"Dermatologist tested" is not proof. Brian Ecclefield shows skincare and hair care brands how to back claims with real clinical data. For founders and makers.
GROWTH PILLAR: Marketing & Branding
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: How to read product claims, how to vet a testing lab, and how to plan clinical testing without wasting money.
Most shoppers think "dermatologist tested" means a skin doctor approved it. It doesn't. Until you know the difference, you're trusting a label nobody proved.
Brian Ecclefield is the founder and CEO of Validated Claim Support, an FDA-registered clinical testing lab in Teaneck, New Jersey. He helps skincare, hair care, and personal care brands fix the problem of unproven claims. Brian says product marketing should follow the proof, not lead it.
In this episode, he explains what "dermatologist tested" really means and how blind testing works. He also covers why one study can't prove every claim, how to vet a testing lab, and why each final formula needs its own validation. He closes with a free gut check for mineral sunscreen. This one is for skincare founders, product makers, and anyone who buys products based on the label.
Key topics covered
Guest links
Read more: Read the full write-up.
Past episodes: Browse all episodes.
Also mentioned: Brian's upcoming book Clinically Tested, the NYSCC Suppliers Day, and the in-cosmetics trade show. Thanks to Mark Hayward of Podcast Introduction Group for the introduction.
— PARTNERS ON THIS EPISODE —
Next Steps
Bernie (00:21)
So, question of the audience. Have you ever bought a skincare product because of what it promised? And wondered if any of it was actually true? Yeah, most of us have. We read the label, we trust the claim, and we move on. Well, today's guest spent his career inside those labs and is here to pull back the curtain on how product claims get made, tested, and sometimes not tested at all.
Our guest today is Brian Ecclefield He's the founder and CEO of Validated Claim Support, an FDA registered and independently owned clinical testing lab based in Teaneck, New Jersey. Brian helps skincare, hair care, and personal care brands prove that their product actually do what they're what they say they'll do.
real data that consumers can trust.
He launched Validated Claim Support in 2019 after raising funding and seeing a serious gap in the industry. Too many products hitting the shelves with weak, vague or unverified claims. That bothered him, so he built a lab to fix it. Over his career, Brian has helped launch dozens of products on QVC and HSN, reviewed thousands of clinical reports, and became a recognized voice in the personal care space.
Appearing in BeautyMatter, Global Cosmetic Industry Magazine, and Happi Magazine, among others. He was even interviewed by ABC News as a whistleblower on controversial sunscreen testing results. He sits on the executive board of the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists as Treasurer Elect. And in his personal life, he's an ordained minister who has performed nine weddings including his own sisters. He also keeps a dream diary, seriously. And you can find him at
Validated CS dot com. Brian, absolute pleasure to have you here today. Thank you for.
Do you have a favorite quote or say?
Brian (02:04)
I've I I like the quote that we run with that Validated, which is don't just state your claims, validate them.
Bernie (02:11)
So the skincare industry, what kind of made you go into that area? and rightly so, 'cause you know What you see happening in the in the drug industry is not always happening in the skincare industry. What made you go there?
Brian (02:22)
I was a finance major undergrad. I graduated in two thousand eight and I couldn't get a job to save my life in that industry given the subprime mortgage collapse. So I took a little bit of a wayward route, moved back in with my parents for a couple of years, started studying to go back to law school and sort of fell into a job while I was working part time at a restaurant. I used to wait on a guy who owned a clinical lab and sort of fell in love with his industry after giving it a shot.
Bernie (02:49)
So clinical reports, what's a clinical report to start off with and then and reviewing them? How do you know that that's good? 'Cause I've seen my lab test results come back from my doctor and he says, you're at point something something and I'm going, and that means what?
Brian (03:02)
It's pretty hard to figure out if stuff is really getting done behind the scenes of clinical studies because there's any number of areas that you wouldn't have as much an understanding on as you as you do, hopefully, with your own body. But what I've seen in my time is that often the fabricated stuff comes from alleging that there are more test participants on clinical studies than there may actually be. And there's ways of double checking that.
But they involve doing a bit of digging.
Bernie (03:32)
Is that where you're getting involved in statistics? I remember doing that in university, getting a statistical course and your population size, people that got tested, how big of the population and was there a blind study? Is that kind of wrapped into that whole story?
