Women In Wellness: Authority Magazine Interview of Dr. Bexi Lobo

A note from Dr. Bexi...
I was honored to be interviewed by Authority Magazine for their series on Women in Wellness. 

To access the published interview you need to have an account with Medium.com and there is no audio recording of it available. So, to make the interview more accessible, I decided to also publish it here, on my blog.

Listen to the interview:

 

My approach to skin care asks you to let go of how you think you’re supposed to care for your skin,
recognize it for the important, dynamic, and well-connected organ that it is,
lean into your intuition and observation,
and develop and nurture a symbiotic relationship with the microbes living in and on your body.

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Today, more than ever, wellness is at the forefront of societal discussions. From mental health to physical well-being, women are making significant strides in bringing about change, introducing innovative solutions, and setting new standards. Despite facing unique challenges, they break barriers, inspire communities, and are reshaping the very definition of health and wellness. In this series called women in wellness we are talking to women doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, fitness trainers, researchers, health experts, coaches, and other wellness professionals to share their stories and insights. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Bexi Lobo.

Dr. Bexi Lobo, PhD is a scientist, writer, editor, and founder of HIDDEN, the Hidden Illness & Disability Directory of Entrepreneurs and Nurturers, and founder and owner of Bexi’s Bespoke Revitalisation, providing a different approach to skin care. Dr. Bexi lives with invisible illness and disability, Sjogren’s disease and dysautonomia, and is an advocate for better research, care, and support for women and for anyone living with chronic illness and disability. Dr. Bexi raises awareness of the impact of the beauty, skincare, and wellness industries on women’s health through her monthly column in her hometown paper, The Davis Enterprise.

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Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

Thank you for inviting me to be part of this interview series. I was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. My grandparents and parents are from Goa, the smallest state in India, and the only one that was colonized by the Portuguese for 4 centuries. We moved to the United States when I was 16. I lived in Virginia for 8 years before making Northern California my home. My diverse cultural experiences have taught me that our similarities are greater than our differences. We’re each unique but we all have the same basic biology and the same basic needs. However, our differences are essential to our collective health and well-being.

I’m passionate about how the chemistry of food affects human health. After earning a BS in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, I researched and developed ways to grow human cells in 3 dimensions, instead of 2, to more accurately represent how cells grow in the human body. Studying cell biology inspired me to earn my PhD in Nutritional Biology at the University of California, Davis, where I researched the effects of folate and its synthetic counterpart, folic acid, on epigenetic regulation and breast cancer progression in cell culture models and mice. These experiences taught me that cell function and health are highly dependent on the interstitium, the fluid-filled spaces between cells, and that nutrients from whole foods are the least stressful for a healthy human to metabolize.

I’ve lived with invisible illness and disability for most of my life, but didn’t realize it until, at 34, after 10 years of actively seeking a diagnosis, I determined I had Sjogren’s (SHOW-grins) disease. Sjogren’s disease is a common, but rarely diagnosed, serious, systemic, autoimmune rheumatic disease and a connective tissue disease, just like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic sclerosis. Ninety percent of people affected by Sjogren’s disease are women. One of its most disabling, invisible, systemic manifestations is autonomic neuropathy (dysautonomia).

Looking back, I had many signs and symptoms of Sjogren’s, such as an incredibly sensitive gut, chronic diarrhea and bloating, fatigue, widespread pain, and dry eyes. One of the most visible signs of my Sjogren’s disease was painfully dry, sensitive skin. Until my early 30s, any moving hurt. My skin was so dry and sensitive that a smile would split the skin at the corners of my mouth and eyes. People thought I was unfriendly and cold because I never smiled, when the reality was that it hurt too much to smile. The dark, rough, scaly, weepy, and frequently crusty patches of skin covering my eyes, mouth, neck, arms, and legs were mistaken for eczema, but I suspect they were really signs of Sjogren’s disease. My skin was so sensitive that I would inexplicably break out into hives, welts, rashes, and intense itching. I was sick of spending money on skincare products that never provided lasting relief. I needed and wanted skincare products that left my skin functioning, feeling, and looking better with each use, with the hope that eventually I would no longer have to use them. There were no products on the market that offered what I needed.

