The Science Of Beautiful Skin: Transformative Benefits Of GH K-Cu Peptides

Welcome to the summit and introduction to Vitali Skincare 0:00

Hello, ladies. Welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit 3.0. Our third year at it. I am still your host, Dr. Sharon Stills, but we have all new interviews, all new information to help you on your hormonal journey. And today we got like girlfriend our I love when I go to people and we're talking about skin which is such an important topic. We talk about hormones and when we talk about liver and we talk about bile and we talk about lymph and we talk about all these medical things, but our skin is our largest alimentary organ.

And not only does it need to be healthy, but come on, we're women. We want it to look good too. And so I've got these ladies here today with me who've got the solution for that. So I have Dr. Suzanne and I have Ms. Debbie Barber, and they are from Vitali Skincare. They are sponsors of the summit, which I am just thrilled about. Part of why I love doing summits, there's many reasons, but one of them is that I get to meet these fantastic people who have these fantastic products and these fantastic stories, and I get to learn along right with you all.

So welcome to the summit. I am thrilled to have you here. This is going to be a great conversation. I feel like everyone should go like grab a cup of tea and like the girl friend hour So thank you for being here, ladies. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. So I'd love for you each just to briefly introduce yourself. Just so we know who is who. And, and Miss Debbie, I want you to tell your story because. So I always talk about menopause as being your sacred second act.

I think we actually get a third act, too. talking about longevity, but you are like a living inspiration because you actually came out of retirement and started this whole business at the lovely young age of 64. So please introduce yourself and tell us your story, because I know that's just going to inspire everyone. absolutely. It is very exciting. I, retired when I was 64. I'd been in marketing, you know, for 37 years, very wonderful, successful career, and decided to take some time to help my daughter with her grandchildren, with my grandchildren.

They're my children. And, that lasted about two years, because I was so inspired by what this beautiful blue

Debbie's retirement comeback and the origin of the product line 2:51

molecule peptide, did that I had to share it. And the story is, I was very fortunate that Dr. Suzanne was my physician, and she had already been making so many helpful changes in my health, you know, with peptides. And one day I was in her office and I said, okay, what do you have for crappy skin? And I had no idea what she would say. But she says, well, I can tell you what I use. And I'm like, please. And she said, GHK-CU I will write you a prescription. You can get it through the compound pharmacy.

And so I use that for a couple of months and saw something different. You know, I do use a lot of very high quality top brand things, trying to work on crappy skin, fine lines, this copper peptide, it was different. My face felt different. It just it's like touching my face. After a few weeks, I could feel it was, you know, more hydrated. The line started smoothing out. It was truly something very different and I could tell that it was healthier. The skin felt healthier. So long story short, I discovered I was one of the few people that knew about this in my group.

Like my my neighbors, my tennis girls. No one knew about copper peptides. And so I thought, I've got to share this. So, within six, seven months, we worked with an organic chemist and developed our first three products the eye cream, a serum, and a moisturizer. Now we have seven that we've worked through. What's so great is all the feedback from the first users has helped make the products better. It's like dream with me about what these products can be. What do you want? And you know someone? We have to have a beautiful blue body cream.

You know, that's rich with the copper peptides and other moisturizing, natural ingredients. So we did that and then we developed work to develop some. All because one of the things in aging, your skin does get dry. And I know we're going to talk about how much it dries out and thins. So, we developed formulas for, for all that help that and then a cleanser to help remove the dead skin cells and all of this. I felt like I just had this team of people. Well, I've really need this. And that's really have a tally.

here I am, 68 and in this second career and loving it. Wow. So that. Is scary. So inspiring. And your skin is beautiful, by the way. It really works. It really. Works. You do not like. So yeah I'm using it too, but you don't look 68. And so Dr. Suzanne, what is your role in this? And I know you're a GHK-CU expert, so I'd love just to, if you can educate the listeners a little so they understand exactly what it is we're talking about and why it's so special and why Debbie looks, you know, like her skin is 40 and not 60.

