Delavie Sciences - Why This Brand Says No to the Skincare Status Quo

Ramon Vela (00:02.306)
Welcome back everyone. I have an amazing show. Please welcome Dr. Kyle Landry who is president and co-founder of Delaville Sciences. Welcome to the show.

Kyle Landry (00:29.793)
Thank you so much for having me.

Ramon Vela (00:31.608)
Well, I appreciate your time. know you're busy. So let's get right down to it. I want to know everything about this brand. is exciting. I've never, as we were just talking a second ago, I've never had a brand like yours. I mean, I've had skincare brands before, but no one with the kind of background that you have and the area of research that you've done. So I'm excited to get started. One...

thing I like to do when we get started is to ask you a question of gratitude. And just for any new listeners out there, I ask this for a couple of reasons. One is because I'm a big believer in gratitude. I think it's a great way to relieve stress and anxiety, bring yourself back to the present. And it's a tool that's available to you at any point at any time. And you can use it. And I highly recommend that you do, whether you journal or you meditate or you breathe in or breathe out, whatever it is, I highly recommend it. Beyond that, I...

I also like to do it because I like to bring these interviews down to a very personal level or human level because it's so easy for people to see a product on the shelf or online and just think like it's just some other faceless corporation. And I want you to know that there's real people behind these brands that we feature. People who care about the science, care about the product, care about their community and their consumers and so forth.

And one way of kind of humanizing the brand is getting to know who we're speaking to. And one great way of doing that is understanding what they're grateful for. So Kyle, if you don't mind, can you share a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential?

Kyle Landry (02:11.371)
Yeah. So there's, there were three, maybe four pivotal points in my life where I had an amazing mentor who actually believed in me. And there's a saying that's used all the time. People probably know it, you know, standing on the shoulder of giants lets you see the forest through the trees. Right. And, throughout my whole life, there's been these giants. And if you look at them individually or collectively, obviously they're not all the same. Right.

But at that point, that moment in my life, they were huge giants. And it started off when I was an undergrad, I had very personalized hands-on research work with my advisor. And we even had one-on-one classes and he put in a lot of effort. He gave me lot of connections, a lot of research opportunity into various areas. The second one was when I went to do my master's, my advisor there, he was old school. I mean, he was 80.

when I started, but he was in the lab every day showing me how to do stuff, allowed me to work on different things and really helped me bud as a scientist. And then later on in my career, David Sinclair from Harvard Medical School is pretty well known and famous, gave me a call and gave me a chance to work with him out of the blue because of what I did in my past. And he believed in what I could do and what I was.

Ramon Vela (03:19.798)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (03:39.565)
capable of. And then that led to the final person who where I work with now who basically believed in what I could do and spun a few companies out around me based on my technology, my research, the innovation we have. And these are all very important parts of my life. And these people are very important. They've all helped in different ways. So, you know, I'm incredibly grateful just for the time people gave me.

Ramon Vela (03:50.84)
Hmm.

Kyle Landry (04:09.803)
And I pay that forward. do that with students now. I do that with anyone who asks for help. I try to give back because I know if I didn't get that at that time, I would not have been on the same path or be on the path I am now. So I'm very grateful for time that people could give to me and their trust and belief that I could do what they wanted. And it's, that's the main thing. I mean, I'm grateful for everything. I wouldn't be here without any of those points.

Ramon Vela (04:24.014)
Thank

Ramon Vela (04:36.238)
Well, and that's a great answer. And it goes right to the heart of the question in that people will all, it's amazing what people's impact has on someone. And it can be sometimes things very mundane, maybe, just like helping you out with your projects and or with research and so forth, or teaching you the basics, whatever it was at whatever level.

just people taking their time to really care about, you about you and or being able to impart this knowledge. And also just sometimes seeing something in you because, know, they have, you know, I'm assuming many of these had lots of other students and, and I think they probably love what they do. So when they saw someone who also they felt had that, that love, that curiosity, that the desire to learn more.

they probably said, you know what, I'm gonna spend a little extra time with this person because this person really is really telling me that they've, that they're, you know, they're interested in what they're doing. So yeah, it never ceases to amaze me just the impact and the power that you can have on someone's life just by spending a little extra effort and time with them. So thank you for sharing that.

Kyle Landry (05:53.133)
Yeah, I mean, life isn't a one way street, right? I mean, I had to show the effort I put in the extra effort that other saying, you know, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Right. I mean, it's the same type of thing. I was curious. I wanted, I went the extra mile and then they in return were like, wow, let's see how this goes. So yeah, it's, it was a very exciting time.

Ramon Vela (06:02.83)
Mm.

Ramon Vela (06:15.01)
Yeah, no. And I appreciate that, those type of things. So, I want to know a little bit more about your background and I think we're going to figure that out right now. But to be honest with you, I'm like fascinated by, just a look at your website, which is for everyone out there is Delaville Sciences. Now Delaville is spelled, let me just make sure I have it correctly. D-E-L-

Kyle Landry (06:24.023)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (06:44.794)
A V as in Victor I E and then the word sciences, Delavie sciences. all you have to do is go check it out and you'll see what I'm talking about. we can back into a little bit of your background, but I just have a, my first initial question is just how, you know, first of all, how does NASA and space have anything to do with skincare?

Mean that was the first thing. I mean, I kind of understand it a little bit but really I mean I think that's what I mean I would imagine most people who understand or see the website or under you know know about you guys Their first question is how does this have anything to do with with skincare and with with what you're doing?

Kyle Landry (07:32.843)
Yeah, so I get that question quite a bit. Most people think it's a marketing ploy, but it is not. A little segue into my background that will kind of answer this. I am not your traditional cosmetic chemist. I am not a cosmetic chemist at all. I am not in marketing for consumer product goods. I'm a scientist. And we were working with Jet Propulsion Labs, which is a group that works out of California with NASA on some really hard problems.

