Before Barrier Repair Was a Trend with Catherine D'Aragon of First Aid Beauty

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. Today's a very, very special episode. We are hosting the CEO of a brand that I've been in love with for a very, very long time. I think I've spoken about them so many times on the podcast as well as like my own personal channels. And with the rise of barrier health now in the skincare space, it's really important to understand what brands have been around already talking about this for many years. So without further ado, please welcome the CEO of First Aid Beauty, Catherine D 'Aragon. Welcome, Catherine. So honored to host you.

0:29Catherine D'Aragon:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to dive in, you know, to First Aid Beauty. But I want to learn more about you, Catherine. Your career has been an amazing trajectory, you know, in the business world. And I would love to understand, like, what got you into the beauty business? Just to understand, you know, what led you into the space? You know, I fell in love with the industry at a very young age. I'm from Canada, Montreal. And in Canada, like very young, we use skincare. It's kind of like taught by your mother. It's kind of like another culture. And at a very young age, I was using a lot of skincare.

1:00Catherine D'Aragon:And, you know, back in the days when in the U.S., that was not exactly the case. So just got in love and just went to business school and ended up in beauty. And I think it's such an emotional and such an important industry, whether it's like protection of your skin, barrier, protection, SPF. You know, I think it's we're helping people taking care of their skin and looking good and feeling confident. So I've been in this industry for more than 20 years and I love it even more every day. So, you know, I'm glad I'm able to help brand grow and adding more people knowing those brands. So very glad to talk about First Aid today.

1:37Yeah, I'm excited. That's really interesting because I think First Aid is such a unique brand to me. Like as a consumer, it stands out so much because as I was saying in my intro, like you guys were always focused on barrier. You know, you're always focused on like what is truly healthy skin. And I think now from what I'm noticing, the conversation is coming around again. You know, after like, what, like two decades of like pushing a lot of actives, pushing a lot of acids and over exfoliating. And so I really want to understand, how do you feel about that? Because first aid really stuck to their guns, you know, when it came to this is who we are.

2:07We believe in barrier science and we're not changing. So, I mean, I'd love for you to speak on that.

2:13Catherine D'Aragon:Yes. And the brand was founded in 2009, you know, so it's been a long time. And that's funny because we always been talking about sensitive skin, but not necessarily a lot about barrier. Even though our main product, Ultra Repair Cream, that everybody knows, has such a strong clinical claim of strengthened skin barrier in seven days. But I don't know why the brand was not really talking about this because I think barrier was not something like buzzy in the market. And we've always been talking about sensitive skin and formulated for sensitive skin. But now that it's a little bit more buzzy because of recently people using like 12-step routine and overly using product that is damaging their barrier.

2:53Catherine D'Aragon:There's a lot of brands that came in and said, oh, we invented barrier repair. And now we're like the brand for barrier repair. But initially, I think First Aid came first to be a developing product that is helping strengthen your barrier. So now you're going to hear us more talking about that. But that's something that has been existing since 2009. And every formula, we're using product to strengthen the body of the skin because that will make you better if you have sensitive skin. So it's kind of like in the same subject. And the goal, but it's not only strengthening your skin, but it's also feeling good about it.

3:28Catherine D'Aragon:And that was kind of like the idea behind First Aid Beauty that Lily Gordon at that time was like, there's such a gap in the market because you have product that is helping solve your problem. but you're going to buy it at the drugstore and it's going to be like kind of boring to use. And you're not going to be proud because the packaging will be ugly and the formula won't be kind of sensorial. So she developed something that will solve your problems, strengthen your barrier, be good for sensitive skin, but at the same time, a very luxurious, very nice formula and kind of nice packaging that you're proud to put on your beauty cabinet.

4:01Catherine D'Aragon:So that's kind of like the idea behind First Aid. Yeah, I love that. You know, it's important that what you mentioned, that it started off as a sensitive skin brand. You know, that was who it's meant for. And I think like when we think about the science, it's interesting how barrier health gets lumped now with sensitive skin because everyone thinks they have sensitive skin, you know? And so it's interesting time right now in skincare because we've let ourselves down this road, right? Where we've done all the peels, we've done all this stuff. And then now it's like every time you go through all of that, you still need that product that you can keep coming back to that's going to actually help your skin and let it heal and let it be normal.

4:38And I would love for you to speak on this from like the business side a little bit, if you don't mind, where we have an industry here that is flooded with trends. It's flooded with, you know, the new thing every day. There's a brand that pops up every day. And I would love to understand how do you stay resilient in a market that's ever evolving and it's always changing?

