74. Midlife Beauty: Way Deeper Than Skin-Deep | Annie Tevelin (Part 2)

In part 2 of this episode of the School of Midlife podcast, I continue my deep dive into the beauty and skincare industry with the incredible Annie Tevelin, founder of Skin Owl. We start by discussing the staggering $670 billion beauty industry and its impact on our perceptions of aging and self-worth. Annie shares her insights on how Skin Owl promotes self-love and care, especially for women over 45, who are often overlooked by the beauty industry.

We explore the societal pressures to maintain youthful appearances and how women can reframe their perspectives on aging. Annie emphasizes the importance of skincare as a moment of self-check-in and care, rather than a means to achieve unrealistic beauty standards. She also highlights the significance of protein intake and the use of specific skincare ingredients like hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and retinol to support aging skin.

Annie's passion for empowering women extends beyond skincare. She recently pursued a lifelong dream of making music, resulting in a heartfelt project that reflects a pivotal time in her life. This venture has even led to opportunities in syncing her music with movies and TV shows.

Throughout the episode, we discuss the importance of self-care, the value of surrounding oneself with positive influences, and the need to embrace aging as a journey of personal development. Annie's insights and experiences offer a refreshing perspective on how to navigate midlife with grace and confidence.

For those interested in learning more about Skin Owl or connecting with Annie, she provides various ways to reach out, including visiting their store in Boise or engaging with them online. This episode is packed full of wisdom for any midlife woman looking to make her best life yet.

LINKS + MENTIONS:
Connect with Annie:
Skin Owl on Instagram
Skin Owl website
Call Skin Owl: 1-844-SKINOWL

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01:
Welcome back to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. It seems like we're always chasing younger, more youthful versions of ourselves. Or at least the $670 billion beauty and personal care industry wants us to believe that. That holding on to our younger self is the best way to live our lives. And yes, you heard that correctly. $670 billion is the estimated market share in 2024. That's a lot of money being spent to convince us that we should want to be something other than who it is that we already are. Cover up the gray hair. Use these eye masks to get rid of eye wrinkles while you sleep. Use this lip plumping lipstick. Moisturize, hydrate, exfoliate. And if the creams and gels and serums aren't giving you the results as quickly as you want, there is always Botox, fillers, and a whole menu of outpatient surgeries to help you look your best. And yes, I'm using best in air quotes. In today's episode, I'm joined by the amazing Annie Tevelin, the founder of Skin Owl, a company creating the most incredible vegan, cruelty-free, and plant-based skincare. Annie and I set out to talk about skincare, but as you'll see, we spent a good deal of time talking about loving the skin that we're in and other empowering messages for women. This episode is part two of our conversation. If you haven't already listened to last week's episode, I'd suggest you pause this episode, go back, and listen to last week's incredible episode with Annie. There's a clickable link in the show notes. And then when you're ready, in this second part of the conversation, Annie and I pick right back up where we left off. In this episode, we shift our focus to what we can do from a healthy living perspective for our skin and our bodies. And Annie's top three skincare tips women should prioritize to feel and show up as their best self. Let's get back to the conversation.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who's starting to ask herself big life questions like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week, we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school. And we're figuring out, finally, what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life.

