My guests today are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto, who are developing a new approach to beauty products. Tom is the creator of the REAL Beauty approach and product line. Tom was Inspired and taught by his career of ten years as hair and makeup artist working at Paris, Milan and New York fashion week, and building “Noir Concept”, a unique lifestyle salon concept for Helsinki. His career combined with his personal quest for deeper understanding of well-being and beauty lead to the development of “REAL Beauty”. Tom teamed up with Ben Okamoto to bring the concept of REAL Beauty to life. Ben obtained his his BA majoring in Economics and Political Science and International Relations at the young age of 19. After a year of working as the Commercial Manager Australia’s biggest telecommunication company, Ben became disillusioned with corporate life and moved to Berlin where he fell in love with the REAL Beauty concept.They have been working together since, and now have a Kickstarter campaign to launch their products. www.realbeauty.life
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The Simplest Products for Real Beauty
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Tom Wennerstrand
Date of Broadcast: December 09, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world, and live toxic free.
It’s December 9, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida, where it’s getting colder. It’s actually getting to be winter, which is the most beautiful time of year here in Florida. Every place has lovely summers, and then very cold winters. And here, our summer is so hot, it’s almost unbearable, and the winter is a beautiful of year.
And so everybody is happy here now because it’s getting to be winter.
Today, we’re going to talk about something entirely different. My guests are developing – well, what they want to do is they want to change the world of beauty, change completely how we think about it, and the kinds of products that we’re using.
They have some very interesting ideas.
Now, they actually don’t have their products in the market yet, but they have a Kickstarter campaign. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re interested in what they’re saying, and want to participate in their Kickstarter program, you can just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and look for today’s show, and you will see the link to their Kickstarter program, which I could say to you, but you would not remember.
These two young men are from Germany. They live in Germany, but they’re currently in Australia. So we’re talking to them via Skype from the other side of the world, at least from the other side of the world for me. They might be just exactly where you are.
My guests are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto.
Hi, Tom and Ben.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Hello from sunny Australia. We’re currently enjoying some 35 to 40 degrees weather, Celsius that is.
So opposite to what you’re feeling, but maybe I’m going to be looking forward to going back to winter Europe after one month of this sun here.
DEBRA: So Tom, why don’t you – I know that – Tom started – he developed this idea, and then Ben has been working with him.
So Tom, why don’t you start, and tell us what motivated you to come up with this huge, different way of looking at the world of beauty, and how did all that happen?
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Well, that’s an interesting question. It definitely wasn’t that straightforward as to think of what that was to begin with. My work, for the past 10 years, I worked as a hair and makeup artist in various different countries, and for the fashion industry.
It has allowed me to see a lot of dedicated people working on this creative field.
I think to be able to come to this conclusion and to be able to offer the solutions was a long-winded process that first had to enable to see through the first and the most upper-end layer of beauty that we are all offered to get the deeper connection to how it resonates on a cellular level, to make it more synchronized, and more harmonized with how we want to feel, and what our own [inaudible 00:04:53] of healthy, beauty and happiness, and how this could be more in tune with what the products are actually made of. So this health, beauty and happiness would resonate better on all levels.
DEBRA: Tom, was there an a-ha moment for you? You’re working in the beauty industry. I think this is quite a change, and I see this over and over in the guests I have on the show where they’re working in a certain industry, and then they go, “No, this is too toxic, and I need to do something.”
So was there – you’re working in the beauty industry for all these years, and now you’re wanting to just have something be – it’s the polar opposite to what you’ve been doing.
So what was that – what happened that made you – that was the change point?
TOM WENNERSTRAND: It’s well said about how this could be viewed as an opposite. But at the same time, it felt like there’s a surface that I was working on leisurely, and there was also this budding interest to just scratch that surface a little bit deeper and see what’s going on underneath.
One of the really enlightening moments for me was to see so many models who are top models of the world being – they’re real themselves. They’re real – natural themselves, young girls who are working with their skin and their hair as their working medium, and how in tuned they seem to be with the less is more thinking, which many times is in stark contrast of their employers’ views. But that seemed to resonate with me is that if you could – just see the natural presence of someone who has taken it to their heart to not only look good, but want to feel good while looking good, and how that person tells that I get over this skin stressors that my work exposes me to. I get over them with coconut oil, or exchange tips with their fellow friends on the Fashion Week, sitting next to each other, and telling them how did you fix your hair because this work is taxing for the hair because the hair is being blow-dried and curled so much throughout the time.
