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- [00:00]
A
Hey, guys. Welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is a very, very special episode. We're going to be diving deep into the world of clean beauty today, and I could not think of a better brand to come and educate us on this topic and just kind of have a conversation than OG Beauty. So without further ado, please welcome the co founder of OG Abbott Stark. Welcome, Abbott. I'm so honored to host you. Thanks.
- [00:21]
B
It's great to be here. I'm so excited to be a part of this podcast and I think it's really amazing that you're bringing a voice to this space in this way, and we're just excited to participate in your channel.
- [00:34]
A
No, I'm very, very excited. Thank you so much for the kind words. They really mean a lot. Because I think, as a lot of our listeners are, I'm a huge beauty geek, you know, so it's very rare that we get same. Yeah, same. You know, it's rare when you get to dive in, though, you know, about topics that are just so big and they're hard to wrap your head around, you know, especially as a consumer, I. When I look at og I mean, I'm gonna kind of throw this to you in a minute. But honestly, as a consumer and I look at og, you guys have been around enough to where we trust you. You know, we trust the brand. I trust the brand. I knew about you long before we connected for the show, and it's rare for me as a consumer in the clean beauty space to find brands like that, you know, and then to understand what it takes to stay here, you know, in a meaningful way. So with all that said, I'd love for you to kind of walk us down memory lane, tell us about yourself, what got you into the. The industry.
- [01:22]
B
Well, I love. I love that you love. I do think that you can't do this without loving beauty. And it was, you know, I. As soon as you said that, my face just lit up and I would turn the camera around and show my desktop, which is just. It's like a. It's an explosion of. I even. I have a pile of jojoba seeds of these organic jojoba seeds, which are a key ingredient in OG I have bottles, I have packaging, I have, you know, products from. From other brands in the marketplace. I just, I love the. I love the newness of beauty and the constant reinvention of products and how we think about ourselves and the face that we present to the world. And also just, you know, those. Those results, like, you know, it's my background before we started OG was that I was making products for bigger brands, working behind the scenes of the global bestsellers. And we would come up with product concepts. We had a lab that would make a prototype and then I would work with the global marketing teams, bring that, you know, do all the testing and develop development, bring that concept to fruition. And then we would of course produce it at these massive scales. And you know, there, there were these moments where I was keeping an organic kitchen at home. And I knew so much of, I learned early on, so much of what we put onto our skin is absorbed that I really wanted to start using that criteria that I was using for food, for beauty products. So I started search, you know, searching and shop. I love, I love to shop, shopper here. So trying to find those effective, you know, I always say not getting any younger here. Those effective products that actually had those values, organic, natural, and it turns out very hard to find. Right. So there was a, and then, and then along the way there were a couple of gross out moments like where we had a big brand that did a ban on the microplastic beads which aligned with some state governments. So it just goes to show how important it is to have legislation around this space. Some state governments had banned the plastic microbeads. And then I, you know, I was talking with our lab, I said it's not really going to impact us because we're not making those body scrubs and exfoliators, those products where you think of like a lot of plastic beads. And it turned out that the plastic beads were like the number one ingredient in the lip gloss. We just melted them down real hot. So there, there were moments like that where I just thought, oh my goodness, no, I've been giving that to my, my mom, My mom, I use that product, my mom uses that like it's friends and family. So I just thought, and at the same time I was exploring all of these amazing new ingredients that were coming out totally natural biofermentation, clinical activity. And what that means is something like the edelweiss flower plant stem cells in our seeds of youth serum. Clinical results in 30 days to brighten skin by over 200%. 200 times the antioxidant content of pure vitamin C in those leontopoic acids that we test for in every batch. So there's just so much amazing science and progression and evolution in the natural ingredients. At the same time I was exploring all these organic standards as a, as a maker of products. I wanted to incorporate these, these third party standards that bring so much trust and scrutiny into the product manufacturing. And I was one of the first in the country to get our company certified to one of these organic standards. And I just was a bit frustrated because I didn't see brand. I thought, okay, we're gonna have this organic standard and everybody's gonna like, rush to our door and say, I wanna make an organic product. And it wasn't. It wasn't quite happening. And it's. It's. Because it's. It's challenging. There's technical challenges, and you have to. You have to really become a, you know, a cosmetic chemist and a regulatory expert. And I think that for some of those reasons that brands don't do it and just regular old users like us don't have a hard time scanning and understanding product ingredient labels, et cetera, and looking for these.
