S9 Ep31: From Farm to Face: The Surprising Connection Between Culinary Trends and Cosmetic Innovations with Tamar Kamen
“I'm excited to see what gets tested. There is an endless supply on this planet of products or sources that have not been tested yet. And I think there are entrepreneurial companies starting to find the next efficacious ingredient.” —Tamar Kamen
“I'm excited to see what gets tested. There is an endless supply on this planet of products or sources that have not been tested yet. And I think there are entrepreneurial companies starting to find the next efficacious ingredient.” —Tamar Kamen
The intersection of food and beauty is redefining the future of skincare, as innovative brands harness the power of natural, edible ingredients to nourish skin from the inside out. From upcycled coffee grounds to hydroponic-grown botanicals, the beauty industry is undergoing a delicious transformation.
Tamar Kamen is an independent product developer in the beauty industry with over 20 years of experience, bringing her wealth of knowledge and passion for clean, sustainable formulations to the forefront of the conversation.
Tune in as Justine and Tamar talk about the rise of transparency and consumer education, the challenges and costs of sustainable packaging, the evolution of clean beauty, the innovations shaping the future of the industry, and more
Connect with Tamar:
Tamar Lara Kamen is an award-winning beauty industry expert with a proven track record in product development and marketing. As a HERO PRODUCT MAKER and Beauty Industry Consultant, Tamar has collaborated with renowned brands such as Herbivore, Dune Suncare, Alpyn, Lion Pose, Glowbar, BoldHue, and Knesko. With a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Columbia University, Barnard College, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role.
Tamar's expertise spans product development, start-ups, new brand development, clinical skincare, consumer studies, pharmaceuticals, and more. She has held key positions, including Vice President of Product Development at Topicals, where she oversaw product development, education, marketing, and regulatory compliance. Tamar is also a member of WE ARE THE BOARD, contributing her insights and leadership to the beauty industry.
In addition to her professional achievements, Tamar is dedicated to animal welfare, volunteering as a foster mom, adoption counselor, and dog handler for Best Friends Animal Society and Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. Her passion for innovation, strategy, and brand development makes her a sought-after consultant and fractional executive in the beauty industry.
Episode Highlights:
02:17 Transparency and Consumer Education
06:47 Challenges and Cost of Sustainable Packaging
10:03 Consumer Thresholds and Product Preferences
16:03 The Role of Food in Clinical Beauty
19:10 Innovations in Upcycled Ingredients
24:02 The Future of Clean Beauty
28:25 Tips for Clean Beauty Founders
Tweets:
As the beauty industry gets more delicious, discover how food is nourishing skin from the inside out. Explore the edible ingredients redefining the future of cosmetics this week as @jreichman sits with HERO PRODUCT MAKER, Tamar Kamen. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #SustainableBeauty #CleanBeauty #FarmToFace #BeautyRevolution #EthicalIngredients #BeautyFromWithin #NaturalSkincare #SustainablePackaging #BeautyIndustryTransformation #CleanIngredients #TransparentBeauty
Inspirational Quotes:
04:19 “Clean and planet-aware— what that means is that the responsibility to the customer is not just what's in the jar, but it's also the jar itself.” —Tamar Kamen
07:41 “These businesses are spending more and people are demanding more, and they don't always understand the implication of what they're asking for.” —Justine Reichman
12:11 “You could have really good products and really bad encasing.” —Justine Reichman
18:28 “There are things that just aren't a good fit. Just because it says it's natural, doesn't mean that it can't be poisonous or deadly.” —Justine Reichman
19:18 “There's oftentimes a lot of filler and stuff when they are plant-based that sometimes it's just better to have the real thing— ingredients really are important.” —Justine Reichman
19:58 “The difference also between food and beauty is that products that you apply to your face or to anywhere in your body don't enter the bloodstream and they don't go through your digestive tract.” —Tamar Kamen
28:12 “The future is giving back, listening to your customers, to the world.” —Tamar Kamen
30:26 “I'm excited to see what gets tested. There is an endless supply on this planet of products or sources that have not been tested yet. And I think there are entrepreneurial companies starting to find the next efficacious ingredient.” —Tamar Kamen
32:05 “Who you partner with is super important.” —Tamar Kamen
32:50 “Researching your ingredients and being more well-versed on what your options are is super important.” —Tamar Kamen
34:44 “Know who you intend to sell to, so that you have your guardrails, and stay within them to formulate your identity.” —Tamar Kamen
Transcription:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients. Today, we have Tamar Kamen. She's an independent product developer in the beauty industry with over 20 years of experience. I'm super excited to have her on because she's a great wealth of knowledge, but also because she's a good friend.
