Creating Safe Skincare Products

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Mei Yung – Ageless Zen Skincare

 

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Ageless Zen Skincare Startup
03:49 Journey to Natural Medicine Business
07:15 Creating a Pearl-Based Facial Cleanser
10:34 Expertise in Natural Ingredient Synergy
16:08 Natural Skincare Consciousness
18:44 “Natural Oil Soap Development Insight”
22:03 Consumer Empowerment Through Information
25:23 Seaberry’s Unique Natural Benefits
28:04 “Balanced Topical Skincare Dosing”
31:35 Eco-Friendly Skincare Packaging
36:35 Night Cream with Peptide Matrix
38:28 Day vs. Night Creams Explained
41:36 Airtight, Eco-Friendly Bottle Design
45:45 “Exploring Natural Plant Benefits”
50:03 Nonprofit Empowerment & Fundraising Initiative
53:47 Focusing on Anti-Aging Skin Health
55:40 “Product Purchase and Community Support”

Podcast Transcription:

Mei Yung [00:00:00]:
Well, interesting. That’s a very interesting question you asked. And I think your listeners should also understand it too. FDA in America actually does not, you know, approve any product. They have a set of guidelines and they assume people will follow that guideline. And you build your product in the facility that is approved by the FDA and they can check the facility, all of that to make sure, you know, that everything is up to that particular standard. But mostly it’s up to a skincare company to uphold it. And like, for example, I can tell you currently US company, you know, have about three or four hundred ingredients they’re not allowed to use because they’re toxic.

Mei Yung [00:00:48]:
They’re highly sensitive like you said. But in Canada there’s over a thousand or fifteen hundred that matter. Depends on where you look at.

James Kademan [00:01:05]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link funded drawincustomers.com we are locally interwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie Calls on Call Extraordinary answering service as well as the Bold Business book. And today we’re welcoming preparing to learn from Mei Young Lee, the founder and CEO of Ageless Zen. So May, how are you doing today?

Mei Yung [00:01:36]:
I am doing great in this beautiful Lake Tahoe.

James Kademan [00:01:41]:
Yeah, that’s excellent. Glad to hear it. Thanks for being on the show. Why don’t you start with the foundation? What is Ageless Zen?

Mei Yung [00:01:49]:
Well, Ageless Zen is a company. It’s a startup company that I decided to build at this point of my life which, you know, is very interesting. Many people ask me why I built this company at this time of my life and because I really feel I’m not done yet. And for many years I was searching for natural skin care for myself and you know, but I find that I really couldn’t find product every key natural ingredient that really support my skin. So I started researching, experimenting and testing on myself basically trying to find a solution for myself. And you know, later on I, you know, finally find it after many, you know, success and failure with different formulation. And I found what I needed and I just thought I’m always in, you know, volunteering in nonprofit. Why don’t I wrote the business model into helping nonprofit as well to start a foundation on top of it.

Mei Yung [00:03:02]:
So yeah, so this has been a very interesting venture for me and we are now partnering with Mecavivor, which is Metabolized Cancer Patient Network. And so their doctor endorse our product and they use it. So we have nice Clean and natural product which I built for myself really for personal needs. Now I know that many people is going to need it too. If I had the need, I will think other women will also have this need. So I’m very proud and we are rolling along.

James Kademan [00:03:45]:
So when did this idea first come about?

Mei Yung [00:03:49]:
Well, it came about almost seven years ago, a little bit of my background. My father actually was an herbal doctor in Hong Kong and I was born in Hong Kong. So I saw him firsthand how he handled patient and really took care of the patient with natural herbs and ingredients and it works really well for them. And so I grew up with it and I took a lot of those Chinese medicine. So it’s kind of deep down already in my blood I would say that I really like natural products. So at 2016 I I met a researcher, Michael Scott, and he actually had 30 years of experience in research natural products also with a team of researchers from different hospital and research center. So they have a really deep bank of knowledge that I can actually draw on. And so I decided, you know, I need to build this company because I don’t feel I’m done yet.

Mei Yung [00:05:02]:
And then of course, after I find the formulation, after I search all the different natural ingredients, what is good for what formulation, then I decided to build it out and started a nonprofit and work with somebody like McWyver as our business model. So every time when we sell product through our community partner website, Megariver or whoever want to join us and this movement later on will get a really high commission. Like for example, we gave out 30% of our post it to them. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:05:40]:
Oh, very cool. Tell me, so you previous to this were not in the skincare realm or chemistry realm or anything even remotely close to doing something to do with skin care natural ingredient skincare, is that right?

Mei Yung [00:05:56]:
That’s correct. I’m actually as a self taught investor and doing quite well. I’ve done quite well and raised my two kids and family and my dogs. And so I was pretty happy with life. Basically I did achieve the American dreams and I was very proud of myself for my hard work. But now this is really taken to a different level because I feel that I’m able to give back now through this initiative. So I’m really happy and excited about it and I’m hoping that to get basically some awareness from other people. They know that we support school, we support any other nonprofit and we’re camping together.

Mei Yung [00:06:42]:
Like Mega Viver, our key partner will be campaigning with us this week. When we go to trade show, we tell people about it and about our relationship with nonprofit.

James Kademan [00:06:56]:
All right, very cool. So your product, how long did it take you from a timeline point of view, how long did it take you to figure out what you’re going to create? And then from there, once you figured out what you want to create, how long did it take to actually put together the formula and figure out what works and what doesn’t work and all that?

