Can botanical skin care find a niche in the OTC market?

By Deanna Utroske

- Last updated on GMT

image courtesy of the brand
image courtesy of the brand

Related tags Skin

CEO Mike Centola and his colleagues at Haus Bioceuticals are banking on it. And with the newly minted credential of the National Psoriasis Foundation Seal of Recognition, the company is optimistic that its MetaDerm Heal & Prevent cream is on the right track.

Last month the company circulated a press release announcing that the cream is “among one of the first products containing active therapeutic botanicals recognized by NPF.”​ It’s an achievement that could, by extension, help validate the beneficial potential of all natural skin care.

To find out what’s working and why in the interesting niche where naturals, skin care, and wellness intersect, Cosmetics Design checked in with Mike Centola, co-founder and CEO of Haus Bioceuticals, the company behind MetaDerm.

The basics

There are 3 products in the MetaDerm portfolio: a body wash, a cream, and a scalp spray. They are not sold individually but rather in groupings based on the consumer’s needs. The Skin Health System includes the wash and cream; and the Skin & Scalp Health System comprises all 3 products. The active ingredients are touted to be anti-inflammatory botanical extracts. (Full ingredient lists for each product can be seen here​.)

“The ingredients,” ​Centola tells Cosmetics Design, “are sourced in Europe and Asia and then go through a careful extraction process in an FDA-level cGMP manufacturing facility to assure the potency is maintained.  Each and every batch of natural ingredients is tested to assure consistent quality and efficacy.”

“It is one thing to say the product contains the ingredient,” ​he quips; “it is another to make sure that it will work.”

The Haus Bioceuticals team has “committed to change the medicated skin industry,” ​Centola tells Cosmetics Design. He explains that “part of the reason we created MetaDerm is because the over-the-counter skin care category fails to address critically unmet clinical needs, so the majority of patients continue to suffer unnecessarily.”

Haus Bioceuticals “wanted a treatment that is natural, effective, and has long-term results. Our team realized that the short-term reactive approach just doesn’t work for a life-long skin condition like psoriasis,” ​according to Centola.

The accolades

“Meeting the requirements to receive the NPF Seal of Recognition is no easy feat,” ​asserts Randy Beranek, president and CEO of the National Psoriasis Foundation, in the press release announcing the MetaDerm cream has earned the seal. “Our standards are high and the certification process stringent,” ​adds Beranek. “We appreciate the manufacturers that are committed to helping the psoriasis community by developing quality products that ease the symptoms of psoriasis and provide much needed relief to many.”

For consumers, the appeal may come more from efficacy than from natural ingredients. “I was searching for a product that could be used together with other treatments and was steroid-free,” ​says Ciena Rae Nelson, a woman who has used MetaDerm, and through a brand liaison answered a few questions from Cosmetics Design.

“I discovered MetaDerm through Instagram,”​ explains Nelson, adding that she went ahead and tried it because, “I loved the packaging, the look of it and the overall promise from MetaDerm – a botanically-based brand that was clinically proven to help clear skin.”​   

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