Some pertaining to the International Space Station, others pertaining to the Mars Rover, right? All these things. But working with them allowed us to, you know, venture out and see what other things or other possibilities that were there. And the company that was before DailyVee Science is called Liberty Biosecurity. And we actually won an award, a NASA ITech Award, because we were proposing

to create molecules that would protect astronauts on the way to Mars. So it's not a mechanical thing, it's more of our biology, right? Because when we're traveling to Mars, we're gonna be bombarded by high energy particles, radiation, all of these things. And we'll be blind to have dementia, right? Have all these problems by the time we come back because we're not protected by the Earth's magnetic sphere. And we were figuring out ways to upregulate repair mechanisms in our body.

Ramon Vela (08:37.198)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (08:57.035)
so that the astronauts could have a fighting chance on the way there. So that's how we originally started with NASA. But then during the time we were working with them, they were explaining how, you know, hey, we have these really cool organisms and Kyle, we know you love extremophiles. And my background, a little tidbit here is I've always worked with extremophiles. These are organisms that live or come from extreme conditions, extreme environments. And NASA had an organism that

They put outside the International Space Station for a year and a half. And when they brought it back down to earth, they realized that it could survive and block protect, however you want to say it, UVC radiation. Now, UVC, we don't necessarily care about here on earth because the ozone layer protects us from that. But UVC is used to disinfect surfaces, know, germicidal lamps, basically.

So when we were talking to them about that, they said, hey, you know, there's also some potential UVA, UVB blockage. Would you want to experiment with this to see if this could be used as a sunscreen? So that's how we ended up in the skincare space because, you know, we had this idea, NASA had this idea. It was only R &D at the time, you know, laboratory-based, no proof of concept, no commercial, scale up, nothing.

So we took the organism and we worked with for a year and a half. And not only did we discover had amazing SPF boosting properties, which could be used for sunscreen, a version of it also targeted a lot of longevity pathways correlated to the skin, which is how we ended up going into skincare because we had all this amazing data, all this amazing clinical data. We said, let's make

Ramon Vela (10:34.487)
Hmm.

Kyle Landry (10:44.877)
the largest impact we can in the fastest way and that is going into skincare and into sun care. So that's the abridged version of how NASA is connected to skincare.

Ramon Vela (10:57.102)
I'm out curiosity. I find that fascinating, the extreme files, that what you call it? Extreme files. I'm fascinated by that. You know, because I remember reading somewhere or maybe seeing some show on PBS or something where they talk about how...

Kyle Landry (11:02.861)
Extreme files. Yep, exactly.

Ramon Vela (11:18.572)
you know, we never thought that, you know, we never thought that, you know, that people, that things can, any organism can live in like in volcanoes and things like that. And then, you know, lo and behold, we find organisms that live there and so forth. So it's really fascinating to me, like that whole area, you know, that we're kind of learning new things all the time and from different environments. So that's fascinating. But this, the skincare part of it,

I'm really interested in that in the sense that you hear a lot of people, and I see these arguments, or not arguments, or debates, whatever you want to call it, on LinkedIn or on other social media about how so much skincare is bad for you, or the sunscreen is bad for you, and this and that. There's all sorts of things you see on social media. But compare the makeup or the signs of your sunscreen versus

Kyle Landry (11:56.897)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (12:15.852)
what you typically find out there. Like what is the biggest difference or like if someone was trying to compare these two, how would you describe that comparison?

Kyle Landry (12:25.611)
Yeah, so I'll start off. So our sunscreen doesn't come out till next year, but I could talk about the ingredient in the bacillus lysate, which is the ingredient that we created from the organism on the space station is unique because it's a biological extract. So it's a natural fermentation product that has significant UVA UVB boosting SPF boosting properties. And what that allows is that allows companies

an alternative or to some of these ingredients that people are questioning, whether it's avobenzone, right, or stuff like that, that people think are disrupting hormones or bad for the environment, for coral reefs, right? Hawaii has a mandate, certain sunscreen components can't be used, right? So bacillus liceate is a natural alternative for all those things. And it allows you to make a very potent sunscreen with

with fewer of those questionable compounds. Now the thing with sunscreen in the US is that it is a drug. It's an over-the-counter drug. It's treated as a drug. So you can only use approved, FDA approved UV filters as the main active, but our ingredient complements those to make them more effective. And it's also beneficial for your skin microbiome.

Ramon Vela (13:43.128)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (13:47.231)
It's certified coral reef safe, so it's not harmful to the corals and the oceans. Certified natural, it's a prebiotic. There's a lot of other benefits that go along with it besides SPF boosting.

Ramon Vela (14:00.558)
Yeah, because I would imagine that if this organism was able to live in that environment without the, like you mentioned, the things to help it, would, I mean, it sounds like it's an amazing feat that it does. talk to us a little bit about the longevity side of it.

Kyle Landry (14:09.953)
Ready?

Ramon Vela (14:28.96)
Like it sounds like this organism not only has this that had the initial idea of the sunscreen, but you said it kind of had all these other benefits. So what are some of those other benefits? I'm assuming the longevity is with some of those other benefits.

Kyle Landry (14:36.653)
Hmm.

