EssenZen - Rewriting the Rules of Clean Beauty

Ramon Vela (00:01.752)
Welcome back everyone. Thanks so much for joining us today. Today's show is going to be great. I have with me a wonderful founder and a brand and actually two brands that we're going to talk about today. So please welcome Raham Esa. Did I say that right? Okay. All right. Cause I can edit this out. Raham Esa, who is founder and CEO of EssenZen.

Reham Essa (00:38.432)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (00:47.192)
put Essence in and RADx here. Welcome to the show.

Reham Essa (00:52.117)
Thank you so much and thank you so much for having me today. It's such a pleasure and yeah, can't wait to start the episode with you.

Ramon Vela (00:59.714)
Well, I appreciate your time. know that you're busy. You're running two brands. You've got the new one that we're going to talk a little bit about. And then of course you have others that are that are out there. And let's pause. One, two, three. Is that a dog? It's okay if we have them in the background. I just want to make sure I wasn't sure what it was at first. That's okay. I mean, we can work around it. It's up to you.

Reham Essa (01:17.695)
Yeah.

It's gonna stop, yeah.

Someone is walking by. Yeah.

Reham Essa (01:29.321)
Yeah, we feel like we are going to go.

Ramon Vela (01:29.518)
Okay, Okay, then there's one, two, three, go. So you have these wonderful, these two wonderful brands. We're gonna focus today on, I'm really both of them, but we're gonna talk a little bit about your newest one, which is Essence and I can't wait. I'm gonna give out the website and we'll start talking about it. But before we do, I always liked, I have a signature question because I always like to get to know the people that we're interviewing. I really feel strongly that,

From a consumer standpoint, there's all these products and these brands and logos, everything that we see on the websites, online, on shelves and so forth. And I just really want to bring it down to the human level. And I want consumers to know that there's real people who care deeply about their communities, about their products, about their consumers, and who bleed sweat and tear over bringing a product to market. And so I like to humanize this whole process.

And one way of getting to know someone from a human level or on a human level is by knowing what they're grateful for. So with all of that in mind, Rahm, if you don't mind, can you share a moment or memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because that meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential?

Reham Essa (02:49.618)
Yeah, to me, actually, it's not a moment or like one time thing. It's more of continuous like day to day or like every occasion by itself. But I feel like the most that really keep me going because like the journey itself is not easy. I started my brains because of my kids, my girls and both of them actually.

And every single time they use the product or every single time they go somewhere and someone asks them what do you use or any conversation come. The brightest thing in their eyes, the happiness every time they use my product. When they talk about it, it definitely makes me so happy and keeps me going for sure.

Ramon Vela (03:37.742)
So, you know, that goes right to the heart of question in that it is the support network that you have around you. it's not necessarily about money or anything like that. It's just simply...

their gratitude towards what you're doing, their transfer of belief in that you're doing something. Just sometimes it's really just sometimes very small words, a few words that make you happy and kind of give you that energy and just kind of make you feel like, that's kind of why it's.

this whole thing is worth it sometimes. It's like, especially with our children, you like you do so much for your children and then when you see them very grateful, it's like you just, it just kind of lifts you up and they're like, okay, this is what I'm, this is why I do what I do, you these little moments. So I appreciate that. So let's first start talking about how you got into all of this. You mentioned your children. So give us a little bit of the backstory.

Reham Essa (04:17.522)
Exactly.

Reham Essa (04:28.872)
Yeah, that.

Ramon Vela (04:42.912)
And then we'll start talking about Essence then. And from there, we'll kind of back into some of the other things you've already created. But let's from a high level overview, what was the main reason that you started this and how did you determine or come up with the idea?

Reham Essa (05:01.706)
Yeah, so actually it's two stories in one. The first one is I had two girls, my younger one, she had really bad eczema allergies and it was uncontrollable. We tried everything. We went to so many dermatologists. We saw so many physicians, but unfortunately it was breaking out so badly. One time I went back from the nutrition. She wanted to add

I'm a pharmacist by the way. So being a pharmacist, really understand medication side effects. This is what like what they have been learning and doing. And she wanted to increase the dose and already my daughter, she was at the maximum dose and we didn't see any result with it. I was so frustrated and it was so bad. And I love cooking. I love making this stuff. So I just felt like I want to make something as a way of getting this disappointment or frustration out.

I ordered a things and I made her a bowl, a very simple bowl. And it was like a magic and simply because it didn't have any of the ingredients that irritate her skin. When I saw that it was really good in helping her, I decided to dig deeper. I took nine diplomas in natural formulation and organic, even natural perfumery, and I could dig deeper and deeper all the time.

Of course, when I'm taking the diplomas in order to get the certificate, I had to make products and I made the product and I didn't want to throw them away. I was beginning to take all the products. I personally have acne prone skin and it was so hard that time to find the right products for me because they're either breaking out my skin or drying my skin. Most of acne prone skin that time specifically was toward teenagers.

Ramon Vela (06:37.454)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (06:50.766)
And my skin was a mature skin, like I'm older, I need something anti-aging at the same time doesn't break me out. And as a mom and busy and have a sick kid, it was so hard to go through so many skin care steps. So at that time, my face was really bad. My skin was not good at all. When I was taking the diplomas and I kept using the products I was making, my skin gets really clear, was so good. Everything was so good.