Tamar Kamen: I'm so happy to be here.
Justine Reichman: Thanks. We're doing a special series, and this series is focused on the impact of food on the future of beauty. So I'd love to just get your take on that, and then we'll go back to how you got there.
Tamar Kamen: Sure. Food and beauty, I think that at least for product development, you can get inspiration anywhere. And food and chefs have become really a celebrity venture. I guess now, there's a lot more prestige associated with food, and a lot more experimentation and farm to table. All of that has really evolved over the last, I don't know, 20 years. So that interest, I think, has made its way into beauty as well, because people hope that their products are going to be somewhat natural or derived from something that they can often pronounce. So I think that as society has become more interested in food, in a supermarket or in a restaurant, that has impacted the beauty industry with new ingredients, new innovation, new sources, hydroponics. That did not exist for a lot of us a while ago. But now, you can source, not only lettuce, but you can potentially source ingredients that you use in skincare without soil.
Justine Reichman: Wow. So if we're looking back before, we made this pivot in the beauty industry. As I say, we eat, the beauty industry made this pivot. When you would look at a bottle, oftentimes, as you said, there'd be a million things, A, that you couldn't pronounce. And B, that you didn't know what they were. But somehow, we trusted the products to put them on our face and our body. I've done that. Have you done that?
Tamar Kamen: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Justine Reichman: But now, we're all about transparency, and we want to know what's in it. Is that the same thing you're finding in the beauty industry?
Tamar Kamen: Much so. People are reading ingredient lists, and they didn't know how to before. And with the resources that we have, the internet influencers, podcasts, we have information at our fingertips, and everyone can become an expert in what they're interested in. So there are a lot of people, starting at the teen years, who are now becoming experts in beauty, and they're becoming critical. They're discerning. They're educating themselves and looking for transparency that is 100% happening.
Justine Reichman: And when they're looking for this transparency, does that also include the planet?
“Clean and planet-aware— what that means is that the responsibility to the customer is not just what's in the jar, but it's also the jar itself.”
Tamar Kamen: Yes. Yeah, yeah. So for example, Sephora, starting maybe 10 years ago, had a clean product initiative where there were no lists for the first time. They're not including this, this, this. If you think about one of the first brands that did that, it was Drunk Elephant. And Drunk Elephant in skincare created one of the first free of lists, no note list so they weren't including parabens, they weren't including phthalates, a bunch of ingredients. And they were saying this is important to the customer for whatever safety reasons, mostly. So Sephora took that on for all of their clean products, or clean brands about 10 years ago. That has evolved to become a more and more restrictive list. And now, Sephora has taken that to another step. And now, it's called Clean and Planet Aware. So what that means is that the responsibility to the customer is not just what's in the jar, but it's also the jar itself. The folding carton that it comes in. Is it recyclable? Where is it sourced? Is it a source? You can get plastic that's sourced from sugarcane. You can get virgin plastic that's just petroleum based. You can have a plastic that is PCR, Post Consumer Recycled plastic. But then that may not be recyclable. So there are a lot of decisions that a brand can make, and customers are asking for that transparency. Do they want to buy something in glass? It might be breakable, it might be too heavy, but it might be better for the planet. Or do they want to buy something that maybe is not recyclable, but it will fit in their purse and they can travel with it very easily. So it's helping customers have options. And a lot of those options are the packaging as well, and that's more of the planet aware. Offsetting carbon footprint, even shipping ingredients. There are some companies that say, we try not to ship our ingredients from across the world. We source everything within 100 miles of where we manufacture. So there are degrees of that, but it is very talked about and considered by both consumers, retailers and brands.
