Justin Brown | Climber Skin Care Tips and Myths

When it comes to skincare in the climbing world, Rhino Skin Solutions is the one name you need to know. They’ve got a complete line of products to help you address whatever skin woes you may be having, whether your tips are too wet, too dry, or just totally torn up. Rhino’s founder and CEO Justin Brown joined Kris to explain the different products they offer and how best to use them. And then they chat about some of the best tips and tricks they’ve learned over the years, and also debunk some common myths that seem to pervade the climbing community on the subject of skincare.

As a climbers themselves, Justin and his wife Andi found themselves in need of good skincare products when dealing with the often sharp and rough rock of Smith Rock, their local crag. This need eventually led them to develop Rhino Skin in 2015. More recently, they added a new member to the Rhino Skin family, as seen below!

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

• How to use Rhino Skin Solutions full line of skin care products.

• Dealing with splits and flappers.

• The surprising way that Rhino's Dry Spray actually works.

• Ideal skin thickness and humidity.

• Ideal grit for sanding skin.

• More tips and myths about skin care for climbers!

Check out the Breaking Beta episode about chalking up that Kris and Justin talk about in today's episode!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:36

What's up everybody? I'm your host, Kris Hampton. Welcome to the Power Company Podcast brought to you by powercompanyclimbing.com. Honestly, I've been meaning to get to this episode for over a year now. But it took two things to make it happen. First, a message from a listener, Rosie with lots of good skincare questions. So thanks for that Rosie. And two, I've been climbing on a bouldery violent skin eater of a 13C in my bid to be a sport climber again, the kind of route that would have been my absolute anti style just a few years ago, and destroys my skin. But using some of the products and ideas we discussed in this episode, as well as all sorts of proven and unproven finger care techniques, both my skin and my tendons are doing quite well. And at 48, climbing on this thing in particular, that feels like a big win. So my guest today is Justin Brown, owner of Rhino Skin Solutions. And Rhino is, if you're unfamiliar, just simply the best and most complete system of skin care for climbers on the entire planet. Let's just go ahead and say in the universe. We sat down at my house a couple of summers ago to talk skincare tips and myths. But first, we do a quick run through of his line of products, and how to best use them. And also one more thing here, I'm trying something new in this episode, to be honest, I'm bored to death of the straight up, interview podcast, no shade at people doing those. I'm just bored to death of doing them. Because I've done a lot of them at this point. And I believe that particularly when it's something educational like this one, that it needs more than just the conversation in order to really be valuable. So I'm adding some annotations here and there throughout the episode to further clarify or expand on something that we mentioned. It helps me learn a little more, and I suspect that it might help you as well. So hit me up on social media or email or somewhere and let me know what you think. Or how we can make this type of format better. Alright, let's get into it.

Kris Hampton  03:04

Dude, it's been like 100 years or something since we last recorded and we were just talking about how we were both like baby business people at the time, and...

Justin Brown  03:21

...it has been a while

Kris Hampton  03:22

things have, things have grown.

Justin Brown  03:24

We're both gray around the face, and the temples.

Kris Hampton  03:29

We're sitting in a house now instead of a camper in Hueco tanks. Yep. Yeah. happened. The grown up life.

Justin Brown  03:37

Don't do it.

Kris Hampton  03:40

Rhino has grown a lot. Yeah. Lots of athletes all over the world. Products, new products. Things are blowing up. Yeah. Very cool to see. Congratulations. I'm excited for it. Likewise. I knew immediately when I used it that it was a game changing product. So I'm glad other people have caught on. You know, yeah, I like to be the one with the secret but the secret's out.

Justin Brown  04:10

Secret's out. Not with everybody though. You'd be surprised how many people are like...

Kris Hampton  04:14

like that's always a funny thing, though. Right? Like, you think, Oh, I've reached market saturation. I've, everyone who wants to buy this has bought it. Yeah, you know, but then you talk to somebody and they're like, what's Rhino?

Justin Brown  04:28

I went into a climbing gym just last week. Truckee's newest gym, high altitude climbing and fitness. They don't sponsor me. It's just a really good looking gym. But the lady was like, I was talking to the gal who manages it and she's like, it's what? It's Rhino, it's you know, for your hands and antiperspirants and went through the whole spiel. Never heard of it. Wow. All right. So we got a long way to go. But yeah, it's been fun. Fun growing so far.

Kris Hampton  04:54

Yeah, same with me. Like I look at, you know, I look at podcast numbers and I'm like, Okay, well every climber listens to this now, you know, and then inevitably at festivals or wherever we are, if I go to gyms, you know, half the people. They're like, Oh, you have a podcast. What's it called? I'll look it up. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Justin Brown  05:14

But if you think back to like, three years ago, it was like 10% of people knew. Right? I don't know what that number was for you. But yeah, it was, yeah, go to go to the international Climbers Fest, and you'd be like, Oh, what's this? And maybe 10% would be like, oh, yeah, Rhino, I love that stuff. I got a free bottle two years ago. Yep. It's like, yeah, now it's, yeah, probably on the same trajectory. 50/50.

Kris Hampton  05:40

Yeah, that's cool. But it's all like your business in particular, is all rooted around this problem that's never gonna go away. Yeah, you know, we're always going to want our skin to be doing something different than it is when we fall off of rock climb. Yeah. Which is going to be every single day we go rock climbing, but

Justin Brown  06:01

every time climber falls and looks at the hands, and goes, Why did you fail me hands?

Kris Hampton  06:07

Yeah, every single time I fall off the wall, staring at my tips. It's

Justin Brown  06:11

your fault. It's your fault. Fingers one through nine.

Kris Hampton  06:15

So you've like it started out with just I think just "repair". You had "performance" super early, if not in the beginning. Right? 

