Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is a very, very special episode. We're going to be diving deep into the world of clean beauty today. And I could not think of a better brand to come and educate us on this topic and just kind of have a conversation than OG Beauty. So without further ado, please welcome the co-founder of OG, Abbott Storm. Welcome, Abbott. I'm so honored to have Steve.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, actually. It's great to be here. I'm so excited to be a part of this podcast. And I think it's really amazing that you're bringing a voice to this space in this way. And um we're just excited to participate in your channel.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm very, very excited. And thank you so much for the kind words. They really mean a lot because I think, as a lot of our listeners are, I'm a huge beauty geek, you know, so it's very rare that we get to learn. Yeah, same. And uh, you know, it's rare when you get to dive in, though, you know, about topics that are just so big and they're hard to wrap your head around, you know, especially as a consumer. I when I look at OG, I mean, I'm gonna kind of throw this to you in a minute, but honestly, as a consumer when I look at OG, you guys have been around enough to where we trust you, you know, we trust the brand. I trust the brand. I knew about you long before we connected for the show. And it's rare for me as a consumer in the clean beauty space to find brands like that, you know, and then to understand what it takes to stay here, you know, in a meaningful way. So, with all that said, uh, I'd love for you to kind of walk us down memory lane. Tell us about yourself, what got you into the industry?
SPEAKER_01Well, I love, I love that you love, I do think that you can't do this without loving beauty. And it was, um, you know, I as soon as you said that, my face just lit up, but I would turn the camera around and show my desktop, which is just it's like a it's an explosion of I even I have a pile of uh jojoba seeds of these organic jojoba seeds, which are a key ingredient in OG. I have bottles, I have packaging, I have, you know, products from from other brands in the marketplace. I just I love the I love the newness of beauty and the constant reinvention of products and uh how we think about ourselves and the face that we present to the world. And also just um, you know, those those results. Like, you know, it's um my background before we started OG was that I was making products
for bigger brands, uh, working behind the scenes, making some of the global best sellers. And we would come up with product concepts. We had a lab that would make a prototype, and then I would work with the global marketing teams, bring that, you know, do all the testing and the develop, development, bring that concept to fruition. Um, and uh, then we would, of course, produce it at these massive scales. And, you know, there there were these moments where I was keeping an organic kitchen at home, and I knew so much of I learned early on, so much of what we put onto our skin is absorbed that I really wanted to start using that criteria that I was using for food for beauty products. So uh I started search, you know, searching and shop. I love I love to shop, shopper here. So trying to find those um effective, you know, I always say not getting any younger here, those effective products that actually had those values, organic, natural. And it turns out very hard to find, right? So yeah. Um there was a and then and then along the way, there were a couple of gross out moments, like where uh we had a a big um brand that did a a ban on the microplastic beads, to which aligned with some state governments. So it just goes to show how important it is um to have legislation around this space. Some state governments had banned the plastic micro beads. And then I, you know, I was talking with our lab. I said it's not really gonna impact us because we're not making those body scrubs and exfoliators, those products where you think of like a lot of plastic beads. And it turned out that the plastic beads were like the number one ingredient in the lip gloss. We just melted them down real hot. So there were moments like that where I just thought, oh my goodness, no, I've been giving that to my my mom. My mom, I use that product, my mom uses that, like the it's friends and family. So I just thought, and at the same time, I was exploring all these amazing new ingredients that were coming out, totally natural biofermentation, clinical activity. And what that means is something like the eight ofized flower plant stem cells in our seeds of use serum, clinical results in 30 days to brighten skin by over 200%, 200 times the leantic uh antioxidant content of pure vitamin C in those leantipodic acids that we test for in every batch. So there's just so much amazing science and progression and evolution in the natural ingredients. At the same time, I was exploring all these organic standards as a maker of products. I wanted to incorporate these third-party standards that bring so much trust and scrutiny into the product manufacturing. And I was one of the first in the country to get our company certified to one of these organic standards. And so I just was a bit frustrated because I didn't see brand, I thought, okay, we're gonna have this organic standard and everybody's gonna like rush to our door and say, I want to make an organic product. And it wasn't, it wasn't quite happening. And it's it's because it's it's challenging. There's technical challenges and you have to you have to really become a you know, a cosmetic chemist and a regulatory expert. And I think that for some of those reasons that uh brands don't do it and just regular old users like us don't have a hard time scanning and understanding product ingredient labels, etc. And looking for these, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, it's really so I didn't I don't want to interrupt, but like honestly, like everything you're saying is like speaking to me as a consumer so much because I remember when I discovered you guys, I was actually really happy because I as much as I love I love science, you know what I mean? And for me, consume like as a consumer, beauty, like no matter what it is, skincare, beauty, whatever, I look for the science in that as a naturally as a consumer. But I love how you you explained it because the clean standard that I wanted as a consumer was a gray box in this industry. There was no way to tell. And then the all the greenwashing and the you know what I mean, like all the BS around like, well, we are clean. And it's like, well, where's your proof? Like, how do you prove that you're clean? And you know, so it just it felt like it was like a snowball that happened at some point in the beauty industry of like everyone's saying clean, everyone's talking about this, but then no one's educating about it. I mean, in just five minutes, you've told me more than I think I learned, you know what I mean, in a in a span of time as a consumer looking for clean products. And so I'd love for you to kind of talk more about that in terms of the formulation side where we can start to understand as consumers, like what are we really missing out on when it comes to truly clean ingredients and their true potential in a formulation?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I too look for clean. And this is one of the things we struggled early on in the, I'm gonna call it a movement, in the movement
