Combray Reflections

3 biggest lessons we've learned in the last year.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 20:24:00 +0000

We're really thankful to all of the people who have purchased Combray, and we have learned a lot:

1. Redness conditions are the top reason people buy repeatedly

- Rosacea, Eczema, and Psoriasis are each about the same in terms of % repeat purchases

- Acne is 30% higher repeat purchases than the conditions above, and the highest of any condition

2. We really think we need a 10 ml (1 month) supply. We see this by the fact that we see many people repeatedly purchase the 3-pack samples (about a 2 week supply). Since this offering was really meant as a means for people to try Combray, on a per ml basis, it is expensive to buy repeatedly. So, an alternative for those who don't use it fast enough or who just don't want to have to pay $156 at a time, we think a 10 ml, 1 month, about $50 bottle would be perfect.

3. Sampling, sampling, sampling! Since posting our free sample offer on a coupon/sample site (Hunt4Freebies.com) and receiving 6,000 + survey respondents/samplers in less than 24 hours, our world has changed in terms of "advertising."

- It makes great sense that to give a free sample to an interested person it shouldn't have to cost much more than shipping. I love how this shows the new commerce paradigm possible through the internet. The biggest obstacle for years for small companies to compete with multi-nationals in products like skin care is accessing the customer, either through buying advertising pages or having to "buy" shelf space. Free samples via these special internet sites that act like coupon clearing houses levels the playing field and we love it.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Here's a review of Combray that is not your average skin care product review, in the sense of the amount of scrutiny the reviewer applied:

http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/issue-9/combray.html

I think it was about a 2 month process in all putting Combray to the test: sunburn, wound healing, insect bites, and more. The results with mosquito bites is kind of a new data point for us, but another person has also mentioned it. Combray really passed with flying colors.

The natural, organic, etc. versus synthetic question is raised regarding Oxofulleram, as the review is in a digital magazine called Organic Lifestyle Magazine, but they don't come across as close-minded, just the opposite. One of the ways I thought of to explain Oxofulleram was to consider the technology theoretically necessary to produce it - one could dig up the raw carbon from e.g., a coal seam, then "cook" it with an oil in a fairly primitive fashion and that would basically be it, plus or minus some very lucky choices of what you added to the cooking pot. Chemistry is cooking, and cooking is chemistry, pretty much.

The structure exists in nature, and just has to meet the right other ingredients. Not that that is any better or worse than a purely synthetic structure.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:06:00 +0000

Hi -

We started a new blog, focused on applications of Combray, and how and why it works or doesn't for various skin care needs. Our focus is on user experience. Right now there is a post on the history of Combray, and then a post on why we are putting some emphasis right now on understanding how Combray helps with rosacea. Everything is driven by listening to users, through our surveying and sampling, and even better, when we can speak or correspond with users directly.

Here's the new blog: http://combray-applications.blogspot.com/

We're also interacting with Combray customers, testers, and friends on twitter: @Combray_Dave and @Combray_Jeanne. We would love to hear from you - I think it's going to be a great way to interact with users and people interested to learn more.

Good rosacea information

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:02:00 +0000

We're in the process of trying to contribute to the understanding of rosacea - it's apparent that some rosacea sufferers are helped by Combray. The causes are not well understood, though inflammatory processes and oxidative stress correlate with the condition. So, there's a basis for why Combray could help - if reducing the concentration of free radicals signals a reduction in inflammation.

Here is a good information center at the NYTimes on rosacea.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:37:00 +0000

On the topic of corporatization and the alternatives -

Life, Inc.

Benton's

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:42:00 +0000

Benton's is a small family-owned business in Tennessee, near Solenne's US distribution site for Combray.

The first interesting thing is that they make really good bacon, prosciutto, country ham, etc., that's been written up in Saveur, Gourmet, and other high-end food publications.

The next interesting thing, and revolutionary, is how they have evolved as a local 60-year old business. For most of their history, they were a pork butcher/smokehouse that served the local community. The communities in this area of Tennessee are not really that healthy anymore, small farmers have gone out of business, local manufacturers have pulled out, etc. So, Benton's began to serve the rest of the country through internet sales.

They are still the same - a simple block-house that will leave your clothes smelling of smoke for a
day, it's just that now they have a way to serve people farther than a car's drive away. And, like most successful local business, they are approachable, nice people who you can talk to and get to know and learn more about their product, the history, and feel a personal connection.