4:56Catherine D'Aragon:That's a very good point because it's very tempting to see like, oh, those trend. And then some brands are going after that trend and will invent some product in like three months and launch to market. And then everybody's talking about this ingredient. And like the other day, it's another mask or another TikTok phenomenon. But I think we need to evaluate the science behind the trend. You know, and for First Aid Beauty, we don't develop product in three months. We develop product. It takes years to develop. So we want to be careful about not launching something because it's a trend. But what is the need of the consumer?

5:30Catherine D'Aragon:How can we help people fix their problem, have their sensitive skin? But yeah, it's tempting as like the young people in the team, they want to be trendy, they want to be buzzy. But I think there's like a beauty of being behind like our DNA and not going after that trend, but going after the science. I think that for me, that's kind of like the North Star for us and not going after that. However, it's good to listen the trends and listen like what the consumers are saying, what the community is saying. And that's very interesting that some of the product that, let's say, our KP body scrub, right, was really developed for helping your KP, your strawberry skin.

6:06Catherine D'Aragon:But there were some people using the product because they wanted to exfoliate before they get a tan. And so a suntan, you know, so then we start talking about, oh, you can use it for KP, but you can also use it before you're tanning. So we're listening to trend to give like more maybe additional usage to our product, but that we're not starting with the trend to develop the product. We're starting with the need in the market and the people needs in their skin. So that's kind of like we treat trends at First Aid. That's yeah, I like that. And I really, really like that product, by the way. That's one of my favorite products, the KP Body Scrub.

6:42It's amazing. And, you know, that's one of the biggest questions I had for you was because First State has created products that are still, they're the best ones, like in the industry, when you look at it. And like, I know the Ultra Repair Cream, for example, obsessed with it. I've been using it for years. Can't find a dupe. You know what I mean? Like, I can't find anything else that works like it. And I know I've promoted the KP Scrub myself, like to my entire family. I'm like, this is the best one.

7:05Catherine D'Aragon:This one. Yes. And so, you know, that's where I get so many questions because you guys are a brand that has grown over time. I mean, you've been around, but you still produce products that are just like they hit really hard and they don't like there's not much that can replace it. And so I guess from when you look at it from a scalability component of a brand, what do you think is really important for entrepreneurs to understand that are maybe entering the beauty space? You know, and they want to create a product that is going to outlast the test of time, that kind of thing. I think it's going like the brand idea and the DNA of the brand needs to stay through throughout the life of the brand.

7:40Catherine D'Aragon:So for me, like whatever is your story, some people have a story with like they will use ingredient that you find in the ocean. Some people it's something else. First aid beauty, as I said, was to find something that was problem solution, good for skin. And it was kind of like a more luxurious experience than your product that you were finding initially in the drugstore. So that's our foundation. So we will never formulate. We will never launch something that is not based on the DNA. And we've tried and, you know, a few years ago, we kind of like went off track and we launched product that was really not in that kind of problem solution, sense and skin.

8:16Catherine D'Aragon:And we decided to discontinue those products because, you know, they were not what the brand is about. Another thing that we will never launch is that if we try to develop a product and we have formula and we test it and it's making people react, then we will decide not to launch it. So for the sensitive skin aspect is true to our DNA and we will never launch something that is stripping people's skin. For example, retinol, right? So we were trying to find something with anti-aging and like one of the most popular ingredient, retinol, is not really good for sensitive skin. So we spent like three years researching and we found like a very specific technology about encapsulated retinol with slower delivery.

9:01Catherine D'Aragon:Then it's less irritation. then it was really suited for sensitive skin. Another example are facial regions fad that's probably a third best product and everybody knows. You know, exfoliation, when you think about exfoliation, you think about getting sensitive and it's stripping people. But we've spent a lot of time developing this product. So we made it with two acid, glycolic and lactic, which is a gentler acid. So then this like combination is giving like real exfoliation, but without the irritation. like the most of the exfoliators. So all this to say that when you try to develop a brand, very stay true to who you are and the idea behind the brand needs to remain throughout.

9:44Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like finding like what are you really trying to do and just kind of stick to that and build around it.

9:50Catherine D'Aragon:And especially because now people, you know, are very savvy and there's social media, there's, you know, all the LLMs and people are very informed about brands, product, ingredient and they will research and they will tell you if it doesn't fit your brand. So you need to be very careful about, you know, where you go with your brand and how you evolve over time. That's a really good point. I was trying to like also point out, even with like all the data now that we have access to, like if you go online right now and you look up what's really going to help me. Say you use tretinoin too much, you know, and you've destroyed your skin barrier.

