Angela Caglia Exclusive Interview: Beauty with Nature and the Technology is Our Goal

Angela Caglia Integrated Beauty is a skincare brand by celebrity aesthetician Angela Caglia, who has been working in the skin for nearly 30 years. Why did she want to build her brand?

Caglia realized that she wasn't getting the results she wanted for clients. Many of her clients are celebrities like Barbra Streisand, Georgia May Jagger, Sting and so on, or people who are perfectionists with their skin. She believed she could create something better for them than the products they used before.

CHAILEEDO invites Angela Caglia's founder to share the experience of building Angela Caglia Integrated Beauty and thoughts about the beauty industry.

CHAILEEDO: How would you describe your brand vision?

Angela Caglia: The inspiration of the brand is to create skincare and tools that make people look and feel younger. We have a proprietary Lipid-Lock™️ Technology that penetrates deeply into the skin to deliver these essential ingredients. Most products just rest on the skin but ours can deliver deeply into the skin with natural ingredients.

CHAILEEDO: What has been the biggest challenge since the launch of the Angela Caglia? How did you overcome it?

Angela Caglia: One of the biggest challenges was the pandemic. No one was going in offline store. Some of my big stores even shut down. At that time, I had to figure out how to bring in revenue. Very quickly, I created an at home facial kit and I built the business on my own website. People couldn't go and get facials so I wanted them to be able to create a facial at home. I put the skincare and tools in a really cute pink bag and I put it at a slight discount. I started selling so many of them when the pandemic hit. It helped build the business to bring it up and it really increased the revenues.

CHAILEEDO: What products do your brand sell well currently?

Angela Caglia: The cleansing oil we have just launched. It's been named by a lot of magazines as the best cleansing oil. And the crystal LED face mask is also selling extremely well.

CHAILEEDO: As an advocate of clean skin and natural products, what's your opinion of the clean beauty trends?

Angela Caglia: First of all I don't like the term clean at all because it makes people think things are dirty. So I like botanicals, plant-based ingredients along with technology. People are looking for efficacious products and things that work well. They don't want ingredients that are synthetics that really don't do much for their skin. They also want to be healthy. But I never looked at it from a perspective of other products are not healthy. I just always look at it as what's gonna work best. In my experience of twenty-eight years, the plant-based products are the thing. Because a lot of them are bio-identical to our own sebum. So it's able to deliver a lot of really good ingredients.

CHAILEEDO: What kind of plant ingredients will you recommend to your consumers?

Angela Caglia: There's a flower derived an Oregon in Washington called Limnanthes Alba. The flower can be extracted Meadowfoam Seed Oil. That is a part of my proprietary technology in the way. It is actually identical as our own sebum of our skin in molecular structure. When you put it on your skin in combination with my proprietary antioxidants, it's going deep into the skin. Because the skin recognizes it is the molecular structure just like the oil in our bodies so it's bringing it down even further into the skin. It can reduce the appearance of wrinkles and plump up the skin.

CHAILEEDO: You use Rose Quartz in many of your products, why would you want to use this as a raw material?

Angela Caglia: I was inspired by the ancient Chinese tradition---Jade rollers eight or nine years ago in my treatment room. I noticed how my clients reacted to it and how it was so soothing for them. Then I wanted to work with Rose Quartz. For one reason is it's pink and women love pink. The other reason is that it's a love energy crystal. When consumers roll their skin with the Rose Quarts, they're giving themselves this love energy to empower them. From an aesthetic standpoint, Rose Quarts is very cold, it's one of the densest stones. Its coldness helps to calm inflammation of the skin. It helps to stimulate the blood flow for dark circles and so on. It also helps with puffiness. That makes it very effective.

CHAILEEDO: ROSE QUARTZ Gua sha Tools, where did the inspiration for this product come from?

Angela Caglia: It was my visit I went a few years ago to Hong Kong around 4 years ago when our brand was launched at Lane Crawford. I gave master classes to women and I also gave facials. I was so inspired by the culture in there. I learned a lot about the skin needs. They're different than some American and European. They wanted lighter serums, they wanted brightening serums. It was really wonderful to learn about different cultures and their needs and skin care because everyone's not the same.

