What Skincare Brands Don’t Want You to Know About Alitura Clay Mask – Exposed! | Andy Hnilo DSH #525

I'm not sure how I was drawn to it, but I bought a little eight-ounce little jar of Aztec healing clay.

One ingredient, calcium bentonite clay.

I mean, the microcirculation generated to the surface of the skin.

But the thing is, once that settles, your skin is glass.

I mean, it just removes a lot of dirt and oil from the pores, as well as like my little secret weapon.

I would do it before weekends and stuff because you know, it also really tightens up your skin and clears it up.

You look good, right?

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All right, guys, got a fun one for you today.

He's brought a lot of fun stuff for you to see.

Andy Nilo, thanks for coming on, man.

Hey, thank you so much for having me on.

Yeah, founder of Altura Natural Skin Care, which you brought a ton of.

Is this your full daily morning routine right here?

Oh, not all of it, but I basically try to put in what we call like a four-step facial cleanse, exfoliate, hydrate, repair.

But I mean,

I'm into this, but I, you know, the routines can get a little elaborate.

So we just try to simplify it to those four

products.

But yeah, it's

going very well, man.

I never saw this happening, dude.

Yeah, only three employees, but it's a multi-million dollar business.

Yeah, yes.

So that speaks to the product quality because that's not a coincidence.

No, it's it, I mean, the whole thing is

I was hit and run over by two cars in 2011, just crossing the street after dinner to wait for my lifts.

And I get hit by a westbound heading Land Rover, lost consciousness, hitting the eastbound lane, run over by a tundra.

Both cars pulled over, clothes cut off me in the middle of the street.

I'm coming in and out of consciousness on the way to Cedar Sinai ICU.

You know, I woke up with my jaw protruding through the bottom of my mouth.

It was a compound fracture.

His whole side was just in pieces.

Seven broken ribs, collapsed lung, no teeth.

No teeth at all?

Well, the front three right here.

Damn.

Yeah, sorry.

I shouldn't say.

But yeah, it was,

oh, man, your whole world stops, you know?

Yeah.

How fast were the cars going, man?

That sounds crazy.

I think it's 30 on Melrose.

They 35, 40, both of those.

Holy

to get hit on both lanes.

That's like unheard of.

Yeah, well, hit into the eastbound lane from the westbound yeah so that's your your journey from there right repairing your face and then making sure your skin is great from there well yeah it was man it was a lot i mean i went back a month later just to find out more because uh i mean that was an intense night i went into um i think it was snake pit or another place down the street just wanted to know what happened and one of the waitresses came out looks like she saw a ghost

and i mean i was like she thought that that person passed away holy crap yeah oh so you didn't even know what happened?

Vaguely from the reports, it was just me.

Were you drunk?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Wow.

That is nuts.

So you went back to get some camera footage and find out exactly what happened.

Well, yeah, just to see if I could find out anything from that night, you know.

And by the way, that's the first time I've ever

admitted I was drinking before.

Oh,

I mean, I've never.

been asked, but hey, I'm all about transparency.

No, thanks for the truth.

I think that's an important detail.

yeah you know yeah we got to own up to uh what we do you know yeah absolutely yeah um so dude talk to me about what happens from there i'm sure you get hit with a fat medical bill and you're kind of feeling lost absolutely i luckily had emergency health insurance so that cut a little bit of it off but yeah it was a long road to recovery both physically and financially that's for sure how long did it take physically i'm sure years of surgeries right um i I had a surgery.

They put a titanium plate up top, one on bottom right here.

And then I got them removed eight months later, eight or nine months later.

And then that was like another recovery too, because, you know, your bone grows into that.

So physically, I mean, I severed a nerve right here on the left side of my face that

signals to your face to, you know, the muscle memory and movement.

And so one of my side, the side of my face like wouldn't show up, you know, during a happy moment.

And so I'd start to mitigate my smile.

and also my jaw was wired shut and my front teeth so like there's a big

you know insecurity component to it too outside of having your jaw you know an inch away from you know people people would look you in the eyes and then write down and then you know try to like look away and not make you feel uncomfortable but yeah just dealing with that was

man it was very it was interesting because nobody people don't you know it's very rare people survive accidents like that yeah so i had a an interesting you know like excitement.

I didn't know if that was from like a trauma response.

My parents came down.

So like my sisters, my brother parents, everybody was in and myself were in my 660 square foot apartment in North Hollywood.

Like, and so there was a lot of love, you know, I mean, it's very rare that we all get together with my sister and the families and stuff.

So that brought the fam together almost.

Yeah, it really did.

And so I,

you know, I figured I was just extremely grateful, still am, to be alive.

And so I didn't, I really, in a weird way, wasn't that bummed out.

