528 | Simple Skincare

The Minimalists speak with Andy Hnilo about harmful ingredients people should avoid in their skincare products, what a simple skincare routine looks like, letting go of expensive beauty products you rarely use, and much more. Discussed in this episode: What harmful ingredients should people avoid in hygiene and beauty products, and what are the few essentials most men and women actually need? (2:40) What's your minimalist skincare routine? (26:44) Right Here, Right Now: Minimalism 10th Anniversary Tour (53:40) Listener Tip: Avoid online price manipulation by shopping anonymously. (56:06) Get 20% off Alitura Naturals (use code SIMPLE): https://alituranaturals.pxf.io/6yBRgb Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at our beautiful studio in beautiful West Hollywood, California, is my good friend TK Coleman.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful day.

• 0:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, we are joined today by a man with great skin. But it wasn't always that way. Today's guest is the founder and CEO of Alitura Naturals and the author of The Natural Path to Perfect Skin. Please welcome to the show our new guest, Andy Nilo is here. Yes. Andy, I first heard about you because my wife uses your products and I once stole them and I was like, oh, these are kind of nice.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  You stole your wife's products? That's my favorite part.

• 1:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yeah. It's not any makeup or anything, but it was like these moisturizers. And so I want to talk to you a bit about that today, but we curated some questions. Believe it or not, this question of minimalist skincare comes up on our show and our live events all the time. People are really curious about like, how do I simplify that? Because there's so much consumerism, so much noise, so much toxic junk that we put in and on our bodies. And I'll talk to you about all of that today. We're going to talk about the harmful ingredients people should avoid in their skincare products. What a simple skincare routine looks like, letting go of expensive beauty products you rarely use. And much, much more. So let's start with our callers. If you have a question for our

• 2:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  show, we'd love to hear from you. Join the program 4062197839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber, so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free, because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Yes, they do. Our first question today is from Eowen.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Hi, guys. Hope you are well. This is Eowen from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I am absolutely loving the minimalist podcast, and I have an idea for a future episode that I haven't heard yet, that I don't mind sharing with you guys to use. I'm wondering, could there be a future episode on the topic of hygiene and beauty products, please? Perhaps we can invite an eco-beauty expert to the show, someone knowledgeable about harmful ingredients to our hygiene and beauty products, and things to avoid, and also products that both men and women shouldn't be without. My question, though, for that particular episode,

• 3:28Speaker 03

  if that's possible, is I have a lot of beauty products, and I've paid a lot of money for quite a few of them. And I'm wondering, how do I part with such expensive products, but also parting with beauty products I have tried and don't use on a regular basis, but still use for special events or evenings? How do I go about decluttering and being a minimalist in this area? Thanks so much.

• 4:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  As soon as we received this voicemail from Iowa and I said, I've got to call Andy and get him on the show because your story was so fascinating to me and I thought you were the perfect person to have here today. Can you talk about the unfortunate tragic events that led you to become obsessed with skincare?

• 4:19Speaker 04

  Sure. So first off, I want to thank you both for having me on. This is an honor to be here, man. Truly. I just love sharing.

• 4:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  His energy has been great since he walked in the studio, by the way, right?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 4:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It feels good. Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Phew. So, thank you. I, um, this all started, believe it or not, um, as an athlete growing into his body. UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 18-year-old, uh, baseball player with a crippling case of back acne, right? I'm using all the products, Neutrogena, Clean and Clear, Clear Cell, the heavily marketed, uh, brands that I just thought would solve the problem. But when I'm in the locker room changing and you got grown men, 22, 23, lighting you up for that back acne and lighting you up for that cystic acne, any little thing that kind of eats away at you. Uh, on an off day, I took a journey down Shattuck Avenue

• 5:15Speaker 04

  and luckily went into this natural food store and just asked him, I mean, do you have any recommendations for my skin? And he's like, what products are you using? And I told him. He's like, you have to simplify. I bought my first, uh, Flora is the brand and Aquius horsetail silica extract, but at 18 years old for my hair and blood flow, the whole Chinese philosophy of vitality, of building your blood, circulating your blood, removing impurities. At 18 years old, I switched from Neutrogena, Clear Cell, Clean and Clear, Noxema, so many different products. Cause I was into it. I mean, when you feel good, you just exude better energy and it was something that was important to me for, from a confidence standpoint.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  And so I switched from that to Dove soap, five ingredients. I remember a little light bulb one off when two of them were coconut derived surfactants. And so I started using that from head to toe. I think I was still using Pert Plus, but teammates stopped picking on me. Confidence grew. The cystic acne went away on me because when you have clear skin and those little mosquito bites show up, it's all you see first thing in the morning. But the back acne, I mean, I could finally take my shirt off. I was a guy at the pool with a tank top on. I just, oh, man, what a life changer, truly. So I, you know, kind of kept it to myself, but my roommates would, you know, share with, oh dude, this guy puts on night cream before bed because Dove had

• 6:42Speaker 04

  a little night cream too. Primrose oil, CoQ10, and you better believe that's in my night cream today, just as a little tribute because those are time-tested anti-aging ingredients. But it also takes me back to that freshman year where I just, man, I just know what it did for me, leaving the door every day, going to school. You feel good, you're 18, 19, 20, 21. This interest in skincare has been there since 18 years old. And the importance of ingredients of what I'm putting on top of my largest detoxifying organ, right? Why? It's just to me, it is the biggest

• 7:20Speaker 04

  misconception that's heavily marketed and they're hiding it these days. You can't find that full ingredient deck. But it's like, you have these, you know, that's why we want to work with the youth, because I've been there. And, you know, with respect to the brands, with methyl parabens, with fragrance, with dyes, unnecessary fillers, emollients, surfactants, it is just as toxic

