Soap & Glory
Marcia Kilgore
Marcia Kilgore is one of the beauty industry's heaviest hitters. She moved to New York City with $300 in her pocket, and after working as a personal trainer to put herself through University and then 'beauty school', founded the revolutionary Bliss Spa group (est. 1996), mail order catalogue and wholesale cosmetic business whose customers now include prominent retailers from Neiman Marcus to Bloomingdales, Sephora and Selfridges.
Kilgore has often been credited with single-handedly igniting the day spa boom of the late nineties. Among industry insiders, she has been referred to as 'the new Estee Lauder' and has been described as being as influential in the spa business as Elizabeth Arden was to early cosmetics trading.
Having sold Bliss twice - first a majority stake to Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy in 1999, and then the final shares to the behemoth Starwood Hotel Group in 2004 - the now 40 year old Kilgore remains an entrepreneur at heart.
In August 2006 after completing a transitional year with Bliss, she launched Soap & Glory, a masstige bath, body, and beauty product line which launched exclusively in the UK at Harvey Nichols Department store, rolled out nationwide into Boots stores in September of 2006, and then launched exclusively with Target in the US in August 2007. Kilgore's injection of fun and entertainment into her products and the philosophy that 'you shouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg to moisturise one' is the key to Soap and Glory's global expansion and appeal.
Soap & Glory has – in the two short years since it launched- grown into another nice little big business for Kilgore. Customers who were initially attracted to the line's quirky and bright designs and fragrant shower gels and body butters can now find lip plumpers, undereye brightening concealers, line fillers, and lip plumpers. A skincare line has just bowed in the UK at Boots, and Kilgore plans to ship it stateside to Target this spring.
Kilgore's first foray out of the cosmetics arena, the FitFlop, inspired by both her love of flip flops and desire to squeeze a bit of exercise into her increasingly hectic schedule, is taking the functional footwear industry by storm. The FitFlopTM (it's a flip-flop with a gym built-in), was designed in conjunction with a London-based University's biomechanics department. Launched in the UK in May 2007, and U.S in June 07, the FitFlop has now sold over 2 million pairs in 28 countries.
All signs suggest that Kilgore- a woman who once said her biggest fear was that she might be branded a 'one hit wonder' has a little less to worry about.
Kilgore has often been credited with single-handedly igniting the day spa boom of the late nineties. Among industry insiders, she has been referred to as 'the new Estee Lauder' and has been described as being as influential in the spa business as Elizabeth Arden was to early cosmetics trading.
Having sold Bliss twice - first a majority stake to Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy in 1999, and then the final shares to the behemoth Starwood Hotel Group in 2004 - the now 40 year old Kilgore remains an entrepreneur at heart.
In August 2006 after completing a transitional year with Bliss, she launched Soap & Glory, a masstige bath, body, and beauty product line which launched exclusively in the UK at Harvey Nichols Department store, rolled out nationwide into Boots stores in September of 2006, and then launched exclusively with Target in the US in August 2007. Kilgore's injection of fun and entertainment into her products and the philosophy that 'you shouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg to moisturise one' is the key to Soap and Glory's global expansion and appeal.
Soap & Glory has – in the two short years since it launched- grown into another nice little big business for Kilgore. Customers who were initially attracted to the line's quirky and bright designs and fragrant shower gels and body butters can now find lip plumpers, undereye brightening concealers, line fillers, and lip plumpers. A skincare line has just bowed in the UK at Boots, and Kilgore plans to ship it stateside to Target this spring.
Kilgore's first foray out of the cosmetics arena, the FitFlop, inspired by both her love of flip flops and desire to squeeze a bit of exercise into her increasingly hectic schedule, is taking the functional footwear industry by storm. The FitFlopTM (it's a flip-flop with a gym built-in), was designed in conjunction with a London-based University's biomechanics department. Launched in the UK in May 2007, and U.S in June 07, the FitFlop has now sold over 2 million pairs in 28 countries.
All signs suggest that Kilgore- a woman who once said her biggest fear was that she might be branded a 'one hit wonder' has a little less to worry about.