I found myself doing pharmacy studies a bit by default: I wanted to be a witch when I was a kid and was extremely disappointed to learn there was no Witch University. I then went to become a pharmacist as it was the closest thing I could find.
I discovered that being a pharmacist was absolutely perfect to create a beauty brand: you know what to put in products, how to make them, how to make them safe, and how to sell them. You can read ingredient lists, science files, dermatologists reports… We are specialists in nothing with a strong opinion on everything (the French touch..), which is exactly the same as for entrepreneurs. Maybe that’s why we have loads of cool beauty brands in France created by pharmacists.
It’s also perfect for studying the microbiome, and develop microbiome beauty products. Usually formulators are chemists, they are amazing at creating formulas, but they are a bit lost when it comes to skin physiology and even more bacteria. In pharmacy, we study botany, chemistry, physiology, microbiology, genetics. A great big pool of general knowledge that comes in handy when you want to create safe and efficient products good for the human and its microbiome.
Fun things I also did during my studies:
- Went to hunt for deadly mushrooms for my mycology classes
- Extracted enough digitalin from kilos of dried leaves to kill 40 people and gave myself palpitations
- Wrote a best-selling essay on Cystanine-C as a predictive factor in acute renal failures post mini-ECC
- And joined an open heart surgery where I didn’t faint! #proud
Marie
