Podcast Appearance

From Wall Street to Skin Longevity: Building ATIKA & the Science of Aging Well

Fieldswell with Lauren Fields · Episode 160 · 16 September 2026 · 41 min

Topics Covered

Pharmacy, Wharton, Wall Street, and why none of it was a detour
The 20-pill routine that became a single daily formula
Why 40% of adults globally struggle to swallow pills
The CALM framework — collagen, antioxidants, lipid barrier, mitochondrial support
VERISOL® bioactive collagen peptides and the cofactors collagen needs to form
Ten antioxidants as a network rather than a single hero ingredient
Oral photoprotection: what Polypodium leucotomos and carotenoids do, and where they stop
Oral ceramides, the lipid barrier, and why hyaluronic acid is only half the story
Niacinamide as an NAD+ precursor and a skin barrier ingredient
How to read a label: clinically relevant dosing, proprietary blends, certificates of analysis
Heavy metal contamination and ingredient sourcing
Hormonal change in midlife and what nutrition can and cannot support
Realistic timelines: what shifts at four weeks, eight weeks, and twelve
Rapid fire on biotin, red light therapy, expensive moisturizers, and 10-step routines

Episode Notes

What Feeling Well Means in Midlife

LaurenAt Fieldswell we talk a lot about intentionally creating a life where you feel well. At this stage of your life, what does feeling well mean to you?

LilyI'm in midlife. I'm 47 next week, so I've lived a good chunk of life. To me feeling well is a three-part equation. Physically, you want to feel strong and energized. Mentally, you want to feel engaged and clear. Emotionally, you want to feel grounded. It doesn't mean life is easy or that you don't have challenges. It means you're able to handle them in the best way possible.

How a Pharmacist Ends Up Running a Hedge Fund

LaurenYou call yourself an accidental entrepreneur. How does a pharmacist end up at Wharton, on Wall Street, helping run a machine learning hedge fund, and then leave it all to start a skin longevity company in her 40s?

LilyOne thing worth saying is that I didn't just abandon pharmacy and I didn't abandon Wall Street. Everything I've done in my life built on itself. What I'm doing now is interesting because I've come full circle — I'm incorporating everything I've ever done, including being a mom.

LilyI'm an immigrant. I came to this country at ten, from the Soviet Union. My family very much believed you had to have a profession in hand, and they pushed me toward pharmacy. I actually wanted to go to med school. It wasn't the right intellectual fit, wasn't the right emotional fit, wasn't the right personality fit. In my late 20s I thought: if I don't pivot now, I'll never pivot. So I decided that if I could get into a top business school, it was worth the investment. I got into a few and chose Wharton. Wharton is finance-heavy, so it was easy to follow the herd to Wall Street.

LilyA year of investment banking in the consumer space — which is ironic in hindsight — then I pivoted into markets. The trading desk, like in the movies. I loved it. Then some life events: I took four years off, went back, then COVID hit and I moved from New York to San Diego for the summer. I'm still here six years later. I couldn't work at a bank remotely, which is how I ended up on the hedge fund side, running the operational piece — operations, compliance, fundraising, investor relations. Every one of those skills is in use now.

LilyPeople say "starting over." It's never really starting over, because you're able to use everything you've experienced along the way to build what you have now.

The Bowl of 20 Pills

LaurenYou were carrying roughly 20 pills to work every day. What did that look like?

LilyI don't like swallowing pills. 40% of adults globally can't tolerate it, and I'm definitely one of them. I couldn't even take my prenatals when I was pregnant. It isn't psychological, it's physical — they make me nauseous, and that's after three pills, let alone twenty.

LilyWhen I moved to San Diego, people asked what the biggest culture shock was, going from Fifth Avenue to Rancho Santa Fe. It wasn't what you'd think. It was the amount of sun exposure we get in Southern California. I grew up in the Northeast, I'm from Latvia, I spent most of my time indoors anyway. And at the same time I was in my 40s, and I started seeing all the changes you see.

LilySo I built a skin cocktail: a UV protection component, a component that helped replenish the skin barrier, and a structural component — collagen, the scaffolding. But it was 20 pills. At some point I started opening the capsules and putting them into liquid, and of course they're bitter and vile. They're not meant to be taken that way. So I started putting electrolytes on top to mask the taste. The idea became: create something I would want to drink every day. Something I'd look forward to.

Why 18 Ingredients, Not 96

LaurenSome powders on the market have dozens and dozens of ingredients. There are 18 inside ATIKA. What made you stop at 18?

LilyMore is not better. The scoop is already big — this is a 20-ounce glass and that's the appropriate amount of water, because you're dealing with a lot of powder. The reason 18 ingredients fill that scoop is that I'm using clinically relevant doses. Doses that were actually investigated.

LaurenWhat makes something clinically relevant?

LilyThey run a clinical trial and they say: we used four milligrams of this, six of this, ten of this. Then they measure against endpoints — better skin elasticity, better laxity, fewer wrinkles. Don't you want the doses they investigated, rather than fractions of them?

