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- [00:00]
Unknown Speaker
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- [01:02]
Out of three listeners say podcasts are the best way to learn about the things they care about most? That makes podcasts the perfect place to introduce your brand, where ads are more relevant and trusted than any other media channel. Want to learn more? Download the Full podcast polls 2024 report now at podcastpulse2024.acast.com and see how you can make your brand part of the conversation.
- [01:36]
Jen Sullivan
Happy 2025 everyone. Hi, it's Jen Sullivan. This is Fat Mascara, a podcast about beauty culture. So I'm just going to use this first day of the year to remind everyone we love your feedback. So please leave us a comment on an episode. You can do that on Spotify or if you listen on Apple, please give us a review. Whatever stars you want. Even more helpful is like constructive criticism. What guests do you want to see in 2025? What have you been liking? What haven't you been liking? We want to hear it all. So I also like to read comments and reviews at the beginning of some episodes when I remember. So I want to do one. Let's do from Spotify. This is from the user Carlsvar so it says I can't get enough of Garrett. Please don't censor the real talk. You weren't being Juvenile or weird. And I was right there with you. If you hold back, you leave us hanging. Okay, I know exactly what episode this was referring to. Garrett and I were talking about penis filler and labia puffs, which are these procedures that we've just both been reporting on. Carlsfahr goes on. I'm also really interested in the plastic surgery discussions lately. Super insightful. Feels very relevant. Carlsfahr. Us too. There's going to be more of that. There's gonna be more of Garrett in 2025. We'll try not to censor. That's not who we are. So stay tuned for that. Okay? Right now, today's episode. You know my New Year's resolution? It's gonna be to not say, I'm excited about every guest we have on. Cause clearly I'm excited about all of our guests, so we wouldn't have them on if I weren't. But I realize I say that at the top of every interview, so I'm gonna try not to do that. I'll just say this. Victoria Fu is the best person I know to talk to about what to buy when you're shopping for skincare. She's a cosmetic chemist. She's one half of the podcast and brand Chemist Confessions, and she's the co author of the book Skincare Decoded the Practical Guide to Beautiful Skin. So this interview originally was conducted in 2023. It's as timely as ever. Right now I'm going to use it to head into 2025 with better skin on my mind and better, smarter shopping on my mind. So I hope that's what you use it for, too. Okay, let's get into it. Victoria, welcome to Fat Mascara.
- [03:51]
Victoria Fu
Thanks for having me, Jen. So excited. I'm ready to get into it.
- [03:56]
Jen Sullivan
She's so excited that she set up a sign behind her on video that says Fat Mascara plus Chemist Confession. So cute.
- [04:04]
Victoria Fu
I did.
- [04:05]
Jen Sullivan
I love it.
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Victoria Fu
Our marketing assistant, Ava, will murder me if I do not. This was a request.
- [04:12]
Jen Sullivan
I love that. I love that. I feel like our audiences really do overlap. We'll get into that, of course. Like, tell me all about you. You're the co founder of Chemist Confessions, which is so many things. Like, how would you describe what you do?
- [04:25]
Victoria Fu
I think the best way we've described it thus far is a multiverse. So you've got. Yeah. You've got your skincare science education. We've got our chemist quirky formulas. We also have. And sometimes in weird occasions, we'll team up with other companies. So it's A whole world of we just think nerdy skincare, science, general fun. That's why we have. In our education side, we not only have social media, but we randomly ended up with a book. We did the whole podcast.
- [05:06]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, I read your book.
- [05:07]
Victoria Fu
Honored. Yeah, that I sure did. Writing a book. Anybody ever done it before? That just never was planned. I am not a writer. Gloria is not a writer. But holy cow, what a journey. And yeah, it's been. We're very proud of the outcome, but, man, what a journey.
- [05:27]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah. So Gloria's your partner. She's not here today. And give us some more background, like, you're chemists. Like, you two met at L'Oreal, right? Like, what's your career background before you did this?
- [05:37]
Victoria Fu
Usually when we do, when we tell this story, I've got Gloria to tell, like her side.
- [05:41]
Jen Sullivan
But now it's all you. It's all me.
- [05:44]
Victoria Fu
So I've met Gloria at L'Oreal in the skincare lab. We are cubicle buddies at that time, and she was working more in the clinical active space. So these are brands like Skinceuticals. And then for me, I started in Kiehl's, but eventually I moved into anti aging, which is just general, more upstream anti aging, which. Which doesn't mean a lot. It can be anything from a cleanser, a sunscreen, a serum. But that's how we first met.
- [06:17]
Jen Sullivan
What does upstream mean? Is that some business term?
- [06:20]
Victoria Fu
It's more like you've got your brands, so there's directions that are brand based. Then you go one level higher, and you're working on formulas that are general chassis that will kind of spread down to different brands. So that would be the best way.
- [06:37]
Jen Sullivan
I could describe that in the L'Oreal world. Though I'm sure some other parent companies work that way, too. Like maybe Amyris has some, like, squalene. And then all the little Amyris brands get it.
- [06:48]
Victoria Fu
Exactly.
- [06:48]
Jen Sullivan
The chassis.
- [06:49]
Victoria Fu
Sprinkle it everywhere. So for us, the chassis was the formulas we created. You know, whether it's sunscreen, textures, cleansers, anti aging. And then we would work with, let's say, like a chemist like Gloria to marry the two and adapt it to the brand. So that's how it all worked. That's.
- [07:06]
Jen Sullivan
How did you become a chemist? Did you always know you're going to be a chemist?
- [07:10]
Victoria Fu
No freaking clue. I had no idea. I was a lost chemical engineer. For my master's, I was doing nanoengineering research in drug development, and I was looking at encapsulation for Treatment of acne. And when I was ready to graduate, I was looking at my job prospects and I knew I absolutely would not do pharma. I was like, this does not sound fun for me. I am about to dedicate many decades of my life to this career. I want to do something that's gonna spark joy and fun and just honestly have a quicker turnaround time in terms of deliverables. I just blasted my resume to all the beauty companies and luckily landed as a skincare chemist at L'Oreal as my first job. But, yeah, that's how I ended up last corporate job.
