PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vivesana to Partner with Baby Loves Disco: A Marriage of Safe Sunscreen and Good Times

February 24, 2009 (Brooklyn, New York,)

Vivesana announced today that it will be meeting parents and giving away some of its
Solar to Polar Baby at the upcoming Ft. Lauderdale Baby Loves Disco Valentines Ball on
February 28 at Revolution Live. We at Vivesana are excited for the chance to dance, to
meet parents like us, and most of all the opportunity to talk about how important strong,
safe and effective sunscreens are for our kids.

Baby Loves Disco started in Philadelphia in 2005 with the goal of creating a new
environment for toddlers, pre-schoolers and parents to have fun and get their groove on.
They went to work on a fabulous, innovative concept – transforming the hippest night clubs
into child-proof discos. By the fall of 2006, had spread coast to coast and now holds events
in over 21 cities – largely through the most powerful – and credible – form of advertising
there is – word-of-mouth along the mommy (and daddy) grapevine.

When talking about the partnership between Vivesana and Baby Loves Disco, founding
member Dan Signorelli said “Baby Loves Disco didn’t rely on advertising to grow – they
simply did something special, and the people came. Vivesana has the same focus, putting
everything we have into making the best, safest sunscreens on the planet.
Vivesana, which means “live healthy” in Italian, has developed the strongest 100% natural
sunscreens on the market, and the very first 70% organic baby screen.

Vivesana is deeply committed to safety and sustainability in product, packaging and
practices. We avoid all synthetics, including phthalates, parabens, PABA, and BPA. Our
packaging is entirely US-made and recyclable, and we share 10% of our profits with
organizations devoted to environmental and health causes.

Contact Person: Daniel Signorelli
Telephone Number: (718) 522-5547
Email Address: dan@sana-skin.com
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We set out to make our dream products and to build a company with a moral compass. We believed if we did things differently, and better, people would find us.  We spent years in developing our screens. We launched in worst economy in our lifetimes.

Would anyone care about organics in a downturn?  Is environmentalism truly a widespread, lifestyle-altering movement or an ephemeral fad?  Will people pay a little more for something better?

The response has been immensely gratifying and a little overwhelming. In the last two weeks alone we’ve launched in the perhaps the preeminent baby boutique in Manhattan (Yoyamart), the best skin care shop in the Hamptons (White’s of East Hampton), the biggest, most respected organic market in San Francisco (Rainbow Grocery), and one of the prettiest baby stores in LA (Bellini’s of South Pasadena).  And then there are the re-orders already piling up from stalwarts like Lazy Acres in Santa Barbara.
The blogosphere, of course, already has their own two cents on the subject (e.g., here, here, here and here and so on, and so forth) but that’s a subject for another time.

Thanks to all…and spread the word!

We love it when restaurants open their kitchens up. Not only is it fun to watch the pros in action, it’s a good sign when a place feels confident enough in their ingredients and practices to pull back the curtain. No corner cutting, no unswept corners, no dirty tricks!

Skin care is not so different. You feed your skin the same way fill your stomach. But when it comes to skin care, as consumers, we always felt like we were flying blind. Who knows what’s inside the pretty packages. Is it all made in an industrial vat somewhere? Maybe we’d read too many scary headlines.So, we pulled back our own curtain. Our products are our babies – we couldn’t be prouder of them, and we’re more than happy to share every last detail! Skin care consumers finally get an open kitchen of their own…What does all this mean? It means we’ll tell you not just what are ingredients are and what they do, we’ll tell where they came from. We’ll tell you where our packaging is made and how. We welcome comments. No more guessing…

Good question. Better answer. Sana removed water from its formulations for two giant reasons. First, topically applied water as a skin care treatment is a red herring…see how long it lasts on your skin without a proper barrier. Fact is, topically applied water does not provide any lasting benefit to your skin. But practically every other skin care product out there is mostly water. What gives? Not our business, but here’s a tip: check the latest price for water. Sana does not believe in cutting corners with fillers. Water needs to be in your skin, not on it.