Mei Yung [00:07:15]:
Yeah, well, because it’s a science based product that we created in here with our scientists. And so usually the process is that once when I have an idea, particularly, you know, something I need, like a cleanser, you know, so then they will look at it and then I will check out the ingredient they recommended and test it on myself. And so the whole process, it depends on, you know, I should say, you know, how I feel about that product actually works for me. And so some of the creams that we created, they will come faster, maybe about six months to develop it. But the cleanser itself, it took a year because it include the pearl powders. And it’s an old Chinese recipe, you know, the old Chinese lady, they use pearl powder and to, you know, exfoliate their face away from all the dead skin cells. And also pearl itself contain moisture because it got a lot of natural minerals in it. So we put in the frankincense oil so the skin won’t get dry after you wash it.

Mei Yung [00:08:34]:
And also we put like, oh, manuka honey. So it’s a natural antibacterial. So just all these different ingredients that we put in it make it work together and then have the white pH for the face, it took a while, so that’s why it took a long time. And I personally, because I’m making all this product to use for myself and my friends, so I have very high standard. You know, sometimes, you know, let people say, you’re so mean. You know, I work so hard and, you know, I tried to create this and you say, it’s not good enough. Okay, I’m sorry. Not good enough.

Mei Yung [00:09:17]:
Not good enough. So it’s not good enough for me. It wouldn’t be good enough for my friend and other people.

James Kademan [00:09:23]:
So when you tried, let’s say some of these newer entry level stuff, and they’re like, hey, here’s product number one or product number two, or attempt number one, let’s say you put on your face, how did you know it wasn’t good initially? Did you break out in hives or anything like that? Or was it kind of itchy or how do you know that it’s not necessarily good right away.

Mei Yung [00:09:45]:
Well, one particularly indication is that even natural product, there are people sensitive to natural ingredients. Right. We know that, you know, even we, some people cannot eat stone food and you know, and so forth. And for me, I use many products before and they are, you know, generally a little high in chemical, which that’s why I didn’t like it. And that’s what you say, you know, the breakout factor, the dry out factor. And a lot of them are too aggressive like some of the vitamin A product. They just appeal you so much that your face become more and more sensitive. I mean personally for me.

Mei Yung [00:10:34]:
And so I’ll make sure that I know enough, have enough experience by using different product. Okay, so that’s number one, I know that. So I can look at the ingredient and I did my own research and, and find out in literature what is easier to get sensitivity, what is less and what kind of natural ingredient probably work well with other natural ingredients because you have to make sure that they also work well together. They’re not fighting each other. So when they’re fighting each other, that’s why people also get a higher chance of with sensitive skin. So the wonderful thing that I think I have an edge is number one, I have some education from my father, knowing more or less a lot of the herbs. Then the second thing also is because I have a nice scientific team that is backing me up and they know, they have done 30 years of research. If some of the ingredients are particularly highly sensitive or, or even toxic, you know, or whatever, we will never, never use it because the science team already know.

Mei Yung [00:11:46]:
Yeah, so. So that’s our advantage.

James Kademan [00:11:48]:
All right, so help me understand this, the industry, because I don’t know anything about facial cleansers or creams or anything like that. More than obvious is this, does government FDA approval or anything like this get involved? Or can anyone just put something on the shelf and be like, yeah, it does this?

Mei Yung [00:12:10]:
Well, interesting. That’s a very interesting question you asked. And I think your listeners should also understand it too. FDA in America actually does not approve any product. They have a set of guideline and they assume people will follow that guideline. And you build your product in the facility that is approved by the FDA and they can check the facility, all of that to make sure, you know that everything is up to that particular standard. But mostly it’s up to a skincare company to uphold it. And like for example, I can tell you currently US company, you know, have about three or four hundred ingredients they’re not allowed to use because they’re toxic, they’re highly sensitive, like you say.

Mei Yung [00:13:01]:
But in Canada, there’s over a thousand or fifteen hundred that matter, depends on where you look at it is organic or non organic and you cannot use those chemicals. And then in EU, they have over 3,000 chemicals. They’re not allowed people to use it in their product and they’re much more strict. So we use our EU standard. So our product actually is a register. We do need to register in eu. So we are successfully registered in EU and currently also register in China, which took four years to register. Because, you know, as an American company, you know, they are throwing a lot of curveball at us and it’s not so easy, but we achieve all our goal and, you know, very, very proud to have all the batches that, you know, we come through.

Mei Yung [00:13:58]:
So if your listener are listening to your podcast and when they go out there to find skincare product, it will be. I personally think it’s safer if they don’t know anything about the company and trying to find a European brand just knowing that because they have a lot higher standard than American brand. American brand is really based on the American, American company. What is their ethic and how they want to, you know, build their product.

James Kademan [00:14:30]:
You know, it’s interesting you say that because I was. Where was I at? I was a buddy’s house, stayed overnight, and I was using. I don’t want to add in his shower. I think it was Irish Spring Irish Spring soap. And I looked at the ingredients. It was a little pump bottle, whatever. And it had essentially food coloring in it. Yeah, I don’t remember if it was yellow and blue or if it was actual green food coloring, but whatever it was, I just remember food coloring in there.

