Peptides! Growth Factors! Exosomes! The Buzziest Skincare Ingredients To Know Now. Plus - Overcoming Trauma and Building Skin Confidence With Allies of Skin Founder Nicolas Travis

0:00The following podcast is a dear media production.

0:07Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

0:20Welcome back to Breaking Beauty podcast, everyone. On this very special Friday episode, of course, we are Jill and Carlene, two beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. We've been in your feed for the past seven years, delivering the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. Normally we're here on Wednesday, but you know, we're serving up bonus content this week. That's right. Enjoy everybody. If you're a longtime listener, you know that we chat with industry insiders like Dr. Shereen Idris, beauty muses like Matilda Jerf, Trace Ellis Ross, makeup and hair pros like Sir John, Jen Atkin, makeup by Mario.

0:56And today we're featuring a very special bonus uninterrupted founder episode brought to you in partnership with allies of skin and they very generously offered us a promo code that might be our juiciest deal yet everybody so stay tuned for that that's right this week we welcome nicholas travis a skincare entrepreneur and in 2016 he founded the incredible skincare brand allies of skin it's really the brand that every beauty editor is buzzing about and allies of skin was born to make beauty more human, according to Nicholas. Yes, more than just a name, Allies of Skin is a philosophy that guides everything that they do.

1:35Nicholas, aka perhaps Hollywood Skin Whisper in the product department, was inspired to create Allies of Skin after a tragic accident resulted in devastating facial injuries. Allies of Skin is dedicated to helping individuals feel good in their own skin. I love that. We need more of that in the beauty biz. And their values were really born from Nicholas's own personal journey toward self-acceptance and his commitment to inspiring others to embrace the same feeling. And Allies of Skin formulates clinically proven active ingredients like vitamin C, growth factors, and retinoids in maxed out concentrations and puts their own sort of supercharged spin on them, I would say, to provide multiple benefits in one step, achieving the unachievable in the industry and really challenging the status quo.

2:27Allies of Skin has since gone next level viral, earning more than 30 internationally recognized beauty awards. And it can be found in the routines of some of Hollywood's most idolized A-listers, including the likes of Niall Horan, Hailey Bieber, January Jones, and Kaya Gerber. I would also say on the top shelf of Jill Dunn, you know, not to. I've been using this brand for years. The biggest of the stars. Yes, exactly. And Kaya Gerber, I once read in Refinery29 that she said everything I use is allies of skin. I don't use anything else. She said I get the products for free. Disclosure Queen. Love that.

3:07But they have literally changed my skin. And I just thought that was a pretty profound endorsement. Yes, indeed. And if anyone wants to know more specifics, she name drops the CE15 Bakuchi oil mixed with the night cream that she uses before she goes to sleep. So we will link to those products and any others that we talk about, of course, on our website under episode recaps. So in today's episode, we're going to get the backstory on Nicholas's very personal journey to start the brand and the adversity that he had to overcome emotionally and physically to get to where he is today. It's a really, really personal story and inspiration for this brand.

3:46And I did want to let everybody know that in today's episode, the topics of self-harm and suicide are briefly discussed. And Nicholas has a background in biochemistry and pharmacy. So he is able to walk us through in layperson's terms exactly what peptides are and why you're seeing them everywhere right now. Plus, he fills us in on growth factor, whether that ingredient is worth investing in. when it comes to serums. He also weighs in on copper peptides. What are those? That's another pricey ingredient. Salmon sperm facials, which he had started getting 10 years ago, long before we were seeing it all over TikTok.

4:26So it's really interesting to get his insights from someone who is so ahead of the curve. We were really nerding out with Nicholas, and I think our listeners will love that. So we have a very special offer for Breaking Beauty listeners for a limited time from November 1st to November 22nd. If you want to try any of the great allies of skin products like the best-selling peptides and antioxidants firming daily treatment, you can use our code BREAKINGBEAUTY at us.allies.shop during checkout for 30 % off your first purchase. Once again, you visit us.allies, spelled A-L-L-I-E-S.shop and use code BREAKINGBEAUTY at checkout for 30 % off your first purchase.

