Optimize Your Skin Microbiome: For Your Skin and the Planet ft. Mireille "Dr. Mimi" Vega (VGAM Biome)

If you’re like me, you have probably heard the term “microbiome” in the context of our guts. You might even have probiotics as part of your daily wellness routine. But did you know that, just as we have a microbiome on the inside of our bodies, we also have one of the outside of our bodies? More specifically on our skin.

You might now be saying to yourself “ok, but how does this knowledge help us to make more sustainable solutions”? Well, it starts with understanding how our bodies interact with our environment, and how respecting one can help to respect the other.

And who better to guide us through this concept than dedicated Skin Scientist and leader in skin microbiome, Dr. Mireille "Mimi" Vega.

With a lifelong commitment to revolutionizing the skincare industry with science-backed truths that are better for the planet and people, Dr. Mimi believes in doing this important work at both the micro and macro levels.

Her background in chemistry, oncology, and the biotech, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries make her a wealth of knowledge on the topic. This background is also what led her to disrupt the skincare industry with a “one human skin approach” – her skincare brand, VGAM Biome.

Follow along as we dive into understanding the world of microorganisms, what this means for our skin, the importance of a minimalistic approach (especially at a time where we are being told we need a 10-step beauty routine!), the difference between “no-no” and “oh yes” ingredients, her company’s compostable and recyclable packaging, and reducing waste through her “Misfits” offering.

As someone who has spent the past couple of years working on my own health by improving my internal microbiome, this was such an eye-opening conversation. Dr Mimi is just a delight, and I know that you will love hearing from her too!

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[Host: Lauren Scott] Well, I'm so excited today because we have Mireille Vega - you might know her as Dr. Mimi - joining us today, so welcome, Mireille, to the show.

[Guest: Mireille Vega] Thank you, Lauren, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

I'm so excited to get going. I think your offering is extremely unique, and I would like to start us off at the most macro possible level because we're going to need the audience to follow us along here. At the macro level, we're going to get into the topic of the microbiome. If you can help our listeners, who maybe (like me!) just barely passed chemistry, could you help us understand what is a microbiome at the highest level?

Sure, well thanks for the question. That's a great question because it's actually also very much connected to the story of who I am and what I developed. So, we probably all heard the great benefits of the good microorganisms that live in our gut, so the gut microbiome. These are microorganisms. Actually, the science of, so just terminology, we have the microbiome, which is the science or the genes, more specifically, of all the living microorganisms that live in or around our body. But we also have the microbiota or the flora, which is the actual microorganisms. This is like a very, very high level, and we've known for quite a while that these microorganisms play an essential role in our health.

But with computer capacity in the 2010s and '15, right after we decoded the human genome, we started looking at the genome of the microorganisms living in symbiosis with humans. So, the human microbiome, the microorganisms' genes actually, that live with the human. There are different types of microbiome, right? The soil microbiome, the animals, different plants, different ecosystems, but evidently, we stay with the human. So, in 2010-2015, all the great benefits that we thought were possible with these microorganisms were being connected. The links were being made with this computer capacity able to analyze all that great data.

And so, what is the skin microbiome? It's the continuation of that. Back in 2014, for myself, I was in an environment in immunology where we talked a lot about the gut microbiome applications to health and to diseases in oncology, in immunology particularly. And they were talking about all the great benefits and all these connections. And for me, having been passionate about the skin and the skin chemistry and having looked for the missing element, which I didn't know was missing, but I knew something was, I just didn't know what it was. When they were discussing these great discoveries, I thought, okay, what's going on here? There's something there, right? And I kept digging, particularly on the skin.

So, the gut microbiome will have benefits all over, even for the mind and for the skin, but the microorganisms living on our skin bring other benefits. And this is what I start discovering and connecting and linking. And here we are today.

Which is fascinating because, admittedly, I only started learning about the microbiome maybe five years or so ago. I mean, not to dull our listeners with too many details, but I spent a lot of my childhood on antibiotics, and as a result, I had to learn all about replenishing my gut microbiome. And for some reason, I guess I just never thought of it existing, that little ecosystem existing outside of my gut. So, you're saying that that is internal and external on all living beings?

That's correct, yes.

