F*CK, LET'S RETHINK SKIN HEALTH! WITH DR PHILIP TONG
Guest: Dr Philip Tong
Season 1, conversation 7 · Published 6 June 2025
What your skin is actually telling you about your health.
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About Dr Philip Tong: Dermatologist, PhD skin immunology, Bondi Junction.
Skin health: what this conversation covers
- Skin changes in midlife, and the basics of a routine matter more than buying every promise.
- Knowing your skin over time, and building a relationship with your doctor, is a useful shift.
- Asking what the evidence supports is a better question than asking what is new.
Summarised from the free guide for this conversation. A conversation guide, not a personalised treatment plan.
Conversation guide
Another serum. Or a question we haven’t asked? Philip and I talk about the pressure to fix every change in the mirror. There’s a lot being sold to us, isn’t there? We get into skin health, what changes as we age and the questions to take to someone who knows your skin.
- Ask what evidence backs a product’s promises.
- Use two mirrors to see your back during a skin check.
- Ask your GP about photo-based specialist advice.
Better questions before another purchase.
Which change in my skin would I like a professional to look at?
Try this week: Write down one skin question and book or plan a skin check with a GP or dermatologist.
This is a reflection exercise, not medical advice. Take personal health questions to a qualified health professional.
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These ideas come from our conversation. The activities are a few suggestions to try, when you’re ready. Health information also draws on Cancer Council and healthdirect guidance, checked 2 October 2026. This is not a personalised treatment plan.
Transcript excerpt.
Buzzsprout · 5:11-6:06
Full conversation on Buzzsprout
Read the source transcript on Buzzsprout
Dr Philip Tong · 5:11
That's an excellent first question. And you know, it all starts kind of after 30 so I know this podcast is about kind of two decades later, but the changes in your skin are quite noticeable even after the age of 30, whereby you're losing about 1% of collagen every year from that point on. But the changes are more than that. You start losing that elasticity in the skin. You start noticing pigmentation, yeah, you start losing the fat and that change, those changes in your face, is what we as everyone will see as ageing. And that's normal, yeah? And that's the real emphasis of this. As a dermatologist, we want to tell people that these are normal changes, yeah. We can help people achieve the skin that they want in the, I guess, freshest possible, possible way.
Dominique Hind · 6:06
And so with the collagen, because everyone's talking about collagen, is the collagen that you can drink, which I drink every morning, noon and lunch and afternoon? Is that actually helping with building those collagen supplies? Or
Topics: HEALTH
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