LilySo how do you fit 96 active ingredients at their clinically relevant doses into the same size scoop I'm using for 18? We don't think about it. The analogy I like: you just ran ten miles and you're parched. I offer you one teaspoon of water. Technically, it's water. Is that going to be enough?

Skin Is a Low-Priority Organ

LilyWhen I brought it to life and friends started using the same blend, before it even existed as a product, and they saw real results — that's when I thought, nobody is doing this for skin. We treat skin like a surface, but it's not. It's our biggest organ.

LaurenIt isn't the first thing doctors consider, either.

LilyIt's a low-priority organ. If you're nutrient deprived, your body puts its effort toward your brain, your heart, your liver. It isn't going to concern itself with your glow, or with the thickness of your hair.

Who It's For

LilyThe first is obvious: the woman in midlife who wants to support what she already has and prevent some of that degradation. The person saying, "I'm doing everything right. I'm getting the procedures, I'm using the right skincare, I see a dermatologist — and my skin feels crepey, thin, dull." I'm still small enough that I email with my customers directly, and I can't tell you how many tell me it brought their skin back to life.

LilyThe next is the athlete. The person training two or three hours a day in the sun — tennis, volleyball, surfing. I took up kitesurfing this summer. Three hours in salt water under UV 10 every day. What is that going to do to your skin?

LilyAnd then people who are younger and understand that UV damage drives most of visible skin aging. I have a whole blend of ingredients in there for boosted UV defense. If you can protect your skin's protein, lipids, and DNA from UV damage, you're going to have healthier skin for longer.

The CALM Framework

LilyC stands for collagen. A for antioxidants. L for lipid barrier. M for mitochondrial function.

LilyCollagen is one word that means many different things. What my research led me to is a bioactive collagen peptide, from a company in Germany. The ingredient is VERISOL®. Generic collagen — hydrolyzed, bovine, marine, it's a useless distinction — is a collection of amino acids. Some of them, once they reach your blood, will signal your fibroblasts to make more collagen. But not all, because it's a whole soup. It's an incomplete protein.

LilyBioactive collagen peptides are optimized for skin. Very specific sequences of amino acids that signal fibroblasts to produce collagen. It's targeted, so you don't need as much. 2.5 grams of this particular collagen is more effective for skin than 20 grams of a generic powder. It's expensive. But I was making this for myself, so I wanted to know what was worth putting in.

LilyAnd for collagen to work, you need cofactors — vitamin C, enzymatic cofactors like selenium, zinc. I include all of them, all based on human clinical research.

LilyAntioxidants are the longevity gold. I combined ten different antioxidants. I don't know of another product with a broad-spectrum network like that, so I call it the first multi-antioxidant on the market. We take multivitamins — take a multi-antioxidant. I split them into lipid-soluble and water-soluble: the carotenoids and the polyphenols.

LilyWhy? Because like collagen, "oxidative stress" describes several different processes that work through different pathways. Different antioxidants address different types of free radicals. I'm attacking oxidative stress as a network, as a net.

LilyUnder that same column I include a botanical, Polypodium leucotomos. It's been used in dermatology for decades and it helps boost UV defense. The carotenoids — astaxanthin, lutein, lycopene, zeaxanthin — contribute to UV support as well. Everything at the study doses.

LilyLipid barrier is what keeps moisture in. Everyone knows hyaluronic acid, and we say it hydrates the skin. Well, yes and no. It attracts water. But if you can't hang on to that water — if it evaporates because your lipid barrier isn't intact — what are you hydrating? It's like refilling a bucket with holes.

LilySo I use an oral ceramide. You've probably heard of topical ceramides; they work, but you have to apply them daily. This replenishes the lipid barrier from within. Your skin barrier is dead cells held together by fat, and 50% of that fat is ceramide. Replenish it and you're resealing the cracks in the wall. As a result you tolerate actives better. A lot of people say they can't tolerate retinoids — look at the lipid barrier first. Customers have told me that was exactly the issue.

LilyMitochondrial support. NAD+ is a hot topic and I have thoughts. The mechanistic evidence is strong; the actual endpoints are mixed. I use niacinamide, which works differently from NR and NMN. It's an NAD+ precursor with a shorter half-life, so maybe not as effective in some cases, but for a healthy 47-year-old it's good enough. And niacinamide has its own data for skin barrier and elasticity, so it earns the slot twice.

Reading a Label: Red Flags

LaurenWhat should we be aware of when deciding what to invest in?

LilyYou want to know the source. Take creatine. There are essentially two supply chains — one in Asia, one in Germany. What you get from Germany has been tested and trademarked, so you can request the certificate of analysis and see how they test for contaminants.

LilyContamination is a real issue. There was a widely sold product where testing found high levels of lead. People were poisoning themselves while thinking they were doing something good for their bodies. We publish our certificate of analysis on the product page, right under the photos. What the label says is inside the jar, at the doses we state, and we've tested for lead, arsenic, and cadmium. If a company doesn't provide that, you simply don't know. It could be a high-quality product. You just don't know.

