Uprooting a Life, Plus the Beauty Benefits of Wild Botanicals with Alpyn Beauty Founder Kendra Kolb Butler
Show Snapshot:
Have you ever thought about picking up and moving someplace entirely different? Manhattanite and beauty executive Kendra Kolb Butler traded her high-powered New York City lifestyle for greener pastures landing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming where she launched her clean beauty line, Alpyn Beauty. She shares the beauty benefits of wild mountain botanicals and the inside skinny on what it takes to launch a modern beauty brand, now sold at Saks and Sephora. Plus, how to know when to say goodbye to a corporate job and make a move into entrepreneurship (or across country).
In This Episode We Cover:
1. The question that made Kendra trade a NYC corner office to start a new life and career in Wyoming.
2. From boutique beauty shop to full-fledged skincare line – why Kendra’s pivot took a pivot.
3. How a backyard of mountain wildflowers sparked Kendra’s idea for Alpyn Beauty.
4. Kendra dealt with early rejection by remembering a Kris Jenner quote: If you keep hearing ‘No” you are talking to the wrong person.
5. The trifecta of skincare products women with mature skin needs in their beauty bag.
6. Beyond bakuchiol. The benefits of under-the-radar botanical superheroes like wild nettle, huckleberries, arnica and sage leaf.
7. The A-to-Z of launching a line of beauty products – from formulation, to branding, to PR – to store shelves at Saks, Sephora.
8. Beauty hacks, morning and evening skincare routines, plus, foods and drugstore finds that fuel glowy skin.
Quotable:
I was shocked when I walked around on my own property that wild skincare ingredients such as arnica and borage and sage and chamomile were growing. And I’m thinking, “This is nuts. In a town flooded with women suffering from dry skin there are skincare ingredients growing wild out of every nook and cranny.”
Plants are so powerful. There is a lot of medicine in plants. They are powerful, they are important—not only to our ecosystem, to the animals, to our environment—but they’re also important for us. They really work wonders for our skin.
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (0:08):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty.
Have you ever thought about picking up and moving someplace entirely different from where you live today? I know I have. Which is why I’m so excited to welcome Kendra Kolb Butler to the show. A former Manhattanite and 20-year beauty industry vet, Kendra traded her high-powered New York City lifestyle for greener pastures landing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming where she launched her clean beauty line, Alpyn Beauty. First sold in her apothecary, Alpyn Beauty Bar, the products are now carried at leading luxury retailers including Credo Beauty, Sephora, Bluemercury and Saks Fifth Avenue. She joins us today to share the beauty benefits of wild mountain botanicals and the inside skinny on what it takes to launch a modern beauty brand. Plus, how to know when to say goodbye to a corporate job and make a move into entrepreneurship, or across country. Welcome Kendra.
Kendra Kolb Butler (1:09):
Thank you so much for having me I’m really so excited to be here.
Katie (1:12):
I’m really excited to have you too because this show is really about midlife reinvention, we love big bold pivots. As I said in my intro, you left a New York City career working for leading beauty brands to move to Wyoming. Walk us through why you made this leap.
Kendra (1:29):
So, I’d been, I don’t want to say unhappy; I guess I will use the word discontent or malcontent for years. Kind of just, would go into my Manhattan office it would be 8 o’clock in the morning, and leave at 8 o’clock at night. Sometimes I went in when it was dark and I left when it was dark and it was just quite depressing. [laughs]
Katie (1:47):
Yes.
Kendra (1:48):
It’s like, wait, “What am I doing with my life?” And you know I had this security and getting a certain amount of money every two weeks and I had this nice job and a beautiful corner office but I just didn’t feel happy in my soul. I felt like something was off. It started as this tiny little voice in my head and then it got louder and louder and then it started like jumping up and down [Katie laughs] and screaming and, you know, one day I was driving home from work and I was listening to NPR and somebody said, I remember this moment exactly, they said, “Sometimes you have to jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.”
Katie (2:30):
I love it.
