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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
Amazon Sponsor
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- [01:08]
Tessa Zolli
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Treatment room. I'm your host, Tessa Zolli, and today I am here with special guest Jan Marini. Welcome to the show.
- [01:19]
Jan Marini
My pleasure.
- [01:20]
Tessa Zolli
Well, we're so excited to have you. You are one of the most inspirational people I know in this industry. So many estheticians look up to you, Jan. So today I just wanted to talk to you about your story, your career, and just get to know you a little more.
- [01:39]
Jan Marini
Well, thank you. Yeah, no, that, that, that's very kind of you to say those words. And I've, I. Anyway, I, I love working with you and I love being able to interact, interface with your audience, which are primarily estheticians.
- [01:57]
Tessa Zolli
Yes, yes. And so I know you grew up in San Diego and I know you've talked about your story with acne. I wanted to know what was it like growing up with acne? What were the treatment options that you had available at the time?
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Jan Marini
Kind of let me start from the beginning.
- [02:17]
Tessa Zolli
Take us all the way back.
- [02:20]
Jan Marini
So I was. You're right. I was born and raised in San Diego. I was born at Mercy Hospital. And my mom and my dad took me home to my three brothers. We lived at the end of a dirt road, and it was this little tiny house that had one bedroom and it had this detached, dilapidated garage, which literally, if you looked at it, it looked like it was going to fall down at any moment. It had a dirt floor, and my mom and dad put three cots on that dirt floor, and that's where my brothers slept. And I had a bassinet with. It was in an alcove. So back then, sometimes you had like tiny little hallway with. There'd be a curve in the wall. And they'd put a phone up on the wall and then a stool. And so people would sit there and talk on the phone. And so instead of the stool, they put my bassinet, and that's where I slept. And, you know, you don't think about these things when you grow up, but really, my father died when we were eight and we lived in poverty, and there were times I did not have enough to eat. Now, when I was growing up, I had absolutely perfect skin. My three brothers had varying degrees of acne, but I had absolutely perfect skin. And even through my teenage years, for the most part, I had. I mean, well, I shouldn't say for the most part. I never had an acne lesion. I was in the 1 percentile of people that never get a breakout. It was when I was around 19, going on 20. That's when I developed severe cystic acne. And interestingly, I had this in the back of my mind all the time because I'd look at my brothers and I would think, I'm so fortunate and I don't ever want to get acne. I didn't think about how to prevent it. You know, I washed my face a lot. A lot of people think washing your face is somehow going to be preventative, but I was always concerned. And you get to the point where you're 18 or 19 years old, you don't think you're going to develop acne. And I developed severe cystic acne. And like most people. Well, what do you do at that point? You try things for acne. There might be things like. There was, I believe, things like Clearasil. Back then, there were sort of drying treatments, and a lot of it was things that dried the skin because there weren't as many things for acne available. In fact, this was still in the era where some doctors did X ray treatments for acne that I'm not. I'd have to go back in my medical journals. I'm not certain that that was helpful. However, we know that it led to a lot of people developing skin cancer and things like that. It was something that really could age the skin and so their skin would look a lot older later on. But. So I. There really weren't things that were available. You know, you just hope that you're going to have good days or better days, and sometimes you don't. It's very. It's. It's very unpredictable. As people know who have acne. I've been there. You can't. I don't care what they say you can't cover it up. And here's the other thing that was devastating. At that time I had started modeling and I was actually doing television commercials. So I was tall, I was almost 5, 8, but I wasn't Runway model tall. And this was something that at the time was really important to me because it was a way to bring in income. And coming from a devastatingly poor background, I looked forward to that. And here all of a sudden, now I've got acne. And when you're in that business, and I didn't intend to make it a career, but it was a way to make money. When you're in that business, you're constantly being judged, you're constantly being evaluated for every little flaw and you're being compared to everyone else. So what it does to your ego, what it does to your psych, I can't begin to say. And yet I know that other people have acne to one degree or another experience the same thing. And you just, you assume in whatever situation you're in, you're being judged all the time. And so one of the things that I did is I started to research ingredients and there really weren't any resources. There wasn't a way of talking telling whether or not an ingredient might be acneogenic. That doesn't necessarily mean if you use ingredients that are non acneogenic, that it's going to necessarily make your acne better, but hopefully you're not going to make it worse. And so I started studying Dr. James Fulton. Dr. Fulton was a physician who was really a very, very famous acne doctor. And at one time, not at that time, but at one time he had clinics throughout various areas of the United States where he treated acne. He also specialized in acne scarring. He was also the co inventor of retinoic acid, or what we today, you know, call retin a, et cetera, you know, prescription, prescription retinoid. He worked with Dr. Kligman on that. And so in many respects he was ahead of his time. He was also a renowned inventor during his lifetime and he was just very prolific in terms of the amount of research and the amount of writing and things like that that he did. And so I started to kind of follow his work. And you know, I can't tell you that I had a lot of success. But as time went on, eventually I became an Accutane user. Now this was back and we're talking about this was probably more going into maybe my even early 30s. And Accutane @ that time was not approved for full prescription use. And it was really Stanford University was one of the universities that was doing a lot of the test work. And so I was in literally the last test group of patients to use Accutane before it was fully approved. Now miracle I cleared up entirely. I mean, what a miracle. But Accutane is not a cure. And I didn't understand this at the time. And at the time, a lot of physicians looked at Accutane as being a cure. It's not a cure. It puts people in remission. Now some people, they go into remission for maybe years. The majority of individuals, their acne probably gets a lot better. In other words, it stays better over time, but not completely clear. And Tessa, I know you've had people that have been Accutane failures come to you, and maybe they don't have the same cystic condition that they may have had at one time, but they're still breaking out. And when you have acne, you don't, you know, it's great if you're breaking out five lesions instead of 10 lesions, but it's still five lesions. It still might be five scars. And so I was, I was. My remission was fairly short lived and I wanted a much higher dose of Accutane probably, I'm going to say memory serves me right. It might have been maybe a year and a half is two years later. I went on a very, very high dose for considering my weight and everything. And again, I cleared up literally, I mean, 100%.