10:24What's going to help me? And then you look at like, for example, first aid formulas. They're made for sensitive skin, but they're really made to help you out. Like that's where I feel like the brand was made for sensitive skin. But even as it's evolved, it's made for people who are like, you know, maybe they don't have sensitive skin, but they're dealing with something, you know. So it's like having that ability to transition different like niche groups, like consumer groups, that's very rare to see in a brand, you know.

10:47Catherine D'Aragon:We like to think about our consumers as like different tribes. So we identify like a few tribes and we spend a lot of time, you know, we're part of P &G now. We have a lot of access to a lot of research. So we are doing a lot of research. And most of the time, we sit with consumers for like hours and days. And then we just learn about them talking about brands and skincare in general and first aid beauty specifically at the end. And so there's not like one consumer that's buying first aid. There's many tribes. And one of it is, we call it like the simple girl, the person that just like one simple product that works and is tired of the trend and tired of going to social media.

11:24Catherine D'Aragon:And that's a simple girl. And then we have some other tribes that is more like really trying to find a problem. And we have like many other tribes like that. That's how we try to adapt our messages. But we're not adapting our product. You know, we stay true to our product and our science and our ingredients. But we adapt our messages based on like the type of consumers that we think we are relevant for in the market. Yeah, absolutely. No, it definitely shows. You know, I guess one of my big questions is also like being a bigger brand now, you know, than you guys were back when you launched. I'm sure you dealt a lot with people trying to duplicate or trying to recreate what first aid is.

12:01How do you think from a business angle, how do you deal with that as a larger company? And I mean, do you ignore it? Do you kind of learn from it? Like if they're trying to dupe you or how does that work?

12:11Catherine D'Aragon:Being bigger and successful brings a lot of competition, right? People are trying to dupe you. And that's like a reality of any brand in the market that has some success, right? So most recently, I think we've had a lot of dupes, especially with Lutra Repair Cream and KP and the Facial Radiance Pad, like kind of like our Aero product or a lot of dupes. But we don't ignore. We buy the product, we tried it, and we try to find why we have superiority claims. And every time, we are superior versus a competition. And whether it's by the ingredient we use, the concentration we use, because it's more suited for sensitive skin because of the ingredient that we formulated.

12:52Catherine D'Aragon:Is it like the pads? Is it like the fabric that we use that is more gentle? And all of that makes it that our product is always superior. And we try to educate our consumers about our superiority. So we're not trying to, you know, reduce our price. Or we always have like this accessibility price in mind because we want majority of people to have access to our product. So accessibility is very important. But at the same time, you don't fall in the gap that you need to reduce your price if you have some do. So we're very confident about our product. We spend a lot of time formulating, testing, and we know consumers love it.

13:29Catherine D'Aragon:So we just need to explain it why we're spare versus competitors. I like that. I've seen the dupes, but they're not the same. So for anyone listening, yeah, they're really not. Like you can tell the quality difference immediately when you try both at the same time. And that's why I asked you, because I think you guys do such a good job of that. It's like, there's really not, you can't reproduce first aid beauty. Like you just can't do it. You know, it doesn't work. It took time to formulate. And yeah, so I encourage people to look at dupe and like look at the concentration of the acid of any ingredient that is important for that product.

14:00Catherine D'Aragon:Look at the concentration, look at like the combination of ingredient and look it up and try it if you want. But I know a lot of people that just come back to first aid just because it's really meat on its promise. You know, I want to ask you because I know that when a brand gets acquired, you know, especially by a giant like P &G, You know, sometimes there are changes that come to the brands like or architecture on some level. I feel like First Aid has done a really, really good job of staying the brand that we always saw it to be. What I mean, I would just like to hear your thoughts on this, you know, in terms of like, what is it that you have to stick to no matter who is like owning a bigger share of the brand at the end of the day?

14:41Catherine D'Aragon:I was not part of the acquisition. I came after the acquisition. But you know, like being part of a big group for a brand like us, there are some pros and there are some cons, right? So the pros is you have access to more resources. You have access to more research. The research of development of Procter & Gamble is outstanding. And you get access to so many, so many talent and resources. So that's really amazing. At the same time, you need to stick to some rules. But it's good for the consumer at the end of the day that we're more regulated. Like we always been very rigorous about our science and our legal and testing, but now it's even more rigorous.

15:17Catherine D'Aragon:So we're becoming even more safe because of all of this P &G science that we have, our research and development. So sometimes we're a little bit slower to launch some products. So at the end of the day, I think for the marketers, sometimes it can create some frustration because you cannot go as fast as you would love. But at the same time, for the consumers, I think for me, like when I buy something that I really care about, I'm looking for like sometimes brands that are owned by big companies because they are going through much more rigorous testing. That's something that people don't necessarily understand when there's more like indie brand.

