135. Hormones Harmonized: Elle Shelley Black of Same Skincare on Syncing Skin to Life’s Rhythms

[00:00:00] Erum: L Black. Welcome to the Grow Everything podcast. We're so excited to have you on.

[00:00:06] Elle: I couldn't be happier to be

[00:00:09] Erum: Yay.

[00:00:09] Karl: Oh, you're so kind.

[00:00:11] Erum: Yes. well, we're excited to have you on. You have a very interesting background. It's not a typical background, like everything podcast is about biotech and we have a lot of people that have like deep science background and we always love bringing on people that have different professional backgrounds and different expertise.

[00:00:28] Erum: So you have a background that spans. Brand and product development. You are working on an AI powered supply chain product,

[00:00:36] Erum: but tell us a

[00:00:37] Erum: little bit more, give us a little bit more

[00:00:38] Erum: insight into your background and how are you coming into the world of biology?

[00:00:42] Elle: Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm coming into the world of biology through the lens of product design and

[00:00:49] Elle: product development. most people, when I say product designer was like, oh,

[00:00:54] Elle: are you a fashion designer? And I'm like, no, I do real products.

[00:00:58] Karl: Fashion is real.

[00:01:00] Elle: is real actually you right.

[00:01:01] Karl: don't throw shade.

[00:01:02] Elle: Fashion is real, but I'll say products that we're talking about that

[00:01:06] Elle: require chemistry, biology, some sort of a synthesis

[00:01:10] Elle: and a process to actually make a product. Those are so interesting to me. and I come from that world and even weirder still, I come from manufacturing. So, product designers, what they have to be really great at obviously is design, but you have to know how to make products. and the making of products. Many designers just outsource to manufacturing.

[00:01:31] Elle: but I found that as a product designer, if you get into the manufacturing process and understand from the inside out how to make a product, you will inherently design better products. Because you know how they're made. so that's really how I arrived at my background is through the lens of product design and then vis-a-vis and

[00:01:47] Elle: wanting to understand how do you make great products, and then studying that, learning that, and coming up through there.

[00:01:52] Erum: Nice.

[00:01:53] Karl: That's how awesome. tell us about the products you're making.

[00:01:56] Karl: let's go in that

[00:01:56] Karl: direction. One.

[00:01:57] Elle: Yeah. So this is a fun conversation. So I have two jobs, what I like to say.

[00:02:01] Elle: I have my day job and my side hustle.

[00:02:02] Karl: Okay. Let's hear it.

[00:02:03] Elle: Oh, my day job is I help other brands make their own products. and I actually really like to do supplements and cosmetics in supplements and cosmetics, which are great products that are made here in the us.

[00:02:16] Elle: there's a lot of innovation in the space. These are huge billion dollar industries. and there's a lot of nonsense in the space.

[00:02:24] Erum: yes, so much.

[00:02:26] Elle: Because the claims are unverified and they're not really regulated and you get factories, on the supply side, pumping out products that are borderline illegal, working with illegal ingredients, working with ingredients that aren't on labels, , and.

[00:02:38] Elle: Look, that's super interesting. I'm not advocating for that, but if you're going to be in the space, you have to be watching everything that's happening. so that's one part of it. And then on the cosmetic side, skincare is actually my, specialty, and this is how we got to each other is through skincare.

[00:02:53] Elle: This is what I'm really, really interested in because there are so many cosmetic ingredients. and the way that we talk about it, you guys know it's called the Inky International Nomenclature. ingredient list and it's like a standard of how everybody talks about ingredients. So it's all standardized.

[00:03:10] Elle: and a lot of consumers don't understand what an inky is, how it relates to the ingredients that they're putting on their skin. They don't know how to read a fact panel or it's an ingredient list on cosmetic products, specifically skincare. They didn't know how to do it. I don't think they even know how to do it on supplement fact panels.

[00:03:25] Elle: so there's a lot of Magic that I, love talking about and seeing what's really happening in the industry.

[00:03:31] Karl: Yeah.

[00:03:31] Karl: something about inky that most people don't

[00:03:33] Karl: know is they do appear on labels and it is an international database and there is a very specific way that ingredients are supposed to be listed and this should be very interesting to people who are in the biotech industry who maybe have never done an inky because your inky for your hero ingredient needs to list.

[00:03:52] Karl: organism it's manufactured in. So if you're making it e coli or yeast or lactobacillus, that has to be listed. And if you happen to be used using a peptide or a protein or a fragment of wine that is coming from an organism, let's say pig, you have to list. All of that, you have to list what it's manufactured in lactobacillus.

[00:04:14] Karl: Then you have to list your protein. And if it's an origin from another organism, like a pig or a grasshopper or whatever, you have to list that. And then you have to list the peptide. So for a consumer that actually reads the label, most don't, and you see this long string of words together, it can be very confusing.

[00:04:30] Karl: And I think, to your point, al. Most consumers, number one, don't read them. Number two, they don't understand 'em, and number three, manufacturers are doing a disservice because they don't give. Consumers the opportunity to learn what those labels are for. And so for those of you listening to grow everything who are working in the beauty space, you have a unique opportunity to educate your audience and to leverage that inky and to tell people what you're doing and why it works.

[00:04:57] Karl: And that is a differentiator

[00:04:59] Karl: that will go very far. And we talk about K 18 all the time. K

[00:05:02] Karl: 18 stepped right into this and did a brilliant job with

[00:05:05] Karl: it.

[00:05:06] Erum: No. Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:08] Elle: No thanks.

[00:05:08] Erum: Talk.

[00:05:11] Elle: So, you know, look, when we were talking about this before, I love nerding out on this stuff,

[00:05:15] Elle: but nerding out because specific, When I look at the future and where things are going, I look at how food labels got adopted. and now people are learning more and more how to read a food label.

[00:05:26] Elle: We have supplement fact panels. People are starting to learn and understand that a little bit more. I'm waiting for beauty to create a product fact panel, Need some sort of quick, easy to digest, easy to understand label that helps the consumer know, here's what's in this, is the servings, this is what I can expect from hero ingredients.

[00:05:46] Elle: Here's an active, here's an inactive, here's what that means.

[00:05:50] Karl: Love that.

[00:05:51] Elle: to anyone listening, please do it. It's like, let's, because we would all benefit from really understanding what's in our products. And really that gets me to my side hustle, if you will. This is what I was telling you guys.

[00:06:01] Elle: About before, my side hustle actually was born out of what I say is like the worst thing that's ever happened to me. , So about two and a half years ago, I woke up from an emergency surgery. I had a five pound cyst, my right ovary and my right fallopian tube removed, and I got a diagnosis at 39 of stage four endometriosis.

