 Okay we're back we're live it's the one o'clock rock okay and we have an old friend Tatjana Cerulo and she was one of our early hosts back back in the day I want us that has to be eight eight years ago about seven seven years ago it seems like eight yeah in earlier iterations of our studio and she came around and she went out in the field with me we took pictures we made shows videos we was the beginning of think-tech in his present form and now she's back she's done a lot of things in the meantime and we're going to catch up with Tatjana hi Tatjana hi Jay I'm so happy to be here I'm happy that you're here and you're a lawyer but you're a lawyer who is what I call it a creative innovative flexible a lawyer of the world Renaissance lawyer okay well tell me about the law side first okay well I originally went into law to practice environmental law I wanted to contribute something to saving the environment and I had practiced environmental law in different areas and my path just kind of started winding around and right now my practice is maritime law and corporate law mostly in the Marshall Islands that means you spent a lot of time in the Marshall Islands I don't I can practice remotely and I I just have to go to hearings at the court there once or twice a year okay that's not too bad yeah and you have a partner in this I do I have a co-counsel who's been practicing in the Marshall Islands for about 30 years and he's sort of a mentor to me what's his name David Lau name of your firm then you have a firm name Marshall Islands lawyers there's not many of those are there I kept it easy so that when you search Marshall Islands lawyers I'm the first one on a Google search and all together there's one all together there's one one one firm one firm doing Marshall Islands law no exactly are you the only one yeah no no no there's a handful of others a handful yeah okay and that's that's different than US law or Hawaii law isn't it it is different except that the Marshall Islands has modeled their constitution their laws of civil procedure on US law and they also use US law as precedent I remember you were into that when you were doing host with us seven years ago yeah so this has been a long-term application for you in developing yeah it's a public service among other things so but this all evolved into something else and that's what we're here to talk about primarily can we talk about sunscreen lotion please yes exactly so I wasn't getting that environmental impact that I wanted to have in my law and I saw a need for a natural sunscreen that was actually really effective and performed well because one of my big hobbies several years ago was triathlon and I'd be out in the sun for hours and hours of training and I just didn't like the sunscreens that were on the market I wanted nothing to do with chemical sunscreen back then because already I felt like they were toxic they sting your eyes and they didn't really work either I'd still get burned so I switched to natural sunscreen but you have to have sunscreen if you're going to do training for triathlons right you'll fry if you don't do that especially on the big island were you training in the big island or here in a while I I did the half-iron man on the big island and so I did some training there I also did XTERRA on Maui but most of my training was here I remember I did a half a half triathlon what do you call an iron man a tin man that's like a sprint yeah I know it's below your station I know but for me it was just fine and I remember the amount of time you spend in the sun especially if it's a hot day you know they start early but then you work your way into you know the sun being overhead and you still have to go go go and you're you're testing every system and it's hot and you're burning and if you don't have a suntan on you suntan lotion you're in trouble you really need that absolutely and you can't really reapply so often when you're just when your body's moving and you're out there you're not carrying your sunscreen with you so I I really wanted a natural sunscreen that actually stayed on through sweat and also ocean swells and that didn't feel greasy and thick and that also didn't just slide right off as soon as I started sweating or jumped in the ocean so you relied you immediately went back to the the biochemical part of your law school training right so you could figure out how to make a sunscreen that would meet those specs tell us how you made a sunscreen that would meet those specs all right so I met my now husband and he had sailed around the world and I met him in Hawaii and he was telling me how we got triathlons we got sailing around the world they got environmental in general you've been around to actually touch on it so he was also unhappy with chemical sunscreens and I turned them on to natural ones and the reason why he was so interested is because he was constantly getting burned when you're on a sailboat around the water you're getting the reflection of the sun from the fiberglass to and the water and it's intense yeah he was always burned he and his eyes were always stinging from the chemical sunscreens and then when I showed him the natural ones he said well this feels better but it's so sticky and greasy and and I and I said I know and wasn't made with a lawyer well it's zinc and oil natural the natural ones back then were all zinc in oil okay and that's crazy so we thought well let's mix up some at home and just see you know what we could do for fun and as an attorney I thought well let's see let me look into this deeper I want to see if there's any law about sunscreens and I discovered at that time that I hadn't sold any yet we were just playing around with it but it turns out that sunscreen is classified