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Skin Anarchy
Lessons in Longevity: The Science Behind OneSkin with Co-Founders Carolina Reis Oliveira and Alessandra Zonari
00:48:30
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- [00:00]
A
Hey guys. Welcome back to Skin Anarchy. Today's episode is very, very special. It's another episode in our Lessons in Longevity series. And I have such phenomenal guests with us today. I am such a fan of them and the brand that they've created. I think this is truly the definition of longevity skincare. And this was the first brand that I personally discovered where I felt that finally scientists are taking the ropes and they're really leading this charge. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to the co founders of One Skin. We have doct Carolina Oliveira with us and we also have Dr. Alessandra Zonari. Welcome both. I'm so excited to host both of you.
- [00:40]
B
Thank you, Dr. Echter. It's a pleasure to be here as well.
- [00:44]
C
Yes, we are very excited for the conversation.
- [00:47]
A
I'm so excited because I know the first time we did this interview, Carolina, you and I spoke and it was so interesting and you really opened my mind into the world of longevity and senescence and those wonderful topics that I think finally consumers are wanting to talk about. They want to learn about this. And so I kind of want to take it back to that place and start there. If one of you could get us started on like, you know, where, where did the, the whole idea begin for One Skin? I know you guys spent a lot of time in the lab, so kind of get us started.
- [01:19]
B
I can give you a brief background. So we, we met, you know, more than it's gonna be 20 years ago almost when we were doing our Master's and PhD in the same lab back in Brazil. So Alessandra and I and two other, we got together because we all had this desire of translating science that we're developing academia to translate into something that would impact people's lives, primarily in human health. And so we combined our expertise in stem cell biology, skin regeneration, tissue engineering and genomics. And at first we built this platform that we were growing human tissues in the lab, including skins, real human skins. And we used this platform to test products that were ready in the market, both like efficacy and safety. And the more that we were testing like this so called anti aging products, we were finding some really interesting and also shocking results. A lot of these products that were supposed to promote like skin rejuvenation, they were actually at the cellular level, causing some inflammation, some toxic toxicity, potentially accelerating aging. And what we also saw is that this product has been, have been outdated in terms of how they're approaching aging. And the science of aging has evolved significantly in the past 1015 years by being here in Silicon Valley. When we moved here, we saw like a lot of companies starting out to target aging and in order to address like age related diseases by using this novel approach, novel understanding of what are, what's driving aging and what are the best targets to focus. And no one was using that, the new approach to apply it to its skin. So we basically saw an opportunity to target skin aging from a different lens, going to the root cause of aging, understanding what are the driving mechanisms, how we can develop more efficacious products that are going to the root cause, are not causing any side effects, and in the end they are improving your skin health, your skin function, and as a consequence, how your skin looks as well. So skin health is always our primary focus and the appearance, the beauty is a consequence of having like a healthier skin. But basically we saw this opportunity of bringing this novel approach to skin aging and at the same time also including skin in the longevity conversation. Because again, all of those companies, they were thinking about how you rejuvenate to your heart, your liver, etc. But they were not thinking about their skin. And we know it's our largest organ and has this important impact in our health. So for us was like a great opportunity to align skin health and longevity to areas that we were very passionate about. And so that's when we decided to spend the first five years doing a lot of research and finding something new that we could bring to the market.
- [04:37]
A
I mean, it's so fascinating that you, you approached it like this. Even when I think about senescence, you know, and Alessandra, I'd love for you to speak on this because senescence is something, I think finally we're hearing the word. The word is now out here, everyone's like wondering, what is senescence? And so tell us, if somebody wants to understand the first time they're hearing about it, what should they know about senescence and why does it matter for us?
