In the aftermath of the Baltimore Running Festival, Wendy Bronfein and Lisa Schaefer of Curio Wellness join Nestor for a discussion about topical solutions for athletes and weekend warriors. Or even just some relief for nagging aches and pains.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sleep, vape, terpenes, cannabis, curio, people, educate, wellness, product, marketing, topical, cannabinoids, ambien, pain, psychoactive effects, side, turn, celebrating, smell, years
SPEAKERS
Wendy Bronfein, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back. wn s t test Baltimore, Baltimore positive celebrating 25 years of this madness. We have begun the countdown and I tell you the Orioles plan and the Ravens in London and all this stuff going on. We’re getting back to the countdown 2323 21 all coming your way out of the front of Baltimore positive and sponsored by our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter. I’ve got the shirt shirt more last week and I think it does this week although I still have it in April. I had it for spring training, welcoming and Wendy brown fine as well as at least Shaffer making her debut here is the Vice President of Marketing for all things curio Wellness Center, friends over for daughter over timoni, where I stopped by once in a while, take a picture and pick up some some terpenes and some products as well. I tried to educate folks as we do with this educational series. We all had to get educated about pitching last week, didn’t we? October pitching was the educational play last week? Are all the shorts gone? When you were a little worried you were gonna run out of them? We’re gonna work some purple here sometime soon, right?
Wendy Bronfein 01:01
Yeah, well, we have a our purple Friday shirt as well, we’ll have to get one over to you. So you can change change seasons? Well,
Nestor Aparicio 01:11
I want an I’m a blunt person shirt when I’m in your stores because I’m a blunt person. You know, there’s a double entendre going on there. Lisa, see. Also from the marketing side of things secure. Welcome aboard. Good to have you here today.
01:24
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 01:26
guess on a marketing level, what we do here is we talk about trying to educate people and things going on and think’s going on the community, we drive by your place upon your groter for folks up in Cecil County, and that way can drive by your place up there as well, a storefront edge, but you sort of came to the people a little bit last week in the running festival. And you know, dare I say I live downtown. This was my view forever. The running festival for so many years of my life, either trap me in, or we had to get out because you couldn’t leave in the middle of the day. But it brings so many people downtown. And I know a wide variety of people. And I think when people think of cannabis or think about 2030 years ago, being black market, illicit all of those things, the wellness part of this and the health part of this, when you brought up to me that maybe you’re even shocked by people running marathons, 26 months, they’ll stop when they’re done. And they want to learn about CBD about wellness about sleeping better about the things cannabinoids, the science part of this, that even a running festival. You were down last weekend for 1000s of people. But you also had a presence and talking to people about a product that quite frankly, is new to the market.
Wendy Bronfein 02:35
Yes, so we for the second year in a row, we sponsored the 5k race that went off at 730 in the morning. And then we were able to connect with all the runners as they came in. So from the 5k to 10k that happened the full marathon. And part of the reason we had originally been drawn to it is that we have the topical line called move. That’s for body aches and pains, muscle and joint pain and inflammation. And we thought well, you know, you just run however many miles you run, something’s gonna hurt. There’s we got something great to rub on that and make the pain go away without any psycho activity. So we had tons of people who as the day progressed and the races got longer that we saw kind of limping by us and we were like, Hey, we might be able to help you. But then we also had our other products, all of our CHOOSE THE GOOD DAY products, The Good, The Good night products and the GI products where we were able to talk to people nothing available there, but just education and I think most people didn’t realize that you can address you can use cannabis to address if you don’t sleep or you want to have energy and focus or your stomach bothers you or just something hurts.
Nestor Aparicio 03:49
Well, the balm part of this and the first things first does it smell like Bengay or just smell better than that? No, it doesn’t. That’s my first I don’t want to walk into the room smell like like I you know I’m getting old I turned 55 last week and I had an old fashion to celebrate with my kid last week we put it up online but I don’t want to smell old fashioned.
04:12
Actually ours is roll on to so you don’t even have to touch it
Wendy Bronfein 04:17
doesn’t get your clothes icky doesn’t smell absorbs pain gone.
Nestor Aparicio 04:22
You know that’s a fascinating part of this and I think even five minutes ago when I began the conversation I hadn’t thought about that that you probably had people that that are in that that know about this either medicinal side or adult use side that have used bombs or they use my dad used to use the make you laugh absorbing Jr. Right? I mean that stuff you put that on. I’d smell him before he came in the house with it but the active ingredients and when you can speak from this from the pharmaceutical side for many years, you and your family would provide these sorts of things and topicals and saying How does it work? And people would say, well, we to plant marijuana, whatever, how does that become something that can be active in doing what Ben gay and the smelly things used to do and probably do it a whole lot better than any of that stuff ever did.