- [08:05]
Jen Sullivan
Because then you went all out on your own, right?
- [08:07]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. Yeah, I did talk about fate sometimes. Not only I really, I'm not superstitious, but holy cow, sometimes I think about our journey and it's funky. Gora and I, our first and last names rhyme front and back. Like first name and last name. And weirdly enough.
- [08:25]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, I just realized that. Yes.
- [08:27]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. And weirdly enough, in Chinese I share. My Chinese characters are similar to hers and her sisters. So it's like, really weird and spooky.
- [08:36]
Jen Sullivan
Right. It's very unscientific of you, Victoria.
- [08:39]
Victoria Fu
I know, right? Of all, there's like 10,000 Chinese characters out there. But also, when we were kind of at a time where we're generally feeling a little bit disheartened by the industry. This is not about L'Oreal. This is about the industry. Okay. Just because at the time, it just felt like one. As a first job as a chemist, so much of your project was dictated by marketing. The second being that we somehow were still. We just saw, like, our family members and friends still asking us, still being so lost on how to, like, buy skincare. And for me personally, I struggled so much convincing my mom that you do not have to pay La Mer dollars to get something that's going to do something for your skin or help your skin.
- [09:30]
Jen Sullivan
Meanwhile working for a company that convinces people to pay big money to get something to work for your skin. But also, you're just saying you could buy it for less.
- [09:38]
Victoria Fu
Exactly. Well, it's just you don't have to feel like you have to have that insurance policy. Like, I gotta pay X amount of dollars to get this much in terms of performance. So I think we kind of just both shared that internal strife in terms of career and just so happened that we ended up leaving the industry at the same time and we did not plan to come back to it. I actually was looking more into, I guess, like, ingredient side, like, even, like, more upstream work. And during that time, we kept in touch and we decided, well, why not? Like, we might not come back to this. Let's just dump our industry insider knowledge out into the interwebs and see if it hits. Because maybe people don't care, maybe people don't care to know that, hey, glycerin's actually a really great ingredient and talk about the science. And that's kind of how chemist Confession started. If you scroll down all the way to the bottom of our Instagram, our posts were so adorable. They're like hand sketched and there are these little cartoons and they talked about in one line to two lines that were so short back about like ingredients that you might not know about but should get to know. And that's how it started. And then it just like organically grew. And we were like, so impressed that users are just hungry, hungry to know more, hungry to learn, hungry to find better and shop for better. And we decided, let's just put our money where our mouth is and see if we can create formulas that embody that same ethos of skincare science, good formulation and just general fun. I think the thing that we also want is like, we at the end of the day want this kind of education to be approachable and to feel like you could come in with not knowing a thing and you could still come away with one helpful tip. And we just want that same thing for the formulas we created. And that's how the line launched. And then the whole line side is like a whole different animal. Where we quickly learned, like the marketing we were bashing, we're like, right, we're not marketers. Yeah. I think the best story to tell about the line when it launched was we knew exactly what we wanted to create. So we started with a line of moisturizers. And at the time it was, how do we break down these very like archaic concepts of dry, normal, oily, which there's no guideline of what that means for a chemist. Right? So a brand's dry, normal, oily could be like a completely different spectrum than a different brand. Right. There's no good way of like finding your moisturizer. And it's very, it's a very important piece of your routine. And so we're like, okay, let's do this. Let's actually break it down by moisturizing components. Right? You've got your water based stuff that you like, you've got your oils, you've got your occlusive waxy butter stuff. Do that. And then by this way, people can add to their existing routine, and then they don't feel, like, the need to just completely reset and then lose all their skincare history. So, like, great. We launched it, we knew exactly what we wanted. We came out, we were so happy. And then we realized, oh, right, people don't know what humectants are.
- [13:11]
Jen Sullivan
They don't know what occlusives are. Emollients.
- [13:13]
Victoria Fu
Yeah.
- [13:14]
Jen Sullivan
Like, all those meetings you had at L'Oreal for years where you're like, ugh, just like, let us do it our way. It's totally gonna work. Now you realize, like, oh, that's why there's, like, eight layers of marketing and, like, consumer surveys in between.
- [13:26]
Victoria Fu
Exactly. We're like, right, that's right. We forgot this part. So in the beginning when we launched, it was not a good launch, but now we can safely say that in this day and age and where we are in consumer education, it is now like our. Our bread and butter of the line. And so it's just funny, this whole journey, just so many learnings and.
- [13:47]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah, well, you guys are educators, and, like, you came up on a wave of. Right when. I think people like our listeners and a lot of people were getting more interested in what actually was inside the bottles and, like, doing a little more homework. And, you know, we'd all spent years being marketed to, and maybe our skin was messed up or whatever, and we're trying to figure it out. So I'm glad I have you here. Cause, like, I feel like we want some of that for more people to educate. Right?
- [14:13]
Victoria Fu
Yes, of course.
- [14:14]
Jen Sullivan
I want to talk about, like, what? You know, like, the first thing I was thinking about was, like, ingredient labels. I love that. Since the beginning, you guys have been like, decode that. Il. Like, that's a hashtag that you use it over your account. But, like, I turn over a bottle and I look at an ingredient list. I've been doing this for, like, 23 years, so I can kind of tell, oh, that's a peptide. That's another name for hyaluronic acid. That's a moisturizer. That's some dumb thing they sprinkled in just so you could say that they had some rainforest plant. And there's probably, like a. You know, I can kind of tell that stuff. But how can a regular person. Do you think someone really who isn't doing this for a living, like you or I, can or can learn how to decode an ingredient label?
- [14:56]
Victoria Fu
I think yes, in the sense that what is the bare bones of what you want to take Away from an ingredient list. Right. And that's really just.
