Transcription of Glow #5
Speaker 1: You are listening to the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’, recorded at the studios of ‘Maine Magazine’ in Portland, Maine, and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland, streaming live each week at 11am on ‘WLOBradio.com’, and available via podcast on ‘Doctorlisa.org’. Thank you for joining us.
Here are some highlights from today’s program.
Speaker 1: The ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ is made possible by generous contributions from the following sponsors, ‘Maine Magazine’, Tom Shepard of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Whole Foods Market, and Akari.
Dr. Lisa: Hello. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Today is October 16th. This is the fifth episode of the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’, cohosted by Genevieve Morgan. Today’s theme is glow. Most mornings, I get up and I run. I run along the Maine Coast, I run along the rivers and run down to the ocean, I run in the forests, I run across the fields, and the reason that I love to run first thing in the morning is the sunrise which is the ultimate glow.
Most mornings, the sun rises and we see it every morning, the sun rises. This is an external glow that reminds me of the importance of the internal glow. As recently in Camden, I have a restaurant, having a meal with a dear friend and her friend and another dear friend … a big group of friends. We were all glowing together.
As we left, she said, “Take this box of matches. This is a great box of matches. You will love these matches.” I picked them up and they are indeed a great box of matches. What’s so great about them is they’re sturdy and they come in great packaging, but they also create this amazing spark of fire. That’s what the sunrise does every morning when we wake up. When the clouds have cleared and the sky lights up, we have this spark of fire. That’s what we do on the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’, we’re trying to begin a glow. Whether, we’re doing it in a small way or a big way, whether we’re talking to as we will today practitioners from Akari in Portland or talking to a woman from Portland General Store who makes sustainable soaps, or whether we’re talking to Barbara Gulino from Whole Foods Market in Portland who is out there doing things that help the community glow, we’re all about glow.
Today, I hope you enjoy our show as we talk about ways to bring forth an internal glow, and then begin to glow externally out into the world. Thank you so much for joining us.
We like to start off the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast every week with our ‘Food and Sustenance Segment’, and every week, we’re joined by Genevieve Morgan. Good to see you again.
Genevieve: Hi, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: This week, we talked about earlier the idea of glow, and getting out there and being in the world and seeing the sunrise, going for a run, finding the good box of matches and …
Genevieve: Yes. I love that. I love that topic. As you know, I just wrote an article for ‘Maine Magazine’ about getting your glow on, unwrapping your skin’s potential. I was thinking about it much more on surface level, but you’ve really taken it down to a different level which is the inner glow, your inner fire.
Dr. Lisa: Right. The inner fire which … There is a spiritual aspect to it. There is an emotional aspect to it, but there’s also a very just grass roots fundamental, foundational aspect to it, and that’s the food piece. This is why every week, we go into the Whole Food Market, and they’re one of our sponsors. They provide us with locally grown foods. They are just bursting at the seams with food.
I was amazed at how much it’s still being grown locally and still available at the Whole Foods Market. We have our bag that says, “I love veggies” from Whole Foods Market. Actually, it says, “I heart veggies”.
Genevieve: I know. I was looking at that.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. I know you wanted to steal that, but …
Genevieve: I do. I really want that bag.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Maybe I’ll see if I can find you one, Gen. In my bag this week, I came in, I had some green peppers, some parsley and some broccoli from Checkerberry Farm in Parkman. I have an Asian eggplant. Wait. I’m going to reach over and show you this, Gen. It’s actually really cool.
Genevieve: Eggplants are kind of intimidating. I never know what to do with them.
Dr. Lisa: Here, let me tell you what I did with mine last night. Last night, I took some onions and some garlic and a little bit of ginger, and some daikon radish which is a big, white radish that you can actually find at Whole Foods. It’s not local, but it’s used a lot in traditional Chinese medicine. It’s helpful for the cold season, it’s got a little bit of a drying … people who have damp issues.
I put those in with some Asian eggplant, sliced them all up and added some locally grown tomatoes. I just let that simmer for a bit. The thing about eggplant, it’s really nice and it’s also a healing food in traditional Chinese medicine. We talk about it in our Dragon’s Way Qigong class, is that it takes on the properties of the food around it, and that’s why we always think about eggplant parmigiana. This is why it’s used. It can be whatever you want it to be. It’s this beautiful, purple plant. It’s a beautiful, purple vegetable and it can be used in a lot of ways.
Genevieve: You just chop off the ends and use it like that?
Dr. Lisa: Yes. That is the best way to do it, chop off the ends, scrub the peel, and then you can sauté it up, or a lot of people will bake the eggplant. You can make it into Baba ghanoush, which is a nice spread. That’s our eggplant.
We also had this week … I think I mentioned this. This was Rippling Waters Farm in Standish. We also had some sweet corn, which came from Jefferson, Maine, and some apples, gala, Cortland, macs and some apple cider. All out of Ricker Hill Farm. Those are also local, and some cluster tomatoes. I don’t know exactly where those came from, but it said Maine.
These were so many foods. I was bowled over by all of this. My daughter, Sophie and I, yesterday, we were doing cooking for the segment, because I like to get my hands on the things that I’m talking about. I like to actually know what I’m …
When you say, “Hey. How do you use an eggplant?” I can say, “This is how I used the eggplant yesterday.”
Genevieve: It’s great.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. That’s how we’ve talked about this predominantly plant-based diet. We’ve talked about vegetarian chili in past segments. That’s how you get your kids interested in eating these kinds of foods.
Genevieve: I think you bring up a really interesting point because in one of my last articles that I wrote, we talked about the overweight and obesity rate of children in Maine, and it is marching in course of the nation, which is about 66%. That means that two out of three kids in our state are considered either overweight or obese. As we know, once you are overweight or obese as a child, it gets much harder to lose that weight as an adult.
