Product Recall: Proactiv

April 21, 2023 Forever 35 Podcast

Kate busts out the old infomercials to tell Doree about the multi-step acne skincare product Proactiv. They learn all about the power of infomercials and celebrity endorsements in the 90s and 00s, dig into the brand’s most infamous scandal, and reveal the well-known dermatologists who created the iconic skincare line.

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Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer.

Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.

Kate: And we're not experts.

Doree: We're not, but we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.

Kate: And today we are bringing you product recall, a weekly episode where we dig deeper into the history of an iconic product and its impact. It happens every Friday here on Forever35. And yes, we do take requests.

Doree: Oh yeah. Do you want to tell people how they can send us requests?

Kate: Yes. Through telepathy. You have to visualize the request and then it comes into our head. No. If you want to reach us with a request, a question, a comment, a thought, a memory, we really love to hear from you. Our voicemail number where you can also text us is (781) 591-0390, and our email is Forever35podcast gmail.com.

Doree: And you can visit our website Forever35podcast.com for links to everything you mentioned on the show and for these product recall episodes that includes our sources, any videos that we watch, it's a nice compliment to everything that we talk about. So head on over Forever35podcast.com or also on Instagram @Forever35podcast. And there is a Forever35 Facebook group at facebook.com/group/forever35podcast. The password is serums. You can sign up for our newsletter forever35podcast.com/newsletter, and you can shop our favorite products shopmy.us/Forever35.

Kate: Doree. Today I am bringing you a product I've never tried.

Doree: Okay?

Kate: But it's still been kind of a part of my vernacular, if you will, and I bet yours too.

Doree: Yes.

Kate: And that is proactive.

Doree: Okay, I'm excited to learn about this.

Kate: Okay, I am too, because there was so much I did not know about Proactive. So just quickly, when I say proactive, what comes to mind for you?

Doree: I feel like I saw a lot of commercials for it.

Kate: Do you even know what it is, what it does?

Doree: It's an acne. Get rid of your acne system.

Kate: Exactly.

Doree: And I think there's three components to it, maybe

Kate: Very good. Doree. Wow. This is a testament to the power of the infomercial.

Doree: And I also never used it. My impression of it was always that it was a little pricey. I think it was a subscription, so kind of an early subscription model. Now everyone's doing subscriptions. Proactive was like we're on the subscription

Kate: Cutting edge,

Doree: On the cutting edge of subscriptions, but I could not tell you when it launched or who was behind it, who has made millions off of proactive.

Kate: Oh, Doree, I cannot. That is going to be, we are saving, oh, till the end of this podcast, the story of who was behind proactive. Because when you find out who the founders are, or maybe everybody knows, but my mind was blown. My mind was blown. So I'm going to drop some spoilers and we're going to start in the eighties. When two dermatologists met while at Stanford Medical School and became friends from there, they each started their own private dermatology practices in the Bay Area around San Francisco and began connecting about the acne they were seeing in their clients. So here is one of the two founders speaking about how they just started putting their heads together.

Commercial: And so I remember telling her, I'm just seeing acne like crazy. Everybody has acne. And it wasn't just teenagers who had acne, it was actually a lot of adult women. I mean, it was like there was an epidemic that was going on. And she said, yeah, I'm kind of seeing the same thing too. Because we were both in these suburban practices and it was very frustrating. I think as a doctor treating acne the options, there were not a lot of great options.

Kate: So you hear the conundrum they both found themselves in, they were treating patients and those patients were, they were surprised to discover women, middle-aged women. And so together, they created proactive a system for treating acne. And it was launched in 1995. Now, Neutrogena was offered the line and they actually passed on it, but when they met with new the folks at Neutrogena, these founders, Neutrogen was like, oh, why don't you go on over to Guthy Renker? Who is Guthy Renker you ask?

Doree: Guthy Renker?

Kate: Guthy Renker

Doree: Gunthy, gunthy sorry.

Kate: Guthy Renker named after the founders of that company. It's an info, an infomercial company, and they are famous for partnering or launching some massive brands. The ones that they kind of tout on their website include Cindy Crawford's, meaningful Beauty, J Lo Beauty, IT Cosmetics, and just Tony Robbins. So the infomercials

Doree: Some heavy hitters,

Kate: Heavy hitters in the infomercial space, although there's a lot of crossover, like ITCosmetics is a crossover brand, but Gunther Ranker kind of helped launch these brands into the market. And Tony Robbins like Infomercial King, right?

Doree: So Infomercial. Infomercial King, yes.