[00:06:18] Elle: I had never heard of endometriosis in my life. and I'm gonna try really hard not to get teary-eyed when I tell you this story, but it's really hard for me to talk about because it was a really, really hard time. first of all, having emergency surgery, then having a big surgery like that until, and I got a head to be on bed rest for six weeks, which also felt really daunting.

[00:06:38] Elle: that's a big time to be kind

[00:06:39] Erum: Yeah. Wow.

[00:06:40] Elle: I really sat with it for a while, so I get this diagnosis I have all this time laying in bed trying to recover. And so what did I do? I researched, I spent every, literally every waking moment reading everything that I could on PubMed about endometriosis, what it is, what it isn't, what happens, what doesn't happen.

[00:07:01] Elle: and this is actually how I got to biology. So was like, I've gotta become an expert in myself. I've gotta understand my biology. I've gotta understand what the heck is happening with me, and I wanna understand the chemical world around me. So, as I was researching, I learned a couple things. The first is endometriosis is super common.

[00:07:17] Elle: One in 10 women, that's 10% of the population have endometriosis. But within the endometriosis lens, you're very lucky if you get a diagnosis like I had because there are no therapeutics and there are no diagnostics. If you're lucky. Again, I was one of the lucky ones and got a diagnosis. It's only 'cause the surgeon cut me open and saw the tissue.

[00:07:37] Elle: sit with that for a minute. One in 10 women, 10% of the population, no therapeutics and no diagnostics. Now the story gets even worse when you zoom in and look at just infertility, endometriosis. Is the root cause of 58% of infertility. It's huge. That's more than half. So when I'm, I'm sitting there recovering, I'm like, wow.

[00:07:57] Elle: In order for our species to survive,

[00:07:59] Erum: Yeah, that's

[00:08:01] Elle: we really need to understand endometriosis. We need to, we have to, and it affects everyone, men, women, everyone. So, that was the first thing I learned. The second thing I learned, and this. gets to the ingredients. I learned that there's a class of chemicals called endocrine disrupting chemicals, EDCs, and they're in everything.

[00:08:19] Elle: Now. I wanna stop there for a minute and we can talk about this a little bit. What else is really interesting about that is remember. I'm from the industry, I'm developing products, and I was unaware of this class of chemicals called endocrine disrupting chemicals.

[00:08:32] Elle: now look, that's not to say, everyone needs to run out and worry about these things, but there are some that are very toxic. We're learning more and more every day. This stems back to the first thing I said, look. We don't have a ton of research, We do know that there are endocrine disrupting chemicals.

[00:08:48] Elle: We do know what those are. there are some suspected is what I call them and known. so just understanding what you're consuming with your skin, your body, your mind, everything. and learning where those chemicals are, I think is imperative to your health, at least for me. Now, that's not for everyone.

[00:09:06] Elle: I'm just telling you. For me as someone with endometriosis, the first thing that I developed in the worldview I was developing was, I've gotta protect my endocrine system because endometriosis is a chronic hormone condition. So the first thing I have to do is make sure that I'm protecting it and then I can optimize it.

[00:09:21] Elle: and so I really got interested and serious in the world of quote unquote clean beauty,

[00:09:27] Elle: clean products, clean everything. it is the wild, wild west

[00:09:32] Elle: out there.

[00:09:33] Karl: I can't wait to hear you talk about that. Yeah, we have to get

[00:09:36] Karl: into it.

[00:09:37] Elle: Well, we can get into it, but we talked about this before. I don't wanna throw rocks, but I know when

[00:09:41] Elle: we chatted before I was like, Hey, I want you guys to look at this inky. What is in this product?

[00:09:46] Erum: Yeah,

[00:09:46] Erum: absolutely. I mean, tell us

[00:09:48] Erum: where do we find endocrine disrupting

[00:09:50] Erum: chemicals? Where are they commonly found?

[00:09:53] Elle: Great question. and this comes back to Carl, what you were saying about, inky, So one of the things that's interesting about Inky is how they're regulated, So the way it works exactly is when you're a manufacturer, it's your responsibility to make sure that the labels are accurate and correct, It's not the brand's job unless you're making it

[00:10:12] Elle: yourself. It's. The factory's job. So here's how this looks exactly, and this is both for supplements and cosmetics. And if I'm going like 2 1 0 1 guys, let

[00:10:19] Erum: Okay,

[00:10:20] Karl: It's good.

[00:10:21] Elle: yeah, yeah. most people don't realize this, but you can look on the back of any product.

[00:10:24] Elle: And here's how you can tell if a brand is making their own products or they're working with a manufacturer, this

[00:10:29] Elle: can be called a supplier, a factory, a co-packer, anything like that. And by the way, 95% of brands work with a, a factory. This is uber, uber common. In fact, it's more. Uncommon.

[00:10:40] Elle: It's more uncommon to make your own products than to have someone else make them just for what it's worth. But you can look on the back of any label of your skincare or your supplements. you can look on, cleaning products. You can look on anything and just see at the bottom if it says distributed by the brand name or manufactured for the brand name

[00:11:00] Elle: or. Manufactured by. So that little teeny tiny word is super important. If it says distributed by, or manufactured for, it means the brand is using someone else to make their products and the liability of what's actually in that product and how it works, the legal liability, it's on the factory, it's not on the brand.

[00:11:19] Elle: They're just distributing the product. They're marketing it. now if the brand is making their own products. The responsibility and the liability on manufacturing great products is on the brand. I'll give you one super easy example just to bring this to light, and it's super, super famous.

[00:11:33] Elle: It's SkinCeuticals. SkinCeuticals is one of the few brands that actually manufactures their own products. They don't do them all but one product. And I always point this one out. they have a vitamin C that's very, very popular. They make their own vitamin C and part of the reason why they made their own vitamin C was because they had a patent on it.

[00:11:52] Elle: And so they didn't wanna teach anyone else how to make this product. So. Themselves, and that's how they kept it. Not just a trade secret, but actually like how we make it is the secret. Now, most of the time, factories are the ones making this product. So the onus is on them to actually make sure that if you're doing, beauty products, cosmetics, the ingredients, the inky is accurate.

[00:12:14] Elle: Now, what that means is just a host of problems, number one, a factory. Can hide some things in ingredients. And the one that I always point out that I think is the one to watch for, if you're gonna learn just one thing and watch one thing,

[00:12:29] Elle: it's fragrance. You can just put, fragrance can be anything and nobody has to disclose it.

[00:12:38] Elle: Yeah, that's one I always look out for. and fragrance is typically where a lot of endocrine disrupting chemicals are hidden. So that's a really easy one. if you're trying to reduce or avoid EDCs, start with fragrance. It's actually pretty easy to find fragrance-free products because you can read the label and

[00:12:53] Elle: look for fragrance.