Bringing your kids along and getting them interested and making food fun is a great way to begin taking the pounds off in childhood. Though, it’s easy to make them hotdogs and mac and cheese, and I certainly do that all the time, exposing them to different flavors and different experiences is really important.
Dr. Lisa: Speaking of different flavors and different experiences, I have brought you and John, our audio guru over here some baggies of our corn and beans …
Genevieve: He’s smiling now.
Dr. Lisa: That’s good. He’s looking very excited. Our corn and bean salad which I know it has kidney beans, it has garbanzo beans, otherwise known as chickpeas, locally grown corn, it’s got some tomatoes in there, mix it up with a little vinegar … We’ll put this on the Dr. Lisa website so that you can bring this home and enjoy it yourselves, and I know children like it.
You were asking me about football watching. This is something you could serve during a football game. It’s a way to get this beautiful colored food on your plates.
Genevieve: That would be nice to have an alternative to nachos.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. It is nice to… I mean I think people are still going to eat nachos, but you know, if you …
Genevieve: You can add a little extra.
Dr. Lisa: You can add a little extra, and you can also … When you’re thinking about things to swap out, this last week, I went into the Whole Foods store and I found some Maine Root Root Beer. They have Sarsaparilla, they have root beer, there’s also Green Bee soda, they have Blueberry Dream and there are lemon, honey, zinger sodas. These are locally made sodas, because you were asking me a question about soda before you went on the air.
Genevieve: Yes. I was just lamenting the fact that all soda except for homegrown soda has high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener instead of real sugar, which I think is a real problem for the future of our health.
Dr. Lisa: It is a real problem. What I know is that we’re a society where we get hit over the head with things, with very strong flavors, whether it’s sweet or salty or spicy, and we can’t seem to do anything that’s not extreme. You actually have to help reeducate yourself or your children when it comes to sweetness, when it comes to sugar content. These sodas are good because they’re not really, really sweet.
The one that’s made with honey, the Green Bee, it’s honey. They use just enough to make it just sweet enough, and the same with the Maine Root soda. You can also … You were talking to me about canning and preserving, and we have this great harvest right now. What do we do with these foods? What do we do to preserve the local throughout the year? I made some applesauce with Sophie yesterday.
Speaking about sweeteners, we took about, I think it was about eight cups of apples, Cortlands and macs from Ricker Hill Orchard. We cut them all up and of course, when you’re 10, that’s a chore but she still did that. She still helped make the pie too. Instead of using sugar as one might traditionally do, we used some apple cider and we used some honey.
Genevieve: How did it turned out?
Dr. Lisa: It was really good. This is the second time in a week that I’ve made this apple sauce. The last time I made it for one of my dear friends, he ate it all, so it’s all gone. I didn’t get any more of it. This time, I made it and both of my daughters had some, and there’s no sugar. It was all naturally sweet. In fact, the honey was from a local apiary. You can also use maple syrup. In Maine, we have plenty of that sort of thing.
Genevieve: I know people forget that there are many alternatives when it comes to sweeteners.
Dr. Lisa: Yes.
Genevieve: It’s not just white cane sugar.
Dr. Lisa: Right. There’s agave nectar, there’s brown rice syrup … There’s a lot of things, and they’re not locally grown, but …
Genevieve: Talk a little bit about this about why it’s important because white cane sugar actually raises your insulin levels significantly when you ingest it, but the natural sugars have other properties if I’m right in this. They have other properties that don’t create that big insulin spike. If you’re struggling with diabetes or insulin sensitivity, really understanding the different varieties open to you for sweetness in your life is important.
Dr. Lisa: It’s true. They don’t have the same insulin spike. They have a lot to do with the glycemic index. We’ll talk about that on a future show. The other thing with these natural sweeteners is you don’t have to use that much of them. As most people know, honey is very, very sweet. Maple syrup is very, very sweet. If you can use just a little bit, then it will go a long way.
The other piece is that it has more … For example, honey. It’s made from the pollen collected by bees, so it actually has healing properties, as does maple syrup which is the lifeblood of the trees as opposed to cane syrup. I mean, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sugar per say or sugar cane, but when you process everything down like the high fructose corn syrup, you’re losing a lot of the good properties of the food that add nutritional value.
Genevieve: That makes so much sense.
Dr. Lisa: These are some of the things that I was thinking about this week when it came to our food and sustenance segment. I think there is such a huge relationship between one’s inner glow, what one puts into one’s body, and it shows on your face, it shows in your life, it shows in how you interact with people … I’ve seen this over and over in my practice and I think you’ve seen the same as well, Gen.
Genevieve: I certainly have, and I do know that one of the main lifestyle choices you can make to increase the radiance of your skin is to cut back on sugar consumption. As you keep on saying, Lisa, it’s all connected.
Dr. Lisa: It is all connected. We’re going to see that as we continue on in the show with our next segment, the lovely ladies from Akari here in Portland, and then moving on to Lisa Brodar from Portland General and Barbara Gulino, our wonderful Whole Foods Market sponsor and liaison. It’s going to be a great show.
Genevieve: It sounds like fun.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Keep on listening.
Speaker 1: This segment of the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ has been brought to you by Whole Foods Market at Portland, Maine, Whole Foods Market where you will find the highest quality natural and organic products available. Follow them on Facebook and go to ‘Wholefoodsmarket.com’ to learn more about their ‘Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet’ vision.