So, I approached my skin care with what I knew best: biochemistry, nutrition, and cell and systems biology. The skin is the largest organ in the human body; therefore, it has a large impact on health and well-being. Skin is not static, it’s dynamic; it’s responsive to the body and the environment. There’s an entire ecosystem of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that live on our skin. Skin is connected to the interstitium, fascia, and immune, nervous, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems. Therefore, what is applied on the skin (skincare products, cosmetics, personal care products) affects overall health and well-being. From my dissertation research I concluded that whole foods are better for human health than their isolated synthetic counterparts. Given the similarities between the gut and skin and what I knew of cell and systems biology, I hypothesized that what worked in the gut would work on the skin. And although I could not heal my gut, I thought I might be able to heal my skin, because at least I could see what was happening to it.

I formulated skincare products using whole foods: lime juice, ginger, honey, turmeric, goat’s milk, and nut and seed oils, and used these to feed my skin from the outside in. And, although my gut remained dysfunctional, my skincare formulations revitalised my skin. Family and friends noticed the life and vigor I’d imparted to my skin and asked me to help them revitalise theirs, too. I recognized that I was onto something that could help people struggling with skin concerns like mine. Therefore, I chose to make my innovative approach to skin care more widely available by founding Bexi’s Bespoke Revitalisation.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

The most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I started my career was discovering that I’d been living with undiagnosed illness and disability while I was earning my PhD and founding and running my skincare business, Bexi’s Bespoke Revitalisation. I’ve struggled with my health almost all my life and I’d been actively seeking a diagnosis for 10 years prior to when I finally determined I had Sjogren’s disease. Because the medical system is siloed and doctors are taught myths about Sjogren’s disease that make it difficult for them to recognize it when it’s staring them in the face, I got dismissed, ignored, and gaslit, despite my desperate pleas that something was seriously wrong. While the healthcare system kept telling me I was “fine”, I recognized I wasn’t, and I used everything I had available to me to help myself as best I could, starting with my skin.

My career started with me translating and synthesizing what I’d learned from my education and research into simple, practical, and sustainable solutions that imparted life and vigor back to my painfully dry sensitive skin, the most visible sign of Sjogren’s disease. Two years after I founded Bexi’s Bespoke Revitalisation, with the support of loving friends, I advocated well enough for myself that I finally was diagnosed with Sjogren’s disease. But, diagnosis was a short-lived relief because the many myths about Sjogren’s disease entrenched in research and medicine made it impossible for me to get the care and support I needed. As a result, I’m more disabled than I should be.

Desperate for relief and getting no help from medicine, I turned to the wellness industry for help. I was willing to try any and every thing that promised to bring relief, even if there was no scientific evidence backing it up. Because of my training and background, I was able to find wellness practitioners and therapies that benefitted me, despite the fact that there was a lack of scientific evidence for how or why these therapies worked. But many of my fellow Sjogren’s patients, almost all of whom are women, were not so lucky. The experience made me realize how vulnerable chronically ill women are to grifters of all kinds.

As a result, I’ve spent most of my career advocating for appropriate research and medical care for Sjogren’s disease and dysautonomia and creating solutions, resources, and community for myself, the global Sjogren’s community, and other chronically ill and disabled entrepreneurs around the world.

What I took away from this experience was:

1. Society may marginalize and neglect my needs, but I don’t have to.
2. Women’s healthcare is a joke. Women were rarely included in clinical trials until 1993. As a result, diseases that primarily affect women, e.g., Sjogren’s disease, endometriosis, etc., are rarely researched thoroughly and there is little to no medical care for them, forcing women to turn to alternative healthcare and the wellness industry for help, and leaving them vulnerable to predation.
3. Women’s pain is rarely taken seriously and is frequently psychologized and dismissed, not just by healthcare providers, but also by their loved ones.
4. I can use my skills and experience to advocate and care for historically neglected and marginalized communities.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I was first starting, I made the mistake of underestimating how much the beauty “ideal” of young and flawless is entrenched in society, so much so that women are willing to spend money and time they don’t have and risk their lives to try to achieve it, despite the fact that women have inferior healthcare to men. Moreover, I failed to recognize that even if women want to embrace something other than looking young and flawless, society frequently does not allow for it. I’ve encountered many potential clients who wanted and needed to use my approach to skin care to support their health and wellness but were afraid that if they did not adhere to society’s beauty “ideal” they’d lose their jobs. They weren’t models; one woman sold high-end cars, another was a news reporter, the third is an optometrist.

