Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Update after a while...
Time goes by quickly. The latest news is that our facial that Halley, our Marketing chief, has been working on with Sundance Resort has come out really nicely and they are all loving the results. See Halley's blog for more. The complete description is also done and will be on the main Combray site soon.
I am due to write the next part of the the story on creams, oils, and ointments, and why oils are good for your skin. The oil facial described above, called the "High Altitude" facial after the fact that it was developed with the ski resorts, is an outgrowth of the idea that oils are beneficial, and indeed essential, to good looking and healthy skin. The additional feature with the facial is that oils can be used to cleanse - the Romans didn't use soap, but olive oil, and a scraper, and you can ask Halley, oils really do clean. I will describe what a soap is, how it cleans, and how oils clean in more detail in the post on oils and your skin coming soon.
I am due to write the next part of the the story on creams, oils, and ointments, and why oils are good for your skin. The oil facial described above, called the "High Altitude" facial after the fact that it was developed with the ski resorts, is an outgrowth of the idea that oils are beneficial, and indeed essential, to good looking and healthy skin. The additional feature with the facial is that oils can be used to cleanse - the Romans didn't use soap, but olive oil, and a scraper, and you can ask Halley, oils really do clean. I will describe what a soap is, how it cleans, and how oils clean in more detail in the post on oils and your skin coming soon.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Ointments, creams, and lotions: butter, mayonnaise, and milk.
What is the analogy, or what do all of these have in common?
Physically, they're all the same. They're emulsions of oily components and watery components.
The difference between an ointment and a cream, or butter and mayonnaise, is the proportion of oil and water. More oil, thicker, more water, thinner, and likewise with a lotion and milk.
So, why have the different thicknesses? What is the purpose of a cream versus an ointment (or salve)? That's a good question. It's easy to answer the question in food, it's a matter of taste. And, mostly the same for ointments, creams, and lotions. Also mostly a matter of taste, with some qualifications which I describe below.
In older days, it seems heavier creams and ointments were more favored. When is the last time you heard anyone refer to a salve, by the way? In the last 30 years, there has been a fashion for lower oil content emulsions, more watery feeling preparations, and a lot of marketing against "oily" products. It is mostly fashion, with only one real difference, which is the ease with which you can put smaller and smaller amounts of oil on your skin.
The water does nothing but evaporate and also provide an environment for lifeforms like molds, fungi, yeasts, and bacteria. Maybe that wouldn't have been wise in the old days when a skin preparation needed to be stored without many chemical preservatives. As for what the skin needs, that is clearly oil, since the water has nowhere to go and nothing to do, except shrivel your skin over long times.
Since a cream is an oil and water mixture, where globules of oil are suspended in water (in an oil in water emulsion, as opposed to a water in oil emulsion, in which the water is present as globules in an oil base - think butter versus milk), something has to be there to make it stable, so it doesn't separate like a badly made sauce. That is the emulsifying agent. In the case of mayonnaise, it is the lecithin present in the egg yolk. In creams, many are used, almost all synthetic: polysorbates and cetearyl alcohols are two examples, and they are also either the same or similar to many detergent compounds.
If you didn't have the emulsifier, the cream would separate into oil and water. When you place this on your skin, the oil droplets (in the case of a typical lotion or cream) spread out on your skin in the water matrix, the water evaporates, and what you're left with is the oily part on your skin, since the oily part won't evaporate as easily.
In other words, every lotion, cream, or ointment is really only distributing oil to your skin, and not much more. This is assuming there aren't harsher ingredients like alcohols or soaps that are dissolving or stripping away the lipids on top of your skin, and a part of your skin (the topmost layer, the stratum corneum).
In today's cosmetics science, many more ingredients are added since you want the cream to feel good: smooth, luxurious, smell good, and have a nice color, and not change.
When the water is added, now also the molds, fungi, bacteria, and other living things must also be kept at bay, meaning anti-microbials (which in Europe are called preservatives). You must have what Americans call preservatives too, which are known as antioxidants in Europe, to preserve the oily component. These are typically BHA and/or BHT.
So, maybe you have noticed something by this point, which is kind of like a question in logic: If the only thing that is happening is the laying down of a layer of oil on your skin, whether it's an ointment, cream or lotion, why go through all the trouble of making the ointment, cream or lotion in the first place?
