The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview with Angela Caglia Skincare founder and celebrity esthetician Angela Caglia now on iTunes and Spotify.
GLOW JOURNAL: I understand that your personal beauty ethos is quite heavily influenced by a summer that you spent in Paris some 23 years ago, but I would love to rewind even further. What is your very earliest memory of beauty?
ANGELA CAGLIA: My very earliest memory of beauty was as being a young girl, probably eight years old. My grandfather was a big farmer- he had apricots, plums, nectarines and grapes. I come from a family of four, and we would all go over [to the farm] and the kids would be on motorbikes and I would be playing with the fruit and putting it on my face and putting it on my parents and sister’s faces. I was obsessed skincare. I was making masks. I was grinding up the apricots and making scrubs, and it was kind of odd! So it just makes sense that I grew up to do this, because I’ve always had an obsession with skincare.
Well technically you’ve been formulating since you were eight!
There you go! Absolutely, yes I have!
I’m going to have to adjust everything now- I’m like “Oh, you’ve been working in the beauty industry for 20 something years…” Nope, since you were eight. So you majored in business in college, but when you were a child (other than making these masks), what did you think you might be when you grew up?
I remember in junior high, we were asked that question and we had to write a report and draw a picture. I wrote “fashion designer”. I wanted to be a fashion designer at the time.
I think that’s pretty common, because it’s all inextricably linked, all of these creative industries.
Yeah, I think so. Beauty, fashion, designing for women, creating products for women, primarily. I have a lot of men that are obsessed with my line, which makes me so happy because it should be used by both.
So you went to college, you majored in business, then you spent a summer studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, which is where your interest in skin was ignited. I would love to hear more about that time. What was it about this Parisian approach to beauty that you found to be so interesting?
It was my first trip outside of my small town in central California. When I was eight or nine years old I discovered on CNN, which had just launched, the show that Elsa Klensch did- she’s Australian, by the way! She had her own show, she had a black bob, very chic, and it was a fashion and beauty show, but mainly fashion. She basically showcased Paris and all the runway shows. It was on every Saturday. I came from a very small town and I would run in while my brothers and sisters were asleep and I would turn the TV on and watch this fashion show with Klensch, who was so sophisticated, talking about fashion.
I kind of fell in love at that point, learning how sophisticated a lot of the Parisian women were. When I finally got there… it was my dream to study French, and I did study it in high school, by the way, but I didn’t learn as much in high school. You really have to be there to get the ear. When I got there, I was just amazed at how beautiful they were- and they weren’t classically or perfectly beautiful, but they were women who had such confidence. Walking the streets and spending time in cafes, I was just mesmerised with how they could just put on red lipstick and just have no makeup on, no eye makeup, and just beautiful flawless skin. It just seemed that the focus was really about their skin versus their makeup.Which is what I was experiencing with my mom- growing up here in California, it was just about the makeup and covering up. I just love their [the French] sense of confidence and honestly how their skin is radiated.
Spending time there, I learned about facials, and I walked by this…. there was a big desk, and there was a beautiful woman, and she would usually be in a lab coat, and there would be a wall filled with products. And there was no hair, no nails, which were what I was used to seeing. It was just skin. And there was no activity, just a woman standing at a desk. I was so curious, and I just went in and I said “What is this?” with the French that I could speak. And I had my first facial!
I fell in love with the art of skincare. I loved all of the different products that the Parisians were using, and how they really glorify the art of the facial.
When I came back [to the US], I was in college, I told my boyfriend at the time “I’m really interested in facials and becoming a facialist,” but no one really knew what a facialist was here at that time. It was a strange word- esthetician. Nobody knew what that was. And most of the hotels were just hotels, they were not “hotel and spa.” The spa business had not come to America yet. So he said “You want to be a hairdresser?” And I’m like “No! It’s the face! Facials!”
And sure enough, this must be serendipity, but I was walking in this really cute part of Carmel, which is where I lived, in Northern California by San Francisco. I saw that same woman in a white coat, a beautiful woman standing behind a desk and just a bureau of products. And I was like “Wait a minute. This is just what I saw in Paris.” It had just opened, it was brand new and it was the Yon-Ka Paris training institute for the product line and for facialists. I went in and I said “Listen, I just got back from Paris. I’m still in school getting my degree, but I want to be your receptionist. Let me sit at the desk. Let me learn this business.” I was just drawn to it.
From there, I ended up going to get my licence quite quickly after. I drove an hour and a half every day to San Jose to get my aesthetic license. And then I came back and I was her first hire. And that’s how it started.
It’s one thing to have an interest in something and to travel and to see something and think “Okay, wow, this is really interesting.” But then it’s another thing entirely to want to turn that interest into your livelihood. So was there a specific moment, maybe before you physically walked in that door and asked if you could be on the front desk… do you think there was a specific moment where you realised “This is a passion that I can actually turn into a career”?
I was getting my MBA at the time. It was a very prestigious school, an MBA program, very hard to get in, the Monterey Institute of International Studies. I told me father, “I really want to become a facialist.” And he was just like “Oh boy. What?” There was a little disappointment with me, but I was just like “This is calling me.” And I didn’t quite know the end game. I grew up with a mother who was an entrepreneur, so I loved business, but something was pulling me and I just knew I had to be there.