Kate: They know what they're doing. So this was 1995, and they partnered with Guthy Renker and they decided to launch Proactive via infomercial. And the interesting thing about Proactive is, as you mentioned, it's a three step system. So this is 1995 where the brands on the market for acne were like Clearasil, Oxy, and it was just like a cream or a wipe that you would put on your acne.

Doree: Right.

Kate: Proactive was different in that they introduced a three-step process, a cleanse, a tone, and then what they call repair, which from what I can tell is just a light moisturizer. And the folks at Guthy Renker were like, people are going to need to be taught how to use these products. This is different from what the world is used to when it comes to treating acne, right?

Doree: Because today, this does not seem at all revolutionary because everyone has become so conversant in multi-step skincare. But in 1995,

Kate: They were like, what? We don't just put a burning cream on our pimples and call it a day. And they were like, no, you've got to do three steps. Now, what is

Doree: Clinique had three steps,

Kate: But that was a total skincare line. This is specifically three steps for treating your acne,

Doree: Right? I'm just saying in terms of

Kate: Sure.

Doree: Steps in multiple steps. Yes.

Kate: There were other, yeah, I think the idea of steps was there were skincare routines, but I think because this proactive was so specifically targeted as an acne treatment, I think it was revolutionary, essentially. I don't think people had incorporated, had thought of their in skincare routine as every step of their skincare routine targeting one thing.

Doree: Right? Okay, I get what you're saying.

Kate: So what's interesting to me is that they were like, we need to teach people how they're going to use this product. That's going to be part of how we sell it. And how we're going to do that is we're going to get a celebrity as a spokesperson who's going to be the trusted guide to teaching people about proactive. So it's 1995. I just want you to get in your time machine and travel back in time and just try to pick a celebrity who you think they chose as their first spokesperson.

Doree: Why do I want to say Alicia Silverstone?

Kate: I don't know, but that's a great guess

Doree: Because

Kate: But it's not her

Doree: Clueless came out in 1995. She was possibly the most famous teenager on the planet. And I mean, that might be an exaggeration, but she was very popular. And as I recall, proactive was like, I know that they say adult adults had acne, but I remember being so targeted to teens. Who else in 1995, 1995, would've been a spokesperson? Nikki Taylor,

Kate: I'm going to suggest you double in age,

Doree: Oh. Double in age. But someone who was super famous in 1995,

Kate: I dunno about super, but I would say famous. Well, how about this? How about I let you watch the clip?

Commercial: Hi, I'm Judith Light. Acne is a problem no matter how old you are, whether it's just one pimple or a face full of them, it always seems to be there right when you want to look your best. I know I experienced my first outbreak in my thirties, unlike many adults, was shocked at the sudden, unexpected appearance of my first blemishes. I wanted to hide or cover up. And if you have acne, the desperation, and you'll try anything to make the problem go away, oral antibiotics, smelly ointments, pills, creams, drugstore remedies, but nothing seems to work. So you start thinking this problem may never go away. Well, I was fortunate. I found a real and lasting solution to the problem of acne, a solution I want to share with you now, way to clear up your skin today and proactively prevent breakouts from occurring tomorrow. It's called Proactive Solution, and it works.

Doree: I would never have guessed Judith Light.

Kate: I mean, how great is that? Who's the boss Star? Judith Light.

Doree: Wow.

Kate: TV Mom of the 80s, so also, I need to clarify, I have been pronouncing this company's name wrong. It's Guthy Renker not Gunthy Ranker. I just need to backtrack. Guthy Renker, Guthy

Doree: Guthy, Guthy, Guthy

Kate: Guthy. Of course. So Whos the boss went off the air in 1992, and Proactive didn't launch until 1995, but for whatever reason, Judith was their choice of spokesperson. But I think what you are getting at is that you remember all the other celebrities that came after Judith. So let's take a quick break, and then we're going to dig in a little bit more to dig in a little bit more about their kind of role bringing celebrities into the infomercial space.

Doree: Okay. We'll be right back.

Kate: So it can be hard to kind of remember now in 2023, but infomercials in the eighties and nineties were huge.

Doree: Huge.

Kate: They were constantly, because cable TV was growing and becoming more popular, and there were more channels to fill before cable. There was just maybe five channels plus P B S.

Doree: Yeah.

Kate: On your tv. I can name all the channels we had as a kid. It was like four, five and 7, 25, 38, and 56. And then channel two, which was pbs, right?

Doree: Yeah.

