K & K SKIN PRODUCTS A Revolutionary Mix of Art and Science Anya Sebastian
IT NEVER OCCURRED TO DR. KRISTINA TRUJILLO AND KATIE UILK that they would one day work together. Kristina was a scientific researcher at UNM and Katie, her sister-in law, had spent years researching carrier oils, blending different combinations and documenting the results. “I had suffered badly with eczema since I was a teenager,” says Katie, “and nothing I was prescribed had really worked. I was still having flare-ups in my mid-30s, which was distressing, to say the least, so I started experimenting with natural oils, to see if I could come up with something better.” After more than a decade of trial and error, testing hundreds of different formulations, her perseverance eventually paid off and Katie was finally eczema free. “That was the turning point,” she says. “ I became an oil artisan, blending different oils to get different results.” Kristina, in the meantime, had become a professor at UNM, specializing in biochemistry and molecular biology. She had
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published several research papers during her time there and the university had invited her to apply for tenure, but what she really wanted to do was bring the discoveries out into the real world. “I wanted them to be of practical use, make them available to help people,” she explains, “but universities aren’t set up for that, so I was trying to figure out how I could make that happen.” The main focus of her attention was a molecule that had been discovered during her time as a researcher at UNM. The molecule was similar to resveratrol, an ingredient derived from red grapes and often found in high end, anti-aging products. But it had 6x more anti-oxidant and 10x more anti-inflammatory properties than resveratrol, and Kristina was wondering how she could put that molecule to good use. It just so happened that Katie invited her to come over one day, to help with the products she was making. That was when Kristina began to look up all the studies that had been carried out on the different oils that Katie was using. She was able to confirm that they had all been scientifically tested and found to have
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