Years of prescription treatments couldn’t fully clear Cal Poly alumnus Julia Kelley’s acne. But after an especially frustrating breakout, her dermatologist suggested a simple solution: pumpkin seed oil.
After two months of applying it twice daily, her acne had completely cleared. Now, nearly two years later, Kelley launched her company PumpSkin with two face oils designed and produced in her kitchen.
PumpSkin launched its first two products in August 2023 – the morning and evening facial oils. While the concept revolves around the inclusion of pumpkin seed, Kelley researched and spent months developing the recipe to include numerous other vitamin-rich ingredients. PumpSkin’s motto — “Wear Your Vitamins” — reflects her hope to alleviate reliance on oral supplements to ensure people get nutrients in more natural ways.
She was in awe of how this bottle of liquid she found in the grocery aisle worked a practical miracle on her skin. But even more so, she was in awe that little to no skin care products included pumpkin seed oil. She said a lot of her motivation to develop this product stemmed from “the emotional side of having to deal with acne.”
“It is so personal, it’s your face,” Kelley said. “Having a clear face just has always made me more confident about myself, so I wanted to share what I thought was an easy, clean way to get rid of acne after struggling with it for a long time.”
Kelley graduated from Cal Poly in 2021 with a degree in biomedical engineering and now works as a clinical account specialist at Biosense Webster. Because her job offers her flexibility with her schedule, Kelley started looking for a new endeavor to pursue.
Armed with an idea and no knowledge on how to create a company, Kelley took to YouTube tutorials and advice from friends to get through the months of paperwork required to establish a legal entity.
She wrote down all the questions she had on sticky notes and accumulated a haphazard business plan through these to-do and to-know items.
“There’s a lot of days that are hard and frustrating and feel like, you know, it’s not going to work and you’re not sure,” Kelley said.
For branding, she enlisted the help of Tinka Peterka – a graphic designer, PumpSkin user and a friend since middle school. The skin care industry typically caters to women, with feminine packaging, but Kelley wanted to make sure that this wasn’t the case.
“I know skin care is not as prevalent of a regimen for guys as it is for girls,” Kelley said. “And that was actually part of my thought process when I was thinking about the design.”
According to Peterka, the vision for the packaging she got after a consultation with Kelley was something timeless, gender neutral and with transparency about the ingredients. With this in mind, she began creating the branding seen on the PumpSkin products today.
Peterka uses the morning and evening oils along with sunscreen in her limited skin care routine. She said her skin is pretty sensitive to most skin care products and she has a combination skin type (meaning different areas are more oily or more dry), but PumpSkin has been really nice to use.
Sea buckthorn berry has been her favorite skin care ingredient for a while and she loves that the morning oil includes that in the recipe.
In the spirit of transparency, Kelley included an ingredients page on her website outlining ingredient names, vitamins and what they do for the user’s skin. These include pumpkin seed oil, sea buckthorn berry oil, raspberry seed oil, grape seed oil, apricot kernel oil and rose hip oil.
Having a background in science shone through in Kelley’s trials to create the serum. Peterka feels Kelley truly understands how the product works on a deeper level.
“I think [the company’s transparency] really gives people more agency and empowers people to make decisions about what they’re buying instead of just buying what’s advertised to them,” Peterka said. “Because they have a better understanding of what it’s actually doing to their skin.”
After researching her ‘miracle’ ingredient pumpkin seed oil, Kelley found its properties to reduce the appearance of acne, provide UV protection, slow aging, increase collagen production and overall improve skin hydration.
Through all of the ups and downs of the company, Kelley has learned so much from just being willing to try. Encouragement from her family, friends and sorority sisters from her time at Cal Poly kept her going through the journey of creating her own business.
Even more so, she wants to show that it is possible to create a company when someone is passionate about the product, adding that self-belief and giving yourself grace during the processes are key components to succeeding.
Kelley said the ‘Learn by Doing’ mindset is what got her to this point with the company, so she hopes that students will take PumpSkin as proof that students are equipped with everything they need to make an idea work.
“I hope if anything, this will make someone at Cal Poly feel inspired to just work on their idea,” Kelley said. “And just try because that was something I think now looking back I wish I had felt motivated to just try in college.”