Forbidden Formula

Adrienne will never forget the night the police raided her Hungarian home. During the communist regime, her Aunt Eva secretly made bee-pollen creams and sold them to nearby women who’d rap on her window under the cover of darkness to buy a bottle. Eventually, the authorities heard about the operation and shut it down. The incident left an indelible impression on young Adrienne, who was then only nine years old. “It was very frightening. They trashed all the creams. That was the end of my aunt’s career.”

But it was just the beginning of Adrienne’s career. Growing up in communist Hungary there were no parties, no shopping trips with girlfriends, no television. So Adrienne studied. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience at the age of 22. Then, her father used his life’s savings to buy a one-way ticket to the United States. He handed her the ticket and all of his leftover cash—$40.

In this country, Adrienne completed post-doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. When she was 32, she enrolled in medical school. Older than many of her fellow students, she focused her studies on antiaging research. “I started to experiment, and my old days came back to me.” More sophisticated than the creams her aunt sold, Adrienne collaborated with a chemist and soon started selling her skin care on QVC. That was 11 years ago.

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