I mean, my ankles, knees, shoulders, elbows were intact.

So I'd go on little walks once the sun came down so it wouldn't bake in the scarring and abrasions that I had, just to get a little circulation from head to toe.

Yeah.

And

just walk, I mean, that was the first initial literal steps of, you know, physical recovery.

But yeah, I would say three or four weeks later, I went and picked up a friend from the airport because I, you know, know, I'll talk about the product, but I stayed.

I mean, I was, you know, kind of horrified with my reflections.

So, and I couldn't afford the creams and serums that the doctors are recommending that I use to heal my scarring and

my skin.

I didn't have that much money.

I was bartending.

It was probably like 770 or 90, 150.

Just for the creams?

Yeah.

Wow.

Oh, I mean, the price points of some of these

and the volume.

We'll talk about that too.

But yeah, and then also on top of that, I just didn't trust the ingredients.

I've always been into ingredients.

Probably back

when I first got into that was in college.

And I had really bad cystic back acne and on my face as well.

And I was using, you know, claracel, noxima, Neutrogena, just because it was what I.

I thought I should use.

I mean, you're the heavily marketed brands.

I was what, 18, 19?

That's just what I used.

And then I remember I went to UC Berkeley on a baseball scholarship and I just on an off day, I walked out down to Shattuck and there are a lot of, you know, hippie herbal shops.

And I was giving a, or getting a hard time for my teammates about my hairline.

Oh, yeah.

And so I have a huge forehead.

I know that.

But I, and so I, I walked in and just asked this guy about like, you know, you know, do you have any supplements for hair?

And he like took me down this.

beautiful rabbit hole of herbs and traditional Chinese medicine and introduced me to horsetail, like this aqueous silica horsetail extract from,

what's the brand?

Flora, Flora.

They're still around.

But yeah, so I was 18 years old, just, you know, but like looking back, I was fascinated, but I started taking it, started paying attention to my ingredients, ditched all the Neutrogena and, you know, clean and clear noxima and just went to Dove bar soap.

Had five ingredients,

two different coconut surfactants.

So it looked good to me, but that triggered and signaled something into my brain.

Like, oh, plants seemed natural to me, seemed okay.

This is at 18 years old.

Wow.

And so from, so with my face, with uh, you know, dove and body, you know, I just, I saw clarity in my back, you know, in the locker room when you change and finally not getting roasted anymore, not getting roasted, man.

Teammates are the, yeah, they can be difficult, but uh, yeah, and so that makes you feel good.

And so, you pay attention to that feel, you know, and just want to, I was an interest of mine, and I definitely got a hard time.

I was the guy putting on uh, you know, sunscreen back when I thought sunscreen was good for you, but I was just taking care of myself, put on a little dove had a CoQ10 rosehip, you know, kind of extract night cream, putting on a little night cream, you know, it's, it's been staring me right in my face since, you know, I was 19, 20.

And then I found out about Bentonite clay.

I'm not sure if I bought it.

It was just in my cupboard.

My mom says I did from this place Country Sun in Palo Alto, but

I'm not sure how I was drawn to it, but I bought a little eight ounce little jar of Aztec healing clay, one ingredient, calcium betonite clay.

And I tried it out with apple cider vinegar and it has like this,

I mean, the microcirculation generated to the surface of the skin.

I mean, you're going to be very bright.

But the thing is, once that settles, your skin is glass.

I mean, it just removes a lot of dirt and oil from the pores as well as

cleanses your, you know, your...

largest organ of impurities, heavy metals, toxins.

And it was like my little secret weapon.

I would do it before weekends and stuff because, you know, it also really tightens up your skin and clears it up.

You look good, right?

And so I,

yeah, that was, I had to be 19 or 20.

I, every week since, man, what am I 42?

So 22 years, that's, I, yeah, I haven't gone more than two or three weeks ever without doing that.

Wow.

Without a clay mask.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Damn.

I used to use that one, the red branding.

Yeah.

I think they're located out here in Vegas.

I want to meet them.

Dude.

Yeah, I used to in high school.

I had terrible acne in high school.

Did you get put on Accutane?

No, I didn't.

Okay.

But I know people people who have.

That messed me up.

Yeah.

That was poisonous.

It's just,

man.

It's,

man, Accutane,

proactive, the side effects.

I had an employee that, you know, very similar situation.

And I was like, man, that's tough because he was

with the just the depression.

All your emotion, man.

And he's just like, well, what do you want to do?

You want to be depressed with acne or depressed without acne?

And I was like,

man, that's a tough spot to be in.

And so, and there are, you know, millions of people out there in the same spot.

I just firmly believe in plant medicine.

You know, I brought the little rosemary and aloe.

Those are kind of just my two little things starting off.

