750 Angela Caglia: Founder & CEO of Angela Caglia Skincare

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Kara Golden Show.

0:45Kara Goldin:Today, I'm joined by Angela Collier, founder of Angela Collier Skin Care. And it is, of course, the luxury brand pioneering human stem cell derived technology and regenerative aesthetics. With over 30 years of experience as a celebrity esthetician, Angela has treated some of the world's most iconic faces and has now combined her artistry with groundbreaking science to transform the future of anti-aging skincare. and her brand's premier product, Cell Forte Collection, is already a cult favorite celebrated for restoring youthful skin function at a cellular level. I cannot wait to dive into her story and hear a lot more about how this all came to be and how do you build a science-backed luxury skincare line in today's day and age.

1:42Kara Goldin:So welcome, Angela. So nice to meet you. Thank you. Great to meet you, Cara. I'm excited to be here. Super excited. So let's start at the beginning. I guess let's define the brand. So what is Angela Collier Skincare and how is it different from everything else in the market? And how did you decide, like, I've got to go do this? Great question. So I would define Angela Collier Skincare as, I like to say, regenerative medicine for your face. But it's basically we're incorporating the real human mesenchymal stem cell culture, which is used in regenerative medicine. It is the hero. And we're putting it topically on your largest organ with our delivery system.

2:27It's all patent pending. So it's a breakthrough technology. I wanted to start this business because I've been in the business for 30 years and I just got frustrated of working on such amazing people and being told by my bosses to sell certain products and say that they do certain things when I knew they didn't because I saw firsthand. And we'll get into it more later, but it's really the connection with that customer which propelled me to launch this line and to be a kind of a disruptor in the space, if you will.

3:00Kara Goldin:So you've spent decades as a celebrity aesthetician. I'm always so curious how people decide this is what I'm going to go do. And often it's not maybe what you decided that you were or thought you were going to do, but you started. And then, of course, you didn't just snap your fingers to get the clientele that you received. So how did that all shape into what it ultimately became? Yeah, great question. It's hustling. I hustled, Kara, to get to my clients. I started to work at Ula Henriksen Day Spa, which I wanted to work at when I first moved to LA about 12 years ago. And no one wanted to leave, so I couldn't get the job there.

3:45They were there 20 years. And he finally, Ula, sold his brand and his spa. So I finally, there was an opening. And I was going every day trying to like drop off my resume and I was probably annoying them. but I knew that's where I wanted to work. And I got the job and I started to work on a few celebrity clients. They were telling their friends. And it wasn't until a young woman came in, she was about 26. And I asked her what she did, which is normal conversation during the facial. And she mentioned she was Barbra Streisand's assistant. Well, I grew up in awe of Barbra Streisand. My mom was obsessed with her and I was already feeling a little confident because I was already working on some celebs.

4:23So I said, Hey, if you ever want to give her a facial, You can say it's from you and I'll comp it and I'll give her one. I didn't think she would say, well, her birthday's next week. Let me ask her and the team and we'll get back to you. So fast forward to the call saying, yes, Barbara agreed. You can come. Like you don't surprise Barbara Streisand with a facial. She has to okay it. And I went, gave her a facial for her birthday, two hour facial. And I told her how much Yentl meant to me as a young girl, the film that she directed, starred, produced in. My mom told me, hey, watch this. This is the first female to do this.

4:55And I was 11 and that inspired me. And I told her that and she, I just got the chills. I told her that and she said, you know, it's a shame that women haven't come farther in Hollywood since then. And she said, I was 40 when I got that done. And she said, what's your, no, she said, how old are you? And I said, 40. And then she opened her eyes, looked back at me and said, well, what's your dream? And it wasn't until that moment that I realized what my dream was. And when Barbra Streisand asks you a question, you answer it. And I was like, oh, to have a skincare line. But that really was the aha moment of like, Angela, what are you doing?

5:33Your dream is to have a skincare line. And she was super encouraging. Has been a client ever since and really propelled me to fight for what I believe in and super empowering. That's incredible.

5:44Kara Goldin:When you were doing amazing facials, you were getting repeat consumers. You were building your own brand and your own name. And then you decided to create this incredible line of products. How many years was it before you decided this? It's now time. Well, after I left Barbara, I was so inspired. I started looking for a skincare lab. So that was like, you know, almost 12 years ago. And I was recently divorced at that time. I didn't have very much money. The new owner at Ula Henderson was cutting everyone's hours. so I basically just scraped together to create this product which is still one of my hero products the souffle moisturizer and it took years to to be able to afford that I was sending products to my other celebrity clients like Helena Christensen other ones like that and it wasn't until I was able to leave Ula Henriksen Spa so I had another celebrity client who I said I'm working on a line and I let them see it.

