The Evolution of Clean Beauty with Abbott Stark of OGEE

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is a very, very special episode. We're going to be diving deep into the world of clean beauty today, and I could not think of a better brand to come and educate us on this topic and just kind of have a conversation than OG Beauty. So without further ado, please welcome the co-founder of OG, Abbott Stark. Welcome, Abbott. I'm so honored to host you. Thanks, Dr. It's great to be here. I'm so excited to be a part of this podcast. And I think it's really amazing that you're bringing a voice to this space in this way. And we're just excited to participate in your channel.

0:33No, I'm very, very excited. Thank you so much for the kind words. They really mean a lot because I think as a lot of our listeners are, I'm a huge beauty geek, you know, so it's very rare. Same. Yeah, same. It's rare when you get to dive in, though, about topics that are just so big, and they're hard to wrap your head around, especially as a consumer. When I look at OG, I'm going to throw this to you in a minute, but honestly, as a consumer, when I look at OG, you guys have been around enough to where we trust you. We trust the brand. I trust the brand. I knew about you long before we connected for the show.

1:05and it's rare for me as a consumer in the clean beauty space to find brands like that you know and then to understand what it takes to stay here you know in a meaningful way so with all that said uh i'd love for you to kind of walk us down memory lane tell us about yourself what got you into the the industry well i love i love that you love i do think that you can't do this without loving beauty and it was um you know i as soon as you said that my face just lit up and i would turn the camera around and show my desktop, which is just, it's like a, it's an explosion of, I even, I have a pile of jojoba seeds of these organic jojoba seeds, which are a key ingredient in OG.

1:45I have bottles, I have packaging, I have, you know, products from, from other brands in the marketplace. I just, I love the, I love the newness of beauty and the constant reinvention of products and how we think about ourselves and the face that we present to the world. And also just, you know, those results. Like, you know, it's my background before we started OG was that I was making products for bigger brands, working behind the scenes, making some of the global bestsellers. And we would come up with product concepts. We had a lab that would make a prototype. And then I would work with the global marketing teams, bring that, you know, do all the testing and development, bring that concept to fruition.

2:34And then we would, of course, produce it at these massive scales. And, you know, there were these moments where I was keeping an organic kitchen at home. And I knew so much of, I learned early on so much of what we put onto our skin is absorbed that I really wanted to start using that criteria that I was using for food for beauty products. So I started, you know, searching and shop. I love to shop, shopper here. So trying to find those effective, you know, I would say not getting any younger here, those effective products that actually had those values, organic, natural. And it turns out very hard to find, right?

3:19So there was, and then along the way, there were a couple of gross out moments, like where we had a big brand that did a ban on the microplastic beads, which aligned with some state governments. So it just goes to show how important it is to have legislation around this space. Some state governments had banned the plastic microbeads. And then I was talking with our lab. I said, it's not really going to impact us because we're not making those body scrubs and exfoliators, those products where you think of like a lot of plastic beads. And it turned out that the plastic beads were like the number one ingredient in the lip gloss.

3:57We just melted them down real hot. So there were moments like that where I just thought, oh, my goodness, no, I've been giving that to my mom. I use that product. My mom uses that. Like it's friends and family. So I just thought, and at the same time, I was exploring all of these amazing new ingredients that were coming out. Totally natural biofermentation, clinical activity. And what that means is something like the adivized flower plant stem cells in our Seeds of Youth serum. Clinical results in 30 days to brighten skin by over 200%. 200 times the antioxidant content of pure vitamin C in those leantipotic acids that we test for in every batch.

4:46So there's just so much amazing science and progression and evolution in the natural ingredients. At the same time, I was exploring all these organic standards as a maker of products. I wanted to incorporate these third-party standards that bring so much trust and scrutiny into the product manufacturing. And I was one of the first in the country to get our company certified to one of these organic standards. And so I just was a bit frustrated because I didn't see brands. I thought, okay, we're going to have this organic standard and everybody's going to rush to our door and say, I want to make an organic product.

5:26And it wasn't quite happening because it's challenging. There's technical challenges and you have to really become a cosmetic chemist and a regulatory expert. And I think that for some of those reasons that brands don't do it and just regular old users like us have a hard time scanning and understanding product ingredient labels, etc. et cetera. And looking for these. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really, I don't want to interrupt, but like, honestly, like everything you're saying is like speaking to me as a consumer so much, because I remember when I discovered you guys, I was actually really happy because I, as much as I love, I love science, you know what I mean?