Kyle Landry (14:40.907)
Yeah. So this, this ties directly to what you were saying, like how could it have survived or how to extremophiles in general survive in these, you know, extreme conditions. These organisms have adapted ways to protect themselves from things that would normally be detrimental. So whether that's oxidative compounds or minimizing mutations or breakdown from temperature, things like that. So DeLaville as a whole,

Our premise is to use things that nature has already created or nature has found a way and bring it into skincare. And bacillus lysate is a prime example of that. You know, we were thinking, hey, if this could somehow survive exposure to these harsh conditions, there must be a way for it to protect its genome or to correct any damages or errors that occurred from just being exposed to space. So this is when we started looking at

what it can do and our line aonia, which features bacillus lysate has the ability to one activate sirtuins. So sirtuins are like a primitive repair enzyme mechanism type process that basically makes your body more efficient and protects it from damages. If you just Google sirtuins and longevity, you'll see a long debate on how this works. And there's a lot of sound science around it.

And we found that the ingredient that's key in our serums and creams activates that just as well as resveratrol. Now resveratrol is another buzzy topic that people always talk about. know, whether it does something or not, it's debate, whether it's bioavailable or not. But from all the comparison studies we did, we activate just as well, if not better than resveratrol. It also turns on your body's ability to make high-ironic acids.

Ramon Vela (16:17.198)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (16:37.837)
All products have high ironic acid in them and the hope is that it enters your skin and it plumps the matrix. Ours works the other way where it tells your body to make more. You can actually increase high ironic acid production by over 200%. So now you're hydrating from within and nothing is better for your skin than your own natural high ironic acid, right? And then the other thing, another major thing it does is it protects from

UVA damage or free radicals that form. So people may be like, well, I know sun is UVA and UVB, but what does UVA have to do with aging? Well, UVA is what accelerates fine lines and wrinkle formation. And when the UVA enters your skin, it makes these free radicals that break down all the components in your skin, which is why you get wrinkles as you age. The bacillus lysate in our serum stops that from happening. It quenches those radicals.

So those are like the three main things, but there's also some tertiary things like it helps balance your microbiome. It's certified beneficial for your skin microbiome. And people who are in the microbiome space may know or people who are savvy and cosmetics are looking and realize that if your skin microbiome is off, you'll have blemishes, pimples, oily skin. Your skin will not be the best it can be. So there's other things that it helps balance.

in control while also activating these key longevity pathways.

Ramon Vela (18:05.784)
So as you're saying that, I was just thinking to myself, whenever there's debates about NASA and like the money spent on NASA, and I just thought, there's a lot of benefits that we probably don't even realize that from this research on space and science.

Kyle Landry (18:24.503)
Well, that's yeah, there's a lot of things. mean, the things that come to mind, most people think, okay, Tempur-Pedic mattress. Okay, that's from space technology. That was the cushions that was in the seats. have, you know, CDs, you have radar, you have polarized lenses that are in your sunglasses. If you ever land on the runway in airports and there's all those grooves, those grooves were designed to improve traction for the space shuttle when it landed.

Ramon Vela (18:34.114)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (18:54.645)
and they ported that over to airplanes, right? There's a lot of things that come out of space. But, you know, I don't think it's, what's interesting about ours is that it can, it impacts a lot of people. Sun care, skin care, health, wellness, longevity. You know, people think of freeze dried ice cream, right? Or tang, right? Or however you want. Those are novelty things, but I think,

Ramon Vela (19:18.904)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (19:23.577)
When you start going into the health and wellness space and where you can really make impacts, improving the efficacy of things like sunscreen, that is a home run in my mind. And that's what I want to do when I work and build DailyVee Sciences and make functional things that actually prove the quality of life for people.

Ramon Vela (19:42.254)
And how has this been received? Like has this been more of an education? I mean obviously we know the realities of skin care and personal care. The very crowded markets. There's all sorts of things and I've covered it. I'm not trying to throw shade on any other company, you know I've had everyone. I've had everyone from people who use herbs in skin care to plants to.

Kyle Landry (19:49.249)
Okay.

Ramon Vela (20:09.322)
all sorts of different things and so forth. And everyone has, you know, says, hey, it's efficacious and all of that. You know what mean?

Kyle Landry (20:16.715)
Yeah. Yeah. But everyone, everyone doesn't have, or very few people have their own ingredients. So like this, what makes DeLavie special is we're the only one that has bacillus lysate. We created it, we control it, we manufacture it, right? You can't go to a cosmetic supplier and buy bacillus lysate. Like I can go buy, you know, extracts of plants and flowers, right? So the, the fundamental DNA of DeLavie sciences.

is to create novel functional ingredients that no one else has that are all scientifically and clinically proven to work on certain pathways. you know, I can go and make a cream and buy all my ingredients from a supplier, but there's no differentiation of ingredients there because you can do the same thing with our products. know, bacillus lysate, our newest ingredient, hydrolytic enzyme complex. You can't get them anywhere except from here.

Ramon Vela (21:07.415)
Hmm.

Kyle Landry (21:15.053)
from DailyVee Sciences and our products. And it makes it very, very unique. And the science and credibility behind it, the patents, the publications, the institutions where this technology comes out of is world-class. And that makes us unique. And like I said, my background is not in cosmetics, not in marketing. The science led me here.

Ramon Vela (21:31.342)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (21:39.926)
Yeah. And because of this uniqueness, there any, has there been any challenges in like the manufacturing of this?

Kyle Landry (21:48.909)
So that's a great question. So we took about a year and a half to develop the functional ingredient in the lab. And then it took about another year and a half, maybe two years to scale it up in production. like this, you know, we're working at the smallest level, right? We're working in the lab to make something to see if it works. Then we bring it all the way to commercial scale. It's a completely different thought process than 99 % of.

the cosmetic companies out there, right? Most of them have a story, have an image, buy the ingredients from a catalog and then work with the manufacturer to make it. But we're starting off and be like, what pathways do we have? Or even better, what extremophiles, what organisms do we have that we think can impact the skin or the body or the scalp? And how can we go that way? And so manufacturing, you luckily we've partnered with

a handful of CMOs or contract manufacturers in the biotech pharma space to manufacture our raw ingredients for us. And I guess that took a year and half to two years to figure this out for the first ingredient. The second ingredient we launched, I've been working with that since 2009, 2010. And it took about three and a half years to actually develop it into something that could be used.

and then about a year and a half, two years to scale up. So it does take time, but there's challenges that we face during all the manufacturing and scale up parts.