- [05:57]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's really. So I didn't. I don't want to interrupt, but, like, honestly, like, everything you're saying is, like, speaking to me as a consumer so much because I remember when I discovered you guys, I was actually really happy because I, as much as I love. I love science. You know what I mean? And for me, like, as a consumer, beauty, like, no matter what it is, skincare, hair, beauty, whatever. I look for the science in that as a. Naturally, as a consumer. But I love how you explained it, because the clean standard that I wanted as a consumer was a gray box in this industry. There was no way to tell. And then all the greenwashing and the. You know what I mean? Like, all the BS around, like, well, we are clean. And it's like, well, where's your proof? Like, how do you prove that you're clean? And, you know, so it just. It felt like it was like a snowball that happened at some point in the beauty industry of, like, everyone's saying clean, everyone's talking about this, but then no one's educating about it. I mean, in just five minutes, you've told me more than I think I learned, you know what I mean? In a span of time as a consumer looking for clean products. And so I'd love for you to kind of talk more about that in terms of the formulation side, where we can start to understand as consumers, like, what are we really missing out on when it comes to truly clean ingredients and their true potential in a formulation.
- [07:13]
B
Yeah, I think I too, look for clean. And this is one of the. We struggled early on in the. I'm gonna call it a movement, in the movement to define clean. And we actually, the. The word clean came around later, at first we started it as, okay, certified organic. That's really. We did all natural. And then that term kind of got, you know, there was some greenwashing applied to all natural. And so then it became unclear and people didn' trust it. And so then we started these free from lists where we would make a product that was free from this and free from that and free from that. And it just, that list got long and it was harder to market, I think, and talk about and embrace as consumers. It was hard to embrace a free from message.
- [08:02]
A
Yeah.
- [08:02]
B
And so then somebody started saying clean. And it's, it's such a smart term because I think we all get it. You know, we all conceptually get it. And I think what's happened though is it's become so popular that like at the time, the word all natural, it's been, there's been greenwashing around the claim clean. And I think that's where, you know, we have to. We can have a conversation in a really general way about what, you know, what it, what it means. And I think we still all hold it as a value, but, you know, should plastic microbeads or plastic waxes or silicones or these really harsh synthetic preservatives or other harsh sort of synthetic chemicals or petroleum derived chemicals. Are those clean? I think it's an open conversation. And for og, I mean, this is. Okay, so this is where OG comes in and it's totally. It's a closed topic. We say, absolutely not. Those are not clean. We have these independent standards that we use for naturality. That's an internationally defined standard. And then we have this US Definition of organic, and we're certifying to that organic standard. An independent third party comes in, they check it, they make sure that we're not doing any of this crazy petroleum. You know, we're not pumping oil out of the ground to put it on our face. And our third party certifier ensures that. So we have that, that, and I have one right here. We have that NSF organic seal. So that's the actual seal. And we have the certification language on the other side of the, you know, certified to the NSF standard buyer certifier. So everybody is willing to put their stamp on that product. And one of our team says certified equals certain. And it's that sense of certainty we feel brings that luxury aspect to the brand. Because people, you know, we don't want to have to be thinking about like, can I trust this product? I want to look good. How can I use this product without being concerned that it's causing other health consequences. And, and what we found is that these organic formulas actually work better. You know, we get that youthful appearance, that glow, that health from within that we're really, I think that we're really seeking in beauty products.
- [10:30]
A
Yeah, no, you know, that's. That was actually going to be one of my next questions for you because I love the finish of the products. And as brand that is so focused on. You are focused on the organic and the clean side, you've still created the space and prestige beauty that is like, it's rivaling all these other, you know, like, companies that are saying, well, we have this finish and, you know, they kind of use that as their marketing. Right. It's like, this is going to give you an airbrushed look or like a whatever. Like, that's the selling point in the cosmetics realm. Right. And so, yeah, I'm just curious, like, I just would love for you to speak on this topic about how you, like, what were some of the things that you had to kind of struggle with internally or maybe some, like, war stories of where it was like, no, we're gonna get this the way we want for the consumer to feel like from the makeup side, from the application side, but we're not gonna give up certain things, you know, like, we're not gonna compromise on certain scientific stuff.