And then it led to beeswax, cacao butter, sea buckthorn oil, Clary Sage, finding out about chamomile, the different levels, Roman, German.

And then studying the locations and just getting the form, the plant, the medicine in its

closest to nature form, raw, cold pressed, organic, like beyond, like go to a different level.

This turned into a creative outlet, really, because I just had this routine of I moved everything out of my little bedroom and in my living room area that was just every, it's 660 square feet.

It made my bedroom, my lab.

I have pictures of that, but I just awesome, dude.

Yeah.

So get this.

So I went from

Aztec healing clay to the point where where I was trying to find a different source of it.

Yeah.

So I called Jason Eaton from greenclays.net.

He's now passed away.

Bless his heart.

But he was like my

guru.

I called him way too much, but he also, but I found out

just about Ross Sulclay, Kaolin, eyelight, merolinite, bentonite.

And I ordered them all.

I mean, they're very cheap and I would just play around with them and make my own little custom masks.

At that point, this was what, 2005, 2006.

I think I had kelp powdered by that.

But yeah, over time, I was tinkering away with this thing that I was doing every week that brought me so much.

It did, because I knew what I was getting every single time.

It gave me a lot of confidence, man.

I mean, I was in the entertainment industry.

So like every Sunday night, even with roommates, I kind of hit it, you know,

but

Yeah, every Sunday night before a week of auditions, I just knew what I was getting every single time with that.

And it was fun for me.

And then once the accident happened, I, you know, knew I had that in in my back pocket but i started tinkering because my jaw was wired shut so i couldn't get any nutrition in my body and i had the you know a little bit of knowledge about superfoods and traditional chinese medicine and just uh reducing inflammation getting toxins and impurities out of your system see i was going uh you know through monthly uh x-rays to see how the bone was growing back but i also had a ct scan you know i was on heavy antibiotics i was you know in a zombie-like state that i did not like and so i was big on sauna you know know, clearing my blood, cleansing my blood.

And I would go around town to Jing Herbs, George Lamerou, incredibly, incredibly

just influential in my recovery.

Sage Dammers over at Air One, Dragon Herbs, Ron T.

Garden Dragon Herbs, Crosby Taylor.

So just meeting with them, picking their brain on how to build myself back, you know, with my jaw wired shut.

And, you know, just going up.

But I would take notes and I made this recipe for my morning tonic that I would just put in a blender and put through a straw through this little corner of my mouth on the left side and some of those ingredients i experimented with into the mask because if it's that good internally i just felt it would be helpful topically as well believe me a lot of things didn't work but

the the things that did pearl powder ginseng colostrum i mean they are

just godsends to me.

I mean, you're seeing now, I could keep going and going.

That's the best skin I've seen, to be honest.

Thank you, man.

For real.

And it's cool to see you normalize it for men, too, because, like you said, you were getting made fun of growing up.

So was I for using acne washers and stuff.

And I think we should change that narrative that it's okay to do stuff like that.

Oh, absolutely.

What's wrong with taking care of yourself?

If anything, it shows a big sign of self-respect.

I love watching people with discipline and just a routine.

If self-care, skincare isn't part of your routine, that's okay.

But maybe just, you know, once a week or a couple of times a week, just exfoliate the dead skin cells and then see how you look after.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's my products or somebody else's.

I just, man, it's, I love feeling good.

I know what type of energy I'm giving to the world every time I leave my house.

So it's part of just a big like ceremonial.

You know, you wake up and I just have a lot of things, breath work, meditation.

Absolutely.

Talk to mom, coffee.

I just know, you know, it's about, you know, being consistent with your energy and who you are.

And that's part of it for me.

But yeah, I mean, as far as men in skincare, believe me, that was a hump that

it was tough because, you know, being an athlete

and just a guy in general, taking care of yourself is looked at a certain way sometimes.

Kind of feminine, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

And, but, I mean, and that's like leading up to the accident.

After the accident, I'm just like, I didn't care at all.

I mean, I'm just trying to heal myself.

And then people were asking, same people who saw me in the ICU, what are you doing?

Like, like legit double takes because outside of my teeth, the swelling had gone down.

My skin was like glass outside of the big chunky scar right here.

But the abrasions were gone three to four weeks later.

I was back on the runway for Macy's

first week of June.

Wow.

So the accident happened March 20th.

I booked a job in San Francisco that I didn't want to tell my agent about because I want to make that like an outside goal to make.

And yeah,

got the, you know, the teeth bonded, what, Thursday and whitened.

And

yeah, walked the runway Saturday.

Incredible.

Yeah, it was cool.

Dude, you've come a long way.

I can't even notice you've been in action, honestly.

Oh, thank you.

The fact you fixed that, I mean, that would have ruined a lot of people, but you took the opposite approach and was really proactive about it.