James Kademan [00:14:59]:
Maybe it’s not food coloring, it’s just dye. And I’m like, if I had dye that I spilled on my hands or body, whatever, I would want to use soap to remove it, not to add dye. So it just blew my mind that this is soap, that I don’t know what color soap is. Normally I assume it’s white or off white or something like that, that they thought, hey, this is gonna sell better if we make it green. So let’s just pump some dyes in there, slap it on the shelf and move on with their life. It just seems like some of the ingredients, if people were asked, hey, do you want fake food coloring in your soaps? Most people be like, nah, nah, I don’t need that. I don’t, I don’t need that. Let’s just have soap in my soap.

Mei Yung [00:15:45]:
Yeah. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:15:46]:
So it’s a weird, I guess from my point of view, my whole point of the, the statement here is I’m wondering why do manufacturers put all this weird stuff in, into their, their creams, their soaps, whatever, when I don’t, I mean, maybe I’m biased. I don’t think the general population really wants it.

Mei Yung [00:16:08]:
You absolutely right. The general population, if they are educated, you know, they won’t want any of this at all then. That’s the point that also I’m trying to make. I came out to do something because I have this personal need. It’s very hard for me to find anything, you know, that particularly overnight to support my skin needs. And as I’m aging, I’m getting this more and more focus about, hey, how I’m going to be able to keep myself healthier with healthier skin. You know, maybe beauty is only skin deep, but also all the chemicals like you say, you know, using in your body every single day, twice a day or whatever, you want to use it and you go into your system and your body absorbed it. So I was much more careful, you know, now what am I going to do? And you know, understanding the practice, how my father helped his patient, it really and you know, really come to me in like, come to a Jesus moment, like, do you really need to do all this chemical to make yourself looking like this? Or you can find amazing ingredient, it’s already in nature, you know, mother earth already provide.

Mei Yung [00:17:29]:
You just need to put them together in a way that they work well together. So that is no shortcut about it. And unfortunately, like you said, a lot of company, they are about driven by their bottom line. And if you’re looking at a lot of industry, you know, the beauty industry, you see the board member are mostly gentlemen, the men and they really don’t understand and use a lot of skincare to get to the point that they want something very specific. And being a woman and my background, I just feel that I’m just in the right place that I can produce a line of natural product and build a company that people can trust. So when people go to Ajaxen, first thing they know is that we don’t use any synthetic fragrance. Okay? All our products, we also have main product. All our products are sanded with natural oil because the purpose of that oil, for example, we, when you’re talking about soap, we have main cleanser, which you can wash your hair and wash your entire body.

Mei Yung [00:18:44]:
We have natural oil and the soap is made from coconut, okay? And so that Natural oil we put in Yoling Yolang, that’s the name of it. It actually helped to control the oil secretion and the body. So actually if you use product, a good product, it help you to regulate your cells and body. So some people maybe they don’t have to use a lot of deodorant, you know, so that is the goal. So every time when we develop a product, a lot of thought go into it and then because of the knowledge we also had, so we add all of those together and if the product is not good enough, it never come out. If it is a product, it pass our high standard and my personal high standard also, then yes, then we are ready for market. Unfortunately, most of the company, whether is European company or American company, Asian company, doesn’t matter. They basically have a lot of investor and they want to get the money faster and they want to push their product out there.

Mei Yung [00:20:03]:
So a lot of the product actually is manufacturing by a handful of contract manufacturing based on the marketing angle. They just put whatever ingredient because that’s their marketing angle. So they push it out and then spend a lot of money in commercial marketing and TV ad or whatever. Basically marketing. They put most of their money into marketing and, and it’s not into their product. And we are kind of the opposite. We went the other way. We say we want to have a line of really high standard product is safe for people to use and we have children.

Mei Yung [00:20:44]:
Product all natural safety is very important for. Excuse me, for me because I have family, you know. So yeah, so it’s not about, you know, how much money you made, is about the process, you know, whether you make responsible product, that it benefits others. And now I’m even more excited because not only I feel we achieved that, but we also trying to help the community.

James Kademan [00:21:16]:
Very cool, very cool. I remember reading an article from a journalist that was specific to the car culture and essentially he said that he was interviewing a guy that owned a company that did performance parts. And the guy essentially said what you’re saying that why spend so much money on engineering when I can just spend the money on marketing and people will buy it either way really doesn’t matter if it works or not. It was one of those things like oh my gosh, which ad am I looking at? That the person didn’t spend the money on engineering, they only spent it on the marketing because they figured it doesn’t matter. People sell it, they slap it in their car and whatever. It’s all placebo essentially just based on marketing.

Mei Yung [00:22:03]:
Yeah, unfortunately it’s a Trend, it’s been around for a long time. But I feel that the industry is changing now because consumer is demanding it and consumer now with between AI and the Internet and all that, they are more accessible with information. If they look up an ingredient, at least they can cut and paste, go on the computer and see, oh, is this toxic or is like you say food coloring or what is this? If a consumer are willing to spend a little time to look up some of these and they will find good product. And I think there are people like Adrian Zen and trying to create good product and healthy for everybody. So younger generation also because they’re more savvy with the computer and so they can do their research a lot deeper. So I’m happy about that. But I just want to build a brand that is leading and basically and say this is what we do. We flip it upside down.

Mei Yung [00:23:18]:
We start with the basic to build the best product we can build and know how to build. And then we go out there to market and let people know about it.