Kate: If you grew up in Massachusetts, those channels. But then Cable comes onto the scene, and now there are 300 channels and lots of airtime to fill. And so how did they fill this? They filled it with infomercials. So by the late nineties, according to one estimate, infomercials were generating over 1.7 billion in direct sales. And

Doree: this is Wild

Kate: Proactive, became a fricking juggernaut. They were selling upwards of about 80 million to 1 billion worth of products. This is from 2014. But from the get-go, they were raking it in.

Doree: Wow, good for them.

Kate: Well, hold that thought, Doree, because wait until you find out who's getting all this money.

Doree: Oh, no.

Kate: So I know you're not going to be happy. So what I think we all remember with Proactive, if you grew up seeing these endorsements, and these went on for years, so we started with Judith in 1995. The last celebrity spokesperson I could find was announced in 2019, and we will get to that person.

Doree: Wow.

Kate: So this is years and years of infomercials with celebrity endorsements, and they all kind of follow a similar pattern. So it's a celebrity being like, hi, I'm celebrity, and I love rocking out on stage, but what I don't love is when zits get in the way, and then there's a couple photos of the celebrity, oh my God, where they zoom in onto their pimples, and sometimes the celebrity has legit acne. Other times they have Ah, bump, right? And it's like, so you just are, for most, we know you're just doing this for the money, but proactive, really banked on these celebrities, bringing them customers. And in 2010, they were paying these celebrity spokespeople two to 3 million per endorsement.

Doree: I mean, we have seen this over and over again. That celebrity product endorsements worked.

Kate: Yes, they worked. So here are some of the people who were proactive spokespeople.

Doree: Okay, I'm ready.

Kate: And the range is fascinating. Okay, we have Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: Kelly Clarkson.

Doree: Sure.

Kate: Diddy.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: Avril Levine, Alyssa Milano.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: Lindsay Lowen, Katie Perry, Jessica Simpson.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: Vanessa Williams, Britney Spears. Although I could not find any of those commercials.

Doree: Interesting.

Kate: Justin Bieber.

Doree: It's almost like if you're a celebrity and you weren't a proactive spokesperson, were you even a celebrity?

Kate: I don't know. Let me keep going. Jenna Fisher from the office. Nya Rivera, Julian Huff. Olivia Mun. Sarah Michelle Geller. So yes, it starts to feel like any celebrity, basically, if they wanted two to 3 million dollars, they could just

Doree: do some proactive commercials.

Kate: Yeah. Adam Levine Doree.

Doree: Okay. That's not that surprising.

Kate: Adam Levine. So I can, we could play some of these, but honestly, they all basically sound the same, right? I mean, here, let me, I can give you just a quick example. Doree, you can just hop on over and just watch this one.

Commercial: Hi, I'm Katie Perry. I love being a free spirit on stage and off, but when you suffer with acne blemishes, you don't feel very free. I tried everything to get rid of my acne, but nothing worked. So one day I ordered proactive solution. Within a couple of weeks, my skin cleared up fast. Now you can be cleared too with new proactive.

Kate: That's the formula, right? It's pretty boring.

Doree: I want everyone to watch this commercial, just to see her hairstyle.

Kate: I mean, it's 2008 Katie Perry, like it is. Yes. Katie, at the inception of her career.

Doree: It's amazing.

Kate: It's really wild. That was a time for Hairdos. So an interesting thing for me is the story of one spokesperson. And as far as I can tell, this is their last celebrity spokesperson. So I just want you to listen to this clip, Doree, and see if you can tell who this is and just take some guesses to what they're talking about. So hang tight. I'm going to play it for you so you can't see who the person is.

Commercial: When I was 14, I couldn't reach as many people as I can now, now that I'm 22 and I have this whole thing behind me, I can speak to so many people and just be like, I can help you and it's okay. And I experience it. I'm very normal, and I understand you. I can connect with you. I'm going to try and help.

Kate: Do you know who that is?

Doree: No idea.

Kate: It's Kendall Jenner.

Doree: Oh yeah. I remember this now.

Kate: And her mom, Kris posted that video. Video Kendall. She's just in jeans and a t-shirt. Just having this kind of serious talk in front of a camera and Kris's treat, tweet red. I'm so proud of my darling, Kendall Jenner for being so brave and vulnerable, seeing you share her most raw story in order to make a positive impact for so many people and help foster a positive dialogue is a testament to the incredible woman you've become.

Doree: She's selling and she's selling an acne product.

Kate: Well, this, and this was the teaser. So in this video, they don't say what it's for. So this launches on Twitter on January 5th, 2019, and people start speculating, is Kendall going to come forth about anxiety? Is this a mental health ad?

Doree: Right, Right.

Kate: And no.

Doree: Oh my God.

