Life is dirty. And for possibly the first time in our lives, we’re being told from the highest authority to be clean. Really clean. Disinfectant clean. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, we were told to wash our hands multiple times a day. And to use hand sanitizer, which is great for removing the germs but not so kind to your skin.
Jason Daniels can help you with that. The Palm Springs resident has launched a skincare lotion that doubles as a hand sanitizer. Love Dirty is a result of his own battles with skincare issues dating back to his childhood and his work experience in the field including a stint as creative director for Kate Somerville Skin Health Experts in Los Angeles. He also served as creative director at Black Book magazine in New York during 25+ years of experience in retail beauty and fashion branding.
“Yes, life is dirty. You can't change that,” says Daniels. “But what you can do is learn to love the dirty because we're giving you the tools to use to get on with life and not let it get in your way. And also at the same time, we're going to make it really good for your skin and we're going to make it very beautiful so you can really live your life, and even be proud and show it off.”
Daniels, who moved to Palm Springs full-time six years ago, is originally from south London. He tells Palm Springs Life more about his Love Dirty skincaring hand sanitizer.
Why is creating this skincaring hand sanitizer so personal for you?
As a kid, I grew up with pretty chronic eczema. You could see I had it all over my body, my creases, my skin where it sweats a lot more and stuff. So I dealt with that, the pain side of it going through it, but also from the other side of kids being kids and teasing, and being picked on. I could never find a hand sanitizer that worked for me. I'm a really good test market for skincare products because I'm hypersensitive and I feel everything.
What separates your product from other hand sanitizers?
While I was at Black Book magazine in New York, I would see people using hand sanitizer, but they would be these fabulous people with these fabulous bags, and their super stylish self, and then pulling out a bottle of Purell. And my brain went, ‘What happened there?’ These are these fantastic people and all they've got is this thing that looks like a mini bottle of detergent in their bag that they're carrying around with them. And then it got my brain going, ‘Hang on, a hand sanitizer is totally meant to be used when you're not at home.’ That's the whole principle of it. You're not at home, there's no water, no soap available, you're out and about, and chances are those moments are little bit more social.
"They're going to get very dry skin and then they're going to hopefully come to me because I've got, honestly I think the best hand sanitizing formula."
— Jason Daniels
In this time of COVID-19, will your product be as potent if I use yours or would I be better off using a hand sanitizer product like Purell?
Absolutely as potent. Hand sanitizers are flooding the market. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that would happen. I was coming along as 1 out of 10 brands out there, and definitely the most elevated and most skin-care conscious. And now the market is flooded because the Food & Drug Administration relaxed all the laws for everyone to get these essential items made. So I think what's actually going to happen is a lot of people are going to get really dry skin. They're going to get very dry skin and then they're going to hopefully come to me because I've got, honestly I think the best hand sanitizing formula. And to get to that, in order to be approved and to have that drug facts panel, you have to be 60 percent alcohol or over, and we are 64 percent.
And the good thing is we do testing. We do a kill time test, which tells you what you can claim. It's a very minute amount, but 99.99 percent is pretty much as high as it gets. You can never claim 100 percent. So we got top grade on that. And also we did another test with about 45 random people, different skin types, different ages, different ethnicities, everything, zero irritations throughout the whole process.
How did your design background come into play?
I saw a big opportunity for a more fashion conscious, accessory conscious market, and really aiming at women particularly at this point, although I think the reach is much broader. Even as a guy, I have a bag, I have stuff in it, and I put nice stuff in it. And I like to pull them out of my bag and use them, and I feel good about it, and it reminds me of certain things. And I know women definitely have that.
So I wanted something they would be proud to carry in their bag. So that's where the glam shell comes from. I also knew that there was an end of life of a product, right? So we buy these beautiful, expensive skincare products especially. And you get these fabulous containers that we display proudly on our vanities in our bathrooms. And they sit there, and they could be these really robust packages, but they have a tiny little container full of liquid. And you use it up, and you get to the end, and you scrape it out, and then it's gone. And then you've got this empty jar that you fell in love with, and now you've got to replace it. You've got to trash it. There is an end of life of a product guilt that happens.
I wanted to elevate it visually. I needed to find a way to not make it something that you're going to throw away. A plastic bottle is great because you don't really have any guilt about that. You just toss it and you get another one. But I wanted to elevate this along with the formula. So I needed to make this refillable. And that's where the glam shell with the refills came in. The idea being you get to keep all of the outer beauty and reuse it, and the refills are more basic, they go straight into the recycle loop so you don't have that guilt, and you get to use the glam shell over, and over, and over again. And hopefully, until one day you want to buy another one, or we introduce a new maybe color down the road
For more information about Love Dirty, lovedirty.com.
