NYLP: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod the New York Press Club award winning podcast highlighting new startups, business, and openings in the New York City Area. I am your host and New York attorney Hal Coopersmith and in this episode we are taking a deep dive into skin care industry with Doctor Dennis Gross. He’s a practicing dermatologist, who developed a line of skin care products, that are sold around the country. What makes his products different? Here’s Doctor Dennis Gross.
Dennis: But that’s the point of difference. Every single product has something about it that’s not been done before. That’s my claim to fame.
NYLP: In this episode we will discuss how these products are formulated from idea to development, the beauty industry and of course leave you with a few tips for better skin this summer. So, let’s go to the interview.
Some people may already know who you are and some may not. But for the people who don’t know who you are, you’re a dermatologist, you have a line of skincare products sold in retail outlets around the country and overall I think you’re kind of a big deal.
Dennis Gross: Thanks. Tell my kids that.
NYLP: Tell your kids. How did you get to be a big deal among everyone that isn’t your kids?
Dennis: Right. You know, purely organic, unintentional and followed my absolute love of science. I was just fortunate to be one of these people who really loved science, was good at it and I just had a knack for chemistry, biochemistry and biology and science and I created products. My whole thing started out as a skin cancer researcher and I worked in the lab and I did a lot of this high tech biology, molecular biology at Sloan Kettering here in New York, in skin cancer and from there I just decided that I wanted to go into medicine and then I decided I just want to go into dermatology and then from there I said, you know, I looked at the boxes of these products. My wife is a really big user and I said, I can do better. So I created a practice that’s grown and a line of products that are doing quite well.
NYLP: Why did you decide to go from a researcher to a practitioner?
Dennis: Because I saw the life of researchers. It was a real painstaking kind of a process or I did a lot of soul searching and the reality is that grant writing is challenging. It’s publish or perish in that industry and it’s a very hard life and there’s a lot of uncertainty and my background, there’s a lot of uncertainty. My family history, my parents were immigrants, they were Holocaust survivors, and a lot of struggles. So it just didn’t work for me to feel vulnerable and that’s sort of what it was. So I decided to become a doctor and I didn’t really intend to necessarily practice. I was thinking about I could work for a drug company or I could teach or I could do whatever, you know, I ended up doing, but it gave me a lot of options. But researching, federal grant money is very tight. It was getting tight back then in my day when I was considering it and I just saw the lifestyle. It’s a very stressful life being a researcher and I just said, you know what, I’m going to take a pass and you can do things voluntarily. You can go back in time, you can go and I can still do it, I can stop now and go back to it. But actually, frankly, I’m very excited that I can also help out in that industry, I’ve been managing to raise funds for research for some of the causes I support. Anyway, it just wasn’t for me.
NYLP: You decide to start a dermatology practice and you see a market for a line of skin care products. You mentioned you could do better. Why did you think you could do better?
Dennis: Well, it starts with the label, if you really know what these ingredients do. And I’m talking about 20 years ago too and back 20 years ago, there were basically two products, two ingredients that were used for anti-aging to make the skin look younger, to firm it up to s just to make more collagen.
NYLP: In the late nineties.
Dennis: In the late nineties, it was glycolic acid, which you might’ve heard of is still used, but at the time, it was the only game in town. At the same time, there was a prescription for Colvin Nova, which was a Johnson & Johnson, Ortho Johnson & Johnson product and that was by prescription. Then again there was the over the counter retail stuff and the products that I looked at, I felt were more about marketing. They were more about fancy packages, colors that popped and bottles that looked nice on your shelf and were advertised by images that were appealing and had a psychological effect. But when it comes right down to it, if you look at the label, which is what I did and thought about the chemistry, I felt like, wow, there’s not a whole lot of science here and I felt maybe I could do better. I had my background in science and in chemistry and in skin biology and so I started to create and I actually started creating products for my patients. My first product that I ever created was, it’s still a big product for me, it’s called the Alpha Beta Peel. It’s a two step peel that are on these pads that were, for the first time, an at home treatment that mimicked what you would come to my office to do, which was at the time, were chemical peels, which the key thing was that they were harsh and I was, I’m all about not, I don’t believe in anything being very harsh on the skin. I don’t believe in injuring the skin for the sake of claiming it’s going to come back better.
NYLP: Do people believe that?