- [10:44]
Tessa Zolli
Would you say your experience with the Accutane was mostly positive? Did you have side effects?
- [10:50]
Jan Marini
Well, you do have side effects, and I talk about that in a second, your skin gets very dry. Now, in the very beginning when you go on Accutane, and I'm a big believer in Accutane because there are certain types of acne, or at least it can get you to a point where if you're completely clear, we know how to keep you there. So what happens is that the skin can be very oily or you can have a lot of lesions. And as the Accutane starts to kick in, because one of the things that it does, it's more of a side effect. It sort of disables the oil glands. And as it disables the oil glands, you're producing less oil. So you're kind of oily and dry at the same time because you're going through this transition period. And so here you are, you're kind of scaly and you're kind of dry. And sometimes in some individuals Your breakouts increase initially. Some doctors will put patients on antibiotics at the same time because it can cause kind of an explosive breakout. Everything that's in your follicle surfaces. So the transition period can be kind of gnarly. Now, in the case of the original course of Accutane, which was an average dose for my weight, the skin eventually gets very dry. But once you go through that sort of dry, oily period, it would be wonderful because my skin looked perfect. It glowed. I would. Didn't produce oil, but I looked the same at 8 o'clock at night as I did at 6 o'clock in the morning. And my skin, I knew how to keep it from looking flaky or anything like that. But your lips get very dry. I think that's the thing that most people find is their lips are so dry. And I always say it felt like my lips belonged to somebody else. And even a prescription combination of like a Vaseline and hydrocortisone cream that I was given, which tasted awful to keep on the lips, nothing worked. Now, when I went to the higher dose, I literally had peeling on my palms and the bottom of my feet, so. And I went through the same experience pretty much, but I knew what to expect. Now, back then, I'll tell you what they told you. This was in the very early days of Accutane, and what they would say is, hey, if your skin gets really dry, you can put Crisco on it.
- [13:13]
Tessa Zolli
Stop.
- [13:14]
Jan Marini
Crisco is that's what you cook with. So I didn't do that. But you can use emollients. I'd done enough research. I knew what was comedogenic, what wasn't comedogenic, So I just used lots of emolliancy. And again, my skin was. It was absolutely fabulous. Then after that second course, it took me probably, I'm going to say, six months to a year. The acne started to come back. Not quite to the same extent, but at that point, I'd been a product researcher for a long time and I was also getting toward. Now this is actually Jamrini Skin Research is actually my fourth company. I was actually going toward founding that company, but I had still found things that were really workable for acne, and particularly certain types of benzoyl peroxide and certain other things that we could put with it. Retinoids were out at that point. And so I began to be able to manage my acne. And the whole idea is that you manage your acne so you have complete total clearing. And, you know, I'll get really close to the camera. But if I didn't do what I do every day, I would break out. I don't break out. I don't wear foundation. I never break out. No, it sees you with a breakout. I completely manage it. And that's what we want to work toward and that's what you can do. And believe me, I have loads. I have an infinite amount of empathy for people that try so many different things and their acne maybe gets a little better, or it doesn't get better, or they're told, well, it's going to take three months or it's going to take six months. Just keep working with it. No, you want to get. If you're doing the right thing, you can get total clearing. You can manage it. Now, there are certain things we call it breakthrough. Some people have occasional breakthrough and it could be because of stress or it could be because of diet. But in general, that breakthrough means, well, gee, I got one little pimple, I got one lesion, I got one little mini cyst. Now we don't even want that. But it's so much more consistent and predictable. To this day, if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night, first thing I do, my hand goes here.