Ramon Vela (07:05.538)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (07:20.36)
But that was not the only effect I felt. I felt like I was happier, I was calmer, my kids were happier. I felt really good around everyone. And I found that skincare, even if you really not into taking care of how you look that much or you're not sensitive to how you look or your skin that much, it still affects you. It affects your confidence, it affects how you feel. And literally everyone needs to feel comfortable on their own skin.

they need to feel good about their skin. And our skin is reflection to how we feel and how we feel it affects our skin. It's like two sides. So that was my how moment. Actually, I decided to start a brand that did the market research and I found that time there is not a single brand specifically focusing on anti-aging for people that they have acne-prone skin. And that became my niche. I started Radix at that time. I wanted to make something that is luxurious.

Ramon Vela (07:49.631)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (07:57.666)
Yeah.

Reham Essa (08:19.044)
All natural, as I mentioned, anti-aging in a simple skincare routine that was not that many products in the market doing that at all at that time.

Ramon Vela (08:28.919)
Mm-hmm.

And why do you think those products out there in the market weren't sufficient? Was it because they were using products that are ingredients that shouldn't be in the formulation? Or were they focusing maybe on a wider market? Which I've heard also that sometimes they

really care more about the cost per unit than the actual efficacy of the product. So sometimes they, I don't know, they choose cheaper ingredients or they kind of, their formulations aren't perfect. I don't know. mean, what do you think is the reason why there wasn't already a solution on the market?

Reham Essa (09:22.119)
So let's agree that there is no such thing like one size fits all. Everyone has their own needs. And actually, I believe there is a lot of gap in the market. People or skincare in general, affects so many factors. It affects your skin and your reaction and how your skin reacts to your product. For example, actually, is a lot of have been done that people, if you're using a specific product in New York,

and you travel to Miami, it's not gonna work for you. So with so many factors going on with so many skin types, skin concerns, skin needs, it's not covered for everyone. You need more niches, you need more specific products to serve your skin, skin needs, habits, genetics, your concern. there's so many, like actually I see there's a lot of gaps still, but also natural. It's not like amygdala.

like non natural product, it's I feel I want to offer the best for my family, for myself, for my customer. And this is also around was not taken by many that time. Natural product, still people can get allergic to natural product. But the thing is, the chance of you're going to get bad side effects and the action to natural product is way less than

Ramon Vela (10:32.567)
Thank

Reham Essa (10:48.486)
Non natural also the endocrine disruptors and the toxins are the non natural product way more and see now a lot of effects and actually side effects of using these ingredients or products that contain these ingredients right now. So yeah, again, going back to the main question is yes, we don't see a lot of products fits everyone because there is still a lot of gap and all what you have mentioned as well.

Each brand they have their own goal at the end. Some people don't want to do like more profit. Some brands are looking for selling more and if you're selling more than they think that maybe it should fit more people, but always who suffers are people that they're not there. They have concern not. Like not taking care of by many yet, like for example, anti aging for people that they have acne,

Ramon Vela (11:42.092)
Hmm.

Reham Essa (11:46.223)
So you need something to fight the acne, but at the same time, slow down the aging without causing breakout or dry.

Ramon Vela (11:52.654)
And do you find that the like acne or acne prone skin, you know, I've heard people talk about how our diets like processed foods and other things like that have really caused us to have issues in a variety of different parts of our lives, you know, whether it's, you know, obesity, whether it's

certain types of illnesses and so forth. Do you think that there's been an uptick in people having acne-prone skin because of just the environment and our eating habits and lifestyles?

Reham Essa (12:28.069)
There are so many factors for having acne. So let's also agree that taking care of a problem or concern, you have to take it in two ways, like from outside and from inside. Inside is you have to take care of your diet, make sure that there's no other problem that's causing the concern. Also, again, lifestyle, sleeping, drinking, hormones, so many factors. But that doesn't affect how you take care of your skin from outside. You have to take care of your skin from outside.

with product that match your skin and help you with that concern you have. Because we have skin types, of us, everyone has different skin type, but at the same, we have different concerns. And according to our lifestyle or genetics or the other factors, can increase or decrease the concern we have, but it's not gonna change how we take care of this concern from outside. So for example, if you have acne prone skin, you can't really go for heavy products.

because you're going to clog your pores, they're going to increase the breakouts. You can go for something very drying because also it's to dry your face and you end up also by breaking out because the pores are clogged from their dryness. But for example, if you have dry skin, then you need something heavier to give this extra moisturizing and hydration for the skin. like, this is one of the things I did with my first brand and second brand as well, which is I focus more on concerns

without compromising the skin type, which means like I start with now when I started thinking about how I make Radixer, which is my first brand, I thought of if someone is wants to do what wants to have like a product for anti aging, then they need hydration. They need like collagen, blastin, the thighs, stem cells, all the stuff that can help with anti aging. But how I can help this, like this type of skin and

anti like as acne for the skin. So I added stuff to help with also acne and acne scarring stuff to decrease the breakouts and stuff to increase, I mean, decrease the hyperpigmentation or scarring that caused by acne and stuff to help with controlling the hormonal acne and so on. like finding product that is good for your skin, help you with your skin concern from outside is important. Taking care of your internal health

Reham Essa (14:54.165)
as well as very important. Like they're side by side. You can't really separate them.