6:10And for me, like as a consumer beauty, like no matter what it is, skincare, beauty, whatever, I look for the science in that as a, naturally as a consumer, but I love how you explained it because the clean standard that I wanted as a consumer was a gray box in this industry. There was no way to tell. And then all the greenwashing and the, you know what I mean? Like all the BS around like, well, we are clean. And it's like, well, where's your proof? Like, how do you prove that you're clean? And, you know, so it just, it felt like it was like a snowball that happened at some point in the beauty industry of like, everyone's saying clean, everyone's talking about this, but then no one's educating about it.

6:49I mean, in just five minutes, you've told me more than I think I learned, you know what I mean, in a span of time as a consumer looking for clean products. And so I'd love for you to kind of talk more about that in terms of the formulation side, where we can start to understand as consumers, like, what are we really missing out on when it comes to truly clean ingredients and their true potential in a formulation? Yeah, I think I, too, look for clean. And this is one of the things we struggled early on in, I'm going to call it a movement, in the movement to define clean. And we actually, the word clean came around later.

7:27At first, we started it as, okay, certified organic. That's really, we did all natural. And then that term kind of got, you know, there was some greenwashing applied to all natural. And so then it became unclear and people didn't trust it. And so then we started these free from lists where we would make a product that was free from this and free from that and free from that. And it just, that list got long and it was harder to market, I think, and talk about and embrace as consumers. It was hard to embrace a free from message. And so then somebody started saying clean and it's, it's such a smart term because I think we all get it.

8:10You know, we all conceptually get it. And I think what's happened though, is this becomes so popular that like at the time, the word all natural, it's been, there's been greenwashing around the claim clean. And I think that's where, you know, we have, we can have a conversation in a really general way about what, you know, what it, what it means. And I think we still all hold it as a value, but do, you know, should plastic microbeads or plastic waxes or silicones or these really harsh synthetic preservatives or other harsh sort of synthetic chemicals or petroleum-drived chemicals, are those clean?

8:53I think it's an open conversation. And for OG, I mean, this is, okay, so this is where OG comes in. And it's totally, it's a closed topic. We say, absolutely not. Those are not clean. We have these independent standards that we use for naturality. That's an internationally defined standard. And then we have this U.S. definition of organic. And we're certifying to that organic standard. An independent third party comes in, they check it, they make sure that we're not doing any of this crazy petroleum, you know, we're not pumping oil out of the ground to put it on our face. And our third party certifier ensures that.

9:33So we have that, and I have one right here, we have that NSF organic seal. So that's the actual seal. And we have the certification language on the other side of the, you know, certified to the NSF standard buyer certifier. So everybody is willing to put their stamp on that product. And one of our teams says certified equals certain. And it's that sense of certainty we feel brings that luxury aspect to the brand because people, you know, we don't want to have to be thinking about like, can I trust this product? I want to look good. How can I use this product without being concerned that it's causing other health consequences.

10:14And what we found is that these organic formulas actually work better. You know, we get that youthful appearance, that glow, that health from within that we're really, I think that we're really seeking in beauty products. Yeah, no, you know, that was actually gonna be one of my next questions for you because I love the finish of the product. And as a brand that is so focused on, you are focused on the organic and the clean side, you've still created the space and prestige beauty that is like, it's rivaling all these other, you know, like companies that are saying, well, we have this finish and, you know, they kind of use that as their marketing, right?

10:53It's like, this is going to give you an airbrushed look or like a whatever, like that's the selling point in the cosmetics realm. Right. And so I'm just curious, like, I just would love for you to speak on this topic about how you, like what were some of the things that you had to kind of struggle with internally or maybe some like war stories of where it was like, no, we're going to get this the way we want for the consumer to feel like from the makeup side, from the application side, but we're not going to give up certain things, you know, like we're not going to compromise on certain scientific stuff.

11:24Wow. I mean, I think there's so many ways to look at it. So to answer that story exactly, I think a big one that's a recent story of something that presented a real technical challenge. What is our Complexion Perfecting Tinted Serum? Yeah. Complexion Perfection Tinted Serum. That is a very moisturizing, medium to high coverage, tinted moisturizer foundation. And we really feel like it covers all of those because it has amazing skincare benefits with a blend of treatment ingredients that actually has been clinically proven to reduce the size of pores and to prevent acne, which of course with a topical makeup, what are we doing?

