She's Helped to Create 200+ Products. Here’s What a Scientist Wants You to Know Before You Buy Your Next Moisturizer

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

Carlene Higgins (0:08)

Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty.

Jill Dunn (0:14)

We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Breaking Beauty Podcast. We are the show all about the breakthrough people, products and moments in beauty. I'm one of your co-hosts, Jill Dunn.

Carlene Higgins (0:32)

And I'm Carlene Higgins, and we are two long-time beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. In your feed each and every Wednesday, we're talking about the damn good products that we're adding to our top shelf. And we're meeting with the founders, the artists and the experts who are shaking it up in the beauty industry.

Jill Dunn (0:53)

And today we are partnering with Parëva Beauty to welcome its founder, Smitha Rao. Welcome, Smitha.

Smitha Rao (1:01)

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I really appreciate it.

Jill Dunn (1:05)

So you and I first met on the floor at AAD. I feel like I'm talking about AAD every other episode. Honestly, it is so impactful, but you had the best little booth and you're tucked in the corner. And we took a photo together, so that was really fun. So it's great to be sitting here with you today.

Carlene Higgins (1:22)

And a little bit of an introduction checks notes. Smitha describes herself as an accidental scientist who initially set out to attend medical school before merging biotechnology with beauty as a scientist whose career has spanned nearly two decades. Smitha has formulated over 200 products for and consulted with more than 15 brands, working with everyone from StriVectin to Olaplex before starting her own skincare line just last year called Parëva Beauty, which means Joyful Transformation in Sanskrit.

Smitha Rao (1:57)

Yes.

Jill Dunn (1:57)

And most recently, Smitha has been included in Inc Magazine's 2026 Female Founders 500 list. And last year, Smitha participated in the Ulta Beauty's 2025 Muse Accelerator program. And Parëva Beauty has also has already been recognized in Oprah Magazine and Glamour.

Smitha Rao (2:18)

Yes, we are very fortunate for all that.

Carlene Higgins (2:20)

Yes, striking it big already. And in this week's episode, we're going to get Smitha's take on everything from NAD and exosomes in skincare to what the longevity movement really means behind the headlines and where the line is between a product that genuinely performs and one that's just kind of good at looking like it does.

Jill Dunn (2:40)

Yeah. So we're going to delve into how to evaluate a skincare claim and stay tuned to and to find out what Smitha is cooking up next. So so happy to have you with us.

Smitha Rao (2:53)

I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jill Dunn (2:56)

Of course. So we're always wowed when a woman in STEM comes into the studio. One of your claims to fame, so to speak, is that you filed your first biotech patent in your 20s. Yes. So there must be a story there.

Smitha Rao (3:10)

There's absolutely a story there. So I graduated with a biotech degree from Michigan and I went into pharma.

Accidentally fell into beauty. So for your audience, biotech simply means you use living cells, whether it's plants, microbial or algae, to create really great high value compounds that change the way we age. I really was inspired by understanding why skin ages. So the first patent was around a technology called resveratrol. Do you guys know resveratrol? Yes.

We do. For your audience, resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes. It was a fascinating area of research because French people ate a lot of high calorific food, yet they didn't have cardiac disease, and people focused on the skin of red grapes. My patent was really taking that amazing technology and creating a product that you could put topically and get really great results. So it goes back to the premise of what I was curious as a scientist, which is, how does skin age and can I do anything to change the way it ages? So that was my first patent. Since then, I've had the ability to work with so many cells, human, plants, microbial, I've created over 200 products, and that journey led me to bring our Molecule 3 technology into Parëva.

Carlene Higgins (4:32)

I have to ask you, Smitha, when you talk about this story, were you the first to patent resveratrol for skin care or a certain type of resveratrol?

Smitha Rao (4:43)

No, I was not the first. I think resveratrol got a lot of attention because of its ability to change what was happening when you ingested it. So red wine, there's a very romantic story.