Dennis: You know, there are lasers that do that. There are products that you can use that are quite harsh and yes, it can actually, sometimes, it does stimulate collagen, but that’s because of an injury. Collagen are the fibers and skin that gives skin its firmness, its resiliency, its density and as we get older, we lose it. That’s what we get lines and wrinkles and sagging and laxity and sun damage does that too. So it’s all about collagen and it’s all about recreating more collagen. So injury does that, harsh products and harsh methods of treatment can do that, but you don’t need that. So I pioneered this category of products, this peel that was absolutely gentle and was still highly effective. I had to really argue my case in front of the likes of the editors for these beauty magazines and gurus of the fashion industry that really felt like you have to do something harsh in order for something to work and approved it and to this day, I’m recognized as the father of this entire sector of the cosmetic industry.
NYLP: The big deal. I get it. So when you were developing this product, what were the processes? You had a background in research, but how do you even decide to come up with something different? I feel like that’s just so fascinating. The whole research behind developing a product.
Dennis: Right. I’m asked that a lot, so basically the question is, what is the essence of creativity? How do you explain an idea that you get that leads to something new and different and better and a breakthrough? I guess it really was, first of all with that peel, for example, there was a single one step peel that was out there and that’s what these guys would come to my office and try to sell me, these little kits that you would be able to turn, you slap a label on it, sell to your patients, and I just knew that it didn’t work and I, proved it. It was harsh on the skin at the same time. It didn’t work and that was a double whammy, it made no sense to me. So I figured out how to improve that and that was taking something that was out there and reconfiguring it and just reformulating it into a way that did work. So that was fixing a flaw. But then there were other products I’ve since created that have been recognized and award winning and are selling very much now. Where there are so many different examples where the world just misses stuff and you have to just see that. I can just give you a couple of examples where I created this product that is a self-tanning pad. It’s called the Glow Pad and the key thing there was people just hate the color of their skin when they put on these self-tanners, it looks really dark or it looks really fake or it looks really streaky and one of the most important things was to realize that any self-tanner needs Vitamin D in the formula and no one had done that before. Vitamin D had been out there. It’s been known that it’s called the sun vitamin, it’s activated by the sun and on our skin and it turns out that it helps take the pigmentations already in our skin and when you put it on as a topical, it causes your own pigmentation that’s already formed in there in your skin that when you notice maybe when you’re out in the sun for 15, 20 minutes or 30 minutes, not even a long time, at the end of the day, you look like you have a little bit of a glow, a little bit of radiancy, but you weren’t out long enough to really induce a tan. That’s because the skin very smartly has some pre-formed pigment melanin in our skin that is released and so Vitamin D causes that release. Vitamin D basically cuts a deal with your skin. It says, you activate me and I’m going to also make you look better and I’m going to be healthy for you. So Vitamin D in a self-tanning pad was all the difference in the world. So this is a very popular product now and that was one of the key things. There’s also some chemistry where I took the self-tanning ingredient, which it also contained, but made it go a little bit deeper. So it’s not just sitting on the top of the skin, I’m making it go a little bit deeper. It gives a more uniform, natural color to the skin so it’s not so fake looking. So between that and the Vitamin D is another example of some creative concepts that, and it’s just many of them.
NYLP: So like any good entrepreneur, you’re seeing gaps where you can fill in. Take for example that Vitamin D pad, there must have been so many iterations aside from coming up with the concept of a Vitamin D pad coming up with various formulas, a whole process, testing, getting the right formula. You’re dealing with science here, maybe you’re baking a new concept and obviously you want to get the right taste, to use an analogy. So how were you able to do that? What’s that process like? How long does developing a product take?
Dennis: Well now right now, I have three labs that I work with so I’m the brain and their hands and then I come up with an idea and I can just get on the phone and just say, all right, here’s the list of ingredients and these are the concentrations I’m thinking about. And we mix and match and then we do some testing. I have focus groups and we try it and we tweak it and then we have another iteration come of it and we try that and I’m a big believer in testing products before we release them much more so.
NYLP: I would hope so.
Dennis: Testing that just for safety, but for efficacy and for consumer satisfaction. As a dermatologist, I can really see the difference and I appreciate those subtleties. So that’s how you do it. Believe it or not, it’s not that hard anymore for me. From the time I have an idea, it says I can have a finished product. I can do it in three months.
NYLP: How many products do you have now?
Dennis: I think we have about 40.
NYLP: 40.
Dennis: Yeah.
NYLP: And what do all those products do?