- [15:04]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, yeah. Il ingredient list, not label. Sorry.
- [15:07]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. So I think for us when we first started Decode il we just. There was just so much hesitation with what they were reading on the label. Again, going back to why like we wanted to start all this is to not fear things that you might not have heard of or sound foreign to you. This why, you know, trying to fight against general things about like clean or natural or why we want to gravitate that there's. There's a lot of really good synthetic compounds that serve a very good purpose in skincare and how to get people to be more familiar LS be generally okay with that. And that's why we started Decode il on top of the fact of how do we prevent people from buying into claimed actives or claimed fancy extracts? The story that you're saying about the exotic rainforest plant that was found. So in those sense we say yes, maybe on the level of us. I don't know if that's actually necessary. It's all about, like, what the purpose it serves for you, your skincare routine and how to better it. Decoding can be very helpful in terms of finding things that just skin is not happy with. Skin is so quirky. It is so hard to know. Your friend could be raving about this product and here you are trying it and you're like, why doesn't this work for me? What is up with my skin? And that's just how it is. It's just funky like that.
- [16:34]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah.
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Victoria Fu
I think that's why we think we feel like decoding can be very helpful to try to narrow it down, filter out and honestly just make a better shopping purchase. So that's the goal. If you. I think that we can all do that, understanding, like how it's formulated and all of that. And I don't think that's necessary to the goal of what we want, which is just good skin. Right.
- [16:59]
Jen Sullivan
Well, you said something, you said claimed actives or whatever. Like, what's the difference? We hear this term all the time. Can you share with our audience what's the difference between an active ingredient in skincare and an inactive ingredient? And do you call it an inactive ingredient?
- [17:10]
Victoria Fu
Yeah, we don't.
- [17:11]
Jen Sullivan
Okay, what do you say?
- [17:12]
Victoria Fu
Actives. We say it's only just Actives and this is just any ingredient that's going to provide a long term skin benefit. These are things that. These are the glamorous stuff. This is the stuff that says, I'm going to be a Wrinkle fighter, a hyperpigmentation. I'm going to tackle skin surface, all of that. And we consider Actives, we don't call anything else inactive. It's more that they. I think for me personally I call them functionals. They serve purposes to either help the formula, maybe they are assisting in the active efficacy, things like that. And of course you also got your fillers and that's again those like pretty extracts and stuff that might not have a single claim but extracts can be touted as actives as well.
- [17:58]
Jen Sullivan
So as a moisturizer. So you mentioned glycerin earlier. I love glycerin. Is that an active? It moisturizes?
- [18:04]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. I don't know. I think it's too. It's whatever you.
- [18:08]
Jen Sullivan
It's not a long term maybe is.
- [18:10]
Victoria Fu
The distinction you could consider glycerin as an active. Actually, you know, by that definition it's serving a long term purpose of hydrating and keeping skin healthy and hydrated. I think the thing try not that we constantly weighed in with our content is the gray area. And the gray area here is that a lot of Actives have multiple benefits.
- [18:33]
Jen Sullivan
What's a glycol?
- [18:35]
Victoria Fu
Glycols are things like propanediol. You've got butyne glycol. These are your general. They're also. You can think of them as humectants as well. It's a general like water ingredient.
- [18:47]
Jen Sullivan
Okay.
- [18:47]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. Butylene glycol and propanediol. Propylene glycol. These are all very helpful in terms of formulation shelf life as well.
- [18:55]
Jen Sullivan
Wait, what's the one that people always think is like antifreeze? Oh, there's antifreeze in my skincare.
- [19:00]
Victoria Fu
I think it's propylene glycol.
- [19:01]
Jen Sullivan
Right. Because it share that name. Sounds similar or something. I've never understood why people think there's antifreeze in their cosmetic products.
- [19:08]
Victoria Fu
So it's just that they.
- [19:12]
Jen Sullivan
Why do they think that? No, be honest. I mean.
- [19:14]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. So I think it's because what usually happens with a lot of these ingredients that get thrown under the bus.
- [19:21]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah.
- [19:21]
Victoria Fu
Is that they hear about how these components are found in things like antifreeze and they use that as a way to spread fear mongering. And so it's the same thing for petrolatum. That's another really good case of this. You know, it's like oh like this is something that is processed through an oil. Right. And so because of that as a byproduct it must have a lot of I guess trace elements that are very bad for you. Right. And the problem with that is that that's a very surface level, general baseless claim. Because petrolatum is something that when sourced, is incredibly refined. Refined to the point that it is from. In its purest form. And so that's why it's like, this is not. This is neither here nor there. And it's the same for propylene glycol. The propylene glycol in the sense that is this. They. They just simply harp on the fact that, hey, look at this. This is this thing that's an antifreeze. You don't want that in your ingredient. Like, no, no, no. That's not how that works. There's a lot of.
- [20:31]
Jen Sullivan
There's water and rat poison. There's water in your skin. Like, I'm sure if you turned over the rat poison label, there'd be like some emulsifiers or whatever that are the same as in skincare. I just never understood that one. I was like, it's not antifreeze. Why do people think it's antifreeze?
- [20:47]
Victoria Fu
So you know formaldehyde releasers, they are found in apples, right? So people freak out that they're like, oh, it's formaldehyde. Like, this is really bad for you. Why did they use it in preservatives? The big beauty industries are always out to get you and they don't care about the customer. Like, whoa, let's take a step back. Let's understand this actual specific compound. And you can find. Think of it this way as like a. And let's open our minds for a sec. You can find formaldehyde in apples. People freak out about parabens in skincare. You can find parabens in mouthwash. Like, before we have that knee jerk reaction. Let's just dial it back one level and process.
- [21:31]
Jen Sullivan
Do you think it's like a lack of science education, at least here in the United States? That is part of the problem. Because I feel like the highest level of science education that I got. We didn't get into any of this. You know what I mean?