At the time I was making really good money when I did transition to be a facialist, more than you make now, and I wasn’t quite sure but I did know that that’s what I needed to be. I don’t think I had in my mind yet that I would have a skincare line, and do what I’m doing now.
I mean, how could you predict that?! So there was that fateful day when you walked past the Yon-Ka salon, did a double take, went in and said “I would like to work here.” When your career was in its infancy, so to speak, were there any learnings that you took from that really early time that you find you’re still applying to your work now?
Absolutely. A lot. It’s nice to reflect and look at that. I worked for Yon-Ka for a little over a year. We did a lot of training. And then I ended up opening my own spa in Carmel, when I was only 23. So I had that business and entrepreneur spirit. It was literally one of the first spas in Carmel. From that, I moved to New York City and that’s a whole other story, but I did open that spa at 23.
In terms of what I learned, I’m very happy that I learned with Yon-Ka Paris, as the Parisians basically invented the facial. So there’s a real element to the way I was trained with Yon-Ka, and we’ll discuss the products which are separate and I really took a lot from that experience, but in terms of just giving a facial… I know that this may be a question later, but in terms of how the facial business has changed in the past 25 years, it’s changed a lot. When I first came onto the scene, no one knew what a facial was. Then they started popping up. Marcia Kilgore, she had a place before Bliss, which she had in New York, and this was 20 plus years ago. She was the first person who got on the map with having a facial studio. She had it filled with antiques, and it was in a basement in New York, and she just started bringing women in to get facials. And then it grew. She got funding and opened Bliss Spa, and then it went everywhere.
But in terms of now, I think what’s happened with facials, I think a lot of people have just capitalised (and the same with skincare products, for that matter), they’ve capitalised on the popularity of it and they’ve watered it down. They’ve made almost it fast food in some places in America where you can go in and get a hundred dollar facial and there’s a partition and you lay there. What I’ve found with that one is that the experience isn’t there and the training isn’t there. You have to be really knowledgable and have really good training to work on someone’s face, and you need to know a lot about ingredients. A lot of the time, people come out from facials with breakouts immediately, or even the next day, or someone used a comedone extractor and they press too hard and they started to scar from the blackhead extraction, or a peel is too strong and they hyper pigmented. It’s really complicated to give a facial. Theres’s a lot you need to know about the skin and skin barrier. So that’s disheartening to see a lot of people just try to make money with it quickly, and just hiring estheticians right out of school.
I’m also a certified aesthetic instructor. See how bored I was?! I just wanted to do things! I was working in a spa and then I taught estheticians at night at a school. And I talked to them about the real world and about giving facials. From that, because I was given the curriculum, I learned that estheticians are only taught to have them pass the state board exam. That’s what the school is funded for. So they only teach them to pass the state board exam. They don’t teach them a lot of the crucial things. You need to be a good facialist in terms of knowing skin, knowing how skin reacts, knowing what the ingredients are and what ingredients can do to the skin, knowing the pressure of how to do extractions when not to do extractions, when not to do a peel… maybe it’s just the American system, but it’s only a six month program. 600 hours.
It’s not just America. Over here, I’m pretty sure anyone can operate a laser which is frankly terrifying. I think you just do one day of training.
Yeah, wow. I think in New York estheticians can operate lasers, but in California it’s only nurses and doctors.
I don’t like the way it’s changed that way. They’ve taken away the ritual aspect of it. When I was trained with Yon-Ka Paris, the French way, there was a sensorial element to the products, the aromatherapy, the textures were really light, the lights were dim. There were soft music, beautiful linens, it was very French. And it made that experience more than just fixing your face. It was the experience really other worldly, and I think we need that. As a woman, I think we’re just more and more stressed these days- we’re running companies, we’re taking care of our children, we’re taking care of our husbands who sometimes can be like children, and it’s just a lot of work. That facial moment is such a special moment. I’ve worked on over 20,000 faces, and there’s this moment where I just lose them, where at first they’re kind of thinking of their job or what they’re going to make for dinner, and they’re laid down, they’ve got they’re in the bed and they’re not quite gone yet… and then there’s just this moment within usually five minutes where I just see them relax. Self care is what it is, and I wanted to recreate that. That’s why I brought in the rose quartz tools with my aromatherapy botanical skincare line. Just to bring that ritual home,
because it’s an emotional emotional element that I’m also addressing, not just a quick fix with your skin. It’s kind of all encompassing. It’s sensitive.
I’m glad you’ve said self care as well, because so few of us actually afford ourselves the time to work through that ritual. But it’s just the best thing ever.
It really is. And it doesn’t take a lot of time! I just did a Live this morning with Facial In A Mask sheet mask, and I used my sonic roller and the mask just delivers so many wonderful things. There’s no fragrance, there’s no perfume. It’s just natural peptides and vitamin C, and then I infused it with that sonic roller, which just supercharged everything deeper into my skin. And it felt great! The rose quartz, the coolness of the stone, the vibration, it was other worldly and it only took five minutes and I was really relaxed for those five minutes. And then when I took the mask off, I looked like and felt like I just had a facial. So the whole idea is to make these little mini rituals with my products and tools, so people can recreate that at home and have facials every day.
That’s what we want- we want to look and feel like we are not living in the middle of a global pandemic. I’ll take any sort of distraction. So you were working with Yon-Ka, then you opened your own salon. and was it then that you moved to the Ola Hendrickson day spa?
