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Dry Shampoo Redefined Featuring K18 · Skin Anarchy

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome back to Anarchy.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is your host, Dekta.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm super excited about our guest today because I am one of his biggest fans and one of the biggest fans of his brand.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know all of you know about the this wonderful brand.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hair care brand that literally took you know social media by storm when they first came out.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And every single time they come out with a new product, it's just as viral, it's just as amazing.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And many of you must have seen their latest launch, which was this very innovative approach towards dry shampoos.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Savine Sahib, uh, who is the CEO and co-founder of K18 Hair Care.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Sabine.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so honored to have you back on the show.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Ekta.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I could not be more excited to be here with you again.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And forward to kind of a chatting with your community.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, likewise.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't wait to learn, you know, about all the amazing science that your you and your team poured into this product and for you to educate us.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: But Savine, I mean, I want to learn first, you know, what really sparked this idea for you?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where did this come from?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where you guys wanted to expand into this dry shampoo category.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little background?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: We were actually working on an odorant binding protein, which is an important component of the airwash that I'll kind of explain during the show.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of a sparked of the conversation because uh the odorant binding protein was about how you kind of interact with the with all how do human beings and vertebrates in general interact with odors.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we realized that one of the areas happens to be hair.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have sebum production happening, you have an active lifestyle, you go into the gym, there this pollution happening, all of that aggravates the scalp, and that in turn increases the sebum production, and that and the bacteria feed on it, and which in turn leads to odors.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we kind of had thought about wow, this is the ultrinibiting protein that we're kind of creating.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: This this can have an application in in addressing this need within the hair, which is where the germination of the thought kind of came about, but then it took a much larger form as we took a deep dive into the dry shampoo category.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So so what were some of the things that you saw in the dry shampoo category that you were like, I don't like this, you know, or this might not be the best way to approach products, you know, like what were the some of the spaces that you saw that you, you know, you your team thought we should fill this with something new and innovative?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it this way.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we use a dry shampoo in the first place to be a refresher in between our hair wash days?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea is that we continue with that feeling of a next day fair hair, you know, with a fresh smell and clean hair, and we can kind of stretch it as far as possible.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But when you kind of look at the architecture of the dry shampoo category, you had products that first of all were formulated using aerosols, and there was a reason because you have liquid particle emulsions and they cannot be optimally delivered without an aerosol.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then that aerosol, as you know, they are not sustainable and not kind of great for the environment.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the first issue.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: You get the more dry shampoos you sell, the more aerosol containers are generated in the ecosystem.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is the dry shampoos are formulated with with starches, which are great at absorbing the oil, these oils and the and the and the lipids, but then these kind of clump up and they create deposits and residues on your scalp, which in turn starts irritating the scalp.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: The third factor being about the fragrances, all of them are formulated with heavy fragrances because you can't mask the smell from as that's kind of a create the odor that's created by the bacteria, and therefore you have heavy fragrances.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you wake up, you have a heavy fragrance in your hair, and you go back to your day with all those fragrances.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So fundamentally, between the fragrances, the starches that and the irritation from those, and then those were the else got exasperated by the pollution from which adds to the scalp aggravation, fundamentally pushes you to want to wash the hair and therefore defeats the purpose of a dry shampoo.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what we wanted to address because we felt that the dry shampoo category was ready to be reinvented in every sense.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of started from ground up.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing was we wanted to put together a product that was environmental friendly, which meant that we needed to solve this fundamental problem of liquid particle emulsions and be able to deliver it in a manner through a spray that was optimal.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that was one of the kind of a key things when it came to the fundamental formulation about how we built that out, and took us kind of almost about two years.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Number two was replacing these starches by microbeads of mineral origin, not microbeats of from uh from plastics, but minerals, because we found that they were quite efficient in adsorbing these oils, but yet not kind of clumping and kind of irritating the scalp and managing a right pH.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: The third thing was algae from the from from Mediterranean sources, which in turn would soothen the scalp.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And lastly, was the a very, very critical component, which is the odorant binding protein.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: As I said earlier, we had been working on building, developing this for several years.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the whole mechanism of that came in from uh how do, as I said, about how do we interact with olfactory sensors?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you think about it this way in within our olfactory our nasal passages, you have got the mucus in that like odor binding proteins.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: The goal of those proteins is to, whenever there's an there's an odor molecule, they bind to this odor molecule and then they carry it to the olfactory receptor, which is present in the olfactory neuronal cells, where it triggers an intracellular signaling cascade, and that kind of goes along to the olfactory bulb and then decoded by the brain.