They not only survived, they are prospering, and I think they could be a great example for small business-owners in local rural communities to consider, especially farmers, who could specialize and market a high-quality product nationwide through the internet. They are also an example of how a good national brand can be, approachable, and with a local, personal approach.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Here is an interesting video :

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1886337/6214254

Cold pressed

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Had a question today on whether the grape seed oil we use in Combray is cold-pressed or solvent exracted. It's cold-pressed, and edible, from Wajos in Germany.

Thanks -

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Dr. Leslie Baumann gave us a plug here. We hear she's been giving samples to her patients and especially the sensitive skin types are responding well.

this is good...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:32:00 +0000

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/this-is-broken.html

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:33:00 +0000

Okay, so since I spent a lot of time in the previous post basically saying that man-made doesn't necessarily equal "bad" and natural doesn't necessarily equal "good" and vice versa, I can give an example or two of when natural wins out hands down, and probably gives a very powerful influence on our perceptions that shift natural to equate more with good than man-made.

FLAVORS, SCENTS, REMEDIES, and NUTRIENTS;
like found in
SPICES, TEAS, WINES, and FOOD.

Natural versus synthetic origin is extremely important in things like vanilla vs. vanillin (the synthetic version - but note that they're not called the same thing, because they are not at all, though in our ice cream this may be lost in the mix). This is because what we call natural vanilla is in fact many different compounds (hundreds) in addition to the main compound, vanillin, which is exactly the same as the synthetic vanillin. This is where the wonderful complexity of nature comes in. And, this is a case where we can draw a distinction between natural vs. man-made, because of what the compounds are. It is at this stage practically impossible to identify and duplicate the complexity of mixtures in flavors like vanilla extract and wine.

Most flavors are like this - extremely complex mixtures of hundreds of molecules that are pretty much impossible to replicate artificially.

Now, it is very natural to extend this idea that the complexity in flavors and scents resulting from the hundreds of different compounds present in plants holds secrets. So, maybe nutrients and natural remedies based on plants also contain secrets. We may not even be able to easily recognize all of the compounds in a plant, fruit or vegetable, let alone replicate the mixture, and identify what is doing what. But, this is our human lack of knowledge on what does what and what is in what, not a basic difference between what the sources are.

So, eating vitamin and nutrient-rich food or eating a lot of vitamins? Of course it would seem that in most cases it is better to eat food, because of the hundreds of compounds that come along with anything we eat. The compounds (or in other words, chemicals or molecules) that we are eating are exactly the same in both cases, it is just in the case of food, we are ingesting many hundreds more different types - In a nut you get the omega acids, protein, and any number of different antioxidants along with the Vitamin E, with a vitamin you only get the Vitamin E (which is exactly identical to the molecule in the nut).

Though before we sign off on the idea that plants are there to wonderfully nurture us (and nothing else) by the way, bitter almonds have caused deaths, because in addition to the nutrient compounds, they are a rich source of hydrogen cyanide.

Natural vs. Organic vs. ....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Consider this:

Organic in agriculture and marketing seems to mean "no man-made chemicals" for instance, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. So, organic is pretty close to meaning "natural" in this context, so, being a fan of first-order logic (if this then that, etc.) we can break this down perhaps something like this:

IF
pesticides and/or fertilizers on my food = not good

AND
pesticides and/or fertilizers = man-made

THEN
man-made = not good.

AND IF
natural = opposite of man-made

THEN
natural = good.

Now consider:

in chemistry, organic means carbon containing. Organic chemistry refers to the chemistry of hydrocarbons - on which most life is heavily based. In organic chemistry, chemists (at small scale and large scale) make things like vitamins, hormones, amino-acids, drug compounds, ... many (maybe most) of which occur in nature.

One good example of this is aspirin. Salicylic acid occurs naturally in willow bark, and has known to have analgesic properties since the 18th century. Chemists then isolated it in the 19th century and derived a closely related form (to be less irritating), called acetylsalicylic acid, or trademarked by Bayer as aspirin. Aspirin is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world, with 20,000 tons consumed yearly.

Now, take any of the supplements you care to as an example, such as a vitamin, hormone, or other extract, and you have basically the same story - to extract and isolate these from natural sources would be an ecological disaster more or less similar to destroying the world's willow trees or using a large amount of land to plant and grow willow trees to make aspirin. The willow tree (or tomato that contains lycopene, or almond that contains Vitamin E) is in fact an extremely inefficient producer of salicylic acid, since it is making another hundred or more compounds, converting light to energy, etc. Making salicylic acid is only one small thing it does - and this is why it makes much more sense to protect the environment to meet the world's analgesic needs by intensifying the generation in a chemical process.