- [05:02]
C
Yes, absolutely. And we love hearing more senescence coming as a buzzword because we are talking about this since 2016 and cellular senescence is a normal process that happens in our body that is accelerated with aging. So what's happening is that when we are getting older, cells in our body accumulates damage and stop div. When they stop dividing, they secrete inflammation. And usually when we are young, our immune system is very good on clearing out the excess of senescent cells in our body. But when we are getting older, these senescent cells starts to accumulate and the inflammation that they are releasing Becomes toxic to the environment, to the healthy cells that are around. And this accelerates the aging process. So in the skin, what that means is that you start having more collagen breakdown. This inflammation when you have more senescent cells also slow down, slows down the collagen production and disrupt your skin barrier. So we like an analogy of thinking of an orange, a bask of oranges. And if you have a moldy, like bad orange there, like full of that green things, and that starts spreading to other healthy orange. Eventually you have the whole basket. You need to throw everything out. So senescence sounds like that moldy orange that's in the basket. The more it's secreting and releasing that inflammation, the more you are accelerating the aging process. So the idea in longevity is like how we can slow down this process by avoiding the accumulation of those senescent cells in the body. And when you start to clearing out or like switching off, reducing the damage and the burden that the senescent cel do in your body, you see an effect of like youthness. You see the tissue behaving, acting, functioning as a younger tissue that's more resilient, that's doing what it's supposed to do. So in the case of the skin is producing a strong skin barrier that's protecting your body, it's producing more collagen to improve the firmness and elasticity of the skin.
- [07:23]
A
That makes sense. And I love your thank you for explanation because it's so, so good. And I recently, and I'm wondering what you guys think about this. I was recently reading, because I know one skin. You guys have beautiful products. There's body product, there's the facial. I love all of them. But one interesting thing I read was I was talking about neck skin with somebody, the skin on our neck. And it. I was reading that the fibroblasts in our neck, because there's nothing as much supportive structure there, they are more prone to becoming senescent. And so it made me think, because we often talk about facial skin, we don't talk about your whole body is going to go through this, you know, and depending on the thickness of the skin, what it's being. If there's mechanical stimulation going on, like we're twisting our neck all the time, all those kind of things that alters things like gene expression, it alters things, you know, like inflammation, like you had mentioned. So I would love for you guys to talk about this because, I mean, you did come out with, obviously the facial product is amazing, but then the body product is equally as amazing. Was there a difference in formulating them and what was your approach to that?
- [08:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. So I think the main. So they are different products. They are both powered by our hero ingredient OS one that we explain a little. We can explain a little bit how OS1 works. But essentially the face product was formulated with ingredients to that are more suitable to your face. So they are not supposed to be oily. And obviously we don't want a product that would make your skin greasy. It's a light moisturizer that delivers OS1. That's our proprietary peptide that primarily targets senescent cells. And it has supporting ingredients that will help with as antioxidants, as soothing ingredients. Hyaluronic acid. We have like three types of hyaluronic acid and vitamin E. And so was designed to address the skin that it's supposed exposed to most environmental stressors on a daily basis. While the body. It was interesting because as a brand like the second product that we decided to develop was a body lotion. And to us this was very important because we want to treat your skin as a whole. Is not like skin care is not only your face for us. And so the body product came as a logical next product. And at that time that we launched, like most brands would ignore your body, right. They were not like really focus on. On your body. And this has been one of our best sellers products since our launch, which has been really surprising, but a pleasant surprise because we are seeing now that people are caring more about their body. And they are. They actually have issues with their skin. Their skin is getting thinner and crepey and there are not many products that are addressing this out there. They're addressing aging at the cellular level. So for this product specifically, it also contains the peptide, it has other really hydrating ingredients. We have like the mushroom egg white extract. We have like very potent antioxidants like sulforaphane. And it's a product that is again it's a light moisturizer but it's very hydrating. And people get really impressed with this ability because people hate having their bodies like greasy and you know, put clothes on top. And this product like it holds hydration like the whole day and it doesn't feel like heavy.
- [11:03]
A
And.
- [11:04]
B
And the results that we have both in the lab in terms of increasing epidermal thickness. So it helps your skin to be stronger and thicker so will diminish that creepiness appearance, will help with the collagen production plus the hydration. It's really, really powerful. So we are really happy that our customers, the community is resonating with that product. That to us made a lot of sense and they're seeing a lot of benefits when they use it as well.
- [11:36]
C
Dr. Hector, I think one differentiation of the approach of one skin is that the beauty industry have looked a lot to the face and how you want to make like very fast fixes to look young. And people were obsessed of like how I can make my face look young. And for one Skin. We look at the skin not only as your face skin, but as an important organ in your whole body. And that's why our second product was the OS1 body. That's also why we also develop products for the lips because the skin and the lips are also aging and accumulating senescent cells and getting damaged. And we also develop today's scalp. So our vision is like what we are looking at is the skin as an important organ for your health and not trying to bring products for quick fix to make you look younger. So that differentiates how we navigate launch by launch and how we bring these different products for different areas of the body.