6:46And they said, you know, I'm going to loan you$7 ,000 because I didn't come from money. I'm going to loan you$7 ,000 to open your own little place. You got to get out of here. And I was like, oh, thank God. So they ended up giving me$10 ,000 and they said, pay me back when this means nothing to you. Like, I believe you're going to do something. So pay this back when it means like 10 bucks to you. So I opened my own spa. So I went and opened a small little enclave in Bel Air. And all of my clients came. And that's when I kind of had the confidence to move forward with the skincare line, because you can't really start a skincare line working for another brand, you know, spa.

7:23So I put it together. And then I met my now husband, he was wanting to get out of Hollywood. He said, you know, I'll put in 20 ,000, let's start the skincare line. And I put in money and, and we just started from there. And then I can go into the story of how it became like human stem cell derived and why I chose that too.

7:43Kara Goldin:Yeah, no, I'd love to hear. So you, so you just started with the one product initially. No, actually I launched because I'm a facialist and I, I've been in 30 years. I'm like, I'm not launching with one product. I launched with four products. Okay. So that 20 ,000 ended up being, Hey, we need more. We need more. So he just liquidated his 401k. I liquidated mine and we put tons of money into building it. And what we did is we built awareness with the brand and I became well-known with the other big celebrity estheticians and I was going to New York a lot. And it wasn't until I started to get recognized for a tool that kind of built the industry, the roller, and my products were not really looked at because we really built that roller industry, the tool.

8:29And I was frustrated because my real passion was actual skincare. So I started looking for something that could really break through. And that came about through learning the efficacy of the human stem cell and what it actually produces and how it's different from everything else that's available.

8:48Kara Goldin:So can you talk about that product and what got you so excited about it? Yeah. Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it just comes down to being an esthetician brand and being so connected with these consumers. I had to sell them this stuff and I saw their faces and I wasn't a fan of retinol or vitamin C. And I was frustrated because of the BS in the industry, basically, and the money they were spending and how these beautiful models coming in and actresses were still frustrated with their skin and they weren't feeling pretty. So I was just like, this is unbelievable. There's got to be something other than retinol or vitamin C.

9:25And I couldn't even tolerate it. So actually, my mother was diagnosed with dementia about eight years ago. And I was looking for alternatives for her because she was having multiple strokes. And that produces vascular dementia at a very young age for her. So I found a stem cell research lab that did FDA-cleared clinical trials. and I was going there looking talking and realized that there is something there that is a byproduct of the stem cell that was made for wound healing and are discovered for wound healing in the 70s and I just started talking with the owner and the scientist and we just put our heads together and then I came back and talked to my incredible amazing chemist and I it took us like eight years to get it together the right formula and I went back to school to get my certificate in formulation cosmetic chemistry.

10:11That's how obsessed I am with ingredients. And I also have a degree in business. So it's just, it all just kind of made sense at the right time. And we got, we were kind of afraid to be honest, to launch because it, we launched two years ago at Violet Gray and getting ready for it. No one was doing human derived, especially not sold in Blue Mercury or Nordstrom where I wanted to go or Violet Gray. You know, so it was kind of a risk, But I looked at my husband and I said, we've got nothing to lose. I know it works and let's do it.

10:45Kara Goldin:So everyone's talking about peptides and growth factors and that's become such a big known scientific terms today. Or I should say consumers think that they know what they are, but they're good. Right. So can you break down what they actually do for the skin? And I think that that's such a, I read a little bit on how you've described it, but I'd love for you to share. Yeah. Another good question. There's so much misinformation and these companies are still guilty of, because I've been working on women for so long, I really have their backs in terms of what's being told to them. And many brands are like, oh, this is the exosome treatment by this doctor brand.

11:34And this is exosomes. And human, no, they'll say stem cell exosomes. But if you look at the back, the inky, it's actually derived from a fern or a plant or a rose or an orchid. And that's great if you're a fern or a plant or an orchid, right? So I just wanted to bring the highest level of efficacy of the mesenchymal stem cell, which is the hero of regenerative medicine. It's injected into your heart after a heart attack to rebuild the heart. Your brain is injected to rebuild the brain when you have a stroke or traumatic brain injury. And there's so much incredible data on this in white papers.

12:13And there's so much going on with regenerative medicine. And this is truly medical grade. And you hear the word medical grade. Well, that's another BS term. It's only a doctor brand may say this is medical grade, or even just a regular brand who claims they're scientific will say this is medical grade. The only thing that's medical grade is either a prescription, because anything that's in is FDA cleared, it's not medical grade, except my line actually would be considered medical grade. The human stem cell conditioned media, which is the culture where these stem cells are duplicated in the stem cell research lab, is actually injected into the veins for long COVID studies.