What I learned from this is that our definition of beauty needs to decenter age and perfection to embrace and celebrate the wide diversity of looks inherent in us as a species. Moreover, while individual actions are important to health and well-being, system-wide, societal actions are equally, if not more, important. A woman who’s afraid to lose her job if she stops using anti-aging products and looks her age is being forced to choose between two of her most basic needs. We need to build and continue to fund systems that support individual and community health and wellness.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

Health and wellness are directly connected to quality of life. The work I’m doing advocating for and addressing health and wellness in women, Sjogren’s patients, and the chronically ill and disabled communities is focused on creating, building, and supporting systems that improve quality of life.

Roughly 80% of people living with autoimmune disease are female. A complex combination of genetics and environmental factors are thought to contribute to the development of autoimmune disease. Incomplete inactivation of the X-chromosome (women have 2, men have 1) is thought to contribute to autoimmune disease, which partially explains why autoimmune disease disproportionately affects women. But environmental factors, such as diet, chronic stress, sleep quality, physical activity, and exposure to endocrine disruptors and other chemical stressors, also significantly increase the risk of developing an autoimmune disease.

I believe that a major contributor to the risk of developing autoimmune disease is what you’re putting on your skin and how you think about and care for your skin. One of the most obvious ways chemical stressors get into your body is through your skin. What you put on your skin not only affects your health, it also affects the health of your skin’s microbial ecosystem, which in turn affects your health. Repeatedly slathering your skin in cosmetics on a daily basis for decades has a cumulative effect on your health and that of your skin’s microbiome. Your skin is the largest organ in your body and it’s intimately connected to your interstitium, fascia, and immune, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. So, appropriately caring for your skin and the microbes living on it is a wonderful opportunity to significantly and positively influence your overall health, not just your physical appearance. But there is almost no third-party oversight of cosmetics manufacturers, so what goes into cosmetics and how safe they are for your longterm health is rarely studied or known. For many cosmetics ingredients, such as peptides, there is no safety data or data on how they affect longterm human health.

Women use more cosmetics more frequently and for longer than men do. And women, more than men, are pressured by the beauty industry and, consequently, society, to fight their own biology and attack themselves in order to look young and flawless, an unattainable beauty “ideal” that’s harmful to mental, emotional, and physical health. The beauty industry confers a significant amount of mental, emotional, and physical stress to women compared to men.

When I was looking for skincare brands that alleviated stress rather than created it, I couldn’t find any, which is why I created my own. My approach to skin care honors the diversity and interconnectedness of everything: species, organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and metabolic pathways. We’re socialized to disconnect from our bodies in myriad ways, including ignoring signs from our skin regarding our metabolic health. My approach to skin care asks you to let go of how you think you’re supposed to care for your skin, recognize it for the important, dynamic, and well-connected organ that it is, lean into your intuition and observation, and develop and nurture a symbiotic relationship with the microbes living in and on your body. You and your skin are unique; so your skin care should be, too. Bexi’s Bespoke Revitalisation invites you to buck the beauty “ideal” of young and flawless skin, defy convention, and accept and celebrate your reality and the differences that make you you by using whole foods to feed your skin from the outside in. To do so, you must pay attention to, and connect with, your skin and yourself. People who are connected to themselves, each other, and their environment, are more likely to be and stay healthy and well. My approach to skin care is a practical way to disconnect from tech and reconnect with yourself, each other, and nature.

There is little medical care and support for people suffering from Sjogren’s disease and what little exists is difficult to access, because there are so many entrenched myths and misconceptions in research and medicine pertaining to Sjogren’s disease. I’ve spent most of my career, time, money, and energy, advocating for appropriate research and medical care for Sjogren’s disease, and creating resources and community for myself and the global Sjogren’s community. I helped build and grow www.sjogrensadvocate.com, an online resource that empowers patients with the tools and strategies they need to counter myths about Sjogren’s and to advocate for the care they need and deserve. I support Sjogren’s disease research by fundraising for it. I’ve been a star fundraiser for the Sjogren’s Foundation for the past 3 years. Historically, clinical research on Sjogren’s disease has been based on a mischaracterization of the disease. The research and medical communities are currently attempting to correct the mischaracterization. I volunteer my time as a Patient Research Partner with the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) Sjogren’s Disease Working Group to identify the most important domains for clinical research on Sjögren’s disease. Appropriate research and medical education is essential to health and wellness.

