Revolutionizing Skincare: Skinfix’s Success

Speaker 1: [Music] I think what makes a good founder doesn't necessarily make a good leader they can be actually very different qualities so I think what makes a really good leader is somebody who's very calm and very even and very focused and somebody who listens and absorbs and collaborates but then is decisive accumulates all of the feedback but then makes a decision and sets a course in a very confident way I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheil podcast thank you for joining us Amy tell us about skinfix and what led you to start your business thank you Melanie it's so amazing to be here so skinfix is a clean dermatologist developed skincare line that is sold it's aora and onkin fix.com and I started it because I worked in the beauty industry for a long time New York and then in London England and moved to Halifax Nova Scotia Canada when I had my first baby and thought had left Beauty behind and I ended up meeting a woman here who had a formula that her great great-grandfather had created in England in the 1870s he had been a chemist and had compounded a balm to heal skin and when I saw the balm I was captivated by the formulas it had a lot of active ingredients in it but also over the decades the family had been making this balm they had collected letters from customers from people that had used it to treat some pretty serious skin issues things like diabetic foot ERS and psoriasis and eczema and they had poured their hearts out about how this balm from 1870 had worked when nothing else had and had cleared up their skin and given them their quality of life back and there were some pretty profound stories so I thought I love beauty I love skin care and who would have thought that here in Halifax Nova Scotia I could actually start a beauty company so iend up buying the brand from the founder and she trademarked a great name skinfix and started to build from there I love hearing that and I love that you did it after you had your first child because so often when you're very business-minded because I was too it's like you have that pull of wanting to be there for your kids but then also wanting to build a business can you tell us a little bit about what skinfix does for someone who who purchases it yeah similar to you I actually took six years off initially and so my kids were a little older when I had the itch to go back and then was introduced to the original founder skinfix initially the original products were created to treat eczema primarily and dermatitis and then we created the line of Therapeutics to treat rosacea and keratosis Polaris and acne but as we were developing all of these therapeutic products and working closely with the dermatologist Community to understand the concerns and the conditions and what was happening to the physiology of the skin they kept talking about the Skin Barrier and how the Skin Barrier was very much a critical El to all of the skin concerns so with eema there's a deficiency of ceramides in the barrier with rosacea it's a deficiency of fatty acids so I said what if we can actually heal the barrier itself get underneath all of these concerns and go to the root cause so I did a lot of research into the Skin Barrier and barrier health and ultimately created a patented complex of skin similar lipids and Signal peptides and folic acid that is clinically proven to help replenish the ceramides and fatty acids in the skin skin so actually changes the physiology so it doesn't just sit on the surface and hydrate or pull water into the skin it's actually helping the skin to regenerate its own ceramides and fatty acids we are really focused on Skin Barrier Health at the core and then we have a line of Therapeutics that sort of treat acute skin concerns thank you for sharing that because we walk into Sephora and we're inundated with so much and we don't always know the science behind it and all of the thought that has gone into it and I love the color of your products because I also when I walk into Sephora I think of ways that different products are standing out on the Shelf I don't know why I'm thinking that maybe it's my I put on my business mind when I go in there but it's such a pretty bright blue yeah it's a Dodgers blue initially when we launched the product we were actually in Mass distribution we were at Target and we were put into the set with Dermatological skincare so we were up against Sara and a Veno and a Latin and I had three little SK to treat eczema at the time and not the budgets that these big multinationals had and I also thought that the Derm skinc care space was all very same same everything was white and black and very kind of medicinal and clinical it's got a little bit more fun but at that time it was pretty boring I thought bringing a bit of color and fun while still remaining credible and clinical would be not only helpful to jump off the shelf but also a little more fun and optimistic and Whimsical at the end of the day you want a product that is a fun experience to use so we made sure that we talked with the dermatologist community and weren't going too far because we wanted them to still see the brand as credible wanted to also bring a bit of color and fun to skin care how did your early career play into building out skin fix as you launched it I had worked in Beauty from the beginning I in University I worked for Clinique in the summers at the cosmetic counter department stores back in the day and learned how to sell and learn the business from that perspective and then right out out of University I went to L'Oreal I was super lucky to get a job as an assistant product manager which today would be an MBA level job back then in the early 90s I still slipped in with an undergrad and I basically had five years