May Lindstrom on Clean Beauty, Healing, and Self-Connection: How Sensitivity Sparked a Cult Skincare Brand

0:01Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. I'm thrilled about this episode because we have a phenomenal guest. She has been a leader in skin health for quite some time. Many of you might recognize her brand. It was a front runner when it came to truly clean skincare that was meant for almost everybody. You know, when I first discovered the brand, I remember just being so happy that there was something out there for people who, like me, I had very sensitive skin. I still do, you know, and so it was a really great discovery for me when I discovered it. I'm excited to chat with her today. Please welcome me.

0:33I'm so excited to host you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I was just thinking about sensitive skin. And there actually is so much skincare out there for sensitive skin. And I'm in the process of a pretty bad flare-up on my hands of dyshydrotic eczema right now, actually, for the first time in 15 years. And so I've been thinking about what sensitive skin actually means. It's so different for each of us, depending on what we're sensitive to. When I have a flare-up, everyone's like, what do you put on it? What's your go-to cream? cream my challenge has always been that even the most basic cream the main ingredients are things I'm sensitive to basic preservatives that go in everything the ubiquitous fillers that go in everything it's the surfactants and soap that's in every bathroom every kitchen for me my approach to sensitive skin has always just been about fundamentals and I mean really fundamentals like down to the dirt.

1:31It's clay, it's earth, it's spice, plants, it's flowers, honey, and oils, and butters. And it's a different territory of sensitive skin. It's not the white and sun-scented cream from the dermatologist. I mean, I really tried that method, but I was allergic to that very thing. Yeah. That's so interesting to me because this is exactly why I feel like the area of clean science or clean beauty, right? It's kind of strayed a little bit, right? From this idea of what does that mean, you know, and what does it mean to formulate for sensitive skin? And I think you brought up such an important point here is that it is the things that we don't even think about that are in these formulations that are the real culprits when it comes to reactions, especially if you are prone to redness, rosacea, eczema, anything, atopic.

2:22I would love for you walk us down memory lane a little bit because I want to know where it began for you. I know you started formulating as a child because of your own skin condition. Do you remember the moment you realized what was on the shelves wasn't working for you? Well, I'm 42 and I've been telling this story for 37 years. So when I was five is when I have my first real memory of my skin being a challenge. And it was exactly what I'm having today. Actually, I'd gone to a friend's house for the first time without my parents for a sleepover and I went to wash up my hands before dinner and as soon as the soap touched my hands I started just burning and I'd never had this experience before I was raised in northern Minnesota I was the child of hippie parents so I grew up with goat soap traded from the neighbors green clean before those were catchy words in the marketing beauty space I never experienced anything like this my friend her parents were farmers and the soap was harsh, strong fragrance.

3:23I never had anything like that on my skin before. I didn't realize I was allergic to basic soaps or vectants because I hadn't used them before. They weren't in my household because my mother is also sensitive and her father is also sensitive. I come from a long family history of psoriasis, eczema, dermatitis, skin inflammation of that particular kind. So for me, it's genetic, it's chronic. And so it starts there as a five year old learning that I can't even just use regular soap at a friend's house without being wary. That same year I entered kindergarten and every trip to the bathroom is scary and public spaces are scary.

4:06And then I figured out all of the clothing that you could buy in stores was sprayed and things that would give me rashes to keep the bugs out in the warehouses, things like that. So all of the basic preservative and surfactant actions in everything we touch affected my body. It's not that skincare is bad. Most people can use most products. It's just not me. I can't. I touch the wrong thing and I have a body that breaks out in blistering rashes. When I was 18, my entire body was covered in blistering rashes. I would sleep with men's socks pulled up to my shoulders otherwise I would scratch until I bled and wake up with blood in my sheets.

4:47It was horrifically painful and this has been a lifetime for me but as a child I was blessed to have the most incredible mother. She's a body worker, massage therapist, physical therapist, cranial sacral, myofascial release, energy work. She's magical. As a kid, she would take me to the river and we would sit on the rocks in the sun and cover our bodies in clay. This took me out of being scared and allowed clay connection in time with my mom. It was also practical. It showed me that for me, clay helped with itch. It helped with heat. It was the first thing we would do when you would have a mosquito bite.