OK, so I definitely want to get into skincare and menopause, how our skincare routine may need to change in midlife. Before we go there, though, let's talk about beauty in midlife. I feel like our society often values youthful looks over older appearances. All we have to do is look at movies and TV shows and print ad campaigns, and it's I feel like there are some advocates out there, Bree Switherspoon comes to mind, Gina Davis, who are shining a light on midlife women. How do you help women reframe their perspectives on aging and beauty?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think SkinOwl has always highlighted women of all ages, number one in our marketing. Our big line is that SkinOwl, it's on our homepage right now. It's skincare that meets you where you are. It is I am very educated in terms of what skincare can do and what skincare can't. It's not going to be a facelift. It is going to visibly reduce the appearance of things like hyperpigmentation and dark under eye circles. It is not going to be it's not going to be Kybella. It's rarely going to be Botox, right? For me, skincare is a moment. And I think that women of a certain age will relate to this. It's a moment in the day that I get to check in with myself and look at my skin and say, how did today show up on me? And I think that that really resonates with women, I think, after children or maybe after an age where life has hit them up a little bit, whether career-wise, if you decided to have children, if you were able to have children, if you've sent your kids off to college and now you're like, well, now who am I? What's my identity? How do I walk myself home? I normally find that those are the instances that men and women come into Skin Owl and say, I'm ready for a change. It is, they just want to age gracefully and they wanna stop punishing themselves and they wanna put a body oil on at night and then get into their jammies. They wanna put a little eye cream on because they were on their computer all day. They wanna put a lip balm on because because they notice it now. They're more cognizant of themselves, and they've spent years talking down to themselves, and now they just want care. They want love, and they want care, and that is what Skin Owl provides. It is a place, obviously, as seen by the first 30 minutes of this, of extreme education, should someone want it, but it's also a place of grace and care, which is, we're all just out here trying to do the best that we can. It isn't overhauling your entire medicine cabinet and punishing yourself and saying, God, look at how, look at the crappy work I've been doing. And how didn't I know any of this? It's here's the information. Now, where are we going to go from here? How can we strengthen our own, hone these muscles and strengthen these muscles to start putting down the messaging that is making us feel worse about ourselves. I always say that women over 45, specifically 50 in the beauty industry, are seen as insignificant and I hate it. I don't even need to be over 50 to know how awful it is because those are the women that I find the most interesting. They have lived the most life. They also, in terms of being a consumer, I cannot believe that people aren't logistically marketing to these women, because this is usually a time in your life where you have disposable income, right? And you're able to buy the cream, do the thing. So And they've been doing the same thing for a very long time, and it is such a wonderful experience for me to bring in a woman who's 65 years old, she's still doing the same blue eyeliner, or she's wearing the same lip product that she used 30 years ago, because she got it in a gift with purchase from Clinique, and now she's like, I don't know if any of this looks good on me, I've just been using it for years. And we get to come in and do an audit. and say, what about a cream blush now that our skin is drier instead of a powder blush? What about a tinted moisturizer now that you no longer have acne that you did 30 years ago? We get to care for people and put them in a place that is a little bit more minimalist, but maximum positive self-talk. We could talk about the patriarch for years and years about what's happening with the beauty industry. addiction to consumerism and like anybody needs another lip gloss but they're still gonna buy it because maybe this is the lip gloss that changes the way that I ultimately feel about myself. The beauty industry preys on women and I really try to Just pretend that that's not even an option because it's so damaging and it is so inaccurate in terms of who they're valuing. These are the people that are to be valued. You have to be beautiful and filtered and photoshopped. And if you are not that, you are insignificant and we forget about you. And unfortunately, that's what happens. People don't want to talk to these women. They don't want to learn from these women. They don't see them as like the Meryl Streep's of the world and the Susan Sarandon's are revered because Susan Sarandon is like a D cup who's sexy. So now she's, wow, she's really doing so much better than most women her age. Look at how voluptuous and sexy she is. This is the messaging. Or Meryl Streep, wow, look at how she's aged. Not a wrinkle on her face. And so now we're supposed to value the way that she looks. It's so effed up and such a slap in the face. And if you are not that woman now, you will be that woman. So that is why every woman should care about this. Because if you are lucky enough to live until your 60s, I promise you, you will feel this way about it, which is why Reese Witherspoon is doing something about it now. Because she is of a certain age to then care about this. So yeah, that's my two cents on that.

SPEAKER_01: Get behind all of that. You use the term aging gracefully. So, and I think you described what that means to you, but with that idea in mind, in your opinion, how important is our outward appearance? How important is that to our self-confidence, particularly as we're moving through midlife?