CHAILEEDO: Will you be releasing more products with Chinese elements in the future?

Angela Caglia: Yes. I'm creating those lighter serums for brightening for the Chinese market, which is not heavy but very lightweight that goes right into the skin with brightening elements. Because they wanted brightening and they wanted the reduction of fine lines and wrinkles so I have a new one coming out in a month and it's perfect for the Chinese market. It has elderberry and glycolic and a vitamin as a replacement for the synthetic retinol. It's just perfect for the Chinese market and I want to include the needs of women globally not just the women I work on. But it's a global brand. I need to give facials on a global level to create skincare.

CHAILEEDO: Do you think the Chinese customers will be more attention the brightening than the Europe customers?

Angela Caglia: Yes, that's what I found. Because I was asking one of Chinese users what are your biggest concerns. The number one was brightening and lightning of the skin. So I tried to create products that address it.

CHAILEEDO: Some consumers on Xiaohongshu (Social media and e-commerce platform in China) like ROSE QUARTZ FACE MASK's exterior design, where did the design inspiration come from?

Angela Caglia: I designed that myself. I did get knocked off there someone else doing it at a factory. They were doing it a little different. But I designed that for my clients in the treatment room. After doing those hot machines, I decided I didn't want to wait long to calm the whole face. I thought if I laid crystals on the whole face I could do it really quickly. So if you lay all those crystals within like less than a minute, the face can be calmed. So it was a practical thing. I didn't realize how much people would love the way before I launch it. But it turns out good.

CHAILEEDO: What do you think is the difference between Chinese consumers and European consumers in terms of their attitude toward beauty?

Angela Caglia: I'm working in Beverly Hills. The people there are putting a lot of things in their faces. They're all starting to look alike and they're starting to do it younger. But they all look like a 45-year-old woman because they're getting too much done to their face from their plastic surgeons or their derms. That’s what I find refreshing with the Europeans. The Chinese market is they're embracing aging a little more naturally. They're focused on really good skincare and that's my philosophy too. I don't do any of the invasive things myself. I focus on good skin care.

CHAILEEDO: You have been working in the beauty industry for more than 20 years, what is the biggest change you have seen in the beauty industry?

Angela Caglia: The the biggest change is the internet. There's a lot of information with TikTok or Instagram. Influencers and doctors even dermatologists are saying things to build some interest. But a lot of it's not true so people are very confused. It's really overwhelming for the consumer. I'm actually doing more live streaming myself. I just find that's a great way for me to connect with the consumer to educate them and sell at the same time. We've really increased our revenues on our website by offering shoppable videos where I'm showing how to do something and then you can click and shop. That's a big part of what we're doing as an initiative to bring in more sales on our website which is tripled our sales after doing live streaming.

CHAILEEDO: What changes do you think we can expect in the beauty industry in the coming years?

Angela Caglia: In the future, consumers are more educated and they will know a lot more. So all the skincare lines that launched by the actresses are all going to shut down. It's just going to be more authentic skincare brand with more expert and technology driven.

Moreover, consumers will want to learn about what ingredients are in their jar of skincare products like they are shopping at restaurants and grocery store.

CHAILEEDO: What kind of technology will help the beauty industry most in the future?

Angela Caglia: In the future, I think they're gonna hopefully become better at being able to regenerate skin cells to where you look more youthful.

CHAILEEDO: What are the development plans of Angela Caglia in 2023?

Angela Caglia: We're going to focus less on the tools and more on the skincare with the nature and the technology to marry those two together. I grew up on a farm where there are many natural fruits. So I really want my products to smell like natural fruits. I will be creating natural products but I'm also as an esthetician wanting the technology. So we tend to combine both. I want to create the censorial and the efficacious beauty of fruits and botanicals. I'm also working with the scientist who can infuse other ingredients like even stem cells or anything else that will help to rejuvenate the cells to look more youthful.

CHAILEEDO: Have you considered entering the Chinese market?

Angela Caglia: Yes. Actually right now we are sold at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong. We are very interested in going bigger in the Chinese market and I really enjoyed when I went to Hong Kong. I would love to spend more time there and really help consumers to feel more youthful and beautiful. I'd love to go bigger offline store in China.