PLH 97 | Beauty Products

There are so many beauty influencers today that we can’t help but think how easy it must be to create your own beauty products. Nadia Fleury proves otherwise. She is a French-Canadian entrepreneur, life strategist, and chemist who founded the skincare line, Avesence. Nadia talks about the bumpy path of developing and formulating a beauty product while letting us in on some beauty secrets. She breaks down our preconceived notions as she discusses the truth behind “natural” and why pH is important. She also gives some great advice to aspiring entrepreneurs about the importance of having an inventory, carrying a brand, and why you should not compete on just the product benefit.

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I have Nadia Fleury here. She is amazing. She has created a skincare brand. The reason I invited her on here is that I know a lot of you have those aspirations out there. You have aspirations to make amazing brands. Your brand is called Avesence. The product is Dermesence. Here’s the thing, building a beauty brand is hard. You have a background in it. We get a lot of people who are like, “I love beauty products. I’d love to create my own line.” They are beauty influencers or they’re out there. They’ve never done it before. I want to start with where you started because you already had experience in this marketplace.

First, I started with my own need. I was looking for something to solve my problem. I remember one day, I went to Nordstrom. She said, “What are you looking for?” I said, “I’m looking for something that will help with my oily skin but would not dry my skin at the same time.” It’s funny because she said, “There’s Clinique.” I have nothing against Clinique but I look at one of the products she’s showing me. I said, “There’s alcohol in there as the third ingredient.” She looked at me blind like, “What kind of language was I talking?”

How did you even know that?

I’m a chemist. That’s why I could tell.

I want to go back to what your experiences are because you drew on that. You found this problem. This is exactly the way it happens for so many of us. We have a problem and we want to solve it. You had a focus and experienced viewpoint. It started before that. Let’s go back a little further.

After high school, I studied in college as a textile dyeing chemist. I had a chemistry background but I would put color on textile. That’s what I did then. I worked for Bayer in Canada. I’m originally from Montreal. However, there is a little parallel and I want to share here. There’s a reason why I’m working in the lab. Back as a teenager, I started with a lot of acne. I did not feel that I was good for media. I chose the lab route as supposed to be in marketing. I would shy away from the public.

You were hiding out in the lab literally.

PLH 97 | Beauty Products

Beauty Products: Alcohol is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that it can be an irritant when your skin is already irritated.

I literally hide in the lab. You don’t know these things until you start diving in and find out why is it that I’m not successful? That came fifteen years later. I progressed forward. Go to school, get good grades and find a job, then try to be happy for the rest of your life. This is what I was following. I was still struggling with my oily skin. The problem in my 30s shifted. It was no longer acne but. It would be some breakouts. It would be annoying. I would put makeup in the morning and by the time I arrive at work, it’s gone. I don’t know if I can say this but that’s how I felt. I felt like a melted candle.

I’ve been there. You were talking to a lot of women who feel that way. Your makeup slid off your face.

The worst is you left it on the first one you hugged. It was annoying. People were meaning very well. They were giving me all sorts of advice. When people don’t know, they tell you all sorts of advice. That’s when I started questioning the benzoyl peroxide that they would put and the alcohol. The drying agent. It’s one thing to try to get rid of the blemish but it’s something else having a red patch with that flakes all around the skin. I learned later on that oily skin is a form of skin sensitivity. People don’t see it that way. They think that it’s oily skin, we’re going to strip the heck out of it by putting a lot of alcohol in it. That brings me back to what we’re saying to this lady at Nordstrom. She looked at me funny when I said, “There’s alcohol in there.” Alcohol is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be an irritant when your skin is already irritated.

If it’s the third ingredient, that means it’s pretty predominant in the product.

You probably have maybe 2%, 3% or 5% depending on the reason as to why it’s there. Sometimes it’s a vehicle in the sense that you will be there and it evaporates quickly. When you have oily skin, you don’t want to bother. You want something that goes in. Sometimes the alcohol has a reason to be there. I’m talking about the SD alcohol. I’m not talking about Cetearyl alcohol, which is your emulsifier. There are different kinds of alcohol and let’s not I assume that one thing is everything.

I have to ask this now. Did you know all of that before you started the project of trying to create something? Did you learn this during the process of creating it?