Are they are different in terms of what we're talking about, maybe in our gut versus on our skin?

Yes, that's actually a very, very good question. Yes, definitely. They're different between one person and another, one evidently animal from another. But within one person, depending on the region, evidently, the microorganisms we have in our gut are not the same that we have in our eyes or hair or scalp, mostly, and definitely not the same as those that we have on our face. So it changes depending on the environment. If there's moisture, humidity, or if there's sebum (so oils), the microorganisms will be different.

So, on our arms, for instance, we don't have much sebum produced, not a lot of humidity that stays there. So we tend to have very few microorganisms living in that zone. On our face, groin, underarm, there are quite a few living there. They actually say this includes the gut, evidently, but they actually say that there are more microorganisms living on and in our body than we actually have human cells. So, this is really, and they've been living with us for a while and bringing great benefits. We know, like we mentioned around immunology, but for the skin's immunology as well, right? It does protect the skin. I see the skin as a double armor, like the skin itself being the structure, the chemistry of it, and the microorganisms living on its surface, protecting that armor, which composes the double armor, that is the ecosystem of the skin.

And these microorganisms living on the skin actually protect it from premature aging even, and imbalances caused by some bacteria that take over or sometimes yeast. So, atopic dermatitis, or eczema, or acne, they're like very similar pathologies in a way that are caused by this dysbiosis or imbalances of the microorganisms, caused by different mechanisms, but still, it's the same background.

So much to learn, and certainly a journey for all of us as we are dealing with different skin conditions, to think about that. And to dive into maybe a little bit more the environmental side of your offering because I think that's part of what makes this so interesting. You know, we've had other guests on the show who have talked about maybe overconsumption when it comes to things like fashion or even packaging. But to start on the skincare side, there is also a current push, I don't know if it's a TikTok thing, but certainly of mass consumerism in terms of skincare products. I was even listening to an episode with an esthetician on a podcast the other day saying we should all be washing our faces with bottled water every single day with like a five-step process. But with your company, you are taking more of a minimalistic approach and trying to streamline that process. Could you talk about why that was important to you in creating your brand?

Multiple reasons. The first one, honestly, was sanity. It just did not make sense for me, for my lifestyle, for what I knew, and what then I learned afterward. So this starts from my childhood, really. I'm a child of the 70s, so, you know, grew up even in the 80s being part of an environmental group, even in those years they existed, right? And I grew up spending my summers in the country, testing a lot of things. I was really, really curious about chemistry, but the chemistry of nature, and my environment encouraged that behavior as well.

So, I was testing anything really. And then came my teenage years where I was doing track, I was active, and my mother kept on telling me, "Oh, you know, like, how come you get these breakouts?" And I didn't want them. I was insecure, and, you know, so I tried everything. I was going to the drugstore, no internet, so obviously, I was going to the aisle where they had all the products that could do miracles, right? And I would check the labels and test, you know, this one and this other one, and also products from dermatologists. I tried everything, really, only to end up really with my skin being super irritated. That's basically what happened.

And then, you know, like, it got better, but I did end up becoming a chemist because of that. And I did end up doing postgraduate studies, so I got a doctorate degree, using microorganisms. So this is life full circle, using microorganisms in the lab to, you know, obtain natural extracts and enzymes, more formulations later on. I wanted a line that made sense, even at that time, but I wanted something simple because for me, it didn't make sense, you know, even then, we had different types of skin, and then you tried a product, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it stopped working, sometimes it just didn't work, right? And then you had to keep changing products. So even if we didn't have the 10-steps routine, we certainly had all these products that we tried, you know, for a specific function.

I call the industry that I'm in, really, the before-after industry. It looks at a symptom and tries to correct it, and gives you an ingredient or two or three, or you do this, and you do that, and you do this in the morning, this in the evening, once a week, twice a week, double cleansing, cycling, and all these things, right? Really, which chemically, like the chemistry of the skin, it just didn't make sense. It just didn't. So, I finished my PhD, and I was looking, you know, like, okay, where can I get experience, and to develop something because I didn't feel solid enough to develop something that didn't exist. And I was kind of humbled also, you know, like with a big lab, I would expect them to develop something, honestly. And if they hadn't, who was I to develop it, right?