- [12:39]
A
I love that. I think that that's what made me fall in love with your brand in the beginning because I mean the whole idea has been so solid, every concept. I agree with everything you guys are saying and the way you're approaching skin science because I think when it comes to longevity and, and this is what I've seen, I don't know if you guys have seen the trends the same I have seen, but I've noticed that people are talking about longevity the same way that anti aging was being talked about 10 years ago. And that's never the right thing because exactly what you're saying, it's not going to be immediate results. Even though I will say this, as a consumer of one skin, I'm also a consumer of the product. I've seen the changes in my facial skin almost immediately. Like you put it on, the next day your skin looks better. So you still get the results, but you know that it's a long term, like you're on a journey for the long term. So that's, I think that's the most fascinating part for me about the brand is that it's, it's a heavy hitting skincare brand, but it's a heavy hitting longevity brand. It's really longevity. So I want to talk, I want to dive in because you guys have some great results. Like the data is phenomenal. So let's talk about the data. What was some of the maybe you know, Carolina, you can share with us, like, what were some of the numbers and the statistics that you saw in the very beginning phases that you were like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And it kind of surprised you guys when you saw the data come back?
- [14:03]
B
Yeah, I think we have both, like, data that we generated in the lab, which when we were testing, we're testing 900 peptides over the course of five years before we found OS1. And when Alessandra was doing all these tests, like, you know, in the lab, we found the one that has reduced, like, up to 50% the number of senescent cells. And we were still so excited because we thought this can be very impactful, like, if we can. And obviously, as we validated, it varies, varies from 20 to up to 40, 50%. But this was a very impressive data that we saw that this peptide is able to reduce significantly the number of senescent cells in our skin. And as a consequence, what we saw is that increased collagen production at similar levels that retinol did, but without the inflammation, without the irritation. We tracked all of the inflammatory markers and the collagen, hyaluronic acid, and we saw the inflammatory markers down, collagen up, and hyaluronic acid up. And so this was very, very encouraging. And then we formulated this product and we ran like a clinical study. And on this clinical study, as you said, we initially see improvement in the overall, like, texture, smoothness, tone. There. There is a lot of data supporting a melanin production and how OS1 is able to regulate, because senescent cells also have a role in dysregulating, like melanin production and consequently leading to hyperpigmentation. So we saw this improvement of tone, and then with time, after like six to 12 weeks, we saw improvement in firmness in 95% participants of this clinical study. We saw improvement in fine lines and wrinkles in over 7,87% of the participants. And in the skin barrier, around, like 20% improvement. And this again, to us was really important because our primary goal is to improve the health of the skin. And the skin barrier, it's one of the main metrics that we evaluate. So this is for the face product and maybe Alessandra. You want to share about the body clinical study that we did that also connects skin with longevity in a very interesting way. And I don't know if you're familiar with this one, Dr. Hector.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah, and I'd love to learn, Alessandra, if you can share.
