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Doubledown
Cosmetics - All Natural |
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One listens to Marvin and Kristen
Speller talk about their married life, about Doubledown Cosmetics, the
work they do in the community and Kristen’s music and you are
immediately struck by how supportive they are of one another and the
warmth of their love for one another.
The seeds were sown a long time for their cosmetic line, as Marvin
explains, “I will give the shorter version of this. Almost nine years
ago when we first met, I was in North Carolina and I had custody of my
daughter and she had a dance recital that weekend. As a guy I knew
nothing about makeup. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I put my
thinking cap on and I called Kristen up and I said I need help and lots
of it. She knew a lot about
makeup and I thought she was an expert. She was always so passionate
about it.
Fast forward down the road and she was always sharing makeup tips with
people and always watching people and the gurus. I have always been of
the mindset that when you are with someone that you love, a close friend
or family member and definitely a significant other you try to help them
make their dreams come true.
Kristen picks up the story about why makeup has been so important in her
life, “When I was dealing with neurological trauma, as a domestic
violence survivor I lived in hiding for four years, while I worked at my
job in corporate America. I was tired, I was taxed and I had a very
demanding high management job. Then I was promoted to be a department
administrator at a hospital. I was the youngest department administrator
in the hospital’s history. There was a lot of responsibility on me,
while I was in hiding. While I was dealing with the trauma from ten
years of domestic violence, I also figured out that I had injured myself
by using so many toxins on my skin from the makeup that I was using. I
started putting two and two together once I moved out of hiding and
Marvin is the one who moved me out of hiding and into my first
apartment.”
They started looking at whether or not there was a link between
Kristen’s mood swings and the makeup that she was wearing. They were not
sure what the cause of the mood swings was at first, because she was
dealing with a lot of different things.
“I would always ask Marvin when I take off the makeup are my moods
better? Do you notice anything? There were times that he did. Marvin
said maybe it’s the makeup. If I went without the toxic makeup for five
days I would feel better. I noticed that I didn’t get as many headaches.
There were things that I started to notice. When I put it back on I
would feel myself becoming off hormonal.
I was very aggressive at times. During that time my mother was very
sick. There was a lot of stress.
In 2012 when I was traveling back and forth to my mother that is when I
thought I needed to make the full shift with makeup, because I noticed
the difference. I started looking into cleaner brands. We changed
everything, deoderant with no aluminum, no fluoride in our toothpaste.
We switched all of the chemicals in the house. It was really a movement
for the Speller household. I was able to find some clean makeup brands
and I would blog about them. I felt better. I didn’t feel so aggressive
and I didn’t feel the mood swings.
On our wedding day, which both of our mothers attended, I wore nontoxic
makeup. At that time it wasn’t one hundred percent nontoxic, but ninety
percent of my wedding makeup was nontoxic. That was such a huge thing
for me, especially on my wedding day, because a lot of the clean beauty
brands five years ago, weren’t living up to the standard that
traditional makeup was in longevity of color and pigmentation in color.
Those are things that are indicative of creating a long lasting makeup
brand. That is what I was
testing and what I was learning. I was my own guinea pig.
In 2017 we developed our first makeup bag. We want to make sure when we
develop these products that we are using the best ingredients that we
can. If for some reason we can’t then we don’t do it. We are testing a
lot of new products right now. A lot of them have corn starch and we
won’t use corn starch in our products, because they are GMO. Although,
some of the corn is organic, I don’t full trust it, because I don’t know
the entire lab science behind the corn industry,” says Kirsten.
As for how the products are sourced she continues, “I am involved with
the testing and we always make sure that the ingredients are verified.
Whether it is through analysis or labs and things like that, it is how
we make sure. If Marvin and I can’t be involved and know where
everything is sourced from then we don’t do it. It is as simple as that.
I can’t risk our own health and let alone our customers’ health.
