In this send:
Biologique Recherche, Timeline, Dr. Scholl’s, Lumify, WSA, Invisalign, Kaitlin Phillips, compression boots, Metagenics, liposomal phospholipid complex, methylene blue, progesterone, oxytocin, Ballerina Farm, Ashley Javier, wet cupping…
Welcome back to High Touch. Did you even notice we took Independence Day off? That’s wellness. Before I even launched this newsletter, people were telling me I had to talk to Alexis Page. She was, apparently, the beauty industry’s Swiss army knife, a Leónese fountain of knowledge, and at least as enthralled with the worlds of aesthetics and longevity—high tech and low, low brow and high—as I.
Today’s send is the outcome of that inevitable yet still entirely engrossing meeting: a nearly 2-hour interview, which you can watch in full above or read in highlights via her questionnaire below. It’s really good. Surprising and full of threads to pull and refreshingly honest about everything from hand cream to hormones to calisthenics to “RFK-coded” supplements that did for her what other interventions couldn’t.
But first, a few things heard, spotted, injected???? maybe??? in the High Touch universe this week:
A touch of High Touch
Spencer’s Spa, the Soho facial and massage emporium with the design-y living room lobby, is now HSA/FSA eligible. Something to think about late in the year when your tax-advantaged dollars are expiring and you receive one of its ransom note-styled email blasts: “you have 1 HOUR to get 50% off all services…”
Been happening for a while now, but a recent deluge of products really shows how beauty brands are bolting to trade on longevity ingredients. Goop launches the NAD+ Peptide Rich Cream, ANUA rolls out a PDRN (salmon sperm) eye cream, Korean brand numbuzin launched the NAD+ and PDRN-containing no.9 toner. Natively biotechy skincare brands are also rolling out new formulas at a fast clip: Sweet Chemistry becomes the first brand based on Matrikynes ECM-extracted polypeptides, at-home laser device LYMA rolls out topicals leveraging exosomes, peptides, and senolytics (the next big conversation we’ll be having), and The Ordinary introduces escin to the skincare lexicon with its newest anti-inflammatory complex. More evidence of explosion in this space: Obagi Medical, which sells MD-designed topical solutions for hair, brows, and lashes, just sold to private equity for $640 million.
Velour Medical, an elevated medspa group that gets mentioned in the Magasin chat and in Reddit groups not limited to r/bitcheswithtaste (I know), adds laser services to its offerings—LaseMD Ultra by Lutronic, a fractional that targets pigment and fine lines, and OligioX by Wontech, a K-beauty radiofrequency device that lifts through collagen remodeling.
At-Home Products
Skincare
I do product development. I make skincare formulas. I test lab samples. When I’m sick of testing and I need to go back to simplicity, I go back to Biologique Recherche every time. I like a lot of drugstore stuff. Currently I’m using this really lame Cocokind face wash that I’ve written about. I just like the texture and the feel of it. I’ve been using a lot of Timeline products which I think are interesting. I’ve been using the new Goop vitamin C that I think is maybe the best vitamin C I’ve ever tried. I’m loyal to very few things. All the versions of P50 that every brand puts out, it’s not P50.
Haircare
Hair is the one thing that I’ve never gotten quite a handle on. I did the Harklinikken program for a few years. I was using their shampoo and conditioner and then their growth…it’s not even a serum, it’s like a weird liquid. It’s a very annoying process which I do think worked, and then I kind of fell off of it last summer and I need to get back on. Once in a while I have a craving for the Christophe Robin scalp scrub, I’ll have a jar of it that lives in my shower for, like, two years. I’m getting into hair masks, another thing Jen Brill turned me onto. I’ve become obsessed with bonding treatments—like a thing that you spray on before you shower, let it soak in for an hour or something, and then you shower and it gives you smooth, glossy hair.
Bodycare
Prior to Nécessaire launching from Nick Axelrod, who’s one of my closest friends, I would never have spent $30 on a body product like a lotion or a gel. I was using Aveeno and Dr. Bronner’s. He launched, I got a bunch of it. It’s really nice and now I’m spending $30 on body wash. It’s just a different texture and a different experience. I love the Soft Services buffing bar. I think it’s really genius. I go in and out of using oil. The Weleda oil I like a lot. The L’Occitane almond shower oil wash is a top-ten product. I’ve been using Paula’s Choice body retinol, which is neither here nor there. But I trust their formulas even though it’s not glamorous. They also have a weird estrogen line that’s supposed to be for crepey skin.
Hands, Feet, Nails
I hate hand cream. Nécessaire is the only one I’ve used nightly. It feels waxy and there’s a dry down to it. You don’t feel greasy. You’re still using your phone in bed or whatever. It’s really nice. This Dr. Scholl’s stick that I won’t shut up about, which is just like a giant Chapstick for your feet. It’s called cracked heel repair, or something disgusting. I use that a lot, especially in the summer because I like not wearing shoes. I do my own nails at home, I’ve turned into that person. The only shade that I’ll use is one coat of OPI Put it in Neutral. That’s my manicure shade. And OPI Big Apple Red is the only pedicure shade that I use.
Eyes
Lumify eye drops, the purple ones. Lash lifts don’t work on me. I very rarely wear mascara. I like getting my lashes tinted, but I don’t keep up with it. I do it once in a while if I remember, and I just do it at Benefit. Brows I don’t do, I just sort of maintain them myself. I was on a brow lamination journey for a long time and I would go to Jasmine Imani who was in Soho, but now she’s in the WSA building. I love her. She also does amazing lash lifts, I just can’t have one. I’ll dye them at home with Refectocil that I buy on Amazon.
Oral health
For many years, probably a decade, I was just using Crest Glamorous White because I liked the name. A friend told me she bought this new toothpaste and liked it, called Boka. So I tried that. It’s fine. I did Invisalign which I didn’t think I needed, and I felt like it made a huge difference. I had braces in high school and my teeth were sort of fine. I have small teeth, and I felt like the Invisalign actually is helping to hold up the foundation of my face which is nice as you get older. I do think it made a big difference. Not so much visually as sort of structurally.
“Is it going to kill me? I don't know. Maybe. Is all of this shit going to kill us? Like, potentially.”
At-Home Devices
Face + neck
It took me a really long time to get on the LED mask thing. I like the Omnilux men’s. It’s the one that I bought because I read or heard somewhere that it has more lights. I travel all the time. It’s easy to bring with me. I got that Medicube thing. I don’t really care about it. I have a ZIIP, which I do think works, but I’m lazy with it.
