Skin Laundry is getting a facelift as it primes explosive growth.
The laser facial company has rolled out a new website and marketing campaign called Fresh Faces featuring photos and video testimonials from seven Skin Laundry clients of various ages and skin types sharing their skin stories and how Skin Laundry services have benefited them. According to Gregg Throgmartin, CEO of Skin Laundry, the rebrand underscores the personal interactions occurring continually in its skin clinics.
“We had to recognize that when we talk to our clients, it’s emotional. If you have a client tell you their story and you don’t tear up a little, you’ve got to check your pulse. Whether they’re 15 and dealing with acne and all the pressures of social media or whether they are a mother of three with post-hormonal acne, it’s a much deeper need and solution that they’re looking for,” he says. “That’s really what our new brand and our new site experience is built to convey.”
Hitting the refresh button was a long time coming for Skin Laundry. Ideas for the rebrand started to circulate in-house as far back as 2019. Throgmartin joined Skin Laundry as CEO a year prior after a two-year stint as president of athleisure brand Fabletics. During his Fabletics tenure, he spearheaded the direct-to-consumer brand’s brick-and-mortar and international expansion, opening two dozen retail locations and guiding sales to a 6X escalation. Last year, Fabletics raked in $700 million in revenue.
Throgmartin is leveraging his expertise to scale Skin Laundry in a big way over the next three years. The company will add 12 locations in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and New Jersey to its growing fleet of skin clinics this year to reach 59 locations in the United States.
Skin Laundry told Glossy last year that it could have 125 locations by the end of 2025, and its sales are forecast to multiply 4X between 2022 and 2025. In 2019, it informed the publication that it hit $17 million in 2018 revenues. The company aims to plant its flag in nearly every U.S. state by 2027. New locations are being revamped with televisions running the Fresh Faces campaign.
Skin Laundry now has clinics in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Texas in the United States and in Hong Kong overseas. In 2023, it grew its fleet 100%, and its revenues rose approximately 40% year-over-year. All locations are wholly owned and operated by the company. Skin Laundry locations in Dubai and London are operated through licensing partner Wellness MENA. It has seven locations between the two cities.
Skin Laundry locations use its branded skincare products, and they account for about 10% of its revenues. Sephora introduced Skin Laundry’s products in 2017, but they’ve since departed the retailer. They formerly had a presence at Nordstrom and Liberty, too.
At the moment, Skin Laundry is focused on expanding in secondary and tertiary markets away from the coasts. It assesses potential markets based on factors like size, customer demographics and migration patterns. Depending on the market, it may cluster locations. It targets lifestyle centers with tenants such as Whole Foods, Sweetgreen and SoulCycle. Janine Morgan, chief data and analytics officer at Skin Laundry, headed the analytics department at Bain Consulting before taking her role at Skin Laundry.
“We have every bit as much demand in Houston, San Antonio and Denver as we do in Williamsburg or in the Bay Area,” says Throgmartin. “In fact, I would say in some of these markets it’s a little more because customers have been to the bigger cities and seen us or their friends are telling them about us so they want us in their town. I expect the Nashville Tennessees of the world to be some of our best markets. I think the best is still ahead of us.”
Fueled by multimillion-dollar investments from venture capital and private equity firms, the professional skin service sector in the U.S. is in charging forward. Facial bar businesses Face Foundrie, Glowbar, Heyday, Silver Mirror, Clean Your Dirty Face and Formula Fig are steadily opening locations as are med-spa chains like SkinSpirit and Ever/Body.
“We have at least a decade long boom cycle in this space,” says Throgmartin. “And that’s why I think you see private equity very interested in this space because they’ve done dental, they’ve done vet, and they recognize this is still very early innings for us.”
““We want to be bar none the absolute best at what we do.”
Scale and specialization distinguish Skin Laundry in an increasingly crowded field. Launched in 2013 by Yen Reis with a single location in Santa Monica, Calif., the company has completed 2.5 million laser facial treatments to date with an additional half a million forecast to be completed this year. On a weekly basis, tens of thousands of customers walk through Skin Laundry’s doors.
“That gives us more data than anyone,” says Throgmartin. “We do more facials than anybody in the world. We do more in a week than most dermatologists will do in a two- or three-year time period. That’s why the dermatologists that we work with love us because they get to see this at an insane scale.”
Technological innovation is also a defining aspect of Skin Laundry’s proposition. Last year, it hired a full-time engineer to develop its own laser skincare devices. Ideation on new devices often originates from Skin Laundry’s attending physicians as well as registered nurses and laser specialists performing daily treatments. Roberta Del Campo will step into the role of Skin Laundry’s chief medical officer next month to help oversee its service protocols.
Discussing laser skincare device development, Throgmartin says, “We have more data than even the manufacturers do. We know exactly the protocols that we want. We know the energy levels that we need to deliver. We know the tools that we need to make sure that we are safe and consistent with every single treatment.”
Skin Laundry’s 15- to 30-minute facials target acne, melasma, hyper pigmentation and fine lines with high-energy infrared, fractional and resurfacing light technologies. Its bestselling Signature Laser Facial is priced at $75 for the first time for members and non-members. Skin Laundry offers three membership tiers—Refresh, Renew and Rejuvenate—priced at $175, $275 and $375 per month respectively. The Renew membership, which includes one Power Signature Laser Facial per month, is the most popular, and over 80% of Skin Laundry clients opt for it. Without a membership, à la carte services are priced from $275 to $900.
Shifting to a membership model in 2019 was a game changer for Skin Laundry. Previously, customers purchased its services in bundles. “That’s really when our business exploded,” Throgmartin points out. “It was a very big commitment for us because the bundle business is a great cash business but we want to have clients for years. We want clients that are recommending us to their friends. That’s that business model that we wanted to build.”
Skin Laundry is funded by Throgmartin’s investment firm Vista Verde Group. Throgmartin initially invested in Skin Laundry during his stint Fabletics. He owns the majority of the company. Throgmartin says, “We want to be bar none the absolute best at what we do, and we want to just keep pushing that and pushing that. That’s our focus.”
