Erin Moy of Cellular MD: Inside the Strategy to Cut Through Marketing Noise and Bring Real Science Back to Skincare

As a part of our series about “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Erin Moy.

Erin Moy is an Asian-American beauty expert, mom, and entrepreneur who is the founder of Cellular MD, a science-backed skincare brand focused on preserving and restoring health to your skin. By way of Cellular MD, Erin Moy is providing consumers with natural, effective, and innovative products to answer their most pressing beauty concerns. Cellular MD is the only patented skincare brand to combine Nobel Prize-winning Epidermal Growth Factors and DNA Repair Enzymes into formulations.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Having a father as a dermatologist, skincare has always been a huge part of my life. Nowadays, I think many people assume that people who get into the beauty space are product fanatics or beauty-obsessed, and I can say that I am neither. I was brought up with a minimalist approach to beauty and skincare with the focus being on healthy skin being beautiful skin. I think that the conversation around beauty and skincare has become unnecessarily complicated with marketing that it has distracted many of us from the real fundamentals of skincare, which is keeping the skin barrier strong and healthy. By creating Cellular MD, which is a minimalist but science-forward product line, I have been able to cut through the idea that the more skincare products you use the better. It is hugely important to me to emphasize to consumers that skincare is not about using the maximum amount of products. It is about using a few right products to achieve optimal skin health.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Cellular MD partners with an amazing organization called Camp Sundown, which is a camp for kids with Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP). Partnering with Camp Sundown has been one of the most motivating and fulfilling aspects of my career. Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP) is a rare genetic disorder that causes extreme sun sensitivity and those who are born with this condition usually develop skin cancers at an extremely young age. Many of these kids are forced to take precautions like stay indoors most times (with UV blocking glass) and wear sun-protective helmets and clothing when they are outside. Camp Sundown not only gives these families a support and educational system but also lets these kids have experiences by letting them do summer camp activities at night when they are safe from the sun.

On my first trip to Camp Sundown, Dr. Ronald Moy, who is also one of the founders of Cellular MD, facilitated skin checks on all the kids to see if they had any new skin cancers and spoke with them about Cellular MD’s products. Our product formulations are based on a 2001 medical journal article that gave DNA Repair Enzyme creams to kids with XP. While many of these families had heard about the study and the benefits these patients saw with the creams, they were unaware that these creams were actually commercially available. The following year when Dr. Moy returned to the camp, he was thrilled to see that not only had some of the XP kids had zero new skin cancers that year while using the product, but that they felt more empowered with the tools they had at their disposal.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

The moment we leaned into our story and stopped trying to emulate other brands or other stories is when Cellular MD started to see wonderful success. We tried to create beauty messaging with our science background, and it often got convoluted and we lost our message. When we decided to lean into the fact that we are not like other beauty brands, and that we are about skin health and science across any gender, age, or race, we started seeing that translate to more people. I think it is easy to get swept up in watching what is working for other brands and think about how you can jump on the bandwagon, but staying true to our core mission has helped us realign and push forward.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My father, Dr. Ronald Moy, is one of the main reasons why this company exists on many levels. He is truly committed to bringing high-quality, tested, and science-backed ingredients to his patients who were not able to find them elsewhere. The ethos of this company and the formulation of each Cellular MD product is a testament to how much he truly believes in making high-quality and transformative ingredients available to people at home.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The global beauty industry today has grown to more than a half a trillion dollar business. Can you tell us about the innovations that you are bringing to the industry? How do you think that will help people?

We are focusing on bringing science back to the beauty industry with Cellular MD. What people do not realize is that ingredients like hyaluronic acid and retinol are decades old. We are using ingredients that have stood the test of multiple clinical trials that have been published in peer reviewed and international medical journals, and we are making them available to everyone at home.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the modern beauty industry?

1) Holistic approaches — I love that we are talking about how screen time, diet, mental health, and lifestyle choices affect skin health and overall health. I think it is so important in all aspects to create the conversation about taking care of yourself as a whole.

2) Sustainability — We have taken steps to have more sustainable packaging options using recycled material for packaging and in turn making that packaging recyclable. I love that more people are talking about this within the beauty industry.

3) Ingredient checks — Consumers are taking more of a driving force in understanding the labels on their products which is huge.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to improve the industry, what would you suggest?

1) Psuedo science — In the beauty and skincare industry, we hear all types of things that people and brands claim are good or healthy for the skin. While most of them are not dangerous, it is concerning to hear things circling within the beauty industry and community that are not backed by medicine or science gain any amount of traction.

2) Over saturation — Many consumers think that they need a 12-step skincare routine every night. Most people do not, and the overuse of products can cause real skin problems. People should focus on a few quality products rather than crowding their counter space and shelves.

3) Ingredient checks/all-natural obsessions — Many consumers may be skeptical of ingredients and big words on labels without understanding that they are what stabilizes products and are not harmful. Consumers may be doubtful mostly due to pseudo-scientific misconceptions and false information that circulates in the beauty and skincare space. Taking more of a driving force into understanding the labels on skincare products is important.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share a few ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”?

I truly believe feeling beautiful is all about self-care. Get a full night of sleep. Take a bath. Drink your water. Spend some time outside to recharge, and do not forget to wear a hat to protect your face from the sun! The more we learn about the body’s natural repairing process and circadian rhythm, which is the natural cycle of physical, mental, and behavioral changes that the body goes through in a 24-hour cycle the more I think our body will be at its best. We should support the body and listen to it as much as possible.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, Can you please share “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”. Please share a story or an example, for each.

1) There is a combination of luck and hard work to be a success, and I do not think that anyone gets that on the first, second, or twentieth try. It is about persevering until you find the right combination.

2) Be true to your brand and your story. Everyone has an opinion and a thought. While I welcome any and all feedback, it is okay to stick to what is true to your brand and message first and foremost rather than bending to others.

3) Work with people that inspire you. There are days when I may lack motivation or struggle to begin the workday, but then I will read an email or get a call from someone with a new idea or new feedback, and it gets me excited and ready to put in work for my team and Cellular MD’s consumer base.

4) Get out and see what else is out there! When business owners say they only use their products, I find it amusing because there are so many wonderful products out there. I love reading all about new products and being impressed and amazed by some of the creative ingenious things I see out there both in the beauty and really every industry. You never know what can inspire you creatively or business wise.

5) Don’t be afraid to trust others’ talents and skills. There are so many people whose amazing talents and contributions have shaped the Cellular MD brand along the way, and I am lucky to have worked alongside them but also to have let them direct the work.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If I could inspire one movement it would be compassionate and to be thoughtful of people, the planet, and yourself. I think we lost a lot of that in our modern life with technology and social media, and I think we have forgotten the most basic principle of them all. We need to reattune to our compassion for the planet and our communities.

How can our readers follow you online?

@cellularmdskin or sign up for email marketing!

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

About the Interviewer: Jilea Hemmings is a staunch believer in the power of entrepreneurship. A successful career revamping Fortune 500 companies was not enough for her entrepreneurial spirit, so Jilea began focusing her passion in startups. She has successfully built 6 startups to date. Her passion for entrepreneurship continues to flourish with the development of Stretchy Hair Care, focusing on relieving the pain associated with detangling and styling natural black hair. For far too long, people with tender heads have suffered in pain. Until now.