Lanativ Reveals Why Everyone Is Crushing on This Blue Tansy Balm

Inspired by Alchemy and an Indigenous Heritage

Renee Trepagnier: Megan, I'm excited to talk to you. Thank you for taking the time!
Megan Eng: What an honor. Thank you so much for thinking of me and for just being interested. It's a specific population that really cares about clean, dynamic, beautiful ingredients.

Renee Trepagnier: Of course. So, tell me: how did you get started with Lanativ, your skincare brand? What was the inspiration?
Megan Eng: I graduated from pharmacy school in New York in 2019, and that's where my interest and training in western compounding really began. I worked at this really swanky, fun compounding pharmacy on the Upper West Side called Park Pharmacy. I was an intern there, and we did clean, custom formulations. That experience really opened up my eyes to tailoring care, whether it's your beauty regimen, your food intake, or your medication. I fell in love with the alchemy, pushing the boundaries in formulation. With my skincare formulations, I ask, "How can I pack as many antioxidants, like brightening agents, to intensely nourish or hydrate, and what's going to increase that cellular regeneration?"

The holistic component comes from my heritage. My family is from the Kowloon Peninsula (in Hong Kong). I'm from California, but I spent every single summer in Kowloon. I was very immersed in the whole medicinal world of herbs. Every family has their own tried and true herbal broth recipe. There is a communal area where families have their bowls set out. Each one has this dark, ominous-looking liquid that's been steeped with all of these beautiful medicinal barks and berries, herbs. It's a beautiful offering that each family can present to the community. Everyone takes a moment for themselves to take in this beautiful healing broth. So that's where my love of holistic and complementary natural therapies comes into play.

I loved going to school in New York because it's just such a dynamic, diverse population. We had professors from Shanghai, doctors of traditional Chinese medicine, come and teach us courses on natural and complementary medicine, traditional Chinese medicine. So I am very fortunate to have that training, and I definitely bring that into my formulation.

The Origins of the Blue Tansy Balm

Renee Trepagnier: How did you get started with Lanativ?
Megan Eng: I moved back to California and stopped working as a pharmacist after COVID. I just wanted to take a step back. I wanted to try a different realm of the world of medicine. First, I started working in supply chain. That really brought a different perspective on sourcing, which plays a huge part in my business, Lanativ. But I really missed being able to connect with people, being able to nurture and provide that level of service and physical connection with patients. So, I started Lanativ in late 2022 with just one product, the Concentrated Sleeping Cream, which is a raw cacao and blue tansy balm. If I can give one product to somebody that transforms and heals their skin, it would be this. I had no idea if people would respond to it, if people would even like it. I launched with my website, direct to consumer, and slowly orders started to come in. It really started to take off when I did physical popups. I was doing maker's markets, finding stores that resonated with me, and sharing my story. I slowly started to find this community that truly cared about dynamic, clean, powerful ingredients.

I'm so in love with everything about this blue tansy balm. Starting from the packaging, the glass jars are sourced from Italy, but everything else is done locally and with intention. The screen printing (for the jars) is done right here in Los Angeles. The box is printed by Doug in North Hollywood. Doug, a master of his craft, uses original Heidelberg printing presses from Germany, passed down from his father. These machines have slower processing times and slower run times, which means smaller batches. This is a perfect match for my needs because the product contains no preservatives and no synthetic stabilizers, so we only make about 100 jars at a time.  

It took me one year to find all the right sources for the ingredients, especially the raw cacao and blue tansy. Having worked in supply chain, I understood the importance of purity and grade. For example, the base of the blue tansy balm is raw cacao. There are a million raw cacao suppliers in the world, but the raw cacao that we use is truly the best. I source the raw cacao from Ora Cacao, which has a processing factory in Samoa. They use direct trade, which is even better than fair trade. They support and partner with these small organic regenerative farms to produce this very minimally processed raw cacao. You can tell just looking at it, the purity of it, the color, the odor of it. There are so many deodorized and highly processed cacao products that are completely white and devoid of all those beautiful omegas and cocoa polyphenols. But that's where the magic is.