Back in 1999 I started making my own skincare masks with my own
ingredients. I was always a
great chemistry student, so a lot of people started asking me what they
could use on their faces. It’s funny that I always went to natural
ingredients. I would make these masks from scratch, because I knew
ratios and I knew what to use. I knew how to formulate that.
I mix things up all of the time, whether it is food spices or juicing
products. I love what the mind can create and so I always try to
challenge myself. The cosmetics were the next natural step. I know what
I want to put in, the colors that I want to see and the payoff that I
want to provide for women and men.”
“Kristen’s wants to create something that will make a difference in (a
person’s) life. She is always the first one testing it, before she gives
it to someone else. She is so passionate about that and I am passionate
about different aspects of the mind and also the health of people. This
is what makes us perfect partners, because we are so passionate.
It is easy for me to work with my wife. It is not always easy to work
with your significant other, but for us, everything we do is our
strength and everything that we both are very passionate about we get to
do,” says Marvin.
After creating the cosmetic bag it seemed like the next natural step was
to create products to put into the bag, so two lip balms followed. The
first was a nude earth tone pink, which they named The Punk, as
Kristen’s mother had given her the nickname Punkie, as a child. They
also wanted to pay homage to her mother who had passed away. The color
that Marvin and Kristen created was also the same color that her mother
would put on, so she could look dignified, while she was going through
cacner and her COPD illness.
“We also created a Berry Golden Red and it is called The Future, which
looks great on all skin tones. We are West African and we wanted to make
sure, especially with challenges within the beauty industry for the past
few years that all skin tones were inclusive. There is a story behind
the name for each product.
The Future is an ode to our past and we are also paying tribute to our
magnificent future and what can become,” says Kristen.
Names for other products include a highlighter called The Status and a
blush named The Dimension.
For the guys reading this who may not know what a highlighter is,
Kristen takes a moment to explain, “A highlighter is a makeup color that
is used to create dimension on the top cheekbone of the skin. For
example if you were to turn to the light, typically in the sun you would
radiate off of the natural skin and what the highlighter does is it
reflects that even if you are not in the sun. It is mimicking a very
dewy skin glow.”
Now guys, you can go out and buy your lady some Doubledown Cosmetics
highlighter and you can even tell her why you bought it! She will be
impressed.
Marvin talks about another quality of their products, “All of our face
products are vegan and our lip products are not vegan, but they are
vegetarian because we did add bee’s wax. Bee’s wax is also a
stabilizer.”
Kristen adds, “Part of what we created was (due to) my exzema and bee’s
wax helps to heal and that is why we did not create vegan lip products.
That may come down the road, but right now we use bee’s wax for the lip
products.
Some companies may not use bee’s wax, but they use parabin. In Europe
GMOs are banned. Parabins are listed as a category one priority
substance, because it is a carcenogenic and you are dealing with
hormones, you are dealing with neurological disorders and you are
dealing with endocrine disruptors.
That is just one and then you continue with lead, BHT, BHA and
formaldehyde, which are unhealthy ingredients. They are preservatives
that are found in (food), but they are also found in lipsticks,
foundations, moisturizers, perfumes and eyeliners. Those are things that
again in Europe are in category one. It is allowed here (America)
unfortunately.”
She also provides a warning that some cosmetics (not Doubledown) may
also contain metal and / or amonia.
For those who are wondering Doubledown Cosmetics products have a
recommended shelf life between fifteen and eighteen months.
Marvin wants you to know however, “Our products may have a slightly
shorter shelf life, but they are better for you. Don’t take our word for
it. Here are the ingredients, which we are bound by law to put on the
products. You can go and research it yourself and you will come to the
same conclusion that we are talking about. While you are doing that
(look at) the ingredients of the products that you have and research
them, then tell me what you found out. I guarantee you that you will be
mortified.”
“We are actively testing and we realize (vegan) products are a small
niche, but it is a niche that is growing,” says Marvin.
“We work in the domestic violence community and we need our community
healthy. I don’t want to take a chance and Marvin doesn’t want to take a
chance on injuring someone who is trying to survive. All I did was to
injure myself again, because I didn’t know (about the toxicity of some
products). Now that we know about that we are going to do better by
everyone in the community,” she says.
