Every emerging personal care brand knows the unspoken rule of the formula for success: forge an emotional connection with your target audience.

Perhaps no one knows how to do that better than the frontman of a band who got his start at the dawn of the emo era of the 2000s: Gabe Saporta. 

The founder of Cobra Starship—a dance-rock outfit from New York City whose catalogue spans two double-platinum Top 10 hits “You Make You Feel…” and “Good Girls Go Bad”—is now the frontman of a skin care venture. Like his humble roots as a bassist in a punk-rock band called Midtown in the early 2000s in New Brunswick, NJ, he’s hoping his skincare venture will take off on a starship, much like his storied musical career. He’s playing Vans Warped Tour this month with Cobra Starship for the music festival’s 30th anniversary. 

Flashback to 2005, Cobra Starship was christened after Cobra Bubbles, Saporta’s favorite character in Disney’s animated classic, “Lilo and Stitch.” Now, the father of two aims to mentor skincare protégés (or “broteges” in their 20s and up) on the importance of daily skin care and sun protection. He’ll do this by hitting three main chords: sun protection, pro-aging and ease of use.  

“One of the things people have a hard time with is barrier to entry,” he told Happi. “When it comes to skin care, especially for guys, and the way it’s marketed, it almost makes you buy into the idea that you need to become an expert yourself to do skincare right. That’s my approach to skincare. I felt like there’s no one doing education in a simple way. I think I was filling in a hole in how this is communicated.”

THREE-CHORD SKINCARE

Research led Saporta to discern that one in three men don’t do anything for their face and as high as 40% don’t use moisturizer—an opportunity to create a 3-in-1 product to offer sun protection, hydration and anti-aging. 

Brotege’s first product, Good Boy Protection SPF 15, is formulated with retinol to achieve optimal hydration, improve skin texture and reduce dark spots and fine lines—all while blocking 93% of the sun’s harmful rays. Saporta says he consulted with his own mentor, his father, Diego, a physician in Montevideo, the capital city of Saporta’s native Uruguay, about formulation. While he preferred up to 30 SPF, Saporta doesn’t want to overdo the sunscreen, especially for men users who may not be as fair-skinned and only require the bare minimum in sun protection and may enjoy absorbing some of those rays for Vitamin D and a little color. 

“Our only product is this product because I think it solves the most amount of problems for the most amount of people,” he said. “You can’t get guys to put on a moisturizer and sunscreen, so I put it in one.” He also added a little retinol to smooth away any fine lines they may experience from expressions or stress. 

“Guys just want simplicity. They just want to slap it on and go,” he added. 

In-line with the skin care industry’s colossal longevity trend, Brotege embraces pro-aging, which is memorialized in its graphic design of a happy dog holding the skeleton of a human forearm in his mouth. 

“The juxtaposition of this young, cute dog with this arm from a skeleton represents a symbolic inevitable path towards death that we’re all on,” said Saporta. “We’re all going to age; we’re all going in the same direction. But Brotege is going to be there like your best friend along the way to slow it down.”

Find Good Boy Daily Protection Moisturizer SPF 15 & Retinol on brotege.com.