The reason why the Concentrated Sleeping Cream is this beautiful blue color is that we use copious amounts of blue tansy oil. Essentially, chemical composition of blue tansy helps restore balance, soothe stressed skin, and promote a healthy, radiant complexion, all without harsh chemicals. I am obsessed with phytonutrient profiles. The blue tansy that we use has a chamazulene component, which is the holy grail chemical constituent that is anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and increases cellular regeneration. That's where sourcing comes into play. The blue tansy that we use has a chamazulene content that's way over 10%. The industry standard is 5 to 10%. 

The lavender, which is my third favorite ingredient, is from Donna's Bayless Botanicals Lavender Ranch in Buellton County in Northern California. For all these years, this woman has dedicated her life to producing the most beautiful pure lavender. I love to be able to work with and support these artisans, these masters of the craft.

With my blue tansy balm, there's no water, there's no starches or fillers. A lot of formulations are 60 to 80% filler-heavy base. Their first ingredient is water (aqua), followed by thickeners and starches, like arrowroot starch, which does nothing for your skin. It is just a cheap way to make more of the product. That's why I created my brand, Lanativ, because there are so many beauty products out there, but there was still a gap for something that's jam-packed with nutrients, super potent, and that isn't full of fillers.

Using the Blue Tansy Balm

Renee Trepagnier: How do you use the blue tansy balm?
Megan Eng: The consistency is solid because all of those beautiful plant butters and oils are solid at room temperature. As you warm it up with your natural body heat, it becomes this beautiful oil. The reason I call this a Concentrated Sleeping Cream is that during pharmacy school, I learned about chrononutrition, a field of study that examines how the timing of food intake influences the body's circadian rhythm (internal clock), metabolism, and overall well-being. It's geared towards metabolic diseases to maximize the phytonutrient profiles of individuals and get the maximum benefit out of their food and medicine. I wanted to bring that into formulation because the timing of when we feed our skin also makes a big difference. Our skin has its own circadian rhythm. All of these ingredients, especially blue tansy oil, specifically work at night to increase those metabolic pathways in our skin that increase cellular regeneration, collagen, and cellular turnover. You can also use it in the daytime, but you are going to see the most effect overnight.

Sourcing Sandalwood Sustainably

Renee Trepagnier: I have some of your Hawaiian Sandalwood & Juniper Soap. Tell me about the sandalwood you use in that soap.  
Megan Eng: Thank you so much for asking. Sandalwood is so "in" and there is a lot of synthetic sandalwood out there. If you go to Target, any deodorant, any cream, any spray, any fragrance, it's all synthetic sandalwood. This beautiful sandalwood is sustainably harvested from fallen sandalwood trees in Hawaii. I'm all about the rejuvenation and the regeneration of the skin. We need that with all the pollution and the mental and physical stress that we go through. We need a product that is rich in antioxidants, like sandalwood. It doesn't strip the skin of its natural oils. I use it at night to remove all my makeup and the oil accumulated throughout the day. It was challenging to find a soap that doesn't completely remove my natural oils, as those are essential for healthy skin. I am also very prone to cystic acne. I noticed that as I approached 30, the more I used harsh, abrasive chemical soaps, the worse my skin's health became. That’s where the Hawaiian Sandalwood & Juniper Soap came into play because it is so gentle and nourishing.

How Megan Cares for Herself

Renee Trepagnier: I always like to ask people: How do you think about self-care, and what do you do to care for yourself?
Megan Eng: Self-care for me is the nourishing: what you're eating, what you're drinking. Are you sweating? Are you getting enough rest? How's your mental health? We are so stressed in this day and time, and the emotional stress probably has a lot more impact than the physical stress, even. When I have noticeably heavy eye bags, I take a step back. I will go on a walk with my dog on my favorite hiking trail in Sierra Madre, which is close to where I grew up. Or I will book myself an appointment with one of my favorite aestheticians. I've really fallen in love with natural facial sculpting with lymphatic drainage. The aestheticians that I go to use the Concentrated Sleeping Cream because the blue tansy balm works well as a gliding base for sculpting, gripping, and toning. And that reset, that release of taking a moment to breathe and to slow down, it makes a huge difference. I always do that when I want to treat myself or want to calm myself down.

I also turn off all my screens by 6 PM if I know that I need to get a good night's sleep. As you know, being a small business owner sometimes, not sometimes, every day it just doesn't stop, and you're on the computer, you're on your phone, you're responding to questions. I've found the balance is hard, but you need to do it for yourself.