5:14And GWP alert for a limited time with a purchase of$130 or more, customers will receive their brand new limited edition cleansing balm for free. So maybe you need a stocking stuffer for someone else. So get in on that. Absolutely. Welcome to the podcast, Nicholas.

5:44Welcome to Breaking Beauty podcast, Nicholas. So tell us a little bit about your story. I understand that you grew up in Singapore. Yes, I grew up in Singapore and my passion for skincare started when I was a teenager with really severe acne. And I quickly realized there were just a lot of empty promises on the market. And that ignited my passion for skincare. And I've always been fascinated by how the skin works as an organ and my background is in biomedical and pharmaceutical science. So I am very, very, very, I guess, obsessed with formulations. and that's actually my favorite part of the job and the reason why I even have a skincare line was actually more personal so when I was 19 I had a really severe accident it smashed my face I needed to have reconstructive surgery and I went to what I thought was a good surgeon but he ended up butchering my face so I had multiple infections I had necrosis where the infection was eating the flesh on my skin so I had holes in my face and it was after many failed surgeries and a failed suicide attempt that I needed to see a therapist.

6:52And my therapist said, okay, let's assume you have to be here. Let's make a list of all the things you want to accomplish by the time you're 30. And I was like 19. Then what would that list look like? And it was then that I realized, you know, if I was hating myself every day, crawling out of my skin every day, then maybe other people would. And if I could somehow channel that pain into helping other people feel perhaps more confident or and eventually more fearless in their skin then my pain would have been worth it and so for me it's one of those things where I feel like when something tragic happens to you like that it feels like a lot of a lot of things were wrong control was taken away from you and I figured you know taking care of my skin was the one modality that I controlled.

7:38And I figured, you know, if I can't change how I look, then maybe I could change how my skin looks. Yeah. The name makes complete sense now, Allies of Skin. I just put that together based on your story. If it's not too personal or painful, maybe could you tell us what happened at 19 to the accident? Yeah, absolutely. So I basically, I basically had one of those situations where I was staying at a at a friend's place and he had you know you have one of those like bathtub shower two-in-one combo situation so you're standing you're standing and there was like no place I remember there was like no place to put like anything so the the shower gel was hanging on like like that the sliding door top of the So it kind of fell.

8:29It kind of fell. And I was trying to catch it. And then I slipped. So I smashed on the tap and then I smashed on the on the top on the top itself. Yeah. Yeah. So just just shows how a random thing can happen at any just within seconds and change your life. Unbelievable. So just tell us about like how you went from the place you were in, which first of all, I'm so sorry you went through all of that, like quite a journey to get from where you were with self-acceptance to starting a skincare brand. So tell us a bit about that. Yeah. So I graduated and I was so depressed I couldn't get a job. So I went to graduate school.

9:09So I studied and for my master's thesis, I actually wrote a business plan for a startup skincare line. and that formed sort of like the basis for what is allies skin today and that's when i spent six months and i learned you know the manufacturing process i spoke to many different labs i spoke to chemists i applied to every single beauty company in every single country that i could live and work in right your l 'oreals your uni nemerry or estilos you know what i mean but none of that got back to me i needed to to get a job and so i had a bunch of offers from advertising firms. And I was just like, okay, I guess I will do that.

9:49So I did that for about nine months and I did PR and social media. I was in the office one day and I had like six accounts and I was doing really well. And I looked around and I'm like, I don't want to be my boss. I don't want to be my boss's boss. I don't want to be my boss's boss's boss. So I was just like, I had this feeling I couldn't shake off to revisit the business plan that I wrote. So I started in 2013 and I spent two and a half years doing research and development because we create everything from scratch. And we launched in 2016. So the first product you launched was the peptides and antioxidants firming daily treatment.

10:28Is this the best seller to this day? Yeah. So it's our number one hero skill. But actually, that is for moisturizer. It's across the board. It was for a few years. But then we launched our EGS serums, our Epidermal Growth Factor Serum last year. And that is, I think that's the hero skew right now. Because we had, we did sold out four times. We had a$5 ,000 plus wait list. And it's not a, it's a$188 serum. So it's by no means affordable, accessible, but it's also not the most expensive product. So that is, that has taken over as the new hero skew. Okay, amazing. Well, let's get into the first one you launched.