- [16:40]
C
I mean, I will always also add Into Carolina remember very in the beginning when we start treating skins with products in the market. And we had 300 premium anti aging product in our hands. I never hold so expensive and luxury product. And we applied and I saw the opposite effect. And when we looked at the skin, the skin was shrinking, was like the epidermal layer was thinner. And I told Carolina remember exactly. We both see that. I think I made a mistake in the lab. I will repeat the experiment. And I repeated the data was the same and the same. And we were. I was shocked at the moment to see like how products that out there can cause negative effect to your skin. And then when we go to os1 seeing the opposite occurring. And we were comparing a lot with retinol and seeing that we had similar result without that inflammation. That for me it's a moment that I will always remember. But just continuing on our clinical studies and that approach that we were talking about treating the skin of the whole body and thinking about the skin as an organ and how it's important to longevity. It's because the skin is our one of our largest organs and has this important function of improving of like protecting your body from all the stressors from outside, from pathogens, from uv, from pollution. And when you have a strong skin barrier while you are aging, your body is protected. If your skin is getting more fragile with time and is accumulating more inflammation because of the size. We believe that can help contribute to other outcomes of aging later on and be a driver of chronic diseases later in life. So when we designed the study for the OS one body for our body lotion, we recruited participants that were 60 plus. And we were looking not only we measure like the improvements on the skin barrier, on the texture of the skin of their body. We also collected their bloods. And so we collected the blood at the baseline and we looked to the inflammation profile, the inflammatory profile on the blood at baseline. And after 12 weeks. And we had two groups, one that used OS one body and another one that use a regular moisturizer. And the result was interesting because we saw more. We saw improvements of around 40% on hydration and on the transepidermal water loss, on the skin barrier function, on the group that was using the OS1 body. And more interesting, the overall inflammation profile of that group was reduced with significant reductions of some inflammatory markers like IL8. That's one driver of like chronic diseases later on. So what we saw is when you have a stronger skin barrier, when you have a healthier skin, you can actually help to normalize like to, to slow down the pace of inflammation in your whole body. And that starts to become extremely more interesting and starts connecting really like skin health and longevity. So skin now is not only I want to look young, but it's I want to have my skin healthier so I can age better and I can improve my health while I'm aging. And that was one of like the best, more interesting for us, more exciting data, more than several before and afters. Looking at that data and confirming this correlation of the skin health with overall health was a big moment.
- [20:34]
A
That's huge. That's absolutely huge. And just for our listeners, for their context, I mean, I'm blown away that you saw that change in the inflammatory load. That's the hardest thing. And just for everyone listening, guys, when it comes to inflammation, that's the hardest part of medicine. That's the hardest part. If you can control inflammation, you can heal any organ in the body. That's.
- [20:58]
B
And it's the biggest driving driver of aging, right?
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A
Yes.
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B
Why we have this word like inflamma aging. Because the more inflammation that you have in your body, the faster you age. So if we can lower that inflammation, you consequent can slow down the aging process.
- [21:16]
A
Exactly. And you know what's interesting? When you guys brought up the retinoid thing, the tretinoin, these retinoids. I've had this conversation so many times. People email us, they're always asking about how do I put my retinoid with a cream and all this. And I always try to tell them this because no one wants to believe it, but these are things that are causing chronic inflammation in your body, in your skin. So I'm not saying don't use them, but you have to know that, you have to know acids, all these abrasive things that we're doing to our skin, even going outside for prolonged periods of time, it's chronic, low grade inflammation constantly. So the fact that you guys saw this, that's huge. You know, that's absolutely huge. And I feel like if anyone really wants to talk about what is anti aging. In my mind, when I think of what's anti aging, it's my body needs to stop being so inflamed because with age everything gets inflamed. That's when people think, see things like arthritis, you start having joint problems, you start having rashes appear where there were no rash. You know, like all sorts of things are coming up. Even when we talk about like perimenopause or menopause, what's the biggest driver of all the symptoms, inflammation that's at the heart of it. So, I mean, I think it's a conversation that goes so far beyond. I mean, I think, Carolina, the first time when we spoke, we spoke so much about senescence, and I had so many questions for you about what is senescence? How do we figure out. But it's really this inflammation that's really there, and we gotta master that and understand it as consumers.
- [22:43]
B
And I think it's a great point that you brought, is that the. The presence of senescent cells, it's not a problem, but they secreted these inflammatory signals that contributes to overall inflammation. So they secrete, like, signals that will induce collagen breakdown, that will induce, like, the tissue degradation. So it's their presence and the inflammation that they secreted that caused the damage in our body. And that's why reducing their load can reduce inflammation and have this. This positive effect.
- [23:18]
A
Absolutely. Now, I want to ask you. And I don't know if this exists or not. I'm just curious. We are now in longevity medicine. We're going into this world, and I'm sure you guys have seen all the biomarkers. There are companies that are measuring every biomarker in the blood. Everything is being tracked. I have my own thoughts about all of that. I'm not going to go into that. But is there a biomarker that you have found to be specifically linked to senescence that we can really see as like a true correlation between senescence or the load of senescent cells in our body and what we're experiencing? Is there anything out there like that?