[00:12:54] Elle: I always tell people if the ingredients list is two inches, start at the end.

[00:12:58] Erum: Yeah.

[00:12:59] Karl: Yeah, because supposedly that's the stuff that's the lowest concentration,

[00:13:02] Karl: but With what you're talking about, endocrine

[00:13:04] Karl: disruptors, that small concentration could be enough, right?

[00:13:08] Elle: Yeah, and I think it's really interesting. We're talking about fragrance in general. The problem with

[00:13:14] Elle: fragrance is it's pervasive. It's everywhere. It's in our laundry detergent, it's

[00:13:18] Elle: in our cleaning supplies. We burn candles with it, and we're literally burning candles that are letting endocrine disruptors in the air and then inhaling them all day every day.

[00:13:29] Elle: Think

[00:13:30] Elle: about that.

[00:13:31] Erum: Yeah. I mean I have very sensitive skin, so I pay attention to the fragrances because I would, have X eczema or something and I'm like, what is that from? And I would buy all the popular beauty and skincare products and then that's what I was, and I know that could be up to 30 chemicals.

[00:13:47] Erum: in a fragrance. So it's like they have to double click on it and see what it is. And we talk about biotech and biology, we love biology, but not all biology is created equal, oak moss is very allergenic. So if you have, that's in the fragrance, it could cause issues.

[00:14:02] Erum: So, I'm glad that you're pointing this out because It's unregulated and then, and should it be. And we had, Bob Weinstein, he was an, executive at From a Niche, then he went to Robert Te and now he's at another. And we didn't really dig into that. We were just talking more about biomanufacturing

[00:14:17] Erum: fragrances and stuff, but it seems right for disruption.

[00:14:20] Erum: Like we do need to talk more about what's in a fragrance.

[00:14:24] Elle: Yeah, fragrance is a tough one. and.

[00:14:27] Elle: think the idea of trying to be perfect is really difficult, especially when you're talking about endocrine disrupting chemicals. Pick a few things. For me it's fragrance. but the fragrance industry,

[00:14:36] Elle: if I had to make a

[00:14:37] Elle: prediction, I think the future is

[00:14:39] Elle: fragrance

[00:14:39] Erum: Mm.

[00:14:40] Karl: Wow.

[00:14:42] Erum: Bold

[00:14:42] Erum: words.

[00:14:43] Erum: You heard it here

[00:14:44] Karl: Yeah.

[00:14:45] Elle: no, actually I'm gonna lean into this one. If I had to make a prediction, I think the future

[00:14:49] Elle: is fragrance free, but I do think this is where biology and some chemistry is gonna come in. I think we're gonna find new and interesting novel ways to create fragrance that aren't synthetic this is a really gross way to say this, but it's gonna hammer the point home, there's all this science coming out, thanks to Huberman about how important Smell is to mating and dating, which I think intuitively we've all understood that. And how if you are on, birth control, which is an endocrine

[00:15:18] Elle: disruptor,

[00:15:19] Erum: Yeah.

[00:15:20] Elle: but it actually changes how you interpret the pheromones of a potential partner that will make a good match.

[00:15:27] Elle: So if you think about that, and then layer on top of it, the fact that we have, Fragrance with lots of chemicals in it. I think there's an opportunity to do something that's super unique where people are gonna use biology to make a unique fragrance that actually enhances.

[00:15:41] Erum: Yeah.

[00:15:41] Karl: Right. Yeah, for sure.

[00:15:43] Elle: but I think we're right there. So when I say the future is fragrance free, I imagine stuff like that, Where we're leveraging our own unique biology with any kind of new scientific discovery that we can find that actually makes us smell like us instead

[00:15:55] Elle: of like, oh, I'm gonna smell like, 2 million other people because I'm masking this other thing.

[00:15:59] Karl: Right.

[00:16:00] Erum: Yes. Dare to

[00:16:02] Karl: yeah, let's dream.

[00:16:03] Karl: Yeah, I. I wanted you to talk a little bit about, the clean beauty space, because there's always a new trend in the beauty industry. we went to, The New York Cosmetic Chemist Society, , suppliers Day. We saw a lot more biotech there than before. so biotech, beauty's a thing. Clean beauty's a thing, natural beauty's a thing. Minimal ingredient beauty

[00:16:24] Karl: is a thing. But let's talk specifically about clean beauty What does that look like? and you who had to do a deep dive on

[00:16:31] Karl: it, what did you see?

[00:16:32] Elle: Yeah. Okay. Well let's do some busting. So first of all, clean beauty means nothing. It has no. Standard. most consumers don't know that, So there's no governing body that's giving a stamp approval for clean beauty. Sephora has different standards, than Credo, which is like a clean Sephora.

[00:16:49] Elle: And if you can't see me, I'm making air quotes when I say clean. There is no, such thing as a clean standard. So here's what that means for brands as a brand, you have to make up your own point of view, which is what I call it. Develop a point of view on how you view the world when it comes to quote unquote clean.

[00:17:06] Elle: and then find a factory that shares your point of view,

[00:17:10] Elle: because. It doesn't matter what you, the brand formulate, you have to get it made and you have to make sure that your factory agrees and can source and manufacture and store and produce your product in the right way. That matches your point of view.

[00:17:27] Elle: So when it comes to clean beauty, that's the first thing. I'm trying to figure out how to have this conversation delicately, Because like, I don't rocks.

[00:17:34] Erum: Yes, there is.

[00:17:37] Elle: There's a lot There really is, and I think it's really interesting. I think it's all gonna change again and again when we're future casting or looking at the future. The thing that I see, or the canary in the coal mine here is beauty has now reached down to tweens.

[00:17:52] Elle: 11, 10-year-old girls are going to Sephora and they're using. Strong elephant products and retinol

[00:17:59] Elle: and all of these chemicals on their skin,

[00:18:02] Elle: this is not good guys.

[00:18:03] Erum: Oh.

[00:18:04] Karl: Yeah. And let me just, step in as the guy in the room. I mean, it's already bad enough that, women are starting to

[00:18:09] Karl: menstruate in younger age. I can't believe that's coming out of my, mouth. But I do know these

[00:18:14] Karl: trends, and it does have to do with endocrine disruptors,

[00:18:16] Elle: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:18:18] Elle: That's right.

[00:18:19] Karl: You ro you're looking

[00:18:19] Karl: at me like.

[00:18:20] Erum: fine.

[00:18:21] Erum: It's

[00:18:21] Erum: okay. So far

[00:18:23] Erum: so good. We didn't call HR yet.

