Trish

Hello listeners. It’s Trish Hammond here from the Transforming Bodies podcast. And today, I’m joined by Dr Vania Sinovich. Now Dr Sinovich is actually based in Auckland, and she runs The Skin Company, which is a new clinic that just opened up in the last twelve months. And today, we only had a bit of a chat with her about what her inspiration is behind it and Dr Sinovich is a Dermatologist, so it’s a totally different field. We’re just gonna share with you all the extra things that you’re probably not gonna know about. So welcome Dr Sinovich.

 

Dr Sinovich

Hi. Thank you for having me along.

 

Trish

Thank you so much for joining us. So tell me, first of all, What made you get into dermatology?

 

Dr Sinovich

I think I was always interested in skin from a very young age. The skin being the largest organ of the body and the interface between the external environment. I feel that good skin quality promotes a feeling of health and that is what is behind a lot of my practice.

 

Trish

That’s true. And I guess one of the other bonuses as well is I think being a Dermatologist, you’re always gonna look good because you naturally love the skin. That’s probably what got you into it in the first place.

 

Dr Sinovich

Well, as a teenager growing up in South Africa, I did have a lot of sun. And sadly, the sun is your biggest enemy. Someone once said to me, there’s no such thing as a good turn realistically, 80% to 90% of our ageing is related to the ultraviolet light, which even though it makes us feel good and look good in the long term is what you fighting for and what you’re gonna spend most of your money from so my biggest message to the young is listen to your parents even though you think they know nothing.
But sun turning, particularly on our exposed sites, is just a recipe for disaster. When you get into your 40s and 50s and when you express that damage, using a daily sunscreen from a very early on that you’d like is gonna save you firstly from the skin cancers. We’re going to be popping out on your faces as well as the signs of ageing, which you are not going to like as you age.

 

Trish

That’s so true, you know. It’s like adding everything. Someone once said to me the best

anti ageing advice they could give me was to actually wear sunscreen on your face anyway because I don’t like it on my body, but on your face, and I think that’s one hundred percent, hey.

 

Dr Sinovich

And I think nowadays the formulations are so much better. Ideally, you’re going as a woman. I think it’s quite good to have a tinted sunscreen because the iron oxides and the tinted sunscreens are really helping you with the visible light and the infrared light. So the visible light is the light you see in the infrared light is the light that makes you feel warm and even though these are low energy lights, they’re quite deeply penetrating. And we know for a fact that Australian, New Zealand women aged 10 to 20 years faster than our American counterparts. And that’s probably because we live near coastal environments and our skin has daily exposure and is ravaged by the ultraviolet light. Another good thing to remember is that your SPF chooses a high SPF because your SPF typically greater than 50 is going to protect you against the basal cell carcinoma, which are the commonest skin cancers that we end up cutting out on most people’s faces, probably from about the age of 40. And sometimes they’re even younger and if you have an artwork exposure like a landscaper or builder or farmer and then when you choose your SPF sunscreen, look for one that says broad spectrum as well. Generally, most UVA, UVA is the ray that is ageing us, so that’s the deeper ray, not necessarily causing those acute burns. That we get with the UVB rays, but the UVA is what ages us to. So if you choose a broad spectrum sunscreen, you’re going to be protecting your skin against those, which are damaging your collagen, which are in the dermal layer of our skin. Different countries have different regulations, but do some work and ask your Dermatologist about particular sunscreens because there’s certain sunscreens that repeatedly fail. The guidelines and they are being standardised more, which is important, but it is something that general awareness needs to be increased.

 

Trish

That makes so much sense. I didn’t know about the UVAs. And now, no, ageing is the UVA. Good way to remember it.

 

Dr Sinovich

And the UVB is the red or the one that gives you those red sunburns and those are typically not going to give you common skin cancers, which are your basal cell cancers. But just remember those infrared rays, so that’s the tinted aspect of the sunscreen that’s going to help those. Another good thing for tinted sunscreens. They’re particularly good for darker skin types and those prone to pigmentation so people with melasma or a lot of photo ageing skin expressions on their face go for a tinted one and there are a whole range now that are way more cosmetically elegant than were evident in those that were present in the past.

 

Trish

Yeah. I think it’s really important to spend good money on good sunscreen and good skin care for sure. So tell me, so with The Skin Company, what inspired you to start this business and what’s like, what’s your ethos behind it?