- [23:54]
C
So in our lab, the way we approach cellular senescence, I cannot tell you. It's one single marker. We look to a combination of markers. So beta galactosidase is one of them. Then we have gene expression markers P16 and P21 that we see very correlated with the amount of senescence in the skin. And then there is the inflammatory markers as well, sometimes DNA damage. So when we're analyzing cellular senescence in the skin, we usually use a panel of markers to show that senescence is being reduced. And not a one single marker to be. Yes or no. There is more or less senescence here.
- [24:36]
A
Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, that's good to know. Because I think that's where everybody gets confused. I think what's. In essence. I know I was for a very long time, I was very confused about that because everyone wants to find that one target and then they track it for six months, 12 months. But there's no one.
- [24:52]
C
The thing is our biology is extremely complex and there are several mechanisms changing all the time. So what we are trying to see is how does a different mechanism connect between each other and how we see a pattern of change. It's not a single one way come back. It's like a combination of different markers and different pathways being activated or not that leads to that tissue be functioning healthier or be still more inflamed and accelerating aging. So it's very hard on all of this longevity mindset and longevity medicine to be able to figure out one marker. I don't think we'll never get to one single marker for longevity. And sometimes it's even personal because it depends on how much your environment is influencing your longevity. So how you are sleeping, if you are being exposed to sun or not, how is your mental stress, how is your community like aspect. All of that's interfering on how our body's responding and is aging. So I don't think we'll get to a point that we'll have one biomarker, but I believe there is a combination of them that if we track we can understand and kind of guide we want more this direction or not.
- [26:14]
B
Yeah, I think if I were to assume, I think the best proxy would actually be inflammation. You know a lot of these inflammatory cytokines, there are like some specific ones that are senescent associated. And so these are IL8, IL1 Alpha, MMP1 is. These are like metalloproteinases, they degrade collagen so if we evaluated this pool of like pro inflammatory markers, I would say that they are the best proxy to kind of correlate with the levels of senescent cells. But as Alessandro said, when we're studying them in the lab, we do different studies to confirm the level of senescence because it there is.
- [26:59]
A
Yeah.
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B
There is not only one marker that can define.
- [27:03]
C
Yeah, but I totally agree with you. Especially in the longevity medicine. If we're reducing inflammation, you are probably reducing cellulose in essence and you're probably improving other healthier markers as well and can be a good outcome proxy to measure longevity.
- [27:18]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. And everything. Like even the enzyme activity, when you look at enzymatology and you understand like what drives it, it is inflammation at the end of the day that drives enzymatology. So that's very. I mean it's just so fascinating because I think people want to put everything in a box. That's human nature. We want this like concrete answer. Like this is the answer for everything. But that's where, at the heart of what you've created, it's so phenomenal because you guys are talking about inflammation. You're way beyond your years with this. Like, you're, you're. It's almost futuristic what you've created. Because I wrote a review recently, last year, I published a review on inflamma aging. And I defined that in the review. And I was talking about looking at all the studies out there, and one of the things that kept coming up over and over and over again was there are different markers for everything, for any type of. I mean, inflammation in the liver is very different than inflammation in the skin, very different than in the brain, very different. You know, so everywhere you go, you will have inflammation, but it's different. And your cells react differently to it. Some cells are more resilient, some are not. So it's not a one size fits all. And I think that's where I think consumers have a hard time wrapping their head around that. And so it's important. But I want to, I want to shift focus. And Carolina, I'd love to ask you, because you have so many now different products in the line. I love that you came out with a hair product, a hair serum. And so that's interesting to me because now everybody seems to be on a GLP1. And as you guys know, with GLP1, many people are complaining about hair loss. Hair thinning is a major issue, and I know that inflammation is at the core of that. At the end of the day, what was your approach to this? Coming into that category from skin coming into hair? How did you guys manage that?
