Why Your Skincare Routine is Failing: A PhD Biochemist Explains

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Power Talk show, powered by Business Talks Weekly. Our, uh, guest today is a PhD biochemist. She is changing the skin care industry. She is the CEO and founder of VGAM, Dr. Mimi Vega. Uh, Dr. Vega, welcome to the Power Talk Show.

Speaker A: Thank you. And I've been very, very happy to be here.

Speaker B: It is our, uh, pleasure to have you, Doctor. So, Doctor, before we begin a conversation, can you tell us a bit about your professional journey and what led to the creation of vgam?

Speaker A: Yes, well, actually, it's very interconnected, like most journeys are. Right. It started in my childhood, so I'm gonna go very, very quickly, but always passionate about how things work, especially around health and our body and the connection with the planet. And I very early set on to develop a, uh, skincare brand that made sense for the skin. I had skin issues, and I couldn't figure out why it, you know, like, the products at the time weren't working. And when I finished my PhD, I actually realized that I was missing something. Something was missing that we weren't understanding. And at the time, my mother had a diagnosis of leukemia. Uh, she lived maybe many years and was in remission after that. But still, you know, like, I was tempted for almost 20 years to dig in more into that space and to understand, you, uh, know, prevention and everything. That led me to, uh, a career in biopharma, where I got to work across disease states and make the connections between, you know, like, biochemical cascades and what happens on, you know, like, in your gut that may influence your skin and etc. I ended up in immunology. At some point, we were really looking at the gut microbiota as the system you, uh, know, like, that really supports your immune system. And being so curious of the skin, I dived again into the skin microbiota, and this is where I found what was missing in the first place. So it took me about 25, 30 years to get there. But I realized at that point, Maryland, this is what, you know, like, we had all wrong, and we didn't consider it. The microbiota, we looked at the skin as problems to solve, like symptoms, instead of looking at how it works as an ecosystem at the root. So I really focused now on the root causes and the root functions of the skin, and that's how I approach skin. It's a really different approach to skin health, which ultimately, you know, provides everything the skin needs.

Speaker B: Wow, that's very interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Doctor. So, Dr. Weg, how. How are you different from the traditional Products that are there in the M market.

Speaker A: Well like I said, you know, most products they focus on one specific target, a symptom, breakout, a ah, wrinkle, a uh, dark spot or you know like uh, uh, they put a band aid basically on, on the solution. Whereas our product, it's a system actually, it's a duo, provides and restores the skin at the root. So what does that mean? Uh, we see ah, the skin as three barriers that are interconnected and working together. There's the water and the oil barrier or hydration and suppleness layers that they work together like uh, you know a combo mix, the yin and the yang. You uh, have the salts, the yellenic acid, like some ingredients that are really essential for the skin to really keep the water in the skin and actually do its proper functions. And you have that other yang part which are the oils that like the sebum that the skin produces but that we strip every day from the skin and that this oil provides the suppleness and the structure to the skin. But on top of that those two barriers, there's the microbiota. So this like in the gut, we also have uh, microflora on the skin, you know, which protects the skin from premature aging and also from these disbalances that are eczema and acne rosacea and all these conditions that are actually fully or partially dependent on your, the health of your skin microbiota. So we feed this microflora and we restore the essentials, the salts and the minerals and the proteins, peptides and evidently oils to the skin. So the skin is covered at the root and it can act as, it was meant to act as an organ, a ah, protective organ of our body.

Speaker B: That's very interesting. And you know, a couple of years back I read a book from Dr. Greg, How not to Die which talks about gut health and you know, how whole food plant based diet can actually help you clean your gut and even change your skin tone, skin color, bring all the brightness and fairness. So is that really possible through diet?

Speaker A: Partially. It's always multifactorial. There is a big difference between the gut microbiota and the skin microbiota. It works in similar ways but it is very different because like anybody, uh, and microorganisms work the same depending on the environment where we're not exactly like, you know, like we're similar but we have differences. So in the gut because it's acidic liquid, you'll have certain microorganisms on the skin because you have oils that you produce and because you're external, you're exposed to oxygen. You have different microorganisms that are skin related and there's a ton of them like in the gut and they work together. And the more that you have on your skin actually, the better your skin feels.

Speaker B: Interesting. And you know Dr. Vega, so you know, skin care, health industry, beauty, fashion industry, it's evolving, it's growing. How do you see what is the next turning point in the skincare industry and how challenging it is to bring a new product into the market?