No, that was years later! I was working for Yon-Ka, that was my first job. I was 23 and in the spa business, and then I wanted to open my own spa- I had very big ambitions for a 23 year old. And I did! I opened a very small spa in Carmel for facials, and I did that for a little while. Carmel is a beautiful resort town, it’s mainly hotels and restaurants, but they fondly call it the land of the newlywed or nearly dead, because you have to be really rich to live there. So they’re either retired, or you go there to get married because it’s so pretty. So I was 23, and I had my spa, and I was just like “Oh my god, is this going to be the end of my life? This is kind of boring.” So I didn’t it want to just be that and to stay there for all those years.
I had an itch to move to New York City. I sold my spa to a friend, a Belgian woman, and I moved to New York City at 25. I was 25 years old and bought a one way ticket and had 500 bucks in my pocket and just moved to New York for four years.
And were you working as an esthetician in New York?
Yeah, this is the interesting part. It was all still quite new so, at the time, Frederic Fekkai was really big in New York City and had a big spa. So I thought “I’m going to walk into the best place in New York, and I’m going to get a job at Frederic Fekkai.” It was very nice, on 57th Street, right in the heart of Manhattan. I went in and it was beautiful, very elegant and elevated. I was interviewed, and they only hired Romanian women, and they were only paying like $12 an hour. So I was like “Oh, this isn’t going to work for me!” I couldn’t live in a city and only make that. Whereas when I was in Carmel I was just paying a rent fee for my room, $800 a month. And I was bringing in a lot.
So then I decided, in New York, to work with a woman who [had a business] called Healing Hands. On the Upper East Side she was sending out massage therapists and she wanted to bring in the facial element. So she hired me to be the facialist and we would go to celebrity apartments. It was very high end. She also wanted to create a skincare line, so she wanted me to help her with her skincare line. She was from Texas and had a lot of money, so I gave her some tips but I didn’t stay with her that long. I didn’t want to carry a big massage bed up steps and stairs and give facials in New York. It was just a lot of work.
Well if you’re giving the facial, you have to be in a certain state of mind as well. And if you’re hauling things up and down stairs, it’s going to be very difficult to create a relaxing environment for someone.
You’re absolutely right. And when you visit a home, you don’t know where there’s outlets to charge things, so you might be a little stressed because your cord won’t reach or the positioning isn’t right. And the element of getting everything up and you’re sweating… so that didn’t last for very long.
And then I studied acting for a time. I studied at Lee Strasberg, and it was one of the reasons I wanted to move to New York. I’m was like “Wow, I’m 25. Let me just try this acting thing!” And I got into the school and I acted for a while, and I don’t think I was meant to be an actress. I was a terrible actress. I couldn’t lie! I couldn’t, it was terrible, but I went there and I wanted to do it. It was the glamour of being an actress. I thought “I’m going to go to New York and study theatre,” but I was a terrible actress.
And then you realised what it was that you were meant to be doing, which is exactly what you’re doing now. It called you back!
Yeah! It all fell into place at Ole Henriksen Spa. When I moved back to California and started working there, that was when it all fell into place. I knew that this is where I needed to be. I started working on a lot of celebrities, and they were telling their friends. I was surrounding myself with people that were really empowering me and my knowledge of skin. And they wanted to come and they wanted to spend their time and their hard earned dollars and get facials on a regular basis. So that was really empowering.
That’s amazing. You were the lead esthetician there, and you’re mentioned that you started looking after celebrities. The list of names… Helen Christensen, Chrissy Tiegen, Minnie Driver just to name a few. There’s more that we obviously can’t mention and more that I will shortly, but what do you think it is about your approach to skin that resonates with so many people?
That’s a great question.
I had to work to get those clients. Helena Christensen was really my first celebrity. I was working at Equinox at the time in their spa right before I went to Ole Henriksen here in Los Angeles. I walked in and I saw her name on the computer. She was getting a massage from my friend and I thought “Wow, Helena Christensen. Oh my god.” I loved her. So, I went quickly and wrote on a piece of paper “Offer her a free facial after the massage,” and I threw it under my friend’s door. I wasn’t supposed to be doing that- it wasn’t my spa, it was a corporation, but I’d learned all that hustle from spending some time in New York, which helped me a lot.
When Helena came out, my friend introduced me to her. Helena didn’t have time that day, but she was very gracious and said “I’d love to come back tomorrow to get one.” So she came back the next day and we ended up becoming quite close friends. She’s still one of my closest friends today, and that was around eight years ago.
She had a lot of influence, as well, on my creating products. I would send her products and say “Do you like this? What do you think of this?” And this was before I launched two years ago.
So, in terms of dealing with celebrities, and I’ve watched this because when I worked at Ole Henriksen I saw other facialists come up when I had [a celebrity] leave, and they would start talking to them about a movie or something that they were in. I was just like “Oh no, please. Don’t.” The thing is you just treat them like people, and you don’t ever ask about their career unless they happened to mention it. And usually they didn’t! So I really just enjoyed them and I got to know them from a human standpoint and I think they appreciated that, and they felt my authenticity and my sincerity and really doing what I do. I’m there to make their skin better. That’s what I did when they were in the room. But I also gave them a warm cocoon place to go where they felt safe. I think that’s what resonated most with my celebrity clients, because they would refer their other celebrity clients to me, and that’s how I built that trust.