- [29:04]
B
Yeah, so if you think like your scalp is basically a continuous skin, right? Is a continuation of your skin. So your scalp, it's made of the epidermal layer. And so what is affecting skin aging? It has this, the same mechanism that's driving hair thinning and hair loss that are associated with aging, meaning that senescent cells have a role in hair thinning and hair loss as well. And so we thought, okay, if we have this product that works for the skin, will this product also work to slow down hair thinning that is age related? So first we decided to test this in the lab. So we use like a model that we cultivated hair follicles in the lab, and we induce cellular senescence by exposing these hair follicles to a stress hormone, basically simulating like a stress event that happens in our life that a lot of times will lead to hair loss. So we saw that we could induce senescence with this stress hormone. And when we treated with the peptide, we saw that we could reduce the senescence in vitro in the lab. So that encouraged us to develop now a top co formula serum that would be tested in humans. So we formulated this serum with again other supporting ingredients, other antioxidants, some prebiotics that will help, you know, balance your scalp and microbiome that also has a very important role in maintaining the scalp health and also how your hair growth. And then we tested this serum, obviously including OS1 for six months on a clinical study and we saw really impressive data from this clinical study. We saw over the participants that saw a hair growth on average 40% increase in density and 42% increase in hair thickness. And this was by using the product twice a day and with the use of a derma roller to help, you know, the product absorption. So we're really excited to show that obviously everyone is aging and there, there is the age, there is the hair loss that's genetic related or androgenic related. That is not necessarily the main focus here, but it's like the hair thinning that's happening over time or like, or the hair loss that comes with a stress event or postpartum. These are the conditions that we want to support with this product because our goal is basically support people as they are growing older. And we know that hair loss or hair thinning is a big problem. And so we were really excited to see the results from this clinical study and also the receptivity from our customer. It's been again it's becoming one of our hero products. And we launched like last year, so it's pretty new. But people are seeing really good results. So really happy to see this feedback. And again it always starts with a hypothesis. And we run this series of experiments and we go to clinical studies and we only launch and Alessandra, you know, obviously it's a testament if we see really strong results. Otherwise we go back to the lab, we formulate again, we do more studies and then we launch it. And we've done this already twice with like two different products that we didn't get strong enough data. So we went back to the lab and to reformulate.
- [32:48]
A
So I love that that's true spirit of science. We have to do that. That's amazing. I love that. I mean, but that's huge that those are amazing results. I mean I think for a long time, I know with hair serums especially, consumers were very frustrated because they weren't seeing any changes and people were applying, you know, I know we got, we get so many questions because recently like hair oiling has blown up. Everybody's talking about hair oiling that comes from the east. There's been data around the idea of like nourishing your scalp, which will in turn you know, help with stimulating growth through blood flow or whatever that might be. But then. Yeah, this is very fascinating to me that you actually have created a serum that has proven to help hair growth. That's, that's huge. Absolutely love it.
- [33:31]
B
And as we say, it's a product that obviously it takes longer to see results. That's why we ran a six months clinical study and people needed to be able to track, to take photos. It's, it's definitely a really tough condition to, to treat and to help people. And we understand the, the frustration if, if you don't follow the instructions really well. And, and so it, we are happy to see that, you know, a lot of people are seeing results with it.
- [34:01]
A
Yeah, no, it's really fascinating and I want to. Actually I have a question because I think, because you guys are a longevity brand and this is I think a very important topic to kind of talk about is that when it comes to longevity itself, let's put everything else aside, just the word longevity, the concept of longevity. What is one thing that you wish people would understand? What's one shift in mindset or I guess thinking that you wish existed and the way people approach this topic compared to what they're doing now?
- [34:34]
C
Yeah, I love this question because we discussed this internally a lot of times as well. And it's more as we're seeing everyone using longevity and for me like one of my primary understanding of longevity and I wish, like more and we are trying to educate people to understand this is that longevity means your body working healthier throughout the aging process. So that's when you're getting longevity and to you to be able to help your body to maximize and optimize this healthy function, you need to be targeting some of the drivers of aging. Your product, your approach needs to be targeting a mechanism that's driving aging. Otherwise you're not talking about longevity, just the fact that your skin is smoother. This is not longevity. What is unique on our approach is that we have a molecule that targets one of the mechanisms of aging in the skin and I think longevity. When we talk about longevity and approaches for longevity, they need to be addressing what we call hallmarks of aging. That is the biological process that makes our body get older and age. So it's not as you said, like Using the same anti aging approach and now changing the label and using the marketing. Oh, now this is a longevity product. If you're showing to the customer that this new product contains something that can regulate the aging process, that can target some of these hallmarks of aging, this is not longevity. You're not making the cell function as a younger cell. You're not slowing down that aging process so it can make you look younger, but it's not a longevity. Longevity approach.
- [36:29]
A
I love that. I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, I agree.