And these tips were revolving around very natural solutions that have always existed.
This is a simple less is more approach that seemed to be very commonplace and intuitively discovered by these girls who most are under the 20s.
That resonated with me and wanted me to look further into this matter.
DEBRA: Well, it’s so interesting that you’ve got this viewpoint from listening to women who are selling the other viewpoint.
The solution didn’t come from the industrial beauty world. It came from listening to people who were – whose hair and skin had been damaged by using those products as their solution.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Yes. I always – as I said, general world view wanted to think that there is – I always try to see and want to think that instead of trying to see an evil agenda there, I’d like to see that there is lots of confused people who are just trying to do their best.
The moment that you see that something is terribly wrong, you will just realize – that moment of enlightenment is just that you are less confused than most of your peers, and most of the companies in the marketplace. And that’s what can create that kind of urge to take action and start further into the cause because it will be in quite stark contrast to how content you might have been able to feel until then.
And it was a journey for me to discover, better, simpler skin care solutions when the skin is already acting up, when there’s already something happening. And that also I recognize myself that when it seemed like to heal skin, I’d prescribed medical ointment seem to exacerbate situation, and then when I found something natural that would settle it.
DEBRA: Go ahead. Finish your sentence.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: No, this is [inaudible 00:10:40] I started to – [inaudible 00:10:44].
DEBRA: Good. We need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll talk more with Tom and Ben. We will let Ben speak. He didn’t get to say anything. But we’ll get to Ben in the next segment.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto, and they are developing a new approach to beauty with their company, Real Beauty. And they have a Kickstarter campaign. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and get the link for that.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: Thank you all listeners for holding on there while we solved our little technical problem here.
So my guests today are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto, and we’re talking about their creation, Real Beauty.
Ben, I think it was you, on your Kickstarter page, you have a lovely video. And I think it was you that said that real beauty is within. And there was more that you said. Do you want to tell us, make that statement?
BEN OKAMOTO: Well, actually that was Tom, but I can talk about that. The whole concept is that – it is based around the fact that every person is born with real beauty within them. So anything is suitable to enhance that beauty – if not enhanced – the only thing suitable for that is natural products.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: We’ve got minimal interference.
DEBRA: I like that concept. So many of the commercial products are designed to – you put on all this makeup, and you look maybe glamorous, but you don’t look like yourself. And I remember at some point in my life where – when I was a teenager many years ago, all I wanted to do was wear makeup. I was like, “I want to look like those models in the fashion magazines.”
And so I couldn’t wait until I was 16, and I could wear makeup.
But it didn’t look like me. And I remember at some time in my adulthood, looking at my face in the mirror, and saying, “Wait a minute. I don’t want to look like this. I want to look like this. I want to look like myself.”
And now, I actually don’t even wear makeup at all unless I am going to be on television, or on a webinar or something, and I need to show up for the cameras, or have my picture taken. But the rest of the time, I don’t wear makeup at all.
And when I do, I want to look natural. I just want to wear a little mascara to enhance my eyelashes. I don’t want putting on a whole – I don’t know if women still say this but back in the 50s, people used to say, “I’m going to go put on my face.”
My grandmother used to say that. I have to put on my face.
BEN OKAMOTO: I’ve definitely heard a few drag queens say that in my life actually.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: And real women too, to an extent. I think what’s behind it – because I like to see this as a – not so much of a polarized thing as of you having to choose between the two, but more of finding that real beauty in the natural you, and embrace that. And that is a discovery journey that I feel like we’re all furthest detached when we are teenagers, and then we grow back to.
It can be enhanced greatly if our nutrition and toxic exposure levels are checked in a way that our skin can be at its best and can heal, and our can look great on its own, and has this kind of chance to show what it has.
I also feel that there is a time and place for eyeliner and lipstick, and when that happens, you’re actually communicating and we are the most complex communicating animal on this planet.
And in that sense, I feel like this is a kind of play that we have brought into. But it’s all about proportion, and it’s – beauty is proportion, but also maintaining. It is to maintain the beautiful proportion of where the natural preset prevails underneath that all.
And that’s why I say that I wanted to come up with the solution that I can also – also go back to the beauty, be a conventional beauty industry world which [inaudible 00:19:44] to makeup artist colleague for example, who chooses to communicate more through makeup that she’s wearing and her clients.