12:10We're covering any kind of imperfections. We want to see that instant perfect canvas of the face. Like the last thing we want is a makeup that's falling into our pores and just making our complexion look worse or exacerbating any underlying problems with our skin that we are putting on the makeup to hide in the first place. So it has hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, so it's brightening and evening. It's improving the look of skin over time, not just concealing anything that we're trying to hide. So that was a technical challenge because it's skincare, it's makeup, it's pigment. And you're trying to get all that together in one bottle that just holds together and feels great through its entire use cycle.

12:58So in that case, we went into the supply, we were having trouble stabilizing that formula and make, you know, making it feel great and perform great. And we went into the supply chain. And this is a benefit of our size now and our longevity and the, you know, the respect our team has earned in the industry. We worked with one of our suppliers who had a novel pigment dispersion technology. So that's taking those mineral pigments and stabilizing them in the formula. And we got that company organic certified so they could use our organic materials and then stabilize these pigments. And we actually now brought that product to market thanks to everybody's efforts.

13:46And we won an award, actually, from Cosmo. Cosmo. We got the Cosmo Holy Grail this year. We're very excited. We appreciate their recognition so much for best tinted moisturizer. And we have a patent pending on that formula, which is very, it's hard to get a patent. It's hard to get a patent in cosmetic formulations because there's, you know, a lot has been done. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really cool. And I, you know, really hats off to you for pushing that, you know, envelope forward. I know that people are very skeptical with like skincare infused beauty products. That's something I've seen a lot of online, but I'm not going to lie.

14:26There are many products in my collection personally that I feel like do serve very well as skincare and makeup. And for me as a consumer, somebody who's quickly approaching 40, I love that. You know what I mean? I don't have time for five steps for makeup. You know, I'm going to use that kind of product you just showed me. Like I'm going to use that. That's going to be my one and done in the morning out the door. And I think we kind of now, and correct me if you disagree with me, but right now the way I see makeup especially, we're so focused on like, how can we complicate this more? Because it feels like minimalism is getting a bad reputation for some reason.

15:03Yeah, I love this question because it's really, it's a topic of ongoing debate for us. Where is makeup and the industry going? And I think our our big observations and our big questions are around, you know, how is our routine going to evolve? I think, you know, now that we're in this post-pandemic world, I do think, and with social media where we all can understand how to do pretty quick makeup like a makeup artist, And we all have our, you know, we all have our little tricks and it's like a serum and a sunscreen at least and a cleanser. And so it's those those steps build in really quickly. And I think people are willing to do it.

15:50I know I certainly am when I see the results. And so and, you know, maybe a little concealer here or there under my sunscreen. And, you know, there's all these little we all have our tricks and, you know, a great organic lip gloss, which we just launched last year with just a hint. You know, so it's surprising how quickly the steps build and how they have a reason, even when they're multitasking. I mean, just because you're using a concealer in addition to other products. I mean, doesn't, I think at the same time, we want to be addressing the look of our under eye dark circles or eye bags. You know, we don't we want to be doing like I think in terms of multitasking, that's what I think that's the beauty of this makeup skincare infusion is that you you get to fewer products by combining the efficacy of a skincare and the efficacy and the immediate effect of a makeup over an area where you might be treating a blemish spot.

16:53You know, we want to be improving the skin, treating the scar, lightening the look of the appearance of dark circles or scarring. So at the same time that we're concealing that spot. So I think that's where the multitasking trend is going. And I do think that, you know, we're always thinking about like where the makeup look is going. We've been in this glow moment for a long time, and that works for OG so much because I can go back to our jojoba glow face oil and how jojoba is such an important part of our story. But how is the makeup evolving? And I think that OG really exists in this space where we are, you know, no matter how many products, no matter how much coverage, we are still speaking in an active dialogue with people who are going for a natural finish.

17:48It's natural colors, but just like extreme natural beauty. I think that's where we're playing. So, you know, we are going to restage our, we have a finishing powder. We're going to restage that next year because it's such a, there is like this play of there's glow and there's matte. And it's like, how do we exist in that duality of finishes? And, you know, where is the look? Where is our look going? Like, who are we patterning? And I think that we're going towards, I think contouring continues to be huge. yeah um our crystal yeah right yeah i mean you you hear this all the time and then our um our crystal contour is our best thing but like that speaks to that it has that blush bronze highlight but i think just even like i think we are seeing a lot of like chiseled chiseled features a lot of light on the uh in the center of the face and then a lot you know a lot of um i think matt i think matt is coming in.