Sure. Right. So GHK-CU is a peptide. This is a fragment of a protein. So that means that it's available. Your body naturally makes it. And as we age this protein or peptide which is a small peptide, it's only three amino acids long. Most proteins are 150 amino acids long. This is tiny, tiny, tiny. But it packs a big punch because of how it works. And so it is a copper key later. That means it grabs on to copper and copper. So important in the way our body, makes collagen. And so we thought that that was the only way it worked initially.

And then, the Broad Institute discovered that it actually gets into the cell and change the expression of your DNA to be more youthful. So this is very exciting. We're actually doing some really healthy things for our skin. And it works on all the cells of your body, but primarily because you're applying it topically. It's going to work on, the cells of your skin. So this is very exciting. We can see a lot of changes. People will see changes in their scars. They'll see changes in their hair, in their eyelashes, in their eyebrows.

and so, we love this product, particularly because of how it works. on skin, on hair. It makes the skin more what we call cuboid or which is a shape of the the cells. Those cells become more, more, stem like. So we have stem cells in all the organs of our body for continued repair. And as we age, our body loses those stem cells because of all the repair they've had to do. And we're not replacing them as quickly. So it makes those stem cells less able to do their job of repair. And something like GHK-CU comes along, changes the DNA of those stem cells

What GHK-CU is and how copper peptides support skin repair 7:50

so that they are better able to help us with repair. So as our daily exposure to environment, to, all the toxins in the air and in our water and in our and the sun exposure, all this sort of things, it's, and then the toxins in our, in our sunscreens, even, it's wonderful to have something like GHK-CU which is natural to our bodies to help with repair. I think Debbie's done an amazing job with finding different things that play in together, making the GHK-CU even more effective, making it enter the cells, and then also making a very clean product that is organic as much as possible, that doesn't have any perfumes or dyes or anything like that that's going to be toxic or add to your toxic load.

So I try. I love this product and I'm happy to be part of the team. so I always have patients at like, oh, my arms are creepy or my legs are creepy. And so, you, you know, send me something to use, which I've been loving, but I've just been putting it on my face, like, can. So are you having people put the cream like, all over the body, wherever they're having? She's sticking her head. Yes. So I look like. Absolutely. They're my patients. I have, use it on their face, on their decolletage, on the backs of their hands and their forearms.

We get the most sun exposure, and then the tops of our knees where we get additional sun exposure. Those that creepy skin occurs on the tops of the knees as well. We also use it in our clients for who are having problems with hair loss or thinning. And if we, we use it as part of our protocol for hair restoration. Well, so I just need to be like bathing in this. Well it's wonderful. Also, the place that I. The women. I mean, if you think about playing tennis, you see the creepy skin in the tennis dress, and that's where I, you know, other than the face.

I started using it on this upper arm in our arms. And by using the serum and then the body cream and then exfoliating really well a couple of times a week, it's really important to, you know, get the dead skin cells off. I saw it, and I have a before and after on the website of my arms before and after using this product. Yeah. Okay. So let's let's step back a second and just kind of, you know, what is your both of you who everyone's take the question are both of you can answer. You know, what is your viewpoint like.

What are the things menopausal women should be doing to have the best skincare routine and to protect their skin and to delay wrinkles and the creepiness like take me through like A through B through C through D3. However many steps you know that you think are important for overall skincare, health. Well, I think we, we learned from our natural perfec predecessors that the gut is the most important place to start, and so I'm sure you have a vast amount of knowledge that's way beyond mine. And I'm catching up with you hopefully at some point.

So, that's where we start with everyone as they age. And in trying to make sure that we are maintaining that intestinal barrier, that we're improving the, bacterial content so that we have more of the good bugs and less of the bad bugs. Certainly we're doing things like fiber, like butyrate. We're doing all as many natural things as we can do, changing people's diets to a less toxic load. So they're not being exposed to so many problems limiting seed oils, that sort of thing, so that the patients are really getting what they need.

intestinal. And then nutritionally in general, we want vitamin C. we do want some copper, but most of the time we're getting that from our diet pretty, extensively from diet. That's pretty easy to get. And so, those are things that we're always going to be doing decreasing inflammatory load, decreasing. you know, I am a big fan of going outside and getting sun exposure. So this is kind of counter intuitive or counter to the culture in general about sun exposure. I do think we need some sun exposure, for creating vitamin D, etc..