Brian (03:45)
It's related for sure. the number one thing that happens is when you test multiple products multiple times at different labs, you should see that people and products are imperfect. When your statistics are coming back and everything looks hunky dory and everything's working a hundred percent of the time, you could guarantee that something fishy is going on.
Bernie (04:07)
So your business started pre pandemic. What did the pandemic do for your industry, for your testing?
Brian (04:13)
Industry as a whole in 2020 took the first official dip that it ever has. I was blessed to be working in a one of the recession proof industries, and that's the only time since the World War II days that cosmetics and skincare actually took a hit. Working in clinical testing, the brands were cutting budgets for actual scientific research, for the short term, they were shifting into
hygiene soaps and hand sanitizers, all of which required little to no general secondary efficacy testing. So it was a really bad time. The the hardest part was trying to recruit these test participants who were afraid to go out to the supermarket to come in and try new products.
Bernie (04:58)
Yeah, definitely would do that. So a company says, listen, I've made a a a new brand, a lotion, or or or some sort of application that goes on your body, whether it's the lips, the skin, you know, although the lips are the skin. What's what's kind of the usual first steps?
Brian (05:14)
Usually you'll try and set a meeting of the minds between somebody with a marketing background, somebody from all the research and development team, and somebody from regulatory, because clinical falls right in between those three, right at the heart of a Venn diagram. And oftentimes it's difficult to get the right stakeholders to to pitch in. In some small startup companies, that might actually just be one person that actually wears all of those hats. But getting a
Balance is where you should be starting, figuring out what you want to say about your product as opposed to maybe just saying it and then trying to prove later on that that's what it actually does.
Bernie (05:52)
So y you see that certain claims actually look pretty solid and other ones look weak. How do we as mere mortals tell that?
Brian (06:00)
There's a lot of things you can do. So you can pop online and you can look up the i if the brand is transparent, hopefully they'll post some of their real world clinical data. I mean, you get other brands that will say things like science backed beauty, which in upon itself doesn't actually mean anything since all products start in a chemistry lab getting bench formulated. So there's all there's always science behind a product that hits a shelf.
in some capacity. What you need to hope for is looking for recognized claims. So if you see things that say dermatologist tested or dermatologist approved, generally speaking, that means that there's actually some work that's been done behind a study. I won't go into like too many individual specific claims, but that would be a a good starting place to look for words that actually lead towards some set of outcomes.
Bernie (06:52)
a as you're saying that, there used to be a claim and it was involving cigarettes. This this cigarettes approved by X number of doctors out of X number of doctors. Is there is there a phrasing? Without actually getting into that whole industry and and and and the the circumstances behind it, is there something to be mindful of when the f with the phrasing though, that might be we're we're we're between two worlds and one's real and one's not.
Brian (07:17)
Yeah, so you can think of it as I'll give you a couple phrases that all sound similar, but they mean very different things. Dermatol or dermatologically tested just means at some point it was tested on the skin. Dermatologist tested means that an actual medical doctor with a skin background was involved somewhere with the testing. Dermatologist approved actually means that a dermatologist reviewed the reports or the data.
And then the last one would be dermatologist recommended. So you got approved, tested, recommended, and then everything in between. And we poll our panel all the time. There's a not too much discrepancy, but there's like a hierarchy which leads to sort of consumer positive sentiment. Recommended is usually believed to be the strongest. And that would involve multiple dermatologists blind testing a study. So that would be stronger than approved or
Testing. There's definitely a layer to the way things are phrased.
Bernie (08:17)
for our audience, blind testing, what does that mean?
Brian (08:20)
Blind testing generally it would mean that multiple products are tested side by side on either the same group or different groups of people. One of the products will have active ingredients and the other will be a placebo. So it'll effectively be a product that doesn't have any physical actives. It can be the exact same product, just without the hydration elements or the anti-aging actives, or it can be something, you know, maybe like an industry leading competitor.
But blind means that the pr the people who run the study and the participants don't know which product is which. So their feedback is much more usable and tangible.
