Founder's Story - Clear Vision: Danielle and Kayleigh’s Journey to Revolutionize Skincare with CLEARSTEM | S2: E42

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

This is brought to you by BiOptimizers, whom I LOVE their MAGNESIUM BREAKTHROUGH product has helped me sleep better, stay focused, and feel all-around healthier.Check out their products at http://bioptimizers.com/danrobbins use promo code FOUNDERS for 10% off any order.In this episode, Daniel Robbins interviews Danielle Gronich and Kayleigh Christina, founders of CLEARSTEM Skincare. They have created a unique product line that combines anti-aging, anti-acne, and clean ingredients. Both founders faced severe acne challenges themselves, which fueled their passion for developing a solution that didn’t force consumers to choose between fighting acne and preventing aging. Their background in biology and genetics, along with their personal struggles with acne, led them to create a skincare line that addresses inflammation, which both accelerates aging and triggers acne.What sets CLEARSTEM apart is its holistic approach, utilizing ingredients like turmeric and saw palmetto that calm hormones and reduce skin inflammation. This careful consideration of ingredients ensures that their products cater to acne-prone individuals who also want to focus on anti-aging. Danielle and Kayleigh’s journey to building a multi-million dollar business without investor funding is a testament to their innovative approach to skincare and their commitment to helping others achieve clear and healthy skin. As they expand into new markets and develop additional products, their mission remains clear: to provide skincare solutions that genuinely meet the needs of their customers.Key Points Discussed:Danielle and Kayleigh's personal struggles with severe acne.Their backgrounds in biology and genetics.The inspiration behind creating a combined anti-aging and anti-acne skincare line.Importance of addressing inflammation in skincare.Use of holistic ingredients like turmeric and saw palmetto.The unique value proposition of CLEARSTEM's product line.Building a multi-million dollar business without investor funding.Expansion into new markets and development of additional products.Commitment to providing effective skincare solutions.Future goals and ongoing mission of CLEARSTEM Skincare.Relevant Links:CLEARSTEM SkincareOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I'm your host Nadia Atwal and today we are really having a show and let me at first of all introduce our lovely guest Kaylee Christina and Danielle Gronach from ClearStem which is a very exciting company and a very exciting system and we're going to dive right into it, ladies. Welcome on board, first of all. Thank you so much for having us. This is so fun to be here. Well, I have been very impressed with what I have learned about the two of you. But I want you, of course, to tell your own story. ClearStem addresses a problem that so many of us have run into and still may run into. And this is the problem of dealing with acne, breakouts, and still wanting to address the anti-aging skincare. So because very often what we're running into is if we're dealing with anti-aging skincare,

it's often very heavy. And there are the new breakouts. But if also teenagers or even women, men in their 20s and 30s are dealing with acne, they also don't want to put these harsh chemicals on top of it and just dry it out and then look even in a way worse than before, just with more wrinkles and less pimples. So tell us about how the two of you met. What made you decide to go on this mission together with ClearStem? Well, first of all, you described it perfectly. I know.

I don't think I've ever had a better intro from someone that didn't work for the brand. Spot on. Thank you. Okay, I'll start. So Kaylee and I both struggle with acne. I had to do Accutane three separate times, and my acne came right back. So that started my journey into skincare. I happen to have a biology background.

I studied biology, genetics, and immunology. But I was in the corporate world, and at the age of 28, 29, the last round of Accutane, the third one, just failed. Like, it just didn't work. So I was like, I'm gonna have to figure this out myself. So I enrolled in esthetician school to get access for information for my skin and wound up seeing that treating acne was actually the medical profession I'd always wanted but didn't know existed. I didn't go to medical school on purpose because I didn't

like our medical system. But full cycle later, 10 years past that, I realized that treating acne in a holistic way, the way we do, was my dream medical profession all along. So I opened San Diego Acne Clinic and Kaylee here was one of my very first patients. When I met Danielle, I was in my mid 20s. And at the time, I was actually studying holistic nutrition and breaking out super aggressively at the same time. So I'd recently got off birth control because after studying holistic nutrition, studying root causes, I was really passionate about self-regulating my own hormones. So I get off birth control and a few months later, my skin breaks out both sides all down my neck with really aggressive,

bright red, angry cystic acne, like pustule cystic acne. And I didn't know where to go. I went to every single doctor, dermatologist I could possibly find. And the only solutions given to me over and over and over again were birth control, antibiotics, spironolactone and Accutane. And when I would ask them like, okay, I understand you're giving me these prescriptions, but something is clearly wrong with my body. Like this is this is not normal what's going on. And I couldn't get any answers. It was just, I don't know, try this prescription. Well, how will this prescription help? I don't know. Let's just go through a few cycles and see what happens.