Kendra (2:30):
And it was just such a profound statement for me at the time in my life and I just started thinking about that and I’m like, if I don’t leap, I’m never gonna know how gracefully I can fall. So, I have to do this and I went home that night and my husband and partner, we were in a fortunate place where we were on the exact same page. He was feeling the same way about his life and we were just like, “What are we doing? Let’s go.” And made the decision.
Katie (2:59):
So exciting to have somebody say yes to you. I know sometimes people are hearing nos from people when they want to make pivots. So why Wyoming? Did either of you have a connection there? What drew you to that area of the country?
Kendra (3:12):
That’s a good question. It’s really funny, it was November of 2015 and it was the winter. I was like, where are we gonna go? I do like the change of seasons and I just thought let’s go somewhere where we can ski because we love outdoor activities and in the Northeast there’s not much to do when it gets cold. There’s some great ski mountains in the Northeast, but whatever. I wanted to go to a place where I could be an outdoor adventurer because I was moving to get fresh air and nature.
So, we found Jackson Hole, we had been once for vacation, we really liked the community. What I liked about it is that it’s a very small mountain town but there was a high level of culture and sophistication. I mean, there’s like luxury resorts and it’s a destination. So, I could still go to a nice dinner and put on high heels and I didn’t feel out of place in Jackson Hole. So, when we initially picked Jackson, we had decided to go just for three months and just test it out and decide where to go from there after Jackson. And I’m talking to you right now from Jackson, six years later.
Katie (4:17):
You never left.
Kendra (4:18):
We never left, yeah.
Katie (4:19):
I love this story so much because I cannot tell you how many times my husband and I have taken a vacation somewhere and said, “We should move here.” [laughs] But guess what, we haven’t. And you did. You’re living, you created your dream, which is really exciting. So it sounds to me like you first started Alpyn as a retail proposition because you had a beauty shop where you were selling your formulations. But you’re now an e-commerce company, you’re in these major, they’re luxury and prestige markets, but they’re big box stores, Sephora, Saks. Tell us a little bit about why you launched wildcrafted skincare and why focus on botanicals and how you made that pivot from retail into a bigger… This is a lot of questions. Let’s just start. Why wildcrafted? Let’s start at the beginning. Wildcrafted skincare, why did you look at the mountain and botanicals and say, “This is a gap in the market.”
Kendra (5:19):
Okay. So, they say necessity is the mother of invention and I hope I didn’t butcher that quote but I think that’s the way it goes. And when I moved to Jackson Hole, I wanted to stay, I have a beauty background, I love products, I wanted to stay in the industry. Never in a million years thought I would start my own skincare line. Furthest thing from my mind. In fact I was trying to get away from that [both laugh] because I know how hard it is.
Katie (5:41):
You’re like, I’m reinventing my life, right, it should all be different. [laughs]
Kendra (5:44):
Yeah! I’m like I’m gonna do yoga, I’m gonna make babies, I’m gonna climb mountains, I’m gonna ski, I’m just gonna chill out. So, I chilled out for a half a day [Katie laughs] and then I’m like, I need a job. Where am I gonna work here? I need to find a place to work.
Katie (5:57):
Your inner New Yorker took over in Wyoming.
Kendra (6:00):
[laughs] It did. So, I thought you know what I’m gonna do what I love, I’m gonna open some beauty stores, and I stocked the stores with 36 brands, like the best in the business. I’m talking top of the line in clean clinical skincare and I was like, okay that’s it, I’m done, I’m gonna be this town hero, I’m gonna sell all these great products, these women are gonna look beautiful, they’re gonna love their skin, they’re gonna love me, it’s gonna be wonderful.
So, I start working in the stores and quickly I noticed that I had a problem in this new environment. Women were coming in with extremely accelerated aging patterns, very dry skin. I was seeing so much dehydration and it really is a result of the new climate that I lived in. We are at 6,200 feet above sea level, there is very little humidity in the air, low levels of oxygen, it’s very thin air up here. People are just frickin’ dry man, like dry, dry, dry.
Katie (6:54):
And they’re out skiing and hiking and being exposed to the elements and the sun and all of that.