This is why practically all of the supplements on the shelves are man-made, though many, maybe most, are found and used in nature. And, one can be thankful that they are man-made, since that protects many species from over-use. Remember also that leaves, seeds, skins of fruits, berrys and plants contain small amounts of any single compound, so a very large amount of the leaf or berry has to be processed to recover the compound. For example, almonds contain about 10 milligrams per 100 gram of Vitamin E. So, at the recommended intake of 15 mg/day, 150 grams of almonds would need to be processed, or about 1/8th of a pound, and then the leftovers presumably discarded, or used as animal feed or the like. This is a very inefficient way to secure Vitamin E. It takes a lot of land to grow the almonds, and a lot of energy and expense to extract and isolate the Vitamin E.

Now, back to the beginning, and the logic of it all. The logical statements above are false, and are an error in logic known as the "hasty generalization" or an "insufficient sample" fallacy. Taking too small of a sampling of cases and then generalizing to a much broader case on too little evidence in consideration. So, while obviously it is bad to eat pesticides, it is not true that most man-made substances (or chemicals) are pesticides or fertilizers, or even similar to them in chemical nature. In fact, of all the new compounds that occupy chemists time, most are not similar in properties to noxious compounds, since the largest single generator of new chemical compounds in the world is the pharmaceutical industry, and they quickly reject toxic compounds and don't go further with them.

A similar hasty generalization goes like this:

IF
humans need and eat food to survive (and don't die as a direct result from eating it)

AND
food is almost entirely of natural origin

THEN
natural products are safe.

The hasty generaliztion here is assuming that we can eat everything and not die (or get sick) as a result.

Taking larger sample sizes, we can consider alternative measures of whether something is safe or not than immediate effects on ingestion - Bruce Ames's tests on the carcinogenicity of natural and man-made substances. He is the inventor of the Ames test, the first screening for mutagenicity (and resultingly carcinogenicity), which revolutionized toxicology in the '70's. He showed that in fact on average many more natural substances tested positive in an Ames test than man-made chemicals, and two of the biggest culprits were mushrooms and broccoli. By this toxicological standard, the compounds in mushrooms and broccoli mutate the DNA of bacteria, and would be immediately rejected as a drug candidate.

Likewise, if one were to consider on a chemical by chemical basis how many plants and substances contained in plants were edible in a rain forest, it is easy to be convinced that many more plants were inedible than edible, and so the hasty generalization of assuming that most natural substances are edible leads to inaccurate conclusions.

Halley's blog is almost always more up to date and interesting than mine.

Organic Lifestyle Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:16:00 +0000

Just got off the phone with Jeanne from Organic Lifestyle magazine. They were new to me - but really she was very genuine and nice.

http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com

It's digital, and in a form which I have been thinking would work nicely, which is that it's like leafing through a magazine, and so you can do full-page ads, etc. I was thinking this would be good since the internet world today is dominated by the banner and small text ad. We always do better when we can say more -

As for the philosophy of the magazine, Jeanne was super nice and we hit it off and talked for over an hour - mostly no business, just about skin care and the organic trend, etc.

We are all dealing with the same issues - how do non-corporate (in other words, the people who provide goods and services without the help of wall street) people communicate with their communities and then each other to introduce new people to other people and things that they may like or help them? For me: it's not twitter.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:11:00 +0000

We had a very nice time at Sundance in December. It is a special place, especially due to the conservation efforts in its history and as part of its mission now. It sits in a steep, narrow canyon, with a stream running down through the paths connecting the ski area, restaurants, and cabins.

The spa couldn't be any nicer and more comforting. Something like Native American Zen...

Halley has some pictures and more info here.

Tracy, the spa director, and Lucy and Derek from Marketing, were very generous, down to earth and hospitable. We're very proud to have our product there and I can't wait to go back (on vacation, no work... ).

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:33:00 +0000

You can now see the natural facial we developed with the Spa at Sundance in Utah. No soaps or any other chemicals, but still cleansing.

Update after a while...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:44:00 +0000

Time goes by quickly. The latest news is that our facial that Halley, our Marketing chief, has been working on with Sundance Resort has come out really nicely and they are all loving the results. See Halley's blog for more. The complete description is also done and will be on the main Combray site soon.

I am due to write the next part of the the story on creams, oils, and ointments, and why oils are good for your skin. The oil facial described above, called the "High Altitude" facial after the fact that it was developed with the ski resorts, is an outgrowth of the idea that oils are beneficial, and indeed essential, to good looking and healthy skin. The additional feature with the facial is that oils can be used to cleanse - the Romans didn't use soap, but olive oil, and a scraper, and you can ask Halley, oils really do clean. I will describe what a soap is, how it cleans, and how oils clean in more detail in the post on oils and your skin coming soon.

