[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Lion Pose (YC W21) - Safe and effective s...
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Launch HN: Lion Pose (YC W21) - Safe and effective skin care for
people of color
Hi my name is Nisha, and Madhu and I are cofounders of Lion Pose
(https://lionpose.com/). We make clinical skincare products for
people of color, without toxic bleach. When she was 10 years old,
Madhu's family took her to get her whole body bleached, because she
was told it would make her skin more beautiful. She didn't know
that bleaching products contain toxic or potentially dangerous
ingredients like mercury, steroids, and hydroquinone (which has
possible links to cancer and kidney failure). Madhu is not alone in
her experience--some reports estimate that nearly 50% of people of
color have used bleaching products on their skin. The horrors of
bleach aside, skin of color has been notoriously left out of both
medical training and new product development. Most skin images in
medical textbooks are of white skin, dermatology residents are not
trained to diagnose on darker skin tones, and skin of color is
often omitted from clinical trials and studies. But skincare for
people of color is a $9B market in the US, so this imbalance
represents a big opportunity, At Lion Pose, we are on a mission to
end skin bleaching and create safe and effective solutions for
brown skin issues. Our main product, Unspotted 4X, fights
hyperpigmentation-- dark spots, melasma, discoloration, or scars--
which is the #2 skin issue for people of color, after acne. We
scoured NIH studies to find the best active ingredients for darker
skin tones. Our proprietary blend of acids (glycolic, lactic,
tranexamic, and azelaic) exfoliate and resurface the skin, with
antioxidants to promote healthy new growth. We're working with a
medical board of Harvard-educated dermatologists to make sure we
get this right. Most of them have black or brown skin themselves,
so they understand the consumer's point of view first-hand. Our
second product is a mineral SPF 30 sunscreen made with zinc oxide.
Similar to bleach, traditional SPF ingredients like oxybenzone have
been linked to cancer. Zinc-based sunscreens don't have this
problem. However, they tend to have a thick white consistency,
which is particularly difficult to blend on darker skin tones--you
may have noticed this if you've ever applied them to yourself, and
then tried to rub away the highly visible traces they leave! We've
created a smooth absorbable formula, tinted with safe iron oxides,
allowing blendability on dark skin. Clinical skincare is the
fastest growing category at beauty retailers like Sephora. Our
products will be available in all Sephora stores in the US and
Canada upon launch (Sephora projects $3M in sales in the first
year), which we hope will allow us to grow without having to rely
on expensive Facebook ads. Retail sales still dominate in this
market. Many people don't realize that there is little to no
regulation of skincare products in the US. This has caused a market
saturated with products that are useless and/or ineffective, or
even harsh and damaging. Most consumers aren't going to research
specific ingredients to find products that really work for their
skin tone. Therefore, truly clinical skincare products feel
unattainable or inaccessible--most consumers believe you must be
wealthy and have access to top dermatologists to have healthy
"glowing" skin. We hope to contribute to changing this! We are
about to kick off our next round of consumer testing. If you or
someone you know are interested in trying our products, we'd love
to hear from you. Write us at founders@lionpose.com and we'll send
you physical samples. We'll be around in the thread and look
forward to your comments!
Author : nphatak
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-08-31 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
| anon291 wrote:
| My 'favorite' part as a dark skinned person is that the copy on
| the website makes out hyperpigmentation to be 'bad' in its push
| to somehow appeal to darker people.
|
| I like my skin color. I don't really care about my
| 'hyperpigmentation', lol. WTF is that?
|
| Also, maybe women are different, but zinc oxide sunscreen works
| great, and I don't really care about the white streaks on my
| skin. There's way better things to do at the beach than worry
| about my sunscreen.
| yaseer wrote:
| Hyperpigmentation after scarring and acne is something every
| skin color gets, but it's particularly prominent in brown skin
| tones.
|
| The 'delta' between your normal skin and that scarred skin can
| be large for this skin type. Uneven skin tone and patches are a
| reminder of your scars, and they last way longer.
|
| Had it as a teenager, it was more unpleasant than the acne.
| jahewson wrote:
| > 'hyperpigmentation', lol. WTF is that?
|
| Large dark patches, typically on the face. It's seen almost
| exclusively in women because it's hormonal and is believed to
| be predominantly a side-effect of birth-control medication. It
| often appears after pregnancy.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah, this section?
