So actually, COVID-19 changed my road map. Basically the day that, you know, I think it was that Wednesday, it was like March 12th or something, all of a sudden, our website went crazy because of the hypochlorous acid's antiviral effects. So at different, you know, at higher, higher, higher concentrations, it actually can be used as a surface cleaner.  So we're the skin version of that. So because of that, everything shifted for us. This is Started at Storefront. Today's guest is Amy Bryant, co-founder of Lumion Skin. Amy's journey towards creating the Lumion brand started with a gift from her father. He had been playing around with a new formula in a lab and noticed it was having very beneficial results when it came to clearing up acne. When he first offered it to Amy, she was a little bit hesitant, but as soon as she saw the results, her mind was made up. Together with her partner Lisa Bonoff, they've launched Lumion as a skincare product in 2016 and have been going strong ever since. By the way, they met because they were seated next to each other on an airplane and struck up a conversation. If that isn't the best case scenario for being seated next to a stranger on an airplane, I don't know what is. So listen in as we cover everything from how she and Lisa compliment each other's skill sets and why Google advertising has been huge for them, whereas Facebook advertising has not. And if you're interested in trying out the product for yourself, they're offering start-up store front listeners 15% off when you use the code startup at checkout. That's 15% off when using the code startup at checkout. Now, back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Amy, for joining us with Lumion. Tell everyone a little bit about your company. Hi guys, I'm super excited to be here. My company is called Lumion Skin. We are a unique skin health line which is what we kind of like to call ourselves, not skin care. It basically mimics our body's immune system. So everything that's in it's already in our skin, which is why it has so many amazing magical benefits that I'm sure we'll get through in this podcast. Yeah, for sure. How did you first think about the idea? Were you working in the space or was it completely new to you? What made you wanna jump into this industry? So it's actually very interesting. As you can see, I'm out of Lottie studio. That was my bread and butter and my first business. I opened, you know, 11 years ago. And being in fitness, you know, sweating and running around all the time, I was having skin issues and suffering. And basically just broken out. Mostly I suffered from acne. And my father is actually the one who figured out the stabilization to the formula of Lumion. And he'd been working with medical doctors and everything for post surgery because what it does is bring your skin back to its natural state without the use of peroxide or alcohol that like, you know, heals the skin, but it also kills skin cells at the same time. Therefore, it's for any type of skin irritation, you know, for my personal one was acne, this is going to help. And, you know, my dad lives in Missouri at the time I was living in Los Angeles. And, you know, he's like, we're getting some really good benefits with acne. And I'm like, sure, dad, you know nothing. I know everything. I got all the best like facialists, yada, yada, yada. Lo and behold, you know, one trip back to Missouri.  And I came back and people were like, wow, your skin looks good.  And I'm like, wow, this isn't snake oil that my dad's talking about.  And his business was more like I said on the medical side of things. And finally, I was like, I want to share this with people. And I met my business partner who had a skin background. I met her on an airplane. And voila, Lumion was born. I think that's so funny that you mentioned your first instinct was, oh, my dad's selling snake oil. And then you try it. But that's the beauty of skincare products is the seeing is believing. And I feel like you touched upon something that I know I've felt and I'm sure that a lot of other people have felt like when you first hear about something like that, you're like, it's too good to be true until you actually try it. And maybe you can shed some light on this. Is that something that is one of the harder things to overcome in your industry? Have you experienced that? Absolutely, coming from a fitness brick-and-mortar background and then being like, this works. And people are like, prove it. So 100% skin is very sea touch and feel. And you have to also make sure they're using it right. And you don't have any control once that leaves your hands, right? So yeah, that was a huge learning curve for me in this business. And I wanted to jump into, so how did you meet your business partner? So you're on a plane, how long is the flight? How do you guys start talking? And then where does that go? How does that end up becoming like a partnership? Right, right. So we were leaving Palm Beach going to New York and we sat next to each other and we just started talking at the time, I guess we both lived in Los Angeles. And we started talking about yoga and we happened to go to the same yoga class, but at different times I went in the morning and she went at night. I don't know if you guys, do you guys do yoga?  