Ramon Vela (23:19.618)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (23:27.214)
Well, I mean, it just occurred to me because when I've talked to other people, you know, if you're using a contract manufacturer and so forth, they typically have ingredients or have the different ingredients and you tell them, you know, what to put in there or what amounts and so forth. But if they don't, if you have this unique ingredient that no one else has, it's kind of like...

Kyle Landry (23:38.509)
You hear?

Kyle Landry (23:42.304)
Exactly.

Kyle Landry (23:49.057)
Well, that's the thing. We have two channels, right? We have to deal with making the ingredient and then deal with making the final products. So we're basically two types of companies where like an ingredient company, an ingredient developing company in a final product consumer facing company that we have to line up in sync. we don't make products just to make products. So like Aonio only has four, five SKUs in it, right? We're not going to make any more because those

Ramon Vela (24:06.35)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (24:19.519)
are designed to work a certain way. And we make lines or products around our new ingredients. So we'll never make a product that doesn't feature or have a patented novel ingredient from De La Ville because then we're just like everyone else.

Ramon Vela (24:35.789)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and so what has been the challenges? mean, because obviously this is a great story on the surface of it, but because it is kind of different too, I'm imagining people have questions just like I did, you that you look at, think like, wow, what does that have to do with skincare? Has it been awareness? Has it been education?

Kyle Landry (24:44.045)
You

Kyle Landry (24:58.765)
It's both. So awareness is obviously number one, right? We're a very small company. We're going against massive giants with infinite pockets, right? To buy words and make brand awareness. So that's always a battle for any small brand, cosmetic or anything, right? But awareness and education is one where we can cut through the noise and we have cut through the noise, which is why we continue to grow. But you're

You hit it right on the head, NASA and skincare. Why? What's going on here? And we started off very heavy on the NASA space certified technology angle. And it was great for Buzz. It was great for people to gain interest. But what ended up happening is people didn't resonate with them, didn't connect with them. They saw all the value, the credibility of the science, but it was way too much where they were almost like, well, this is too sciency. I just want my vitamin C serum.

type of thing. So this is kind of forced our repositioning and changing now our thought process where all the heavy science, all the credibility, all the patents, all of that are secondary, tertiary to the main message, which is here's the testimonies, here's it works, here's the evidence. And to support all the stuff we're saying, here's the science and the credibility from the things instead of being the other way.

Ramon Vela (26:27.576)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (26:28.297)
So that's shifting our positioning and we're actually doing kind of a refresh to the packaging, the line. I mean, our website was refreshed a few months ago and to kind of help explain our products better into something that is more consumer friendly. But that was a major thing. I mean, again, I'm a scientist. I'm not a marketer. I can ramble about this. I understand it makes perfect sense to me, but not to 99 % of the people who are out there buying cosmetics.

Ramon Vela (26:57.08)
Yeah.

Kyle Landry (26:57.869)
We're trying to shift that so we can be more consumer friendly in terms of the education side.

Ramon Vela (27:04.334)
Yeah, so now it's time for the marketers, right? So now it's time to bring it.

Kyle Landry (27:07.467)
Yeah, that's what it is. We made killer products, amazing customer repeat, amazing reviews. Everyone's loving it. Now it's time to bring in the marketers to revamp the story and really push the brand. And that's what we're hoping with the refresh.

Ramon Vela (27:23.842)
Yeah, well, I mean, it's tricky because on the surface, you have all this really great material to work with, right? Like you have the science, you have the research, you have the institution, you have the novelty of NASA and the space, you have the efficacy, you have, as you mentioned, like the repeat business and the results and people's testimonial and or feedback.

You have all of this, it's just a matter of now how do we position it or structure it in such a way that now we can make this process easier for someone to discover, become aware, discover, understand, and then try the product. And in doing that, what are the ways that you're doing it? Are you guys doing influencers, social media, you know?

user generated content, all that kind of good stuff.

Kyle Landry (28:22.251)
Yeah, we're doing a battery of things. UGC content so we can have, you know, things on social media influencers so we can get promoted to different channels. You know, we're on all meta platforms are on Tik TOK. You know, we do podcasts and shows, interviews on magazines, work with a lot of,

Events. So we do a lot of pop-up events. We do a lot of giveaways. We work with other brands for co-branding giveaway events. We're trying to get out there. It's just there's so much noise, right? There's so much so much distraction, but we're growing and you know, we are our fan base is very is growing larger than I thought it would ever grow and we're getting invited to a lot of events a lot of workshops.

Ramon Vela (28:57.965)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (29:09.326)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (29:14.265)
because the story, the products aren't like anything else that's out there. And it's almost refreshing in an industry where you just recycle the same things and you just change the packaging, basically. Now there's real, you know, real fancy, cool, but you know, science coming in here from credible sources that are really, you know, changing the landscape. I'm very excited about

Ramon Vela (29:26.904)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (29:31.918)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (29:40.398)
And as someone who, as you mentioned, you're a scientist first, you're a researcher, and so forth. And you've kind of started with, in some ways, doing all the hard work first, doing all the research. And then now you're kind of banking into, like, how do we create a marketing machine around this, or brand awareness machine around it, and so forth.

Kyle Landry (29:47.959)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (30:09.51)
What would you recommend to those potential other founders out there who are scientists, who are researchers, are maybe not creating products like yours, but out there creating products? Is there any words of wisdom based on your experience that you would suggest to them?