During the process. I left the whole textile environment. When I was working in lab, I finished up as a textile engineer here in America. At that time, I was working already on the skin care. That’s when I was like, “I know something that this lady at Nordstrom did not know.” However, I quit my job cold turkey deciding, “I’m going to start this skincare.” That’s 2012. I arrived one day and told my husband, “I quit my job.”

You don't learn to formulate in school. You learn to formulate with mentors. Click To Tweet

You were brave and it’s scary at the same time.

Everything else I told you about the SD alcohol and all the irritant came afterward. I did not know any of that. All I did is I wanted the skincare. I incorporated that company in 2008. At the time I thought, “A skincare has a logo,” the brand and then I thought, “If it’s the brand, then we need a logo, we need a tagline. We need the packaging.” I was already doing manufacturing before I even knew what was my messaging which is the wrong way around. However, I would not know the messaging until now. If I had waited until I had the messaging to create the logo and all that, I would not be any further forward.

You don’t have an audience right at that time. You didn’t know who you were selling to besides yourself. You didn’t know how to make a tagline that would resonate with them, how to do that.

My biggest inspiration moment is in the bathroom. I dry my hair. I had to stop halfway through to go and write something. My tagline at the time which I’m not using now but it fit the profile was, “Where elegance matters.” That was my struggle to look elegant wherever I go. The feeling of knowing that I don’t have to go back to the bathroom within five minutes of arriving was important. Feeling elegant was important. These things mattered, however, there’re two sides to it. There’s the product and the product benefits side to it. There’s the empowerment. If you had told me five years ago, “Nadia, let’s do a podcast together,” I would be hiding. I would not even talk to you.

I’m glad you’ve come this far because I’m enjoying it. Let’s talk about the path of developing a beauty product. A lot of people get this idea. They are in their Nordstroms like you were and they have this flash, “This is what the beauty market needs.” How do you go about figuring this out? How do you go about developing that? What does that path you took look like and tell us the path you should have taken?

The path that I took was I had a need. I was already from a manufacturing place. I understood ingredient. I had access to ingredient suppliers. They gave me access to a huge database, the oldest supplier gets into. That’s where they promote their product to people like me. They had their recipe there. They had their formula there. You don’t learn to formulate in school. You learn to formulate with mentors. If you would go into work for L’OrĂ©al or Procter & Gamble and it’s the senior that teaches the younger people. Imagine for a moment that Martha Stewart has access to 20,000 recipes. She can just look at it and make it her own. I did not know why I needed 0.25% of this particular ingredient. When you see it in twenty recipes you say, “That’s how much I’m going to use on mine.” It’s a bit like cooking. If you have a teaspoon of vanilla in all your vanilla cake, then you say, “I’m not going to put two cups of vanilla. I’m going to put one teaspoon.” That’s what the norm is doing. You may not know why until you try it. You realize it doesn’t taste good. The first thing was understanding how you build a formulation. What does it take?

Did you try the method of creating some of those formulas or trying them first? Saying, “I don’t like the quality of this.”

PLH 97 | Beauty Products

Beauty Products: At the end of the day, it’s not about creating a brand that is totally natural; it’s serving into the benefit and the mission that you have that is really going to get you your fans.

I tried. I spent three years in the lab trying. I may have thrown in the trash maybe 20,000 trials. I was developing as I went along. At first, I was trying to put everything into it. This is important for the audience who wants to do natural. I was heading to try to do natural. The real natural product. It looked like mud. It smelled terrible. I thought for a moment, “Do I want it? Will people buy this?” At the end, when people go to the store and buy a cream, the first two things they will do is look at the texture. The next thing, they will smell it. Manure is the most natural thing that exists. If I would put manure in a bottle and say, “It’s absolutely natural and organic. Do you want it?”

No, I don’t think so.

The point that I’m making is that, if you are aiming at just natural because everybody is saying it as a formulator, I need to share one thing. No matter what you put in the jar, it is a chemical. Even water is a chemical and it’s a misunderstanding. It’s a marketing term to use the word natural. That is the misconception. If people in your audience wants to go in the natural route, what I would suggest is expand upon. There are people who want to do the same. What is your next differentiator after being natural?

I remember talking with you once. You shared something with me which I thought was fascinating. If it is truly all natural, you also have a higher risk of growing or breeding bacteria. If it’s something where you stick your finger in it, you don’t have things to help prevent bacteria growth and other things.