12:50Like it's literally used medical grade. And it's a process where it's freeze, not even freeze dried, sorry. It is frozen, cryogenically frozen, and shipped frozen to my chemist to keep those exosomes stable. And some spas will offer this, you know, stem cell application after laser or after exosomes, they call it, after laser or after microneedling. And that's a freeze dried version, which is, takes away some of the efficacy. They mix it with hyaluronic and they'll charge$500. So I literally brought something even more efficacious than you're paying$500 for after a laser treatment in a med spa.

13:26And why? Because I think as a 54-year-old woman, it's like, we deserve the best and I don't want to waste any more money. And it's a four-in-one. It replaces, it does more than many laser treatments or even, you know, obviously retinol or vitamin C. And and your skin just gets brighter and healthier and more hydrated. It reduces pigmentation. I mean, it's unbelievable. It tightens pores. And if you look at my website, you'll see, even on Blue Mercury's website, the reviews. I'll say, like, I think I made a pact with the devil to get this skin. Whatever it is, I'm not going to stop. And, you know, this is Jesus juice.

13:58And you just don't see reviews like that. So it's exciting. Yeah.

14:01Kara Goldin:No, I noticed that as well. It's really, really terrific. So when you were launching this, you talked a little bit about it, you and your husband. I mean, you poured everything into this product. And obviously, you knew it worked and it worked for you. But still, skincare is an incredibly competitive market. I mean, just because you have a great idea. You also had an audience and you were building your brand. So that was really helpful for sure because people knew your name. But when you look back on that, like, how did you know, how did you get the confidence to just say, okay, we've got to go and do this and spend thousands of dollars and what might not seem like a ton of money to you today or to everyone.

14:52Kara Goldin:I mean, it's real money, right? And I think people like sit there and think about their own idea and wonder, you know, should I pull the plug or not? or pull, sorry, pull the trigger or not. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. We thought of pulling the plug too. I didn't, but obviously at some point we were down to the wire. When we launched SelfWorti Serum, we had only a credit card with 10 ,000 available. And that's how much we believed in it. So I bought 500 units and you do the math. It was very, it's very expensive, especially with a small batch. And that's all we had. And then we bet everything on it. It's like, here's a credit card.

15:31We got something left. that's on a credit card now. And that's how much I believed in it. And I think it goes back to just knowing the business so well and having a mission, a real ethos of like, I want to, we all deserve something that works. And I just wanted to bring that to people. And yeah, having confidence. I've always had a little confidence when probably I shouldn't have, but confidence in like my beliefs. I moved to New York in my 20s with 500 bucks in my pocket and stayed for five years. And so I always had this little edge of like, I can do this. So I guess it helped.

16:09Kara Goldin:You and I were cut from the same cloth. So I was about the same sort of feeling or same experience of moving to New York and actually same timeline, five years. And then I was out of there. But But anyway, so clean, ethical, and high-performing. Why were these your non-negotiables for you as a founder? Well, obviously ethical because I'm ethical and I'm not going to, you know, there was a brand once where they were deriving it from like foreskin from a bathtub in San Diego. I heard something, a brand that had something like this, and then they folded in six months. So obviously ethical. I found that the most prestige CGMP certified, you know, stem cell research lab.

16:52in terms of clean. Clean is important to me for a different reason than most may say. For me, it's important. I'm an esthetician at the core and I stare at faces and I've been staring at faces that have been using products that have silicones or polysorbate 60 or beteline glycol, propylene glycol. And I'm telling you, it messes up your face. So it's not good for your skin. So many people still formulate with dimethicone and other silicones. And it's just a filler. it's it's a barrier and what happens is it just coats the skin and kind of fills the wrinkles and temporarily you think you look good you're just glazed over but when you wash it down the sink it doesn't even dissolve it doesn't dissolve in the oceans it's like a plastic layer and it's cheap it's pennies and chemists doctors they're all putting it in their formulas still it's unbelievable so I never formulate with that so I'm really about things going into your skin and replenishing what you lose as you age.

17:49How did you come up with the name? No one's ever asked me that. That's such a good question. Yeah, I came up with it. And I remember my father-in-law, he said to my husband, he said, oh, is that a good name? You know, I don't know if you should call it that, self-forte. You know, but I was very confident that this should be called self-forte. I'm also a Francophile. I studied in France. So forte means strong. So strong, sell. And I wanted it to be kind of exotic. And I know my customer, she's more affluent and that might appeal to her. So I'm a woman who loves certain things and I know her very well.

18:27So that's kind of why. Self Forte, it sounded exotic and it means something and no one else had it.