Dr. Lisa: We’re here in the studios of ‘Maine Magazine’ with our friends, Eliza Harris and Christina Sterling of Akari in the Old Port. Eliza is a licensed aesthetician who graduated with honors from the renowned Aveda Institute of New York. She has six years of industry experience grounded in aesthiology science. Eliza is committed to helping patients reveal their natural beauty through the latest skincare therapies.
Christina is the senior aesthetician at Akari. She grew up in Scarborough and sings lead on the Jim Ciampi Band at the Landing in Scarborough which makes me very happy as a fellow singer. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing your voices with us today.
Christina: Thank you for having us.
Dr. Lisa: I’m also here with Gen Morgan. I know that Gen has a personal relationship with Akari. It’s important that we have you in here because you’re representing the segment that we’re talking about today, glow. Glow. We’re all about glow and internal beauty and external beauty and how those things match up and wellness …
Having had several conversations with Allan, the founder of Akari, I know that this is what he is all about. He’s about the beauty from the inside to the outside. Tell me about Akari and the philosophy behind Akari and how it came to be what it is today.
Eliza: Basically, the philosophy at Akari is that beauty starts from within. As we get older, our faces and bodies are constantly changing. As we age, we want to take care of the core before we take care of the exterior. At Akari, we want to be responsible for all your cosmetic needs including your health physically and mentally.
Dr. Lisa: Did you personally come to being an aesthetician for that particular reason or was there another reason that brought you here?
Eliza: Absolutely. It’s something I’ve been interested … anti-aging. That’s definitely something I wanted to get into.
Dr. Lisa: I know Christina is from Scarborough. Are you also from Maine?
Eliza: I’m from Durham, Maine.
Dr. Lisa: You know that people in Maine want to be just as beautiful as people anywhere else, and you decided you were going to go get some training in this, and you went away to New York to do this?
Eliza: That’s correct.
Dr. Lisa: How did that changed your worldview on beauty and …?
Eliza: Well, New York, everybody is definitely into the most cutting edge technologies in New York City. I think that bringing that to Maine is a great thing. In Maine, we have a lot of extreme temperatures and we’re dealing with very, very hot, very, very cold, so our skin goes through a lot of different conditions throughout the year. I think people in Maine are really looking for solutions for that.
Dr. Lisa: Do you see the … I guess how was your philosophy changed over time? I know that you began at Akari, and you obviously did the standard hair, make-up, nails … things like that. What I understand now is that you actually have a cosmetic center over there which some people have called a ‘Medispa’. I believe that this has changed the types of services that you offer.
Christina: Yes. Basically, I started at Akari about four years ago. I’ve just watched Akari grow. We had moved on from Fore Street up to Middle Street. Our ‘Medispa’ has just grown in so many ways. We have a few new doctors that are onboard with us, we have new treatments, so it’s just definitely up and coming. Everyday is a new day with us.
Genevieve: I actually can speak to that because I went to Akari for the first time 10 years ago I think just to get my haircut. I moved here from San Francisco via New York, and it was the best hair salon at that point. Since then, I’ve witnessed this huge growth in what you guys offer, and also a sense of life coaching and there’s more spiritual stuff and emotional stuff happening over there too.
Christina: Definitely.
Genevieve: That’s my perception.
Christina: Definitely. We have a lifestyle coach that basically just started working with us, and she’s wonderful. She’s able to really connect with a lot of our clients at Akari. She helps you with different goals that you have for your life and different ways that you can go about achieving that. It’s really great and we’re very excited to have her.
Genevieve: Has that changed the way you’ve practiced your services?
Eliza: I think our vision at Akari is that someone can come in and they can get anything they need done from head to toe. They can come in, they can get a wellness coach to help them from the inside out, and they can get a laser treatment and they can get their hair and nails done. It’s basically … We can have a whole team behind you to take care of you, to get you where you want to be.
Dr. Lisa: Which is really important because in last week’s show, we spoke to Marcelle Pick, and she wrote the book ‘Are you Tired and Wired’. She talked about how women are always giving. All the energies sort of outgoing, and they end up with very little left, so it’s almost as if you need a team. You need to have a team of people behind you to help coach you, to help make you feel more beautiful from the outside and from the inside.
I met with Allan a few weeks ago, and we sat down, we had lunch, he said, “You know what? I had been doing hair for …” I don’t know what he said, 30 years, something like this. He told he could put his hands on a client’s hair and he could tell things about her life. He could tell where she was in her cycle, he could tell whether she was pregnant, he could tell … That was so interesting to me because it speaks to the subtlety that you can gain from touch, but also from the relationship that you’re describing which goes so much deeper than “Let me do your nails”. I mean, it really is the back and forth I think to the ability to know somebody over time.
Eliza: Absolutely. Definitely.
Genevieve: I also think that women feel really guilty about pampering themselves. I wanted you to speak to that a little bit because obviously, these services aren’t free, but they do have a value that goes far and beyond just a monetary value. Do you get that a lot from your clients, they come in and they feel sort of sheepish about the services or having you pamper them?
Eliza: I think that what it is is that when you have something that bothers you, something that you find as a flaw, if you fix that, it can change your entire outlook on your life. It affects how you go out into the world, your confidence, how you feel about yourself and that helps you be a better mother or a better wife, or it just helps you all around.
Dr. Lisa: Do you feel like you’re able to nurture people through some of these changes? Do you feel like you’re able to help them almost the way a therapist might?
Christina: I think changing the way you look when you look in the mirror, whether it’d be your hair or your skin, starting yourself on a good skincare regime or getting yourself doing different facial treatments, I just know if you look in the mirror and you feel better about the way you look, I think sometimes, that’s where the confidence comes. Yes, it’s definitely important to take care of your outer beauty as well as your inner beauty. Definitely.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview in just a moment. This portion of the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ is being brought to you by the following generous sponsors, Akari, an urban sanctuary of beauty, wellness and style, located on Middle Street in Portland, Maine’s Old Port. Follow them on Facebook or go to ‘Akaribeauty.com’ to learn more about their new boutique and Medispa, and by Robin Hodgskin, Senior Vice President and financial advisor at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Portland, Maine. For all your investment needs, call Robin Hodgskin at 207-771-0888. Investments and services are offered through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC.