[00:18:25] Elle: that's right. that's right. And look, we can talk about endocrine disruptors. we're zooming in on the beauty industry because I think that's the easiest place for you to make big, big change. And when I say you, I mean you, the biologists, you, the people work in the space, you, the factories, you the brands, Get educated, start thinking about products and just do it. Like the stuff coming out of labs these days is so cool. and I love it, But it's super interesting. again, let's talk about another challenging product. and like I said, I do a lot of products for other brands, with my day job that is really, really fun because my specialty is clean beauty.

[00:18:59] Elle: So I like to do products that are what I call better for you and better for the planet, because that's. noble way to spend your time and, I'm working on an all natural deodorant. We've actually been working on it for a year and we finally

[00:19:11] Elle: arrived at a probiotic formulation,

[00:19:14] Karl: Wow.

[00:19:15] Elle: which is awesome.

[00:19:16] Elle: And in fact, I'll send you guys some just for fun. I'd love

[00:19:18] Elle: your thoughts on it. It's still,

[00:19:19] Karl: please. I never get

[00:19:20] Karl: samples.

[00:19:26] Elle: all natural deodorant. It's really good. But we wanted to do a probiotic and how it works exactly is the probiotics and the strains that we're using. It eats the smell. Or less is how it works. But the other thing that most people dunno about probiotics is that it also is the preservative, which is excellent.

[00:19:43] Elle: That means we've now made an all natural shelf stable product with one less chemical. we can also talk about like the history of preservatives, because I think that's super, super, super fascinating and most people don't know about it. But the all natural deodorant made with a probiotic, it's shelf stable.

[00:19:57] Elle: It has seven ingredients in it. It works. it feels good to put on. It's soft. It's not too hard. ,

[00:20:04] Elle: And this particular brand is a plastic free brand, and so it needs to be in a paper packaging,

[00:20:11] Karl: Wow. How do you do that for a deodorant? What the heck?

[00:20:15] Elle: my challenge. So now, now we have to create a paper

[00:20:20] Elle: free, no talks, all natural

[00:20:22] Elle: deodorant. That actually is shelf stable, that we can

[00:20:26] Elle: ship nationwide because they're sold nationwide. That will last for 12 to 24 months. That works?

[00:20:34] Karl: You know what's amazing about that is we just had Erica Mil

[00:20:37] Karl: check of Riko on and she said that the number one thing that biology bio. Techniques to be applied to is packaging. yeah. she was adamant about it. She's like, that's the biggest opportunity one of the biggest opportunities because packaging is so cheap to make and it's ubiquitous and we just throw it away and never think about what

[00:20:55] Karl: happens to it.

[00:20:56] Karl: So this idea of a paper, package for a deodorant just blows my mind. What's that gonna look like?

[00:21:03] Elle: Yeah, deodorant, but in.

[00:21:07] Erum: Like a stick, like you're talking about a stick or a liquid or a spray stick. Okay.

[00:21:12] Erum: Yeah.

[00:21:13] Karl: And I'm, imagining that's gonna lead to, I'm a huge fan of sunscreen sticks. So I wanna see the same kind of, technology both on the packaging and for the

[00:21:23] Karl: probiotic skincare,

[00:21:24] Elle: Yeah.

[00:21:26] Karl: I.

[00:21:26] Elle: this is where it all interesting because these are so complex. Consumers, the average American doesn't understand it, right? So we spent six months developing this awesome probiotic formula. , We had told the factory in advance that it needed to be in a paper packaging. We sent them the packaging.

[00:21:41] Elle: It has a paper mechanical push mechanism. we knew exactly what it wanted to look like. We get the product ready for pre-production sample and now the manufacturer has to fill it, what's called a top fill hot pour. So they make the product hot and then they fill it into the packaging from the top in a hot pour and then it cools

[00:22:01] Elle: in the packaging.

[00:22:02] Elle: That's how it works. Exactly This presented another set of challenges because guess what happened and the.

[00:22:09] Karl: The paper fell apart

[00:22:12] Karl: because it can't stand the temperature and the paper's probably not coated in plastic the way a lot of, yeah. I love this.

[00:22:20] Erum: If it's, probiotic, is there an organism involved or is it the organism makes something because, was thinking organism and hot temperature's. Really interesting. ' I'm just curious to see if that's it. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[00:22:32] Elle: this is another point of how wild, wild West it is out there. when you make products. Your factory will also do, , they call the micros or they do testing before they send it out, so they actually batch test and make sure that, there's not chemicals in it, there's not stuff that shouldn't be in it, but they don't test everything.

[00:22:49] Elle: And again, this comes to how wild Westy it is. Okay. Now it's making me think. If it says, a probiotic on the ingredient label on the inky, what tests are you doing after you make the product to ensure that it's. Still there. And this is actually the same problem that we have with OTC probiotics, right?

[00:23:05] Erum: Yeah.

[00:23:06] Elle: general saying

[00:23:06] Elle: is if they're not in the fridge,

[00:23:08] Erum: that's a big issue. 'cause , several episodes ago, there's a woman Her name's Jasmina and she of ArcHa and they were making an odor eating deodorant as well. There's A formulation where they had an odor, eating bacteria that they would formulate with. it would've to be shelf stable, but I'm curious to know now, how they actually created a product out of it. But they were, , B2B, they weren't creating a end product. So they would work with you, or your, your clients. But it's, really interesting.

[00:23:35] Erum: That's the holy grail with the living organisms

[00:23:37] Erum: that are like going onto your skin or something. how do you keep them alive

[00:23:41] Erum: to do the thing, whatever they're trained to do.

[00:23:45] Elle: Yeah, this is fragrance, right?

[00:23:48] Erum: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:23:49] Karl: And I remember in our pre-call you showed us that product that had three

[00:23:53] Karl: ingredients, including lactobacillus, and we've gone around and everybody we know that's doing something in beauty. We're like, have you seen this product that only has

[00:24:00] Karl: three ingredients or four or whatever the number was?

[00:24:03] Karl: How does it work?

[00:24:04] Karl: do we not have to refrigerator it

[00:24:06] Elle: That's, I was saying, That's why when we were doing our pre, I was like, well, I got you

[00:24:12] Erum: Well, actually we discovered that, the person who's behind it was someone who has been in the biotech industry and they originally created a product called Mother Dirt. That had a living probiotic in it. it had to be refrigerated.

[00:24:25] Karl: Stop.

[00:24:26] Erum: it back in the day

[00:24:26] Erum: and had to be the refrigerator and I kept forgetting to use it, skincare. product is

[00:24:32] Karl: Yeah, it was like a spray. It was more like a spray on '

[00:24:35] Karl: to, I guess, keep your skin microbiome healthy. And actually, Jasmina, who Iran mentioned was the co-founder of that company. And so this person who the other founder was the one who created this product that you

[00:24:48] Karl: showed

[00:24:48] Karl: us. Yeah, so, and I do remember, the refrigerated part of it, I remember asking a lot of people, I mean, at that point Carl didn't know anything about beauty.