 

Dr Sinovich

So my ethos is really to provide a sort of bespoke dermatology service for my clients, many of whom are ageing just as I am and getting the message across and investing in the knowledge because what is present now was not evident when I trained, and I won’t tell my age many many years ago, so things evolve and so constantly spending time investing into what’s new, what’s good in terms of skin care, in terms of energy based devices and because there are a lot of non dermatologists who have entered the arena of cosmetic dermatology. And I’m not saying that you can only be a dermatologist to treat the skin. But certainly, I think there is a wide range of expertise within that. And as a consumer, it’s actually hard to know and patients often come to me saying, oh, I had this laser there and I tell what laser it was that, and they have no knowledge. So people don’t ask enough questions. When you’re going and having something done, enquire about what is the filler? What is the laser? Is it appropriate for my skin type? Because often the knowledge of the person giving you that a particular procedure or device may not be what you think it is. So this is all about providing high end proven therapies that are up to date for people including skin care, including energy devices, including rejuvenation therapies, which is a big trend at the moment. So, yeah,  it’s more tailored to the patient rather than a terrible term called cookie cutter, which has crept into the market over the years where you come in and you basically follow the recipe of the clinic. And at the end of the day, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like an ale, and so that clinic will push that device. And some – sadly, some people are not as honest in saying, look, Trish, I don’t have the right laser for you, but I will send you to someone who has the appropriate laser for your skin type. So ask questions and if they’re evasive, they’re probably evasive for a reason and sadly as dermatologists have to mop up a lot of damage done by patients in clinics where they are either overfilled or lasers have caused burns or inappropriate lasers have been used on skin types. So I think even though patients are more knowledgeable than they were, I still think not enough questions have been answered and not enough investigations have been done before some quite aggressive treatments had been done.

 

Trish

Actually, I agree because we’ve kind of put it in the same category as having some waxing done or something like that whereas a laser treatment is a serious treatment. And if you’re gonna get something done, you wanna make sure you’re getting the right one, you wanna make sure the right device is being used for you and you wanna make sure that it’s gonna be the best treatment possible for you. So 100% agree with that and I guess it’s a testament to the fact of what you want to bring back to The Skin Company because you are here in Melbourne for the Australian Society of Cosmetic Dermatology Conference, which, of course, is here to show you all the latest and greatest and show you the great devices and whatnot. So while you’ve been here, is there anything that’s changed your or anything that you didn’t sort of think that you would perhaps do in the clinic, which you are gonna adopt now that you’ve been here for the conference for a couple of days yet? Or I know it’s not over yet, but

 

Dr Sinovich

I think there’s definitely a trend towards prejuvenation and so using bio exterminators to improve skin care, skin quality, more emphasis on skin quality, probably little train towards moving away from fillers in the overfilled phase or having more filler that is more natural looking because unfortunately people have filler layered upon other fillers and I feel that more attention to good skin care and is a wide range of them and as well as skin care with the technologies that weren’t available 10 years ago. So I think one has to, at any age, keep learning because trends and availability of equipment as well as product changes.

 

Trish

That’s so true. And I love the fact that you’re committed to that continuous learning because a lot of people think, oh, well, I trained whatever 20-30 years ago is going to do. I know it or I don’t learn. But you’re absolutely right. You do need to keep up with the latest and greatest because there aren’t new innovations that just happen all the time.

 

Dr Sinovich

Absolutely. So, I mean, I don’t think cosmetic dermatology even existed when I did my training 30 odd years ago, so it is evolving. Everything in medicine is evolving and there’s the use of AI, the use of robots, and kind of biologics in even medical dermatology. So one has to stay up to date. In fact, one of my favourite apps on my programming systems at home is the up to date system in addition to reading. So you’re using the knowledge of experts from around the world who allow sort of concise overviews of trials because there’s so many trials all over the world regarding different aspects. So as a Dermatologist in addition to the cosmetic, you’ve got the medical, you’ve got the surgical, and there’s a lot to keep up to date with. So education for yourself and your staff, I very much believe in order in the whole team being educated.