Ramon Vela (15:00.462)
Yeah, that's a good point. And so in terms of your background as a, I think you mentioned you're a pharmacist and that must have, I can imagine that that really helped you with understanding the formulations and or the recipes, how you refer to it and then what different ingredients can do to people and what their effect is and all of that.

and that definitely is like a headstart in terms of starting a brand, right? Starting a, bringing a product to market. But as you know, there's lots and lots of things that, that you need in order to bring a product to market. One of his, of course, on the business side, there's supply chains and there's manufacturing and there's shipping and there's, you know, you know, fulfillment and then there's marketing and there's.

social media and there's brand awareness and there's, you know, there's the list goes on and on. There's like, it's never ending. How did you, how did you, you were, it feels like you were prepared on the formulation side, on the ingredient side, you understood that. How did you prepare yourself for the rest of it? Like, you know, all the business side, the infrastructure side, all of that.

Reham Essa (16:22.37)
Yeah, it's ongoing learning journey. It's every like business owner start their business. They're going to be strong in some like like size and have a little bit of weakness and you have to learn like it's ongoing learning and you have to start and believing that you can do everything. Sometimes you will need to outsource some other like sides of the business. You will need help.

And you will make mistakes and you have to accept that. So knowing that you're not going to be doing everything by yourself, knowing that you will learn and you will make mistakes. And that's OK. That's part of the journey. I have been learning. I learned a lot and I'm still learning every single day. And I actually learned from people just to starting and learning from people have had business for so many years and I feel like it's ongoing learning. It's you never stop learning and.

Again, falling a little bit and then catch up again. You do your best all the time.

Ramon Vela (17:25.038)
So in terms of your biggest challenges from a business standpoint and or maybe from a formulation standpoint, what have been those challenges and whether it's bringing the market or creating brand awareness, from your perspective, I know there's lots of challenges, right? Like there's lots of little failures here and there and some big failures, but what it stands out in your mind is some of the biggest challenges that you've

Reham Essa (17:49.036)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (17:55.045)
that you've encountered in bringing this product to market or these products to market.

Reham Essa (18:00.813)
Yeah, I think mine is definitely marketing because it's not my expertise and also because it's super expensive. Competition is super high. have so many brands with so many messages and also false advertising because when I say now my products are natural and another brand have 2 % natural ingredient, they will say they're natural as well. Well, and then but if they're louder than mine, then.

Ramon Vela (18:21.132)
you

Reham Essa (18:29.291)
It's just the brand awareness, the marketing, both of them really, really hard with all the noise around us. And it just, there's so many brands and so many messages that people see every day. And honestly, I feel bad for them because they don't know who trusts who to believe and who to really listen to. So definitely marketing.

Ramon Vela (18:52.876)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of noise, right? A lot of noise and people and consumers can become very confused right away. That's why it's so difficult to kind of to choose the right product, right? And sometimes and this has happened to me too, especially like if I'm on, I don't know, TikTok or Instagram, I'll see a product and I'm like, that sounds pretty good. That's like I have that problem and

The advertising makes it just sound so good. Right. And you think, even I fall for it. I've fallen for that kind of stuff. And then I order it and then I try it I'm like, this is the cheapest product I've ever seen. You know, now I have to do a lot of research sometimes when I buy products, you know, you want to see ratings and you want to see like any honest reviews and things like that. So it is, it is because it is so difficult on there because it's almost as if, you know, you.

The product always comes first. This is why our tagline here on the show is products worth buying, brands worth supporting, because the product is always going to be the main thing that people will come back to. But getting them to try that product the first time is the hardest thing. And it's just so difficult to get through that noise, especially when you have marketers who are marketing first.

products and product second, they don't really care that the product is, you know, may or may not be great, but they want to get that first sale, right? Like they want to acquire that customer. So yeah, it is pretty difficult. I want to get into the products because I know that you have two brands that we want to get to. But for those out there who are

wanting to be entrepreneurs and or who are young entrepreneurs who are maybe in an earlier stage than you are and who are just starting out, what would you, what advice would you share with them?

Reham Essa (20:57.664)
Just to start, start as soon as possible. Build your community. Definitely that's very important as well. Have your community and start your your your brand. There is not. It's going to be no way you're going to have such the best moment. You're not going to have. You will never going to be 100 % prepared. There's always going to be challenges and accept that there will be mistakes and just learn from them.

I think everyone is different as well. Like my approach is different than your approach. I feel confident or maybe comfortable in a specific way. You feel different, which is you don't have to really follow a specific recipe just to start and go on your journey, your own way. And I'm sure consistency and the ethics itself, like every brand and every person have to know exactly their main goals and principles and ethics.

Because again, journey is huge. You're going to find a lot of like so many ways you may get lost in the middle. If you have your principles and ethics and goals always in front of you, you will always go back to the right way.