- [15:40]
Tessa Zolli
Wow, it's that ingrained in you?
- [15:42]
Jan Marini
Yes, because I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I used to wake up with new leases.
- [15:49]
Tessa Zolli
Have you heard of body dysmorphia? I think it can almost be like that, skin dysmorphia. And I know what you mean because I had bad acne too. It's like you are just always fearful of the next breakout and it's no way to live.
- [16:02]
Jan Marini
It's scary. And then of course, some people leads them to acne excoria. And that's where you just can't help yourself. You want to pick on it. And some individuals even will continue to pick when they're clear. And people used to tell me all the time, everybody wants to give you advice. Everybody's got some kind of a remedy. And it can sometimes be very offensive. And they would always say, well, you can't pick at it. You can't pick at it. And my answer is always, well, you know what? If you don't want me to pick it, then get rid of it. If there's nothing there to pick, I won't pick. Now I don't have acne excuria. So if I don't have acne, I don't pick. And that's the thing, is that it's very difficult and I understand that when you've got something on your. Particularly if it's a pustule and it's like it's filled up with some type of material, it's really hard not to want to do something to flatten that out. So I really, I mean, I work in all areas of skin care. I research, I develop for aging, for acne, for rosacea, all of that. But I can certainly emphasize in every way possible with acne sufferers. And again, the idea is that complete total clearing.
- [17:28]
Tessa Zolli
How did you go from, you know, experiencing acne to getting in the skincare industry in the beginning?
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Jan Marini
Okay, well, so I have actually been a product researcher now for over 50 years. And it started out with that researching having to do with ingredients. And so it didn't just. It morphed into not just acne, but ingredients. Whether an ingredient really does have any validity for aging, does it have any validity for discoloration or rosacea? And I started doing a lot of lecturing. I lectured to physicians and medical professionals and skin care professionals about ingredients. And I also did a lot of radio and television because it lends itself really well to talk shows. You know, consumers, same thing. They want to know about ingredients and am I using the right products. And then as time went on, I began to develop associations with physicians and researchers literally all over the world. And I really started to focus on more of the uncovering and identifying breakthrough technology. So I got more into development because I had a real passion for wanting to bring things to the market that were real solutions. You hear me say this all the time. I don't want another product. I want a solution. I don't want to have adult acne, which is an epidemic today among women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. I don't want rosacea and rosacea affects. I mean, the numbers are going up. It's probably 16 to 18 million Americans at least. I don't want discoloration. Every single person with. On the face of the earth with skin is going to have abnormal discoloration by the age of 35. And I want to keep lines and wrinkles away as long as possible. You know, I one that I'm going to. One of the things I want to qualify this with, Tess. You know, today a lot of people are judgmental when you talk about aging because they think of it as something that we're trying really hard to avoid, and we should just accept it and age gracefully and all that. Well, you know, I hope I get really, really old. I'm going to be 73 in December. And I hope I live many more years. And I hope I get old, old, old, old, because I am so blessed and so fortunate. Statistically, in the world already, only a fraction of people have lived to be my age. Most people die very young around the world in impoverished countries and things like that. So I'm very fortunate. And I hope that I don't have the five to seven years where I'm, you know, in bed rest or something. I. I'm not able to function properly. I want to have a vibrant, healthy life as long as I can, but I don't necessarily want to look old. And, you know, your skin is the largest organ of your body. People die from skin diseases. They die from malignant melanoma. If I said to you, to your audience, I said, you know, I hope I have a really young heart. Everybody would applaud me. Good. I hope you eat right and have a young heart. I hope I have a young liver. I hope my kidneys are young. Statistically, in the world already, only a fraction of people have lived to be my age. Most people die very young around the world, in impoverished countries and things like that. So I'm very fortunate. And I hope that I don't have the five to seven years where I'm, you know, in bed rest or something. I'm. I'm not able to function properly. I want to have a vibrant, healthy life as long as I can, but I don't necessarily want to look old. And, you know, your skin is the largest organ of your body. People die from skin diseases. They die from malignant melanoma. If I said to you, to your audience, I said, you know, I hope I have a really young heart. Everybody would applaud me. Good. I hope you eat right and have a young heart. I hope I have a young liver. I hope my kidneys are young, but the largest organ of our body. Why don't we want that to be young? It's a reflection of a lot of times, our general health. So I think that it's not just vanity. It really is about health of your skin. And nobody wants to look in the mirror and go, oh, gee, I hope I get brown spots tomorrow. I hope my skin is bright red and I just flush and blush all the time. I hope I get acne. And so that's really where my passion is. I want to provide real solutions, not just people going out and spending sometimes obscene amounts of money on products that really don't have that benefit.
- [22:29]
Tessa Zolli
And you have so many unique formulas. You have benzoyl peroxide and retinol together. You have a non irritating vitamin C and glycolic, you have actives you can stack on top of each other. How did you even know that it would be possible to create formulas like that?
