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Dr Elsa Jungman Skincare Founder Interview · Skin Anarchy

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• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Hi guys, welcome back to Skincare Anarchy.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: I am super excited about our guest today.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, her line is truly very forward-minded in terms of medical science and you know a lot of really great stuff.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Dr.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Elsa Jungman.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: She is the founder of her self-named line, Elsa Jungman Skincare.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: So welcome, uh, Dr.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Jungman.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Icta.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I want you to get us started because I with your career, because I think a lot of great things must have happened there uh to lead you to such a great concept.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: So can you tell us about your medical journey and your whole journey in in the industry?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so everything started for me a really a while back when I was, as you can hear, I'm originally French.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was born and raised in Paris, uh in France, and uh I started becoming passionate about skin health because when I was 18 years old, I had what we call a toxic shock syndrome.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a very severe bacterial infection that we hear about today that can be caused during your period with the tampon you use, and it can be a deadly uh deadly condition.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I was one of the of the first cases in France when that happened to me.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I got a really strong antibiotic treatment to survive, and and it worked really well.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: But uh what happened is that my skin became extremely sensitive after that experience.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's from all the treatment I got when I was uh at the hospital.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I got a lot of different skin rashes on my body, uh, and and my skin became also super dried.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I never used skincare before, and for the first time I had to do it because my my skin was just so so dry.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, as I was living in France, uh dermopharmaceutical products were a big thing, especially products with sensitive skin.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I had been using that all uh all my life until I moved to the US when I was uh when I was about uh just five years ago.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: But in between, because I was so interested in skin health, I decided to pursue my degree after high school in uh in biology and to specialize in skin biology, skin physiology for my undergrad.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I pursued some uh some research actually at the University of California of San Francisco.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was uh they they have a very famous dermatological research lab there, and I worked with a very famous dermatologist called Howard Maybach, who really transmitted his patient to me on skin health, and I decided actually to do my PhD.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't go to medical school, but I I did my doctorate uh at the University of Paris Sud in France, where I've been studying for many years how products, whether they are cosmetics or medicine, interact and penetrate your skin.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a huge subject for both the medical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic field, especially when we hear all this crazy thing about parabens or sunscreen being absorbed into your bloodstream.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's exactly what I was studying for many years.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was my uh my first expertise, and uh I really enjoyed it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked at at L'Oreal after that for a few years as a as a scientist in in the skin delivery field, and uh, but I decided to quit and and to move to the US in 2015 uh to really work with startups and small biotech companies to um to continue this uh this patient and to learn more regarding all the all the skin health uh part.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's how everything started.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you decided to take your expertise and and do, you know what I mean, do it your your way, which is I think a lot of times people are scared to do that in science.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Branch off and then start your own thing because we're so used to grants and you know what I mean, all this whole system.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, even I remember because I decided to do my PhD, but I knew I wanted to work in the industry because I'm so passionate about consumer and product that I didn't see myself working on the long-term on fundamental project, even though it's so important and essential.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I felt I was called to do something different.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when I interviewed for my PhD, for me, I I would always tell the the principal investigator, like, hey, I'm very interested, but to let you know, I won't do a postdoc.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: After that, I won't make sure they understood my mindset.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and and I had a great PhD supervisor, she's a pharmacist and a professor called uh Arlette Bayer Guffra.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she we really clicked when we met because she she understood exactly what I wanted to do, and she really respected it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And she always encouraged me through entrepreneurship, and and we are still very close today.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's and and after when you as a scientist, when you enter a large corporation like L'Oreal, it's very hard to leave because you have a very good situation, it's uh usually you have like a good salary, and it's uh it's a very pleasant work.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had amazing colleagues, like the scientists were excellent, and my job was super international.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was traveling a lot, so it was super nice, but I knew I wanted to make an impact and and and I had to take uh to take the risk to leave, which was which was a difficult decision to take at the time.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it was.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you know, I think in science we have that stability and stuff, and then it's yeah, so I can imagine it being hard.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to I want you to actually uh tell us all about this uh idea of the microbiome and skin health, because obviously, you know, I I will go on to PubMed and then I'll find 15 articles that don't really tell me anything.