- [11:24]
B
Wow. I mean, I think there's so many ways to look at it. So I. To answer that story. Exactly. I think a big. A big one. That's a recent story of something that presented a real technical challenge. What is our. Our complexion Perfecting Tinted serum Perfection Tinted serum. That is a very moisturizing, medium to high coverage tinted moisturizer foundation. And we, it. We really feel like it covers all of those because it has amazing skincare benefits with a blend of treatment ingredients that actually has been clinically proven to reduce the size of pores and to prevent acne, which of course, with a topical makeup. What are we doing? We're, we're covering any kind of imperfections. We want to see that instant perfect canvas of the face. Like, the last thing we want is a makeup that's falling into our pores and just making us, our complexion look worse or exacerbating any underlying problems with our skin that we are putting on the makeup to hide in the first place. So it's, it's has hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, so it's brightening and evening. It's improving the look of skin over time, not just concealing anything that we're trying to hide. So that was a technical challenge because it's skincare, it's makeup, it's pigment, and you're trying to get all that together in one bottle that just holds together and feels great through its entire use cycle. So in that case, we went into the supply. We were having trouble stabilizing that formula and making it feel perform great. And we went into the supply chain and this is some, this is a benefit of our, our size now and our longevity and the, you know, the respect our team has earned in the industry. We worked with one of our suppliers who had a novel pigment dispersion technology. So that's taking those mineral pigments and stabilizing them in the formula. And we got that company organic certified so they could use our organic materials and then, you know, stabilize these pigments. And we actually now brought that product to market thanks to everybody's efforts. And we won an award actually from Cosmo. We got the Cosmo Holy Grail this year. We're very excited. We appreciate their recognition so much for best tinted moisturizer. And we have a patent pending on that formula, which is very. It's hard to get about. It's hard to get a patent in cosmetic formulations because there's, you know, a lot has been done.
- [14:13]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, that's really cool. And I, you know, I really hats off to you for, for pushing that, you know, envelope forward. I know that people are very skeptical with like, skincare infused beauty products. That's something I've seen a lot of online. But I'm not gonna lie. There are many products in my collection personally that I feel like do very well as skin care and makeup. And for me as a consumer, somebody who's quickly approaching 40, I love that, you know what I mean? I don't have time for five steps for makeup. You know, I'm gonna use that, the kind of product you just showed me, like, I'm gonna use that. That's going to be my one and done in the morning, out the door. And I think we kind of now and, and correct me if, if you disagree with me, but right now, with the way I see makeup especially, we're so focused on, like, how can we complicate this more because it feels like minimalism is getting a bad reputation for some reason.
- [15:04]
B
Yeah, I love this question because it's really, it's a topic of ongoing debate for us. Where is makeup and the industry going? And I think our, our big observations and our big questions are around, you know, how do how it, how, how is our routine going to evolve? I think, you know, now that we're in this post pandemic world, I do think, and with, and with social media, where we all can understand how to do pretty quick makeup like a makeup artist, and we all have our, you know, we all have our little tricks into. And it's like a serum and a sunscreen at least, and a cleanser. And so it's those, those steps build in really quickly, and I think people are willing to do it. I, I know I certainly am when I see the results. Yeah. And so, and, you know, maybe a little concealer here under my sense of. And, you know, there's all these little. We all have our tricks and, you know, great organic lip gloss, which we just launched last year with just a hint of it. You know, it's so it's surprising how quickly the steps build and how they have a reason even when they're multitasking. I mean, just because you're using a concealer in addition to other products, I mean, doesn't. I think at the same time we want to be addressing the look of our, of our under eye dark circles or eye bags, you know, we don't. We want to be doing, like, I think in, in terms of multitasking. That's what I think that's the beauty of this makeup skincare infusion is that you, you get to fewer products by combining the efficacy of a skincare and the efficacy and the immediate effect of a makeup over an area where you might be treating a blemish spot. You know, we want to be improving the skin, treating the scar, lightening that look of the appearance of dark circles or scarring. So at the same time that we're concealing that spot. So I think that's where the multitasking trend is going. And I do think that, you know, we're always thinking about, like, where the makeup look is going, and we've been in this glow moment for a long time, and that works for OG So much, because I can go back to our Jojoba Glow face oil and how Jojoba is such an important part of our story, but how is the makeup look of evolving? And I think that OG really exists in this space where we are, you know, no matter how many products, no matter how much coverage, we are still speaking in a, in an active dialogue with people who are going for a. Of a natural finish. It's natural colors, but just like extreme natural beauty, I think that's where we're playing. So, you know, we are going to restage our. We have a finishing powder. We're going to restage that next year because it's such a. There is like this play of. There's glow and there's matte, and it's like, how do we exist in that dual. Duality of finishes? And, you know, where. Where is the. Where's the look? Where is our look going? Like, who are we patterning? And I think that we're going towards. I think contouring continues to be huge.
- [18:27]
A
Yeah.