of the most incredible business education that I could ever have had anywhere at L'Oreal at a very young age they give you a lot of responsibility so I had everything from p&l responsibility through to working on the creative ads and working on the products with the product development teams and then I went from there to business school and then to Cody and then to Estee Lauder where I worked for Joe Malone in in the UK on fragrance so I feel like I was it's such a great brand and she's an incredible entrepreneur so I really had that sort of classical training in the beauty industry I understood how to get something made and how to contemplate cost of goods and what kind of testing needed to get done and that helped a lot in terms of getting it off the ground and also a lot of our products are OTC so pharmaceutical drugs so we have very different regulations that govern how we manufacture and how we distribute it helped a lot to have a lot of that experience so that it wasn't as intimidating as it might be with all of your experience was there a challenge that you came up against that you were able to overcome just because I know our listeners a lot of what we do so fun but we all go through challenges so is there one that comes to mind yeah I mean there's so many I think for us we were really very much an early entrance into the clean skincare space but we were really early with clean clinical and clean clinical therapeutic we were a decade ahead of the market which is great on one hand and really challenging on another because you've got to really educate the consumer and so while Brands were just starting to talk about natural ingredients we were already like oh ours are clinically proven to do X Y and Z and treat eczema and here's a published study and it was just like whoa for us it was very hard to figure out what the right channel of distribution was for us how we were going to get that message across and it made sense initially to go into mass and I had actually met ahead of Beauty from Target in an elevator at a women's wear conference and she said oh my gosh please come and see us and it was a great partnership but in a mass environment it required too much education it was just too big of a story in the client wasn't there yet and so we made the decision to Pivot to Sephora and we were really lucky that Sephora saw the future and really saw that barrier Health had huge potential in Sephora and saw the potential for Therapeutics in Sephora so we made that pivot but that was a huge Challenge and a costly Endeavor we had to exit mass and then we had to repackage and relaunch with Sephora so that was a significant challenge at that time is figuring out what channel was going to provide enough Court to help educate and build the brand and it's interesting when thinking about Eczema I have not experienced it but my daughter who's 10 had it for a little while and it's since gone away I don't know much about it but you look for things to be able to put on it I had some medical grade from a dermatologist but if you haven't had it before you don't know what to put on it that's not going to further irritate the skin Yeah we actually are blessed to have the chairman of the national EX Association on our board our scientific Advisory Board Dr Peter Leo and he's a really interesting guy because while he's a medical doctor and deals with very tough cases and works with a lot of Therapeutics and prescriptions he also is very into the homeopathic naturopathic modalities as well so he helped us formulate our most recent eczema collection by pulling in the best of the sort of scientifically validated holis therapies it is a complicated disease you know I like to say skin is complicated and skincare really needs to be also our marketing message needs to be simple enough for people to digest and want to buy it but really a lot of rigor goes into our formulations because it's required treating eczema is not easy you're dealing with a lot of different symptoms and a lot of different factors and it's not just one thing that's going to help it needs to be the Symphony of ingredients we try to take the complex out of it for the endend client and really provide something clinically validated yeah I went through that because when she first experienced it I put something on it and she just no that doesn't feel better that feels worse so I thought okay I really need to do some research on this to figure out how to best help her yeah Dr Leo will even say a lot of the eemma Therapeutics that are prescriptions will have things like broline glycol in them that are known to be highly irritating to the skin so unfortunately the prescription pharmaceutical industry hasn't quite caught on to the that you're trying to treat a disease deliver the active ingredient with other things that aren't going to further irritate so yeah unfortunately to the homeopathic first I do as well often the prescriptions needed and someday hopefully the pharmaceutical companies will make better prescription formulas what do you think is the most important element of leadership when growing a business it's an interesting question I being the founder I was the CEO up until three weeks ago very happily handed over the Baton to a new CEO very excited congratulations thank you 10 years in but it's interesting because I think what makes a good founder doesn't necessarily make a good leader they can be actually very different qualities so I think what makes a really good leader is somebody who's very calm and very even and very focused and somebody who listens and absorbs and collaborates but then is decisive accumulates all of the feedback but then makes a decision and sets a course in a very confident way I don't think Founders are always necessarily good at that I'm not sure