Justine Reichman: As you're sitting here talking about glass and all these different kinds of things, I'm imagining that costs can go from one end of the spectrum to the next. So what role does that play for both the businesses that are creating the product, as well as the consumer?
Tamar Kamen: That is a consideration for everyone. So obviously, the brands don't make as much margin if the packaging is very expensive. There are refillable packages, for example now, and those can be more expensive for a brand to produce because they have to produce the package, the outer package, and that usually comes with a refillable pod. And then they have to also produce all of the pods separately, like the Keurig or whatever pods. So the minimums are higher. There are a lot of considerations, and that's not something that's affordable to every brand. And customers, again, can decide what makes sense for them. It is for products that are sold at Credo, Goop, Whole Foods and then in the Sephora Clean, and then the Clean and Planet Aware. That is more important, because it's a commitment that they're agreeing to abide by to that retailer and to the customer. So that's just something that now is part of the ethos and part of, when you create a product, you're going to allocate more money to packaging, or to the formula as well. There are some ingredients that if you buy from a source that's not as well known, it might be less expensive. But if you buy from a validated, ethical source, it may be more expensive. And I don't know if customers are as aware of the added expense, but brands and retailers certainly are.
“These businesses are spending more and people are demanding more, and they don't always understand the implication of what they're asking for.”
Justine Reichman: I know that if I go to the store, I'm looking for a product. I want something that I think is better for me and better for the planet, and that includes the ingredients and the packaging. But I have a threshold, right? So everyone has their own threshold, and I guess I'm curious. The idea is that these businesses are spending more, and people are demanding more, and they don't always understand the implication of what they're asking for. So how do businesses provide education so people can make more informed choices? And what role does education play in this?
Tamar Kamen: Have you heard of the term greenwashing? We suffer from a lot of that in beauty because there are some things that are very difficult to accomplish. Recycling, for example, in most markets, in most cities, products that are under the size of a business card or a credit card generally are not recycled because that market, the facilities that they have, the machinery lets those size products fall through in the culling process. They just don't recycle something that's big or small. Let's say, if you think about the cosmetic products that you buy, a lot of them are smaller than that. So if we say that a lipstick is recyclable, there you go. That could be recyclable. But in most areas, the recycling facilities will not recycle that. So it's fantastic when I go to my recycling bin in my building, it's filled with tons of small containers. Not just cosmetics. It could be anything for food. I have a candle right now that is a tea light, small candle. It's glass. I will be putting it in the recycling. But I'm pretty certain that in New York, they won't recycle that. So part of it is green washing where there are lots of brands, and they might be the makeup brands where everything is recyclable. But in all actuality, those products will not be recycled because of the facilities locally.
People don't talk about that because the brands do want to do what is the most responsible, and they know that customers are going to be asking those questions. So there is not total transparency. Even if you wanted to recycle something that was a certain size, a place like Sephora or Credo, sometimes they do have bins where they will take care of recycling. But still, there is not that. Any resources available to recycle a lot of beauty products. When you ask about the threshold that's for me as a consumer, of course, I want something that's the best for the planet, the best for me. But I also want the performance, and I want it to look nice. There's some products that come in. The refills are in pouches, and you put that in your shampoo or in whatever. That doesn't work for everybody because of lots of reasons. They don't like having a huge supply of refills in their closet. It's extra work. I know it's not a ton of work, but it's extra work. It's keeping two products. You have the product that's the retail size, and then you have the refills. It's a different threshold for everybody, but it is a threshold that exists. People say that they want certain things.
But in reality, would I buy something that I thought looked nicer and it's in plastic and it's lighter? And for my purposes, it's easier to travel with, or whatever. I would pick something that makes more sense for me and my lifestyle, rather than the potential impact theoretically on the planet. But I also know, because I am, I think, fairly well educated that even if I did pick something that is recyclable, I know the likelihood of it being recycled. So you do see like, think about soaps that you can buy at Farmers Market, that's not for everybody. Or a lush soap that is very raw looking, they cut it, that's not for everyone. Castile soap like the Dr. Bronner's that a lot of people do like, that is probably as crunchy and clean. As some people, that is their threshold. They're not going to get any more natural, crunchy, clean, recyclable. So something like that. People have lemons.