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: So um I I'm always left confused.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So can you give our listeners a background into the microbiome and what you kind of your your fundamental understanding?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because I'm not a microbiologist by training.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the microbiome is something I I would say I've learned on the field and I I keep learning about it every day, whether it's for our own research that we do at the company or by going to conferences and reading also all those articles.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I was so you know, when I worked at L'Orea like five, six years ago, we would never mention the skin microbiome.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what the microbiome was.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: We would talk about like an acid mantle on the skin or this microorganism there, but it was just mentioned.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We would never study them unless it was maybe for dundruff or for some very specific applications.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when I moved to the US, I had the chance to work with a biotech company who was actually pioneering the research on the microbiome fields.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I discovered this world and I became so passionate and interested about it because all my career I'd been working on the skin, that is like uh actually the what we call the skin barrier function is a is a brick and mortar wall system that protects your body, like a wall is protecting your house.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's seen as a very passive system that has no living organism, it's really dead cells that are protecting you from aggression.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But now everything was shifting for me because the skin barrier was not anymore just this brick and mortar wall, it's also all these living trillions of microorganisms that you have on your skin and that are key to be healthy.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when I discovered that, I discovered the world, and all my knowledge of skin and making products became kind of very like, I don't know, it kind of turned upside down my world.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because I'm like, whoa, if there is those microbiome, so the way we define the microbiome for the skin is the is the collection of microorganisms that are living on your skin.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and each of the different organisms you have, whether it's bacteria, it's fungi, uh, it can be a lot of different or even virus, they are here for a purpose.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when you have a healthy skin, usually you have all those microorganisms that that co-live together and produce all these cell, let's say peptide, protein, lipids that will be on your skin and that will really keep you healthy.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we know today that it's essential.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the way we've been doing cosmetic products, the way we've been cleaning and all that never took into account this living barrier before.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it means that products are made with ingredients that can attack and damage the skin microbiome.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's something everybody is learning today.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to kind of rethink completely the way we design product for the skin because you cannot ignore anymore that there are all those microorganisms.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the other thing is that I didn't know that, and I discovered it when moving to the US is that there is an explosion of uh of sensitive skin and uh and skin conditions such as acne, eczema, especially in urbanized area that there was not before.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like pollution causes the stuff too, yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's so yeah, it's multifactorial, it can be our environment, like the pollution, but also anything we apply on our skin because people have never used so many products as today, and yet people are getting more and more skin issues.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it shows that there's something broken, and probably the microbiome is part of what's broken that uh that needs to be fixed.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Now, uh, I want to know from like the like do you what are the bacteria or the things that should be on our skin?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, is there like a a list?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know that they we we don't hear about it much in dermatology.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, there's a it's it's very variable, I would say.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we are doing some clinical research on that ourselves also.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the the two main bacteria that we find that are the most common, and actually it's one that can scare uh people.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: One is called C acnes, uh Qtbacterium acnes.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be called uh, I think propiony bacteria.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Propion, yeah, it was exactly they changed the name recently to C acnes.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I I'll stay it short.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that that bacteria is extremely important, and in all the uh skin analysis we've done, it's a major component you find as a as a bacteria on the skin.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually over 60 to 70 percent of your your whole microflora.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's extremely interesting about this uh this bacteria is that we used to think it was bad because of the name acnes, because of acne, so you want to get rid of it.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, it's way more complicated than that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are different types of C acnes on your skin.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them seem to be more responsible than other for causing acne.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: But overall, uh C acnes is actually a good bacteria that is essential for skin health.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen some research recently that show that in older people who have a drier skin, have less sebum, uh C acness usually is found at lower quantity, and it seems to be linked to skin aging.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, having like a bit of an oily skin with some C acness seems to be something good for your skin and for staying useful.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Opposite to what we think.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it applies everywhere, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: The same concept is like the microbiome, even in our like our gut and everything, we want to be taking like probiotics, you know what I mean, replenishing that flora and really like, you know, I think that can make sense what you're saying, is that we need to know um of everything that's happening on our skin surface.