SPEAKER_00: That's a great question. I think, I think ultimately you The goal, right, for me is to wake up and say, I really like what I'm looking at. And I think we start to get into trouble when that narrative says, I wonder if that person over there will like what they're looking at. I think you just have to figure out, right? And I don't know if it's a therapy. I don't know if it's meditations in the morning that have to do with self-love and talking to the little girl that started probably this narrative a very long time ago. and hugging her and saying, I am enough, and screw everything and everybody that I met along the way that's going to tell me that I'm not, because it has taken years from me. How many moments, minutes, and years have this type of negative self-talk taken from you? And are you OK with that? And I would imagine most people aren't, and then they don't know what to do after that. No, I'm not okay with it. Well, now what? We need to start changing our influence. So if you're on Instagram, you start muting and unfollowing anybody that starts to make you feel like you're less than that. There are so many women out there who are going to tell you, like yourself, Lori, that you are so much more than that. So like my feed right now, I don't follow any beauty brands. I do not follow any of the Kardashians. I hardly follow any celebrities. I follow dogs, cows, personal friends, and people who make me laugh. And if anybody sneaks in there because Instagram wants to recommend some part of my dark past, you're getting cut. I am like a gatekeeper for who is going to emotionally invade me for the day because that's happening every day, right? Every day there's somebody who's throwing us off from that like good start to the morning and it's a bit more gatekeeping. Now I think getting really clear on if nobody was watching and if nobody cared, right? If I was on a desert island like What would I put on? What makes me feel good? For me, that's a tinted moisturizer. Well, it's my, it's skincare. It always is skincare. It's, that's the foundation. It feels good when I put it on. I like the way it smells. It wakes me up. It's a check-in. I never check in with myself in a mirror at any point during the day, except for the morning and the nighttime when I take it off. So I really value that time. But for me, it's like a little glowy tinted moisturizer, a tinted lip balm, and a brow. Like that's what makes me feel good. I'm not contouring. Like the internet tells me I should. I'm not, I'm not, I'm just not right. Like that's my happy place. What is that for you? The person listening, maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a splash of cold water in the morning, some electrolytes and a face full of vitamin D that like spends from nine to nine 30 out in this, out in your backyard, just staring up at the sky. Like it's less about. what we're putting on ourselves, and it's more about how are you aging? How is your mental health as you are aging? How is your relationship with yourself as you are aging? Are you aging gracefully, or are you going down a spiral of, I'm now insignificant? I can't imagine harder work than that. Like, this is not a cakewalk. It's about investing in yourself, surrounding yourself with people that talk to you the way that you need to start talking to yourself. Going back to therapy at 65 is not a bad idea. Starting therapy at 55 is not a bad idea. getting really clear on who your inner circle is and sharing these things. Like maybe you have a women's circle with your friends and the topic is one thing that you're not feeling great about because everybody sucks at highlighting weaknesses. So I think it's just none of this, unfortunately and sadly, it's none of this happens naturally. Women get old and men get distinguished. And I think it's a very And it's, yeah, I think you have to start small with your relationship with yourself and your own self-esteem. And if it's contributing to your self-esteem, it's an easier life. And if things are knocking down your self-esteem, it's a harder life. And I'm very clear on that.

SPEAKER_01: aging is the best personal development course I think anyone can take because it really is the first time where we have some extra time on our hands and we can instead of being in this constant reactionary mode where oh my gosh we gotta get the kids fed we gotta get them out the door we gotta do this at work we actually have some time and we're it's this If you embrace it, it's this wonderful opportunity to unlearn so many of the things that we learned before, to re-parent our inner child, to look at the conditioning that we have been raised with and really figure out, is that working for me or not? So I love how you just framed that. I will just piggyback on your social media feed and say, You don't have to you can block people in your family. I think that there are a lot of folks that are still. When your mom comments on your post and it's not, like, don't let, don't go back to that spot where you have a tough relationship there. Or because Aunt Carol said something that was snarky, that means more about, says more about her than it does about you. Yes. We need to stop internalizing some of those things. Okay, so main skincare challenges women face as they go through menopause, because I'm assuming that maybe our skincare routine in our 40s and 50s and beyond is different than it should have been before. So if all of us are still using the Clinique three-step system, how should we be changing what we're doing in this period of life?

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Great question. So let's talk about what happens in the first five years, right? During the first five years of menopause. Studies have shown now that women lose about 30% of their collagen during the first five years of menopause. And then after that, the decline is a bit more gradual. So women are going to lose about 2% of their collagen every year for the next 20 years. Let's take someone who, right, menopause is happening a bit earlier now. So let's say a woman goes through menopause at 45. So from 45 to 50, she's losing 30% of her collagen. And that's not to say that she had 100 to start, but let's say she starts at 80. So now she's down to 50. And then she's going to lose 2% of the collagen every year for the next 20 years. So by the time she is 70, she's lost another 40 percent. This is why as the collagen diminishes, our skin loses its firmness, it begins to sag, we have these awful words like turkey neck and jowls and right and then by the time a woman's 80. Old lady legs.