Bernie (08:59)
The clinical testing i does it matter where it's done? So in other words, you're in the United States, I'm in Canada. If I run a lab into a lab here, do I come down and use those test results and say hi, this has been done? Or is it is it based on where the product's going to be sold and that's where the clinical testing has to happen, in which case if I'm coming from Europe or elsewhere or Canada, do I have to come to you first and say run the tests again? There's no
Brian (09:26)
Real hard and fast regulatory standard that says if you're going to sell in the US, you have to test within the US. But if you're getting into the world of OTC or over-the-counter products like sunscreens, dandruff, generally speaking, you'll have to follow throughout all of your supply chain as you develop, including testing, you'll have to use labs that are registered with the FDA. A foreign lab can also be registered.
usually it just takes a little bit of upfront investment and FDA can come in once you do this voluntary registration. You do want to make sure that the labs and the suppliers you work with are FDA registered all the way through the manufacturing process. but that's more important than the physical location of the lab. That's basically the lab saying we follow the rules of the regulatory body that guides in that particular respective agency or.
realm for lack of a better word.
Bernie (10:21)
What do find that most companies get or brands get wrong about clinical testing?
Brian (10:26)
They try to do too much at the same time. And the biggest thing that I see quite often is you got a product and you you think it's got every bell and whistle under the sun because of what ingredients you put into it. You think it's going to potentially heal acne, get rid of pimples, improve aging, get rid of fine lines, improve the skin's firmness. It very may well do all of those things, but you can't test for them on the same panel.
Because people with acne are generally going to skew younger. People with fine lines, wrinkles, and skin laxity are going to skew older. You need people with sun damage and you need people who haven't gotten there yet. So break it up and do it in multiple panels.
Bernie (11:07)
That reminds me there was a product, it was a skincare product, and they it was it was really good here in Canada. It also had another attribute, but they never never promoted it. It was great for repelling mosquitoes. And and so but they didn't test for both both ends of the spectrum, much like you said, it's did one, but it has a side benefit, which which is unfortunate.
But at the same time, is it isn't that expensive though to get the retesting or is that is that a large investment or is it dependent on the claims you're making? So, if acne and skin elasticity, for example.
Brian (11:40)
If you get it wrong and you try and let's say oversupply your singular panel, you could spend anywhere from thirty to fifty thousand dollars or more and walk away with next to nothing on the actual sort of resulting output. if you break it up into two panels, you might have to spend twenty-five or thirty-five thousand dollars.
twice, but now you've got both avenues and you have a dynamic, unique, you know, ethnically diverse but uniform enough group that you're gonna hopefully see improvement on both sets of the data. So I mean you're gonna you're gonna spend twice as much if you try and condense everything into a singular study and there's no guarante there's never a guarantee, but you're much more likely to fail and need to reproduce the study
at least one more time or two more times. It's all about I would say it's more about getting your feet wet and like running with a primary set of claims and then using your sales after you get the product on the market to come back and sort of hone and fill in the gaps.
Bernie (12:46)
You mentioned either basically a pass fail situation. Is it either or or is there a a gradient level? for example, you know, if I buy a gas for my car and it's just a regular octane versus high octane, is is there a distinction when you're going for a a claim, you know, that I would say verbally this will protect you from or this will help enhance you.
But someone else comes home with another product that does it much better in less time. Is there some sort of distinction in that?
Brian (13:16)
There's definitely distinctions. I guess I'll give you two straightforward examples. One would be sunscreen. Obviously, I'm sure everyone is familiar with the concept of SPF, because that's what it says in the US and Canada, right on the front of the label. SPF, if you go to a lab and you're seeking an SPF 50 on your product, technically the test is anchored around that number and it is a true pass fail. So if you come back lower than SPF 50,
You're gonna fail the test. You would have to do another test later on with a lower anchor, say SPF 40. You would know at that point that you're probably gonna pass because you got close to the 50. But the tests are actually passfail. you do learn about your product each time you try and hit the mark. So there's ways you can sort of prep prepare without sort of going into the full final marketing test. You could do a preliminary pilot study to sort of get the range of your product.
so SPF is passfail, even though it is very much just levels of protection as you go on. For other studies like anti-aging, fine lines or wrinkles, it's really not pass fail because you can end up with 82% of people showing an improvement. You can end up with on average a 30% improvement. 93% of women agreed that their skin felt softer or more supple. So you could build the study with a bunch of different endpoints and
Generally, many of them are going to fail and you'll still have some type of usable data to collect.
Bernie (14:46)
Wow. So if it's subjective, I feel versus, an actual metric, then it can be become a little a little more a wider or wishy washy for you know true results. Yeah.
Brian (14:57)
Definitely. What's interesting about that too is it's it they don't always go hand in hand. We'll see before and after photography with these really compelling results. And then subjectively people will say, you know, I I didn't really see or feel all that much. I was expecting this to burn because I like when I wear retinol and I can feel it working. so meanwhile, we see these incredible results in the lab and people are saying they don't think it worked because it didn't burn their face.
