How I Founded KLEOS+KLEA, the Cleanest Skincare Line

It Started With My Greek Grandmother

Tammy Demos still remembers the first time she realized the power of plants to create beauty products. As a nine-year-old visiting family in Greece, she has a core memory of walking through a cypress grove with her maternal grandmother. Her Yiayia picked cones off the trees, brought them home, and made soap and candles.

Tammy remembers thinking: "Nature is amazing. Plants have so much to offer." It was this philosophy she would return to years later, harnessing the power of plants to create the cleanest skincare line she could create.

Many years later, in 2019, Tammy found herself in Colorado, stressed, divorced, raising four kids, and with skin that was a total wreck. "It was dull and dehydrated, with fine lines, rosacea, hyperpigmentation, and dark splotches. Not a good look for someone in the beauty industry," Tammy recalls. Her self-esteem plummeted.

She'd been thinking about opening a greenhouse to supply plant ingredients to beauty companies, but the timing wasn't right. After co-founding two beauty companies with her ex (CosMedix and Osmosis), Tammy wasn't looking to do it again.

But her skin was a disaster. She tried an elimination diet and got rid of all her beauty products to avoid toxins and chemicals. While traveling, she paid close attention to what aestheticians were using and realized that skincare was the same everywhere.

“I became disenchanted with what the world of ingredients (from a lab-derived ingredients) had to offer. There was nothing I hadn't tried before. I had no choice but to turn my back on it all. That was a very lonely and scary place. What's next? Only plants were left for me to try and learn about".

It was a let down that forced her to create her own way of treating her skin using plants. She decided to return to her roots and go all-natural. She snipped a leaf off an aloe vera plant, applied the gel to her skin, and within days, it looked and felt better.

"Plants do the same things for our bodies as they do in nature,” Tammy explains. The polyphenols in plants give them color while also protecting them from the damaging rays of the sun. When we apply these pigments or polyphenols directly to our skin they act as antioxidants and protect our skin from the sun. When we eat polyphenols, they act as antioxidants within our cells in our bodies.”

She began adding other plant ingredients to her routine. This was the start of her journey to launching the most natural skin line possible, full of plant ingredients, and free of chemicals, synthetic ingredients, and preservatives. She called it Kleos + Klea, an homage to her Greek heritage.

The Cleanest Beauty System, Period

Just by getting rid of all the products she had been using before, her skin started to look better.

“I had always used clean skincare so I wasn't applying toxins. But now I understand that just because an ingredient isn't toxic doesn't mean that its actually good for your skin,” she explains. “Texturizers, stabilizers, thickening agents and preservatives may not be ‘toxic’ but I now believe that they create work for the skin. Work equals aging, sensitivity, and thinning skin.”

Once her skin was on the mend, she researched every potential natural ingredient she could find. For the next few years, she traveled the world, learning from beauty experts and aestheticians.

"Through research and conversations with experts, I learned what really worked,”she says. “I incorporated plants that were organically grown and had the nutrient profile I was looking for. I couldn't use the same ingredients and do it the same way I had with previous companies and make something completely different. From the get-go, everything about this line is different. I believe it’s truly holistic.”

This was the culmination of a life spent helping people live healthier lives, from her early days as a nutrition and fitness coach to her own spiritual practices. Now, she was harnessing nature's power to create the cleanest natural beauty products out there.

From Greece to Clean Beauty

As a girl, Tammy never dreamed of being a beauty founder. She wanted to be a doctor. "I was the first in my family to leave home for college," Tammy recalls. She left Denver to go out of state for college. "I was eager to become a doctor, to help people."

Now, decades later, her background in biology and chemistry led her back to the natural ingredients she grew up with. She experimented with plants from her garden and her travels.

"I was lucky to visit aestheticians in Cambodia, Thailand, Dubai, Europe, and Asia. Everywhere I went, I found skincare products there that had similar ingredients (if not identical) to the skincare we use here. There was nothing new, nothing promising.”