SPEAKER_01: Exactly right, like it's thin. Which I'm experiencing for the first time ever.

SPEAKER_00: the varicose veins, like all the things start to show up. So what we really want to do, and because skincare only visibly reduces and can topically help certain things, right, sunspots, age spots, skincare is going to be great for that. specific skincare that actually has active ingredients to do these things. Sunscreen, UV light breaks down collagen tremendously at a certain point, probably around 40 for the average woman. You're that glow that comes from just like spending the day out in the sun in Hawaii. It's different now, the skin looks ruddy, we get breakouts, there's uneven texture and tone, it's a mess. It's not like it was in our 20s and 30s where, okay, we're bouncing back, cellular renewal is in full swing, and now we have this nice sun touch. Now it's damage and loss of collagen, okay, once menopause starts. So much of this is going to be an inside game. The number one thing I would recommend for women that has nothing to do with skincare is ingesting protein. Protein, protein, protein. Starting off your day, especially if you have blood sugar issues and you are not diabetic, you're just noticing that there's some food crashes, you're starting to feel a little bit of that like hypoglycemic effect, which happens with hormone imbalance. You should be starting your day every single day with a protein shake. You can take your probiotic in the morning, you can take your colostrum, and you can throw it all into that protein shake. I personally drink Pro-Mix. It's the French vanilla flavor. I love it. This is not sponsored. I do not get anything from this. I just love it myself. So I do two scoops of the Pro-Mix with my probiotic and my colostrum. in the morning in that protein shake with distilled water and it changes everything for me. Plus now I'm now drinking a ton more water, right, than I ever would have. So you can also throw electrolytes in there. This is like the number one game changer for me is to chase the protein throughout the day. You want to get half your body weight in grams in grams. And so if you're 150 pounds, you're going to get 75 grams. If you're 250 pounds, you're going to get 125 grams. This is what you need to do with protein. The best and most efficient way to get protein is with grilled chicken. I think it's 40 grams for just a palm-sized amount of grilled chicken. If you can have grilled chicken on a salad or eat it out of like, honestly, just make a bunch on a Sunday and then just grab a piece, throw a piece on this, throw a piece on that, it's the best thing you can do. Protein synthesizes and prevents the breakdown of collagen. Okay, so it's like it's in there fighting as your little army with what UV light and stress and other things are doing to deteriorate it. So that's number one. Number two, the creams, right, we might have to get a little bit thicker with our creams because Skin is going to be a dryer, right? Cellular renewal is not at an all-time high like it was in our 20s. It's not able to resurface the skin and build back healthy new cells. So we just want to protect the cells. We want to make sure that we are just giving the skin a delivery system that is going to help with dehydration and chronic dryness. because without a lot of collagen, there's your bounce, there's the plump, like these words don't, those are, that's the antithesis to collagen is like, or the lack of collagen is thinking that you're going to have plump skin, but the way to do that is to ingest protein and to use creams that are chock full of yummy like plant-based enriched like rich ingredients like an aloe like a vitamin c like hyaluronic acid that's botanically derived the shea butters like all of these things are so so wonderful argan oil what else you can also take collagen powders or drink a liquid collagen It is, I want to be clear that by drinking collagen, you are not adding that collagen into your body. That's not how it works.

SPEAKER_01: You need to ingest hydrolyzed… And because it's going in your digestive system, right?

SPEAKER_00: Correct. Yep, exactly. So what you're going to see is you're going to see a visible a visible improvement of skin dryness elasticity roughness and density which are all contributing factors in addressing aging skin but it's doing that through the ingredients in your digestive tract showing up in your skin like that we need to make sure that we're using hydrolyzed collagen it has to be hydrolyzed otherwise it's not it's it's it's not working it doesn't it can't actually be digested So I think, like, let's start there, right? If you can get in your protein, get in that protein shake in the morning, get some grilled chicken or salmon or beans if you're a vegetarian, those are going to be fantastic. But the protein shake at least ensures that you're getting 30 grams max or minimum in the morning. Take your collagen. And all of this is, oh, how am I going to have the time? You do it all in the morning. You do that one smoothie and it all goes in there. Everything, your collagen, your colostrum, your protein powder, your probiotic, everything can go in there. Throw in a LMNT or a Noon electrolyte, which you can get it on Amazon at this point. All of these things, by the way, you can get on Amazon. I'm happy to share my list of favorites. And if you want to add that to show notes or any part of the social slides, that way it's just like point, click, shop. Just tell me what to get, Annie. I'm happy to give you my favorite brands that are clean and doing women a great service. I know, everybody's like, that sounds like an awful, awful word.