Bernie (15:21)
wow. Well so if I if I'm making products and I want you know want to get them tested, how do I find a lab? And how do I know I found a good lab? Because like anything else in life, you know, there's there's a mixed bag out of there, but you know, how do I know I've got the I've got a solid lab?
Brian (15:38)
First couple things anybody can do are jump right out on Google and look for what's called the current debarment list or the FDA current drug establishment list. Google not just the name of the lab that you're potentially working with because lab lab names change all the time. You're gonna want to Google the address, any of the principals and the founders that you can find the names of. You could do that on LinkedIn.
and you're gonna want to run through that FDA debarment list and current drug establishment search. Again, do it with the address as well as the name because usually if there's a problem, a lab is going to change hands and reopen either under new ownership or management with a different name. But if the FDA has found something in the past related to that site, the address will be on file forever. So you can't hide from that.
So do your due diligence, treat it like you're hiring a new employee, run that background check and make sure that things have been okay in the past and there's no criminal or civil issues or liability.
Bernie (16:44)
There's a a note here that you were involved with a whistleblower circumstance with sunscreen testing results. What was that all about?
Brian (16:51)
pre my previous employers have in both cases the two companies I worked for, I had left over ethical issues, and over time, both of those decisions proved to be one hundred percent the right move for me. First company I went I worked for, the owner went to jail for clinical fraud, for w wire fraud. He was alleging to be using more subjects than
he was actually using. Second company ended up I l they haven't been they've been in the news about some sunscreen fraud in Australia and mo most recently in Canada as well. I would just say that there's a propensity for mislabeled claims because they haven't been officially charged with anything related to that stuff yet, even though it's very much in the crosshairs at the moment.
But in my experience, when there's smoke, there's fire, and there was a whole lot of smoke blowing out of both of those labs.
Bernie (17:44)
wow, wow. The so if if I'm starting up and let's say I'm a small a boutique business, you know, maybe it's it's the age old gr great grandmother's recipe of you using lamb fat and you know, some herbs and you know, special s secret sauce and special spices.
What's the minimum they should know about claim, t getting things tested and getting a claim out there? they might say this is does everything have to be tested? And d is it only when they make a claim?
Brian (18:10)
It's really the claims that are gonna get you a requirement for testing, one way or another, because claims in upon themselves are what really attributes your product as cosmetic or a drug. So your product isn't necessarily a drug until you use the word acne or pimple or eczema somewhere in your product labeling or your marketing. Once you make that word, which is defined as like an intrinsic product claim.
You automatically catapult yourself into the drug realm. Of course, using certain types of ingredients is also going to pre-flag you as a drug being a drug as well, but it's more about what you say. And the thing that's important to consider is that your ingredient suppliers who are going to be selling you all those lovely emollients and moisturizing ingredients, those companies are allowed to talk about their studies differently than a finished product manufacturer can.
Because as soon as you take them and incorporate them into a vehicle where you add some other ingredients together and you make your own formulation, whatever they did no longer flies for you because the other things you put in there or your formulation techniques could have completely counteracted what they had previously tested for. So you got to make sure to test each final formula.
Bernie (19:26)
Wow. So this stuff is really good for your skin. This stuff is a really good scent. Mixed together it makes it less less wow. That that's kind of an important thing.
Brian (19:36)
Yeah.
Bernie (19:36)
What's the biggest risk a brand takes if they skip the clinical validation?
Brian (19:41)
Full on recalls by FDA along with civil suits from consumers, which there's quite a lot of going on at any given time. If you just look for cosmetic or sunscreen class action lawsuit, you'll find all kinds of stuff out there in any given moment. And I mean there's there's good people and bad people in every industry. There are lots of very
hungry lawyers out there who will scoop up any sort of bad Amazon, painful, itching, stinging reviews from products and jump down into it. You know, so you you definitely have once you start making claims and you start getting to a higher volume of sales through mass market and retail, you will end up with crosshairs on your back. The worst kind of target to get is
overstating a claim that somebody like a L'Oréal or a Unilever or an Estée Lauder holds the higher market share for because they've got teams of lawyers and they just love suing the new mom and pop upstarts who are coming into the industry.