• 7:46Speaker 04

  bomb to the face where your skin just wants to expel those toxins. I firmly believe it's creating that disruption. And so over time, 19, 20, 21, you know, baseball didn't work out, but I moved down to LA. My roommate was an actor. I was running lines with him on a baseball-related film. It's just an independent feature, but it was a lead. So I was just, you know, when you're not overthinking it, I was running lines, just hitting his, you know, it's fresh out of baseball. So I was kind of giving him little tips. He's like, dude, you're pretty good at this. You ever thought about getting into it? I was like, I mean, it'd be, it'd be incredible, but um, it never happens. He got me a read for that role. I got a callback, which was hilarious. Another callback screen tested booked that role as Danny in that film.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  I spent six weeks filming, just like basically as a kid, as, as me. And so I'm, you know, directors let me go off script and, but the whole, and so I got representation and kind of fell into that industry where, you know, I was older at the time, I believe 24, 25. But, you know, if you want to audition for those 18 year old roles, 18 to 25, you gotta look, you know, as youthful as possible and look like your picture. So I took this little thing I had in my back pocket, which was at that, at that time, I had my apricot scrub, but it wasn't Saint Ives, bless their hearts. But it was a different one with like apricot kernels and um, this

• 9:14Speaker 04

  cleanser and this clay mask that I would do every Sunday before auditions to look nice and fresh and bright and get that micro circulation to the surface of the skin. I just, I had my little routine way back when. And so, and also just exfoliating, it's, it was a big passion of mine without the big surgeries or whatever to go, damn, I'm getting older, but I want to audition for those roles. And, and I, you know, you see the people in those room or the, you know, the other actors in the room. And it's just, you want to, you know, look as best as you can. And maybe that discipline as an athlete, kind of, and that preparation, uh, you know, led me to, uh, prepping as good as I can before auditions and things like that. So I just kind

• 9:56Speaker 04

  of, sorry for the long backstory, but this is where it all came from. 18, boom, made me feel better, learned about ingredients. Also, uh, diet wise, I was eating, you know, dorm food, trying to put on weight as an athlete, went from 168 to 191. But that was also a thing that did not help my skin. Soft serve cheeseburgers, processed foods. So I just went back to simple whole foods and I was making the, you know, going over to the salad bar with cannoli, spinach, teammates are on the side asking me to write little diet plans for them. So I was putting on better weight, better muscle. But man, just thanks for asking. Cause like looking back at, It's just, I'm so grateful that the passion for health and wellness and what I put into and

• 10:39Speaker 04

  onto my body happened at an early age. And then, yeah, I've had some things along the way that have helped me to counteract. Well, okay, so March 20, 2011, I was crossing Sierra Benita and Melrose, got hit by a westbound heading Land Rover hitting the eastbound lane, run over by a tundra, clothes cut off me in the middle of the street. And that little budding acting career got put on pause for a while. And at that point, that clay mask, it was one ingredient, Aztec healing clay. So it's calcium bentonite clay. So I would source that myself.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  I met with Jason Eton from greenclays.net. He taught me about power of phylite, zeolite, raw soul, kale, and all these different clays. And I would order and just kind of make my own little improvised mask. That's, that's kind of the catalyst for the alatara clay mask. But I had no intention of starting this. This was just purely trying to heal myself naturally, without the synthetics and unpredictable downtime that a lot of these, you know, scar reversal creams and the toxins in them. And also, I couldn't afford them. So I, I had that clay mask that I would do to create a lot of circulation to the surface, lightly exfoliate that area, mitigate the swelling through that.

• 12:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What areas were you treating?

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Oh, man. I broke my jaw. There's a compound fracture right here. Two titanium plates, one up top, one on bottom. I got those removed, went through the same recovery almost about nine months later, seven broken ribs, a collapsed lung. But, um,

• 12:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, you said the surgeon walked into the room and was like, uh oh, I'm gonna need help with this. That's how bad it was.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. Dr. Rosenberg, he was a resident maxillofacial surgeon over at Cedar Sinai Hospital. Bless his heart, he assisted. We found a specialist to kind of put me back together. It was one of the worst breaks they'd seen. So, uh, yeah, man, to see my mom walk in that ICU room was really tough, man. But.

• 12:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Imagine in that moment, you were filled with despair. There was even more than the back acne and the cystic acne, because all of a sudden it's like, oh no, like this career that I was trying to develop is over for me now.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, man, I had friends going, oh, you're going to sue the city, you know, pedestrian has a right of way. You're never going to work again. And I'm like, bing. You know, that I'm, I understood it, but I, I just have, I had a goal of mine to get back better than I was before. And also super grateful to be alive. People don't survive accidents like that. And I remember leaving the hospital. My nurse was like, hey, hey, you know, any day you can walk out of the hospital. It's a pretty good day. Good luck on your recovery. I mean, I wasn't in a wheelchair. I was banged up, but man, I, I had this weird positive outlook. You know, I had my family in my little 600 square foot apartment. We're never all together, you know, because my sisters have, you know, their husbands and their families. But man,

• 13:50Speaker 04

  just right there, they're eating pizza. I'm taking my little insurance and my little, you know, falling back to sleep. But what a moment, man. Um, yeah, just staying very consistent with that clay mask, following with my little cacao butter, beeswax, manuka honey. I was trying a lot of things. I went around to dragon herbs, air one, truth, calcin, sage damers, bless their hearts, because my jaw is wired shut. Teeth are gone. I just luckily didn't care that much, but it was just kind of like, man, this is me, and especially going. From an industry where, you know, your looks are really important, it just kind of shedding that, maybe that was a good thing too. And kind of, you know, not being so self-conscious and

• 14:33Speaker 04

  just going, man, because that was rock bottom from that standpoint. But I wanted to build myself back. And I learned about Chinese herbs, adaptogenic herbs, hoshu, gynostema, shizandra.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Okay, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. How are you even going about this? Like, like, how much of this knowledge did you have when you faced this crisis? And how are you doing your research? How do you even know what questions to ask, what resources to look at? Because this stuff is overwhelming.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Right, it is. But it's one of those things that sticks with me. It's interesting because it can affect my performance, how I feel. So I, you know, I would go to the tonic bar. That was our thing. I was a health freak before that. You know, eating my grass fed beef, beef liver. You're gonna laugh, but deer placent, egg yolks, started adding things like spirulina, just trying to get as many nutrients in the body. I just, it signaled to me, superfoods and antioxidants. I learned about that very early on. It was just a huge passion of mine. So I knew and felt with what I could afford, that my body would bounce back quickest with