SPEAKER_01: Sounds like a bad stomach disease.

SPEAKER_00: It really does. Colostrum is, oh my gosh, it is so much. It is a variety of benefits. Number one, it is all about supporting gut health. It is an immunoglobin, so it is essentially The milk derived from baby cows, it is sustainable. So I just want to make sure all of these cows that, with the brands that I use, specifically Armra is one of the best brands, A-R-M-R-A, Armra Colostrum. They sell out constantly. It is sustainable, pasture-raised, grass-fed cows. Nobody's taken any baby calves from their mommies. It is just like, it's just when they milk the cow, that now is used in Armra. It strengthens the immune system, it aids in muscle recovery, and it supports the gut health. It is everything. It is everything. I cannot speak more highly about cholesterol and what it does to the deterioration of the gut lining if you are living in the year 2024, especially if you are of the menopausal age because you lived through the 90s, you lived through things being genetically modified, you can take it every single day. It has changed. I don't even know how to put my finger on the things that it's changed. I didn't think I had gut health issues, but I am like, If you have irregularity with like pooping, if you have any kind of IBS, if you are coming off of like a crazy bout of stomach flu, stomach virus, this is the best time to start taking it. It is, if you are chronically sick, right? So you've got bronchitis and then you've got strep throat and then you've got whatever, whatever's plaguing you. If you've got awful allergies that came out of nowhere. Immunoglobin and cholesterol as a whole is like, is like significantly more powerful than vitamin C. And you can take them together. You can take colostrum and collagen together. It's just colostrum is going to be a better choice for immune support and gut health. Collagen is going to be better for skin and joint health. So two different modalities, both incredibly valuable now.

SPEAKER_01: That is super helpful.
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I think we have just covered this, but if you could pick just one or maybe two, what do you think the most important skincare tips are that every woman in midlife should follow? Is it the protein? Is it something different than that?

SPEAKER_00: I love that. I think there's so much. I think I want to I think sunscreen is like having like this weird like bad rap lately and unfortunately there's some things that are coming out about sunscreen where like essentially they're Essentially, they're using ingredients so that they don't have to use as much of the active ingredient. So it's a long story. I can share brands that are really trusted. ReefSafe is not really anything to really think about. That's a bit of misguidance. The only time that sunscreen has been tested on reefs is in a lab. So if you put titanium dioxide or avobenzone on a piece of coral reef in a lab, it deteriorates the coral. But studies that has nothing to do with whether or not the same amount would deteriorate the coral reef in a landscape such as an ocean.

SPEAKER_01: where the coral reefs are just bleaching out because the water's too warm.

SPEAKER_00: Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: It does feel like ReefSafe might be just marketing.

SPEAKER_00: It is. There is no science to suggest, and if someone says it's deteriorating coral, that's because they're taking off a chunk of it and doing it in a lab. the sunscreen doesn't have the same access to the coral reef or saturation that it would in the ocean. Not to say that it can't be studied and it's not true, but the vastness of the ocean with sunscreen is yet to be tested. So yes, warming waters, oil spills, trash in the ocean, things like this, that's not helping. Gas emissions of boats. So that is just something I want to put out there while we're talking about sunscreen and the complexity of it. But sunscreen is so important. A zinc oxide sunscreen. I love the brand Kinfield. I love the brand Everyday Humans. I think if you're pretty much shopping for it and like locally at a Boise co-op or a Whole Foods, you're doing pretty well in terms of an ingredient deck, way better than a CVS or a Rite Aid. It's just tremendous in terms of protecting collagen, protecting the skin from any additional age spots, and it works. So there's that.