to define clean. And we actually it the the word clean came around later. At first, we started it as okay, certified organic. That's really we did all natural. And then that term kind of got um, you know, there was some greenwashing applied to all natural. And so then it became unclear and people didn't trust it. And so then we started these free from lists where we would make a product that was free from this and free from that and free from that. And it just that list got long and it was harder to uh market, I think, and talk about and embrace as consumers. It was hard to embrace a free from message. Yeah, and so then somebody started saying clean. And it's it's such a smart term because I think we all get it. You know, we all conceptually get it. And I think what's happened though is it's become so popular that, like at the time, the word all natural, it's been there's been greenwashing around the claim clean. And I think that's where, you know, we have to we can have a conversation in a really general way about what um, you know, what it what it means. And I think we still all hold it as a value, but uh do, you know, should plastic micro beads or plastic waxes or silicones or these really harsh synthetic preservatives or other harsh sort of synthetic chemicals or petroleum-drive chemicals are those clean? I think it's it's an open conversation. And I for for OG, I mean, this is okay, so this is where OG comes in. And it's it's totally a closed topic. We say absolutely not, those are not clean. We have these independent standards that we use for natural out naturality, that's an internationally defined standard. And then we have this um US definition of organic, and we're certifying to that organic standard. An independent third party comes in, they check it, they make sure that we're not doing any of this crazy petroleum can of, you know, we're not pumping oil out of the ground to put it on our face. And um, our third party certifier ensures that. So we have that that and I have one right here. We have that NSF organic seal. So that's the actual seal, and we have the certification language on the other side of the, you know, certified to the NSF standard by our certifier. So everybody is willing to put their stamp on that product. And one of our teams says certified equals certain. And it's that sense of certainty we feel brings that luxury aspect to the brand because people, you know, we don't want to have to be thinking and about like, can I trust this product? I want to look good. I how can I use this product without being concerned that it's causing other health consequences? And and what we found is that these organic formulas actually work better. You know, we get that youthful appearance, that glow, that health from within that we're really, I think that we're really seeking in beauty products.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, you know, that's that was actually going to be one of my next questions for you because I love the finish of the products. And as a brand that is so focused on, you are focused on the organic and the the clean side, you've still created the space and prestige beauty that is like it's rivaling all these other, you know, like companies that are saying, well, we have this finish. And you know, they kind of use that as their marketing, right? It's like this is gonna give you an airbrushed look or like a whatever. Like that's the selling point in the cosmetics realm, right? And so yeah, I mean, I'm just curious. Like, I just would love for you to speak on this topic about how you like what what were some of the things that you had to kind of struggle with internally, or maybe some like war stories of where it was like, no, we're gonna get this the way we want for the consumer to feel like from the makeup side, from the application side, but we're not gonna give up certain things, you know, like we're not gonna compromise on on certain scientific stuff.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I mean, I think there's so many ways to look at it. So I to answer that story exactly, I think a big, a big one that's a recent story of something that presented a real technical challenge. What is our um our complexion perfecting tinted serum? Perfection perfection tinted serum. That is a very moisturizing, medium to high coverage um tinted moisturizer foundation. And we it we really feel like it covers all of those because it has amazing skincare benefits with a blend of treatment um ingredients that actually has been clinically proven to reduce the size of pores and to prevent acne, which of course, with a topical makeup, what are we doing? We're we're covering any kind of imperfections. We want to see that instant perfect canvas of the face. Like the last thing you we want is a makeup that's falling into our pores and just making us our complexion look worse or exacerbating any underlying problems with our skin that we are putting on the makeup to hide in the first place. So it's it's has hyaluronic acid, vitamin C. So it's brightening and evening, it's um improving the look of skin over time, not just concealing anything that we're trying to hide. So that was a technical challenge because it's skincare, it's makeup, it's pigment. Um, and you're trying to get all that together in one bottle that uh just you know holds together and feels great through its entire use cycle. So in that case, we went into the supply, we were having trouble stabilizing that formula and make, you know, making it feel great and perform great. And we went into the supply chain. And this is some, this is a benefit of our our size now and our longevity and the you know, the respect our team has earned in the industry. We worked with one of our suppliers who had a novel um pigment dispersion technology. So that's taking those mineral pigments and stabilizing them in the formula. Um, and we got that company organic certified so they could use our organic materials and then uh, you know, stabilize these pigments. And we actually now um brought that product to market um thanks to everybody's efforts. And we uh won um an award actually uh from Cosmo. We got the Cosmo Holy Grail this year.