- [18:27]
B
Our crystal. Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, you. You hear this all the time. And then our. Our crystal contour is our best selling product that speaks to. That, has that blush, bronze highlight. But I think just even, like, I think we are seeing a lot of, like, chiseled. Chiseled features. A lot of light on the. In the center of the face. And then a lot, you know, a lot of. I think Matt. I think Matt is coming in. But this is. Some of that is my personal opinion. And it's just, you know, what are we seeing? What are we seeing in people's makeup who are making news? I mean, that's often what I. How I am sort of contextualizing where the trend might be going. And it's. It's a very much an open conversation, and there's a lot of different, very valid viewpoints. And the great thing about our products is that you can use them in a number of different ways.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah, no, I love this one because you were talking about lip lippies earlier. This one, the oil.
- [19:20]
B
Oh, that's.
- [19:21]
A
Oh, my freaking God. I love this thing. This is like a lifesaver for someone like me because I literally never have anything on me or like, lip gloss gets too shy. It's just so many issues. But this is, like, phenomenal. And so, like, that's what I'm talking about. Like, you guys have products that are like. Like, it's not like, okay, I get it. Like, we had clean beauty and it was cool, you know, like the whole era. But it's like the multitasking part is where I feel like OG is just like, right on the money, you know? Like, it's like you really are multitasking. You're not just using it as, like a marketing gimmick. And I think that's where as a consumer, many, many times I used to be like, are you really multitasking products? You know what I mean? Because I put. I'd put something on my face. I get super greasy, or I get, you know, it just doesn't look Right for me. And then I would be like, I've spent $70 on something and it doesn't really work. So that's why I want. I asked you that because as a brand that's coming from this ethos of like, we are clean, we are doing things right in so many different ways where. And we've been doing it for so many years. But guess what? Our products perform really well. You know what I mean? That's really impressive to me as a consumer that you guys can. Can say that.
- [20:28]
B
Yeah. It's so flattering that you have that on your desk. Is like a keepsake. And I do think we, we really, when we think about our development and when we're launching a, we do really ask, you know, how can this become a pillar in our portfolio? How can this become a keepsake for us and the people who are using og and it's so funny. So on that sculpt of the boil, it sort of took. That was one of our first products that really took off and had a life of its own on the Internet. And it was the early, this was early days of OG when we were like three or four people and probably doing like less, you know, a very small amount of sales. And I, I actually had to drive to, to a company and pick up one of the ingredients to, to rush it in so we could make more lip oil. And it was this special, it's a vegetable derived plumping ingredient made through a very special extraction process that gets produced in France. And so it came in on a plane and I actually had to drive and pick it up and drive it to our lab so we could make more sculpted lip oils. So. And that, you know, but it's in there. Of course we have those like sort of what I would consider new natural high tech ingredients in a sculpted lip oil. It's a perfect example of that technology meets sort of the trusted stalwarts of natural beauty formulation. And we have our jojoba oil. So this is one jojoba seed.
- [21:54]
A
Wow.
- [21:55]
B
Grown in the Arizona desert on our organic farm there we, we have a custom grade of that jojoba richest. It's the first extra virgin cold press and we have exclusive access to that with the world largest, with the world's largest supplier. And it. So it maximizes the polyphenols on skin. In a, in a wound study, it actually was shown to treat a wound. When you treated a wound with jojoba, it heals three times faster and it has wrinkle reducing and skin tone evening huge antioxidant content. So it's an amazing natural ingredient. Very sustainable. We use that at almost 10% in our sculpted lip oil, and that is infused into all of our products. That jojoba oil.
- [22:40]
A
I love it because I feel like even in the. So you know what? I use the foundation, the blushes, like, in the stick. I love those blushes because they are almost blurring on your face. They're blurring, but they're so, so glowy and. Yes. Oh, my God, I love, love, love, love those. And it's like that's the kind of product. It's like, I really feel like when you use this type of product, you. I literally use that everywhere. Like, I'll put it on my cheeks and I put it over my eyes. You can use it for your lip. Like, it's like so good. It's so good.
- [23:16]
B
Yeah, it's so, so yummy. Yeah, those. And this is the new repackage. So this is big news that we, so we, you know, when we started very small company, we had to get very efficient. All, all of our sculpted face sticks, even the blush colors or the bronzing colors were in the white package because.
- [23:34]
A
Yeah, that's what I have.
- [23:35]
B
Yeah. So now big news. This is like global world launch of the sculpted face sticks in the new package. So it's matched to the shade. So this is rose quartz, our best selling blush shade. And then we also have our copper, so in the really rich cocoa bronzer. I love that package.
- [24:01]
A
So pretty.
- [24:02]
B
So, yeah, we're very excited. It's so much more eye catching. It. It really comes together perfectly with our launch into, into retail.
