Our Story

TAHNYC is pronounced Tonic. We fell in love with the name because it's synonymous with being restorative.

We create powerful uncompromising filler free molecular skincare with focus on skin health and effective results.

We’re the first and only Brand dedicated and focused on creating filler free skincare, raising the clean beauty standard, formulating with powerful actives and nothing else! Actives are ingredients that have scientific data to show they’re effective at addressing a skin concern.

Every ingredient we use is carefully selected, powerful and effectively cares for your skin. We believe in transparency, powerful science driven ingredients, real effective results and healthy skin.

We use Cellular Peptides paired with powerful skin identical, skin replenishing Molecules and organic Naturals to replenish and activate the skin’s natural function.

Our signature Dew consistency is what our products feel like because we choose not to add bulking, filler, texturizing add-ons to our formulas. We use Powerful Ingredients and Nothing Else.

TAHNYC is made without parabens, sulfates, phthalates, colorants and fragrances.

Our Founders are Irene Barsky and Richard Schwalb. What began with Irene's personal journey grew into passion that drives us.

This is how TAHNYC was born. Skin health is not a destination but a journey. My moment in time sparked a question which opened a door to TAHNYC’s journey… healthy skin with powerful ingredients and effective results… for every skin.

“It all really started after I developed a Contact Allergy to Parabens and the entire botanical Sunflower Family, also known as the Asteraceae family, which includes over 30,000 species of common botanicals such as chamomile, calendula and, of course sunflowers. I never experienced allergies as a child nor as an adult, then one day that changed.

Among many of my internal symptoms, the reactions would leave my face, neck and body covered in oozing painful pustules that would crack and continue to puss for days. Yes, it was that gruesome and that painful. I was told by my doctors to ‘remove all products that contained these allergens’, little did I know that that was the easy part.

The allergic reactions left my skin sensitized. Even after I removed all allergens from my skin, I found that my skin was still exceptionally reactive and not going back to ‘normal’.

I finally knew what was wrong, but I wasn’t prepared for skin sensitization which left me with only one skin care option, water.

Struggling with your skin can be a very lonely journey. It really affects our confidence as well as every other aspect of our lives. Every morning I would wake up thinking, this is the day it will just get better and every morning I would fall deeper and deeper into a pit of self loathing. Then one day everything changed.

I remember the moment TAHNYC began so clearly. I was standing in Whole Foods looking for a dish sponge, I picked up the Twist Naked Sponge and that's when you might say I lost it. ‘Wait, I can pick up a filler free sponge, I can get a filler free toothpaste, but I can't find filler free skin care!?!’ 

We have the choice to remove fillers from our food. Shouldn't we have the choice to remove fillers from our skin? I truly believe that to make big changes it only takes a few passionate people and that was the moment TAHNYC was born. 

With everything we do, every product we create, every ingredient we use, every customer question we answer, Richard and I hope that you know that behind TAHNYC the Brand, are amazing people who deeply and genuinely care about you. You are always on our minds and drive every choice we make. We believe Dermal Wellness (healthy skin) and Dermal Science work together in harmony. This belief informs everything we create.

Conscious Powerful Clean Beauty.
transparency. powerful ingredients. healthy skin.

- Irene & Richard
TAHNYC