And whereas in this case, I would say that we can just take one step back, and see that we’re actually not talking about two different things, but we are offering intervention where the payoff is the best.
So nobody can really see what deodorants or shampoo or body lotion you are using, but in this sense, that is not so much communication. So as we’re not communicating with those things, we might as well provide our bodies and ourselves, things that they thrive with on this subconscious level.
DEBRA: There is a difference between putting on the artificial face, and supporting one’s own natural beauty. And I just think that for someone to do something that makes her skin beautiful and their hair beautiful – one of the things that I recently did, and we’re coming up on the break in about 10 seconds, but one of the things that I worked on last year actually was to get all the hair care products out of my hair.
And I did a hair detox.
And so I now have my natural, virgin hair. And it’s [inaudible 00:21:12].
So when we come back, we’ll talk more about your products.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto from Real Beauty. And they have a Kickstarter campaign. We’re going to hear about their products when we come back from the break.
But if you want to go see their Kickstarter campaign page that talks about all their products, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, look for this show and click right on the link.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Tom and Ben from Real Beauty, and we’re going to talk now about their concept, not just their products, but their concept, because the whole concept is different.
If you go to their Kickstarter campaign page, it says, “To revolutionize cosmetics, you have to be more than just toxin-free.”
And that’s what they’ve done, is that they’ve created a whole new idea.
So tell us about the concept, Tom or Ben?
BEN OKAMOTO: This is Ben speaking. When Tom told me about the whole [inaudible 00:27:21] and I was relatively new to the idea. And so when he told me [inaudible 00:27:31], I was just so surprised because I think you can [inaudible 00:27:35] from the fact that – I think a lot of people just look the other way of really, natural and simple products. Literally, they’re just not sold in a bottle anywhere or available online. So that was [inaudible 00:27:54].
[inaudible 00:27:55] basically, all of these products [inaudible 00:27:58].
So the concept is [inaudible 00:28:07] people that want the knowledge, that want the [inaudible 00:28:10], and they can either get them from us or they can take the information and [inaudible 00:28:17].
DEBRA: I just want to repeat that because –
TOM WENNERSTRAND: [inaudible 00:28:21]
DEBRA: I want to just repeat what he just said because I’m having a little static on the transmission here. It’s not as clear as it was earlier.
Todd, maybe you could check that so we can have it little clearer.
What Ben just said was that it’s about having the products be so simple that you could actually make them yourself. And one of the things that they told me when I talked to them before the show was that part of the plan is to sell the ingredients themselves, so that if you wanted to make them, yourself at home, you could.
And I thought that that was amazing because the world is so full of trade secrets and things like that and yet, here their concept includes having the information on how to make it yourself, or you can buy it, and that’s an amazing concept right there.
So I’m told that the listeners can hear what you’re saying, so go ahead.
BEN OKAMOTO: It’s like having this [inaudible 00:29:44] recipe that your family has been using for generations, and just your family has it. And you can – you’re sharing the secrets with everyone.
I think that a lot of people will appreciate the fact that you can make it [inaudible 00:30:05], getting it from us. Or if you want, you can do it at home.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: I feel like we’re at the moment [inaudible 00:30:15] as a humanity [inaudible 00:30:18] being able to communicate [inaudible 00:30:21] overconfidence and [inaudible 00:30:27] we are actually becoming [inaudible 00:30:31] of becoming more aware of [inaudible 00:30:37].
DEBRA: You can hear me? I didn’t hear what you just said.
I’m assuming – you know what? I’ve never had so many technical problems on a show as we are having today. But let’s just go on and what I really want the listeners to know is that the concept here is not that you buy a different product for every use, but you only have five products. And those five products give you 35 uses.
And that’s such a radically different concept to me because not only are they things that anybody could make at home, but you figured out what all the uses are.
And so why don’t you tell us about that?
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Yes that’s the idea. I would like to add to that that our range which can be seen [inaudible 00:31:56] www.RealBeauty.Life, is actually [inaudible 00:32:00] than five products, but why we would like to highlight the five products that are [inaudible 00:32:05] is that we really feel that these [inaudible 00:32:12] secrets [inaudible 00:32:15] would like to make back [inaudible 00:32:17] common knowledge of our consciousness as [inaudible 00:32:23] knowing how to look [inaudible 00:32:25] without creating toxic waste on our skins or to our environment.