Anyway, so we were both there and then we just kind of started seeing each other here and there over about a year past before we finally had a meal together. And I was like, I've been holding on to this. I don't know what to do with it because I don't, I work in fitness and this and that and she worked in beauty and she's like, I've always wanted to do something natural and that I really believe in. I make a lot of money at what I do, but it doesn't light my soul on fire. And immediately we were in New York with my dad. She had now at this point moved back to New York. And so we always started our business on separate coast and it was just kind of like, we compliment each other where the other one doesn't and it was just kind of a beautiful synergy and it really worked out. And what is her skill setter? When you guys think about sort of breaking up the roles of partners, what does she focus on? What do you focus on? First of all, she's extremely organized. She's extremely great at operations, making sure everything's done in a timely manner and then like following up where I'm kind of, I go out, I do events, I speak, I do things like that to kind of get brand recognition and get out there in the world. And that's kind of what we've learned is the hardest thing with this because we haven't even gotten into the ingredients yet, but there's a huge educational aspect of it, which has, that's kind of what I'm like the team educator. For sure, let's get into that. So what kind of ingredients, what's so different about the product? Give us a sense of that. So the product itself is hypochloric acid and oxygen. Those are the only two active ingredients in it. So our oxygen actually remains in the molecule until it touches your skin and that's actually the most magical part about it. Most products that claim oxygen, we've tested all of them, they either have an ingredient that negates oxygen and makes it inactive or they do put it in there, but it doesn't stay in the molecule until it touches the skin. So like the world health organizations, like there's the number rating just kind of give you an idea. It averages about 500 for the level of oxygen. R's leaves it at the ORP of 900. So you really get, it's almost like an oxygen facial on the go. So I know you guys know what oxygen is, but hypochloric acid. Thank you so much. The other one, the other ingredient which no skincare or skin product had before is because it's in your white blood cells. If you have an open cutter wound, your body naturally sends hypochloric acid there to heal your skin back to its natural state, to fight bacteria. It's antibacterial, it's anti-viral. So it really does it's the way your body wants to heal versus another way. So in turn, that's like, you know, gonna be good for a breakout eczema, but it's also a lot of things that are good for breakouts, dry your skin out. And then so you're like yo-yo dieting your skin where this is everything's pH neutral, everything's super clean. Like it's so clean, you can drink it. I have, it's good for a hangover. Oh. Because it's oxygen, right? It goes into the skin. That's like water is not enough. So no need to have the hair of the dog. You've got your own hangover cure. Oh, absolutely. But no, so that's not cited. But so my dad had done the leg work for us really because he's an FDA approved medical device on the skin. So we kind of already had this given to us and all we had to do was get it out there to the world. And so it's kind of been a really cool, fun, interesting journey. What was your first step in doing that? And so I know packaging is super important to look the feel of the brand. What was your first step into trying to create a product that you would eventually sell and bring to the market? Well, that was the longest part. If I could go back, I would have just said launch and then feel out the market and change. Because we actually hired a branding company out of New York that we ended up changing the packaging since then. But I love them, they're great. But we spent a good six, seven months on this, right? Getting the brand story down. But once we launched, everything changes, right? Because you're actually getting feedback on how people are perceiving things. So that was a really, really, really cool, interesting process. And we're actually right now launching a hand cleanser. And I'm just not spending a million days trying to make sure this is the perfect packaging situation. One of our big ethos was like, we didn't want to do overpackage because that's actually where a lot of margins get cut down and prices have to go up just to explain from your package. So we just tried to keep everything as minimal as possible. That's so important. I know we're thinking about branding and it's the one thing that we talk to a lot of entrepreneurs about, so for me, I spent some time in tech and it's really not a thing.  