We're very excited. We appreciate their recognition so much um for best tinted moisturizer, and we have a patent pending on that formula, which is very it's hard to get a it's hard to get a patent in cosmetic formulations because there's you know a lot has been done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, that's really cool. And I, you know, I really hats off to you for for pushing that you know envelope forward. I know that people are very skeptical with like skincare-infused beauty products, that's something I've seen a lot of online, but I'm not gonna lie, there are many products in my collection personally that I feel like do serve very well as skincare and makeup. And for me as a consumer, somebody who's um quickly approaching 40, I love that. You know what I mean? I don't have time for five steps for makeup. You know, I'm gonna use that kind of the kind of product you just showed me. Like I'm gonna use that. That's gonna be my one and done in the morning, out the door. And I think we kind of now, and and correct me if if you disagree with me, but right now, with the way I see makeup, especially, we're so focused on like, how can we complicate this more? Because it feels like minimalism is getting a bad reputation for some reason.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I love this question because it's really uh it's a topic of ongoing debate for us. Where is makeup and the industry going? And I think our our big observations and our big questions are around, you know, how do how it how is our routine going to evolve? Um, I think, you know, now that we're in this post-pandemic world, I do think and with and with social media where we all can understand how to do pretty quick makeup like a makeup artist. And we all have our, you know, we all have our little tricks and to and it's like a serum and a sunscreen at least and a cleanser. And so it's those, those steps build in really quickly. And I think people are willing to do it. I I know I certainly am when I see the results. Yeah. And so, and you know, maybe a little concealer here or there under my sunscreen. And, you know, there's all these little, we all have our tricks and um, you know, a great organic lip gloss, which we just launched last year with a just a hint a tip, you know, it's so um it's surprising how quickly the steps build and how they have a reason, even when they're multitasking. I mean, just because you're using a concealer in addition to other products, I mean, doesn't I think at the same time we want to be addressing the look of our of our under-eye dark circles or eye bags. Um, you know, we don't, we want to be doing like I think in terms of multitasking, that's what I think that's the beauty of this uh makeup skincare infusion is that you you get to fewer products by combining the efficacy of a skincare and the efficac and the immediate effect of a makeup over an area where you might be treating a blemish spot. You know, we want to be improving the skin, treating the scar, lightening the look of um the appearance of dark circles or scarring. So at the same time that we're concealing that spot. So I think that's where the multitasking trend is going. And I do think that um, you know, we're always thinking about like where the makeup look is going. And we've been in this glow moment for a long time, and that works for OG so much because I can go back to our jojoba glow face oil and how johoba is such an important part of our story. But what how is the makeup look evolving? And I think that OG um really exists in this space where we are um, you know, no matter how many products, no matter how much coverage, we are still speaking in an active dialogue with people who are going for a natural finish. It's natural colors, um, but just like extreme natural beauty. I think that's where we're playing. So um, you know, we are going to uh restage our, we have a finishing powder, we're going to restage that next year because it's such a there is like this play of there's glow and there's matte. And it's like, how do we exist in that dual duality of finishes? And you know, where where is the where is the look? Where is our look going? Like who are we patterning? And I think that we're going towards, I think um contouring continues to be huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, our crystal, yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, you you hear this all the time. And then our um our crystal contour is our best selling, but like that speaks to that, has that blush bronze highlight. But I think just even like I think we are seeing a lot of like chiseled, chiseled features, a lot of light on the uh in the center of the face, and then a lot, you know, a lot of um I think Matt, I think Matt is coming in, but this is the some of that is my personal opinion, and it's just you know, what are we seeing? What are we seeing in people's makeup who are making news? I mean, that's often what I how I am sort of contextualizing where the trend might be going. And it's it's a very much an open conversation, and there's a lot of different, very valid