Jeff Murad never set out to join the skincare company his father, the prominent American dermatologist Howard Murad, founded. The Murad heir, in fact, majored in music composition.

But “my father always wanted me to follow in his footsteps,” the son said on a Manila jaunt this week to unveil two new products with Rustan’s.

“Since I was a toddler I would go with him to where he worked. When I studied music [at New York University], I didn’t plan on joining the company. But once I did, I actually found that there was a lot of overlap. Formulating a product is similar to composing music because you’re taking all these instruments and creating an entirely new sound, and you’re taking all these different ingredients and creating an entirely new benefit just by using the synergy of different parts to create a new whole.”

Award-winning products

The younger Murad is now vice president of new product development in his father’s eponymous company. He joined Murad in 2000 and completed his MBA from the University of Southern California.

He is responsible for some award-winning product lines like the Anti-Aging Acne and Murad Man, and the development of Pore Reform range, which he came to launch on this visit.

The Pore Reform Blackhead and Pore Clearing Duo is a two-product combo that’s touted to remove blackheads and prevent them from coming back.

“The problem with blackheads is that a new one comes out behind it because the sebum doesn’t stop producing,” Murad said. “When it comes in contact with the air, there comes a blackhead. For years we thought of how to fix it on a long-term basis. We decided you need a second step—that once you get rid of the blackhead, you prevent the new one.”

The Blackhead Remover is a mask intended for use twice a week, and it’s made of volcanic mineral clay and baby’s breath extract to suck out skin’s impurities. The Pore Refining Sealer is used after rinsing the Blackhead Remover, and it’s claimed to tighten pores and prevents sebum from oxidizing and forming new blackheads.

On experiments, Murad said they mixed sebum with every imaginable antioxidant, and allowed the mixtures to oxidize. Two of those test tubes resulted in the sebum returning to its non-oxidized form.

“We created a complex of those and we use it in the Sealer to create a barrier between the oxygen and sebum to prevent blackheads,” he said. One of them is a synthetic peptide, another is carnosine, a dipeptide naturally produced by the body’s fatty tissues.

Pure Vitamin C

Murad also introduced the Instant Radiance Eye Cream, which he said is his favorite product. It’s claimed that this eye cream contains the “most stable form of Vitamin C,” thus it has the

highest concentration of the vitamin in its purest, most beneficial form.

“One of the best skincare ingredients is Vitamin C,” Murad said. “It brightens, is vital in collagen production, and is a great firming agent and antioxidant. But in its purest form, it is very unstable. If it comes in contact with water or air, it oxidizes. It will turn brown and stop working.”

Thus, many companies, including Murad, turn to other more stabilized if not nearly as powerful forms of Vitamin C, like ascorbyl palmitate and tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate.

“But my father has come up with this patent of a way to stabilize and deliver the pure form of Vitamin C in very high doses without it ever oxidizing. You won’t find this is in any other product.”

The Instant Radiance Eye Cream claims to minimize the appearance of dark circles by 30 percent in just 15 minutes and maximize collagen production.

Murad underscored the foundation of his father’s company, which is to create solution-based products. Before he became a world-famous dermatologist, Dr. Murad worked as a pharmacist, creating compounds from recipes prescribed by doctors.

“When he began his dermatology practice, there wasn’t much skincare in the market,” said his son. “He could prescribe drugs to his patients that could be very harsh. Or he could send them to a pharmacy for some moisturizer… He used his pharmacy background to formulate and make compounds. He started with just three products to give to his patients. The results were revolutionary. He didn’t plan to do this for sale; he was just trying to fill a need for a problem that there wasn’t a solution for.”

Murad Inc. was founded in 1989. Its exclusive local partner is Rustan’s, with outlets in Makati, Shangri-La, Alabang, Gateway and Essenses Power Plant.

Epicenter

Today, Jeff Murad said his company doesn’t create products just because they’re the trend. In fact, at one point, he also bought market research reports as basis for what to do next, he said.

“But every new trend I saw was something I did five years ago,” he noted.

“We have a patent for antioxidants for skincare benefits, but we don’t enforce it because we’ll spend all our time in court. We were 10 years ahead of everyone in antioxidants, in using pomegranate extracts to boost the SPF of sunscreens. We really just look for creative and innovative ways to fix problems, to help people with their skin, much more than following or fitting the trends. But since we test our products rigorously and they really work, often after several years it will catch on and others will start doing something similar.”

Murad said he sees Asia becoming the benchmark and trailblazer of skincare. He cited South Korea’s BB cream, for instance, which has been copied by every major global cosmetics company.

“A lot of the trends you see in Asia, a few years later it spreads to the world,” he said. While thick, French-style creams and serums were the norm for a time, consumers globally now go for thinner, Asian-style serums and moisturizers, he added.

“This region is the epicenter of new skincare trends.”