Podcast Episode #125: Non-Invasive Facelift with the Face Fitness Doctor.
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Today, Sharri speaks with Dr. Naeemah Ruffin who is known as the Face Fitness Doctor. She is changing the faces of women and men with her unique face fitness program and is sought out by a variety of individuals such as corporate executives, actors, and models who are looking for natural and noninvasive approaches to achieving a youthful facial appearance. She is also the Founder and CEO of Bellantz Skincare. Listen in as she shares her amazing journey!
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Naeemah Ruffin’s Website, https://bellantz.com/
Naeemah Ruffin’s Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/facefitnessdoctor/
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EW PODCAST EPISODE #124:
Sharri Harmel: Welcome to the Extraordinary Women Podcast, where we are all about supporting women over 40 to create and live a fabulous next chapter. You are in a unique generation of women, unlike any before you, with opportunities and longevity. That means it’s time to intentionally. Design your fabulous next chapter rather than just live it. That is what the Extraordinary Women magazine and podcast are all about. Let’s get started. Naeemah, I am so excited to have you here today and hear all about your story, both personally as well as professionally. So welcome.
Naeemah Ruffin: Thank you, Sharri. It’s so good to be here.
Sharri Harmel: Lovely. So talk a bit about kinda your career path and then how you landed where you are.
Naeemah Ruffin: Ok. The long version or the short version?
Sharri Harmel: Uh, short version. Cause we’re gonna get into what to do with aging skin.
Naeemah Ruffin: Great. My background, I started in finance. My undergraduate degree is in accounting, so I started my first career, I’d like to say in accounting, so I was a CPA. Then I moved to finance, so I worked in corporate America for about 16 years. So I moved throughout American Express, which was the major part of where I worked finance, risk management, marketing, general manager. I did a lot. I moved a lot through corporate America, and I guess I was probably in my mid thirties at the time, probably 37, and I went on a medical missions trip to Africa. And I was in Zambia and it was through my church. I spent about two week there and it was life changing for me. And while I was there, I just thought to myself, oh my gosh, I have a whole other world waiting for me back, you know, in New York. And I just couldn’t imagine going back and what, how would I feel? What would I do? Because it just was so life changing. And so when I did go back to work, I just was so unfulfilled. I felt like there’s just so much more that I could be doing and that maybe I should be. And you know, when you’re in corporate America, it just sort of is like a beast unto itself and you just sort of get consumed and before you know it, time has passed and you’re like, where’s the time gone? I just felt like I wanted to do more, so I ended up going back to school for medicine. A big part of being on that trip was I worked with a lot of doctors, dentists from literally all over the world. Doctors from Israel, Nigeria, you name it. And so just that exposure and that short amount of time was incredible for me. And so I thought about, you know, maybe going, going back to school for public health or some kind of medicine. So, long story short, while I was still working, I ended up going and getting a post back. So I went back to school to get all of my medical prerequisites so that I could go to school. And I left Corporate America at, I think it was, you know, 37, 38. And I went back to school for medicine and public health. I found a dual degree program in New York. It was, um, an MPH and, uh, Dr. Pediatric. So I finished school and I did a simultaneous degree. So I did both degrees in four years, and then I went and did my residency in foot and ankle surgery and medicine, and I did that. And before I knew it, I was out and working. And one of the things that I realized, was that medicine had changed so much from sort of what I thought it was really about, and it just really was another corporate America. But the people were the constituents there, and so I felt a little bit disillusioned because I felt like, wow, I went back to school and did residency and did all this to help people, and I felt like I wasn’t empowered to really help people the way I was trained to help them. Because there’s insurance and there are people who are telling you, no, you cannot. Order an MRI even though you think an MRI is the right thing, or, I found that I had to spend only a certain amount of time with individuals because you had to get through more patients in a short amount of time. So that was really very disheartening. And at the same time, you know, I was trying to keep up with my health. I’m a breast cancer survivor, so while I was in my training, I was diagnosed, actually when I graduated school, right before, a month before I went into residency, that’s when I was diagnosed. So that was a big, you know, turning point in my life cause I wasn’t sure. It was probably the stress, you know, I’ve been in just the high power jobs all my life ever since, you know, I graduated college. That wasn’t necessarily helpful for me. And so just the diagnosis itself was life changing again and so I just, I talked with my husband and you know, I said, you know, we put so much time and sacrifice and energy into it. Do I just stop and not do the residency? But I think at the time, Speaking with my doctor who’s very holistic in his mindset. We just sort of had a little meeting and just said, you know what? If you do go to residency, you’re gonna have to change how you deal with stress. You’re gonna have to change your eating habits. Because this literally will be a life and death.
Sharri Harmel: Wow. It’s incredible that the doctor had the time to be that honest with you. And how did that feel? How did that sit with you when you heard that? Did you know how to do it differently?