Where that comes in is the preservative. The thing is that people in the natural world tend to shy away from preservatives thinking that they are bad. They take the concept of food. We want to eat a fresh apple. We want to eat something fresh that comes from the garden. We don’t want preservative on our food we eat. We take the same logic and we put it in skincare. We expect the bottle that will last six weeks in your bathroom or longer sometimes. Sometimes you may have it in the car. Sometimes you may fly on a plane with it. You don’t do that for six weeks with an apple. Your apple will not look that great after six weeks. The thing is we are still in the same process with one another because we don’t understand the chemistry further. The preservative is a tricky situation. The natural skincare industry has done a big push to sell their product with fear behind it. They created fear, especially fear of chemical. You don’t think anything is wrong with something until someone says, “There is no silicone. There’s no sodium lauryl sulfate.” You start thinking, “What’s wrong with silicone and sodium lauryl sulfate?” They don’t go further with that. They tell you they don’t have it. The point I’m making is, if you have any water-based product, you will need a preservative. Remember also that from manufacturing to having it in a box, to having it in a store, to having it in your hands, that’s not just six weeks. Your product needs to meet shelf life for over two years. That’s why the preservative is important in there.

This is why I want you all to hear from Nadia. This is a wealth of knowledge of learning on the job. Learning on the spot about these things. Sometimes breaking down our preconceived notions. I find it happens too often with our creators and our inventors out there. They hold the hardened bass line, “I’m not having any preservatives. I’m not having any of this.” In the end, you create an unmarketable product. As you said, it’s not even going to make it to the shelf before the thing’s expired. You can’t have a viable product at the end of the day. You have to start thinking about these things. It’s like, “I have a mission. My most important mission is this benefit that you wanted to create.” You wanted to create elegant oil-free skin and makeup that doesn’t slip off. Whatever that might be, that’s your goal. In trying to make that goal, having an open mind about what it’s going to take to make that happen. That’s the problem you’re solving not, “I’m going to make a brand that is totally natural.” That’s not at the end of the day, serving into the benefit and the mission that you have, that is going to get you your fans. Going to get your brand to have a perception that it is doing what you want it to do.

As a manufacturer, I had a certain amount of consciousness in the sense that many people will put something in a bottle to sell it. I don’t want to keep talking about natural skin care because it’s not just them. How often did you get something as a gift and you did not like it? In the first try, you throw it away to the garbage. I feel as a manufacturer that I have a responsibility. What I’m putting in gets used. You have to have a purpose beyond just making money. Filling the landfill was not one of them. Sometimes we want to be green, we want to be conscious of the environment. We are afraid of plastic and all these things. That is why one of the things I created in my product is I’ve made it multi-purpose. It’s doing more than one thing. It can help you with little breakouts. It can also detox your skin at night. It can also mattify your skin. It does many things. While I was formulating it from a consumer’s perspective, I put many antioxidants because that’s what protects the skin.

You can't test it if you can't make it. Click To Tweet

You have fewer products that you have to use, which mean less in the landfill. You are helping the environment at the end of the day.

It was a girl in the lab formulating this. I don’t have the time to do five things in the morning. I realized that that’s why you create a day moisturizer, a night moisturizer and the eye serum. You can with one or two main ingredients in one of each and then you sold three bottles. There’s a market for that too. There are thousands of wonderful ingredients. You cannot with them all in one product. I’m going to say this. This is important for the people who want to start out there. Why you cannot put all the good one is because you have to watch your pH. Some ingredients will work between a certain pH range. The AHA product, which is very pH acid. I don’t know if I’m getting too technical here.

It’s a little technical. Why is pH bad? That’s what’s going on in my head right now. It’s maybe for other people as well.

It’s not that pH is bad. You have to know that certain ingredient itself will work optimum at a certain pH.

It’s an effectiveness?

Yes. That means you want to categorize the good ingredient that will work at this pH. It’s not about one is good, one is bad.

You can make something ineffective because they don’t work at that right pH level. You make the main ingredient at the level that you need it to. If those other ingredients don’t work at that level, they maybe don’t need to be in that product. They need to be on their own.

PLH 97 | Beauty Products

Beauty Products: Only when money is not at home that you realize that money is actually a buffer in your relationship.