They'll say, don't do that. What are you doing? It goes back to like, at the time of the company, you probably have a better use of those funds, right? And then- Oh my gosh. And the time it takes too. I mean, we were talking to a branding company and they gave us a proposal for 17 weeks and all these interviews and founder interviews and this, that and the other. And a part of me is like, I believe it. And I know it works. And I know it when I see it. But at the same time as like an entrepreneur who just wants to go, go, go, go, go, go. I'm like, this is what? Like this is a journey. Like it's not, there's another marathon I'm already running. I don't need to insert another marathon just to make this look good. What is the aha moment when people use your product? Is it, does it happen right away? Is it a few weeks? Or is it just like refreshing immediately? That's an interesting question. Because of like the multifaceted uses of our product because we marketed it towards face alone because at the time, like, you know, you don't want to say put it on your face, put it on your hands.  So some people are like, oh my gosh, I put it on my cut the other day and it healed so fast. And I'm like, you know, if you look at the bottle you would not think to put it on your cut. But if you do any research about the ingredients you'll be like, oh, that's actually what it's for. It was originally used for wound healing in World War I, but they couldn't stabilize it for more than 24 hours. So basically those are the big ones. With the breakouts, they can say it, they'll say it happens overnight. They'll notice like the reduction happening and then it normally does happen pretty fast. So, or some people will buy it and be like, I was had it up home forever and then I started using it and now I can't live without it. So there's not really a one size fits all. And what's the price point of your product and how did you decide where you wanted to be in the market? So my price point is I believe to be very affordable. It is, the mist is 28 and the serum is 42. You know, it's not CVS pricing, but they'll be mists that are just rosewater that are smaller that we sell 3.4 ounces for $28. And they'll be like a rosewater for $80 for one ounce. So I really wanted to find a sweet price point because our product is actually not cheap. A lot of things that cost way more than this, I know how much they cost to make are less. So I wanted to find a price point that made sense for us and then also didn't scare people away from shelving it. Sometimes when you have like that $200 eye cream, you're like, yeah, maybe once a week. So like, how do you know if it works? Yeah, my wife is the epitome of that. There are so many things upstairs. And I'm like, how much is that one? She's like 250. I'm like, what? She's like, how much is that one? Oh, 30. I'm like, what? What the market here is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It really is. And I'm like, why is there so much confusion? And obviously the confusion causes some companies to do well versus others. What are some of the myths that you encountered? Obviously your dad's like an expert, but from your perspective, someone using the product at the beginning, what were some of the myths that you've been told all this and it's really just this one ingredient before you launched the product where you kind of like, I can't believe I've been being told all this when in reality, the solution and understanding skincare is quite simple because skin is skin is skin. And it's not like, I mean, I don't know, but it hasn't changed, I imagine, since the human has come into existence, but I don't know. Absolutely not. We've had hypochlorous acid helping heal us from the inside since the very beginning of time. And so when I made that paradigm shift was what you're talking about from having collections of overpriced products or from some facialist telling me this and telling me that, I felt like almost cheated on in a way. Like everybody knows everything when really, if you go back to the basics and you said it really beautifully there is skin is skin and your body knows best. And you literally have, when this changed not only my breakouts, we kind of have a saying at our company called skin freedom. Like you just want to feel free, like knowing that you're putting something good on your skin, knowing that you're not breaking the bank to do it, knowing that you're keeping everything very neutral and not like taking things up and down just kind of made me feel, I guess the words or how we came back to it was free and not feeling like I'm a subject to everybody telling me these different things. And that doesn't mean there's