Insanely Clean Offers Healthy, Practical Solutions for Men’s Skin Care Routines

Founder Judah Abraham of Slate Brands sits down with Happi to discuss his approach to making men’s morning and night cleansing routines effective and fuss-free with Insanely Clean.

Your new venture is called Insanely Clean. What’s in a name?
We’d done actually quite a bit of research on this brand. We’ve taken a lot of focus groups and taken information from end users. We started a little over three years ago. We interviewed thousands of men and young adults asking “what are your skin care routines? What are your needs?” It wasn’t about being super masculine and the packaging. It was practicalness and wanting to be healthy and really that concept of clean. I know clean is a hot topic right now across the board specific to beauty. The goal is not to say it’s a clean brand. We have our ethics and how we produce products that we consider clean for ourselves. But it’s not a legal term, it’s not what we were trying to get at it with a name. With the name of this product specifically we’re really trying to get it about being clean and being healthy. Something that’s a little catchy to the wording of it.

Walk me through the product line.
We only launched with two products just to get down to the basics. A Day and Night Cleanser and a Moisturizing Mist. Some of the value we have behind the brand is trying to hook men in and use products instead of using an all-in-one for something where it’s products that are really highly formulated, but in a way to be practical to men, catering to the needs that we found when we were researching the brand. A simple example is a lot of men say, “I don’t moisturize after I wash my face, not because I know it’s not important, because I just don’t want to. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.” Part of the reason we made this mist. Men don’t want their faces to feel too dry or too wet after it’s sprayed on them. We have the same idea behind the cleanser. It’s a cream that turns into a quick foam and it’s easy to wash off the face. It doesn’t get caught in facial hair.

What are some of the actives?
We have a trademark Y7 vitamin complex, which has vitamin E, vitamin C, glycerin and hyaluronic acid to moisturize the skin, retain moisture as well as we don’t want to strip any oils. The mist has pine mushrooms and we have different ingredients. The real purpose that we get to, is it’s meant to nourish the skin and moisturize while being healthy, and that’s our focus in formulating it.

You were the director of innovation and business development for Cosmopolitan Cosmetics, which is a fine fragrance supplier before founding your new venture Insanely Clean. Tell me how that experience set you up for success.
My dad and his partner started Cosmopolitan Cosmetics. About 47 years ago, my grandparents had come from Europe, my dad and his partner were graduating high school they had gone on a trip to France, saw perfumes that weren’t distributed or sold in the US, filled up a suitcase, brought it back over and sold it out of my grandmother’s basement. Fast-forward about 47 years, we have a small family business. About 100 employees were based out of Brooklyn, NY and that’s where I got my start. About 13 or 14 years ago, I started working with the company. I worked in the warehouse, drove a forklift, took the 6am shift, off-loaded new orders and learned that whole side of the business. That’s how I got my start in the industry.