• 15:45Speaker 04

  just a nutrient dense, as nutrient dense of a meal that I could put into my body, jaw wired shut. I had to make a little smoothie, put a straw through the back and get that down. But I did. But with everything that I just mentioned to you, I mean, it was, it didn't taste that good. But man, I really did recover pretty quickly. And then my, with the obsession internally, it was a lot of trial and error, but there's no better feeling than seeing and feeling that result from the clay mask. I mean, it just, clays had that ability to bring that circulation to the surface and mitigate the swelling. People would look you in the eye, and then they'd try hard not to make you feel bad. But my jaw was out to here. So to mitigate that swelling, the abrasions were gone too. The

• 16:30Speaker 04

  scarring obviously was a little hardcore. You could probably still see. But I followed that with cacao butter, manuka honey, sea buckthorn oil, started doing research on natural oils to reverse scarring or mitigate the appearance of it. That's how I found out about prakash, buriti, these really good sacred oils, experimenting with frankincense, bur, German chamomile. It's really interesting, but the, the, the best way I can describe it to answer your question, Longwood, is like baseball stats. I, it's not a photograph, photographic memory type thing. It sticks. It's one of those things. It's a big interest. And it's not only that. It's remembering nutrient dense foods. It's like boom, boom, boom, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, vitamin.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  I mean, I can just, it, it, when you read something, it ignites something inside of you, then you try it and experiment with it and it actually backs up that result. I've just been, yeah, from a health and wellness standpoint, that's always been, you know, in my back, I mean, since reading Men's Health Magazine, I believe, 16, 17, eat this, not that. And I wanted to be an athlete. So I'm like, all right, I just paid attention to it a little bit more than the, you know, the textbooks and things like that in school. But I'm right where I'm supposed to be, man. I just, you know, I, I, you, you see what other awesome brands are using? And I just like to go outside of the box and, and, and

• 17:56Speaker 04

  use, you know, visit these places and, and hear about their medicine and their rituals for, for skincare, mastic, Peruvian kantuta flour. I mean, just, not just the lemon grass, sweet almond oil, wheat germ. I mean, I, I just, I don't want to go basic. That's, and it all started from my kitchen, melting down things and experimenting, using just my own little concoctions that I was making. And it, it was always because I couldn't find a brand that didn't have some type of hole in it from a filler, unnecessary filler, glycerin's always within the top five ingredients, propane dial, propylene glycol, isoprene glycol,

• 18:38Speaker 04

  and just an unnecessary amount of fragrance that I just came here from a Lift, I mean, great guy, but boom, that thing fumigates you as soon as you sit down. It's violating and you know, fragrance, you know, is one of the biggest culprits too. So, and you can get such a beautiful aroma through cold press essential oils.

• 18:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I got my daughter for Christmas, your perfume, or I don't even know if you would call it perfume, but like, and it's in the, the, the reason I really enjoyed it is she couldn't figure out what it was. It was wrapped under the tree in this like pyramid shape. And it was, and it's like her favorite thing because she's always wanted to get, she's been obsessed with like, oh, my friends are, she's 12, getting ready to turn 13, my friends are starting to wear this and this and this. And in fact, we have a question come up on page two. There's a woman who called in, she's like, hey, my 13 year old daughter is obsessed with Sephora and MAC and all of these other things. And so I do want to get to the second part of Iowan's question. We'll probably put that on, on page two here for the sake of time. But you mentioned a bunch of things that are worth avoiding.

• 19:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If I were to walk in the CVS right down the street from here and I just start pulling skincare products that are advertised as healthy and they're going to help your skin. When we talk about minimalism, we're often talking about what we remove, what we simplify, what we can get rid of as opposed to buying things that we can, we can increase our happiness or fulfillment or complete ourselves. Quite often it starts with removing. What are the key things your average consumer uses that is just not good for their skin?

• 20:12Speaker 04

  Anything with sodium benzoate. I've always been against that preservative specifically. And now you're having a lot of naturopaths circle that is the biggest culprit. And one of the most toxic ingredients to avoid, sodium benzoate. So look for that, please, in your products.

• 20:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Just give me something on that. Why is it a problem?

• 20:32Speaker 04

  It's a benzoic acid, benzoyl in general, they're just, there's, you're, you're signing off on something that we get the red to green scale from our manufacturers and chemists. And that's through minimal research, I believe. And I just, I firmly believe that that's just damaging the endocrine system from a hormonal standpoint. It's just, it can lead to toxic buildup down the road. And it was in so many products that, uh, you know, people close to me have used and they're experiencing that toxic buildup. Fragrance is another one that is not as regulated as it should be. You see natural fragrance. You're allowed to use that and people see

• 21:17Speaker 04

  that. I mean, that different, um, some, you know, this one apricot scrub, you know, made with a hundred percent natural exfoliants. But like you, you grab that, you know, when you see that a hundred percent natural, you know, as a consumer, you grab it in microscopic letters, exfoliants. And sure, they may have a, a corn exfoliant or a walnut or something like that. But I, there is just so much ingredient deception in the industry.

• 21:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Natural is a marketing term, right? And so like plutonium's natural. I don't want it in my skincare products. You know, obviously there's nothing on the shelf at CVS with plutonium. Well, who knows? But, um, we, we know there's a bunch of things that are marketed really well. In fact, a few weeks ago, we did this video on page three during a Talk Aboutable segment where this guy took a regular can of Pepsi. He's a marketer and a designer and he turned it into a health food without changing a single ingredient. He just changed the marketing around it. And so it said like, main ingredient, always water and

• 22:19Speaker 02

  It was like a can of Pepsi, right?

• 22:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It was Pepsi. Yeah. And he made it like, I'm gonna put it in a taller can. I'm going to make the logo different. So it looks more hydrating and a hundred percent natural flavors and all of the

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Vegan, gluten free.

