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Bit by the entrepreneurial bug, a Scottsdale doctor is getting into the ultra-competitive cosmetics business with a new product designed to stimulate the appearance of people with less-than-lush eyelashes.
“Everything that relates to eyelashes is a hot topic,” said Scott Wasserman, founder of Cosmetic Alchemy LLC. “There’s always going to be an area that’s peaking. . . . There is something about batting long, sexy eyelashes that seems to resonate.”
Wasserman spent 10 years as an emergency-room physician in downtown Phoenix before switching to the more lucrative world of liposuction and cosmetic surgery in north Scottsdale. His practice evolved to include cosmetic sales, and this year he started Cosmetic Alchemy to jump into the fast-growing field of products that claim to enhance eyelashes.
Other companies have prospered with such products in recent years, ever since users reported that a glaucoma medicine had the side effect of growing their eyelashes.
Allergan Inc., the California company that owns the patent on the drug’s use for that purpose, filed suit last month against competitors. Market leader Jan Marini Skin Research, also based in California, was recently targeted when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized some of its products as unapproved drugs. Other firms have introduced lower-priced eyelash products based on vitamins or proteins.
The products are part of a new industry being called “cosmeceuticals,” or part cosmetics, part pharmaceuticals.
“It’s very much of a very gray zone,” says Wasserman, who defines cosmeceuticals as the use of an ingredient to bring about more of a change than with cosmetics alone.
To join the trend, he thought about going the private-label route, in which a business buys product from a supplier and puts its own label on the goods. But he wanted more control over how the product would be made and how and where it would be distributed.
He says he researched ingredients that would give the same results for eyelashes but weren’t drugs or pharmaceuticals.
He found chemists and consultants to help formulate LiLash, which uses seed extracts from sweet almond and white lupine and is applied like eyeliner to the base of the lashes.
Its promotional materials carefully say it “will grow the appearance” of eyelashes. They include a disclaimer that says the product is not intended to promote the growth of eyelashes or stop eyelash loss.
LiLash differs from competitors’ products in that it contains no salt and therefore is less irritating to the eyes, Wasserman said.
Hauley Farish, owner of HauleyWood Skin in Old Town Scottsdale, said she is usually skeptical about new products. But she tried LiLash and saw a difference within weeks, she said.
She now sells LiLash, and the first six tubes went in just two days, she said. It’s popular with customers who want a more natural look, and Farish likes that LiLash is a local product that is less irritating and less expensive than the competition.
“When you can get a glamorous look without the expense and hassle of extensions … it’s more attractive to people,” Farish said.
Wasserman used funds from his practice, Scottsdale Cosmetic Health Institute, to provide the seed capital for Cosmetic Alchemy. He also got involved in designing the packaging, writing the copy and marketing the product on the Internet.
“It basically took on completely having two full-time jobs,” he said.
The company started shipping LiLash in October, selling it for $140 a tube. Besides online sales that have attracted customers from as far away as Singapore and Saudi Arabia, Cosmetic Alchemy sells LiLash through Wasserman’s practice and those of physicians he knows around the country. It also is available at Farish’s shop and Beau Monde Salon and Day Spa in Gilbert.
The company provided LiLash as part of the gift bags for this past fall’s Latin Grammy nominees. The product has proved popular with Hispanics and Asians, Wasserman said, and customers range in age from the late 20s to 60s.
Cosmetic Alchemy has five other products in various stages of development, Wasserman said. The next, due out in January, will be a “sister” product to LiLash aimed at stimulating the growth of eyebrows.
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