as an over-the-counter drug like Tylenol or Advil you know anything you can just pick up as you have to approve it right so sunscreen has all these FDA regulations so once we decided hey let's do this we need a sunscreen that we both want to love and that works for our lifestyle we started down that journey and that was about five years ago well less than seven so what what kind of formulas did you come up with so with the professional formulator so we decided okay forget trying to do this ourselves because that's not legal and it's not sustainable and sell it anyway yeah so we did a lot of research and through some family friends we discovered okay you can go to manufacturing facilities and and work with the formulators to develop your formula that you that you want on the mainland US US mainland and we told them what we don't want and then a little bit of what we do want but what one of our criteria is that we had to have Hawaiian ingredients we wanted the nutrient-rich antioxidant dense and ingredients that grow right here in Hawaii because we also wanted to support local farms and businesses and make it truly a Hawaii product yeah so we had our seven ingredients that we picked out can I can I read them off yeah absolutely it's not confidential or anything no it's on our label on the label okay so where am I reading from so Kona red Kona red Hawaiian coffee fruit yes coffee fruit this is not edible though it no it wouldn't kill you but you don't want to put it on your ice cream okay it's an extract coffee fruit extract yes noni spirulina that's from Nutrack plumeria plumeria extract yeah it's very natural very local honey it's noni honey noni honey yeah okay it's the honey that is made from the bees that get their pollen macadamia you went really local here cuckoo in that oil that's really natural that's really local yeah it's agricultural already okay so you say the guy we need these seven special local Hawaii ingredients and we need to get something it won't rub off so easily and that will give us real protection right and we wanted it to feel so good because one of our goals was to make more of an impact by creating a natural sunscreen that actually felt really good so that people would want to switch how does has a natural sunscreen feel good what what kind of feel if you can articulate this what kind of feeling do you get well you want it to rub in almost clear ours rubs in clear as long as you're not squeezing like you know the whole thing onto your arm but if you put the right amount you can rub it in clear when you go like this it's not sticky and then it doesn't feel greasy so it this goes on like a moisturizing lotion and your skin absorbs it your skin absorbs all the oils and antioxidants in there there's actually 23 antioxidants seven of them are Hawaiian so it's very enriching for your skin nourishing and it helps prevent DNA damage from the sun so it's good for your skin as well as protecting your skin all right so you try to couple of these manufacturing facilities on the mainland were they all perfectly successful absolutely not there was a lot of blood sweat and tears with the first one just didn't work out they kept on trying to push chemicals that we didn't want to be in there they said well we can't quite do that unless we use you know this and that and the other thing and so we said okay we're gonna have to thank you so much for your time but this isn't gonna work we have to go seek out another formulator and facility so we found another one and we went through another couple years we just couldn't get the performance we wanted and we just didn't want to settle we didn't start this just to settle on any old formula we wanted it to be the best sunscreen ever like revolutionary that's something that we actually love and want to put on our skin every day so we worked with them and we just were not getting what we wanted and they said well you know you have such stiff criteria and you're so picky and sorry about that and then kind of at the last minute before we decided to say goodbye they said try this formula so we tried it and we thought well you know what that's actually not so bad let's let's move forward with that one and we went through all kinds of FDA testing they mixed up a whole pilot batch and the whole thing and then it didn't pass one of the FDA test so we lost a big chunk of cash doing that and so this is several years in the joy of entrepreneurship and we just kept going and then we went to another well actually after that we decided to go to a private lab that's using cutting-edge ingredients not just from the manufacturer because a lot of labs in the manufacturers will just have what's in their pantry like a baker it who's just baking from the ingredients that are there and not going to the store to actually buy something to do something different so that's kind of what a lot of manufacturers do they just want to use what they already have mix it up and here you go say manufacturer you mean people who manufacture suntan lotion like contract manufacturing of suntan lotion it's cosmetics and if they have a drug license to manufacture over the counter drugs like sunscreen then they can also manufacture sunscreen yeah so just a footnote to all of this now at the time this this bill that was passed and signed and into law this year 2018 just a couple months ago okay was not was not in existence it was not on our radar nobody nobody was thinking along this line no but we actually were already aware of some of the preliminary studies that had been done in Europe like there was one study I think in 2008 in Italy about how sunscreen they thought was affecting coral so we were aware of the toxicity of chemical sunscreen but we didn't know that