Ointments, creams, and lotions: butter, mayonnaise, and milk.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:46:00 +0000

What is the analogy, or what do all of these have in common?

Physically, they're all the same. They're emulsions of oily components and watery components.

The difference between an ointment and a cream, or butter and mayonnaise, is the proportion of oil and water. More oil, thicker, more water, thinner, and likewise with a lotion and milk.

So, why have the different thicknesses? What is the purpose of a cream versus an ointment (or salve)? That's a good question. It's easy to answer the question in food, it's a matter of taste. And, mostly the same for ointments, creams, and lotions. Also mostly a matter of taste, with some qualifications which I describe below.

In older days, it seems heavier creams and ointments were more favored. When is the last time you heard anyone refer to a salve, by the way? In the last 30 years, there has been a fashion for lower oil content emulsions, more watery feeling preparations, and a lot of marketing against "oily" products. It is mostly fashion, with only one real difference, which is the ease with which you can put smaller and smaller amounts of oil on your skin.

The water does nothing but evaporate and also provide an environment for lifeforms like molds, fungi, yeasts, and bacteria. Maybe that wouldn't have been wise in the old days when a skin preparation needed to be stored without many chemical preservatives. As for what the skin needs, that is clearly oil, since the water has nowhere to go and nothing to do, except shrivel your skin over long times.

Since a cream is an oil and water mixture, where globules of oil are suspended in water (in an oil in water emulsion, as opposed to a water in oil emulsion, in which the water is present as globules in an oil base - think butter versus milk), something has to be there to make it stable, so it doesn't separate like a badly made sauce. That is the emulsifying agent. In the case of mayonnaise, it is the lecithin present in the egg yolk. In creams, many are used, almost all synthetic: polysorbates and cetearyl alcohols are two examples, and they are also either the same or similar to many detergent compounds.

If you didn't have the emulsifier, the cream would separate into oil and water. When you place this on your skin, the oil droplets (in the case of a typical lotion or cream) spread out on your skin in the water matrix, the water evaporates, and what you're left with is the oily part on your skin, since the oily part won't evaporate as easily.

In other words, every lotion, cream, or ointment is really only distributing oil to your skin, and not much more. This is assuming there aren't harsher ingredients like alcohols or soaps that are dissolving or stripping away the lipids on top of your skin, and a part of your skin (the topmost layer, the stratum corneum).

In today's cosmetics science, many more ingredients are added since you want the cream to feel good: smooth, luxurious, smell good, and have a nice color, and not change.

When the water is added, now also the molds, fungi, bacteria, and other living things must also be kept at bay, meaning anti-microbials (which in Europe are called preservatives). You must have what Americans call preservatives too, which are known as antioxidants in Europe, to preserve the oily component. These are typically BHA and/or BHT.

So, maybe you have noticed something by this point, which is kind of like a question in logic: If the only thing that is happening is the laying down of a layer of oil on your skin, whether it's an ointment, cream or lotion, why go through all the trouble of making the ointment, cream or lotion in the first place?

That is a good question. How and why did we get to this point where all those added things are in there? I'm not sure there is a real exact answer, but it's more of a history question. My best guess is that in the 50's and 60's when polymers (plastics) like silicone came into existence, technology was absolutely the best selling point for any product (remember how everything was space age?) and polymers provided many opportunities to improve properties which cosmetics chemists had probably long sought after, smoother, more luxurious creams, etc. From the standpoint of stability and feel, I have no doubt that today's creams are far superior to the those of the 40's, which were mostly cold-cream like and that was it.

And, I think someone just started the marketing snowball of oil = bad, watery = good, and it became technologically challenging for everyone to make a better cream. Gels, etc. then came along as well.

I think it was all pretty much technology push - new materials gave new feel possibilities, and it was a way to improve upon the competition, and then everyone gets into a race. In other words, Marketing driven.

The idea of a salve-like substance that lasts and provids a layer that doesn't absorb much or rub off easily makes sense. It's good for continued protection, delivery of an ingredient, etc. for different situations, like serious wounds, burns, etc. In that case, the skin may not have enough of it's own protective barrier against moisture loss. So, oil versus vaseline-like substance makes a lot of sense for different situations. It's the part where one adds water which really is just unnecessary to the task at hand and introduces a lot of complication....

So, why go through all of the trouble, and also put another dozen substances on your skin if what you really want is to deliver a little oil?