And so for all of those reasons, I do encourage people to get outside, not for hours and hours and hours in Aruba, but because of the, excessive exposure. Everything is Goldilocks. You want to find that window that works for you of of, not too much and not too little. And we typically will say about 20 minutes of sun exposure. the, generally keeping your toxic load low. And I'm sure you've had other guests who've expressed all of those things. But all of this is really important because if you're continuing to, to have intestinal dysbiosis or you're continuing to have toxic exposure, none of these things are going to work.

You need to make sure you're drinking plenty of water, limiting your alcohol intake, because all of those are going to be dehydrating, and increasing your toxic load. So all that's really important before we even talk about doing something like, GKE and, I am grateful for my experience with my naturopathy fellows. I that was not what I was expecting you to say, but I'm like, yeah, I know you. Say why I'm so fortunate to have her as a partner. I love it, I love it, I love it because that's so true.

And the skin truly is, you know, the expression of what's going on inside. So once we have all those and you, like, nail them, all those really important factors dialed in which

Menopause, collagen loss, and the core skincare routine 13:42

ladies, you're going to hear over and over from different perspectives even you're going because of the stress management. Yeah. Yeah, I found myself. So then then what? Like are the the products you have maybe take us through them. like, you know, I want to make sure I'm doing my skincare right. Well and that I, I spend one of the things I am answering every day, you know, hundreds of notes, people wanting to be sure. And I, I love that so many people from our doctor Talks program earlier, they loved it and they wanted to be sure they were doing it right.

And just like you said, I can tell they really care and they're going to be the best users because they they care that now I want to know, do I use this first or do I how do I use this? How do I put it on? How to which fingers do I use to put on eye cream. So it's wonderful. one of the things that I think it's important as we, we know that our skin, ages because the loss of estrogen and progesterone and, you know, the hormone changes. And one of the things that's interesting we use we lose. And collagen is one of the big contributors to the health and beauty and firmness and structure of the skin.

Losing that is what helps age and 1%. We lose 1% per year pre menopause, 30%. During the five years of menopause we use Louis lose 30% of our collagen and then 2% every year after. So that's really dramatic. I mean that that's a big drop. And so we know that is one of the collagen is what helps keep your skin, you know, smooth, beautiful, hydrated. it helps bring moisture to the skin. So we have to replace it. We also have g k naturally occurring and we lose it. The g k declines by 60% from age 20 to 60.

So we need to just as we replace estrogen, we need to replace that GHQ. And so that's what's so beautiful about being able to apply it topically. And we and we have a beautiful the tagline has created a beautiful very high concentrations concentrated serum with 3% GHQ copper peptide. And just to compare in the market, out in the general market, the brands that carry it, it's usually 0.5 to 1%. So, you know, you'll hear a lot of people say, oh, this has copper peptides. And you will know by the color, and doctor stills, you know, the color is dark blue, dark, dark, dark, beautiful blue on the serum.

and we have a 3%, which is a med grade. It's a very strong concentration and then a 2%. And a lot of people start with the 2%. and that is, that will start immediately building that collagen and elastin. it helps protect your skin from free radicals. That's another, thing, the loss of estrogen. it estrogen helps protect you, helps from oxidation. and, Doctor Suzanne, you may want to talk a little bit more about that because I've been studying that and losing it. It really it does a lot of things to you, but just, you know, the oxidation free radicals and that protection is gone.

So we need to replace it. So by using topically a serum that's a really high concentration. You are protecting your skin when you go out in the sun for that 10 to 20 minutes I use it under sunscreen all the time. Even when I go on my early walk before nine, I put on the serum. I just I feel like it's protecting me. and then the other products, eye cream, because you get a lot of fine lines with that loss of collagen and elastin. And so we developed, an eye cream that is a beautiful blue, very gentle.

and it, it has really proven to smooth out the lines. And so many customers, have shared that they're increasing their eyelash thickness, and you can put it on your eyebrows and it. Well, I used to use lattes, which there's some things about it that I didn't like. And now I just, I have really increased my eyebrows by just putting the serum and the more, eye cream on it. and then, of course, I, as I shared earlier, we had customers say we really need a body cream. I want to, you know, they'd say things like what you shared.