it would actually be a law in Hawaii one day when we started this process you know so when did you factor if at all I mean sounds like the kind of product you were looking to create would not was was not going to be damaging to the reef life anyway right right and that was a fundamental point in your respects way back when right so you didn't do it because this bill existed or because you thought this bill would exist you did it because that was your standard of environmental safety exactly you hit it on the nail well tell me how you ultimately got to the the recipe that works right so we ended up going to an independent lab where you have to pay an arm and a leg for a formula and then even with this very experienced professional formulator it took another year and some months to finally arrive at this formula and this particular formula is like a magician because zinc oxide is like working with clay it is powdery and thick when you just put oil in it you see it's like almost like white mud so we feel that he did something amazing here with our formula of course with our guidance but he eventually gave us the formula okay I'm gonna take a short break during the break I hope you don't mind Tatiana I'm gonna open it up put some on I give you my honest reaction right after this break cliffhanger invite all of you to talk story with John why every other Monday here at think tech Hawaii and we have special guests like professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii who joins us from time to time who talk about the political happenings in this state please join us every other Monday Aloha Aloha I'm Marsha joiner inviting you come visit with us on cannabis chronicles a 10,000 year artisty where we explore and examine the plant that the news has given us and stay with us as we explore all the facets of this planet on Wednesdays at noon please join us Aloha okay we're doing suntan reef safe suntan lotion today sunscreen today with that Janice Rulo who is a former host of ours comes back as a guest and tells us what you've been doing for the last seven years and it's this it's this and this is called hmm coke cocoa sun care okay and I said I was gonna put it on during the break but I thought I'd wait so I'm putting it on now yeah it's gonna feel good right it's gonna feel really good and the sink sink in there circular motions and then it'll just kind of soak in it's disappearing that's going away I don't see it anymore that's the idea my skin is absorbing it and it's not sticky it's not gooey yeah being absorbed it smells smells very nice it smells natural yeah yeah no chemical fragrances or phthalates that's something people look out for or don't want to have the scent is just a natural vanilla coconut just from plant extract mm-hmm so you can hardly tell it's on there I see a little shine but not much yeah and that'll soak in and that'll yeah and it'll stay on there for what so we have been tested FDA tested and confirmed 80 minutes water resistance but we get reports of longer water resistance from our athletes and triathletes we were the official sunscreen sponsor of the North Shore swim series we were out there every other weekend on the North Shore giving out free sunscreen to all the swimmers to make sure that they were reef safe events and to get them comfortable with using something different than the chemicals and that you know they all used it right kind of feedback that you get excellent and we're so grateful that they welcomed us into the community because we just have gotten wonderful feedback well something to ride a bike you know what a run do a you know at least two legs of the Iron Man but when you swim it's different because you're sure you're in saltwater right the salt is corrosive kind of thing and it'll it'll it'll deteriorate any chemical coating at all any suntan lotion at all but it doesn't for this stays on you'll see the water beating up on your skin yeah that's pretty terrific so what did you say it was 80 minutes 80 minutes but that's only because the FDA will they will only allow you to claim up to 80 minutes water resistance either 40 or 80 but it could be more in fact and in fact it seems that way but legally we are not allowed to claim more than okay well don't don't don't we're not he's not claiming more than 80 minutes okay and then SPF 50 right and that's actually the highest SPF that you can possibly get any more than that is illegal you're not because it's misleading 50 is basically where you want to be or 30 to 50 right and I read the list of those seven special ingredients you've stuck to that you've insisted on that right so there's no oxy what is it called there is no oxy benzone and no zero zero oh zero yeah so this has no deleterious effect on reef life at all no or marine life um and no octinoxate that's the other one that's been banned by the state of Hawaii okay and it also doesn't have any other chemical ingredients that are toxic to marine life and when we talk about what reef safe really means there are many other chemicals that have been as documented and established by science to be marine toxic and we don't have any of them here this is all natural ingredients we don't have any of them right so okay so now you have you have the product you have the labeling I'm sure that that's important you know you want to be appealing to everybody this is very appealing I like the feel of it and there you are you and your co-founders sitting there with all this stuff what do you do with it you got to get it out you have to actually get people to buy it off a shelf somewhere right how do you do that so we definitely wanted to reach out to our personal network first and then help build our true fans and we wanted to do that by going