I was necessarily good at that because as a Founder you're Chase shiny pennies and new ideas and you have to constantly have your synopsis firing and I don't know that that brings a lot of calm and so he takes my and pulls it into okay and this is what we're going to focus on and this is how I'm going to leverage the team to do what we need to do so leadership requires a little bit more of a level demeanor and most entrepreneurs have a lot of ideas and good ideas just a lot of ideas and I understand you know like all with all the new tech I want to know how everything works but there's no way you can use every platform you know at times you just have to dial that back yeah I worked for Joe Malone for years and I remember the ideas coming at me I was the head of marketing so it was like we want to do a vending machine and we want to do this and we want to do that I was like okay okay well I get it that's what makes a good entrepreneur yeah they have one of my most favorite home fragrances it is just so good which one it's got lime and basil oh lime basil Mandarin yes that's their sort of Heritage scent yes but when I read that I thought I cannot believe that is a scent that is just so amazing with those with the ingredients I would not have thought to put those yeah she really disrupted fragrance and brought all sorts of Interest sense together and yeah a genius what do you look for when building your teams and building sustainable company cultures the most important thing is really a passion for the brand and for the mission and for the product it's taken me a lot of time to figure out that's just critical and essential because I think a lot of times you think it's okay if they're not really into it because they're really good at XY or Z and maybe in finance that's actually okay but the rest of the company especially in marketing or sales or education if you don't really have a passion and believe it's felt by the client in the end of the day you have to believe in the mission to be part of a an indie Beauty brand which is a highly competitive space and Incredibly fastpac you a have to be able to work high low nobody can be a diva nobody can be too precious everybody has to pack boxes everybody has to roll up their sleeves so if they can't work KY that's a problem but they also have to be really passionate about the brand and the mission and the history too not just yes we want to focus on the future but you really have to understand the history and the DNA of the brand to be able to create the best future for the brand as well so I've come to understand that's more critical than I realized initially it's so true and that's so much better for the team member too we know how we feel when we wake up passionate and enjoying what we're doing every day it's like that 80 that 8020 like as long as you love it 80% you can put up with the other 20 it's so true magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy we've talked a lot about business what is one thing that you do for you to make sure that you're finding and living your joy I love that I just listened to a podcast with I don't know if Lise Lunen she's on my board actually she used to be out of content for good but she does a more spiritual podcast but the woman she was interviewing was talking about years of genius and she's it's the thing that you can do really well but brings you Joy so it's not just there are things that you can do well but you don't necessarily like doing like I can be super organized and productive with getting through emails and meetings but I don't love it but my zone of Genius I think in the business is definitely product and product development and really digging in and understanding the science and understanding ingredients that's what where I'm in my happy place on a personal level I'm a spiritual Seeker I was a religion major in University I just love spirituality and astrology and all different types of spiritual systems whether it be anagram or human design or so I need to spend time there as well in order to feel filled and happy and balanced in my life it's nice it takes you out of your business mind which you probably live so much of your life in or have yes definitely it really does it really and I find it fills me with energy when people ask me to do a little amateur reading of their astrology or talk about the anagram or it just makes me really excited because it's a part of my life that I feel really passionately about and really connected now I have to ask when is your birthday May May 22 I'm a Gemini on May 19th okay so you're a Taurus yes very different different animal not far off though yeah no it's interesting I'm a sag Moon and sagge Rising as well so I'm more saggy than I am Gemini my husband is May 7th and my twins are Scorpios and it's funny because I always either dated a Taurus or a Scorpio when I was dating and when I knew I was having Scorpios I thought oh I'll get along with you very compatible I didn't go that I didn't go that deep into the thought process but I justun you're very compatible you're very earthy you're very grounded that's good our family is an an astrological cornicopia rainbow yeah it's a lot of differences yeah yeah I joke that we get our birthdays over in May and November and then we're done for the year I love it two big celebrations that's great so nice to meet you great to meet you as well thank you for sharing this skin fix story with us please share with us how and where we can find you you can find us on Instagram and Tik Tok and Linkedin and all the social media platforms skinfix Inc and on our website as well skinfix ccom and you can find us at Sephora as a brand thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our shetit website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave