Dr. Shuting Hu is the founder and CEO of Acaderma, a cosmeceutical line developed in early 2020 with a larger goal of providing skincare that is not only effective, but sustainable–offering a unique approach to green technology and devoted to building platforms to support women in business. Dr. Hu is one of the youngest cosmetic scientists awarded by The International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists and incubated by the Sephora Accelerate 2018 program.
Dr. Hu’s team has developed a program with with an NGO in Africa to source their products, and provide economic opportunities to the women who live there.
How This Cosmetic Scientist And Entrepreneur Is Providing Economic Opportunity For Women Globally | … [+]
Acaderma
Stephanie Burns: You have a mission to develop skincare that not only betters your skin, but betters the world. What makes Acaderma different from other skincare brands?
Dr. Shuting Hu: Acaderma is more like the skincare academy—a place where skin knowledge is skin power. Our award-winning ingredients and new generation of formulas benefit both your skin and mind. We blazed a new trail, to a place where skin biology, plant chemistry, and ethical transparency meet. What really makes us different is our Clean I.Q.TM: CLEAN INTELLIGENCE QUALITY. It’s our formula for better skin and better world. The Clean IQ goes beyond just a clean formulation, we act with clean behavior from start to finish. For example, in addition to our 9-free clean standard based on scientific judgment, we innovate with high quality, clean ingredients, sourced with a clean conscience and processed by green technology.
Burns: Can you share more about your partnership with the NGO groups you have worked with in Sub-Saharan African countries? How did the partnership begin and how has in continued to grow over the past few years?
Hu: We work together with an African local NGO ASNAPP- Agribusiness in Sustainable Natural African Plant Products. ASNAPP has a primary goal to develop successful African agribusinesses in the agriculture sector, providing income, employment & development, through environmentally and socially conscious practices to produce high quality products for local, regional and overseas markets. Their vision is to expand economic opportunities for rural communities by using world class science, technologies, partnerships and business approaches to develop and enhance Africa’s competitive advantage in the Natural Plant Products industry. ASNAPP is currently partnered with 25 agri-enterprises, representing over 2000 small-scale farmers on the continent. While broadening agribusinesses and stimulating entrepreneurship among small-scale rural farmers remains a goal, ASNAPP’s vision is to move local communities up the value chain and improve their livelihoods.
Our CTO & cofounder Prof. James Simon worked together with them for a long time for research projects. As a global researcher and long-term partner of ASNAPP, he has more than twenty-five years of collaborative research in sub-Saharan Africa and uses innovative and transformative approaches to provide individuals and communities with the tools to achieve economic independence. As a research scientist, I participated in one research project, discovered this amazing plant kinkeliba in Senegal, and found its great soothing and hydration benefits to the skin. But when the project concluded, I started wondering, in addition to research papers, are we really making a positive impact on local communities? Professor is focusing on upstream research, but I hope to continue his work, step further, and create real products using these materials.
That’s the inception of Acaderma and our hero product The Oasis Barrier Booster: to bring the latest and greatest actives discovered in academia to skincare, and not leaving them buried in a digital archive of scientific papers. It’s a long journey: from scientific research, kinkeliba leaves sourcing & quality control, extraction and purification, to formulation design, clinical trials, and selling directly to consumers. We do all of that to ensure our scientific integrity was delivered in our products, and reintroduce a traditional herbal tea with a brand new purpose and economic value.
Burns: What is the structure of the program for the women harvesting the Kinkilebia plant in Africa? How do the women join the program and how does the program benefit their day-to-day lives?
Hu: ASNAPP-Senegal organizes women in a small village near Dakar to harvest, source and process in a clean method and do quality control. The program is not just limited to kinkeliba harvest, ASNAPP-Senegal team also provides more farming skills and education opportunities to them, and we are trying to help them sell more products (e.g. organic hibiscus).
But the challenge is, we are still a small startup company even though we are keen to help them. We are trying to develop more products (e.g. a new duo cream launching soon) using ingredients developed by them and use our technologies to help ASNAPP to establish a green material platform, and our voice to build awareness. But we can’t purchase larger quantity products to provide more support. The more people that know about ASNAPP, the more support they will get.
Burns: What challenges have you seen these women overcome as a result of working with your organization?
Hu: The highest share of women in the workforce globally is found in Sub-Saharan African countries. Over 60% of all working women remain in agriculture, often concentrated in time and labor-intensive activities, which are unpaid or poorly remunerated. It has been very difficult to work under agriculture— growing crops. But with new technology, they are able to train and teach farmers how to grow different types of crops. There is a video made by our CTO and Co-Founder, Professor James Simon’s team. He spent 25 years working with the local women as you can see from the video below.
Burns: What is your hope for your skincare brand in the future?
Hu: Prof. James Simon is my teacher, he contributed his whole life to support African agriculture. I’m the student continuing his work and standing on the shoulder of giant, to create a brand and products delivering our scientific integrity and mission for better skin, better world. I hope my work inspires more young women to join us on this crusade to build businesses that support the good of our world and each other.