• 22:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Exactly. Right. These buzz terms that sound good, but they cover up what's actually going into these products we're consuming.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  Exactly. Um, it, it just, yeah, it's disappointing. Luckily they have an app now. So for the, the listeners out there, Yuka, Y U K A. You can grab the product, scan the UPC code and get a zero to a hundred rating on the cleanliness of the products. And they'll point out exactly why that a brand gets a 50 and they'll point out exactly what that's doing to your system. If you have that propane dial, um, the unnecessary Glycol, which are preservative enhancers. You don't need that much. We're in that gold serum and all of our liquid products, we're using bio photonic glass that mitigates the bad violet rays and artificial light and only allows a good violet light to enhance the life of

• 23:24Speaker 04

  natural ingredients originally made for tomato paste, beeswax and olive oil. It just prevents oxidation of the formula. So you're seeing brands start to use that glass is good too, amber, but that bio photonic glass is, we don't, it's preserved by the bottle, not by toxins. So we're not throwing in that three to 5% sodium benzoyl. That's a lot. And you know, EWG allows one to three. And it's just, yeah, I believe, you know, 24, 36 month shelf life. I understand it from a distribution, but when you go small batch, little shorter shelf life, people appreciate that. That's just kind of where I came from when I started just making these myself, you know?

• 24:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, you can see the and hear the passion here. And it's like that healthy obsession. And it was birthed out of a tragedy and that often happens. I first stumbled on minimalism was around the same time, 2009, my mom died, my marriage ended both in the same month. And I started looking around and asking questions and getting really curious about where do I go from here? And that same thing happened with you. I won. We'll return to the rest of your question on page two. I do want to get to, we're going to talk about some of the sunk call stuff and letting go of those expensive beauty skincare products that you only use occasionally. But you know what? I'm afraid to let go of them because I spent so much money on them. We'll talk about that. But I'd also like to give you a copy of our new audio book. TK and I just did this audio

• 24:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  book called Very, Very Simple. And it's the book I wish I would have written 15 years ago. It's 12 tools for a simpler life. And I think especially when it comes to these consumable products, you can apply many of the rules from this audio book, which you can download for free, by the way, very, very simple.com. Limited time, you can download the audio book and the ebook version for free. One thing that I would put into place here for EOWN is the wouldn't replace rule or wouldn't repurchase rule. So I guess. A lot of stuff you probably have in your cabinet, you wouldn't buy it again. Well, why am I still holding on to it, right? Or what about the didn't know rule? I think this especially applies to makeup and skincare products. It's like, it's in a drawer somewhere. I didn't even know I owned that.

• 25:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Why am I still holding on to the thing I didn't know I owned? So I, when I'm going to ask you to download a audiobook or the ebook version of Very Very Simple at veryversimple.com, I think you'll find a lot of value in repurposing those rules for your skincare and beauty products. Now, before we get back to our callers, Andy, we have something we call the Patreon Community Chat's Question of the Week, where we reach out to our audience, ask them for their perspective, and then TK and I and our guests, we try to answer with something that's short, shareable, and pithy, although we ramble on quite a bit, so don't worry about that at all. You can find this episode's maxims, we answer with a minimal maxim. Find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com/podcast.

• 26:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll also put a link to that app that he mentioned in the show notes as well. Anything we're talking about today, you can find in the show notes. You can also find every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. And if you'd like, we'll deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including a brand new minimalist essay and original writing every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or advertisements, but we'll start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, question of the week this week was a simple one, but I will say this, we got more diverse answers on this question than I think we've ever gotten from our audience. The question was this, what's your minimalist skincare routine?

• 26:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And before we give our routines, or our pithy answers, I'd love to hear what some of our audience had to say. Sarah said, I have psoriasis, so my skincare starts with what I put in my body to avoid autoimmune-related flares and breakouts. Yes. Coincidentally, TK, I had my first ever eczema or psoriasis breakout just this past week. And it was after my doctor had me do really high dose glutathione for a mold test I needed to do. And as a result, I've got this thing on my arm right in here and I got right under my eye. You might even be able to see it right here now, but I've been using some of the Alatora stuff and it's been helping for sure. But I've never

• 27:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  had psoriasis or eczema in my life and all of a sudden, after putting something in my body, I think that Sarah brings up a good point here. Andy, maybe we could talk about the role that food plays in our skin health. I know you touched on that a little bit, but, but that's really important. We often just think about the outer layer, but it's also what we're putting in our bodies, right?

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Right, absolutely. It all stems back to eating whole foods, in my opinion, maybe getting some blood work to see what your food sensitivities are. And staying away, in my opinion, from gluten, high sugar, alcohol, grains. And then just eating a really good nutrient dense meal that, you know, kind of complements the blood work that you got done on the food sensitivity scale.

• 28:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, so some people are different. I know a guy who eats really clean, but he also can't eat nightshades. Tomatoes will make his eczema or psoriasis just really flare out, like all over his arms and legs, under his fingernails, like if he eats a few tomatoes. And so for your average person, my wife could eat tomatoes all day and not have a problem. But because he's sensitive to it, it's, it's, it's good to know what you're sensitive to, what triggers you, so you can avoid that, what you can subtract from your life for better skin.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Yes, eczema, rosacea specifically with spices, I highly recommend that food sensitivity test. Yeah, that's the first thing that we go to, just to avoid certain things, spices, spicy foods, nightshades, like you mentioned, are usually the culprit for rosacea, eczema, and other issues. But yeah, definitely pay attention to the foods that you're sensitive to. And staying just as clean as you can, in my opinion, getting that good fermented, I like kimchi, I make a mash with avocado, sardines or smoked salmon if you want, completely satiates the system, gets really good nutrients in the system.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  Oh man, I could go on and on and on.