Kendra (6:59):
Nobody moves to Jackson Hole to sit at a corporate desk, this is a town of outdoor enthusiasts by nature. So, women were coming in and they were buying these moisturizers and then they would come back a day or two later and they would say, “Kendra, I really, really want to love this but I’m still so dry, this isn’t working for my skin.” They’d kind look over my shoulder like, “What else do you have?" I’d give them another brand and they’d bring that back, nothing was working. At the same time I noticed my own skin was drastically different so everything that I brought with me from my bathroom in my Manhattan playground and when I applied it to my skin in the mountains, I was waking up with flakes. I saw these lines and wrinkles really just becoming more and more pronounced. So, I’m like, okay, I have a problem. The women in this town have a problem. What am I gonna do?
I’m sitting in my backyard one night looking at the forest and I’m thinking these stores are gonna go out of business and I’m just staring at this mountain behind my house and these plants, these wild plants. I just locked in on them. And I start looking at them and they are, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Jackson Hole in the summer.
Katie (8:14):
I haven’t.
Kendra (8:14):
It looks like something out of a painting. You gotta come, you’re invited anytime you want, door’s open.
Katie (8:20):
Perfect. Be careful. [laughs]
Kendra (8:24):
[laughs] You and your whole family. These plants though, they are just juicy and plump and hydrated and the colors are out of this world and I’m thinking, “Hmm okay, so what is growing here and how has nature found a way to adapt to this very extreme climate?” Like, what does she know that we don’t know? What am I missing here? There’s something going on, these plants have evolved, what’s growing here?
So, I started working with a team of local botanists, farmers and I just started identifying the plants and I was shocked when I walked around on my own property that growing wild were skincare ingredients such as arnica and borage and sage and chamomile. And I’m thinking, this is nuts, this cannot be real that in a town where flooded with women who are suffering from dry skin there are skincare ingredients growing wild out of every nook and cranny where they live. [laughs] So, these women are complaining about their skin and they’re walking their dogs, stepping on these hydrating skincare ingredients and I was like, “This is nuts, somebody’s gotta put this together.” How do I connect the dots here? That’s when the idea for Alpyn Beauty for the line was initially born, just out of the discovery of those wild plants.
Katie (9:52):
I adore this story. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to look and see what other people might not have noticed, that they’re wandering through fields of these formulations. We’re gonna take a quick break but when we come back I want to hear about you connected those dots and if you launched with a hero product.
[Ad break]
Katie (11:01):
Okay Kendra, we’re back. You have looked out in the fields, you’ve seen these beautiful botanicals, you’ve connected the dots that these botanicals can address the skin needs that you’re constantly hearing about from your clients. What came next? Did you identify a moisturizer that you wanted to create? Did you create a product line? What was your hero product?
Kendra (11:23):
So, I did write a formula for Melt Moisturizer, which is our star product in the line right now, that was our first product that we launched. So, I wrote the formula and I used my background in skincare, I worked for a dermatologist for a decade, I knew the ingredients I wanted in it. I wanted squalene, And vitamin C, and ceramides and bakuchiol and all these great things. But then I had to mix in these wild plants and that’s where the challenge was.
So, I had to find a contract manufacturer that would take my wild plants in their very raw and natural form because that’s not the way that the industry really works, and I knew that was a hurdle that I had. So, I started calling around and I was like, “Look I have this idea for a product, I wrote this beautiful formula but I have my own actives, my own ingredients I need to bring to you.” And you know, 19 labs hung up the phone on me, they were like, “No that’s not the way we do it. We source ingredients from suppliers and then we buy them and we mix them in.” I’m like, I know, but I want to use my own stuff, how do I do that? And they said, “We can’t help you.”