Speaker A: Well, there's like many, many products. The challenge is to actually be visible within a sea of products. For sure. I see ourselves as bringing a new approach to skin. We're very, very different than anything that is out there because like I said, we don't have just one or two ingredients focusing on that target. So the industry is built to have multiple products in your routine which focus on different aspects. I have 35 ingredients in my formulations that work together so that you just have to adapt the proportion. And that's another thing, you know, like we put it in a duo so that you can adapt because the skin needs, because it's an organ and it goes with your metabolism and what goes on in your life. And as a uh, woman and other women, you know, like the system, hormonal system, influences massively your skin. And we try to provide it with ingredients that don't listen, that don't respect those cycles. And the skin, you know, like I call one human skin framework, is actually multiple types of skin in a month. And uh, so instead of focusing on symptoms and types of skin, we focus on the one human skin. So it's a different approach. And this is the challenge because we have to educate, we have to, you know, like explain how the skin really works. And it's very, very difficult in the sense that we've been kind of brainwashed. I know I was even when I formulated, you know, like I put everything together and I was like, why isn't it working? Why isn't it like these ingredients? Because my process was to map everything. The good ingred, the bad ones and what I call the wasteful, those ones that we pay a fortune for but that really don't deliver. So you know, like, we, we put it elsewhere. We, we, we decided to look at really the, the core and the basic studies and to see, okay, what really makes sense. Again, so these 35 ingredients were selected to work together. They're non irritants, so they have like longer action, but they provide, you Know, they bring back the balance to the skin so that it can do its thing. So very different approach. When people. Once people understand, they really, like, they make this shift. It provides super peace of mind because you don't have to worry about anything your skin might be missing because, uh, you know, like, you gave it everything it needed to work optimally and actually to look its best. Because it's glowing, it's hydrated, it's, you know, so it's the best, you know, like, pro aging in a way. It's healthy aging.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So what sort of adoption are you currently seeing and what kind of feedback are you getting from the market?

Speaker A: Well, actually, uh, we've received comments like, my God, this is so simple. I cannot believe anybody hasn't thought about this before. I've had, like, you've literally changed my life. And I know this is skin care, but we are so confused with our skin rituals, and we don't know what to do. I remember days, you know, like, you wake up and your skin has, you know, an irritation or a breakout or, you know, like, it's a patch of dry spot, and you're like, oh, my God, what's going on? What do I put on? And the secret is not to put on. It's, uh, actually to prevent it from reacting and, you know, let it be. But it's such a big shift that that's the challenge. That's really, uh. And so when people actually make that shift, that's what they tell us. Then they're like, oh, my God, I'm never going back. So we have a very, very, like I said, it's getting visible. But once we're visible and people, you know, as, you know, like in marketing, in seven to 10, you know, times that people will hear about you and, you know, like, start questioning and, you know, first couple of times they don't even see you. Right. That's the marketing place, you know. But once, you know, like, they get to understand, you know, like, there's a very, very high adoption, which is fabulous.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And you know, Dr. Vega, so this, this is a question from me. There is a myth that skin care is majorly for women. I feel it is not. What is your take on that?

Speaker A: Well, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there's the one human skin. For myself, you know, I didn't tell the, you know, like, we have a very short time, uh, together. But, uh, I developed it for my daughter, really, because she was gonna go through the same cycles of trial and error. Doesn't make Sense. So, so I developed it for her, but also for me because you know, everybody wants to look, everybody, not just women, want to look younger than they actually are. You know, like I don't know anybody that you know, wants to look older unless you're very, very young. But anyway, that's a, that's another story. Um, um, so I set it out for us but very, very different profiles. Yes, both women. But that being said, you know, like this one human skin works the same for anybody. Anybody. The thing that changes, changes almost daily. You know, of course women have a one month cycle. Right. Men have a 15 minute cycle in their hormonal. Right. System. So they don't get those hormonal variations but they get the other variations like climate needs, you know, like when you heat or you uh, you're on in the by ac. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: So you need to protect with oils a bit more. You need to supplement. It depends. It var. You went to the gym a couple of times, your metabolism is higher, you're producing more sebum, you're going to feel your skin more oily, you want to m, want to balance it with a bit more salts and you know like we, we do all sorts of activity. We eat something, sometimes we don't even know affects us, but it does, you know. So how do we do we balance our skin? It doesn't matter whether you're, you know, a man or women, the color of your skin, it's just a content of melanin. Right. So, so it's, it's the same. Root functions are exactly the same.

