Made in Michiana: JooMo

 

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.—This week’s Made in Michiana takes us to South Bend.

Two twin brothers from the United Kingdom are taking the skincare industry by storm.

“When we were teenagers, my twin and I had severe skin problems as a lot of teenagers do,” said Kit Russell, co-founder of JooMo.

At a young age, Kit and his brother Sam Wallen Russell learned the importance of premium skincare after watching their mother battle with a skin condition.

Their mother tried everyday cosmetics and over the counter creams, but nothing helped.

“So we're thinking in our heads, if nothing works, even these steroid creams and every day cosmetics make it worse, then why is there a cosmetics industry, why isn’t it supposed to help skin health, why does that exist,” Kit said.

Kit, a planetary geophysicist, teamed up with Sam, a nuclear astrophysicist who, at the time, was finishing up his master’s degree at the University of Notre Dame.

“We are 60% microbe and 40% human. This microbiome is which all of the microbes within your body is vital for your health or protecting your health,” Sam said.

The two brothers launched a two-year intensive research study.

“For the first time, we found a link between chemicals in every day cosmetics and the skin allergy epidemic and damage to the skin microbiome. That was a massive breakthrough,” Kit said.

Using the research, the brothers published multiple papers on the topic and came up with a solution: JooMo.

“The world’ first-ever truly natural and preservative free product, which the whole industry said was impossible. The Holy Grail in cosmetics. We did it where multi-billion dollar companies and multi-nationals failed,” Kit said.

The name JooMo is a play on the French word for “twins.”

The twins launched JooMo in South Bend and distribute from a warehouse on Technology Drive.

Aimed at creating a significant skin health improvement in just two weeks, the products work just like a plant would. The brothers say that the products provide an eco-system that works in harmony with every skin type.

With a boys and girls face wash, body wash, and their most recent product, and adult vegan face wash, the two brothers are hoping to revolutionize the skincare industry.

“We want to usher a new era of health giving and honestly labeled cosmetics because at the moment, there is a wild, wild west within the cosmetics industry where you can attach claims of a natural to your product and it can have 70% chemicals in it,” Kit said.

The pair hopes that their cooperative can gain enough traction to help re-make the industry standards with labeling across the board.

For more information about JooMo, click here.