It started with a mirror moment we couldn't ignore.
Sarah and I had been best friends since college, building our careers, raising our families, and supporting each other through life's ups and downs. But at 35, we found ourselves standing in her bathroom, sharing the same devastating realization: we didn't recognize the women looking back at us anymore.
"When did this happen?" Sarah asked, pulling at the skin around her eyes. Her once-thick ponytail was now barely the width of a pencil. My own reflection showed deep lines that seemed to have appeared overnight, and nails that broke if I so much as looked at them wrong.
We'd done everything "right." We had drawers full of expensive creams, serums that cost more than our car payments, and bathroom cabinets that looked like Sephora stockrooms. Sarah had even tried those painful cosmetic procedures that left her face swollen for weeks. Nothing worked. We were exhausted, broke, and honestly? We felt betrayed by our own bodies.
The turning point came during a girls' trip to Seoul. Sarah's Korean aunt, who looked impossibly young at 67, laughed when she saw our suitcases full of skincare. "You Americans always try to fix from the outside," she said, pulling out a simple bottle of supplements. "Real beauty is built from within. Your body stops making what it needs. You have to give it back."
She explained how different types of collagen served different purposes – something we'd never heard despite all our research. Type I and III for skin, Type II for joints, Type V for hair. It wasn't just about taking any collagen; it was about taking the right combination.
Skeptical but desperate, we started researching. What we found shocked us. Most collagen supplements only included one or two types – the cheap ones. They skipped the expensive but essential types our bodies actually needed. Worse, many were filled with meaningless doses of nutrients, just enough to list on the label but not enough to make a difference.
We became obsessed. Sarah used her background in nutrition science, while I leveraged my experience in product development. We consulted with physicians, researched suppliers, and tested countless formulations on ourselves. Six months later, we had our answer: a complete collagen complex with all five types our bodies lose with age, enhanced with clinical doses of biotin, vitamin C, and hyaluronic acid.
The transformation was undeniable. By week 3, my nails stopped breaking. By week 6, Sarah's hairdresser asked if she'd gotten extensions. By month 3, we both felt like ourselves again – actually, better than ourselves.
But here's where our story really begins. We could have kept this discovery to ourselves, but we couldn't stop thinking about all the other women out there, standing in their bathrooms, feeling the same desperation we'd felt. Women spending thousands on empty promises. Women who deserved better.
We left our corporate jobs (terrifying at 37 with mortgages to pay) and poured our savings into Auora. We insisted on manufacturing in FDA-registered facilities in Utah. We refused to use proprietary blends that hide cheap fillers. We priced it fairly, even though investors pushed us to charge premium prices for our premium formula.
Every decision we make comes back to that moment in Sarah's bathroom. We know what it feels like to lose confidence in your own skin. We know the frustration of products that don't work. And we know the life-changing difference the right nutrition can make.
Today, Auora has helped thousands of women rediscover their radiance. But we're most proud of the messages we receive – women saying they finally feel like themselves again, that they can look in the mirror without flinching, that their daughters ask what their secret is.
We named our company Auora because it represents that inner light every woman possesses. Sometimes it dims as we age, but it never disappears. It just needs the right nourishment to shine again.
This isn't just about looking younger. It's about feeling like the woman you know you are inside, at any age. It's about replacing what time takes away, ethically and effectively. It's about proving that 35 (or 45, or 55, or beyond) isn't when beauty ends – it's when it evolves.
From our hearts to yours,
Sarah Chen & Maria Rodriguez Co-Founders, Auora
P.S. We still take our collagen every morning. Some things are too good to ever stop.