Daybreak - Daybreak Special: Why aren't we scared of chemicals in our skincare anymore?

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Contrary to its name, the US-based skincare brand 'The Ordinary' pulled off something pretty extraordinary when it was launched in 2016. From the beginning, it was all about transparency. It veered away from fancy packaging, instead opting for simple labels that list out all of the main ingredients, or 'actives', that were used to make the product.And just like that, the brand managed to demystify active ingredients for everyone!This kicked off somewhat of a skincare revolution around the world, including in India. Today, anyone who understands skincare knows what active ingredients are and which one is best suited for their skin. Suddenly, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, AHAs and BHAs are all part of common parlance.But it took more than just 'The Ordinary effect' to get here.Daybreak co-hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose speak to Shamika Haldipurkar, the founder of premium skincare brand d'you, and Vasudha Rai, former beauty editor of Harper's Bazaar and skincare content creator, to unpack this change in perception.If you have already listened to this episode, please give us your feedback here.Correction: The host mistakenly referred to The Ordinary as a US-based company instead of Canada. The error is regretted.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Starting this week, Daybreak episodes drop daily :)

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast.

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With that, back to your episode. Before we start, let's just get this out of the way. We're trying something new with this episode and it's not going to be like the daybreak that you are used to. Think of this like the slightly more fun Friday episode of daybreak that you can maybe listen to over the weekend. Every fifth episode of the week, my co-host Rahel and I will be talking about

things in business and tech that interests the both of us. And it won't just be us. Depending on what we're talking about, we will also be bringing a bunch of really interesting people onto the podcast. And for our first Friday episode, we thought we should talk about something that we both really care about. And it all started with a pimple patch. You know, a few weeks ago,

I walked into office with these two giant pimple patches on my face. And to be honest, I know it's normal to have pimples, but I was still embarrassed, okay? Because, you know, when you have something on your face like that, invariably people's eyes will just go there, you know, and you can see that. Yeah. And then, you know, that happened. And some of my colleagues were like, hey, what's wrong? And they were showing concern, of course. And Rahil here, my co-host, who's sitting with me right now.

Hi. Hi, Rahal. She asked me about my skincare routine. And ever since, we've been having this non-stop ongoing conversation about everything under the sun about skincare. Lately I've been really liking this glycolic acid and alpha lipoic and glycolic acid face cleanse of. Salicylic I used all over my face like an idiot because I have very dry skin so I should not be using salicylic all over my face. It was so irritated and like just dry. It literally sucked all the moisture out of my skin.

So, yeah, bad decision. Now, you obviously must have noticed that every step of our skincare routine involved chemicals. Or technically what we call actives, right? For example, you have your retinol for fine lines, your vitamin C, for brightening your skin. You know, it's the stuff that does all the heavy lifting. Now, the interesting thing that struck me is that these ingredients have always been around. I didn't know about it You know, for example, I just

discovered that OLE has always had neosinamide and salicylic acid Rahil. Okay, I didn't know about OLE but when I was doing my research for this episode, Snicktha, I looked up the ingredients of Fair and Lovely. Controversy. Yes, or glow and lovely as it's now known right?

The star ingredient of Fair and Lovely has always been near cyanide. See? I also didn't know that. Yeah, so these ingredients have been around for some time. But what happened was it really got me thinking about my own skincare routine and my own skincare journey. And, you know, five years ago, my skincare routine personally was just like face wash, sunscreen, maybe some moisturiser. I wasn't really thinking about what was going into my skincare.

I wasn't really thinking about ingredients and what they do. Yeah. You know, what's really making it work. Those star ingredients, active ingredients that we now know they call. Now, I have this elaborate six-step routine. Wow. Yeah, different for AM, different for PM. And most of these serums that I'm using and these creams that I'm using

are literally named specifically after these active ingredients. Right? It's crazy when you think about it because for the longest time, the thought of applying chemicals on our face was literally like a ridiculous idea. That's true. We were all about natural ingredients. Exactly. And, you know, especially as Indians, right, Rahel, things like haldi,

Neem, Multani Mitty. These were the normal things that we'd put on our food. faces. For example, when I was a kid, I had acne. Now it's come back after 30. But yeah, so when I was growing up, my grandmother, my mother, aunts and all, they're all coming to me, they're seeing the acne on my face and they're like, you know, you should apply this and you should apply that, like 100 different combinations of all these natural ingredients. And they, it's like they're, they're a part of our cultural identity, no? Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, when you think about so many of our religious ceremonies, like for

For instance, Hindu weddings, exactly. Right? Like the halthi is a whole event. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then cut to now. Hi, everyone.