And then, I went on to get experiences in biotech, neutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals. And I'm a really passionate person in the sense that I want to help. So, I wanted to help my skin, but I also wanted to understand it. Oncology affected my life, not directly, but my family's life. My son, he's great, but was affected. My mother got leukemia, and she was the trigger of going into this oncology path, where I start digging as well to understand, okay, what was going on because, at the time, leukemia was cancer. We didn't know, like the different types, and, you know, so I went on into biochemistry and doing these studies to understand it. It's sort of a control of, you know, our environment. So what can we do, and how can we prevent these, right? And I knew again, the solution was in nature, was part of understanding how the body worked within its environment.

We know, specifically for oncology, that 80% of cancers are related to the environment, in its large sense, in the behaviors we have, the lifestyle, where we live, what we eat, what, you know, some of them we control, most of them we don't, but it's still external factors that cause these diseases, if we say. So, I'm on this path, and myself, being still passionate about the skin, passionate about protecting the skin, and working now in skin cancer and skin immunology, and these projects because they always attracted me. And I somehow always ended up working on them as well, right?

So, myself as a consumer, I'm going to different places, asking for products again because, in my 30s, in my 40s, I still had these, you know, either breakouts or very irritated skin, and trying all these products. And, you know, going, you know, with the hormones and everything going on, you know, you get what you get. And, you know, although it didn't quite make sense, I didn't necessarily have the time to investigate or to find something that made really good sense. So, I did what I could, basically, up until the moment my daughter became a teenager. By that time, my cabinet of product was full, full, full, full of products.

So, my daughter kept going in there and trying things, and I said, "No, no, no, this, you know, you can't do this." Right? One, this is too early because I do believe, you know, like the skin needs to be left to itself as long as possible, which is certainly not the trend that's encouraged. But at the same time, my cabinet was full, but I kept asking for one product. Give me one because I'm not going to do the whole thing, you know, like, "Oh, yeah, but you need this one for this, and this one for that." And so, when my daughter looked into my cabinet, and we tried to figure out something that made sense for her, it kind of all aligned: the environment, the oncology background, the health of the skin, the chemistry, the microbiota, because I had done that deep dive on the microbiome at that point. And I knew there lied something that we had to explore. And this was back in 2016-2017, and this is when I started, okay, let's start from scratch and think about the skin and go one solution for the skin and look at what is common between one person and another and not what is different, which are only symptoms, honestly, because the organ itself, including its microbiota, it works the same between you and me, and between my grandmother and my son, right? It's all the same functioning. The only difference, really, is that my son produces a lot more sebum because his hormones kicked in, and also, sometimes, you know, lacks a bit of some salts, right? But there are some just elements that are disbalanced, but at the core, it all works the same.

I think it's so important, and it's beautiful to see that thread. Sometimes our professional journeys have these different stops, and we don't necessarily see how it's all coming together, but it totally makes sense that it ended up with VGAM Biome and your offering now. And I know core to your offering, you have the Go-To Duo, which is really this idea that we're all maybe treating the symptoms, but at the core of it, we have this similar organism that we're trying to work with. So, could you help explain that duo itself?

Absolutely, yes. So this took a bit of reprogramming, even for myself, because we're so used to targeting symptoms and having different products in the winter, in the summer, or in the morning, in the evening, which again, doesn't make sense. But, you know, I had to do a bit of back and forth. And the first exercise I did, really, and this goes back to my oncology background, was to develop the No-No list. So, this is the No-No list of ingredients to avoid in your products but, in general, right? So, the irritants, the contaminants, evidently, those that are petroleum-based, or those that are endocrine disruptors, toxic for human, toxic for the planet, you know, all these types of ingredients. Perfumes, for instance, you would exclude perfume because they contain hidden ingredients and sometimes there are other no-no ingredients because of trade secret.

So, I mapped all the No-No ingredients, but this applies also to other products that you would have for your care, right? And including detergents that we also forget to check when we get a reaction sometimes. What's, you know, it may be your detergent or your hair care. One of these two are often at cause. So that was the first exercise. And then was mapping the really good ingredients because there's so much info out there. What is true, what is based on evidence, what is not? And there may be studies that prove that this ingredient does miracle for 3 weeks, but then, you know, like long term, there's nothing. And chemically, it may actually cause issues to the skin long term, but we use them because we've been encouraged, and dermatologists support some of these too, right? Depending on the studies, and the studies are done. So, it's really complicated to make sense of it all.

