Page 24 - Beauty Prime Magazine

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PHOTO: Unlock your best skin yet with GetHarley—a revolutionary platform crafted by visionary Charmaine Chow. Experience seamless
skincare consultations that combine expert advice with personalized treatment plans, empowering you to achieve healthier skin with every pro-
duct curated just for you. Discover the blend of technology and human expertise that sets a new standard in skincare.
– Charmaine Chow
How do you balance promoting medi-
cal-grade skincare with keeping the plat-
form accessible to the average consumer?
I think accessibility has many dimensions
– information and ease of understanding, as
well as price and factoring in your time. I
think our practitioners’ curation and educati-
on of just the right products, for each patient,
makes navigating the minefield of informa-
tion in the industry much easier and much
more accessible. In terms of time, you can
order products to your door within seconds,
again making it more accessible and easier
for the consumer. in terms of cost, actually if
you invest in 3-5 good quality products and
use them to the very last drop, we find that in
the long run you spend less. Many consumers
might purchase cheaper products over the
counter, but find that the products don’t work,
and so it’s a wasted purchase and a waste of
money. In addition, you can book an online
skin consultation for £40 with a skin profes-
sional via GetHarley, without having to leave
your house. We believe this has made expert
advice accessible for many people.
The skincare market is highly competitive
— what sets GetHarley apart from other
platforms and brands entering this space?
GetHarley is about helping you find the
right products for your skin, not selling you
products that you don’t need. GetHarley is
brand agnostic, so not tied to a particular
brand, making it democratic for the practiti-
oner to pick just the right products for each
patient. We have a community of practitio-
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ners that are best in class in what they do and
we are humbled by the opportunity to serve
them on our platform and help them service
their patients on their journeys to happier
healthier skin.
As GetHarley expands globally, what
strategies are you considering to address
the diverse skincare needs of people from
varying regions and ethnicities?
We already serve so many regions and
ethnicities… all genders, skin types. We have
shipped globally to patients for years. Our
expansion plans are about building practitio-
ner communities out of the UK, but because
we already serve the world, we are set up
to facilitate people from all walks of life.
Our offering of over 500 skincare brands,
means there is a brand and product range for
everyone.
What role does sustainability play in your
product curation and business operations,
and how do you intend to strengthen this
focus in the future?
With skincare experts curating the right
products for their patients, patients get great
results and so use them to the very last drop.
There is therefore less waste compared to
buying, trying and discarding (which is much
of the beauty industry). GetHarley curated
product regimes are posted out in eco-friend-
ly, fully recyclable boxes, with minimal
packaging and no bubble wrap.
At GetHarley we practise hybrid wor-
king, so people minimise their recruit and
maximise productively. We work digitally, we
don’t print anything we don’t absolutely have
to print and we also donate the products we
don’t sell to charities.
Sustainability is something we will always
be mindful of and will be strengthened as we
grow.
How do you see technology shaping the
future of skincare personalisation, and
what is GetHarley’s approach to staying
ahead of the curve?
I think technology will play a huge part
in shaping the future of the industry and in
particular personalisation of skincare. At
GetHarley, we leverage our proprietary tech-
nology and data to help our practitioners get
feedback on what their patients like, dislike
and we share benchmarks against the rest
of the skincare industry so practitioners can
utilise this information during their consulta-
tions and the creation of their treatment plans.
What key lessons have you learnt as an
entrepreneur in the health and beauty
technology sector that you’d like to share
with aspiring business owners?
Dig deep and understand if what is compel-
ling them to start a business is strong enough
to go through all the hard work, rejections
and challenges. I would also ask them to
think through the problem they want to solve
and whether it is something they are really
bothered by, because you really have to be so
enchanted by the problems, to come up with
great solutions. I’d also say at some point you
also really need to let go and play the quarter-
back role and hire people.