"Have you ever gotten frostbite?"
That is often the first question I get when I tell folks that I climb in high places.
The answer is yes, and no, it was not on my fingers and toes, the usual suspects, but on my face. Cue dramatic gasp.
After climbing through the night, I was on the final ridge leading to the summit of Mount Everest. Just another hour to go, and I would be on the Hillary Step, and then fist pumps on the roof of the world. Unfortunately, I am cursed in all things mechanical, and my oxygen system decided to fail me. Imagine trying to sprint and take in giant gulps of air with a plastic bag over your head. Except you're in the dark, balancing on a precipice half a foot wide. That's pretty much how it feels like when your supplementary oxygen suddenly runs out at over 8,000m in the death zone.
I yanked off my oxygen mask and balaclava, and spent the next 45 minutes in howling wind and sub-zero temperatures trying to de-ice the regulator and calling in cosmic favors. The former didn't work, but the latter did, and one of the Sherpa guides I knew from base camp climbed up past me, and casually offered me his oxygen set up since he happened to not be using it anyway. Such is the physical prowess of these incredible humans, that a summit day on Mount Everest was nothing more than a walk with a slightly elevated heart rate.
I made it up and down the summit. Fist pumps on the roof of the world happened. Safely back and warmed up in a tent 24 hours later, my face was on fire. The 45 minutes I had spent without my protective head gear had basically caused the skin on my face to freeze, and the efforts of my blood vessels to get sustenance back into the dying tissue was like having red ants crawl all over my face, stinging as they went.
Eventually, huge swaths of my cheeks blistered, turned a dead and dying brown, and horrified each of the three dermatologists I consulted when I returned home. 
Here is a photo of me, at the Rum Doodle restaurant in Kathmandu, Nepal. Successful summiteers on Everest get to sign their names on the wall, but more enticingly, get to eat for free at the Doodle for life. Note the angry patches of dead skin on my face that would eventually blister, peel, and remain stubbornly brown and splotchy for close to half a year.
Ever since that frostbite incident, the skin on my face has never been the same. I was told that damage was done beyond the superficial layers of skin to penetrate deep down, and I would always have extra sensitivity. When it is slightly colder and drier out, my cheeks turn an angry red. A little extra sun, and it's like little needles pricking me. The problem was that I was still climbing extensively in said cold, dry, and high UV exposure environments.
On Denali, Alaska, a year after that frostbite incident. The affected patches of skin would always be darker and more sensitive than the rest of my face.
Out of necessity, I started researching skincare ingredients, badgered my dermatologist for product recommendations, and obsessively lugged an unholy amount of skincare products up and down every successive mountain I climbed. I wasn't about to give up my love for adventure, but I didn't exactly want to go through life looking like a permanent burn victim either.
Years later in my corporate career, I became a biotechnology investor and got really excited by probiotic fermentation as a production technology to increase the functionality and bioavailability of plant-based ingredients. I was intrigued by the potential application to skincare, and especially as a means to replace petroleum-derived chemicals that are prevalent in mass-market skincare. It might come as a surprise that the black sludge we extract from the earth gets refined into gasoline for our cars, and further downstream into molecules that go into household cleaning solvents and skincare ingredients. Thank you very much, but I would pass on putting that on my face.
I wanted to make skincare with clean, plant-based ingredients, and more importantly, it had to focus on the needs of women who put their bodies and skin under stress through exercise and consistent environmental exposure. As I developed the formulations with our team of skin scientists, I tested each prototype myself on climbs in the Himalayas, and on surf trips in Indonesia. We spent over a year refining the formulations and sourcing only the best, sustainably produced botanical ingredients.
Stoke Skincare came together as an ode to my love of adventure, science, and a no bullish*t approach to product design. However you find your stoke, I am excited for you to take us along with you.
xoxo,
Jane
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