Justin Brown  06:23

Yeah, performance was number one. 

Kris Hampton  06:28

Oh, was it? Yeah. Okay. 

Justin Brown  06:29

Kinda, it was. It was the first product idea we made. But it was, we didn't sell this, but it was two different products that were already available that we put together, then formed the idea of what is performance. Got it.

Kris Hampton  06:50

Let's, uh, for people who may not know, for the 50% out there who may still not know what Rhino is. Let's go through kind of your, your basic line of products. Okay.

Justin Brown  07:03

So our flagship is Rhino repair. And it's a 

Kris Hampton  07:08

My favorite, by the way, 

Justin Brown  07:09

it's a cream, it makes you smell good, thank you. And it's got salicylic acid in it. So it helps your skin turnover. And it's got a bunch of essential oils that help reduce bacterial load on your hands. And it's got, like magnesium for connective tissue help.

Kris Hampton  07:27

Okay, so there's lots of good ingredients in there. But there's one in particular, I'd like to point out as the hero, and many of the women listening already know about salicylic acid, because it's one of the gold standard ingredients for skincare products. Not that none of you dudes care about your skin, but women just do a much better job of it. And particularly for treating problem skin salicylic acid is the go to, and that's because it does a couple of things extremely well. It exfoliates skin both on the surface and in the pores, which keeps your skin smoother and speeds up regeneration. It's also a potent anti inflammatory agent. So all that abuse you've just done to your skin will start healing faster, big win.

Justin Brown  08:18

So it basically helps repair your hands at the end of the day, and helps your skin heal and grow and be more durable for future rock climbing.

Kris Hampton  08:28

Yeah, I use it at least once every day, if not more often. Yes, I was actually just making a skincare video yesterday because I got my first flapper in like five years. And so I just made a video about how I deal with it and repair gets mentioned a lot,

Justin Brown  08:45

right. It's got a ton of menthol and some anti inflammatory properties as well. So it's like it is made for your hands but if you have sore wrist or elbow, it's got that nice cooling Tiger Balm essence. So that's our flagship Repair Cream. Our names are very descriptive in what the product does or what it resembles.

Audio Clip  09:09

I want to get a job naming kitchen appliances, that seems easy, you know, refrigerator toaster blender, you just say what the thing does. Then you add -er.

Justin Brown  09:20

We have a line of antiperspirants for hands and feet. We have dry spray, performance cream, and tip juice. Those were in no particular order. The tip juice is the strongest one, is about the same as there's another product out there called anti hydal. Tip juice is just as strong as anti hydral but Aloe based so it's easier to use. Dry spray is two thirds as strong as tip juice, spray on alcohol based real easy to use. Then my favorite of them is performance and it's a 1/3 as strong as tip juice. And it's made for like multiple days of use, especially if you're on a road trip. You can just keep your hands nice and tough. Yep. On the opposite end of that, we have a product called spit, which is a hydrating spray. You're just saying how you like spit for these high altitude dry crags. Yeah,

Kris Hampton  10:22

it's something I never, I never heard anyone talking about. You know, that's not true. I heard one or two people who are like, I have to wet my hands before I climb. Yeah. And I thought that was the oddest thing I'd ever heard of. But now that I live in a really dry climate, I've, one of the hardest boulders I've ever done. Last spring. I was using Rhino spit and or water on my hands every single attempt.

Justin Brown  10:23

Yeah, it's a weird little niche that I think was overlooked. Before we made the product. My wife has really dry hands. And I would, she would she would. She had trouble clipping draws on climbs. Because if she was just holding on one hand, she didn't know if her skin was going to be grippy enough. Sometimes she'd be mid clip and just blow off the hold because her hands would be glassy. Yeah. And I always was like, whatever. That is not a thing. 

Kris Hampton  11:20

She just climbed for years like that, was no one believing her.

Justin Brown  11:23

Yeah, we called her a bomb. Because she just like atom bomb off stuff or Andi bomb off stuff. Yeah, and I just thought I was like, whatever, too dry is not a thing. But she hounded me enough where we kind of created this like encapsulated aloe. And it just makes your hands a little bit more sticky. A lot of people are using it on hangboard, which I think is a little weird, because you're trying to hang on tighter. But it's something that makes you have to hang on less, but it's all performance, right? So you get to you get to do better on the hangboard.

Kris Hampton  11:58

Yeah, if hangboard is your goal, then then by all means? Yeah.

Justin Brown  12:04

And we named this spit because if the product didn't exist, you'd have to spit on your hands mid rock climb. Yeah. And then my favorite product is massage cream. And it's basically like a curry that you put on your body. It's got cumin. No, it doesn't. I don't know why I said that.

Kris Hampton  12:23

I do like cumin though.

Justin Brown  12:24

I do like cumin. 

Kris Hampton  12:25

But I don't rub it on myself.

Justin Brown  12:29

It's got it's got tumeric and black pepper and capsaicin and ginger, arnica, helichrysum flower, chamomile and it's warming and anti inflammatory and it gets the blood flow into the area. And I just I love it. If I have like a shor sol -  sore shoulder,

Kris Hampton  12:51

you picked a bad body part. 

Justin Brown  12:53

sore knee, my knee hurts. I can just put it on there and it gets all warm and it'll start itching. And if you're forgetful like I am, you'll be like, Man, why is my knee itch? But yeah, the things working? What else do we have? We have a split stick. And that's obviously if you get a split on your hand, or a flapper and it's got dragon's blood in there, which helps with like granulation of wounds and helps the healing process. 