Let’s say an eye serum will be created versus a moisturizer. I can go on. The viscosity matters. The texture matters. All these things will have an impact. That’s how you get to decide on which ingredient. For people who want to manufacture the skincare is to understand that there is a minimum quantity you need to buy. When you think you can produce 25 bottles, when they want to sell you 25 kilos, you have a problem. Your smallest batch, for them it’s like a joke. The manufacturing company, for them it’s nothing. It’s 5,000 units. Count 5,000 units and if it costs you $10 to produce 5,000, that’s $50,000 right there of your investment before you even know if anyone can buy it and will buy it or not.

It’s a lot of money before you even know if somebody wants to buy it. That is my number one rule here on Product Launch Hazzards. You do not make something. You do not spend the money until you are sure somehow that someone will plunk down some dollars for it. You want to know, you either have access to the market and you have a conversion. They’re interested in what you have to sell. You’ve got to do it a totally different way. You can’t physically do it with the product. You can’t test it if you can’t make it.

The option for them is you can do different things. You can do private label. They already have a formula and they put your name on the bottle. There are other ways around it.

At least you could be selling them something and gaining an audience to talk to saying, “Is this improving your skin?” If it is, “Would you be interested in something that would do more?” Here’s what it is. You have somebody to have a conversation with because they did buy from you. That’s a great way, Nadia. I love that. I want to go back. We were talking about all the wrong ways. Here you created a website, a brand, a message, bought packaging. You spent 20,000 versions of formulations trying to come up with the right one. What else did you do in those early days of trying to build this brand?

I did it the whole wrong way.

What would have been the right way?

What you said is the right way. Wait until you have the audience before you get to do the productions. This is important. It walks away a little bit from production. That’s a big factor and it’s important, the reason why I created the inventory quickly when I felt that my marketing was not there and I didn’t have the real platform to sustain me because I quit my job overnight. My husband was not happy with me staying at home. There was a lot of pressure on me to succeed.

Sometimes, we use money as an excuse for not doing certain things. Click To Tweet

You wanted to feel legitimately in the business and having inventory was the push?

Without inventory, you can’t sell. I felt that I rushed things to satisfy the household and it backfired on all of us. Only when money is not at home that you realize that money is a buffer in your relationship. When the money is there, you don’t ask questions. You live. Everybody is doing their own thing almost on autopilot. When the money is not there, you start realizing who you are living with.

It puts a lot of family stress. I hear this again and again. You are very right. This is one of the things I want you guys to listen to out there, especially you inventors in the world. You get caught up in your thing. You start to spend money. You start to build inventory. You start to believe that people are going to come. I want you to have lots of passion and belief in what you’re making because you should. You also need to be cautious about the money side of things. It puts tremendous stress on your family. I have seen many inventors lose their families over inventory that’s sitting in a garage. They shouldn’t have bought it too soon. It puts tremendous stress. I’ve seen bankruptcies and all kinds of things happen. I hate to see that. It’s stressful. It makes it very hard for your focus on building that business that you need to focus on.

All that said though, without the inventory I wouldn’t be where I am now.

That is why it’s such a different business that you’re in.

The inventory was only there for me to push myself out of my comfort zone and get out of hiding and be able to shine. It was the rite of passage of the friction it takes from when the cocoon gets into a butterfly. It needed that. If I did not have the inventory in my hand me asking questions, I would probably now be at home.

You still wouldn’t have the brand going.

PLH 97 | Beauty Products

Beauty Products: Never underestimate what you know, and think the other one knows more.

I would probably be at home watching Netflix being miserable in that relationship.

I’m glad you’re not and you’re out here moving on it. You’re focusing on a lot of marketing. I have seen you do some things. I’ve seen you do some videos and they’re fun. Is that video out yet?

Yes.

You’ve got to see it. It’s funny, it’s amusing. You’ll get Nadia’s humor because she’s definitely got a sense of humor. It has this Dollar Shave Club inspiration. It’s more on the side of us women who will get a laugh.

It’s funny that you’ve mentioned this because I told you what I was doing earlier.

I was like, “It doesn’t make sense.” I saw it and I get it and it’s very you. It has a good sense of humor on it.

This is a very good thing to talk about this video. I had the idea in 2015. I could not put it together. It’s interesting. In 2015, I had more money in my hands than I have now. Sometimes we use money as an excuse for not doing certain things. I had more money back then than now. However, I had more guts now. Self-investments were paid off. When I created this video, I was ready. I practiced from May to July. I practiced in front of my camera. It takes guts to just do a video.