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I want you to talk about um how so then when when you formulated this and you wanted to really bring this to market, how did you um really cut, you know, how did that idea translate for you to what what went behind your products to make sure that our barrier is healthy and you know, all the good stuff?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so what the observation that was for me and why I decided to start my company and develop this skincare line, um, I was really passionate about women's health always, uh, because especially women are the ones suffering the most of skin issues and skin changes by all the product they use and all the hormonal changes we are going through in our life, from puberty to pregnancy to menopause.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's affecting the skin a lot, and we are suffering from it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, my idea was really to kind of help women at first, especially women who identify with sensitive skin, and to try to develop the new generation of product that will be super gentle for the skin because what was available on the market then was either more like uh damn products from France that that were that are good products, but not seen as necessarily very clean by consumer.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would say with some ingredients sometimes that can scare a little the consumer, not very sustainable, and also with uh sometimes still with uh fragrances or with ingredients that could potentially damage the skin microbiome.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other side, there was the rise of this clean beauty movement in the US that was so interested with consumer asking for more transparency, um, asking for more sustainability in product.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, how can we bring the best of the two worlds between like some some expertise on the skin and making product that will really respect your barrier with ingredient and a process that that will uh reassure the consumer and that is better also for the planet?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's how we thought about it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one concept that came to my mind was minimalism because I I I was I was traveling at that time in Korea, it was in 2017 before I started my company, just to look at what was going on there because we were always talking about Korean beauty products, and right, they're always so innovative, exactly.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: They are, and well, there are so many products there, and and and very different from what we have here.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's so interesting.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a baby line with uh that said like minimal uh ingredients, and I was like, Oh, that's very interesting.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why are the minimal ingredients just for babies?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want that for my skin, you know.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think if it's good for a baby, it's good for you.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, exactly.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's how it was like the minimal aspect really interested me because even when I was formulating in the past, I would always try to decrease the number of ingredients in each product.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when I came back from that trip, I'm like, okay, I know I want to do a line for the microbiome, but that's on the very complicated topic for the consumer.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if I talk about minimalism, people will understand that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we can do clean products that are super minimal with no more than 10 ingredients per product.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh also at the same time, by pure coincidence, I was reading a textbook on sensitive skin, and the dermatologist in the book was explaining that you need minimal ingredients and minimal product for sensitive skin.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, oh, that's perfect, because uh that concept is actually even better for your skin.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just uh good for the the planet or for clean beauty, or so that's that that's how it all started, but then it became a real challenge because my idea was to focus on a very simple and minimal routine, about gently cleaning your skin only if you need to, focusing on the face and moisturizing your skin because when you have dry skin, that's not good.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to keep your skin moisture, and most of the moisturizer on the market contain way too many ingredients, fragrances, essential oils.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, we need to really simplify to only what's essential if you need to use cosmetics.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the mindset uh I approached when uh when we started developing the line.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And after I raised some capital, I I hired a cosmetic chemist who had uh who has over 15 years of experience in actually in both cosmetic and clean beauty, and so she helped me develop this brand to make it uh chemically possible, I would say, uh, with the concept we wanted for for both the cleaning technology and and the moisturizing uh IDs.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I did the first our first product that is a moisturizing serum with only three ingredients myself at the time before we even had capital.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I developed that one in my in my kitchen before transferring it to a manufacturer, but that's that's how I started before having our own lab to do all the product development.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that's uh I love that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you had this personal journey with your product, you know what I mean before you came out with it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's really important.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I was gonna actually ask you isn't it part of um like just you know the culture in France?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like the women don't over strip their face by washing it, right?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, am I right about that?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's so different, the culture, and I'm still very shocked by that because when I moved to the US, people would ask me so many questions about skincare.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: My friend in France, they would just ask me, oh, which moisturizer should I get?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe my my mother's friend who were like 60 plus would ask me about, oh, how can we get rid of our wrinkles, but you know, for fun.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But nothing more, nobody goes to the facialist.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's something super rare.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you it's it's a very different mindset.