Kris Hampton  13:22

Dragon's Blood. No, not that kind of Dragon. I know this is gonna disappoint a lot of you. But Harry Potter is not real. Dragon's Blood is a red resin from the dragon's blood tree, which are those strange almost Dr. Seuss, like umbrella shaped trees. when you google them, You're going to say oh, yeah, I've seen those. Anyway, at this point, several clinical trials have shown not only the antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties of dragon's blood, but have also shown that it can significantly speed up healing in wounds, like splits, which means more climbing.

Justin Brown  14:02

Still super important to wash your hands. Which brings us to our newest product. We just came out with a soap.

Kris Hampton  14:08

Oh nice,

Justin Brown  14:09

Castile, all plants in the soap. And we have two flavors. One is mint uplift, which smells exactly like Repair Cream. And then we have citrus woods, which is like a desert woods with a little bit of orange in there. And they're both great. They're all plant based so you can use it at the crag when you're done rock climbing cool. Our motto is climb, wash, Rhino. And so we finally added the wash in there.

Kris Hampton  14:41

That's great. Yeah. I'm gonna have to get some of that. Yep. And you know of the products you mentioned we put together our crag kit last year that was kind of like these are the things you should have and and we included I think what we have in there is dry, a dry spray and a split stick. Yep. And you know, I also carry Rhino spit to the crag as well. So just a quick note here, we recorded this two years ago, like I said, and since then they've added a couple of new things. Bath salts that contain magnesium, hand sanitizer, and Skeeter scatter. I do like that name, a plant based deet-free bug spray that has maybe - this the important part - that has tested safe on climbing gear. I believe in these products and use them regularly.

Justin Brown  15:37

Yeah, I am probably more skeptical than anybody else listening to this podcast. Not anybody else. I get a couple emails. 

Kris Hampton  15:46

I'm pretty fucking skeptical.

Justin Brown  15:48

I out skeptic you, I think. I'm a skeptic, but also oddly believe in some weird stuff, 

Kris Hampton  15:53

I'm skeptical that you can be more skeptical than me. 

Justin Brown  15:56

Well, let's bring this skeptical to test. I do get some emails from people who are highly skeptical occasionally. Yeah. But it works. I put it on. I'm like, this isn't gonna work. And it's the stuff I make and then it works. Cool. Still works.

Kris Hampton  16:10

Yeah. I remember you messaging me. And I think it was Shauna Coxsey you were talking about was like, she's using spit right before she climbs. And I'm like, Yeah, that's literally what I'm doing right now. That's what I use it.

Justin Brown  16:23

That's how it's used. Yeah, I think she'll like I don't know if her hands are too dry already. Or if she'll use dry spray until they're too dry, then use spit. But yeah, Janja just won gold. And she's a spit user as well. And dry spray. I think she kind of does the same thing. Yeah, she like takes away moisture adds moisture.

Kris Hampton  16:42

Nice. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about general skincare, both the like, the repairing of splits and things like that, that climbers get? And maybe some of the myths surrounding it too, because I'm sure there are a lot of things that have just perpetuated, that you've found may not be the truth.

Justin Brown  17:09

Yeah, go for it.

Kris Hampton  17:11

Let's talk, let's talk splits. How do you, what's the best way to care for a split?

Justin Brown  17:17

The best way to care for our split? There's kind of like three stages, I guess, of your split, where you're going to have to deal with it. The first one is when it happens. And so you're at the crag, at the boulders, get a split. And I guess there's a ton of pieces to this. But let's say you want to rock climb more. Yep. So the best thing you're going to do is take your clippers clip down any like loose skin that is there. It'll usually be white. Just clip that off. Cuz it is it's died quickly. So please, just cut that off.

Kris Hampton  17:59

And it's just gonna continue rolling and tear. 

Justin Brown  18:02

Yeah, it's just gonna keep ripping it off. Like if you have a cuticle and you try ripping that off. So clip that off and then tape it. You'll be able to rock climb more. Yeah, I I like your tape. That silicone or I don't imagine it's a cohesive tape. Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't stick to your skin. Right? Is that cohesive? Yep. Okay,

Kris Hampton  18:23

sticks to itself. Got it. So, cohesive tape is not a new idea. In fact, it was developed in 1947 for use in World War Two as a way to hold bandages on in the field where normal adhesives weren't doing the job, dirt, sweat, etc. So chalk covered fingers aren't a problem at all. And it's not only for covering splits, like we talked about here, I actually mostly use it for training and projecting where skin preservation is a priority. And because it doesn't soften your skin like adhesive tape, you can take it off whenever you're ready for the redpoint attempt and not worry about losing the entire pad on that sharp pocket. If I have a split on my tip, I'll use Tension's adhesive tape because I love it. I think it's the best adhesive tape out there. But if I have a split where I where it's not on my tip and the tape is just going to slide off. I'll use this cohesive tape partly because it doesn't trap the moisture inside and it let your skin breathe a little bit and it doesn't get all white and soft. And

Justin Brown  19:31

I think that's like super important. If you're going to climb and you have an open wound, you do not want it to get white. And that cohesive tape. I find... 

Kris Hampton  19:41

That's our circuit tape.

Justin Brown  19:42

circuit tape. All right. I find you can wrap. You can kind of do an X wrap with it so it stays exactly because it won't fit on another joint. Yeah, exactly above and below and it's pretty durable. Yep. And it sticks amazingly well to itself so much that it's like kind of hard to get it off.

Kris Hampton  20:03

Yeah, exactly. Back to that skeptic thing. When I first tried it, I was like, No fucking way is this gonna work.