“You could have really good products and really bad encasing.”
Justine Reichman: Yeah. I think it's really interesting. Because I go back to when I used to buy certain things, and I wouldn't even look at what it was made of or what was in it. And now all of the sudden, as a result of being in the niche of food, I'm really curious about not only what the food is, but how they're putting it together because you could have really good products and really bad packaging. You can have a lot of waste, and you can have a lot of stuff in landfills, and you could be traveling, and all the fossil fuel. There's just so many things that go into it. So I'm curious, because you've worked on a variety of products in the last 20 years, and I'm sure they weren't all very clean 20 years ago. Were they? How long ago did we start to see this trend where really it was something that people looked for?
Tamar Kamen: I would say that clean or natural became very mainstream with The Body Shop. And The Body Shop was probably about 20 to 30 years ago. I think that they still exist. You know what I'm talking about?
Justine Reichman: I know what The Body Shop is, but I haven't seen a store in 100 years.
Tamar Kamen: I think it does exist, but maybe it's sold at Bath and Body Works. I'm not sure. And I think it exists in international markets. I'm not sure what really happened to it here. Oh, it does exist because they got acquired again recently. I don't know what the plan is for the future. But I'd say that The Body Shop started making clean, less crunchy and hippie. I actually don't know how clean the formulas were, but they were very plant forward. So if you would be using an acne product previously, we just say acne product. When The Body Shop came around, it would say tea tree oil and maybe other ingredients too, but it made people more familiar with the natural ingredients that provide skin care benefits. So that's when I think, let's say, greener formulas started appearing, and became more common for a lot of people.
And then the next round of that, in my opinion, was probably Drunk Elephant. And Drunk Elephant was the no-no list. And now, every brand has a no-no list. Previously, I don't really remember seeing no-no lists. There were some brands I would say, we're not going to use a retinal or an alpha hydroxy acid, but it was not for responsibility purposes. In some cases, they didn't use ingredients, but it was very seldom that I saw no-no lists. So I'd say that Drunk Elephant was the next round of Body Shop impact. And then after that became the clean green standard, Drunk Elephant brands started taking it beyond that, and Credo arrived, and Goop. Credo gave people who have specific requirements and standards for clean, natural, all that. It gave them a market to one destination where they could get all their beauty items instead of, oh, I really like this from this Farmers Market. Or I can buy my sunscreen here. I can buy my face lotion someplace else. It's one destination where people with those values can buy everything. So those products became more accessible in the last 10 years or so, and it's become more and more strict in some ways. Because now, lab manufacturers are also more familiar with, if I'm not using petroleum, what's a good substitute? So over the last 10 years or so, there have also become more ethical, more green options for ingredients. So the whole market has transformed. The whole industry has transformed in the last 20 years.
Justine Reichman: So when I think of some of these beauty brands that we're talking about, I think of going to Credo and Goop or whatever to pick up whatever you need. But then there's also beauty products that I get from my doctor's office, my dermatologist office. Many doctors' offices, they use retinol, they use all these things in their products, and we had actually wanted them when we went there. We wanted them. I'm wondering what role food, if you will, will be part of the evolution of the products that the doctors are selling?
Tamar Kamen: That's tougher, because most of the products that doctors are selling are very engineered. The ingredients are very engineered. So it's the most effective, newest technology, a new molecule that was made at a university or by a pharmaceutical company that usually doesn't come from a garden. You know that that's not something that you can't see far back enough to when it was an actual source from the earth. So I don't think that that's going to impact clinical beauty as much in the future. Because a lot of times, the patients or the customers who are going into doctors offices or estheticians getting facials and buying products there, they're comfortable buying very clinical, man made, science made products. And if you're comfortable with pharmaceuticals, even your aspirin is very synthetic, and there's something called safe synthetics. So there are a lot of brands that are saying, okay, we're not necessarily natural. But in some cases, you'll buy a product that's natural or an ingredient that's natural. There are a lot of essential oils that can be very, very irritating. There are ingredients that are very difficult to source ethically. So there are safe synthetics, and those might be better for somebody with eczema, or with sensitive skin, or acne prone skin. It might not come out of the earth, but putting something that comes out of the earth on your face is not necessarily going to be less irritating or more effective. Efficacy is a lot of what people aren't willing to compromise on.