5:30I grew up in northern Minnesota, so there was a lot of that. After a sunburn, what's better than a cool mineral on the skin? We've been doing this for millennia. Later, I learned plants from the garden. Green herbs would cool. Warming spices would activate energy. As a teenager, I started to study different plants, minerals, their effects on the skin. Learned about what women and people have been doing since the beginning of time all across the world, whether you're from India, Africa, South America, Canada, California, or in Minnesota, where I was born, we have all always gathered clays and salts and herbs and oils, honey, for everything.

6:11There's nothing new here. It's trendy in the last decade, but I'm not doing anything new. I have access to better, fresher materials and the world's harvest, but I'm doing the exact same thing my ancestors did. We know what to do. Modern skincare is literally modern it's the last 50 hundred years that we're even making soaps and detergents specific for the skin in this particular way absolutely i love everything you said so much respect for having gone through this it's one thing with something develops later in life but it's a whole different world when you deal with it as a child and grow up with it and the impact that has on you it's very inspiring to hear that you really did take that experience and you built something from that and I really applaud you because there's a lot of people suffering from serious skin conditions we are creating a fear-mongering environment sometimes that doesn't allow for them to speak up or come out in the space and express like hey listen I have serious concerns and like I can't go and use what my derm is giving me or I can't go and buy the next clinical grade skincare line because it doesn't work and it doesn't work because I have severe reactions to this you know and so i think that there is a huge unspoken truth out here in the industry when it comes to skin you're absolutely right i grew up i'm indian when i grew up in a household where this was very common right using turmeric using oats like this is part of my culture but natural products don't get the attention the right way in my opinion because there's so much wisdom built into a plant that we never even talk about.

7:49Like plants have evolved over centuries and the chemical reactions inside of them are so profound that we can't even mimic that in a lab if we tried. So for us to not go there and to not wonder and to not harvest, you know what I mean? And to like learn from that, it's kind of, to me, it's anti-science. That really sparked a lot for me. I'm resonating with what you said. We always hear this in the skincare space where everyone is saying the skin is an organ, you know, we have to approach it like an organ. What does formulating for the skin as an organ actually look for someone coming from your perspective of you want to make sure that whatever you're putting in your skincare products is, it's not going to create any kind of a reaction.

8:31Like how does that work for you? That, that creative process before you formulate? When you talk about thinking about the skin like an organ, you're right. As an industry, we do talk about the skin being an organ, but do we not treat it like one? Yeah. Think about the other organs in our body. Imagine holding out your hands, like you're going to hold something precious. If you were holding a lung, how would you cradle that? How soft would you be? If you had the opportunity to feed that lung, what would you feed it? Imagine opening your beauty cupboard, wherever you store all your products. How would it feel?

9:11to pour those products onto that lung. Yeah. In almost every case, I can't imagine that being the most delicious way to treat that delicate organ. But we behave so differently with the skin. We ask something different of the skin and throw all these stimulants at it. And then it's in fight mode all the time. When I think of the skin as an organ, it's our largest, most precious, public-facing vulnerable organ, I imagine holding that in my hands precious like a baby. And I just want to coddle it and bathe it in warm herbs. I want to bathe it in waters. I want to feed it with fats and oils, give it a massage.

9:58That's my approach to skin. It's really simple. The most profound part of skincare happens when you show up over and over to your touch in the water with your fingertips to your skin. It doesn't matter much what product gets you there, as long as you're not allergic. For me, using clays, salts, herbs, spices, that works for my skin. You can choose whatever works for your skin, but the point is to make it to the bathroom, to the shower, close your eyes, put your fingertips to your face, chest, breathe, be in the water. Massaging your skin brings blood flow moves the lymph moves the blood stimulates endorphins it works outside inside neurologically physiologically it's less about product than it is about care and we ask products to perform miracles when we're not willing to show up and just feed right that makes a lot of sense i love what you said i think there's a lot of truth in this idea of a ritual right for anything that we do when it comes to our well-being skin is one of the biggest things because you have such a profound relationship with your skin it's literally your biggest defender it keeps everything out i like your analogy with the lung i've done lung research for a long time and when i see people burning a candle i'm always thinking on that level as well like what are you doing your organs are very resilient that's the biggest trick the human body has played on us psychologically every organ we look at lung, pancreas, skin, liver is so resilient.