Dennis: There’s a range, but I’ll tell you the one thing they all do is have a point of difference. To have something different about them that I think separates them and distinguishes them in terms of their activity from all the rest of the other similar products out there. So it was a cleanser, and then we have moisturizers and we have multiple types of moisturizers. We have anti-aging products, I have acne products. These are all products that I use my dermatologic know how to formulate and have always found something that is different that I think the world is missing. So it’s something as simple as a cleanser. There are two key different types of cleansers you need. There are people who have gentle, who need gentle because their skin is sensitive. And then you have the other end of the spectrum where people are oily, they have acne, they have large pores, their skins are on the greasy side or the same person goes between the two depending on the season. So for example, the cleanser, that’s more of an acne cleanser. No one ever really thought to put in exfoliating ingredients into a cleanser, and yet at the same time, those that have made skin too dry. So there’s a balance to be struck. There are moisturizers where you not only put ingredients in the skin that actually lubricate the skin and add more oils or moisturizer, but you can also put in ingredients that actually bring water out of the circulatory system and lock it into the skin, or you can also add ingredients that draw water out of the air, they’re called humectants to bring water in. So you end up making a moisturizer that’s more complicated. I will say that these products look simple, but there is a lot of engineering behind them, but that’s the point of difference. Every single product has something about it that’s not been done before. That’s my claim to fame.
NYLP: You have this range of products, they’re great products, they’re tested, you’ve done the research behind them. But that to me only seems like half the battle. The other half is getting them out there and getting them to the right people. You mentioned with your Alpha Beta Peel, you need to convince a whole audience that had never been exposed to non-harsh treatment saying, you know what, this is something that is the right way of doing things. How are you marketing your products to the right audience and getting past gatekeepers?
Dennis: Right. Well, it’s been growing and this is a company now, we’ve been in business 20 years and we’re just really still growing in an accelerated way and a lot has to do with word of mouth. That is still, to me, the most important way for a product to sell is that one person is so excited with the results. They tell someone else or one person looks so good that the person sitting next to them can’t help but ask, what’s going on, what are you using? And that’s how, we don’t advertise. This is something that works by, we get press because the beauty editors, they see the difference and they are journalistically writing about us. And then there are people who just talk it up and it’s just word of mouth and that’s how it’s grown. And now we’re in, so for here in the United States, we’re in Nordstrom, we’re in major spas and we are now moving, we’re selling in the United Kingdom, we’re selling in Australia, moving into Asia and so now we’re global, so it’s just new markets is just how it works.
NYLP: And you also have a range of products. You mentioned that not all the products are right for the right person. How do you make sure that someone gets the right product? Because I feel like in addition to getting people aware of your brand, you need to make sure that the right product is in their hands, otherwise they won’t be happy.
Dennis: You’re so right. And the answer to that is based on the fact that I’m a dermatologist at the same time as a chemist. So I can create a product that, I’m a big believer in keeping the skin in balance. I don’t like anybody getting too dry from an acne product or too greasy from a moisturizer or sunscreen that people just find white and pasty and they hate it. So as a dermatologist, I know how to create something that really sits on the skin beautifully and I also know about different skin types and there are tricks to the trade where you can actually create a product for different skin types. So that’s one answer. The second answer is that frankly, I can create what’s called delivery systems that are, it’s not just the ingredients that’s key. It’s how the product actually gets the ingredients into the skin and interacts with the skin, so that’s the whole backstory to every product and I’ve mastered a lot of concepts in creating new ways to deliver products to make them work, and at the same time, I teach. We create products that are for different skin types and if a person, my sales team and my educational division, when we talk to sales representatives, or we talk to the audience, we are always telling them how to read their skin, what to look for, and then saying, well, this is you, then you should use this one. If this, on the other hand is more like what you’re looking for, this is the product. So we teach and we create products for different sectors of society. I know when I create a product, I’m treating what I call the bell shape curve of the population. I know people who live in Florida all year round and some people live in Minnesota, and different ages and different types. So all this stuff’s going on in my mind as I add every single ingredient to a product.
NYLP: You mentioned you’re making products for the curve, but do you know the breakdown, male, female of each of your products?
Dennis: You know, I think the industry, in general, heavily skews towards women, although that’s definitely changing. I think that at this point, it’s probably 65/35, two-thirds are women, and then, and most and lots of women who are buying it, they’re also buying it for the man in their life, but men are culturally coming around now too. It used to be that women had a big head start because they used to read Vogue and Glamour Magazines and they had this whole culture where beauty was just part and parcel with what they talked about with each other and what they were at the beauty parlors. It was a whole unique kind of points of discussion. Men didn’t have that, but now there are men’s magazines and it’s also something that I think men are getting a little more pressure in the workforce, and women too. Youth is still revered and as you get more millennials out there and younger people, people need to look younger. They want to look younger and they’re concerned about their jobs and they’re concerned about not looking so much older than the people who work under them. So looking better and the skin in general now, has just risen to be really a high priority in men and women.
NYLP: And taking care of yourself. It’s probably part of all a self-care regimen.
