News

Jul 01, 2023

Silver Mirror Facial Bar looks to make skin care fast, accessible

Silver Mirror co-founder Matt Maroone COMPANY NAME Silver Mirror Facial Bar

Silver Mirror co-founder Matt Maroone

COMPANY NAME Silver Mirror Facial Bar

FOUNDED 2016

CO-FOUNDERS Matt Maroone and Cindy Kim

EMPLOYEES Early on the co-founders worked the front desk themselves, only hiring their first store manager in 2020. Now, they have 108 staff (including managers), with plans to hire more.

LOCATIONS Six total in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami

REVENUE $7 Million in 2022, with $14 million projected by the end of 2023

FLAGSHIP SERVICES Silver Mirror's 30-minute signature facial includes skin cleansing, exfoliation, extractions and a vitamin-enriched oxygen treatment. The business also offers 50-minute facials targeting a variety of skin conditions.

WEBSITE silvermirror.com

On a student trek through India in 2012, Matt Maroone and Cindy Kim, both working on their MBA at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, met and connected over their passion for retail entrepreneurship.

The two stayed in touch as Kim went on to found Korean beauty e-commerce company Peach & Lily that same year. And in 2014 Maroone founded Pickfit, an app that helped users make fashion decisions.

But even in the throes of building their new businesses, each felt something was still missing. Kim, who had ongoing issues with her own skin, felt there was even more room to innovate in skincare. Meanwhile, Maroone found himself craving the personal connection with end-consumers that app development lacked, and had started to explore brick-and-mortar ventures on the side.

In late 2014 Maroone broached the idea of a joint skin care business to Kim. Through extensive research over the following months bolstered by Kim's knowledge of Korean skin care, they hit upon one ritual popular in South Korea that hadn't yet caught on in the U.S: fast and affordable facial treatments normalized as a monthly routine.

Deciding to adapt that facial model to New York City, then their home base and where Kim had grown up, they spent much of 2015 developing the concept for Silver Mirror Facial Bar: prioritizing efficient and affordable treatments without skimping on the small details that make facials feel like a luxurious indulgence.

Competitors at the time were offering 90-minute facials for around $250, but Kim and Maroone wanted their facials to be fast enough for busy New Yorkers to schedule on the fly and reasonably-priced enough to fit into a monthly budget.

Silver Mirror's facial treatments are customized to each client and last either 30 or 50 minutes. Ranging from $76 to $145, they target concerns from aging to acne, and utilize a variety of machines and modalities.

The pair opened their first 950-square-foot space in May 2016 on the Upper East Side.

"Opening in New York was terrifying. The rent for our first location was $17,000 a month, and Cindy and I bootstrapped that with our own funds and access to debt," said Maroone. "We wanted to do things the old-fashioned way instead of raising a ton of money from private equity or venture capital and giving away all of our company at the beginning."

Silver Mirror's customized facial treatments range from $76 to $145 and target concerns from aging to acne.

To keep their facials affordable, they decided to incentivize their biggest fans to keep coming back through a membership model. Silver Mirror members pay for one facial every month at a 20% discount from the non-member price. They also receive 10% off products, additional facials and add-ons, such as dermaplaning and extractions.

Though these hefty discounts risked tanking their margins, the duo banked on the calculation that they’d make up for those losses by bringing more people through the door, more regularly.

So far that's panning out. Maroone said they’ve never had a month-over-month decline in net membership and have never experienced a year-over-year decline in sales even while limited to 50% client occupancy in 2021 as Covid-19 cases soared in the city.

"I’ve been very surprised by the variety of clients," he said. "It's actresses on Broadway. It's investment bankers, marketing executives, students, even people in their 90s."

In the past decade other facial bars have opened in the city, touting 30-minute facials and laser treatments at low prices. But Maroone is quick to distinguish Silver Mirror from the "fast facial" model.