11:10I think it would be good to dive in because it's a treatment moisturizer. And I can imagine that most of our listeners are thinking, normally those would be two different steps. So in a nutshell, what does it do? What's the benefit of having this two-in-one formula? So when it came time for me to figure out the first product, I really wanted and call it like a Swiss Army knife moisturizer because I feel like moisturizers are great. You can run the gamut, right? You can have a drugstore moisturizer that will just hydrate or you could have something that would give you the benefits and all the actives of a treatment serum with a moisturizer.

11:51And I figured, you know, most of the time, people who are multi-hyphenates, moms, for example, who have jobs and a household to manage the kids, maybe they don't want a 12-step routine because coming from Asia at that time, it was very, very popular. And so I really wanted to just create something that a busy mom could use and go and go about her day and still get incredible visible results without feeling like she needs to have a 12 step routine. Right. I love that. That's perfect for us lazy slash busy types. And peptides. I mean, this is a word we see everywhere all over skincare now. But, you know, this is something that you kind of doubled down on in 2016.

12:32Can you explain in layperson's terms to our listeners why peptides are effective, what they actually do for your skin, the end benefit? What do we need to know? I kind of think of peptides as like personal trainers for your skin cells. And just like, for example, how you would go to the gym and you hire a personal trainer, you don't expect to see results with your personal trainer the first three days, right? Or the first three sessions. And that's the same thing with peptides. Like they kickstart certain biological responses in the skin. So they basically help your skin cells perform better. And there are hundreds, not thousands of peptides, right?

13:11There are certain peptides that reduce redness. there are certain peptides that stimulate collagen production there's certain peptides they use around the eye area there are certain peptides that help reduce melanin production there's certain peptides that restore the skin barrier there's a lot of peptides so just because you know a brand has multiple peptides products it's also important to know what exactly those peptides are and for us we if you look at the range we actually have a couple of products with peptides but they actually are all different peptides so if actually if you use them together it's like going for a spin class It's like going for a HIIT class.

13:44It's like going for a personal trainer, a HIIT class. So you get different workouts, which I think it's the fun part, which you'll see the most results. So I kind of think of peptides like that, which it's really honestly one of those things where you have to give it time and you have to use it consistently to see results. I mean, I think you even see peptides, like therapeutic peptides. People are injecting them like for health benefits now. It's just like for like human. It's not. Is it HGH? You can have, there's so many peptides actually. There are peptides for sleep, DSIP. There are copper tripeptides, which we have a copper tripeptide serum that we launched in July, but you can also inject that into the body to help stimulate wound repair from the inside out.

14:27And then obviously growth hormones as well. So there's a bunch, a lot of peptides. Yeah, we're in LA right now. And I think I see evidence of peptides. Well, I think biohacking is the, I guess, the movement right now. And so, yeah, I think everybody's just trying to look better, live longer. Right. Now, did you say did you say that your new hero product is that the multi peptides and GF advanced lifting serum? So that has growth factor in it as well. Can you explain the difference between how these ingredients work and why they're put together in that formula? What makes it so great? Absolutely.

15:09Absolutely. So if I were to say, as I mentioned, peptides are like your personal trainers, right? So growth factors are also kind of made of like amino acids. But it's the concept that I had, like, for example, if you cut yourself and even if you don't touch the cut or the wound, your body naturally produces growth factors to heal itself. So you'll see that your cut doesn't stay, right, for like three months. So you cut yourself, your body produces responses to heal itself. And I kind of wanted to bottle that. And so epidermal growth factors are one of those things that actually help with repair of the skin.