So, the 20th lab I called, it’s funny, the owner was walking past the phone, he never answers the phone or something as the story goes, and I said, “Hi my name is Kendra, I’m calling you from Jackson Hole.” He was like, “Jackson Hole, I partied there one time in the summer of like 2000.” [both laugh] So we immediately started talking, I was like “Okay, good you know the area. Look, I have this crazy idea, I want to make this skincare line, I have these plants.” And he was like, “You know what, come down and meet me and we’ll talk about it.” So I ended up, we drove a pickup truck of these plants to the manufacturer and he did it for me, he took a chance on us and he whipped in some of these wild plants into this beautiful formula and he gave me these little sample pots that I in turn took back to my stores and I started handing them out to my clients who had the most problems with their skin and the ones who were always dissatisfied. I just started dropping this free moisturizer into their bag and I was like, “Call me, tell me what you think about this. Try this on your skin, I’m gonna follow up with you in a couple of weeks,” and that as really it because after that happened, quickly, I knew that these plants were working because I couldn’t walk through the grocery store without somebody like grabbing me by my shoulders and saying, “What was in that pot? I am healed, I am fixed, my skin looks gorgeous, people are giving me compliments.” It was the plants.
Katie (14:09):
It’s also your persistence. It’s the plants but it’s your persistence because you got 19 nos and a lot of people might have stopped at no number nine, but you connected with somebody because you kept going. So, do you think it’s better to be persistent or to have a great product or do you need both?
Kendra (14:28):
I think it’s a combination of everything because persistence can get you so far but then, you know, the product has to deliver what it says it’s going to. I believe it was like a Kris Jenner quote that’s in my mind for some reason where it’s, “If you keep hearing no, you’re talking to the wrong person.” And that’s kind of where I went. Every time I heard no I was like, “You’re lost, see ya later.” Because I knew there was somebody out there who was gonna do it, I just had to keep going.
Katie (14:58):
Yeah, you had to find your yes and you can only find your yes if you keep going. So, that’s terrific. Anyone who’s sitting here thinking about launching a business or have heard a lot of nos, keep going because the yes is out there. Maybe you need to be having a different conversation with a different person.
So Kendra, I’m curious, I know your formulations are for women of all ages but you do have a few that particularly target aging skin. You’ve got eye serums that help with fine lines and some of your products tighten, firm, et cetera. On this show, our whole premise is we’re age-positive, we do not mind getting older because we know what the alternative is, but we do want to look our best and glowy, healthy skin helps. So, what would you say your top three products for midlife skin?
Kendra (15:41):
Well, I think that the top three that I would recommend, is; a very good moisturizer; a very, very good brightening product like a serum or something that can work on hyperpigmentation and dark spots; and then absolutely a super potent and effective exfoliator. Those would be my three cornerstones. Of course, cleansing is very important, eye creams have their own place in this world as well but I think exfoliating, treating and moisturizing is kind of the way to simplify things if you had to do three things.
Katie (16:20):
And when you say exfoliator, is that your Wild Huckleberry, 8-Acid Polishing Peel that I’ve been reading so much about, by any chance?
Kendra (16:27):
Yes.
Katie (16:27):
Because I read something in Allure that when you first launched that product, it sold out of your website in 30 minutes, which must have been…
Kendra (16:34):
It sold out in three places and three times.
Katie (16:37):
Gratifying. By the way, I’ve ordered that. The moment I read that, I already dropped it in my shopping cart because I’m like I’m gonna talk about that on the show and I do not want to run the risk of this being sold out so it’s already on it’s way to me. [laughs]
Kendra (16:49):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for that, I really appreciate it. We’ll get you a whole bunch of things after this too.
Katie (16:54):
I’m excited about it.
Kendra (16:56):
But yeah, the huckleberry peel is quite unique because I knew I wanted something that was chemical and physical exfoliating so it actually has two forms of exfoliation, not just one. But yeah, we launched that, so I see these huckleberries growing everywhere. In Jackson Hole when I moved here from New York City I was like, "What’s up with these huckleberries in this place?” [Katie laughs] I mean people are walking around with huckleberry pies, huckleberry jam…
Katie (17:23):
It’s like pizza.
Kendra (17:23):
…huckleberry smoothies, it’s like huckleberry ice cream is the featured flavor at the ice cream shop and I’m like, what is up with the huckleberries? So I started studying this berry. First by eating it, it’s quite delicious. It tastes like a sweet little blueberry. But then I really started looking at it’s genetic makeup and I could not believe the amount of vitamin C and nutrients that it had. Its a very very powerful antioxidant and I thought, why aren’t we putting huckleberries on our skin? This should be something that we’re incorporating into products and formulations. So we harvested the huckleberries. It’s very hard to harvest them because you have to pick one berry at a time. It’s not like a grape where you could just pull them all off in one swoop. They’re dispersed in different pieces of the bush, all over.