Thanks, man.

Yeah.

It, yeah, I'll never,

it's interesting.

Uh, like dealing with the fact that you'll never look the same, like not looking the same was tough for a little bit.

And then I just kind of, you know, it, it, it, it definitely changed.

I

started to look at life and things like that differently.

But that, you know, for about a year, you know, it was because you were making a living off of modeling, so that makes sense.

Yeah.

To lose that ability of how you looked, right?

Yeah, that was, yeah, that interestingly enough, yeah, I got heard it all the time.

Like, oh, you're never going to model again.

Are you going to sue and get money?

No, we didn't sue.

Even though my, you know, mailbox is full of lawyers, but

it's just the wrong thing to do, in my opinion.

That was my fault.

Wow.

Yeah, because you definitely could have sued, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A pedestrian has a right away, but I feel karma.

I'm a strong believer in that.

And I'm telling you, I wouldn't change a thing.

I would do it again for this type of like true elation day, having purpose.

I mean, I was 29, 30.

Yeah, I mean, I was working as an actor.

I'm living my dream, you know, you know, I have my days free working, you know, bartending, working at nights, you know, going to the farmer's market on Sunday.

I thought I was doing everything right, which I was, you know, taking care of myself.

But also, though, man, it's so beautiful how a power from above will throw you, you know, right on track.

You know, some type of outside energy will put you on track.

It's happened so many times in my life.

And so I'm just extremely grateful to be where I'm at and to have purpose and to have something, to have like a respected opinion on something that, oh, is so wrong to me.

And that's the cosmetic industry and what they're allowed to put in their products and what they're

passionately telling people to put on their face, their largest organ,

your biggest detoxifying organ.

You're going to rub in toxins during that detoxifying process, you know, effectively disrupting your dermis.

I mean, I'm not saying it's instant, but if it's something you're doing every single day, there's a study that women leave the house on average with 160 or above government-recognized carcinogens daily.

Holy crap.

Through hairspray, makeup, lipstick, I mean, deodorant, perfume.

It's unnecessary.

No, and so, but, but there are natural options.

I mean,

just from a skincare standpoint, Osea, like a pioneer in the game, eminence first from Hungary, I believe, you know, organic skincare.

Why not?

I mean, emulsifiers, right?

Surfactants, fragrance, preservatives, thickeners, stabilizers, whatever it is, you can get it from nature even better.

And it serves your skin.

I'm seeing beef tallow now.

Yeah.

I'll get this.

So that was, that was originally in my night cream.

And at that stage, it was my third product.

And at that stage, we like were big on the retail push, get into whole foods it was like a big goal of mine but they have like they have this list of ingredients that they want and so i had emu and tallu tallow in my night cream at that time yeah emu oil and tallow but uh they wouldn't allow it and so that that took that out of the formula i had tallow in there and i i still love it i may make another product with it but respect to the people that are putting it in there now yeah i wonder why they banned it that's weird yeah i wonder if it's still banned yeah i wonder because now i see it everywhere but that's interesting in whole foods nice like in Speaker products.

Yeah.

I mean, believe me, Whole Foods is with all the respect, Whole Foods.

It's like, you know, it's not.

I mean,

that's different now.

Much higher standards.

Now, what about lotion?

Is there ever a need for that?

Lotion?

Yeah.

Oh, hydration.

Body lotion.

Oh, absolutely.

But not the typical ones, right?

Oh, man.

You look at ingredient decks these days and I'm just disgusted.

I want to talk to the formulators.

I mean, when you have a, when you have a, like a creative, right?

And you're highlighting, like the first two are highlighting the new carbon packaging.

When you're highlighting the packaging improvements that you've made, rather than the ingredient.

How about take a look at the fact that you have propanediol, propylene glycol as your second ingredient?

What is that?

Third glycerin, it's a, I mean,

it's a surfactant,

but it's toxic.

And as that, and that, and you're having that as your second ingredient, and then followed by glycerin, butylene glycol,

benzyl alcohol, three different types of alcohol, four preservatives, potassium sorbate, phenoxyethanol, sodium benzoate, and BHT.

And another product, the same brand, and it's, I'm telling you, one ounce, $200.

In a different product, same brand had,

didn't have the BHT, but had Blue One.

Look up Blue One.

Blue One is one of the, I mean, it was littered with government-recognized carcinogens.

Oh, my God.

And people don't know that.

This is a brand that it has a founder story too, which is,

I mean, yeah, I just, I wonder about that, if that, that dude's dream was to have this.

I'm not going to mention the name, but like,

and that's just,

I wonder if it's purely margins, like just

these ingredients are cheap.

Yeah, and that, so here's an example, right?

Our body lotion, uh, I used to sell for $79.