I want to bathe in this. So we develop a body cream, and the body cream has AQ, but it's formulated with shea butter and wonderful rosemary oil, which actually helps with, Oh, that horrible word. I'm sorry that we get on our legs. Cellulite. Thank you. Yeah. Cellulite. I can't believe the horrible word cellulite. It is. It has scientifically been proven to help, the appearance of cellulite. So we have rosemary oil in there. Shea butter. you know, wonderful. we have squalane oil, which is a hydrator and protects your skin.

It's a natural, organic or several oils. so. And then a moisturizer. I think we talked about, a moisturizer going on, after the serum. So it's a really simple protocol. doctor S told me she loved that. She said I don't have time, you know, to deal with, you know, 10 or 12 products. So she's talked about how she likes the simplicity of this product line. Can you, is there any way you can get too much GHQ. Can you overdo it or. Because I'm like thinking I just want to like swim in it. So is there you know, is there too much sometimes you know we think more is better but it's not always so I'm curious okay.

Theoretically, yeah. Theoretically. You can take too much GHQ. I haven't ever seen anyone take too much. mostly that was when we were getting the injectable version. so the if the topical versus a little more difficult, the easiest way to tell if you've taken too much and it's simple, you just, stop using it temporarily is the Luna's of your fingernails. So there's little the little rounded area in your fingernail instead of being a nice pink color, will instead turn blue. Okay. That's good. And then you've taken too much, so you just don't use it for a few weeks and then wait till your nail beds, your Luna's turn back to clear, and then you go back to using it.

But less often. But for in four years, I've never had anyone report that. Yeah. I was going to ask so can you tell us Doctor Suzanne like your little routine. What, what do you do. Sure, sure. So I use the the squalene oil which they call the hydration boost. I use that for a, for I use it actually to take makeup off and then wash my face with water after that. Then I apply the, the serum, the eye cream, and then the moisturizer on top of that around the eyes. You're using just your little third finger so that it's lightly, applied there.

And then if I'm feeling like my skin's a little bit dry for whatever reason, then I'll put a little hydration boost on top. The hydration boost actually helps the GPC to go into the cells that penetrate the cells.

How to use the products and what they help with 21:38

And so that's why you may want to use that hydration boost. on top of the three, it, it just to help it penetrate the cells. Interesting. And then it works. As a primer. Excuse me. I'm just it works is a great primer under any foundation or makeup because it just it just makes it go on so smooth. So that's why we call it hydration boost and primer. But go ahead and actually put that on first. And then you can put it on last as well. Am I understanding that correctly. Yes. And then is there a special way like does it matter how you rub it on or if you're doing it down or up.

any advice on that that. We. I mean like you said, you use the ring finger because it has the lightest touch on the eye cream. But as far as the serum that you can just take the serum and take two squirts and just. Yes, just up in an upward. Yeah. Yeah, she's demonstrating it really well. Light touch. And it absorbs really well. I mean you'll see it absorb. And one of the biggest things that that people need is patience. Let it absorb a minute and then add the moisturizer if you can. And I just do some squats or something like that for a minute or brush my teeth, so that the serum absorbs before I put the moisturizer on, it's just a better you get more from it.

If you do that. Yeah, because I was just kind of rubbing it on. And then I saw you guys were like, no, you have to do it, like, nicely. Like, Yes. Yep. That's right. Upwards and out from your face. Yes. A lot of them. so what else? what have I not asked you that we need, like, so excited. I just want to go use my serum and I don't have the, that moisturizer stuff, so, like. And what about the body cream? Tell me about that. Well, it's it it is that it is in a huge way. We are very generous with our body cream because I need to use a lot myself.

So it is the is the product that has the okay, but it also has the shea butter, the rosemary, all, all types of wells. It has vitamin E and you just rub it on your arms and I use it on my thighs and knees. And the greatest time to use it as if you can do it after the shower or bath, when your skin, when your pores are open and it just feels. It's just it's all it's really like having a spa treatment, putting that body cream on after a bath or shower. Especially shaving after shaving. Oh yes. Yes.