viewpoints. And the great thing about our products is that you can use them in a number of different ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I love this one because you were talking about lip lippies earlier. This one, the oil, the scale. Oh my freaking God. I love this thing. This is like a lifesaver for someone like me because I literally never have anything on me or like lip gloss gets too shy. It's just so many issues. But this is like phenomenal. And so, like, that's what I'm talking about, Abbott. Like, you guys have products that are like it's not like okay, I get it. Like, we had clean beauty and it was cool, you know, like the whole era, but it's like the multitasking part is where I feel like OG is just like right on the money, you know, like it's like you really are multitasking, you're not just using it as like a marketing gimmick. And I think that's where as a consumer, many, many times I used to be like, are you really multitasking products? You know what I mean? Because I'd put I'd put something on my face, I get super greasy, or I get, you know, it just doesn't look right for me. And then I would be like, I've spent $70 on something and it doesn't really work. So that's why I want I asked you that because as a brand that's coming from this ethos of like we are clean, we are doing things right in so many different ways, where and we've been doing it for so many years, but guess what? Our products perform really well. You know what I mean? That's really impressive to me as a consumer that you guys could can say that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's so flattering that you have that on your desk is like I a keepsake. And I do think we we really, when we think about our development and when we're launching a new product, we I we we do really ask, um, you know, how can this become a pillar in our portfolio? How can this become a keepsake for for us and the people who are using OG? And it's so funny. So on that sculpt of the boil, it sort of took that was one of our first products that really took off and had a life of its own on the internet. And um, it was the early, this was early days of OG when we were like three or four people and um probably doing like less, you know, the very small amount of sales. And um, I I actually had to drive to uh to a company and pick up one of the ingredients to to rush it in so we could make more lip oil. And it was this special, it's a vegetable-derived plumping ingredient made through a very special extraction process that gets produced in France. And so it came in on a plant, and I actually had to drive and pick it up and drive it to our lab so we could make more sculpted lip oils. So um, and and that, you know, but it's in there, of course. Like we have those like sort of what I would consider new natural high-tech ingredients. We in the sculpted lip oil, it's a perfect example of that technology meets sort of the trusted stalwarts of natural beauty formulation. And we have our jojoba oil. So this is one jojoba seed grown in the Arizona desert on our organic farm there. We we have a Custom uh grade of that jojoba. Um, richest it's the first extra virgin cold press. And um we have exclusive access to that with the world largest with the world's largest supplier. And it so it maximizes the polyphenols on skin. In a in a wound study, it actually was shown to treat a wound. Uh, when you treated a wound with jojoba, it heals three times faster. And it has wrinkle reducing um and skin tone evening, huge antioxidant content. So it's an amazing natural ingredient, very sustainable. Uh, we use that at almost 10% in our sculpted lip oil. And that is infused into all of our products, that jojoba oil.
I love it because I feel like even in the so you know what I I use the um the foundation, like not found the blushes, like in the stick. Oh, yeah. I love those blushes because they are like almost like blurring, like on your face. Like they're blurring, but they're so glowy and yes. Oh my god. I love, love, love, love those. And it's like that's the kind of product, it's like I really feel like when you use this type of product, you like I literally use that everywhere. Like I'll put it on my cheeks and I put it over my eyes. You can use it for your lip. Like, it's like so good. It's so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's so so yummy. Yeah, those. And this is the new repackage. So this is big news that we so we we you know when we started very small company, we had to get very efficient. All of all of our sculpted face sticks, even the blush colors or the bronze colors were in the white package because it's yeah, that's what I have. Yeah, so now big news. This is like global world launch of um the sculpted face sticks in the new package. So it's matched to the shade. So this is rose quartz, our best-selling blush shade. And then we also have our uh copper. So in this really rich cocoa bronzer I love that package. So we're separating. So yeah, we're very excited. It's so much more eye-catching. It it really comes together perfectly with our launch into um into retail.
