How does your company support Indie brands?
We are an upstream beauty innovation company that combines science, efficacy and marketing claims that are relevant. We have a team of experts that can support a brand from birth to growth. Big companies may be intimidating for a startup indie brand to approach. However, at DSM we are set up to cater to the needs of a startup brand from many different angles. We are sensitive to the DNA of the brands, approachable, accessible and eager to share it all with these pioneering brands that are forcing our industry to re-invent itself.

What is something that indie brands might not understand or know about your company?
DSM is quite unique in the wide array of the services that we offer: we can offer anything from benchmarking, sensorial expertise, market and consumer insights and trends, formulation, innovation at R&D level, concept creation and storytelling. All of this combined with sound regulatory advice on market compliant formulations and robust scientific studies to support the efficacy of ingredients, provides a one stop shop for the indie brands.

What advice do you have for indie brands?
Stay true to the DNA of the brand. It is always the original idea that set the first product or its platform apart. It is that very differentiating characteristic that find its audience among the consumers.

What inspires you to keep innovating?
We are inspired by the ever-changing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, the indie brands themselves, the solutions that no one knows are needed yet and the commitment to bring real answers for the consumer needs.

What do you hope to give back by being an Indie Advisor?
Indie beauty is all about thinking out of the box. They are the pathfinders of our industry. They are often driven by a gap they found in the beauty solutions available and set out to find a creative answer. They are the disruptive forces that keeps our industry on its toes.

I am a fan of ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. Having this in mind, At the root of beauty, there has to be science. Without science, there is no efficacy and performance. I hope to bring value by translating the language of science to what the ultimate goal of a brand is. The link between the research and development on the ingredients side is essential to defining new boundaries for how a beauty product is invented and delivers on it promises.