Lejla Cas: Founder of KNESKO Skin

Episode 851

Turning skincare into ritual — and luxury into something deeply personal — that’s the magic ✨
On The Kara Goldin Show, I sit down with Lejla Cas, Founder of KNESKO Skin — a brand blending advanced skincare science with energetic wellness, intention, and self-care.
We talk about building a luxury beauty brand that goes beyond surface-level results, why longevity and skin barrier health are becoming such important conversations, and how Lejla turned an unconventional vision into a globally recognized brand used in luxury spas around the world. We also dive into the launch of KNESKO’s new Gold Repair Collection and the future of beauty, ritual, and wellness.
If you’re interested in learning what it takes to build a differentiated brand, challenge traditional beauty norms, or create products that truly connect with consumers — check out the interview on my podcast. You can find it here or anywhere you listen to podcasts 🎧

Resources from
this episode:

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. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Every once in a while, you meet someone who’s really, really impressed you, actually tried to build something different, not just another cream or skincare line in pretty packaging. Today, I’m joined by Layla Cass, who is the founder of an incredible brand called KNESKO. Now you may recognize her name or the brand I had her on a couple of years ago to speak about her incredible serums that you may have enjoyed, say at the Four Seasons, if you were getting a facial, there they are huge around the world, and many, many luxury hotels, but they also have incredible masks, and the sheet masks, as well as the body care products, but the brand has built its reputation by combining high performance skincare and body care, and now they came out with an entirely new line, which, as I was saying to Layla, I thought that they actually had this line already, but I just hadn’t tried it, I had only tried the serums, and oh my gosh, so, so good. So, KNESKO is making a major move into a full skincare system with its new gold repair collection, and I cannot wait to hear more from Layla all about it, all the clinical studies, all the good stuff that you are going to want to hear about So, Layla, welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. I’m so excited that you’re here.

Lejla Cas 2:26
Thank you so much for having me back. It’s so lovely to see you.

Kara Goldin 2:29
So excited. So, okay, so for people who maybe don’t recognize the name KNESKO or haven’t tried it yet, what is KNESKO really about? So KNESKO Skin, I found it back in 2012 As I like to say, KNESKO Skin is high vibrational skincare brand that bridges science with spiritual and emotional wellness. I’ve been in beauty industry for 26 years. This is all I know, and I absolutely love this

Lejla Cas 3:00
industry, and I wanted to create a brand that promotes self care, so to me KNESKO Skin really is formulated, as I say, like clinically, but really the heart of the brand is promoting well-being, wellness, and this lifestyle, you know, this lifestyle of being able to take care of not only our skin, but as I say, also our like spirit. So it’s been an incredible journey doing this, expanding my brand globally, and having this line that I actually embody. Like, I love what I do, and I, you know, I hope people can feel it.

Kara Goldin 3:38
So you’ve built a brand that blends luxury skincare with science, reiki, and ritual. You don’t hear that often when you talk to a founder about building the brand. You’ve done an amazing job of really combining four things that, again, people don’t really hear about it. What, what did that combination.. how did you come up with that? I know that you’re also trained in Reiki at all of these points, and why is that important for your brand?

Lejla Cas 4:12
To me, energy healing, it’s part of off skincare, like wellness as an aesthetician, Reiki master, an energy healer, I wanted to combine those both words, which typically kind of feel separate, but to me, like, how I feel on the inside it shows, you know, on my skin, and how the word, like, responds to me, so it’s always been part of my personal, like, practice is to create something that again is connected to our deeper selves, like I never feel it’s it’s disconnected to me. Energy and clinical performance can be in the same sentence, and that’s what I wanted to create as a woman who likes high for women’s. You know, I, you know, I care about, you know, like the ingredients that I put on my skin, but I equally care about those moments when I pick up my jar of, like, the moisturizer, or you know, like a face mask, and I know that’s my time for myself, and I want to enjoy it, and so to me it’s always been like part of the same, same, like experience is like skincare wellness, it parts of a full, full experience, and that’s what I wanted to create for myself. That’s what I wanted to create for the audience in the future that you know haven’t heard of KNESKO, that maybe want to try it.