It would be a welcome relief for them to not have someone fawning over them, and just to have, an hour or so of just escape.
I do have to admit when I worked on Sting… I mean, I had to tell myself “Do not fawn.” I went to his home in Malibu. I was referred by one of his other celebrity friends. I had to lug all of my stuff, I had to ask the Uber driver “Please help me carry this stuff in!” because I had no one with me. He helped me carry some of my stuff, because I bring a lot of stuff to do a facial.
There was a chef and a woman who was his house cleaner. They were both there in this beautiful mansion, right on the water. They said “Yes, you can go ahead and set up. You’re going to be giving the facial up there.” And they pointed, and I looked, and it was his bedroom that overlooked the water and it had a huge fireplace. I was nervous. I’m like “Oh my god, I’m giving a facial in this beautiful room.” So I set up, and he got on the table and was laying there, and I thought to myself “What music do you play for Sting?! How am I going to mess this up? What music would I play for this guy for his facial to relax him?!”
So I went downstairs and I asked the chef “What music does he like?” And he said “He loves Mozart or Beethoven.” I never would have thought that! So I went back up and all of a sudden, bam, I turn on Mozart and I begin the facial. And he was like “Oh, I love your music!”
But I think the fact that I did that shows how much I care about their experience, and they sense that. But he didn’t know that I did that, he’ll never know, but the fact that I want that experience to be so lovely for them, I think is why they enjoy the experience and recommend their friends.
It’s putting the client first, which you would think would be a given, but unfortunately not all. While we’re talking celebrity clientele, another one- Barbra Streisand. Incredible. I read that it was while you were giving Barbra Streisand, I’ve got to use her full name, a facial, it was then that the idea for your namesake brand came to be.
It’s true! It was unbelievable. I was working at Ole Henriksen Spa, and he had just sold the spa. Somebody else had taken it over, who really is a nice guy, but didn’t have that skillset to really make his people that worked for him happy. At least not for me.
I gave a young woman a facial, and I was already working on celebrities at the time, and I just asked her what she did which is normal conversation is you’re giving a facial. And she said “I’m Barbra Streisand’s assistant.” And right away, my mind went right to my New York hustle days. I said “Wow, if you ever want to gift her a facial, you can say it’s from you, I’d be happy to give her a complimentary facial.” Just because I loved Barbra Streisand!
Wow. Who doesn’t!
I didn’t expect her to say “Oh, her birthday is next week. Let me ask the team.” And I was like “Oh god, this might happen!” I didn’t expect that. And sure enough, she sent me an email the next day and said “We’ve asked Barbra,” because you don’t just surprise Barbra with a facial, Barbara needs to be aware of what’s happening even on her birthday, and Barbara approved. She didn’t tell me this, but I know now because I know Barbra now- it was approved by Barbra. “You are to come and give her a facial for her birthday, it’s a gift from the staff, and come in two days and here’s the address in Malibu.”
So I brought all my stuff, I drove out there and I remember sitting in my SUV. I’ve never been more nervous to give a facial. I was already working on major people, but this was just Barbara. I grew up watching all of her films. My mother was obsessed with her. I love her music. And I went in and her assistant greeted me. And she said “Barbra has a facial room.” I’m like “Of course she has a facial room.” So at least I didn’t have to bring a lot of the equipment.
It was a two hour facial. I’ve never given a two hour facial. Barbara talked the whole time. And I was told that either she loves you or hates you. There’s no in between. Some people that worked for her feared her- but she’s Barbra! She has every right to be! Luckily, she liked me. She talked the whole time and I told her how much Yentl meant to me as a young girl, because my mother said “Angela, look, this was the first female producer, writer and star of a film. Barbra Streisand. She did all of this and directed.” And she was playing a man. And I was just amazed at that empowering statement. And I let Barbara know. I said “I remember my mom telling me this. I love that movie.” And she said “It’s too bad that it hasn’t come farther,” in terms of women doing all of these things, which is a typical Barbra statement and is very true.
She said “I was 40 when I did that.” And then she said “How old are you?” And she looked up at me and I looked down and I said “40.” And then she looked up with her eyes piercing right in my face, like just 10 inches from me, and said “Well, what’s your dream?” I’ve never had anyone like Barbra Streisand, 10 inches from my face, look at me and say “What’s your dream?” I had just gone through a divorce. I was over 40. I was working at a spa. My hours were cut just because a lot of people were being cut, changes were happening. We weren’t that happy. And I had Barbara Streisand say “What’s your dream?” I just looked at her and I just said “To have a skincare line.” I just answered her. I didn’t even think about that before I walked in her door. Maybe I did, but not in a serious way.
After that facial, she took me up into her bathroom. She said “Angela, come with me. I want to show you my products. I want you to look and tell me what I should be using. I just don’t know.
I have so many products. Everybody sends me products.” So I go up and it literally looked like a Mecca store. It had products everywhere, her gorgeous pink bathroom. Luckily I know so many products, I know everything about products, so I grabbed the ones that I thought she should be using for her skin, laid them out, and told her how to use them.
And I left. And when I left, I left so empowered that I was going to start that skincare line. She made me feel empowered by saying “What should I be using?” I left, and I was like “I’m gonna find a lab.” This was eight or nine years ago. No one knew about clean beauty at the time.
