Science-Driven Creativity

Dr. Elena Brei is an award-winning PhD researcher from the University of Toronto, Canada. Her doctorate research focused on water purity technology, and spanned the scientific domains of Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, Genetics, Proteomics, and Microbiology.

With a keen interest in the intersectionality of water, minerals, the microbiome, and human health, Dr. Brei developed a deep and holistic understanding of what is required to attain true health and is the entrepreneur behind innovative skincare brand NuVsio.

1. Tell us about yourself. When did you first know you were interested in the world of skincare?

My interest in skincare was tangential to my development as a PhD researcher. The insights I gained through my diverse research areas gave me a sudden Eureka moment for skincare and the resultant creation of NuVsio as a company. That Eureka moment occurred through my own skin struggles with acne, dermatitis and inflammation. Helping others achieve a healthy and radiant complexion became my passion and my blessing.

2. How do you / your team generate new ideas?

We really don’t put much emphasis on generating new ideas for our tech teams. NuVsio is not a company that intends to launch new products every year just to have a launch party or to push out marketing buzz. What we do instead is box ourselves in with a holistic perspective. To build that “box” we use our aggregated deep insights into the human condition as well as our knowledge of the available ingredients that are attenuated for that human condition.

This is really the only way to drive creativity, by limiting yourself purposefully, with a clear intent and a lofty standard of excellence. There we can be creative and through that creativity we organically generate new and effective products. I never pressure our teams to generate something new, we simply follow the science to the logical conclusion, but we do so with the constraining limit that all products must be foundationally effective, inherently safe and work in a holistic manner. I also think this approach allows us to know when to stop the development of a product that would be less effective than our standards allow. When you take the pressure out of a process, it’s amazing what you can create.

3. Do you have any specific rituals for resetting creativity?

Great question, and yes, I actually do have rituals for resetting creativity! You have to understand how the mind works to understand creativity. Your mind is always trying to link ideas and information from diverse experiential events, and this is partially the crux of creativity. But to allow your mind time to work out those patterns and find hidden links you need two critical things. First, you need good and deep REM sleep, for that you must optimize your circadian rhythm. This means no caffeinated beverages past 2 pm, light exercise virtually every day of the week, dimming the lights post 8 pm and so on. This allows you to have the critical REM sleep required for your brain to juggle millions of data points it has collected over the course of the day. Never underestimate the power and importance of sleep, and avoid energy drinks if you can, more often they give the opposite of what they claim. Secondly, you need to cultivate wakeful meditation or daydreaming. These are moments in my day when I’m simply bored and I turn inward. They may occur during a long car commute, standing in line at the grocery store, or even while I’m taking a bath.

You see creativity is never really “reset,” your brain is a creativity engine, it never turns off. Instead what you need is a creativity window, a moment to allow your mind to consciously ask questions and make links with information that you think was forgotten or is totally unrelated. We kill this second aspect by checking our cell phones when we’re bored, and by resisting that moment of solitude in which boredom seeps in. And I’m not speaking of meditation, that’s a different and important aspect for calming your mind.

This wakeful meditation allows your mind to walk into boredom, allowing it to focus on something akin to white noise and in doing so, allowing your almost silent inner voice to surface. We all know this, we all have ideas pop into our minds during a shower, or when we’re sitting by a rolling river. This is the importance of being alone, being bored yet actively seeking dialogue with our inner voice. During immense times of mental activity, I always give myself a moment of boredom to digest that information but to also get that creativity going, and it is literally that simple.

Don’t be afraid to be alone, and put down the cell phone, the TV, anything that entertains and just let your brain do its job. We push on this at NuVsio. To drive this level of creativity our team is always seeking new data points, new perspectives, new researchers who have their own points of view. Then, we have deep discussions within our teams, and lastly, we have long periods of time when we simply unplug and get bored, we do something totally unrelated and then we jump back in. It’s like the tide this system, and it works because it’s how the brain works.

4. How do you identify trends? What resources do you use to spot trends and consumer insights within your industry?

For trends, we simply ignore them from the scientific perspective. As an example, the previous trend towards stem cells we totally ignored simply because it lacked any scientific validity, and in addition, it had the potential for harm. However, we do monitor trends in terms of skin care marketing. We always want to know what companies are pushing and why and we find out by simply speaking directly with our friends and customers. We ask them what marketing materials they’re consuming, and how this has changed their skin health routines.

This gives us a real-life example of how they’re being influenced and how that influence may affect their health and how we can help. If for example a new type of water-proof makeup is being hyped, we may see a deeper need for our Purifying Mineral Mask and Mineral Enriched Balm Concentrate combination, or our cleanser. I personally find that individual interviews are the best method, anything else can drive you into a myriad of statistical misleading rabbit holes. At NuVsio we don’t work on trends, we work with people to help people, and for that you actually have to both care and communicate. In many ways this method is wonderful, as you always have to have a personal and human touch.

5. What is the biggest challenge you face when innovating within your field?

For innovation within our field the biggest challenge is communication. There are so many false narratives out there and erroneous claims that folks are either scared stiff or totally confused. Breaking through with a true message is difficult at the best of times, but impossible when your message differs from the current marketing trend. As a marketing friend of mine once said, ‘it’s hard to be seen when you light a candle but others are using flood lights’. At NuVsio we have plenty of innovation, but getting the innovative products to market is a challenge for that reason. After all some of our competitors are multi-billion-dollar companies with virtually limitless budgets.

6. Has there ever been an instance where another industry has influenced your work?

Many industries influence our work. We constantly borrow great ideas from anyone, anytime, anywhere. For example, we have incorporated best practices from the food industry with their stringent quality standards. We have also incorporated the ideas and methods used by teachers and artists to generate learning modules that we use for our communication initiatives, so that we remain educators and not marketers. And if you can call spirituality an industry, we definitely borrow from this industry to give us deep meaning behind our work vis a vis the products we create. We believe that a spiritual connection at NuVsio is the pillar of luxury. To produce products with love, attention and intent with the conscious awareness that another person will consume what we have created is the definition of luxury at NuVsio.

7. Looking to the future, how will NuVsio continue to be a leader in innovation?

For the future, we will continue to be a leader in innovation by simply knowing when to say no. Folks forget that the real driver for real innovation is not to simply say yes to every new fad, but in reality, it’s your ability to know when to stop, to say “no this is not something we need, or want” and to direct your energy elsewhere. The ability to say no is contingent on your depth of knowledge, your perspective of the reality that underpins true efficacy. As I mentioned before, we do not focus on innovation at NuVsio because innovation is the result of something else, and that something else is what we focus on. That something else is the deep holistic knowledge of the true drivers that underpin human health. Our innovation will always grow from our ability to constantly push our understanding of how the world works and how we as individuals fit and make a place for ourselves in this magical place we call existence. There is a great deal of ethics and spirituality in that concept of innovation, which I sadly don’t have time to develop in this interview, but it’s there and it’s real and it’s magical!