Naeemah Ruffin: I didn’t. And so he’s an amazing doctor in that because he’s so holistic and he wanted to support me in that. I mean, when I applied to medical school, he wrote one of my recommendation. So he was very vested in me being successful. But the reality of it was I needed to change because that first five years after you’re cancer free is critical because that’s literally when you’re most vulnerable to have a recurrence again. And so I said, you know what? We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna move close to the. So I can complete the residency, and I just found tools to help me manage stress much better. I literally changed my diet, became completely keto. Because one of the key things I learned about cancer is that it survives off of sugar. Glucose is really the way it feeds itself. The higher the sugar is floating around in your bloodstream, the more likely you are to have a recurrence. And so being on a keto diet is very, very low in carbohydrates and any cancer remaining or new, it would literally, So I was going to starve any cancer to death, you know, I’m proud to say I’m going on my seventh year being cancer free in April. But yeah, you know, it was a scary time and it, and it was more of a looking at fragility of life face to face and realizing, you know, you may have been invincible and you could pull all-nighters and you can do this and you can do that, but that. You have to understand what it also does to your body. I never really had come face to face with my mortality in such a way that made me really rethink everything that I had done prior to that. Being successful in corporate America, running one of the small businesses within American Express. Being the youngest on the executive team. And all of that, it had its cost and a toll. So that was, you know, one of the things that I realized was like I needed to love myself more and to be more gentle with my body and listen to my body more. I never realized how divorced my mind was from my body, so I just remember learning how to be quiet and listen to myself. It was really hard. I thought it would be so, you know, okay, I can do this, but it was like really feeling what was going on inside my body. Being in corporate America, that’s one of the things you do. You learn how to function and shut it off. You have to shut it off. And even, you know, as a doctor, you just learn how to not be so emotional about the things that you experience
Sharri Harmel: residency, I’m assuming. And then what happens?
Naeemah Ruffin: I started working and one day I was 48 at the time. I woke up, I looked in the mirror as I normally do, I always have this mirror sitting right by my window. Cause we have like southern exposure, so we get sunlight all day. And I just remember looking in the mirror and I said, oh my gosh, who is this?
Sharri Harmel: I asked myself that question too
Naeemah Ruffin: And so I just, that one day I didn’t recognize myself. I just saw someone who was so tired and looked so sad and I just felt like, wow, is this what life has done? And then I just also felt like my cheeks look so deflated and I just really look like, oh, who are you? And so I said to myself, wow, my mom and my grandmother pass. Like, I couldn’t say like, ma, has this ever happened to you? And then you just like, and then what did you do about it? But I thought like, oh, maybe this is the moment when you look old and then that’s it. It’s just downhill from there and then, you know, and is this, that moment? And then I just kinda sat with that for a moment and I said, oh, well, even if it is that moment, isn’t there anything you can do about it naturally? Because of course I had lots of people that I knew in my life that had done Botox and fillers in the surgery, and I just said Oh, that’s just not for me. That’s just not, but I said, is this the moment at which they recognize, oh, maybe that’s what I should do. And so I kinda went on this energized mission of figuring out what to do about the situation. And it actually gave me so much more life because as I mentioned to you as I was practicing medicine, I just felt like Oh, the, the paperwork and everything was such a burden and I just wanted to be sort of free to just treat patients how I wanted to. And this sort of was like a little bit of an infusion of like, Ooh, this is interesting. Let’s do some research on this. Long story short, that’s what I sort of came across the lowest hanging fruit ever in anti-aging was the facial muscle. They were literally staring me in the face because I had, for my entire life, ever since I was nine, probably earlier, I have always been into skincare, taking care of your skin cause my mom had her beauty secret and so I have always tried something and whether it was, uh, my mom’s Clinque, which she ended up taking me to the local supermarket and said, no, you’re not using my Clinque, you’re gonna use your own product. So she bought me, I don’t know if you remember St. Ives Apricot Facial Scrubs and uh, there was some store brand of mud mask, so she said, let me teach you how to make egg white masks and this and that, but you’re gonna use your own stuff. And so I learned how to do different things for my face. And then my grandmother had her own recipes, so it’s always been a part of me my entire life. But I guess when I looked in the mirror and I saw myself, I said, this is deeper than just the skin. Cause the thing that I noticed was that while I looked tired and my face just kinda looked, just deflated, I had gotten like eight or nine hours of sleep the night before. So it wasn’t that I was tired and I wasn’t getting proper rest. I was getting proper rest. I was doing my skincare protocol, eating right and exercising. So I said, this is something deeper than that. And as I was researching, one of the things I had come across was some of the medical literature had, there were dentists and oral and facial maxillary surgeons that were prescribing facial exercises for some of their patients, especially the patients had like facial trauma and they had to rehabilitate those facial muscles. So there were certain exercises that they were having them do The same thing with dentists. Their patients had, uh, tooth extractions of what, what have you. They would, you know, give them certain exercises. But this one dentist who had published this research noted that their patients started to look younger.