Chronic inflammation drives the progression of autoimmune disease, especially inflammatory ones like Sjogren’s disease. Having dysfunctional skin increases chronic inflammation, fatigue, and reactivity to the environment. Bexi’s skincare products are made from nutrient-dense whole foods and are formulated to restore skin function and health, and to provide lasting skin care solutions instead of temporary ones. As I discovered, restoring skin function and health reduces chronic inflammation, fatigue, and reactivity to the environment, improving health and wellness, and it saves money, too.

Across the globe, autoimmune diseases are among the top ten causes of death in women younger than 65. Diagnosis often happens during the most active years, early adulthood and midlife, when women are building careers and social lives and solidifying their identities, independence, and long-term life plans. A 2026 national survey by the Autoimmune Association and WellTheory found that 68% of working women with autoimmune diseases reported significant negative career impacts. There is little corporate support for women living with autoimmune disease; 61% of women in the survey said they haven’t disclosed their diagnosis to their employer because they didn’t think it’d help, they were afraid they’d be judged, or they’d be passed up for opportunities. People who are pushed out of the traditional workforce have two options: forced poverty or entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship at least offers the hope of an improved quality of life.

But there’s little to no support for chronically ill and disabled entrepreneurs. In the U.S. alone, over 22 million working-age adults live with a disability. We aren’t unemployed because we don’t want to work, but because we are disproportionately locked out of traditional employment. Entrepreneurship is often one of the only viable paths to financial independence and stability for this community. But the business world’s resources, education, and spaces weren’t built for us, either. I founded HIDDEN, the Hidden Illness and Disability Directory of Entrepreneurs and Nurturers, to increase the visibility of small businesses owned by people living with invisible illness and disability. I also serve as the Director of Research on the Board of Directors of The Empower Network, a non-profit whose mission is to foster economic independence for people the traditional workforce excludes. Economic independence is essential to health and wellness.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

1. Understand that the systems within which we’re operating are largely broken. Wellbeing requires basic necessities that are frequently lacking these days: clean air and water, fresh whole foods, time to rest, and access to nature.

2. Listen to your body and advocate for yourself. You are unique and you know yourself best. Nobody else knows what you need and what it’s like to live in your body.

3. What you put in and on your body matters. Understanding the risks involved and making educated and informed decisions about what you put on and in your body helps you stay healthy.

4. Slow down and rest as much as possible. Your body is most effective at repairing and healing itself when it’s adequately rested.

5. Move. Two of my favorite sayings are, “Motion is lotion” and “Use it or lose it”.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Let go of how you think you’re supposed to care for your skin. Recognize your skin for the important, dynamic, and well-connected organ that it is, lean into your intuition and observation, and develop and nurture a symbiotic relationship with the microbes living in and on your body.

Your skin has a large impact on your health and well-being in multiple ways. Your skin is not a static covering for your body. Your skin is the largest organ in your body and it’s dynamic; it responds to your body and your environment. Your skin is a selectively permeable barrier that protects you from, interacts with, and connects you to your environment. You have an entire ecosystem of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites) growing on your skin that influence your health. Your skin is connected to your interstitium, your fascia, and your immune, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. Your skin impacts your health.

And, although your skin color shouldn’t have a large impact on your health and quality of life, unfortunately, it does. The color of your skin influences your access to basic rights that affect your health and well-being: freedom, clean air and water, nutrient-dense food, shelter, healthcare, education, and jobs. The color and texture of your skin also affect how much physical, chemical, psychological, and emotional stress you’re consistently exposed to throughout your lifetime. Stress is inflammatory.

Recognizing and accepting your skin for what it is (instead of fighting your biology) and feeding your skin from the outside in using whole foods (instead of a junk diet of peptides, niacinamide, vitamin C and hyaluronic acid), imparts life, vigor, and functionality back to it. Functional skin decreases chronic inflammation and improves your overall health.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

1. Learn what “yes” and “no” feel like in your body. Business is about relationships and the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. People learn how to treat you based on how you treat yourself. You won’t know how to treat yourself unless you get to know yourself. Knowing what “yes” and “no” feel like in your body helps you make decisions. The facts may all align perfectly and, on paper, the deal may be fabulous and a dream come true. But, if your body is screaming no and you don’t recognize it, or, worse yet, you ignore it thinking you can override it, things aren’t going to go well. When the the facts align with your body’s “yes”, you achieve the most success.