|
| > _As both new and old brands jump on the now-trending
| bandwagon of skincare for colored skin, most are simply adding
| token brown models to their campaigns and "brownwashing"
| existing products-- changing up an ingredient, putting "for
| dark skin" on the labels, and claiming to target problems like
| hyperpigmentation._
|
| Right, like "problems like hyperpigmentation" does sound like
| that. Amusing, freckles are a form of hyperpigmentation and I
| don't think they're considered unattractive.
|
| Still, if people want to take action on this aspect of their
| faces, then better they use safer tools.
| nphatak wrote:
| Hi all! I hear you - we certainly don't want to be a brand
| that wants to alter anything naturally unique about your skin
| (like freckles). Our products are more so meant to target
| acne scars, melasma (which occurs post pregnancy), dark
| circles and dark patches - all of which are forms of
| hyperpigmentation you are not typically born with.
| eveninterested wrote:
| I had no idea this was such an issue, so I wanted to say kudos
| for explaining it so well on the site! One question that remains
| for me is: do the product requirements change depending on _how_
| dark the skin is, or is it more a case that one solution will
| work for all dark skinned people, and another for all light
| skinned people?
| nphatak wrote:
| That is a great question! There is definitely some variation to
| what will work on very dark skin versus more medium skin.
| Getting a prescription solution from a dermatologist is usually
| the best way to get something very custom to your specific skin
| needs. But we know not everyone can afford to see a
| dermatologist - and shouldn't have to go that route to see
| results. What we've done is created a retail solution that will
| show improvement on all darker skin tones. The speed and
| magnitude of those results could vary person to person.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > At Lion Pose, we are on a mission to end skin bleaching
|
| If that's what customers want and are ready to pay for, why not
| deliver it to them?
|
| > Our proprietary blend of acids (glycolic, lactic, tranexamic,
| and azelaic) exfoliate and resurface the skin
|
| Uh?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azelaic_acid#Whitening_agent
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28669590/
|
| > "As interest in skin beauty increases, the development of new
| skin whitening agents has attracted substantial attention;
| however, the action mechanism of the agents developed so far
| remains largely unknown. Tranexamic acid (TXA) is commonly being
| used to reduce melanin synthesis"
|
| Maybe you are already delivering what the market wants, just by a
| different name :)
| nphatak wrote:
| Hi there! Traditionally, skin bleaching products contain
| mercury, hydroquinone, and steroids. Mercury is a toxic heavy
| metal. Hydroquinone in particular has been banned from OTC
| products - see article here for some of the reasons why:
| https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-
| availability/fda-w....
|
| You're completely right that some of our ingredients are
| specifically included to fade/lighten (whatever terminology you
| want to use) dark spots, because that is an outcome our
| customers are looking for. However, we have chosen ingredients
| like azelaic acid and tranexamic acid that are much safer
| compared to existing solutions.
|
| Regarding tyrosinase inhibitors like tranexamic acid: There is
| a scientific reason why these ingredients must be included.
| People of color tend to get more dark spots and scars because
| darker skin has a tendency to produce more melanin when
| irritated. So when you get hormonal acne, for instance, the
| skin becomes irritated and inflamed. The inflammation causes
| your melanin production to go into overdrive, resulting in the
| spot or scar that comes after. Including tyrosinase inhibitors
| like Tranexamic acid (at safe levels) is not meant to whiten
| overall skin tone. It is meant to prevent the overproduction of
| melanin which causes spots.
|
| Hope that helps!
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Hydroquinone in particular has been banned from OTC
| products - see article here for some of the reasons why
|
| Indeed, and it was done has part of the omnibus Covid relief
| bill IIRC.
|
| After having reviewed all the evidence, it doesn't seem to be
| such a clear cut case to me as it was for say mercury.
|
| I have melasma, and I was happily using hydroquinone OTC
| products. The only noticeable difference this ban has made to
| me is to gatekeep the products with a costly prescription.
|
| > There is a scientific reason why these ingredients must be
| included
|
| Totally!
|
| BTW, you may want to look at others such as glycyrrhizic
| acid.
| madpun wrote:
| Thanks so much! You actually hit the nail on the head :).
| People do want solutions but they want safer ones.
|
| Skin bleaching refers to the use of toxic chemicals that are
| endocrine disruptors. Here's a great article outlining the
| issue: https://www.cnn.com/specials/world/white-lies-skin-
| whitening.
|
| We're working on safer solutions for dark spots that do not
| contain hydroquinone and mercury.
| numair wrote:
| Is Hacker News turning into Product Hunt for YC, and is YC
| turning into a CPG incubator? If this weren't a YC company, it
| would be flagged and voted off the site in an instant.
|
| If this is the future of HN, there's going to be a market opening
| for a replacement!