And I wasn't willing to do that to my body at the time. Again, with everything I was studying, it just didn't make sense to me. So I was putting myself under all these protocols. I was buying every single skincare you could possibly imagine that marketed towards acne. And my skin just kept getting worse and worse. I tried elimination diets, different protocols, nothing worked. One last Google search, a Pop San Diego acne clinic, which I'm so grateful for because I was starting the process to go on Accutane. You actually have to take two pregnancy tests 30 days apart before they'll let you go on it. So I started the process because this had been eight, nine months of dealing with such aggressive cystic acne that I was packing on like the thick theater makeup. I didn't want

to leave my house. I started to look in the mirror and have a bit of identity crisis because my face started to look disfigured. But I found Danielle and our first appointment, I happened to be her last client of the day. So she spent three hours with me, thank goodness. And she had me bring in every skincare product, haircare products, supplement I was using. And for the very first time, root causes were addressed. We talked about pore clogging ingredients, how certain supplements can actually trigger acne in excess, and we ended up finding over 12 acne triggers across my diet, lifestyle, supplements, foods, topical products I was using. I removed all of them, and in a matter of two months, my skin was completely clear with no scar damage. We will return to our show shortly. But first, let's talk about today's sponsor, Magnesium Breakthrough by BioOptimizers. Did you know four out of five Americans don't get enough magnesium?

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And make sure you use the code founders, F-O-U-N-D-E-R-S, founders, and you get your 10% off. So check out biooptimizers.com to learn more. And back to the show. The two month time frame is actually the biggest part of all that because normally even if you're about to go on Accutane, it actually generally gets much worse for the first two to three months. So to be completely cleared from what she had to what she is now in two months is almost unheard of. But that really is the education that we scale in our company and identifying all those triggers. That's what we turned into ClearStem.

So that's what people are experiencing once they start interacting with our line. Tell us about what sets ClearStem apart from other products out there. Because the market is overflown with so many different products. They all promise you the sun, the moon, and the stars. Very often, I'm not so impressed with the ingredients. I mean, now they're always talking clean products.

Still, then you're detecting that there are stuff in there you can barely pronounce. I'm very curious to learn. You obviously put a lot of thought into what are the root causes of acne. So I can imagine when you were putting your system together. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top-notch security practices, and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for ISO 27001, SOC, GDPR, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing trust center all powered by Vanta AI. Over 8,000 global companies like Atlassian, Flow Health, and Quora use Vanta to

manage risk and prove security in real time. Our audience gets a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com slash founders. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash founders for $1,000 off. Now back to the show. So the last few months I've been practicing how to learn Spanish because it is really a passion of mine. I've been using Rosetta Stone. Why? Because it immerses you in the language without having translation. So you can really learn to speak, listen, and think in that language. It starts naturally with words, then phrases, and soon you're forming sentences designed for long-term retention, which has always been my issue. They even have a built-in true accent speech recognition that acts like a personal trainer for your accent. It gives you instant feedback on your pronunciation.

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can trigger and not trigger. And you were very, very cautious with what you put in there. So what was what went into the thought process? I love this question. So this is the most thoughtful skincare line you will ever come across. So there's a lot of things that cause breakouts. And for the sake of this conversation, topically, we'll call them pork loggers, right? Pork logging ingredients. Then there's acne irritants. Those are things like really harsh synthetic fragrances or harsh preservatives. Sodium lauryl sulfate is actually in most, it's in a lot of face washes and shampoos. And it's an irritant that can disrupt the barrier and create acne. So there's things that will physically clog your pore and create acne.

And then there's things that will irritate your skin and ruin the, you know, it's called the acid mantle, like the way we defend against unwanted bacteria, right? So there's all these things and there's hundreds of these ingredients. Most companies, makeup, skincare, even hair care, like they all use some combination of these ingredients because they are cheap fillers with long shelf life and the preservative keeps it, you know, stable six years later, right? So most companies use these ingredients. Knowing what they are is step one. We know what they are. Eliminating all of those and then adding the active ingredients that can combat acne, like unclogging the pore, for example, you need generally an alpha hydroxy

acid to do that. You also want a scrub to help get rid of the extra keratin protein that those of us with acne produce. So there's things that are fundamental to the way acne is formed that you need to address, right? So there's your gentle scrub and your, you know, blackhead dissolving serum, right, with mandelic acid is what we chose. Then there's, you know, a gentle wash to restore the barrier and a moisturizer to hydrate the skin, infuse collagen, stimulating ingredients, but without clogging the pores. So everything is exactly what you need and nothing that you don't want at the same time. And kind of like what you said earlier, most acne products are very drying. They harm the barrier. Most acne products, they, it's almost like fighting like killing flies with a blowtorch is