Kate: No, it's not. It's a proactive commercial. So when it becomes clear that she's just a proactive spokesperson, which you can watch her proactive ad, the internet goes crazy dragging her because this is absurd.

Doree: Yes,

Kate: It's absurd. Now, the reason this all kind of came out in January is because the year prior, she had basically been trolled online for having some pimples on her face at the Golden Globes that were covered up. So she launched this proactive spokesman ship in 2019 during the Golden Globes, essentially. So clearly it was timed, but people were not amused. She then went on to post a video of herself washing her face and was roasted again because she barely used the product. It was like for eight seconds. And then she left the faucet running and people got upset about that. The video, I can't find, it seems to be deleted. And then also people went back and looked at old interviews, and there's this interview with Kylie Jenner in the New York Times in 2015 where she credits a celebrity dermatologist. This woman Christie Kidd with curing Kendall's acne. So

Doree: Amazing.

Kate: The internet came for Kendall for being disingenuous, which fair, but also,

Doree: Oh God,

Kate: They should have come for every other proactive spokesperson.

Doree: Well, I agree. It's just that they it, Kris and Kendall,

Kate: It's bonkers. It's bonkers.

Doree: Framed this as like she's curing cancer.

Kate: Yes.

Doree: I mean,

Kate: Yes.

Doree: So I do think she deserved a little bit of dragging.

Kate: I don't disagree, Doree. I don't disagree. It's Kardashian esque, right?

Doree: Of course, yes.

Kate: So as far as I can tell, Kendall was the last celebrity endorsement for Proactive.

Doree: They got so much bad publicity from that.

Kate: They did. I mean, it was terrible. You, and this wasn't that long ago. It was 2019, it was not

Doree: But they were like, shut it down.

Kate: Yeah. They were like, we are done. So it's also, infomercials are really much less of a thing now. We are now relying on influencers and social media. Proactive has gone on to essentially rebrand as something called Alchemee, A L C H E M E E. That happened in 2000, 2022. And what's kind of interesting to me is that proactive is just benzoyl peroxide, right? There's plenty of research that's been done that basically just says, you can just get the same shit at the drugstore. But Proactive had a pull on people. It was this billion dollar business, and it still is. I mean, it's still active. They have much more products. Now it's grown from the three Step product, but it's still at its core, that's what it is. So many folks have noted that the biggest selling point with Proactiv is it's marketing. There's nothing inherently special about the brand that you can't get from other benzoyl peroxide products. Amanda Mart over at Slate in 2013 did this interview with a cosmetic chemist and asked why people drop so much money on Proactive. And this person whose name is Perry Romanowski said People want to believe the power of marketing is strong, proactive, effectively uses celebrities. When someone sees a celebrity and how good he or she looks, it doesn't matter what someone like me tells them, they can't help but make the logical connection between the way the celebrity looks and whether the product works. And then they said this, which I thought was really interesting. People identify with brands. They don't want to think of themselves as a person who spends money on a brand. They want to think of themselves as someone who spends money on a high cost brand. In fact, there are consumers who will buy an expensive shampoo once than refill the bottle with swav just so they can display the expensive bottles in their bathroom. But in the cosmetics industry, more expensive does not equal better. So we're going to take another break and come back and talk about who founded Proactive.

Doree: I can't wait.

Kate: So Doree, At the time of that interview that I just quoted in Slate, that was from 2013, Jezebel had been digging into the way Proactive, kind of was doing a bait and switch on its customers. They would offer free trials, okay, get your first free order, blah, blah, blah, when you subscribe today, and then they would use auto charging. So basically, if you signed up to get proactive, whether you signed up for the free trial or you were like, I'll try it for $20 or whatever, they would then auto charge you and make it very hard for people to cancel their subscriptions. So consumers were upset about this, which is interesting when you consider who the two founders are. So remember those dermatologists who met at Stanford Medical School?

Doree: I sure do.

Kate: So their names are Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields.

Doree: Oh shit.

Kate: Do you recognize those names?

Doree: Yes. Rodan and Fields.

Kate: Rodan and Fields. So after Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields met in medical school, launched Proactive with Guthy Ranker, they then went on to create another skincare line, which they named after themselves.

Doree: Its so funny because as you were talking, I was thinking, it is kind of weird that Proactive is not an MLM. It has MLM vibes. And lo and behold, they went on to start an mlm.

Kate: Low and behold, they went on to start an MLM skin carecompany. So Rodan and Fields was launched by them in 20, I can't can't name dates anymore, in 2002. And what I didn't know is that Estee Lauder bought it in 2003, and then Katie and Kathy bought it back from them in 2006, and then turned it into an mlm.