| dang wrote:
| Launch HNs are curated threads that we help YC startups write,
| and then place on the front page. This is one of three formal
| things (the other two are job ads and orange usernames for
| alumni) that HN gives back to YC in exchange for funding it.
| This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html,
| which is linked at the bottom of every page. There are also
| lots of past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRan
| ge=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
|
| We started doing Launch HNs in early 2017. You can see the
| complete list here: https://news.ycombinator.com/launches. The
| advice we give to YC startups about launching on HN is here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html. The logistical parts
| only apply to YC cos, but the communication advice applies to
| everyone.
|
| You're certainly right that not all these startups would make
| the front page through upvotes alone, but we do work hard to
| write them up in a way that we hope will genuinely interest the
| community, and many of them end up getting a lot of upvotes and
| staying on the front page a long time.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Future? This has been an implicit feature of HN for years. It
| is in no way new. That is in fact one of the perks of YC, being
| able to post a Launch HN.
| soared wrote:
| Op is discussing the lack of tech/innovation/etc from this
| start up.
| yaseer wrote:
| HN is about geeks gratifying our intellectual curiosity-
| There's some interesting topics brought up by this post.
|
| Science of skincare, underserved markets, sociological
| phenomena.
|
| But all that aside, plenty of geeks with darker skin found
| it interesting enough to click, myself included.
| m-alsuwaidi wrote:
| As a poc, I 'm wondering what makes your products different than
| the other countless skin care company targeted at poc that have
| been started these past few years? Everyone is riding the trend
| and the meme that we're being left out of big brands' doesn't
| hold up anymore. And please don't tell me WYz dermatologist works
| with us and we use the best ingredients, everyone says that, do
| you have an actual differentiator?
| nphatak wrote:
| You're absolutely right - there are plenty of companies out
| there targeting POC and claiming to have the best ingredients
| and dermatologists. Once big differentiator is how we've
| curated the product line. We are both analytics people by
| background and actually scraped information from Facebook
| communities and Reddit threads discussing top skincare issues
| and product needs for POC. We found that hyperpigmentation was
| the number one talked about issue for people of color after
| acne. Next was sunscreen, then ingrown hairs, dark eye circles,
| deodorant, and hyperpigmentation for the body. By focusing on
| the actual problems and not just the marketing buzzwords
| (dermatologists, ingredients that trend well on Google), we've
| been able to take an unbiased, more scientific approach to
| product development.
| SnooSux wrote:
| I assume HN leans more male so I'm inclined to ask, have you
| given any thought to skincare products for men?
|
| And do you have any plans to expand from direct to consumer
| skincare? Maybe something to address medical texts exclusively
| depicting white skin?
| nphatak wrote:
| You're absolutely right and we have considered skincare
| products for men! A lot of our language is women-focused
| because they are still the majority of the skincare buying
| audience. But fun fact - skincare for men is one of the fastest
| growing segments in Sephora. And we tried to make our products
| as gender neutral as possible, so we aren't alienating our male
| audience.
| alecfreudenberg wrote:
| I would say 0 pictures of men on the website could be
| considered at least superficially, alienating.
|
| Nothing explicitly wrong with a feminine-first vibe, but I
| don't see anything particularly masculine, or even neutral on
| the site. Seems more like a repackaging of traditional white
| women marketing, but for darker skin.
| nphatak wrote:
| I hear you and appreciate the candid feedback!
| rglover wrote:
| I'm a mixed-race b/w man...if the product works you can send
| me emails that address me as "Queen," and I won't care. Based
| on the Fitzpatrick scale you linked below (hadn't heard of
| that), I think I'm a 5/V. Sounds like this will work for me?
| nphatak wrote:
| Sounds like it will work great for you!
| SnooSux wrote:
| Thanks for the reply! It's pretty cool to see a physical
| product succeed in YC!
|
| One thought, you mentioned Skin Type 3-6 in one of the
| products. Do you have a description of that anywhere? Most
| Google results for "skin type" focus mainly on how oily your
| skin is. Having some sort of literature directly on the site
| may help. Though tbf I'm speaking as a man, I'm not sure how
| well known it is for your target audience.
| nphatak wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| And we are referring to the Fitzpatrick Skin Types, which
| are definitely not well-known. Great tip to clarify this
| better in our messaging.
|
| Some more about Fitzpatrick Skin Types:
| https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-
| care/fitzpatri...