Kara Goldin 5:38
It’s so, so incredible. So take me back to the early days of KNESKO, and you made the decision to launch the body care line, along with the serums, I guess. What came first, and how did you get it out there in the world? You were an esthetician. Talk to me about sort of those early days of actually creating your own products, so my first products that I created were the masks, so masks were the gold repair collection, actually, and we were considered like the mask brand for the first 10 years, and then after like really building our clients and seeing the people really wanted to use KNESKO more on like, you know, in their day, I decided to expand to the face serums, and I work with amazing chemists, and just really wanted to

Lejla Cas 6:30
have, you know, like, like a two-step experience, where you would use a face mask, and then you would have to use a serum to finish off with, so serums came after the masks, and then two years ago I decided to expand into age-defying body care. To me, body was a category that was such an amazing opportunity. I personally felt like I was, you know, there were days that I was like skipping my body moisturizers, and I was like wondering why, and I knew that it had to do with the fact that I wanted to feel every body application meant that I was doing something good for my skin, so I expanded into this innovating age-defying formulations. We won new booty, like a word for best body serum for 2024 and it’s just been incredible. And in the back of all of that, last time I saw you, two years ago, I was already working on my skincare collection, which I knew was the biggest launch since, since the launch of the brand. Like, for me, launching full skincare line had to come after I really felt like our customers trusted us, and they, and they wanted to bring KNESKO into their daily lives more than ever. And so I started working on skincare in January of 2022 Kara. So it’s been four years, and my biggest launch yet, my whole career highlighting this one big launch, 26 years of experience as an aesthetician and a product formulator, all manifested into this big, as I call it, the gold standard of KNESKO. It’s the full completion of my line.

Kara Goldin 8:05
Well, the skincare is so incredible. I’m so excited that you finally launched with it, and I’ve been such a huge fan of your serums and the body care. I mean, the body care, I agree that it’s, it’s award-winning. I mean, it is so, so amazing, and for somebody who is constantly looking for great lotions, and I get incredibly dry, so the body lotions are just amazing. And now I’m such a big fan of the skincare line that you just launched. So, can you talk about the number of SKUs. How did you decide to launch with each of these, and what’s kind of the backstory behind them?

Lejla Cas 8:48
So, KNESKO Skins expansion into skin care is part of the gold, like repair collection. So, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of, you know, like connecting back to our gold face mask, our globally best-selling gold face mask that just went through the clinical studies as well, and yeah, it was just how I started my brand. It’s like humble beginnings of just launching with this one SKU that really helped grow the brand to now six collections and now final full completion going back to my body, and now the skincare line, and so what I really wanted to do is create a collection that is like non-negotiable in my standards, like what I felt we needed in the industry, so the way I formulate is without the parabens, chemical, like the UV, like filters, no silicones, mineral oils, forever chemicals, hormone disruptors, all of these things that are traditionally in a lot of luxury skin care. So I knew that I had a big job to really create something that I always wanted for my skin, that I knew that my client wanted, and and I also realized that. Had to actually create a system because we are not a new line, we’ve been around for 15 years, our clients already use our products, our masks, like you said, that you know, the serums and the body, so launching a single phase oil probably didn’t make sense for me at this stage of my business. We work with luxury hotels and spas who wanted to complete a KNESKO official, they wanted a full experience, so actually loan, you know, I’m launching. We just went live, you know, like recently with eight SKUs, and I can take you through all of that whenever you’re ready.

Kara Goldin 10:34
Yeah, definitely go ahead.

