Dermalogica Founder Jane Wurwand's Road to Success
Jane Wurwand, founder of Dermalogica (Annie Leibovitz).
Clearly, Jane Wurwand, who founded the skincare company Dermalogica with her husband Ray Wurwand, is a runaway success. In 1983, the U.K. native arrived in Los Angeles, with just a suitcase and an American dream of entrepreneurship. Just three years later, she launched Dermalogica, a skincare line beloved for what it lacks (harsh irritants, fragrances). Today the multi-million dollar brand is carried in 87 countries. Here, the self-made woman shares how hard work and a vocational training is a powerful combination.
I was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland and I was there until I was nine-years-old. My father died suddenly when I was two-years-old and my mother was widowed with four girls to raise. She didn’t work when she was married, but she had trained as a nurse before. She went back to that training and got a job working nights and she set this great example of work ethic. She’s always really drummed into us that it’s important to get training, a real skill, and not just an education.
When I was 9, we immigrated to England and it was then I had my first experience with beauty. I went to the drug store and bought this face mask in a little sachet—it was called Yeast Pak. I still remember it so clearly! I bought it with my pocket money, and the second I got around the corner I put it on. I bought it religiously until I was 13.
I started working in a hair salon at 13, doing the laundry, and going out to get their lunches. I worked every Saturday in the salon through high school, until I went to beauty school in Bournemouth, which is on the South Coast of England. I did my training and apprenticeship there, which was all pretty typical. Then I went to London and got a job as a makeup artist for Mary Quant [from 1977-1978]. It was so fun! I traveled with the team to promote the makeup line, I was really junior but I loved it.
My [beauty] references were all about David Bowie. This was the era of glam rock before punk took hold. It was David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed. We were inspired to be ourselves; don’t put limits on what you can be and what you can look like. I had orange hair. I had platinum hair with a 1-inch crop for a few years. I was doing very experimental makeup.
Jane Wurwand with students from the International Dermal Institute.
I thought my future would be in makeup. I thought then that skincare was bogus—it was all about slimming wraps and that kind of magical thing. I felt I had a really good makeup portfolio and decided to travel. I went to South Africa until December 1982. I thought I’d get magazine work once I got there. I was blithely unaware that it was the middle of apartheid so there weren’t many magazine jobs. Instead, I got a job in a typical salon and of course they didn’t want leopard print makeup! So, I fell back on my skincare training. It was falling back on that and seeing all the different types of clients—those with issues like dermatitis and eczema—that got me into skincare.
By 1983, I was ready for another move and I immigrated to Los Angeles. It was the whole entrepreneurial “American Dream” that lured me here. I had a suitcase in one hand and a beauty school diploma in the other. I came with my boyfriend, who’s now my husband and together, we started the International Dermal Institute (IDI) because as I was literally knocking on doors of existing skin salons and discovered they would only hire Europe-trained therapists because they said the training was so bad here. I was like, “This is crazy. It’s America, it should be bigger and better!” We were selling classes and the kind of training that would prepare you to actually work and build a clientele.
Ray and Jane Wurwand when they first started Dermalogica.
In 1986, we launched Dermalogica. We wanted to do our own formulas—they were specific, fragrance-free, and free of harsh chemicals—so we hired a chemist. We launched with 27 formulas. Now, my husband and I have been together and running the business for 30 years and we have two daughters.
Wurwand at a Dermalogica MicroZone Station.
I keep thinking about my mother and how she really drummed into us the idea to get training. I would never have gotten here if I didn’t train in a real skill. I look at my own daughters and they’re focused on the four-year university and I understand that, but there’s this huge vocational and training track that’s not even talked about. You could say it’s even looked down upon. If I meet new people and tell them I’m an aesthetician, I see them thinking, “Oh, I thought she was smart, when she’s actually an idiot.” But the industry is now a blueprint of how a woman—98% of skin therapists are women—with vocational training can get on the path of financial independence, entrepreneurship and ultimately, become a job creator. That’s why we started our FITE (Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship) organization, which helps women entrepreneurs with access to loans and vocational training. It’s exactly what my mother taught. It’s kind of great to say I’ve come full circle.
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