18:53But this is, some of that is my personal opinion. And it's just, you know, what are we seeing? What are we seeing in people's makeup who are making news? I mean, that's often what I, how I am sort of contextualizing where the trend might be going. And it's, it's a very much an open conversation and there's a lot of different, very valid viewpoints. And the great thing about our products is that you can use them in a number of different ways. Yeah. No, I love this one. Cause you were talking about lip lippies earlier, this one, the oil the oh that's oh my freaking god i love this thing this is like a lifesaver for someone like me because i literally never have anything on me or like lip gloss gets too it's just so many issues but this is like phenomenal and so like that's what i'm talking about but like you guys have products that are like it's not like okay i get it like we had clean beauty and it was cool you know like the whole era but it's like the multitasking part is where i feel like og is just like right on the money you know like it's like you really are multitasking you're not just using it as like a marketing gimmick and i think that's where as a consumer many many times i used to be like are you really multitasking products you know what i mean because i put i'd put something on my face i get super greasy or i get you know it just doesn't look right for me and then i would be like i've spent 70 on something and it doesn't really work so that's why i want i asked you that because as a brand that's coming from this ethos of like we are clean we are doing things right in so many different ways where, and we've been doing it for so many years, but guess what?

20:21Our products perform really well. You know what I mean? That's really impressive to me as a consumer that you guys can say that. Yeah. It's so flattering that you have that on your desk is like a keepsake. And I do think we, we really, when we think about our development and when we're launching a new product, we, we, we do really ask, you know, how can this become a pillar in our portfolio? How can this become a keepsake for us and the people who are using OG. And it's so funny. So on that sculpt of the boil, it sort of took, that was one of our first products that really took off and had a life of its own on the internet.

20:57And it was the early, this was early days of OG when we were like three or four people and probably doing like less, you know, a very small amount of sales. and I actually had to drive to a company and pick up one of the ingredients to rush it in so we could make more lip oil. And it was this special, it's a vegetable derived plumping ingredient made through a very special extraction process that gets produced in France. And so it came in on a plane and I actually had to drive and pick it up and drive it to our lab so we could make more sculpted lip oils. So, and that, you know, but it's in there, of course, we have those sort of what I would consider new natural high-tech ingredients.

21:43In a sculpted lip oil, it's a perfect example of that technology meets sort of the trusted stalwarts of natural beauty formulation. And we have our jojoba oil. So this is one jojoba seed grown in the Arizona desert on our organic farm there. We have a custom grade of that jojoba. richest. It's the first extra virgin cold press. And we have exclusive access to that with the world's largest supplier. So it maximizes the polyphenols on skin. In a wound study, it actually was shown to treat a wound. When you treated a wound with jojoba, it heals three times faster. And it has wrinkle reducing and skin tone evening, huge antioxidant content.

22:28So it's an amazing natural ingredient, very sustainable. We use that at almost 10 % in our sculpted lip oil. And that is infused into all of our products, that jojoba oil. I love it because I feel like even in the, so you know what? I use the foundation, like not finished, the blushes, like in the stick. I love those blushes because they are like almost like blurring, like on your face like they're blurring but they're so glowy and yes oh my god i love love love love those and it's like that's the kind of product it's like i really feel like when you use this type of product you i literally use that everywhere like i'll put it on my cheeks and i put it over my eyes you can use it for your lip like it's like so good it's so good yeah it's it's so so yummy yeah those and this is the new repackaged so this is big news that we so we've You know, when we started very small company, we had to get very efficient.

23:28All of our sculpted face sticks, even the blush colors or the bronzing colors were in the white package. Yeah, that's what I have. Yeah. So now, big news. This is like global world launch of the sculpted face sticks in the new package. So it's matched to the shade. So this is Rose Quartz, our best-selling blush shade. And then we also have our copper. So in this really rich cocoa bronzer. I love that. Package. I love it. So pretty. So yeah, we're very excited. It's so much more eye-catching. It really comes together perfectly with our launch into retail. Where are you going into retail, if you can share?