James Kademan [00:23:29]:
I suppose it makes sense because I mean even the timeline now if we have an ingredient that we see at the store shelves or on a website that we’re at, we don’t know what it is, in a few seconds we can figure it out where 20, 30 years ago you had to go to your excite Encyclopedia Britannica and try to look up whatever, how did you spell that thing right and hope that there was an entry in one of those 25 books or whatever.

Mei Yung [00:23:57]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:23:58]:
See if we can figure out just what in the world that 75 syllable word actually is. We definitely have information much easier to get. Now tell me a story about the, the ingredients. You have these natural ingredients, you figure out the ones that work. You got the scientists and all that jazz to figure out what works. Some of these ingredients, I imagine are not necessarily easiest in the world to find. I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know, crocodile teeth or whatever it is just some like, I’m sure coconuts, no problem. But maybe there’s some obscure thing from a beetle that’s only in South Africa or something like that.

Mei Yung [00:24:36]:
No.

James Kademan [00:24:37]:
How do you get all these ingredients and like are they showing up in 55 gallon drums? Are they showing up in huge bags? Tell me a little bit of story. Just outsider who has no idea.

Mei Yung [00:24:49]:
Yeah. So yeah, interesting you asked James because. Well, first of all, the knowledge is important. Where you source the ingredient is important. And since you were talking about the cream, so let me ask you, most of the cream or anti aging product. What color is it? Do you know?

James Kademan [00:25:10]:
I think white.

Mei Yung [00:25:12]:
Yes. Is it anything in nature kind of white?

James Kademan [00:25:16]:
I would think fat. Like I don’t. I’m just thinking of fight club, right?

Mei Yung [00:25:23]:
No. So their answer is that you’re right, most of the product out there they buy from chemical company in drones in different beetrones. And then they pour it in, mix it up and they understand their chemistry, of course and they make interesting product. But they’re not natural. Our product is different and we’re talking about the ingredients. One of them I personally really, really love and you can research about it and tell your wife or significant other about that is a seaberry, which is called the name called sea buckthorn, which is a small tiny yellow. I mean wouldn’t say yellow, so golden orange, almost fruit that you can find in high altitude in the Himalayas or the Russia, that kind of provinces. And now it’s more populated in the U.S.

Mei Yung [00:26:23]:
some of the farm, they actually grow them themselves. And we are in high altitude. So we also grow that in here. So what this plant has is amazing because they have to survive such harsh environment. So they pack themselves all in the fruit with different omega fat chains. You know, the omega, you know, 3, 6, 7, 9. I mean it’s amazing. Those oils are very beneficial for anti inflammatory for our cells inside our body.

Mei Yung [00:26:58]:
And they also have all the other food vitamins in it. Okay, so this is one of our to go to. You know, like we created a seaberry serum that we blended this oil that we made from this Seabury. Okay. With other beneficial oil. Because sometime 100% seabury oil is not good for you because it’s too intense. So how you brand it out and balance the formula that almost 99% of the population use. It will be very safe and will do no harm and will continue to draw the benefit.

Mei Yung [00:27:38]:
That’s very important. That’s one ingredient. The other ingredient we also have is niacinamide. Niacinamide is a vitamin B product. Actually you can ingest it. Some people actually took it as called a niacin. But ingesting something is hard to do the dosing. You don’t know how much you need to take it, not to harm yourself, basically.

Mei Yung [00:28:04]:
So we only use it in topical and topical is amazing. And a certain percentage had to be controlled also because if you don’t control it, like you say, right. Your skin will get overstimulated. Basically it open up and dilate the blood vessel underneath the skin. So you have a little flushing your face Feel a little tingling. That means working but you don’t want your face to hurt, right? So again it’s about the dosing, how much percentage you add to it to build a balanced product most of the population can tolerate but also bring good benefit. So that’s just the two ingredient. And then of course, all our product is an aloe base.

Mei Yung [00:28:50]:
You know aloe, right? Aloe is I would say 98% water. But they’re different type of water because they have all the different fatty acid and long chain, short chain, you know, chemicals in it. But they’re biochemical, but they’re not like man made chemical. So it help, it’s like a, like it’s in a car. You put all this ingredient on the aloe and the aloe will help to kind of draw it in when they, you know, infiltrate your skin and contact with your skin. So all of those is a lot of science and a different way to approach different ingredients. So I’m just kind of giving you.

James Kademan [00:29:32]:
A short version of it when they. So let’s just take aloe for example. Are you getting aloe? I suppose aloe. I’m thinking of aloe lotion. So do you get big drums of aloe or how is the aloe showing up to your manufacturer?

Mei Yung [00:29:49]:
Well, we have two type and we like to blend because you also have to look at the economic also, right, to hire a lot of worker and try to shed out the aloe, to take the inside of the aloe out. It’s, you know, it’s just way too difficult. And they have manufacturing like you said, they already did it. And they come with the juice and then we just buy the juice and then we’ll come in this way.

James Kademan [00:30:19]:
Sorry, you. This is so interesting because I’m thinking of manufacturing stuff like this and then ending up putting it in a bottle or a jar or whatever you’re doing. I’m just. There’s got to be some kind of cauldron or big machine or something he’s mixing or something like that. So when they manufacture, let’s just pick your top seller, whatever that is. How big of a container or a machine are they putting this thing into to mix it up?