This is $31

at the door to make this bottle in pump, $2.82.

The bottle in pump, I I promise you, is more expensive than that entire formula for that $200.

Holy crap.

At their volume, I would say it is.

I mean, just this bottle and pump.

I mean, I'm putting Brazilian acai butter in here.

Andoroba, Prakashi, Australian, organic Australian sandalwood.

It's like $1,200 for

like

four ounces or something.

Damn.

There's a big reason.

I don't understand it, but

sometimes they'll litter in some unorganic apricot kernel seed oil.

I mean, that's at their volume, $5 a gallon, maybe unorganic, but I'm saying there's pesticides involved there.

You're taking away the life of the plant and it's not in its purest, most medicinal form, in my opinion.

And so, yeah, primrose oil, I just, I can't relate to that.

That's my opinion.

If I was that, like, just money, just start, just focused only on money.

This thing brought me back.

I mean, the clay mask brought me back.

And then I got people to pay attention to my little theories.

Your skin's your largest organ.

You should treat it like another mouth.

And, you know, you see, now I have this in my hand.

You know,

it's edible.

You can eat it?

Yeah.

Wow.

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And here's the episode, guys.

That's cool.

I've never seen a

damn.

And it actually, dude, seriously, try this.

You just ate lotion?

Hey, seriously, try this.

Dude, are you sure?

Yeah, try it.

Dude, it's beeswax, lemongrass.

Organic.

Beeswax, lemongrass, vanilla.

This is so good.

Aloe vera, cacao butter.

I mean, these are things you would eat.

I just ate lotion.

But that's the thing.

It's that clean.

My brain is saying not to, but yeah, it actually tastes.

I mean, there's lemongrass, vanilla, beeswax, cacao butter, aloe, Prakashi, andarova, Brazilian acai butter.

That's it.

Crazy.

That's it.

Preserved by the bottle, not by toxins.

Like we're using really good violet glass from the Netherlands.

It's very expensive, but the thing is, I can authenticate, you know, I can just, it's preserved by the bottle, not by toxins.

It's not letting in artificial light.

It's letting in the only, only the good you've erased to protect the bioactivity of the raw ingredients in the formula and the cold-pressed organic oils.

And yeah.

So if you see somebody using Maroon glass, like that's not somebody who cares.

So we talked about lotion.

Let's talk about deodorants.

I used to use the big brands.

And I just realized a lot of them aren't really healthy.

Yeah.

It's, oh, yeah.

The aluminum is,

you know, it's, you're disrupting a natural process.

We are supposed to sweat.

This is a sweat.

This is like this behind the knees, behind the elbows.

We have glands that are supposed to.

you know, detox our body.

When you're telling your body to shut down that process, you're throwing your system out of whack.

And outside of that, you're rubbing in, you know, daily government-recognized carcinogens.

Aluminum was, I believe, tied to Sheryl Crowe's breast cancer.

I mean, it's well, it's, I believe.

So, is the trick not to use any deodorant or just use natural deodorants?

If, uh, so if I were, I mean, I would recommend, let's see, primarily pure as a good one.

Okay.

Primally pure as a good one.

Uh, we're making one right now.

If I don't know, I go right into the DIY, but no, there's a, you know, baking soda, uh, arrowhead root, uh,

see, kale and clay.

You really can make, I mean, just melt it down in a cast iron pan.

You know, there's a little bit of a hippie that way, you know, scent it the way you want, and then test it out, trial and error, see how that works.

Guarantee it does.

Got it.

Baking soda, arrowhead.

I mean, obviously, it's just for the creators out there that want to do some DIY stuff.

If not, primely pure as grape, yeah, deodorant, anything you're doing daily, you know, shampoos, hair care, hair products, um, fragrance number one culprit i would say um

just man just just you're really going to do yourself and your health and your longevity a favor by taking a look at your ingredients the things just grab and turn take a look at it they have a uh think dirty um is an app where you can scan the upc code and get a zero to 10 rating on the cleanliness of the product there are a couple other apps too i think it's is it posha i I forget, but that's good, but a lot of people don't know about it.

And believe me, the big boys don't want them to find out.

you see the thing about it man is like when i'm breaking down these ingredients is like somebody signed off on that it's you know they have a level you know red orange yellow green you know all like they it's crystal clear they know they're knowingly signing off and of course it's it's profit man but i but like that it's dishonest it's pure deception to me

And it's a shame from both points of view because from a consumer point of view, I used to try to save money on body wash, on shampoo and stuff, but you get what you pay for.

you get what you pay for so when i was buying two dollar shampoo i was thinking in my head i'm saving money but in the long run it's harming my health i'm actually probably spending more money right i mean the thing and then you turn it around water just a thickener fragrance make it smell good throw in a little surfactant and uh foaming agent and that now you're good let's see how cheap we can make it you know yeah

and then high fiving in the boardroom i just man i i just don't agree with that philosophy i'm not trying to run it up i want to know i want people to know what we're about, you know, like this is me.