Dr. Lisa: One of the questions we have later on in the show, we have Lisa Brodar from the Portland General Store, and she does a lot of work with men’s products, men’s care products. We’ve talked a lot about women so far, tell me about what your male clientele looks like.
Christina: We certainly have a lot of men that come into Akari. I think a lot of times, the way it starts is they might come in for a haircut, and then we have certain stylists that might … “You got to go upstairs and see Christina”, so I think a lot of times, that’s where it starts is down on the hair floor. We certainly do a lot of men’s facials. We can cater to a lot of men’s needs. We have men’s facials.
What we can correct on a woman, we basically can correct on a man as well. I think a lot of times, men in general are a little bit more shy about things like that, but we try to make them feel really comfortable so that they can come forward with the questions and different concerns that they might have.
Eliza: Yes. I think men are just as interested in anti-aging as women are, and we have a lot of fantastic laser treatments from skin tightening to laser hair removal that help with that, men love the massages, the facials … We do have a lot of male clientele.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about the laser thing. I’m fascinated by this because I know we use lasers in medicine. Actually, I do acupuncture. We use lasers in acupuncture. How does that help with skin? What’s the relationship there?
Eliza: Our laser treatments address many different issues. A lot of issues that people are having right now after the summer is people have a lot of sun damage or spots on their skin, and they’re looking to get that removed, so lasers are fantastic for that. We do laser hair removal.
Christina: We also have a lot of women that come in after having children, they develop melasma pigmentation on their face and we’re able to get rid of that. We have certain laser treatments, laser hair removal basically. It’s a permanent hair reduction. If you’re someone that’s been waxing for years, and you’re just sick of waxing and you want to get rid of the hair permanently, come and see us because we can certainly do that.
Genevieve: Eliza, I know you’ve recently … Akari has recently expanded its services. Can you tell me about the extended staff?
Eliza: Yes. We have a whole team of staff that’s equipped to take care of our needs. We have ocular plastic surgeon, we have a pain management doctor, a family practitioner, a podiatrist, an RN and our wellness coach of course. We’re basically equipped to diagnose, treat and enhance all aspects of what someone is looking for.
Dr. Lisa: Your doctors, when they are looking at the clients, are they able to deal with more difficult medical issues? Are they able to refer them out? Are they able to find them say a physician or even maybe you, Christina say, you see something on the skin and you think, “Oh my gosh. That’s really worrisome. I think somebody needs to make sure that’s not skin cancer”? Do you have some means of referring your clients out for …
Christina: Yes. I’ve definitely had clients that have come in and I’ve been concerned about different skincare, whether it’d be a mole that looks a little concerning, and we’ve definitely referred clients out to different dermatologist office, but a lot of times, it’s stuff that we can correct right at Akari.
Eliza: Our medical director has over 25 years of experience practicing, so definitely connected to the community.
Dr. Lisa: Is your medical director is doctor, nurse …?
Eliza: Dr. Ed Jaccoma.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. What type of doctor is he?
Eliza: He is the ocular plastic surgeon.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. I know that Genevieve was wondering what type of surgeon that is.
Genevieve: Yes. I didn’t know what the term ‘Ocular’ meant.
Eliza: He deals with basically the eyes and the health of the eye that cosmetic … everything around the eyes.
Genevieve: Those droopy parts on the lid that … I’ve inherited.
Christina: As I said, as we age, things start to move downward. He’s able to give you that nice, beautiful lift, so he’s really wonderful.
Eliza: Yes, and he also specializes in sculpture. In my opinion, he’s the best doctor to go to for the sculptra treatment. He’s fantastic.
Christina: He’s incredibly passionate about sculptra as well.
Genevieve: What is sculptra?
Eliza: Sculptra basically, as you get older, your collagen breaks down. It’s an injectable that helps strengthen your collagen over time. The results are fantastic because you don’t age overnight, so ”Why do you want to anti-age overnight” is their slogan. Over time, you build up the collagen and you get the volume and the fullness, but it’s your own collagen so it’s looks like you.
Dr. Lisa: Have you seen that you’re treating people in the outside has led to people making changes on the inside that have moved them forward in their lives? Now, I know Christina, you’re a singer with the Jim Ciampi Band.
Christina: Right. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: We were talking about confidence earlier. I think this is a really huge topic, especially for women, but for men and women that people need to have the confidence to make changes and move forward in their lives. What types of things have you seen in your own practices?
Christina: I think that when you change one thing about yourself that bothers you, like I said, it affects your entire being, it makes you be able to put your best foot forward and it gives you that confidence that you need. Like when we said bad hair day, I mean it just makes such a difference if you feel great about yourself.
Genevieve: One of the things that I’ve figured out or seen talking to people in my role as wellness editor is that there’s a big leap that people take when they invest in themselves because they begin to think that they’re worthy of investment, and they start to think, “Okay. I’m going to take some time and spend some money or spend some time on myself.” Just that little tweak is the first step towards more confidence in a moving forward direction .
Would you say that that’s true that you’ve seen that?
Christina: Absolutely. I definitely have a lot of clients that maybe they just started coming into Akari getting something as simple as an eyebrow wax. Over time, once they’ve been able to be comfortable with me and once I’ve been able to build their confidence around maybe getting another service done, they’re able to step outside the box and maybe try something new and then in turn, that’s going to change the way they look when they look in the mirror, and then might help them in their outside life as well.