- [24:11]
A
So you're, you're going into, like, where are you going into retail if you can share?
- [24:15]
B
Well, we have done really well in Blue Mercury and Nordstrom, a couple of our more boutique high national retailers partners. Really. And we are excited just in, let's see, in just a couple days. Hopefully by the time that everybody is seeing this, we're going to be in Sephora. So we'll be on Sephora's website and then nationally, we're rolling out to doors throughout the fall.
- [24:39]
A
Oh, my gosh. Congratulations. That's so great.
- [24:42]
B
Yeah, thank you, thank you. We're so excited. I know. It's like, what's the right. Oh, I love it.
- [24:47]
A
I love it. That's. That's really cool. No, I would love to see you guys in the Sephora store. That's really great news because. Yeah, like these, that's what I'm saying. Like, these kind of products like, if you come across this, like, you know, when you're, like, checking out at Sephora, like, I would pick this up just because it's like, oh, my God, it's so convenient. And I feel like that's, like, the brand. Like, it's super convenient. But, you know, I want to actually rewind a little bit because you brought up jojoba, and I'm glad you did, because jojoba was an ingredient that I remember came on the scene. Everybody was, like, buzzing about it. There's a lot of people saying, like, sprinkling it in again with the greenwashing stuff. It was happening a lot. But I would love for you to speak about this ingredient in terms of, like, the impact it's had in the beauty community. I know there was a shortage at one point, and that revealed a lot of stuff about what people were really doing, and I'd love for you to educate us on that.
- [25:34]
B
Yeah, like you said, it was sprinkled. It's sprinkled it because it's so unique and so, so, so good for skin. It is sprinkled, sprinkled into many products. It is a. You know, it is one of the most expensive natural oils, and to get the organic grade is very special. So I was making products for all these brands, and there was a climate crisis in 2009, 2010, that impacted a lot of the crops, and we couldn't get enough jojoba even to put it into products at that sprinkling and beauty products and formulas are like a cake. You can't make a cake and just take out the baking powder, the sugar or the flour. You need all the ingredients or the salt if it's at a low level. So all of a sudden, we were stricken with this situation where we couldn't fulfill our orders. And when you're in product development and sales, that's a real crisis. And we would turn to our purchasing person who was supposed to be buying, like, scouring the world looking for more jojoba. And they were struggling to find it because of that crop failure. So I got very curious about what, like, what and what is this jojoba? I mean, it's a tough word to say. It's J O, J O, B A. It's technically, it's not an oil. It's not an oil. And I think a lot of us think, oh, like, should we be using oils on our skin? And if you have that concern, use jojoba without concern because it is technically a liquid wax. It's a wax. That's Liquid at room temperature. As soon as the temperature goes below like 60, 65 degrees, the jojoba actually starts to into a solid wax. And it's that liquid wax character that gives it such unique performance properties on the skin. It we say biomimics, biomimics, the building block oils of the skin. So it helps to strengthen that matrix of the cells. You know, our skin cells, they're just sitting there on top of the face and they're kind of, they're linked together with all this, you know, this matrix of fatty acids and fats and lipids. And we, you know, as we age, the, the muscles under the skin start to create these micro wrinkles. And that leads to deeper lines and wrinkles over time. And jojoba comes in and it's helping to strengthen. So we have the cells and then we're strengthening that matrix so we're keeping the skin really smooth, really conditioned, really hydrated. And so it helps prevent fine lines and wrinkles. It helps just bring comfort to our skin. It feels so good to put jojoba oil on. I mean, so many of the testimonials that I get are people who, because early on I was just bottling the jojoba oil by hand and like giving it out to all my friends and family. And I mean, it was one of our first business partners in the company who, you know, she had tried, she works with a lot of brands, she tried a lot of stuff. And she said, you know, my friends have been asking me what I'm doing different to my skin. And she said, it's the OG jojoba oil. She said, I swear, she said, I have received so many compliments on my skin because I'm just glowing. I'm radiant. And it just also, you know, in addition to looking great, it just feels so, so good. So, you know, we started as like a little nothing group of people who said, we're going to launch this big beauty brand and can we partner with the world's largest supplier of jojoba? And we went to them with a presentation and they supported us. You know, they believed in us. My co founder had come from luxury fashion. I had made many products, but my co founder really started one of the world's most successful fashion companies. He started John Galliano and managed, managed Galliano up until they sold to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, and Galliano became the principal designer for Christian Dior. So he had a real name in luxury fashion and luxury circles. So they support this supplier of jojoba supported us. And you Know, eventually we got to the point where we were able to secure the exclusive rights to our proprietary grade, which is this cold pressed, extra virgin. Cold pressed. It means they just, we take those, I mean it's very, very pure and simple. And from that simplicity we actually get the most effective ingredients. We take those seeds and we cold press them, we filter it through an organic cloth and those polyphenols and that full plant terpene profile is maintained. And that's what actually gives us the most benefits on skin. We recently studied our grade and found that it truly performs the best of any, of any other grade of jojoba. So it's a very strong story and we're so lucky to have their support and just like to have, you know, discovered this ingredient. It's, it's incredible.