Second, water is where microbes live. It’s true. Water is a wonderful, vital element that we would not last long without. But it’s filled with bacteria, germs and other critters. Especially standing water. Anytime it sits for a period of time, the little guys are going to find it. It’s not so different in skin care. Water may be an excellent way to stretch a product, but it’s also the main reason synthetic preservatives (and synthetic emulsifiers) are necessary. Take the filler out, and suddenly there’s nowhere for microbes to grow.didn’t stop there, but removing water is the single biggest leap.

It’s just like cooking – once you start cutting corners with unnecessary ingredients, you need to start balancing them, and before you know it, the “recipe” has gotten away from you. It’s first principles for Sana: stick with ingredients that directly benefit skin. What does it mean for you? 100% natural, synthetic-free products that go all the way toward beautiful, healthy skin.

So where does the Bisphenol A tree grow? Watered your phthalate plant recently? We’ve been scratching our heads too. Too many supposedly ‘all natural’ or ‘organic’ skin care products are filled with multi-syllabic preservatives, emulsifiers, thickeners…etc. that sound suspiciously unnatural to us. Unfortunately, slippery sloganeering is so widespread these days, no one bats an eye. The Government has usually left it to companies to police themselves – or more accurately, each other. Problem is, larger competing companies – with a few exceptions – apparently figure it’s better to live and let live, allowing each other to carry out mutual deceit.

It’s not just the ingredients that are being mislabeled. In fact, the Environmental Working Group recently concluded that over half of the sunscreen products on the market make claims about effectiveness that are unacceptable or misleading under the FDA’s draft sunscreen safety standards. Think back to the “all-day protection” that couldn’t last until lunch, or the “water-proof” sunscreen that washed off with your first dip, or the “mild as water” lotion that warned you to avoid contact with your eyes.

Plans to tighten up labeling standards are in the works, but we think companies have a responsibility to be honest. It’s one of the reasons Sana was born. We’ll do our part to push the envelope and to pull back the curtain. And we can all do what we can to demand clear honest labels. Is that too much to ask?

And hey, if there’s a Bisphenol A tree growing out there somewhere, we’ll eat our words!

Grandma’s Sunday lasagna. A crayon-smeared birthday card from your son. The best stuff is homemade.

Sana began in a kitchen in upstate New York. First, just friends: farmers, teachers, chefs, parents — all reading, studying, mixing, and testing. Then the pros: chemists, doctors, pediatricians, checking the science and improving the formulas. The kitchen grew into sophisticated labs. The testing started in the bathroom, the tennis court, the ski lift, and the waves, and then moved to formal testing. But it was in our hands the whole time.

It was a leap of faith. The chemists wondered why we were re-inventing the wheel. It’s so much easier to do it the same way as everyone else, they said. Friends, family and co-workers scratched their heads skeptically. A few warned we were crazy. Isn’t that how all great movements start?

Creating from scratch forces one to understand everything, to examine assumptions, and to take full ownership of the final product. We did it because we weren’t comfortable with mass-produced alternatives. We’ll take a home-cooked meal over something processed in a mysterious vat, any day. We like our fresh, local, carefully chosen ingredients. Skin deserves a touch of homemade care, too.

And it’s not just the crème you rub into your skin. The company is homemade, too. We’re made up of families. We care about the same things you do.

Sana products are for everyone who needs to soften, moisturize and protect their skin…and needs to do it gently, safely and naturally. Isn’t that everyone? Not quite. Sana is specially made for people who have dry skin, a thin barrier, or who are suddenly dealing with particularly dry air. Also active, outdoorsy people who don’t let the elements slow them down. And athletes who don’t have time to reapply. Don’t forget those mothers dealing with hormonal changes, stretching, and the occasional baby nip. And kids, who’d rather run free naturally.

That still sounds like everyone. Not quite. If you have naturally oily skin or are in extremely humid conditions, barrier support might not be your top concern. And if you don’t like the products, or have an allergy to any of the ingredients (please, please look to check), you should stay away…we won’t be offended.

It started well. Dinner in a wonderful neighborhood restaurant in San Francisco with friends, family and some new significant others. It turned ugly faster than you can say Big Agro Business.

“Oh, you’ve got organic and all-natural products. Really, be honest with me, it’s just marketing and branding, right?”

