The Derm Friend You Wish You’d Always Had: Meet Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd

If you’ve ever sat in a dermatologist’s office feeling rushed, confused, or unheard—you’re not alone. For so many people living with vitiligo, finding a doctor who truly understands both the science and the emotional side of skin conditions can feel impossible. That’s where Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd comes in.

She’s the kind of dermatologist you wish you’d always had—the one who listens, explains things in real terms, and actually cares about what it feels like to live in your skin. With a passion for patient and skincare education and a heart for helping people feel confident, Dr. Heather is changing what it means to visit the dermatologist—one honest, empowering conversation at a time.

Heather Woolery-Lloyd, MD, FAAD is also now partnering with Living Dappled as our resident dermatology expert. Dr. Woolery-Lloyd is an internationally recognized dermatologist and wellness leader, board-certified in both dermatology and lifestyle medicine. As the Director of the Skin of Color Division at the University of Miami, she has dedicated her career to advancing research and care for skin of color and has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. She’s also the founder of DermFriends, a skincare platform that helps you find the products that work for you—all backed by a dermatologist. She also has a weekly newsletter for the skincare gurus who want the latest trends and news.

Each month, Dr. Woolery-Lloyd will answer Living Dappled reader questions about skincare, wellness, and living with vitiligo. Have a question you’d like her to cover? Learn more here.

Interview with Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd

To help the Living Dappled community get to know Dr. Woolery-Lloyd as their new resident dermatology expert, Living Dappled Founder Erika Page sat down with her to talk about her experience as a dermatologist, the DermFriends platform and her passion for supporting women with vitiligo. 

Living Dappled: Heather—we’re so excited to be partnering with you to serve this community of women with vitiligo here at Living Dappled. Let’s help them get to know you. We’ll start at the beginning. Can you tell us what inspired you to become a dermatologist and eventually focus on skin of color and conditions like vitiligo?

Heather Woolery-Lloyd: Also excited to be here and support this community. Going back to the beginning: In medical school, I originally thought that I wanted to do neurology because I was very fascinated by the brain, and I still am. But I also like to do procedures and realized I was attracted to specialties that were more fast-paced. When I was a third-year medical student, I had a friend who wanted to do dermatology and I started to learn more about it and realized I wanted to do derm. I liked it specifically because you see all ages and there’s so many things you can do. You can do procedures, you can do complex medical dermatology, you can do cosmetic dermatology. So within the field of dermatology, you have a lot of choices. Dermatology is a dynamic field that’s constantly changing.

I had an interest in skin of color specifically because, during my training, there was an unmet need for that community. I knew that when I finished residency, a lot of skin of color patients and the community in Miami, which is so diverse, would want to come to see me and I wanted to be an expert. When I was a fourth-year resident, I rotated with Dr. Pearl Grimes in Los Angeles and with Dr. Elliot Battle in Washington, D.C. I would go to the American Academy of Dermatology meeting and literally write down every skin of color lecture. Skin of color as a specialty within derm didn’t really exist at the time. I would just try to get as much information as I could, so I was as up-to-date as I could be when I graduated. I had a very innovative chair at the time. His name was Dr. Eaglstein, and he said, “Well, why don’t we make you the head of a center?” Right out of residency, he put me in charge of what is now the Skin of Color Division at the University of Miami.

So it was basically my thirst for knowledge and really wanting to be up-to-date and just totally prepared for when I finished residency. And of course, working with Dr. Grimes had a huge impact. I got a scholarship from the Women’s Derm Society and flew out to California, where she has the Vitiligo and Pigmentation Institute of Southern California. So even though I had exposure to vitiligo in residency, it was great working with Dr. Grimes because I saw someone whose entire career was focused on vitiligo.

LD: For those of us who may not know what it’s like to be a dermatologist, let’s get specific. You practice dermatology both in a private practice and an academic setting. What does that look like practically for you as far as a day or week in your life?

HWL: I see patients at UM (University of Miami) one day per week with a focus on seeing patients with pigmentary disorders. I also do clinical research in a private practice—so I go there one day a week. I spend a lot of time speaking, consulting and working with companies. I also recently joined Nutrafol as their Chief Medical Advisor. 

LD: You’re board-certified both as a dermatologist and in lifestyle medicine. Why was that pairing of expertise of interest to you and how does that help you work with those with vitiligo? 

HWL: One of the biggest influences on our health is our lifestyle. Lifestyle medicine is a specialty focused on how evidence-based lifestyle interventions can be used to treat and prevent chronic diseases.

The six pillars of lifestyle medicine include: whole food plant predominant diet, regular physical activity, stress management, sleep, social connection, and avoidance of risky substances. Here’s how you can easily incorporate this into your everyday life:

• Eat a whole food, plant-predominant diet with lots of vegetables.
• Exercise regularly—around 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week is recommended.
• Get seven to nine hours of restful sleep.
• Practice stress management.
• Avoid risky substances like excessive alcohol and smoking.
• Maintain strong, positive social connections.

These are the six pillars of lifestyle medicine and are predictive of health and longevity.

With vitiligo, I think it’s interesting to think about the evidence-based lifestyle interventions that may influence the disease. For example, stress can definitely influence vitiligo. For those who are predisposed to vitiligo, stress can cause the condition to spread. Stress can also impact your ability to deal with this condition because it can tremendously impact quality of life. So we can use stress management to address that aspect of it.

LD: Outside of work, what are some things you love to do that help you recharge and take care of yourself?

