Lauren Janae Rasmussen

Hi reader!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my research blog! My name is Lauren Rasmussen, and I'm currently a senior at BASIS Scottsdale. This year I am beyond excited to begin researching ethics in the dermatology product labeling industry!

From shampoos to fruit strips to face wash, chemistry always provides an opportunity to develop better products. I love learning about molecular details and marketing genius behind why innovative chemical products succeed. Over my past couple years at BASIS I have been able to engage and grow my love for chemistry by working with Dr. Scaling, my chemistry teacher, and getting to stop by after school to helping prep labs, tutoring other students, and various other tasks.

The more time I dedicated to advertising school spirit sales and events with Leadership (BASIS's student government), working the front desk at my local water park, and creating fundraising campaigns to participate on mission trips, I realized another passion: marketing!

I am eager to combine both my passions for chemistry and marketing while learning alongside my on site mentors! I will be working with Dermaforce, an innovative skincare company in Phoenix. Interning mainly in their marketing area, I'll be learning what it takes to be a successful startup company with groundbreaking products emerging in the dermatology industry.

In addition to Dermaforce, I'll be interning with Kerwin Yamanaka at Imiloa Skin Care Creations. Mr. Yamanaka runs his own chemical lab for dermatology products, and I'm super excited to learn all types of applied chemistry with him. I'm sure every day will be a learning experience! And we'll be working together to create a new type of dermatology product. I cannot believe this opportunity and I cannot wait to choose what to make! Both these experiences should help me begin to explore my future majors: marketing and chemistry. Combining these two is going to be so super! 

Outside of school, I love staying active and eating healthy, finding healthy, inventive recipies. I also enjoy mentoring seventh grade girls at my church, Christ's Church of the Valley, journaling, as well as doing random DIYs!

On the right side of my page, you'll find pictures from my favorite hike of the week paired with a fun fruit fact!

I'm so excited to start my internships and begin blogging to get to share all of this with you guys! I can't wait to begin on my adventure, and bring you guys along as well! Thank you for reading my first post and there are so many more soon to come! Talk with you all soon!

Last Week!

Hey guys!

This week marks my last week on site, and I could not have asked for a better experience. My on-site mentors have been so helpful, teaching me new things everyday as well as making me feel part of the team.

I finished up my large project at the dermatology products company (it's confidential so I haven't been able to share), but that was super cool because they will be giving my finished product to all their sales reps to use. Also, they took me out to lunch on Thursday, and gave me a ton of helpful advice which is so nice! And I got to meet the new marketing coordinator who is transitioning into the company.

At Kerwin's lab, we created final batches of my lip treatment and clay mask! Wow, he has been so much fun to work with, and I have learned so much from him. I also got to meet a woman who makes her own fragrances and started her own company here in Phoenix which is so cool! And this fragrance smells so good!!! I have made so many connections in the field by working with Kerwin, and I went from literally knowing nothing but cosmetics must take work and formulations to make, to knowing the full general process of what it takes to bring a product to market!

Last day at the lab! That's a 1 kilo batch!

I am now working on my presentation which I cannot wait to show you all and I'm refining all that I learned to pair it down to what it takes to create a brand and what interesting facts I've found along the way. For all of you reading this, something I've learned through the process is to take advantage of your opportunities. Definitely don't take advantage of people, but really dive into whatever you are a part of to learn from others, enjoy the experience, and build relationships with people. Being in an internship was super amazing, and definitely showed me how the real world work force is totally different than my day to day interactions. Everyone is professional and has a goal to work towards which I at first found very intimidating but now so appreciate.

Just keep working towards your goals!

For those of you wanting to pursue an internship or some type of experience, I would encourage you to find something you love or that you might love and dive into it. It doesn't have to be super academic or professional, just run with your passions! You might learn it's not for  you, but you also might learn how much you love it and start making connections in the field as well as learning so so much about it!!!