- [22:50]
Jan Marini
I have to tell you, I kind of think of myself in a way. I don't know if this is a politically correct term as an idiot savant because there's so many things I can't do. Or maybe I just don't pay enough attention. I've been known to get lost on the way to work. I have thrown my underwear into the toilet, my husband's found my pantyhose in the refrigerator. I mean, and maybe it's just because I'm always focusing on all these other things probably that I was blessed with. So it's not something that I should really can take credit for, but I was just blessed with it. Like some people know, you know, they like Beethoven, he played the piano, never had lessons. But I'm just really good at product development and I'm good at research and it just comes to me very naturally. I understand it, I get it. And I'm really good at uncovering technologies and I'm good at linking technologies. Like when I peruse medical journals, it's not just reading about dermatology or plastic surgery. It might be something that triggers that I'm reading about in oncology. I have a patent on Interferon Alpha 2B, which is an immune messenger your body produces. They inject for malignant melanoma, hepatitis C, adult leukemia, but it affects the immunity of the skin applied topically. Or it's something that I might have looked at in, you know, even talking about things like research on diabetes because that's a lot to do with glycation. And we know that people that have diabetes have a much greater tendency, their skin ages differently and also much more of a tendency to dementia, Alzheimer's and things like that. So. So I'm good at linking those kinds of things and coming up with technologies that can really make a difference in the appearance of skin. And also I take technologies that are out there. You know, I always say if when I used to eat cookies, my favorite cookie was like, Mrs. Fields, right? So how can somebody bake an oatmeal cookie that looks exactly the same, but it tastes different? And so also it's about taking the technologies sometimes that are out there, combining them away or getting them to work that much better. There's more synergy. And sometimes it's not what you put In a product, it's what you don't put in a product. And I will tell you, formulating a skin care product that really works is more difficult than formulating a prescription drug. And I'll tell you why. So if you have a prescription drug that you're going through the fda, you've got one ingredient and the formula is very bland because the FDA doesn't want to have to figure out what is working and what isn't working. And so you're doing all of your trials and all of your proof of concept and everything on that one ingredient. Now you take a skincare product, look at the ingredient listing, it's complicated, it's mysterious. That's why I used to lecture on that. And you've got all these different in ingredients. Now, number one, I'm going to tell you something. Chemists don't go to school to just learn cosmetic chemistry. They may get it. They may be doing testing fire retardant samples their entire life. They may do be doing food testing. There's a countless number of things they could be doing. So when they're doing cosmetic work, usually they apprentice. And if you said to them, does this ingredient work for such and such, they don't know if it stimulates collagen, they don't know what all of the medical data is surrounding that. They just know, is it stable? Am I putting a formula together? Is it going to fall apart? So there are so many formulary constraints. Certain ingredients you can't have in the same formula because of ph one has one, ph, one has another. Certain ingredients have to be manufactured in a certain manner. But it wouldn't be good to manufacture it that way for another ingredient. And then do I have enough room in the formula? Because if you'd say to a chemist, I want these five things in this formula, they'll put them in there, but they may not be in the percentage to be really efficacious. And a lot of times, in fact, I just had a lab contact me recently, they said we can put a formula together for you, we can give you pricing. If you don't like the pricing, just tell us how much you want to pay and we're formulated to that price point. So what are you going to do? Give me take my peptides down to a much lower level so it's on the label, but is it really working? And so there's so much that goes into that. And I'm going to brag for just a moment and I apologize because I don't want to be a Braggart. But first of all, we've had five studies published in the Journal of Drugs and Dermatology, that's a peer reviewed medical journal, highly respected. It can take months, it could take years to get accepted because it has to be of significant value. You don't just see, you don't see stuff in there on skin care. Secondly, our products are around the world, but I'm so proud that we were able to get them into Japan because it's literally probably one of the hardest markets in the world to get product into because they're so very strict on everything. So, and it's just, it's all over the world. So there's certain things that we can have that somebody else can't have. They can have, we can't have. You have to take all that in consideration. And if you get into Japan, and particularly in the medical market, you don't get anywhere unless you have key opinion leaders that support you. In other words, they worked with your product and they just think it's really a remarkable product. So we're very fortunate. We have key opinion leaders that have endorsed us. And doctors just don't take the products on. And they did some medical conferences about a month ago throughout Japan, some fairly large medical conferences where these key opinion leaders were speaking at podium. And one of the things that they said about our products, they talked in glowing terms. But for example with Rosalie, they said it works better than any drug that they've seen in the marketplace. And we have, I've had photos where they've done their own studies, for example, just with transformation cream and nothing else. They took an individual who was aged who not only had fine lines and wrinkles, but she had very significant, what looks like solar Chinese, you know, raised brown spots on the face which almost has, starts to have almost like a warty appearance, like a wart. And it was virtually literally completely resolved over the period of time. I mean, the skin was completely transformed. That is so gratifying. So I know that these technologies, these formulations really, really work. I know that. And our physicians know that throughout the United States, throughout the world, it's just getting the consumer to know it. And, and the reason I want them to know it is because I just want them to be using things. It's so gratifying when people, their skin is so changed, whether again it's rosacea or the appearance of aging or any of these things, or acne or discoloration.