Even the patients were saying, we love these cause they’re doing something to our face. I read that and I said, There’s something to that cause literally if you exercise your body with all the muscles and you look good, you know you may fit into your pair of jeans much better. Everything just fits and you look great. Why couldn’t the same thing happen with the 50 plus muscles in your face, in your neck? So it was like staring me right in the face, the sort of answer. I started doing a lot of research and then I tested a group of exercises on myself for three months. Then my husband noticed a difference. And, and I took several pictures before and after week, after week, and I said, Hmm, ok. So as a scientist you’ve gotta take this method and beta test it. And so, Tested it on a group of women aged five to 72, with various different reasons why they wanted to work with me. Of course, a 25 year old didn’t have wrinkles, but she had facial asymmetry in her mouth, and so she wanted to know, Hey, could you fix this? And then I had, and then the 72 year old woman, she was like, I just want you to work on my entire piece, so mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . I was like, fine. So I created exercises for each one of. And I said, but you have to spend four months with me. I practiced it on myself for three months. I said, but give me that extra month to just fine tune anything that we’re working on. And so they all did. And then at the end of four months, they were so excited. We all got on a Zoom call. I said, share your experiences. And they all were just so excited about what the exercises had done for them. Of course, I had the before and after photos and that’s when I realized this really, really works. And so they started referring me to their coworkers or friends or family members. And before I knew what, I had a list of people that wanted to work with me. And so that’s when the business really started. It was really birthed outta that because, and I realized that everyone’s facial muscles are different. Everyone’s the shape of their face is different. So you really could personalize each and every person’s exercise routine. The great thing about it was that, Even individuals who were thinking about doing Botox that said, you know what? Let me work with you and see, you know, how it goes. They were so excited and I started initially, I said, you know, to myself, well, I’m probably not gonna work with people who’ve had or are getting those procedures, but I started getting inquiries from individuals who said, you know what? I’ve been doing it for these number of years, but I don’t wanna do it anymore and I work with or I was thinking about doing it, but I wanna try this first. And so that’s when I, you know, sort of expanded what I was doing to a greater audience of women. Cause I said to myself, no one really thinks that there are other alternatives. It’s either you do Botox, fillers, surgery, or nothing. Really what else is there? From a natural perspective, this really was more of an alternative that people could give themselves, even if they. You know what? Face exercise isn’t for me at least they tried it. At least they gave themselves that other, you know, alternative.
But I’ve never had anyone say, oh, it doesn’t work. I’m not gonna do this anymore. So that’s really sort of where I had the journey to where I am. And then before I knew it, I also with skincare, which has always been a passion of mine. I ended up starting a skincare line. Being a breast cancer survivor, I, you know, also recognize, you know, your skin is the largest organ in the body. It absorbs everything. So I wanted to make sure that not only myself, but other individuals could have access to skincare products that did not have any. The forever chemicals, the pfas or parabens, and were ethically sourced, used natural and organic ingredients that made it complete. Cause one of the things that I guess we’ll talk about is that your facial muscle is attached directly to the skin only in the face. And usually I, oh, so if you look at like my biceps here and you see the muscle, I can pull my skin over the muscle very easily. So you cannot do that with your face. This is both skin and muscle. There’s no separation of the two. So wherever the muscle goes, the skin goes. And that’s one of the things that I’ve noticed, and you know what individuals notice about their skin is that everything starts to become tighter. I was at, not to digress, but I was getting a facial and the facialist was saying, wow, when I look at your face, your skin, you know, from afar it looks kinda thin and it looks, you know, very smooth. She said, but when I actually start, Massage the skin and clean the skin. She’s like, it’s very strong. It’s very sort of resilient and she’s like, it doesn’t feel like normal like it normally would feel when I’m doing the facials. And I said it’s because the facial muscles are different. They’re tighter, they’re tone, they’re bigger.
Sharri Harmel: If you’re not seeing what we’re talking about. She looks like she’s got cheekbone are sticking out.
Naeemah Ruffin: Or fillers in the cheeks. Cause that’s usually where people get, you know, fillers to get you that, that’s muscle.
Sharri Harmel: That’s crazy. So she was like cleaning. She’s like, why is your skin? She said, it just looks very different than how I thought it was gonna feel. That’s so interesting. So go backwards though, because you had this beta group and so many questions are running through my head. The 25 year old that wanted more symmetry in her face, did she get that also?
Naeemah Ruffin: Yes, she did. And so one of the things that, and it’s interesting because she’s an actress and so she was always so self-conscious about this sort of smile and, you know, sort of crookedness. And so what it was really was the muscle had just a contracture that needed to be released in order to bring it back to a symmetrical side. Yeah, and actually she, I have pictures of her on my website and the results, and you can see how her mouth at rest, it just had this slight contracture and then it was normal afterwards.
Sharri Harmel: So probably the same with eyebrows. People sometimes talk about, One side of their face is like going south and the other side is holding its own
Naeemah Ruffin: And that typically, you know, people say, well, how do you get these contractions, you know, in your face? And it’s really how you move your face. So for example, with the brow, you see your mom or your dad, and they always have this like, what are you doing? What are, and they’re constantly doing this. You’re typically more likely going to do the same thing. And so after a while you’ll just have that one eyebrow that stays up higher and it’ll appear higher than the other eyebrow. And so what you know, we’ll typically do is we’ll, we’ll start to elongate the muscle cuz the muscle has shortened on one side versus the other side. And so it’s just a series of exercises to elongate that muscle. And it’s so interesting you bring that up. Cause when I usually start working with individuals, I’ll start with the eye area and uh, that’s when they’ll start to see some of the asymmetry in their face or notice even in the cheek area when we’ll start working on. And the, and the number of muscles that are responsible for that area, they’ll notice that one cheek they can move higher or move more than the other side. And that’s where, you know, we all have that sort of asymmetry in our body do, and it really doesn’t come out until you start working those muscles and you realize like, oh wow, I was doing this, but now This cheek doesn’t seem to wanna move up. It’s because you probably have been overworking this, or you’ll chew on one side of the face more than the other side. A lot of those unconscious habits become more apparent when you start moving those muscles.
