The Interview: Caroline Hirons and Michelle Hindmarch of Skin Rocks on the power of the Pro market
Caroline Hirons is one of the best known skincare experts and entrepreneurs in beauty. Her career began on the beauty counters and as a facialist, before she rose to prominence in her 40s.
Hirons began a blog in 2010 to counteract the often misleading beauty advice dispensed on early forms of social media. Before long, Hirons had amassed millions of viewers and readers who were drawn to her frank, science-backed and, at all times, entertaining approach to dispensing skincare advice. Whether it was teenage acne, rosacea, fine lines, lost volume, dullness, sensitivity, clogged pores... you name it, you turned to Caroline. She knew what to use and she knew how to use it.
Such was her power, that brands could be made on the back of an endorsement from Hirons, and indeed many were. It felt like only a matter of time before she launched her own brand, but, while she had multiple approaches to do so, she took longer to do so than perhaps might have been expected. In retrospect, this was understandable, as launching a brand just wasn't something Hirons could afford to get wrong and she was simply not interested in quickly capitalising on her profile.
She was proved right; today Hirons presides over an empire that does indeed include her own best-selling skincare brand (Skin Rocks was launched in 2022), a vast and continually growing social media network, and a highly successful beauty kits business. (She must be one of the only beauty experts who can credibly sell her own brand while also endorsing others.) On top of that, she is a regular fixture on television, has written several books (another is in the pipeline), and has developed a professional channel, Skin Rocks Pro, based on her skincare line.
While that is all very impressive indeed, perhaps the most admirable aspect of Caroline Hirons' storied career is that she has always left the ladder down. In climbing to the very pinnacle of the industry, she has not forgotten where she started, and she wants to share her success with as many other people (in this industry, that is mostly women) as she can. One way she aims to achieve this is via the Skin Rocks Pro Academy.
Michelle Hindmarch and Caroline Hirons at the Skin Rocks Pro Academy
Opened in Farringdon, London last month, the Academy provides training for skin therapists, no matter the size and status of their business. The Academy aims to give them the skills and tools they need to survive in this fast-paced sector. The Academy's launch follows the appointment of Michelle Hindmarch, formerly of Dermalogica, at the end of last year. Hindmarch's role is to oversee the development of the Skin Rocks Pro business, and the Academy is a major move towards that. Her appointment, in turn, followed on from Skin Rocks securing investment from a group of backers, including Redrice Ventures. Jam Jar and Saffie Investments, to support the next phase of growth.
The motivation for establishing the Academy very much speaks to Hirons' ladder-down approach to building her business. It wasn't born from seeing a huge commercial opportunity or a gap in the market, for instance, but it is based on an instinct for what felt right and how she can usefully support others. "To be honest I never look at gaps, no I don't. I mean, maybe I should have, as it might make more business sense, but I never look at gaps. I always think 'we need to do this for us' and then we do it; that's how my brain works.
"I've never been tactical in that way of 'oh there's a real gap for this in the market we should do that' because there are plenty of people who have more money than us, they've been around longer than us and they can do it, so let them do it. We've done this for us, we haven't done it for anyone else. Maybe it's instinct, you operate on instinct and you think 'right, there's a there's a place for us out there'," Hirons explains.
Caroline Hirons carries out a facial using Skin Rocks Pro
How the Academy operates is also based on what feels right. There are no business size constraints on who can attend and become a Pro partner, although they must have a minimum Level 2 Ofqual-regulated beauty therapy qualification (e.g., VTCT, ITEC, CIBTAC, CIDESCO, or equivalent) and the Skin Rocks team needs to believe they can help them. Also there are no dictats on how their Pro clients should operate. Hindmarch sums up the Academy service as "real-world usable education". "Yes we do theory, we do practical, we do treatment, we do all of that, but we don't just teach facials. Yes, it's all about the hands-on piece, but also how to make their businesses successful and profitable," Hindmarch explains.
"We put the brand into their hands; they're their experts, they're the qualified facialists; we're just not arrogant, we're not dictating to them that 'this is how you you have to work, this is what we expect you to do'. I think we're giving them a phenomenal brand but with support, and I think we support in a way that no other brand can possibly even compete with. Not that we're worried about what our competitors are doing," says Hindmarch, before Hirons quickly chips in "they're worried about us though!"
Whether they are worried or not, there is no question that any competitor will be looking very closely at what Skin Rocks is doing. It's hard to imagine though – particularly when it comes to the larger brands – that that they will be able to, or will want to, replicate the Skin Rocks approach to the professional market. It's not because Skin Rocks is doing is anything wrong – it is doing everything right, in fact – but because its willingness to work with, and uplift, smaller professional businesses is not a model that a global conglomerate could ever credibly pull off, either culturally or financially.