Bernie (20:44)
There is a boon. so if you're a smaller brand and you're just starting out, because the the brands you just mentioned have massive marketing budgets. if if you can hire a cluster of lawyers, on each continent, then you know your marketing budget's pretty pretty healthy as well as your testing. What would you s suggest to someone who's starting out they're just you know
They're not looking to compete with the say the larger major brands, but they have something that is speaks well to their cultural community, their local area, you know, it's almost cottage esque like business. How do they get tested so they they're not in you know, breaking the law and they're not, you know, doing anything wrong that's might result in litigation?
Brian (21:26)
Some of the best advice that I could give is don't go out reaching for that competitive claim saying that you beat the market leader at X, Y, and Z. Instead, just go back and explain your story to the consumer and say something about how many people saw an improvement in your study. you know, you can you can lead into how that's unique or novel or groundbreaking in its own way.
But definitely don't name those big companies. And whenever possible, don't go calling out a segment leader because if you can do the research to figure out who that is, you better believe that they know that you're talking about them. On top of that, one of the other things you could do is start start small because as your brand scales, so will your market share and therefore your risk.
So, get on base, make a handful of claims about how your product is non-irritating. We talked about that whole dermatologist tested element. You can do those basic safety tests for about fifteen hundred bucks on a given product. So, get your money's worth out of stuff like that. Start small and then scale your way into more competitive claims about fine lines or skin firmness or barrier protection, microbiome, et cetera.
Bernie (22:42)
do you find in this whole process at any point in time someone has actually patented a recipe? you hear certain concoctions, you know, for food or or or beverage, right? It it's a a secret recipe. Do you find anybody ever patents it? Or is it just it's a recipe and it's locked away in a vault that, you know, they've done that, but you know, maybe they've done the clinical trial to go, yep, it
Back you make this claim and go from there.
Brian (23:07)
Most of the time you'll get the active ingredient suppliers, maybe the polymer manufacturers who come out and they actually will patent some of their technologies. The brands themselves keep this stuff under lock and key because the patent protection isn't quite there the same way that it is for new novel drugs. Remember also with sunscreen, while the sunscreen product you buy on the shelf is an OTC product.
It's not actually a new drug. It's those ingredients in it, like the zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Those are the drugs. And those things take, two to ten years to register. So you want to go that patent route. If you happen to fail, everyone else is going to eat your lunch and you're going to lose all of that initial investment you would have been putting in. So you really don't see it as much as you do in other industries.
Bernie (23:57)
So if you're a consumer and you're shopping, whether it's the large major brands or even the boutique one, right? the artisanal cosmetics, what should a person look for when when looking at the outside of the containers?
Brian (24:10)
I would always personally look for I have relatively sensitive skin and it's kind of dry, oily, the worst of the combination. So I look for stuff that is non-comedogenic, which means it's not gonna cause more blackheads to sort of develop on your skin. And then I'll look for stuff that's to be totally honest, with my skin, I don't even trust just that it says it's safe for all different skin types.
I am gonna take a a dab, see how it feels, go go back behind the scenes and see if I can actually find the clinicals, but but I'm probably the wrong person to ask about how deep you should be digging. I would say if the product is saying that it's safe for sensitive skin and that it's non-comedogenic, that's at least a start because most people who ran were were participating in these clinical studies didn't have the known negative outcomes.
So that's a those are two really nice unique things that you can you can look for right off the bat. There's also if you have particular skin conditions like eczema, there's a seal of approval by the National Eczema Association that you can find. That is good for not just people who have eczema, but really any type of skin sensitivity. because it it it's gonna mean that the product has actually done a bare minimum of safety and efficacy work. So like those are
Easy things to look for.
Bernie (25:32)
Well, that's that's good to know. Would you recommend then if someone gets something clinically tested and they're using the same recipe that they periodically retest just to see if the population can handle and meaning the population at large can still handle the product and it still has has a yield? Because you mentioned something earlier about that there's some sort of mutation that could possibly happen based on the use of an application, right?
And and and when you're saying that, that means things change because you've used the product, right? Or or better yet, you're from my safety course back in the days when I was working at the hospital, they say, Listen, you can be exposed to a chemical for a while and then all of a sudden one day your body says, Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a rash, leave it alone, and you won't know why.
Brian (26:16)
Yeah, I think especially if you're gonna people change ingredient suppliers all the time. Sometimes you'll have to switch out your preservative. In those cases, you would be required to do some type of secondary preservative efficacy, depending on where you're retailing or warehousing your products. Whenever you need to do that type of testing again, you should consider that the skin is the biggest variable in this entire little story here.
