Meet the enchanting and intelligent Chase Polan, the mastermind and founder behind the beautiful skincare Kypris formulas.
Where are you from?
I primarily grew up in a small beach town in southern Florida though I also spent a good amount of time in the Colorado mountains, my grandparent’s farm in West Virginia, and in New York City.
What made you want to start a beauty line?
I founded KYPRIS upon the truth that feeling beautiful is a birthright. I wanted to create a positive experience of Beauty, one that centered around wellness and care and science and delight. When we take time to properly care for ourselves, the joy we feel infuses our wellbeing and days, resonates throughout our families and communities, and exponentially enhances our quality of life. I want this for myself, and I want this for people.
Beauty is a vital spiritual experience of Love, acceptance, and pleasure.
What’s the best part of your job?
I love the opportunity to create and embody the change I hope to see in the world. There is ample science indicating the multitude of benefits - physical, psychological, and immunological - of quality self-care which includes a connection to Nature. We are Nature. So I mean Nature within and out. Beauty. Soul. Science. One of the founding principles of KYPRIS. You can find it woven throughout the brand. Everywhere.
The weeks, months, and years even that go into finding or cultivating just the right sources is part of the art. A voluptuous rose essential oil from a specific woman-owned, biodynamic farm half the world away to soften and tone skin. Sparkly, golden indigenous prickly pear seed oil wildcrafted from the high desert in our Arizona backyard. Vegan, biomimetic, $300k-per-kilogram, twice-encapsulated plumping and conditioning peptides from a boutique laboratory. We are "glocal" in practice.
I love translating KYPRIS's fundamental principles of connection with Nature, ecstatic renewal, and green science into offerings for unparalleled benefits to skin and a delicious experience of your divinely unique Beauty.
Who / what do you draw inspiration from?
I drink in art, Nature, history, our community, science, their interdependence, and the work of experts like Dr. Esther Sternberg whose research connects Nature’s benefits to healing and how creating healing spaces and experiences can resolve a host of ills and elicit an array of benefits science is just beginning to understand; the late Dr. Candace Pert whose research connects bliss in the body to a modulated immune system and improved psychological and physical well-being; Dr. Shamini Jain whose work on the biofield and healing proves the consciousness with which we approach ourselves and our lives is vital to living well; Bill McKibben whose respect for sustainable supply chain and its relationship to our collective well-being inspires several of our sourcing practices; Dr. Vandana Shiva, the environmental and farming activist whose work promotes the importance of local farming, seed saving, and the democratization of agriculture; the Jewish tradition of ritual visits to the mikveh, one of the first recorded ecstatic practices; the opulent and renewing delight of basking in a fragrant hammam; the relationship between nature and beauty and math as described by Fibonacci and Hypatia. And so much more
Are there any influential women in your early years who taught you about beauty?
Women in their multi-facetiousness astound and inspire me, but to be more specific...
• My experience many years ago with Eileen Ford and her agency team instilled a duty in me to further a positive conversation around Beauty.
• Georgette Klinger and her holistic approach to beauty in her spas. I can still smell the herbs and sweet wax emanating through her spa.
• The young women I worked with in my educational consultancy, my first company.
• My girlfriends and the women in my family.
• The aestheticians who bring an educated, healing experience of beauty to women everywhere every day. The consultants who earn the trust of their patrons and teach us how to best enjoy being ourselves.
• Women who are differently abled due to acute illness or chronic conditions. I hope no matter who I meet I can greet them lovingly in whatever octave or chapter of life they're living. My deepest intent through KYPRIS is there to always be something for everyone no matter what is physically going on.
• KYPRIS got its start in the natural and integrative medical community. Our first clients were doctors and their patients. It is really important to me that KYPRIS always cater to people in a fragile moment or who are over all extra sensitive. My sincerest intent is no matter what someone is dealing with physically, they will find suitable care within our selection of offerings.
• Mothers and caregivers inspire me. The endless work of caring for another and a heart that holds love-multiplied fills me with hope.
• The spiritual urge - owned and disowned - of women everywhere who recognize they are each a unique expression of the divine and a sensual creature.
What’s your daily skincare routine?
In the morning, I cleanse with our Cleanser Concentrate, create my microemulsion with Antioxidant Dew, Clearing Serum, and Beauty Elixir depending upon what my skin desires for the day, apply my Pot of Shade, curl my eyelashes, and off I go.
At night, especially after a long day, I love cleansing my skin, putting on a mask - right now I'm loving the Deep Forest Clay mid-week, soaking in a salty tub, with a little reading, rinsing everything off and then while my skin is still wet I will slather myself from limb to heart in Body Elixir Inflorescence and apply Moonlight Catalyst and Beauty Elixir II: Healing Bouquet to my face and neck. The extra on my hands I massage into my scalp and ends of my hair.
The aromatherapy and ritual of it all lulls me into the sweetest dreams.
What is one thing you do on a less than awesome day to stay an upbeat and positive leader?
I do my best to focus on what IS working and what I'm grateful for: the ability to be a lifelong student; that I get to spend my days working on projects I adore with people I admire, like, respect, and generously educate me on an ongoing basis; my best friend, my husband; my girlfriends; my little brother; the uniquely human capacity to pleasure in the sensation of air moving over my skin; the fragility and resilience of Nature; that the moon smiles upon us all....... no matter how believable the ruse of separateness, we are not alone and in this together; the experience of Beauty is one gesture away, one realization, one refocusing of one's attention.
Gratitude highlights what is solid, what is working, what is real, what is worth keeping and growing. With gratitude also comes the clarity of what must lovingly be let go. Gratitude keeps healthy movement and reorganization and evolution supple.
Do you have any non-beauty rituals that make you feel good?
My loving self-care rituals include scheduled time to read, write, meditate, pray, move, and indulge my curiosities. This ritual constitutes the first three plus hours of most of my days. When I can, I prefer time with only myself and my work until lunch time. Similarly, I eat cleanly - meaning organic and local as much as possible. Grocery shopping at farms and farmers’ markets are two of my favorite errands. Interpersonally? Hugs!
Last but not least, what’s your everyday Credo?
Delight in Being you. 