That is a good question. How and why did we get to this point where all those added things are in there? I'm not sure there is a real exact answer, but it's more of a history question. My best guess is that in the 50's and 60's when polymers (plastics) like silicone came into existence, technology was absolutely the best selling point for any product (remember how everything was space age?) and polymers provided many opportunities to improve properties which cosmetics chemists had probably long sought after, smoother, more luxurious creams, etc. From the standpoint of stability and feel, I have no doubt that today's creams are far superior to the those of the 40's, which were mostly cold-cream like and that was it.
And, I think someone just started the marketing snowball of oil = bad, watery = good, and it became technologically challenging for everyone to make a better cream. Gels, etc. then came along as well.
I think it was all pretty much technology push - new materials gave new feel possibilities, and it was a way to improve upon the competition, and then everyone gets into a race. In other words, Marketing driven.
The idea of a salve-like substance that lasts and provids a layer that doesn't absorb much or rub off easily makes sense. It's good for continued protection, delivery of an ingredient, etc. for different situations, like serious wounds, burns, etc. In that case, the skin may not have enough of it's own protective barrier against moisture loss. So, oil versus vaseline-like substance makes a lot of sense for different situations. It's the part where one adds water which really is just unnecessary to the task at hand and introduces a lot of complication....
So, why go through all of the trouble, and also put another dozen substances on your skin if what you really want is to deliver a little oil?
So, why do you want to deliver a little oil for that matter? That's the subject for the next post.
Physically, they're all the same. They're emulsions of oily components and watery components.
The difference between an ointment and a cream, or butter and mayonnaise, is the proportion of oil and water. More oil, thicker, more water, thinner, and likewise with a lotion and milk.
So, why have the different thicknesses? What is the purpose of a cream versus an ointment (or salve)? That's a good question. It's easy to answer the question in food, it's a matter of taste. And, mostly the same for ointments, creams, and lotions. Also mostly a matter of taste, with some qualifications which I describe below.
In older days, it seems heavier creams and ointments were more favored. When is the last time you heard anyone refer to a salve, by the way? In the last 30 years, there has been a fashion for lower oil content emulsions, more watery feeling preparations, and a lot of marketing against "oily" products. It is mostly fashion, with only one real difference, which is the ease with which you can put smaller and smaller amounts of oil on your skin.
The water does nothing but evaporate and also provide an environment for lifeforms like molds, fungi, yeasts, and bacteria. Maybe that wouldn't have been wise in the old days when a skin preparation needed to be stored without many chemical preservatives. As for what the skin needs, that is clearly oil, since the water has nowhere to go and nothing to do, except shrivel your skin over long times.
Since a cream is an oil and water mixture, where globules of oil are suspended in water (in an oil in water emulsion, as opposed to a water in oil emulsion, in which the water is present as globules in an oil base - think butter versus milk), something has to be there to make it stable, so it doesn't separate like a badly made sauce. That is the emulsifying agent. In the case of mayonnaise, it is the lecithin present in the egg yolk. In creams, many are used, almost all synthetic: polysorbates and cetearyl alcohols are two examples, and they are also either the same or similar to many detergent compounds.
If you didn't have the emulsifier, the cream would separate into oil and water. When you place this on your skin, the oil droplets (in the case of a typical lotion or cream) spread out on your skin in the water matrix, the water evaporates, and what you're left with is the oily part on your skin, since the oily part won't evaporate as easily.
In other words, every lotion, cream, or ointment is really only distributing oil to your skin, and not much more. This is assuming there aren't harsher ingredients like alcohols or soaps that are dissolving or stripping away the lipids on top of your skin, and a part of your skin (the topmost layer, the stratum corneum).
In today's cosmetics science, many more ingredients are added since you want the cream to feel good: smooth, luxurious, smell good, and have a nice color, and not change.
When the water is added, now also the molds, fungi, bacteria, and other living things must also be kept at bay, meaning anti-microbials (which in Europe are called preservatives). You must have what Americans call preservatives too, which are known as antioxidants in Europe, to preserve the oily component. These are typically BHA and/or BHT.
So, maybe you have noticed something by this point, which is kind of like a question in logic: If the only thing that is happening is the laying down of a layer of oil on your skin, whether it's an ointment, cream or lotion, why go through all the trouble of making the ointment, cream or lotion in the first place?