And the idea is also that this liberates us from needing to navigate the jungle of conventional products because it’s ever increasingly complicated and difficult, and [inaudible 00:32:47] more and more and smaller and smaller [inaudible 00:32:53] to be on par on what’s happening and what’s going on.
[inaudible 00:32:59] I feel nature’s answers have always been simple, and they’ve always been with multiple uses and multiple solutions. [inaudible 00:33:11] that can be passed down, and re-discovered by simply trusting your intuition.
So in this sense, this [inaudible 00:33:20] needs to be edible, so that you can safely experiment them. You can try them on your skin. You can try how they work in [inaudible 00:33:31] and intuitively, find a minimum [inaudible 00:33:34] and minimum product requiring beauty regime that [inaudible 00:33:43] and maintains [inaudible 00:33:43] the kind of level of hygiene that we are, as [inaudible 00:33:50].
BEN OKAMOTO: And that’s what we’re doing different [inaudible 00:33:53] companies. We don’t feel the need to add extra ingredients in the product just to make –
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Make the product.
BEN OKAMOTO: Make the product [inaudible 00:34:03]. The simple ingredients have worked for years, and they’ve worked so effectively. What’s the point of adding all these extra ingredients?
And what we’ve done is we’ve made the solutions available, and we packaged them in a really beautiful way. So if you want to [inaudible 00:34:27] more honest and simple solutions that have proven to work [inaudible 00:34:34], then you have the option in doing so in a quite beautiful way.
[inaudible 00:34:40] experience.
DEBRA: Great. When we come back from the break, I want you to give us some examples of your products, and what they can be used for so the people really get the idea.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests are Ben and Tom from Real Beauty. And they have a Kickstarter campaign. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, find their show, and click on the link in order to get to the Kickstarter campaign page.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: Can anyone hear me? Good. I thought I was having problems again.
My guests today are Tom Wennerstrand and Ben Okamoto from Real Beauty.
I actually figured out what their website is. It is RealBeauty.Life. And if you go to RealBeauty.Life, you can see a lot more about their products. And there’s a link to their Kickstarter campaign.
So that’s an easy one that you can remember, RealBeauty.Life.
I apologize for not having that earlier, Tom and Ben.
So one thing I wanted to say before we talk about the products in more detail is that I’m looking at products all the time. We all grew up – I think most people alive today grew up in a consumer society where you think the first thing that you – if you want to do something, well, where’s the product for it?
And that’s just the way that we’ve been conditioned. That was by our society.
And as I decided that I didn’t want to use those toxic products, the first thing I said was, “Well, what did they do before we had industry? How did they wash their face? How did they clean their house?”
And so I started looking at formulas that I could make myself at home as well as looking at products that were less toxic out in the marketplace.
But what I’ve learned as I go through life is that there’s a way to do things. Everything has an ideal way to do it. That there’s a way to wash your face. There are ideal things to put on your face in a very simple, natural way.
Nature provides everything that we need to be alive and thrive.
Once you have that information about the correct way to do something, that is the correct way to do it, and you’ve learned it, and that’s it.
I learned to wash my windows with vinegar and water. And now, for the past 30 years, I’ve been washing my windows with vinegar and water. I didn’t need to learn another method.
But what we have in the marketplace is we have all these consumer product companies – I’m not saying this too because I’m against consumer product companies. I think that consumer product companies could make toxic products so they could make really excellent products.
But part of what seems to be inherent in the whole marketplace idea is not what do we need to have good health, and what do we need to thrive, but how can we make a new product, and how can we make more money.
And I’m also not against making money, but there’s making money by selling people things that they don’t need and make them sick, or there’s making money by having honest products that support the environment and support the health of the consumers.
And I think that this is exactly what you’re doing.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: I feel like that’s the [inaudible 00:42:27] something behind it, that it’s a very – in order for it to be good for whatever purpose [inaudible 00:42:36] it needs to be good for everything around it as well.
And this is I guess where the biggest conflict with the conventional [inaudible 00:42:49] happens where the marketplace tries to come up with new products for their own right, whereas nature tends to be very efficient and [inaudible 00:42:58] solutions [inaudible 00:42:59] to solve many problems with one solution.
DEBRA: That’s right. That is a characteristic [inaudible 00:43:05].