Katie (18:15):
It’s like picking saffron, which by the way I’ve done in Italy. You know why it’s so expensive. It must be harvested by hand, it’s labor-intensive.
Kendra (18:23):
It’s very, very labor-intensive. I find it to be therapeutic, this is like a free therapy session for me. I put a bucket around my neck and I just got out into the woods and pick these huckleberries, but it actually is labor-intensive and then you have to worry about the bears of course because it’s like blood in the water. Once a berry comes off the bush, that sweet smell, they find irresistible. We’re in Grizzly territory, we’ve got Cinnamon bears and Black bears and Brown bears and you know, they’re all over the place.
Katie (18:54):
This is a very unique business challenge, by the way, the bears. [both laugh]
Kendra (18:59):
If I ever go down and get eaten by a bear, everybody out there is gonna have beautiful exfoliated skin. Just remember that. I did it for the greater cause.
Katie (19:06):
Exactly, you took one for the team.
Kendra (19:09):
Took one for the team. But yeah, it’s hard to harvest, but it’s a phenomenal berry and when we mixed it into this product, the results were just off the charts astounding. So, we love it and we’re so grateful for the huckleberry.
Katie (19:21):
So fun, such a wonderful story.
So, I want to switch gears for a minute and ask you more specifically about your business. We’ve talked about some of the products that sound amazing and that people needed to know more about. But when you made the move from being in a small store and recognizing that you wanted to create your own products, how did you decide what came next? Did you focus primarily on e-commerce? Did you decided that you really wanted to get into big-box stores or did you start with the retail mix as part of your strategy?
Kendra (19:54):
So, I knew I had proof-of-concept, I guess let’s start there. I knew the formulas worked. So, I had the confidence that if they worked in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in one of the toughest, roughest climates in the country, they are going to perform like Olympians when you take them to a more forgiving climate. When you take them to New York, Los Angeles, Miami, any other place that doesn’t have the dryness that we have, they’re gonna be off the charts effective. So, I had a lot of confidence in the goop itself. I was like, I do believe in this.
I had my retail stores, but they were a very small, small family-owned business. I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to sell quantity there, so I knew I needed a national retailer to really help me out here because coming from my background was in skin care, but I wasn’t an influencer, I’m not a celebrity, I didn’t have a customer base…
Katie (20:49):
Not yet, not yet Kendra. [Kendra laughs] We’re helping with that though.
Kendra (20:54):
I just want to make good products, that’s all I really care about at the end of the day but yes, I knew I needed help because I was starting from zero. It’s hard to gain momentum from a standing stop. It’s hard to get momentum and that traction and get up to speed. I knew I needed a retailer, I needed somebody who was authoritative in the clean space, who knows the business and I went to a brand called Credo Beauty. It’s run by this phenomenal woman, this visionary named Annie Jackson and I met with her and I said you know, look I flew out to where she was in San Francisco and I had the little pot that I was giving out in stores and I was like, “This is the future of clean, natural skincare, it’s these wild plants. Because it’s innovative, it’s sustainable, it’s eco-friendly. We never kill the plants. And the results we’re seeing from some of these things that have to grow in the wild are very, very profound, we’re seeing a big difference.” She tried the product and she was like, “I love it, we’ll take it.”
Katie (22:00):
What a vote of confidence because I’m familiar with Credo Beauty and they have wonderful products. So, to get the seal of approval, it’s kind of like the Oprah of beauty, that’s wonderful. So did that open doors into the other retailers or did you have to have an exclusive with them?
Kendra (22:17):
That definitely helped. I left that meeting with Credo and I sat in my car and I just sobbed, like sobbed and sobbed and sobbed tears of happiness because I knew that was somebody opening a door for me and it’s really hard to do this with shut doors. So Credo said yes, quickly after that, Goop signed on for the brand, that’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s site, they have a beautiful curation as well so they took me. So, I had two national retailers and it was at that point I was like, "I’m gonna make this product line.” Because before, I hadn’t even made it because I was too scared. I’m gonna put every dollar that I own into this and if everybody just tells me no, I’m gonna be trying to feed my kids moisturizer creams [Katie laughs] because I have no money to buy them food anymore.