Eliza: I think investing in your skin and investing in yourself is a little bit different than say investing in like a Gucci bag or something that’s going to last maybe a couple seasons, it’ll bring you that joy of carrying it around, but when you invest it in your skin and yourself, it’s something that you’re going to have for the rest of your life.
Dr. Lisa: I’m just so thrilled. I know that you both were telling me you’re a little bit nervous when you came in here. I think that this topic is so important because the theme today is glow, and we’re talking about internal glow and personal glow. What I know about glow is the more that you’re lit up by people around you, the greater the glow.
I love this idea of trust and that people will come to see you, Eliza or you, Christina, and you’re actually helping them glow and glow brighter and go out into the world and have more of a presence and more of a light. There is a pretty important thing that you’re doing over there at Akari, like it’s a service. It’s a calling. It’s more than just your traditional salon, so I really appreciate your coming in and talking to us about this.
I know that people who are listening are going to have a lot of thoughts on the subject. How can they most easily reach you?
Christina: We are open Monday through Saturday of every week. You can call and book an appointment, you can call and book a consultation …
Eliza: Yes, the consultations are complimentary.
Christina: Even if you just want to come in and ask us different questions, whether it’d be about your skincare regime, at home or certain concerns that you might have, just book a consult and come on in.
Dr. Lisa: You have a website?
Christina: We do.
Eliza: Yes. It’s ‘Akaribeauty.com’.
Dr. Lisa: You also have a Facebook presence from what I understand so people can get information on Facebook. They can like the page and I think information pops up that way too.
Eliza: Absolutely.
Christina: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. People will … I love this. You guys are so much of a family…
Christina: We are in sync.
Dr. Lisa: You’re chiming in together. That’s really great. We will make sure on the Dr. Lisa website that we refer people back on over to Akari and we thank Akari. Akari has been from the very beginning a sponsor of the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’. Gen Morgan and I are thrilled. We believe that we’re a part of your family as well and we know that we’re just going to keep growing and thriving and doing good things.
Christina: Thank you so much for having us.
Eliza: Thanks for having us.
Dr. Lisa: Gen, it was great to have the chance to talk to the women at Akari and hear what they’re doing with their relationships with their clients. Now, we have somebody here to talk to us about her relationship with the world and the way she’s dealing with skincare in a very, very different way, so I’m really happy to have her.
Genevieve: Today on the ‘Maine Magazine Minute Segment’, we are talking with Lisa Brodar. Lisa and her partner, Troy Tyler are the creative minds behind Portland General Store, an all-natural men’s skincare line available at Portland Dry Goods and online. Lisa holds a BFA in illustration from the Art Institute of Boston, and has worked as a producer and marketing executive in New York City.
Years ago, she and Troy became very interested in sustainable living. As part of that process, Lisa happened upon some vintage soap and perfume recipe books and a collection of antique Czechoslovakian pharmacy bottles which were her creative inspiration, which is so cool. Tell us how that happened that’s led to Portland General Store?
Lisa: We were actually living in New York in Brooklyn, and we both had an interest in self-sustainable living. We travelled a lot across the country and we’re thinking about places that we wanted to move to, and we really loved a lot of the aspects of Portland, Maine, or Maine in general. You have wind energy, you’re on the water, there are farms here … It’s an old thriving port city that I think historically has done really well, will do well in the future.
That all really inspired me to start something that revolves around handmade goods. Originally, Portland General Store was going to be a brick and mortar actually.
Genevieve: Really a real store?
Lisa: A real store was the original concept back in 2006.
Dr. Lisa: They are online. You’re online now.
Lisa: We’re online.
Dr. Lisa:
Lisa: We never opened up for brick and mortar. Originally, that was the concept that I was going to make, soaps and body creams, and then we’d have other artisans that made knitted things or made hand forged axes, leather goods … what’s happening now. This was back before that became a trend, so I guess we were forward thinking at the time. We just decided we didn’t want the overhead of a brick and mortar at that time, and I was also in nursing school and I just decided to continue making bath products and experimenting. I enjoyed it a lot, and that was part of the reason …
Genevieve: You’ve got interested in this because of … You call yourself ‘The nose of the business’. I’m really interested in that, so is Lisa. What does that mean and how did that lead you? How did your nose lead you to this?
Lisa: I’m an artist, and it evolves as a different medium in many respects. Like instead of using just my hands and my eyes to paint a picture, I love drawing and painting, it’s like I use my nose to create this art that is a wearable art and something that’s good for you, that has some aromatherapeutic benefits and …
Genevieve: In their unusual sense, they’re not flowery. They’re really fresh, they’re kind of rugged but they’re not cloying.
Lisa: Portland General Store has evolved a lot. I started making women’s products, and that evolved into men’s because I found that I had a knack for making more … what I thought were more masculine scents.
Genevieve: I think what I really like about your product is they smell really clean. The scents are really clean. I think that that’s a really attractive quality. Also, the other thing that you do which is incredible is you have carried through your philosophy of sustainability and authenticity into your packaging. I know you’re a designer and an illustrator, and your names, your packaging is really unique. Do you want to speak to that a little bit?
Lisa: Sure. Our packaging has also evolved. It started out, I was like tea-staining labels and handwriting on them and using my printer to what it is today. Troy had a large part in the redesign that we recently did.
In 2009, I had an idea to do a men’s line that was separate from the women’s line, and we’re originally on Etsy. I just noticed that there weren’t a lot of the offerings in skincare for men that there are for women … very natural products, just giving that I guess choice to men that women have in skincare, and I decided to create the men’s line.
