“You can choose your ingredients knowing exactly what you will put into it.”

Natural, Refillable and Customizable Skincare by OMY Lab.

Meet the world’s first refillable personalized, natural skin care products, OMY Laboratories. OMY has developed SkinAI, a technology that uses artificial intelligence to analyze the skin to create made-to-measure products for its customers with ingredients that will perfectly suit their needs. After an in-depth online questionnaire, OMY develops customized skin care products at their in-house lab. In addition to choosing the preferred three active ingredients, customers also get to pick their preferred scent and texture.

Beauty Hub Magazine spoke with chemist and co-founder Rachelle Séguin to talk about the thoughtful details that went into creating the brand.

BH: Tell us about your background in beauty and why you started OMY Lab.

Rachelle Séguin:

I’m a cosmetic chemist with a Master’s in Pharmaceutical Science. I studied in Canada and France. During my studies, I was a beauty consultant at Shoppers Drug Mart where I spoke to many customers, which made me realize if someone has multiple skin issues it can be complicated to find the right product match. Our skin is more complex with often more than one issue that one product cannot fix. As a chemist, I worked with active ingredients and when I was developing for a skincare company it opened my eyes about how skincare could be more effective.

Mixing my chemical experience, and in my experience selling products made me realize personalization would be the best option. This way you can offer suitable and effective skincare products that have fresh ingredients like vitamins or antioxidants added in just before shipping. This would increase the efficacy of the product and we could keep the formula to a minimum.

I met my partner Andrea who was also a beauty consultant. She had the same dream of launching a personalized skincare company and we combined our two experiences to create OMY Labratory.

BH: Why is it important for you to have natural products?

I’m very obsessed with ingredients in general. I started to work at the pharmacy when I was 16 years old. I was reading the ingredients list and telling myself that should not be in there, it’s not good for the planet or people in terms of allergies. Studying chemistry you realize how harmful ingredients are to the planet and human beings.

When we created OMY Lab, I decided to create a very strict chart of formulas, avoiding more than 2000 ingredients from our products. We decided to be vegan and 95% natural. We needed to keep that 5% that isn’t fully natural so that we could add peptides and ingredients that are very effective but that are not harmful to us or the environment. We are free of parabens, sulphites and many other harmful ingredients. We have proof of efficacy but at the same time. We are very sustainable and we are now B Corp Certified as of yesterday!

BH: Your website has a transparency list. Tell us about that.

We are transparent about what kind of ingredients we include in our customized skincare. I think we’re still the only one on the market offering the option for our customers to go through our AI, analyze their skin and create their own formula. That means, when you go on the website, you can choose your ingredients knowing exactly what you will put into it. You see all the options that are possible with your product. I think it’s very transparent in terms of consumers seeing what is included in it. We also have the full list of ingredients we will never use in our products. A new list will be published on our website very soon with the 2000 ingredients we are avoiding. Being transparent to our customers is very important to us.

BH: Tell us about how your AI process works to choose your customized skincare.

When we were launching the company we realized it would be impossible to meet everyone in real life to have a full conversation understanding our customers’ skin concerns. That’s why we created SkinAI which takes you through questions on the website to discover your skin problems. You can also do an AI selfie analysis using an image of your face taken with your cell phone. We mix the answers to your questionnaire with photo analysis to provide the right customized formulation.

Nowadays, we see a lot of AI on the web that can analyze your skin and tell what you need with just one photo. However, I have met so many customers who may have dark spots or wrinkles that are detected by AI but may not want their product to address that. At the heart of the company, we make sure to understand the customer’s needs to provide the best formulation without any age bias. Just because you are older doesn’t mean you need full anti-aging ingredients. Customization is all about the person, not the industry’s suggestions.

BH: How do you take this concept and make it scalable?

That’s a very good question. We worked for a long time with the National Council of Research of Canada firstly to develop our formula and also to develop our manufacturing line. The way we do the personalization in-house is that all product is freshly done one by one in an inline process with some automated parts which can give us some form of scale. When we receive a personalized skincare order it only takes 24 to 48 open hours to create in-house. From day one, it was our preoccupation because we knew that if all products would take one hour to do it would be impossible to scale.

We received investment this year. They saw our company had a very strong operation. Being a scientist myself, I was very sensitive to the future of the company and how to make it scalable. Just behind me is the R&D Lab which is not where we do the production. We do all the manufacturing of the precise skincare and they are shipped from our back of store.