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how human beings and and biology in general interacts with order because the very primal thing is about what's the right odor, what's a what's not order, what's an unhealthy odor, because it's all about survival.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So having kind of done this, we went about into database, genomic databases, and started kind of figuring out which is the most sophisticated odor system in the world.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we realized that beyond humans, you had in within the animal category, you had the pigs, which had very, very sophisticated olfactory senses.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we kind of we kind of looked into the DNA and the genomic basis and picked up a starting gene from there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Mind you, it's not about pigs, it's about the mathematical codes, the DNA codes of the of the pig olfactory system, and then kind of rebuilt the architecture to create the odorant binding protein.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And along with that, then added the cateene peptide because the odor binding protein is normally present in the mucus membrane, but we needed this to be on the hair.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the catein kind of worked as a caria peptide.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the development that kind of finally kind of put together the entire chase of the of the air wash.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's brilliant.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's really brilliant.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm so curious, you know, in terms of like the application, also, I mean, it's such a different approach for in terms of consumer experience too, you know, because like with dry shampoos, we're applying them constantly.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever we feel like our hair is greasy and or whatever it needs to fresh up, we're constantly applying it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But with this product, it's not like that, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, what was your what was the thought behind this three-day?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it lasts for three days, that whole you know, idea.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: What how did you achieve that?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would kind of love to kind of hair what you kind of uh what was your experience about the about the air wash.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of the three-day, it was usually it's it's three to four days when people kind of go and kind of have the wash the hair.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Those and the ability to kind of keep the hair fresh the next day here and be able to kind of safeguard it from from pollution as well as kind of uh not irritate the scalp.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that that's that was the kind of a primary goal, so that it serves as a true refresher at least for three days, which means you can you can literally kind of go from week to week.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that it's really, really good because from my experience to answer you know what you're asking me, I have a phenomenal experience with this product because for me, it has completely revolutionized the the even the need to use a dry shampoo.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I personally never used dry shampoos regularly because of multiple reasons.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The number one reason was what one of the ones that you mentioned earlier, which is that it just builds residue on your scalp and it just doesn't feel good.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it never for me, the typical dry shampoos, they never felt good for my actual hair.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It weighed everything down, my style was never, you know, able to be achieved.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But with this, it's like I can apply it to my hair.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, matter if it's like right out of the shower or a little bit after, it does not mess with anything.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And also more importantly, I forget that it's even there.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't even realize that I've used it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, after I've used it, I don't, I don't even worry about it anymore.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I can skip a day if I have to skip another day.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I my hair is it's looking like it actually shows that it's not getting greasy, it's not getting, you know, weighed down and bogged down, which is really easy for me personally.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know for all the people listening out there, but for me, it's like I have really long hair, so you can immediately tell when it like the sebum production is kind of out of control or whatever.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this has helped me a lot.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't even tell the next day or even the day after sometimes that you know I haven't I had a hair wash day yet.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really, really innovative.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, I'm sold completely.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm a forever customer because it's the first time I've used a dry shampoo and not had problems, you know.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still happy to hear that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And did you notice what did you think about that?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you spray it, it feels like wet.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: What what what was CO thought about that?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it gonna disturb your style?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: What it was it that was the main thing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: My first thought about that was how am I going to use any styling creams or any kind of mousse or anything with this, right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I I tried it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I did was I sprayed this on my hair.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing I did.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It did definitely took me aback because I wasn't expecting that, you know, consistency and it it was different, but I just kept on styling my hair normally.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized once it dried down that it had it absolutely doesn't mess with any of my styling products.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't interrupt them, it doesn't alter their performance at all.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very shocked.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was in a good way.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, this is you know, it's invisible that it's there.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like at first, it's a little like you know, weighing down because it is wet, you know.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you think that, oh, is this gonna dry down or not?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is this gonna, but it did, and it didn't take very long.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was definitely surprising, but like I was so happy with the end result, like the first time I ever tried it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really great.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's precisely, I mean, when you kind of think about everything that we've been kind of uh creating right from day one, whether it's the mask or the oil or the or the dry shampoo, even the shampoos, the our entire focus has been how do you kind of give you give you that hair that you know literally kind of a one is it feels fresh, it feels new, and it has that softness, it has that it it's it has a weightlessness, it has a bounce, which you expect out of healthy hair, not a curated hair.