From before I started as a chemist in 1990 and up until now, the beauty industry could get away with a lot of, let's call it, poetry. Products promised to transform the skin using "proprietary complexes" that sounded vaguely scientific but were rarely, if ever, explained. Marketing departments leaned heavily on aspiration, and consumers—while curious—had few tools to interrogate the claims.
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From before I started as a chemist in 1990 and up until now, the beauty industry could get away with a lot of, let's call it, poetry. Products promised to transform the skin using "proprietary complexes" that sounded vaguely scientific but were rarely, if ever, explained. Marketing departments leaned heavily on aspiration, and consumers—while curious—had few tools to interrogate the claims.
That era is over, abruptly.
Alec Batis, Sweet ChemistrySweet Chemistry
Science Communicated the Smart Way: Our Positioning
For me and Sweet Chemistry, the challenge is in navigating the intersection of science and storytelling—figuring out how to translate rigorous science into marketing that is compelling, credible, and accessible. The lesson we’ve learned is simple: scientific rigor can be one of the most valuable assets a beauty brand has—but only if it’s communicated thoughtfully. I remember back in the mid 90's when I was a chemist at the L’Oréal Group, Marketing leadership would call me "the opinionated chemist." This was because I would push the marketing managers to use language that was more informative, but in a way that would make people feel smart. At the time, marketing would customarily lean into "dumbing the science down" but I found that phrase to be disrespectful to the people who buy our products. Instead, why not find enticing ways to understand complex concepts? That, to me, is marketing. It was then that L’Oréal moved me to marketing and a whole new world of possibilities began.
When we founded Sweet Chemistry, we had three major challenges when it came to communicating the science. How do we talk about the Matrikynes ECM-extracted matrikine technology that was born from organ repair research without overstepping in regulatory? How do we communicate our novel formulation concepts without scaring off the customer? But most difficult, how do you gain credibility with both extremely knowledgeable content creators (who I learn from all the time—remember, I left the lab in the mid 90's), the new customer who is extremely well-informed, and at the same time, the bulk of the customers who aren't interested in having to grasp complex science? It was critical that we build a framework for credibility at different levels.
Building Credibility Through Transparent Science
One of the most important investments we’ve made as a brand is to build this framework for credibility beginning with the structure of our website. When we first started, the idea of taking upcycled bovine bone and extracting matrikine peptides from them was a huge challenge to communicate for all the reasons you can imagine. Where do these bones come from? Who is hydrolyzing them and are they qualified to do so? Who is Xylyx Bio and this “Alec” guy? Then, it's the delicate balance of explaining what matrikine peptides do in nature, vs. the proprietary extracted matrikine peptides our parent company Xylyx Bio called Matrikynes—because we have to remember that we are a cosmetic, not a drug. There was also the challenge of communicating our formulation innovation as well.
When we founded Sweet Chemistry, we had three major challenges when it came to communicating the science.Sweet Chemistry
What that meant, was having to put a large amount of our science on the landing page of our website. I don't think there was a single person who agreed with me at the time (well, maybe one), because the general thought is to "bury" science to the science page. However, for people who were more knowledgeable or critical thinkers, I knew that there would be immediate judgement from the landing page with very little patience to get to the science page.
Sure enough, even the Wall Street Journal journalist (with no experience in beauty), mentioned that we were the only website he could find detailed info on the science immediately, and wrote that of 136 brands investigated, "Sweet Chemistry … was the most documented in terms of the science behind their products." We addressed this without alienating general consumers by placing studies behind easy-to-access links, using language that balanced scientific detail with clarity (with deeper information on the science page), and designing visuals that felt inviting and human rather than intimidating in the way the cold scientific aesthetic often used by brands can be.
For curious consumers, our landing page offered approachable explanations that deepened understanding without requiring a chemistry degree. For the digital sleuths—the Reddit investigators and TikTok analysts—our website provided the transparency needed to verify claims. And for retail partners and media, they create a credible repository of information that supports storytelling.