And I wanted to know, okay, in my ingredients, in my products, am I going to include that collagen? Am I going to include the vitamin C? Am I going to put hyaluronic acid or not? Or this or that? And niacinamide, and all of these ingredients. Like I said, some are excellent, and some are wasteful. They're not bad, but wasteful. And I wanted something that was complete, again, to care for the one human skin. So, to care for my kids, my teenagers, not my kids, not teenagers, and to care for myself and my friends and everyone. So, I mapped all these ingredients.

So, we're talking about minimalist. The formula, the solution is minimalist, but the formulas themselves they contain 35 ingredients, actually, that are healthy for the skin. So, it's three larger types of essential elements. So, one type is, as you mentioned, the pre and the postbiotics. So, those elements that nourish the microorganisms or that provide the environment for them to grow properly and to thrive. So, that's one. So, you have these ingredients, the pre and the postbiotics. So, that's the first type of essential element.

And then you have the other two that are really for the chemistry of the skin. So, there are the oily elements and then the watery elements. So, these elements, I mean, they don't mix, evidently, but oily are what supplements the sebum, right? The ceramides are oily, the fatty acids, any types of oils or lipids would be in that category. So, we have a mixture of these to reproduce the sebum, so that's why it penetrates really easily. But also, all components of the skin, as well, ceramides are part of the skin, and hyaluronic acid is actually a salt, but is also, you know, like in that mix.

So, we have also the watery elements, which are the salts, the proteins, the sugars, even some that capture the water in the skin because, for the skin to have its normal function and healthy functions, it needs water at the right pH and the right ingredients. So, to keep the water in, you need those molecules that are trapping the water in your skin. So, three types of elements that work together. And I wanted, as I said at the beginning, one product. That's what I kept asking. And I did try to put it into one, but then it wouldn't work on everybody all year long. And I wanted it also for myself, right? So, this is when, you know, like I decided, okay, let's try this. Let's separate. We separated the oils from the rest, and then those and we started testing, and it worked super well. It's really the basis of everything. I don't even know why we don't do this naturally. I mean, we do it for food; we balance. Sometimes we put more fruits or vegetables, more plant-based, or some more proteins depending on what we think the body is asking. So, the skin also asks. Throughout this process, I developed a kind of a three-step, super easy approach, sustainable, which I think applies to everything. It's the protect, restore, adapt process. Protect the essential, so stop double washing or stripping your skin from all these essentials that we have on the skin to start with. Evidently, in the evening, you do need to remove the contaminants, the sunscreen, the sweat even from the daily activities. Then you restore the balance at the right pH, and then that's it. In the morning, why would you need to wash again and strip again from essentials? Just water if you feel your skin needs it, but then you listen to your skin, and then you can restore these elements in the second step. Right, and then the third step is the adaptation step where, okay, my skin feels tight, so I need more of the oil, basically oil component, or my skin feels oily or dull. Well, I need more of the salt elements and these proteins and these water-capturing elements. So, it's really like a dance, and it's the same dance, I think, for everything, for sustainability, for resilience even. We need to protect what is essential, we restore what we lost, and then we adapt to the evolving needs every day. That's what we do for ourselves, for our planet, for our minds, so why not do it for our skin? And it's super easy when we start listening to our skin. It tells us what it needs.

I think that makes total sense, and as someone who lives in a cold climate, I can attest to the fact that what my skin is doing in the summer is completely different than what it needs in the winter. And so that makes sense to be adjusting with the water, salt base versus the oil. Absolutely, and it's nice because then you're buying the same product, and it's not that a product just stops working. It's just that finding that right balance within it, so that makes total sense.

And I know that there's another offering that you've come up with that is kind of this two-for-one, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's for lip and then you were also talking a little bit about hair care. Could you talk about that offering?