 

Trish

That’s true. It’s such an investment in the business, but investment in your people is, of course, gonna be beneficial to the patients. But what I was gonna ask you, so I’m a great believer that, you know, exactly what you said people don’t know what they’ve got in their face, what people have put in them, whatever, but I’m presuming that the perfect ideal well, in a perfect world, I think the perfect thing to do as a patient is to find yourself a practitioner and actually align yourself with that practitioner and give them like, let them know what your goals are and work together to achieve a goals. But that way, a year later or six months later, you go back to the same person rather than go shopping for the cheapest bargain somewhere for whatever words if actually align yourself with someone who has quality equipment, uses quality procedures, goes to the regular conferences and is committed to continuous learning. You as a patient, you’re gonna get a better outcome because I’ve seen photos here during this conference of people that have been going to the same dermatologist, like and they might go one, two, three times a year or even just once a year. And after ten years, they looked better than when they first started.

 

Dr Sinovich

Yes. And we’ve invested in technologies regarding that where certain sorts of Broadband light therapies are done in a correct fashion and so that would typically be three treatments a month part where we correct all of the damage you’ve done over the 10 to 30 years of your adult life because probably by the time you 20, 80% of your sun damage has already occurred on your face and exposed sites. And so sometimes you come to us and it’s 35, 40, you’re just needing a bit of a top up. You do have to do those corrective treatments and sadly, they are going to cost you a little bit more to begin with. And so typically, you would have the 3 month apart and it’s correcting the reds and correcting the browns because you’re kind of coloured dyschromia on your face are very ageing. And then once you’ve corrected that, you then come for annual treatments and they’re quicker and not as expensive. And the benefit of that is that you are looking at studies which have been done by Plastic Surgeons in the States who’ve been using these technologies on his patients for the last 3 decades. They’ve shown that the collagen from when people start these treatments are beta and are maintained, if not, better for the age at which they started. So it is a little bit cheesy, but it’s called Forever Young. And so it does help the heating process of the Broadband Light in addition to helping with the dyschromia is actually helping the quality of the collagen. So instead of looking like a shredded spaghetti, which is the same she bought your collagen and and less and looked like. You’re getting healthier looking collagen for that decade despite it being 2 to 3 decades down the track. So maintenance corrective and maintenance treatments make a big difference. And also I think, to be honest, making sure wherever you go is that you’re – if you’re using fillers for volume replacement, make sure you’re using fillers that are appropriate for the area they’re injected in.
As well as are not going to be associated with nodules and visibility if they injected too superficially using the wrong filler. So you may be able to get cheap fillers somewhere, but that may come at a cost of the product type because, again, there are a whole range of fillers out there. So, if you act with someone, keep a list of what you’ve got because we don’t really like layering things on top of things we don’t know. And I think make sure that before you’re having any procedures that someone’s taken an appropriate medical history because there are some contraindications, you want to be more cautious with people like who have autoimmune diseases, who are immunocompromised, who and knowledge of that is important. And sometimes, having gone, been in this industry for a while now, you go to and you go to certain training areas where it’s maybe non dermatologists and just the knowledge beneath the surface is not as great as you would want for someone who is doing that particular procedure enough in the training maybe three days to three weeks before they sort of doing where is your average dermatologist has trained almost 15 years to get there. And there’s ongoing what’s called medical education. Typically, within each area of up to 80 hours a year, which is quite a lot of training and that’s only the medical side, that’s not the cosmetic side. So that ongoing training is important. And at the end of the day, I think that the one thing with chain clinics is profit is often the driving factor or I’d hope that for me it’s the patient that is the driving factor.

 

Trish

Yes. I can totally agree that the bespoke clinic is definitely what I’d be searching for. And you know, exactly what you said, like, you said the patient should be right and stuff then. I’m even more on the line. It’s just buying yourself the proper place you wanna go to that does all the right things, and then you don’t even have to worry about recording anything because they’re gonna know exactly what you’ve done.

 

Dr Sinovich

And, you know, they should be writing notes and they should be copying you into that so that should you go elsewhere. You’ve got a record, so and so all those should be. And if you go to a different provider and such a technique as work for you be it with neurotoxins. And you can say, oh, this has worked well for me, like, it means it’s repeatable for somebody else who has never met you before. 

 

Trish

Exactly. And just going back to what you said before, so basically, you can’t have an issue with your skin and then go somewhere to magically fix up. So with the treatment protocol you’re talking about before, you have to fix the actual problem first. So that’s like three treatments. One month apart and that will set you like a base level and then to just kind of maintain that once a year or whatever is you have to go down to the maintenance. So you can’t just fix something like melasma and never have it again, and I know this because I had it really badly. And I had everything from mine. I took to putting creams and all that, but until I actually had the BBL laser and nothing actually fixed it. So I spent a fourth as well. So I think you can fall into that trap as well. But it’s really important to have that maintenance level. So when you find someone that you like, you need to stick with them because looking after your skin is a lifetime maintenance plan.