• 29:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, the gut microbiome is really important, yeah, and fermented foods. I use something called coconut colt is the kind of yogurt that I eat also. Kulina is another yogurt that I get, you can get it at Whole Foods or Sprouts or Air One and other stores. And that, that good bacteria reinforces what's going on in, in your skin and the way that you look. It often starts in the gut. Marty says, I keep it simple, soap, water and facial sunscreen. Since I've simplified to this approach, the skin on my face is healthier than it has been previously. I think that's a testament there. Like sometimes we had to remove stuff in order to improve the health of our skin. Now I knew sunscreen would enter this conversation at some point.

• 30:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's a question that comes up from time to time on this show. I've talked about that I buy my sunscreen when I need it. I'm not afraid of the sun, but I buy sunscreen at the local farmer's market. It's like a tallow based one. You don't make a sunscreen to my knowledge, but maybe you could talk about some insights you have about sunscreen and protecting your skin from solar damage without being afraid of going out in the sun.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I also believe in supplementation, astaxanthin specifically is a great, we can't say it has a quantifiable SPF to it. But that as a supplement is really good at just kind of help, help protect the skin against the sun rays.

• 31:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Is that a topical or is that something you ingest?

• 31:13Speaker 04

  It's both.

• 31:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay.

• 31:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so we do have a sunscreen, it's called Alaturasol, but I put it on pause because I don't use one. Like if you're gonna. And believe me, we still may because I, we knocked that one out of the park, but I just got focused on other products. It's fine. It's done. Non nano zinc, that astaxanthin, red raspberry seed, colorful oils to kind of mitigate that white film, like sea buckling, but they have an obvious, uh, big, uh, there's a reason why they're in the formula, cacao butter. I think hydrating and healing the skin throughout as well as post sun exposure with aloe vera. There are just beautiful ingredients to completely counteract burns. I've been out.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure out why I'm not sensitive to it, but a lot of friends of mine in the health and wellness industry that eat very clean too. They, they just don't burn.

• 32:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think it might have something to do, and I, I don't have, I'm not a doctor, nothing during this episode is medical advice, obviously, but it's worth saying that. But I, I think it has something to do for me personally with seed oils. I find that if I, a couple of years ago on my birthday, I don't eat any seed oils anymore, except my favorite restaurant here in LA, Squirrel, my favorite bowl is this, uh, it's called a, um, uh, what do they call it? Um, I forget what, but it's, it's, I barely eat it anymore because it has seed oils in it. It has, um, uh, canola oil. And so I ate it that day and then my wife and I went to the beach afterward and I burned so bad that day. And I generally, I know I

• 32:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  have a, a lower Fitzpatrick score, but I generally tan, I don't burn. But if I eat seed oils, it does something to me. It like, it ignites my skin in a way. It's like kindling for a burn, so to speak.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  I have heard that with seed oils too.

• 33:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  My daughter called me Joshua Fields sunburn afterwards.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  If I were the hour that told your daughter, let them cook, let the man cook.

• 33:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, let's get back to our listeners here. Casey said, I keep my skincare products in a travel bag, so I literally cannot keep whatever doesn't fit in the bag. Now I love this boundary. It's something I do with my Dob kit and my gym bag. If it doesn't fit in there, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit TK. Um, what role do these? Sorts of size boundaries play in our simplifying process, TK.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Man, it unleashes creative thinking and it protects you from impulse purchases. It's so much easier to question ourselves and be manipulated when we're doing all of our thinking in the heat of the moment. It's like with temptations, right? I gotta make my decision not to pick up the booze long before I'm in a position where it's in front of me. Because when it's in front of me and I'm feeling the temptation, I've got the least amount of power. I gotta make my decision, I'm gonna go live here, I'm gonna go hang out here before I feel the inclination to do something like that. And so when you have these boundaries ahead of time, only what fits in this bag, only what fits in this box. When you get to a point where someone's trying to sell you something, or you feel tempted to doubt yourself and you think you need thirty things, you can say, no, I can live with five, I got the right five.

• 34:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. Nora said, I stopped buying useless drugstore creams that sell you a dream. Instead, I use almond oil and no makeup, plus I play a lot of sports, running, swimming, walks, weights, so I sweat a lot. My skin has never been so soft. Andy, I was just in the sauna yesterday, can we talk about the role that sweating plays in our skin, our skincare regimen?

• 34:46Speaker 04

  Well, number one, you're expelling toxins, you're mitigating the pore size as well. I use sauna every day, I used a little niacin too before, and it just brings those impurities to the surface and then you sweat it out.

• 35:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Some people hate it, I like the way the niacin feels. It feels like you're like on fire a little bit, but just like, just for a moment, you feel it's like a flushing. You feel like, it's almost like, I feel like the toxins are being pushed out of my body.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Yes, I think the more you can do that, be mindful, maybe five times, well, that may sound like a lot. I do it six for fifteen, twenty minutes and it's part of, it really is a big part of my skincare routine as well. It's just keeping the system clean, you know, there are so many toxins that we're absorbing through just walking around, different fragrances, air fresheners, even in the urinal, in the bathroom, you're, you know.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  See that?

• 35:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The urinal cake?

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, it's awful.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  It's just everywhere and our skin absorbs all of that. And so I just, I really, I agree with her on sauna use for the skin and overall health.

• 35:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Whenever I get into a Lyft or Uber, it's like, I'll often say, it smells like panic in here. Because the, the, the air freshener or the glade plugin that is on the vent, it's, I have to put my head out the window sometimes. Stabby D's over here nodding like, yeah, yeah. It's, and it's something that we're so accustomed. In fact, you might feel insulted if they don't have that in there because, well, you're not, I'm not good enough for you to freshen the air. That's not actually freshening the air, it's making it smell different. It's, it's like putting perfume on crap. It doesn't save us at all, right?

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Right, either give me the blade or the BO, but don't give me both mixed together.

• 36:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Andy, Nora did bring up a good point about the, the drugstore creams that sell you a dream. How are your products, you sell products, I'm not against products as a minimalist, I buy, I buy your products. You, you're not giving me things for free, you're not paying me to be here, you're not paying us to be here.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Not paying you to be here.