Justin Brown  20:09

Yeah, I actually use a lot like I have this ongoing wrist injury. And I'll tape my wrist up and at the end of the day, I cannot get that thing off without scissors. Yep. So yeah, use the circuit tape on your split after so. So you get your split, you look at it, you go ah, darn, trim it with nail clippers, and then wash it really well,

Kris Hampton  20:35

I have to jump back in here. Don't just use any old nail clipper to clip your skin. Unless that's all you have. Number one, some nail clippers just aren't very sharp, and are going to be tearing your skin away more than cutting it. And number two, the curved blade on most fingernail clippers can make it tough to not also clip away skin that you don't mean to why because you're not being careful. But let's make this simple. In our sets of climber clippers, we have a detail clipper, that's a small straight edge that's very sharp, very springy. That's one of my pet peeves about clippers. You can also use cuticle scissors or something like that to carefully trim your skin.

Justin Brown  21:18

And then wash it really well. Let it dry, and then cover it with the circuit tapes, I think the best option because it's breathable. So you're going to be done rock climbing at some point in time, take the tape off, let the wash it again. And then let the wound dry air dry, pat it dry, air dry. And then you're going to want to take a file and file down the edges and go really slowly. Yeah, because if you build up heat, it just sets off all sorts of bad reactions, the skin is going to want to grow back faster. And that's going to create a spot that's going to split again. So file real slowly, and just file it kind of until you can't stand it anymore, the slower the better. Yep. And then you're gonna have this nice open wound that you can wash again, just get it super clean, and then let it dry. And if you if you have a stick, some people use sticks for it to keep your fingers straight. I don't think that's particularly necessary.

Justin Brown  21:29

Yeah, that's one of the myths I'm curious about if it Yeah, actually helps or not

Kris Hampton  22:32

Got it. Do you put any product in a split? Do you put like split stick or repair any of that before?

Justin Brown  22:32

your body, your skin does have memory. So like, if you were to, this is terrible, if you were to take a knife, and you were to cut all the skin off of your finger, it would probably grow back with the same lines. I don't know if there's been, we're not going to test that. Yeah, this is this is the N of zero. But let's just take it less seriously. And let's just say you like, file down your finger, all the skin to a normal level, it's going to grow back with the same lines. So the stick may help to like, have the skin grow in the open wound nice and flat. But I don't I don't think... it's just gonna grow back how it was no matter what you do, right. But the more important thing is, is just speculation really, the more important thing that is based on actual science is there's a product out there called tegaderm. It's a clear occlusive breathable bandage. Cover it with that, because that will let the the wound breathe, and it's not going to turn white under a bandage. And it'll keep all the dirt out and it kind of just creates the perfect humidity to make that thing heal.

Justin Brown  24:04

if tegaderm is going on, you don't put anything in there. Got it. If there's, if you're like at the crag and you split, and you're done rock climbing for the day, and you don't have any tegaderm yet, that's a great time to use split. Or if you're if you're doing something where you have to use your fingers a lot, then tegaderm isn't necessarily going to stay put, might bunch up. That's a good time to use split and some tape as well, got it. But tegaderm alone on a clean wound is the best thing you're gonna use.

Kris Hampton  24:37

I think a lot of what you just said is kind of if we can use some common sense with all the other, you know, splits flappers, whatever. I think a lot of that beta applies, right. like we want to trim it. We want to get the edges of it sort of filed down, beveled a little if possible. And then You know, decide on which product makes the most sense. The tegaderm beta, I think is, yeah, that's gonna be a new thing for a lot of people.

Justin Brown  25:07

Yeah, we're working on getting our own like, specific tegaderm. But you know, that stuff takes a while. Yeah, don't hold your breath. Yeah. The split stick. I also just got the largest flapper I'd have gotten in a long time. At the gym. It was just these like, sinker pockets on a roof. Yep. And, like kind of slipped. And I was like, Oh, that was weird. And I came down giant flapper. I use a split stick. I taped it up for rock climbing, and then took the tape off, use split stick. And it was really weepy. And then I put the split on it. And I think it helped, the I think the tea tree oil and the dragon's blood, it seemed like it helped dry it out and help that granulation process. But then it kind of got too dry. So but I tegadermed around it and it was good. Got it. Cool.

Kris Hampton  25:59

What about things like doing dishes? How do you feel about this "I can't touch water" strange myth of rock climbing. 

Justin Brown  26:11

I think it's a great excuse, and continue to use it. But I think it's a complete. I think it's a complete myth. I used to work in a kitchen. And my skin, some days it was better after doing a ton of dishes, because I'd use these degreasers and I have sweaty skin. So maybe this is different for people with dry skin. But I would be doing dishes with degreasers. And the next day my hands felt so solid. They dried you know, they dried off because it was 12 hours or whatever. But they were like dry. They're rough. They were they felt they felt like leather gloves. And I would go rock climbing and be just fine. I think if you're going to do dishes, and then go rock climbing within the hour, right? You might have a problem. We tried doing this...

Kris Hampton  27:11

If you're doing dishes at the crag before your redpoint attempt....

Justin Brown  27:15

Exactly. Yeah, if you're at Indian Creek and you just made some hot ramen. And I don't know, Oh, you were doing those dishes, which you're not going to do you're just going to wash your bowl out with sand. But for some reason if you're trying to be cleanm, Indian Creek right next to a crag. Don't go rock climbing. That was, That's weird, unreasonable tangent. But yeah, we tried to do a study. You might remember this. I tried to send out some questionnaires to people and about washing their hands and sitting in the hot tub. And how long. we have these little skin humidity testers. Yeah. And so we kind of sent them to some people and some people bought them. And we wanted people to sit in the hot tub or do dishes and then test their hands like every 10 minutes until their skin went back to its original state. Most people just gave us bullshit answers because they wanted the end discount that we were giving everybody or product or whatever. But it seemed like about an hour after you're, you're done washing dishes. Your hands are basically back to normal.

