Extreme Sports Athletes

Defending Your Skin

Chance encounter led Manhattan Beach resident to go from practicing law to creating sunscreen, lotions aimed at athletes. 

By Melissa Heckscher
DAILY BREEZE

Two years ago, Manhattan Beach resident Marie Spaccarotella had a different life altogether.

At 26, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Michigan native was an attorney at one of the top law firms in St. Louis, Mo. She was happy — at least, as happy as life in a cubicle, a “cubbyhole,” as she called it, could make her.

But the simplest of moments can change everything. And for Spaccarotella, it was a visit to the pharmacy that did it.

“I started talking to the pharmacist, and somehow we started talking about skin care,” she said. “He had come up with a [patented formula] that goes into skin-care products.”

The pharmacist asked her to try his skin cream, and that was how her company, Mago Skin Care, was born.

“After a week of using it I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Holy [expletive], that guy’s really got something,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to be able to get this all the time.’ ”

Of course, before the jars of cream could be filled and mass produced, before the product — and its ensuing line of sunscreens, gels, lotions and hydrating mists — could be made, Spaccarotella had to learn a little about the skin-care business.

That would mean acquiring the patent; hiring a team of chemists, pharmacists and researchers to formulate a product; doing the necessary testing; finding marketing and design teams; and packaging the product so it could eventually sell at stores nationwide.

And then, of course, it meant leaving her job and moving to California (moving wasn’t necessary, she admitted, but it’s what she wanted).

“I was a litigator, I knew nothing about skin care,” said Spaccarotella, who moved to Southern California in March. “I was just that emphatic about this cream.”

Making the cream

So what kind of skin cream can spark a resignation and a cross-country move?
According to Mago’s chief formulation chemist, Kevin Tibbs, the patented technology behind Mago’s $58 Incream revolves around a combination of glycerin and caffeine, ingredients that he said work together to help the skin retain moisture.

“These creams almost act as suspension matrixes, or sponges, if you will, for water,” said Tibbs, a longtime chemist who has formulated more than 500 products, including lotions, conditioners, anti-aging creams and treatment serums. “It definitely has some benefits in keeping the skin hydrated.”

But caffeine’s benefits may extend beyond hydration. Studies have suggested caffeine — whether ingested or applied topically — may help prevent skin cancer (though Mago products make no such claim).

At Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., researchers found that a skin cream spiked with caffeine reduced the number of cancerous tumors on the skin of hairless mice by more than half.

“In mice, [caffeine] does prevent skin cancer,” said Dr. Allan Conney, professor of cancer and leukemia research at the university. “There isn’t anything known as to whether it has an effect in humans.”

Conney said more studies need to be done to determine the safety and efficacy of caffeinated creams on people.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with about 1 million new cases diagnosed every year, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Though anyone is at risk for the disease, some people are more susceptible than others.

White runners at risk

According to research from the Medical University of Graz, in Austria, white marathon runners appear to face an increased risk of skin cancer because of long sun exposure.

That is particularly concerning to former Hermosa Beach resident Charlie Engle, an ultramarathon runner — ultramarathons are several times longer than the average marathon — accustomed to running in the dry Southern California heat.

Spaccarotella already had begun working on Mago’s Incream when she met Engle, who at the time was planning to run across the Sahara desert, a 4,000-mile course plagued with harsh and often brutally hot conditions.

Suffice it to say, he needed a good sunscreen.
“I knew there would be a couple of things I needed to focus on as far as our health goes,” Engle said a few days before leaving on the run Nov. 1. “If you’ve ever gotten sunburned, it’s very uncomfortable for your skin to be so dried out. You can really feel it cracking.”

Spaccarotella decided to design a sunscreen particularly for Engle and the two other distance runners who would join him in the desert.

“I challenged my formulator,” she said, adding that Engle has also used the Incream to moisturize his skin during long desert races.

“I said, ‘Let’s just see what we can come up with.’ ”

What they came up with was Protector 27, a spray-on sunscreen designed to be applied to wet, sweaty or dirty skin.

“They’ve got to put this stuff on when they’re gross,” Spaccarotella said. “You put a regular sunscreen on when you’re all wet and it gets all milky and gross and it doesn’t go in. It just stays greasy. They wanted to avoid that.”

Mago is now a sponsor of the Sahara expedition, which, if all goes as planned, will end Feb. 1.

Visit http://www.runningthesahara.com/ for more details on the race.

With sunscreen geared toward athletes and the Incream tested on distance runners, Spaccarotella said she hopes initially to sell her products in sporting goods stores. In the meantime, she sells them on her Web site.

In all, Mago has seven products: Incream, Protector 27, a Restore Gel used to calm the skin, a hydrating mist to be used in conjunction with the cream, two Magic Sticks for undereye circles and fine lines, and an “anti-friction” cream also designed mainly for runners.

“It’s a little different than working at a law firm, where I don’t ever leave my cubby hole except for to go to court, which is an even worse cubby hole,” Spaccarotella said.

“There have been many times where I’ve been on a conference call and you’ll have multiple groups on the line and they’re all sitting in their conference rooms in their labs or their offices or wherever, and I’m sitting on the Manhattan Beach Pier watching the dolphins.”