The Innovator

By: Katharine Griffiths
Created on 23rd February 2011

In this series of articles, Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetics Guide tells the stories of the men and women who are pushing forward the boundaries of aesthetics. In this issue the spotlight is on Dr Michael Brinkenhoff, who developed RevitaLash

Who: Dr Michael Brinkenhoff
What: RevitaLash
Why: A revolutionary product to give you longer, thicker eyelashes

What is the story behind RevitaLash?

There were two factors that drove me towards developing this product. Firstly, I have been practising as an ophthalmologist for over twenty years and I had a large number of patients who suffered from glaucoma.

Just over ten years ago a number of medicines designed to treat this condition were developed from a family of molecules. The treatments were safe with very few side effects.

In fact, the most prominent side effect was not really a problem as such: the medicines not only treated the glaucoma but also caused the eyelashes to grow thicker and longer. It was most noticeable in patients who were only suffering glaucoma in one eye, so I started to develop methods for applying the medication to the other eyelid to help them grow eyelashes of equal length and thickness.

The second part of the story was a very personal one. My wife Gayle has been courageously and successfully fighting breast cancer for twenty years and about five years ago went through another bout of chemotherapy. This time her eyelashes didn’t grow back at all and this was causing her some distress.

So I developed a formula, based on the glaucoma medicines, which my wife could apply to her eyelids to enhance and lengthen her eyelashes. It was very successful and her friends started to ask where they could buy the product.

I then did a lot of due diligence and safety tests on the product and worked with regulatory FDA lawyers to ensure that as long as we made the correct claims then we could release RevitaLash as a cosmetic rather than a drug.

So how did you launch RevitaLash?

We launched four years ago to a great deal of scepticism. People often scoffed at our claims so we found in the early days that it was easier to just hand out the product, because as soon as a woman had successful results then they would tell their friends.

We grew exponentially in the first year or two based on word of mouth.

You have a number of different products in the RevitaLash range. Do they work in the same way?

We have RevitaLash Brow and Hair. The key ingredients in the products all work in same way but have different ratios. Hair follicles differ slightly as they have different skin in which to grow through and genetically have different growth cycles.

Our RevitaLash Mascara has none of the functional ingredients but seemed a perfect extension of the brand. It was developed by wife Gayle as she is a mascara junky and she worked hard on developing both the product itself and the brush design to produce the best mascara.

So, as well as inspiring you to develop the product, your wife works with you on the RevitaLash brand?

We work very closely together and Gayle has been instrumental in the company’s success. Also as a company we believe in giving back to the cancer community and that is Gayle’s favourite part.

We donate a portion of sales proceeds to breast cancer research and education initiatives, but this is a personal commitment as well as financial one. Every month we have a ‘Team RevitaLash’ who take part in walks and events, which we also sponsor.

We also donate RevitaLash products to cancer clinics as a sort of graduation present to their patients. We want to find a cure to cancer – and our goal is to do everything we can to help facilitate that.

What do you see as the next step?

We had the same formula for over two years, so recently we found some botanicals and peptide molecules that would enhance the product, but at the same time work synergistically with the original ingredients.

This is not a revolutionary improvement but it enhances the original product and helps condition lashes to improve texture as well. Our aim is to stay at the front of innovation.

In terms of the future, we plan to stay science-based so we will only bring products to market that have been carefully investigated and actually get results. I think that we will stay focused on the area around the eyes; maybe an anti-wrinkle product or one that eradicates dark circles.

CS&AG