The issue is men don’t really care right away. Not all. Some men do, but most men, they care more about is it effective, what does it look like … They want a masculine product so we created this, or Troy took on the role of being the creative director because he doesn’t have formal training as a designer, but he did study at Parsons and he’s very, very creative. It was his little project to have these masculine elements in the new label.
Basically, it’s appealing to men aesthetically and then they realize, “Wow. This product, it has this natural qualities. It’s vegan or organic, only uses essential oils,” and then they use it and some of them take a little more work to use, but then you … Men, we’ve tested it on Troy and friends of mine or customers have told me that it takes little work to whip up the shaving, but then it feels really moisturizing, no razor burn compared to some other products where there might be irritation. I’ve had men that have skin issues like eczema that use our products. I mean, it’s for every man.
I promote using natural products. I just think it’s better for any type of skin, but it works for people who have problematic skin as well. That makes me as a previous nurse to be very happy that I can help those people.
Genevieve: I think that’s a good point. The next column that’s coming out in ‘Maine Magazine’ is about holistic skincare. It’s not something that a lot of people think about, but there are chemical preservatives and other kinds of chemicals in body moisturizers and shampoos and facial products. That is another way that we are putting chemicals into our system which can contribute to an overall body burden and tax our systems even more.
I’m a big proponent of all natural skincare products too. I think that what you’re doing, it’s a little bit difficult because the products don’t have as long of shelf life.
Lisa: Yes. We do use preservatives in our products. But we use the gentlest forms that have been tested for and have been used for many years, and they’ve been tested and they’re non-toxic and they’re considered safe. Usually, our products have a shelf life of one year. There’s a couple of products that have a shelf life of six months because we use very little preservative.
It’s hard to not use preservatives in a product because number one, it helps the ingredients to blend together. If you don’t use any preservative, you might have bacteria growth within one to three months. The preservatives we use, they’re so light that we have to tell customers to shake a product because sometimes, the ingredients do separate. If you see a product like that, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it, it just means it has mostly natural contents in it.
Genevieve: It sounds like there’s a lot of science behind all of this, that you’ve really thought every aspect of your formulas out, so that there’s not only you smell great, help you look better, but they’re actually helping in other ways.
Lisa: Yes. We’ve done a lot of research. I mean, I’m the person that has created the formulas, and I just do a lot of research. You kind of have to keep up-to-date with what’s hot in skincare and then there are things that I like that I see out there. I’m like, “That would be great to incorporate.” It’s just a lot of research, and sometimes, it’s hard to find ingredients.
I mean, it could take days to find certain ingredients like spikenard powder. Very difficult to find. Sandalwood exfoliating powder is easier to find, but it’s rare and it’s often sold out on like common websites.
Genevieve: Wow, we’re so lucky really to have you doing all of this.
Lisa: Thank you.
Genevieve: Lisa, what’s next for Portland General Store?
Lisa: We have a lot of exciting things. We’re going to be starting a women’s line in the spring, summer of 2012, and I’m already whipping up formulas and products, soaps, bath scrubs … things like that for women again with the very natural twist. I’m coming back to it now after having done a men’s line for a couple of years. I’m going back to doing a women’s line and I’m hoping it’ll be much more sophisticated than our previous women’s line.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been mentioned I think in a bunch of different national publications and you were saying this off microphone. Tell me about that.
Lisa: We’ve been … Since inception of the men’s line in 2009, we’ve been featured in a number of major publications like ‘Men’s Journal’, ‘Real Simple’, ‘Wallpaper’, ‘GQ’ … a number of those publications. I don’t really want to say what we’re going to be in this Christmas because it’s kind of top secret until the magazines come out, but we are going to be featured in at least five major publications. I’m very excited about that.
Dr. Lisa: That must be very gratifying that you’re living this passion and all this hard work you’ve put into it is getting more of a national recognition and buy-in.
Lisa: It’s absolutely wonderful. I mean, I do feel passionate about our products and I feel really great that I can give these products to men and that they’re catching on. Like I said earlier, men have a harder time I think being enticed to buy an all-natural organic product. There are so many products.
They really care about performance, so if you can sell them a product that performs but is also natural in a package that they like that’s masculine, that they’re not afraid to display, it doesn’t look too feminine, then I think that’s great and that’s what our goal is.
Genevieve: I think it’s so exciting that you and Troy have come to Portland to do this because it’s a wonderful thing for our skin, but also for the entire state, so you do just invested all this energy into this business here. I wanted to tell the people out there, the listeners where they can find your product. How do they go about buying Portland General Store?
Lisa: We have a website, and it’s pretty easy to remember. It’s ‘Portlandgeneralstore.com’. They can reach us via email. It’s ‘[email protected]’.
Genevieve: Thank you so much for coming in today, Lisa.
Lisa: Thank you Gen and Lisa.
Genevieve: We can’t wait to read more about you.
Lisa: Thank you.
Genevieve: To learn more about all-natural skincare in Portland General Store, read my upcoming wellness column, ‘Get Your Glow On’ in the November, December issue of ‘Maine Magazine’ available this week at your local newsstand. To read more or subscribe to ‘Maine Magazine’, visit us online at ‘Mainemag.com’.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour’, we read a quote from the book, ‘Our Daily Tread’. ‘Our Daily Tread’ was created in honor of my late Bowdoin College classmate, Hanley Denning. This is from Bird Baylor.
Today’s quote is “The way to start a day is this. Go outside and face the east and greet the sun with some kind of blessing or chant or song that you made yourself and keep for early morning.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with ‘Our Daily Tread’ or the organization, ‘Safe Passage’, I thought I would give a little background this week.