[00:24:56] Karl: I still don't know anything about beauty, but I know a little bit more. And I do remember going, wait, you to refrigerate it. And I kept asking people, they're like, yeah, there's a lot of beauty products that are in the fridge now. And probably if we go into Sephora, there's a lot that

[00:25:08] Karl: are in there. But I don't see

[00:25:10] Karl: my wife or anybody, any of the guys in my house who use a lot of

[00:25:13] Karl: skincare products using anything that has to be refrigerated.

[00:25:16] Elle: Yeah. I mean, look, this is what I mean you talk about products, because consumers just see the last step, You also have to remember that the product has to get from the manufacturer to wherever it's being warehoused and then to you. And sometimes the warehouse, if you're like a direct to consumer brand, is legitimately a warehouse, And sometimes the warehouse is the backroom of Sephora, the backroom of Credo, the backroom of whatever, Walgreens. They are not making sure that the cost to cold transport products is really expensive. Cost to cold store products is really expensive, and that means that the end cost to the consumer for these really efficacious products would be astronomical.

[00:25:59] Elle: It would be four or $500. the math ain't

[00:26:02] Elle: math. You know what I'm saying?

[00:26:04] Erum: Yeah.

[00:26:04] Erum: Yeah.

[00:26:06] Elle: and I think that's okay, I'm not saying we should, I'm just,

[00:26:09] Elle: offering, like, Hey, here's how it works. Exactly. Because you get consumers that are like, Hey, I want everything.

[00:26:14] Elle: And I'm like, okay, let me explain this to you.

[00:26:17] Karl: Right.

[00:26:18] Elle: Here's how it works. Here's why we can't have everything in, fully recyclable, refillable, paper free, chemical free, all natural, clean

[00:26:26] Elle: beauty that you

[00:26:27] Elle: keep in your fridge. That's $4.

[00:26:30] Karl: Yeah. listening to you talk

[00:26:32] Karl: about the problems with manufacturing and supply chain. Circling back to what I said earlier about inky, all of these processes and the challenges that a company has to overcome, be transparent about it.

[00:26:44] Karl: I think consumers wanna see this. I mean, it gives a brand a really unique opportunity to be so transparent and to show people. This is why it costs $10 and not $4. This is why you know it's packaged this way. This is why you can throw this away and know that it's okay. I think that there's so much good storytelling there that can be leveraged as

[00:27:04] Karl: more of these products become either clean or biotech based or whatever high

[00:27:09] Karl: performance is being included in it.

[00:27:11] Karl: There's a huge opportunity there.

[00:27:13] Elle: I think you're really, really right. , And that's, the future that I'm interested and excited about. Like I said, I'm nerding out on this because this is my world and I find it hard, but I think you're right. I think there's storytelling to be done here. I think it's, hard to find people.

[00:27:25] Elle: I. That really understand and can deep dive on this. That's why this is so interesting to me. I'm like, let's talk about Inky. You know,

[00:27:32] Elle: let's talk about actually what the challenge is both in the manufacturing and the supply chain, and then let's talk about who's regulating, who isn't. Let's talk about new ingredients.

[00:27:40] Elle: Let's talk about sourcing new ingredients. Let's talk about how the actual downstream supply chain is so difficult for even a brand to have awareness of, right? Like very few brands actually ask. To audit the bill of materials from their factory so they can see where they, the factory got the ingredients

[00:27:57] Erum: Yeah.

[00:27:58] Elle: because it's hard.

[00:27:59] Elle: And the factories gonna be like,

[00:28:00] Elle: well, don't tell 'em, you

[00:28:01] Erum: yeah, yeah, and people wanna know, I feel like we live in a time where we have, access to information, we have AI that is going to scour the web for information for us. I mean, we need that fresh information. So, the consumers becoming more educated. They have the tools to learn and learn quickly.

[00:28:17] Erum: but you have such an amazing perspective. you've seen with your own personal story how, Products are affecting the human body, how it can affect our hormones, and that led you to

[00:28:27] Erum: create a product yourself. A side hustle for now could be the main hustle soon. and it's called Same Skincare.

[00:28:33] Erum: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:28:34] Elle: Yeah, so same was actually born out of me just wanting to find clean skincare that worked. And when I say clean, my quote unquote definition was no endocrine disrupting chemicals. That's the whole mission. I really wanted to use same as a platform to educate people about endocrine disrupting chemicals.

[00:28:52] Elle: because I think people need choices, it's super overwhelming. So let's just have some choices, this got really, really interesting and this is where I'm going. So excited to tell you guys about this, but as I was discovering all of this, the first thing that I did was I reached out to Endo Found, they're the, nationwide endometriosis, nonprofit and they fund research.

[00:29:09] Elle: That's all they do. I said, Hey guys, let me partner with you. my goal with same is actually to educate and then also fund research because we need more research around endometriosis. So we donate 10% of all of our proceeds directly to Endo found to fund research. and of course, I'm hoping to increase that, of course, as I go.

[00:29:26] Elle: But gotta get

[00:29:26] Elle: there. we gotta, so that was my number one thing. My second thing was then I went back to science,

[00:29:33] Elle: And I'm a scientist. But I like to play one

[00:29:37] Erum: We're all scientists. That's what we like to say we're everyone's a

[00:29:40] Erum: scientist.

[00:29:41] Karl: say that everyone is a scientist,

[00:29:43] Elle: then I'm gonna wear that hat. I'm a baby scientist, I'm an amateur,

[00:29:46] Elle: right?

[00:29:47] Elle: And so I went back to the research and I actually

[00:29:49] Elle: started to find that the hormone skin

[00:29:52] Elle: connection is huge. I'm saying it and you guys are like, yeah, duh. We all went through puberty. We remember.

[00:29:59] Karl: Most people forget.

[00:30:01] Elle: actually we did forget. We did forget. We did forget, especially as females, you have two more major cycles

[00:30:07] Elle: where that are very similar to puberty, where your hormones are driving everything in your skin. and I started to realize that you could actually understand what your. Hormones we're doing through this skin hormone connection.

[00:30:21] Elle: I'm gonna say this really simply. You understand that your skin is a byproduct of your hormones, but what if we ask ourselves the question the other way? What is our skin telling us about our hormones and how might we actually use our skin as a biomarker to understand track and figure out the rhythms that are a female totally running your life?

[00:30:37] Elle: so I ended up finding a, partner and we created an app,

[00:30:42] Elle: that we're getting ready to, beta right now that can predict a breakout with 80% confidence by up to three days in advance. And I'm super excited about this because, you were asking me about my point of view on clean beauty because wanna change everything in the beauty industry.