And I even use the bottom of my feet I love it. Okay. And then the the lactic acid face wash. That's important. Thanks for bringing that up that we develop that because we need to remove the dead skin cells because one of the beautiful things is the copper peptides is bringing it's bringing things up into your skin and you need to remove them so it can work better. So we developed a product with lactic acid. it's only 5%. So it's not so harsh. And it actually removes the dead skin cells so that your products will work better.

And it's a once a day cleanser. preferably at night. So I feel like, you know, until I met you, I wasn't using copper peptides on my skin. I feel like, oh, my God, I'm glad. I'm glad I'm catching on now because it sounds like that's really, like, the key thing to having healthy skin. am I right? I've never used anything. I've never used anything that worked better. I'm not saying there's not things out there. One of the one of the things we added to this that is really helpful is brown algae. because brown algae actually preserves collagen.

So here we are, you know, generating building new college. And we want to protect it. So the brown algae, if you can imagine it's been out in the sea, protect dying all those years against the elements, the, you know, the harsh the water and the harsh weather. And we brought that into it's in all the products, but the eye cream because it helps it actually helps counter things that degrade collagen. It works like that. And it protects it has antioxidants. It has vitamins, minerals, amino acids. It's just like this perfect partner for the copper peptide.

So that's part of what helps make Vitale work so well. And again it's a natural it's a natural product. That the cream would have any benefit on like varicose veins or anything like that. No. But scars let me tell you about that. I mean, it's such a benefit. so scars as far as, like a keloid or just making them disappear or what are, what are you seeing with scars? There's a couple. If you go ahead, you go ahead. And then I'll add to that. Now there's a couple of really great before and afters on the website too, that, that Debbie has collected.

So that's been it's really great. Anytime I have any kind of cut, anything that I've where I've injured myself, I'm always putting give grabbing some of my actually use the eye cream on it or the or the medical grade cream on it. to get that to heal much more quickly. Can use it on. If they get. Yeah. Can't you. I use it on my grandchildren. Absolutely. I use that in a hydration boost on them. I have a daughter with, granddaughter, that has terrible eczema. She can't touch anything. I mean, the sunscreen she use everything is, you know.

Oh, I can't touch it. Don't give me that. And she loves the hydration boost. She says get doesn't stain. It is just this most gentle, beautiful oil. And I feel like it's helping. Or if they let me use it all the time, I'm probably okay. I think my granddaughter got like a scar. She. So I was like, can is it? Do you have to use it like soon or can will it work on older scars? It's it is ideal to use soon. And a great, place is when people have procedures. my husband had, you know, some melanoma, a basal cell right in the middle of his forehead.

I mean, he look like Frankenstein. doctor. Suzanne, you know how much better it looks? Because I think you saw him a week ago, and I was really. I thought, oh, I'm glad we have this copper peptide. Because the stitches and it has, it is just faded. It's like a can barely see it. I had a scar from childhood over my left eye and nothing, I mean, I had I had tried everything and nothing had helped it. And being very diligent with the serum. And then I put the oil, put the oil on it and did the exfoliating, and it is faded.

And this is a 40 year old scar. but ideally, if you do it at the like when you it's a wound heal or GHQ was discovered as a wound healer. And so if you can use it at the time or when you know you're going to have a procedure, it's wonderful. After laser high, microneedling derma, you know, dermabrasion. Like many of our medical spas, use it with those procedures and send patients home with the serum to use for the faster healing, because that is really where it's on steroids. like, you know, because it's a wound and the guy goes in and does its work.

So work, burns as well. If someone gets a burn. Absolutely. I have a I have a customer who, had a really bad burn. she she spilled hot soup, like boiling hot soup. And she had second degree burns, and she showed me the picture. And then two weeks later, it was just peak. I mean, just the big blisters.

Scars, burns, and final takeaways on skin health 29:38

It was unbelievable. I can even share that photograph. But I love that because it's if, you know, if it's doing something like that, it can definitely help your skin look healthier and smoother and more beautiful. And that was the serum that the. Serum she used. The serum absolute. I'm really excited. I'm like, I'm going to place my order right now and I want to keep having nice, healthy looking skin, and I haven't really played with it yet. Unlike some creepy areas. So I'm excited to kind of check that out.