Mei Yung [00:30:47]:
Well, right now all our stuff we have a lab that is up in Lake Tahoe. We have two buildings in here. And you know, one of our building is like a 12,000 square foot. It’s not very big, but it’s not too small. And we actually can make lab batches. The lab batches we make as natural product. James, we have to be careful and make sure they’re fresh and we don’t want them to sit on the shelf. Even though we have a particular bottles for some of our very high end expensive cream because they’re natural and also very, very, very little, you know, preservatives to put in it.

Mei Yung [00:31:35]:
We use natural preservative even. And so we have a patented bottle that actually will. ALICE okay, so you don’t pay $155 to get a bottle of cream that you use your hand to take it out, you know, because every time when you have this kind of a contact, you actually contaminating your cream. So in general, most of the product, they use that because they have a lot of preservatives in it. Okay, that obviously is not very good for you, number one and number two is that the packaging is a lot cheaper for them. So everything as you know in the podcast, when you make business decision, you have to decide how much money you want to put in your packaging, how much money resource that you want to put into ingredient and marketing, all that. So we choose to do it at handcraft batches. So they’re small, they make a couple hundred, 300 bottle for us.

Mei Yung [00:32:42]:
So it doesn’t have to be very big. So it’s large enough. And so that’s one batch. It’s very, very small batch in the cosmetic industry. So we are different now. It may come to a day we need help as we grow to make larger batches, then we will not be have to have the capacity to do it on our lab and we have to go out to find out which manufacturing actually will fit our standard and we will oversee it. And then still making small enough batches, like 15,000, you know, or 10,000 each time. But never like those huge company, you know, they make 50,000 each time, you know, because also natural ingredients, sometimes it depends on season.

Mei Yung [00:33:32]:
Right. And yeah, the plan, you know, do we have a just like drinking wine, you know, sometimes you have a good year, the grapes are fantastic. Sometime you have, you know, I don’t know, maybe a drought. So maybe that ingredient not available. So we have to look at all of this. So handcraft is important, but also have the ingredient that is like you said, is not so difficult to source that a lot of time you can find them, then it defeats the purpose. So. So it’s a, it’s balance.

Mei Yung [00:34:10]:
Yeah, yeah.

James Kademan [00:34:11]:
You raise an interesting point about the preservatives and stuff like that. Because I imagine if you’re using all natural ingredients, it’s essentially like food. I mean you’re not eating it, but it’s, it’s something that’s not necessarily going to be stealth shape, shelf stable for decades or anything like that. So he has to put expiration dates and stuff like that on the product.

Mei Yung [00:34:33]:
Of course. Yeah. So we have, we are able to achieve that with that special bottle to have the stability of our cream for two years.

James Kademan [00:34:43]:
Okay.

Mei Yung [00:34:44]:
Natural ingredient, natural preservative. A little bit synthetic. Yes. We do have to use it because you have to go through all the testes, you know, and make sure. And make sure microbes not grow on it and make sure they’re stable. All of those. Yes. So we don’t claim we are all natural in our anti aging line.

Mei Yung [00:35:05]:
We are natural. As natural as possible. Like 85 to 95% natural. That’s what we are.

James Kademan [00:35:14]:
Okay, and now tell me when you get the ingredients. Those ingredients, I imagine either they have to be have preservative added to them or they have to be in some fancy airtight container or something like that. Then you have to make sure that you use it fast enough or it’ll expire and go bad, I imagine, right?

Mei Yung [00:35:34]:
Yeah, of course, yeah. But again, it’s all about the technique and the experience in the industry. Like I will never jump into this industry if it’s not because the scientists that I met and the lab knowledge they have and a lot of research they got into it. So all of this make a big difference basically in terms of how your product actually is shell stable or you know, you have the really amazing ingredient that really produce quick result. Like our night cream is one of them. It just phenomenal night cream. And we have before and after picture to prove it. So we really like I say, I’m really proud.

James Kademan [00:36:28]:
Yeah, I have to admit, admit ignorance here. What is night cream?

Mei Yung [00:36:35]:
Okay, that is a different type of cream. One is used during the day and one is using during the evening when people sleep in. Our particular night cream actually have what we call the peptide matrix in it, which is from natural source of my ache. So without getting into too much of the detail and the science and driving everybody crazy in the podcast, all I can say is that this is serving more like an invisible mask. So when you put it on at night before you sleep, it’s invisible so nobody can see it. But what happened is that all the nutrition will start to infuse inside deep in your skin. You started getting the benefit, the tightening of your skin with less wrinkle. All of those actually does work.

Mei Yung [00:37:31]:
Some people say, oh, it’s no Way you can just put this on and nothing, no wrinkle and no nothing. It actually is possible. It just cut down on your body. How they metabolize all those natural ingredients, if they are metabolized correctly and able to stimulate your skin to do its job, you know, because you know, our body can regenerate, so skin cell is the same. So you feed them good thing, you give them the right thing. They will do wonder for you, they will be amazing for you. So I don’t want people to lose hope and say, no, no, this will never work. That’s not true.

Mei Yung [00:38:16]:
It actually there are. Some of them work really well.

James Kademan [00:38:19]:
All right. I guess I didn’t even know the difference between night cream and day cream. So I was just one of those. Like I’ve heard of cream, but I don’t know.