• 37:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I've used your products for a while and I've tried to switch away from them at, at times just because like, oh, I'm gonna try something else. I'll try something else, like, you know, I'm gonna experiment. And I find myself like sort of gravitating back and I, I, I'm wondering though, like, how are your products different? Drugstore creams that sell you a dream, Nora says, how, how are you different from that?

• 37:23Speaker 04

  I mean, immediately I just think of that salicylic acid. I just, I mean, it's, they throw the harshest, most toxic ingredients to mitigate an issue that just extends that issue. Something like Accutane, Proactive, something I grew up with, with my little brother seeing it, it never made sense to me. A lot of toxins, heavily fragrance, and you're just kind of creating this Band-Aid so they have to keep coming back and buying that product, in my opinion. And it just. I have very sensitive reactive skin. And so I just, I isolate ingredients. Clays have been really helpful for mitigating any, in spot treating, certain blemishes and any type of

• 38:05Speaker 04

  redness. It would just be there for a week, it seemed like. And so pearl powder, kaolin clay, colloidal silver, non harsh surfactants are what we use just in our pearl cleanser. We're not creating three products based on normal, dry, oily combination skin. I believe that's all marketing. We have a lot of customers in 96 countries all around the world and we just make, you'll see the gold serum, the night cream, the pearl cleanser. It's all based around my skin, which is highly reactive, but I want a powerful result while just a consistent product that doesn't overly dry out the skin. We get a nice, simple moisturizer

• 38:48Speaker 04

  with our moisturizing product with beeswax, cacao butter, aloe vera, good, non irritating oils like tea tree. And I just believe the synthetic roll and the ingredients on our, on our skin are in the lab synthesized ingredients. I just have always believed that our body responds better to ingredients from nature. And so we, I mean, we had 1.1 returns last year on our products. And we don't go through that normal, dry, oily combination. We believe it's for all skin types. And

• 39:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Also, including like TK and I obviously have way different Fitzpatrick scores, if you couldn't tell. And so like, but you're saying regardless of whether you're heavily melanated or you're super pale like me, the same products work because you still have human skin.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  What about soaps? What are the things to avoid there?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Soaps, sodium lauryl sulfate, which is a foaming agent, glycerin, if it's soy based, it's an estrogenic compound that, you know, women have enough estrogen as it is and men don't want that as well. So I would pay attention to the ingredients on that overly fragrant soaps, the foaming from the sodium lauryl and laural sulfate. And then the preservative system. I just, I believe too much alcohol, glycerin.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Preservatives, preservative enhancers, propane dial, propylene glycol, sodium benzoyl, phenoxyethanol, the preservative systems. I think those are what's causing a lot of these skin issues, a lot of overly dry, you know, drying skin. And I just, you know, shea butter, olive oil, you're seeing it, it's starting to change in the industry. You can imagine 10 years ago when I was fighting for how important organic is versus non. And, you know, you, I believe it was you just mentioned, you know, the tallow based sunscreen that you're using. Tallow's okay. I prefer bee products personally, but I love that you're getting it's, you know, it's a thickening agent, you know, with, with a lot of these

• 41:03Speaker 04

  different additives to get that nice hard bar of soap, you know, you can get the same thing. It costs a lot more through beeswax or good tallow, cacao butter.

• 41:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What do you use?

• 41:12Speaker 04

  I use Dr. Bronner's as a body wash.

• 41:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Same, same.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  Five ingredients, peppermint oil soap.

• 41:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  And.

• 41:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was gonna ask you about that. That's perfect. Yeah.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're working on one that kind of smells like Santal Black. I don't know if you, if you know what that it's a little peppery, two different kinds of sandalwood, black pepper, vanilla, babasu, bergamot. It's insane. So, but, uh, yeah, I want to get that nice, you can get a good foaming through Thai Soapnut, through delinica indica. I mean, these are plants, not sodium lourdesulfate. Labs synthesize unnecessary ingredients that do not serve the skin or hair or scalp.

• 41:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you listeners? What, uh, what minimalist skincare routine do you use? I want to hear what Andy's daily routine is. Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat. TK, before we get to Andy's and my practical answers, I want you to get philosophical for us for a minute.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  No pressure.

• 42:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Give me something piffy TK. What's your minimalist skincare routine?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Sometimes less routine is the routine. Uh, now.

• 42:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I thought you were gonna say black don't crack.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? That's where I was going. I suffer from a rare condition called brown privilege, where I go outside and the sun says, "Oh, I love you," and it hugs my skin. And I don't have to protect myself from that sun.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Hey, look, man, I don't have a whole lot to add here. I just do a couple of things. I shower every day, and I'm glad to hear you say the Dr. Bronner's because I thought you were gonna tear into me today for the kind of soap I use, and I use the Dr. Bronner's. Other than that, I keep it pretty chill, man. I want to ask this brother about lotion at some point, because everybody knows that there is a place where black dude cracked the elbows and so on. Many times, these guys have left me out to dry, literally. I'm looking at an episode, I'm like, "Nobody told me my elbows were rusty," so he'll help me out with that a little bit later, but that's all I got right now.

• 43:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I have to make sure I tell you you're ashy more often, that's fine.

• 43:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, so my pithy answer is simplicity is a form of self-care. At its basis, like, having water. My house has a whole house water filter on it as well, because you go to environmental working group, and you look at the toxins in your area. I don't care where you are. If you go to ewg.org/tapwater, you can tell there's a lot of toxins. And so if you can, if you have the ability to add some sort of filter to your system, that to me is important. Gentle soap, I use Dr. Bronner's. I do use your face wash, which I really enjoy. It's great. It's not super foamy, and now I know why, but it works really well. And then the tallow product I mentioned for sun care, like, it's zinc oxide. So I'm

• 43:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  just not just slathering tallow on my face to block the sun. I don't like the, it's not as it looks a little like I'm a mime if I put too much of it on, because it's like, it's super, you know, it's zinc. Zinc looks like, you know, if you look at a lifeguard where they got their nose all slathered in white, that's just 100% ZNO, zinc oxide, right? And then every day, I use a few of your products. This gold serum is, I mean, amazing. If I were to buy one product, period, for my skin, it'd be the gold serum. If I'm a minimalist, you can only own one product. Thankfully, that's not the truth. But the gold serum is the one product that I would, every time I stop use, I go back to it. I'm like, oh yeah, that's why I used it.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  Game changer.