SPEAKER_00So you're you're going into like where are you going into retail, if you can share?
SPEAKER_01Well, we um have done really well in um Blue Mercury and Nordstrom, a couple of our more boutique, high national retailers, uh partners really. And um we are excited just um in, let's see, in just a couple of days. Hopefully, by the time that everybody is seeing this, we're going to be in Sephora. So we'll be on Sephora's website. And then nationally we're rolling out to doors throughout the fall.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, congratulations. That's so great.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. We're so excited. I know it's like, what's the rate?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love it. I love it. That's where that's really cool. No, I would love to see you guys in a Sephora store. That's really great news because yeah, like these, that's what I'm saying. Like these kind of products, like if you come across this, like you know, when you're like checking out at Sephora, like I would pick this up just because it's like, oh my god, it's so convenient. And I feel like that's like the brand, like it's super convenient. But you know, I want to actually rewind a little bit because you brought up johoba, and I'm glad you did because jojoba was an ingredient that I remember came on the scene and everybody was like buzzing about it. There's a lot of people saying, like sprinkling it in again with the greenwashing stuff. It was happening a lot. But I would love for you to speak about this ingredient in terms of like the impact it's had on the beauty community. I know there was a shortage at one point, and that revealed a lot of stuff about what people were really doing. And I'd love for you to educate us on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like you said, it was sprinkle, it's sprinkled because it's so unique and so so so good for skin. It is sprinkled, sprinkled into many products. It is a, you know, it is one of the most expensive um natural oils, and to get the organic grade is very special. So we um I was making products for all these brands, and there was a climate um crisis in you know, 2009, 2010 that impacted a lot of the crops, and we couldn't get enough jojoba, even to even to put it into products at that sprinkling. And beauty products and formulas are like a cake. You know, you can't make a cake and just take out the baking powder. Like you, you need all or the sugar or the flour, you need all the ingredients, even or the salt, even if it's at a low level. So all of a sudden, we were uh stricken uh with this situation where we couldn't um fulfill our orders. And when you're in product development and sales, that's a real crisis. And we would turn to our purchasing person who was supposed to be buying, like scouring the world looking for more jojoba, and they were struggling to find it because of that crop failure. So I got very curious about what, like, what and what what is this jojoba? I mean, it's a tough word to say. It's J-O-J-O-B-A. It it it's it's technically it's not an oil. It's not an oil. And I think a lot of us think, oh, like, should we be using oils on our skin? And if you have that concern, use jojoba without concern because it is uh technically a liquid wax. It's a wax that's um liquid at room temperature. If it, you know, as soon as the temperature goes below like 60, 65 degrees, the jojoba actually starts to turn into a solid wax. And it's that liquid wax character that gives it such unique performance properties on the skin. It we say biomimics, biomimics the building block oils of the skin. So um it helps to strengthen that matrix of the cells. You know, our skin cells, they're just sitting there on top of the face and they're kind of linked together with all this um, you know, this matrix of fatty acids and fats and lipids, and we, you know, as
we age, the the muscles under the skin start to create these micro um wrinkles, and that leads to deeper lines and wrinkles over time. And a jojoba comes in and it's helping to strengthen. So we have the cells and then we're strengthening that matrix. So we're keeping the skin really smooth, really conditioned, really hydrated. Um, and so it helps um prevent fine lines and wrinkles, it helps um just bring comfort to our skin. It feels so good to put jojoba oil on. I mean, I that so many of the testimonials that I get are people who because early on, I was just bottling the jojoba oil by hand and like giving it out to all my friends and family. And um, I mean, it was one of our first business partners in the company who um, you know, she had tried, she works with a lot of brands, she tried a lot of stuff, and she said, you know, my friends have been asking me what I'm doing different to my skin. And she said, it's the OG Hobo oil. She said, I swear, she said, I have received so many compliments on my skin because I'm just glowing, I'm radiant. And it just also, you know, in addition to looking great, it just feels so, so good. So um, you know, we we started as like a little nothing um group of people who said we're gonna launch this big beauty brand and can we partner with the world's largest supplier of jojoba? And we went to them with a presentation and um they supported us, you know, they believed in us. My co-founder had come from luxury fashion. I had made many products, but my co-founder really started um one of the world's most successful fashion companies. He started John Galliano and managed managed Galeano up until they sold to Blue Vitamo Ahenesy, and Galliano became the principal designer for Christian Deere. So he had a real name in luxury fashion and luxury circles. So they support this um supplier of johoba supported us, and um, you know, eventually we got to the point where we were able to secure the exclusive rights to our uh proprietary grade, which is this cold-pressed extra virgin, cold pressed. It means they just we take those, I mean, it's very, very pure and simple. And from that simplicity, we actually get the most effective ingredients. We take those seeds and we we cold press them, we filter it through an organic cloth, and the those polyphenols and that full plant terpene profile is maintained. And that's what actually gives us the the most um the most benefits on skin. We recently studied our grade and found that it truly um performs