- [31:25]
Tessa Zolli
Yeah, it's a real solution. It's different from just all the products on the Shelf. How about a product like Transformation face Cream? Can you tell us how many iterations does it take until you feel really satisfied? Does it take a lot?
- [31:46]
Jan Marini
Yeah, that's a good question. Not necessarily. So here's what I do. I'll kind of take you into the development process. So the reason that one of the main things in transformation is transferring growth factor beta 1. So when we first introduced it, it had peptides, which are peptides that are just our peptides. They're proprietary does, and it had other things in it. And then later I added in Thymosin Beta 1, which was one of my patents. So the reason I got interested in transferring growth factor beta 1 is that Dr. Guido of Jefferson University, who was a real expert in this area, and there's a story behind transferring growth factor beta 1. But he said this was just a thing to keep the skin young indefinitely. He said it stimulates a type of collagen that you don't produce after the age of 30. So it got me really interested and I started studying it. Well, at the time, I had to go to a research lab to actually get it, and they were using it in research for a number of things that, again, we don't have time to go into. But in that particular form, it was not yet in a commercial peptide form. So I had to really work with my chemist to make sure that we were doing this in a way in which hopefully it was going to be really bioavailable. And you could see, I mean, you could tell that it. It was working, but it wasn't ideal. And so the formula itself, what I decided to put in it, I want to say, literally the first time I got it and this happens, I thought, okay, it feels great, it looks great, I'm there. So it's just a matter of making sure that everything in the ingredient listing is compatible and all that. And sometimes, though, what happens is, which is maybe more likely is that let's say I'm doing research on cellulite, which is the bane of my existence. Not that I have very little of it, but when I say bane of my existence, it's because there's just not. You know, we have a product, Cellulitex, which is extraordinary, but up until then, we just really haven't had the technology to make much of a difference, if any difference. So I was doing products for over 14 years. Get them in, you get people in for a study and you don't see a difference. And sometimes I even was contacted by an infomercial company that said, we've got an extraordinary cellulite product, and we want to license it to you for your marketplace. They sent me these pictures, and I don't know if they were doctored or not, but all I know is that I did the formula and I could not get those results. So I'm not going to mark it. So what happens is I get the formula in, I look at it and, you know, sometimes I want it to be thicker, I want it to be thinner, or there's something that I need to modify. But I'm ahead of time. I'm. I'm very certain about what I want in it. So I don't leave it to the chemist and say, here, this is my primary ingredient. Just stick it together. No, I'm very anal about every step of this. Then what we do is I do something that's probably different than a lot of companies, and that is I actually have. I bring in people that candidates or case studies that ordinary individuals that have acne or they have discoloration or they have, you know, we're looking to see how the product works on them and I in real time. Because you and I know that people sometimes don't wash their face at night or they skip a day or two. So, hey, if it works really well, even in that situation, I've got a pretty good idea. This is going to be a significant technology. So from that point, if I get to that point, proof of concept, like give you an example with Luminant face lotion, which is. Was a number of generations from my first discoloration product. This one is just. It's been written up in the Journal of Drugs and Dermatology. It's amazing. I had a person who was in her kind of middle, late 30s. She was like one big freckle. So part of it was sun damage, part of it was just freckles. You know how hard freckles are to get rid of. Literally within the first two weeks, they were almost completely gone. I was like, okay, I know I'm onto something. And so at that point, if I get past that point, then what the next thing we do is we send it out. If it's going to be a product that. Where it's kind of a, quote, therapeutic product, we send it out to outside clinicals. Now, outside clinicals is not just sending it to, like, there's all kinds of labs out there where you can send a product out and say, oh, would you test this for lines and wrinkles? And what they basically do is they have like a clay that they stick on the skin. And so it takes an impression of lines and wrinkles and then they impress it again afterwards and they see if there's a difference or if it's acne or different things like that. No, I want a clinical study with a physician, a recognized physician, where they recruit patients, they monitor them. And so those other studies are not physician monitored. They're just signed off at the end by a physician who kind of looks at it. So I want a physician monitored and I want statistical information that's kept on everything. And so we look at that because, hey, if it doesn't pass that, I'm not going to bring it to market. And then from there we want. We can write a white paper. Now, white papers. Physicians love white papers. They don't necessarily read them. The fact that you have it, that you've got all the statistical data that supports it, it's reassuring. Then from there, sometimes what we'll do is we will submit it to a medical journal. Now, could we have a lot more studies published in a medical journal? Yes, but sometimes here's what happens. I'll give you an example on rosalieve. So there's a conference every year. It's the largest laser conference in the United States. And just before COVID this conference, I think it was October of that year, came up and a physician wanted to speak about Rosaleeve at podium, which is great. Wanted to get up and tell all the doctors. In this case, it was like, hey, when I do IPL or intense pulse light or broadband on a rosacea patient, I can get to the same point or better doing fewer treatments if I have that patient using rosalieve. So that's significant. But once that information is out there, once it's been spoken about, then the journals don't like to take a study on because there's no surprise. So you kind of pick one or the other. And in this case, we weren't going to turn that down. So we're very fortunate that we get a lot of of this happening where people talk about our products and even on our corporate website, in the professional area of the corporate west side for professionals, there are discussions with physicians and physicians talking about the technologies and things like that. So anyway, but once we get through that point, we go to market. And I will tell you, it takes a lot longer these days than it used to. It takes longer to get packaging. You, you know, you want your product to work, but now it's all about having friendly packaging or something. And it's not easy because sometimes friendly packaging doesn't work for that product. There's all kinds of things where it won't come out of the bottle or whatever. And then, you know, there's just so much stuff that I don't have a lot to do with. But so that's the process, typically.