Wendy Bronfein 05:15
So there’s two products in the line, there’s a topical product and transdermal product, so topical products just are on that upper level of your skin, they’re not permeating into your bloodstream, right? So and that’s giving you localized relief. And then the transdermal does move through your bloodstream to the area where it needs to surface that pain or inflammation. So both the trans journals are on the medical side right now, because they’re a higher potency. And the topical is available for all adult use customers and medical customers. But both can work equally effective for all types of joint pain, muscle aches, whether it’s like you know, the arthritis type pain or the post or pre workout. So sometimes I use them pre workout so that I don’t get as sore or post workout to alleviate kind of stiff quads or tight hamstrings. You can use them for menstrual cramps, you can use them for headaches and rubbing on your temples. You know, there’s there’s lots of different ways that people use the topicals. And people like them because you don’t get psychoactive effects, lumbar pain?
Nestor Aparicio 06:24
Well, that’s how I was gonna say at least you could speak to this from the marketing side of what you’re doing to say, this was enlisted my parents and like all the stuff we heard about. And now all of a sudden, it’s you think about it and say non psychoactive, right, the first thing we would think about is, if I do that, I’m going to think differently, I’m going to be high. And that feeling of being maybe out of control in some way, or the fear of being out of control, for those who saw reefer madness 150 years ago, but the thought that that there is no psycho. That’s an educational park just at the front, that I think everybody needs to understand that, that that this medicine does not have to make you feel that way. Right.
07:06
Absolutely. And I mean, aside from the topicals, especially with our twos, we have a lot of different what we call ratios, which is like a low THC and could have high and another and like CBD, we also have CBN and CBG, which do certain things. But it’s it’s a lot more complicated than I think people understand. And you can really like craft your experience in what you know. And what you want to have if you want to have more energy if you want to feel more sleep if you want more or less psychoactive effects. And we’ve really focused a lot in the past year on educational materials. When he was saying that we had a display, for example, at the at the Baltimore running Festival, and this is a display we’ve taken everywhere, that shows the different types of choose and how they can create different experiences. And we find that people are really really intrigued and it helps him understand like the spectrum and how this sort of crafting of experience can work.
Nestor Aparicio 08:08
So when he brought find us here, they are a partner security, a wellness celebrating our 25th anniversary and a partner with us over foreign daughter, if you’re in the Timonium area, as well. Lisa Shaffer is also here, Vice President of Marketing talking about medicinal use, and adult use and things that could that can help you above and beyond, hey, I want to be relaxed, I want to feel calm. It’s the number one I would say non flower using person that’s new to this that comes in maybe a little older, maybe even a little older than me, and maybe even younger and saying I sleep problems like I would think that that would be the thing that would get me to your doorstep more than any other reason to say having trouble sleeping. Am I wrong in saying that, that that’s that’s maybe the first person that would come to you
Wendy Bronfein 08:57
is huge sleep and pain are the two biggest but sleep when we were when we interviewed back when we were in the MediCal program, we developed our good night product. And we interviewed a lot of different patients around sleep. We had started the our quest on sleep that was really focused on the effects that women have for menopause, and how they become kind of terrible sleepers. And so it was it started from kind of trying to address that and not having to rely on things like Ambien or other prescription drugs and minimize morning grogginess from taking something to help you sleep. But then we started to learn that the sleep issue really kind of starts for people before men or women starts before kind of that middle age zone and that there were people as young as their 30s who were having sleep issues and and a lot of people really tried many different ways to improve their sleep hygiene, right, like turning off the TV, getting the lights low having a bedtime routine, but they just still had terrible sleep. And so that That’s what was the impetus for creating this sleep line. And so now what was this, our proprietary pulse release tablet that’s patented like us patented, the only US Patent cannabis product in the country has expanded to also be a chew. So a gummy form if that’s if that’s a dosage form you want, or even a vape. So for those who look for who come to the dispensary and want to address sleep, but want it to be a more like traditional cannabis form, you can start with a vape, you could migrate to a chew or gummy. Or you could use the pulse release tablet that’s scientifically designed to help you fall and stay asleep. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 10:39
I will go ahead at least
10:41
well, I was gonna say to that those form factors can also be used for different sleep issues. So like women often have a hard time falling asleep. So something like the two would be better because you can take it in advance. And then or even a vape. Also, the tablet, I think solves all the problems because it’s post release. But then if you have people who wake up in the middle of the night, which is a lot of times a problem that men have, and can’t get back to sleep, the vape is like it’s called like a rescue product. So it acts you know, immediately activates. And that can help with that with that type of sleeping issue also,
