The perceived contradiction between ‘natural’ and ‘scientific,’ the beauty entrepreneur explains, is becoming outdated.
Gelányi is the co-founder and CEO of the Swedish-Hungarian professional skincare company OP.RehabSkinCare. Consumers today, he explains, are looking for medical effectiveness.
– Scandinavian consumers, compared to other European citizens, are much more educated, he says. They’re looking for more information. They know more about naturality. They know more about, and trust in, herbs.
– In Scandinavia, there are very big pharmaceutical producers in wound care. In the US and the Middle East, they’re looking for what’s happening here and collect information from here. Now, we need to earn their trust, as we believe they are the most well-educated consumers in the world. At the beginning, everybody can be cautious. However, Scandinavians are really open to new things, creating a possibility for us.
– They are much more looking for natural but effective products. When we got in touch with the first clients in Sweden a couple of years ago, they said, ‘This is missing from our market. Of course, we have natural products. Of course, we have pharmaceutical products. But this is a bridge between the two.’
What’s your view of the current state of medical professional skincare?
– We see a clear gap between medical treatment and conventional skincare. Medical care is highly developed when it comes to the intervention itself, while the longer-term support of compromised skin—particularly after procedures, wounds, scar formation, or during rehabilitation —is still relatively underrepresented.
– At the same time, professional skincare is moving closer to medicine, biotechnology, and rehabilitation. This is an important and necessary development. The role of professional skincare should not be to replace medical treatment, but to support the skin and its physiological functions before, during, and particularly after professional interventions.
– This is also where we see the relevance of the dermocosmetic category and the qualification we currently hold. It represents this space between conventional cosmetics and healthcare-oriented skin support, with a level of requirements that reflects the professional environment in which these products are intended to be used.
What would you like to see more of? And less?
– More focus on actual skin physiology, barrier restoration, microbiome-conscious care, long-term recovery, and the quality and compatibility of formulations, Gelányi shares. He continues:
– We would also like to see more cooperation between healthcare professionals, biotechnology, pharmaceutical science, rehabilitation, and professional skincare – and to not be afraid of naturality, if it’s powered by true science.
– Less of? The use of trends, fancy, instant boost effects, individual fashionable ingredients, or immediate visual and sensory effects as substitutes for genuine long-term functionality.
What else do you look at now?
– The final result of a medical or aesthetic procedure is not determined only by what happens during the intervention itself. What happens afterwards matters as well. Professional aftercare, appropriate skincare, and better education! And one more than five-minute speech with the clients can play an important role in supporting recovery and maintaining the condition of the skin. We believe this part of the journey deserves considerably more attention from both the healthcare and beauty industries.
– In simple terms, Gelányi adds, the intervention is the beginning of recovery, not the end.
László Gelányi’s extra industry insights
– We believe one of the major opportunities for the industry is the increasingly close relationship between beauty, medical aesthetics, and true professional skincare. As consumers are becoming more knowledgeable and demanding, they increasingly want both efficacy and purity. They also want to understand why something works rather than simply being told that it does.
– We also believe the perceived contradiction between ‘natural’ and ‘scientific’ is becoming outdated. Modern biotechnology and pharmaceutical knowledge allow us to understand natural active ingredients, their purity, concentration, stability, interactions, and formulation requirements far more precisely than before.
– The opportunity for the industry is therefore not simply to introduce more natural ingredients or more ‘medical-looking’ products. It is to develop formulations in which science, natural active ingredients, safety, and real functionality are designed to work together. The development of more clearly defined professional dermocosmetic categories and qualification standards is also important in this context. They can help distinguish products developed for demanding professional applications from conventional skincare that primarily uses medical or scientific language as a positioning tool.