Highly accoladed entrepreneur Dr. Barbara Paldus is the founder of Codex Labs, a biotech company grounded in science that produces groundbreaking products that have clinically proven skincare benefits. Barbara has been awarded 40 U.S. patents and numerous prizes in science and has earned her place as a voice of authority in the clean beauty space. I recently had the privilege to speak with her about her extraordinary line and learn more about her journey.
Barbara, you have quite an impressive background. Could you tell us more about yourself and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a global citizen and speak five languages fluently. I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. I’m a serial entrepreneur and have started two companies that have a combined value of over $400M. I have also funded about a dozen in various industries. My focus today is on health problems, ranging from equipment to make cell therapy accessible, to female nutrition during pregnancy, to hair health in children with textured hair, and finally, my own company, Codex Labs, that is focused on skin conditions starting with eczema, acne, rosacea and psoriasis.
What was your eureka moment, when you knew that it was the time in your life, and in the market, to start your own brand and make your own products?
It was in college at Waterloo in Canada, in my junior year. I visited a few graduate schools with my parents. This was back in 1992, before Google, Facebook, Open AI, Nvidia, and Amazon were even in the imaginations of their founders. Cell phones were for the privileged few, and email was a curiosity at universities. We all used paper maps. Stanford-Silicon Valley made a huge impression on me, especially the Hewlett Packard company, Intel and Apple. These were companies that created technologies that were changing the world. The aha moment was that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was smitten.
What are your top selling products from the Codex Labs collection?
Did you know that the combination of topical and supplements can generate up to three times the improvement of a topical or supplement alone? There is amazing synergy between our skin and our gut. We are excited that we can clear skin and provide relief from the inside out. These are our top-selling products are our skin and gut systems for eczema and acne:
For eczema, this is our Bia Eczema Relief lotion, Bia Unscented Soap. For our supplements it is Antu Skin Barrier Support, Bia GuBuilder Prebiotic and Bia ClearSkin probiotic.
For acne, this is our 5% Shaant Sulphur Spot Hero, our 2% Salicylic Acid Shaant Face or body scrubs. For supplements it is Shaant ClearSkin Probiotic and Shaant Skin De-stress Hormone Rebalancing Powder.
What sets Codex Labs apart from other brands and who is your target customer?
Our target customers are people who suffer from a skin condition. Our most advanced solutions are for eczema (or atopic dermatitis) and acne. We are working on rosacea for 2026 and psoriasis for 2027. Our customers are all genders and ethnicities, ranging in age from 3 months to 98 years. Our key differentiator is we look at skin conditions simultaneously from the inside. This includes systemic inflammation, the gut barrier, the gut microbiome, as well as the brain and hormones. We also carefully look from the outside which incorporates the skin barrier, the skin microbiome and inflammation. Very soon, we will launch an integrative teledermatology platform that provides testing and providers with a whole body and root cause perspective. You can say that for skin conditions, we go full circle on the what, the why and the how.
Your Gut My Acne Set is quite innovative. Could you please tell elaborate what these products do and the importance of the SHAANT ClearSkin Probiotic?
The Shaant Face Scrub clears pores and helps reduce comedones and pimples without harming the skin microbiome or dehydrating. Our Shaant Spot Hero significantly reduces blemishes in 24 hours and mostly clears them in three days with 5% colloidal sulphur and fruit acids so you help skin turnover without an aggressive treatment, which is ideal for sensitive or female adult skin. And you don’t have to worry about benzene!
The Shaant ClearSkin probiotic helps not only rebalance your microbiome, but the green tea extracts boost immunity while the guggul helps support lipid metabolism, so that we help balance hormones, and most importantly, improve the gut barrier integrity and gut immunity. What does this all do? It reduces general inflammation and hormone imbalance from stress and eating a diet high in saturated fats. This means we attack some of the root causes for acne from the inside, and in fact, this supplement can reduce pimples and comedones by 49% in 8 weeks, as our medical advisors just published.
Having a vast knowledge and experience in beauty and wellness do you have any top tips you swear by?
Sleep, daily exercise, and hydration. They sound so simple and yet they are so hard to do consistently. I try to drink at least three liters of fluids (water, coffee, tea, etc.) a day and walk at least 10,000 steps a day, preferably around trees and greenery. Sleep is key, so I’ve upped the amount I sleep from about 4-5 hours a day to 6. It has made a big difference!
Anything else we should know?
Stress. We all have it, and sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse. The key is to try to reduce your cortisol. No matter how bad it gets, I always tell myself to be grateful for still being alive and being able to watch my son grow up. And petting my cats, who often get so excited that they bite me. Finally, deep breathing. The best break is just to sit in a grounded way and take 5-6 deep breaths. The stress may still be there waiting for me, but at least I got a micro-break, and I can go back to the fight with a smile. It might sound trivial or stupid, but it works.
Elevate your skincare routine at https://www.codexlabscorp.com/
