Beauty has a new biotechnology-rooted player.
Sweet Chemistry, a skin care brand launching this summer, is coming to market with two products that rely on an ingredient derived from cow bones. The Elasticity Reinforcing Cream and the Reparative Oil-Serum Infusion each contain 3 percent Matrikynes, regenerative bone peptide derived from upcycled cow bones. Each is priced at $170 and will debut on the brand’s website.
The brand combines the proprietary ingredient with big beauty expertise. Alec Batis, a cofounder, was a research chemist for L’Oréal, and he teamed up with Dr. John O’Neill, PhD, of Xylyx Bio to bring the formulas to fruition.
“I started at L’Oréal, and in the early ’90s, they switched me to marketing. I spent so many years working in the industry on different brands,” Batis said. “I had seen the extracellular matrix said in so much beauty marketing, with signaling peptides. But when [O’Neill] told me what they were doing with it in the world of regenerative medicine, I thought it was at a whole other level.”
O’Neill said the applications of his technology are myriad, especially in the medical field, and was looking for an industry veteran to help him penetrate the market. “Extracellular matrix is this fundamental, complex, natural glue of bioactive factors that hold life together,” he said. “When things go wrong, when you have damage or dysfunction, it’s involved in the reparative process. We met Alec and discussed the applications and potential for topical application of Matrikynes.”
He also sees beauty and health — and relatedly, his work — as inextricably linked. “One of the most common fundamental bases for beauty throughout the ages, across all cultures and people is health — healthy appearance, healthy function. To that end, our technology and our work in regenerative medicine, what we have shown what we can do, actually gets to the heart of that. We’re supporting beauty by supporting health.”
Batis took the formulas even further, with each formula being composed of 40 percent to 45 percent active ingredients, he said, and 30 percent less water. Each of the botanical oils and extracts are certified organic, and the brand is cruelty free. The key was to include ingredients at functional levels, not marketing levels. “In this world of transparency, if you don’t want to put an ingredient in, then don’t. If you’re not going to put it in there at any reasonable level, then why put it in there?” he mused. “I’m not on one side of the ‘clean’ world, I’m in the middle, and I assess everything carefully.”
Batis also added that the brand is exploring retail partnerships, and has an innovation pipeline composed of 16 stock keeping units in the next three years. He doesn’t, though, plan to keep that cadence. “This brand will never have 100 skus. There’s no need, I’m not under pressure to come up with things like that. We’re going to stick to what we think is needed to take care of the skin, and leave it at that.”
Neither commented on sales, but industry sources estimate the brand to reach $2 million in sales for its first year on the market.