Speaker B: It's basically how Even the marketing, 90% is majorly focused on the women's side of the skin care. Right. So doctor, the business part aside, as an entrepreneur, how has your journey so far, ah, what kind of exciting transition did you see when you were at a uh, forefront, tech level, biochemist level to and being an entrepreneur?

Speaker A: Well, I love learning thankfully because I've learned a lot. That said you know, like in, in biopharma, I was in medical affairs most of my career. So it is really the connection between the science and the business. You know, it has to make sense. So I had that in me very early on. But that said, yeah, I had to pivot a few times. Understand uh, uh, the uh, the dynamics. I've learned that I need to, to speak, to do a lot of social media and that's you know, like what now we're uh, aiming at doing. We then we did you know, like events that you know, didn't actually convert that much, but we learned a lot. So now we're much more focused. And that's the thing. Focused. I come from Biopharma. We had memes, we had teams, we had agencies. I'm, um, used to big projects. And then. You don't like how kind of that mindset coming in, you know, like, where. Oh, my God, it's very, very costly. But, uh, now we. We've adapted. And certainly the biggest shift for me, I think, was to learn to really listen to myself, to my gut. And it doesn't speak very loudly, but I've made a few mistakes where I kind of knew I shouldn't go there, and I did, and lost time, money, but lots of learning, you know, like, embracing the journey. Uh, but it's been, um. It's been very fun. It's still fun, actually. But every day, like, the mindset is super important because it affects your team, it affects everything you do. Even if the results are the same, your mindset, it might be so different that you'll get other opportunities that you wouldn't have seen if you were not in the right mindset. So I really work on it religiously. This the, you know, top of list.

Speaker B: Is there anything you would have done differently if. If you go back and start again?

Speaker A: Absolutely, of course. Of course. But, you know, I had to learn. It's like doing a Ph.D. honestly, you know, like, it took me six, seven years with the back and forth. If I had, uh, known, you know, like, at the beginning what I knew at the end, well, I would have done it in six months. Right. It's just experimentations. Like, it's finding your way around. Uh, that said, you know, like, I'm. Yeah, I'm very grateful for. For it all. I'm very gr. Grateful. Is there, you know, like. Yes, there's things I would. Would do, I would definitely not do, you know, mostly.

Speaker B: But, uh, that's wonderful. Dr. Vega, what is your vision for the next three, five years? Where are you heading? What are you looking at?

Speaker A: Well, a lot more speaking. I'm finishing a book, uh, that I've worked on many, many months on. I was trying to say so many things. There's so many things connected. But now I. I think I'm finally there where I'm, you know, like, I've simplified enough without oversimplifying so that, uh, we can get it out this year. So this is, uh, fabulous. So I'll be speaking a lot more, um, and hopefully market expansion into, uh, into Europe. The next phase. Who knows?

Speaker B: That's very interesting. And do you feel like in the skincare industry, in biochemistry industry, AI is going to play any kind of a role where, you know, in terms of formulation and composition?

Speaker A: Unfortunately yes. But it's uh, it's more of the same, right? AI doesn't create anything if of course my eyes and I use them, you know, like to, to distill ideas sometimes, but the ideas, they never come from the AI. Right. And it's a probability tool as you know. So if you're trying to develop something out of it, you're going to develop more of the same because it cannot get a probability out of something that's not created yet.

Speaker B: Right, so absolutely.

Speaker A: So yeah, you will see, uh, we'll see a lot of ingredients, new ingredients, but again it's the same focus. You know, this new hero ingredient that does that for yours, you know, like one part of your skin, but that this balances the rest. But you know, like it's not always the cane. But you know, I do not believe in the superhero ingredient. I mean uh, like I said, it's, it's, it's a mixture that works. The body is a complex system, our skin organ as well. So, so yeah, well, we'll see. A lot of confusion.

Speaker B: I think that one, one final question, Dr. And I asked this to all my guests. One piece of advice you received that change your perspective professionally.

Speaker A: And it's probably uh, going back to the, you know, listening to the whispering, uh, uh, you know, and I do say now listen to your skin as well. It's like, you know, like my two step system is, you know, feel and mix. It's really uh, around that, uh, one of the first that told me this was if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. That's it. If it's not a hell yes, it's no. Even if it's uh, a oh hell yes, but not now, it's a no. So yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you Nevin Shetty, for having me. It was great to be here.