- [30:47]
A
Yeah, no, I think that, you know, I think jojoba is just one of those, like, it's such a prime example of how there is just so much we don't know about natural like occurring oils and like compounds and in their natural state, you know, pre process state. So we can't assume that there isn't a better option out there than synthetic, you know, and that's something that I, I really feel so strongly about even as a scientist is like what you were explaining just now. Like, I would love to see more people take something that is like cold pressed, you know, source of whatever it might be. Right. And let's start studying this stuff because what you were explaining just now about the mimicry that happens on the skin surface, that is like incredibly telling of what could happen, you know what I mean? And like, and wound healing. As somebody who comes from that side of research, my biggest question mark is why the hell aren't we talking about natural ingredient discovery? Because that's where all the wound healing properties are, you know what I mean? Like, that's really where it is. Like, look at all of the ancient medicines of the world, like Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, everything that we've known, Egyptian medicine, like, that's, that's where we came up with 90% of what we know. And so when we like this conversation, I feel like it needs to resurface.
- [32:04]
B
It's true. There's so much magic in nature when it comes to the interplay with human health. And it's. You're right. I thank you to scientists for helping us understand because things like the jojoba, it's been around forever and it, you know, it's funny that you mentioned like an ancient Chinese remedy, jojoba, because it's native to the American desert. It was used historically by native Americans. They would crush the seeds up like in a mortar and pestle and then they would apply it to wounds as a pumice and wrap it because it had that healing, that medicinal healing quality. So jojoba then just sort of existed forever. And we, yeah, was like a carrier oil and a lot of natural fragrances. And it was recently, well in the 70s there was a really interesting moment for jojoba because at that time soaps and cosmetics were using it's gross sperm whale. This is another one of those gross out moments in cosmetics. They were using sperm whale oil. So they would take, you know, first of all, we were going out and killing the whales. Tragic.
- [33:17]
A
Yeah.
- [33:17]
B
And we were taking, you know, rendering the blubber, so boiling down the whale fat and then taking that ingredient and putting it into skin care and soaps. And so there was an activist named Soraya who saw what Greenpeace was doing. So Greenpeace was sending their ships out to block the whale hunting vessels. And on land, Soraya, it had been discovered in the 30s that Jojoba could be used to replace sperma oil. It was, those are like two of the only natural ingredients that have this biomimicry of skin cells, so of the skin building block oils. So she started that, she started collecting these jojoba seeds. She was going around the desert wild collecting jojoba seeds with her husband. They were artists. They had not, they weren't farmers, they weren't, they were just activist artists. And they started collecting the seeds and they planted a farm which is like the largest farm of jojoba in the United States today. And we are lucky enough to work with them as our source of the ingredients and the seeds. So that, and since then, you know, the scientists have come in and said what makes this so special? So you've, you scientists have found that we can do things to the cells and then we can measure what's happening with the DNA of the cells or with the genetic, genetic markers in the cells, what functions are being upregulated and downregulated. And we found that with the jojoba treated cells that were up regulating all of these healing and anti aging attributes of cells. So we knew it was healing, we knew it was good for skin. And now we've been able to substantiate that with some of the most cutting edge methods of scientific discovery today.
- [35:11]
A
That's amazing. No, I love that and I feel like that pipeline, it just, it's so beautiful to See that come to life whenever we discover something in nature. And I. I really, really love that you guys have invested in that from being the brand, you know, that you are in your positioning and how it's been. Because I think sometimes, like, we just don't go there. We expect the brands that are, like, super talking about, like, exosomes and stuff to be doing the science. But really, it's like the stuff that works is what we should be putting our dollars in, you know, from the science. That's my opinion is. And. And I feel like just like jojoba. Like, for example, for me, being Indian myself, I know I grew up with like, coconut oil was everywhere in my culture.
- [35:51]
B
Yeah.
- [35:52]
A
Like hair oiling and, like, moisturizing my body. And it was just everywhere for since childhood. And it's like now we're discovering coconut oil's properties, you know?