• 44:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's really good. And then you have this moisturizer that I use. It's just the moisturizer. It's not, there are not seven different moisturizers he has. And then I don't know what this, maybe we'll talk about this a bit later. This is something else you are working on. I don't use this daily. But that's pretty simple. I want you to talk to me about, you use a clay mask pretty regularly. I don't use your clay mask product, but is there, talk me into, cause me, I've, I've tried it before, but it's like, okay, I have to put it in the bowl and I have to slather it on and it feels like work. But I mean, clearly the proof is in the pudding. He, this man has great skin. So.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  That's what I was saying, like, talk me into it. Just look at him.

• 45:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Any questions?

• 45:27Speaker 04

  So that it's four clays, Moroccan raw soul, French eye light, kaolin and betonite, an edible form of betonite. Then we add pearl powder, first four hour milking, grass fed colostrum, 10% vitamin C, organic kelp powder loaded in vitamin A, C, K, B12, sodium alginate is a topical cleanser. And then we rounded out with American ginseng. So in that initial stage, when I just wanted to remove impurities, create circulation to the surface. I also added pearl powder and colostrum. Colostrum is amazing. It's, it's loaded in IGF-1 growth factors. That combined with the vitamin C just enhances collagen production and brightness to the skin.

• 46:08Speaker 04

  I didn't want to, you know, make it and have to add a preservative and then scent it up. It's a little earthy because of the kelp powder, but you can add essential oils to it. I recommend blood orange, myrrh frankincense, clary sage is great too, German chamomile. Just a couple of drops, add water, pellegrino, apple cider vinegar really turns it up, but it also adds a little earthiness to it. But it just, once that thing dries, it just, it's a back bar treatment in hundreds of med spots, you know, you just go through, you talk to the esthetician. And it just does its job. It's not overly drying because we have several different ingredients in there. The pearl powder specifically helps with that. So it's not as overly drying as a

• 46:53Speaker 04

  lot of clay masks usually are. But um, yeah, that's, it's just like all of our products. I want to, from a blank canvas, I just think that you can, you know, say a lot about yourself as a formulator. We have eight different chemists around the country that have, I mean, they're all customer supplied. You gotta go in there. I remember trying to find my first co-packer for the clay mask. I was mixing it out of a kiddie pool, you know, until I moved on, best small batch, running a bun mixer from Home Depot. But anyway, I remember going in there and my pearl powder wasn't Jing herbs. It was, you know, you can find it a lot cheaper on Alibaba. I'm not sure where they found their, theirs, but it's just, yeah, finding your co-packer, somebody who's going

• 47:37Speaker 04

  to duplicate your dream. You gotta have personal relationships with people that are gonna go outside of the box on your formulation. Just one by one, I want to create poetry of ingredient decks where also you can do that, you know?

• 47:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Listening to the podcast, he just ate some of the moisturizer.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Doesn't even take.

• 47:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's food grade.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Food grade.

• 47:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Beeswax, aloe vera, cacao butter, lemongrass, Madagascar vanilla, royal jelly. A lot of these ingredients are, you know, supplements that we use internally as well. And then just a collection of essential oils. That product right there took 22 tweaks to make. It was my first liquid product that we made as a moisturizer to follow the clay mask with. But just using time-tested ancestral alchemy is really like the emphasis with, with our products with no fillers, no, no throwaway ingredients. I call it like, like making an album. A lot of songs got cut on the editing floor that were solid, but that, that's poetry. That gold serum, I appreciate you pointing that out.

• 48:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  That product was a lot of fun to make because it was my first step into active ingredients. We have copper peptide in a base with organic rose oil. There are three different forms of organic rose in that formula. Rosado, Bulgarian Rose Water is our base. We're not using water is our base.

• 48:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What's the gold serum for?

• 49:00Speaker 04

  It's it's like a highly concentrated daytime moisturizer that a lot of people use before bed as well because of the copper peptide, the plant derived vitamin A that we source from France, which is a potent retinol alternative. It's alfalfa derived, CoQ10, marine collagen and astaxanthin is our five active ingredients in that base of rose water. Frankincense, beeswax, propolis and a little rose oil. It just is, it's a good, not overly, you know, oily moisturizer, but just works and is very compatible with all skin types. That's our number one product right now.

• 49:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's also the the night cream that I steal from my wife occasionally so much that I had to buy an extra one recently because yeah, just putting on at night, it's a different kind of moisturizer. So I assume you do all of those things I mentioned, the the gold serum. You do the moisturizer that you just ate, but you don't have to eat it. You can also put it on your face. And and then the night cream, the clay mask you mentioned, you also, TK asked about lotion. You have a lotion as well that is, I assume, similar to the moisturizer.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a little thicker, green coffee, beeswax, cacao butter, lemongrass, prakashia and deroba, 95% organic. That's the one I have in my hand at conferences where I'm licking because it has it has a little, it has a good taste to it. There's lemongrass, Madagascar vanilla. It's dude, it's just like boom, pump it in and their eyes go, I'm like, yeah, how many lotions can you do that with? You know, I just, and yeah, that that body lotion's a little bit thicker, smells amazing. And yeah, I gotta get you some. So I want to talk, my, I was thinking about this on the ride over here because it could get extensive, especially with, because I do use all of our products, but we, for, you know, a reason, because we get the question a lot.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Cleanse, exfoliate, hydrate, repair. So just cleanse with our pearl cleanser daily in the morning and at night if you want to. Some people just close or cleanse before they go to bed. Exfoliate a couple of times a week. We have a meteorite scrub, rounded exfoliant, bamboo stem cell extract, mandelic acid, so alpha hydroxy acids in a base of ceremonial matcha, green tea powder, pearl powder as well to mitigate some of the redness, it will brightening you're gonna get from the niacinamide, but you can just do that a couple of times a week. That's an intense cleanser with rounded exfoliant, so you're not gonna get that grit, but you're gonna exfoliate the dead skin cells and get a little brightening

• 51:33Speaker 04

  from that. And then rinse that, apply a daytime moisturizer just throughout, usually once or twice is good. And then if you want to seal in your results, I really believe in a good cream before, well, we use our night cream, but just some type of skin hydration when you're before you're in one position for hours before bed. So that four-part system kind of minimally, so I'm like, dude, I could go off on all of our products is, you know, and that wouldn't really be the minimalist, but.