- [21:44]
Victoria Fu
Honestly, I think it's because we now, Gloria and I are now know too much. Because I think it's just not something that you think about once you've had the education.
- [21:57]
Jen Sullivan
But you could see what I'm saying, which is like, for somebody who's like, got to 11th grade chemistry class and that was the extent of their knowledge.
- [22:04]
Victoria Fu
Yeah.
- [22:05]
Jen Sullivan
You want to make it into like a simpler. This is how conspiracy theories. Theories start. Because it kind of Makes sense. Sometimes when you listen, you're like, well, that's a good explanation for a thing that's hard to explain and it's shocking.
- [22:15]
Victoria Fu
And that's the. This is this whole engine of like social media and just so much information.
- [22:21]
Jen Sullivan
Part of it where it'll. It's clicky and. Yeah, exactly.
- [22:24]
Victoria Fu
The shock factor of being like, I, first of all, to give a platform to say I know more than thou. Right. And then also to shock them to get their attention. Right. So this is like, it kind of fuels that as well. And something that we always try to say to people is like, if you ever hear a claim that you feel like causes you to want to take action, just think about it for one second. Because usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And that's something that we try to emphasize with people. When you hear about benzene in your sunscreens or you hear about sunscreen in your bloodstream, you know, like, let's dial it back one second and see. And what's really hard is science takes time. And this is the biggest problem with what we want to be able to teach and talk about and give answers to. But then this industry that just changes overnight.
- [23:26]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah.
- [23:27]
Victoria Fu
And I think that's where we're just like, it's really hard to keep up. And it's not fun to tell people there's not enough information to say yes or no.
- [23:37]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah.
- [23:37]
Victoria Fu
And things are case by case. We are marketing assistant Ava Show. She helps. She'll always ask questions, stuff she'll hear and things like that. And she's looking for a yes or no. Am I, Can I use this? Is that bad? Things like that. And. And she hates it because Gloria and I are straight up just like, well, you know, if you think about it this way, you know, like it's because of this. And she's like, I just want a one line answer.
- [24:04]
Jen Sullivan
It's like a lawy. You ask a lawyer and it's like they never give you the straight answer. They're like, yeah, nuance. It's all about nuance, isn't it?
- [24:12]
Victoria Fu
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
- [24:25]
Jen Sullivan
Jess, you ever notice how your skin sort of changes in the winter? Sure. Mine does so much, it's so dry. If that happens to you guys, we have the answer. And you don't even have to add a new skincare product to your routine. This is something that works from the inside out. We're talking about Ritual Haasera, a skin supplement that's clinically proven to support skin hydration with science backed benefits like reducing wrinkles and improving skin smoothness. And let me just say right now, the reason I love it is because it sits by my desk. I take the little supplement every morning. I don't have to think about it. And I notice that my skin is hydrated. It doesn't get that usual tight, dry feeling I get in the winter. In a clinical study, Haasera led to a 2.9 times increase in skin smoothness within 90 days as compared to a placebo. And subjects reported an improvement in skin elasticity, glow and radiance in 90 days. Now ritual supplements are rigorously tested and validated by a third party for allergens, microbes and heavy metals. And Ritual works with world class certification bodies to validate their products. Ritual is also certified BCORP with supplements that are vegan, gluten free and made traceable. Start hair to support your glow without compromising on clean science. Hair from Ritual is a clinically proven skin supplement you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time only@ritual.com mascara that's ritual.com mascara for 25% off your first month.
- [25:49]
Unknown Speaker
It's official. Podcast advertising is transcending audio. Marketers can now tap into audiences across all of a creator's channels, from social media to video, live events and beyond. And Acast new report proves it works with 84% of podcast listeners having taken action after seeing brands promoted in a podcast first Omnichannel campaign. Get these insights and more by downloading the Full report at podcastpulse2024.acast.com.
- [26:27]
Jen Sullivan
How many ingredients do you think you're working with these days? Like you, you've mentioned a couple, but like what's the palette of things that go into skincare? Are we talking thousands and thousands of things? Speaking of slow education that we need.
- [26:40]
Victoria Fu
To take again, this is because if you want to take into things like there are. How should I say?
- [26:47]
Jen Sullivan
Look, she can't answer. I asked for a number, Victoria, give me a number.
- [26:52]
Victoria Fu
Well, depending on definitely hundreds of thousands to millions. And that's including plant stuff, which some plant stuff can be very helpful. Yeah, but the number of extracts out there, there are millions.
- [27:06]
Jen Sullivan
Right? Because like literally anybody could take a plant if they want to market something and go extract a little bit of something from it. And there's think about how many plants there are, let alone synthetic molecules that they're making in labs. Wow. Yeah. It's probably millions. Right?
- [27:20]
Victoria Fu
And one level more is from one plant you could have many different ingredients. And what I mean by that is, you can. From one plant, you could have your aloe juice to an isolated compound, you could have a blend of different compounds. Right. So think about all of those factorials and. Yeah, millions. There's not enough Gloria and Victoria to look at all of them.
- [27:49]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah. So what are chemists doing now as this industry keeps rocketing along so fast? Who has the next big thing and people want to make money, so they're selling stuff. And how do chemists filter through all of that to find new and exciting ingredients that are actually something that could be beneficial?
- [28:07]
Victoria Fu
Here's one word answer. Carefully, carefully screen. But I would say two ways to define it. And one of them is more like for us personally is there's all. We're always looking at the data on even existing Actives that we know, for example, retinol. A lot of these Actives, they don't do well in formula. And there's a lot of companies out there looking at ways to modify improvements, further enhance performance and stability. So Gora and I have our eyes on that. Another aspect that we're looking at and something that we've personally decided to tackle and team up with is this actual look at AI. And I know this is a very hot and floofy word in this industry, but also in the world right now with ChatGPT, but this is actually going to be. Probably the next wave of innovation will.