Kris Hampton  28:27

Got it. Yeah. Yeah, I in fact, I would say the times that I've been talked into, and I remember this one time, specifically, I was in a cabin in the Red River Gorge. I was climbing the next day. But I started to do the dishes and I wasn't wearing gloves. And Scott Milton was there and he freaked out on me. "What are you doing? I'm resting tomorrow. I'll wash, you can't wash dishes if you're climbing tomorrow!" 

Justin Brown  28:58

Did you make Scott do the dishes?

Kris Hampton  28:59

So Scott did the dishes with gloves on.

Justin Brown  29:01

Good flex. 

Kris Hampton  29:02

And in the times that I've done dishes with gloves on, my hands come out softer and wetter than when I do dishes without gloves on.

Justin Brown  29:12

Yeah, you're just in this humid weird environment. Yeah, it. I think climbers used to value really big calluses. Yeah, and I just don't think that that is the way anymore. I tend to think it wasn't the way back then, but it was just what people did. these calluses rip off their their weak link in the skin chain, and they're not flexible and they're glassy. There's like tons of reasons why you don't want them. What you want is durable, flexible, healthy skin. And part of that is being clean.

Kris Hampton  29:50

Yeah, I think you know, let's go into the calluses a little bit because I hear this a lot, especially from new climbers, you know, I lost my calluses. I need to build my calluses back up, you know, is there like a level of callus that is beneficial? Versus now it's too much, it's probably going to rip off? I guess that have to do with the thickness or how hard it is.

Justin Brown  30:18

I never thought about this analogy before. But if you think about what a climbing shoe is, it's this super durable, flexible material that you push. It's not sticky in itself. But the reason it's sticky is because it can form extremely well being to the micro features on the rock. And that's kind of what you want your skin to do. Right.

Kris Hampton  30:42

I love this climbing shoe analogy. And it reminds me that there's no best skin condition for all terrain, just as there's no best shoe for all terrain. Thicker pads will mean less sensitivity, thinner pads will mean less durability. So for sharper holds or working out moves while slapping and sliding on slopers with no discernible sweet spots, thicker pads might be advantageous. But if you need to feel the subtlety and nuance of a hold, maybe not how to deal with that. I'm not quite sure yet, but just a thought.

Justin Brown  31:18

And so there probably is a thickness slash humidity that you want. I don't know what the thickness would be. But depending on rock type, you want to be somewhere between like 25 and 35% humidity in your skin. That seems to be the place when people have, like 15? they're gonna get glassy. I think in the red, if you have like, 45 you'll probably survive. Yeah. Anything above that, I think you're going to start just going through chalk and greasing off stuff and being a little weird. At the end of the day of rock climbing, measure your skin. And it'll be like 99% because it's trying to heal.

Kris Hampton  32:03

But and we need that moisture in order to heal.

Justin Brown  32:07

Yep. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of what Repair Cream does, puts that in there.

Kris Hampton  32:12

Yeah, I think that's another one of those, like, myths that I hear a lot of climbers perpetuate is that, you know, they, they need their hands to be dry all the time. Like I'm gonna just keep spraying dry on my hands. And even if it's super dry, when I'm about to go to bed, that's good, because that means it'll be dry tomorrow too Yeah,

Justin Brown  32:33

dry will not work if your hands are not sweating. So it's kind of like, interesting, it's not self regulating. But the methanamine in dry, it needs your sweat in order to work. Because your sweat is slightly slightly acidic. And it takes methanamine and it breaks it in two in that reaction is what makes the protein plug for your sweat glands. And so there's no point if your hand's already dry, just wait till you feel that little bit of sweat coming back. And then you can start up again,

Kris Hampton  33:07

I had no idea that that's how it worked. That's really cool.

Justin Brown  33:10

It's not like, so like aluminum antiperspirants are a physical plug coming from the antiperspirant that goes in. So the more you apply, the more of that, the bigger plug it's going to be and the more antiperspirant you're going to get. But yeah, the the phenomena kind of has to do with your skin humidity.

Kris Hampton  33:31

Oh, very cool. Is there? Or have you ever looked into when there are those sorts of you know, this methanamine, creates a plug... does chalk then act differently? With that plug?

Justin Brown  33:50

It wouldn't interact with the plug, I just don't think it's a small enough thing to get in there. But if your hands are super dry, that chalk tends not to stick as well. Right, right. That's why I think some people use spit. Because if you have like really dry hands and the chalks not sticking, you can put spit, get a little bit of moisture into your hands. You'll feel it get a little tacky. And then that's when people chalk up and seems to work the best.

Kris Hampton  34:18

Yeah. And we you know, I think another thing that a lot of people don't think about that we need to keep in mind is that we also have to have moisture for friction. Yeah. So this, this idea that things can be to dry is totally a real thing. And if you don't have that moisture there, there's going to be no friction.

Justin Brown  34:41

Yep. Yeah, I'm sure there's no, I don't think there's any rock climb where you want to be. I mean, that's a bold statement, because it's just across the board. But I don't think there's really any rock climb where you just want zero humidity hands.

Kris Hampton  34:56

Yeah, I can't. I can't imagine. Yeah, I don't know what that would look like. 

Justin Brown  35:00

we're climbing at Hueco tanks and we're, What's that... it's a V5 and it's like pretty long and traversey? Anyway, it was one of the last climbs we were doing on our trip. And it was so dry that day and I have sweaty hands, and I would drench them with spit. I get on the rock climb halfway through hands completely dry and just explode off the rock. Wow. And my wife was having the same thing and our guide Luke was having the same thing and it was just like, bonkers dry day. It was breezy. Dry so yeah, you have to have some moisture.