Kyle Landry (30:24.418)
Yeah.

Kyle Landry (30:28.525)
There's two of them. One is no one will appreciate or care about the science as much as you. So I remember in the beginning, we were heavy, heavy about graphs and things showing all the science, but in the end, bankers and retailers and brand developers don't care about that. Like they care about it to make sure it's there, but it's not the main driver.

Ramon Vela (30:35.438)
you

Kyle Landry (30:54.125)
of a brand and as a scientist, it's very hard because my first nature is I'm going to put all the data out there, walk them through why it all works. Most people just want to know does it work? Yes or no and how that's it. And that can be done in one or two slides. I remember in the beginning, I'd have like 20 slides showing all these experiments and you end up being like, yeah, that's great. Like we see it works, but what about the total available market? What's going on? What's your your launch plan? What's your safety testing? All this stuff. And that was light.

right in the beginning. So I've had to shift that. And the second thing is be open to criticism and change. A lot of people that I've spoken to and some of my friends who have launched brands or worked with projects, they fell in love so much with what they were doing that they didn't want to listen to people's critiques or suggestions to change to make it better. It had to be like this. It had to be like that. No, I'm the creator of the brand. want it to be like that.

And they most of them didn't succeed because they were not adaptable or pliable to what the market actually wanted. They thought what they created that one version was the best in and that was it. And they couldn't change or go with it and being flexible, pliable, listening to people who've done it before, who are giving you advice, who, you know, who know how to do it. That's that's very important.

Ramon Vela (32:09.281)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (32:19.282)
You know, it kind of reminds me of an interview I've done not that long ago and and actually the episode will be released next week, but it's a company that's not even in your industry, but he said something really that I found fascinating that reminds me of what you just said. He said that one of the problems that

founders have and again, this is, not on your area, but I think it's applicable to so many other places. He said, the problem with founders is that sometimes they fall in love with their product. Instead, they need to obsess over the problem and, you know, focus on the problem because that's how, you know, that's what, that's what your consumers are concerned about. Not so much about the product, but about the, the, the problem. So,

Kyle Landry (32:53.378)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (33:06.134)
Yeah, it really is interesting. And I can understand that because, you know, I'm fascinated by the science stuff myself. But, you know, it's kind of what I talk about when I'm interviewing a food product. It's like, no matter how good and how efficacious or nutritious and all of that, it really just comes down to taste, right?

It's always going to be about taste. Like no matter how good it is, people are going to buy it if it tastes good. If it doesn't taste good, they're not, no matter how good it is, not going to buy it. And, and it's, it's a good lesson. let's talk a little bit about the product. So let me make sure that we, I give everyone the website again. So everyone out there, if you want to go to what we've been talking about, you can go to delavisciences.com. Dela V is spelled D E L E V is Victor.

Kyle Landry (33:40.013)
That's right.

Ramon Vela (34:04.39)
A I'm sorry, V I E, Dela V, D E L A V as in Victor I E, sciences.com, delavivesciences.com. We're gonna have that link on our podcast description. And I'm sure if you Google it, you'll be able to find it as well. So let's talk a little bit about the product. So I know you mentioned a couple, you mentioned the sunscreen's not available just yet.

But let's talk about some of the things you do have. Now you have this line, and hopefully I'm saying it correctly, Aony, is that how you pronounce it? Aonia, Aonia. What does that mean by the way?

Kyle Landry (34:37.869)
Aeonia,

So Aeonia is short for an Aeonian, which is an everlasting, beautiful goddess. So Aeonia is playing on, you know, use this in, you you'll be beautiful forever per se on that.

Ramon Vela (34:56.206)
I love it. So, okay, before we start talking about the products, let's start with, I guess, the one that you feel the strongest about or the one that is like the best seller. like if someone's going to, someone's listening to this and they're fascinated by your story, they love the science component, they love the NASA slash space component of it, and they want to get started with this brand.

Where would you recommend they start with the journey of your brand?

Kyle Landry (35:27.595)
I would say with the serum, the age-defying serum, that was the first product we launched. And I'll give everyone a little tidbit here. When we discovered the longevity properties and we decided to make a serum to really highlight the functionality, my boss at the time, the chairman of the holding company, was like, let's just make 500 bottles, 100.

you know, thousand dollars, no one's really gonna buy it. And I was like, yeah, we can't really do that. We have to buy X number. A good thing we did because we launched in October of 2022 with just the serum, no other product. And in two months, because we launched at the end, we did just under half a million dollars in sales with almost no advertising, no marketing, no promotions, right? It was just all word of mouth. And...

As a brand, I'll tell you at CPG space, it's bad just to launch with one product. Okay. But this was an experiment. We did not think it would take off. We did not think we would just, let's just see if anyone buys it. Right. So the response was so good. The reception was so good. We're like, okay, what can we do next? So then we realized we, you know, went to an eye cream because the properties of the ingredient do really well for bags and in the thin skin under the eyes.

Then we went to a serum for sensitive skin, people who are very sensitive to products or have pre-existing skin conditions. So we make the ingredient accessible to all. And then we rounded it out with a sculpting cream. But if you were going to start, our number one bestseller is the Age Defying Serum, the original one. The gentle one I would recommend if you tend to have, if you have very sensitive skin to a lot of products. But that's where I would say you would start.

And then the second one, if you fall in love with the serum, would be to go to the sculpting cream because that was designed to work in tandem with the serum to really hypercharge and boost the functionality of bacillus lysate, which is our ingredient.

Ramon Vela (37:29.646)
Okay, so that one.

You said the sculpting cream was that one?

Kyle Landry (37:36.617)
Is number two, yeah. So number one would be the age-defying serum, either the original or the gentle, depending on your skin. And then I would follow up with the Sculpting Cream. So those are the two, I would say. But the first one would be the serum, one of the serums.

