In The Family

These renowned skincare brands are using their strong family bonds to their advantage in the competitive beauty industry.

- Renée Batchelor

IT’S NO SURPRISE that many brands start out as family enterprises. After all, who can one trust to help carry out the vision of budding entrepreneurs if not a trusted member (or more) of the family? From funding and imparting their technical and industry know-how to aiding in the expansion of the business, the support rendered can be invaluable. However, the reality is that as a brand grows, and more funding is required to expand product lines and production volumes, it’s not uncommon to see such businesses sold off — in parts or as a whole — to larger conglomerates, many of which inevitably alter the original DNA of the purchased brands in some way and form, all in the name of profit.

Here are three families who still run their skincare and cosmetics brands, each driven by their passion to keep the original philosophy of their brands intact.

For April Gargiulo, who launched her skincare brand Vintner’s Daughter in 2014, her family business was in an unrelated field. “I come from a family of winemakers in California’s Napa Valley, which opened my eyes to the importance of the finest quality ingredients paired with exacting formulation methods — to me, this was true luxury. After I became pregnant with my eldest daughter, I realised that my ‘luxury’ skincare products were anything but. Typically, there were only .01 per cent active ingredients and the rest was made up of low-quality, unsafe fillers. I was inspired to create my holy grail product that would deliver uncompromising efficacy, quality, and safety in a single, powerful step,” she says. The result: the brand’s stellar Active Botanical Serum, which retails worldwide via the online shopping portal, Net-a-Porter, and is in constant demand.