Why and How I Created Weekend Skin: Your Glowing Dose of SPF&C.
I have a confession to make: I’m the founder of a beauty brand, but I don’t really like wearing a lot of makeup. In fact, I’m pretty lazy when it comes to my entire beauty routine. Multiple steps and products? No thank you. Finicky and time-consuming foundations and concealers? Hard pass. I want low-maintenance, high-performance, every-single-time.
When I’m in work meetings, I wear Best Skin Days because I want some coverage and to look a little more pulled together. But otherwise I’m usually outside in the California sun—running errands, at the farmers market, hiking with my dog, or riding my horse. To protect, nourish, and beautify my skin, I’d put on a Vitamin C serum, a moisturizer, an SPF 50, and a glowy highlighter—just to step outside. It was too much.
Fixated on the need for a one-and-done formula, I came to the realization that what I wanted was what so many of us need every day: A mineral SPF 50, combined with a clinical-level Vitamin C serum, and of course, enough hydration and glow to feel like the best makeup-free versions of ourselves. In short: A simple 3-in-1 product packed with big results, like a super delicious smoothie with lots of hidden kale.
And that’s exactly what Weekend Skin is. By combining the two most essential steps in your skincare routine—a mineral SPF 50 and a time-release Vitamin C—with a gorgeous dewy glow, we’ve created a product that’s both effortless and extremely effective. Weekend Skin can be used daily to combat hyperpigmentation, soften wrinkles, even skin tone, and prevent future sun damage. Unlike Best Skin Days, it has zero coverage, but the glow enhances your natural beauty in the most stunning way.
Highlighting natural beauty is very important to me—I wanted to ensure the product looked great on every skin tone, meaning zero white cast or chalkiness. Originally I thought we would need two shades of Weekend Skin to account for cool and warm undertones (that’s usually the approach to products that have glow), but I wanted this product to be easy, and people often don’t know their undertone. So, I sent it back to the lab, committed to making it universal for everyone.
The chemists told me it was impossible to test the universality of Weekend Skin—especially as we were developing the product in June of 2020, and nobody was touching anybody, nevermind their faces. But when they looked around the lab, the chemists realized they actually had every skin tone on the Fitzpatrick scale within their internal team. Boom—we had a built-in testing group that worked with us to get it right, including figuring out that for deeper skin tones, blending was an essential step in the application process (like most mineral sunscreens, Weekend Skin takes a moment to settle into the skin, but then it works wonders). The journey was long and frustrating at times, but it was well-worth it, as I finally got the one-shade-fits-all glowy mineral SPF 50 and Vitamin C formula I’d always wanted.
Speaking of Vitamin C, it was also so important to me that the Vitamin C never oxidized, even in the sunlight. Unlike the Vitamin C serums that need to be kept in dark bottles, the Vitamin C in Weekend Skin is formulated with active levels of progressive, time-release, Japanese-made Vitamin C that’s highly stable and doesn’t lose potency over time. In fact, it works all day—and even on the sunniest days—to nourish your skin. And because I love multitasking products, we added niacinamide, Vitamin E, and German Chamomile to the formula as well.
Weekend Skin truly is the one-and-done product I’ve been looking for. It simplifies my routine, meaning I have more time to spend on the things I actually care about. And it protects and nourishes my skin while giving me just the right amount of glow, so I look dewy and refreshed—like I got a good night’s sleep and I’m ready to take on the day.
That’s how I came up with the name, too. I wanted a product that captured that weekend feeling of being free from obligations, expectations, and the daily grind—including a multi-step skincare routine—and that’s exactly what Weekend Skin is. It’s OOO skin for every day of the week.
I hope you love it as much as I do.