 

Dr Sinovich

Absolutely. And I think melasma is notoriously difficult to treat and it’s often a single treatment that is not going to fix the problem. I mean the other thing that I find upsetting at times as people with sort of acne or melasma. And there’s so much misinformation out there from typically influencers who have their own agendas. And you have the 20 step acne plan and these young girls who come in with moderate to severe acne with scarring, have spent hundreds and thousands, and they’ve never seen a never seen a Dermatologist or even discussed it with their GP. And we sometimes get what’s called, the makeup face. I like makeup. I think it has got good products. But at the end of the day, they’re just as far as the certain products that you don’t need, but you get sold and people come through to you with pockets of products at a grade cost. And so a knowledge of what that skin type or that skin problem is, will help you essentially give them prescriptive skin care. And that’s not necessarily a prescription, but we know that things like topical vitamin B’s are good for oil and severe and acne prone skin and are not going to irritate rosacea. We know that C can be very irritating for rosacea. So that’s generally something to find the least irritating vision or avoid until you’ve maintained skin barrier. We’ve had lots of talks during this conference as well and and in the lead after this conference about the importance of the skin biome.
So just like the gastroenterologists are focused on the gut microbiome for many years and how our gut microbiome can even determine our proneness to depression or so it’s very important what we put on our skin. And so I’m very kind of invested in helping people with their topical skin journey because the cleansers that are traditionally used are often way too stripping and when you’re stripping things, you’re stripping the good bacteria, as well as the bad bacteria, and so I think down the track, we will see a lot of change in this arena whereby we are kind of addressing the use of products that helps with the skin biome. And once you’ve corrected the skin biome, then you can get on to Actives that are more appropriate for your skin type because not everyone can tolerate an A, which we know is very good for our skin, as far as collagen, as far as pigment and pores. But until your barrier is hydrated, you cannot go for an A because you’re just going to get irritated skin, which is probably gonna do more harm than good. So, it is important to, again, just like with baby food, sort of go back to the basics sometimes when you have inflamed irritated or rosacea prone skin and stick to the things that irritate you, the least. So if you’re really struggling with irritated acne prone skin, rosacea prone skin, choose a gentle cleanser, not a harsh stripping cleanser, choose a light moisturiser, typically with a mild niacinamide within it. And then go for a physical sunscreen, so physical sunscreens would typically be things like Zinc and titanium, which are going to be more calming for the skin rather than the chemical sunscreens in some variants. And if you want to choose an Active, and when I talk about an Active, I’m talking about vitamin A, B, C or some of the other actives that are available on the market, probably go for a B because that’s going to irritate you the least. Once you’re on that regime, yes, then you can add other things slowly. But if you top too much and add too much, just like with baby food, you’re not gonna know what’s irritating. So keeping it simple and again, if it’s not a Dermatologist, there are a lot of very well educated Dermal Therapists out there, but who can provide you with that same advice as kind of that stepwise, stepwise approach. Yeah.

 

Trish

I love that. And so tell me, so where can we find you? I know you’re in Auckland, but how can anyone who has the census, how can we find you?

 

Dr Sinovich

So I’m based in Remuera in Auckland. And my company is called The Skin Company, and we can be found online at The Skin Company. And otherwise, the address is 80A Bassett Rd. Remuera, Auckland. We are on Instagram. We definitely know that the clinic is up and running and is going to increase some sort of marketing component, but it’s just about little steps because we have been very busy. In fact, I just started studying last year as well as opening the clinic. So it’s just about pacing yourself and trying to keep life balanced because I have got 3 children, although sometimes I think they forget I’m their mother at this stage. But it’s just, yeah, it’s just about, you know, little steps. But, yeah, we’re based in Auckland and slowly adding in some extra laser machines to help with resurfacing, which will be the next phase of the journey.

 

Trish

Amazing and to be honest, resurfacing is my favourite treatment. What I wanna say, congratulations on having your fourth child called The Skin Company. I look forward to watching it grow. And look, listen, look if you do wanna find any more check around online, The Skin Company in Auckland, New Zealand. Otherwise, and flick me through it at DM, and I’m happy to send through all the information to you and, yeah, definitely align yourself with the right practitioner is my advice always. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr Sinovich.

 

Dr Sinovich

Pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

 

Trish

Thank you.