So if if the preservatives or the active ingredients or the raw materials are changing, I would definitely suggest you do a new batch test. And you can you can sort of do this on phased rollouts. You don't just have to go pull everything off the shelves all at once. You know, a lot of companies will go and reformulate every three to five years in some minor capacity, but you might have a a winning product that you just absolutely you leave it alone and you don't need to worry about that kind of stuff.
you can also consider as you change your packaging, you update your labels, you update some of your marketing materials, you can phase the new products in over those timelines and you could get more out of your newer clinical studies as well.
Bernie (27:23)
It's this kind of reminds me about you know, nineteen thirties, nineteen twenties they used to put certain narcotics into into products, right? Y you know, whether it's teething and for your kid and it you know, it has a touch of cocaine or morphine, you know, and stuff like that. Do you ever find that, you know, once a product's gone out and everything's fine, you know, and no one there's no known hazard, there's no no issue that, you know,
five, ten years later going, that's not such a good idea. Does that ever come up and roll up and going and obviously if the company's changing the formulation, that would make sense then. But do you find that that happens where you're kinda going, Yeah, that's not so good anymore.
Brian (28:02)
It definitely happens. I think often it's when you branch into new potential markets in a hurry or you go a little bit mass more mass market. We talked a little bit about QVC and HSN studies during the introduction. If if you're used to selling, a hundred thousand SKUs in a given year, you hit QVC, HSN, you might sell a hundred thousand the first night. and the actual demographic range is gonna be
much broader than your local retail channel that you may have had before. So it's no longer a low and slow burn. It's a, it's a real quick overnight sear. And, you know, now your product is hitting different hair types, different skin types, different demographics from one side of the country to the other. Maybe you hit that international stride as well. You know, you got different elements for how products are stored between shipping and everything else.
And all of those variables come into play. So like each time you're scaling into your market, it's worth considering how much is the risk right now increasing as opposed to what it looked like, you know, two months or six months ago. While you're planning these studies, you always want to be looking two or three years ahead. You can't possibly see any further than that because you know the real world is gonna get in your way. Crazy stuff like pandemics are gonna occasionally happen.
But you definitely do wanna be planning not just well where you're gonna be selling for the next year, but for the next two or three, because you don't wanna get stuck in one of those situations where one of your new desired retailers has something that you could have easily built into your last study if you just known about it a couple of months ago.
Bernie (29:40)
That makes sense. You're writing a book. What's that all about?
Brian (29:43)
I'm writing a book called Clinically Tested, which is gonna get into some of the nitty-gritty about what a lot of common claims actually mean. A lot of stuff like hypoallergenic or this whole dermatologist-tested side, what sunscreen testing represents in the lab. And I was really lucky in my career because as we talked a little bit about, I had some really bad teachers in my life. And I think that's where I learned some of the best lessons.
So not only am I gonna do a little bit of an introduction for what these physical claims are, but I'm gonna go into anecdotes on how these claims impact massive swathes of consumers all around the world and how people may have been misled on them for a number of years.
Bernie (30:26)
So if you could change one thing about the personal care industry, how it does business, what would it be?
Brian (30:31)
It's all about timelines. So when you're planning these products ahead of time, you're picking out your packaging, you're looking into your preservatives, you're picking the best of the best on active ingredients, trying out multiple formulas. Get that stuff done at the same time that you're actually writing your own pathway to success and efficacy. And don't take your marketing team's word that your product is gonna do X, Y, and Z.
on ninety five percent or more of people. That's the information you and R D need to figure out and give to them. So it should be a unidirectional flow. Let marketing come up with some of the ideas on how to sell what you've got, but you have to get it for them, not the other way around.
Bernie (31:15)
Sounds like the tail wagging the dog then. You want to avoid that.
Brian (31:18)
Yeah.
Bernie (31:19)
So a company comes to and says, listen, I I want to work with you. I want to test my product. Here's two or three different lines that I want to test for. This is this kind of what we figure is a good claim based on what we we're finding. What does that working relationship look like to you if you're from you the lab and back and forth?
