When the founders of Ourself were dreaming up their newest venture in 2018, they saw a future where treatments like lip filler can be swiped on like skin care and just as effective as a trip to the dermatologist. Now, that future is taking shape. Earlier this year, biotech entrepreneurs Lauren Otsuki and Scott Glenn joined veteran beauty exec Vimla Black-Gupta to launch what they’re calling subtopical skincare: Seven products that are equal parts beauty and biotech, including a two-step lip filler alternative and a five-product hyperpigmentation healer, which includes two peels and an SPF.
Photo: Courtesy of Ourself
Both Otsuki and Glenn had a hand in creating med-tech like Dexcom—the wearable glucose monitor for managing diabetes—and Quidel, the at-home testing technology that has most recently been used for DIY COVID swabs. Meanwhile, Black-Gupta counts marketing VP for Bobbi Brown and marketing director for Gillette as former titles, where she developed her product development and branding skills that she’s translating into her work today as Ourself’s president. All of the founders’ expertise came together to develop Ourself, first-of-its-kind skin care available exclusively online. It seems that there’s a never-ending stream of new additions to the skin-care zeitgeist, each making a loftier promise than the last, but what’s particularly interesting about Ourself is the brand’s technology that wants to bridge the gap between skin-care routines and clinical procedures.
“We asked ourselves, could we actually create something that had the benefits of an injectable and was super easy to use?,” Black-Gupta told Coveteur in a Zoom call. “We thought, there’s got to be a better way. [Injectables] seemed a bit medieval—a lot of blood, a lot of pain, a lot of bruising, and not necessarily the results that consumers wanted.”
So, how does Ourself deliver on such a big promise? First, they classified people’s skin concerns down to three main qualms: hyperpigmentation, sagging, and fine lines. Hyperpigmentation happens in the epidermis, sagging happens deeper in the skin (aka in the dermis), and fine lines and wrinkles develop in the musculature below the skin’s subcutaneous layer (the deepest level of the skin). Then, they created an approach that focuses not only on the ingredients but the delivery. They use intides, Ourself’s proprietary patent-pending intelligent peptides designed to take tailored paths to specific areas of the skin to target these different concerns. Since the three concerns that they’re targeting show up in everyone’s skin differently, they’re being addressed with different ingredients at different spots underneath the skin’s barrier.
The debut collection’s crown jewel is the brand’s aptly titled Lip Filler, a hyaluronic acid-rich formula that glides on your lips with a sleek silver wand. To give the appearance of a plumper pout, Otsuki and Black-Gupta suggest you apply five layers every morning and night. This might sound excessive, but when it comes to hyaluronic acid on the lips, more is more. “It allows you to accumulate enough additional hyaluronic acid in your lips that you can start with the restoration process,” Otsuki explains. “Your body metabolizes hyaluronic acid as a normal part of what it does, so you’ve got to get ahead of the metabolic curve and add more so that you’re just replenishing after a while.” And if you still aren’t convinced about the subtopical approach, the before-and-after photos speak for themselves.
Ourself’s name is a double entendre—it’s self-administered and “a call to action to be yourself, but the best version,” Black-Gupta says. “We occupy this new unique area of true efficacy that rivals what you could get in the clinic. And the beauty is that you can do it at home yourself. No needles, no doctor appointments, no inconvenience.”
Ourself already has the supermodel seal of approval on Instagram, and elsewhere on the internet, reviewers have noticed dramatic results. This just might be worth pushing back your next lip-filler appointment.