- [39:59]
Tessa Zolli
What do you think has been one of your biggest challenges with Jan Marini, specifically?
- [40:10]
Jan Marini
I would say one of the biggest challenges is. Okay, so let me say it this way. My vice president of R&D, Dr. Saxena, is brilliant and he's renowned. He put retin a micro through the fda. He's one of the foremost retinoid experts in the world. He's put other drugs through the fda, such as aminolevolenic acid, which is what they put on people for attended keratosis, precancerous lesions, believe it or not. Another one that's just as off the wall. The Today sponge was one. And then he put through the fda, and he is an FDA expert. Now, by an FDA expert, meaning that a lab who wants to become an FDA lab to make over the counter drugs like benzoyl peroxide. Our lab actually makes some prescription drugs, but benzoyl peroxide or all that, it can take years because they have to have the same standards as a lab that makes cancer drugs or makes antibiotics or anything like that. And so it's very, very laborious and strict. And the FDA by law goes in and inspects them periodically, and believe me, it's a brutal inspection. So he actually has taken labs to being able to be a GMP lab, which stands for Good Manufacturing Practices, which our lab is. But he's an expert. So we all the time look at websites and we look at competitors that make outrageous claims. They're not legal claims. There are certain words that you guys hear all the time that actually are not legal to make that. The FDA doesn't regulate a skin care product, they regulate claims. So if I say a glass of water makes your lines and wrinkles go away, they will say, well, you have to do a new drug application and prove it. And if I say that glass of water helps the appearance of your lines and wrinkles, which is ridiculous, they're fine with that. But what we do is we have to deal all the time with watching competitors talk about things that make their products sound like they're so much more effective. I have a guy that goes over every word we use on the website and makes certain that we are to the letter. And so even our major competitors, and I'll give you an example, even Lancome this was, I'm going to go back. This might have been a, maybe three years ago or so, four years ago, Lancome had a product called Genifique, I think it was called. I think they still have it. It's a nice product. But in the ads, the one page ads, it said it could change your genes. Now maybe it does, but you can't say that. You can. You know, there's things I talk about but never put it in writing ever, ever, ever. And so that's something that I wish everyone were held to the same standard. And what happens is the fda, they're underfunded. They go after one person, they go after sometimes the one that's out there like a Lancome because they're bigger and they figure it sets more of an example. And then you see all these other people that don't get, you know, any, any type of oversight. So I'd say that's, that tends to be frustrating.
- [43:36]
Tessa Zolli
Can you take us through a day in the life of Janmarini? From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. You don't have to say everything, but what are some of the highlights? Like things you enjoy doing for your self care, what do you eat? Things like that.