Oh, yes, it's “plus”. So, you know, in our duo, so to simplify, because even if our offering is super simple, it's so different than what everybody else is doing that people get confused. You know, like, how do I use these? And you know, so we labeled one and two on the two products. You know, like, so you make the two. I mean, I have them. I know it's a podcast, but you know, like, these are the one and the two. So you mix the two together. That's the duo. That's okay, the go-to duo. So everybody uses these, but in some instances, for more mature skin, for instance, in the winter or those that do external activities, water activity, or skiing or outside in the cold, you kind of need an extra boost of oils or oils that are more occlusive. So, a teenager that would tend to produce a lot of sebum would not necessarily use that plus, right? Plus is just for sometimes, right? Okay, so I didn't want to complicate, and I didn't want to change the approach because the approach is to have a one-step care for everyone. So by having plus, you're able to add that content to your mix for those times that you need it, but you also don't want to carry another product for just sometimes, right? So, I want to make things practical, sustainable. So we also included ingredients that would make sense for the lips, so you wouldn't mind even if, because when you put something on your lips, you know, it ends up inside, right? So you know, like, that's still healthy, you know, even if you eat it. It's not a balm, it's not super sticky. It's really light for the lips, but it does the job, and for the hair as well, same thing.

That's really neat, and you were talking before about the importance of ingredients, and I know in all industries we're kind of trying to find the right words and nomenclature to describe certain products, and “natural” is definitely one that I think we're all trying to navigate and understand what does natural mean. But for VGAM Biome and how you select your products, could you help us understand a little bit further, talking about you're really making sure there are none of the no-nos in there and then really adding the good? So, is that the basis of the direction you're trying to take for your ingredients?

Good question, for sure. I include the "O yes" ingredients; that's what I call the other list, the "oh yes" list. So I, for sure, include those, and I exclude the no-nos. However, I think now in 2020, or when I formulated, you know, like, we have ingredients that do that, that do, you know, what the skin needs, that are natural. They're available; we don't even need to develop them or to source them out of plants or, you know, because these ingredients, they're kind of interchangeable as well. Right, some are, and some are not, you know, like the essentials, but you can play a bit with them. Proteins extracts are proteins extract, so whether it's collagen or not, protein extract, your skin is not going to see it. It cannot absorb the collagen directly; the skin needs to build it from within. So that's why, you know, like, there's a lot of confusion around collagen. I'm opening a parenthesis, but it's a protein that our body builds, and one of the co-factors for building that protein is Vitamin C. So, there were studies published saying, "Oh, you need to put vitamin C on your skin and do this," and it's unrelated. You need to eat your vitamin C daily to make sure that you produce optimal amounts of collagen, but we'll produce less as we age, that's a fact. So, we need to make sure that we optimize our production there first. But for the skin, I didn't use collagen in my products because it's an ingredient that is overpriced in my mind, it's a good ingredient, it's not bad, but it's a protein. So let's take a protein extract. All of these are natural. You can find these natural. The definitions are important in my mind, but there's also been a big, big overuse of these definitions to sell products as well. So having a natural product, I think now is feasible. Obviously, there are compromises on the texture, on elements that are again not so important, but that make, at the end, a product that is more complete and sustainable.

And you mentioned just before the idea of perfumes, and on a recent episode, we had the founder of the Unscented Company, which by its name, we can understand is unscented. And I know with VGAM Biome, you lean towards solutions like either unscented or essential oils, which I think is a really unique approach, especially with so many products out there that smell great but really have this perfume element. So, can you talk a little bit more about why you've taken that approach as well?

Well, I didn't want to make a compromise on health, and as I said, I know fragrances hide other elements, and for me, I based, you know, like we were talking about the criteria, I base my choices on, yes, sustainability, natural element. I tried to get organic when it made sense. Some ingredients you just can't get, right? So being very transparent about that, trying to obtain the ingredients that are local as well. So all these criteria, one of them was absolute no no-nos, and fragrance being one of them, it was excluded. But you're right. I mean, my first criteria when I was looking for a product, if I look back 20 years ago, was the smell. You know, so I wanted something not only that smelled good but that was also unisex because I wanted to make it for everyone, right? And because of nature and the correlation with being outside for the mind and being mindful, we're identifying ourselves as a mindful skincare company. So these connections with the boreal forest and the essential oils we selected. So, we've selected two so far, really. We have cedar oil for facial care and balsam fir for the hands. That was a special edition. We also have the one that is unscented that is coming out, although it does smell of roses because there's water of rose in it, but it doesn't smell like as perfumey or, I don't know how you know because it smells different. It smells natural. Even the unscented one smells natural. It contains all-natural ingredients, so of course it's going to smell, you know, like these plant-based molecules. The reason why I also did an unscented version, however, is because essential oils are also a bit tricky. They're not a no-no per se, but they have the tendency to cause a reaction, some more than others. Cedar oil being not, you know, like the most allergenic, but it could happen. That's why the balsam fir would not be in the facial care because it's more, you know, allergenic, but or irritant. So we keep it for the hand, but we also have the version without it should a person prefer it or need it because of those reactions.