- [29:06]
Jen Sullivan
Come from artificial intelligence.
- [29:08]
Victoria Fu
Yes. And people are like, I know exactly what the lizard are like. I heard it before. And Gloria and I are also in this industry. What we've seen thus far is true, because what happens a lot with this touted AI is they're looking at data points, they're trying to identify traits in your skin, and they're trying to push out an answer for you in terms of what ingredients work for your skin, what products work for your skin. That's not how that works. There's no science that links directly to, like, what skin type, to what ingredient or what form, formula or what product. That's like, that's not helpful. Right. The thing that we're looking at is actually what's actually being used in drug discovery. So in terms of AI, what they're doing, and the best way I can process what they're doing is they are using a computer model to look at these iterations of balls and sticks, these structured molecules and their structure. There are millions of molecules out there.
- [30:10]
Jen Sullivan
I always picture those K'nex toys or something. Exactly. The little wooden circles with the little chopstick things sticking out of them.
- [30:18]
Victoria Fu
Yes, exactly. So balls and sticks, what they're looking at. And these molecules don't serve a purpose. They haven't been patented. No idea what they might do. It's just simply all of these iterations of those structures they're screening them to see. Based on these structures and all of these parameters, I want. Can I find a particular molecule to.
- [30:43]
Jen Sullivan
Solve a particular medical need in that case?
- [30:46]
Victoria Fu
Yeah, exactly. So Gordon and I, we've been really interested in this. And it was more like a weird turn of events because this company called Revella, they reached out to us during the pandemic, and when we heard, they were like, AI, blah, blah, Gordon. Like, we're never going to hear from these people ever again. Like, yeah, I don't really know. They were looking at possibly looking at this tech to see if they could find a new molecule solution for hair thinning. And we're like, all right, interesting. Why don't you follow back up with us when you're done with the clinical? And then after that, they actually came back, which we were, like, surprised. And so we find it really interesting that this kind of tech now is now entering the beauty space. It's actually doing it in many ways. I just read about how they're actually using that in turn in terms of fragrance. They're looking at ways to map fragrance compounds and trying to link that to different fragrance scents. So. And how they can iterate and find new fragrance. So this is going to be the next wave of biotech in the industry. And Gloria and I were, like, tortured artists. Couldn't resist. Still have chemist confessions going on. We're like, let's do it. Let's just see what happens. Let's learn about what it takes to take this proprietary molecule from start to finish. What does that journey look like? And does it actually come out with something that could do something?
- [32:16]
Jen Sullivan
In this case, just to help people understand the AI, that proprietary molecule was of these, like, 5 million balls and sticks out there, some of which aren't even used in skincare. You feed the little AI program. We want it to be a little bit like this. It should fit into skin receptors like this, and it narrows it down. Well, here's like, 20 that might do something. You test them out in vitro on real life people or like, probably in some cells first, right? I don't know. You tell me.
- [32:45]
Victoria Fu
Yeah.
- [32:45]
Jen Sullivan
Okay. And then you get to eventually, a year later, which might have taken 10 years without the AI imagine.
- [32:51]
Victoria Fu
Yes.
- [32:52]
Jen Sullivan
A new molecule that could be like, the next retinoid or whatever it is. Meanwhile, I know retinol has many forms and many different molecular types, but I'm. Am I doing okay?
- [33:03]
Victoria Fu
You talk about that is a seasoned person. That's like asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. Like, I know, I know retinol has these.
- [33:11]
Jen Sullivan
I myself, as I went. Because I'm like, I'm talking to a scientist here. So I can't talk in those black and white way. That wants me to get in the gray.
- [33:19]
Victoria Fu
No, no, I love it. I love it.
- [33:21]
Jen Sullivan
Do you think? And so other companies are doing this as well. You mentioned fragrance. I've actually written about how they're using it in the fragrance world to test smells. Obviously, pharma's doing it with curing diseases, but now, even in ces, the Consumer Electric Show, I was just seeing some people. I know they're using it as a marketing thing. Like, oh, we used AI. But this is it really, in practice, the way scientists want to be using it. Right?
- [33:43]
Victoria Fu
Yeah.
- [33:43]
Jen Sullivan
What's a molecule, by the way, that you were talking about?
- [33:46]
Victoria Fu
Fibroquin. Okay, I should probably explain that.
- [33:49]
Jen Sullivan
So that's Rubella uses that molecule and its new proprietary skincare products.
- [33:54]
Victoria Fu
Yes.
- [33:55]
Jen Sullivan
Did you make the product? Did you, or you guys did the juice, or you're just working on it?
- [34:00]
Victoria Fu
Did we do the juice? Yes, we did the juice.
- [34:02]
Jen Sullivan
I called it juice. That's a perfume term, but you know what I mean. The goo. The goop.
- [34:06]
Victoria Fu
Yeah, I love it. So when we teamed up, one of the things we appreciate is that they were like, well, we have this molecule, but we definitely don't know skin formulation. You guys seem to know what you're doing. Would you be interested in teaming up to see if we could create this product?
- [34:24]
Jen Sullivan
It's time for the chassis. It's time for the chassis.
- [34:30]
Victoria Fu
Yeah, the chassis. And Gloria and I, we were like, oh, people care about chemists and what they do. Because so many times biotechs wave around these, like, flashy, proprietary molecules. And to be honest, we've. We've gotten a lot of those ingredients before. And we see them, what they do is they just sprinkle it in. We're like, all right, time to make a buck. Let's sprinkle it all in. Let's put into 15 SKUs. Let's make a face lotion, a butt cheek lotion. Let's put in your hair. Let's just put it in everything. And so we appreciate that. And then for us, we. Yes. So we help them figure out all the kinks to this molecule in formula. Because, you know, you could have a great ingredient and then in formula, it'll die, which means it's not going to perform. I'll never show its benefits. It could also cause irritation. So that's the story of how Fiber Queen came around.