the best of any of any other grade of jojoba. So um it's a very strong story, and we're so lucky to have their support and just like to have, you know, discovered this ingredient. It's it's incredible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I think that, you know, I think jojoba is just one of those, like it's a such a prime example of how there is just so much we don't know about natural, like occurring oils and like compounds and in their natural state, you know, pre-processed state. So we can't assume that there isn't a better option out there than synthetic, you know, and that's something that I I really feel so strongly about, even as a scientist, is like what you were explaining just now. Like, I would love to see more people take something that is like cold-pressed, you know, source of whatever it might be, right? And let's start studying this stuff. Because what you were explaining just now about the mimicry that happens on the skin's surface, that is like incredibly telling of what could happen. You know what I mean? And like and wound healing, as somebody who comes from that side of research, my biggest question mark is why the hell aren't we talking about natural ingredient discovery? Because that's where all the wound healing properties are. You know what I mean? Like that's really where it is. Like, look at all of the ancient medicines of the world, like Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, everything that we've known, Egyptian medicine, like that's that's where we came up with 90% of what we know. And so when we like this conversation, I feel like it needs to resurface.
SPEAKER_01It's true. There's so much magic in nature when it comes to the interplay with human health. And yeah, it's you're right. Like I thank you to scientists for helping us understand because things like the jojoba, it's been around forever. And it, you know, it's funny that you mentioned like an ancient Chinese remedy. Jajoba, because it's native to the American desert, it was it was used historically by Native Americans. They would crush the seeds up like in a mortar and pestle, and then they would apply it to this to wounds like as a as a pumice and wrap it because it had that that healing, that medicinal healing quality. So it jojoba then just sort of existed forever. And we, yeah, it was like a carrier oil and a lot of natural fragrances. And it was recently, um, well, in the 70s, there was a really interesting moment for jojoba because at that time, soaps and cosmetics were using um it's it's gross, sperm whale oil. This is another one of those gross moments in cosmetics. They were using sperm whale oils. So they would take, you know, first of all, we were going out and killing the whales, tragic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we were taking, you know, rendering the blubber, so boiling down the whale fat, and then taking that ingredient and putting it into skincare and soaps. And so there was a there was an activist named Soraya who saw what Greenpeace was doing. So Greenpeace was sending their ships out to block the whale hunting vessels. And on land, Soraya, it had been discovered in the 30s that jojoba could be used to uh replace sperma oil. It was those are like two of the only natural ingredients that have this biomimicry of skin cells, so um, or the skin-building block oil. So she started that she started collecting these jojoba seeds. She was going around the desert wild collecting jojoba seeds with her husband. They were artists. They had not, they weren't farmers, they weren't, they were just our activist artists, and they started collecting the seeds and then they planted a farm, which is like the largest farm of um jojoba in the United States today. And um, we are lucky enough to work with them as our our source of the ingredients and the seeds. So um that and since then, you know, the scientists have come in and said, what makes this so special? So you've you scientists have found that we can do things to the cells and then we can measure what's happening with the DNA of the cells or with the genetic markers in the cells, uh, what's what functions are being upregulated and downregulated. And we found that with the jojoba treated cells that were upregulating all of these healing and anti-aging attributes of cells. So we've we've we knew it was healing, we knew it was good for skin, and now we've been able to substantiate that with some of the most cutting-edge methods of scientific discovery today.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. No, I I love that. And I I feel like that pipeline, it just it's so beautiful to see that come to life whenever we discover something in nature. And I I really, really love that you guys have invested in that from being the brand, you know, that you are and your positioning and how it's been, because I think sometimes like we just don't go there. We expect the brands that are like super talking about like exosomes and stuff to be doing the science, but really it's like the stuff that works is what we should be putting our dollars in, you know, from the science. That's my opinion is scientists. And and I feel like just like jojoba, like for example, for me, being Indian myself, I know I grew up with like coconut oil was everywhere in my culture, yeah. Like hair oiling and like moisturizing my body, and it was just everywhere for since childhood. And it's like now we're discovering coconut oil's properties, yeah. Coconut oil, yeah. It's like it's been around, it's been around. Like these aren't things that are like, you know, like they're they've been here, but it's like, why haven't we been like, oh my god, what's going on? You know, like that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, like you said, coconut oil, incredible base material, great healing, healthful. And how can we combine that and use it as a delivery system for things like natural exosomes? And that's something we're studying quite a bit. I mean, I think right now we have we always say we have an embarrassment of riches in our products. And for example, right now we're all talking about peptides.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And OG has a couple of products that really celebrate and feature peptides. Our uh Silky Dream Cleansing Cream, which is one, it's our newest um facial cleanser and makeup remover.