11:37Medical science tells us you can cause dysfunction up to 90 % and it will still be functional. For a long time, we as consumers think, okay, nothing's happening. Then all of a sudden you're what, 50 years old and you see all the wrinkles come in, you see all the damage come in, all the spots like, and then we wonder what happened where did this come from it's this over time load manifesting it really resonates with me the way you've described it where you do have to cradle yourself in that self-care ritual whatever that means for you it's very powerful i want to talk more about this idea of what ingredients because i know you brought up for example surfactants in the beginning give us some examples of ingredients that were not working well or that you noticed off the bat that you were like no I'm not formulating what they react with my skin and they might just be exacerbating my condition I love your analogy with the lung because it's so so profound how much damage our organs can endure it makes you think what am I doing long term you know what is this burden that I'm creating over a period of time because that's where I think consumers we get so lost and we think oh well you you know, I'm in my 20s, it's not showing up, I'm fine, I don't have any wrinkles, I don't have any spots, I'm good.

12:56But then when you hit the later decades, 40, 50, 60 years old, all of these problems come up, right? Where you get wrinkles, spots, skin laxity, and I think that's where a lot of confusion is. Because when I look at organ systems, 90 % can be damaged. Lung, pancreas, skin, liver, very resilient. If you can damage something to that degree before it gives you manifested signs of actual disease, it's like the greatest trick the body can ever play on. It's so resilient that it never complains. Understand that from your view, where you said even something like surfactants were causing a problem. What were those initial ingredients, maybe, when you were formulating the brand, that you were like, you know, these are absolutely not going in my formulations, like we don't need them or anything.

13:40I mean, can you share with us maybe like a short list of things you noticed that maybe were just not needed in a brand? Everything. Yeah. like the base formulas for 99.999 % of skincare on the market. Base filler ingredients hold the active ingredients that do the work. Stabilizers and fillers allow the product to remain on a shelf for years at a time or allow it to be a consistent color or texture so that it can look like what you expect it to look like based on the world of beauty for the last several decades. there's an expectation of what skincare products should look like. If I say cleanser, there's a particular puddle you can picture in your hand.

14:27If I say moisturizer, there's this ubiquitous white cream that you can picture in your mind, right? Yeah. When my fingertips touch my forehead, if I can feel that there is oil, I know that what my skin needs is clay. It needs something to balance that oil. When I reach for my skin and it feels dry, what it needs is moisture. It needs some fat. When I reach for my skin and there's heat, what it needs something green, it needs something cooling, it needs something herbal. When I reach my skin, it feels stuck, it feels congested, there's no life, it needs stimulation. Maybe some kind of herb, some kind of spice.

15:15Also the attention of my fingertips. It needs massage, my breath, my participation. My jaw feels tight because I have TMJ and I clench my teeth and I stress. My face needs to be in the shower. It needs the heat of the shower, my muscles to melt, my fingertips to meet my jaw and my breath to slow me down. And so it's not, oh, you should avoid parabens, you should avoid surfactants. I'm allergic to surfactants, so I don't have a choice. It's not about the most eco-friendly choice. I didn't come into this for these reasons. I came into it because there's five things that work on my body, and they're all made of plants or minerals.

15:58I can balance my skin with clay, salts, oils, honey, herbs, spices, and I don't get rashes. It's that simple. I operated from that place. That's how I came into formulation. It's how I came into my particular kind of skincare chemistry and formulation. What came after me was green beauty. Green beauty was literal about plants. Once that became not a joke and became something that the Sephoras of the world were trying to emulate, it became clean beauty because they couldn't do green beauty, which requires plants, which cost money and expertise. And there is impeccable sourcing that is required for green beauty, plant-based beauty to be powerful, for it to be truly efficacious and not just, you know, crunchy granola, but truly organ-oriented, pleasure-oriented, efficacious formulas.