- [35:35]
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- [36:37]
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- [37:11]
Jen Sullivan
And all those other things are like one of them I wanted to touch on just because I've been thinking about it. That's like the ph of the product, the concentration level of the active. There's been so much talk about people like you have to know the concentration level of your active, but I'm like, isn't that mean nothing once it gets on the shelf? Like maybe when they tested in the lab it had 20% vitamin C, but by the time I get it, is it always going to have 20%? How accurate are concentration levels these days?
- [37:37]
Victoria Fu
I love that you ask this question so much. It is something Another two hours of me ranting about concentrations and the validity of actives and how.
- [37:49]
Jen Sullivan
Well, a lot of companies are putting them on the label now. Which they didn't used to.
- [37:52]
Victoria Fu
Yes. And good and bad. Okay. So the thing is, which is why Laura and I always tout about clinical studies, because a lot of times these concentrations are these, this activity, these benefits that read about. A lot of times they only make it to the in vitro stage. This is a stage that you're talking about. It's like, oh, now they take the molecule, they test it in a bunch of cell petri dish. Cell cultures in a petri dish and they see great benefit. All right, it works. Moving on. Right. But when you actually want to apply it topically on skin, you have no idea how behave. Sometimes it won't do anything at all. And so that's why we always say a formula that actually can afford to do a clinical and show you, give you a sense of how it might perform on subjects, is so much more valuable in terms of performance. And this is incredibly important for these proprietary molecules because all of that information of like, benefits and what they're seeing, all of the nitty gritty details you're not going to find in these third party academia journals, this is all kept with the company. So how can you know if it's truly like something that's going to help be helpful? And it's something that on our Rivella journey, we really wanted to emphasize with Rivella was like when we formulated Fiber Quin, we were like, okay, as tortured stem people, we need to know what this molecule is going to do by itself. We don't know how it's gonna perform. So this formula, let's only have Fiber Quin. Right. A lot of times what happens is it's high risk, high reward, because you're betting that Fiber Quin is gonna do something to get you a marketing claim in the clinical. Right. A lot of times what happens is the proprietary molecule gets padded with other actives and formula so that in the clinical they can hit the cleanse they want.
- [39:47]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah. They put it in a bunch of moisturizers and then your wrinkles look less noticeable because everybody's all plumped up. But it wasn't really from your special new molecule.
- [39:54]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. That they let niacinamide do some work. Maybe a little.
- [39:58]
Jen Sullivan
Can a person go on a website and be able to figure that out by looking at like a company that actually publishes clinicals? Like a person listening? Because I always tell people to look for clinicals. Very few companies share them or transparent. They're often small, which Is true it's expensive to do clinicals, but, like, they're not showing you usually. I mean, they'll say final products sometimes, which is like, like you said, that's probably other stuff in there that's helping.
- [40:21]
Victoria Fu
Yeah, exactly. So this is where decode that IO sometimes. Very helpful. And, you know, you could argue it both ways, right? You could say, well, it might help, but I also get these other actives so the price point doesn't feel as painful. Or you could say, like, I don't really know. I don't really know how this performs. You're going to look for more information. You're going to look for hopefully clinical data.
- [40:46]
Jen Sullivan
People are like, no, I don't want to do that. Just tell me what's going to make me look younger, please. You know what I mean? Like, you and I get nerding out on it, but you can see why someone would be like, forget it, just give me the La Mer or whatever.
- [41:00]
Victoria Fu
I know.
- [41:01]
Jen Sullivan
Okay, we're talking about the fiber Quinn here, right? I didn't even ask you what it does.
- [41:04]
Victoria Fu
Fiber quinoa you did yours with.
- [41:06]
Jen Sullivan
Okay. It was just the molecule. We're really looking at it. People are putting it on their skin with nothing else to jazz it up and confuse us. What does it do?
- [41:14]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. So it turns out. Well, I have to give you more context because I cannot help it.
- [41:20]
Jen Sullivan
Okay, go ahead.
- [41:23]
Victoria Fu
There's another cell. So we wanted to have an anti aging benchmark so that we could have some comparison.
- [41:30]
Jen Sullivan
Okay.
- [41:30]
Victoria Fu
And what we did was we decided on a 0.5% retinol. And just to be clear, fiber quinine is not a retinal alternative.
- [41:39]
Jen Sullivan
Okay, you were just doing a comparative.
- [41:41]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. And so we just need to know, like, if we compare it, how does it, Is it better or worse? What does it do? And so what we found was that it makes up for retinal shortcomings. What that means is more in the terms you hinted at, it's the idea of elasticity. So we use a cutometer. They measure. It's an instrument that basically does a little suction on the face and it's going to pull skin and it's going to time how quickly skin is going to return back to its normal state. We found that fiber quinine actually outperformed retinol in this sense by 2x. And I don't know how to tell you how nerdy it is and how much PTSD scientists have when they get the results and they're like, holy crap, it did something. Like, it actually Worked. Right. And so that's kind of the general feeling because how many experiences have gone wrong, how many things it just. You just don't know. Right. To actually get some, like, from this model. Right. To all the way to something in a formula and being able to see some performance, it's like, wow. So anyways, that's. That's the clone.
- [42:57]
Jen Sullivan
It. Is it a general anti ager, like a retinol, in that it'll help with elasticity, firmness. Does it boost collagen? I imagine.
- [43:07]
Victoria Fu
Can't say that.
- [43:08]
Jen Sullivan
Okay, does it.
- [43:09]
Victoria Fu
This is where.
- [43:10]
Jen Sullivan
Okay. It's not a drug, you guys. It's not a drug. It's not boosting collagen production and changing the way your skin.
- [43:16]
Victoria Fu
No.
- [43:16]
Jen Sullivan
But your skin will be bounce backier. What is the technical term for bounce back year?
- [43:23]
Victoria Fu
That's the thing that is so hard. It's like, yes. Measures for elasticity. You're like, great.