Definitely, this mindfulness also extends to your packaging. I know you're very thoughtful about how you select your packaging for your products. Could you speak a little bit more about that as well?

Yes, absolutely. So again, coming from oncology and having the prevention approach, and one of the causes that we support is Ruban Rose, or for now, breast cancer, but it does, you know, like account for every type of cancer. But I specifically selected packaging that would limit the use of plastic. Now, with B Corp, with all the tendencies, companies are turning, you know, towards that. My packaging actually looks like what the companies are turning to now, right? And I developed this, you know, like a few years back, but that's, you know, that's the game. So we only have, you know, compostable when we can, and we don't use plastic. We have aluminum. It also, you know, protects the product, so allows it to be safer longer, protects it from light and from air, whereas the plastic containers, unless they're airless, they would have air in it, which would cause spoil and loss of product as well. So this is one thing we do.

And we've also started doing something different where we were asked because we were giving out products that either were mislabeled, we, uh, we dropped, and they were, you know, because we work with aluminum tubes, they're very fragile, right? So if we touch them, there's a mark. While people don't necessarily buy them, or so, we weren't selling these, and we were giving them out, right? And explaining why and, you know, and at some point, there are some people that actually ask to buy them. "I prefer to buy the, you know, like you're going to, yeah, lose them anyway, we don't want to waste them," and we like, okay, this is a great idea, but, you know, like what's the perception of the brand, and because no brand that we know would do that, right? To actually promote what we call our Misfits, right? But so yeah, so we also start to do that, and we love it because it does reduce waste.

It's the cutest name, the Misfits. I love that, and it makes total sense. Me, at the end of the day, the product is there. It's just maybe aesthetically not the finished product that you would like it to look like, but definitely sounds like there'd be a market there for that as well. And in terms of, you have all these different programs going on right now. Are there any other projects that you're working on that you're particularly excited about, and that you can share?

Well, I could share it. You know, like I'm, I'm, I'm hoping to write a book in 2024. It's there, but it's taking a bit more time than, you know, like I was hoping to write in 2023, really. So it started, it's in the go, but there's so much going on. We're also looking for investors, which is taking us a lot of time, but it's going well. So, we want to grow, and we want to grow organically as well, and yeah, this is where we're at.

Can you give any hints as to what the book is going to be about, or is that under wraps until you get there?

Well, I, obviously, we're going to talk about the one human skin, the protect, adapt, restore approach for sure. We're talking about myths, the dos and the don'ts, and what makes sense for the skin and why the one human skin, all of these. But we also connect to the bigger spaces, oncology, how it works, like why it connects, and the tricky part is making it entertaining at the same time.

Well, congratulations, that is a whole other ball game. It's very impressive, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for that. And part of your ecosystem that you've built, we talked about the skin ecosystem, but then there's definitely also the business ecosystem: I know you're involved in, kind of, that incubator community. Can you speak a little bit more about that, especially we have a lot of entrepreneurs who listen into the show. Is this something that you would recommend they explore to kind of build around them?

Yes, absolutely. You need a network. Everything is connected again, and I think it's, it's essential. You don't know what you don't know, and you need to connect with people. I stopped being a consultant a year ago and being full-time on the company a year ago, and looking back, that probably was a mistake, but you also needed to raise funds, and you know. But being able to connect with a group that's involved in entrepreneurship, and I think it's essential. And the best practices also are shared this way.

Absolutely, and it makes you feel a little bit less alone, probably, on that journey.