Justine Reichman: I would say that food is not always safe either. You can go mushroom foraging, and there's mushrooms you should not be eating. I think the same thing could be said for anything in a garden. There are things there that just aren't a good fit. And just because it says it's natural, or it's from your garden, or it's an herb, it doesn't mean that it can't be poisonous or deadly.
Tamar Kamen: Very much. So I think in food, the safe synthetic is probably much less applicable than it is in skincare. I can't think of a ton of food that is completely engineered without a super natural source. Can you think of anything that's like an engineered food that everyone considers safe?
Justine Reichman: No, I could think of some engineered food that I don't really think is very good for us. I don't want to call out things necessarily, but I do think that there's oftentimes a lot of filler and stuff, and things when they are plant based, etcetera that sometimes it's just better to have the real thing. I think ingredients really are important. And I think that I should go to the dermatologist and use products from there, because I think there's a time and place for everything. There are products, there are new innovations coming out that really do work in some ways, that maybe you don't have to go to the dermatologist for some things, but there's still value in, for me at least, in some of the products that I get. I know you've worked on both sides of the coin, right?
“The difference also between food and beauty is that products that you apply to your face or to anywhere in your body don't enter the bloodstream and they don't go through your digestive tract.”
Tamar Kamen: Yeah. And I would say that the difference also between food and beauty is that products that you apply to your face or to anywhere in your body don't enter the bloodstream, and they don't go through your digestive tract. So people who have gluten intolerance, gluten intolerance is different from celiac. Even celiac, with celiac the Celiac Association of America, I think it's the one that says that you should not have an issue applying products that have wheat or gluten onto your face, because they don't go through your digestive tract. If you have a severe gluten allergy, they would most likely recommend that you not do that. Or products that are on the lips that you lick your lips, and then you digest it, that's definitely an area that you might want to avoid gluten in. But for the most part, cosmetic products don't affect your body the same way as food. There have been some studies that are usually not really, really validated. That shows that some ingredients do enter your body and in other ways. But for the most part, the FDA does not recognize a lot of them. But then from time to time, the FDA does say that there are ingredients like parabens. Parabens are just not allowed anymore because there has been evidence that they have a detrimental effect on the human body. So that's always changing. There might be an ingredient now that we use that we think is safe, and there is validated research in the future that tells us it's not safe to apply topically. So it is evolving. I don't know if I answered your question.
Justine Reichman: I think you did. And I'm curious, though. You've been on both sides, so I'm wondering in the last 20 to 30 years, I guess, Bed Bath & Beyond and then Drunk Elephant, that it changed the trajectory of beauty. And I'm wondering what that looks like for the future as we continue on? Could you share maybe a couple innovations that you're aware of that maybe you feel are pivotal in the future of beauty?
Tamar Kamen: Well, I think you and I have talked about upcycled ingredients, which is really interesting, and is happening now more than ever. Last year, I saw that as a selling point with a lot of ingredients. There's one that I'm familiar with that is derived from coffee grounds. Because when you throw the coffee out, it's ground, and they go into a landfill usually. But then these companies are finding things to do with the byproducts, the waste products from food. So there's a coffee ingredient, there's a seaweed where the remnants of seaweed that might be used for other purposes is now used for cosmetic applications, for hydration. That is the case with a lot of ingredients where the manufacturers are trying to find a purpose for the byproducts of what they're manufacturing. So it might be a food vendor, and then they're saying, what can we do with all of this orange pulp? Is there something to do with it? It might be turning it into packaging. I've seen mushroom packaging recently where I don't know that it's a byproduct. It might be, but it came out of some innovation someplace. Coffee grounds, can you turn coffee grounds into a folding carton? Probably. And if it hasn't been done yet, it will most likely be done in the future. So I do think that the future is using the whole plant as much as possible, and not even putting plant ingredients into a landfill. So yeah, using the whole plant, that's one thing. Is the upcycled traceability? So there are some brands where it'll tell you the exact lot of some of the active ingredients.