“You can make something vegan, but you could also reintroduce some
things that are really not that good. A lot of vegans and vegetarians in
the nineties started taking soy products to offset not having meat, but
there have been a lot of health problems with taking soy products.
We are competing with toxic products, so we have to be able to deliver
and develop. We are testing a lot of new formulations for new products
and seeing if they can match up to Maybelline to Cover Girl and Mac
Cosmetics and that is what we are working on right now,” he says.
When we asked Kristen Speller at this moment time, which brings her the
greatest satisfaction, her music or Doubledown Cosmetics, without
hesitation she says,”Cosmetics. I was born a musician and I wasn’t born
a makeup artist. Gifts are ingrained in you and you always have those
gifts. I feel that you develop gifts along the way at different stages
of your life. Makeup has been such a gift during the latter part of my
life. It became a lifeline to me as a domestic violence survivor to
cover up my wounds. It was during that time that I wrote my first album,
but I also knew what I needed to have to survive and that was makeup. I
couldn’t walk into my job in corporate America with wounds on my neck,
because I would have lost my job. It became a lifeline of sorts. I knew
one day I wanted to have my own makeup line. It was not because I needed
it, but because I loved it. That is why I am so passionate about it and
I think when you have a plethora of different gifts, whether you are
born with them or whether you receive them later on I believe that they
are all intertwined at some point.
Cosmetics became my lifeline and a way of life for me.”
As for Kristen Speller’s music career, she comes by it naturally, “My
family is from the Cape Verde Islands (off the coast of) West Africa. My
father was a musician for fifty years and in 1995 he was inducted into
the Smithsonian Museum for Cape Verde musicians. My cousins in (the
group) Tavares won the album of the year in 1979 at the Grammy Awards (Editor’s
Note: During the group’s career Tavares had twelve top ten hits and
seven more that charted in the top forty.)
I ended up moving
to California in 2004 and Tiny Tavares from Tavares
was very instrumental in making
sure that I stayed here, because when I wrote “Sunny September Rain,” I
thought I had something, but I wasn’t a traditional songwriter, so I
didn’t know if it was good or bad. I felt like it was a gift, so when I
took my song to him he said Hollywood was going to come knocking on my
door and that I needed to stay in California. I talked to Tiny a few
weeks ago and I thanked him, but he said you do not have to thank me,
because you did the work. He has no idea how instrumental he was in
creating a mindset for me to stay here, because I was dealing with a lot
of domestic violence. My first album is about my freedom from domestic
violence and it is called Misguided Dignity. That was released in 2011
and the first single off of that album was released in 2009. I wrote
“Bruised,” while I was in hiding.
In 2012 we had plans for a new album and my mother became very sick and
very quickly. They had her in chemotherapy (right away), because she had
a rare form of stage two cancer. They took her case to the American
Cancer Board in Massachusetts, because they had never seen anything like
this. There was a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of pressure to find
out quickly what type of cancer she had, so it could be treated
correctly. There was no way I could do another album.
In 2013 we decided to come out with a single and if my mother got better
we could do the album the next year. We came up with “Phoenix Rising
Up,” in 2013 and my mother died in 2014. We released all of my music
under Kristen Speller in 2016 and we re-released “Phoenix Rising Up,” as
Kristen Speller.
In 2017 we released (the song) “Addiction,” and it is the first song
that Marvin produced with my producer Greg Buckwalter.
My new album Entering Taunton
is coming out in 2020
This album is my journaling process, while my mother was dying and it is
dedicated to her. It is my
best work to date.”
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We
tease Marvin Speller a bit reminding him that Doubledown Cosmetics does
not have any products for men and he replies, “Expansion long term is
the key and at the end of the day more women buy products than men by
five to one. You have to cater to whatever market has the highest need
at a particular time. Trust me when I tell you that we are going to do
things for guys down the road. In fact, I would say sooner than later.”