Shidrokh Ghawami has been working as a skin therapist for 22 years, and she has gained a lot of experience on the way. And her view of the industry and is based on facts.
— Almost 15 years ago, I started to observe how the beauty industry is damaging all of us, both men and women. Born and raised in a family with both her father and uncle working with chemistry and dermatology, she’s followed her father practising medicine as well as manufacturing his own products, which were sold in many pharmacies.
— His way of practising medicine was different. Combining medicine and cosmetics in order to help his patients were the key to his success and this has influenced my values for all time. Ghawami claims the industry is manufacturing products based on what the marketing department says is good for sales.
— If there is a new ingredient which they can build a brand around, they produce it and call it the latest innovation. This has nothing to do with science or helping people. They put a lot of money to convince consumers that the product is groundbreaking and you are going to see results, and that’s why it costs $290 a jar. It’s of course not the truth and everybody in the industry knows it, but don’t dare to speak about it. Many brands from Japan are good examples of this — and I haven’t seen anyone stop ageing, despite using their products for many years.
Ghawami also states how depriving male consumers of good skincare products has been a crime.
— Poorly formulated cheap products or overpriced so-called premium bullshit has done nothing but confusing men ambitions using skincare.
A few years ago, you started your own brand, Cool Derma. How do you do things differently?
— I believe the product should be based on proven science and solve a problem. It should be formulated with maximum of beneficials for skin and body health. It should not contain unnecessary ingredients which are good for marketing — but harmful for the skin health. Both men and women deserve a well-formulated and high tech formula for daily care where your skin type is the main focus and not your gender. Skin health has no gender. We should produce locally and promote our own chemists and factories, so manufacturing Cool Derma in Sweden helps the industry to flourish. Sustainability is not a goal for us, but our start. When you begin with it, you have no choice but exercise it every day. We do that by producing less, buying less, useless, but gain the most. By giving the client what they need, we solve a problem with-out harming our planet or selling bullshit which ends up in our ocean.