Tata Harper had just launched- literally just launched. And I had tried her products. I love how elevated and beautiful her her line is, and that was inspiring to me. Also, I know a lot about the skin and I didn’t want to use too many essential oils because I didn’t want to sensitise the skin, so I knew it was going to be clean and natural and I wanted it to be the best ingredients. I worked a lot of years to get to the point I am, where I am now with the product.
And you did it! So where did you go from there? You left Barbara’s house. You’re feeling empowered. How did you go about finding a lab? How did you look at which products you would launch with, sourcing ingredients, where does one go?
Well that was the interesting part. Because of the internet, I was able to research labs from all over the United States- and there were quite a few. I would call and talk with them, and they would all say “Oh yeah, sure. I do natural. Yeah, of course.” Well, none of them did. They were saying it was natural, but the ingredients had silicons, colourants and fragrances. It was not what I wanted. It took me literally a year to find a lab that really was authentically a natural lab. Now it’s much easier to find, but back then it was not.
So it took me a whole year to find a lab. And this lab is located in Oregon, which is in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. There’s a flower grown there called Atlantis Alba, and it produces meadow foam seed oil. It’s indigenous to that area only. The lab I was that working with (I finally found a real natural lab), they had it on their list and I’m like “What is this? I know of argan oil, I know of jojoba oil, what is this meadow foam seed oil? Please send some to me!” So while I was playing with their products and the oils, I was incorporating that meadow foam seed oil with what I was doing in my facial treatment room.
So I would actually bringing in some of my products- I would do one part of the facial with that product, and I would see the difference in the skin. I saw that the molecular structure of the meadow foam seed oil is similar to our own sebum, so it’s able to penetrate deep down into the skin. And as we age, we lose a lot of sebum production, so this is like a kiss of youth infusing it back. It’s also great for acne prone or inflammation in the skin, and it delivers a lot of essential fatty acids. It also protects from transepidermal water loss, which can happen to have everyone.
So I just built my skincare line around that! The first product was my Souffle Moisturiser. I made sure it had meadow foam seed oil. I wanted the first ingredient not to be water, but aloe vera juice. I didn’t want it to have any scent, no essential oil, nothing. Just Vitamin C, there’s goat milk to calm redness and eczema, and that, to this day, is still my hero skew product.
I think it’s so telling the product that you launched with is still a best seller. I think it just shows how much work went in behind the scenes.
Yes. And it works well with the rest of my products too. Like you can do a few drops of the Saily Botanical and you can infuse it with the souffle and put it together. Everything is made to work together synergistically.
While you were developing the brand, just in case you didn’t have enough on your plate, you opened the Angela Caglia Skin Spa in Bel Air in 2016. Launching a brand and opening a spa all at once! What led you to open your own spa? What did you feel was missing from the existing offering?
I’ll tell you, I cultivated a great group of celebrities and non-celebrities- just amazing women. And one of those women, her name is Shannon Dellimore, she was a regular client of mine. She founded Glam Glow. So she launched with a mask, we were friends, I was her facialist, and she would ask me for a lot of advice on skin and I would give it to her. She would come regularly and one day she said “Angela, would you please go on QVC for me? I’m not really liking doing that. And I would rather you go as a celebrity facialist on QVC.” First, I said no. I said “Shannon, no, that’s terrible. Millions of people watching. No, thanks.” And then she asked again and again. So I went on for her. I flew out to Pennsylvania and sold her mask on QVC and I made all my numbers. It was a good experience. And then I went back and did it again.
And the funny story- at one point, when I went back the second time, I walked in to a huge studio, and I saw on screen Ole Henriksen. He was there, he was on live at that moment. And I wasn’t supposed to be there! It was outside of work! I had to go hide in the makeup room! I’m like “Oh no, I don’t want him to see that I’m all the way here talking about Glam Glow!” But it was a great experience. And again, it empowered me that people believed in what I was doing.
I was empowered. When you’re empowered and you have this dedication to excellence… Ole had sold the spa, so he wasn’t there anymore, he had the dedication to excellence. He was gone, so it started to fall a little bit. And when I had my clients come in, I had that dedication to excellence. When they’d check out, I wanted the receptionist to be at the front desk, not in the back. I didn’t want to charge them for a coffee that should be free. So I became very protective of my clients and I wanted that experience to be really lovely and it wasn’t anymore. It was declining a little bit. And that stressed me out- and I don’t want to stress as a facialist. So I kind of knew.
And then I started to create protocols that were not on the menu. I started to do facials the way I wanted to do them. I thought some protocols were redundant and it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t working. So I created my own and started to do a lot of those facials. I knew it was time to go. I was divorced and still didn’t have very much money because my hours were cut, and one of my clients who’s a celebrity client but I won’t mention his name, but he gave me a check. He said “You need to get out of here. I know you need to open your own place and do your own stuff.
Here’s this.” And it wasn’t a tremendous amount, it wasn’t a crazy amount, but he said “I want you to pay me back when this means nothing to you. When you have this money, and it doesn’t mean much at all.” It was like $10,000. And I opened my own studio and Bel Air with that. And the reason I opened it was to do the skincare line. You can’t have a skincare line working with someone else, so I wanted to open my own spa. And luckily all of my celebrities followed, which was great, Minnie Driver is a regular too, and they all came which you never know when you leave and open your own place that they’ll come. So I started introducing my products to them at that time. I started to use my products in back bar and they were amazed by them and they encouraged me to bring them to market, and that’s how that started.