Lejla Cas 10:36
Amazing, so we basically have our proprietary GP 8x technology, which is the NASCO technology that incorporates gold as a peptide, and it actually, it’s like a signaling skin like platform that you know incorporates gold procol and just supporting actives by active peptides and plant stem cells. So it’s part of my GPAs technology, and it’s clinically tested to improve eight markers of skin quality, so things like hydration, firmness, elasticity, radiance, we are addressing all of that in these beautiful eight skews, and so we have a cleansing balm, we have a cleanser, the exfoliator, beautiful SPF, sunscreen, face oil, and then we have a rich and a light cream and an eye cream, and so they’re designed to be used together with the existing serums and the mask, depending on the skin seasonality. People may choose between our firming, like coffee serum to the hydrating face serum, but essentially they’re coming to us now for that full experience where they can double cleanse with the brand, exfoliate like twice a week, and then use our treatment creams and oil and eye cream daily to really take care of their skin, and knowing that I was launching this skincare line 15 years into my brand, you know, I really wanted my clients to know that I did not compromise, like I honestly love what I do, and like product, you know, development is such a big passion of mine, and I just thought of everything on the market, you know, how the industry I feel is disconnected, you have your luxury brands, you have your clinical brands, then you have your holistic brands, but as a woman, I want it all, like I want to bring it all into my world. So I worked very hands out through the formulation process. Every single ingredient in my ingredient list has a purpose, it’s, you know, it’s there for, you know, like a reason. If it was a filler or a silicone or things that I just felt I didn’t want in my personal skincare line, I took out, which just made the process a lot longer, because it’s really easy, and frankly, cheaper to formulate with silicones and all of these fillers, and I just didn’t want that in my skincare. I waited 26 years, and and I was ready to do it on my own standards, and I think that is the beauty about being self-funded, like you don’t have to answer to anyone, you can actually really do it on your own terms, and that’s what I did, and then I knew that it was time to invest in clinical studies, and Bran is very well known for our well-being, for our wellness, as a Reiki master, I actually also recently like created meditations, and you know, I always say to me it’s very equally like if I invest in something to do with spiritual side, such as recording beautiful guided meditations that are now part of my every mask experience, I honor that, but at the same time I’m very much committed to serious formulation processes, and that’s when I invested in clinical studies as well. So we actually went through 11, you know, like clinical studies – I’m talking about third-party tests and not brand-sponsored – we took our gold face masks through the clinical studies, as well as all of the six serums that you absolutely love, and that I love, and then, of course, certain skews within our new collection, so that that is still going. It’s a big undertaking. I’m unpacking like five, 600 pages of data, and it’s just what I love, like I want to give my clients the best quality skincare that I know they will enjoy, and it’s been amazing. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for

Kara Goldin 14:31
us. So, when you look at your new collection, do you use all of these products every day, or are there certain ones that you just use a couple of times a week,

Lejla Cas 14:41
so I can take you through that. So, with the new gold collection, as I mentioned, it’s gold repair. I obviously always talk about the cleansing, so we have the first product, which is the cleansing balm. Have you used cleansing balms? I’m very obsessed.

Kara Goldin 14:58
Yes,

Lejla Cas 14:58
so yeah. You gotta love a good cleansing balm, and again, everything that I created comes from, like, a need that I felt I could improve on, right? So, for me, cleansing balms, you know, like traditionally I felt sometimes were maybe a little bit easy, you know, like harder to take off or not as lux, so I wanted to create a cleansing balm that’s very luxurious, the melts makeup impurities, SPF, and that’s always my first cleanse. So, if you wear sunscreen, if you’re, you know, if you wear makeup every day, I highly recommend that your first step be the cleansing balm, which is designed to melt and nourish. It has, like, the pre-clip hair, like cranberry pomegranate oils, and then, of course, the plant stem cells, pro collagen active ingredients, and peptides. So every single skew within my GP at X technology skincare line comes with the three, is I call it like the 3p’s always peptides, you know, like plant stem cells and ingredients that actually supporting the skin barrier that are nourishing your skin, so from the first, from the first cleanse, your skin is being nourished and taken care of, so that’s always my first cleanse. I always recommend that you know at night, like if you’d be wearing makeup, I would always do a double cleanse at the end of the day, and then we have our cleanser, so the cleanser is my, my cleanse, right? It’s like a gentle lotion to leather cleanser that removes makeup, that cleanses actually even tones. It has like the witch hazel in it, a haze, phas, so it’s again just designed to remove all of your makeup from the day and really deep cleanse the skin. It was the hardest one to formulate in many ways, because I’m so particular, like I didn’t want to ever have to use those wipes again. I wanted to really have a cleanser that I’m not worried about putting on my eyes, and I know that will actually remove my eye makeup, because I love makeup, and I do use makeup, and so I was a bit selfish when making this product, because I wanted it to really take everything off, but it’s still very luxurious. I mean, with Nexco, our textures are very luxurious, there’s this sensorial emotional connection with the texture, so when you’re putting it on from the first step, it feels really like you’re taking a nice, you know, like a good care of yourself. So those two I use every day. And then when it comes to the exfoliation, they usually I recommend twice a week. So our version is Polish, it’s like our microdermabrasion, as I call it. It’s a dual action exfoliator that combines refining, like crystals, lactic acid, HA, to give your skin that very polished, smooth, and soft skin, and also helps to revive any dull-looking complexions. Just very, I almost call it like addictive, like in the shower, you know, it has a bit of that, like, tingle, and so people are loving it. It’s already becoming one of my top sellers, you know, because everybody wants a good exfoliator that doesn’t feel like it’s, it’s scratching your skin, but at the same time is deeply polishing and refining. So I do that twice a week. I don’t use it the same day that I do my, like, pearl serum, pearl renew serum, part of my serum collection. I don’t do it the same day because of the HAS, it’s probably too much, but I love a good exfoliator, and I love it in the shower. And then face oil, this was so fun to formulate, it’s actually like clinically, you know, like proven to increase a skin radiance instantly by like 22% and just really helps with fine lines and overall visible improvement in firmness. And I like your traditional face oil, that’s just there for moisturization. Our face oil is really a treatment with the peptides and plant stem cells, we use like pomegranate and baroody oils. We have like 18 different exotic oils, but it’s very light. It’s not heavy, it’s not like greasy. You can use it alone, or you can use it with our rich cream or the light cream.