other skincare that's bad because I always say we play nice with other products. But all of the, why we only have two skews is because both of our products work for every single skin type because we're FDA approved, we're not a drug so we don't have a side effect. So that's why we can't say things like cures, heals, kills because it's backwards. You have to have a side effect to say those words. But that's kind of the cool thing about it. There's no side effects, not one person has come back and said this is made me break out, this has done this. And so I think that kind of made me feel really confident enough to continue to tell the world about it. Are most products FDA approved or not FDA approved in this space? In this space, no, because this came from a medical side. Is it offering a leg up if you are? Yeah, it's a big leg up. So we're pretty proud to say that. And a lot of skincare that's medical has a lot of toxic chemicals in it. And the studies get more and more and more every single day from what we use around our house, from what we use around our skin to the sicknesses that are happening. So I think that's kind of the backwards part of skincare where it's a lot of things they think they need to be really full of chemicals to be effective and that's just not true. When you first started, did you bootstrap the company? Did you get investors? What was the beginning like for you? Yes, it was very bootstrapped. We had a friends and family small amount of money. And like you said, we spent a lot of money on branding. I don't even want to say the number. No, please do. Can you tell us? Tell us, because it's so helpful to entrepreneurs out there. I mean, look, we've gotten proposals from 20,000 to 100,000. And I'm like, what? 120,000. OK, we spent a good amount. And a good amount of time too. I think the biggest thing is the time. It's not just here are the experts. Here is the product. It's like literally a commitment of interviews.  When you front that money, that's a commitment right there. I mean, that's not something that you just enter into. Did you feel like it was therapy at the end of the day? Like you just learned a lot about yourself. I got sold, I'll be honest. And not in a bad way, because I still love them and they're great, but I just didn't need that. My company was too small. Like, they did really big companies, and I got sold on that dream and idea. And really, you just didn't need that. So that was like half of my funding. I got it, so $120,000, that makes a lot of sense. And then in terms of how did you arrive at, I guess, the packaging, right? There's so much options out there. I'm sure this company showed you a gazillion of them. Basically, the packaging was we really wanted it to be something that you could throw in your bag, which is why we opted for BPA-free plastic instead of going on glass, because I just didn't find the safety in that. This was designed to take with you everywhere you go. And in addition to that, since my dad is the manufacturer, we cannot do glass in his facility. So that made that decision for us, even though it might eat those. But now I go to all these beauty conferences, and there's a big stigma around glass versus plastic, and it's not necessarily that glass is better if you're still going to throw it out. I mean, there's the whole thing. So the packaging was really important in the sense of how it missed it. Here's a bottle. So the mist is like a pill for women, how they missed our face all day long, and then just keeping everything really consistent and clean. Because really what we bring you is clean, healthy skin. And we do that without jeopardizing it and or taking it up and down. So we wanted the branding and the bottling to kind of be in consistency with that. What were you doing before this? Were you like, did you have a job? Did you end up quitting your job? Are you always an entrepreneur with different things? What were you doing before you launched this company? Yeah, so I have been an entrepreneur, I guess, my whole life. I guess that's what my dad is as well. When I graduated college, I moved to Los Angeles and was kind of like, I had a quick job and I realized quickly that I didn't want to work for, I worked for a magazine. And then I opened my fitness studio when I was 23 years old. And then I had three at one point and now we have two and, you know, they've always kind of been my launching ground of what I wanted to do. And I love them. They basically like, it's so rewarding to help people and see life journeys changing, which is when this changed my life as did fitness. I was immediately knew I had to find a way to get it out there. Yeah, no, I love it. And I also love there's a wellness component to the whole thing too, right? And so there's like a holistic sense of helping in that. As you look forward in terms of your company's time, are you thinking new products, different products? Are you launching anything new in the coming, let's