Turns out the guy across from me was a fan of rhetorical questions – before I uttered a responsive syllable, my new friend continued, “I mean please, the whole fad makes me sick. These people don’t know what they’re talking about. These studies are garbage. Do you have any idea how much of those industrial chemicals you’d have to get in your body it’d have the effect those studies describe? Stop kidding yourself. Any real scientist will tell you it’s all crap. Nothing has changed.”

I could feel nervous fidgeting around table. I took a deep breath and started by agreeing with him. Some of the science out there is shoddy, and not every negative health trend is the result of contaminants in our food, our water, our air and, yes, our skin care.

But… a wide range of health problems are on the rise, from premature births and underweight babies, to lowered sperm counts and early menstruation, to allergies, to reproductive organ damage. Hundreds of industrial chemicals, many of which are in the family of endocrine disruptors, are being found in newborns and in cord blood. There are scores of studies linking common synthetics found in plastics and skin care products to a range of health problems…which have led nations around the world to ban many of those substances.

And you want to talk dosages? Well, one tiny dosage in one exposure may not cause cancer, just like one puff of a Marlboro won’t kill you. But what about the thousands of synthetics we and our children are bombarded with day after day? And what of the fact that many of the synthetics have bio-cumulative effect, sticking in the body and growing day by day? Still believe tiny individual exposures can’t possibly have an effect?

“Harrumph.” From across the table. “I’d like to see conclusive proof…”

“Well, there’s plenty of proof. But the larger point is this: sometimes conclusive causal proof is elusive (in part because there are so many different chemicals hitting us at once, that it’s difficult to isolate just one). Doesn’t it still make sense to avoid as many potentially dangerous synthetics as possible? Especially when skin care synthetics are often simply cheap derivations of natural ingredients?”

“…and don’t let me get started about the environmental reasons to prefer smaller, organic farms over Big Agro. Ok, enough, let’s eat. Lemme guess, the fois gras is yours…”

Organic materials derived from animal or vegetable sources are biodegradable, while substances derived from mineral sources are generally not. Any curious kitchen scientist can make plastic out of food products, but most companies make their plastic out of nonrenewable crude oil.

Plastics can be melted down and remade into other recyclable products (e.g. a plastic milk jug can be remade into another plastic milk jug), but even if you take the time to put your plastic items in the blue bin, recycling plants may deem them unrecyclable. If the plastic container has not being properly rinsed of food or beverage, or if it still has a label, it goes directly in the landfill, where, as a non-biodegradable material, it can remain for decades.

It takes a lot of (worthwhile!) effort to recycle plastic; the numbers at the bottom of plastic products are extremely important since they determine whether a plastic can be recycled or not, and whether two plastics can be recycled together. If a plastic is not grouped with like plastics, it goes into the landfill, so pay attention to the numbers at the bottom of the plastics and read about the plastic recycling policies of your home state! Indeed, evidence suggests that most plastics are not recycled, but rather are dumped into our oceans where they accumulate over time and destroy wildlife and animal life.

NMF, as it’s sometimes called, is a real thing and it is very attractive to water. It’s a water magnet. How does it work? A series of amino acids that suck in water from deeper in the skin, and sometimes from the outside environment. All the skin cells at the surface of our skin – the bricks – are filled with NMF. It’s central to the skin’s ability to keep water circulating through the system. Another unsexy way of describing NMF is that it’s a humectant. You should look for low molecular weight humectants, like vegetable glycerin in effective moisturizers.

NMF is essential, but it’s also very particular. Something of a catch-22, but if there’s not enough water, skin can’t create it. If there’s too much, skin will shut down production as well. NMF is also reduced by sun exposure, acne, and too much bathing with harsh soaps.

The Information Age can be wonderful, disorienting and sometimes a little scary. Facts, advice and promises fly at us from all angles. Ads trumpet miracles. Studies reverse themselves every day. Credibility is elusive. The truth is mutable.

Sana is about clarity and transparency. We want to make choices easier by providing clear, supported information about skin and the environment. Search through our blog’s Did You Know series. Check Our Friends to find other sources. Information is your friend. It’s ours, too. Pull back the curtain!