the analogy that I always use. So in order to kill the acne, you're destroying all the surrounding skin because it's not a targeted approach. So normally anti-aging products are loaded with all these pore clogging fillers. They break you out, but anti-acne products are so dry that they ruin your barrier and make you age faster. So solving acne from the root cause with all the education that we provide, helping people identify what their set of triggers is, and then giving them the products that match what acne skin actually needs while putting the anti-aging ingredients, that's ClearStem in a nutshell. And I think something else really important to note is clean doesn't mean acne safe. So so many people who are struggling with acne, they see two different

options. And this was this was me. So this was me eight years ago, a very confused consumer. I studied a lot of holistic nutrition, but still had no idea what to do when it came to skincare. So what I mean when I say clean doesn't mean acne safe is we feel like we have two decisions. We can go to the doctor and get a prescription or clean should help my acne. That's what we're conditioned to think when in reality there are acne triggering ingredients, pore clogging ingredients in both clean and not clean skincare. So in clean skincare it can be targeting acne but it can still have coconut oil, shea butter, algae derivatives in it. And all of those are very seriously pore clogging and can end up causing more acne. So it's very important to note that the ingredients that are acne safe doesn't mean,

or clean doesn't mean acne safe. Yeah. And if anything, clean and organic skincare cause some of the most acne we've ever seen. Organic is incredibly important, especially for food. But the value that it provides for our food, you assume that it means your products are going to be that much better for you. And there's a huge disconnect with that. We always joke, organic coconut oil will just give you organic pimples. It's that simple. If it's thicker than our natural oil, our natural sebum, it's going to clog your pores most likely. So when the way that we think about it from a very like technical standpoint like that, that's when it starts to make sense for people.

And that's, those are the conversations we're having with our audience all the time so that they can become their own scientists and understand their own skin. So they can see through all the marketing claims of stuff that doesn't make sense that these companies say. But it's like once you're educated, you can see through all of that. So that's kind of like our favorite thing to do is teach people how to see through it all. It's successful. I saw all the reviews. They're phenomenal. People are really, really seeing results very fast. What is like the first improvement that people can expect when they start using your system? Oh, God, great question. So basically, we tell people it depends on the starting point, to be fair, right? So if you change just one thing, depends on what that one thing was. So

some people, they don't want to switch to an entire line. They want to test it out first. That's great. We tell people to check all of their current products for pore cloggers. We built a checker on our website where you can copy and paste the ingredients to anything. It'll tell you if there's a pore clogger. So say they find out their moisturizer has been breaking them out. They switch that one thing. They're going to notice less new breakouts. They're going to notice their skin healing a little bit. And a week later, you know, when they would have had maybe 10 new pimples or, you know, whatever that number is for them, they're like, oh my gosh, I only have like one and it's smaller and all the other ones are starting to heal faster.

So you notice less new and faster healing and essentially more good days than bad days. And if they start on the whole, you know, the kit, which has the exfoliants that I was telling you about, that's when they see a night and day difference in less than a week. Because once you start exfoliating, especially with the right tools, it's just like finding your perfect workout routine. You see a difference immediately. And exfoliation is very similar to exercise. They're quite analogous, actually. It's the right intensity, the right type, and the right frequency. And that's what we kind of put into the thoughtfulness of our kit. So if somebody starts exfoliating with our kit and they're on our moisturizer as well,

they're going to be smoother, brighter and have noticeably less congestion in days and be noticeably to other people in like a week. It's not going to be healed in a week. We never say anything like that. But the difference is noticeable. Well, that's what we want noticeable differences and fast and something that is good for your skin clears it up prevents premature aging and also is something that is affordable and lasts for a while i mean these

are packages that should last for how long? Anywhere from 30 to 60 days, depending on how much you do it. Like our serums, depends how addicted you are to the serums. A normal pump is like two pumps of it. Of course, it can cover your whole face, but if you're obsessed and you're going five pumps in. But they should last 30 to 60 days,

depending on how often you use them. My 12-year-old son who just entered puberty and me, who is way out of puberty but still has to deal with breakout, we both are using it right now. We will report. We are hearing wonderful things from the customers. I'm so glad that you were able to join us.

This is a fantastic and very innovative product. There's really nothing out there like this. So thank you so much for joining us. And this was another episode of Health Corner. Join us next time again. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.