Wendy Bronfein 11:18
and further to at least that when we did the research that was what was consistent. So it was it was almost like the noise in your brain. Like men could just fall asleep and like not have the noise in their brain to keep them awake. But ultimately, it caught up with them. And if they woke up now they were like they couldn’t get back to sleep whereas women couldn’t quiet that mind and couldn’t get to sleep. So it was it that is exactly what we saw in the difference of the genders. We’re all spending
Nestor Aparicio 11:46
upwards of a third of our lives sleeping right and I’m not a guy who has a sleep problem but there are nights I want to go to bed a little earlier because I like waking up earlier got a flight something like that where you’re like yeah, you know it’s 839 o’clock I’d like to go to bed now I’d like to you know, I like to be asleep by 10 o’clock and that’s why I came to you guys I got these pineapple terpene infused choose. I knew you during this period of time when he but I would say this was back in the spring I came in and I think it’s a little bit of a gateway I’ve never been an Ambien person. I’ve never had a sleep problem as I see it. But there are times I wanted to go to bed so I don’t want some knock me out I certainly don’t want to wake up especially four or five in the morning groggy because I did something for I went to bed and I also had friends that had bad rides with Ambien and bad rides with becoming addicted to like that and then addicted to that weirdness of the morning of feeling like you need a coffee jolt and all that I went with a five on this. And I mean there’s still some left in here. It’s not an every night product for me in any way. It’s something I have here as you know, no game on the night. I want to go to bed early I got a big day tomorrow. And I wasn’t a candidate for that. But I see it as a very soft way to get some sleep and it’s been very effective for me but I see it as sort of gateway where you would say try this right try this not gonna hurt you and maybe you need higher lower maybe it doesn’t work for you. But there comes a point where you just try something and this is a very easy thing to try and delicious do I might add
Wendy Bronfein 13:17
no Yeah, so those pineapple terpene choose like the and I think you’re explaining it right in the tearing like those are more of a relaxed and wine down right that formula isn’t as directive as like sleep right where it’s just
Nestor Aparicio 13:31
like an Ambien dopey put me out, it doesn’t have any of that property to me, oh, good
Wendy Bronfein 13:36
night, good night. Choose I have a cannabinoid called CBN in there, which is shown to be highly sedated, which is why that’s more of the true sleep product. Whereas the terpenes are that’s pineapple is using two key terpenes myrcene and linalyl. That induce relaxation. And so that’s why for you, you’re like, Okay, it’s helping me cross that hurdle to like wind it down and get to sleep. Whereas I like
Nestor Aparicio 14:04
to not want to work anymore. Which I needed. I just literally like
Wendy Bronfein 14:08
turn it off. And that’s exactly how I described that product that it’s like almost like you get if it was six o’clock and you came home and you need to like shut off your workday brain. And like turn on your end of day home brain and let your body and your mind relax. And like let the day go. That’s that’s how I think of those.
Nestor Aparicio 14:29
Whether you hear unleashes here from carrier wellness and our friend’s father and daughter and hoping we’re educating you. It’s part of the whole thing you’re on getting educated as I go along, as well as for things that work and other things that don’t work or don’t work well. And then the I guess the second round is Hey, I like this. Let me try something the same different. I would think for people were taking something that tastes good, that’s a gummy. That actually does what it says it’s going to do well I mean, I think for me, it did exactly what it says it was going to do. And that’s, uh, it didn’t always work that way on the pharmacist or on the pharmacy side, there was always some sort of weird side effect that would always make me think, do I really want to take that it’s gonna upset my stomach, it’s gonna cause some other problem. This has been, it’s felt more gentle to me. Does that make sense?
Wendy Bronfein 15:22
Yeah, I think that’s the reason a lot of people end up in cannabis from the western side of medicine is because, you know, particularly on that when we were on the medical side with those who have conditions and that are, can be more life threatening or extreme. You know, you get prescribed things, and that medicine can help but that medicine could bring on other side effects. And so with the cannabis, you seem to get things that improve your quality of life, but you don’t get a new set of issues from the cannabis.
Nestor Aparicio 15:52
Thank God for that. Whether you lease or here at least, I know we got some marketing going on. We’re always doing promotions always doing cool things. You guys are always trying to educate folks like you’re worth the running festival as well as your Baltimore positive. What’s going on a curio, right, we’re gonna get to purple shirts, right? You’re gonna get me a bluntness shirt too, right?
16:09
Yeah, we have purple shirts. We have some purple football shirts. We actually just launched a merch site on our website where you can get the purple. So long sleeve like it’s football ask so we’ll get you on for yourself. Well, Rebecca
Nestor Aparicio 16:24
warned me that I had the 1.0 from like three or four years ago, and I had some towels three or four years ago, but we gotta paint the place purple. It’s that time of the year and you guys certainly had a lot of spirit. The orange of black rolled out the door quickly, right? They lasted longer than that our pitching did unfortunately. Right.
Wendy Bronfein 16:41
Yeah. Sad turn of events that weekend.
