“The honest line of skin care”, is how plastic surgeon Dr. Arthur Perry describes his four new products. And each product has a fascinating story.
Consumers are familiar with Dr. Perry from his 9 appearances on the Dr. Oz television show, his 4 books including Straight Talk about Cosmetic Surgery and You Being Beautiful, written with Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen, his weekly New York City and national radio shows, and his creation of NightSkin®, a product he is no longer affiliated with.
Dr. Perry’s skin care mantra is simplicity and honesty. He believes that very few women will stick to complex skin care regimens, and so his approach has been to combine scientifically proven ingredients in a minimum of products. His Dr. Perry’s NightThyme™ combines vitamins A and C, fruit acids, skin brighteners, and antioxidants into a night applied light serum. “Vitamins A and C are the vampire vitamins – they are destroyed by light,” he quips. Dr. Perry avoids ingredients with little or no science. “With a single product, I’ve tackled the great concerns of most women – wrinkles, brown spots, and rough skin.”
In the morning, Dr. Perry’s goal is to protect the skin from UV radiation and toxins. He accomplished this with Dr. Perry’s DayThyme™, an SPF 20, zinc oxide containing, broad-spectrum sunscreen that can be used as a foundation under makeup. He packed DayThyme with vitamins B3 and B5, which improve the skin’s barrier function and help skin tolerate irritation caused by any form of vitamin A.
As a practicing plastic surgeon with offices in New York and New Jersey, Dr. Perry never was able to recommend a particular brand of soap to his patients. “Every single product either had the wrong pH, or contained sulfates, preservatives, parabens, dyes, artificial fragrances, or other toxins.” So, he set out on a two-year project to create Dr. Perry’s CleanThyme™, the safest, best soap available. “Soap is the forgotten stepchild of the skin care industry,” Perry says. “People tend to purchase the cheapest soap, or the best smelling soap, not understanding that soap is the most toxic product they are using. It causes a syndrome of slightly swollen, slightly red, oily skin.” Perry, an Adjunct Associate Professor of plastic surgery at Columbia University, designed a product with the same acidity as normal skin, without irritating sulfates, and without preservatives. “Safe soaps like this traditionally perform poorly – no one will use them,” says Perry. He solved that problem in a unique way. For lather, he used quillaja, which gives root beer its froth. He used beeswax instead of petrolatum, and oatmeal and glycerin to give the bar enough body and slip. And he combined a special type of nonirritating lemon oil with lavender and thyme to make a truly intoxicating fragrance.
Dr. Perry’s moisturizer, called SoftThyme™, may have the strangest marketing philosophy of any product. Its creator does not believe most women need it. Not exactly the best strategy to sell products, but Perry does think differently. Since even his own wife would not give up her moisturizer, he figured, “If women are going to use moisturizers, I would create the safest, best one on the market.” SoftThyme has a perfect mixture of emollients, humectants, occlusives, ceramides and phytosphingosine, simulating the natural oils of the skin.
Dr. Perry launched his line on www.drperrys.com and expects to have a retail presence soon.