Launched: 2012
Founder: Eva and Dr Yannis Alexandridis
Key Executives:
2024 Full Year Expected Revenue Range: $20 to $30 million
Offline points of distribution globally projected for 2024: 400
Primary Category: Skincare
Other Categories:
Professional
Key Markets:
Retail Partnerships: Harrods
Primary Distribution Channel: DTC
Other Distribution Channels: Professional
Funding Rounds: Venture Capital
Insight shared by Eva Alexandridis, Co-Founder
111SKIN is a doctor-driven brand, founded by me and my husband Dr Yannis Alexandrides, globally renowned plastic and reconstructive surgeon. We launched the brand in 2012 with an industry-disrupting serum powered by Yannis’s proprietary antioxidant complex, NAC Y²™. Proven to heal skin quickly after surgery, NAC Y²™ is a unique formula and the result of 30 years of medical expertise.
With over 50 products in the range and Lady Gaga, Jennifer Aniston, Cate Blanchett, and Victoria Beckham among its enthusiastic advocates, 111SKIN has become a beauty phenomenon with a reputation for powerful, transformative results. But the brand was founded with just one product and one clear aim: to accelerate skin healing for Yannis’s patients. When it was discovered that the potent serum also provided dramatic anti-aging benefits, patients began requesting bottle after bottle. Throughout his surgical career, Yannis experimented with numerous clinical-strength products, finding them too harsh for his patients’ sensitized skin post-surgery. Realizing that an ideal post-surgery skincare solution was non-existent, he took my suggestion to create his own formula.
111SKIN products are directly inspired by his innovation in-clinic and evolving patient needs, alongside his hands-on experience with the latest cosmetic technology.
What are your key business initiatives for 2024?
A relentless innovator, 111SKIN, has brought over a dozen firsts to the beauty industry—from adapting cryotherapy to skincare to using bio-cellulose in a face mask application for the first time in the Western world. As has been the case with our initial launch of the year, the Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches—our most popular product launch to date, generating record sales on 111skin.com. Providing a needle free fix, these patches are designed to replace or prolong injectable treatments with a Botox alternative home routine.
111SKIN is the first Western brand to use the combination of medicine-inspired microcones infused with our unique formula inclusive of retinol. Physically penetrating the skin at 0.35mm, we are the first to have targeted patches for different areas of the face with precisely concentrated microcones. Clinically proven to reduce deep eye wrinkles by 23% after just one use, proving that this microcone technology and formula has been optimized in wrinkle reduction compared to other competitors.
This launch is emblematic of the kind of innovation we strive to bring to our clients, educating consumers on new ingredients and introducing newness in an experiential way via our 96 global 111SKIN SPA/CLINIC outposts—to share a piece of Harley St. with everyone.
What are you most proud of having accomplished?
We are proud category leaders in masks because of our innovation, which has become somewhat of a celebrity cult phenomenon and industry leading product. We are proud to have sold over 18 million of our Rose Gold Brightening Facial Treatment Mask, with one of our masks sold every 26 seconds. I originally brought this technology to mine and Yannis’s attention following a trip to Korea over a decade ago. Upon discovery, Yannis understood that by inputting 111SKIN’s pioneering formulas and proprietary NAC Y²™ complex, 111SKIN was able to create revolutionary products—thus launching the masking category to the Western market.
What has been the biggest surprise?
111SKIN has received an overwhelmingly positive reception globally, of which we are so proud and grateful. Eleven years ago, I don’t think either of us could have imagined the worldwide presence now felt to the brand, and client love for the products.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
Yannis’s background in plastic surgery fuels 111SKIN’s competitive advantage. Our products are surgically-inspired and scientifically led by Yannis’s expert knowledge of three-dimensional healing of the skin.
When we first launched, we were one of the first doctor-founded brands in the skincare industry. We wanted to bring medical innovations and technology for everyday use, while creating products that are sensorial and feel luxurious to use.
Please share your insight on the future of the beauty industry.
The skincare industry is becoming increasingly saturated; successful brands must produce results-driven formulas with clinical backing and visible "before and after" testimonies to ensure lasting support from customers. With a fragmented and crowded consumer landscape with lack of differentiation, we strive to avoid following trends, sticking to brand DNA to ensure lasting satisfaction from customers.
The subject of slow beauty was very much a theme of 2023 for 111SKIN, focusing on improving the formulations of our two pivotal ranges—the Reparative Range (our first, and hero range) and our famed, advanced-solutions Intensive Range. As a brand, we have focused on the importance of redeveloping hero SKUs versus delivering constant newness—which can be bad for the environment, oversaturate the market, complicate education for consumers, and more. Unless it’s industry disrupting, we don’t want to launch it.
Yannis—who has now done over 14,000 surgeries to date—is constantly evolving his techniques; he wanted to review and advance our hero ranges much like his techniques have advanced in his surgery: producing skincare with age-defying power, delivered with the precision of a plastic surgeon.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
Love what you have, and you will have everything that you need’’ – Eva Alexandridis, CEO and Co-Founder, 111SKIN
In today’s social media-fused society, it’s easy to fall victim to false comparisons. I find that consciously expressing gratitude is an extremely important practice, which helps me to lead with passion and positivity.
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Mistakenly hiring the wrong people has been a valuable lesson for me.
Through those experiences, I've come to truly appreciate the worth of the exceptional individuals I now have on my team, gaining a profound understanding of the importance of hiring the right people. You must have an element of trust with your team—I have never felt in better hands than right now, with a strong female-led leadership team supporting Yannis’s vision for 111SKIN.
Paying it forward, what advice would you give someone contemplating launching a beauty brand?
It’s very easy for anyone to launch a beauty brand in today’s climate. There are incubator companies that will create an entire brand on your behalf, from the product all the way to branding and marketing. Sadly, many times you have a white label formulation with no real distinction. Real focus on quality and originality is what keeps the consumer, not just marketing alone.
Consumers must not be underestimated; they are knowledgeable and savvy. New ingredients, revolutionary textures and visible results are all necessary to gain success. To enter this field, brands must sustain a unique selling point, which is difficult in today’s very saturated industry. Skincare is science and is a very serious matter. The future will have immense opportunities for people who want to approach skincare from a very technical and scientific point of view.
If you could change one thing in the beauty industry what would it be?
There is a lack of education surrounding potent acid-based ingredients that are commonly found in everyday skincare products. Often misused, these formulas have the potential to cause lasting damage and should not be distributed so frequently without the appropriate education. Especially relevant for younger consumers who are influenced by what they see on social media.
