Angela Caglia: Founder & CEO of Angela Caglia Skincare

Episode 750

On today’s episode, Kara welcomes Angela Caglia, Founder and CEO of Angela Caglia Skincare, the luxury brand pioneering human stem cell-derived technology in regenerative aesthetics. With over 30 years of experience as a celebrity esthetician, Angela has treated some of the world’s most iconic faces and is now leading a new era in anti-aging skincare through groundbreaking, science-backed innovation.
Angela shares the story of how she built her namesake brand to bridge high-performance results with clean, ethical formulations. We dive into the breakthrough Cell Forté Collection, what Human-Derived Stem Cell (HDSC™) Technology really means, and how regenerative beauty is changing the conversation around skin longevity. From the lessons she’s learned in building a science-first brand, to how she’s educating consumers in a crowded category, to what’s next for Angela Caglia Skincare, this episode is filled with insights for founders, beauty enthusiasts, and innovators everywhere. Don’t miss it!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. 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, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, 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. Let’s go. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m joined by Angela Caglia, founder of Angela Caglia Skincare, and it is, of course, the luxury brand pioneering human stem cell derived technology in regenerative esthetics, with over 30 years of experience as a celebrity, aesthetician 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. So welcome Angela, so nice to meet you.

Angela Caglia 1:45
Thank you. Great to meet you, Kara. I’m excited to be here.

Kara Goldin 1:48
Super excited. So let’s start at the beginning. I guess let’s, let’s define the brand. So what is Angela Collier skincare, and how is it different from everything else in the market and and how did you decide? Like, I’ve got to go do

Angela Caglia 2:05
this. Great question. So I would define Angela Collier skincare, as I like to say, regenerative medicine for your face. But it’s, it’s basically, we’re incorporating the real human mesenchymal stem cell culture, which is used in regenerative medicine. It is that the hero, and we’re putting it topically on your largest organ with our delivery system. It’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 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.

Kara Goldin 3:00
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 it’s it, how did that all shape into what it ultimately became?

Angela Caglia 3:30
Yeah, great question. It’s hustling. I hustled Kara to get to my clients. I had a I was started to work at ulu 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 they were there 20 years, and he finally sold his 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. So 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 is 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 Barbra Streisand with a facial. She has to okay it. And I went, gave her 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, and 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, ah, to have a skincare line. But that really was the aha moment of like Angela, what are you doing? Your 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.

Kara Goldin 5:43
That’s incredible. 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.

Angela Caglia 6:04
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 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 Hendrickson spa. So I had another celebrity client who I said, I’m working on a line, and I let them see it and and 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 I um, 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. So 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? Why I chose that too?

Kara Goldin 7:43
Yeah, no, I’d love to hear so you, so you just started with the one product initially. No, actually,

Angela Caglia 7:50
I launched because I’m a facialist and I I’ve been in 30 years. Oh, my God. And I launched 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 401, K, I liquidated mine, and we put tons of money into building it and 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 and a lot, and it wasn’t until I started to get recognized for a tool that’s kind of built the industry, the roller. And my products were not really looked at because we really built that roller industry, the tool. And I was frustrated because my real passion was actual skin care. 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 what it actually produces, and and how it’s different from everything else that’s available. So can

Kara Goldin 8:49
you talk about that product and and what got you so excited about it?

Angela Caglia 8:54
Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it just comes down to being an Aesthetician 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, and I couldn’t even tolerate it. So i i 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. That’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

Kara Goldin 10:44
so everyone’s talking about peptides and growth factors and and that’s become, you know, such a, you know, big known scientific terms today, or I should say, consumers think that they know what they are, but you know, they’re good, right? But what? So can you break down what they actually do for the skin and, and I think that that’s, that’s such a I read a little bit as on how you’ve described it, but I’d love for you to share,

Angela Caglia 11:17
yeah, another good question. There’s so much misinformation and and, you know, these companies are still guilty of of, you know, because I’ve been working on women for so long, I really have their backs in terms of, like, what’s being told to them. And many brands are like, Oh, this is the exosome treatment by this doctor brand, and this is exosomes. And human no that, 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, 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 and white papers, and 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 Dr Brown 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. That’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 research lab is actually injected into the veins for long covid studies. Like it’s literally used medical grade and it’s 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 micro needling, 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. And 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 foreign one. It replaces, it does more than many laser treatments, or even, obviously retinol or vitamin C, and your skin just gets brighter and healthier and more hydrated. It’s reduces pigmentation. It. 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, and you just don’t see reviews like that. So it’s exciting,