HWL: I walk outside every day—that’s a huge part. It’s more for mental health for me. That’s so important for me and I’ve done it for years and I love it. I love to exercise. I’m going to a Pilates class later today. I do Solidcore. Probably my favorite things are being outside in nature, walking every day, and exercising. I also love traveling with my family—if I can get everyone together because now I have a daughter in college. 

LD: You’re also the founder of DermFriends—a site and newsletter that helps make skincare education more accessible. Tell us more about it and also why that is important to you.

HWL: Yes. So DermFriends has two parts. The first part is the website. I wanted to simplify how people search for skincare. For example, if you’re looking up a moisturizer but you have acne-prone skin and are not knowledgeable in skincare or are not a skincare expert, it would take hours to sift through Google or Amazon reviews to find the moisturizer that works for oily, acne-prone skin. As a dermatologist, I recommend specific products for specific concerns all day every day. I wanted to create an easy resource that you could use to type in moisturizer for oily skin, moisturizer for acne-prone skin, sunscreen for oily skin, and more, to get results that most dermatologists would recommend. It takes a little bit of the guesswork out of trying to find a skincare product. So, that’s part one of DermFriends. It’s basically my brain but in a searchable format. And the name came to me because it’s like having a friend who’s a derm—someone who cares and wants to help you.

The second aspect of DermFriends is the newsletter. I am obviously very into skincare and I love learning about skincare, so I created the newsletter to stay up-to-date on skincare. I do research every single week and review all the trade journals just to see what’s new, what’s trending, what’s going on, what’s going on online, what’s going on in social media, and then I compile that into a newsletter. There’s two skincare news stories, a social media story, trending sounds on IG and Tik Tok, and then the bestsellers on Amazon, Ulta, and Sephora. So it gives you a little snapshot of what’s going on in skincare at the moment. And that newsletter is more for skincare experts or someone who really wants to keep up-to-date on skincare. It’s cutting edge and the newest research. I do it because I also love staying up-to-date—and it helps me stay on top of things too.

LD: Tell us about your connection to the vitiligo community—your patients, panels, clinical trials, etc. 

HWL: So I obviously see patients with vitiligo in my clinical practice, but a lot of what I do also is advocacy work and raising awareness and that part of it is, for me, just as rewarding. Because vitiligo really didn’t—until we had this new FDA-approved treatment—get a lot of focus or press or exposure. I think that those parts of my work are just as important as seeing patients because we definitely still need to raise awareness. Things have changed dramatically in the last two years and it’s been this huge positive change, but I still think there’s more work to be done.

LD: Let’s talk about vitiligo today. We have new treatments in trials right now and there’s more awareness than ever before. How do you feel about the changing treatment landscape and where do we still need to do work for this community?

HWL: What’s exciting about upcoming treatments is the opportunity for new options. It’s always good to have choices, and it’s exciting that there is so much new research in the area.  Researchers are looking at new innovations and new technologies to treat vitiligo. The more innovation in vitiligo, the more opportunities we have to treat patients.

For vitiligo awareness—I would say that it’s changing. But there are still misconceptions today. Derms who may not be as up-to-date on the research may not understand the emotional impact of vitiligo and say, “This is just a cosmetic condition, you just have to live with it.”  From the patient standpoint, if you’re interested in treating, some patients think, “Oh, well, there’s no treatment. I’ve been told there were no treatments.” But there are treatments. Another misunderstanding is if you’ve had vitiligo for a long period of time, it’s not likely to respond to treatment. Studies have shown that’s not necessarily the case. The length of time that you’ve had vitiligo does not predict your responsiveness to medical therapy. So those are the big ones.

LD: With so many products and miracle cures online, what advice would you give readers about finding safe, effective treatments? 

HWL: Yes, this is a problem—and I get these ads too actually. It’s hard to ignore when the marketing is done so well. The immediate red flag is if it seems too good to be true—whether it’s the price or the time to repigment. Repigmentation takes time. So if the treatment is promising results within a few weeks, you know that’s likely not true. My first recommendation is to check the source and make sure it’s coming from a dermatologist or expert in the industry. And ultimately, my recommendation is to see a board-certified dermatologist who has an interest in vitiligo to really know what’s new and up-to-date for vitiligo for realistic, predictable results. 

LD: Our community is full of women who have lots of questions about their skin and overall health. What types of questions do you most enjoy answering? 

HWL: I love answering questions about skincare. So for women with vitiligo, talking about how you can take care of your vitiligo while also navigating everyday skincare needs. I’m a sunscreen expert. I love talking about sunscreen and how it works and how to choose the right sunscreen. I also love talking about lifestyle. While there is not a lot of research specifically on lifestyle influences vitiligo, we do know that the general pillars of lifestyle—diet, exercise, sleep, and stress—are good for overall health.

LD: We’re excited to have you as our new resident dermatology expert and start this partnership. What do you hope to share with the women in our community?

HWL:  I want every woman in the Living Dappled community to feel confident in her skin and empowered in her journey with this condition. As a physician board-certified in dermatology and lifestyle medicine, I understand that true well-being starts with feeling good in your skin. I’m here as your ‘derm friend’ to offer guidance on a holistic approach to navigating skincare, self-care and wellness with vitiligo. Together, we can nurture your skin, boost your confidence and help you embrace the beauty of you.

Have a question you’d like Dr. Woolery-Lloyd to answer? Learn more here.

Follow Dr. Woolery-Lloyd on Instagram and subscribe to DermFriends for more.

Medical Disclaimer: This information is intended for informational purposes only. Consult with your doctor or a professional healthcare provider for medical advice, treatment or diagnosis.