16:58is and I come from that place where it has to do both. For decades I have worked with a clientele who has true skin issues. My focus is on the organ, getting real true results so you can actually feel comfortable in your skin, functional in your skin, way before I think about the aesthetic component of it. But the thing is when your skin is healthy, when your cup is full, you overflow and that is where the glow comes, that's where the vibrance comes from. But we don't get there until your tissues are fed, hydrated, and cleansed, and awakened in a way that works for your body. That's your own participation, showing up with consistency, not relying on something to slap on and rinse off.

17:41I want to ask you about this because I find this so wonderful about your brand and perspective. You have nine products in the range. You haven't created 50 products. you're not chasing trends speak on this may because i see brands coming out with a new skew every i get very frustrated you know what i mean as a consumer a scientist and i don't know why you have these trends like glass skin which is just oily skin right now they're just lathering a bunch of oil on our skin yeah what you're speaking of and what you've been saying during this interview i mean you're talking about genuine health true health sensorial health please speak to us about that from the perspective of a founder who has not gone with the flow of friends and you really stuck to your ethos what does this mean to you to create like a truly great brand in today's age what if i wasn't aiming for glass skin what if i wasn't aiming for glazed donut skin what if i wasn't aiming for someone else's skin what if i just wanted to feel good in this skin i spent decades of trying to leave my body because it didn't feel good in here my skin always hurt i had so much discomfort in my body and self-esteem it took this whole lifetime it's going to continue to take this whole lifetime for me to be in this body because it's mine because I like it in here.

19:09And so when I get in the shower and bring the attention back to the water hitting my scalp, the water on the tile, bring the sensation back not to, what is this product going to do for that redness, for that wrinkle, and bring it to, well, that smells really good and feels really nice when I massage this particular part of my jaw. it goes from this outside conversation where my organ this precious thing I can imagine holding like a lung in my hands and I ask it to parade for the world to shine something out to do for me and when I get in the shower close my eyes I go inside and I'm smelling and I'm breathing I give back to my body and my body gives back to me I am grateful to be here and in it and that was just not true for so long.

20:04Everything I can do to bring myself back to that place is beneficial. And for many in our community, many clients I've worked with, that is the challenge when you have had real skin challenges, particularly sensitive conditions and those that affect the nervous system. So many inflammatory rashes run up to the nerve line and make you feel literally nervous and so that happens for me when my skin is in a eczema flare-up or a aural dermatitis flare-up the levels of self-consciousness that come not just from what I look like but the physical sensation is intensely uncomfortable in consuming I forget when I'm not in it and then because these conditions are chronic it will come back and the reminder is always just incredibly humbling.

21:05Yeah, I love that. I love that so much because I think that's where the difference between the trend and the true, like creating from a true need and a purpose. I can't applaud you enough for that. When we were speaking before the interview, when I discovered your brand, I was truly like, you know, just infatuated with, you know, I love the concept. I immediately saw the products and I was like, this makes sense to me. I come from a heavy science background. That's my training. That's my brain. It made sense because it wasn't selling me a gimmick. It was just a genuine brand. One of the best products that encapsulates that in your line is the Blue Cocoon.

21:43Can we talk about that product and how it really captured the attention of a lot of people? I mean, what about this do you think was so universally appealing? Can you speak about that one? It really is magical for those who don't know the Blue cocoon. Imagine holding your own little blue lake. It's a pretty little pot of blue balmy concentrate. Most balms are made of wax fragrance and color. The blue cocoon has no wax. It's intentionally waxless formula. So it's all just beautiful, fresh, pure plant butters and oils. The color comes from blue tansy. That also is where its power comes from. Blue tansy is used for a its ability to work with the vascular system, really helpful for red, sensitive, inflamed skin.