This is, this is my idea.

Every order that comes out, it's someone, you know, believing in that.

It's, I mean, it's a marathon.

Believe me, I know we're going up against a lot, and, but people are responding.

Yeah.

And this is something I, I just,

it's crazy, dude.

I thought I'd be a baseball player, actor.

This is right where I'm supposed to be.

Wow.

You know, I just, because number one, I, it's cool that like people, it's, um, you know, it's validating, you know, to this day, but like you're helping a lot of people.

Olivia, this, I spoke once in LA.

I saw the worst cystic acne.

I'll pull it up for you.

Yeah.

Case that I've ever seen.

I dropped a photo on this.

Yeah.

And

now she works for, I mean, we got a conference in May.

She, her whole,

everything changed.

Like, she's just.

through the roof, vibrant.

She's in a ton of our ads.

It's just, but there, we have countless stories of that.

I mean, people take the time to, I mean, paragraphs, full stories in our reviews.

Like,

it's magic, man.

I'm telling you, I know, but I, thank you.

I just, I love this.

There's so much more that we can do.

It's just, whether it's mine or others, but just pay attention to the stuff that you're using.

May Lindstrom, Ocea, Amri Gianni.

These are good ones.

These are good ones.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

What about native?

What do you think of native?

Yeah,

little on the deception side, in my opinion.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I need to change it up.

But not bad.

This is coming for,

I'm a weirdo with this stuff.

Okay.

Not horrible.

Not horrible.

Just a couple ingredients that don't have to be there on specifically what was.

I used their body wash and their shampoo and conditioner.

Okay.

So I should switch it up then.

I think it was a deodorant that I looked at.

Oh, I use their deodorant too, actually.

It's not that bad.

I'm just comparing it to what I would do.

It's tough because you see that little one.

You're like, yeah.

Well, if you can't pronounce it, then that's what they say, right?

Yeah.

Look it up, though.

Like, also, man, PubMed studies, powerful.

Look up the ingredients.

Of course, they're impossible to spell, but take the time.

Just look up everything.

It's your body.

It's your largest organ.

It's going to be absorbed into your bloodstream within seconds.

You do that over time every day.

That's just minimizing your longevity.

I think it's accelerating the aging process personally.

And I just, just, I think it puts you in a funk.

You hear, you know, we were talking about

Accutane

proactive and just you're disrupting the microbiome with you just drying everything out, killing everything.

Yeah.

And disrupting your gut in the process.

Like, what are we doing here?

Like, who, who takes pride in that?

Who was the one that, like, just, man, who's signing off on this stuff?

Yeah, it's.

And it gets even deeper, right?

Because now we're exploring tap water and the dangers of showering and bathing and going to pools and stuff.

So I know we were talking about your home filter.

Yeah.

And you got a shower filter.

Yeah, I have a home and shower filter from Aquasana.

Mito Life has a really good one that I think I may be switching over to.

But yes, it's very important to get a

shower filter, especially because of the, you know, heavy metals, fluoride or chlorine and just the toxins in common tap water.

And

we were also talking about how, you know, the steam room.

Same thing there.

Like those molecules expand and you're just absorbing while your pores are completely exposed and open.

I just,

I hope, you know, steam rooms are filtering their water.

It's ironic because people go in steam rooms thinking they're going to get better and healthier and they're, you know, improving their health, but they're just absorbing tap water with chlorine and who knows what else.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the dry sauna specifically because of that now.

but yeah i mean we were talking about i i've gone into steam rooms i thought i mean yeah you it's like sounds good you leave there

never really feeling

great great like a sauna electric like i've had to take light jogs to my car so many times because of clarity you got ideas go right down yeah i love those default saunas man yeah

um

What other health things should we cover?

Face masks.

I feel like a lot of the cheap face masks have like weird chemicals in them too.

The face mask.

Oh, the ones that just sit on your face.

Yeah, the ones that like Target that you buy for like two bucks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ditch those.

I would

just, the whole idea, whether it's mine or someone else, I just explore clays.

I mean, there's a philosophy that animals would roll around in mud and then lay out in the sun when they get sick and that, you know, to help heal themselves.

I do that almost every day, you know, in my morning sun with the coffee.

I mean, I use the mask

a lot, but only, you know, probably probably recommend one to three times a week.

But I mean, it's just part of my routine, you know, just

kind of just the, you know, capillary constriction, exfoliating, just opens up the tension around the T-zone, eye area.

I just feel awake and, you know, ready.