- [43:53]
Jan Marini
Okay, so first of all, that skin care is non negotiable. And I have always, I've joked that there have been a couple of times where I was traveling, I've had food poisoning and I have literally crawled to the sink. I do my skin, so that's really important. I'm very consistent. And it's not like I spent a lot of time on it really, it's very quick, but I'm consistent. And I also look at my skin. If it looks a little dull or it's not quite where I want it to be, then I can modify my program. So that's really important. And typically first of all I do intermittent fasting. But. Oh, let me just tell you this. So literally as soon as my assistant gets the office. So Katie's my assistant and she has an assistant and I'm on the phone. So I might be in the bathroom, I might be doing my face, I might be trying to make up, I'm on the phone the entire time. So it probably takes me a little longer than normal just because I can get distracted. I do intermittent fasting, so I don't eat until late in the morning. So lots of times I don't get to the office late even though I may have been working since the office opened. So I get to the office. And by the way, I eat low carb. And I'm going to tell you that I think it pays off. You know, some of these things are somewhat speculative, although we have a lot of science that goes into that, that's coming forward. And I think it can be different for different people. But I will tell you that recently I have a concierge physician who is actually a cardiologist who became an internist, and he's a very renowned cardiologist and he also is a member of the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. So he really incorporates a lot of different disciplines into looking at an individual's health. You know, sending, let's say your blood work off to Boston Health. So you don't just get the normal information about cholesterol and things like that, but it goes well beyond that. But I, he tested my telomeres and apparently I have exceptionally long telomeres. In fact, among the longest he's ever seen in his practice. Now, part of that is genetics. But also telomeres are fluid, so they can be influenced how short they are, how long they are by your diet and your lifestyle. And if you make your diet and lifestyle better, they can actually improve. But everybody's is going to shorten a lot eventually. So I, you know, there's things that have shown that I, that kind of, I think the way that I'm eating is beneficial to me. I always say we're all going to die of something, but I want to live a very long, healthy life. So anyway, so I eat and then I get to the office and usually I'm taking care of, you know, different things. I have a, by the way, Tessa, I have a very talented staff. So I'm going to backtrack for a minute and tell somebody something about being an entrepreneur, please. One of the reasons that I've been an entrepreneur is because I love starting a business. I love doing everything. And you know, remember that movie with Bruce Willis where the kid went around saying, I see ghosts, I see ghosts. Okay, well, I see businesses and I, I love being able to just use all of my strengths and sometimes things that are weaknesses that I probably shouldn't use. But in, in marketing and in education, all of these things and in building something. But if you're really going to build a world class company, you got to let go at some point. And by letting go, it doesn't mean you're not involved, but you have to bring in people and give them autonomy. So I'm very blessed. It took me a long time to get to this point, we're going to be at our 31st year. But I have just a phenomenal CEO who's very talented. He's brilliant, actually comes from the laser world. John Connors. I have a CFO and I have a head of hr and I have a full accounting department and I have a full marketing partner with lots of people and graphics people and all of that, and a big shipping department and I have all of that. So I don't have to do day to day operations now. Believe me, I know everything that's going on. But so usually when I come into the office, I have a lot of things that I have to take care of because I try to support the educational staff. I try to support certain major accounts that maybe they're having me do an event for some kind of a zoom event or something. So there's, you know, there's a lot of things like that. But then I'm typically doing either one or two, like an IG Live podcast. I'm doing all of these every single day. Every single day. And then there's other things, stuff that goes on beyond. So that's kind of my day. But at home, the first thing I do. And by the way, I am, I love fashion. That's my hobby. I love fashion, girl. Love, love, love fashion. So. But the first thing I do when I get home, oh my God, I can't wait. I'm peeling clothes off and I'm putting sweats on. And then I just kind of want. And I have a husband and I am absolutely mad about him. We've been married almost 30 years. I'm just, I'm crazy, madly in love with him. But I kind of need my little downtime.
- [49:50]
Tessa Zolli
Yeah.
- [49:51]
Jan Marini
And so one of the things that I do, this is kind of my ritual. And this might sound not good to some people, but what I do is after I get, I put my sweats on, I do some exercise every single night. I have an exercise routine where I don't have to do it for very long, but it's very, very effective. And then what I do is I put my dinner together and I eat my dinner in my bedroom watching TV and playing games on my computer. I unwind.
- [50:28]
Tessa Zolli
I love it. I mean, I'm sure you are so focused all day. You talk so much to people. You're performing on such a high level. You probably just need to shut down and relax.
- [50:40]
Jan Marini
And I like that. I play word games, I play all kinds of games. And I'm sure it's probably my brain's probably going, wait a minute. You may think this is fun, you're just working the heck out of me still. But it really is for me. It's relaxing.
- [50:55]
Tessa Zolli
Yeah.
- [50:56]
Jan Marini
And so I do that and I just unwind. And then the rest of the evening, my husband and I, we get together and we watch a movie or something like that. And then there's another day. And the weekends, like I like to this Covid. There was one good thing about COVID I used to go and plan out my wardrobe for seasons. And I would like spend two or three days solid, go to Barney's. I loved Barney's. And they're not around anymore, Saks or Neiman's or any of the, any of the stores, Zara's, whatever. And just do a lot of power shopping. Well, now I order things, I do go online. I've gotten really good at that, really good at visualizing and I just order things in and then I usually have a day where I try them on and I send back what I don't want. And so that's something that I just really enjoy doing. Someday I'm actually going to have a YouTube channel.
- [52:07]
Tessa Zolli
Oh, I hope so. I've been waiting so long to just have a video of you doing your skincare routine, just walking us through it.
- [52:16]
Jan Marini
But you know, who knows, I might include that too. But, but so that's something that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm also passionate about.