24:15Well, we have done really well in Blue Mercury and Nordstrom, a couple of our more boutique high national retailers, partners, really. And we are excited just in, let's see, in just a couple of days, hopefully by the time that everybody is seeing this, we're going to be in Sephora. So we'll be on Sephora's website. And then nationally, we're rolling out to doors throughout the fall. Oh, my gosh. Congratulations. That's so great. Thank you. Thank you. We're so excited. I know it's like what's the right oh I love it I love it that's where that's really cool no I would love to see you guys in a Sephora store that's really great news because yeah like these that's what I'm saying like these kind of products like if you come across this like you know when you're like checking out at Sephora like I would pick this up just because it's like oh my god it's so convenient and I feel like that's like the brand like it's super convenient but you know I want to actually remind a little bit because you brought up jojoba and I'm glad you did because Because jojoba was an ingredient that I remember came on the scene and everybody was like buzzing about it.

25:15There was a lot of people saying like sprinkling it in again with the greenwashing stuff. It was happening a lot. But I would love for you to speak about this ingredient in terms of like the impact it's had in the beauty community. I know there was a shortage at one point and that revealed a lot of stuff about what people were really doing. And I'd love for you to educate us on that. Yeah, like you said, it was sprinkled because it's so unique and so, so, so good for skin. It is sprinkled into many products. It is one of the most expensive natural oils, and to get the organic grade is very special.

25:49So I was making products for all these brands, and there was a climate crisis in 2009, 2010 that impacted a lot of the crops, and we couldn't get enough jojoba, even to put it into products at that sprinkling. And beauty products and formulas are like a cake. You know, you can't make a cake and just take out the baking powder. Like you need all, or the sugar or the flour. You need all the ingredients, even, or the salt, even if it's at a low level. So all of a sudden we were stricken with this situation where we couldn't fulfill our orders. And when you're in product development and sales, that's a real crisis.

26:36And we would turn to our purchasing person who was supposed to be scouring the world looking for more jojoba. And they were struggling to find it because of that crop failure. So I got very curious about what is this jojoba? I mean, it's a tough word to say. It's J-O-J-O-B-A. It's technically, it's not an oil. It's not an oil. And I think a lot of us think, oh, like, should we be using oils on our skin? And if you have that concern, use jojoba without concern because it is technically a liquid wax. It's a wax that's liquid at room temperature. As soon as the temperature goes below like 60, 65 degrees, the jojoba actually starts to turn into a solid wax.

27:21And it's that liquid wax character that gives it such unique performance properties on the skin. We say biomimics. biomimics the building block oils of the skin. So it helps to strengthen that matrix of the cells. You know, our skin cells, they're just sitting there on top of the face and they're linked together with all this matrix of fatty acids and fats and lipids. And we, you know, as we age, the muscles under the skin start to create these micro wrinkles, and that leads to deeper lines and wrinkles over time. And jojoba comes in, and it's helping to strengthen. So we have the cells, and then we're strengthening that matrix.

28:11So we're keeping the skin really smooth, really conditioned, really hydrated. And so it helps prevent fine lines and wrinkles. It helps just bring comfort to our skin. It feels so good to put jojoba oil on. I mean, so many of the testimonials that I get are people who, because early on, I was just bottling the jojoba oil by hand and like giving it out to all my friends and family. And I mean, it was one of our first business partners in the company who, you know, she works with a lot of brands. She tried a lot of stuff. and she said, you know, my friends have been asking me what I'm doing different to my skin.

28:54And she said, it's the OG Ho-Ho Boil. She said, I swear. She said, I have received so many compliments on my skin because I'm just glowing. I'm radiant. And it just also, you know, in addition to looking great, it just feels so, so good. So, you know, we started as like a little nothing group of people who said we're going to launch this big beauty brand. And can we partner with the world's largest supplier of jojoba. And we went to them with a presentation and they supported us. You know, they believed in us. My co-founder had come from luxury fashion. I had made many products, but my co-founder really started one of the world's most successful fashion companies.

29:33He started John Galliano and managed Galliano up until they sold two. Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy, and Galliano became the principal designer for Christian Dior. So he had a real name in luxury. fashion and luxury circles. So they support this supplier of jojoba supported us. And, you know, eventually we got to the point where we were able to secure the exclusive rights to our proprietary grade, which is this cold pressed, extra virgin cold press. It means they just, we take those. I mean, it's very, very pure and simple. And from that simplicity, we actually get the most effective ingredients.