Katie (23:06):
Those huckleberries are delicious I’ve heard. [Kendra laughs] But that’s so interesting and I think that’s a really fabulous piece of advice. To get the proof-of-concept and to get maybe some orders in the bank before you start investing in production, because that’s really expensive. So, at this point, did you already have the branding and packaging? Because your stuff is beautiful; it looks like it belongs in the Goop store, it looks like it belongs in Credo. Did you have mock-ups of the packaging? Or then, once you got the go-ahead did you have to rush out and try to get packaging and branding squared away?
Kendra (23:42):
I had done a little bit of the branding before I partnered with a really, really smart creative designer that I worked with when I was in Manhattan and I had called him and I was like, “I have this idea and it looks like this but I don’t know how to draw it.” So, I had done some of the branding and marketing. I was pretty much ready to go when I got the yes from the retailers, but I didn’t want to just push that button just because I had been around the block, this wasn’t my first rodeo and I know it’s really hard to secure retail distribution. So, I was hedging my bets on that one. I knew it was all there but once they said yes, I was ready at that point. I had done all the branding work prior to the meetings, so I was kind of ready to go. I think with any startup it’s an evolution and you evolve quickly once you understand who you are, once your voice gets stronger, once your following gets bigger. We’re still making tweaks and upgrades. It's kind of like this living, breathing thing, it’s not just done forever.
Katie (24:42):
Sure, you’re probably doing some social listening, hearing what your customers are asking for and want and respond to. But you get wonderful press. I see you in Vogue, and Allure, and a lot of the women’s magazines, so is that a big part of the strategy to communicate with your customers through PR? Do you do it through social media? Or is it a mix? So, if somebody’s sitting here thinking how do I reach customers? Kendra’s worked it out because she’s in these amazing stores. What would you encourage them to focus on first if dollars were limited and what would you add next as you start to grow?
Kendra (25:18):
It’s so interesting. I have a PR background, I started my career actually in public relations and I place so much value on that specific trade and that industry. I secured a PR firm the second that I got national retail distribution and I really did not have the money for it, but I just made it work. I cut corners in other places to get a PR firm.
Katie (25:40):
Sure, it was an investment.
Kendra (25:42):
Yeah, you make an investment because what PR firms do is they start planting the seeds. Sometimes it can be frustrating because people are like, “Oh I paid for PR and my sales didn’t go up.” But it doesn’t work like that. It’s like you’re planting a seed to grow a forest and the trees don’t pop up the next day. You start planting seeds, you get some buzz going and then press begets press. One editor covers the brand and then other editors are like, “Oh she covered it, what is that brand?” And then it just starts this slow tidal wave of movement. It’s a groundswell that happens eventually and it takes a little bit of time but then once it just hits, it’s impactful.
It all kind of started to happen at the same time. I was really lucky that I was pregnant and breastfeeding when I wrote the formula for this moisturizer and I put a retinol alternative in, something called bakuchiol because my OB wasn’t letting me use topical retinol and I had used it for years and loved, loved retinol. But when I was told I couldn’t use it I was like, “Oh my God where do I go next, what am I gonna do?” And found bakuchiol through intense research and actually was in a clinical study with retinol and the two performed neck-and-neck. So, I was like, wow if this is performing like retinol but it’s plant-based, I can use it while pregnant, it doesn’t have the side effects of dry skin or irritation, this is a no brainer. So, I threw bakuchiol into that Melt Moisturizer as the anti-aging active and at the time that the brand came out in retailers, the bakuchiol supplier was releasing its clinicals to the beauty press. So, everybody was like, “What products have bakuchiol?” And there were barely any, there were two or three, so I was almost in every roundup just because I thank my four-year-old now for that.