But

yeah, I would stay away from those sheet masks

unless you can show me a clean one that is

effective.

But I personally, I would just prefer, you know, exfoliation through either a scrub or a mask or do some type of uh maybe a laser treatment or some microneedling yeah for skin health so with acne does the clay mask help for acne and acne scars yeah yeah we've had uh yeah before we have a little carousel testimonial so i mean it works it's effective wow oh yeah i mean there are four clays in there we have rasul kaolin eyelight and bentonite combined with 10 vitamin c pearl powder American ginseng, organic kelp powder, and first four-hour milking grass-fed colostrum, that they're still finding out the complexities of how dynamic that ingredient is.

Not just mine, I mean, colostrum in general, IgF-1 growth factor components.

So like when you combine that with the vitamin C and the mineralizing capabilities of the clay mask, and then you're pulling all that out and reintroducing minerals that you lose as you age, it's just.

Yeah, it's fascinating to me because

I like retro, I'll retroactively finding out more and more about just how dynamic the minerals.

And, you know, because I, I learned a lot on the go during this process.

I'll keep it real.

Like, I,

I, um, when I recovered from this, I wanted to work for Bulletproof.

So I troubleshooted Dave Asprey's email address in an attempt to contact him because I want to thank him.

I never drank coffee before.

And in my recovery, I mean, that was a little part of my motivation.

But the main thing was I started like watching Bulletproof and found out about Bulletproof and his non-negotiable attention to detail with purity of ingredients, single heirloom, high elevation grown coffee beans, explaining how important it is to him.

But it makes sense.

And so,

yeah, I did, you know, found out the contact form, info bulletproof exec, Dave Asprey, right?

D.aspury, Dave.asprey.

Yeah.

David, one of those went through, copy-pasted the same email, just going, hey, man, you know,

I, you know, never drank coffee before,

honey, hearing about Bulletproof, but found out about you guys, you know, during a before, you know, me and I see you and after and like Men's Health magazine, because I got back in the industry and was working more than I did before, actually.

But I was like, thank you, man.

You got me back on my thing.

And well, anyway, one of those went through and he brought me on as an ambassador.

So I was getting the products for free, just taking photos with

like Bulletproof products in my little apartment.

And I guess they started to like, I don't know, pay attention to like find out more about my story because they had me, they invited me on a Bulletproof Radio a couple months later nice and we never talked about skincare uh beforehand but the last like 15 minutes he asked what i did for my skin and luckily started flowing on the ingredients after that aired february 1st 2014 like every time i refresh i think i gave out my my personal email address no website nothing like yeah people just want to know where they were showing so much love and then also like want to know where they could buy the masks.

So get this.

So I, that's excitement, pure adrenaline, right?

And so like, I had to come up with a cost, didn't know my cost of goods, went over to Whole Foods, you know, those little snapshot containers that they do for olive oil and peanut butter, almond butter, grabbed a big stack of 50 and 50 of the lids, brought them up to the register manager, comes up.

Sorry, sir, we don't sell those.

I go, dude, I mean, please, I've explained it to him.

He gave me a price, 15 cents each.

I go, that was my packaging.

And then I, you know, came up with the name.

It was going to be Golden Glow.

No W, both G's capitalized all one word, but man, I'm so glad I didn't go that route.

Golden Glow.

Would have segmented some people.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, but I just love the glow it gives you.

But so we went with Alatura.

It's Latin for feeding and nourishing, your skin being your largest organ, want to treat it like another mouth.

And so we got that up, alatura naturals.com on Shopify.

My buddy was working for Netgear at the time and just helping me set this up, one product.

When the order, like, come on, it wasn't a lot, but when an order came in, like two, three a day or whatever, just I was able to quit my bartending job.

At that time, I booked an Oak Lee global campaign which you know gave me a little bit more money Dave

and I sat down came to an agreement

and so yeah two months later we had that mask tightened up like like how it looks now on his website so that's how I acquired you know my customer and then they took the product off the site and so I'm like oh I mean because he was going only bulletproof branding

and so but that was tough man you know you lost some revenue well yeah I mean I didn't even know what

uh yeah probably, well, definitely, but this is year one.

And so luckily people came.

I only had one product at that time.

By that time, I was working on my moisturizer.

I'm telling you, this is a trip to just like full circle.

I mean, just,

but yeah, it just all happened as it should have, you know, in the timing wise.

Like, I wasn't ready for a big push.

Anyways, just one product.

Oh, and now we got to, dude, I'm telling you, up until, up until 2018,

we were just, oh man just all out of the house going to the post office every day besides Sunday waiting in line then finding out about shipping easy so you could print out the labels I was writing to and from slips I used to love shipping easy when I did e-commerce yeah it just oh come a long way man uh why'd you make yellow and what is that is uh time oh no yeah it's it's a rosemary oh rosemary Time's amazing too yeah no I just I brought these just because just for like the natural aspect there is so much medicine in plants man I mean, Clary Sage, I was talking about chamomile, echinacea.

