How to Repair Your Skin Barrier, Hydration That Works, Fish Oil vs. Astaxanthin

Chapter 1: From the Soviet Union to Wharton to Wall Street

Danielle You’ve done some pretty amazing things. Where do you get your inspiration, and what’s your story?

Lily I was born in the Soviet Union and came here when I was 10 years old — two suitcases, as refugees. My family had an immigrant mindset: you need a profession. They pushed me toward pharmacy. I actually wanted medical school, but didn’t have the emotional maturity to make my own choice at that point. So I went to pharmacy school, graduated, worked a few years, realized it wasn’t a good personality fit, pivoted to business school — ended up at Wharton — and followed the path to Wall Street. Since 2010 I’ve been in finance. Most recently, I was helping run a machine learning hedge fund out of Silicon Valley.

Lily When I entered my 40s, I started seeing changes in my skin and wanted to understand what actually works. What is marketing, what is hype, and what has real human clinical data? I went through many clinical trials and came up with a cocktail that approached skin from a truly holistic point of view. Not just collagen — but for collagen to work, what else do I need? What are the cofactors? How do I protect the antioxidant system? How do I give my body the cellular energy? A systems-based approach entirely.

Lily I figured out what to take and at what doses. Dosing is critical and rarely discussed. My analogy: if you just ran a marathon and I offer you one sip of water at the finish line — technically it’s hydrating, but it’s not going to do anything. You need the right amount. I also did extensive third-party testing research. Supplements are unregulated — what’s on the label may not match what’s in the bottle. I came up with a beautiful cocktail for myself, and it worked. The challenge: I couldn’t swallow all the pills. I started opening capsules and mixing them in water, which was vile, then adding electrolytes to mask the bitterness. Eventually I thought: why doesn’t a powder exist? Like AG1 but for skin — all the right things at all the right doses. I created it for myself. It was never supposed to be a business.

Lily When I brought it to life, I realized I had created what I believe is the future of dermatology. A genuinely systems-based approach. I left the hedge fund in August 2025 and this is what I do full time now.

Chapter 2: The CALM Framework — A System for Skin Longevity

Danielle Tell me about what you created.

Lily It’s a powdered supplement for skin longevity — and that’s a very intentional term. I’m looking at the underlying biological processes that drive skin aging and supporting each pillar. The framework uses the acronym CALM.

Lily C is Collagen integrity — the scaffolding that holds your skin up. Not just collagen, but everything that makes collagen work: vitamin C for the helix to stabilize, zinc and selenium for the enzymatic processes, silica as a structural building block. A is Antioxidant balance. Oxidative stress — from everyday metabolic functions, digital light, UV light, pollution — drives collagen degradation and leads to inflammation. My blend is the first multi-pathway, multi-antioxidant on the market. L is Lipid barrier. Hydration comes from your skin’s ability to hold onto moisture — when the barrier is intact, you don’t lose water, and you get hydrated, plump, glowing skin. M is Mitochondrial health. Everything in your body needs cellular energy — for collagen to form, for any tissue remodeling. I include niacinamide at 500 mg, which goes through the same pathway to create NAD+ inside the cell.

Lily That’s CALM: 18 ingredients, one scoop, bright orange color from astaxanthin, no colorants. Tastes delicious — citrusy. Sugar-free, sweetened with monk fruit and OnoSweet™, which is a fermented Reb M — the highest quality part of the stevia plant. No metallic aftertaste. People who can’t tolerate standard stevia usually tolerate this.

Chapter 3: The Four Trademarked Ingredients

Danielle Tell me about the trademarked ingredients.

Lily Four trademarked ingredients, because I made this for myself and wanted the highest quality. First, VERISOL® collagen — from Germany, the only collagen I know of with seven human clinical trials specifically for skin. EU regulations, pastured cattle, EU standards on pesticides. Very high-quality source. I use it at 2.5 grams, not 20 grams, because that’s all you need of these specific bioactive peptide sequences that signal fibroblasts to produce more collagen.

Lily Second, Ceramosides™ from France. The lipid barrier is about 50% ceramides. When you take ceramides orally, you replenish that barrier and heal it from within. Within two to three weeks, people are feeling much more hydrated. The same ingredient also shows strong hair benefits — which is why I’m getting so much unexpected hair feedback even though I formulated this for skin.

Lily Third, AstaReal® astaxanthin. If you asked me: if you could take only one supplement, what would it be? It would be a toss-up between fish oil and astaxanthin — probably astaxanthin. It’s derived from algae, and name a body part — it has a beneficial effect on it. Cognition, cardiovascular health, eye health, skin, photoprotection. There’s a natural form from algae and a synthetic made in a lab. The synthetic doesn’t have the same benefit profile. I use AstaReal® — grown in Washington State, the most clinically studied. At four milligrams, the studied dose.

Lily Fourth, Red Orange Complex® from Sicily — a blend of citrus varieties grown in volcanic soil in Italy with compelling data on UV protection, skin elasticity, and skin tone. Included at the clinically studied dose. It also gives the product its natural citrus character.

Chapter 4: Bioavailability, MCT Oil, and Why Format Matters

Danielle Bioavailability gets thrown around a lot. How did you think about it in this formula?

Lily Supplements split into water-soluble and fat-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins and compounds — like the carotenoids and vitamin D — need a fat carrier to get into your bloodstream. Standard advice is to take them with food. But I don’t eat breakfast and I drink this in the morning. So I included a small amount of MCT oil directly in the formula. That’s the built-in fat carrier for the fat-soluble ingredients. You don’t have to think about timing or what you eat it with. You are what you absorb, not just what you eat.

Chapter 5: Internal UV and Blue Light Protection

Lily The antioxidant pillar also covers internal UV protection. I have several ingredients that help protect skin from UV damage — not a replacement for sunscreen, but a meaningful baseline layer. Because let’s be honest: how many of us reapply every hour? We have makeup on, we forget. This gives you that base layer always working. I give it to my children — adjusted for their weight — partly because we live in Southern California with relentless sun exposure, and I know that even if they’re not reapplying the sunblock I put in their backpacks, there’s some protection built in.

Lily For blue light: I have two ingredients — lutein and zeaxanthin — that act as physical filters in the eyes for blue light after a few weeks of consistent use. It’s protection built in from the inside.

Chapter 6: Eighteen Ingredients — Why Restraint Was Intentional

Lily I could have put 30 or 40 ingredients in there. Eighteen was a very deliberate choice. Each ingredient has a clear reason to be there, at a meaningful dose, with clinical evidence behind it. Absolutely not a proprietary blend — I’m fully transparent about what’s in it and at what dose. My advisors told me not to, worried about being copied. I said too bad. Transparency is non-negotiable.

Lily We’re predominantly online at atikawellness.com, with some medical spas locally in San Diego. The product is called Advanced Skin Nutrition. On Instagram: @atika.wellness.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Podbean.