Our Daily Tread’ began with the birthday celebration. It is January 19th, 2007, busy with party preparations, we heard the kitchen door slam as our 13-year old returned from basketball practice. He called out, “Hey, mom and dad. You know the person who founded ‘Safe Passage’, the one you went to college with? They told us in school. She was killed in a car accident yesterday.”
I thought I must not have heard him correctly. Hanley was only 36, my age as of that day. Unfortunately, it was true. Hanley Denning, the woman known as the ‘Angel of the garbage dump’ had died on January 18. Her family and friend were gathering to mourn even as mine were gathering to celebrate. I thought about Hanley as I greeted by birthday guests. I had intended to contact my college classmate and find out how I might support her efforts in Guatemala.
Caught up in the demands of parenthood and medical training, I had not done so. I considered what she might have told me based on what I knew of her work with ‘Safe Passage’. It seems she might have shared the words of our fellow Bowdoin College graduate, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Give what you have to someone else. It may be better than you dare to think.” The question was, “What did I have to give?” The book ‘Our Daily Tread’ is exactly what I have to give to Hanley and to ‘Safe Passage’, and the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ is what I have to offer now.
Speaker 1: This segment of the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ is made possible by generous contributions from the following sponsors, Tom Shepard of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton and Ameriprise Platinum Financial Services Practice in Yarmouth, Maine. Dreams can come true when you take the time to invest in yourself. Learn more at ‘Ameripriseadvisors.com’, and by Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage Yarmouth, Maine, honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at ‘Rheritage.com’.
Dr. Lisa: Today on our giveback segment, we have Barbara Gulino of Whole Foods Market in Portland. Barbara is going to talk with us about what they have to give and how easy it is to give within our community. We’re also joined by Genevieve Morgan. Thanks for coming in, Barbara.
Barbara: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Dr. Lisa; Barbara, I am so impressed by your store. I go in every week. We gather our locally grown foods for our locally grown food segment that we do here on the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’. It’s clear to see that what you’re doing within the store goes beyond just offering produce, offering things for the home … It’s really about giving the people the chance to live the lives they want to live, and I think part of that is giving back.
Tell me about some of the programs that you have that enable people to do so easily.
Barbara: Whole Foods Market Portland, what we do there is that we support, we believe in being an active participant in the community in which we live and work and play. We’ve been able to do that by providing both store-based programs that we support, the store, as well as customer-supported programs. Our customers really, really embrace that.
I think that the Whole Foods Market customer not only shops there because they’re interested in their health and in high quality products, and particularly our quality standards and what we offer in natural and organic products, but because we are good supporters of the community, and they want to do that too. We make it easy for them to do that.
Whole Foods Market Portland opened in February, 2007. Since February 2007, we’ve been able to through five percent days is an example, and I’ll talk about what the store does first. We’ve been able to provide, select non-profit organizations and schools with over $101,000 to date through five percent days. In five percent days, we offer them four times a year, and it’s where on a specific day, we give five percent of our net sales to a specific non-profit.
As an example, we just had one for Ferry Beach Ecology School. Next week, we will be having on October 18th, we will be having a five percent day for the Cancer Community Center in South Portland, and I’m really excited about that. I think they are great non-profit and they do good work and it will be wonderful to partner with them.
Those are the five percent days in sponsoring people’s non-profits events is one way that we as a store again involve, but then there’s a couple of other things that we do as well, the food banks. Whole Foods Market, one of our core values in regards to community support is to help alleviate hunger. One of the ways that we do that is we donate to food banks seven days a week. It’s great.
We have a wonderful relationship with both Preble Street and with Wayside Programs, food programs now, and we just make sure that people who need the food are able to get really good, safe, edible food to put on their tables or the food pantries. Wayside particularly, they provide food to over 50 … let’s see food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens and social service agencies.
With them, one of the ways that our customers have been able to get involved is we’ve run food drives, and we’ve done six of those food drives now. I am happy to report that those food drives which are on a specific two or three-day time period, usually on a weekend, Wayside will come with a wish list of items that they really need, people can shop for those and then easily drop them off.
In Portland, this was a while ago, but I do remember Wayside telling me that it was something like … There was a study done in 16.8%, and this was a couple of years ago so I can only imagine it’s gotten bigger. Sixteen point eight percent of Portland’ population not including the homeless were food insecure.
Food insecure is what you’re talking about where it’s not necessarily that the person doesn’t have a job, but they don’t make enough money to pay for all of their bills and food as well. Those are the people that are going to the food banks. Another program we’re doing right now is with ‘Project Feed’. We have a program in the store called ‘Feed Families Now’. It changes. Sometimes, it’s ‘Feed Pets Now’, just with that for the Animal Refuge League.
‘Feed Families Now’ is an opportunity to support ‘Project Feed’ out of Woodford’s Congregational Church in Portland. They have an emergency food pantry so customers can purchase premade bags of groceries, might be a meal or snack for a child, and then leave it with the cashier and then we collect them, and then we will bring them to ‘Project Feed’.
Now, we’ve just started that program, so I don’t really have any numbers to give you. This winter, we did it for youth alternatives which is now part of Prop In four months, our customers donated 1,700 bags of food. I mean, that’s absolutely remarkable. I’m so proud of them.
Dr. Lisa: Right. That is really great. This is just by going up to the cashier and saying, “I would like to buy this. I would like to give back to my community in this way.”
Barbara: Exactly. The bags are right there on display. They can choose a bag and the price point they want. Most of the bags are … In fact, I know all of the bags are under eight dollars a bag and they range from let’s say like two fifty to eight dollars, so people can do what they want.
Genevieve: That’s a great gift to give to someone this holiday season.