A lot of pharmaceutical medicine comes from derivatives of plants.

And I just think if we get back closer to that raw, pure form, untouched form of plant medicine, obviously make it stable, but keep it as close to its natural elements and see what it does for you.

I mean, it's fascinating how much more life it brings to the products, meaning like essential oils, aroma.

Also, it has its benefits.

You put a little lavender in your pillow before you go to bed, you're going to sleep better.

Really?

Yeah.

I need to try that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go with the Whole Foods, get the organic lavender, just do a couple sprinkles on your pillow.

They say nature is healing.

So it makes healing.

Oh, man.

Hey, so

my thing is,

I just, I really want to.

So I love traveling, but and you know, you know, I bring my products with me and I'm like, why not just explore it?

You know, just recently went to Egypt, Italy, Greece, Peru,

Jordan.

At Jordan, I'm going down there, you know, in the Dead Sea, the largest skincare manufacturer in Jordan.

You know, I mean, you've seen all the Dead Sea masks, muds.

I walk in there, huge language barrier, whatever.

I have like my clay mask, luckily with me.

And so we were breaking it down.

I'm like, I'm looking to make a body scrub with your salts.

And I started explaining to him just three different particle sizes with, do you have the dried mud?

And we started formulating a product.

I made a table while I I was there for four hours wow yet like just little things and just happen everywhere I go when I went to Italy just google I mean Florence the leather capital of the world arguably Tuscany Ecuador

up there as well but man

found a manufacturer within walking distance of my hotel walked in it was a showroom no meeting nothing yeah Again, the language barrier, but I had my design file for my bag, but we couldn't find a good leather source.

And while I was there, just off the cuff, just started going back and forth, sat down with him him for an hour he put me in touch with our consultant in nas and uh yeah seven months later we had our uh travel pouch in the store yeah you got it i so what i what i mean by this is like i it's just what i'm supposed to do yeah i mean and i get so much uh excitement out of it and you get to connect with another culture and learn more about them and find out about their medicine you know mastic from greece oh there's so many beautiful uh plants uh from peru that i got that i want to i want to make a product called curandera, means the healer.

So it's like I'm thinking like something like the clay mask, but not that you don't like with the mask, you have to mix and add like water.

Yeah, you know, apple cider vinegar or water.

But yeah, I want to make some of pre-made just on the run, curandera with all the elements of the medicine from my favorite place.

Yeah.

And then,

you know, give back to them

and donate.

And then, you know, dream scenario down the road, open up, you know, Alitzer.

Well, EU is already in the works.

Latin America, UAE, why not?

I just, it comes down to bodies, you know, I just, it's me, Manuel, and Lucas.

And

I just, you know, you see, but it's all right, though.

It's all right.

I mean, it's just.

You got a lean team.

What's that?

You got a lean team, just the three of you.

Very lean team.

But I just.

What more do you want?

I mean, obvious, I mean, I have goals for this and just things that I want to reach.

I'm never satisfied, but so I don't want to like make it like that, but I, I'm very grateful where we're at.

I can't trust the team.

Can't wait to see where you guys take this thing.

I'm going to use this.

I'm going to send you a photo of me in the mask tonight.

Right on?

I can't wait.

I got some vinegar, but I need to get a sink and a shower filter because I am scared to use tap water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Get in the sauna as often as you can too.

Okay.

So you're sweating that whatever it is.

Oh, yeah.

Huge fan of the sauna.

Okay.

I take a little niacin before, and it brings a lot of the impurities and toxins to the surface.

So when the temperature starts to rise, it just starts flowing.

Niacin?

Niacin.

Yeah.

If you would, I would recommend starting small.

Okay.

They have like non-flush and full-flush.

I like the full flush.

I mean, maybe going at night so you can sleep it off because you can be like bright red.

Got it.

But I mean, it's just, yeah, the microcirculation, excreting impurities and toxins.

I just, yeah, it makes, makes it feel really good.

I love that you found your passion, man.

And the fact that you're monetizing, it's even better.

That's when you're, it's rare to be able to do both, you know.

I know.

That's why I'm grateful.

I appreciate you saying absolutely.

Andy, anything you want to close off with our promote man?

Um,

no, just I'm very grateful to have found my purpose and to be able to provide value to other people truly, though, and to help people feel better about what they see in the mirror.

That's my why.

Awesome.

Well, man, well, guys, check out Altura.

We'll link the site below.

I'm going to use some stuff tonight and post on my Instagram.

Stay tuned for that.

Peace.