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go to France, you see that people usually buy their product at the drugstore, uh, because there is the dermo-pharmaceutical line with brands like Aven, La Roche-Posaine, all those legacy French brands that are only doing usually super gentle products for your skin.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if you talk to a French person, most of the time they will tell you they have sensitive skin.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and people don't use much, uh, maybe a little makeup and even, and they will never do like chemical peeling and all that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe now it has changed, but at the time when I was still living in France until 2015, nobody was using like toners, essence, serums, uh, doing peelings, exfoliating and all that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: In the US, it was a total opposite.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Super.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like uh no, it's so it makes so much sense.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking about that when you were uh addressing minimalism as being you know in the center of your line.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, yeah, but I think you know, French women do have that approach, and you're innately like the minimalism, yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh also, you know, it's uh I remember when we were talking about the US consumer.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in France, we would always think about the dermal roller and all those super aggressive things, and they say, Yeah, because a US consumer thing, if it burns or if it stings, it means that the product is working.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's also like, whoa, that's quite a concept.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's really true, but that's how we perceived it at the time.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, I know it sounds absurd, it sounds so crazy.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I know.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of brands have marketed that very much.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, well, it tingles upon application.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's not a good thing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I want you to tell me about um, you know, the ingredients here.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, let's let's dive a little bit into your formulation.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do we what did you think was necessary to maintain this healthy microbiome?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a that's a good question.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a lot of back office research that took a long time because I wanted to make sure that first on the paper, each ingredient we would include in the formulation would not cause any interference with the skin microbiome.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so for that I had to I I would work first with different suppliers between France and the US, where they would send me all the products they had available, or I would go to trade show trying a lot of new oils and actives.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if I liked something, then I would start researching it to make sure that it was uh okay to use.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I also look like beyond looking at I really like oils in general because I've been using only our moisturizing oil for the past two years, and I've never really needed to use a cream anymore.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the advantage is that with much less ingredients, you can achieve the same efficacy as a cream that is maybe loaded with dozens of ingredients, and that is way more processed and needs to contain water, and so it needs to contain a preservative system, and then the preservative system, because it's here to kill bacteria, might kill your bacteria on your skin that you don't want.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, oils for that are very interesting.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I research a lot on different oils, and and the first product I created myself, the one I created in my in my kitchen at the time, the startover moisturizing serum, I I decided to work with uh squalan uh because it's uh it's an oil that is um it's only a single lipid uh that is naturally found on your sebum.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the supplier I worked with uh that is from the Bay Area, they have a lot of data on it to be very, very gentle for the skin.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: They even have it in baby product now, which is very reassuring.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um also it's super stable and it has no odor.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that that was like a great uh moisturizing ingredient to start with, and and to make sure there, yeah.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's big enough too, right?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bigger molecule, so it's not gonna like enter into areas.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, yeah, it will stay at the surface.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's here really to make your skin smoother and uh and more moisturized, but it wouldn't it won't whip the size, it should not penetrate your skin at all.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I added another oil called Sasha Inky that I had discovered at a trade show.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's an oil that is originally from Peru, and I really liked it, but it had a strong odor, a strong fragrance.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually found a biotech supplier.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned to them this ingredient that I really liked, and we were like, you know what?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We actually have an organic and refined version.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: We completely stabilized it, and it has absolutely no odor.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, Oh, and I tried it and and the found.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Was just perfect like that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh wow, talk about coincidence.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: That and I was like, oh, that's the best of the two worlds with this Bay Area supplier, this French biotech, everything kind of comes together.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first T Ru product we we launched at the very early days of the company.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I really used it as a reference, and uh that's uh that this has become the moisturizer for so many people.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: They they switched from a cream to just using this moisturizing serum instead of having to have a a bigger routine and and all that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's uh it's enough as it is to to take care of your skin on the on the long term.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: You just need to add your sunscreen and you're good to go.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's a beautiful idea.