Sharri Harmel: Ok. So you also said that you have to customize the facial exercises. So do you work one-to-one with people to create the appropriate. Okay, everyone. She’s probably looking at my face going, I know exactly what I need to do with this woman. I’m gonna call you and say let’s start cause we need to do something about this. Is it age dependent that some people, cause I noticed you have shorter programs and then longer programs. Is that dependent often on age?
Naeemah Ruffin: It’s actually not dependent upon age. It’s literally interesting, dependent upon the areas of the face that you wanna work on. And each area is different. So some areas are less complex than other areas. So for example, the eye area is less complex cause it’s just a ring muscle. It originates here and then it out and then it attaches here. So on both sides, just one muscle one. So working one muscle and working the upper lid, the lower lid is easier because you’ll see results faster. So I usually reserve six weeks for that. For the, The eye because the eye area is very superficial. The skin is very thin around the eyes, and so you’ll see results much faster. Then, let’s say the cheek area, you have many more muscles that are involved in the cheek. It’s a bigger volume, and also when you age, your fat volume tends to decrease, decrease in that area, which is why when I looked in the mirror, my cheeks look so deflated. So, and it. Late thirties, early forties. So by the time I was looking in the mirror at 48, it made sense that I just looked like everything just looked so flat. And so, Building up that area, it takes longer cause there are more muscles involved. So you have to learn how to one, isolate the muscles and then work the muscles out. And that’s a process that is very neurological. Cause your facial muscles are the only muscles also in the body that are intricately linked to the brain. So, oh my. When you think about your thoughts, your feelings, and your emotions mm-hmm. , they immediately show on. They’re not gonna show on your biceps or on your legs. And so the pathway between your brain and the facial muscles very short. Most of the time we use one of the two pathways. It’s the involuntary pathway, which. If I were to say Sharri and you just, sorry, you wouldn’t smile. you wouldn’t, but you wouldn’t think No. Oh, she just said my name. It’s just a very automatic pathway. Involuntary. But if I were to say, I would like you to open your eyes very wide without moving your forehead. I
Sharri Harmel: I can’t even do that
Naeemah Ruffin: you have to think about it. Definitely. So that’s a pathway that you’re not used to using. And so it takes about six weeks to build that pathway. So it’s easier to probably do it here. But when you’re talking about other areas of the face that are more complex that have more muscles, it takes a bit longer. And so that would be more like the 12 weeks. And some people say, well, I wanna work on this area and that area. And so then we just moved to 20 weeks because you have to give yourself time to build those neurological pathways from your brain to the muscle so that you can voluntarily open the eyes without moving the forehead. Sure. Raise the cheeks without squinting the eyes and all of the other different combinations. And so that’s one of the reasons why I have the different programs. And so that’s what I call the core training because we literally get in and we just start working those muscles. I even have a program that is for bot. Patients because when people typically start to work with me, they’re sort of at baseline. Mm-hmm. , and then they’re moving to work those muscles. But when you have had Botox, you’ve had those muscles temporarily paralyzed for some period of time. It’s almost like if you about.
Someone who’s been paralyzed from the waist down. Mm-hmm. , their limbs are literally just skin and bone. Yeah. The muscles atrophy. Exactly. And so the more, the longer you’ve had the Botox, the, the more atrophy the muscles have been. And so we need much longer than just someone who’s sort of Botox naive. We’ve gotta like rehabilitate those muscles, build more muscle spindles, and then we can start to build stronger muscles going. That program is a little bit longer. Do you do anything about the neck? Oh, yeah.
Sharri Harmel: that’s, I think that’s where all the fat goes actually. ,
Naeemah Ruffin: yes. I have exercises literally for every part of the and the neck. Horizontal crows feet, droopy eyelids under eye. The contour of the cheeks, the mouth,
Sharri Harmel: my sister call puppet mouth. When you get the lines on either side
Naeemah Ruffin: nasal labial folds. And then you have the marionette lines, which referring to then the. You love that little and then the neck, you know, you’ve got Turkey neck, you’ve got double chin.That’s one of the things that I do, my neck exercises, because I can notice, like I’ll look in the mirror, have a mirror right here. I’ll just go like its out for a longer period of time, I need to tighten that muscle up. So it’s an ongoing thing. And, and the beauty of the program is that I have individuals who wanna continue working on other areas. So once they finish a program, they may say, you know what? I wanna, you know, add this area or can finish the program and then move to a lifestyle program where we don’t need to meet every week. So the core training, the six, 12, and 20, we meet every week for five minutes. And w customize that. And so how I customize it is I would give an exercise. You’d start to do the exercise at home, less, takes less than five minutes a day to do the exercise. And you can do this on Zoom, right. So that was the beauty is that when I launched it was, you know, during the pandemic it was over Zoom. And so I literally had clients on the West Coast, east Coast, that was the beauty. And then folks in New who wanted to meet in person, they minutes. We go through what your specific needs are. You learn the exercises, I give you a written protocol and you practice it, you know, on your own for the, you know, prescribed number of days and how long, and then we, we meet the following week and then you send pictures of yourself. And that’s the feedback that I get from my clients is the most humbling part. Yes. Is the picture taking Yes. That’s where you come face to face with who you really, you’re not supposed to no makeup. It’s just that photo. And they call it the, the mugshot. We wanna see really what you need to work on. And so those are the photos that we track every week. So we look at those photos together. And we see where you’re making improvement. And if you’re making improvement, then that’s what we’ll add to the protocol. If you’re not, it may be that we need to change the exercise. Maybe you don’t like the exercise. So there’s so many different reasons why I will adjust it, but that’s where we go from week to week and we look at the pictures together. So I show the before and after every single. And we’ll see what do you like? What do you wanna work on more or what have you. And that’s sort of, it becomes a very customized program.