And bring them to market you did. How does the product development process work for you, from conceptualisation through to the product being available for consumers?
Well, I think it’s great that I’m a facialist. So I’m actually doing the work. The market research is there. I’m talking to the women, I’m finding out their concerns. I know I have my own knowledge base of skincare and how it reacts to certain ingredients. So every product that I bring to market, I have basically tested on all of my clients. There’s this moment where if I don’t hear “Ooh, that smells good!” or “That feels good!” then I know that this might be a dud. So I introduce without saying what I’m doing, and I’ll just put it in with their facial. I’ll usually give them some and send some to my celebrity clients and get their feedback.
But in terms of creating the formulations, I had really great advice given to me by Shannon of Glam Glow. She gave me one piece of advice and this was it. She said “Angela, just create the products you want for yourself.” I was like “Oh! Well that’s easy. Okay, I want a really light cleansing oil. This is what I want to use. I want to do this, this and this.” So I went about it that way, and it turns out a lot of other people wanted the same things. So in terms of the products, I just make sure that they don’t have ingredients that I see that sensitise the lipid barrier. My whole focus is protecting and nourishing the lipid barrier. There are so many products out there that have ingredients that strip the lipid barrier and sensitise the lipid barrier that give you bumps, make you red, make you flake, make you touch tight and dry. And of course they do- the minute I look at the ingredient deck I’m like “Do you see what the second ingredient is?! If only they knew that, they would never be putting it on their face!” So it’s just the integrity behind the formulations and the connection to my clients.
I’ll never stop giving facials. I always want to do at least 20% facials and 80% running this company, because I feel it’s really important that I keep that connection to my client because they’re the ones that inspire me to create really, really good products. I have them in mind when I’m formulating.
The products themselves are influenced by those early learnings that you took from when you were in Paris and started learning more and more about the skin. You’ve been really globally praised for balancing those French elements with a more “American” approach to skin, if you will. What is the difference between the French and the US approaches to beauty? And how would you define your specific approach?
I think Americans, in terms of their obsession with cleaning, cleaning their bathroom, cleaning their toilets, making sure everything’s clean, they’re used to getting these big, powerful ingredients that soap and sud and strip. So they think that’s what they need when they cleanse. That’s how to really get clean. They want the immediate satisfaction and fix. They also think “I need a Vitamin C, I need a retinol, I need the peel pad.” And they think they need all of it at once. They’re just so determined to look great. Because of the influences of the media in terms ofInstagram and then the Photoshopping and the celebrities, they want the quick fix. And I think they’re not really doing the research on what they’re actually putting on their face. They don’t know- they trust. And I get that, because there’s not a lot of regulation, at least here in the US, on what you say on your products. You can say things even on your Instagram, that just aren’t true. They may highlight a certain product or ingredient, and it may be the second to the last. It could just be marketing levels and it’s not really a green tea cleanser, for example, it could be the second to the last. It could be a lot of chemicals and foaming agents.
Away from the topical skincare products, we’ve touched on the Rose quartz tools. They’ve become something of a signature of yours. What are some of the benefits of rose quartz for the skin? I know that I love it, but what is it actually doing?
Well there’s a couple of reasons. I launched with the La Vie En Rose Quartz Roller three years ago, so I was one of the first to launch with a roller with their skincare line. Now everyone is launching with the roller.
But not all rollers are made the same!
With everything I do, I try and make it as high quality as possible. The reason I wanted to launch with the rose quartz was that, being an esthetician for so many years, I sold a lot of the gadgets, the expensive gadgets. And what I found was that my clients would come back every month for their facial, and I’d say “Hey, did you use that microcurrent device?” “Yeah, I used it the first couple of months, but now it’s in a drawer and I never use it. Angela, just go ahead and do what you do to me.” I’m like “Oh, you have something that works and you’re not using it!” So I wanted to make it where I knew they would use it. It’s gotta be easy, and it had to be beautiful- almost like jewellery for them to cherish it and want to hold it and not just lose it and have it just go somewhere in the corner of the room. So I kind of did, I guess a little manipulation. I wanted to make this as beautiful as possible and luxurious as possible and easy as possible so that they would actually use it and, sure enough, they started using it and the trend hit.
It works because of the coldness of the stone. Rose quartz, by the way, is the densest and most cold of all the stone, even colder than jade or amethyst, which is good to know. But the reason I chose to go with the rose quartz was because I’m a facialist. When I use my hands, there’s an energy that I give. When I give facials, it’s a love energy. It’s a self esteem boosting energy. I say things that will boost their self esteem. When you look at the diopter lens and you look at them magnified 10 times, that’s a very vulnerable position for anyone, so one of the first things I always do is give them a compliment first, because it’s really hard to be under that light being magnified.
So there’s a love that I give when I give facials, to build their self esteem. So this is a self esteem boosting crystal with a love energy, and I wanted that to be rolled on their skin if I can’t be there, but mainly it’s because it works and it goes back thousands of years. It helps the puffiness and dark circles. It calms inflammation. You can dip it in hot water and you can dry it, and then you have a warm stone. That’ll help over my sheet mass to penetrate the serum on the sheet mask, and also to penetrate anything deeper into your skin with the heat. The coldness helps with the puffiness and the dark circles to calm inflammation.