Ramon Vela (22:12.718)
Yeah, I love that. You know, and I think that's that's that's that is that is really important, I think, especially nowadays, whether you refer to it as your North Star, you know, you can have a North Star for like why you do what you do your North Star for your principal, like your principles and ethics and so forth.

And I often find that a lot of times people, you know, may not have those things and sometimes they get lost and all the means, like I said, like there's so much going on. They get lost in that and they lose the clarity or the focus. And it's something that we don't really talk about too much nowadays, but I really feel like it's really important because I feel like

I see thousands of founders every year and I just think like, it's wow, it's like, think some, lot of problems and challenges could be avoided if there was just more clarity in terms of these different like focus areas. Anyhow, that's more of a comment than a question. But I mean, I agree with you, bottom line is that I think you have to kind of know where you stand and where you want to go basically. So let's talk a little bit about the products.

Reham Essa (23:36.233)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (23:40.812)
So let me just make sure people understand. we're going to talk about a couple of products. So she has this sort of first product that, brand that we're going to talk about in a second, that is older, a little bit more established, but she has a brand new product that we're going to talk about. So we make sure we're going to start there first so we don't run out of time. And this product is called Essenzin. And for the website, you can go to essenzinbotanicals.com.

Essenzinbotanicals.com if you want to take a look at what we're going to be talking about. And then the other one I'll give you in second, it's Radixier.com is the second brand. But let's first talk about the Essenzin since that's newer, that's brand new, that's fresh. We want to make sure we don't run out of time. And I want to make sure that we dive into this and help the audience understand exactly what it is. So if you don't mind, give us kind of a high level overview of what Essenzin is.

Reham Essa (24:38.535)
Yeah, so it's actually started when of course because of my daughter and her allergy, most of the ingredients, the products in the market, they contain either almond oil, sunflower oil, like which sometimes cross contaminated with almond oil and she's extremely allergic to almond oil. So I ended up at the end making all her products and then she started using it and once she started eating like almost preteen.

Her friends started to go shop from bigger retail places where they're using a lot. And of course, as I mentioned, it's ongoing learning journey and everything. So with all the research and the webinars and like all the conferences I have attending, I have been attending, found out that there's a lot of ingredients in products in the market that like to call them.

Ramon Vela (25:11.598)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (25:33.52)
endocrine disruptors, which means it affects your endocrine system, which is the like what is responsible for your hormones, your growth, your like everything in your body is going with the hormones. So that's why I wanted to make sure that my kids are safe. And I'm offering something for people for like moms like me and for kids like my my kids age younger and older that they can use product with a purpose.

Ramon Vela (25:47.5)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (26:01.883)
and safe. Unfortunately, most of natural products, unfortunately and unfortunately, it depends on what you prefer. Most of natural products are very earthy. They're not as fun. They're so bland. And to me, kids like my daughter would tell me, no, I don't want to smell like that. I don't want to smell like tea tree. I don't want smell like, like, rosemary. She doesn't want to smell like that. So I thought I couldn't find any fun, vibrant, fresh

Ramon Vela (26:13.868)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (26:30.242)
Brand that is natural with the purpose and can serve what's looking for. And that was my second brand essence. Then I started as an essence and I wanted to make products for everyday use that smells good. They're all natural. Like I was super happy I was able to make nice fragrance with them. Nice like colors and fun like of course packaging this way you can see a really good result.

but without compromising the effect or the smell or look so everyone can really use it and have fun.

Ramon Vela (27:06.99)
And again, the website is essenceinbotanicals.com. And who you mentioned your daughter, you mentioned, you know, younger, younger, younger teens and preteens. Who is this, this brand for? Because I, when I look at the different products, it's, I mean, they're very cute. You've got some really cool looking products.

I mean, we'll talk about the ingredients and so forth, but I'm talking about like the packaging looks pretty cool. But there seems like there's a little bit of something for a lot of folks too, not just for teens, but for adults and so forth. But I have to tell you that when you go, anyone out there, you go to the website, it's so colorful, the packaging is so colorful. And there's, I don't know what this is. It's like a lip balm or I'm not sure what it is, but.

Reham Essa (27:42.982)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (28:01.27)
It's so cute. It's kind of like anime style a little bit, like the packaging. So I'm assuming that's for people who love that kind of packaging. I think it looks really cute. Yeah. And I love the colors. So it's very bright, very colorful. It's something that I know, like you were talking about your daughter. I mean, I'm sure there's people who prefer this type of look than the stodgy sort of like, I don't know.

Reham Essa (28:04.508)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (28:12.83)
Well, thank you.

Ramon Vela (28:30.51)
traditional sort of earthy type of products. My daughter, by the way, the same way, like she loves to eat good and she loves to, you know, but she wants to use good products. But she sometimes tells me she goes, I don't care how good it is for you. Like it just doesn't smell good or doesn't taste good or anything like that. So anyhow, what, who's the primary market for this or the markets, I guess in plural.