15:53Catherine D'Aragon:And then it's, you know, sometimes could be in a, you know, go to market very fast. In three, four months, you have a new product coming out to life. But has it gone to all the testing? I'm not sure. You know, the U.S. market is not that regulated. So I would say pros and cons, but at the end of the day for the consumer, I think it's a plus. Yeah, definitely. No, I mean, I think that the access, what you mentioned is huge, you know, having access to better like scientists, all the lab stuff. I can see that being a huge, huge asset. You know, I always wonder because people tend to demonize when brands become part of a bigger family, you know, like P &G is a big family of brands.

16:27I think a lot of times consumers maybe confuse that with like, oh, we're diluting the brand's value. But it's I don't believe that either. I'm the same way you are, where it's like if I see a brand has access to all of these like wonderful things like, you know, better science, more accessibility to integrating the new and emerging research like that makes me more confident as a consumer as well. So I think that's a really good point that you brought up.

16:47Catherine D'Aragon:But also I think what makes First Aid Beauty special, you know, it was born in Boston and we still like today I'm talking to you from the Boston office. And we kept this kind of like heritage of like the initial team that built First Aid. And not like all of the team is there, but there's a lot of people that were there from the beginning to through acquisition and then became P &G employees. And now I think we are still able to keep that kind of like je ne sais quoi and uniqueness to the brand because we kept those offices. We didn't move to Cincinnati, you know, where P &G headquarters is. So we keep some kind of like the culture of first aid.

17:26Catherine D'Aragon:So I think that's very special and not all the brands that were integrated or like that. But I feel like we kept, or like you were saying, you feel first aid is still like unique and didn't lose its DNA because I think that reason that we have this small team that, you know, kind of created first aid in Boston. And that's very unique. I live in New York, but I travel back and forth to Boston because I think this is very unique to first aid. I love that. I love that you guys kept a small, tight knit group. You know, that's really good to hear. That was one of my questions for you is like managing a team, you know, that is so multifaceted, you know, from a leadership standpoint.

17:59point. How is that? You know, because we don't really get to hear much about that from the leadership standpoint of like, you know, what does it really take to run a brand like this? That's always growing. You guys are always introducing innovation into the space. What are some like, I guess, words of wisdom you can give us if any, you know, future leaders are in the audience, you know, any budding leaders in the audience for them to understand about leading a team?

18:19Catherine D'Aragon:I would say like agility, flexibility, adaptation, resilience are all qualities that are super important. I think also the strengths of having people coming together is very important because we're born in Boston. We have people in Boston. Now we have some people sitting in New York. We have some people sitting in Cincinnati. So we're not always together physically, but once in a while we come together in the same location. We spend some days together. I think this is very important, like the human interaction that we lost during COVID and some brands are still to this day remote and never together.

18:54Catherine D'Aragon:But I really believe that, you know, even if you're flexible and you adapt and all of that and you collaborate, and I think there's a benefit of spending time physically together and build some human interactions. I really believe that's important that you need to keep the time for that in your busy schedule. And, you know, we have always 10 ,000 things to do, but I think that time to spend the time together is very, very important. That's great. That's really good to hear. I guess my question also lies in the sense of like, you're in a market that's so overcrowded, you know, and now everybody is really catering to sensitive skin at this point.

19:28I know about 10 brands that are indie brands, you know, that are catering to sensitive skin. But then where do you integrate when it comes to the most new innovative things? You know, because I know there's always new research, there's always new ingredients coming out. Where is that trigger point for you guys where you say this is worth us looking into and putting our R &D dollars towards this versus let's assume this is hype. Like, for example, I'll give you an example. Azuline is coming up now. You know, it's coming out of K-Beauty. Everyone's talking about the ingredient azuline. And it's like a COX-LOX dual pathway inhibitor.

19:58Anyone who understands inflammation, that's a huge inflammation blocker. So that's interesting. But at the same time, ingredients like that don't have a lot of data behind them. You know what I mean? Like they're new and they're buzzy and everybody's talking about them. As a brand, as the scale of, you know, first aid, how do you make that decision of we're going to get behind the science and we're going to wait on this one?

20:17Catherine D'Aragon:we don't innovate by ingredient because something is buzzy. We innovate by what's the next problem to solve, you know? So that's very different. And then with that problem to solve, like what are the ingredients that we can use to solve that problem? So we start with the problem. For example, right now, we hear a lot about weight loss, right? People are using a lot of GLP-1 to lose weight and that's creating some problem in the face, on the body. So then can And we have those people come up with a product that will help that problem. And then we're going to research what are the ingredients that we can use that would be safe for sensitive skin, but that will fix that problem.