STEMREGEN - Conversations Unplugged with Christian Drapeau - Andy Hnilo

Andy, nice seeing you again.

Great to see you too.

Now, you must have started you. You're from la, right?

No, originally from Northern California, but I lived in L. A for 16 years.

Because you're an actor, right?

Used to be. Still? Am I represented still?

But you have the face and the presence of an actor.

Thank you. Thank you, brother.

And. But then something led you to. Because now you're doing skincare, correct?

Absolutely.

What's that? Transition. What led you to get into skincare?

March 20, 2011, I was crossing the street in Los Angeles. I got hit by westbound heading Land rover, hit into the eastbound lane and run over by a Toyota Tundra Close cut off me in the middle of the street and but very lucky and grateful to be alive, I went home. Now I had this preexisting clay mask that I would do every Sunday night before a week of auditions. So with my jaw wired shut, I went around and met with different herbalists in the Los Angeles area and came up with this morning tonic. And that's where I learned about adaptogenic herbs, which I'm sure you're very familiar with. And so I started dabbling with some of those herbs. If they were that good internally, let's experiment with them on the face. That's why I got pearl powder, organic kelp powder, American ginseng and colostrum and a few other ingredients. Hoshi glugynostema. But a lot of things didn't work. But those divine nine ingredients that end up in our aloe Torah clay mask, from just sampling of what is that good internally through a little straight in the back of my mouth to that pre existing clay mask led to alatura. I did a podcast with Dave Asprey, basically thanking him of how I got back out of bed using his coffee. And in the last 15 minutes we didn't talk about it beforehand, but he asked what I did for my skin and so I was just nervous but luckily started flowing on the ingredients. And the importance of clay is creating microcirculation to the surface of the skin and then adding vitamin C, freshwater pearl and grass fed colostrum to regenerate the skin cell post exfoliation, just creating a superfood meal for the skin. He got such a response from that I didn't have a company developed or anything. Three months later we had a product on the store and we've been staying in course with ingredient integrity ever since. Just with pure ingredients to mother nature. No synthetic white labeling, no toxic fragrances or preservatives that don't need to be in that formula.

So it's basically you look for or adaptogens, products that are effective for health and for your own application. You just start to play with them, applying them on the skin.

Using myself as my biggest science experiment. Purely out of necessity though, I had no intention of starting a business. Now, 11 years into it, a lot of people are just responding to my look.

I'm sure you can see you're growing strong. I mean we see you.

Oh yeah. No, I love what I do. I just, you know, I formulate all of our products and just we try to go above and beyond with nature and make every product from a blank canvas just without the synthetics and without the predictable fillers. And I just. Yeah, I really love the formulation side and being different, going to lengths that, you know, I don't see a lot of other companies going to. So I love it.

So what? So the line. But you've gone way beyond now the clay mask.

Oh yeah.

Do you have the clay mask? You have.

We have the Alatura Gold serum which is based in rose water, rose oil, neroli, Australian sandalwood, frankincense, copper peptide, plant derived vitamin A which is a potent retinol alternative without the sun sensitivity or unpredictable downtime. Commonly affiliated with retinol and retinoids. Marine collagen, CoQ10 astaxanthin. Those are divine. Five active ingredients in a base of 95% organic botanicals. So it's like the best from cutting edge anti aging skin science and organic botanicals from mother nature all bottled in maroon glass. So we try to cover everything that the customer looks for when they grab that bottle. It should be poetry. We have that ability to control that.

Is it an oil in a water emulsion or a watering oil emulsion?

Rose water and oil. So rose water, organic rose water. Yeah. And so that's our gold serum, our night cream. No water in that formula. Beeswax, two different plant derived stem cells, hyaluronic acid, colostrum CoQ10 German chamomile, sea buckthorn oil just like that was originally made out of a cast iron pan. I melted that down in. The same manufacturer who made my moisturizer was able to take that chunky formula and then get it professionally formulated. And that's one of our popular products too.

Yeah, I don't think it's very well known that rose oil is among the most healing oil. But it's not used because it's so expensive.

$900 for a half ounce. It's worth it though.

Yeah, it's worth it. But I mean, it's hard to embed that into a skincare at a level that is really giving you what you're looking for as an effect. So using rose water, it's almost like the shortcut to be able.

No, but I use rose oil as well. As well, as well, absolutely. I just got back from Morocco.

Neroli is powerful, too. Also, the real neroli oil, very expensive.

Exactly. We use Australian sandalwood. Very expensive. Frankincense, myrrh. We're working with blue lotus. I found a source in India to get the organic paste and the reconstituted powder. We're working on a.

What is that in what? All of these are oil.

So we use witch hazel for the night cream, rose water for the gold serum, water with the.

But to make your oil be dissolved into your rose water, what do you.

Use to make the oil.

To make the oil to be dissolved and emulsified into the water. What process?

Propolis.

Propolis.

Propolis. Beeswax.

Beeswax.

Yeah, you can just. It comes down from heating. Yeah. Different consistencies and it creates a really beautiful emulsion. But. Yeah, that's how we do it.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

So. Didn't we.

Do I remember.

Well, when we. We talked here last year, was your mom involved into what you're doing, that she had a problem? Do I remember well or.

Yes. My mother currently has a small case of Parkinson's. I just disagree with all that and I just. Man, you know, the. The, you know, medicine that she's on. I just wish. Absolutely. And so I want to.

That's what I'm remembering. Yeah.

So I want to thank you for that, by the way. I mean, she's. It's helped her, but the thing is getting her on the entire system and with the biomats and the red light and the chi machine to get the lymphatic drainage. It's a lot for an 82 year old. And. But. So you want to be patient and not overwhelm the system. But the adaptogens in your formula and my. My products hopefully are pulling out some of the toxins with the clay mask. But it's something that you really. Because I know so much, you know, with the IVs and the, you know, Eboo that I'd love to get her on, but it's just she has to, you know, play a part too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's your next step?

Oh, working on the sunscreen right now.

Mace. Oral or or topical?

No, topical. Okay. We're. Manuka, Honey Red raspberry seed, sea buckthorn oil, Non Nano Zinc, 24 Karat Gold Copper Peptide NAD Working on a couple active ingredients in there that just other people haven't used. Sure you can relate the creative process and just going into links and just, I mean, I just, you know, nobody's really nailed the sunscreen yet in my opinion. And it's our number one question customers ask for. I personally don't wear one, but why not get one in the store that you're proud of? And so I just want to get that natural tint through astaxanthin, you know, to take away from the kind of white pasty non nano zinc. But we're on our second revision and that should be out by the end of the year. I wanted by summertime, but it takes forever, as you know.

Takes forever. Have you ever considered oral like, like a dual product topical application on oral sunscreen like Polypodium?

Oh, absolutely.

It has different name from coming from different place, but it's an extract from a fern and when you consume it, it protects your skin against UV light.

I, I would love to, maybe I can talk with you a little bit about that. I want to thank you for aloe macro Plata. You know, I just topically, I, I, I believe that's, you know, instead of going aloe barbadantis, I think we're going great makokata. So thank you for that beautiful success. Leaves clues. So I learned a lot from you. I love your new videos and all that. So man, great work.

Thank you, Indy. Thanks for stopping by. You have a good brand, dude.

Thank you, brother. Likewise.