Today I'm going to tell you about hydroronic acid. Niacinamide is your favorite ingredient? Heptides or retinoids. AHAs, BHAs and PHAs. Okay, so from halidi and multaani mitty to retinol and philuric acid. How did we get here, Sikta? I have no clue, Rahil. But we both wanted to get to the boy.

bottom of this. So we spoke to the founder of a homegrown skincare brand and also a very popular skincare content creator. And the one simple question that we wanted answered was, why are we not scared of using chemicals in our skincare anymore? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Das Sharma. And I'm Rahil Filippos. And every day of the week, we will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday the 17th of May. So Rahil and I spoke to Shamika Haldi Purkar, who's the founder of a very popular premium skincare brand called Dew.

Yeah, you may have heard of it if you've seen that one viral YouTube video of Alia Bhad skincare routine. She uses one of Dewe's products and it looks really, really cool. And also, I think that was when the brand really took off. Yeah, I remember. But also, just to put it out there, it's like I said, a premium brand. so it's not a cheap. Yeah, it's a little on the more expensive. Correct.

Anyway, so we asked Shamika the same question, which is why are we suddenly so open to using chemicals on our faces? I mean, I'll flip that question on to you, if you know, mine's, Nika. And the way I think the thinking has changed or other it should have been like this from the very start is even the haldi and uptan are chemicals. media and marketing had sort of positioned, you know, categorized or demonized ingredients basis their origin, whether something comes from plants, whether something is synthetically prepared in a lab.

And it was demonized that anything that is made synthetically is toxic and anything that comes from nature is good for the body. When science does not support this hypothesis at all, in fact, it's the opposite. So Shamika makes a really interesting point. She says that technically everything is a chemical. So it's not that we have started embracing chemicals now and earlier we did. Chemicals have always been part of us since time memorial, since man's evolution on this earth. Our bodies are chemical, the water we drink, the air we breathe, everything is chemical.

Haldi Upton have also chemical structures, there are molecules, everything is chemical. So, Rahil, basically what Shamika is saying is that 5,000 years ago, Cleopatra was essentially dunking herself into a tub of lactic acid. What? Stikta, what are you talking about? What? Don't you remember that very famous iconic scene from Cleopatra to movie with Liz Taylor in the bathtub? I think it was a tub of milk, wasn't it?

Okay, Liz Taylor's a goddess. I'm not really sure about this milk scene, Stikta. But I do remember reading somewhere that Cleopatra did in fact bathe in milk. Yes, she did. She was clearly way ahead of her time. But I feel like the point you're making here and correct me if I'm wrong is that it isn't so much the ingredients of the skincare products that have changed. It's actually our perspective of skincare.

Exactly, Rahil. For example, you know, you've always looked at a glass of water as water, right? But now, suddenly you're looking at it as H2O. Right, yeah. But you know what I want to understand? is how did this change in perspective happen in this manner? Okay, that's an interesting question. To me, I feel like we can kind of trace it all back to the pandemic.

Right? When you think about it. Suddenly, we were all on these Zoom calls all the time. And you know what happens on a Zoom call. Okay? Or invariably, don't even, you can't even deny it. You know it's true. You're invariably looking at yourself more than you're looking at anybody else.

I knew you were going to say this. I knew it. I feel like we've all become just a little wane. That's absolutely true, right? I don't think, you know, we were meant to be so seen and so visible all the time, you know. I think it's probably the first time in human history that we are so out there. I mean, our faces, right, whether it's your social media or Zoom calls. So, caring extra about how we appear is a sort of a natural progression, no?

