About us

Meet the Founder

Nilufar Rahimova, MPharm, PhD

Master and Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan)

Postdoctoral Training, Departments of Pharmacology and Rheumatology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

At the department of Pharmacology we have been working on finding new therapeutic targets for triple-negative breast cancers and androgen-independent prostate cancer.

We identified potential candidates (the top candidate was PKCa protein) that drive PD-LI upregulation in both aggressive cancers.

We found that some cell lines respond to PD-L1 suppression, which is an immunotherapy target. The elevated levels of this protein and all downstream in this pathway can be the main reason why many patients don't respond to immunotherapy. This can also be used as a diagnostic tool to predict the patients who will respond and the success rate. The manuscripts are in preparation.

In the Department of Rheumatology, I was in charge of researching the biological reasons for a genetic TREX1 mutation that leads to the deadly rare genetic disease of RVCL. We designed several small-molecule inhibitors and CRIPR-Cas 9 gene editing systems as potential treatment options for current patients at University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

 

Why have I started NILCEUTICA?

How did you even start making your own skincare, and why?

The question I get a lot!

In 2012, I was a first-year master's student at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan.

It was my first winter in Japan and winters in Kyoto can be very unforgiving and cold to the bone. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides, which gives it the particular quality of having very hot summers and very chilly winters.

I always had very dry skin, dry as a newspaper, like my sister liked saying.

It used to chap and bleed in my hands and cheeks during the cold winter.

I was 22 then, so I figured it was the time to get some nice moisturizer since cleansing and toning weren’t enough anymore.

 So, I went on the hunt for a face cream!

In Japan, they like giving free samples to cute European-looking girls, so I got many samples of the most iconic Japanese brands and others, even La Mer.

 

I tried them all one by one and was really puzzled. Either they didn’t moisturize, or I didn’t like how my face looked after applying; they made me look dull.

Some irritated my skin, and most felt like I was putting water on my face that evaporated immediately after applying, leaving me even more dry.

So, I decided to do what I'd been trained to do best: research. I started reading and thought, well, I am a pharmacist. Why not try making my own?

I found a small French store that sold organic oils and hydrosols and the smell was amazing.

On my first order, they gave me a hand spa with essential oils, which made me want to sing Fred Astaire's “I Am in Heaven.”

I remember it like yesterday; it took me two weeks to read, research, gather the ingredients, and make my first face cream emulsion with organic oils, butter, hydrosols, and essential oils. I was so amazed by the results and shocked that big-name companies couldn’t make what I made in less than a month. Surely, they have many scientists on board. It made me think that probably the reason was that most of those companies at the time were run by male CEOs who had never actually tried their own skincare.

Since then, it has become my hobby and obsession.

NILCEUTICA is the culmination of my life's hobby!

With NILCEUTICA, I want to make a difference and raise people's expectations of their skincare products.

The formulations have evolved over those 12 years to be high-performance because skincare needs change with age.

I have ten years of experience studying and working in Ivy League universities doing wet-lab biomedical research. I am using that knowledge and skills to formulate products for NILCEUTICA.

At NILCEUTICA, we utilize all the most significant advancements in cosmetic science so far using growth factors, phyto-retinols, standardized and stabilized extracts, high-performance cosmeceuticals, and advanced formulations like multi-lamellar emulsion that mimics the lipid bilayer of the human skin to increase absorption and provide long-term benefits.

All my formulations are made for myself, family, and friends, and when you do something for yourself and your loved ones, you use all the best ingredients and never compromise quality over price.

I also strongly believe in the freshness of a cosmetic product, so everything is made in small batches.

 

 

 

Some of my notes from the Caspian Post article about NILCEUTICA:

What makes NILCEUTICA unique? 

• I have ten years of experience studying and working in Ivy League universities doing wet-lab biomedical research. I am using that knowledge and skills to formulate products for NILCEUTICA with high absorption rates. At NILCEUTICA, we utilize all the most significant advancements in cosmetic science so far using growth factors, phyto-retinols, standardized and stabilized extracts, high-performance cosmeceuticals, and advanced formulations like multi-lamellar emulsion that mimics the lipid bilayer of the human skin to increase absorption and provide long-term benefits. 

• All the formulations have been formulated for myself, my family, and my friends as a case study.

•  Friends had a skin problem. I worked on a solution.

• I have a very dry and sensitive skin. Had I not had this problem, NILCEUTICA wouldn't be here now.

• My colleague from CHOP, with whom we worked on a collaborative project about Netosis and RVCL, had very acne-prone skin and would break out from everything she ate or drank or if she had a stressful day.

I have never suffered from acne, but thanks to a friend who had that problem and was willing to try my products, my Tight and Bright 55% cosmeceutical serum also benefits people with acne-prone skin.

• It has recently become a popular one-component skincare product. I don't like that concept because one would need 5-6 products to get all the benefits the skin needs.

When you do that, you expose yourself to a higher dose of preservative than you would otherwise if you used only one product with all those components.

I also don't have time for that. 

• Two of my bestsellers Hyaluron 3D Hydrator and Tight and Bright are all-in-one products that treat several signs of skin concerns and aging and replace 5-6 serums due to clinically tested concentrations of the active ingredients and penetration enhancers that further increase the absorption of actives.

• When I finished those two formulations my business mentor told me it would be too expensive to sell and it would be wise to divide them into 2-4  products. I didn’t do that because then I would lose my purpose I had for NILCEUTICA.

• In-house manufacturing: we have in-house manufacturing, which gives us full control over the quality of each ingredient and the sourcing. It also lets us make small batches, which means every customer receives the freshest product possible. It allows us to customize the products and improve the formulas if necessary.

• Concentrated products that last for a long time as we believe in sustainability and eco-friendly, waterless formulations.

• It may be shocking, but most skincare products contain up to 90% distilled water. You will never find distilled water in our products! We learned this when we did an extensive competitor research analysis with my business mentor.