SPEAKER_01: I think- SPF that we should shoot for?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think SPF, a higher number doesn't mean that it's stronger. It just means that you have sun protection longer. So it's the same active ingredient. It just is, there's an algorithm for it, which is, how many minutes does it take you to get sunburned? And you multiply that by the SPF number, and that's roughly how many minutes of protection that you have. So if I was to put my face in the sun for six minutes, I'm gonna start to see a little bit of redness, right? Like get ballpark, it doesn't need to be like exact. But if you know that 10 minutes outside, you're gonna start to get red, then your SPF 30 is gonna last you roughly 300 minutes. So every 300 minutes, aka five hours, you are gonna have to reapply. Okay, so SPF 50 is better for like days out on the river, longer days out in sun, you're just gonna get more for it, it's not stronger. So SPF is great, I think… Any product with hyaluronic acid in it is going to be great because of how the skin begins to dry and dehydrate as we get older. Hyaluronic acid, we have it in our bones, we have it in our body. As we get older, it deteriorates and it leaves your body through a lot of different ways, waste and sweating and just the breakdown and how it's metabolized. You eventually excrete it from the body is the best way to say. excuse me so hyaluronic acid is tremendous for just giving the skin that plump like just enrich like the just the look of it skin that we had in our 20s and 30s hyaluronic acid mimics our own water weight and it just it just gives the skin more of that buoyant look I love hyaluronic acid on yeah on a more mature woman and vitamin c and retinol i think are just wonderful products there's very few products that do exactly what they say that they're going to do and vitamin c is formulated to do that a tetra hexadexyl vitamin c would be the best right it is an ascorbic acid that's what you would want to look for on the back of your bottle If you can see THD on your bottle, or tetrahexa, anything that sounds like you can't pronounce it, it's even better. But ascorbic acid would be the main ingredient that we would want in our vitamin C's. You can layer it into an oil, you can layer it into a moisturizer if you have sensitive skin because vitamin C is an antioxidant that can resurface the skin and leave you red and chafy. So if you have sensitivity to vitamin C, mix it in with your hyaluronic acid, mix it in with your moisturizer, and wear it during the daytime because it integrates with sunlight. It fiends off the sun in the way that it works. And retinol. Retinol is one of the only ingredients that actually resurfaces wrinkles. The issue with retinol is that you have to get over the hump. You have to get over the retinol hump. If you've used it and you're like, I was red and chafy and it looks like someone burned my skin, that's because the bottle probably recommended you to use it more than you should have, or it needs to be layered on top of our oils. We tell people to layer it on top of the oil, not directly onto the skin. That way there's a little bit of a barrier in terms of absorption. It's still going to work, but it's not going to be highly inflammatory. Retinol is, you can't use it while you're pregnant. We don't want that retinol palmitate or vitamin A derivative going into the bloodstream. But if you are not pregnant or nursing, use it. Start with once a week. You can use a retinol, what is it called, alternative. You'll see it, it's everywhere in Sephora on products right now. It's called Bacuchiol. So if you want a plant-based retinol, just look for the word that begins with B-A-K. And you can Google that. Bacuchiol or B-A-K, retinol products. And a whole bunch will come up for you. And those are a little bit more mild. So if you have more sensitive skin, maybe start with the Bacuchiol. And that's, that would probably be my, my sixth most overwhelming point that I've shared on this podcast today.

SPEAKER_01: It's all good. I want to be mindful of time. Cause I know that we have gone a little long, but I. I wanted to switch gears one more time. This is not related to skincare. It's not related to Skin Owl, but I want to shine a light on a new passion project that you just launched. At the School of Midlife, we talk a lot about making midlife your best life. We talk about figuring out what your dream life looks like and making that a reality. So I would love for you to just talk about what you just put out into the world and why now?

SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh. Oh man. I recently in April decided to put work a little bit on the back burner and chase a passion of mine that I have wanted to do since I was a child. I had an opportunity in Boise to go into a music studio and make music, which it's funny, I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years and not once did I have I have an opportunity to do it. I also was scared shitless for most of my life. But Boise, yeah, there was someone who had a music studio and I was friends with his mom. Her name is Kristen Goodwin. She is the owner of 35th and Clay here in Boise, I gotta give her a shout out, and her son, Kyler Darren, is like a prodigy. He plays every instrument, he produces music, and I wanted to do a project of covers where essentially it detailed a time in my life. I was I married my current husband when I was 38 years old, had my son, my only son Monty at 39, but prior to that I was married when I was 35 for 16 months, went through a divorce, and the seven cover songs detail the ups and downs of that time in my life. I'm very grateful for that time. Obviously, looking back, right, hindsight, it's always like, oh, we glamorized how, like, meaningful it was. At the time, it was utter hell and came out of it. And, and so I did like a kind of an homage to that time in life. Every cover details I think the words that probably I didn't have at the time to detail that. And it's all on Spotify. My stage name is Annie. Instead of Tevelin, it's Annie Wren. W-R-E-N. My middle name is Lauren, so it took from that. And it's just a joy. It is a joy. My soulmate of a dog passed away in September, and I remember after him passing, I was just like, Well, I don't get to be as happy anymore. So like my life is, there is a huge void in my life because of this dog. And if you have had a soulmate dog and you have lost a dog like that, that is nothing silly. It is so very real and a true, he was an outlet for someone who's always been so, it's been so difficult for me to, sometimes express why a day is hard, I could just go to my dog. I didn't need to do anything. It was such a void when he was gone because Who else can you do that with? Everybody else you have to have a conversation. I can't just like go over and lay on my husband without some kind of, you know, sexual repercussion or question asking. So like it was, it was a very painful time. And what came out of that was a passion to just say, you know what, screw it. Like I'm, If I don't get to have him in my life anymore, then I'm going to find something. I'm going to do something that I've punished myself by not doing for a long time, and that was pursuing music. So it's amazing. My main goal is to I haven't announced this online yet, but I recently was signed by someone in Los Angeles to do syncing. So essentially to sync the cover songs to movies and television show scenes. I know. That's incredible. It's very new and I'm like very imposter syndromed. I haven't shared it. This happened probably a month and a half ago and I haven't, I haven't really had the confidence to be honest to share it because it feels, I don't know how to explain it. It feels like sometimes when you have, when you have, and this is something, this is part of my work, right? Who am I to have another blessing like this? When I think people see me as she runs a business, she's in a happy marriage now, she has so many things, like who am I to have more? And I think this is that dance that we play as women, which is, but what happens when you're out there chasing it and you're passionate and you do get the things that you wish for? Like who's out there to hear it wholeheartedly and not be jealous or envious or misinterpret me and the journey that it took to get these things that I've worked for. So the narrative is a little tricky right now, but I think in time I will share it online. And, and it's just, it's just been one of the greatest things in my life, truly.

SPEAKER_01: It is really a stunning project. Your voice is beautiful, but all of the videos and the short form content that you've put out to go with it, it's just it's a vibe is so overused, but it is such a vibe and it is so beautiful. And it's really been wonderful watching this unfold. And I'm just so excited for you. And how cool to to do it to save yourself and to move through some some things and then have have it resonate so well with others out in the world that now 

SPEAKER_00: It's it's moving into another form of another phase which is so interesting so it's wild it's just wild i i'm i'm learning to believe it that's that's my line i'm learning to believe that this is like a reality because again right as we get older we look back and we say oh i could have done this i should have done that or that time is over and i refuse i just refuse and it took me 42 and a half years to believe that and i'm 43 and a half now but i'm just so angry with how often we shut our lives down in the name of what i i just don't get it i just don't get it it doesn't make any sense and it's we are the we are the fiercest population, women. And I truly feel that way. And it's not indirect correlation even to men. It's just, we are incredible people and we multitask and we do adult ADHD better than anybody else out there. And we manage children and we do it all. And then at the end of the day, we're then talking to ourselves about how little we're doing. It's fucking preposterous. I just can't get behind it anymore and I refuse to be anything but an example of that.

SPEAKER_01: We need more of that, so keep doing all of that.

SPEAKER_00: Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: Again, I want to be mindful of time. So anything else that you would like to add that we haven't talked about as far as the midlife skincare journey? And if not, for our listeners that want to learn more about working with you, where can they find you? Where do you like to hang out?

SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing. Yeah, I feel like I've covered so much. This feels like a really good place to just let people metabolize all of that and take it all in. If anybody is listening and they have questions, they want more of a kind of curated custom approach to what this looks like. There's a lot of different ways you can hang out. Number one, you can always DM us on Instagram at Skinowl, S-K-I-N-O-W-L. You can email us info at skinowl.com. You can call us. at 1-844-SKINOWL and talk to a real human. And you can chat with us. Our homepage has a chat box and we talk about all these things. What was the colostrum that Annie was talking about on the podcast with Lori? Like whatever you need, whatever is freaking you out right now, you just come and contact us that way. If you are in Boise, We have a store down in Southeast Boise in Bound Crossing, 3122 South Bound Way. And we do everything from complimentary skincare pampers to complimentary makeup edits to more recently color analysis. If you remember from the 80s and 90s, getting your season, we do those in a very thorough way. The first two are complimentary. So if you're like, I don't know where to begin with my skincare and I need a, this was a good one-on-one class, but now I need more. Come and see us. We do them virtually. We do them in person. It is totally free. The consumer beauty business is very strange. You like, I swear, when you sit down at Macy's, you feel like you have to spend $300 and then you go home with buyer's remorse. So like this is an opportunity for you to come, touch, smell, feel, learn about your skin. And if anything feels like you want to take it home or there's a void in your regimen at home, great, buy it. But it is very graceful and not pushy. And then we also do it with makeup. So if you're like, I want to switch my like mascara to a clean mascara, or I just need a whole overhaul, you can book all of those appointments in our bio link on Instagram, including the color analysis, which ranges between 95 and 300, depending on who you book with and how deep you want to go. And that's a really cool midlife thing to do, too, because it's like if you're an empty nester or you're just looking to get your groove back, let us tell you what colors look good on you. It's a whole experience. We do makeup. We do clothing like it's a styling appointment. It's so amazing. And most of the people that have come through our door are over 45. So. It's, people want it. There's a need for that all under one roof. And we are providing just a lot of happy travels to people once they come in and go on their way. So that's, yeah, that's, that's the, that's the lot of it.

SPEAKER_01: Perfect. We will make sure that there are clickable links to all of those where they can find you in the show notes. Annie, we end every episode with the same two questions. So question one, if you could go back to your 30-year-old self, knowing everything now, having had all the life experiences, all the lessons learned along the way, what advice would you give her?

SPEAKER_00: I would say you're on the right path and it gets better. That's what I would say. Despite all the, all the ups and downs, I'm, I'm okay with ups and downs in life. It's what makes it fair. And I'm very privileged that my ups and downs pale in comparison to 90% of the people I sometimes hear about, but yeah, it gets better. It gets better.

SPEAKER_01: Every little bit gets better, doesn't it? Even in the valleys, it always gets better. I know that you're only 43, but question number two is what have you loved most about being a midlife woman? So you may not color yourself with a midlife crayon, but technically you're probably in that era. So what have you loved most about being a midlife woman?

SPEAKER_00: I just love the clarity. And I'm sure that's a bit cliché because when I, before I was 40, people said, after 40, you're going to cut the fat. You're going to understand who's important and friendships that when you were in your 20s, they will not follow you. All of them won't follow you into your 40s, right? All of this, I kind of like, it preceded itself, some of the narrative, but I'm living proof that that was accurate. Like, I love how short the distance is now for clarity. It took me a lot longer to see a friend that had ill intentions, the yes that should have been a no. The distance for me, I guess it's intuition, right? The intuitive response is now 95% right. When it's a yes, it's a hell yes. If it's a no, it's a hell no. And if it's in the middle, it's probably a no. And I think when it was in the middle, in the gray area, I used to fight for it to be a yes, so to keep the train moving, and to people please. And now it's like, if I'm confused or if I'm unsure, it's a no. It's a no right now. Until then, maybe one day it'll be a yes, or maybe it'll just always be a no. And that's okay, because I'm rich in the things that matter. I love where I'm going. I don't wake up every day and love what I see. I see the cellulite. I see the wrinkles. I see the Facebook memories where I used to look like this or be this weight and now I'm that. I see it all. I'm a human. I'm out here struggling in the same way everybody else is. but I think it's what comes after that. I can have these emotions and I can have these feelings, but I really try not to engage with them. I let them come in as synapse and because I have a big brain and then they leave and I try not to make the synapse and we just move on. Okay, we move. Okay, so we're feeling this way. That's fine. I can feel this way, but I'm still a good person with great friends, and I'm alive, and I love the work that I do, and I am a work in progress. And that's a great thing.

SPEAKER_01: That is the best way to end today's talk. Just what an incredible response. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Annie, this has just been a lovely conversation. I am so grateful to have you share your gifts with our audience. I'm grateful to know you in person. You're just an incredible human. So thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for doing what you do. The honor is all mine.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that. First, and most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you'd take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here next week when The School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care.