Yeah, right. And there was also like that added element of boredom, right, at the time. We had so much time and like since no one was really looking at us we could really take risks and try all these new things with skincare especially and of course Snikda there was also that one other thing

that really paved the way for the skincare revolution The other reason is something that I call the ordinary effect you know that brand the ordinary when it came out and I think it came out in 2017 it really demystified actives for everyone The voice you just heard is Vasida Raai. She's been covering the beauty industry for over two decades now, first as a journalist and now as a skincare content creator. Yes, and she mentioned the ordinary and I think we all know

the brand, is this US-based skincare company that was quite the disruptor when it came out. I think it was in 2016. Yeah. And their whole focus has been on transparency, you know. So they told you upfront what was exactly in their products. Yeah, and that's really interesting because I think they started that trend of naming the active ingredients, naming the product after the active ingredients. In fact, Snigda was kind enough to bring in some of her favorite products by the ordinary. Let's take a look at them together. Yeah, I had to carry them in my bag. It was so heavy.

All the serums. Let's check out what I have. So, excuse me. Yeah. So I have the nearest cyanide. 10% with 1% zinc. Nice. Then I have my AHA, B, I peel.

And also my 0.5% retinol in scoline, of course. Oh, wow. Okay, so all those names literally sound like something you'd find at a chemist and not at a beauty store. Right. In fact, you know, on ordinary's part, it was a very conscious decision because look at their packaging. I mean, it's all black and white.

It's all simple font. No colors. Look at these bottles, Rahel. They all look like a virus of medicine. And the amazing part is it worked. People love the ordinary. And I have to say this. Of course, this is my personal experience.

But the product itself really worked for me. Like, I remember my aunt bought this bottle of neosinamide for me from the US. And this is before ordinary came to India or Nica. I think it was two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So I think one of the reasons why. we are also not scared of chemicals is because we've tried these active ingredients and they're

actually working. Yeah. And I'm sure there are a lot of people like me. Yeah, I had a similar experience, not with the ordinary but with minimalist hyluronic acid serum. I have really dry skin. So that was a complete game changer for me. But I guess, yeah, this is essentially the ordinary effect, right?

The brand managed to demystify active ingredients for everyone. Absolutely. You know, Rahel, since we're talking about ordinary. I'm also getting reminded of this article that I read on walks, I think it was walks. And there was this reporter called Cheryl Wishover. And she was exclusively reporting on Ordinary. And because she'd been doing that over a period of time, she got exclusive access to the ordinary lab. Wow.

And also, by the way, fun fact, actually, no, it's a little bit morbid. She was friends with the founder, Brian Truex, I think his name was. and he actually committed suicide. Oh, okay. Yeah, so she also writes about, you know, the grief that she went through and all of that. So, yeah, I mean, you know, we talk about objectivity in journalism, but so many great stories also come from a place of no objectivity, right? But again, going back to the ordinary lab, she describes this thing that she saw in the freezer, okay, in the lab.

and it was this big slab of human skin and it was wrapped in cling film and apparently it was some woman who had died of cancer and she had donated it to the lab for experiments and Cheryl said it looked like a piece of bacon. Oh wow. Okay, that's a really disturbing visuals, Nikita. I'm sorry.

But I guess that is what these skincare brands mean when they say their science first, right? I'm assuming that they put all of their active ingredients all their, you know, lotions and potions to the test on that literal hunk of flesh. Yes. And apparently it's not easy to get these samples.

I think they just got it because they are the ordinary. Yeah. Anyway, I think Rahel, the ordinary effect didn't just demystify actives for everyone, you know? I feel like this also brought about this huge, massive explosion

of homegrown active ingredient brands like minimalist that you mentioned earlier that you use we have Foxtail, we have Doughtonkey, there's so many of them. And all of them harp on the science of skincare and how that is what ultimately dictates the kind of products that they're bringing out to the market.

And I think these brands also have a huge role in making us less scared of using chemicals or actives on our skins, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. But I'm curious to know what a science first approach would look like for these homegrown brands, you know? Like, for instance, with Dew, Snikda and I actually were able to have a conversation with Shamika about how Dew developed its superstar product.

It's this multi-active serum called Hustle. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with actives, it's really complicated to pull off something like that because they've essentially layered multiple actives one on top of the other. So Shamika gets into the details of that. Here's what you had to say. We spent, I spend that time with my chemists and my lab to build this product and it took us 16 months because, you know, there are multiple iterations that every formula goes through. There's different adjustments you have to do. When you start with a brief for a particular formula, what can seemingly be fine on paper does not always be fine in a lab.