When you want to create your own brand from scratch, you've got to be able to show up. Click To Tweet

It does, especially when you’re doing something that’s meant to be funny. which is harder. It’s like the humor, is it too personal? I get it but is everybody going to get it? That’s why I was nervous about it. I also trust your videographer, I have to tell. He might be my son-in-law. I do trust him and I know he would never let a client go wrong. He would he would say something to you. That’s a gift when they will talk you out of something that you would fall into a trap.

I knew I was going somewhere with this, when I talk about that concept, he laughed. I thought if he laughed, that means that this is a guy who was laughing. I have to be mindful that my audience is a younger audience. Will they think it’s a good joke? It is a parallel for anyone who wants to do anything in like stepping out and get in your zone genius. There is no other way than putting yourself out there. I hear so many people who say, “We’ll start something and we’re going to put a celebrity in front of the product.” That’s one way to do that. It’s more expensive to do it that way. When you want to create your own brand from scratch, you’ve got to be able to show up. Show that there’s no other way around it.

You have to be a celebrity. You have to be the influencer because it’s your product. It’s your brand. It’s your passion. You’re the best one to talk about it. Founders have to act like founders. This is the core of it. You can’t hide in the lab.

Another thing I want to mention that is important is don’t get stuck into the product benefit. L’OrĂ©al has a lot of money. All these other big brands have a lot of money to share the product benefits. You need to stand above to talk about anti-aging and wrinkle remover. What is your bigger why in this world? That has a big impact on carrying a brand because you cannot compete on price. You cannot compete on just product benefit. What is your next step? Where do you differentiate yourself?

That is so important. We get a little caught up in the trendy things that are going on in the beauty industry. They all have deeper pockets. You do have to stand out, not just your benefits and your why but also in how you talk to your customers. It’s personal to buy from L’OrĂ©al. It’s personal to buy from Clinique. Maybe you have a relationship with your Nordstrom person but that’s about it. You don’t have a direct relationship. If I can have a relationship with you and you’re talking to me, that’s a big deal. The person who created it is talking to me. That in and of itself is important.

It’s everything. We need more than any time ever before this warm fuzzy feeling and nurturing.

Our clients matter, our users matter and that we care about them.

PLH 97 | Beauty Products

Beauty Products: The thoughts you say to yourself matter more than anything else.

For me, skincare is an extension of me. Only this year did I realize that I built me and put in a bottle, in a sense that I put my 100%. When I selected the ingredient, I was specific as to what I was doing and what I was aiming at and understanding the biology of the skin. I realized if you would come to my home and I would cook you a meal, I would not give you a half cold plate because I don’t care that much. I would give you my whole love. You get the whole thing together. It’s the same thing with the skincare. You put everything in it.

I love that you put love in it. That’s the case of creation. That those of us that whether you’re creating a meal or you’re creating a beauty product or you’re creating anything, you’re putting love into it. You’re putting your passion, your interests. You’re sending that out. That has to come back. That has to have a better resonance than those that are in it for the money. Those that are in it to just market and hawk what comes next, what’s trendy and let’s tap into the trend. I do believe in people who care, having that come back to you tenfold. That’s why I invited you on the show because I knew that you would care just as much about the other people who want to be those creators, as you would. You have that heart as you do about your own products and your own brand and building all of that. I want to talk about the biggest hazards. We talk about that on the show. What was the biggest thing that went wrong for you? What was the biggest mistake that you may have made in creating your beauty products and creating their brand? What was that big risk that blew up a little bit on you? It happens.

When I said that I ordered the inventory too soon and I’m doing everything on a very tight budget. It’s me and my ex-husband. At that time, we’re husband and wife. We were working on this. I am looking up to him because he is the true chemist. The one that has the experience. He’s on a different industry. He’s on the textile industry. A lot of it is I rely on him until I realized that I know more than he does. The thing number one is never underestimate what you know and think the other one knows more. It’s not always the case. The thing that he was suggesting at the time was to do everything on my own which takes forever. We didn’t have money because I quit my job. I didn’t have that extra income. I did a lot of it on my own. I spent way too much time behind WordPress and a lot of things like that.

Learning things that you only need to do once are not going to become a core part of your job in the future. I agree with you. That is not necessarily where you want best spend your time.