- [43:28]
Jen Sullivan
Is that elasticity? Is that the.
- [43:29]
Victoria Fu
What does that mean?
- [43:30]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah, yeah. That's when I like, used to play with. Well, now it's my hands, but my grandma's hands. And you pinch the back and I'm like, oh, Yep, still returning, still up. Now we're back to normal. Yeah. So that's elasticity.
- [43:42]
Victoria Fu
Elasticity. So you're thinking plumpness lift. Yeah, that general.
- [43:47]
Jen Sullivan
You've been using it. Have you noticed any, like, tone improvement with like discoloration or is it not that kind of molecule?
- [43:53]
Victoria Fu
Not that kind of tone. So it's more like, not so much hyperpigmentation but more tone of like toning of like your general skin.
- [44:02]
Jen Sullivan
What do you call? Yeah, what does toning mean? To me, I think of tone and I think color, I think skin tone. Like I'm making the tone of my skin more clarified or brighter, whatever. But then if you think about toner, is it like tuning like an instrument, toning it for tightness? Like, what do you think of when you say tone?
- [44:20]
Victoria Fu
I would say that it depends on the context. And this is why it is so hard.
- [44:26]
Jen Sullivan
Because the words, like, one company's tone is another's essence is another's. Titan is another's like. So, but when you just said it and you said it does improve this type of tone, what were you toning?
- [44:37]
Victoria Fu
You're thinking more like sculpted.
- [44:39]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, okay. It's again, with elasticity.
- [44:41]
Victoria Fu
It's more. Exactly.
- [44:43]
Jen Sullivan
So it's not a discoloration molecule. It is a firmer, bouncier baby skin molecule.
- [44:50]
Victoria Fu
Exactly, exactly.
- [44:52]
Jen Sullivan
Could you use AI to find like a discoloration Molecule next or a rosacea molecule next or whatever it is. I don't know.
- [44:59]
Victoria Fu
So I'm just going to say it. And Revella doesn't know. Like, I haven't cleared this Revella, but I think this is okay. They are actually. At the end of the day, Revelle is not really a beauty company. They're a biotech. So they're looking at a bunch of other things.
- [45:14]
Jen Sullivan
I'm sure other biotech companies are as well. Yeah.
- [45:16]
Victoria Fu
And yes, they are looking at things. All different kinds of general hyperpigmentation.
- [45:21]
Jen Sullivan
Okay. So it's like identifying the need of what people want out there and then feeding that all into your little AI and coming up with these molecules and testing them and then letting you and Gloria nerd out and be so excited about your clinical results. That show Fibroquin is two times bounce back year skin than if you just used retinol.
- [45:38]
Victoria Fu
Exactly.
- [45:39]
Jen Sullivan
Which means, like, without anything, it's probably like five times bounce back year.
- [45:44]
Victoria Fu
Jen, I just want you to know that's going to end up in one of their apps.
- [45:48]
Jen Sullivan
5 times bounce back year. Okay, I get it. I get it. Oh, my gosh. I know that we've gotten like 200 level on the skincare here, and I'm so glad everybody, like, journeyed into the nerd world with us.
- [46:00]
Victoria Fu
My bad.
- [46:01]
Jen Sullivan
I want to talk about products that you like, though, because I know you have your own line chemist confessions. Clearly you've been using the fiber Quinn from Rivella. But, like, you know what? You know skincare. I'm not going to. I'm not going to ask you about skincare. Let's talk about makeup. Are you beauty girl in that sense, Ms. Chemical Engineer?
- [46:17]
Victoria Fu
I am not. I am pretty minimalistic, I will say in terms. Can I talk about my favorite.
- [46:24]
Jen Sullivan
I would love you to. Welcome to my beauty podcast. Tell me all your favorite beauty products.
- [46:29]
Victoria Fu
Let me tell you that every sector of beauty takes a whole different level of expertise. So this is why Gloria and I were very happy to say we are skincare chemists. We are not hair chemists. We are not makeup because they all have their different. They're all different animals. And so for makeup, my favorite is the eyeliner by heroine makeup because it's a Japanese brand. Their marketing is hilarious because it's this cartoon decked out princess and she's like, bawling her eyes out. All right, so it's supposed to be like, cry proof. I have very oily skin, and that is probably the only eyeliner where I will walk away and I work 4:00 comes around, and I don't have, like, eyeliner up here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [47:15]
Jen Sullivan
Mascara. Do you have a favorite mascara?
- [47:17]
Victoria Fu
I don't. I don't actually use mascara.
- [47:18]
Jen Sullivan
Okay. The liner is your definition around your eye. Got it.
- [47:21]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. Exactly. And what is. Oh, my God, they're massive. The Estee Lauder Professional makeup brand. Holy cow. I'm so sorry, Mac. Thank you.
- [47:36]
Jen Sullivan
You guys. I swear I just yelled into the mic. I swear. She's a beauty girl, guys. We went to, like, the 400 level on skincare with AI and this new molecule, and then we got back to makeup, and she's like, what's that brand? You know, Makeup for professionals. That was hilarious.
- [47:59]
Victoria Fu
Oh, my God.
- [48:00]
Jen Sullivan
I love it. You love Mac. What do you love from Mac? Tell me.
- [48:03]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. Their foundations. Yeah. Everyone now is like, all right, that recommendation might not take, but just because.
- [48:11]
Jen Sullivan
Like, excuse you were. I made you switch gears so quickly. You were thinking about, like, your product pipeline with Rivella. And then I was like, tell me about your foundation.
- [48:20]
Victoria Fu
Deep in the science. Yeah. So, Mac, I've tried a couple of theirs, and I. I think it's great for at least finding the right shade.
- [48:28]
Jen Sullivan
Yeah.
- [48:28]
Victoria Fu
Definitely recommend going in and getting shade match. A makeup artist to shade match and. Because that's the only way, because I suck at makeup, so that's.