18:33Kara Goldin:So packaging is so critical, especially in the beauty industry in order to stand out. Has your packaging changed much since you launched? Or can you talk a little bit about sort of how you thought about that? Yeah, I mean, at the core, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a creative entrepreneur that loves numbers. So I designed my first packaging round. That was eight years ago. I saw a cake on Instagram. It was kind of Art Deco. And it had pink, gold, and black and kind of like, you know, the corners. And that actually, no one had anything like it. So I was brought in. people loved it because the packaging the outer container packaging and I had a black bottle at that time no one had black bottles for skincare so I I like to defy what's happening so there was a bunch of white bottles I went for black and then I did a second round a year ago where I wanted men to also enjoy this line and I I kept with the black and the gold but I did you know the outer carton black um it's important to me because it's funny because I'm actually talking with a creative agency to do a little tweak now.

19:38And I'm letting them know, listen, it's not about, it's about how women feel when they use it. And we're not like creating, oh, let's do a stem cell lab looking bottle to match what we have in it. It's about this woman knowing the efficacy, it's stem cell derived, but also having it look chic. Like it's like science-y chic and I don't want it to look labby. So I'm fighting now to keep the black and the gold, not fighting, but you know, of course, brand people want, oh, let's do it frosted glass. Let's do it clear. And I'm like, no, because she doesn't want that. So I think I have an insight to what this woman wants more than most, and I fight for her.

20:17I fought for the stem cell condition media in my product, and now I'm fighting for it looking really gorgeous.

20:23Kara Goldin:So storytelling is so key, I believe, to any brand success, and especially when you have to educate consumers on a concept as you've had to, how do you tell the brand story in a way that really connects with consumers, but doesn't alienate them? Like they think, oh, all this science stuff, it's so confusing, I can't purchase, of course, because you want people to try it and get it out there. But how do you do that and get people to feel comfortable enough, but also tell them kind of the why? Yeah, great question. What happened was when we launched, we were afraid to say human stem cell technology, the human part.

21:05And like a couple of weeks in, I was like, let's do it. So we started just hitting on the differentiator, right? We have to be really brave to be an entrepreneur. And if you don't feel the fear, you're not going to get something great. So I wanted to feel the fear of, oh, should we do this? This could either really flop or this could really do well. It was one or the other. And I said, we're going all in. So all of our ads were human stem cell technology, human stem cell derived. And, you know, we still are staying true to that. And if it didn't flop, as I thought, women are very educated. They they're getting, you know, if they have shoulder pain from tennis, they're getting stem cell injections, they're seeing exosome treatments at the med spa.

21:44Some are going to Korea for stem cell injections in place of filler. So the timing was right to where this consumer who I'm targeting, it's a 325 serum, it's expensive. She knows what stem cells are and she knows regenerative medicine. She may be looking into that for her parents too. So the timing was right and it worked out because all I have to do is say human stem cell derived technology made with billions of exosomes, growth factors, peptides, and proteins. So she kind of got it, which is good. And we have all the clinicals too.

22:14Kara Goldin:Yeah, behind it. Absolutely. So what surprised you the most about building a brand? You've been in the service industry for many, many years, and then suddenly you launch a brand, you have to find a name and, you know, I'm sure trademark it as well as formulate it as well as package it and ship it. And there's all kinds of things that go along with actually building this company. Employees, whether they're remote employees or full-time employees, I mean, there's just a lot of things. And I think a lot of people just don't really think about how they have an idea, but it's all about the execution, as I always say, in order to get it kind of out there and successful.

23:07Kara Goldin:But when you think about maybe those tough days in building your brand and some of the challenges, what would you say were sort of the hardest things to kind of get under control? Yeah, and you learn as you go, right? So learned a lot. We both did. And I wear a lot of hats. And people just assume because I'm the facialist that I'm not running the company. But I'm a CEO. I'm running this company. in every category. And we're just, the hardest part, to answer your question, was people, right? And they say an entrepreneur, the hardest part, you're basically a recruiter is what you are too. So there's nothing more important than your team and what they bring to the table or what they take away from the energy.

23:54So the biggest learning was I hired people who did a great interview recently. We just got some funding, which is super helpful. and that's because our numbers are so good. But with that money, we were going to make some hires. And I made a mishap and with a few people and they all kind of came together from one company. And that was the hardest part. But the hardest part was going to sleep every night knowing that they were kind of not doing their job and they were spending and it just wasn't a good fit at all. They weren't doing their job basically. so what i did was i got rid of them quickly and you know there's a saying you you be slow to hire and quick to fire so every mishap along the way we even had a small investor mishaps but i was i am of the school of like you need to fix it quick so i'm all about solutions and that's what a good entrepreneur does you think of the solution so in these cases the solution was get rid of the just let it go.

24:59And sure enough, now I've hired the most amazing team and I'm super happy. So it just, you learn as you go.