Kris Hampton  35:40

And you said that you've heard of people at Smith like stashing spit and in some huecos so that they can use it mid route.

Justin Brown  35:49

Yeah, yeah, there's a well, it's one one fellow in particular. This guy Andrew. He's like 50 something just crushes. Yeah, and there's two route, two routes he does it on. One is this 5.13 with a big ledge rest. There's actually a route with a ledge rest..

Kris Hampton  36:12

back to our previous podcast...

Kris Hampton  36:13

Yeah, I think that's smart. You know that mean? As long as you're taking your bottles with you afterward, I think it's a super smart way to go.

Justin Brown  36:13

rewind. He'll put it on that ledge. And he'll spray it when he gets there because like the next sequence is this real technical thin crimper crux and then on "Bad Man" there's a big hueco that you can kind of hang out in after like the crux cruxes are over, but you have like a 5.12 C to climb after and he'll stash some in that that hueco as well.

Justin Brown  36:48

We're working on like, the anti chalk bag. So I don't know what to call it. But it'd be like some sort of sponge that you hang on the back of your chalk bag that you can put you could just drop into a spit or a little bit of water. And so just be easy enough to grab that just kind of give it a quick squeeze right and then go into your chalk if you wanted... 

Kris Hampton  37:10

spit ball 

Justin Brown  37:12

Ding. nailed it. right we're working on the spit ball. That's too easy.

Kris Hampton  37:18

This is what happens when you work with Lana, you just come up with weird words all day long. That's all she wants to do is name things.

Justin Brown  37:25

all right, we got tons of products coming out, Lana.

Kris Hampton  37:29

Just talk to her, she'll give you names. Something I think is interesting about chalk and I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but I was a gymnast and a gymnastics coach and we used chalk to reduce friction. Right?  You're spinning on bars or rings and you don't want your skin to just like roll on it.

Justin Brown  37:52

Is it my wacky memory or did you say you used chalk and Coca Cola? 

Kris Hampton  37:56

it was not me.

Justin Brown  37:57

Okay, that's just something I made up.

Kris Hampton  38:00

Yeah, I never heard of that.

Justin Brown  38:02

It sounds weird.

Kris Hampton  38:03

I would like to know more about it. Google that. 

Justin Brown  38:08

Did I just totally make that up? 

Kris Hampton  38:10

I used to when I was like, 23 I was addicted to Coca Cola. But 

Justin Brown  38:15

yeah, me too. 

Kris Hampton  38:16

Didn't go along with chalk.

Justin Brown  38:18

We used to go surfing and then drink Coca Cola and eat gummy bears.

Kris Hampton  38:22

See that sounds perfect

Justin Brown  38:23

sounds right.

Kris Hampton  38:24

Now I always thought it was interesting that John Gill brought chalk in because of gymnastics, but gymnasts use it for the total opposite reason.

Justin Brown  38:34

What? What's the surface like? 

Kris Hampton  38:38

So your on like metal or smoothed wood.

Justin Brown  38:41

Parallel bars? Yep. or uneven bars. Do you guys, do guys do uneven bars?

Kris Hampton  38:45

Women do uneven bars, guys do high bar, high bar.

Justin Brown  38:48

What's the difference?

Kris Hampton  38:49

uneven bars has two. Okay. Two bars. And men also do parallel bars. Okay.

Justin Brown  38:57

I was watching some of those old school uneven bars where the women just used to bash into the lower bar.

Kris Hampton  39:02

Yeah, around it, like on their hips, just slam into their hips. Yeah,

Justin Brown  39:06

that seems like such a bad idea. So those are made out of wood?

Kris Hampton  39:10

Yep. Okay. Are they used to be I think they're made out of something else now, but used to be made out of wood. Just a really smooth wood. And if you're like if your hands would start sweating, it would almost kind of stick to the wood or to the metal and then roll up and you'd get these horrendous flappers.

Justin Brown  39:31

Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of what people are experiencing on hangboard, with a little bit of extra moisture becomes a little stickier. But you would think, you would think that like, well, I guess it's just bringing chalk is just bringing your hands down from that like 100% humidity down to like 35% humidity. But it's amazing. It doesn't. I mean, eventually it does fill up the rock, right? But it doesn't do that. Because you know people just they have their hands in there. Some do the French poof, right. But usually it's just in the chalk bag, maybe a pat on the pants and then on the hold, but it does work amazingly well. Yeah.

Kris Hampton  40:10

Okay, so gymnastic chalk does indeed reduce friction, that's its purpose. And so does climbing chalk because well, it's the same thing. However, what it does is it reduces the moisture on your hands, which thereby increases friction. If, that is, your skin needs the moisture to be reduced. And that just isn't always the case. And there's some compelling evidence that once a hold is covered in chalk, then chalking your hands as well actually reduces the friction you get on that hold. But of course, you're going to continue creating more moisture in your hands as you climb. Climbing is actually just a battle with gravity, and moisture. One of them usually wins against you. If you want to hear more about chalk, the coefficient of friction and the research done on climbing holds, Paul Corsaro and I covered exactly this subject on breaking beta in season two, including the back and forth between the researchers, that basically amounted to a science rap battle. That link is in your show notes. 

Kris Hampton  41:22

Makes me wonder now if, what it would be like to try to use just dry spray and no chalk.

Justin Brown  41:31

I don't think it would work. 

Kris Hampton  41:32

don't think it would work?

Justin Brown  41:33

I don't know.

Kris Hampton  41:34

It wouldn't work in my brain. 

Justin Brown  41:36

for sure would not. Yeah, I said that, I said that. And I was like, that just might be a mental thing. It's making me sweat thinking of not chalking. I just dry spray yesterday, my hands are sweating. Gosh, I don't know if I want to be the one that tests that out. No. 