Mei Yung [00:38:28]:
Okay, let me in the short version, I’ll tell you. Day cream and night cream, the difference. Okay. Day cream, you use it during the day. Okay. Usually in, in ideal situation, you want that day cream to be able to protect you from the environment and seal your face in a sense that they won’t lose too much water because once when you lose a lot of hydration, then you have more wrinkles. So the day cream is for that purpose and the night cream for us is about repairing when you’re sleeping, your body is doing a lot of work to repair itself while you’re sleeping. So if you have a product able to synchronize actually with your sleeping at night.

Mei Yung [00:39:14]:
So while it’s working and rejuvenating and all that, you deliver the nutrition, you deliver all the anti inflammatory right into the cell when they open up to repair. So one is more for repair at night. That’s called a night cream. One is more for protection during the day. So day and night.

James Kademan [00:39:38]:
Got it. Well, that makes sense. I suppose daytime you’re going to want some type of sunscreen type ingredients.

Mei Yung [00:39:44]:
Probably you want to have sunscreen also. Yes.

James Kademan [00:39:46]:
All right, we’re nighttime, probably not sleeping in the sun. So. All right.

Mei Yung [00:39:50]:
Yeah. So you want something to help you to repair, you know, patch up all the cells that if they have a problem and they need to rejuvenate or you give them some good food and then here you go. They say, oh, I’m feeling happy now.

James Kademan [00:40:04]:
I get it. Okay, let’s shift gears into packaging.

Mei Yung [00:40:08]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:40:08]:
Packaging of a product. I imagine that’s a challenging thing because you got to figure out what size, what is it going to look like, what is the interaction the customer has with it? Is it Going to fit on the store shelf and all that jazz. So tell me, how did you figure out the whole packaging?

Mei Yung [00:40:23]:
Well, since you are so interested. So let me show you. Okay. I talked about the concert before. The packaging of the concert is just a very ordinary, very normal, very ordinary. Because it is a soap base. This is the one with the pearl, thus I told you, for exfoliation. This is a concern.

Mei Yung [00:40:44]:
This concern, I tell you, our product, both men and women can use because it’s about healthy skin. It’s not that much about adding color and doing all the other crazy thing. So this is very ordinary, right?

James Kademan [00:40:59]:
Is that a glass bottle or plastic bottle?

Mei Yung [00:41:02]:
And right now this is a plastic bottle, but we come with two sizes. So we can basically use it, you know, as a big bottle. But we are working on, like you said, change it into glass. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:41:18]:
Okay. But then, I mean there’s pro cons, right? Because glass is heavy and glass can break. So it’s more fragile.

Mei Yung [00:41:26]:
Yes, yes. And then like this particular, you know, bottle that we have. So look, you turn it come up.

James Kademan [00:41:35]:
Wow, look at that.

Mei Yung [00:41:36]:
And then it pump. Okay. And then when you need to close it, you close it back up like this. So look, no air is going in and out of it. And this is also an elemental package. So when you open the bottom here and this insert can be replaceable so you don’t have to fold away the whole thing, you know, once when you finish it. And so the reason why we use this kind of bottle is because not only environmental friendly, we can replace the insert, but it’s also airtight. So it won’t give you an opportunity to use your hand to go like this.

Mei Yung [00:42:20]:
Some of the product out there, 300 product, $500 product, they still open like a jar. And then you dip your hands in it.

James Kademan [00:42:29]:
You know, I’m just thinking, so I dry hands in the winter, I got this stuff and I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s white. And I just dip my hands in there.

Mei Yung [00:42:40]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:42:41]:
And it’s white on a car or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mei Yung [00:42:48]:
We so conditioned, you know, by the industry to use a product that is a lot easier for them to make and is a no brainer for them and they can make a tons of money.

James Kademan [00:42:58]:
All right. That cap that you had, that seemed pretty revolutionary.

Mei Yung [00:43:03]:
Yeah, that’s patented. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:43:05]:
So did you design that or did one of your scientists design that or how did that come about?

Mei Yung [00:43:10]:
Well, actually I designed it and I work with them a factory in China. So we have a patent. Both In China and in America.

James Kademan [00:43:20]:
Okay. And tell me about the design of the bottle, because that had curves to it. It wasn’t just a straight up and down cylinder.

Mei Yung [00:43:26]:
Yeah. The reason why it has curve to it. We want men or women, whoever use this product to have curve.

James Kademan [00:43:34]:
All right. That’s awesome.

Mei Yung [00:43:38]:
It’s healthy. And we don’t want someone that is using product and make them feel bad or make them look fat or anything. So it’s all about good thinking.

James Kademan [00:43:48]:
All right. You know, it’s so interesting because a lot of times when it comes to food or stuff like this, just health and beauty products, to me, a lot of times the stuff inside is interesting, but the packaging is just so. Just compelling to me because there’s so many decisions that had to be made.

Mei Yung [00:44:08]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:44:08]:
And it’s so interesting. How did you choose the colors, the font design? How did you figure out, hey, can we get these. Can we get 10,000 of these bottles, or do we have to buy them by 10? Or do you have to buy 5 million of them to get them?

Mei Yung [00:44:20]:
Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, you’re exactly right.

James Kademan [00:44:23]:
Putting the product in the bottle, I suppose you have to have an opening that’s big enough so that you can actually put it in there, and it’s.

Mei Yung [00:44:29]:
Not going to happen. There’s a lot of technical things involved and a lot of consumers, they don’t understand. And from either the lab or the farm, you know, to the shelf, there’s a lot of process involved. And fortunately, I like design, and so I love to design things, and that’s part of my strength. So I design all our packaging. The reason why our packaging is orange, you know, green, because it’s seaberry color. Remember I told you about the seaberry? I love seaberry. And seabury oil is amazing.