LaurenAnd it can cut the other way — ingredients that aren't there at all.

LilyExactly. They tested a batch of creatine gummies and found most of them didn't contain creatine. Placebo effect at best.

LilyThen there are proprietary blends. I understand why companies use them — they want to protect the formula. People ask me why someone couldn't just replicate mine, since I'm transparent about ingredients and doses. They could. But it was important to me that you know what you're putting in your body. When I see "proprietary blend" on a label, as a pharmacist, I'm not putting it in mine.

Midlife, Hormones, and What Nutrition Can Support

LaurenA lot of women see changes in their skin at perimenopause and menopause. What's happening?

LilyHormonal fluctuations affect collagen — estrogen is part of that — and the barrier thins as well. These are fundamental, hormone-driven changes.

LilyThis isn't estrogen in a bottle. But if you can support the structure, the scaffolding — if you can help protect against oxidative stress, from UV, from pollution, from normal metabolism — if you can support the lipid barrier, then you're doing your body a service. You're supporting the processes that are under the most pressure.

A Systems Approach, Not a Hero Ingredient

LaurenWhat does ATIKA have that nothing else does?

LilyIt approaches skin and hair aging as a system. Normally supplements formulate around a hero ingredient. The question I always get is: what's the hero ingredient? There isn't one. Ten of the ingredients in here could stand alone as their own supplement. I didn't do that.

LilyI asked instead: what are the drivers of skin aging, how do they interact, and what can I take that's actually easy? It's a daily scoop. The same effort as your daily collagen. But you're addressing many things at once, and that's what makes it different.

Realistic Timelines

LaurenHow soon do people normally notice something?

LilyIt depends on the endpoint, because we're working at the root — every benefit is downstream. The first thing most people notice within the first month is better hydration, because you're repairing and replenishing the skin barrier, so you hold moisture better. More hydrated, more dewy, buttery-feeling skin, over your whole body.

LilySkin tone usually shifts in the first jar. Hair — less on your brush, less in the shower — typically in the first four to six weeks. Elasticity, laxity, and wrinkles take longer, I'd say eight to twelve weeks before you start to see it.

LilyAnd UV defense works on two clocks. Polypodium leucotomos gives you a bump for maybe one to two hours after you take it. The carotenoids — astaxanthin and the others — accumulate in your tissues over weeks, and that's where the baseline internal support comes from.

Rapid Fire

Biotin: No. There's no clinical data — it's all marketing. If you're deficient it helps, but deficiency is very rare.
Red light therapy: Yes, with a caveat: not all devices are created equal. You have to know the size of the bulb and the wavelength. You don't want plastic in the casing, you want ceramic. Do the research.
Botox: Sure — but go to a genuinely skilled injector. It's your face.
Expensive moisturizers: Price doesn't tell me what's inside. A good moisturizer should have a humectant, an emollient, and an occlusive. Look at whether it has all three, which kinds, how it's formulated, how it absorbs. Price tells me nothing.
10-step skincare routines: How do all of those steps interact with each other? You're putting one thing on after another after another. How are they interacting on your skin, chemically?
Glutathione: It depends. It's a charged molecule and it's hard to get into the cell. Even a liposomal formulation — and they're expensive — will raise your plasma levels. But is it getting into the cell? Yes, it's the master antioxidant. Does supplementing it improve any endpoint? I haven't seen data that convinces me. It's mixed.
Injectable peptides: The enthusiasm and the market are ahead of the science. People are injecting things with no idea where they came from. You don't know what's in the vial, whether it's been tested for contaminants, and there's no accountability.
Three things you'd keep for long-term skin health: Sunscreen. A good moisturizer. And ATIKA.

On Starting Something in Midlife

LaurenWhat would you say to someone who's afraid to start a new chapter?

LilyFor me there was no doubt in my mind that this was what I was supposed to do. Everything I've done in my life, including the pharmacy degree I once thought was useless, including Wall Street — every single thing brought me here. Maybe I succeed, maybe I don't. There was no choice for me. I had to go down this path.

LaurenWe end every episode the same way. My book comes out in January — it's called Send It, about turning your vision into velocity. What does sending it mean to you?

LilyIt means doing something without having 100% conviction that it's going to work. It means taking the risk. I've been more behind the scenes with this product, and I need to be out there talking about it. So this is sending it. I don't love being on camera. But this is sending it.

These notes are an edited version of the conversation, condensed for readability. Statements reflect the formulation philosophy discussed on the episode and are not claims of medical benefit. Individual experience varies. ATIKA is a dietary supplement and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Advanced Skin Nutrition

ATIKA's once-daily foundational formula for skin longevity — 18 clinically dosed ingredients across collagen structure, lipid barrier integrity, antioxidant defense, and cellular renewal.

View product Ingredients & clinical studies White paper