Ramon Vela (37:47.893)
Okay.

Ramon Vela (37:52.398)
Okay, great. so just everyone again, it's delavisciences.com. I'm actually on the website right now and I'm taking a look at everything. so I see the creams and I'm just curious, walk us through a little bit of the sculpting cream a little bit. go ahead.

Kyle Landry (38:11.615)
Yeah, the scope. Yeah, that's our most recent launch that came out November of last year. And again, this was scientifically tested and clinically tested on a whole different things. But the main driver for the cream is that it helps rebuild your skin barrier. And what's amazing, what I'll say is you can go to our website under skincare science and see all the clinical tests that we've done. We put all the data out there.

all the protocols. So there's a test there called transdermal water loss. So that's the cream right there. Yeah. But if you go to a skincare science on the top, click that one. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom. And this some of the awards we just won, but scroll down, keep going, keep going, keep going. Okay. And click the fourth bubble under under age defying serum, fourth bubble. There you go.

So this is the Sculpting Cream. So here's all the clinical data, all the clinical trials we've done. And the transdermal water loss, which is the second one there, that one shows that we help rebuild your skin barrier and minimize water evaporation. So this helps maintain moisture and hydration. And as you continually use the product, you improve your skin barrier by over 22%, which is a big deal when you combine it with all of the other clinical data there.

So the Sculpting Cream is designed to basically seal in the serum and enhance the barrier of your skin. It's an amazing product. It's my, personally my favorite, but everyone else's favorite is the Age Defying Serum.

Ramon Vela (39:54.577)
And so on a skin level, what is this? Is this keeps your skin looking young? Is it keeps it anti-aging? that correct?

Kyle Landry (39:59.97)
Hmm.

Kyle Landry (40:05.365)
Yeah, so it targets the fine lines and wrinkles and you can click on any of those and see the reduction in them. But it also rebuilds your barrier. it helps thickness, it helps maintain moisture, lock in moisture. It helps rebuild the matrix in your skin. So it also turns on hyaluronic acid production. So there's a study there, hyaluronic acid stimulation study. If you click that, you could see exactly how.

much higher ironic acid, this thing stimulates in your cells. So I scroll down, you'll see the graph keep going. So here you go. Actually, sorry, that's viability, scroll down some more. It improves, here we go. So you're increasing higher ironic acid more than double that of niacinamide, which is a common ingredient that is used in skincare. Our sculpting cream, three-fold increase.

Ramon Vela (40:55.832)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (41:01.791)
in high ironic acid internally, which is phenomenal. So not only are you increasing the hydration in your skin, but then you're rebuilding the barrier to stop it from leaving. So the Sculpting Cream is my personal favorite, but like I said, everyone else loves the serum.

Ramon Vela (41:13.133)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (41:22.158)
And what other products? was looking at this one here. I'll be honest with you. I've tried, I have these, I don't know you can, if I'm, if I'm, you can see them on the screen right now, but I have these like bags under my eyes. They're dark. It's more, more like dark circles around my eyes, not bags. And I've tried products from skincare, like a lot of the men's skincare brands, you know, everyone for a while was like really coming out with a, with some sort of eye, eye.

Kyle Landry (41:25.206)
Yep, the eye refra-

Kyle Landry (41:33.837)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (41:50.862)
cream, eye roller and so forth. And I tried them. just never saw any, you I don't want to say any names, but I never saw any results at all from any of these, which is, know, I'll live with what I have, you know, but.

Kyle Landry (41:57.483)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Landry (42:04.109)
You can scroll down and see some, we have some photos on there, keep going. So here's like darkness under the eye before and after, and then reduction of wrinkles on the bottom. So this was asked for us to create because the properties of hyperpigmentation and also overall smoothness could be, you know, was proven with the bacillus lysate.

So not only is the formulation great, but the product itself has this really cool metal applicator. So when you put it on under your eye and you massage it in, it helps promote lymphatic drainage, which helps get rid of the bags. And then the bacillus lysate helps get rid of the darkness and the unevenness of the skin tones under the eyes.

Ramon Vela (42:54.742)
Hmm, interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is fascinating. I mean, you have so much information here in terms of the products and the research. All you have to do, and for anyone out there listening and not able to see what I'm having on the screen right now, you can go to the little website and it just has just a plethora of not only the product information, but also information.

about the ingredients and about the efficacy of each of the ingredients. So you can scroll down. As Kyle mentioned, there's also skincare science, which you can click on and so forth. They've got a navigation button around rewards. And then you have bundle and save. So do you have some sort of, are these bundles or are these subscriptions? What are these?

Kyle Landry (43:42.273)
Yeah, so if you just look at the screen here, first thing I want to point out though is our products are EWG verified clean, which is very, very powerful. We're clean, safe ingredients. And the bundles here, now that you're on here, allow you to get a whole set for a reduction in price. But we also offer subscriptions. So if you subscribe, you you save 20 % off your order every time. And the bundles we offer range from the complete package,

to just two products or just a gentle product or the original product. And for ingredients, we're also very transparent with our ingredients. if you want to go back one slide, I want to show you something, or go back to the previous page. For the iRefresh, I want to show you a cool tool. So if you scroll down and click Ingredients, right there, click Ingredients, and then click See All Ingredients.

on the bottom there. We have a widget that pops open that explains what every single ingredient is in our product. And you can go through and click and it explains what all the ingredients are. Is it opening there for you?