I love chemistry and wanted to pursue something in the real world!

Huge thank you to everyone who has made this experience so wonderful and filled with such great opportunities! Kerwin, Erin, Dr. Scaling, Ms. Mitrovich, and all the Dermaforce staff, you guys are so fantastic and I am so grateful that I get to know you guys and learn from you! Thank you for pouring into me and really trusting me to shoot for the stars!

Creating Final Details

Hey guys!

Happy Friday! This week I got to do a lot of different things. At the lab, we finalized the formula for my mask and set it up on stability to check over time to make sure it will hold up and be safe for consumer use.

Homogenizing my mask before adding final ingredients.

And yesterday at the lab, I got to put together a spreadsheet with all the different ingredients in my mask, their percentages, and their INCI names (formal names used in the industry). This will allow me to put together my ingredient list properly and have quality documentation for this product.

We have a lot to do next week at the lab - which means a lot of fun! We will be making a large batch of my lip treatments on Tuesday, and making a large batch of my masks on Thursday (hopefully my tubes come in by then!). Along with this, I will be finishing my spreadsheet for my mask, and creating a spreadsheet for my lip treatment. 

And at the dermatology company, I got to go along with them for a video shoot which was so much fun! Like any company, creating video and quality marketing materials like pictures are key to successfully getting the name out there so I got to tag along for that on Wednesday which was an absolute blast! 

I am also realizing it's a lot harder to create a website than you would think. If any of you have advice on how to best use Wordpress, I would love any feedback! I am just trying to create a simple website for my brand. :D 

It's crunch time, and I want to create the best products so I am actually putting together my final packaging for my lip treatment this week too! Thank you to all of you guys for loving the pink-brown color of my mask! I totally wasn't expecting it, and now I am for sure keeping that color! Thank you! Have a wonderful weekend!

Onto finishing my products!

Creating Designs and Cleansers

Hey all! Welcome back to my blog!

In the past couple of weeks I've been beginning to realize just how much work it takes to launch a line of products and a new brand too! So here are the main steps that I've discovered on my journey so far:

- Think of a great concept or product that isn't on the market yet, or you have an edge up on
- Research, research, research. Look at the current market to scope out the competition.
- Research ingredients and formulas to use as the base for your product.
- Formulate your product (with many trials and errors of course)
- Create your brand (during the entire process)
- Create packaging for your product that is compliant with governmental regulations
- Create marketing for your product and brand to get the name out there (including websites, ads, and promotional events.)

I'm currently in a bunch of these stages, trying to create a website for my brand, while creating packaging for my lip treatment, and formulating my clay cleanser.

This can at times feel like a lot, but it's so so rewarding and so much fun to get the opportunity to create my own brand as a high school student! But this is why I'm going to change the scope of my senior research project to exploring how a brand is created and how dermatology products are made. My questions have turned into: how is a brand created?' and 'what is the process to create a cosmetic line?'

I'm so excited to get to present what I've learned and created at our SRP presentations! (Some of you were asking when they are, and all of them are on May 6th, and mine is at 1:40pm if any of you want to come! More details will be in the next blog post :))

Anyways, onto what I did this week!

At the lab I got to create my second batch of the clay cleanser! It is made with bentonite clay (quick shoutout to Olivia who knew what bentonite clay is), and this is one of the key ingredients because it is really able to help clean out pores and regulate the oil production. The first batch was a little too natural smelling with guava extract so we decided to pull that out! Here's some pictures of the process!

My second batch of the clay cleanser!

Top down view for viscosity, the mask has an airy texture,
which I love because it kind of bounces when you touch it!

And I've been using the cleanser, and on Tuesday I used it as a clay mask, and woah my skin felt so soft afterwards! I'm not even saying that because it's my product, but I'm really liking the formula. The only thing I might change is the color because it is very close to skin tone. What do you guys think about clay cleanser colors? There are a lot of greens out there, so I don't want to do that, but would you buy a cleanser that was a pink-brown?