Lejla Cas 19:16
I do like a few drops, maybe every night, mixed with my moisturizer, but then for those that are really normal to dry, I think you mentioned, like, you like the hydration, you would love this one, so yeah, that’s like one of my.. this can be used every day, or if people just, you know, as needed, but I love a good nighttime treatment, so I do like to use it every day, I put on my neck, my decollete, I feel like we forgot those areas, so it’s very important to go all the way down, and then with the new skincare rich cream, if somebody’s normal to dry, they could possibly start with the rich cream, also like clinically proven to improve. Like the fine lines, the wrinkles, and to visibly like also help with the skin, immediate hydration boost, 111% It’s just really wonderful. Has alpine rose, goji plant stem cells, vitamin C. Again, it’s just a beautiful formulation, melts into the skin. I really, really didn’t want my moisturizers to be heavy, like they’re moisturizing and they’re age defying, but they’re just lightweight, even under makeup. So, depending on your skin type, you might do the rich cream, or the light cream is equally age defined, but it’s more of that lightweight gel cream texture, which I think is wonderful in the morning. Actually, I’m wearing it right now under my makeup. I use that with my firming serum this morning, and then an SPF on top before I do the, you know, the foundation, and that is just a very light version, also like clinically proven. And then we have two left, which is the eye cream. I mean, eye creams are interesting when some people love to use them, some people feel like they don’t need them, but I created an incredible eye cream that’s actually using over 10 different peptides, designed for that very delicate eye orbit area. It’s actually shown to lift and reduce the appearance of dark circles, puffiness, and give you this beautiful, like, brightness, but it’s, it has a bit of a balm, you know, texture, so you could feel it’s like substantial application when you use it, you know, around your eyes, it really feels like you’re getting a good, you know, eye cream on your eye area also doubles up as a lip treatment. I’ll use it as a, you know, as a lip treatment as well. And then my last, but not SPF, I really wanted to create a sunscreen that’s ultra lightweight, untinted, but 100% mineral. It’s like a face milk house with the UV radiation, 80 minutes water resistant, and actually has 5% niacinamide. Reef-safe, elegant texture. Really, I love a good SPF. I hike every single day, and that was very important for me to have a treatment-based SPF, so that completes my newness, which is the eight skews that now create this KNESKO, you know, skin care line that is like your standard essentials, per se, like that’s like your daily essentials, and then depending on your skin needs on the seasonality on your skin type, you will then choose a treatment serum, or you know, like a treatment masks, depending on what you are needing for that particular time of the years, and that’s the other five collections, which is radiance, calming, redness reduction, which is the, you know, it’s the Green Jade Calm collection. We have Amethyst Hydrate Collection, Pearl Renew, and then Rose Quartz Antioxidant, and every single mask comes with a beautiful guided meditation by me that I actually launched six months ago.

Lejla Cas 23:19
So that’s also quite new, because I wanted my clients, when they use a KNESKO mask, you know, we usually recommend once to twice a week that they really give themselves this gift of time, like this is their time to recharge, to disconnect, and to see the KNESKO experience as, as something they do to take care of themselves, so each mask comes with a beautiful meditation with, like, a QR code, so when they purchase their masks, they will get the QR code, which is made by me, not AI, not outsource, the founder’s heart, you know, like directly connecting to our audience and helping them unwind and relax. I incorporate by neural beats, alpha, theta waves, love frequency, and chakra-based frequency. So it’s been incredible. I mean, people are falling asleep, they’re tearing up. I mean, we don’t, you know, we don’t know where that goes, but energy is very powerful,

Kara Goldin 24:21
so it’s so, so nice. So I absolutely love all the little touches that you’ve done on it. I mean, not just on the meditations, but also the packaging. I mean, you’ve just done such a great job, just overall, of building the brand. So, starting a luxury brand is one thing, but scaling it globally as you have, while maintaining quality and continuing to grow it as, as you have worldwide. What’s been the hardest part about doing all of that, not just the build, but maintaining quality and continuing to really get the nest?