Doree: Oh, so it wasn't Originolly a mlm. Interesting.

Kate: No.

Doree: Okay.

Kate: And in 2020, Rodan and Fields made over a billion dollars in revenue.

Doree: I mean, for a while it was, I did feel like I saw a lot of Rodan and Fields everywhere. It feels like it's been a little bit supplanted.

Kate: It's had its own controversies, which I don't have the time to touch on in this episode. It does not mean we can't do a separate episode on Rodan and Fields, because they're fascinating. they are fascinating. So they eventually sold all their proactive royalties to Guthy Ranker, and I think Nestle, which is one of the other, they owned part of it, maybe they did the marketing. So they sold everything in 2016. Until then, they claimed they were very involved and proactive. But they both, their combined net worth, these two individuals, Cathy and Katie, it's over a billion dollars.

Doree: I believe it.

Kate: So they are loaded from these two companies. And they are mentioned every year, Forbes does a list of the top self-made women millionaires in America. And I think the most recent one I checked there, they were each in there with 500 million. They they're, they're rolling in it. Doree.

Doree: Wow.

Kate: They have made so much money off of these two skincare lines. It is bonkers. And that Doree is where Proactive came from.

Doree: Fascinating. This was fascinating to me. Thank you.

Kate: When I found out that, first of all, I had never thought Rodan and Fields were people, I just would say that I'd say that brand, but never wonder where the name came from or who they were. So to find out that they were actual humans and dermatologists, and then to find out that they created proactive, my mind fucking exploded.

Doree: Wow.

Kate: And I think what is most interesting to me is getting back to what that cosmetic chemist was saying of skincare is skincare. It's the marketing that gets us. And people had, this is the other thing, people had issues with proactive. Like proactive, irritated a lot of people's skin. And actually, I have one more TikTok that I forgot to put in my document, but let me just see if I can pull it up of a person talking about this. Let me play this TikTok for you, Doree.

Commercial: Okay. Justine. To have a moment for proactive here. Growing up, I was super into skincare, and I remember being a young kid when Proactive was a hot commodity going into my mom's bathroom, using it all over, it was burning my skin. Then I stayed home from school with a swollen face multiple times this happened. Now we know so much more in the world of skincare. Dr. Drew had a great video on this, but you can get all of those ingredients that are in proactive because proactive is just pounded with acids and actin. A lot of people cannot tolerate it. And you can get those ingredients straight up in different products for a fraction of the price without the barrier damage. Let's also talk about the fact that Rodan and Fields is the baby too proactive. They were out here fucking people with their MLM sch before we even had a grip on what MLM was. I have a friend who sold Proactive in the mall at 14, and she told me that when they would tell them that someone's skin was acting up to sell them more product, I just going to have a,

Kate: Okay, that's roller skating esthetician on TikTok.

Doree: Wow. Okay.

Kate: So there you have it.

Doree: This is very interesting. Yeah. I would be interested in us digging more into Rodan and Fields

Kate: And their bank accounts.

Doree: Oh, there goes Bo.

Kate: Oh, Bo's. Like get me to that M MLM monster. Yeah. Selling right now. Yeah. I mean, they are self-made gagillionairs. And normally I would be like, wow, cool. Two women who really made it instead of like, Ooh.

Doree: Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Very interesting.

Kate: Wow.

Doree: Kate, thank you for taking us down this road.

Kate: Yeah. And did people out there use proactive? Do you have proactive memories? I would love to hear them because I never used proactive. And I remember seeing it in a friend's bathroom, and I was like, oh my God. It was like a celebrity. The skincare itself felt famous to me and very fancy

Doree: It. So Kate, I have to tell you, I didn't know what you were going to be talking about today.

Kate: That's right.

Doree: And you texted me this morning and you said, I didn't want to get this exactly right. You said, do you know anything about Proactive? No. And I thought you were asking me because one of your daughters was going to start using it.

Kate: Oh, No way.

Doree: And I was pleased to find out that, oh my gosh. Instead we were going to be talking about it. That's

Kate: Thats so funny. That's so funny because you gave a really diplomatic answer and I was just sniffing around to see if you knew if Rodan and Fields had founded it.

Doree: When you said that, it pinged a little thing in the back of my mind. And I feel like at some point in my, I go on these deep dives often about MLMs. I had known that, but I definitely did not remember that at all. So

Kate: Yeah, I had no idea.

Doree: Thank you. A reminding me. Well, Kate, this was great.

Kate: Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you, Doree.

Doree: Yeah. All right, we'll talk to you all soon. Bye.

Kate: Bye.