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I you know, at the beginning I didn't want it to launch this product.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, the formulation is so simple, you know.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: People want to see more technology innovation, but people who work with me were like, No, Elsa, you should launch it, it's such a good product.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end, I'm like, Yeah, sometimes you want to overcomplicate things once it doesn't have to be.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't need to re reinvent the wheel for everything.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's like you don't need to go out of your way with like 18 ingredients all the time.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and also, you know what scares me also is that people don't know how these ingredients interact with each other in a lot of skincare.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: So to have like 20 ingredients in some line, I get a little scared because I'm like, I don't know if you if we fully understand how these molecules work together, you know what I mean?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, that's to me, I think it's scary when I see a line like that.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the minimalism it makes complete sense.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, totally.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when we so we got a lot of feedback from this first product, and based on the feedback I got with the different skin profiles of the people, I was able to create two other products for moisturizing that could match different skin profiles.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: But when it came to creating a cleanser, that was the biggest challenge.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I thought doing the cleanser would be easier because you're like a serum, a moisturizer, you keep it on your face.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: So theoretically I'm like, you can have more skin reaction over time if there's an issue with it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was like a cleanser, it doesn't stay, you just rinse off.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard of a company doing personalized like shampoo or cleanser, and they told me, yeah, you don't care, you don't even need to safety test the cleanser because it doesn't stay on the skin.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this idea that doing a cleanser would be easy, and it was a total opposite.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I did that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: So why was it challenging?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think we did over 150 versions of it.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I worked over a year or two on it with different chemists, and it was really difficult because every time I would have a version, yeah, first I wanted to do an all cleanser to avoid any preservative system.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And because I think all cleanser are more gentle than water-based cleanser in general.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when I uh the first version we've had, whether it was too harsh, so I have sensitive skin, so I would try it and it would make my skin react.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I I would tell the chemist, no, no, no, we need to do something else.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or it was really hard to mix the ingredients we wanted uh together.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I worked a lot on a lot of iteration on a base we had started, but uh I remember someone from the team had a reaction from one of the versions, and I got uh, you know, on when we tried, and it was like, oh shoot, you know, and uh I talked to a dermatologist, my my my professor, and he told me, yeah, no, if someone from your team has a has a reaction like that, you have to dismiss this product, you cannot develop it further because uh statistically it's already too high.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, no, he's right, you know, I cannot take any risk.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to stop the project and start again from scratch with completely different ingredients.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the challenge was always that me, I'm so sensitive to cleanser, that's my big problem, that I would react to almost anything we would create, even if on the paper it was so gentle.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a lot of time.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Can I ask you real fast?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let me ask.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very curious.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I what is it about cleanser that your skin didn't like?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think it's the emulsifier because the way cleanser is created is that you need to have an ingredient called an emulsifier that's here to um to remove like the dirt and all from your skin.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's like some uh missels ingredient that are amphiphilic, that have like uh you know, a water and phase and a lipid, uh, sorry, a nitrophilic phase and a lipidic phase to attract dirt and and lipid, and then once you add water to rinse, it can uh it creates like the the uh foaming uh soaping effect to clean.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm very sensitive to that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a surfactant, exactly.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I'm extremely sensitive to surfactant, and also because I tried too many products on my face by developing product, I think I'm extra sensitive to that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's your own skin.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no, but I think it's interesting, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because now that I'm looking back, I remember so many times where I was trying us uh a new skincare line, the cleanser was I did notice that the redness on my skin, and I never thought about it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's so interesting that you brought that up because we are marketed to believe that the cleanser portion or that step is the most gentle, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like it's not if you think you know it's not, it's the most you're making your skin and changing the whole environment.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and the issue with cleanser in general is that they ripped away your your natural oils that you have on your skin that you need to not have your skin dried out, and it can also attack a little your skin barrier, both the microbiome and and the brick and mortar wool system, which is not good.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the issue is that I think we we got used to overclean our face.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I see it especially with consumers who have acne, for example.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: If their skin is like not completely clean, they break out because the skin cannot stand having a little oil or anything uh left.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like they they use their skin to really strip it out, which I think is really bad on the long term.