Katie (27:40):
Yes, this is fantastic. I love that. We had two dermatologists on a couple weeks ago and they both talked about bakuchiol and how we all know that retinol is an aging skin’s superhero but bakuchiol, I didn’t realize that the clinical studies came back to have them be neck-and-neck. And this is interesting because I’ve seen the difference that retinol makes to my own skin but I have kind of fair, freckly skin and sometimes it gets really irritated and kind of red using topical retinol. So, it’s so wonderful to know that this natural alternative exists. How wonderful for you that you have figured out a way to make it work in your own life while pregnant and then it just kind of, you were in the right place at the right time, using the right ingredient.
Kendra (28:28):
Look, plants are so powerful and that’s the one thing that I’ve learned throughout this process. There’s a lot of medicine in plants. They are powerful, they are important. Not only to our ecosystem and to the animals, to our environment, but they’re also important to us and they do wonders. They really, really work wonders for our skin.
When I made the switch off of retinol to bakuchiol, I was very hesitant and I was very nervous about it because I love the way that my skin looked using retinol. I have no problems with the ingredient, I still think it’s a great ingredient, it just needed to be cut out of my daily routine and I thought, “My skin is just gonna fall apart, I’m gonna have this baby, I’m gonna be overweight, I’m gonna be tired, I’m gonna be postpartum depressed [Katie laughs] and I’m gonna have wrinkles,” all these things. And shockingly, once I started putting bakuchiol on my skin instead of retinol, my skin looked better than it had ever looked before. The whole time I had been using retinol and dealing like you said, a little bit of the flakiness, the redness, loading on the sunscreen because I’m going in the sun but I was shocked that this plant could really hold it’s own against this other ingredient. Yeah, I made the switch and I never went back.
Katie (29:39):
That’s so fantastic. We’re gonna be moving to a speed round in a few minutes but before we do, I would love, you’ve got beautiful skin, I’ve been on your website, I’ve seen pictures of you on the founder's page and so I’m just curious—because you’re clearly a pro, you’ve been in the beauty industry for 20 years, you’ve got this amazing line Alpyn Beauty—I would love to hear what your morning and skincare routine is, and I’m gonna be taking notes, mental notes.
Kendra (30:06):
Oh my gosh, so I’d always cleanse my skin morning and night. I’ve heard people, there are all these different schools of thought in skincare so it’s so confusing. As a customer, somebody who doesn’t specialize in the industry can kind of look at all these boxes, and formulas, and goops, and names and be like, “Oh my gosh I don’t even know where to start.” It’s actually pretty, pretty basic so I’m gonna give you some easy streamlined tips. Clean your skin morning and night, that is my belief. Overnight you have all this cellular turnover, there are things happening, okay. So when you clean your skin before bed, you should wash your face in the morning. Similar to brushing your teeth, you brush your teeth before you go to bed, you don’t wake up and say I brushed last night, I don’t need a brush, [both laugh] you need to brush.
Katie (30:50):
Or if you do, we do not wanna know about it. [Kendra laughs] We’re talking to you Jake Gyllenhaal who’s not showering. We’re here for brushing and washing.
Kendra (30:58):
He’s doing just fine, leave Jake alone, he’s looking pretty good these days. I’m pro Jake. But yes, you wake up you want to clean your skin, that’s the most important thing. And then when you’re putting on your skincare stuff just go thinnest to thickest. So, if you have a very thin serum that’s in a dropper and a thick moisturizing cream, just put your serum on before your cream that’s the general rule of thumb.
Katie (31:18):
Great tip, I love that, thinnest to thickest.
Kendra (31:22):
Thinnest to thickest. So, clean your skin, thinnest to thickest. And then most importantly, please wear your sunscreen. I don’t sell a sun screen in my line so I’m not trying to market my own products but I will always put on a sun screen because it is so important to the health and integrity of your skin, just to give it that protection. Because skin cancer is a real thing. Working for an oncologist it’s like, you have to be on top of these types of things. So, wear your sunscreen.
Katie (31:53):
Such great advice. We had a wonderful woman on the pod a few weeks ago, her name is Val McMurray. She is the founder of Soleil Toujours a line of luxury mineral-based skincare, we talked a lot about sunblock. If anyone wants to know the difference between mineral and chemical sunblock I would encourage you to go back and listen to the show but great advice, wear your sunblock and wear it daily. It’s not just a beach day consideration, it’s something that you should be doing whenever you’re outside. This is such great advice.