Michelle Hindmarch joined last year from Dermalogica
As Hindmarch explains: "I think that the professional space is becoming more powerful again and I think people are realising that you can't replicate the expert hands. You really can't. And we're seeing that shift in skin health over quick fixes. Yes it's about clinical results, but people need human touch and they need more education,
"The way that we work, simplifying skincare-at-home treatments, we're very transparent, but yet we deliver both results and experience. The professional space can continue to become so strong and so powerful again. And I think as a brand, it's just heartwarming that we are so inclusive and we support any type of entrepreneur or women in business, whether that's from a mobile to a five-salon clinic to a huge spa.
"I think over the years, we've probably all touched other brands that will only work with a salon if they've got 10 treatment rooms and it's like, they all started somewhere. We want to start with you here and grow with you, but if you don't want to grow because you have got an extremely successful smaller business, that's great as well," Hindmarch adds.
The Skin Rocks range
The product powering the Skin Rocks Pro offer is the same as that in the retail line-up, with the addition of some masks that are used during treatments. Before she launched Skin Rocks in 2022, Hirons was known as the Queen of the double cleanse (still is, in fact) and, as expected, Skin Rocks has a range of cleansers to suit all needs and skin types including gel, cream and balm formats. There are also retinoids, support oils, a hyperpigmentation serum, a vitamin C serum and an eye cream, along with rich and light moisturisers. There is also an Amplifier (essentially an essence to boost the performance of actives) and two acids (one gentle and one "control" for oilier skin, and another is about to launch).
Given her hard earned personal reputation is at stake here, Hirons will not launch a product onto the market, unless she is fully convinced it is better than anything that is already out there. Additionally, each product comes complete with clear instructions on who it is intended for and how much they should use, since she does not believe in selling people product they do not need.
While the range was launched first in retail, it was always the intention to supply it to professionals as well. "I made every single product with facials in mind, it's just that we did retail first. Every product, every single product we've ever made, has gone through third-party clinical trials and every product has to have a goal, has to have a reason to exist," Hirons explains.
"We don't just pull something out of thin air to fix a trend or to fill a gap in a marketing calendar, if we have a gap we have a gap. The product that you see behind me [on the shelves of her office] is the same product that's on the shelf in pro clinics. We've got additional products – we've got masks that we use in Pro – and there will be more coming this year. But in terms of the product used in the facials and the day-to-day, 90% of it is what we already have in retail," she adds. This is fully intentional, so that consumers can carry on the good work at home, having received a treatment at the hands of a professional in the salon.
Caroline Hirons behind the Skin Rocks counter at Liberty
Her considered approach to product development is also mirrored in her distribution strategy. Given Hirons' ability to shift product, a queue of retailers wanted to stock the brand, but its availability is limited to the Skin Rocks website, a counter in Liberty London, branches of Space NK and John Lewis Oxford Street. A big motivation for not saturating the retail market is to protect the Pro market, explains Hirons: "The more retailers we're in for a retail product, the less enticing we are to the Pro market. We say no to everyone. Where we are now is where we're staying and that's it, we're done.
"Some retailers have come along and I've said no and they've been really understanding of the why, because the fewer retailers you're in, for example, the more chance there is you're going to miss discounting. And the more discounting goes on, the less appealing you are to the Pro market. And the Pro market has to be our priority because we are now literally responsible for people's incomes," Hirons adds. Again, it's hard to think of a major brand that would think that way. "They don't, they really don't," she agrees, "they think bottom line, get money. They just want to be everywhere."
What did Hirons want, one wonders. when she started out? And what does she want in future? "I don't really think I really ever take time to take stock because we're always on to the next, so we don't really relish much, you know. It's weird though, because it wasn't like it was one of my life goals having a brand, it wasn't a life goal writing books, but as soon as we had the brand, I knew what I wanted to do with it. It was just 'we're going to do this, we're going to launch Liberty, we're going to launch in Space NK, we'll definitely launch Pro at some point'.
"It's just that we sped it up, you know, we went from putting a pin in it, which is what we would say at meetings – so we just put a pin in it and then someone goes 'what happens if you take the pin out?' And now we're here. Walking into the Academy, it just seemed like a natural extension and I don't mean that in a way that undermines the massive amounts of hard work that Michelle and the team have done, I just mean it in the way of 'of course we've got an academy, why wouldn't we?'. I'm very raw, I work on what my instincts and I won't be swayed; that's something I've had since the blog days," she says.
Is there perhaps a pin in the idea to launch her own chain of salons in future? "I don't know about a chain," she laughs, conscious that Hindmarch has barely completed the launch of the Academy, which was clearly a huge task, "but I'd like to start with one. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we've just opened the Academy. I just think to not have a space in our position would be silly. The priority is still supporting Pro but, eventually, yeah..."
Courses at the Academy have been oversubscribed since it launched, so can you imagine the rush there would be for facials at a Skin Rocks salon? One most certainly won't be enough, but how many we get and when will come down to Hirons and her instinct for what's right. It hasn't let her down yet.