Ramon Vela (44:59.978)
It's not opening because it may be because I'm on, I don't know, I'm doing a screen share right now. But no, I mean, that sounds fantastic. And one question I had when you were going through the bundles, do each of these products that you mentioned so far, do they build upon each other? Can they just be used separately? Like if I just wanted to try the Eye Refresher, can I just do that? Or are these designed to all work? I mean, are they designed to work together? Can they be used separately? What do you suggest?

Kyle Landry (45:02.923)
River, yeah.

Kyle Landry (45:13.293)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (45:29.867)
You can use each one separately. mean, the serum itself can replace three or four products that you currently use, right? If you use a hyaluronic acid serum, if you use a vitamin C serum, if you use a balancing serum, all of these things, our serum does all of those things and more. the Sculpting, the eye refresh is targeted for under eye area, but the Sculpting cream was designed to help enhance the efficacy of the serum. But you can use either,

Ramon Vela (45:57.432)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (46:00.033)
combined or by themselves. you really have something you don't wanna part with, where you're looking for a new moisturizer, or you're looking for a new serum or a new eye cream, these can all be used separately because they all feature our ingredient targeting that specific part of the skin, whether it's the eyes or the face in general.

Ramon Vela (46:19.574)
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's fascinating and I highly recommend that people go and check it out. And the website again is delavisciences.com. And where are these located? Like, can you buy these in any retailer or is it only direct to consumer?

Kyle Landry (46:34.743)
So we're focusing on direct to consumer right now. We just launched Amazon a few months ago just to try it out. We do have some spas who offer it, but we are not pushing it to, you we're not focusing on spas for in terms of retail or on store shelves or brick and mortar on other e-commerce sites. We're actively pursuing that. But I want to hold off until we do the refresh, right? The repackaging, the unification of the brand.

pushing it out. And why I say unification is because we're launching a whole new line of products in about three months that features our new ingredient, hydrolytic enzyme complex. And that is for a face wash and a toner. So those two products which we use before you use the Aonio line. But right now they're kind of their own sub brand with different packaging, different design, because there's no space theme. But now we're going to refresh the whole line.

Ramon Vela (47:16.173)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (47:34.943)
So it'll be daily V sciences products, sub, know, Aonier for face and layer one with the other ingredient. So that's when we want to start pushing or actively trying to go into retail or larger outlets once we have the unified.

Ramon Vela (47:47.575)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, something you said earlier, I meant to respond to it. You said, the, one of the mistakes you made is a launching with one product. And that's actually the same with podcasting. Like you never want to launch a podcast with just one podcast because people, you know, digest it. And then they're like, okay, what else? And if there's nothing else, they keep going. so yeah, I get that. but this is fascinating. So, so in three months, we have more to look forward to then.

Kyle Landry (48:08.459)
Yeah.

Kyle Landry (48:18.015)
Yeah, you have a whole new line that features our new ingredient, hydrolytic enzyme complex. And this ingredient was derived from mine and David Sinclair's patent from Harvard Medical School. So this again is connected to a large, credible source. It's patented technology. The patent was issued a few years ago. Then we decided to move forward, scaling up to make an ingredient that could be produced at commercial scale.

And now we have an amazing formulation for face wash and in toner that does amazing things. mean, the ingredient, which is a natural ingredient, a natural protein derived from an extremophile, works just as well as SDS, which is like a soap ingredient at removing oil from your face without drying your face out. It's phenomenal.

And this is going to be a whole new line again, everything clinically tested, scientifically proven, all the patents are there. The papers are there. I'm super excited for it. that this, you know, I've been using the face wash now for three or four months. Unbelievable. That's phenomenal.

Ramon Vela (49:10.03)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (49:19.246)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (49:29.548)
Well, we can't wait. And so I recommend for people, if you're interested in that, go to the website, sign up for their newsletter. That way you keep up to date on all their new products that are coming down the line as well as the current ones. This has been fascinating. you're all let me just make sure I live with the audience. So you're you're a direct to consumer, you're an Amazon. And then hopefully later we'll be able to find you in some retail outlets.

Kyle Landry (49:54.775)
We're on TikTok, we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. You know, could find us, they were on TikTok shop. We have a great community of influencers who really rally around the product, who have been using it for years. And, you know, they just naturally love it and they just spread it. It's great. It's amazing to see how it blossomed. And I'll tell you a funny story. I did my first Instagram live, I think a month or two ago.

Ramon Vela (50:11.15)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (50:21.24)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle Landry (50:22.985)
And went really well. And now I have people ask, do another one, do another one, because you could provide so much information. Because I like to talk about things outside of skincare, right? So my background, I'm a food scientist by training, bachelor's, master's, PhD. So a lot of people ask me about food and nutrition. I also teach at Boston University. I've been there 13 years in Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. So they always like to pick my brain about that and how that's related to skincare.

So it's so interesting to see how this one little science project with NASA has blossomed to so many different possibilities.

Ramon Vela (51:01.452)
Yeah, I love that. well, leave us with with a tidbit around food and skincare. Like, is there anything that you would say is probably the number one thing people should watch out for?

Kyle Landry (51:14.509)
So everyone is always hyper worried about food, right? But in the end, moderation is key. That's what I'll say. You can't be, you can't do something or live a lifestyle that's not sustainable, right? You could try all these fads, try all these diets, do all this crazy stuff, even for your skin. I need to drink X gallon of water a day. That's not sustainable, right? But if you work on the main things like

Eat the rainbow, a balanced diet, right? You know you can't eat donuts every day, right? But if you have one now and that's not gonna kill you. Work on your sleep, exercise, and then mindfulness in terms of stress level. That's gonna do a lot more for you than any of these fad diets or fad exercise things or fad equipments that people claim will do all this stuff, right? You need the good foundation to build upon.