Dennis: It’s the wellness movement, the whole well-being, you know, watching what you eat and juicing, and all the things that are now really popular in our culture, drinking water. I mean it’s unbelievable really, if you think that it’s the same category. Live looking good as living well.
NYLP: And I imagine that you’re going to talk about your products, but aside from your products, what should people be doing with their skin that this is advice that they should take moving forward?
Dennis: Well, these are the tips and things I talk about on a regular basis. The first thing I think you need to know about, well a couple things. You want to wear sunscreen. Sun is definitely the enemy of beauty and it’s certainly the enemy of health. Skin cancer is real and so you’ve got to wear a sunscreen. Now about sunscreen though, there are so many different types of sunscreens, so the key thing is shop for one that you love to use. If you don’t love your sunscreen, you’re never going to use it. So don’t feel like it’s cumbersome or it’s a pain in the neck. Find one that works for you.
NYLP: It doesn’t matter if it’s the spray or if it’s cream.
Dennis: At the end of the day, first and foremost, use it and everyone asks, well, how strong should it be? What’s the SPF factor I’m looking for? I think the best way to go, I’d like an SPF 30 or higher, but pink is the new red. If you are actually looking like a sunscreen has failed to keep you from even getting pink at the end of the day, you need to go higher on your SPF. Don’t even let yourself get that color. You’ve got to protect your scalp, you’ve got to protect your ears, got to protect your kids and you got to put it on before you go outside. It’s the kind of thing where you don’t want to wait until you’re out at the beach, walking from the car to the beach, getting set up. Before you know it, you’ve been outside for 30 plus minutes without any sun protection. You’ve already gotten too much sun, so put it on 15 minutes before you leave or after you brushed your teeth, but not later in the day and if you go in the water reapply.
NYLP: You mentioned that in your practice you’ve learned items about skincare that you apply to the products that you make. What are some of those things that you’re learning constantly aside from everyone needs to wear sunscreen?
Dennis: We’ve covered a couple of things. We were talking about peels, we were talking about sunscreen, talking about some moisturizer concepts, self-tanning. I’ll tell you some of the other things I have come to conclude. I look at people using products and I see them back a year later and I noticed that even though the ingredient that they’re using, yes, granted from another brand, I don’t solicit my products, they sell themselves, and if I’m asked, I’ll tell them and everyone knows I have them anyway. I will notice that there’s a failure to improve. So I always ask myself, what could be wrong with these products? So I see failures in my practice and then I think, well, what could we have done better or what could be going wrong with this one? So this is where you get into the nitty gritty science though and I’ll just give you a quick example because it’s really simple to understand, but something that’s not typically done anymore until I started raising the flag on it. Vitamin C is a fantastic ingredient for applying to the skin. It’s actually highly effective to make the skin firmer and to build those fibers called collagen. The thing is, and it’s certainly way more important to apply it, not in a percentage in a product on your skin than it is to take a 500 milligram pill. You won’t ever get the same levels in your skin by taking a supplement as you will by putting it on your skin directly. So I’m only talking about topical application.
NYLP: No matter how much orange juice you drink.
Dennis: No question about it. No way. Because you drink eight ounces of orange juice and it’s got a hundred milligrams of Vitamin C, it gets diluted into your six liter bloodstream, gets embedded into every organ in your body, all with the hopes that landing in your skin or your face to make a difference there. It’s pretty diluted at that point, so no, you’ve got to put it on directly, but Vitamin C, if you ever have too much Vitamin C, you notice your body excretes it, you pee it out. That’s because it’s water soluble. On mother earth, there’s either water or it’s a lipid, it’s an oil and the two don’t mix. So Vitamin C, because it’s water-soluble, only goes to the parts of the skin that are water soluble, because light dissolves light. The classic salad dressing separates the vinegar from the oil separate. You’ve got to shake it to get them together because the oil and the water-like substance, namely vinegar, don’t mix. So I realized that you have to make, scientifically, Vitamin C penetrate into the lipid phases of the skin, which is 50% of the organ. So I create molecules of Vitamin C by taking pure Vitamin C and I add like a little tail to it, a piggyback onto it, another structure that makes it penetratable into the lipid parts of the skin and it was like, whoa, this was a dramatic change. It was like lighting it up. That was a breakthrough for us and it’s now a huge category and distinction that we have. That’s just something I saw in patients who were using Vitamin C products that were not really helping them. They would still have the lines around their eyes or the skin would start to sag even more after a year’s time. I didn’t see them with the lines and the forehead got worse on and on. So it was learning and that’s sort of how it works. My practice, I learned from my patients too.