• 52:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think in some way, what you're talking about is the minimalist approach. And I differentiate minimalism from essentialism, because minimalism also involves things that aren't essential. Like technically, I can live without this product. I've done it before. Most of my life, I lived without this product, right? But the things that add value to my life, I want to test those things out. Do they actually add value to my life? And I want to bring things in, products, goods, services, relationships that add value to my life. And in a relationship, ideally, I can add value to their life as well. So I do want to do this for our audience. This will sound like a sales pitch. I don't care what you buy or what you do. I wanted to bring Andy in here because at this level, you see the passion here, right? And it's because it's the product that I use. They gave us a discount

• 52:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  code. If you just put simple in whenever you buy a thing, if you want to buy anything from Alatora, put in simple, you'll get 20% off. And the minimalist will get some money, but because we don't do ads, I'm just gonna donate that money to my favorite charity, the Against Malaria Foundation. So anyone who buys anything this month from Alatora, using the code simple, we'll put a link to it in the show notes as well. And then any money that we earn from that, if you feel compelled to buy something, please. Please don't feel like you need to buy anything to complete yourself. If you feel like these might add value to your life, feel free, use the code SIMPLE. And then I'll happily donate that money from any money that we make from that to my favorite foundation, the Against Malaria Foundation. Maybe you can help some kids from, will prevent

• 53:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  them from getting malaria along the way. We've got a lot more to talk about, y'all. It's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to, but first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Our documentary Minimalism turns 10 years old this year in 2026. And so Ryan, Nick Ademas and I, and maybe TK will be at a few of these stops as well. We're gonna do a tour based around the 10th anniversary screening of Minimalism. You saw it on Netflix, 94 million people have seen it now. It's also on YouTube at this point, but we're gonna have

• 54:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a special tour stop in four places. We're gonna be in Ohio, California, Tennessee, and Montana, taking this to some of my favorite indie theaters. So not the big chains, but some indie theaters that I really enjoy going to. We'll be in Dayton, Ohio, at the Neon Theater, which was like two blocks from where I grew up. And it's the most amazing theater. I really enjoy watching movies there. I can't wait to get back there. And we'll be in Ojai, which is where I live now, up in Ojai, at the Ojai Playhouse. This beautifully renovated theater, best sound system I've ever heard in a theater. I know the guy who owns it, he sold a company, it's a live nation, and he took the money from that and just built this community theater for the local community there in Ojai.

• 54:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  A stunning, stunning place. We're doing at the weekend, we're doing Simple Haven as well. We've got a minimalist retreat we're doing up there in Ojai as well. And then we'll be in Tennessee, Franklin, Tennessee, at the Franklin Theater. And Montana, where a lot of minimalism was filmed, was in Missoula, Montana. We'll be at the Roxy Theater. I always enjoyed watching indie films at the Roxy. So you can join me and Nick Ademas there. We'll be there. We're gonna host a live discussion, a Q and A. We'll also screen the film. And we're gonna show you a new film that we've been working on for the last few years. We're gonna show you 10 minutes from that film as well, exclusively at these events. You wanna come out and get a hug from me and Nick Ademas, and maybe even TK at a few of these.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're just trying to work out the SAG rate for this.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  I should be there though.

• 55:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If he is, we know he won't be ashy now, that's for sure.

• 55:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If you want to join us at any of those tour stops, we'll be in Ohio, California, Tennessee, Montana. There'll be people coming from all over the world for some of these events. Head on over to theminimalists.com, click events at the top. You can find the event closest to you. I hope to see you there. For the 10th anniversary tour of minimalism. Much more coming up, but first, here is a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 56:10Speaker 05

  Hi Minimalists, this is Russ from Boise. I've been a Patreon subscriber for a few years now. I'd like to share what I do to help avoid price manipulation based on sensitivity, as discussed in episode 521. To ensure fair pricing online, I look for the item I intend to purchase in incognito or private mode while not logged in and on a cellular network or VPN, because both share IP addresses with many other users. If you use your home internet, most sites can associate it with you based on your dedicated IP address. I use incognito or private mode because they don't store cookies, which is a web tracking and personalization technology. Once I find the item I want, I'll then look it up in a separate session

• 56:54Speaker 05

  while logged in to ensure pricing is consistent before purchasing. This technique is also useful for travel and event tickets. Thank you so much for all you do.

• 57:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Russ, thank you so much for that comment. I like that. Anonymous shopping, shopping anonymously. That sounds like a title of a future podcast episode, perhaps. For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, or any other episode, you can send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 57:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 40% of episode 528 we'll see on Patreon for the full two and a half hour maximal edition with Andy Nilo, which includes answers to a bunch more questions, questions like, "How do I let go of expensive beauty and skincare products I only use occasionally without feeling wasteful?" "How can a parent guide a skincare-obsessed teen without becoming controlling?" "How can I declutter my toddler's high-quality clothes and toys without over-preparing for just-in-case scenarios?" We brought Andy into our minimalist, simplifying, decluttering world for that one. Plus, we have a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on

• 58:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode from 2015. Big thanks to Andy Nilo for joining us today. We'll put a link to his Instagram and his website in the show notes if you want to check that out. Use code SIMPLE and we'll donate any money that we make from that to our favorite charity. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff, and Dave, Tom Cap, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here today with just one message,

• 59:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.