So, why do you want to deliver a little oil for that matter? That's the subject for the next post.

Cheap, Fast, Good, Pick Two

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:41:00 +0000

In the process of having all of the details in place properly and launching Combray, I have continually thought (and repeated) something I first heard in a Tom Waits interview. He said he heard it from Jim Jarmusch. You can call it something like the

1st Law of Getting Things Done: Cheap, Fast, Good, pick 2.

Run through some examples -

If you want something cheap and good, you can't have it fast.

Like homegrown vegetables. Best and cheapest requires you to spend a lot of time in the garden. It took us a year to find the right bottle since we wanted the best quality, but we didn't want to necessarily buy 50,000 to begin with. So, finally we found Verreries Brosse in France, who did the first Chanel #5 bottle. Really good, not so expensive (overall, still quite expensive for each), but it took a long time for us to find them.

If you want something Fast and Good, it won't be cheap.

Optimizing advertising, like Cost per Click advertising (those ads on the right of the Google searches) for example. If you want to know quickly how to find the right customers, it will cost you, one way or another, which is why I am glad we are in no hurry. Luckily our organic solar cell materials business is doing well.

If you need something Fast and Cheap, it probably won't be good.

Like fast food, having a house built, Vegas weddings, getting your car repaired,...

I haven't seen it fail yet. Trying to break this law will only bring you tears in the end.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Visit our Global Sales & Marketing Director's blog...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:28:00 +0000

I am happy to announce that our e-commerce site is now active!

www.solenne.eu

We have a lot of our data posted, and you can purchase through credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), Google checkout, Paypal, and wire transfer.

I have Ian Lurie to thank for giving great (free) advice, which is to try Volusion as a webcart, and I have been very happy with what we have seen so far. Not perfect for us, since we are much more information category focused, with only two products. However their system is robust, allows for a one-stop solution for merchant account, gateway, and software, and their support has been for the most part very good.

I found EU solutions for webcarts far inferior, especially in dealing with multiple payment systems, and I couldn't find an all-in-one solution. That is no criticism of the EU, it is just an outgrowth of the fact that there is no one unified Europe (with common payment systems, languages, gateways, etc.), so there is no EU (let alone EU plus US) -wide system based here. I find that the only thing I ended up missing out on with Volusion so far is iDeal, the Dutch bank transfer system. This may come eventually as well. We did have to incorporate a US distribution company and open a US bank account, but that was not so time consuming or costly.

Next step is to notify the several hundred people who have signed up to be contacted when Combray is ready. Then, begin our internet advertising. I hope then to start a project with Ian's company, Portent Interactive.

Next for site content is an informational section on antioxidants in skin care, for which we have a huge amount of material prepared.

Stay tuned!

ThisNext.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:24:00 +0000

This whole blog post came automatically through ThisNext.com, where they have a "blogit" button near products, and if you are with one of the major blogging services, you write the whole post right at ThisNext. The site itself seems clean and to work well. Google ad planner also shows traffic up by 50% in the last year. The idea is that expert and non-expert users recommend products and anyone can browse the recommendations. I didn't yet see how or even if products are really ranked or weeded out other than by number of recommendations and whether or not an expert recommends them. They do have a provision for companies to send them products to be ranked.

I think this idea is inevitable - people love to write reviews and I think product word of mouth is a natural outcome of social communities. They also run ads right next to products though, which would apparently be their source of income. This seems to dilute the idea a little.

Introduction (First Post)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:38:00 +0000

Greetings,
This blog serves to provide an easily updatable, personal, and somewhat informal forum for information on Combray.

Combray is a new skin care product that is the result of several years of development by Solenne BV, a company I co-founded with Prof. J.C. (Kees) Hummelen.

We are scientists who recognized the potential of a new class of antioxidant to provide benefits to human health, with skin care being the first area we chose to develop.

We were not the first to recognize this potential, but I do believe our company is the first to accomplish bringing the benefits to fruition in skin care.

Our initial interest was scientific, and then it grew into a more personal interest when we saw the potential to help our friends and family and their friends and families, ...

I, my wife Halley, Kees, his partner Geartsje, our mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends use Combray and believe in it for various uses. If we didn't, we would never be able to sell it, nor would we need the bother, as we already have a successful business making and selling materials used in organic solar cells.

Over the years, we have learned a significant amount about Combray, the potential of antioxidants in skin care, and the cosmetics business. This is where I intend to share some of the more behind the scenes information, and hopefully interact on a personal basis with others who are interested.