Sharri Harmel: The other question I have as you’re talking, because you know, obviously I think this is just a fantastic program. I love it. There’s so much about it that I have never thought about because if truly our muscles are connected to the skin, then just creams or scrubs or whatever, even serums, whatnot, they can’t really impact the muscle. They can only do but so much. It’s really quite interesting. You mentioned sugar though, as it related to cancer. What are the lifestyle issues that are most detrimental to our skin that we have control over? Because some of it is genetics, I’m imagining, but you can shift. It sounds like you can shift genetics too through exercise.
Naeemah Ruffin: Yes, absolutely. I love this. So yeah, so as it relates to the skin, the genetics, Not to downplay it, but it’s really only 10 at most how it relates to the impact on the skin. Everything else, the 80 to 90% is really driven by lifestyle and those changes you can make. One of the big changes is actually sugar. There are what they call advanced glycosylated end products, which are, we call them in short ages, and they’re basically these molecules of protein that gets attached to sugar. and the sugar actually, when it attaches to the protein, especially in the skin, it actually starts to degrade the skin. So it’ll degrade collagen. It’ll degrade the elastin in the skin. And so forth. So, and that’s just how it relates to the skin. There’s so many other effects that it has on the body, but eliminating as much sugar in your diet as possible will
Sharri Harmel: but it’s not just, you know, me eating sugar cubes or jelly bellies or whatever. It’s also what I’m hearing you say, it’s in carbs, it’s in wine, it’s in, you know
Naeemah Ruffin: you have to really go through your entire diet and it’s a lot to do. But once you. and you understand the impact you can make that lifestyle change. It takes some discipline, but you can make that lifestyle change and you’ll be so mindful of everything that you put in your body. You’ll look at the labels. I mean, even some food we eat that may look like it’s very low in sugar. is high in sugar. The fruit apples, oranges, they have more sugar than berries. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries. And so even shifting the fruit that you eat to lower glycemic fruit, stevia is better than berries cause it’s a leaf. So it’s really being disciplined about the sugar intake cause not only does it age you, and it’s so funny that they, we call it ages because it does age you, but it also will fuel cancer. And one of the things, not to get too technical about cancer, but. When you look at your own cells and your body, they can survive off of two pathways. One pathway is the glucose pathway and the other pathway is the fat pathway. So like if you were, let’s say, going on a fast, your body would not be taking in. Glucose, it wouldn’t be taking in any carbs, so it would automatically shift how it burns calories, the intake from the fat sources. And that’s why typically when you pass, you’ll lose, you know, lots of weight cause all of the fat stores like, oh, well we don’t have any sugar coming in, so let’s go in the fat here. Oh, there’s some extra fat over here, there’s some over here. Put that in the burner. And so everything sort of gets burned up and it will. What it needs through the fat pathway. Cancer cells don’t have that. They only have that one mechanism, which is glucose. So you wanna not fuel that pathway and you can do that. Cause literally every day of our life we have cancer cells floating around, but our immune system keeps them in check. And there are things that compromise the immune system, like stress and so forth. The food we eat, If you are maintaining all of those other areas, And not the sugar and very high on the sugar. You’re just giving an avenue of an uncontrolled cancer cell being Happy. When you think about it that way, some of those things you’ll just sort of push away from, you know, the table and say, you know what? I’m just, I can find another alternative source and go that route.
Sharri Harmel: You know, one thing that I noticed, cuz I spend almost half the year in France or in. Is that the food here and the condiments, everything has in America has so much more sugar. You eat ketchup or even mustard. Yes. And France. Yes. It’s totally different. You eat yogurt in France, which in America, everyone loves yogurt. But if you look at the amount of sugar in it, it’s incredible. Do you see a difference in if you work with the European women men, do you see a difference in the skin longer term?
Naeemah Ruffin: Absolutely. I always find that Europeans their skin looks so much better. As a matter of fact, my neighbor is French and she maintains, uh, residence half of the year she’s in, and then the other half she’s here and she’s well into her late seventies. And, you know, her skin, the quality of it just looks different. So that’s why I say genetics sometimes people will say, oh, well you’re African American, and, you know, it’s like, you know, Not every single African American person has great skin, so the genetics really play a very minor part. The biggest part is the sun. The second biggest part is the diet and the lifestyle. Smoking, drinking, you know, all that. Even the wine that the French loved to. It’s very small quantities. It’s not. So, it really does play into the quality of the skin. I’ve seen many European women with much better skin than darker, you know, African American people. So it really does, the diet and the lifestyle has a lot to do.
