Hey friends! Founder Rach here to clarify something. That's right, our brand name does not indeed stand for 'to be honest'…
Obviously when we decided to name the brand 'tbh Skincare' we knew that people would associate it with the phrase 'to be honest' and we liked this! I mean honestly, authenticity and transparency are at the core of the brand we were creating, so having the association with 'to be honest' was a perfect fit.
BUT, did you know that in the context of our brand, tbh Skincare actually standards for 'the biofilm hack'. Say it with me again besties… the 👏 biofilm 👏 hack 👏.
What the heck is 'the biofilm hack' you might be asking? Dw, I have the backstory for you.
Let's go back to where the company began. Picture me, 21 years of age, working in digital marketing for a medical devices firm, living my best full time corporate girlie life. Little did this yuppie know what was around the corner for her! At the very grown up age of 22, I believed my days of acne were behind me, despite the fact that I was still on an antibiotic I had been taking for 7 years straight! Yep, you read that right. Around this time, responsible little old me took myself off for a skin cancer check at the dermatologist. When I sat in the chair waiting to be assessed she asks "so do you take any regular medications". Of course I explain that I do indeed take a regular anti-biotic that I have been taking since the age of 15. She looks at me like I have two heads and says "yeah there's no way you should still be on that, we're going to have to take you off that and I will prescribe you something else for your skin". Cue my acne re-entering the group chat. Off the anti-biotic I went and onto the new prescription (a topical retinol)… and no surprises, I started breaking out again.
Ok so now you have some background… let's skip to 6 months later when I find myself having a super interesting conversation with someone from the same industry that I was working in!
Working in the medical devices industry is an eye opening thing… it is a whole world you had no idea existed. I mean it makes sense, someone has to sell the joints that go in your knee, or the equipment that sterilises the surgical tools… but I had just never considered any of it prior to working in the industry. One day I got chatting with a connection who also worked in the industry… they were telling me about a really cool technology that had been developed to treat infections, and it just so happened that the technology worked to treat acne too! After hearing more about it I persuaded them to get me a sample from the medical research and development company's lab to try out on my own skin. Dw folks, I had read alllll the science behind this, including the technology's entire patent before trying it. And voila!!! My skin loved this magical cream.
SO being the very naïve and ambitious 22 year old that I was… I started thinking, what is happening with this product?! I need to make sure the people who really need this product find out about it!!! Basically this train of thought, along with my passion for beauty and all things digital marketing resulted in me quitting my job, winning the rights to the IP for the product and launching a brand called tbh Skincare!
Now… let's get back on track. WHY is it called tbh Skincare?!
So tbh stands for… (finish this sentence so I know you have been listening). That's right, the biofilm hack!
We named it this because this describes what our hero product does. It disrupts biofilm to get to and treat acne causing bacteria. To understand this, we need to unpack what biofilm actually is…
Bacteria exist in two different forms, planktonic (also known as free floating) or in biofilms. Only 10% of bacteria are 'free-floating', the remaining 90% exist in colonies known as biofilm.
So biofilm, very simply put, is a colony of bacteria. This colony of bacteria attaches together via a slimy glue-like substance known as the EPS layer. This layer forms a protective shield around the colony of bacteria and protects it from attack.
EPS is next to impossible to break through… which is where our patented technology comes in! It is this ability to break through biofilm's protective layer that makes our product different and novel. By breaking through this protective barrier we are able to target very hard to reach C.acnes bacteria, and prevent the recolonisation of the biofilm at the same time.
And if you think about that fact that 90% of bacteria exist in biofilms, then you can understand why breaking through this barrier is so important. If a product can't break through this barrier, then it can only target the remaining 10% of bacteria that is 'free floating'.
And this my friends is why the brand is called 'tbh Skincare - the biofilm hack'! Because it hacks into the biofilm by breaking down the EPS layer that protects it from attack.
Ta-da! Case closed!
Shop the acne hack cream here.