say this year? I know COVID-19 has changed a lot of things, but what's on your roadmap? So actually COVID-19 changed my roadmap. Basically the day that, you know, I think it was that Wednesday, it was like the March 12th or something, all of a sudden our website went crazy because of the hypercourse acid's antiviral effects. So at different, you know, at higher, higher, higher concentrations, it actually can be used as a surface cleaner and we are cleared to kill the virus and all emerging pathogens of SARS. So we're the skin version of that. So yeah, I know it's kind of wild. So because of that, everything shifted for us. And we were about to launch a thing called Lumion Littles which was gonna be like a wound in hand cleanser for kids. And we basically decided all the bottles we had for that, we shifted and we're just launching, hopefully this week, a straight hand cleanser, which is just and doesn't use as high grade of salts and makes the same product.  You know, the CDC still recommends obviously alcohol is the only killer. So I'm not saying to replace that. However, I don't use alcohol because I know what this does. You know, this does it without drying your skin out.  So this, you know, if you're still gonna use alcohol, this needs to be going on top of it. So you can keep your skin healthy. You know, one of the things that I've heard from other companies is that if their product has been in demand since COVID-19 began, they may not be able to keep up with it because their supply chain has been affected by layoffs. Have you experienced anything like that at all? So, yes, up until that Friday, actually after that day, you know, my father has the manufacturing and he fulfills for himself. And he does a lot of private labels for, oh, there's all kinds of uses for this on the health side.  And I was like, excuse me. Because he was still actually doing my fulfillment. So he kicked me out and I had to find fulfillment and rework a whole different business plan, essentially. But I think at the end of the day, it was good growing pains to have. And it was a learning process.  It was just every day. So, yeah, there was definitely supply chain issues and growing pains, but fortunately, we now settled, you know, kind of come to a clear path and we're kind of getting the flow back in, which is why I think it's a perfect time to kind of rewrite the story a little bit with what it also does for the all skin, not just the face. Yeah, do you think that this will impact how you approach business going forward? You know, because we always say like in economic booms, you tend to ignore all of the defects and whatever it might be. It's just brought anything to light. You're like, oh, we could definitely do that better going forward. Or this is working really well for us. I'm glad we had it in place. Yeah, I think that's a great question. We definitely, you know, had this vision of what we wanted. And, you know, and it made sense, but it wasn't a necessity in the sense.  For now it's people are dying to get their hands on this and like the fact that we can actually make a difference and help. So I'm like, okay, everything's gonna shift because I think we all know moving forward, there's gonna be a big shift afterwards too, just in the way we do anything.  So this is a product that can absolutely change that. So everything's shifted because of that for sure. How much will you be selling the Lumion Littles for? Well, it's not gonna be Lumion Littles anymore because it's gonna be for everybody. So it's just gonna be Lumion hand and skin cleanser where my current product is geared towards the face and it's going to be $18 for three ounces. And we're gonna do bundles. So, you know, hopefully encouraged to buy more and then obviously drop the price there. I am certainly looking forward to getting some.  It just doesn't, it never, I don't know. So I used it once and then I played tennis right after and to your point is like my hands just fell raw. I think I had like a cut and I don't have like, I'll be honest in saying my hands aren't the most manly. Like they're very soft. They look nice. Thank you. Thank you. Very soft. Like I should never be doing anything on a construction site. And the irony of that is my wife's a general contractor in construction. And so that's pretty badass. And like I said, she's always testing new things. And I think if I can speak about her experience, it's almost like, you know, I don't even know. It's like Amazon reviews are one proof point, estheticians and the products they recommend are another proof point. And then there's this whole line of like what clean means. Like, oh, these are clean products, but I don't even know what that means. Like I just hear marketing when she tells me and then I'm like, how much is this? And the range of these prices is bananas. And if I bought something for $250, I'd for sure be convinced it worked because I would have to be, right? It's like my wallet convinced me. I'm always like 100%. There's so much confusion in the market, right? Do you spend a lot of time on that? Do you spend like a lot of time just educating people?  