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we always kind of think about architecture.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we're lucky that we are able to kind of accomplish that with a challenging category like this and deliver it in a sustainable manner.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the product has kind of uh done uh the the uh amazingly well.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've been out of stock now, literally like ever since we kind of uh launched it twice, twice or twice we've been out of stock by now.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I mean I can see why, because it's not just that it's a really, really great product in its category, but also I'm the most impressed by the fact that how inclusive this is.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there have been, I mean, I can't even remember growing up and having a dry shampoo option, much less something that worked for dark hair.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I have almost like you know, jet black hair.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I use anything, it's immediately visible.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like it, there's no like, you know, space for me to mess around too much because then you know it compromises my overall look and that gray and that ashy looks come out.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But this product is complete for me, it's so innovative because there are so many women and men, and it doesn't matter what shade of color your hair is and your strands are, you can still use it and you can feel good about using it.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really am so impressed by that.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what was the process of making it like that?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you have to kind of rethink the color?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, was there any issue with like you know, any of the chemicals having a color to them or having some sort of residue or anything?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: The formulation itself was super challenging.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, one of the key areas was about liquid particle emulsion systems and how do you deliver them using in a fine mist where you're not leaving behind a white cast?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh kind of uh that's where we iterated through several different structures of the microbes and the formulation with and with the alcohol.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you normally people say, you know, alcohol is bad, but in this case, the alcohol was a delivery medium for the for the odor binding protein and the ketain peptide, and that could kind of uh how does it get into the hair yet without dry, we there's no it's not kind of a drying up the hair as you normally kind of think about.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the formulation kind of took took took many, many years.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: The odorant binding protein, which is a critical component of the is what is a challenge in the first place.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fusion protein.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, right from the research that went into the into the genomic databases to architecting a fusion protein, and then kind of figuring out how we can actually express this protein uh through biotech means.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: As you know, it's not easy.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Microbes, they're very eccentric creatures.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: You feed them sugars, you feed them uh temperature, uh pH regulation, oxygen, and then you kind of put have them express in a certain way at, say, let's say in a hundred-liter reactor, and you think you kind of have done your job, then you kind of transfer them to a 500-liter reactor, they behave very, very differently.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to kind of go back and rework the strains, see which one will express it the way you want.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that biotechnology in that sense is more like art and science put together.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this took us almost about two years, where we were kind of working on just scaling up the odor binding protein production through biotech means and scaling it up to where we would kind of be able to meet its needs in a beauty industry.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it happens in the pharma industry, you got scale over there, but for this, we had to write from designing the molecule to scaling it up, optimizing it, it all had to be done in-house.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And this was one of the first times where we usually you create a molecule and then it takes another two years to go about preparing the formulations before you launch it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: We parallel tracked the molecule development and the formulation development, which posed a huge challenge for our innovation NPD teams.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: But luckily, and uh I we came up with a product that we all collectively feel super proud of, and a product that actually kind of, like you said, serves that need of hair refreshing without weighing down the hair, without fragrances, without creating those white white costs, and without irritating your scalp and and or microbiome in the in the in the first place.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, kind of gives you that feeling of the next day here for a few years.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is the I think that's the very fascinating uh component about this is that the there's a lot of buzz right now, you know, in the industry about the microbiome as it pertains to the scalp and scalp health in general.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think people are finally coming around to this realization that scalp health is skin health.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to treat it with just as much, you know, um interest as we do with like facial skin.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so with the scalp, one thing that I always, you know, wonder about is this distribution of microflora on the scalp, you know, and how that affects things that you discussed previously, like semen production, odor production.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what were I'm just curious if you can educate us a little bit about this because you know, what were some of the things that you found in in the research, you know, coming up to this product about the microbiome and scalp health that you you found to be very interesting to consider as you were, you know, approaching this product?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had to kind of say the microbiome has been one of the most fascinating areas of research.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we are still so early.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of uh we heard a lot about gut, uh, brain, my uh the bi-directional microbiome access, and the fact that in this case it it impacts everything, right?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's our cognitive functions, our synaptic lapses, our emotion, everything we kind of are learning only now.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is this is not just about the gut.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: What we fundamentally, what we kind of are learning is that human beings are more like holobions.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are kind of a composite system where there is no physical boundary.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: This composite system is a shared metabolism between our biology and the microbiome microbiome.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that this the symbiosis of this is what kind of actually leads to a healthy skin, a healthy gut, a healthy scalp.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know that we got probably more than uh 10 times more bacteria on a in a on a system than our nucleotid cells?