestyles that also crave high performance products.
All the cellular language and imagery in your brand is unique. Can you talk a little bit about topical care (skincare) vs. other factors that affect our cells? Like how bad is drinking over the holidays for my skin?
It is very difficult to get topical skincare to perform in a measurable way. It was important to me to develop formulations that are readily absorbed by the skin and truly deliver actives at a cellular level. I developed our proprietary Peptide-rich Plasma® with 24 bioidentical peptides, amino acids and growth factors because they “speak the language of skin” or signal to skin’s cells in their own native code, thereby stimulating them towards their innate renewal process.
Outside of topical skincare, there are a lot of factors that affect our skin including genetics, age, hormonal status, and the climate we live in. Drinking alcohol can cause dehydration and inhibit restful sleep, which of course affects how you look and feel. However if you do get a little merry over the holidays, which I highly encourage, I would just make sure you balance it out by drinking plenty of water and using a super hydrating formula. Our Intensive Moisturizer is designed to deeply and rapidly hydrate at the cellular level.
How important is consistency in a skincare routine? This is what I struggle with the most!
Consistency in any routine is essential. Find a routine that meets your needs but is simple enough that you will stick to it. I find that, with my patients, the number of steps in a routine is inversely proportional to compliance. So I designed The Regenerative Serum to do the job of multiple products, all in one step. Turns out, you can do more with less by delivering nutrient dense skincare.
One step you should never skip is SPF! I call this the unbreakable skin commandment. Eighth Day’s Rejuvenating Moisturizing Primer Broad Spectrum SPF 30 is a zinc-only mineral broad spectrum sunscreen for all skin tones. It was made to be used daily and doubles as a primer to be worn with or without makeup. We won the Oprah Daily Sun Award - Best Face Sunscreen for this launch and as a skin cancer surgeon, I was super proud of this one.
Any skincare trends from 2024 that you're exhausted by? Any that you're hoping will become more popular in 2025?
More and more people are moving away from overdoing filler treatments in favor of a more natural look. In fact, many patients end up in my office for hyaluronidase (filler dissolving) injections after going to a medspa and being over treated with filler. My philosophy is that you look best when you look like yourself and that doesn’t mean chasing down every wrinkle with neurotoxin and filler. My hope is that my patients and Eighth Day clients feel beautiful with bare, healthy skin. I am proud of our recent Beauty Laid Bare project, where we photographed individuals who have been using Eighth Day with bare skin and heard their perspectives on their experience with the products and what beauty means to them. It is an important reminder that beauty is so much more than what society imposes and the unrealistic expectations of others.
I am hoping we walk away from these 20+ step routines and have more products that multitask. In early 2025 we are launching a new product that will recharge your skin overnight, no prescription needed. I am very excited about it and can’t wait to share it with our clients and my patients.
I read that Eighth Day's $325 Regenerative Serum has sold out five times on Violet Grey. What do you think it is about that specific customer that keeps coming back?
Their discerning clients and committee of industry experts recognized the uniqueness and scientific credibility of our brand early on. Our customers have told us that they use our serum because it works and that it replaces several products that were once on their vanity. It is now referred to as “the little black bottle,” a nod to the little black dress and a staple in the modern skincare wardrobe. Given that it addresses 10 signs of aging, it really packs a lot of punch and simplifies one’s routine for max results.
I’m doing the next Guest Lecture — paid readers, go ask me something in the Feed Me chat. I’m going to record answers next week.
For the month of December, Feed Me will be featuring a daily holiday gift — usually suggested by Emily, sometimes suggested by someone else.
This one’s from my man:
“Buy $19 wired headphones from Mike’s Tech Shop on 20th between 6th and 7th. I made a resolution to stop using Amazon to buy things smaller than my hand. This means I stop at Blick for pens and pencils, and every 2 months or so, I’m burglarized by nighttime gnomes and must stop into Mike’s Tech Shop to replace my charger or headphones. The people at Mike’s are delightful and they play good music. And most importantly, they sell the Apple wired earbuds, which are miles better than the bodega ones, and have a microphone better than headphones 10x the cost.”
The REI in Soho is on strike. The top comment on this post reads, “Not surprised! I was a ski tech at three different REI stores over 10 years and management didn’t care or even have a clue about safe working conditions in the shop. REI doesn’t care about occupational safety and health.”
A former NYPD cop and a chef from Tao are opening a steakhouse near Grand Central. Sure, what the hell.
Now this sounds like a very cool job for one of you: leading the social video teams at Willa Bennett’s Cosmo and Seventeen. Sounds like this person would be working quite closely with Bennett, who took on the new role in August. I went to a dinner she threw a few weeks ago with Versace, and if that room was any indication of where the brands are going, I’m bullish.
If you searched “cortisol face” in my texts, you’d see 18 results. My cousin group chat of four Sundberg girls discusses it every time one of us sees a new TikTok about it, and then there are some miscellaneous group chats have also questioned the legitimacy of the phenomenon. Now skincare are trying to capitalize on that questioning (surprise, face cream doesn’t undo stress).
Part of me hoped Hedi Slimane would get the Chanel job. But it looks like he might be launching his own brand in 2025.
’s review of cinnamon rolls in Los Angeles reads like a great American road trip movie. I admit, I’m a little upset to learn that there are people who don’t prefer cream cheese frosting.
Feed Me’s semi-anonymous restaurant critic on Le Veau d’Or. swipe through, it’s really good. (We’ve got two bangers from them coming next week!)
Substack sent an email to some of their investors this morning outlining how they did in 2024. It discusses their app, which they’re pushing heavily (it’s a pretty good, albeit polarizing, experience), and makes a point to say that they’re aiming to bring on more types of media personalities (aside from journalists) to the platform next year. It’s a solid read.
The man who stole $2,450 of merchandise at the East Hampton Louis Vuitton store last week has been found. He took two pair of sunglasses, worth $780 and $575; a necklace valued at $605, and a $490 wallet. My question is who the hell wears the LV jewelry… weird choice.
emily i do not need this right now
I don’t know what happened (other than aging) but I started getting itchy dry skin in winter and I hate how moisturizer makes me feel like a wet seal so I started using Tide free and clear detergent and a bar of the Cerave hydrating soap and it’s worked great. Also stopped using my salux towel every day which made me feel so clean but is sort of like scrubbing with sandpaper, so I just that on my face every few days with a Neutrogena facial bar. It wasn’t fun but I had to admit I’m not 24, I’m 34, and my skincare can’t just consist of scrubbing everything with a body wash because I like the smell if I want to keep it in good shape.