A collection of products that of particular interest to me- your rose quartz eye, face and décoletté masks. For those who haven’t seen them, could you please describe them for us and how do they work?
Again, it goes back to working in the treatment room and being a facialist. I want to create that beautiful, relaxing experience. I want them to have that escape moment. That’s what I live for when I get facials. I’m there to do my work, but I’m also there to make them really relax.
What was great with the rose quartz, I started with the roller and I thought “There’s gotta be a way to expand this.” So I designed a rose quartz eye mask. I wanted to lay that over their eyes to help with the puffiness and dark circles and to put it over their sheet mask, just to really zone out during their facial. And then I had an idea. I’m like “Why stop there? I want to do the full face.” I was inspired by the anxiety blankets. So I wanted to do a weighted chest blanket of rose quartz along with the full face. And the reason I wanted the full face was because I use a lot of different equipment and I do some types of lasers that estheticians can use here that do heat up the skin.
So with that hour and a half facial, there’s a lot of things I do, and I need to get the skin cold again, quickly. So instead of using the roller all over the face, I wanted to just lay this blanket of rose quartz crystals to get it cold. So I would lay that and when I would take it off after a couple of minutes, the skin would be really cold to the touch. So it worked for me on a practical level, because then I could go in and do the peel because the skin was cold. I didn’t want it to be warm from whatever heated thing I just did to build collagen. And then I noticed again, after using it only from a practical standpoint, how much my clients loved it. I’ll never forget the moment I laid the chest piece on [a client], and she just stopped talking. She wouldn’t even talk to me. She was so just so soothed and relaxed.
I thought it was just going to be for my treatment, but I put it on Instagram and people wanted to buy it! So now the full face is available exclusive to my website and also at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong.
It comes back to your whole goal for your skincare line, which is for people anywhere in the world to be able to recreate and experience your facials from home. One particular treatment that has got a cult following is the signature treatment, the La Vie En Rose Power Facial. Now, the only thing that I find more relaxing than actually having a facial is listening to an esthetician describe a facial. So what does this particular facial entail?
It does include changing the temperatures on the skin. Lifting and sculpting. We do a mini peel and I always try and balance… I use a lot of high tech equipment, but then I’ll use two of my La Vie En Rose quartz rollers, not one, two, and it’s almost like a dance on the face and I’ll do it in a lymphatic drainage way. It feels like too cold hands and it feels really nice using two very lightly, you don’t need to press hard at all. And then I incorporate a lot of massage. I think that’s important. I’ll do lymphatic drainage massage. I’ll do a sculpting massage. I have a massage where I really sculpt up the cheekbones with my knuckles, and that’s why I created my Gua Sha, which is shaped like my knuckles, which will be launching at Mecca very soon, so you can get in and really sculpt out your cheekbones. I do a lot of balancing with that facial. You have the aromatherapy of my products. It’s every element. It’s the sheets. It’s my voice. It’s the music.
It’s the lighting. It’s the temperature. It’s bringing in right after a high tech machine, doing something soft with the rose quartz. That’s really soothing. I always have them look in the mirror when they’re done. I love that. My favourite part is when they’re like “Wow, my skin looks so good.” That’s the most satisfying part at the end of the facial.
Well, I know who I’ll be visiting when we’re allowed to travel again. While we’re on in-spa and in-salon facials, you mentioned Sting earlier. I mean, how could you not? When I first read that you’ve looked after Sting, I started thinking about men and beauty treatments, and this very strange stigma that surrounds the two that I still can’t quite wrap my head around. Why do you think that stigma still exists? Why do you think so many men are reluctant to actually look after their skin?
That’s a really good question. I think it has to do with that they don’t really pay much attention to their face except a shave, while women, we get our eyelashes curled, we put makeup on, we have a lot more focus on our face. Men, I think it’s more… maybe their biceps, or jogging, or they just don’t take enough care for their face. I’m glad you brought that up because I’m still working on how to change the narrative on that. Even my husband, who is my business partner, we have the skincare line and I’ll touch his forehead and it’s so dry and it’s ageing him because it’s so dry. I’m like “Honey, why don’t you put some of the daily botanical on, or the souffle? I mean, we have a skincare line.” And he’s like “Ah, no.” So I’ll go and put it on him and I’ll do a nice massage- but why can’t he? So I should probably just start asking a lot of men “Why can’t you go and apply?” Do they feel like they’re being too feminine? I don’t know.
We gotta change this. I mean, they would look so much better. I want to look at my husband when he’s dewy and bright.
Does male skin need to be treated differently to female skin?
Most of male skin does. They have more sebaceous glands, and that means more oil production and they have more blackheads. They actually have a thicker skin a little bit, in terms of the epidermis. There’s also something to be said about men, a lot of them age well, and they don’t do as much to their face. So there’s something we can learn from men as well. For example, you have a husband and wife, a wife who’s doing all sorts of things to her skin, and it’s just so out of whack and he’s just ageing fine. So I think they can learn from us and we can learn from them. I think less is more and and they have that down, but they just need to do a little more.
It comes back to what you were saying about how people just want their skin to feel clean. I feel like people’s first instinct, if their skin’s not looking all that great, is to just strip it of everything.