Except that the biggest mistake of all is not looking into regulatory affairs early on to watch what I was doing. When you create cosmetics, you have to be careful about the language you’re using. You cannot use things like, “It treats or heals.” All these words that are very popular words or inflammation. You can’t use that when it’s cosmetic. My old website, two years of prep, copywriting and all that was ready at the same time as the inventory. Only because I had to print the box that I thought, “I better be safe.” I got to this regulatory affair. She told me that 95% of what have written is not right.

At least you’ve got to before you printed your box though. You avoided the biggest problem that I’ve seen.

The thing is that it floored me. I did not know then how to market this product. It took me all the way to 2018 before I could re-figure out how I’m going to market this. It floored me for three years.

You’ve been planning and working, putting it out there, all the messaging and the language. That’s so hard, Nadia.

It was part of the master plan that the universe has. If it had been easy, I would not have to discover who I am, what I stand for. That is why I said, “That the product was a way for me to re-birth myself in a different way.” I would say anyone who has a dream to create something whatever it is, don’t let any of the things we said stop you. Go ahead anyway because you don’t know what you’re going to learn through the journey. The journey is never a straight line. It’s dots and you never know how the dots will eventually connect. It’s like the World Wide Web. Everything connects at one point or another.

That’s such a good advice and I appreciate that. The thing is that there are people out there who can guide you and can move you along and help support you along your path of learning to do this, of getting out there. As you learn, you’ve got to start reaching out there. Get out of the lab and do that. Get out from behind your product, get out from there and start to explore the bigger world. You’ll start to talk to people and find out, “I have to have my box checked by a lawyer. I have to have my language checked. I have to have these things.” These advices are out there. You just have to start looking for it and start listening. Not taking it completely to heart because there are also a lot of bad advices out there. You’ve got to filter it. You’ve got to think it through. That’s something that I appreciate about the way that you work. You like to sit on something. You like to let it flow over you. I’m quick with advice and I pepper you. I got to sit on this. I got to think about this. I appreciate that. That shows a sign of like, “Is this right for my brand? Is this right for me?” That takes a lot of power and passion. A lot of concerted effort to be like that and to be very sure in who you are, who you are going to be moving forward and that’s going to serve you well long term.

Creating deep roots and understanding what you stand for is critical. Many people earn a lot of money fast. I know we’re going away from the skin care. Think young basketball players who win millions of dollars in their early twenties and then they finished up at 40. They don’t necessarily have the money because they always thought the money was always going to be there and they spent it. My point is that sometimes it’s like the Chinese bamboo tree, it takes five years to grow. The first five years is the roots. Do you know that story?

Yes, and then it grows extremely fast.

The point of that is having something to anchor yourself. That’s what will be your unique selling proposition in the end. What you are anchoring yourself with. I go against fear. I have an issue with people who sell or promote fear. I stopped watching TV. My life is much better because I’m not constantly bombarded with all the fear that they show in the news.

There’s this complete fear of whether it’s the plastic bottle that your stuff is in or the chemicals that you’re putting on. My mammogram is a problem now. It’s like, “What is the next?” I was talking to someone. They were like, “I have skin reactions to pretty much every sunscreen out there. I’m afraid to go out in the sun now because I burn.” That’s not me obviously. I have my olive skin and I don’t have a problem with that. I said, “That’s funny because I have a sensitivity to sunscreen and I don’t like to use it.” Luckily, I don’t have to because I have the darker skin already. I’m farther safer than most people. I always worry about my daughters. Am I slathering them up with sunscreen that has so many chemicals or is the sun going to do that for them? Which one’s worse? We ask about these questions as parents, as users of things. Is it fear-based that it’s coming from? Is it just personal? It doesn’t seem like this is the right thing.

A lot of it is your mindset. If you’re afraid of any sunscreen chemical, you’re going to be afraid of it. I can spend hours teaching you different things. If you set on that mindset, there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s one thing. Sometimes we don’t take the time to ask a deeper question. I came across something. It’s very interesting. They’re taking propylene glycol. They say, “You don’t want to put anti-freeze on your face.” It’s two totally unrelated statement. Industrial grade is not cosmetic grade. It’s not pharmaceutical grade. However, people take things out of proportion. If you had a full load of propylene glycol, you don’t swim in it. Sometimes when they call MSDS, Material Safety Data Sheet, they are there to help the firefighters. If the building that contains these huge quantities would happen to go on fire, they need to know what to expect. They are creating those and also the transportation. Some bloggers grab this information and they’re taking it out of proportion. Making stories out of it. It’s sad because they’re not sharing the truth. They’re just taking a little piece of information and extrapolate on that from ignorance, more than knowledge. My point here is not to bash those people. I’m going to share with you, if you hear from Nadia, she has taken the time to study the material. I’m only sharing what I know that is true from a scientist point of view.