Sharri Harmel: Well talk about, cuz you mentioned somewhere in your website about the fact that you. Multi ethnicities and that you really pulled from the African, the European, the Asian, all of that. From those parts of you and the knowledge and the family, I’m assuming that you have, um, tell us like are there unique aspects of each that you’ve specifically pulled and possibly brought into your skincare line? Is that where it shows up mostly?
Naeemah Ruffin: Yes. That’s where it shows up mostly. And I would also say just when I what’s been passed down to me from like my grandmother’s on both sides because my grandmother on one side has the Asian aspect in the dna. Ok. The other grandmother has more of the African and European, the Irish part, so it’s whatever they were doing, you know, it just kind of gets blended in, you know, when you kinda think. How things just get passed down from generation to generation. And I do remember when I was young, even my father, my grandmother, they. They would say, oh, don’t forget to do your exercises for your face and your eyes. And I would say, Hmm. So it was one exercise. It was for my eyesight to keep my eyes strong and there was one exercise for the neck so that I don’t, so that I keep a jawline and I, you know, and I don’t have a double chin. So even that was sort of implanted in me very, very well. That’s incredible. Yeah. And it’s interesting how it just ends up that I wanted to do, Going forward, when I work with my manufacturer and they have formulators and chemists, you know, I look for those ingredients that. I know have been tested and I’ve learned that these ingredients are great. Like shea butter for example, that comes from, you know, a large part of Africa. And so they grow from the shea tree. And so using shea butter, I know I’ve done that my whole life. It imparts this quality of protection to the skin and it moisturizes it. So those are like the ingredients that I know and I look for
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. And name. Give us the name of your company so everyone, it’ll be down in the show notes if you’re questioning how to spell that. Talk a little bit. Now we’re gonna talk about business now, because you came outta corporate. Obviously there’s a pivot or two in there. What’s different? About running a business? Did you start out with just you and I? I see she’s nodding her head. So what was, what was, what were the challenges that you had to embrace because you had really been in a corporate environment, both medical as well as financial to start your own business?
Naeemah Ruffin: Such a great question, and it’s a timely question because even now I struggle with my training in corporate America. And being an entrepreneur and just because, and so for me, when I started the business, I’m like, oh, I have, I’ve run a business, I’ve run a 500 million business before I know how to do it. It is so different. The, the, the I, I just, you know, cannot emphasize, it’s really different. Just because you have experience running a company doesn’t mean that you can start one from scratch. So I think that for me has been probably the most challenging. You know, when I recently, and I say it’s a recent issue that’s come up for me or challenge because I’ve reached out to some of my former colleagues in corporate America and we’ve mm-hmm. who’ve also started their own businesses, and we’ve just sort of discussed how it’s so different. And the biggest part I think, is that when you’re in corporate America, you get hired, business is already established if it’s a great company, fortune, fortune 20, they’ve been around for, for decades, maybe even hundreds of years. And so you’re stepping in and you’re acquiring a lot of the skills. An experience that you need to run the business to keep it going, to grow it more. When you start off as an entrepreneur, you’re starting from zero, but your skillset is how to run. And so for me, I started out. I was growing fast, and I think a lot of it had to do with I was delivering a service that women so desperately needed during Covid because one, they were stuck on the computer looking at themselves, right? Two, they weren’t able to, depending on where you were living, to go out and get those treatments. Whether it was that killer or the Botox. And so things were changing. They were starting to see their face and how it really looked without all of that treatment. They were staring at themselves in the mirror on Zoom, and so it was like, oh my gosh. And so I come along and I have this service that helps. It’s growing and growing. So the business was growing and growing, and so I was like, oh my gosh, this is like on an upward trajectory as opposed to what I was used to. Manage, Slow growth, but growth nonethelessnand so, For me, it was like, okay, I was growing really fast and then I was getting press from here. Oh, can you, can you join this media thing here? And I was just sort of like, whoa, this is really big. I need some help. And so I had to get an assistant and then, you know, hire a publicist for some period of time. And so it was like, so much was happening, so much was happening in the economy and. Things started to shift, and then I started seeing a little bit more of a drop off in maturing. And so it was like, oh, what’s happening? And so I was, you know, thinking back to all of the skill sets that I, you know, acquired in terms of managing a mature business, but trying to apply that to a very new business. And it just wasn’t, my expectations needed to be adjusted and the reality needed to set in. this is really just a very new business, new business model. It doesn’t exist out there. I sort of straddle between the medical and the fitness world, you know? Cause you’re not gonna find Face Fitness, um, in hospital settings. Nope. Or even going to work out at the gym doesn’t exist. And so it was really like, I don’t have a model, I don’t have, you know, to sort of run off of. So it was literally the most entrepreneurial. Environment that I could work in. So I have to sort of adjust, take a step back and say, this is where you’re very different. Adjust your expectations. This skillset’s great here, but you can’t necessarily apply it here because you know, I was used to like grow, grow, grow, right, grow. You’re over here, you’re over, you’re right. And it’s like how do you do that with something that’s, you know, literally. This part of the trajectory. Sure. And you’re used to, you know, managing here. So that I think was a big lesson for me. It took a little bit longer to learn this lesson. But I think primarily cause I was just so stuck in the corporate America growth mode, which is, you know, you’re managing to the street and I’m not managing to the street.