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BH: Tell us about your sustainability and refillable packaging.

Since the beginning of our mission with the B Corp process, we have been very careful about the packaging we were choosing and the ingredients. When you start a company from scratch, there are several options available. You cannot start with 1000s and 1000s of units. We are very happy because one month ago, after three years of R&D, we were able to finally launch our idea!

We did it! We are the first refillable, customized skincare brand. That means that we respect the Three R Policy, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle all in one packaging. We use recycled plastic. We also reduced the quantity of plastic by choosing reusable packaging that is made of glass. We chose a pump without a spring to make sure it can be recycled and reusable.

This applies to any packaging and any product going out. We have a very strict chart of packaging that includes bio-plastic, and post-consumer plastic that is recyclable. Everything is linked in a way of reducing our impact. It was a big part of our B Corp process. We try to avoid wasting energy and water. That’s all part of the way we do things. We also have compost in place, and we have recycling programs.

BH: Tell us what kind of products you have.

Our most popular products are customized day cream, night cream, and serum. They are available in several textures, scents, unscented and several ingredient options. They are the most popular because you have millions of options when you create your customized formula to find the right match for your skin. We have cleansers, masks and eye contour creme. We have a 5% stabilized vitamin C with squalane oil. We have a bunch of products for the body for people with atypical skin like eczema. We focus a lot on sensitive skin and products related to brightness or dark spots.

BH: We get pigeonholed into the concept that you’re over 50 you should have this cream, or you’re under 50, you should have this specific cream but as we know, there are different skin textures and issues. This sounds like it’s going to be much more effective because it’s super hyper-targeted to exactly what you need it.

When we talk about skin aging, some people will have more wrinkles some will have more redness or dryness. This way you have customized skincare with the right ingredients you won’t necessarily find in other companies. We don’t want to discriminate the price according to the person’s skin. From working in the active ingredient industry, I saw that an anti-redness ingredient is the same price as a good anti-aging one. So why do we see that ‘age tax’? I wanted to have a company that would have one pricing whatever your skin, age and gender. That is something that really matters to us.

BH: Tell us about your recycling with the refillable packaging.

Your first purchase you receive the bottle that is made of glass with a reusable pump. You also receive your product refill made of recycled plastic with an airless system that does not expose the product to air. You simply plug your refill into the bottle and you start using the product. Once your product is finished, you can order a new refill which costs $10 less. Just plug the refill into the bottle and use it again.

We are customized skincare products that evolve with you. Your skin can change through the seasons and stress of life. Skin is not static and skincare shouldn’t be either. This way you have the option of evolving your texture, your ingredients, and the scent. In the summertime, you may not want your cream to smell the same as in wintertime. You may prefer an unscented option. That’s unique to us. You keep your bottle. It is one bottle with infinite options for the long term. Because the skin evolves we tend to change our products. Very few people will buy the exact product two or three times. The bottle will end up in the garbage or the recycling bin in a very short period. That’s why it makes sense to have customized skincare with a refillable option.

BH: Tell us about your eye patches.

One of our popular items is the reusable eye patch. In terms of efficacy, an eye patch creates a layer on your skin that permits the active ingredient to go deeper and lock in the moisture that gives that glow. We went with a reusable option because we already had a very good eye cream containing 25% of the ingredients that showed efficacy for wrinkles and dark circles. Just place a little extra cream under the eye, and place the patch. You get double the benefits from your eye cream because the eye patch gives that extra moisture and brings out the active ingredients to go deeper into the skin.

We have a yellow patch set that says Good Morning and we had a pink set that said Self Love where we gave back a percentage to Breast Cancer Canada. As a customized skincare company we collaborate with several organizations that address cancer and help people with skin issues going through chemotherapy. Their sensitive skin can change in a very short amount of time. We have skin experts who are available by phone or through video analysis to make sure they always provide the right formulation for those people. To have someone you can speak to was important to us. Customized service goes with a customized product.

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Find OMY Lab:

www.omycosmetics.com/en

Instagram: @omycosmetics

Listen to the interview on our Podcast: Beauty Hub Magazine

“You can choose your ingredients knowing exactly what you will put into it.”

Natural, Refillable and Customizable Skincare by OMY Lab.

Find OMY Lab:

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