22:33So years and years ago, I was using it for my own hand rashes and also for just clients with excessively sensitive skin. I was working at the time with many women who were going through cancer. It was very replenishing during chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Also wonderful for For my clients with psoriasis, eczema, dermatitis, all of the inflammatory conditions, wonderfully soothing for acne. It's just a beautiful formula. And so it's known for its incredible efficacy. But most people today discover it just as the perfect daily moisturizer. And so for just even the most beautiful, healthy angel skin, it's the most lovely, nourishing, replenishing, body resonant moisturizer for face, neck, chest, everywhere.

23:26I love it for the eye area, for the lips. So soothing. At night, I double up. It's like a treatment while you sleep. It's my favorite. This is the one I use twice a day, every day for all time. I keep it right in the shower and melt it directly into wet skin every time. Every time I cleanse right there in the shower while skin is soft and warm and receptive. It feels and smells like a spa day in 30 seconds. Yeah, no, I love it. It's one of my favorite products. When I first tried it, first of all, the sensorial experience is phenomenal. It's out of this world. You literally feel like you're in the most luxe spa and you have it right at home.

24:07It's very soothing and nourishing to the skin. So no matter where you put it on, you can layer it. That's the best part, I think, for me. I love to layer my skincare throughout the day. I'm one of those skincare consumers that I don't just put on a cream and just call it a day. I usually go back in, you know what I mean, if my skin needs warm. I'll keep touching it up. And I think this product is so wonderful for anyone out there that likes that kind of experience because you can add as much as you want on. It's going to always be the way it is. So it's not going to clog your pores. It's not going to make you greasy.

24:35you're just always going to get the benefits and I really love that because a lot of the balms that I've experienced on the market they either get too greasy or don't layer well once you put it on like that's it like you can't really keep doing it because then you're just going to be a greaseball I really love it it's very multi-purpose the best part is there's not a lot of products out there we need products that are multi-purpose there are so many needs my elbows my face needs product everything the whole body does we need to kind of normalize this idea of skincare is body care you know it's for your whole body not just your face this product encompasses that it's meant for everybody i love it being a little bit more literal about the organ piece and really allowing ourselves to think that way and what would it mean to feed to really take tender care it's a really good concept i think nourishment i've said this before on the podcast when i look at the skin And even from the perspective of science and biology, it's not one layer, it's multiple layers.

25:32But think of it like the layer and whatever you're putting on top is feeding it. Your cells are being fed, not just sitting there. They're literally being fed. In biology, we call it media. We put media on top of a cell plate and we say, this is the food for the cells. This is what's going to help them grow. It's going to help them regenerate, turn over. And to not approach our skincare in that same way to me is just doesn't make sense. You know what I mean? it really doesn't add up scientifically. As a consumer, I'm looking for nourishment and I'm looking for what product is going to make my cells feel like they're being bathed in just nourishing ingredients that are supporting them and their growth and their turnover and everything they physiologically do.

26:14You know, there's a lot of skeptics about sensitive skin. Skin care is not the same as a clinical grade. This conversation has become convoluted because it doesn't make sense. If you want to help your skin, you need to nourish it, period. There's a full stop and that's where the science is. I think it's a bigger conversation than what we're seeing right now in the industry. I think there's just different purposes. If somebody's looking for clinical skincare, the real question is what are you hoping they are clinically addressed? And if there's something clinically to address, then that's a really good time to develop a relationship with a dermatologist.

26:50Thank you so much, May. This has been a lovely chat and I've learned a lot from you And like I said, I'm a huge fan of your brand, what you stand for. I think for 14 years, you've been doing something meaningful in this space for a reason. I can't recommend your line enough to anyone listening. If you guys are looking for something new that's going to actually heal your skin, I really recommend. Check out the brand. Thank you so much. It's been lovely chatting with you. Thank you again for having me. Thanks. Hey guys, so I hope you loved that episode. please make sure to hit subscribe if you're tuning in to us on any podcast platform we are available on so many different platforms so wherever it is that you're tuning in just go hit subscribe you will be immediately notified when we publish new episodes this way you're able to tune in to amazing insights from experts brand founders industry leaders authors all the wonderful people that we host and that's very important for me because i love to hear from you guys and really understand what you love and what you want to hear more of.

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