That is a good question. How and why did we get to this point where all those added things are in there? I'm not sure there is a real exact answer, but it's more of a history question. My best guess is that in the 50's and 60's when polymers (plastics) like silicone came into existence, technology was absolutely the best selling point for any product (remember how everything was space age?) and polymers provided many opportunities to improve properties which cosmetics chemists had probably long sought after, smoother, more luxurious creams, etc. From the standpoint of stability and feel, I have no doubt that today's creams are far superior to the those of the 40's, which were mostly cold-cream like and that was it.
And, I think someone just started the marketing snowball of oil = bad, watery = good, and it became technologically challenging for everyone to make a better cream. Gels, etc. then came along as well.
I think it was all pretty much technology push - new materials gave new feel possibilities, and it was a way to improve upon the competition, and then everyone gets into a race. In other words, Marketing driven.
The idea of a salve-like substance that lasts and provids a layer that doesn't absorb much or rub off easily makes sense. It's good for continued protection, delivery of an ingredient, etc. for different situations, like serious wounds, burns, etc. In that case, the skin may not have enough of it's own protective barrier against moisture loss. So, oil versus vaseline-like substance makes a lot of sense for different situations. It's the part where one adds water which really is just unnecessary to the task at hand and introduces a lot of complication....
So, why go through all of the trouble, and also put another dozen substances on your skin if what you really want is to deliver a little oil?
So, why do you want to deliver a little oil for that matter? That's the subject for the next post.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Cheap, Fast, Good, Pick Two
In the process of having all of the details in place properly and launching Combray, I have continually thought (and repeated) something I first heard in a Tom Waits interview. He said he heard it from Jim Jarmusch. You can call it something like the
1st Law of Getting Things Done: Cheap, Fast, Good, pick 2.
Run through some examples -
If you want something cheap and good, you can't have it fast.
Like homegrown vegetables. Best and cheapest requires you to spend a lot of time in the garden. It took us a year to find the right bottle since we wanted the best quality, but we didn't want to necessarily buy 50,000 to begin with. So, finally we found Verreries Brosse in France, who did the first Chanel #5 bottle. Really good, not so expensive (overall, still quite expensive for each), but it took a long time for us to find them.
If you want something Fast and Good, it won't be cheap.
Optimizing advertising, like Cost per Click advertising (those ads on the right of the Google searches) for example. If you want to know quickly how to find the right customers, it will cost you, one way or another, which is why I am glad we are in no hurry. Luckily our organic solar cell materials business is doing well.
If you need something Fast and Cheap, it probably won't be good.
Like fast food, having a house built, Vegas weddings, getting your car repaired,...
I haven't seen it fail yet. Trying to break this law will only bring you tears in the end.
1st Law of Getting Things Done: Cheap, Fast, Good, pick 2.
Run through some examples -
If you want something cheap and good, you can't have it fast.
Like homegrown vegetables. Best and cheapest requires you to spend a lot of time in the garden. It took us a year to find the right bottle since we wanted the best quality, but we didn't want to necessarily buy 50,000 to begin with. So, finally we found Verreries Brosse in France, who did the first Chanel #5 bottle. Really good, not so expensive (overall, still quite expensive for each), but it took a long time for us to find them.
If you want something Fast and Good, it won't be cheap.
Optimizing advertising, like Cost per Click advertising (those ads on the right of the Google searches) for example. If you want to know quickly how to find the right customers, it will cost you, one way or another, which is why I am glad we are in no hurry. Luckily our organic solar cell materials business is doing well.
If you need something Fast and Cheap, it probably won't be good.
Like fast food, having a house built, Vegas weddings, getting your car repaired,...
I haven't seen it fail yet. Trying to break this law will only bring you tears in the end.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
I am happy to announce that our e-commerce site is now active!
www.solenne.eu
We have a lot of our data posted, and you can purchase through credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), Google checkout, Paypal, and wire transfer.
I have Ian Lurie to thank for giving great (free) advice, which is to try Volusion as a webcart, and I have been very happy with what we have seen so far. Not perfect for us, since we are much more information category focused, with only two products. However their system is robust, allows for a one-stop solution for merchant account, gateway, and software, and their support has been for the most part very good.
I found EU solutions for webcarts far inferior, especially in dealing with multiple payment systems, and I couldn't find an all-in-one solution. That is no criticism of the EU, it is just an outgrowth of the fact that there is no one unified Europe (with common payment systems, languages, gateways, etc.), so there is no EU (let alone EU plus US) -wide system based here. I find that the only thing I ended up missing out on with Volusion so far is iDeal, the Dutch bank transfer system. This may come eventually as well. We did have to incorporate a US distribution company and open a US bank account, but that was not so time consuming or costly.