NYLP: What is it like being a professional, a medical doctor and also having a line of products? I imagine that it’s probably a double edged sword. Your name carries stature and you can bring that to the products, but also as a way where you want to compete with big boys like Neutrogena that you don’t want to dilute yourself in a certain sort of way?
Dennis: It’s a really good question because I am not a salesperson and that kind of solicitation and selling, it’s just not me, and at the same time. Now I’m very fortunate to have the recognition. I don’t have to, a lot of people see me because, you’re the guy who I bought this product that works so well. I see your practice in New York, I’m going to come to you. This is happening now. At the same time, the products now have a reputation, they’re sold in all the Sephora’s and they occupy lots of shelf space. So people just might, who are interested in the sector, who are interested in beauty and health, the skin, know the name of the product line. They know my name. That’s how it’s named. So I don’t really need to do that. If I’m asked, I will certainly volunteer it in certain cases. I definitely say, you know what, you have acne, you need to use an oil free moisturizer and people don’t even know that. And you have to tell them, it doesn’t say oil free on the label, legally, you can still put in oil by saying things like won’t clog pores or dermatology tested or for acne prone skin, only the words oil free mean that the product has to have no oil in it. So I teach that and at the same time, lots of acne products are very drawing on the skin. So I will sometimes say, I have a product I really recommend for you, and I’ll tell them why. If I know that there’s something that I do that’s different, that will really help them. But by the same token, it’s not at all, you don’t come to my office and get wheeled into a room where it’s a hard sell and trying to tell people you must buy this and you know, you’re a captive in this retail space, hardly the case not that way.
NYLP: And one of the things we always talk about here is the benefits of having your business in New York. I imagine for you, if you weren’t here you would be in Los Angeles, but you are here, you are able to grow a phenomenal business here in New York. How has that been for you?
Dennis: Great. I’ll tell you why. First and foremost, is because it’s multi-racial and it’s the crossroads. And I love that. I see patients from all over the world, I get to know their skin types, get to know their issues. I just created some products that are going to be launched in Asia. Very different type of skin, very different. Also a very culturally different set of values. Asian people really hold in high esteem, very white skin, very pale skin. Any discoloration is like a blemish to them. I understand that and so there are certain ingredients that I know I will create products that will give them that aesthetic that they value. So seeing people of all denominations, there are all sorts of issues. When I’m talking about creating products, I’m also not only creating products for different skin types, but I’m also treating products for different ethnicities. It’s really important. I also think we have four seasons here. This is bona fide, four seasons, not, Los Angeles, which is sun all the time, beautiful place, but it’s not the kind of thing where you can actually see people like I do come in off the street to my practice in a day like today, harsh weather conditions and you learn from that too. So that’s one thing. I also find it really creative. I just find that I’m a New Yorker and there’s something about the energy here and it’s just an intangible thing that it brings out the best in me and I am a bona fide New York City addict. I will never leave. I’ll complain about things on a regular basis and I’ll leave for a week here and there, but I can’t go anywhere else.
NYLP: So for people who may not have the benefit of seeing you or talking to you in a podcast form or not, how do people find out more about a product that would be a great fit for them?
Dennis: Dr.DennisGross skincare.com is a website that I teach. I have videos on a regular basis, I teach on my Instagram Dr. Dennis Gross, and I write and I’ve written for publications and I wrote a book that’s downloadable from my website for free called “Your Future Face”, where I talk about how to predict how one person can actually predict how they’re skin is going to age on their face and basically divide the face into three different parts, the upper area, the middle and the lower and all of those areas have a predictable course that, and we all have a vulnerability. Sometimes we resemble one parent or another and if you look at the way a parent looked and you can actually start to see the first signs of something on your face that is very valuable information and you can use that to start to treat it and not end up that way. So I’m answering the question, how do I get the word out? Teaching on my website and my Instagram through a book, podcasts and I’m doing quite a bit of interviews for the magazines and dot.coms out there, and so I have a voice and the truth is that I think that the journalists out there come to me all from all over the world now because I tell the story that’s real and it’s not just self-motivated and I’m not just tooting my own horn or trying to sell a product, talking science, which I use in my products and I think they appreciate that.
NYLP: That is a wonderful note to wrap things up on. Dr. Dennis Gross, Thank you for stepping onto the New York Launch Pod and sharing your time with us.
Dennis: Thank you. Really great Hal.
NYLP: And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can visit us at nylaunchpod.com for transcripts of every episode, including this one. And if you are a super fan, Dr. Dennis Gross, are you a super fan?
Dennis: I am a super fan.
NYLP: If you’re a super fan like Dr. Dennis Gross, you can leave a review on iTunes and Apple Podcasts. It does help people discover the show and it is greatly appreciated.
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