So that happens a lot with CBD, CBD ingredients, where the company, there might be a QR code, and you can scan your individual product, and it'll tell you when it was made, where it was made. And it'll tell you the strain of CBD that was incorporated into your product and the farm that it was made on. Sometimes, it'll even tell you that this is the farmer's name. It gets to a very, very granular level, that transparency so that you feel more confident in the ingredient that you're using that has entered the beauty arena. Then additionally, I think more robust testing, safety testing. So there are a couple of tests that the industry has just said, we don't necessarily require them. But everybody does a certain safety testing. Now, there are options to test things even a step further, so to test for heavy metals, to test for contaminants. So to test for contaminants, you might be buying orange juice. But then, even if it's organic, you might find that the factory that it was processed in means that it has been exposed to metal or something else. Sometimes on your food, it'll say manufactured in whatever facility. Now in beauty, they're also adhering to some of that as well, where we're tracking the contaminants. And there are some states, I believe Washington State is one of the first ones to most recently put in place some laws in regards to contaminants, so you do have to test for heavy metals and other contaminants for cosmetic products as well. That is going to become more and more mainstream.
Justine Reichman: I'm curious, that's going to become more mainstream. People are leaning towards having more cleaner products. Is there a statistic you could share about how you see this change is going to impact or be impacted by the change in what we're putting in products, and how we're testing them, the whole idea of clean beauty?
Tamar Kamen: I don't know a statistic off the top of my head, but I would refer you to a website like Sephora where you can look at the percentage of the products that now comply with Sephora Clean versus just regular non clean products. It's a big percentage. And I think that when these retailers are approaching new brands to come into Sephora, Credo, anywhere, the more transparent, the cleaner, the more natural, the more sustainable, the better. And that is being really communicated to these brands. That if you come to market, lots of brands that I work with who are just starting are identifying their sustainability ethos from the very beginning. And from the very beginning, they know that these standards are being looked for by retailers and by customers. So statistically, I would say that it's just the majority of brands, unless they're super, super clinical. Even if they're super clinical, they might be in a more sustainable package or the Pact Collective.
Justine Reichman: So tell me, what is the pact collective, for those that are not familiar with the term?
“The future is giving back, listening to your customers, to the world.”
Tamar Kamen: I'm going to tell you what it says. Let's end packaging waste in the beauty industry. Pact is a non-profit collective uniting the beauty industry to reduce beauty packaging waste, and work collaboratively towards more circular solutions in the industry. So nonprofits like that are now available to us. Five years ago? I don't think that they were around five years ago. There are those options for brands to partner with to make more responsible solutions, and to be prepared when they come to market and they're retailing. To know all the options of how they can impact the Earth and recyclability. And there's that education. There are those resources. There are a lot of companies that will plant a tree for every folding carton that you sell. Something like that. Or will donate to causes that are environmental or otherwise, so that the brand can become more involved. And I think that that is going to be the future is somehow giving back, listening to your customers. Let's say North America is definitely becoming more responsible, or trying to be. Some of us are becoming more responsible, so we're listening to customers and trying to do our best to satisfy what they're looking for.
Justine Reichman: I think that's great information for new founders also, as well as existing founders that want to create change. But for new founders, because many times people look to the podcast, this podcast for inspiration or resources, and I think that that's a great resource. And we'll include that in our show notes as well for people. So if you have any, maybe you can send them over when we include them. To tag on to that though, to go a little deeper, I'm curious, are there any ingredients that you think are just overlooked and really should get a second look by people and people innovating in this space?
Tamar Kamen: I don't know. And the reason I don't know is because not every plant or technology that is available has been tested. So we found out that, let's say liquorice brightens skin, even skin tone because somebody tested it. Maybe it started anecdotally. My mom used liquorice on me. And for this reason, and then eventually a lab and a manufacturer tested it and they found out that liquorice has that effect. We do see that happening like turmeric. A lot of times, it's traditional Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine. If this ingredient has been used for centuries, then maybe there's something to it. And then somebody will go and actually test and isolate the molecule that has activity. We tried heirloom tomatoes and tested heirloom tomatoes versus regular tomatoes, and do we know that they have more polyphenols than other tomatoes? I don't know. And then when you apply heirloom tomato paste onto your skin versus a regular tomato, will those antioxidants have a better effect than a regular tomato or another source of antioxidants entirely? I don't know. I'm excited to see what gets tested, but there is an endless supply on this planet of products, or sources that have not been tested yet. And I think there are entrepreneurial companies that are starting to find the next ingredient, the next efficacious ingredient. So I don't know if I knew, then I'd probably be a lot more successful if I could.