Next step is to notify the several hundred people who have signed up to be contacted when Combray is ready. Then, begin our internet advertising. I hope then to start a project with Ian's company, Portent Interactive.
Next for site content is an informational section on antioxidants in skin care, for which we have a huge amount of material prepared.
Stay tuned!
www.solenne.eu
We have a lot of our data posted, and you can purchase through credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), Google checkout, Paypal, and wire transfer.
I have Ian Lurie to thank for giving great (free) advice, which is to try Volusion as a webcart, and I have been very happy with what we have seen so far. Not perfect for us, since we are much more information category focused, with only two products. However their system is robust, allows for a one-stop solution for merchant account, gateway, and software, and their support has been for the most part very good.
I found EU solutions for webcarts far inferior, especially in dealing with multiple payment systems, and I couldn't find an all-in-one solution. That is no criticism of the EU, it is just an outgrowth of the fact that there is no one unified Europe (with common payment systems, languages, gateways, etc.), so there is no EU (let alone EU plus US) -wide system based here. I find that the only thing I ended up missing out on with Volusion so far is iDeal, the Dutch bank transfer system. This may come eventually as well. We did have to incorporate a US distribution company and open a US bank account, but that was not so time consuming or costly.
Next step is to notify the several hundred people who have signed up to be contacted when Combray is ready. Then, begin our internet advertising. I hope then to start a project with Ian's company, Portent Interactive.
Next for site content is an informational section on antioxidants in skin care, for which we have a huge amount of material prepared.
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
ThisNext.com
This whole blog post came automatically through ThisNext.com, where they have a "blogit" button near products, and if you are with one of the major blogging services, you write the whole post right at ThisNext. The site itself seems clean and to work well. Google ad planner also shows traffic up by 50% in the last year. The idea is that expert and non-expert users recommend products and anyone can browse the recommendations. I didn't yet see how or even if products are really ranked or weeded out other than by number of recommendations and whether or not an expert recommends them. They do have a provision for companies to send them products to be ranked.
I think this idea is inevitable - people love to write reviews and I think product word of mouth is a natural outcome of social communities. They also run ads right next to products though, which would apparently be their source of income. This seems to dilute the idea a little.
Introduction (First Post)
Greetings,
This blog serves to provide an easily updatable, personal, and somewhat informal forum for information on Combray.
Combray is a new skin care product that is the result of several years of development by Solenne BV, a company I co-founded with Prof. J.C. (Kees) Hummelen.
We are scientists who recognized the potential of a new class of antioxidant to provide benefits to human health, with skin care being the first area we chose to develop.
We were not the first to recognize this potential, but I do believe our company is the first to accomplish bringing the benefits to fruition in skin care.
Our initial interest was scientific, and then it grew into a more personal interest when we saw the potential to help our friends and family and their friends and families, ...
I, my wife Halley, Kees, his partner Geartsje, our mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends use Combray and believe in it for various uses. If we didn't, we would never be able to sell it, nor would we need the bother, as we already have a successful business making and selling materials used in organic solar cells.
Over the years, we have learned a significant amount about Combray, the potential of antioxidants in skin care, and the cosmetics business. This is where I intend to share some of the more behind the scenes information, and hopefully interact on a personal basis with others who are interested.
This blog serves to provide an easily updatable, personal, and somewhat informal forum for information on Combray.
Combray is a new skin care product that is the result of several years of development by Solenne BV, a company I co-founded with Prof. J.C. (Kees) Hummelen.
We are scientists who recognized the potential of a new class of antioxidant to provide benefits to human health, with skin care being the first area we chose to develop.
We were not the first to recognize this potential, but I do believe our company is the first to accomplish bringing the benefits to fruition in skin care.
Our initial interest was scientific, and then it grew into a more personal interest when we saw the potential to help our friends and family and their friends and families, ...
I, my wife Halley, Kees, his partner Geartsje, our mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends use Combray and believe in it for various uses. If we didn't, we would never be able to sell it, nor would we need the bother, as we already have a successful business making and selling materials used in organic solar cells.
Over the years, we have learned a significant amount about Combray, the potential of antioxidants in skin care, and the cosmetics business. This is where I intend to share some of the more behind the scenes information, and hopefully interact on a personal basis with others who are interested.
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