SPEAKER_00I love it, by the way. It's so good.
SPEAKER_01I love it too. It converted me to using liquid cleanser, actually, which um, because normally they're so they're either so stripping or I mean, oftentimes they're just very stripping. And um oftentimes even the more natural ones tend to use petroleum chemistry. Ours is totally natural, sugar-drive surfactants that are very gentle to skin and yet are totally removing makeup, cleansing, you get that clean feeling at the end without being dry or uncomfortable. And that's because we've incorporated an upcycled silk peptide. An upcycled silk peptide that bonds to the skin and locks in moisture. We did a clinical study to check. We thought, could this possibly improve the moisture of skin? Because normally cleansers dry the skin, they do the opposite. And in this case, we actually improved the moisturization of skin and the moisture measure of skin for 24 hours with that silk peptide and the silk dream cleansing cream. And then our uh collagen elixir, which was our best um elixir launch to date. It's the pink, it's the pink bottle. Um, it was um, I was just looking to see if I had one behind me. I um have one across the room, but it's you gotta see it. Go online and look up the collagen elixir. It's a it's a milky formula, so it's just a very, very lightweight moisturizer. You can work it into your uh skincare regimen at any step. You can incorporate it into another product, into a body product or a facial moisturizer. It it mixes and plays very well with other products. It has these rice polypeptides, brand new from fermentation, um, and uh, you know, made into a very small particle so they can penetrate the skin and they stimulate collagen production
in the skin. So, um, and really biomimic, it's like a vegetable-drive collagen itself. So um that's a peptide as well that we have in the range right now. So I think we we are always looking to speak to those kinds of ingredient trends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, I think that's really cool. And I I love that you guys are embracing that. I I really think that that is going to be the future, in my opinion, is like there needs to be a really healthy mix of some of these like more biotech ingredients because you're right. Like, one, we don't really understand a lot of the delivery around them. Like, even with peptides, we don't know much about, you know, where is that delivery really happening, what concentrations. Again, we come down to like a lot of the nitty-gritty stuff. So I really am, I mean, I am a firm believer that when we start combining like different formulation logic, like that's when we come to that beautiful, beautiful formula that's going to outperform for many, many years, you know. And I think that like that's something I do want to ask you about as a formulator, as somebody who's been in this space for such a long time, is where do you think that line is between like bombarding us with science to the point of like I no one's understanding what you're talking about, right? Like some of these products, I'm like, I know no the average consumer does not understand what this does for the skin versus putting something into the actual formulas that is going to deliver and then you know, kind of introducing consumers to science in that like strategic way. Like, what are your thoughts just in general around that?
SPEAKER_01I think it's a very complicated space. And I do think that there are, I think as as users, as customers, as just people shopping to take care of our skin and our health, yeah. We we've come to look for certain cues, right? And I um I think that it's those certifications and those seals and those claims that we see on the sides of product. I don't think, I mean, I mean, I'm like a ingredient freak. I turn when I look at a new product, the first thing I do is I turn it over and I start reading that ingredient list. And I don't think that people are gonna do that. So I think those seals and those certifications are are big. Um, I do think that we're seeing, I mean, this is just a mega trend right now. Um, we don't have any type of partnership or endorsement um from any third-party service that's doing like a you scan the barcode, you take your phone, and now here's the other way that people are doing it. You scan the barcode with your phone, and then you get a score. And I think, you know, OG products tend to score very, very highly because we are so, so, so strict with our standards and we have this third party standard, you know, we're working with this third-party independent standard, independent certification. So that we know from speaking with our retail um team members is huge in this space right now. So I think that looking for certifications and understanding certifications is something somebody can do if they want to get really scrutinizing of the products. But I also think that those apps are so easy that it's a technology solution that a lot of people um who are concerned are embracing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's that's valid. Um, I have my own seal actually. We created one called Safe Seal, and it's the first efficacy seal on the market. And I'm really excited about it because of what you're saying, because you're right, people don't read ingredient lists, and that's why I created it because I was like, we don't get to talk about that, you know, we don't get to talk about like if like, for example, like you guys have a formula that just works, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, as a consumer, you just want to know something works, and that's efficacy. And I feel like that's where I mean, for me, that's why I created my seal was like, does something work or not? And I feel like a lot of the times that's where the industry can kind of fall short, is that we don't just give consumers this like green flag of like, yes, you can trust this. You know what I mean? They've done their due diligence, the brand has done what they were supposed to do, that kind of deal. So yeah, I see I know what you mean with the seals. It's very, very helpful.