| Semaphor wrote:
| My (black) wife is very much into skincare(addiction) and even
| mixing her own stuff from basic ingredients. While getting ready-
| made products for black skin (or hair...) in Germany has been
| getting easier, it's still hard. Do you have any plans for
| availability here in the EU?
|
| And a fun anecdote for zinc oxide sun protection, I once
| accidentally bought one of those. It looked slightly questionable
| on my pasty white skin, but on her, it looked hilarious, she
| turned purple :D
| nphatak wrote:
| Your wife sounds amazing! Last summer, Madhu and I tried to mix
| our own dark spot serum, and it turned into a rubbery clump. We
| learned two things: 1) The power of stabilizers and emollients,
| and 2) That we should probably bring on some qualified chemists
| and dermatologists. Thankfully we did :)
|
| We do have plans to expand to Europe. Our Sephora retail
| relationship is specific to the US and Canada, so we are going
| to start there. However, Canada regulation is very similar to
| EU regulation, so expanding to Europe will be the easiest, most
| natural next step for us.
|
| Your story is so common! I hope your wife is able to get her
| hands on a non-purple zinc sunscreen soon :)
| madpun wrote:
| Love this story. It's the untold story that so many people in
| the beauty industry do not hear! It's not okay to look purple.
| We're aiming to change that. Would love to hear what products
| she's using / what she's mixing. Please tell her to email me -
| madhu [at] lionpose [dot] com.
| brycelarkin wrote:
| Looks awesome! You mentioned that there's not a lot of regulation
| of skincare products, but doesn't the FDA regulate sunscreen
| pretty heavily? Like the US is behind Europe/Asia in sunscreens
| we offer because we're not allowed to use any of the modern
| ingredients.
|
| I typically purchase my sunscreen from Japan because they allow
| modern sunscreen ingredients.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I have a couple of questions about ingredients in your
| description. Zinc oxide as you mention tends to be pasty white,
| like Desitin for diaper rash which uses zinc as one of the active
| ingredients. This is likely to be a really dumb question with an
| obvious answer but since zinc has been shown to affect nerves (it
| is used as an anti-itch ingredient since it tends to dampen nerve
| responses and can cause nerve damage if dosage is too high) do
| you anticipate problems with long-term regular usage of zinc as a
| component of your sunscreen or other products? I believe that
| since it is already a replacement for the oxybenzone components
| of earlier sunscreens that you use it since it works. Down the
| line though, what do you think about the safety of using it?
|
| The other question I have comes from my background as a
| geoscientist. Your usage of iron oxides for pigmentation seems
| genius here. Iron oxides occur naturally in shades from bright
| yellows to reddish-blacks. It seems that using iron oxide as a
| pigment (mankind has used this for millenia) is the most perfect
| way to enable exact skin tone matching. My question though is
| this - in your studies have you found any tendency of the iron
| oxides to stain clothing on exposure to sweat or through normal
| wear and tear? I know that iron staining of laundry and porcelain
| for people who get their water from wells with high iron content
| is usually addressed in the water softening/conditioning
| operation before distribution to faucets in the household. Do you
| anticipate problems with iron staining on clothing? It's a dumb
| question and probably a non-issue since you have obviously done a
| lot of work in this space.
|
| Congratulations to you all and best of luck in your efforts to
| improve and create safe skin care options for people of color.
| nphatak wrote:
| Love these questions! Regarding zinc oxide, the limits in the
| US, Canada, and Europe are 25% Zinc oxide in any product (to
| avoid toxicity) and we are at 17%, which allows us to stay well
| under that limit, but still get the SPF 30 claim. You're also
| absolutely right that we are replacing oxybenzone, homosalate
| and octocrylene - all banned in the EU - which have been linked
| to cancer, hormone disruption, and skin allergies. Longer term,
| it is possible we will find another alternative to zinc oxide,
| but at this time it is hands down the safest SPF ingredient to
| be using. All regulatory bodies will agree.
|
| Your question about iron oxide is super interesting! Like any
| tinted product (even artificially tinted like a foundation),
| there is always some risk to the product getting on and
| staining clothing or accessories. Because our product is
| primarily meant to be used on the face, we are less concerned
| about this. We may create another version of this product for
| body, and will need to be much more conscious of the
| possibility of staining. We also formulated the product to have
| a fast "dry-down" time, meaning it absorbs relatively quickly
| into the skin. After a minute or two, it should not be rubbing
| off easily on clothing or other accessories.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. You are
| obviously trying to cover all the bases with product
| ingredients and that will hopefully position you for success.
| Good luck to you all!
| nphatak wrote:
| Thank you for asking great questions :)
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