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is crazy, it is crazy.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that uh it's not our biology influencing the microbiome, it's not that physical barrier, it's the it's these metabolites that these that these microflora cre create that in turn influences the host genome through the epigenome.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: It these these metabolites interact with our DNA, with our RNA, with our histone levels, everything that we can kind of think about.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're talking about, for example, collagen production in the skin, it's not happening by itself.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's happening because you got you got a certain metabolite from a from a from a microbe, which in turn is reducing kind of a pro-inflammation cycotines and also supporting collagen homeostasis.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that in turn is increasing collagen production in the skin.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you got to kind of think about this in a more aggregated manner than we have ever kind of thought about, and more so when it comes to the scalp, which is one of the least understood areas because a lot of more work has been done in the last few years in the gut and the skin, but scalp is the least understood, and that's where we came up realizing that the microbiome is playing such a critical role in our hair fiber protection, in our scalp health, and in our hair growth.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: What we came up realizing is you got this distribution of um both the bacteria and the various fungi, fungus, fungi strains.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And let's take, for example, the the whole distribution of bacteria changes dramatically after bleaching regimen.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you have one set of bacteria being replaced by another set of fungi, and that in turn also changes with you are a male, female, your your age, if you're more than 50, your hormonals, everything changes.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is these set of bacteria in turn determine how healthy our hair fiber stays.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: There, when they are not in synbiasis, you have a certain another kind of bacteria that kind of uh gets onto the onto the hair fiber and it it gets activated by the u light, and then it degrades the cysteine bonds in the hair, making the hair fiber weaker.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a certain bacteria which will produce glycerol, your propionic acids, the fatty acids, and that in turn kind of keeps the sebum function in a more regulated manner and keeps it hydrated.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You have certain bacteria which actually influence the PPRs in the near the hair bulb and create these also create these antimicrobial peptides, and that in turn impacts the hair bulb and therefore the ability of the hair bulb to kind of a generate kind of a you know keep generate healthy hair.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then the other part, their ability to manage pro-inflammatory kind of uh responses, triggers, everything is kind of a function of the microbiome system.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Also, another area that we kind of uh we we saw is that when you have when you have this, the system gets out of balance.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: You got yeast like malestesia come up and they love they produce these enzymes which which degrade the the sebum so that they can feed on it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: But a part of it, they can't feed all of it, so part of it, what it doesn't, it kind of triggers uh proliferation of kerinocytes, and that becomes dandruff.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So everything that we're gonna kind of think about hair, the right from the fiber, the scalp health to the oxidative stresses to the to the generation of healthy hair and the maintenance of the hair bulb, everything has got to do with the microbiome.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is crazy, and you know one thing you brought up that it made me think of this was the formation of uh protective bio.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Films that the bacteria create.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we never discuss this, I think, in the normal general consumer conversations around this, but our our bacteria and on our scalp, they're creating some bacteria are creating these things called biofilms, and they're actually protecting us against UV and you know, damage that's done to our scalp through environmental factors, through a lot of the other factors you mentioned, Sabine, where it's like, you know, there's an interaction at all times, you know, between different microbiota and stuff on on the actual scalp.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very interesting area of study from that angle as well, which makes me think of, you know, what you guys have done here with, you know, this innovation, that is something that I think is even more fascinating.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that that microfilm, you know, disruption that happens with a lot of classical aerosol products, that's more detrimental to the microbiome, I think, of the scalp than anything else, because aerosols will destroy everything.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, aerosols, I mean, I there's a whole area of lung physiology research, you know, that is dedicated to understanding the long-term, you know, detriments of using aerosols.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if that's what's happening to your lungs, which are one of the most resilient organs, you know, it's one of the most resilient organs in the body, what do you think it's doing to like the protective biofilms, you know, that are present on their your skin surface, your scalp surface?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's to me, it's very interesting from that angle as well, you know, in the sense of like preventative care.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's where I think with hair care, I get very fascinated as a consumer because, you know, hair care has to be treated also from this like health angle, you know, in the sense of like we want to always do things that are, yes, effective, but also preventative in a lot of ways, you know, in ways that we might not fully understand yet with science.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like K-18, like you guys are always on that front, you know, you're always pushing that boundary in such a cool way because you're applying biotech and you're not compromising already existing, you know, physiological systems at play that are actually maintaining what our system does, how our body works.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I love that.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love your approach.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's so, so cool.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ikta, uh, thank you.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I you couldn't have kind of articulated that in a more amazing fashion.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and this is, I think, I think this is where the the opportunity for us is about learning biology and how under a deeper understanding of biology can actually kind of help us recalibrate the entire beauty world.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is the more we understand biology and and also kind of as I as we spoke earlier, looking in an aggregate fashion where it's more the biology is a host, and you have the you have the microflora, and together they work.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this microflora protects the entire system, like you said, as a biofilm, but the fact that it goes deeper than that and actually activates the internal biosystem, whether skin, scalp, is the pathway to actually kind of creating products and supporting our biology's inherent functions.