Kris Hampton  41:51

But are there other like skin care myths that you've come across?

Justin Brown  41:59

Mmm hmm. Skincare myths,

Kris Hampton  42:04

we sort of talked about the the hot tub or hot springs, you always see photos of climbers with their hands out of the water. 

Justin Brown  42:13

Oh, you know what I hate to see, when people are using the electric skin files. Because that's just because of the heat. Yeah, it's just building up so much heat. And the reason your hands are making more skin is because you're putting abuse into them. And that's just exponentially worse, I'd imagine. And so your your fingers just going to create more skin where if you just use a gritty file, you go nice and slow. I think you'd you'd do better. 

Kris Hampton  42:44

What's your favorite grit?

Justin Brown  42:47

80

Kris Hampton  42:48

That's what our medium grit skin file is at. And then we've got a finer 120 that some people really like. Yeah, I'm a fan of 80. 

Justin Brown  42:57

80-100 is kinda where I'm at. I can see using the finer for like trim in the end stages of a flapper or maybe your cuticles or something or fingernails. Yeah, I bite my fingernails, so I don't need files. Terrible.

Kris Hampton  43:14

I always chastise my wife in the evenings when she's when she's filing her skin. Because she just doesn't look at it and just goes really fast. Yeah, I'm like, What are you doing? Every single night.

Justin Brown  43:27

It's not even fun to file your skin fast. Well, not for me. Some people probably like it.

Kris Hampton  43:33

Same. it's a process. For me. I like to like look at the details and be really slow, but... 

Justin Brown  43:38

I feel like it's cutting so much better going slow. It's like if you take a saw. And you're like and you can feel it bite versus just like, yeah, jerking the thing around. I don't know. People can believe whatever they want. I'm fine with it. Then they mess their skin up and then they come to me. So...

Kris Hampton  43:40

So there's this new push to use like granite edges to hang on? Oh, yeah. Or things like that to build up better skin. is hanging on granite going to be different than just sanding with, like 80 grit? Sanding lightly with an 80 grit?

Justin Brown  44:25

Yeah, I think while I think hanging on granite is going to do more to build your skin up, because you're not you're not breaking it down at all, you're just super stationary. But you have, you have some like input into your skin. So your skin is going to want to grow faster without taking it away.

Kris Hampton  44:44

So I think the answer here is that hanging on those kinds of edges can be valuable if you want more skin. Just keep in mind that thicker skin isn't always the answer. So choose wisely depending on your skin humidity level. And what kind of rock you'll be climbing on. I personally don't like climbing with really thick skin, even in most areas that are considered sharp. Some folks, however, love little horse hooves. It's up to you. If you love the idea of growing more skin, then maybe check out the skin farmers made by Petra holds, those look like the right idea to me. 

Kris Hampton  45:23

One thing I'm always getting messages about that I don't know how to answer. And it happens to me seems like once a year, I can never tell if it's like going from a really humid area to a dry area or what the hell is happening. But there's this sensation of like all of your skin just sloughing off, like, your hands are just peeling and all the skin is being replaced What the hell is happening? 

Justin Brown  45:52

It's basically a skin avalanche, I think is the best way to look at it. Because it's inconsistency of layers in your skin.

Kris Hampton  46:01

According to the National Park Service, avalanches are most likely when we see storms starting with low temperatures and dry snow, followed by rising temperatures and wetter snow. And this essentially creates a weak layer in the snowpack. When there's a trigger of some sort, that weak layer sloughs off and takes everything above it with it. Much like your skin when you're switching between gym and outdoors with a gap in between, or dry and humid areas or whenever that horrible skin avalanche happens.

Justin Brown  46:36

So we have, we have Rhino products, and the way they work is to create like a consistent linear progress in whatever skin humidity you need. And so if you think about like you train to go on a road trip or train to send a project, you're putting a lot of abuse into your hands. And so when you put more you know, when you're like grabbing more holds and more abuse into your skin and your skin is going to grow faster, become thicker. And as it gets thicker, the top will be drier and down low will be more humid. And you, you want that gradient, you want that gradient to be consistent. And your body will do it on its own. Or you can give it specific help with different products. But then let's say you put all that training in, you send your project and you're like, yes, then you go eat pizza, and you drink beer and you don't climb for a few days, then you're like I should get training again, then you kind of start you're in that like dip, right. And so then you start training again, but you had what, where you were climbing every day or five days a week, and then maybe you climb three days a week or two days a week, your skin's can kind of go upside down, you're gonna have an upside down skin pack. And so when it goes upside down, that bottom layer skin isn't going to be created with the same amount of input that the top layer skin was having. And so when that layer of skin on the bottom that wasn't privy to all of that climbing gets kind of close to the top, it's just gonna come off.

Kris Hampton  48:26

And right here, we have another reason why climbing more is better than just hanging on wood. Grabbing stone while warming up, while climbing on easier things, even junk miles, you're keeping your skin in better shape. And to be honest, I'm just going to take every opportunity to do more junk miles. Because what most of the coaches and trainers out there are calling junk miles actually makes you better at climbing.

Justin Brown  48:54

It's just gonna come off, and it's gonna come off as a whole sheet in strips or whatever. And then you kind of have to start over, and that's fine. But I think if you want to prevent that, the best way to do it is just file your skin.

Kris Hampton  49:12

So even the days when you're not climbing or you know, you're not climbing for a couple of weeks or whatever?

Justin Brown  49:18

Yeah, just file it just have that be part of your routine. And you know, that's easy enough to do you keep that input going. Your body thinks it's still rock climbing skin generation keeps going. But it's also you know, it, it might be scary because you might have changed something. There's a couple people historically that have like, started using Rhino products, and they get that slim skin slough. And it's kind of similar because they have that differential part of their skin work. Right? They had one type of skin. They create a new type of skin, skin came off. They're like, Oh, my skin is coming off. It's your fault.