15:47and they actually help with wound repair. They help stimulate collagen production. You check multiple boxes and we make our growth factors in the lab. So it's a biotech growth factors. And there's a bit of a difference. You can have ones from plants. You can have ones from bacteria. We create our growth factors from E. coli. So it's made in the lab. You can also have human conditioned media from human sources. But the thing about that is that human conditioned media is not allowed in the EU or Asia or Australia. So because we're a global brand that sells our products in, for example, 36 countries, we have to be very careful with the choice of growth factors we use.

16:31So the choice that we use, it allows us to sell in Asia and Europe and of course the US. Now, Australia is really, really tricky because the TGA is actually really very strict. So we're in the process of trying to work with the TGA to recognize this growth factors. But it's an uphill battle. So in short, peptides are like strengthening for the skin and growth factors are like healing, almost like wound healing for the skin. Is that correct? Yes, absolutely. Which is why also, for example, in derm practices, you often hear things like PRP, right? Which is the platelet-rich treatment. You draw your blood, you spin, and it's the growth factors that's, you know, put after microneedling or injected into the skin.

17:21So it's kind of that same concept. Obviously, different types of growth factors, but it's the same concept. So there are, I think you may have heard of something called exosomes right now. So I think that's the new Oh yeah, I'm obsessed. Yeah, that's the new buzzwords about the buzz ingredient, right? But I think the thing with exosomes is the fact that if you look at in science, the exosomes are actually transport vesicles. So they basically transport nutrients into the skin. And it's been, you have to just be a bit careful to know where the exosome is sourced from. Because I actually have a doctor friend and she runs a longevity clinic in Bangkok.

18:03And she was telling me that she had a patient who came in and she had exosomes injections done at another clinic in Thailand. and because the exosome wasn't purified there was actually bacteria in the exosomes and it transported so her skin molted her skin literally got infected and started melting wow so so i think it's one of those things where it might be great but just do it make sure you know where the sauce is from make sure you do it at a reputable place make sure you just ask as many questions as possible And since you're on the forefront of all these cutting edge ingredients, I'm sure you're investigating all the time with your background.

18:44What do you make of the whole like salmon facial thing that we're hearing about? You know, what's your take on that? Is this something that excites you? I think it was salmon. Sorry, let's take it a step further. Yeah. So I think it's very 2014 because I started doing it in 2014 and that was big in Asia. So I did it in Korea where it first came from. And I think it's really great in the beginning. And I think it only just caught on in the West right now because there was this huge FDA thing. But in Asia, in Singapore, in Korea, we were already doing it in 2014. 14 stuff. The thing is, it's actually very, very painful.

19:26So you have to do these micro injections all over the skin and it's going to look extremely bumpy for like 24, 48 hours. And it's really, really uncomfortable because when the salmon or the product Redjuant goes in, it kind of like freezes your skin cells like a frostbite each time. So it's extremely painful. But the thing is it gives you this glow and glossy effect. But what I really realized with this Rejuwon is it doesn't really last. So it doesn't, so you have to keep doing it. You have to keep doing it and it's actually quite painful. So there's actually another form. I think it's called PDRN where it's actually lasts longer.

20:10The results are better and it actually goes deeper into the skin. So there are different forms in Asia right now. So I know that Rejuwon just came to the US but it's actually not a new technology. Do you think that there will be any form of this that we'll see in skincare at some point? Or does it have to be sort of an injectable done by a professional? Great question. I think the manufacturer already creates masks, like sheet masks. And I think they probably already have like a serum or something. I've used those masks, but it's not the same results. And if you actually look at the A-key, like things like hyaluronic acid and cinemite are like way higher than the actual like the salmon thing and and also i don't know if the salmon if the delta size which is the molecular rate on molecular size of the salmon dna is is small enough that it can go through the skin barrier which is why it's better injected yeah got it do you think at this point is this one of those biotech things where they just take sort of the DNA and replicate it in a lab?

21:18Or is there actual, you know, salmon being sort of harvested for this? I think it's just a good marketing spin, right? Because if somebody tells you all this salmon sperm, you're like, you remember it. So I think it's very brilliant. But it's obviously all done. It's obviously all done in the lab. Right, right. Yeah, that's the, I think that's the interesting thing these days is, is the question of vegan skincare, I think is really being challenged now because there it's not, it's like you only need one source, right? And then you, you kind of create a vegan version of it. Is that right? Maybe you could explain the biotech, how the, how this is working in this day and age.

