We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Madeline Rodriguez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Madeline below.
Alright, Madeline thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The Covid-19 pandemic really brought the importance of vitamin D to the forefront for us. The aha moment for us, was realizing that this cream fills an unmet need in the skin care industry that has been overlooked until now. Healthy Base Layer helps address an epidemic that most of us face – low levels of Vitamin D. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for overall health and well-being. Under natural conditions, Vitamin D is made by your skin when exposed to sunlight. Because of our diet and modern hectic lifestyle spent mostly indoors, many of us do not get enough vitamin D through sun exposure or through natural and fortified foods that provide it.
With these facts in mind, Rosalynn and Madeline teamed up to make Solaana MD, a reality. Their collective expertise in the health sciences and creative collaboration fills a unique niche in the skincare industry – a hydrating skin cream enriched with vitamin D, that not only provides a much needed boost of vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin”, for everyone but also has specific skin health benefits including: antioxidant, anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties for healthy, radiant skin. Healthy Base Layer is good for you inside and out!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Solaana MD is the vitamin D skincare solution. Our Healthy Base Layer restores the vitamin D your SPF blocks.
Close friends and trusted business partners, Rosalynn and Madeline, launched Solaana MD in 2021. Rosalynn is an experienced Harvard-trained physician and University professor in Boston – a medical doctor (MD) specializing in skin health with expertise in diagnosing various skin abnormalities. Madeline is a nutritionist and physical therapist (DPT, MSPT) with over 20 years of experience in how nutrition and fitness influence overall well-being.
The Covid-19 pandemic really brought the importance of vitamin D to the forefront for us. The aha moment for us, was realizing that this cream fills an unmet need in the skin care industry that has been overlooked until now. Healthy Base Layer helps address an epidemic that most of us face – low levels of Vitamin D. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for overall health and well-being. Under natural conditions, Vitamin D is made by your skin when exposed to sunlight. Because of our diet and modern hectic lifestyle spent mostly indoors, many of us do not get enough vitamin D through sun exposure or through natural and fortified foods that provide it.
With these facts in mind, Rosalynn and Madeline teamed up to make Solaana MD, a reality. Their collective expertise in the health sciences and creative collaboration fills a unique niche in the skincare industry – a hydrating skin cream enriched with vitamin D. Our brand name, Solaana MD, begins with Sol (sun) and continues with the initials of our children in honor of nature and the next generation.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Early on in our start up, we were asked to be part of a large scale beauty box. We were thrilled to be a part of something like this since it meant being approved by nationally recognized beauty editors. However, we had never done something like this in terms of scale and in such a tight time frame. This necessitated a pivot in terms of our manufacturing that meant finding creative ways to ramp up production. We were firm in our commitment to our small scale manufacturing but we had to pull in different methods for efficient production including contract filling. This was particularly challenging during the time of the pandemic. We were very proud of our flexibility and our ability to pivot at a critical juncture in our small business and the inclusion of our product in the Allure beauty subscription box proved to be a huge and effective marketing campaign for us.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
We are entirely self funded. This has made us very conscious of every dollar we spend and where we commit to spending our money. Because we are self funded, this means we very much we believe in our brand. Self funding also means that we may be growing slower than other brands with outside money, but this strategy has worked for us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.solaanamd.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solaanamd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SolaanaMD
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/solaana-md-healthy-base-layer-8757ab205/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SolaanaMD
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SolaanaMD
- Other: https://in.pinterest.com/solaanamd/
Image Credits
Haley Abram Photo