- [36:00]
B
Coconut oil. Yeah.
- [36:02]
A
It's like, it's been around. It's been around. Like, these aren't things that are like, you know, they're. They've been here. But it's like, why haven't we been like, oh, my God, what's going on? You know, like that kind of thing.
- [36:13]
B
Well, yeah, like you said, coconut oil, incredible base material, great healing, healthful. And how can we combine that and use it as a delivery system for things like natural exosomes? And that's something we're studying quite a bit. I mean, I think right now we have. We always say we have an embarrassment of riches in our products. And for example, right now we're all talking about peptides.
- [36:37]
A
Yeah.
- [36:37]
B
And OG has a couple of products that. That really celebrate and feature peptides are Silky Dream Cleansing Cream, which is one. It's our newest facial cleanser and makeup remover.
- [36:49]
A
I love it, by the way. It's so good.
- [36:51]
B
I love it too. It converted me to using liquid cleanser, actually, which. Because normally they're either so stripping or I mean, oftentimes they're just very stripping. And oftentimes, even the more natural ones tend to use petroleum chemistry. Ours is totally natural. Sugar derives surfactants that are very gentle to skin and yet are totally removing makeup cleansing. You get that clean feeling at the end without being dry or uncomfortable. And that's because we've incorporated an upcycled silk peptide. An upcycled silk peptide that bonds to the skin and locks in moisture. We did a clinical study to check. We thought, could this possibly improve the moisture of skin? Because normally cleansers dry the skin. They do the opposite. And in this case, we Actually improved the moisturization of skin and the moisture measure of skin for 24 hours with that silk peptide and the Silk Dream cleansing cream and then our collagen elixir, which was our best elixir launch to date. It's the pink bottle. It was. I was just looking to see if I had one behind me. I have one across the room, but it's. You gotta see it. Go online and look at the collagen elixir. It's a milky formula. So it's just a very, very lightweight moisturizer. You can work it into your skincare regimen at any step. You can incorporate it into another product, into a body product or a facial moisturizer. It mixes and plays very well with other products. It has these rice polypeptides, brand new from fermentation and made into a very small particle so they can penetrate the skin and they stimulate collagen production in the skin. So. And really biomimic, it's like a vegetable drive collagen itself. So that's a peptide as well that we have in the range right now. So I think we are always looking to speak to those, those kinds of ingredient trends.
- [38:52]
A
Yeah, no, I think that's really cool and I love that you guys are embracing that. I really think that that is going to be the future in my opinion is like there needs to be a really healthy mix of some of these, like more biotech ingredients. Because you're right, like, we don't really understand a lot of the delivery around them. Like, even with peptides, we don't know much about, you know, where is that delivery really happening, what concentrations? Again, we come down to like a lot of the nitty gritty stuff. So I really am, I mean, I am a firm believer that when we start combining like different formulation logic, like that's when we come to that beautiful, beautiful formula that's going to outperform for many, many years, you know, And I think that, like, that's something I do want to ask you about as a formulator, as somebody who's been this space for such a long time, is where do you think that line is between like bombarding us with science to the point of like, I. No one's understanding what you're talking about. Right. Look, some of these products, I'm like, I know the average consumer does not understand what this does for the skin versus putting something into the actual formulas that is going to deliver. And then, you know, kind of introducing consumers to science in that, like, strategic way. Like, what are your thoughts Just in general around that.
- [40:02]
B
I think it's a very complicated space. And I do think that there are, I think, as, as users, as customers, as just people shopping to take care of our skin and our health.
- [40:12]
A
Yeah.
- [40:13]
B
We've come to look for certain cues. Right. And I, I think that it's those certifications and those seals and those claims that we see on the sides of. I don't think, think. I mean, I mean, I'm like a ingredient freak. I turn. When I look at a new product, the first thing I do is I turn it over and I start reading that ingredient list. And I don't think that people are gonna do that. So I think those seals and those certifications are big. I do think that we're seeing, I mean, this is just a mega trend right now. We don't have any type of partnership or endorsement from any third party service that's doing like a. You scan the barcode, you take your phone, and now here's the other way that people are doing it. You scan the barcode with your phone and then you get a score. And I think, you know, OG products tend to score very, very highly because we are so, so, so strict with our standards. And we have this third party standard, you know, we're working with this third party independent standard, independent certification. So that, that we know from speaking with our retail team members is huge in this space right now. So I think that looking for certifications and understanding certifications is something somebody can do if they want to get really scrutinizing of the products. But I also think that those apps are so easy that it's a technology solution that a lot of people who are concerned are embracing.
