Pharmacist sees gap in skin-care market

by Heather B. Hayes and Jessica Sabbath
for Virginia Business
May 2007

Julie Hilton wasn’t ready to quit her day-job when she started a line of over-the-counter, allergen-free skin-care products in late 2005. Instead, she continued to work as a full-time pharmacist for a CVS pharmacy in Amherst. That decision, it turns out, was a good business strategy.

Because she is a CVS employee, Hilton didn’t have any qualms about asking permission to run a sales trial of her SkinFree products in company stores. As a result, her products were put on the shelves of 65 stores in Virginia and North Carolina. Since November, SkinFree products have sold steadily, despite the lack of any advertising or promotional efforts, she says.

The sales trial is scheduled to run through late spring, and if CVS executives find the results promising, they could decide to distribute the products throughout all 6,300 CVS stores. “As a pharmacist, I knew from talking to customers that there was a real gap in the skin-care market,” says Hilton.

Customers had complained that they were allergic to fragrances and chemicals in some skin-care products. “I felt that there was a lot of room for products based on truly natural products.”

The SkinFree product line contains no chemicals, perfumes, petroleum-based ingredients or steroids, Hilton says. Instead, the moisturizers, soaps, scrubs and regenerative lotions are made from ingredients such as coconut, palm, olive and sweet almond oils and shea, cocoa and tamanu butters. The prices range from $2.99 for the extra-moisturizing soap to $16.99 for the whipped tamanu butter. The corrective face nectar, which is a scar-reduction and skin regeneration product, is $22.99.

Hilton says the products are designed to help people who suffer from eczema, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, extremely dry or sensitive skin or environmental allergies.

SkinFree products are al­so available for sale online, as well as through dermatologists, pedi­atricians and family physician offices in central Virginia. Hil­ton donates products to the University of Virginia Hematology and Oncology Clinic and the Southwestern Virginia Training Center.

While Hilton develops formulas at her home-based studio near Lovingston, most of her products are made and packaged at EMS Contract Packaging in Hatfield, Pa. SkinFree soaps are manufactured and packaged at Stahl Soap Corp. in East Rutherford, N.J. The finished products are distribu­ted from Hilton’s warehouse in Nelson County.