And as part of that journey, was there a specific moment in time, it sounds like maybe during your childhood when you were outside, was there a moment in time where you knew that you wanted at least part of your professional path to include the concept of sustainability?

Yes, I knew. I think for me, honestly, I'm 51, but…

Well, clearly, your skincare is great because you look gorgeous!

Oh, thank you, but like I said, I was, I was part of an environmental group in sixth grade, right? We were composting at home, you know, it has to do with my mother a lot. You know, she was really avant-garde for these things, funny coming from, you know, like the 30s. Anyway, she, she, you know, a background where I could evolve in there. I even, you know, like when I got into university, I was removing the plastic windows we had on, for me, it was, you had to do what you could. We had one planet. That's, you know, there's one human skin, but there's one human planet as well, and yeah, I, I don't think I ever doubted that. I, we lived for 3 years in Mexico. These were very, very difficult, in that sense because I didn't know how, you know, like not to waste, basically. The system is built differently, so you figure it out after a while, but still, there's, you know, it's difficult, or even, you know, like when you travel, I'm sure you've noticed, some place that you would expect they would have at least some sort of solution, but, you know, like national parks that don't have recycling. so yeah, it was all along. So for me, it was one of the core principles from the get-go. That was, you know, because I do believe everything is connected: our health, our planet, that, and, and you know, everything in between, basically.

So, and it absolutely breathes through your branding. It's visible that this is a core tenant. If we do have listeners who are maybe less on the entrepreneur space and maybe thinking about it or making a mid-career pivot, you were just talking about how you've gone more recently full-time into what you're doing. Do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to those listeners who are looking to make a change towards something that's maybe a little bit more in line with their values?

Yes, do it now. Now's the time. You mentioned, you know, like sometimes we have experiences, we do things, and we don't exactly know why we're doing this, and they don't feel aligned. But I think when you get a sign, you get a signal that, okay, I need to move somewhere else, we have to listen to it and somehow just trust that it will all come together. And, you know, I went like 360. I tried so many things. At some point, I was super confused with myself, and I was, "What are you doing, right? It doesn't make sense." And then when the discoveries were made on the gut, and I connected that with the skin, and it all started to connect. You know, I, I actually left pharma at that point, and I went back as a consultant because I needed to raise money. There were other ways, probably, to do it, but still, yeah, do it now. Now's the time.

I think it is great advice, and you have such great content as well in your social media, and everyone can check out Dr. Mimi's skin as well, that I was just raving about. So, what is the best place for them to follow along and to just learn more about you and your product offering?

Our website, obviously, so we have the www.vgambiome.ca. It's not super easy to spell, especially audio, so aimetapeau or loveyourskincare.com will lead to that website as well. And yeah, Instagram. So, I try to do a live every week, answering questions. So the lives doesn't stay there because most of the time, I spend a lot of time explaining things that, you know, don't necessarily need to take 20 minutes, but we usually do a short version of it, uh, later on. So on Instagram, we have a bit of content there as well.

Fantastic. Well, I've learned so much. Like I stated - before I learned about VGAM biome. I really thought the microbiome was just in your stomach. I've learned so much, and I think the product and the brand that you're bringing forward is so important at this moment in time. So, I thank you for that. I thank you for what you're bringing to the skincare industry. I think it's key.

And we do like to end every single episode with the same question, and I would love to know your thoughts on this, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

I really thought about that because I knew it was coming. Protect, restore, adapt. You know, like, that formula, I, I don't want to be cheesy, but, you know, like, we got to protect what we have, restore what we lost, and adapt, adapt, adapt to the evolving world. Obviously, there are various priorities. We are so fortunate to live in this country and to have the environment as a priority. Let's make it a priority. Some other parts of the world just can't afford to have that, you know, like in their priorities. It's still there, but, you know, they do different things. So, I do believe, I trust the process as well. There are some regulations. I don't think it's going to help as much as really owning that planet of ours and protecting it, basically.

I think it's beautiful, the parallel, and it just goes to show how much you and your brand embrace the full living organism, whether it's our skin or this planet. So, thank you so much, it's been such a pleasure speaking with you today.

Well, thank you, Lauren, for having me. It's been a great absolute pleasure.