I want to move into a quick speed round because I know our time is coming to an end and there’s so much more I want to know. So these are just quick one-word answers or short answers, are you ready Kendra?
Kendra (32:34):
Yes, I’m nervous. I feel like I’m on Jeopardy or something.
Katie (32:35):
No, no, no, no it’s all, by the way, you can use two words if you need to.
Kendra (32:40):
Okay, thank you.
Katie (32:41):
So one-word answer to complete this sentence: launching a business is_____:
Kendra (32:49):
Exhausting. [laughs]
Katie (32:50):
That makes sense. Okay, my superpower at work is _____.
Kendra (32:55):
Talking to people.
Katie (32:57):
Nice. My superpower at home _____.
Kendra (33:00):
Drinking wine.
Katie (33:02):
[laughs] that is my superpower too.
Kendra (33:06):
[laughs] I can finish a whole bottle these days.
Katie (33:08):
I am coming to Jackson Hole to harvest botanicals and drink wine with you.
Kendra (33:12):
You are.
Katie (33:14):
The Alpyn Beauty product always in my handbag _____.
Kendra (33:19):
The Melt Moisturizer.
Katie (33:20):
Nice. I would describe my beauty routine as _____.
Kendra (33:24):
Easy.
Katie (33:26):
Nice. Okay, best skin care or beauty hack?
Kendra (33:32):
This is a sentence, it’ll be fast though. Shower with your door closed and let the steam build up in your bathroom and then put your moisturizer on in the steam. Give a moist environment to apply your moisturizer. It does wonders for the skin.
Katie (33:50):
Ooo, I love that. You can see it kind of melting in with that kind of moisture.
Kendra (33:55):
It’s amazing.
Katie (33:56):
Best botanical ingredient for glowy skin? It’s probably hard to narrow it down because you have so many but what do you think is kind of a botanical superhero?
Kendra (34:06):
Nettle. Wild nettle is one of my favorites right now.
Katie (34:11):
And what product is wild nettle in on your line?
Kendra (34:14):
We have it in a niacinamide serum. So it’s a nettle and niacinamide serum and I can’t believe the way my skin looks after I put it on.
Katie (34:23):
Fantastic. Okay, favorite food to fuel beautiful skin _____.
Kendra (34:27):
Avocados.
Katie (34:29):
Ahh, we are big avo toast fans in my house. Okay, on weekends you will find me _____.
Kendra (34:37):
Playing Legos with my kids.
Katie (34:38):
[laughs] Oh my gosh, my Lego days are over. I have two boys, they are now 18 and 14 and we did a lot of Legos, I love it.
Kendra (34:47):
It takes a lot of time but I find it to be actually really fun. The first box that I opened and it was like 1,480 pieces I was like, “Oh hell no.” But now I am really looking forward to it.
Katie (34:58):
Talk about meditative. For me, I’m like the lego sorter, I’m like here’s the red pile and the white pile and the blue pile, yellow pile...
Kendra (35:04):
That’s my husband. He approaches everything with a system that’s logical and makes sense. I just throw it all on the floor and try to figure it out.
Katie (35:14):
Both methods work, both methods work.
Kendra (35:16):
They do.
Katie (35:16):
Okay, last question. If I weren’t running Alpyn Beauty I would be a _____.
Kendra (35:21):
A ski instructor.
Katie (35:23):
Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Oh my gosh, this was so much fun Kendra. Thank you for coming on I really appreciate it. And before we say goodbye, how can our listeners find you and Alpyn Beauty products.
Kendra (35:35):
We are at nationwide Sephora stores and also on alpynbeauty.com.
Katie (35:40):
Thank you so much, Kendra, this has been a total blast.
Kendra (35:42):
Thank you for having me.
Katie (35:44):
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next Monday when I talk with small business owner LasShawn Wiltz who left a nursing career to launch several businesses including a subscription box for books and coffee lovers called Pouring Over Books.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.