- [41:50]
A
Yeah, no, that's, that's valid. I have my own seal, actually. We created one called Safe Seal and it's the first efficacy seal on the market. And I'm really excited about it because of what you're saying, because you're right, people don't read ingredient lists. And that's why I created it, because I was like, we don't get to talk about that. You know, we don't get to talk about like if, like, for example, like you guys have a formula that just works. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, as a consumer, you just want to know if something works, works, and that's efficacy. And I feel like that's where, I mean, for me, that's why I created my seal was like, does something work or not? And I feel like a lot of the times that's where the industry can kind of fall short is that we don't just give consumers this like green flag of like, yes, you can trust this. You know what I mean? They've done their due diligence, the brand has done what they were supposed to do, that kind of deal. So, yeah, I know what you mean with the seals. It's very, very helpful.
- [42:42]
B
And so the, the seal is, I, I have read a bit about it. It you really recognize products, not just ingredients, but products that go that extra mile.
- [42:54]
A
It's like the full efficacy of a product. So like what you, what you and I were just talking about with like, like this, this product is a great example. Like it's a lip product, but it's got the ingredients that are going to actually nourish your lips. Like that's like for example, the lip gloss category. People are advertising like, oh, it's going to hydrate your lips and it's going to heal them. But classic example is those like, you know, chopstick kind of products that we were using for so long and they were drying out our lips. They were not actually delivering what they promised. So that's what we did was say a brand has done their due diligence. This actually works, you can trust it, that kind of thing. So, you know, hopefully people will adopt it more. But that's my, I just wanted to put that in.
- [43:37]
B
I love it, I love it. I mean, I mean, and what some of what we do and we as OG have really, you know, struggled to talk to our users as, you know, in a clear and concise way. Saying organic, effective luxury makeup meets even that. Like that, that sentence gets a little long. So we've tried to come up with very simple claims and visual cues like our organic seals and certifications, like some of these independent third party endorsements. I think the Safe seal is a great example. The, you know, Cosmo Beauty award, those types of editorial accolades. And then we've also started to do as many clinical studies as we can and it's a big investment on the part of the brand because, you know, we of course do not test on animals. We said we go, right, you know, we start with me and our team and everybody who's formulating the products to use it and make sure we like it and that it's working. And then we go to human subject, voluntary human subject clinical trials where we're actually, you know, having people put it on two times a day at home. And then they, they do self assessment. We do expert grading, meaning like a dermatology tech with under the review of a dermatologist, we'll look at with the, with high tech cameras and make sure that we are seeing a true reduction with expert grading of these, these wrinkle lines around the eyes with our botanical brilliance eye bomb, for example, our brightening botanical eye bomb, or that we are, you know, doing an independent study with, with a skin moisture reader for our silky dream cleansing cream. So we, and so we try and very succinctly and clearly make those claims and show where we can, that they are substantiated by a clinical study because it is big. And that's a real, you know, it's just a point, it's just a, it's a milestone that we've been able to achieve that as a brand and do those and invest in those studies.
- [45:53]
A
I love that and I love that you guys do the clinical studies as like a cosmetic brand. It's very, very reassuring, you know, to a lot of obviously consumers. But even like, like I said, I come from a science background, so I love seeing that and I love seeing that you take the extra time to do that as a brand because sometimes the marketing gets so loud and you know, the consumer push gets so loud that brands forget that. We do read the, the articles and the studies and you know, we do look on the websites like, I'll go like, I go onto brands websites. I'm like, where's your data? Like, show me what you did. Because I know how much money it costs you guys to do this. You know, it's like as a consumer, like I should read, you know, what's out on a brand's website. So yeah, it goes a really long way and I really applaud you for doing it that way because it does matter to those people that are looking and we want the best and, and we want to support you in the best way possible as consumer and vote with our dollars, you know, for the things that matter. So it goes along.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah.
- [46:49]
A
Yeah.
- [46:49]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, our website's huge and we always, if anybody ever feels that we are, you know, missing a data point or they want more information on the ingredients, we love receiving those types of inquiries. And you know, the first, the first person that you're going to talk to is someone in our customer experience team. But usually that question comes right back to me and our VP of research and product innovation. So you're talking right, you're talking right to the formulators generally, 1, 1 degree. So anything, anytime that people want to ask, we, we love that kind of conversation and engagement I love that.
- [47:28]
A
Well, thank you so much, Abbott. This was awesome, and I learned so much, and I can't thank you enough for your time and educating us.
- [47:34]
B
You're the best. Thank you so much. Have a great afternoon. Take care.
- [47:38]
A
Take care.