With Estée Lauder Companies, 111Skin Is Ready to Grow

Reported by Vogue.

There's a particular kind of brand origin story that actually holds up under scrutiny: a surgeon on London's Harley Street, two biochemists, and a post-operative recovery formula that patients kept asking to take home. Dr. Yannis Alexandrides built 111Skin that way — beginning in 2007 with a vitamin C and antioxidant compound called NAC Y2, designed to accelerate skin healing after surgery, before his wife Eva took over creative and marketing in 2010 and turned a clinical secret into one of luxury skincare's most quietly formidable labels.

The growth has been methodical and, by current beauty industry standards, almost old-fashioned. Harrods became its first stockist in 2012 after senior beauty director Annalise Fard sought out a genuinely effective post-surgical line — "the fusion of medical expertise, clinical efficiency, and true luxury positioning made it incredibly compelling for the Harrods customer," she says. Today, 111Skin sits in 400 retailers and 140 spas worldwide, with its Repair Serum NAC Y2 and Celestial Black Diamond Lifting and Firming Face Mask as flagship bestsellers. In 2025, the brand delivered £60 million in retail sales, posting 27% year-on-year growth with gross margins exceeding 80%, according to Vogue.

Strategic Money, Not Just Capital

Two significant investments arrived in quick succession: Kim Kardashian's private equity firm Skky Partners took a minority stake in January 2025 — a natural fit, given Kardashian had been posting about the brand since 2019 long before any financial relationship existed — and Estée Lauder Companies followed with their own minority investment shortly after. ELC president and CEO Stéphane de La Faverie framed it as part of the company's Beauty Reimagined turnaround strategy, a bet on high-performance luxury skincare rooted in clinical science. Dr. Yannis is clear-eyed about what he needs from these partnerships: "We want someone who is a strategic investor, not just someone to give us money." The Skky stake, for its part, has already funded warehouse upgrades and internal software overhauls — operational infrastructure that scales the business without softening its precision.

Precision is exactly what the Alexandrides are defending as the broader market caves under its own excess. The Celestial Black Diamond Eye Masks, launched in 2010 and eventually worn by Anne Hathaway, Dua Lipa, Margot Robbie, and Bella Hadid, are now competing against 30-plus variations on Sephora alone. Eva doesn't bother pretending otherwise: "The industry is becoming overly saturated and the consumer is getting confused." Her counteroffensive is restraint — backing clinical study timelines (visible results take up to eight weeks of regular use) over the instant-gratification culture that's polluted the category. The newest launch, an Exosome Face Lift serum developed from Dr. Yannis's in-clinic cellular repair work, and a forthcoming evolution in the masks category tested across global spas, suggest the NPD pipeline is governed by his surgical practice, not a trend forecast.

Geographically, the ambition is pointed and purposeful: North America currently drives 42% of sales, and a standalone spa inside New York's Plaza Hotel opened in October 2025 to meet the demand of a US consumer Dr. Yannis describes as needing full provenance — ingredients, trials, the story of who built it. The Middle East, China, and Thailand together account for the remaining business, grown organically through international patients at the Harley Street clinic. With ELC's marketing muscle now behind it, 111Skin is betting that the brands built slowly, on clinical credibility, are the ones that actually last.

When the whole industry is chasing the algorithm, the smartest play might still be the surgeon's instinct: treat the problem, don't chase the trend.

Read the original at Vogue.