We've had, you know, cult indie following that's always loved us. And every store we're in that does well is when they have good educators. And it's been proven time and time and time and time again. So that was always the education. And I guess the one thing, good things that came out of COVID-19 was the education got done for us because, you know, they were bathing people in China in this before they went into like stadiums, like in like a higher concentration, not like this one, but like, so the education got out there. We actually have a business in Hong Kong and it blew up before it came here. So we kind of saw that happen. And yeah, so the education was huge and this is, this education happened for us at a wide span. So everything's kind of shifted. Yeah, where do you sell your products? Are you on Amazon? You mentioned some stores. Talk about some of the stores you're in. Absolutely. So we are in like clean, green beauty stores only. And basically we're probably in like 40 in the States and we're also in fitness studios since that's where it launched out of.  You know, that's an issue for everyone. And then the stores were, and we're not, we're in no big box change. We do sell on Amazon. And the reason why we didn't go after, you know, big, the big boxes like so far isn't necessarily a big box, but because of the education thing that you just talked about, I didn't want to sit on a shelf and I would test every single store before I would even go in there and go in there and talk to someone and make sure they knew how to sell and to like that they actually care. So it's interesting. We have, you know, a good, a lot of green beauty blogger partners that educate for us and then we do well for that. It's kind of, that's been our method so far. Yeah, amazing. And during this time, have you leaned more into, I mean, digital advertising or maybe influence or marketing, what has been your efforts in that sense? Digital advertising on the Google side has been huge for us. We lean away from the Facebook and Instagram ads just because in the past it never really worked. It's weird. It doesn't show up right. I'm not convinced it, I don't know. I'm not, I'm same boat. I'm not convinced is the simple way of putting it. And then in terms of like, I was just attending an advertising COVID-19 like webinar style conference which was put on by a company here. Which is pretty cool. And they were mentioning how the influencer marketing is everything and a lot of influencers that you may have deemed like unreachable in the past are just doing things for half the price now. And have you dug into that a little bit?  So I just got off the call before this was, that's our whole plan right now. So hopefully when it's done at the end of the week it'll, everybody will be ready to go. That's great. And are you sitting on inventory? Like you have things ready to ship? No. How it works is the inventory is ready to go once I get the label. So I'm waiting on the labels. They have to be approved. They have to go to the FDA consultant. So we just got a little pushback this morning. So hopefully it'll be done by the end of the day, be printed by tomorrow and out by the end of the week. Oh, that's super fast. I thought you were gonna say it's gonna be like another two weeks. That's not bad at all. Oh no, God, no. That would drive me insane. Right. Well, there's a worldwide, I don't know if you guys know this at all, bottle pandemic as well. No, I didn't know that. In terms of plastics, like containers? Yeah. Yeah, so because like I said, my dad has the higher concentration, the EPA product, which is for surfaces. I need to make that very clear that they're very different. Like FDA goes on skin, EPA goes on surfaces and that's the one that got the clearance for COVID-19 and all emerging pathogens. So he's like trying to get bottles, like shipping millions and then China put a hold on more coming over and it's been a mess. It'll be an interesting time once this all lifted and seeing how long that rebound takes. Very, very, very, I know.  