- [52:24]
Tessa Zolli
Yeah. Have you always been so. Just self assured, strong, confident. We have a lot of young listeners who again, I'm sure just admire you so much. They want to be successful like you. Is there anything you could impart to them that's helped you along the way?
- [52:46]
Jan Marini
You know, I think a lot of people assume that I either was born into an upper middle class or wealthy or that I had a lot of advantages. I was again, I was. A lot of times we were in abject poverty and I could, I could tell some stories, heart wrenching stories. And there were times where I didn't have enough to eat. And I think what I want to really tell people is that you don't have to have your circumstances define you and you know, it takes it. I won't tell you, it's easy, but don't listen to people. There's always somebody out there that will say to you, this won't work. Do you know we were the first company, my last company, MD Formulations, MD Forte. We were the first company to ever sell products in a physician's office. Do you know how many people told me it was a ridiculous idea, it wouldn't work. Even doctors. It was really difficult time in my career because doctors were like, you want me to sell? They called it cosmetic cosmetics out of my office. Are you crazy? And don't create your own path. You don't have to go in someone else's footsteps. Just because somebody else has been successful at doesn't mean that you won't be successful. Somebody always does it the first time. And the other thing I want to tell you that don't focus or obsess about the competition. You know who you're competing with. You're competing with yourself. Compete with yourself. I don't care what the competition does. I can't control them. And sometimes I will tell you, I've had 30, 30, almost 31 years. Believe me, there are times where they're unethical, they gossip. There's things that they do that are kind of underhanded. I can't control that. I can only control what I do. And you've got to be. I can't tell you how much persistent count. Persistence counts. Now, it helps if you have vision because when I think about a business, I literally can kind of visualize it almost from beginning to end. I just have a vision. It's just something that I do and it's just who I am. But it takes a huge amount of hard work and you have to embrace your failures. I fail every single day at something, but I also succeed at something I do. I can't tell you how many failures I had. I had to sue a chemist once and I was in court for four months. And I can't even tell you what that was like. I mean, there are so many things that you go through, but you embrace that and you embrace your successes. And the other thing is, people tell you, oh, well, you know, you've really been lucky. I think I've been fortunate. But you know what? The harder I work, the luckier I get. So it's really about a lot of hard work, a lot of perseverance because things happen. If you work really hard, it doesn't mean something negative can't happen. But there's a lot of things that happen that are really, really good. And I'll tell you something else, guys, to be an entrepreneur, you don't have to have a lot of funding or financing. You don't have to have a five year plan. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't do that, but I'm saying I never had a five year plan. I knew where I was going to be in five years, but it wasn't about, well, I'm going to bring in this much revenue the first year or the second year. I just got out there and did it. I didn't have any funding, literally. And by any funding, I mean I started MD Formulations, MD forte on a shoestring. I mean, virtually the equivalent of having almost no money. And it's about hard work. You know what? I've always said there's something called proof of concept in business, and I call it. You only have to do it once. So when I sold my first doctor, what I did is I proved that I could do it. If that doctor brought product into his office, I knew there would be other doctors and I would also. I knew that I would get better at it each time. I would learn more and it would get easier in terms of being able to approach that marketplace. And that's been the case in every single business that I've had. I just think that we are so fortunate. I don't know if I could do this in many, many places in the world. I just. I can't tell you how blessed I feel. So I think that's probably, you know, what I would. I would. I would leave people with. And the other thing, I. I guess one thing I just want people to know in. When you're an entrepreneur, it can be lonely because I've. I'll tell you, over the years, I've kissed a lot of frogs, but I've also had some people that I'll get emotional because they were so supportive and I couldn't have done it without them. And I always say to our salesforce, you know, no one's going to do this job for you. No one's going to get you out of bed in the morning. No one's going to go out and make your sales calls. No one's going to pay your bills. But you know what? No one can do it for you, but you don't have to do it alone.
- [58:29]
Tessa Zolli
Thank you so much, Jan. I. Yeah. Can't even tell you how grateful I am just to know you. You are just one of the most generous, intelligent, strong, tenacious people I've ever, ever met. So just thank you so much for all your time. I think it says so much about you that you are the face of this company, but you really dedicate yourselves to. To talking to us, educating professionals like me. I would not be where I am today without you.
- [59:00]
Jan Marini
You know what, Tessa? I'm so thankful for you. Because, Tessa, always brings me interesting situations and things like that. I sure do. A absolutely. So amazing. Your before and after pictures are so stunning and that. That it's just so gratifying. So thank you.
- [59:22]
Tessa Zolli
Thank you. Jan always makes herself available. If I have a question, she is. It's amazing. It's really incredible. I've never seen any founder of a company just so involved the way you are. And I think it shows through your products. You care about every single detail, and they're just so special. So thank you so much. We appreciated having you on.
- [59:44]
Jan Marini
Well, I thank you. Okay, guys. Bye.
- [59:49]
Tessa Zolli
Bye, guys. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you in two weeks for the next episode.