Reham Essa (28:57.533)
Yeah, so our my main focus was to younger generation or younger fellas with going to be like 15 to 35. But literally everyone can use it every day. Like for example, the hand cream. Everyone really need a good hand cream with like nice rich ingredients that doesn't make you feel greasy and smells good and look good. Lib balm, as you just mentioned, everyone needs a good moisturized.

with try saying lip balm. Hair products with like all like the products they apply and problems they have with the hair. Everyone again needs a nice like hair product that give you nice results, smells good, feels good, no greasy feeling and all of that. So I would say literally it's day to day product use. You can use all of them. Everyone can use it, but my main focus was

younger generation that do want something smells good. Like everyone when you stop by, they smell the product before they ask. Before they see the ingredient, before they do anything, they will smell it. And that's what was my main focus, something to grab their attention with nice colorful packaging. And second, of course, something smells good that you don't feel like they don't want to feel like something too early or too bland.

Ramon Vela (30:23.918)
Yeah, well the packaging, I think you hit it right out of the park. Like I'm looking at the core treat hand cream and it's kind of shaped like, I'm not sure a fruit of some kind or an apple. Yeah. Um, and then it opens up and it's like a hand cream. So that I, I, I love that. I think that's pretty cool. Um, and

Reham Essa (30:33.691)
Yeah, core, like an epilogue.

Ramon Vela (30:45.538)
you know, the lip balm, as we mentioned, the hand soaps. I actually really love the hand soaps or the soaps that you have there. I like the way they look. For some reason, I'm attracted to that kind of earthy look, but it's a cool look too. And it has, you have to see it everyone. You have to go to the website to really understand it. I'm not doing this justice, but I actually think that this is really, this would appeal to,

I I think anyone, I mean, I really do feel like it would appeal to anybody who just likes, who likes a colorful sort of look in their homes. But I really do think that, you know, in people who are in their teens all the way through their, you know, young adult years, whatever, would probably really like this as well. They're just really cool looking. I mean, like I said, I like to live long.

Reham Essa (31:36.223)
thank you so much. Yeah, and I was in love about actually like I know I'm going to be a little bit biased, but I really love our products because I feel it's again. It served the progress looks nice, smells good, but every single product had made like I like to reverse engineer the products, which is I put the problem and I just see how I'm going to fix the problem by adding what I need to add to the product to fix this problem.

That's why with every product it has a purpose. So let's go for example, the soaps. So, soap bars are like the soap bars meant to cleanse your skin. Like I know a lot of claims that this soap bar will give you brightening or this soap bar will give you like remove the hyperpigmentation. These are all good like claims, but their main purpose or the main function of a soap is to cleanse your skin.

So you need something that cleans your skin, it's not harsh. And at the same time, help you with a concern. So you have the exfoliating soap bars, which they have exfoliating, a physical exfoliation for your skin to remove the dead skin, the debris, the dirt, and all of this, which leave your skin nice and smooth with the fresh skin so it can absorb the product really nicely.

And you have the moisturizing soap bars, which they are more gentle, more moisturizing for dry, itchy or more mature skin or people that they have, for example, eczema or any type of dryness in the skin. So we get to choose which one depends on how your skin really feels.

Ramon Vela (33:21.358)
I love this, Al. The soaps, you have black African and mango butter handmade soap. I love that way that looks. You've got exfoliating soap bags. You've got the lip balm, as I mentioned. A lot of this stuff, quite frankly,

I think they're very like internet worthy. Like this is the kind of stuff like you'd want influencers to showcase on the TikTok or Instagram or something like that because they're just so cute, right? Like they're they're visibly cute. Like I think my daughter would really love. Let's see, what is it called? The strawberry frost, is it the lip balm?

Reham Essa (33:46.116)
Nothing.

Reham Essa (34:07.374)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (34:08.556)
Like that's something that is really cute. Like she's into anime and those, I noticed those little characters are kind of like, are similar to the anime characters. Yeah. And you the other thing that I noticed too, and if you want to mention this a little bit, but the prices here are very accessible.

Reham Essa (34:12.218)
Reham Essa (34:19.035)
huh.

Reham Essa (34:28.597)
Yeah, that was I really tried and then we don't compromise by the quality by quality is number one in like quality and. The function of each product. I want to make sure that every product server purpose and without compromising. The quality of it. I wanted something rich. I love.

I'm a big fan of Amazonian butters and oils. I love them. They're super rich. They're not greasy. They're not smelly. They're amazing. I love quality ingredients. I really appreciate like ancient cultures. So I love the Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, of course. I love all these cultures and I learn from them. I do extract for myself. They do extract for my...

Ramon Vela (35:07.96)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (35:18.426)
hair products and like a lot of ingredients. I do extract from herbs that we know and that study showed that they're very powerful. At the same time, I like the quality oils and bars because those can make huge difference. If you can, you can buy the exact same oil, which is for example, it's a, it's a Oregon oil or actually plum, plum oil, plum oil. So expensive and you can get it from another place.

Super cheap, huge difference in the quality, although they're the same plant, but actually this quality and the fatty acids in this part of the expensive one is huge different than the cheap one. because, and that's of course, because of the tying of the harvest, the way of extraction, purity and there's huge difference between one, same ingredient from one supplier to another supplier.

So we do, we make sure that we don't compromise that. I tried my best to don't make the prices so high. So it's to be accessible for younger generation. And because I really wanted everyone to try the product and I wanted everyone to know the difference and feel the difference in natural high quality products and something else that most of the time is not that.

good for your skin or your overall health in general.