So are there any last things that are important, that I didn't ask you that you want to share with the audience? One of the things is that this is a very cell safe product. it has been is one of the most, and Doctor Suzanne, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's one of the most studied peptides. discovered in 1973. it is safe and gentle and yet powerful, and I just I think that's and and again, it's naturally occurring in your body. You just are replacing what has declined as so many things have.

and we talked so much about replenishing hormones, which of course are important, but we don't talk enough about replenishing something like a peptide like genes carcinoma. Glad we're glad we're bringing that to the light here. How about you, doctor? Suzanne? Any last words of wisdom? I just think that Debbie has, and her team have come up with a really great, compliments to the peptides. So that were, you know, that that alone was the original product that she used. Was GCC alone, and it had great results.

But I think what we're seeing in this, whole product line is, is really optimizing our skin results. yeah. I'm just thinking, like, when I'm doing, like, my Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit, like, you know, 90.0 and I'm still sitting here because I'm going to be using the vitality GHK-CU and my skin is going, I'm gonna look the same. I'm gonna look amazing. Yeah, well, you will. And then excited about that. I'm very excited about that. So, thank you so much. This has been like I said, I love learning and finding amazing tools, along with my listeners and my audience.

So if you want to know more or check it out, we have a special, special code for you guys for being here and being summit lovers. And so it's, Vitali vitaliskincare.com/menosummit. So just M E N O for menopause S U M M I T and go check out Just Vitaliskincare.com. There's lots of as the ladies were saying, let's pictures and before and after is an interesting things you can learn there as well. And anywhere else. the audience should go check you guys out. No, but we just want to share that if they go through, that landing page and they use the code that you just shared, that they will receive 20% off of any of the products.

And if they order through, the 15th of October, we will, provide a free hydration boost that we talked about. with the order just for people as part of the summit. thanks to. Nice little gifts, that can help make the product work better. Than it is. And I'm thinking, oh, who do I like? Need to buy presents for, right? Little early holiday shopping? Because what? You know, what a great gift to give your ladies in your life. Absolutely. The skin. What's that? and your men Yeah and men, I know I'm so lady focused here at the menopause summit, but yes, we don't want to leave the men out.

We want our men. If you have a man in your life looking good along with you. So yes, we should be sharing this with them as well. So 40% of our customers are men. I just had to. So you might be surprised. Men really do care about their skin. 40%. Okay, that's what I just had to share that. Oh my God, no I didn't. I'm surprised that that's actually really awesome. and you know, I have more questions to ask you, but we're out of time, so be sure, you know, after the summit, if you've been here before.

You know, I love to get back on because I miss y'all. And we do live webinars and I invite guests. And so we'll be diving deeper. We're going to be doing a webinar after the summer, after the summer after the summit. So stay tuned. And you know, that way we can go live. And if you have specific questions, I love to do live Q&A. We'll have the ladies to answer your questions. And we can just keep connecting and talking about skin. And then we're all going to we're going to spot each other and we're going to be like, you know, 80 years old and be like, yeah, you went to the summit, right?

You're doing that skincare. I feel like that day they love you. Love it. So, thank you all for being here. Thank you. Here I learned a lot. And this is really, really exciting. And you are really inspirational because I just want to again, wrap it in a bow and highlight that, like when most people are retiring, you decided to like, start a new business. So we all have that in us, whether it's a new business or a new hobby or a new travel destination. And so I always inspire you all. Like aging is a journey, and the journey doesn't stop just because we go through menopause or we hit our 50s, 60s, 70 is when we take care of our bodies inside and out.

We can then do all the things that bring us joy as well and we can keep. I always say, you know, we don't have the ability to birth, like human children anymore, but we can birth whatever it is that's meaningful to us. Right? I'm a little younger than you. I'm 56, but I'm actually birthing a new huge 7000 square foot clinic in 1902. So I'm following in your footsteps. And so, yes, we all have it in us. We can all do whatever it is we want to do, as long as we take care of ourselves and our bodies will support us in following our dreams.

So thank you for being that I miss you. It was wonderful, Suzanne, for all your knowledge and being here and being a part of Vitali And thank you everyone for for coming and listening. And I'm like, all wiggly, I'm all excited about this. I'm like, man, I gotta go. I gotta put my sermon. So, so we will be back. We'll have more conversations for you today. Thank you.