Brian (31:36)
It's much more personal than it might be with an ingredient supplier or packaging supplier because the entire structure of building clinical study is about sort of bespoke tailored inputs and outputs. So the lab that you work with should be acting as a quasi, I I don't want to say a regulatory advisor, because that's not what we are, but
The person you're speaking to needs to know the ins and outs of what your target markets are gonna be. They need to know multiple pathways to supporting individual claims. You don't want to get stuck with a dime a dozen salesperson from a big multinational lab that's just looking to hit quotas. You want the person who you're talking to to tell you the word no as much as you might not like to hear it, sometimes more than they tell you the word yes, because
They should ideally be an expert in their very niche little field, and they should have a good idea of the right way to go about supporting individual claims. So lean on the lab and treat this type of role like you might a let's say a financial officer, like a CFO. This type of stuff can be done fractionally now. I mean, use a fractional HR support team, I use a fractional CFO.
Use a fractional regulatory advisor or regulatory consultant to help you get these things done. You don't need to hire somebody just to work in the testing space, but you definitely need to at least hire a consultant who can get you to the finish line.
Bernie (33:05)
Okay.
Nine weddings and a sister ordained minister of
That's a really cool little side story. how do we come to being an ordained minister and getting people hitched?
Brian (33:15)
Yeah.
Bernie (33:15)
Was it a good skincare cream story or what?
Brian (33:17)
It it's it started with one of my best friends and his now wife. They're still also married, which makes me happy. I still have a great track record for the marriages that I've done. But one of them is Christian, one of them is Jewish. They can't get married in their own respective churches or temples because they haven't performed the sacraments. So my best friend says to me, He's like, You gotta help me out. I don't know if you can figure out how we can make this work outside of a church.
So I decided I was like, yeah, I'll I'll take care of it. I'll do it. And he laughed. And he's like, there's no way. If you get my fiance's approval to do it, then fine, go for it. and so I asked her if I could participate as an officiate, and she told me that if I was ordained within the next month, that I would be able to be the officiant. Five minutes later, I had a certificate printed out online and I was ready to go, and she couldn't take it back.
Bernie (34:11)
Wow, you almost became the best man, so to speak. You made it happen.
Brian (34:15)
Yeah. Well actually I rolled out of the best manned position into the officient position.
Bernie (34:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, you can't be in two places at the same time. No not Copacetic.
Brian (34:24)
Yeah, it started based on a need that they had to have a non-denominational wedding. And over like the course of the next couple of years, you know, I had friends who were at other weddings and they decided like actually that was really personal and nice because it seems like you actually know them and you care about them. You don't just see them, you know, every other Sunday when they have time to go to church or something. you know.
So you get you get those really intricate details. I think I could only do it for good friends because it has to be raw and personal, but I've been lucky enough to do eight individual weddings now.
Bernie (34:57)
Wow. Well that that's awesome. So folks, I just want to remind you that Brian has a book that's coming out, Clinically Tested. And just keep an eye on his website, validatedcs.com for updates.
Brian (35:09)
there's a couple big cosmetic trade shows that happen on a yearly basis. If anybody ever wants to see the ingredient supply side of the industry. So the biggest ones I always do are the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists Suppliers Day in New York City. And then there's a big international circuit that's called In Cosmetics. So by all means, Google those shows if you have an interest in this area.
Because they're great resources for everything from manufacturing through supply side through testing and education.
Bernie (35:40)
Brian's also leaving with something you use today. If you pick up a mineral sunscreen off any shelf, look for titanium dioxide or zinc oxide on the label. Add up the percentages, double that number. If the SPF printed on the bottle is higher than what you came up with, put it down and find another one. That's your gut check. It's free, practical, And you don't have to go online to even check that out. So
Head over to validatedcs.com to connect with Brian and learn more about what clinical testing can do for your brand. That's really key. And that way you're not making false claims and you won't get in trouble with either the the feds or local authorities or better yet, litigating lawyers. You know, that's almost a little bit of alliteration there. And
If you're in the personal care beauty space and want introduction, reach out to us at knack4business.com. We'll be more than glad to do the connection. I want to also thank Mark Hayward, the co-founder of Podcast Introduction Group for making this connection between Brian and ourselves. So, Brian Ecclefield you heard what he does. You know, he's been inside the testing labs, he understands what's happening.
what is actually a good metrics, good stats in behind the scenes, cause numbers can be bent and shaped, but you know, having someone who understands what's being posted, he can provide that clarity. Okay. And to reach us, it's knack4business.com, knack K N A C K the number 4 business dot com. To reach us, use our chat bot to find out about other episodes, connect with guests or book a call.