Agent Nateur Discovered a Powerhouse Hair Growth Formula—Then, Her Lab Started Selling It to Everyone
It begs the question: who really owns the supplement shelf?
Last week, Jena Covello, founder of Agent Nateur, posted a story on her personal Instagram, detailing how her lab peddled her proprietary hair growth formula without consulting her. The black-and-white serif text read: “What’s happened to me is a huge deal. It’s the equivalent of [Augustinus] Bader releasing their technology [TFC8] publicly.” Covello was essentially pointing a finger at Lief Labs, the supplement manufacturer she worked with to bring her holi (radiance) MSM Ceramosides supplement for hair, skin, gut integrity, glutathione, and collagen support to market in June 2023.
Covello started working with Ceramosides™, a patented wheat lipid known for its hair growth properties, in 2022. She originally found the compound through the French chemical production company Seppic and, with the researcher, started developing a trademark so that the ingredient could only be used exclusively with Agent Nateur products. When it came time to produce a supplement with it, she brought the compound to Lief Labs.
That’s where the tale starts to turn awry, but Covello quickly owns her part in the saga. “Essentially, because I was new in the supplement world, I didn’t make Lief the lab sign an NDA. I didn’t know better. Lief then took Ceromosides to SupplySideWest [an annual trade show and conference for the health, nutrition, and beverage industries]. Lief told other brands about the ingredient that they found through me. No one would have ever known about it because I was branding it as French patented ceramides [not this proprietary complex].” (Marie Claire reached out to Lief Labs for comment. They have not responded at the time of publication.)
The confession is an honest, refreshing outlook on something much more cynical. Covello was new to this game; she didn’t know better. The lab’s actions, however, show a grim side of the industry. Without proper precautions, a manufacturer can take an ingredient discovered by a smaller brand and promote it as the new standard at a trade fair. Covello’s once-niche ingredient was suddenly being promoted to every Big Supplement Supplier between sad espresso shots and discussions about collagen peptides. Think of it like a farmer's market, except the farmer is your manufacturer and the peach is patented.
Covello had been hiding the trademark and the actual name, Ceramosides™, on purpose. She thought marketing “French patented ceramides” would be enough to spark intrigue without touting the specific name of her discovery. “I wouldn’t have released the trade name [Ceramosides™], but now I have to because other brands are,” Covello explained to Marie Claire. She also provided documentation of her formula to the lab, labeling Agent Nateur as the supplier.
Proof that Agent Nateur was the original supplier of Ceramosides.
While Covello did not want to publicly name brands now using Ceramosides™, Internet sleuths were quick to pick up on supplements now incorporating the ingredient, including Lemme, Codeage, and many more. In fact, she predicts that you’ll see a lot of French ceramides and Ceramosides™ in pills or liquids over the coming months. It’s her formula wearing a beret and an accent. “It leaks into a bigger issue because now I have these American brands tapping into my specialty, which is formulating with French ingredients. I’m sharing this as a lesson to make the lab sign an NDA.” Covello’s goal is for her own mishap to double as a cautionary tale for brand owners.
"I think what's happening now is these brands [that] don’t know any better bring their formula to a lab and don’t realize that they don’t own it. It’s now considered the lab’s IP. A lab recently told me that a brand that brought them a formula now has to pay the lab royalties, while originally seeing them as a partner,” Jena explains. Essentially, you bring the cake. The bakery keeps the recipe. This is somehow now the new normal or considered industry standard.
“At least I know after the Lief situation to sign multiple NDA’s, with specific wording, and to make sure you own all of your formulas, which now I do,” Jena says.
What does this kerfuffle over ingredients mean for the customer? Frankly, it just means that dozens of supplements will leverage the same powerhouse ingredient. You'll be shopping not for innovation, but for packaging, added benefits, fillers, or lack thereof. It double-scores the same industry undercurrent we saw with eyepatch-gate: true innovation is hard to come by, and now, customers are being lured by engaging marketing and creative campaigns.
And as for Agent Nateur, this is but a hiccup—and a learning experience—for the growing brand. After wrapping up a Magda Butryum collaboration during NYFW, they have a large collaboration with a world-famous heritage brand in the near future (we know what it is, and we’re excited), among their continued commitment to pure product ideation.
Get ready to see products and content creators boasting about Ceramocides™ for better hair, skin, and nails taking over your feeds and FYP. Just keep in mind, Agent Nateur got there first.
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