[00:30:55] Elle: The first thing is when you look at glowing skin, and you guys will get this, it's multifactorial, So the inverse of glowing skin is, acne, dry skin, whatever your problem is. So in order to get glowing skin, because it's multifactorial, we have to isolate all of the variables, put them in one place, and help you understand how to unlock that glowing skin.

[00:31:14] Elle: This is a major shift from how the $350 billion a year beauty industry is looking at skincare, Here's how that industry looks. At skincare, you have a problem. Here's a product. The product will solve the problem, what I'm trying to do is actually flip it the other way and say, actually skin is multifactorial.

[00:31:32] Elle: Sometimes you might be getting breakouts because of where you're on your cycle and hormonal. Sometimes you're getting breakouts because you're stressed. Sometimes you're getting breakouts 'cause you don't have enough water. Sometimes you're getting breakouts because all three of those, sometimes you're getting breakouts because you're not actually drinking enough water and not sleeping enough.

[00:31:49] Elle: And all of these factors together are leading to this moment when you wake up one day and your skin is absolutely inflamed. What if we start tracking all that and help you understand it and give you predictive protocols that reach across products to help you understand how to unlock your. Skin every single day.

[00:32:07] Elle: so that's the app, and I'm really, really excited about it because it's totally different. And getting to predictive skincare as opposed to reactive skincare, that's something amazing. And to be very honest with you, when it comes to products and skin, it matters about 10%. It's about 10%, 90% are all these other factors that I mentioned.

[00:32:27] Elle: I'm just trying to make all of this make sense and make it easily available and understandable so everyone can understand how to have glowing skin every day.

[00:32:35] Karl: So wait, I just want you to unpack that 'cause I wanna make sure I

[00:32:38] Karl: understand. When you say 10%, meaning whatever you put on your skin is only really giving you 10% of whatever you look like. Sorry, people.

[00:32:46] Elle: Yeah. So if you think about it like this, If you think about glowing skin is an algorithm, And, the equals is glowing skin. The variable of products, it's weighted 10% max.

[00:32:57] Elle: It's all the other stuff that you gotta be doing in addition to the 10% of products, but you gotta still do it, If you want glowing skin and you wanna look good and truly feel good, you have to understand where you're on your cycle, what your hormones are doing, make sure you can manage those. You've gotta make sure you're drinking enough. You've gotta understand how stressed. and your basal body temperature, which is actually what we're looking at, affect your skin from the inside out.

[00:33:19] Elle: because there's actually a ton of research that proves this. and by the way, I'm not saying that the beauty industry doesn't know this. They do. They just don't know how to commercialize it, and that's the problem. The problem is there's a whole industry that's built off of saying you have a problem.

[00:33:35] Elle: We have a product, the product that you must buy from only us that we only know how to make and is very expensive.

[00:33:42] Karl: Slather it on.

[00:33:43] Elle: It's only gonna solve your problem. And wanna change the narrative and say, okay, wait a minute. It turns out that there are all of these other things happening that impact what's happening with your skin health.

[00:33:54] Elle: Let's look at all the factors That's fine. how's the beauty industry gonna commercialize water? You wait, we're trying collagen, we're getting there. and you can start to see beauty getting into supplements, beauty getting into beauty,

[00:34:05] Elle: waters, and collagens because there are all of these other factors that actually

[00:34:09] Elle: affect what your skin health looks like.

[00:34:12] Karl: Yeah, it's interesting. It's super interesting because, earlier I was talking about differentiating, based on education, which I think is still a huge opportunity. But then when beauty companies are gonna make more claims, the differentiator is gonna be actually having those claims, validated in the clinic, with real people.

[00:34:31] Karl: But here's one thing about your app. This app is gonna work for women. It's not gonna work

[00:34:36] Erum: What? Shame. Shame, Carl. I'm gonna call HR now men have hormones and men, I dunno if they have

[00:34:46] Karl: I know think they do. Men do have cycles. You know, I'm always in

[00:34:51] Karl: a bad,

[00:34:53] Karl: yeah.

[00:34:53] Elle: Do have skin? No, no. It'll work for men. And actually, it's so funny because again, if you just think about it, like an algorithm, Or like a formula equals great skin? for women. This perspective of where you are in your cycle, it's just weighted more heavily.

[00:35:07] Erum: Oh, I

[00:35:08] Erum: like Cavalier.

[00:35:09] Elle: Yeah. But men, we just take it

[00:35:12] Elle: out. You know why? Because this is what men do in a four

[00:35:14] Elle: hour.

[00:35:16] Erum: Nothing they do.

[00:35:23] Elle: But yeah, I mean,

[00:35:24] Elle: all the same factors that lead to great glowing happy skin are also true for men and by. I wanna talk about endocrine disruptors in men too, because this is a fascinating area. , But the first thing is stress affects your skin, probably 30%, to be honest with you. , And there's a really great biomarker that helps us know how stressed we are.

[00:35:44] Elle: , If you are wearing Aura or if you have the, apple Health kit, it's called HRV heart rate variability. that's. Score is a pretty good biomarker to tell you how stressed you are. so we're using that to indicate stress. basal body temperature, which aura and Apple health actually also track, helps you understand what's gonna happen with your skin.

[00:36:02] Elle: let me get into the science of this 'cause I think you guys will like it. So what happens for. Women, sorry Carl. But what happens for women is as you ovulate and right before you get your period, your basal body temperature increases. When your basal body temperature increases, it actually signals to your CBU production to produce more oil.

[00:36:18] Elle: so that is why you get hormonal breakouts, right before you ovulate and before you're on your period. and depending on how much your basal body temperature, It rises and falls can determine a potential outbreak of your skin. Now the other interesting thing that also I just dug up in PubMed that I'll send you guys, it's fascinating.

[00:36:36] Elle: and depending on which side of your face you break out, it's the inverse side of your ovary that ovulated.

[00:36:44] Karl: Holy cow.

[00:36:45] Elle: it's so fascinating, when I say there is so much science that backs up this skin, hormone connection. It's all there. We're just putting the pieces together.

[00:36:54] Elle: So anyway, as a male, if your HRV is very actually, 'cause, HRV is a, a relative metric, not absolute.

[00:37:01] Elle: So if it's low for you, it can indicate stress. When you pair that with any fluctuations and basal body temperature, which men also have, that is how you get stress outbreaks. that's how it works. and then you add in, has your. Sleep. How's your water? Here are the known triggers of food. Have you eaten any guys, this is super understandable, super understandable. And guess what? It's not about products. It's about understanding all of these other factors. And then the

[00:37:27] Elle: last 10% is which products are you?