And then they strip it again and again! They’ll use the peel pad, and they’ll get a great result because they needed it, they needed that exfoliation, and then they’ll do it again a second night and third night, and then they have a problem. So it’s just knowing when to stop.
You are working with the skin each and every day. What is the most common concern that you’re presented with?
Oh, that’s a good question. You know, when I ask that, because whenever I give a facial I ask because there’s no use of me giving a facial and thinking “Oh God, you have blackheads. I’ve really got to work on that,” when they’re concerned with fine lines around their eyes. So I always ask “What are your biggest skincare concerns?” Not what I’m concerned with, that they are. So what I find they say, usually, is sometimes it’s a blanket answer. Like “I just want to look younger,” or “I want to look brighter and dewier.” So the brightness and the dewiness, that’s usually what I hear.
And how do we remedy that?
You use my products with my lipid lock technology, which actually helps to protect and nourish the lipid barrier to deliver everything where it is bright and nourished and dewy all the time.
You have been part of the beauty industry for 23 years now, or longer if we look back to when you were eight and making face masks. What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen within the beauty industry over that time?
Definitely what I’ve seen over the past 10 years are women in their 30s breaking out. And that never happened before. I’ve been giving facials for 25 years, and that was never a problem. The only people breaking out ever were the people in their late teens or 20s. You were not breaking out in your 30s, and there has been many conversations around this. Some people think it’s the environment. Some people think it’s stress levels, what they’re eating.
What I’ve come to decide, with my experience, is thinking back through all the years of knowing these women, they weren’t really using very many products 10 years ago. The past 10 years is when they started buying more products, they started using a bunch of products. I contend that it’s the products that are actually exacerbating and causing breakouts by disrupting their lipid barrier. It’s shocking to me when I read on different portals, women talking about the products they’re using. I’ll get emails saying “Angela, I’m using all of these things,” or I’ll do virtual consults, which I’ve been doing in the lockdown for free just because I want to communicate with women and find out what they’re using, and it blows my mind. What’s even scarier is they don’t know. It’s the ingredients in the products that are really breaking them out.
And from an industry or trend standpoint, what are some changes you’ve seen in that sphere?
I’m not a fan of the fast food facial. They’re popping up everywhere where you go in, you lay down, and you spend 120 bucks and you get a facial. It’s not really a facial, it’s someone putting products on you and then charging you a hundred bucks and then you leave. I created the skincare line and tools because I have my experience in creating these products that are synergistic. I’m giving you the tools. I want to give you that facial experience for less than a hundred dollars, and you don’t even have to leave your house, and you’ll get a better result.
If you want to do the facial fast and not pay so much money, I get that. My facials are upwards of $400 when I give them. That’s expensive. Not everyone can afford that. And that’s why I created the tools and the products- so you can create your own facial at home, and I’m hoping that’s the future of the business. Either you pay for someone’s experience and you get that incredible facial, or you’re able to use your own products and have a moment where you dim the lights and you have the candles and you have the music and you shut the door. It could be just five minutes, but it could be five minutes every day, and you’ll see your skin will look better and you’ll feel better.
We’ve talked about the past. What changes do you think we can expect to see from the beauty industry over the next few years?
That’s a good question. Thank god it’s going more clean. That’s the most exciting part. There won’t be a differentiation. When I designed my boxes, I designed them three years ago as a clean luxury line, and you couldn’t really tell that I was a clean line because I knew that this is the future, and you don’t need to have an amber bottle, it doesn’t need to look “clean.” It was very chic. I was inspired by Tom Ford’s perfume bottle. I knew this would be the norm, and it will be even more the norm. That means that your skin will get better. We won’t have all these breakouts because there’s a lot of transparency, and people have to be more transparent.
Also the consumer is so much more educated. And even if they’re not transparent, they’ll find a way to get the information and know that they want to use something that’s actually going to benefit their skin and not sensitise it. And they’re not paying for just a marketing budget or a celebrity who happened to endorse it. I know that influencers are big right now with skincare lines. Before they were big with fashion lines, because fashion was big. Now beauty is big. So of course the celebrities have now have beauty lines. I think that will dissipate, because I think that people want expertise and they want to trust. I think that if you have an influencer pop up all the time with a skincare line, they’re also promoting other things… there’s not a lot of authenticity there. Of course there are exceptions and I commend them. But in terms of in general, I don’t think that that’s the wave of the future in terms of skincare. It’s going to be definitely cleaner and healthier and better. So it’s exciting.
My final question- what is next for Angela Caglia skincare?
That’s a perfect followup and final quesion. Next is to expand and be bigger. I’m making a bunch of different collections within my product line. I do have the lipid lock technology, that will be in all of my different collections of products. Then another one, there will be a resurfacing collection, so the cleanser, the moisturiser and the serum will all have an element of resurfacing. And then I’ll do another one- that’ll be more of an antioxidant and vitamin C inspired or a Rose inspired [collection], and you’re able to mix. Let’s say you want that resurfacer. You can buy it with this collection, or you can stick to that one resurfacing collection. So building out different pods of collections.
I’d also like to create a clean skincare makeup line because they go together. Why would you use clean skincare and not use clean makeup?
To listen to the full interview with Angela Caglia Skincare founder Angela Caglia, subscribe to the Glow Journal podcast now on iTunes or Spotify