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's hard to rebalance and and to get used to only something very gentle that won't make you red.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like me, every time I some friend would tell me, Oh, I love this cleanser, and I have an old cleanser, I would try it, and and it's horrible because I would get really red, then it'd go away, but it's just not a nice experience.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's why it was a big challenge to do the cleanser.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I can imagine, yeah, because like you know, you're seeing, I feel like everything you're talking about is almost like new territory too in skincare.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like no one's really having this conversation about you know having the best cleanser.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see a lot of cleanser-based lines or you know what I mean, a lot of initiative in that area.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that you really formulated this product as a part of your routine.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's very important, you know.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was having I was having a conversation with somebody and they were saying how it's important when you try a line, you should be trying that line's entire, you know what I mean, their stuff, like do the cleansing step, do the oil step.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, um, what's your advice to people in terms of like, you know, well, people like me who don't want to let go of all their skincare addiction, right?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: And like focusing on what your line.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if I were to like start your line, how long should I be using it to see results?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: First, yeah, like for any new skincare you try, because I've experienced it, I would tell people don't completely change your routine overnight.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: First, if your skin feels sensitive, if you feel you have a skin issue, well, of course, if it's medical, you need to talk to your doctor.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: If that's not the case, if it's more you feel like your skin doesn't like the skincare, just try to stop as much as you can, even everything that's ideal, and let your skin breathe a little for a few days, ideally, even a few weeks, before you start trying new product.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because the issue, and what I don't like to see is when people buy my product to add it up to their routine, you know.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, the idea is the less is more, it's not to just add an extra step.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or like, okay, you want to simplify, so maybe try to see if you switch your moisturizer by our moisturizing serum, how is your skin feeling?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do it, so especially if you have more like a sensitive, reactive skin, or if you have acne, for example, because a lot of people with acne we still use regular skincare.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Try it on a small skin patch for a few days and see how your skin likes it or not.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you react to it, just don't use it, it's not for you.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe your skin doesn't like to have holds.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, maybe you know, just to be always super careful with anything you try, whatever the claims are behind.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and learn from that too.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like if something's not working, like go into the ingredients and figure out what it is you're reacting to.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like exactly, yeah.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I also want to ask you, I want to ask you a question that's very random, but like um, in terms of people who define their skin types, right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you what your opinion of that is, because I don't know what personally, I don't think we can do that because I think it's more a much more broader view than just saying this is the skin type that this person has, so these products will work.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's the it's it's a bigger view where you're right, the microbiome is involved.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's an entire inflammatory cascade that occurs in every skin type, you know what I mean, regardless of what it is, whether you have too much oil or little.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So can you talk about that a little bit from the scientific standpoint?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's a good question.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, we have a personalized quiz on our website where we ask people their skin type.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, it's very informative.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I like people to ask themselves at first is to think about um uh if they feel their skin is like more on the dry side, more on the oily side, more combination, meaning uh do you have like is your T zone oily and your cheek maybe more dry, or is your skin just very dry?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just to think about that and to let us know.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: But then what I like to ask is is your skin changing through the months?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because with um with hormonal changes, or depending on weather changes or where you live, your skin can change through the months.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can either get break count sometimes, you can get even drier skin from some time of the months.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like it really depends on your skin profile.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to know about those curves about how is the skin evolving?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a balanced skin that tends to break out a little?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a dry skin that gets even drier at some point?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just to get like the macro view of the skin and understanding the impact.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would always ask: what is your skin reactive to if it is reacting?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is it to stress, is it to pollution, is it to temperature difference, is it to what you eat, is it to skincare?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I like to dig into that because you you realize that actually a lot of people who take the quiz, the majority respond that their skin is sensitive to mental health, uh and not to skin care necessarily.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when you realize that you need to have a really holistic approach when it comes to your skin health.