Nestor Aparicio 16:44
Well, I appreciate what you guys do to educate us curio wellness, you can learn more, you can stop over Florida. Tell everybody about what’s going on with Cecil County to because I think Baltimore and I haven’t driven by the other location. Tell me about Schuster county location.
Wendy Bronfein 16:59
So Cecil County is farm can wellness. And that is our other store. So that’s up in Elkton, Maryland. And I and shameless plug at both of our stores, as well as many other stores around the state, we’re going to be running a vape promotion. So if you buy two of our vapes, we’ve got some custom batteries with chargers that are going to come with them for free a gift with purchase. And so if anyone was listening and thinks maybe that good night vape is a good pathway for helping them sleep. Come pick one up, you’ll get the battery to go with it. Rechargeable and charging. So that’s kind of our fun little marketing thing we’ve got going on in the next week or so.
Nestor Aparicio 17:44
And obviously, you guys know the industry of making vapes and well flour becomes a vape. We went through that a little bit, I think two episodes ago. explain to people you know how the vape works and it’s, it’s it proprietary to you or fits on different kinds of heads, right. So actual cartridge. So
Wendy Bronfein 18:04
our vape is what we use to cut a 510 thread cartridge. That’s the name of the hardware and that fits on any standard battery so it screws in so you know, you can you can buy our vapes this week, get this battery for free and use it you know forever because it recharges the vapes themselves as you’re asking. So we grow all of our flour indoors. In Baltimore County, in a hygienic environment.
Nestor Aparicio 18:31
There’s a rumor I’m getting a tour by the way, they’re gonna let me in in the white Willy Wonka suit. So that’s gonna be cool.
Wendy Bronfein 18:37
Just like my TV and the soy and then we take the the flour, we extract it using co2, which is an FDA approved form of extraction. That’s significant because many cannabis use hydrocarbons like butane, we do not use that as a more dangerous approach and can have residual solvents even if it acceptable level, they’re still there. And then we reconstitute that into the vape. So we distill that oil from their initial extraction. So we get a real clarified oil where you’re just holding the primary cannabinoids and that oil very clean. You could think of it akin to kind of the levels of if you were, if you’re a connoisseur of spirits, right you kind of have like a rail liquor versus a higher distilled liquor. So the oil that comes out is further distilled to be refined to a true purity for the cannabinoids. And then they’re in they are inclusive of all the terpenes that were in the original flower so they’re not used with botanical terpenes. They’re not terpenes that we can buy that come from any sort of plant which terpenes are naturally occurring. They’re the terpenes from our flower itself.
Nestor Aparicio 19:52
You’re blessing me with science is what you’re doing right there’s there’s a lot of science and a lot of laboratory going into making a turn Peanut used to correct?
20:02
That’s, that’s a whole other saturday
Wendy Bronfein 20:03
says it entirely. Yes, but yeah, but it was but anything, anything that you’re buying that isn’t in flour is coming through a processor and it’s always starting with that extracted oil. So anything that we make is always starting with that co2 extraction.
Nestor Aparicio 20:20
And it starts really with the science and the plants, right? I mean, like you’re learning to grow the plants and learning what they do, right?
Wendy Bronfein 20:28
Yeah and growing plants that can give you the cannabinoids that you need when you go through the extraction process and have the yield and potency that you’re looking for.
Nestor Aparicio 20:38
When he brought find us here, if you’re watching out on the web, she’s got the house growing shirt on soon to give me I’m a blunt person shirt. Let’s Shaffers also here she’s the VP of Marketing for all things a curio wellness and foreign daughter and far cat up and often I always talk so much about foreign dogs because I drive by it all the time. antimonium right around the corner from all of our places, stop in, get educated, don’t be afraid, learn a little bit. And maybe there’s something there that can help you and certainly it’s helped me and my wife and my family as well. And we’re we’re appreciative all the education as well as the Partnership for our 25th anniversary and our special cupcake and fireworks out here. Wendy, I’m gonna start counting these things down. I swear. I’ve got a little more time on my hands here. I appreciate you coming on and educating us. Lisa nice to make your acquaintance as well. Don’t be stranger come on back and say hello.
21:24
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Lisa Schaffer
Nestor Aparicio 21:26
VP of marketing, and Wendy brown fine of curio wellness. Joining us here learn more at a curio wellness.com as well as at our place at Baltimore positive.com And you can click on our curio ads and click on our 25th anniversary and get more educated and I’m gonna get a purple shirt for next week as well because orange is out of style at least for a little while. So are just so cool. The cool holiday gift to give some tickets or something like that for next year as well. I am Nestor we are W NSTA and 1570 Towson Baltimore celebrating the Maryland crab cake tour. My son came out last week we were drug city down at Dundalk with a science teacher he blinded me besides George Scholten came on with talks and baseball last week, as well as learn how to make a really really proper old fashioned now that I’m old but not old fashioned. Stay with us.
