Conversations Unplugged
with Amitay Eshel
Young Goose spent five years in research before launching in 2020, but the company almost immediately had to reinvent itself. Founder Amitay Eshel originally envisioned a physician-focused brand built around emerging longevity science, only to see that strategy disrupted when the world shut down shortly after launch. What began as a difficult pivot ultimately helped shape Young Goose into a skincare company focused on applying concepts from cellular aging, mitochondrial function, and repair directly to the skin. In this conversation with STEMREGEN Founder and Chief Science Officer Christian Drapeau, Amitay explains how that philosophy continues to evolve.
Amitay Eshel
Amitay describes skin optimization through three pillars: performance, resilience, and slow aging. Performance is how the skin looks and behaves today. Resilience is its ability to respond to challenges such as UV exposure, environmental stress, or hormonal changes. Slow aging focuses on preserving function over time. Rather than pursuing one of those goals at the expense of the others, Amitay says Young Goose develops its products around supporting all three. That approach grew from an early realization that simply supplying the skin with an ingredient was not enough; the company also needed to think about how repair is signaled and supported.
That philosophy is now driving one of Young Goose’s newest topical products, built around platelet-derived exosomes. Amitay describes exosomes as biological “envelopes” that carry information, which means their source and contents matter. His team focused specifically on those derived from platelets because of the role platelets play around areas of tissue injury and repair. The formulation presented at the conference contains 50 billion exosomes per application, according to Amitay, but developing it required more than simply adding them to a conventional skincare formula. Changes in temperature, pH, and surrounding ingredients can affect the formulation, leading the team to spend months developing a stable gel and complementary ingredients that could support the skin barrier.
For Amitay, the more important question is ultimately whether those ideas translate into measurable changes in people. He says Young Goose is conducting in vivo research alongside proteomics testing and assessments related to mitochondrial function, while also studying how its formulations behave after production rather than relying solely on laboratory assumptions. It reflects the same mindset that has guided the company since its earliest experiments: start with emerging science, test what actually happens in the skin, and keep refining the formula around the results. As longevity science continues moving into skincare, Amitay wants the evidence behind the finished product to matter as much as the ingredients printed on the label.