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to understand your skin type and what's good for you, you you have first to understand and connect with your skin, understanding okay, how does my skin feel and what does it seem to react to to try to understand those different factors that that can have an impact on you before you even try the product, you know?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just uh I completely agree.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, I completely I think you're making a great point there.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I you know there's not enough curiosity, I think, in people too.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel like if I'm gonna react to something, if I have a bad reaction, I'm gonna go look it up, you know.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, as I think that's the science background in us talking, you know, we are all researchers at heart.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I think people need to really um we need we are the best critics, you know, sometimes.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: So understanding our skin like any other organ, I think is very important.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and if you're not happy with your skin, if you feel your your skin has some sort of reaction issue, don't go and buy a new product line to try to say solve it.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be like you need first to like kind of stop what you're doing.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you think it's a medical condition, you you go cancelled.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: If not, you just you just stop using product and and see how your skin reacts with no product, because maybe it was just the product who was making your skin feel unbalanced, and really to try to observe those different touch points around you that could also have an impact.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and for us women, very often it can be just the hormone changes through the months that has impacts.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and even dermatologists today they have no solution for hormonal acne for women, even if you're 50, 60 years old, so you should not think that uh a new brand will have served that issue necessarily.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody really wonder how that actually affects the microbiome, also like the hormonal changes.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, have you seen any scientific papers on that?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not really, and that's actually one of our interests because uh when I realized that skin, uh that sensitive skin was really correlated to hormonal changes, I started looking for more uh papers about that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I even asked my uh my professor in dermatology because he's been in the field for so long.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how come I cannot find more than two or three papers about the impact of hormones on skin health?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: I we only understand that the skin barriers is diminished around like ovulation and periods, for example.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we know also that things are happening during menopause, but not many data.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, for religious region, historically, not much has been studied around that.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and on the microbiome, I think the last time I checked a few months ago, I couldn't find even one paper on uh the microbiome.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: For like uh the vaginal microbiome, they've done a little research, but for the skin microbiome, there's nothing.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing, nothing exactly.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, I know, and and that's why I even asked because it's like, why aren't we studying it?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh especially, um, I think something came out.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, a lot it's been a couple of years where they said that our microbiome, and I think they were talking the whole body with this, not just the skin.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a fingerprint, you know, and it's different for all of us because there are changes, and you know what I mean, certain things.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I there's a it was a big article, and that made me think like, well, this should be applied to every single organ in our body because everything, every area of the body has a different, you know, environment that it maintains.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I'm I'm curious, you know, why no one is doing the research.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh that's why it really needs to be done, like to to look at the impact of uh of hormones and overfactor on the microbiome and and really the skin barrier to because I feel we we on before we understand that, I don't see how we can innovate in terms of product if we don't know what's going on.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's why science it has to be at the heart of this stuff, you know.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's very important.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyways, I I I love this.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: I really love what you're doing, and I'm so excited that you have such a strong, you know, foundation on which all of your products are, you know, they're founded, and uh that's very important to somebody like me because I you know I really appreciate that science-backed discovery-driven approach.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I really want to congratulate you on that.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you so much.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I really appreciate that.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, so you know, everyone listening, please, please go check out Dr.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Jungman's uh skincare line.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, Elsa Youngman, and just check their check out their website, check them out on Instagram.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna put all the links in our cover art.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you guys have any comments or questions, um then leave them in the comments and I will pass them along.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much, Elsa.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: This was wonderful.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Edka.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: I had such a good time.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, so I hope you love that episode.
• 37:28
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• 37:32
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• 37:35
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• 37:50
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• 38:07
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• 38:10
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• 38:16
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• 38:21
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• 38:27
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• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.