into the athletic community and going into the sailing community and tour boats and and and then some local natural food stores so we started just on our personal with our personal network and then we just started going to stores and just reaching out to people just like that how would you like to buy a case of of kakua sun care exactly that's that's really incredible and now you're in you're in a number of stores I wrote this down you're on amazon I can buy this on amazon amazon us and canada two big markets yeah and you're uh you get whole foods did you say whole foods whole foods next month next month and abc stores coming soon I hope so and uh oh down to earth one of my favorite stores yeah it's one of our favorite stores too and we are so happy that they brought us in and we are in every single down-to-earth store okay and now now we get now we get the most interesting and maybe newsworthy aspect of all of this so there's a bill a wending its way through the ledge here in 2018 within the last what 10 months nine months yeah eight months whatever not very long ago um which is intended to um save the reef and it outlaws any of those damaging chemicals just those two those two there are other ones that are damaging okay the bill does not address those only the two worst defenders that we know of right now have been banned but there are others oxy benzone and octanoxation all right so they're both now banned by statute however this is my favorite part you know the the administration you know claimed the great success on this bill and i give them that although you know there are lots of priorities involved um and he signed it in public that this is governor egay and and it was it was it was a few months ago was a big deal and um in fact the bill does not go into effect for two years more a year and a half no two years about yeah sometime in 2021 January 1st 2021 okay January 1st why did it take so long for the effective date i mean you know sometimes in the ledge you see these these bills with intentionally defective uh effective dates um this one and you know the effective date will be you know 2095 or something and everybody will know that that means that nobody wants this bill to pass that didn't happen here it's just two years away why is it two years away well i can only speculate i wish it had gone into effect right away of course if you have a science that establishes the toxicity of these two chemicals why not do it now i still am over the moon excited that it did get passed because it is an incredible first step because it is an unprecedented law in the whole world first time Hawaii being the first to ban by law chemical sunscreens that for the purpose of preserving marine ecosystems did you lobby it i submitted testimony our company we submitted testimony we attended hearing we went to the rally and we're just sort of always i guess promoting the awareness of this bill to get other people to submit their testimony and to support it so now you have a perfect storm you have you have the bill it passed you didn't you didn't introduce it but you supported it what i get from that right right and you're happy to see that it passed we all wish it would be effective more more quickly but there we have and and you have a product that comports with the bill that that you know that absolutely compatible with the bill and so you're in great shape except the other guys have the chance to sell off their non non-conforming products for a couple years right but you know in my mind this gives you a tremendous advantage because now people say hey the government has finally identified these chemicals as dangerous so whatever the effective date is let's let's abide by that decision let's buy a sun a sunscreen that that you know that is consistent with with that and which will preserve the environment so you ought to be in a great shape in great shape to sell this now and certainly after the after the 2021 effective date what's the plan can you tell me what you're going to do are you going to be are you going to be able to come down here and talk to me again or are you going to be so successful that I can't even find you on the phone well perhaps that you know the latter would be great but but i'll always make time for you yeah we are in a good position it was completely just a a good timing situation we were still in development when the bill had been introduced the last couple years before and we were i'm just sitting there like wow wish we had our sunscreen already but we were you know still plugging through the formulation to make sure we could get a good one that we loved and then that met all the FDA standards so it just so happened that we were finalizing our product when the law came out and so what this law did actually is bring so much awareness like you said so people are are thinking now about it and they're saying wow if this has been banned most people i don't think even know when the effective date is all they know is they want reef safe because you know it's the trend and so and we have reef safe and it's a Hawaiian product so we are fitting right into yeah perfect timing you couldn't have planned it better really well tatiana compliments on that you spent for seven years wisely and i also had two children by the way that too well it's somehow all related isn't it yeah they'll never have to worry about suntan lotion that hurts them yeah they get sunscreen on their noses and cheeks every day i would expect nothing less so i'm now going to thank you i'm going to shake hands with you and as i shake hands you will notice that my hand is not oily or greasy in any way and for me it feels good awesome thank you tatiana thank you so much it's been a pleasure thanks for coming down