So she decided to create something new. She started with the inherent healing powers of plants with various benefits: Papaya and pineapple (with enzymes and nutrients that help skin heal), organic Hawthorn berry, organic Goji berry, honey, Gotu Kola leaves, Yucca root, and more.

Each ingredient in the four Kleos + Klea products contains vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, amino acids, natural oils, and nutrients that help fight sun damage and aging. They are rich in vitamin E, vitamin C and vitamin A along with manganese and folate among other natural nutrients. “The list goes on and on. I discovered that nutrients create the changes we desire in skin, not chemicals made in a lab.”

KLEOS+KLEA Is Nutrition for your Skin

Kleos+Klea delivers powerful natural ingredients that nourish skin to accelerate healing, and promote a firmer, clearer complexion.

“Kleos+Klea is like nutrition for your skin,” Tammy says. “It’s no surprise that I needed vitamins and minerals, considering I was a nearly 50-year-old woman not eating enough, and not getting anywhere close to the amount of daily vitamins and minerals my skin needed. Many women are in this situation. Kleos+Klea is like a green juice for your skin.”

Her new line of fully natural beauty products, Kleos+Klea, is the most natural, luxurious skincare system she could create, using actual ingredients from nature, not the synthetic versions or chemically altered and genetically homogenized ingredients that have been stripped of their ability to be useful.

“Most beauty products on the market use synthetics to mimic natural ingredients, and those synthetics or highly processed ingredients have been so stripped of their efficacy as to be nothing like what’s found in nature,” she explains.

“It’s like taking a synthetic vitamin,” she adds. “Most vItamins should not even be called vitamins. Once they have been reformulated as pills, they have lost almost all of their efficacy.” The same is true in beauty products.

From Kitchen Counter to Beauty Founder

Before trying out the new skin products she was cooking up in her kitchen, Tammy recalls her then-teenage daughter saying, “Mom, you have so many lines.” Just a few weeks of using her new home-made beauty products, the compliments started rolingl in. One male friend caught her by surprise. He told her, “Wow, your skin looks amazing!”

“I knew I had to share my story and success with other women,” Tammy explains. “What nature has to offer surprised even me. These natural ingredients achieved what all of the chemically derived ingredients were proven to do, but better!”

“Skincare should prioritize skin health, using ingredients that are nutritious and organic. That’s exactly what I set out to achieve. I took control of my skin health by ditching traditional products in favor of plant-based solutions from Mother Earth. Now others can do the same.”

A Personal Journey of Discovery

So much of what drives Tammy is a spiritual journey of discovery, which she hopes to share through her new beauty line. “My life journey has been about discovering who I am, and Kleos+Klea is the result of this work and desire.

“I believe that everyone is unique, just like every single thing in nature. Everything has its strengths and shadows; nothing is better or more important than another. We are all unique combinations of various elements and attributes, which makes each person and thing special. We can only experience what we see in others and in nature.

“Therefore, I’m in the process of uncovering not only the magic in plants, water, and oils, but also in every person I meet. My deepest understanding of the world is that we can only experience what we perceive in it.”

It’s this approach that led her to create Kleos+Klea, she adds, with four products to help others discover their best skin.

Kleos+Klea repairs and rejuvenate skin with just four products, each with a Greek name and a specific benefit:

1. Akatha: A gentle cleanser, formulated with ingredients from nature that work

effectively to revive, purify and brighten the skin.

2. IO: A revitalizing toner with 77 trace minerals to replenish the skin’s depleted

mineral stores.

3. Onisi: A powder-to-serum that supports the skin’s collagen and elastin

with minerals for overall skin health and hydration.

4. Prima Rosa: A moisturizing oil that heals the skin’s barrier and decreases

Trans Epidermal Water Loss (TEWL), allowing the skin to balance its hydration.

Kleos+Klea’s method works with nature to rejuvenate skin with natural nourishment. The products are designed to work in tandem with your skin’s natural rhythms, from night to day. “The ancient belief that ‘We are all one’ has never been more clear to me,” Tammy says.” Nature reflects the beauty we can all have.”