This is where if you’re not comfortable. If you are in the development of a beauty product and all those things and you’re not comfortable with ingredients. You don’t have this knowledge. You do want to do some research on your own but you also want to get an expert in. That is an important thing. To have someone who can advise you and say, “This isn’t the same ingredient.” You shouldn’t be afraid of it. This is not an industrial grade. This is a different grade and here’s why. You need someone you can ask these questions for and an expert in that is critically important. Luckily, you had expertise at least in the chemical world already, even if it wasn’t in every single one of these ingredients. You already knew what questions to ask. You know what to look for. That set you a lot farther along the path than many of the people that I’ve talked to all the time. That’s good. If they want help like that, is there a consultant? Is there a person who could advise like that? You have a textile chemistry background. Is there someone in beauty products specifically that has the right kind of background that they should be looking for?

Every once in a while in California at UCLA, they have those skincare classes that they teach the chemistry behind the skincare and that’s where I learned. A lot of women who go there tend to be an aesthetician and they want to understand what they are putting on their clients’ face. However, it’s heavy in chemistry and biology. What’s in the bottle is a chemistry, it’s a mix. What’s on your skin, you’re dealing on your skin with bacteria and also with your skin. There are different layers and a different reaction. In the beauty world, on top of mixing the chemical and what’s on your face, you also have to take into consideration your soul. The thoughts you say to yourself matters more than anything else. That’s what women looks tired when they beat themselves up. They work 60 hours a week. They don’t feel beautiful and they don’t love themselves. I swear this affects someone’s face way more than anything else. That is just as important to take into consideration.

This is why you want to buy a product from this woman. This is why when you put yourself and your soul out there like Nadia is, this is why we want to buy a product from her. I’m going to have her tell briefly what her products do. They’re pretty fascinating. I love your products. Tell us a little bit about your product itself.

The Dermesence Perfection Cream is a brightening and mattifying primer. If you have oily skin, you put that after your moisturizer and it will help mattify your skin. Also, it protects your pore as you put makeup and later on during the day. You have a matte finish and it protects your skin from pollution as well. The idea is that you can take that same product at nighttime and after you take your makeup. It converts into a leave-on mask. Again, I build that for my ease. I needed something quick and easy. I thought, “What if I can never make a mask, wait twenty minutes and rinse it?” I created this mask. I put it on and go to bed. The next day, when you wash your face in the shower you can feel it’s all nice and soft. There are five anti-oxidants there all for a specific reason. Either for reducing redness or helping hydrate skin. Control the excess sebum over time. It has many things for different purposes. When we have oily skin, you’ll also have other issues that come with little breakouts. That’s what it does. It helps with all of that. You can use it a little bit. If you feel like you need on your T-Zone or you can put it all over your face, it’s up to you. You can use it as needed or all over. You don’t need to rinse it. Once you apply it, you’re good to go. You can put it on and move on.

Nadia, you started a podcast. If people want to get some more of your heart and soul, how can they find you?

They can find me on iTunes. The podcast episode is Assertive Radiance. They can find me every Monday. I’m releasing a new show out there. I share my journey as I go along. Right now, I’m on that journey of sharing how do I get to financial freedom? That’s what I’m heading.

I am so happy that you came and shared all of this information with us. Thank you so much.

You’re welcome. Thank you for giving me that opportunity.

Product Launchers as always, I’ll be back next time with another great episode.

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About Nadia Fleury

PLH 97 | Beauty ProductsNadia Fleury is a French-Canadian entrepreneur, life strategist, and chemist who founded Avesence, a skincare line promoting healthy, radiant-looking skin using potent skincare formulations. Looking beyond marketing hype and understanding that beauty is more about how you feel inside, Nadia delved into alchemy, mixing science, with self-awareness, and spiritual awakening, eliciting inner-transformation and bringing forth your true beauty from within.


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