- [36:33]
B
And I think if I were to add, I think the consequences by targeting aging at the cellular level, the root cause and measuring and really understanding how you are promoting longevity is that you are delivering results that will be long lasting results that will be sustainable results that are like, for the long term. So I think we needed to shift and as you said, our products will deliver some immediate results because we have other ingredients that will improve hydration and smoothness. But the peptide and the work of the peptide in changing the makeup of the skin, in producing collagen, this takes time. And then so we always educated that it's like, it's not like focus on the short term, but like for the long term, how your skin will be like in two, three years, five years from now, how more resilient your skin will be, how better your skin will bounce back from stressful situations and, and just like how more balanced your skin is overall. And so I think this requires like consistency. But it's something that, you know, everyone wants, right? Everyone wants that, like a resilient, stronger skin. And so I think it requires that shift in terms of how you measure that because as we said, it's not a quick fix.
- [38:01]
A
It's not. I agree with. Yeah, and I'm glad you guys said this because I think that's the missing link. And a lot of people, they'll ask us, they ask like, well, I want to get into longevity skincare. I want to understand how does this fit into my routine. And it's like the answer is always the same. It's an everyday thing. You have to do it every day. And I think that's where it's interesting, what I'm seeing in the longevity space because we're essentially promoting wellness all over again. You guys remember when wellness took off where everybody was like, finally talking about everyday rituals, you need a routine, those kind of things. Longevity, for me, when I look at it, I feel like we're finally bringing that back in a better way. We're saying this matters. This matters because of what Alsander, what you were saying. Cells don't care if you do things one day. Cell signaling doesn't happen when you do it one day out of a month. You need to be consistent every day. You need to provide a signal to them and give them like a training over time. And so for consumers, like, I think it's a whole paradigm shift that's happening with the way that they're approaching skincare. And I think that's very, very important to do that at this point because for so long we were bombarded. I can't tell you guys how many products I have that are like 20% acid, like exfoliate your skin with 20%. Why do we need that? And so for so many years we're doing this and so all of a sudden it's a whole different way of thinking.
- [39:30]
B
It's a whole different mindset, which is great, right? I think it's really good to see that the industry is evolving. As you said a few years ago, the stronger the, the retinoic acid that you're using, the better. Like you're stripping out your, your barrier and your skin was exposed, but it's okay because it's like light is smoother and you, you look younger. And now over time that redness, that, that's not as good long term. So I think, and I'm with you, like, it's not that you should not use retinol, but how you include that in a way that first you protect your skin, you strengthen your skin barrier, and then you add that retinol as a boost, but in a way that's not gonna cause like underlying damage. Right? And so, so I think finding that balance and understanding how you can optimize for both, I think in the past, okay, I can only have like a beautiful young skin if I'm very aggressive with my skin. And now, I mean, look at us, like, we all have good looking skin, but like being gentle with our skin, right? And finding ways that we can read our best look, but also have like the strongest, the, the most radiant, the most like, resilient skin. And I think that's the important shift here.
- [40:50]
A
I agree, I completely agree and very well articulated because I think that's also, I think also the shift is happening with the how people are spending money because they were so used to for so long, every month buying a new skincare routine, every day buying a new product, and everybody was like, I'm spending $5,000 a month and nothing's changing. And they're like, well, I'm using my tretinoin. I'm using it, you know, whatever. Nothing's changing. And it's like, it makes you really think about. Yeah, it's a paradigm shift in thinking, but it's also a shift in consumerism that this over consumerism, the buying everything that we've seen for so many years, that is also shifting with the kind of brand that you've created, that's shifting that. I mean, I can tell you guys, there have been so many times where I'm traveling and the only thing I bring with me with skincare is just the one skin face product.
- [41:40]
B
That's it.
- [41:40]
A
It I pop it in my bag, I'm good to go. I'm not worried. I have everything I need. And that's amazing. I've never been able to do that. So I think it's so many levels, so many layers of this onion that get peeled back when you really think about, like, what is longevity and what does that mean for me as a consumer? But no, I want to ask you, I have a question, because I know bioinformatics, for me, I've always been interested in bioinformatics, and especially now with the rise of AI and everybody's utilizing AI, especially in product development or like just science, I think, general, what are your opinions on this, the role of AI and the role it plays in things like screening peptides, screening molecules, optimizing these things?