Mei Yung [00:45:09]:
And the aloe, you know, that we use, and it’s really good for our skin and also our body. So that’s. That’s also why. And then the white one is the pearls. Yeah, yeah, so. So that’s why three major color. They’re so different. And we use the color because we want to celebrate the ingredient that we use, you know, so that is cool.

James Kademan [00:45:35]:
Tell me there’s a plant picture behind you.

Mei Yung [00:45:39]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:45:41]:
Is that plant representative of anything that ends up in your products?

Mei Yung [00:45:45]:
Actually, it’s a natural plant that I actually find in Cuba when I was visiting Cuba, and I have an artist and draw this for me, and I didn’t even remember the name of the plant, honestly, but I have to go back to do some research about it’s. Supposed to be also very beneficial for our skin and our body. And there’s so many stuff out there, James. I tell you, nature had provided us with so many amazing ingredient. We just have to look. And yes, we have to research, of course. But if we look around us and yeah, everything green, you know, they may be a special purpose we just haven’t discovered yet. And as you know, pharmaceutical company, in order to be able to patent, they have to isolate a particular molecule so they can patent, but we don’t.

Mei Yung [00:46:45]:
We use the whole plant to extract because the whole plant contain plant chemical that they balance itself. So you don’t have to sometimes as you know, some of the chemical, if you use this and you have a side effect, then you have to use other things to counterbalance it. But if you are doing skincare and it is a natural extraction from the full plant, that means all the molecules, plant chemicals are inside, so they counterbalance themselves. Okay. So you get the benefit and then you don’t have a whole lot of shortcoming or problem, you know, when you use it. So we really pushing ourselves to use full plant extraction. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:47:39]:
Oh, clever. Tell me. Let’s shift gears really quick into marketing. You got this cool products, you got the cool packaging, you got the scientists, the manufacturing, all that jazz. Now you got to bring it to market. What have you found has worked for you as far as marketing goes, besides being on incredible podcasts? Right.

Mei Yung [00:47:58]:
Well, that’s such a great question, James. I have to be the first one to admit because I’m not a marketing person. I want to build a great product. And all the great things you mentioned about quality control, design, all of those. Yeah. Is my wheelhouse and the lab’s wheelhouse. Okay, yeah, we can do all that. But marketing, no, we have no clue.

Mei Yung [00:48:25]:
So we have to try different way to tell people, you know, about us, tell our story. And so of course, you know, thank you for taking me on. So I’m telling you my story here. But also I really think that a good model will be if I collaborate with nonprofit, not only I’m helping them and they can also help me to spread the word. Okay. And we are not a company trying to go out to blow out the world to make a zillion dollars. We’re at this stage of our life, we’ve won on the spot for ourselves. We want something to be able to benefit the community.

Mei Yung [00:49:05]:
Okay. So in order to do the marketing that we’re talking about, like big poster in front of the subway or we don’t have that Kind of strength. Okay. We can so going to some of these podcasts and then tell our story and then working with nonprofit, it really, I think it help us with. Because people trust, like when they listen to your podcast, they trust. You know, you only put people that you think they’re honest. You know, they have integrity. And what they said, it meant what they said.

Mei Yung [00:49:42]:
And so. And then working with nonprofit is the same. And they try our product, their doctor trial product. They knew they’re good stuff and, you know, they want to work with us. So right now we’re just focusing on this angle.

James Kademan [00:49:55]:
Got it. It makes sense. I love it. Tell me about the nonprofit that you mentioned. I have to admit that I’m not familiar with that, so go ahead.

Mei Yung [00:50:03]:
Yeah, we started at 501C3. Nonprofit is called AJ Sen Circle of Giving Foundation. It’s similar to Newman’s Own. You heard about Newman’s Own foundation? So when we make money and we donate to the foundation and the foundation will hire staff and then we’ll go out there to help the school and teach them how to do fundraising with their parents and tell them about our product. And so then when the sales go on, HSN will do fulfillment and continue to provide the product and also any kind of customer service from Return to Speak Pose. And then the foundation itself, we have four pillars. One is very dear to our heart is women empowerment. And also we have skin cancer research.

Mei Yung [00:51:07]:
And then we also have children, particularly food program for children. And then we also are very big on animals because I have two dogs. I love my dogs. I mean, I can see some of those dogs out there being mistreated and as human. Some of us are not very responsible people. So that is a four pillar in this foundation. We would like to help and use our very unique, clean, natural product to teach people to they can achieve the goal they want to achieve with less wrinkle, healthier skin, healthier body and you know, and then they can help their community. So teaching them how to fish, you know, I mean, instead of just keep giving them the fish, well, it’s as important as another source.

Mei Yung [00:52:04]:
But I think once when they build out their following and they want to support their nonprofit, they can. Yeah, they can get really good donation from our foundation.

James Kademan [00:52:18]:
That’s cool. That’s very cool. Products that you offer, how many products do you have? How many different products do you have now available?

Mei Yung [00:52:28]:
Yeah, now we are focusing the product that because we actually, because of COVID and we spent extra time, we delayed the marketing piece of it because of COVID is that we spend more time in the lab and create more products. Because it is just me, James, if you know me, I just want to make more things. Now we have 12 products and the anti aging products. Yeah, we are right now marketing the most because I feel that that really, really help a lot of people. Our baby products are amazing, of course, and some of them, they have bumps. They have all this if they put, you know, within a week or two, everything gone. You know, it’s not because our product is so magical. Our product, it just doesn’t have a lot of crabs in it.