Ramon Vela (36:48.948)
Mm-hmm. I want to make sure that we talk a little bit also about Radix here. And before we move on to that one, are there any products that you want to highlight or make sure that people know about before we move on to the next brand? But also, is there anything just in general about the brand that you haven't mentioned that you want to make sure to leave with the audience?

Reham Essa (37:16.344)
So I feel like it's really important as a person taking care of yourself or if you are a guardian taking care of like your kids, your sisters or anyone else or you care about someone. Skincare in general is you use it every single day, whether you're applying a lot of it or small amount of it. And I always see skincare as food.

food for your skin and breath or not go through your system as well. So you need to make sure everyone may need to make sure that if they're using products for themselves or for younger ones or someone else, it's safe for them. Like endocrine disruptors can cause a lot of problems like migraines, like some hormonal change, girls go menopause into their 20s because of their skincare products affecting their health.

Ramon Vela (37:44.045)
Maybe.

Ramon Vela (38:08.088)
Hmm.

Reham Essa (38:10.42)
And a lot of like, for example, one of the common reasons of breast cancer is like the odorant and so many problems. You don't see it immediately, but on the long run, you can see huge or major problems in the health. So I would love if everyone can explore the right products for them. Make sure it's safe before they just buy anything cheap and or something smells good. It looks good and just apply it in their skin.

That's actually the message we're trying to spread, which is even if you're not going to buy my product, always try to find the right or safe product for yourself and your family. I think my favorite product, I love all of them because they're my babies. But I think I love stuff. I always ask if I have a customer in an event or something, I always tell them, what do you use the most? So if you're using, for example, the most deodorant.

Ramon Vela (38:55.682)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (39:07.177)
Make sure it is safe for you because you use it all the time. If you're using, for example, every single day lip balm, make sure it's good for you. Always look at what you're using and the most and make sure it's safe because this is what you consume the most. And then look to what is your concern. For example, if you have acne, then look for how you fix the acne. Don't try to add stuff. It's more about finding the right product.

Ramon Vela (39:11.405)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (39:36.383)
If you have a problem in your feet, then find the right product for you. Change the product that you use the most because this is what you consume the most. And then number two, don't just go for any products you hear about. Go for the product that can help you to solve your concern. And this is what I always recommend. I love the deodorant, of course, because it's, again, everyone uses it almost every day. And I love the foot cream so much. I love, I think I use the most the face mask.

Ramon Vela (39:52.258)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (40:05.422)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (40:05.707)
because it's super hydrating. It's actually in my purse all the time. In the middle, I just refresh my skin by spraying some. those, personally, I use them the most and I love them the most, but I love all of them. They're all my babies.

Ramon Vela (40:11.832)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (40:18.254)
Yeah, I know it's too hard to choose. And that actually, before we get into the other brand, I did want to mention something or an observation. And I think what you just said right now is a good segue because I think you may have even answered this observation is that multiple times throughout this conversation, you talk about purpose, know, with a purpose, you know.

And it feels like it, like, yes, you're creating products and all of that, but it feels like, you know, your mission is kind of what you just mentioned right now. It's more than just products. It's really, you have this mission of making sure that people are using safe, effective products that not only smell good,

and do what they say they're going to do, but are good for you and good for your skin. it feels like that's what you're attracted to or you're creating brands that have a purpose.

Reham Essa (41:24.715)
That's crap.

Ramon Vela (41:25.356)
Yeah, I love that. And I just wanted to say that was my observation is that I've heard you say that I even wrote it down like with a purpose because you've mentioned that multiple times. So I think that's important also for the audience and the listeners to realize as well is that this is more than just a business to you. This is really just, you know, it's a calling, it's a mission to get these kinds of products out, depending on, you know, which brand we're talking about. But I'm assuming that both really are kind of serve the same mission, but in different ways. And there's a purpose behind these things.

Reham Essa (41:33.598)
Yeah.

Reham Essa (41:55.082)
Exactly.

Ramon Vela (41:56.15)
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so let's talk about the next brand, which is, I guess, safe to say this is your sort of like your original brand. And this one is called RADX Sear. Correct me if I'm wrong. And so talk to us about this one. So let me just make sure the audience knows. So if you want to go take a look at what we've just talked about, you can go to essence then botanicals.com essence then

Reham Essa (42:10.954)
Not exactly, yeah.

Ramon Vela (42:24.554)
It's spelled E-S-S-E-N and then Z-E-N botanicals.com. So S and Zen botanicals.com. And then the next brand that we're going to talk about, which is I guess her original brand is Radixir. that's A, I'm sorry, R-A-D-I-X-I-R.com, Radixir.com. So walk us through this one.

Reham Essa (42:52.074)
Yeah, of course this is talking to older generation. I would say like 35 and up. And it's mainly like my focus and my niche was to serve people that they have sensitive or acne colon skin where their mythology tested. We are called to three of course and they wanted something that is safe. Something when I'm using it, I feel good. You know.