- [42:23]
C
Yeah, AI is definitely a very powerful tool because enable us to make assumptions and do testings way faster and then have like, less things to validate in the lab as the last stage. So AI is coming to advance and accelerate the process of drug discovery will not completely erase the fact that we still need to go to the lab and validate the findings from AI. But it really brings a way of us to explore better, like novel molecules. For instance, now at one skin, we have the OS one, our main peptide. We understand the mechanism and how he interacts. The peptide interacts with the cell and with a protein inside the cell. And we use AI to measure and predict the that binding and that signal activation inside the cell. And now with AI way faster than me screening in the lab, we switch the amino acids on that peptide to increase that binding to that, to that specific protein. And we're able to generate and predict how this new molecule will behave on the cells. And when we screen, just to go back, when we identified OS1, we started with 200 peptides. I pipetted all of them in the lab one by one. Out of that, we get five peptides. We use a kind of AI and that's a time that scrambled and generated 700 plus peptides, but it couldn't filter those peptides. So I got back to the lab with 700 molecules and screened one by one in the, in the lab. So now with AI, what I'm doing is like again I'm looking to our main molecule.
- [44:07]
B
You.
- [44:08]
C
I'm using AI to modify and see how like stronger this activation can be, how can penetrate better on the skin. And instead of coming back with 700 peptides to test in the lab, I'm coming back with five and they are probably going to be like a better hit than I if I was like screening 700 again. So AI is coming to do that to make you make better assumptions, understand better the different molecules targets predict better how will be the outcome of inheration of that molecule in your cells. And then this expedited the process of drug discovery.
- [44:49]
A
That's so cool. I love that. And you know what that makes me think of? I remember many years ago there was one person at the university I was at and she did predictive sequencing and she was the only person in the whole university that could do that predictive modeling. If this is going, if the ligand is going to go bind. And it makes me think of now, I don't know if you guys are going to be doing this in the future. But cyclic peptides are now coming into focus because of the same reason. You know, people are talking so much about how can we really optimize this binding quickly and in less concentration. So it's a very fascinating field, very quickly developing, so very exciting. But no, this is amazing. Thank you. I mean, thank you guys so much for educating us. This is, I mean I am such a fan and I have been for so long and for everyone that's listening, if you guys have not checked out one skin, I don't know what you're waiting for. I've been advocating for it since I met you, Carolina. I've been advocating for this, the brand. I'm not lying. Everybody I meet, I say this is. You guys got to check it out. And you really do. I've seen a change in my skin. It's obvious. Thing is you can stick to it. That's my, I think my favorite part about the brand is that you guys didn't clutter it. You didn't make like 50 SKUs, you didn't make a bunch of products. You said this is your face face product, this is your body product. This is your hair product. And. And I think that makes it easy for a lot of us that don't have the energy to figure out the 15 steps and all that stuff.
- [46:11]
B
So, yeah, yeah, we are very intentional with our product development. And. And as Alessandra said, like, we want to cover our whole skin. That's why we have also a lip product. I mean, there are areas that are neglected that are also important. We have obviously no SPF for your face and for your body. And so our goal as a brand is to continue to be very intentional in a way that we can simplify and people still can achieve the results that they want. But we are learning that less is more. If you can be, like, specific and targeted with your approach, you don't need, like, five products like you did the one product. Right. And. And I think that's where the industry is going. The. The future is. And as you said, this is better for our skin, is better for our pocket. And. And so we're very happy to hear your results with our product, too.
- [47:06]
A
Yeah, no, it's. It's wonderful. But I will ask. I have a request. Come out with a hand cream. I need a hand cream.
- [47:13]
B
I know. We've, we've. We've got that asked before. I mean, what do we suggest? Like, use your body cream on your hands.
- [47:20]
A
Yeah, Use your body. I know. I do actually do that. I have it next to my. My bed. But, like, for travel or something, maybe a small bottle of the body cream. That would be amazing. So. But no, this has been so wonderful. Thank you both so much. And I'm just such a fan, and I'm always cheering you guys on. You're really, like, truly, in my opinion, the spirit of what longevity science should be. And I love it. I love what you're doing and I'm just such a fan.
- [47:46]
B
We appreciate so much, Dr. Eck.
- [47:48]
A
Thank you so much.