That every ingredient, like I mentioned, has a different phase. It has a different solubility point. It has a different. pH point, combining all of that together while preserving the integrity of each ingredient is where cosmetic formula superiority comes through. And doing this requires a lot of trial and error and multiple, multiple iterations. Just every sample or every iteration that you do arrive at, then needs to be tested for stability for three months because you might try something for a week and it also works fine on your skin, etc. But if the formula is not stable, it can't be shelf-free. ready to be launched. So when you are combining so many

actives together, you, rigorous stability testing is extremely crucial. So for all of these reasons is why it took us you know, 16 months plus to make that formula. 16 months, Rahil. That's a very long time, no? To develop one product. And yet we see a new skincare brand selling active ingredient based products almost every day. Like I'm not even exaggerating. I see a new brand on Instagram every day.

But you know what's hard to miss is how a lot of them are trying to copy other brands, especially from the West, right? Like, for example, minimalist is almost exactly the same as ordinary. Even the packaging is the same. So my question is, I'm not very sure if that's a good thing, you know? Well, I feel like there's multiple ways of looking at that, Snickda. Like, when you think about it, how many of us can actually afford, like, a drunk elephant polypeptide cream, right?

With shipping or looking at chelling out close to 7,000 bucks on like one skincare product, wouldn't you rather just buy, say, a fox tail dup for a couple hundred bucks? I mean, is that really such a bad thing? That is an insane price difference. I mean, I do see your point here. Yeah, and even Vasuda agrees. In fact, she has a pretty interesting take on this. See, my take is that the beauty industry is built on dupes, right?

I'm all for democratizing beauty. So, you know, copying this one, copying that one, really doesn't matter to me. As long as it's a good product and it makes beauty more accessible, I'm fine with it. Because the beauty industry, in fact, like the modern beauty industry, after the whole like blogging, social media, all of this started, it's built on the whole thing of dupes, isn't it? Okay, Rahel, now I have another question. As a consumer, how do I pick the right product for myself then? Hmm I wonder if there's like

I don't know A bunch of people Maybe online Who literally make it their job To tell me You know what the new trendy product is What I need to be using What I just have to add to my cart

I don't know I see I see where you're going with this Rahil Anyway To find out Stay tuned for the next segment Hey

I'm just checking in to see If you're liking this episode so far What do you think Good, bad, ugly. Do you like this break away from the regular daybreak format? And are you finding this story interesting so far? And most importantly, are you enjoying it? Please, please do let us know.

It'll help us make these episodes a much better listening experience for you. You'll find a feedback link in the show notes of this episode. I promise it won't take more than a minute of your time. And now, back to the episode. Enter the skin influencer. This is my unsponsored skincare routine, so yeah. These are the products that I genuinely use every single day. How I got it in my eye.

And I have acne prone skin, so I always should have found products that are good for sensitive skin. Last but not least, moisturiser. For moisturiser, uh, abe, uh, peptides and ceramines,

together, I've added to that, I'm gonna use this one. But is much cheaper is this vitamin B5 moistureizer from the minimalist. There are thousands and thousands of them on social media with millions of followers like you and I. And they have played a massive role in opening us up

to using chemical-based skincare products. Right, Rahil? Yeah. You know, when you think about it before the skincare influencer, it was celebrities endorsing these beauty products, right? Like, Aishwarya Raifol Aureal. Or remember when Priyanka Chopra endorsed that skin lightning cream by Ghana? Oh my God.

That was very embarrassing. very bad, yeah, very problematic. Anyway, yeah. So actually, now we've moved to such a different time, right? Yeah. We actually have celebrities launching their own skincare labels. Like, you have your Deepika Padokone with 82 East. Then there's Kriti Sanon, which I recently discovered.

She's a co-founder of Hyphen. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And because, you know, I saw her ads for Hyphen. And I thought, okay, she's endorsing this brand. but later I realized that, okay, she's the founder. But the interesting thing is that even these celebrity-owned brands are counting on these skin influencers to, you know, promote their brands.

So the question is, what do these influencers bring that a celebrity cannot for a skincare brand? I feel like there's two things. Okay, there's reliability and there's accountability. Yeah. You know, on one hand, it's really nice to see someone who actually looks like me, who kind of has flaws like mine, using these products and talking about them, right? A lot of them seem more real than, say, a celebrity, right? Celebrities are kind of inaccessible in that sense.

Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. And like you said, I can't go and hold a kajol accountable saying that, hey, OLE did not magically erase my fine lines, you know? Yeah. And we spoke to Vasuda about the... brand endorsements and how she, you know, as a skincare content creator, actually looks at them. There is no norm to try the product. I know this because there are people who want to send me the

product and then post about it the next week. You know, so I know that there is no norm like this. It really depends from influencer to influencer. I just feel very responsible because, you know, I mean, I have a great bunch of girls following me who trust me. And you know what? That trust goes in just one misjudged post. So I can't take that. risk. So I like to try everything on my face suffer or not suffer and then accordingly like, you know, even for paid partnerships I do. But it really, it really, you know, it really matters from influencer to influencer. Right. And Rahil, there's also the other side of all these brands or marketing strategies, no, they are not solely counting on influencers. They're also

looking at organic reach. For example, again, going back to ordinary because it's such a trend. in the space. It does not do partnerships with influencers or celebrities. And their whole thing is, we know our products are effective. And once people use them, they will see for themselves. And they will organically start talking about it online, especially, right? The Ordinary has a huge community on social media, in fact. And I was just looking at it.

And it's so interesting. Like, for example, their Facebook group, which is massive. I remember there was this moderator who runs this group. she was talking about how she consciously stays away from taking free stuff from the brand so that she can be honest when she talks about the products that are being launched because her accountability is not to the brand, it's to the community members. Wow. Okay. Like that's brand loyalty on a whole other level. Right. But it also kind of goes back to how at the core of the ordinary brand is transparency, right? And on paper, that sounds ideal. You know

exactly what's in your product, you're thinking about ingredients, you have all this information on social media thanks to these skin influencers. But what does all that transparency mean for the skincare industry? And more importantly, Sikda, what does it mean for all of us, you know, as skincare consumers? You remember Rahil, when we were talking to Shamika, she had a very interesting perspective about this. She actually said something around the lines of transparency is not always a good thing. It's essentially a good thing. Mostly. it is a good thing. What happens sometimes though in today's hyperfast digital space where everything is democratized so much. Sometimes over-information also, you know, because devil is in the

details, over-information also confuses a consumer to then have unnecessary doubts. You know, you see, listing all the ingredients is like a non-negotiable. Like everyone should know what is going in a product that they are putting on their skin. But listing percentage of every ingredient in the formula, probably too much. That's not going to really move to any actual advantage in educating the consumer because the consumer doesn't need to know that. It starts creating misinformation like, oh, X is a filler ingredient in a formulation. Y is an active ingredient and that active ingredient percentage is very low.

This is the negative side of sharing over information. because not every consumer, for that matter, 95% of the consumers are not as, you know, educated in understanding cosmetic chemistry. Nobody is unless you're in the industry or on, you know, the side of actually, science side actually formulating these products. So they tend to misunderstand it. And that kind of brings us back to the original question that we set out to answer, no, Rahil? Yeah. Why are we not scared of chemicals in our skincare anymore? I think over the course of this episode, there are certain things that we have understood.

I think number one is because how our perspectives have changed, like what we said, water is H2O or milk is essentially lactic acid. Then the other thing was also the democratization of skincare or what we call the ordinary effect, which led to this kind of explosion of similar brands selling active ingredients for very accessible prices. And then there is also the transparency. Yeah, and what's clear to me by now is that active ingredients in skincare aren't going anywhere. They're here to stay. But what's next for the skincare industry? We actually happen to ask Vasida.

Remember, she's been covering beauty for decades now. She's seen so many of these trends come and go. Here's what she had to say. I'm saying in the next five years, if not sooner, and I predict this will happen much sooner. and we are already seeing a clean beauty 2.0, wherein the green beauty industry is taking a lot of these actives and making them a part of their formulations, and also less fear-mongering and more talking about, like, you know,

the things that really matter in terms of sustainability. And if you think about it, even the cosmaceutical brands are becoming more clean in their approach. It's just treating, you know, clean formulations as hygiene. So, you know, both industries have actually sort of observed and gleaned from each other. So it's like an interesting hybrid will come up as far as the green beauty industry is going to come or as far as the cosmaceutical industry is going to come. Personally, I just want these sort of barriers and these definitions to melt because why do we need to choose? We're living in an age where we have the best of the both worlds, right?

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber focus. business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras.

Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by Rahal Philipos and I, Sinkda Sharma, and it was edited by Rajiv Sien.