Sharri Harmel: You’re, you’re the street actually.
Naeemah Ruffin: exactly. My clients, you know, I’m managing to them and what they need. Evaluate and see what are some of the things I may wanna change, add, refresh. I recently refreshed my product line. There were some products that just, individuals just loved some they didn’t love as much, and so how can I give them more of what they love? And so that was a great, you know, way for me to do that. Plus, I worked with, and this happens very quickly, I worked with such a wide range of women and men. Yeah. I started working with Bells Palsy. Because that is one of the areas that is often neglected that where they don’t really know how to treat some of these conditions. Other than, and I’ll give a perfect example. I had, uh, a client that I worked with, she had Botox, she had both Bells Palsy, 14 years. She did the Botox, she had surgery, she did acupuncture. . And she had come to me after doing all of these different modalities that didn’t work for her. And someone said, why don’t you try this? As she found me on the internet and she said, I’ve done everything else. I’ve tried everything else. And so this is one of the things I said, well, you don’t have to worry about me cutting you don’t have. So there’s no risks, there’s no side. And this is something that you will practice for the rest of your life, the protocol that we come up with. So the results that she had seen, she was just literally blown away. I remember one of the sessions that I had with her, we were six months in, so I, I mentioned I have a core training, so I literally developed a training program for her from scratch just based on my medical knowledge of the anatomy, the physiology of the face. She went through the core training, and then I have a lifestyle program. The lifestyle is like for people who are not as disciplined or wanna continue or wanna see more results, they’ll meet with me as opposed to every week. Okay. They’ll meet with me maybe twice a month or once a month, depending on their needs. And so this way they get to check in with me, make sure that they’re still improving and so forth.
So I have that program as well. So I just remember, I think it was like five or six months in and she, we looked at her before, like the before and after, and she was like, why did my face look like that? Was, I like making a face. I said, did you not remember that? Was your face at rest? She had made so much progress. And different parts of her face from the eye area, eyebrow, cheek, mouth, the chin that literally her original was unrecognizable to her.
Sharri Harmel: That’s incredible. I think what you’re also saying about that is that could be your focus, and yet you’re dealing also with people like me who are aging and wanting to deal with that. And the 25 year old who’s an actress that wants more symmetry in her face, that’s a wide cross section of people.
Naeemah Ruffin: Yeah, exactly. What I’m saying is that it, I really had to kind of take a step back and say, wow. Let me take inventory of all the exercises that I actually developed in process, and it was like over 150 different exercises that I had developed for different parts of the face for various different reasons. The other aspect is, is that. I have an intake form that you fill out, which gives me general health history, some medical and lifestyle. But the health in the medical is really important for me because your facial muscles are very thin and they’re flat, and it’s not like exercising your body. So when people generally start, they wanna start, they think like, you know, when you’re doing pushups or whatever, it’s like the brute force of doing that and like, oh my gosh, exercise. Cause I think about exercise is like, ah, but the effort is much less. And so I do work with individuals in their late sixties, seventies, almost eighties. And so sometimes some of them have rheumatoid arthritis and they can’t do certain exercises or sometimes I’ll require you to use your fingers to help with the resistance for your exercise. So for me, my medical knowledge I use to help meet the needs of the clients because I wanna make sure, okay, if you can’t do this neck exercise, cause for some with rheumatoid arthritis, your cervical spine is not as strong, and so you don’t. I don’t want any of my clients to hurt themselves. Right? And so I need to know certain aspects of your health because I’m not gonna prescribe those exercises versus other ones. I may even have to, for some individuals who’ve had certain medical conditions, nerve pain, neuralgia, and their neck, or TMJ, and their face, I have to design different exercises for them in particular to. Those needs so that they don’t hurt themselves so that they’re safe. Even that medical aspect of it, just helping people understand, you know, it could be anything. I’ve worked with individuals who’ve had surgery in their mouth and we’ve had to pause mm-hmm. and then when they came back, they wanna know, okay, how can I do this with, you know, so I’ll work with them and their doctor to figure out how they can still exercise their face
Sharri Harmel: So, but that’s the face to face with the. When you stand back from all of it and it’s like the business is a separate being almost . Yeah. That’s how I describe it. Almost like it’s a child that you’re trying to raise and to grow and decide, you know, what school are you going to try to help them get into, et cetera. Do you have a mastermind group that you connect with? How do you get up into that higher level, almost strategic planning of your business? Where do you get that?
Naeemah Ruffin: That’s a great question. Cause you need that, you know, you do. Cause especially as an entrepreneur, it’s very lonely road. you know, in corporate America, I had peers, I had people, I, you know, you have everyone. So one of the things that I did was I reached out to these business mentors. It’s a part of New York. Um, and they, and they’re there to help you from a small business perspective. Individuals who. Are able to provide a sounding board and give you advice, and some of the individuals have experience in your particular area, whether it’s the beauty industry or technology, and so you’re able to connect with those mentors and they can help the sounding board give you advice, great ideas and things like that. I also was connected to this amazing, she’s my beauty advisor. She has. I think about 40 years running Christian Dior, north America. So she also is on my team to help me as I think through, whether it’s the product line she tests, the products that I work on and are planning to launch. And she gives me constant feedback and helps. So, yeah, because it does, you know, especially early on, you’re not gonna start off with a team, right? You’re gonna start off alone and then, As you’re running the business, you also have to make time for, you know, strategically, where am I going, where am I heading, what’s my vision, my mission, my goals, and so forth. So that part of my training in corporate America is very easy for me to just pick that up because that’s the part that. I used to love doing that more than just running the business. It was like, oh, strategic planning sessions.