- [48:39]
Jen Sullivan
She's a scientist, not an artist. What about hair? Do you get into hair products?
- [48:43]
Victoria Fu
I do not really.
- [48:44]
Jen Sullivan
You're simple.
- [48:45]
Victoria Fu
I am the simple one. Good. Boar brush.
- [48:48]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, boar bristle. Yeah, yeah. Distribute the oil. I like that. What about fragrance or skincare or not fragrance or home care? Excuse me.
- [48:55]
Victoria Fu
I love fragrance.
- [48:56]
Jen Sullivan
Yes. Tell me.
- [48:57]
Victoria Fu
I would say fragrance is. I think. I like to think what we do is wizardry, but that is like Harry Potter wizardry sometimes. But I think for me, I've been really liking. I'm currently exploring a lot of, like, Le Labo fragrances. I get those tiny little vials, and what's fascinating is my husband and I will wear the same fragrance and it smells different. And I love that. I love. First of all, cost wise, let's talk about that.
- [49:28]
Jen Sullivan
Approaching this like a scientist. We have two. We have two study participants in a single variable. And yet the smells are different.
- [49:37]
Victoria Fu
Yeah. Yeah. You should do it. It's fun. It's a fun experiment.
- [49:40]
Jen Sullivan
No, it is. What have you been wearing from them?
- [49:43]
Victoria Fu
So I definitely are using the Santal, which is. I know. A classic. Everyone knows of it. If there's another fragrance called Another. That one's Very subtle and beautiful.
- [49:53]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, I haven't seen it.
- [49:54]
Victoria Fu
So I would say yeah. And yeah, those are the main two right now.
- [49:58]
Jen Sullivan
And any. Are you candles? I can't. You have like a shelf of stuff behind you. But it's probably all skincare. I'm guessing. No candles back there.
- [50:04]
Victoria Fu
A lot of funky trinkets and knickknacks. Not a candle person, but I. I'm really digging that. Trader Joe's Citrus. It's like a citrus candle in an amber glass with a wood wick. That thing lasts forever.
- [50:20]
Jen Sullivan
All right, before I let you go, I don't know if you listen to the podcast, but we do, like, speed round at the end. So I have. I have five special for Victoria questions. First up, what ingredient is completely pointless in skincare products, in your opinion? And I make this a speech. Like, you have to pick one.
- [50:38]
Victoria Fu
Oh. Oh, God. Aerogel. It's this filler powder that they use for, like. It can sometimes give, like, soft focus effect, improve texture. But honestly, it's because that's like the perfect example of interesting science they didn't know what to do with, so they dump it into beauty and, like, doesn't serve marginally serve and improves anything in any way. And I just feel like, yeah, that that's probably the best example of that.
- [51:08]
Jen Sullivan
What skincare product do you wish you had invented?
- [51:12]
Victoria Fu
I think for me, it would be the differing adaptoline topical. Because I have dealt with cystic acne all my life, and I had to go through that really intense tretinoin purge just to onboard it. And I feel like if I had Adapalene earlier on, maybe I wouldn't have struggled as much. And that's a really. It's actually a really good retinoid. It has some really good studies behind it.
- [51:36]
Jen Sullivan
Victoria, what's the worst grade you ever got on a science test during your schooling?
- [51:40]
Victoria Fu
Definitely. Probably like a C minus and probably organic chemistry. Two. Yeah.
- [51:49]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. I wouldn't even be able to understand what was going on in that class. Amazing. Okay. C minus. Not bad. You didn't fail anything, so you're a winner in my book. Okay, if you weren't a chemist, what do you think you would be doing? And you can't take chemical engineering because, like, that doesn't count. You already did that.
- [52:06]
Victoria Fu
What would I be doing? I think I'd want to go into. This is completely random, but I'd want to. Oh, sorry. You said not related to chemical engineering or anything like that. No.
- [52:17]
Jen Sullivan
Fine. What is it?
- [52:19]
Victoria Fu
I was like, food Chemistry. It's so crazy. All right, fine.
- [52:25]
Jen Sullivan
I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Food chemistry, like flavors and stuff, or just. Oh, cool. Okay. Interesting.
- [52:32]
Victoria Fu
Really?
- [52:32]
Jen Sullivan
That means you're in the right job, though, because that's not that different from your job, you know, it's not like you're like, I'd be a baker. No, I'm not a one. Nope. That's your answer. I love it. Okay, last question. How do you unwind at the end of the day?
- [52:47]
Victoria Fu
I go and hug my rescue dog, Maisie.
- [52:52]
Jen Sullivan
Oh, Maisie. What kind of dog is Maisie?
- [52:54]
Victoria Fu
She's Australian Cattle dog. Yeah, they love to. Yeah. So hugging her is not okay, but it's what I do.
- [53:05]
Jen Sullivan
She'll allow it. Because you need it to.
- [53:07]
Victoria Fu
That would be the thing I do.
- [53:09]
Jen Sullivan
I love that. This was so informative. I think we need, like eight more podcasts to really dig into everything that you know and get all your knowledge. But I appreciate you sort of teaching us about AI and sharing your career. And give lots of love to Gloria for me. But thank you for coming on Fat Mascara.
- [53:23]
Victoria Fu
Thanks for having us. I. Or having us. But yeah, thanks for having me. I could talk about this all day and I just love what you're doing. Jen.
- [53:35]
Jen Sullivan
We hope you enjoyed the show. It's your reviews and feedback that help us make the podcast even better. Head over to itunes to rate and review us or email your thoughts to infoat mascara.com we also want to answer your beauty questions and hear what products you love. To share a raise a wand product with you or to ask a beauty question. Email us at infoatmascara if you send it as a voice memo file. We can even share your voice on the podcast. You can also do that by leaving us a voice message. Our phone number in the United States is 646-481-8182. Thanks so much for listening.
- [54:12]
Unknown Speaker
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