A few years back, Ann Marie Einziger had a light spot on her back caused by tinea versicolor, a common, easily treatable fungal infection.”Instead of seeing that patch of skin as a nuisance and something that I wanted to get rid of, I had this counterintuitive ‘aha!’ moment where I was like, ‘Wait, what if there’s good stuff that’s doing this?'” says Ann Marie, a former science teacher who never lost that sense of scientific curiosity.
Her instinct was right: Hyper and hyperpigmentation (the darkening and lightening of the skin) are both inflammatory responses that (respectively) increase or decrease your body’s melanin production as a protective measure. “Because my skin was being protected, it wasn’t burning in the sun and looked brighter,” says Ann Marie.
She wondered if she could harness the powers of what was happening in her skin into a topical solution. She and her husband, Mike Einzinger (who, fun fact, is the founding guitarist of the band Incubus), worked to amass a team of leading scientists—including Pearl Grimes, MD, a board-certified dermatologist who is the head of the Vitiligo and Pigmentation Institute of Southern California. Together, they discovered Malassezin, a molecular compound that comes from a yeast called Malassezia furfur (the same one that causes dandruff), lives on the skin, and regulates melanin production.