Ramon Vela (42:56.098)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (43:18.611)
Like days are so busy and time became like really hard to find and something hard to say. I wanted to spend a minute with myself for my morning or night routine, get everything I want and I feel good about it. I wanted to have a nice packaging and luxurious feeling. I wanted to use really high quality ingredients and give me all what I need without using so many steps. And this was in the serum and the moisturizer.

We're going to find like elastin, peptides, skin cells, collagen, of course, like plum seed oil, kiwi seed oil, metafoam. wanted like ingredient extracts are rich and at the same time effective in giving you the hydration, the moisturization, and help your skin to get clear, like give you this clear, healthy looking skin.

And everything actually like have a message. So Radixer, the line we have its name is confidence. And I felt that this is a nice memo every morning and night when you're using it to just remember to love yourself and have the confidence in yourself every single day. And yes, that was my brand. We have been actually very fortunate to get being featured in so many places and have awards that we got like.

a lot like many awards as well. We're very, thankful in such a small or short period. So, yeah.

Ramon Vela (44:48.942)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (44:54.68)
Well, and so walk us through the products. Tell us a little bit about what people are gonna find on the website and the different products. I know that you mentioned anti-aging and then you talked a little bit about in general, like the ingredients, but walk us through like how do people use them, what they are for, who are their best for. You mentioned 30 years old and so forth. You also mentioned earlier about acne. I'm not sure if this applies to this one.

But walk us through a little bit of that and the variety of different things that you have to offer there.

Reham Essa (45:31.048)
Yeah, so they have it. We have just only now one line, which is the confidence moisturizer and serum. I also commend people to use both of them because my brand has been built built on a concern, not the skin type. So you go by how you feel. None of the ingredients in the clogged the pores. So you have, again, acne prone skin or sensitive skin. You should not worry about irritation or clogging the pores or breaking out or dryness.

How you apply to apply the serum online like layer of serum and then you apply a layer of moisturizer. If you have a dry skin because all skin types can have acne, then you apply maybe two layers of the moisturizer. If you have maybe like combination skin, then you apply one layer in there. Early and in two layers of your your dry areas.

What I was trying to always emphasize as well is listen to your skin. Some days they're going to be drier than others. Some days you're going to feel more hydrated than others. Some days you're going to feel you need more moisturizing or more hydration. So you always need to listen to your skin. And everyone feels their body. You really need to listen to the signs like your body shows you and go with it.

If one day you feel like a little bit dry, then maybe you should apply, as I mentioned, two layers of maybe serum or moisturizer. One day, if you feel like I can skip tonight's moisturizing, feel free to do so. If you feel like they're a little bit dull, maybe that's time for an exfoliation. It's about listening to your body and apply the product accordingly. But through lip balm, morning and night, one layer of each on your skin until you feel it's hydrated and moisturizing.

Ramon Vela (47:21.45)
Hmm. And I love the videos that you have on the website of the product. It makes it so enticing. Like right now I'm looking at the serum and the video shows the person opening it up and then the serum is dripping down. It just looks interesting. I like the way it looks.

Reham Essa (47:26.554)
Thank you.

Reham Essa (47:39.54)
Thank you. Yeah. Like one of the parts of the Anti-Aging 2 I launched in the beginning was the Ice Globes, which I love. Ice Globes, it's work as, it's like the cryo at home, which is, I'm not sure if you ever tried cryo before, but usually it's like a chamber where you go inside and it gets so cold inside for a minute or so.

Ramon Vela (48:07.106)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (48:07.237)
and then you get out and should improve the blood circulation, which the ice globes do the same. It's like two globes, them in the freezer, you get them out and massage your face with. And it makes a huge difference with your face removing, especially if you're gonna use the lymphatic drainage technique, you're gonna remove all the fluids, improve the blood circulation, help your skin to increase the absorption of the product, and also increase the tenses of collagen and elastin in the skin itself.

Helping removing any congestion and really help you to clear your mind. And I don't know they they I use it. I feel like my skin looks fabulous and amazing. So that was one of the tools I wanted to add because I always like the maximizing. I want to maximize the effect of everything we do again with day to day things we have work and kids and running around all the time. You don't have a lot of time.

We have like maybe few minutes every day just for yourself and they want to maximize these few minutes. So that's why I added that. I like sort of ice groups. You're going to see also the massage candle, which is I love it when you have this time you want to have like few minutes extra for yourself. It's like a lotion actually, but it's in a candle. You light the candle, wait until melt, just extinguish that the fire and then you.

Ramon Vela (49:26.146)
Mm-hmm.

Reham Essa (49:33.81)
pour the melt wax. It's not wax. It has wax, it's mainly bars and oils and some active support and skin and you massage it into your body. It's really good. Very nice for moist moisturizing. And I felt again with adding this to the luxurious brand is such a great idea because we all need these moments every now and then to relax. But at the same time,

Ramon Vela (49:40.632)
Hmm.

Reham Essa (50:01.497)
Again, with the purpose, the benefits of moisturizing. It also has actives like Q-Ten and licorice extract to help the skin with like evening skin tone and of course antioxidants.