Using the clay cleanser as a mask!

I also have been working on my lip treatment packaging and I know how I'm gonna do it! I will be using craft paper to make my packaging convey 'natural' along with some foil lettering to spell out humble me! The following pictures are just steps in the process and I will show you the finished product when I'm happy with how it looks :D

Using computer programming to create my packaging

A glimpse at my silver lettering

That was a super long post, so thank you for reading if you're still reading and here's a picture of an awesome hike! Feel free to leave any questions you have for me in the comments!

Time to Design!

Hey all!

Welcome back to my blog! I hope you all are having a wonderful week! This week I got to formulate my new cleanser with Kerwin at the lab, and we are making a clay cleanser! Woohoo!

This clay cleanser will double as a clay mask! I was doing a bunch of research this week, and a lot of 'competition' are not natural but they double as masks. This cleanser and my lip treatment product are part of the same brand.... Humble Me! This is my brand name that I have created and my target market is young adults to mid-age adults looking for luxurious, all natural skin care products that work. If I were to launch this brand, I would want to be in stores from Whole Foods, to Sprouts, to Sephora. Upscale, but not in dermatology offices.

The next step for me with my lip treatment is getting the packaging, and it is a lot! Designing, pricing, and making sure it fits in regulation is hard especially for small products. Below are some designs I have come up with and you will see which I will end up with in a couple weeks, or even at my SRP presentation if you want to come and see them in person too!

Keep looking for more updates, and I will keep you all in the loop! Have a wonderful week!

New! Writing a Blog Post for Marketing

Hey all! Exciting news! 

This week I can finally share a bit of what I've been doing at the dermatology company in Phoenix! I created fun marketing materials for them, and they have the intention of probably not needing them, so I can share them with you all! Here is one that I made for a blog post:

Currently, their media is saturated with products which is great from a business standpoint to reach existing customers, but to reach potential consumers, integrating fun content like life hacks or motivational quotes for the general public is a fantastic way to generate traffic to companies, which I am learning in my course on inbound marketing. I didn't incorporate any of their products in this mock-up, but rather targeted moms and those seeking a healthy lifestyle with a post on hydration.

Just thought I'd give you a little update for the week before Friday! Enjoy your week!

Finalized Lip Treatment!

Hi all! Welcome back to my blog!

I hope you all had a fantastic spring break! This week has been a bunch of fun, and so much has gone on with my project! As I shared with you guys last week, I'm loving the lip product that I made! The only thing I wanted to change this week was the pickup so consumers could easily use the product and use the penetrating antioxidants to protect their lips! I even took a trip to Sephora to test how the pickup was on a bunch of other lip butters to compare to my own product.

On Tuesday, I came into Kerwin's lab with a new formula and a plan, he went over it and showed me another wonderful natural ingredient that would uplift my formula, and we slipped it in and got going. After measuring and mixing my ingredients, I got to pour the 50mL batch and make another set of lip butters! We tested it again, and I love it! It's such a great mix and I would love to give you all samples if I could over the internet! Currently I'm having people try it, and they have super positive feedback which is amazing!

Now I am working a lot more on the graphics and specific marketing behind my product. My goal is to come up with my design for packaging this weekend so it is done when I see Kerwin on Tuesday again, and I can also share it with the people I am working with at the dermatology company in Phoenix! I also am working on creating a brand name that would encompass my products. Both my cleanser and lip product are natural and I would love all my products to be natural in the future. I'm thinking of a two or three word brand name, and I'll keep you posted on what I come up with!

Next week I will be working on my formulation for my cleanser with Kerwin, and I'm super excited for that, but I will have to do a bunch more research this weekend for that including ingredients and marketing claims that can go behind those ingredients too.

I have a bunch I'm working on, and so much to do before my internships are over! I am super thankful for this opportunity, and I hope you guys are learning with me! If you have any questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment below!