Kara Goldin 14:00
yeah, 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 did. And obviously you knew it worked and 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 1000s of dollars, and what might not seem like a ton of money to you today or to everyone. I mean, it’s real money, right? And and I think people like sit there and think about their own idea and wonder, do. You know, should I pull the plug or not? Or pull sorry, pull the trigger or not? Yeah, we thought

Angela Caglia 15:08
of pulling the plug too. I didn’t. But, you know, obviously at some point we were down to the wire. When we launched cell forte 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, you know, batch, and that’s all we had. And then we bet everything on it. It’s like, here’s a credit card. We got something left. It’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 and, yeah, having confidence, I’ve always had a little confidence when probably I shouldn’t have, but confidence in like, my beliefs. You know, 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, you know, I can do this, so I guess it helped.

Kara Goldin 16:09
You and I were cut from the same cloth. So we I was about the same, same sort of feeling it, or same experience of moving to New York, and actually same timeline five years, and then I was out of there. But anyway, so clean, ethical and high performing. Why were these your non negotiables for you as a founder?

Angela Caglia 16:33
Well, obviously ethical, because I’m ethical, and I’m not gonna you know there, 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, C, GMP certified stem cell research lab in terms of clean, clean is important to be for a different reason than most may say. For me, it’s important. I’m an aesthetician 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 butylene 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 than 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 tennies 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. How 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, you know, that might, you know, appeal to her. So I’m a woman who loves certain things, and I know her very well, so that’s kind of why self forte. It sounded exotic, and it means something, and no one else had it so.

Kara Goldin 18:33
So packaging is so critical, especially in the beauty industry, in order to stand out, has your packaging changed much, much since you launched. Or can you talk a little bit about sort of how you thought about that?

Angela Caglia 18:48
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 was kind of art deco, and it had pink, gold and black and kind of like, you know, the corners and 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 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. It’s important to me because it’s funny, because I’m actually talking with the creative agency to do a little tweak now, and 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 sciencey 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 went, 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. I fought for the stem cell condition media in my product, and now I’m fighting for it looking really gorgeous.

Kara Goldin 20:23
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 the 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?

Angela Caglia 20:57
Yeah, great question. What happened was, when we launched, we were afraid to say human stem cell technology, the human part. And like, a couple 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, uh, oh, should we do this? This could either really flop or this could really do. Well, was, 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. Some 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 cylinder goals too.

Kara Goldin 22:15
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 and, you know, I’m sure, trademark it, as well as formulated, as well as package it and ship it. And there’s, you know, all kinds of things that go along with actually building this customer, building this company. I employees, whether they’re remote employees or full time employees. I mean, there’s just a lot of things and and, like, 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. 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,

Angela Caglia 23:21
yeah, and you learn as you go, right? So learned a lot. We both did, but what? 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 and every 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. So I the biggest learning was I hired people who did a great interview recently. We just, we just were 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 knowing that 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, you know, let it go and. And sure enough, now I’ve hired like the most amazing team, and I’m super happy, you know, so it it just you learn as you go.

Kara Goldin 25:08
It all works out well, that is, that’s terrific. What are you most excited about for the brand going forward? You talked about some creative tweaks on on the products. But when you think about moving forward, and is it just increasing sort of the exposure of your existing brand? Is it developing new brands or new products, new SKUs, underneath the brand? What is kind of the thing that you’re most looking forward to?

Angela Caglia 25:40
What I’m most looking forward to is I love I just came back. We just expanded a lot more of our blue Mercury doors. I love going in person and training and meeting the people that are on the floor, selling the product, and connecting with them. So I’m most excited about our next expansion into all blue Mercury doors, where I’ll be able to train all the doors. Some people look at me like, what you’re going I just came back from a three week I call it the human stem cell revolution tour. I just went out to three different states. I did like 25 doors. And to me, that is the most satisfying, because I know it works. And the most exciting part is seeing the brand grow and seeing more women and men feel better about themselves in a way that is really authentic and improves their life. And it’s just something that is so groundbreaking and so breakthrough in terms of the results that it’s super exciting to help people really.

Kara Goldin 26:35
I absolutely love the brand and the products. I mean, you’ve done such a great job. So thank you again for not only creating this incredible brand and company, but also for joining us today and sharing a lot about your journey. So you’re pioneering a new era of regenerative beauty that is so so inspiring, and your story is so perfect and such a powerful reminder that innovation and integrity and passion can truly change an industry. So for everyone listening, head to AngelaCaglia.com to explore Angela’s incredible lineup of products. And as always, please share this incredible episode with a friend, and until next time the Kara Goldin show. So thank you again. Angela, thank you, Kara. This was fun. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.

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