2. Acknowledge, accept, and grieve your losses. We all experience painful losses. For some losses, such as the death of a loved one, there are formal ways to acknowledge, accept, and grieve. For many others, such as the loss of an important relationship, the inability to eat a certain food or to travel easily, or the loss of a business contract, there are no formal ways to acknowledge, accept, and grieve. I carried the pain of these unacknowledged losses for far too long and it impeded my growth and development. Without acknowledging and grieving what I’d lost, I could not move forward into the realm of what was still possible.

3. Rest. Rest is healing and, as Tricia Hersey from the Nap Ministry points out, rest is also a form of resistance against the extractive nature of capitalism and its endless need for productivity. Creating from a place of rest rather than exhaustion improves your chances of success.

4. Allow yourself to hope. Imagine future you. Fantasizing and imagining your future self influences how you behave in the present. You’re more likely to make decisions that bring you closer to your future self if you know what and who you’re working towards.

5. Your success depends on more than just your individual input. The systems within which you’re working may not be set up to allow you to succeed as easily as they do for someone else.

If you’re a chronically ill and disabled entrepreneur looking for support and community, check out The Empower Network and apply to be listed on HIDDEN.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health, emotional health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Other important issues include women’s health, food security, affordable housing, and inclusion. Which of these causes is closest to your heart, and why?

Women’s health is the cause closest to my heart. Beauty rituals and skin care affect women’s health. My mission is to provide women with beauty rituals and skin care that support their health and impart life and vigor to them, rather than to weaken and drain them.

Men have better health care than women do. Women rarely were included in research and clinical trials until 1993, because women have a menstrual cycle and, therefore, are considered more complicated to study than men are. As a result, almost all scientific research informing medical care is conducted on men. This research then informs medical education, what doctors are taught in medical school. While this approach translates well into health care for men (particularly white men), the results of these studies don’t translate well for women (particularly women of color). Today the medical field still doesn’t know how well many drugs and medical devices work for women. So, it’s in women’s best interests to stay as healthy as they can.

Yet, women, more than men, are socialized to pursue the unattainable, toxic, and destructive beauty “ideal” of looking young and flawless. Women are taught from a young age, usually by their mother, grandmother, aunt, or sister, to alter their looks by slathering themselves in chemicals on a daily, if not more frequent, basis. The beauty and skincare industries spend billions promoting looking young and flawless, a beauty “ideal” that is rooted in capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. The push to look young and flawless negates and erases diversity and natural beauty, pits women against their biology, and cultivates self-loathing and self-hatred, instead of self-esteem, self-love, and actual self-care.

The pursuit of this unattainable and toxic beauty “ideal” leads to psychological, emotional, chemical, and physical stress to women’s bodies, all of which produce abnormal physiology and injury to their cells, contributing to the initiation and progression of autoimmune disease. Risk factors for autoimmune disease include having two X chromosomes, making estrogen, having the ability to get pregnant, and experiencing trauma. Add a daily self-care ritual of slathering yourself with substances that affect your health in unknown ways, along with toxic beauty messaging encouraging you to fight your biology, and it’s no wonder that 70–80% of those affected by autoimmune disease are women.

Yet, despite the dire lack of women’s health care, society has centered beauty around looking young and flawless so much, that women frequently and unknowingly impose this unattainable beauty “ideal” upon each other and younger generations in the name of love and care, as demonstrated by well-intentioned bonding and self-care rituals. The result is that millions of women spend tons of time, energy, and money fighting their biology and making themselves sick, and then finding out that there’s no real health care to be had, when they could and should be doing something less destructive, or, better, more constructive.

Pursuing the unattainable beauty “ideal” of appearing young and flawless historically has been one of the few ways women wielded any power. But, particularly today, when women’s rights are being stripped away, and women’s research and healthcare are being defunded, restricted, and removed, pursuing the unattainable beauty “ideal” merely provides an illusion of power while weakening women and draining them of their time, money, energy, and health.

What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?

Go to bexiphd.com and sign up for my mailing list. I only send out one email a month.

Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.