Like even theirs sold out and can't get anything mild. What would you say your biggest challenge is? Like going into a space where, it's like new for all of us this post COVID-19 life. And so the good thing is it sounds like you have some signals in the market of products that will seem to land quite well for sure. But what is your second, any big challenges other than that? Yeah, you know, like you said from the very beginning is just still the messaging because I cannot say sanitizer. So I have to say hand cleanser legally. So it's still getting that clear to, maybe 25% of the general public get it, but like the rest don't. So that's gonna be a major challenge. And I'm actually really excited about that challenge because I love nothing more than replacing toxins with something good for you. And getting people to have that aha moment where I think they'll have that aha moment faster with this on their hands when their hands aren't dry and they feel safe using it. So I wanna make sure that they feel safe using it without that like stamp of the CDC just doing your own, if you do your own research online, you will feel safe but you've gotta get it there, right? I feel like I could totally see you in like an ear wand doing like these little spray. Oh, we're an air one. You are? Oh, nice. Yeah. Nailed it. Yeah, you know, you know, we saw well after this. Yeah, so we're an air one. And then, you know, like I said, a lot of different beauty stores throughout all the state. So it's kind of, that's been fun. And I'm ready to take on the bigger challenge of, you know, really my whole mission from the beginning was to get everybody to understand the benefits of this. And, and here we are having this opportunity. So in closing, I just wanna ask you, what advice would you give any entrepreneur who's in COVID-19, maybe they got laid off, right? Maybe it feels like Doomsday but maybe they've always had that itch. What advice would you give? I think right now is when if you've got laid off and you've had an idea determination and getting up and really making that come to life right now, you have an opportunity because, you know, there's been a lot of shifts. You've seen it in the fashion industry.  You know, you just gotta not, you're not watching Netflix all day. You gotta figure it out. I don't think I have any more of Netflix to watch to be honest with you, unfortunately. And I, we don't have a television so like Netflix is all I have and it's just, I'm at least disabled and everything. Right, I know it here and there. Makes a good source. Makes a good source of what to watch. Oh yeah, what are you watching? Right now I'm finishing up Ozark but the movie that I recommended to Diego last night, he watched it, it's a Spanish film called The Platform and it was definitely an unexpected surprise to find on Netflix, but I can't recommend it highly enough if you're looking for something to watch. I'm writing it down. It is dubbed over in English so you can choose that option and it's basically like a psychological thriller. Ooh, yeah, well done. Like Parasite, Tracey Parasite? I did, I love that movie. It's in line, I would say they're in the same, they're cousin. Yeah, they're not totally dissimilar. I love it, I can't wait, thank you. The one thing I will say, first of all, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story. I really appreciate that during this time so thank you. Of course, thank you guys. Where can people find you on Instagram? Where can they go over your products? Absolutely, so we are on Instagram, Lumionskin at Lumionskin and our website is Lumionlife.com. We're actually shipping faster than Amazon right now but when the hand cleanser launches, we'll be up there so we get out faster. Lumionskin shipping faster than Amazon.com. That is a claim right there. Watch out Mr. Bezos. That's right. I love it. The Startup Storefront team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Megan Conrad, Hailey Nelson, Owen Capolini and me, Nick Conrad. Our music is composed by DoubleTouch. We've got more great episodes coming out every week so if you aren't already, consider subscribing. This is a very supportive and helpful community of entrepreneurs and we'd love for you to be a part of it. You can find us on all of the social media platforms at Startup Storefront. And you can always go back and listen to any of our other episodes available wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, startupstorefront.com. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.


The Landsat-8 operational land imager, OLI, was calibrated before launch using an integrating sphere traceable to national institute of standards and technology, NIST, standards of spectral irradiance. It was also calibrated on orbit using diffusers characterized prior to launch and compared to other instruments and ground measurements. The calibration coefficients were provided with the data products to convert from radiance to reflectance units. This article was authored by Brian Markham, Julia Barsi, Gierke Farron, and others.


Green roofs are becoming more popular in urban areas due to their ability to reduce stormwater runoff. This research examined how different media depths, plant presence, and rainfall patterns affect the retention capabilities of green roofs. Results show that a planted green roof with a 10 cm media depth retains more water than a non-planted green roof with a 20 cm media depth during both growing and non-growing seasons. Additionally, the presence of plants increases the retention capacity of green roofs during heavy rain events. This article was authored by Perla Scheide, Rohan Benjanker, Susan Morgan, and others.