22:01I think you're. Yeah, correct. So, so essentially I think you take the good parts of it and then you you you change the molecular structure of of it in the lab i that's actually what biotech is use technology to change the biology right but then you also replicate it right so it's not like you need the original source to create to produce it on mass no you don't and and you can produce it like for example if you think of what organic skincare is like imagine if we have to extract vitamin C from oranges. Oh my gosh, you're going to need like a million oranges. I don't know who's going to squeeze them.

22:41So a lot of what we've created is in the last. Yes. Although snail mucin, I think they're still harvesting that, right? I think so. But I also know there are like vegan options right now. I've seen some marketing materials for vegan options. And again, you know, this CrossRx nail music thing, like I was using it in like 2010. And it just hasn't had a revival. So it's really not new. It's a really great product. It's a really great product, but it's not new. And it's really nice to see it catch up. I just talked about it on a podcast we did yesterday. Yeah, because someone was like, what's the number one K-Beauty product to go for?

23:23And I was like, well, just go back to the OG, get that one. And it's been like around for like 20 years. Absolutely. And I think it's nice to see it having a revival. And I think it's great. I think it's a fun product and I think it works. What are some other ingredients that are untapped that you could see bubbling up that maybe has been used in Singapore for a long time and is just kind of taking its time, making its way to the mainstream North America? In my opinion, I think the future is longevity. And I think the future is regeneration. I think you're going to see a lot of focus on regenerative medicine.

24:01You're going to see a lot of focus on regenerative skincare. And I think it comes back to this whole idea of skincare, right? Because technically, if you think about it, this is one of the smartest organs we have. It is capable of regenerating itself because it sheds itself. It regenerates. Like you're never going to run out of skin cells, right? So you're constantly exfoliating and shedding. So I think it's brilliant. You can't say the same for your heart. You have one heart. It's not capable of like regenerating heart tissue. So I think what we need to do is just feed it, feed the skin with the right nutrients and get out of its way because the skin is really smart.

24:35But that said, I think it comes down to this whole idea of like what repair means. And for us, I think there's going to be a lot of focus on things like epidermal growth factors. I think that's something that's going to be a lot bigger. And I think clopper tripeptide is also another thing that I think it's a sleeper ingredient. And I love copper trikeptide so much. Again, it's a peptide in nature. And this is really helping reduce inflammation, really helping restore your barrier. We just recently launched our copper trikeptide serum in July and it's been a smash hit already. And it's not an inexpensive ingredient.

25:12It's actually quite costly. And it's not something that you see a lot of, but we're very very proud of of of our own copulotrypeptide serum and you can actually tell i guess make sure when you buy a copulotrypeptide serum you know a brand tells you the percentage of the copulotrypeptide because i've also seen products on the on the market that say they have copulotrypeptide but they don't tell you and if you actually look at the inky they add bio colors into the inky to make it look more blue because pure copulotrypeptide is a blue powder is it so So they, yeah. You'd think it was be copper color.

25:48Yeah, yeah. So they make it like a pretty blue, but I think it's important to be transparent with the percentages of that hero ingredient. And people have asked, okay, if I only have money to buy either growth factors or hyperbolic peptide, which should I pick? And the truth of the matter is if you are prone to acne, if you're prone to redness, if you're prone to like discoloration from your breakouts and things like that, copper tripeptide is better because growth factors is really great for firming and lifting the skin and making it look more juicy, but it doesn't really help so much with skin tone.

26:24So if you're looking for to brighten your skin tone, copper tripeptide is better. If you have acne, copper tripeptide will reduce the inflammation. It's also better. But of course, if you can, if you mix growth factors with copper tripeptide, you would have watched the video. Nicholas, I need to circle back with you because you told us sort of the tragic story that started you on this journey. And of course, today we can see that your face is reconstructed and you're looking great. So I think we can't leave the listeners hanging. The glow is real, everyone. What was like a turning point for you?