Barbara: Absolutely. Absolutely. We’ll be doing another food drive in December for Wayside because as you can imagine, the need gets even greater in the winter, and it’s an opportunity to support with things that we all want to eat for a holiday meal … cranberry sauce or stuffing, etcetera.
Genevieve: Barbara, if I am running a non-profit organization and I’m interested in having Whole Foods sponsor one of my events, what are the kinds of values that you’re looking for or the kind of organizations?
Barbara: Pretty much in supporting the community, we support non-profits or schools that are working to alleviate hunger, environmental issues, arts and education, sustainable, agriculture and preventative medicine.
Genevieve: That’s a big list.
Barbara: It is a very big list. It pretty much covers the gamut.
Dr. Lisa: These are your core values, is that correct?
Barbara: Correct, for supporting the community and the non-profits. It’s what we really look for.
Genevieve: It’s interesting to hear all about all of the events that you support because we also … Two shows ago, we did a show in courage and resilience. Julie Marchese from ‘Tri For A Cure’ was our giveback guest.
Barbara: Great.
Genevieve: I know that Whole Foods was involved with ‘Tri For A Cure’.
Barbara: That’s right. We’re involved with ‘Tri For A Cure’ from the inception. Four years now, we have provided all of the athletes with the post-race foods. That’s a thousand women. We really go all out, and we go beyond the water sport bar and banana routine and just have really wonderful, delicious foods and people really enjoy and look forward to it.
I love working with food and I’m glad that I have the opportunity to represent the store for marketing and PR and events in and out of the store and all of the charitable giving and combine my love of assisting people and helping them, and helping the non-profits obtain the funding that they need to raise by providing great food. Many of the non-profits will say to them, “I’ll make a turnkey for you.” Whole Foods Market will provide all of the food, it’s a great event and I know that often, it’s another draw for the non-profit to obtain people to come to the event. They know the food is going to be really great quality and I try to … My motto is, “Under promise over deliver.”
Dr. Lisa: I like that motto. That’s a good one. I’m so glad you were able to join us today. I really appreciate the fact that every week, we come on, we bring our locally grown foods, I’m able to say “These came from Whole Foods Market here in Portland”, you’re supporting the local farmers, you’re supporting the local community and also the people who want to live better.
Barbara: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: I know that Gen Morgan feels the same. We’re very grateful to have you not only supporting us as a radio show and podcast, but also all of the people in the greater Portland area who want to glow, who want to get their glow on as Gen would say.
Barbara: Yes. Very much so. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’, we read one of the posts from ‘Dr. Lisa’s Bountiful Life’. This is a blog that I created in 2008 when I was attempting to find a way to feed myself both from a physical standpoint, but also from an emotional and spiritual standpoint. The blog began with discussions of food. It began with me going out into the community and going to the farmer’s market, and really learning how to cook for myself, learning how to feed myself in a physical way, and over time, it has evolved into more of a spiritual and emotional journey.
This week, it brings everything back around full circle. This is the ‘Bountiful Blog’ Entry for October 11th, 2011. “Apple fundamentals. There’s something very fundamental about apples in autumn. Yesterday, I agreed to chauffer my 15-year old daughter and her three friends back from the local orchard. When I arrived, they had picked their apples and were waiting for the donuts they had ordered. We took pictures of them, heads poking through painted plywood cutouts. My daughter’s friends were flowers and pieces of fruit. My daughter was a jaunty butterfly, an appropriate image for my changeling child.
The donuts still not done. The line for these specially prepared delicacies was long. The girls went on a hayride. I sat on the picnic table, the sun warming my shoulders. It felt far more like a summer season we had just left than the autumn season we had entered. The girls returned from their ride and having finally exhausted all the fun the orchard might offer, accompanied me to the car. They rode quietly home, paper sacks of donuts and satchels of apples on their laps. They had taken a couple of hours out of their high school existence to recapture the billions of childhood.
They had picked apples, eaten dumplings and ridden on hay bales behind the chestnut mare. Apples autumn and playtime. Nothing so fundamentally important as these.” Read more posts such as this on ‘Bountiful-blog.com’.
This week on the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour’, we discussed the theme of ‘Glow’. We began our conversation with the description of running and sunrise, and capturing the moment when the day begins. It’s important to remember that even on the days that we don’t see a sunrise, the sun is still there. The earth is still rotating. The seasons are still changing. We’re still moving from summer until autumn. We’re still watching our children grow. Things will evolve.
If we begin tuning in to our own inner glow, then things around us will start to catch fire. We started our discussion with the lovely women from Akari in the Old Port. We described the importance of looking good on the outside and the confidence that it instills. They also described the importance of relationships and of having a team of people behind you to help you glow.
We moved on to a conversation with Lisa Brodar from Portland General who described living passionately, providing sustainable products that made sense in the greater community in her own life, but also that brought joy into people’s lives. We moved on to a conversation with Barbara Gulino from Whole Foods Market in Portland and tied this in with ‘Our Daily Tread’ in the notion that whatever it is that you do to give back, just do something. Show up. Give back.
It all starts with the glow. It starts with your inner glow. It starts with the food that you eat. It starts with your connecting with the sunrise, it starts with connecting with the apples and the orchard and autumn. It’s all possible. Begin where you are and you’ll begin to radiate outward.
Thank you for joining us again this week. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast’ is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of ‘Maine Magazine’ on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Kast and Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John McCain.
For more information on our hosts, production team, ‘Maine Magazine’ or any of the guests featured here today, visit us at ‘Doctorlisa.org’. Tune in every Sunday at 11am for the ‘Dr. Lisa Radio Hour’ on WLOB Portland, Maine, 1310 AM or streaming ‘WLOBradio.com’. Podcasts are now available at ‘Doctorlisa.org’.