[00:37:29] Erum: Yeah, which products are you using or what you're eating or how much you're

[00:37:32] Erum: drinking. more people in the biotech space. Men's skincare is also important. men are starting to get hip to the jive. they know that they need to take care of their skins, especially at earlier ages.

[00:37:45] Erum: but the app, I think Just as you explain it's super valuable. we should take a selfie and there'll be analysis or do as an assessment.

[00:37:53] Elle: Yeah, so there's an assessment right now. It's built on top of Aura. we're using Aura data, which is very, yeah, I know I'm an Ora girl myself. and Aura created these chronotypes, when they have a large enough data set, we wanna do the same thing for. Skin and breakouts. So we are actually building that infrastructure.

[00:38:11] Elle: we just added to the founding team, which I'm so excited about, the Chief Science Officer, formerly of calm. so I'm really excited about this app yeah, thank you. I'm really excited about what we can do to really make the connection between. Skin and hormone more obvious. the way that I like to think about it's, we're just starting with skin.

[00:38:31] Elle: We're gonna move into all these other things that are connected to your hormones that we don't understand. Sleep cognition, memory immunity. we just

[00:38:39] Elle: don't understand these things and. Yeah. Big microbiome. I'm all about that. That's so true. I'm like, yeah. So anyway, that's where we're going with the app.

[00:38:48] Elle: I'm super excited about it. I'm really excited to find and make great products that are more

[00:38:53] Elle: predictive. it'll take us time to get

[00:38:56] Elle: there, but I think, that's gonna be amazing. And now we're actually unlocking something really cool.

[00:39:01] Karl: That is super cool.

[00:39:02] Elle: I do wanna talk about men. So one of the things that happened for same, I started selling skincare.

[00:39:07] Elle: This is very interesting. we actually sell majority to men, which is super fascinating. And the use case within this, just to get really specific, 'cause obviously , I like to talk to customers, users, the use case men, especially younger men that are typically in a partnership and trying to get pregnant.

[00:39:24] Elle: But having trouble, they will look for endocrine, like endocrine disrupting for EDC free products

[00:39:30] Elle: to protect their testosterone.

[00:39:32] Karl: Right.

[00:39:33] Elle: This is a huge market. Men are looking for these products.

[00:39:36] Karl: I mean, you could correct me

[00:39:38] Karl: if I'm wrong, but this whole decrease in sperm

[00:39:40] Karl: count is due to endocrine disruptors.

[00:39:43] Elle: Yes.

[00:39:44] Elle: You are not wrong. That is absolutely true.

[00:39:47] Karl: So, grow everything. Male listeners just know if you're trying to get pregnant, there's a lot of things you can do to

[00:39:52] Karl: increase that

[00:39:52] Karl: sperm count

[00:39:53] Karl: and do the work. using Axe Body spray.

[00:39:56] Elle: Yes. And, yes, thank you. and easy places too, start with fragrance. Just get rid of all of the fragrance products. Start there. That's really

[00:40:04] Elle: really easy. But it's not even if you wanna get pregnant, if you want to protect your endocrine system, so it functions great because your endocrine system is everything.

[00:40:13] Elle: It's your

[00:40:14] Erum: Yeah.

[00:40:14] Elle: It's your mood. It's your ability to remember shit. It's your sleep, your libido. You should do everything in your power to protect that

[00:40:23] Elle: one thing inside.

[00:40:24] Erum: Yeah. I love this conversation, also because mean, a lot of it's about women's health because when you think of hormones, people always also automatically think of PMS and your period, blah, blah, blah. but it is so intertwined, like you're saying, with our ability to think and memorize and do everything else.

[00:40:40] Erum: It's so tied to every. Part of our bodies and systems there was this conversation about menopause and how no one's really doing a lot of research and figuring that out and the links to Alzheimer's and other age related diseases, we figured out how to ensure that, babies don't die.

[00:40:57] Erum: That there's, how to help with heart attacks, how to do these things. It's not nature. I mean, yes, nature's not the best thing all the time, the word natural. I know sometimes people throw that around in the beauty and personal care industry. It means nothing. Yeah, just like clean beauty.

[00:41:11] Erum: It means nothing nature. Okay. I like to go for hikes. I love seeing beautiful vistas and landscapes, but it's not great for everything. okay,

[00:41:19] Erum: we have menopause, but how do we solve for menopause so that we live longer, healthier lives?

[00:41:24] Elle: That's right.

[00:41:25] Erum: hormone just discussion, I think.

[00:41:27] Elle: Yeah. So this is what I was saying. What's really interesting about, hormones, but what I'm particularly interested in is, and again I'm talking about it through the lens of skin, in part because I think that's the way I can get people to care, People are gonna wake up if they're like, oh, I care about what my face looks like.

[00:41:40] Elle: Great. Guess what? You want a beautiful face with a healthy skin? You gotta know what's happening with your

[00:41:44] Elle: hormones. I,

[00:41:46] Elle: that's my thesis here is I'll get people to care through their

[00:41:49] Elle: vanity. so

[00:41:51] Elle: I mean,

[00:41:53] Karl: It works. Whatever works is what we

[00:41:55] Elle: kinda, how do we get people to care? Well, here's how, but there are all of these cycles.

[00:42:01] Elle: And men actually, Carla, I wanna talk about you men typically have a huge decline in testosterone after age 35. This is a known, known, and we could call it menopause or whatever. I've heard it called that before, but it is also something that needs to be solved for now.

[00:42:16] Elle: Luckily for you, it's an easier solve, you know, whereas, you just inject some testosterone and that's how. I like to tell people, it's my favorite fun fact is, most women don't know that. your hormones need to be imbalanced. And the hormones I'm talking about specifically are progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. What ends up happening for people with a chronic hormone condition is these are out of balance.

[00:42:41] Elle: so if someone, naturally we would assume, okay, well then I need to just take more of something. Well, it doesn't quite work that way. I'll give you a really. Example, testosterone for women. If you have too much testosterone, it actually converts into estrogen and now you have an estrogen dominance vis-a-vis too much testosterone, which actually, which is what polycystic ovarian syndrome it's actually a testosterone dominance.

[00:43:03] Elle: and people dunno that. And the inverse is also true. If you're a man and you have too much testosterone, guess what happens? It converts into estrogen. And that's why when men are on steroids, they grow

[00:43:13] Elle: boobs in their ball string.

[00:43:14] Erum: Oh wow. Wow. That's so interesting. Yes. And

[00:43:18] Elle: And that's why so

[00:43:20] Erum: mm-hmm.

[00:43:21] Elle: right? it's.

[00:43:25] Karl: It's not as simple. Yeah,

[00:43:26] Karl: exactly. It's not that can solve, but it's not gonna solve everything. this has been such a good conversation. I feel like I've been like on the edge of having hr. Give me a warning.