TOM WENNERSTRAND: I’d like to liken this as a more of a [inaudible 00:43:11]. I feel like it’s in resonance on all levels. If we look at riverbanks that is polluted and bird [inaudible 00:43:18] fly there, we can immediately go back to our thinking and see what is the industrial solution that we can do to clear up the bank, and make the birds fly there better.
But did we do before that? How did nature manage the habitat? That harmony is much deeper-rooted. That means that encompasses everything from the water flow to [inaudible 00:43:53] to micronutrients to [inaudible 00:43:56], what nutrients they fix in the water, in which vegetation grows there, and removes them from there and provides habitat for these birds while it’s growing.
And this seems like [inaudible 00:44:09] although we seem obligated [inaudible 00:44:11] but it happens on our skin, it happens on every possible level. I [inaudible 00:44:15] certain way to make [inaudible 00:44:19] promote our health.
It comes all the way up from there to a level where it actually manifests as our health and beauty. And therefore, [inaudible 00:44:35] interference is what we feel is the best [inaudible 00:44:40] meeting the halfway and letting the nature do its job as undisturbed as possible – as undisturbed as we can let in order to see the results before we try to change anything.
DEBRA: Yes, I totally agree. So we only have about five minutes to left of the show. What I’d like you to do is let’s pick a product like your oil number 1 and tell us about the oil, and tell us what it’s used for, so that people can get an idea of the multi-uses of your products.
BEN OKAMOTO: For example, our oil number one is basically made from organic coconut oil. And what we do is we have a mix of essential oils that we mix [inaudible 00:45:34]. It smells and feels really great.
And basically, we don’t just say use this oil for moisturizer. We have a whole list of what you can do with coconut oil which our people have been doing with coconut oil for years and year and years.
So some of them include – apart from being a moisturizer, you can use it as a non-addictive lip balm. You can it as a makeup remover, dry scalp massage treatment, hair conditioner for the bleached, colored or dry hair, massage oil, bath oil and oil [inaudible 00:46:17].
So these are just tricks on how to use coconut oil for years.
The whole beauty of that is when people ask us how do you know it works. How do you know it works? You really put the question back on them the fact that they’re questioning a product that’s been used for decades and decades. [inaudible 00:46:44] concoction made in the last year.
DEBRA: When you were just asking that question, I was thinking, people do say, “Well, how do you know that these natural things work?” But they don’t go to the counter, the cosmetics counter at a department store and ask the girl there, “How do you know these work?”
They just think that if a major manufacturer is providing them, they must work. But when it comes to something natural, they question, “Well, this couldn’t possibly work.”
And that’s just backwards to me.
I much more trust that something natural works because it’s part of life.
TOM WENNERSTRAND: [inaudible 00:47:26] possibility in.
DEBRA: So I want to ask you quickly because we’ve only got about two minutes left. One of the things that you said was non-addictive lip balm.
Now, I didn’t know that lip balm was addictive. And can you just clarify that for me?
TOM WENNERSTRAND: Well, many, many lip balms that are habitually used have what you call the petrochemicals. And when they do so, they actually make our skin – our skin is not only [inaudible 00:48:12] that protects us. It’s a sensing organ that [inaudible 00:48:16] to surroundings.
When there are petrochemical oils that are from the earth’s crust and they [inaudible 00:48:23] in the earth’s crust when we evolved, and they’ve been there ever since.
And once they’ve [inaudible 00:48:29] our skin does not know how to deal with them. It [inaudible 00:48:32] or regular sensing organ. And therefore, your organ is not doing its job properly. And [inaudible 00:48:41] comes in and many [inaudible 00:48:44] moisturizers.
DEBRA: I just realized as you were talking that I’ve heard that – I don’t wear lip gloss. But I’ve heard that these lip moisturizers, lip balms and things, that your lips become addicted to – that’s why I didn’t recognize the term.
Once you start using them, you have to continue to use them or your lips get chapped, whereas because we’re not actually healing your lips, they are actually drying them out.
So if you don’t wear a lip balm, even if you just don’t wear it, your lips will stay nice and moist because you’re not drying them out constantly.
And so now I understand that phrase.
Well, we’ve only got about 30 seconds left. So thank you.
Thank you so much for being here today. And again, their website is RealBeauty.Life. And remember, they have a Kickstarter campaign. So if you care to help them get these products on the market, please go there and help them with this.
Thank you so much.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And if you want to know more – you’re welcome.
If you want to know more, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Be well.