Ramon Vela (50:15.726)
Yeah, and I just want to mention too, and I want to be respectful every time. I know we have a very short amount of time left, but just to highlight, you mentioned awards on the website. can go to the, they have the Beauty Innovation Award, the Beauty Shortlist Awards. That's two different categories. They're featured in Forbes and Good Housekeeping and The Daily Mom.

the athleisure, authority magazine, all sorts of different places. In this, of course, like I said, you have beauty bundles on the Radix here website. And it just looks fascinating to me. It looks very luxurious. I love, and honestly, I love the contrast of what you're building. Like this is a little higher end, obviously, and for a different.

target market, looks beautiful and obviously the ingredients and how it's formulated is so purposeful. And then you have what we just talked about a second ago, which is the other brand Essence. And I love how you were approaching both different markets. The cool thing just from a marketing standpoint, just to be a little nerdy there, it's actually pretty cool. you, ideally you want

people to be introduced to the brand in their early years, take care of their skin. And then you also have products for them as they age. I think that's smart. Yeah, think that's smart. I think that's smart. This has been fantastic and I wanna be respectful every time. And I really enjoyed this conversation. I'm very impressed by, like I said, this...

Reham Essa (51:54.671)
Yeah, take them whole life. Take care of them the whole life.

Reham Essa (52:08.495)
Thank you.

Ramon Vela (52:13.976)
perspective that you have, this mission that you have, this purpose that you have, and your desire to make things purposeful that you're doing. So it's not just about making products, but it's making products that are effective, that are good for you, that are not gonna damage you, that are gonna do what they say they do. And then you also combine that with really interesting packaging, interesting ways of presenting them to the world and to the consumers.

I think those are all like really winning, you know, things that you can do as a brand. And so I wish you all the success and I want to make sure that our listeners know where to go in terms of what if they would like to learn more. So if you don't mind, you can share the website or if there's any partners out there, we didn't talk about retail or anything. But if you do have retail partners, let's make sure to mention if you want to mention any of those. And then of course,

if any social media website that you want them to go to.

Reham Essa (53:17.519)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I enjoyed the conversation as well and I would love first to see everyone stop by first. First to stop shop is going to be our online store for my anti aging brand. It's Radixer, R-A-B-I-X-I-R.com and then for the more colorful and fun brand it's SNZEN, E-S-S-E-N-ZENBotanicals.com. We have

Our social medias were more active or the most active on our Instagram. We have Radixer on Instagram as Radixer under score skincare. &Zen on Instagram as well. We also have the Facebook, we have the TikTok. We're very responsive. If they have any questions or anything, can email us on the website or send a message on Instagram or any way.

Facebook or TikTok, we always get back to our customers. We have our product in some of this past, just because I'm afraid I'm going to forget some of them. I'm not going to be able to mention all of them, just to keep it fair for everyone. yeah, we have our product on Amazon as well, Walmart, Marketplace. I think we have it on some of the shopping apps as well.

Ramon Vela (54:26.766)
Sure.

Reham Essa (54:44.631)
But mainly, like again, our main products are always available on our website.

Ramon Vela (54:51.554)
Great. Well, this is great. And I highly recommend everyone going out there and visiting the website, obviously, depending on what your focus area is. But I think if you if you are in your 30s and you're and you're interested in anti-aging as well as you have acne prone skin and so forth, you may want to take a look at these. Go to RadixHere.com is for the anti-aging. And then if you have a younger adults or teens or pre-teens,

who you want to make sure start their skincare health journey correctly, then have them go visit Essenceandbotanicals.com. And I would sign up for the newsletter because it's the best way to keep up with products, keep up with promotions and things that come out in events and things like that. So that's probably the best way to stay in touch.

So thank you so much, Raham. I really truly appreciated you making time for us today.

Reham Essa (55:52.207)
I think it's thanks to you. It was a pleasure talking to you and to everyone. And yeah, I hope everyone enjoyed that.

Ramon Vela (55:58.956)
Yeah, likewise. Everyone out there, have just had Raham Assa, who is founder and CEO of Radixier as well as EssenceN. And like I said, we're going to have all those links to on our podcast description, which you can find at Apple and Spotify. And so definitely, like I said, go visit the website. So you got to take a look at some of these these packagings on the EssenceN. Really, really cute. And then, of course, learn more about

what these products have in them. I think you'd be really, really happy and surprised that, especially in essence, and they're so affordable. I think you'd really be surprised. So go take a look. Beyond that, I always tell you be safe, be sane, be healthy. But don't forget that one big, I don't know what you call it, organ or what is it called? What was it? Yeah, the organ of your body is your skin. And what you put on it, whether it's

Reham Essa (56:50.094)
Let me just go again.

Ramon Vela (56:56.76)
deodorant or lotion or all this other stuff and or how your environment affects it really matters. It really, really matters and it matters to your health. So this is one way of staying healthy. Skin health is definitely something that you want to be aware of. So go take a look at the websites. Beyond that, everyone, we've all been going through a lot. So let's just do ourselves a favor with the pandemic, with economics, with...

you know, the wars and politics, all this stuff is driving people crazy. Anxiety can actually also affect your skin as well. So let's just do ourselves a favor and let's just be kinder to each other, remembering that everyone is going through something. And I know that if we can be a little bit kinder, 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.