100% PURE’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH NATURAL SKIN CARE.
Susie Wang: Good chemistry leads to natural skin-care empire
We’ve all heard the Silicon Valley stories of the brilliant founder who dropped out of college to follow his or her dreams. In true startup success fashion, San Franciscan Susie Wang followed that model — except she wasn’t a pioneer in tech or social media, but in organic skin care.
As a freshman at UC Berkeley studying communications, the Seoul native “accidentally” discovered how to stabilize vitamin C in skin care when she witnessed her expensive serum eventually turning brown, she says.
Wang submitted patents in 2000 for her discovery, just for fun. “I wanted to at least submit the ideas. I mean, I was 18. Who is going to listen an 18-year-old with no experience?”
The answer? Everyone. Several beauty conglomerates pursued Wang, and she ended up consulting for three of them, flying to New York every few months to present her ideas. She dropped out of UC Berkeley and moved to Los Angeles to continue working for the big cosmetic companies. But she became disenchanted.
“I would complain about how the chemicals in the products were blistering the eyes of rabbits,” she remembers. “I found out that a lot of these brands that say they don’t test on animals didn’t test the final products on animals, but they tested every ingredient on animals. I felt like people were getting duped.”
A Berkeley classmate, Ric Kostick, whom Wang had started dating, suggested they start their own company along with her brother James. In 2005, at a time when few were talking about natural beauty, Purity Cosmetics and its flagship brand, 100% Pure, were born. “We would talk to retailers about the studies that showed these chemicals are harming women, and they just didn’t get it,” Wang says.
Those retailers seem to get it now. The “natural” category is one of the fastestgrowing segments in beauty. The global demand for organic personal-care products is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2018, according to a report by Transparency Market Research.
“When I met Susie, my first thought was that she was a unicorn,” said Catherine Moellering, general merchandise manager at Anthropologie, which collaborated with Wang on a line called Puristry. “It’s really rare to have someone with that scientific of a brain being that creative.”
And Wang has a new prestige natural skin-care brand, Plantioxidants, which launched in September. As she emerged from her Ritz Carlton apartment in downtown San Francisco in a casual denim skirt and top for an interview, she was chatting with her current boyfriend, Josh Wadinski, who also happens to be CEO of Plantioxidants.
“I knew I wanted to come out with a luxurious line that focused on the antioxidant power of plants,” said Wang. “And when I met Josh, it seemed like something we needed to do together.” Wang and Wadinski worked diligently on the line, which
is built around USDA organic plantsourced antioxidants.
“The biggest reason Plantioxidants is different from 100% Pure is due to Josh, his creative and his endless pursuit for creating perfection and earth-first products,” Wang said. “Plantioxidants is a direct extension of his egalitarian views, so the product line is meant to help all skin types.”
Now, the company that started out with three people making products out of a barn in Napa has over 150 employees and more than 500 products including skin care, makeup, body care and hair care. In addition to its San Jose headquarters, the $25 million company has 12 retail locations (including Berkeley, San Jose and SFO) and has sold on QVC. According to Kostick (who remains CEO of 100% Pure), Purity is looking to slow its double-digit growth and focus on profitability.
The company may be trying to slow down growth but that hasn’t stopped Wang from going at warp speed. From being the face of all her brands to formulating new products across all brands, Wang has her plate full. When she steps back to look at the growing industry, she says it makes her happy: “I love that there are all these natural brands now. It opens up the market and awareness. And now I’m not the only crazy one shouting about the toxins in skin care.”