Kris Hampton  49:56

You sold me this. Yeah, exactly. Calm down.

Justin Brown  50:01

it is our fault our products work. Right but um, yeah, it's it's not a terrible thing but no it's gonna happen and it happens to every single person.

Kris Hampton  50:10

Yeah, the skin avalanche Yep. skin avalanche skin Boulange upside down skin bland. Yeah. All right, any, any other skin oddities that, that you see climbers like either either doing wrong or that climbers just should be doing and may not know about? 

Justin Brown  50:31

Just wash your hands. Using lotion like Repair Cream is not a bad thing. Just keep that skin healthy. I think that's the biggest thing. It doesn't have to be super dry, doesn't have to be wet. Somewhere in the middle. And I think our lineup kind of lets you just dial in your own thing. It's so very, there's so much variation for rock type. I feel like limestone is pretty forgiving for skin humidity. Unless it's too dry. Seems to get glassy. The Red River Gorge, it probably doesn't matter. The performance cream works really well for the red actually. Yeah. Just to get that extra pitch or two.

Kris Hampton  51:14

Yep. Yeah. Because the red does make you like sensitive, makes your skin really sensitive. But I think this is cool. I think we've we've gotten to a point in climbing where we're like, Okay, I have these shoes for this rock type and this style and these shoes for this rock type and style. And we're really just now to the point where we're like, oh, there's actually a spectrum of how skin and hands can be, you know, for sure. So in a few years, we're probably going to be the point where it's like, oh, I'm going to Yosemite, I need my skin to be this way I can prepare it like this, or I'm going to the Red or I'm going to Smith or wherever it is, you know, we're going to understand more and more about how our skin should be to be prepared for it.

Justin Brown  52:01

I think at Yosemite it's like a cuticle issue. People's cuticles just get destroyed. Definitely from finger cracks. Yeah. Yeah, like it's a split, trim those cuticles down. Yeah, that is interesting to think about. Like, can there be a system put in place for each rock type across the country?

Justin Brown  52:01

Yeah, you're just gonna have to sell packs. Like this is the Yosemite pack. This is... 

Justin Brown  52:01

Well, you can't really do that. Because when people see... 

Kris Hampton  52:11

You'd need instructions of what are your, what's your skin type starting at?

Justin Brown  52:22

Yeah, yeah, I would have to sell like, our skin, our skin humidity tester. And then like you'd have the... what what's your thing? That 5.12? 

Kris Hampton  52:45

Yeah, Climb 5.12

Justin Brown  52:47

It'd be like, Climb Limestone guide. Yeah. And how to dial your skin in for it.

Kris Hampton  52:53

Absolutely. I think the last time we talked in Hueco years ago, you were just starting to think about a product that became spit. So now we're now, we're pre empting the specific rock type packs.

Justin Brown  53:09

Yep. Yeah. Well, we first talked in Hueco, I also didn't believe in crease splits. That's like, that is not a thing. 

Kris Hampton  53:17

Really? Yeah, I get them. I used to get them every single winter. When I lived in Cincinnati, when it would get drier because we had electric heat in the house or whatever. I would get them every winter.

Justin Brown  53:29

I just always had super sweaty hands.

Kris Hampton  53:32

Now, now you're seeing that there are other people, there's more than just me. Awesome. Well, man, I I'm so psyched all the time to see how well Rhino's doing, that people are catching on. So I hope a couple of years from now we'll sit down again and talk about other new products and why they work and new skin things we didn't know were possible. 

Justin Brown  53:56

What do you think is out there?

Kris Hampton  53:57

I don't know. What do people need? and people are gonna get so nerdy about it in the future because that's what we do about all this shit. Yep.

Justin Brown  54:06

Yeah, that's the fun part. Yeah. All right.

Kris Hampton  54:09

Thanks, man. 

Justin Brown  54:10

Thank you.

Kris Hampton  54:13

Now, as far as I know, there's still no cumin in any of their products. I think I'd have to check with them. But even if there's no cumin, there are a few small businesses The Climbing Zine, Flash Foxy, Tension Climbing, and of course, Rhino, that I've sort of come up alongside and I've loved getting to grow along with them and share ideas with and learn from them. Folks that have built their reputation on quality and innovation. So it's great to get to sit down with Justin from time to time and reflect on that. And look, I know most of you are still going to be afraid to touch the dishes. But I do gloveless dishes every day and have for as long as I can remember, it's actually my main form of meditation actually, one of the only things that slows me down and gives me time alone to think. And I very rarely have splits or flappers or any other skin issue. Maybe it's the Rhino. Maybe I just have good skin. Or maybe it's actually doing the dishes that's the cause of me not getting splits. But you know, you do you. At the blog post for this episode, you'll find all of the...

Kris Hampton  55:38

** baby sounds **

Kris Hampton  55:44

Obviously, Harper does not want me to finish this episode. But at that blog post, you will find all of the links to get the Rhino Skin Solution products and to follow them on the socials. And you should be using their products. Game changer, just like I thought from day one. The Power Company Podcast is brought to you by Power Company Climbing. You can learn, grow and excel with us at powercompanyclimbing.com, where if you click on the new resources tab, all of our articles and episodes from the past 10 years have been conveniently sorted for you into categorical landing pages. Many, many rabbit holes to explore, check it out. We're also on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Power Company Climbing but not Twitter. And Harper's not on Twitter. She'll never be on Twitter because Elon is going to run it into the ground. And also we don't tweet, we scream like eagles.