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's when our communities win, and that's when we win as brands.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is not about depriving our biology of its essential functions because our biology has got its own intelligence.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It can self-cleanse, it can self-moisturize, self-hydrate, it has all those abilities within this system.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the more healthy we can keep that system, the more and we can boost that system, the more our ability to manage our day and aggressors, environmental aggressors that largely accelerate our aging process in our hair, in our scalp, and uh and uh and uh and on our skin.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love that you you're approaching this, you know, this whole category of wellness and care from this angle, because I I think there has never been a more you know exciting time for biotechnology and beauty than right now.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is like really, you know, a new frontier.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I see it all the time where brands are trying to push the envelope.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, Sabine.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: K18 to me is just it's always just the leader in hair care.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are just you know, for me, number one, because of of this approach, because of exactly what you said, you know, it for so many years, like, you know, I as a science student and many science students, anyone listening that's gone into biology or medicine, we all know that like physiology is at the that is the number one basic understanding, you know, and many times the products that we use that we consume, whether it's whatever category it's in, they're disrupting our physiology, which in turn is the gen, it's the definition of creating pathology.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I never understand, you know, sometimes when when brands come out with these things that are not, they're not changing the old ways, you know what I mean?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that really frustrates me because the idea is to, like you said, it's to preserve, it's to really work with whatever our body is doing because it's such a beautiful system, it's such an intricate system.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And our job is not to alter that, it's to aid it through our technologies and through our innovations.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, I'm I'm such a fan of your work, Savine.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I cannot rave enough.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, give me an hour and I'll keep talking, you know, about how much I love K18 and what you're doing.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: But but you make a you make a really great point about supporting and boosting the biology and working with that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's when when you better serve biology, can you actually kind of better serve our hair, our skin, and everything that we kind of do?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not about depriving the skin, depriving the scalp, depriving the hair of its inherent function.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: The more we can kind of work towards that.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the other fact is that ultimately this the microbiome and these microflora, because of their life cycle, they had a better ability to kind of uh see the what are the changes happening in the in the environment.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're more sensitive to that and pass on that those information transcription to the internal biology.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: But earlier, all of this was getting passed on through generations because there was natural births, so between the vaginal, the facial, the microbiomes, and the breastfeeding, it worked.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that's kind of a change.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the only pathway now to kind of a really address it in a holistic manner is one is obviously kind of a how do you kind of do genetic modifying of these bacteria that can produce these cocktail metabolites or and signaling molecules that can activate hair, skin, beneficial pathways, or kind of got to kind of go about taking the supercharged metabolite production pathway where you supercharge the bacteria to produce those greater quantities of targeted benefit agents and prebiotics, or fundamentally kind of also kind of a look at managing quorum sensing, or finally, the how do you kind of have have a more collaborative understanding of the peptides, the proteins, and the bacteria to work together.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to go take that path of supporting and boosting biology to create better beauty and aging outcomes.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really the best approach, and it's the only way.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you know, there was a quote I heard a long time ago.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was still in school at the time, but it literally was uh, you know, basically saying that if you want to learn how to invent anything, or if you want to create anything new, just look at what already exists.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that is literally the body is the most sophisticated system, the most beautifully designed, you know, thing that we can observe, you know, from a science perspective.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So to be able to learn from the biology, to be able to understand it, apply it, and then if we have to modify things to accompany it and you know, help it out, that is just, I mean, that's truly, I think, the most effective route to take.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I completely agree with you with everything you said.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really cool approach.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope to see the beauty industry, you know, hopefully in the next coming decades, we'll see a lot more biotech, you know, emerging because I really feel like that's the future.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing gets wasted in future in nature.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's true.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I was having this conversation actually, I think a week or so ago about how you know there's a lot of chemicals out there in nature that we don't we look at them and we try to isolate them, but what we don't understand is kind of the essence of what you and I have discussed here, which is there is a very intricate system at play that's causing a very, you know, uh synchronized approach to how those chemicals have been created, why they're created, what they're doing, where they fit into the overall picture.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's you know, we can't ignore that part.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like we sometimes as human beings, we get so hyper-focused on the end product, right?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like the end thing, but we never think about the 15 steps in that pathway that it took to get to that point.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where we can learn a lot.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so the beauty industry for me is very exciting in that way because that's where all the innovation happens, you know, uh utilizing all the science.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: But Savine, thank you so much.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: This has been an honor to host you again.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's always such an honor to talk to you and so exciting to learn from you.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for your time and all the wonderful information.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been such a pleasure.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:08
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