That's what I always like to tell people because they always say, what supplement should I take? what should I do? Should I lay on this magnetic mat? And I'm like, how much do you sleep? I only sleep four hours a day. How much do you drink? I drink all the time. Do you exercise? that much. What type of diet do you have? I don't know. I try to eat the best I can, but I often eat gas station food or go to fast food. I'm like, how about you work on those first before buying a magnetic pad to sleep on? Because that's not going to fix your problems.

Ramon Vela (52:16.75)
the

Ramon Vela (52:30.19)
You

Ramon Vela (52:38.122)
Yeah. Well, you know, human nature, we always want like the quick fix, right? We always want the, cause all those things that you're talking about, um, are, it's hard to do consistently, right? Because life gets busy or whatever, know, um, no, but, but I, I actually, uh, I have prescribed to a lot of what you're saying. I, um,

Kyle Landry (52:43.989)
Yeah, that's the problem.

Kyle Landry (52:52.237)
Mm-hmm. yeah, of course. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (53:04.846)
I don't actually eat meat. I stopped eating meat a long time ago, but I eat lots of whole foods. I don't eat a lot of junk food. I actually prefer to cook at home if at all possible. I get my sleep in. don't do heavy exercise, but I do a lot of walking. And then I also do calisthenics every morning, the first thing I wake up. So I always try to just keep those things steady.

Kyle Landry (53:09.579)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (53:31.884)
and then everything else. And I actually, don't really drink anymore. I used to drink like a fish when I was younger, but now I don't like hardly ever drink at all either. But I just find these like these little things have just been just like tremendous to my health, you know.

Kyle Landry (53:44.755)
It's, it's, it is absolutely amazing. And one you brought up eating home is important. you know, I don't care what restaurant you go to or whatever they claim, you don't know what's in there. And I always joke. I'm like, at least with fast food, you know, how many calories are you. Cause it's on the menu, right? At least you know, when you go to nice restaurants, you have no idea. The portions are usually two and a half times what you should be eating and you don't know what's in there. So you, know, something that.

I call like fake healthy food, right? It looks healthy. It's like a Cobb salad, right? Cobb salad seems healthy, but when you add the eggs, the bacon, the dressing, all of that, of a sudden you're at like 1300 calories for a salad, right? It's interesting. So eating at home, knowing what you're putting in, knowing what you have is very important.

Ramon Vela (54:18.051)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (54:27.746)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (54:35.566)
Yeah. And I would just say also, like what you said about mindfulness, I actually have been practicing mindfulness for 10 years and it has helped me all along the way. But, um, but I'm telling you, like, uh, close to the 10 year mark, maybe, maybe a little bit less than that eight year, nine year mark. It really, the, the benefits have like quadrupled in

in terms of how I feel, like in terms of anxiety, in terms of stress, in terms of being able like in one year, you know, just as an example, one year I lost three, three people in my life, my mom, my brother-in-law and my nephew. And, um, it was a difficult year, but I'm telling you, like without the mindfulness, without just the ability to manage your thoughts and just to, you know, be aware of them and then be able to manage them is it's, I can't even describe how I.

Kyle Landry (55:06.391)
Okay.

Ramon Vela (55:34.06)
how beneficial it's been as opposed to my life before that, which was just like a mess, like in terms of anxiety and stress and all sorts of other things. So anyhow, I get it, man. I believe in a lot of that stuff. So thank you for sharing all of that. This has been amazing, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you making time for us and sharing all of this with us because I'm telling you, the brand...

on the surface was just, it's just so fascinating. And now the way you described it has just been so, to me, it's just so unique. I've never had a brand like yours before. I've never had a brand who's used a very specific ingredient like yours. and I love the science and I just, I feel, I feel like you, your personality and the way you described it and the story is just, it makes me want to support you. And that's actually the, the

tagline of the show, which is products worth buying, brands we're supporting. And I feel like I want to support you. You're so down to earth too, because I've had a lot of doctors on our show and sometimes it's not easy, I love them all. So don't get me wrong. But I'm just saying, UC just seems so down to earth. And I appreciate you sharing so much information. So thank you for that. But I appreciate it. Thank you again for being on the show.

Kyle Landry (56:55.149)
Well, Prom, thank you so much for having me.

Ramon Vela (56:57.396)
Everyone out there, we have just had Dr. Kyle Landry, who is president and co-founder of delavisciences.com. Now we're going to have the website on our podcast description. By the way, what is your Instagram or your TikTok account?

Kyle Landry (57:11.809)
Yep, so DailyVeeScience is just at DailyVeeScience is for both of them. My personal one on Instagram is at Kyle Landry PhD. And you'll see some informational podcasts, some other things. I try to add stuff now and then, but I'm not a frequent poster, but if you want to catch up, you'll see some stuff.

Ramon Vela (57:19.563)
Okay, great.

Ramon Vela (57:32.654)
Well, we're going to have those links on our podcast description, which you can find on Apple, Spotify, and pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. Simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. We just hit our 1300th episode where I think 1303, 1304 right now. And so there's a lot of stuff to choose from. And this is going to be one of them. So this will be out in a couple of weeks.

So make sure to go to the website, check out the website, see if there's something there for you. It's fascinating, the story, the science, everything is really great. And then I would sign up for their newsletter to make sure that you keep up to date on all of that. Beyond that, I always say stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy. One way of doing it is taking a look at Delavue Sciences. I mean, he talked about all the tertiary benefits of the products. So I would definitely go check that out. And then lastly,

We've all been going through a lot of stuff with the pandemic and then the economy and geopolitical wars and politics and the, you know, all sorts of things. Everyone is going through something. Let's just, let's just look at it that way. Everyone is going through stress, anxiety, whatever it is, financial difficulties, whatever. Let's just remember that and remember just to be a little kinder to each other. Remembering that everyone is going through something and I know we can make this human experience a better one. Beyond that, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.