Alright guys, so on today's vlog, what we're going to focus on is creating a face frame. Now a lot of you guys have submitted questions asking about how do you create a face frame without creating a lot of layering. So one question was on Instagram, this is from Beauty by Ashley Perosi. She says, can you please do a face frame on really long hair? Something easy.  So much going on on one side and not much going on on the other, I need help. Here we go Ashley. So today I put together the vlog. This is going to show you how to create a face frame, keep a balanced look. Balanced look does not mean that each side is the same length. It means that you're working with two different densities, one side is heavier than the other side so you have to cut both sides different. That's what we're going to focus on today. This is our end result, kind of hard to see, it's windy outside. You'll see it at the end of the video. Quick video, easy technique, definitely salon friendly. I think you guys will like it. Post in the comments below, let me know what you think, what you want to see next in future vlogs and also, yeah, hit the like button. All right guys, here we go. Let's get started. All right guys, we're going to start off by parting the mannequin where they part their hair. So this is the left-hand side parting and then I'm going to draw a line two inches from the hairline down to behind the ear. It's a diagonal back line so I'm really following the head shape which is great because that's what a face frame does, it follows the head shape as well. So we're going to start off with nice medium elevation. The more you elevate a face frame, the lighter it's going to be. So I think a lot of people cut the face frame super low down below the chin and what happens is you get too much of a build up of weight. I think a lot of people treat the front of the hair differently than they do the back of the hair. But they don't realize that if you elevate the back of the hair, it's lighter, it has more layers. It's the same thing with the front of the hair so the more you lift it up, the more you elevate the hair, the lighter it's going to be, the less density is going to be there, the more you're going to layer it. So you just want to make sure when you're working a face frame, a lot of clients complain about the fact that it's too heavy, it's lifeless, it doesn't really work. So going in, using that medium elevation is a nice starting point. If they have a higher density, definitely raise up your hand a little bit and then work that finger angle to create the angle that you're looking for. Over direction works as well but sometimes it layers it a little bit too much. So that's why I'm choosing to work with my finger angle this time. So now we're going to work on the opposite side. Same diagonal back section, two inches in. I grab a bit of hair for my guideline from the opposite side. And another thing I want you to notice here is that as I'm working on the left hand side of the head, I have a whole different elevation. And the reason for that is this is the weaker side. So it's the less dense side. So if I were to hold it up the same exact way as I did the other side, it would fall too light. I would remove too much weight and it wouldn't look balanced. So I'd say the key things for you to focus on when you're cutting a face frame, to get it right every single time, look at the density, look where you're parting the hair, focus on your elevation, focus on your finger angle. And you should have a way more successful face frame. So now we're going to kick it in. We're going to stylize so you guys can see the end result. I use the brocato mousse that I use in a lot of different videos. It's a nice light hold mousse, doesn't have a sticky feel to it. I'm going to go through. I got my Ergo paddle brush, my Ergo blow dryer. A lot of people have questions about the Ergo dryer because you can never hear it. It is loud. It is definitely a loud, powerful dryer. And it's a nice, small, compact design. The thing I love about the Ergo dryer is the fact that every single part on the dryer is replaceable.  It's super powerful, like I said. Polishes the hair really nice. But it is not a quiet dryer. But that's not what I look for in a blow dryer. So it's definitely one of my favorites. So we get it all polished out. Now I'm just going to smooth the ends. This is the Vibra straight iron from Bercato that I use in all the videos as well. Nice ceramic plate to it. And I go through and I just polish the ends. The blow dry part is all about working the scalp to mid-shaft. So I work that with the brush. I'm using the paddle brush because it has a nice tight tension to it. And then I go through and just polish the ends with the iron, given a nice slight bend to go with the head shape. And then that finishes off our style. So I'm going to finish everything with the Bercato Maximum Hold Hair Spray. Nice clean hold. Gives it some shine. But you can see how that face frame just wraps right around. Nice soft feel to it. Not super thick. You can see the balanced weight distribution from the different ways that we cut each side. So hope you guys like the look. Let me know below. All right, guys. So if you like that video, hit the like button, hit the share button, share this video with all of your friends. And also, like always, if you made it to the end, let me know in the comments below. And go to our fsesocial.com community and make sure you join. We're on there. We're talking. We're sharing our work. Thousands of hairdressers are on there daily. So it's a good way to connect and share your stuff with other hairdressers. That's what it's all about. So thank you guys so much for watching. I will see you guys on the next video. Thanks. Bye.