Justine Reichman: You're very successful, but regardless, and very knowledgeable. So as we start to wrap up, I just kind of want to tie it in that looks pretty bold for everyone, and I also like to tie it back to those founders that come here looking for inspiration, and looking to better understand as they build their new products. So if you could give three tips to those founders that are looking to build clean beauty from farm to product, maybe that's a thing, right? What would you recommend?
“Researching your ingredients and being more well-versed on what your options are super important.”
Tamar Kamen: It is a thing to some extent. I would recommend that you partner with one of the contract manufacturers or labs that specialize in that. There are individuals and companies that are their expertise. Not every company will be able to tell you, or not every manufacturer will be able to tell you that there is an organic form of something, or that there's an ingredient called niacinamide. One of my clients is soon going to be launching with a niacinamide that is the first fermented niacinamide. We asked the right lab, and the right lab told us that there were these options. So again, who you partner with, I think, is super important. Researching independently. There are some resources. There's something called UL Prospector, letter U, the letter L Prospector. We can put it in the show notes. And that is a database of raw materials of ingredients for the beauty industry. Not absolutely everything is on there, but most things are on there. So if you decide that you want to do a line that's all around raspberries, and you put raspberries into UL Prospector, it will give you hundreds of ingredients that come from raspberries. And you can read the details there. It'll tell you what the source is. Does it come from this country? Or that country? Does it come from the seed of the raspberry? Does it come from the fruit of the raspberry, or the stem of the raspberry, the leaf of the raspberry? So researching your own ingredients and being more and more well versed on what your options are, that I would say, is super important. You can approach a chemist or a contract manufacturer, and we all have our preferences that might not be your preference.
So if you come to the table saying, I looked at this, this is really what I'm interested in. They may not sell you what their preference is aggressively because you've done your research, and you like raspberries. And then I would say third is also to have an idea of where you do want to retail. So do you want to sell at Sephora? Or are you going to just direct to the consumer? Are you going to be international? There are international regulations. Europe, for example, is more restrictive with a lot of ingredients in the US. And the US eventually adopts some of those rules. But right now, Europe is more restrictive than the US. Australia is more restrictive than the US. So try to aim big, and maybe hope that your product is going to be global. But then make sure that you're formulating according to whatever rules you want, wherever you think you're going to be distributed. And you don't have to be a clean product. You don't have to be a clean brand. And also, again, the definition of clean is very murky. But if you have an idea of where you want to be sold and who your end customer is going to be, you'll be able to establish your own guardrails better. You don't have to be sold in Whole Foods, but you might want to be sold in Sephora. You might not even want to be sold in Sephora, and you want to only be sold on germstore.com, something like that, then you may not want to consider any of these suggestions. And that is your ethos and your identity. And there will be plenty of people who will want to buy your products. Just know who you intend to sell to so that you have your own guardrails and stay within them to formulate your identity.
Justine Reichman: Thank you so much, Tamar. I'm really curious, just for those folks out there, that if they wanted to get in touch, maybe they are trying to build a product and they're looking for somebody to help build their product, how could they get in touch with you?
Tamar Kamen: I would say, to contact me on LinkedIn would probably be the most efficient. And if you send me a message on LinkedIn, then I will be happy to reply.
Justine Reichman: We'll make sure to include your LinkedIn in the show notes, of course. I want to thank everyone. I want to thank you, Tamar, for joining me. I want to thank our guests for tuning in. And if you are watching this as a videocast, don't forget that you can also listen to us as a podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, don't forget that we do have a video cast on YouTube. And if you're not following us for clips and peaks into future episodes, you should, or I hope you will @essential.ingredients on Instagram. Thanks so much, and have a great day. Thanks, Tamar.