Science-First Creator Strategy Pays Off
We also realized we needed to prioritize the more science-driven content creators, not just beauty editors and influencers—because they would be the most likely to understand the more complex science and perhaps even help us explain it to the world. What I was told at the time from every "influencer expert," was to go for more democratic lifestyle influencers because the science-driven content creators didn't have as much "reach." This is where we also took the road less traveled, and not just because it was strategic, but because it personally mattered (and still does) how we are seen in the eyes of creators whose knowledge I respect.
At the same time, people told me that with my long experience from Pfizer/L'Oreal R&D to NARS Marketing, I should get on social media myself to talk about the brand and our products. I, by no means, am any kind of influencer and I do not have the stamina you need to be one. But to be able to go past the fear of the three little dots on the iPhone video camera and try my best to explain our science in various different ways, share my motivations, and answer questions—has helped immensely. To know there is a knowledgeable human being behind the brand and products with long standing industry experience is a point of difference you want to lean into if at all possible.
The End of “Proprietary Complex” Skin Care Marketing
As I personally get out there speaking in the DM's and comments of social media to many people, one of the most profound shifts we’ve observed is the rapid increase in ingredient literacy among consumers. Not too long ago, only a small subset of enthusiasts could decode an INCI list. Today, many consumers recognize functional ingredients—niacinamide, ceramides, peptides—and have a working understanding of what they do. This shift has changed the rules of brand communication. It’s no longer enough to reference “advanced botanicals” or “proprietary complexes.” Consumers want specifics. They want to know what is actually in those secret "complexes" and in practice, this means brands must move away from vague claims and toward transparent formulation narratives.
That doesn’t mean revealing every detail of a formula. But it does mean being clear about what ingredients do, what they don’t do, and how they work together. It also means that, specifically for "science-backed" skin care, the founder(s) should also be experienced enough to know where each ingredient is sourced, which I'd venture to say is the vast minority at the moment. Transparency and experience builds trust—and trust is increasingly the currency that determines whether a brand survives in a highly scrutinized market.
The companies that will thrive in the coming decade are those that treat science not as a decorative flourish but as a foundational element of their identity. Sweet Chemistry
AI Is Becoming Beauty’s New Gatekeeper
And speaking of trust, a new development is now adding another layer to how consumers research beauty: AI-assisted discovery. Tools like Claude and Perplexity are increasingly becoming intermediaries between consumers and brands. Instead of scrolling through dozens of articles, a consumer might ask an AI assistant to explain the difference between ingredients, compare formulations, or recommend products based on specific concerns—even ask if a particular founder (me) has the experience to be good at skin care formulation!
Since AI systems draw on publicly available information, we've found this to be tremendously helpful in telling our story and explaining our innovation, and particularly in ways each individual user can understand. Of course, that means the clarity and accuracy of a brand’s educational content is increasingly critical to how these tools interpret and represent the brand. In other words, your ingredient explainer pages and educational content aren’t just serving human readers—they’re also shaping how AI systems understand your products.
We’ve begun to think of AI not simply as a tool for marketing, but as a new layer of the discovery ecosystem. Well-structured, transparent content helps ensure that both consumers and AI interpreters arrive at accurate conclusions about what a product does. From the brand side, AI tools can also be powerful collaborators. They can help surface story angles, clarify technical language, and structure educational narratives in ways that resonate with broader audiences. Used thoughtfully, these tools don’t replace expertise—they give existing information a sort of "independent validation" and also amplify it.
Credibility Will Shape the Next Decade of Beauty
The beauty industry is entering a period where credibility matters more than ever. Regulatory scrutiny is increasing. Consumers are more informed. And digital communities are quick to challenge claims that don’t hold up under examination. For brands built on marketing hype alone, this environment is uncomfortable. For science-driven brands, it’s an opportunity.
The companies that will thrive in the coming decade are those that treat science not as a decorative flourish but as a foundational element of their identity. They will be curious about innovation. They will strive to put the "R" back into "R&D". They’ll invest in innovation, educational infrastructure, communicate transparently about ingredients, and engage with consumers who want to understand the “why” behind their products.
At Sweet Chemistry, we’ve found that when science is communicated clearly but without intimidation, it builds a strong community of people who appreciate the efforts that have gone into creating our technology, innovation, and products. People often assume that the word "chemistry" in our name refers to the science behind our products, but it's more than that, it's also the energy between people—and that's really the beauty of it.