Mei Yung [00:53:21]:
Okay. So it doesn’t irritate the kids skin because their skin is so delicate, you know, and also the environment and all those things that it’s making our kids have a lot more skin problem. But in reality, if you just give them good, simple, natural stuff, all those problems will go away.

James Kademan [00:53:45]:
Nice.

Mei Yung [00:53:47]:
That’s my experience so far with some of the kids using our product. But the kid product we can really marketing in a higher margin. And so for us, even though we’re doing all this great work, we still have to let people know and we still have to pay our staff some basic stuff we need to cover. Right. So we’re hoping that the anti aging part, if we can get that part, become people understand and popular and then, you know, so we are focusing right now on the anti aging part of it and for both men and women can use it because it’s about skin health. It’s not about so much about vanity, but having healthy skin. What they mean it turn into happier person, a beautiful person. Because you know, when you have healthy skin, you don’t have to put a lot of makeup on to cover anything.

Mei Yung [00:54:45]:
You know, and we have a lot of before after picture. People now are sending back to us and tell us, oh my God, I didn’t even know that your. Your product can treat acne. And my daughter just grabbed it from my counter and using some of them and now their acne are gone. I say, well, it’s. Yeah, they did too, because it’s not about acne. It’s about rebalancing your skin’s chemistry so they become healthier. So now if they’re healthier, then they won’t break out.

Mei Yung [00:55:11]:
So it’s just a very simple, commonsensical approach. And if they go out to buy a lot of chemicals to try to treat their acne, a big part of it, their skin will become more and more sensitive because they’re irritated by those chemicals. So that’s who we are Nice.

James Kademan [00:55:30]:
I love it. Tell me May the locations where people can buy this, is it exclusively on your website or where all is it available for people to get?

Mei Yung [00:55:40]:
Yeah, yeah. Actually they can buy our product through our website ajsn.com okay. And they can go to Amazon if they feel like that. You know they are used to shopping in Amazon and we also have a Shopify is hsn us. But if they actually want to help their own community including New Jim’s and if they have school they know and they have nonprofit they know then they can help with some resource. We’re happy to onboard them. Of course they have to be either school or 501 organization. So our foundation can send the counselor out there and teach them how to catch fish and to benefit them.

James Kademan [00:56:35]:
Nice. I love it. Mink, can you tell us that website one more time?

Mei Yung [00:56:39]:
Okay. Ajzen.com okay. Or Amazon AJZN and Amazon.

James Kademan [00:56:48]:
All right. We’ve heard of that last one. Right.

Mei Yung [00:56:52]:
And also I’m going to, if you can type it fast enough and I’m going to tell you our non profit website, it’s called a Z like Z for zebra, you know, community partnership.com that is exclusively for the non profit.

James Kademan [00:57:14]:
Is partnership plural or singular?

Mei Yung [00:57:17]:
Is singular. So AC Community partnership dot com.

James Kademan [00:57:23]:
Awesome. Okay May, thank you so much for being on the show.

Mei Yung [00:57:27]:
Yo, thank you for having me and give me the opportunity and platform to you know, tell the world. We got good stuff here.

James Kademan [00:57:35]:
Yeah, right. It sounds like you have incredible stuff. I think it’s. It’s amazing that you’ve gone from. From being successful in other areas of your life to doing something that’s really making the world a better place this way with all natural skincare. I guess I don’t know how to describe it. Yeah, it’s super cool. It’s interesting that you entered an industry you really didn’t know anything about on the backside and just you’re doing well with it.

James Kademan [00:58:01]:
So that’s incredible.

Mei Yung [00:58:03]:
Well, I believe that no matter how our age is, we had the ability to start something new and the matter is that we rather take the first step. If we take the first step. And even though there’s certain things not exist to us right now, but we can create it. Human being are very, very creative species and we have a lot of resources right now. So I really encourage people whether they want to start a skincare company or start a coffee shop. If they are not done, just keep doing it and keep going. And whether you make an impact hustle every day.

James Kademan [00:58:47]:
I love it. Yeah, thank you this has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. My name is James Kademan and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls On Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country on the web https://callsoncall.com as well as the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur and all of us available wherever fine books are sold. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, keep the algorithm happy, give it the big old thumbs up, subscribe and of course share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those friends that may be looking for some all natural skin care or just want some interesting advice in the entrepreneurship space. We’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners as well as our guests. May Young Lee, the founder of Ageless Zen. May, could you tell us that website one more time?

Mei Yung [00:59:44]:
Yes, your listener can go to agelesszen.com or we are also available in Amazon and our nonprofit is ac communitypartnership.com and we are really trying to work with different schools or different nonprofit to help them because personally it’s an important endeavor for me to be able to help the communities and actually that’s something that I come out to work. That’s the reason.

James Kademan [01:00:20]:
Nice. I love it. It’s good to have a motivator, a driver to get things done.

Mei Yung [01:00:26]:
Yeah. Thank you. And just send me a email or look us up anytime and let me know if you have a school and need some help. We’re here to help.

James Kademan [01:00:38]:
Sounds great. Past episodes can be fun morning, noon and night at the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome and if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.