Sharri Harmel: Let’s start to talk about who we wanna be when we grow up and you know, putting all that out. I love, that’s the part I love.
Naeemah Ruffin: Yeah. And I feel like you really need to have that outside person say, you know what? You are an indie beauty company. You, you know, you’re not ready for funding now. You need to be doing this and doing that. Or you’re ready for funding, so forth. So that’s what.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. I love that. That’s really excellent advice for people who, especially women, which is, who are marketing as our audience, really at extraordinary women. Uh, but I’m hearing loud and clear from so many of the women that they wanna start something, they wanna get something going, and it’s often that we start. But then we stop because we don’t know where to go next, or we can’t figure out what product lines or the shiny object syndrome, you know, steps in and we go, oh, I’ll go do that. Or whatever the case may be. But I love that you have used, and this is a great value, I think for everyone listening. You have used every job. Skillset that you’ve ever had in your lifetime, all the way back from who are your parents and grandparents, and brought it together to create something that is yours and something that you now are offering to all of us. That’s pretty amazing. So don’t downgrade. You know, here you came from corporate America and then went often became a doctor. Think of the women who maybe stayed, stayed at home for a period of time and raised children and then maybe were teachers or something of that sort. Doesn’t sound like an entrepreneur, right? Why not? Is what I ask.
Naeemah Ruffin: I agree. I completely agree and I think, you know, there was always this one quote I heard early. I think I was in college at the time. It was, preparation is more important than destination because when you’re prepared, you’ll achieve your desired end. And so what that taught me was that don’t be concerned about where you’re gonna be or what you gonna do, or how long it’s gonna take to get there. Where you are now is where you’re supposed to be. Where you’ve been is wisdom. It’s learning. Take what? Been your history, your life story, and take all of that and bring that to where you’re today and figure out where you’re going with that. Yeah. And if you are, stay at home mom, what are the things that you need to know and learn where you are to be successful and what you’re doing? Because where you’re going, you’re gonna need all of that. Mm-hmm. , you know you’re gonna need that. If you are in corporate America and you’re wondering, oh my gosh. Am I ever gonna leave here? And if I do, what am I gonna do? Right. You know, it doesn’t matter where you are, what station in life you are, that’s where you’re supposed to be. Cause that’s where you’re, take that look back. What have you learned from where you’ve been? Yeah. And look forward. And that’s one thing that I always said to myself, I’m not, I’m not gonna worry about where I’m going because when I do that, I get anxious and I get worried. I’m not gonna think about what this person’s doing because that’s not me. I have a different path. I’m just gonna stay the course because eventually I will get there. And when you just said that about like my history and, and where I, you know, where I was and how I’ve taken all that, that’s literally when I look. I can see how the master weaver was at work. I couldn’t figure it out. Going here, going there, not, you know, leaving this job, moving here, going back to school, like it looks kinda like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Even my husband’s like, really? What’s next now . But I can say there was a plan in place. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t figure it out. But looking back, I would not be doing what I’m doing now. I could not do what I’m doing now if I had not done all of those other things.
Sharri Harmel: It’s a whole different way to look at our experience, what we’ve done in the past without regret and say every single one of those experience, it wasn’t a mistake. It brought me something that is now adding to whatever it’s I’m creating today. Beautiful Naeemah that’s just fantastic. And I can’t say thank you enough. You’ll hear from me as a client because I need to figure this out, . Um, but thank you have provided so much information, valuable information to everyone out and again, all the information.
Naeemah Ruffin: Thank you so much, Sharri, it’s been such a pleasure speaking with you. This was wonderful and it’s really helped me to reminisce on kinda where I’ve been and that I don’t have to worry about where I’m going. Just, you know, stay the course and it’s been a pleasure and you are truly beautiful
Sharri Harmel: Well, I’ll look better once you work. Can’t wait. Thank you. You’re welcome. Well ladies, I am signing up like you. I am a consistent user of good facial creams and serums. But facial fitness adds a whole new dimension to trying to look our best. All of Naeemah’s information is below in the show notes. Follow her. Sign up for a discovery call and get started. Our faces are uniquely ours. No one in the world has your face, and that includes identical twins. Your face tells a story of your life. And Naima shares with us how we can care for our face in a way that we may be never before thought of doing. So much and skincare is changing and women are again, pushing what’s possible. Like the Extraordinary Women Magazine, which is all about women choosing to not quietly fade into next chapters, but actually design a next chapter that energizes you, gives you purpose and fulfillment, plus a whole lot of. A subscription to the Extraordinary Women Magazine is free, so why would you hesitate? Why would you procrastinate? If you’re not already a subscriber? Jump over to the website and subscribe now. I wanna thank you for joining us today, and I look forward to our next Extraordinary Women podcast.
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