SPEAKER_01And so the the seal is I I have read a bit about it. It you really recognize products, not just ingredients, but products that go that extra mile.
SPEAKER_00It's like the full efficacy of a product. So, like what you what you and I were just talking about with like like this this product is a great example. Like it's a lip product, but it's got the ingredients that are going to actually nourish your lips. Like, that's like, for example, the lip gloss category, people are advertising, like, oh, it's gonna hydrate your lips and it's gonna heal them. But classic example is those, like, you know, chapstick kind of products that we were using for so long and they were drying out our lips. They were not actually delivering what they promised. So that's what we did was say, a brand has done their due diligence. This actually works. You can trust it, that kind of thing. So, you know, hopefully people will adopt it more. But that's my I just wanted to put that in.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it. I mean, I mean, and what some of what we do, I so and we've we as OG have really, you know, struggled to talk to our users as you know, in a clear and concise way, saying organic, effective, luxury, makeup, means even that. that that sentence gets a little long. So we've tried to come up with very simple claims and visual cues like our organic seals and certifications, like some of these um independent third-party endorsements. I think the safe seal is a great example. The um you know Cosmo Beauty Award, those types of those types of editorial um accolades. And then we've also started to do as many clinical studies as we can. And it's a big investment on the part of the brand because, you know, we of course do not test on animals. We just we go right, you know, we start, we start with me, me and our team and everybody who's formulating the products to to use it and make sure we like it and that it's working. And then we go to um human subject, voluntary human subject um clinical trials where we're actually you know having people put it on two times a day at home and then they they do self-assessment. We do expert grading meaning uh like a dermatology tech with under the review of a dermatologist will look at with the uh with high-tech cameras and make sure that we are seeing a true reduction with expert grading of these these wrinkle lines around the eyes um with our uh botanical brilliance eye-bomb for example or brightening botanical eye-bomb or that we are you know doing an independent study with uh a a skin moisture reader for our Silky Dream cleansing cream so um we've and so we try and very succinctly and clearly make those claims and show where we can that they are substantiated by a clinical study because it is it is big and that's a real you know it's just a point it's just a a um it's a milestone that we've been able to achieve that as a brand and do those and invest in those studies.
SPEAKER_00I love that and I love that you guys do the clinical studies as like a cosmetic brand. It's very very reassuring you know to a lot of obviously consumers but even like like I said I come from a science background. So I love seeing that and I love seeing that you take the extra time to do that as a brand because sometimes the marketing gets so loud and you know the consumer push gets so loud that brands forget that we do read the the articles and the studies and you know we do look on the websites. Like I'll go like I go onto brands websites every day and I'm like where's your data? Like show me what you did because I know how much money it costs you guys to do this. You know it's like um as a consumer like I should read you know what's out on a brand's website. So yeah it goes a really long way and I really applaud you for doing it that way because it it does matter to those people that are looking and we want the best and and we want to support you in the best way possible as consumer and vote with our dollars, you know, for the things that matter. So it goes a long way yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. Yeah our website's used and we always if if anybody ever feels that we are you know missing a data point
or they want more information on the ingredients um we love receiving those types of inquiries and you know you the first the first person that you're going to talk to is someone in our customer experience team but usually that question comes right back to to me and our VP of um research and and product innovation. So you're talking right you're talking right to the formulators generally one one degree. So anything anytime that people want to come and ask we we love that kind of conversation and engagement.
SPEAKER_00I love that well thank you so much Abbott this was awesome and I learned so much and I can't thank you enough for your time and educating us.
SPEAKER_01You're the best thank you so much. Have a great afternoon take care take care