Lejla Cas 25:00
No, message out there. I think the hardest part has been global expansion is a lot, right? And we, we really pride ourselves on that customer service and and quality. So we, we actually launched the Europe and the UK and Australia. It’s direct distribution from us, so we have our like warehousing in those three countries, and that’s been really hard and exciting, because sometimes it feels like easier just to have like a distributor, even though we have incredible partnerships with distributors. I wanted to take that on as a challenge to like do this myself, because I love being able to connect with my spas directly, and them to know me. We just launched Four Seasons like George just saying in Paris. That was like a dream property that I dreamed of. I’ve been studying French since I was 14. I mean, when I walked into that building, I was like, ‘Wow, like I want to feel this feeling, you know? I don’t want to forget this feeling. And these are the moments as a founder that are priceless, you know, it’s not just about destination, it’s about the journey, and that, that is why I do what I do. For me, this is a journey, every single day is meaningful, and so with that, obviously, I think the hardest thing is balancing ambition and excitement and speed to market, because my brain is full of these incredible ideas, and, but you know, sometimes there is, you know, it’s, you can’t go as quickly as you would necessarily if you had a backing, and like, you can just do whatever you want, so you know, we always make cautious moves. My business partner, Sean, he’s incredible, he’s my husband, and, and we do this together as a team, and thank God for him, because sometimes I get too excited, you know. So I’m very passionate about this industry, so for me that’s been the hardest, like taking slow steps sometimes when I’m like, I just want to tell the whole world, you know, but it just depends on what the goals, and for me, my goal is to create a legacy brand that you can look back 2034 years from now, that maybe in the future my daughters will want to be part of, and, and say we build this brand that reminds women to take care of themselves, to slow down, to be kind to themselves, that’s what drives me, my why is to create products that if you look at in your bathroom you’ll be like, oh, it’s KNESKO, I should do a KNESKO mask, it’s time for me to unwind, and I deserve it. Or if you are moisturizing with my like moisturizer, you’re doing it with pleasure, you’re not doing it because you’re like afraid to age, like you know what, I love who I am today. Each decade is meaningful for me, and I’m going to enjoy this beautiful product. Look at myself in the mirror, maybe say a mantra: be kind to myself, be gentle to myself, because as women, I think we could be very, very, very hard on ourselves. So I feel

Kara Goldin 28:00
like, for me, Nestor is that my, my expression to provide this healing, beautiful brand that, that, that people love, because it makes them feel good about who they are, and where that goes, I have no idea, but I think the hardest thing has been like, I want the whole world to know, but sometimes I don’t have the resources to do it as quickly as I would like it to, so I’m thankful for having the show, so you can help me tell the story. I love it. Well, Leela, thank you so much for joining us today. The KNESKO Skincare line is, is just as good as the serums, if not, I can’t say it’s better because they’re all, yeah, it’s part of it, exactly. You’ve just really outdone yourself, and love, love, love. KNESKO, by the way, is spelled k n e s k o, for those who are listening, and like I said, buy it all. I mean, the body care, the serums, now the skincare line’s so, so good, and I’m excited to see the KNESKO brand push the conversation forward and create products that feel both elevated and deeply personal at the same time. And for everyone listening, be sure to check out KNESKO, KNESKO Skin, and follow along with everything Layla is doing, and her team are building. And thank you again. We will see everyone on the Kara Goldin show next time.

Lejla Cas 29:26
Thank you so much for having me, Kara.

Kara Goldin 29:28
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. Journal bestselling 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.

Click to subscribe:

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen OnApple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen OnSpotify
Listen on Overcast
Listen OnOvercast
Listen on PlayerFM
Listen OnPlayerFM

People Also Liked

866

Rick Rosenfield: Co-Founder of California Pizza Kitchen and Author of The California Pizza Kitchen Story

865

Katina Mountanos: Founder and CEO of Kosterina

864

Adeela Hussain Johnson: CEO of BÉIS

863

Lauren Kleban: Founder & CEO of LEKFIT

862

Erica Small: Co-Founder of Yes Way Rosé