[00:43:39] Erum: Yeah, we'll have a conversation later. Carl.

[00:43:43] Karl: Oh my God, that's. But Al, if constraints were to fall away capital tech time, be the dream system look like for you that you would

[00:43:53] Karl: make and maybe move products through in a way that

[00:43:56] Karl: honors both, the body and the planet. Your body and your planet, or

[00:43:59] Karl: a person's body?

[00:44:00] Karl: I.

[00:44:00] Elle: That's a beautiful question. Well, I look at the farm to table movement. I would love to have something like that in supplements, medicine in general and, beauty, let's get to that movement where consumers want to understand with their producers and the people actually making the things, just bringing it all closer together.

[00:44:21] Elle: it's not as easy as farm to table is obviously, but. That would be amazing if people could really care about and understand how things are made. because. It matters, how things are made matters. And consumers, especially Americans, we don't really care about it that much.

[00:44:37] Elle: We forgot about it, but if all constraints run away, getting people to care a little bit more would also spark more curiosity. And then you would see more kids with lab kids trying to make probiotic

[00:44:47] Elle: deodorants

[00:44:48] Erum: Yes.

[00:44:50] Elle: and

[00:44:50] Karl: That's, yeah.

[00:44:51] Elle: of farm to table product world. That would be amazing.

[00:44:55] Karl: I think that's a beautiful vision. I love that so much and I think now is the time for that because community is more important than ever, and if it's community about beauty or community, about consumption, it makes it much more thoughtful and healthy and safer and

[00:45:11] Karl: better for the planet.

[00:45:12] Karl: I love that all That's so

[00:45:14] Elle: Yeah. and if we're doing this, I would love to have a lab, I'm looking at your backgrounds and I'm like a little bit jealous

[00:45:20] Elle: because I consider myself a kitchen sink scientist, because I'm making kitchen sink products.

[00:45:25] Elle: but to have science more involved in all of this and being able to actually see what we could make, it's amazing. Well, you're in San Francisco. We know the great community

[00:45:34] Karl: lab being built in San Francisco right now. Well, there's Bio Curious is on the other side of the bay, I don't know about where BioCurious is exactly. I should know, but is it Berlin

[00:45:45] Karl: House? Yeah. the brand is Biopunk Lab. And it's in the Berlin House. and they're, such a great group of people and community and they would love to just, play in the lab with you and figure things out. And share ideas

[00:45:58] Erum: and share perspective. this is such a great conversation.

[00:46:01] Erum: I just feel like we just need, have a virtual group hug. That's one

[00:46:05] Erum: thing.

[00:46:05] Elle: know.

[00:46:06] Karl: totally. Yeah.

[00:46:08] Erum: It is so great. Oh my gosh. you're so amazing. L everyone needs to follow l on Instagram That's the first thing everyone needs to do. All this will be in the show notes. You have beta

[00:46:18] Erum: testers here when the app comes out, so you're gonna send it to us and then we're gonna share it with our community.

[00:46:24] Erum: Yeah. Yeah, no, wanna do it and see what I can learn. I am infinitely curious and I'm always trying new things, so I think I would love to do that. I. Yeah. That's why I said, I don't see those kind of products flowing through the house because I have a couple of sons who are very conscious about their skincare.

[00:46:42] Karl: So I see what they're doing, I see what they're buying, and sometimes I end up using it too.

[00:46:50] Karl: Yeah.

[00:46:51] Erum: Awesome.

[00:46:52] Erum: All right, Al. Well thank you so much for coming on the Grow Everything podcast. We loved having you. We're gonna have you back, especially after the app goes live, more people are buying the products. You're probably up to some other things that we really wanna dig into because we

[00:47:05] Erum: love your perspective.

[00:47:06] Erum: And thank you for sharing.

[00:47:08] Elle: Of this lab. I know if they're around anymore, this is probably like 10, 12

[00:47:16] Elle: project.

[00:47:16] Erum: no. Yeah. So, gen space, which is where RUM and I met, which is an open lab here in Brooklyn also is part of that Open Insulin project. And I think they use a plant to grow insulin in and they've made some

[00:47:28] Karl: really nice progress. we should double check on it 'cause it would be good to talk about And BioCurious is actually in Sunnyvale, I'm gonna go see them. But I love the Open

[00:47:37] Elle: Insulin project. I think that's also the future, , this is the challenge

[00:47:40] Elle: for science though. The more we can open source scientific discovery and make it more available to people, the better. But that is a challenge in how science is

[00:47:49] Elle: commercialized,

[00:47:50] Erum: Yes.

[00:47:51] Elle: if you're not the lab creating ip, who's funding the work? Now you have to look at the government, but the government's cutting

[00:47:57] Elle: off all that

[00:47:58] Elle: money.

[00:47:59] Elle: It's huge problem.

[00:48:00] Erum: yes. We gotta go to different countries. we gotta go to the Saudis.

[00:48:03] Karl: Yeah,

[00:48:06] Elle: Guys, this is, so fun. I love that we can nerd out

[00:48:08] Elle: on this stuff. Sorry that we're like bees, but I'm like, there's so much to.

[00:48:11] Erum: Yes,

[00:48:12] Karl: Oh, there is.

[00:48:12] Karl: there is.

[00:48:12] Karl: Yeah.

[00:48:14] Karl: We'll just have to have you back on again to, go through what we didn't get to talk about.

[00:48:17] Elle: Yeah. And actually once the product is ready, you guys should talk to the founder of this all natural deodorant. it's hoppy. Have you ever heard

[00:48:23] Elle: of this brand?

[00:48:24] Karl: Yeah, yeah,

[00:48:26] Elle: Hoppy. I've been working on four products for him for like a year now. Once it's ready, you should have him on.

[00:48:30] Elle: He's amazing.

[00:48:31] Erum: Happy.

[00:48:32] Karl: yeah. I totally know that, brand, I think maybe one of deodorants has already come through my house, he hasn't done a

[00:48:38] Elle: deodorant yet. Okay. Well something has come through my house for

[00:48:41] Elle: they do chewable plastic free

[00:48:44] Elle: water free toothpaste.

[00:48:46] Karl: Yeah.

[00:48:46] Elle: Yeah. And they're nationwide in Whole Foods. and he's awesome. he's so fascinating. Like his passion is so infectious. You guys would

[00:48:54] Elle: love him.

[00:48:54] Karl: Yeah. Love it. Cool. Well, thank you so much again, El, enjoy your Friday, enjoy your

[00:48:59] Karl: weekend,

[00:49:00] Elle: too.

[00:49:00] Karl: and we look forward to talking to you again

[00:49:02] Karl: soon.

[00:49:03] Elle: right. Bye guys.