With contemporary developments, the world is redefining the notion of “what it means to care for oneself that includes skin health” Environ® Skin Care addresses skin health in an exceptional, state of the art, ever evolving manner.
Dr. Des Fernandes and Val Carstens, a brother and sister, created an extraordinary company and brand – Environ® Skin Care. For over the past three decades they have become industry leaders and icons garnering over 100 industry awards for leadership, innovation, manufacturing and ground breaking formulations.
Carol and I have been blessed to help be the custodians and distributors of their creation for the United States and the Caribbean.
Let’s drive through Rob’s inspiring story!
The Journey – From Academics to CEO
The company’s success in the United States is partly because of its leader and its vision in keeping with Des and Val’s creation. Rob Trow’s journey with DermaConcepts® is quite interesting. One would be surprised to know that he started his professional career as an academic, serving as a professor, Dean, and Executive Vice President of multiple well-known universities.
Then, while servicing as a respected academic, he developed a reputation as a renowned consultant to family businesses helping them through generational transformations. This work led him to be hired by one of his consulting clients to serve as a top executive of a company helping to lead in a transition from a regional to an international business with over 10,000 employees.
Eventually, after thinking he was going to retire, he was recruited by his wife, Carol Trow, to help her grow her skincare and cosmeceutical sales, marketing and distribution company. But the best part for her, as Rob reminisces about the beginning, he shares, “she didn’t have to pay me.
From its inception, its CEO has helped DermaConcepts® USA to double every four years for the past 25 years. Rob Trow proudly shares, “We currently directly employ over 50 talented territory managers, leading industry educators, and customer service teammates working with 2,500 clients.” Our teammates certainly add the most value to our company. They outshine us every day.
Caring For The Skin – The Why and The How?
With advancing times, people are becoming cognizant about loving themselves. The most popular view of this broad term is understood as pampering the skin and keeping it healthy at all times. This is conveyed by the CEO of DermaConcepts® as he considers skin health and wellness as an essential aspect of overall well-being and self-care that affects physical, emotional and mental health.
To contribute actively to this, the company’s leader stresses the importance of education and training, which are the key to treating the skin effectively.
He says, “Our education has been recognized by physicians, nurses, physician assistants and estheticians as one of the best in the country. Regularly scheduled training seminars, from one to three-day programs, are held throughout the United States to introduce Environ® products and technology to skin care professionals and to provide intensive product knowledge.”
This is aided by continuing education workshops that are provided regularly to update and refresh their clients on Environ’s newest products, protocols, procedures and industry developments. In addition, seminars on skin science, retailing, skin consultation, professional treatment protocols, merchandising, marketing, and best practices for operating a successful esthetic clinic, are provided by their team.
The DermaConcepts® team, aided by Environ South Africa, makes sure that these benefits are appropriate for all races, every skin type and are not restricted by gender or age.
Skin Care for A Lifetime
Environ® Skin Care provides serious, sustainable results over time. The products have impacted positively on every generation. Like Rob puts it, “It is not hope in a jar.”
The company is considerate about everyone’s needs, and it ensures that everything is backed by scientific evidence and is suitable throughout generations of a household. Elaborating on how this is practiced, Rob says, “To get the best results, a skin consultation is needed as one product, or one strength is not suitable for all. It is a step-up system designed to address individual skin concerns to ensure healthy looking skin for a lifetime.”
Aesthetically Sustainable Products
Consumers are calibrating their needs to the environmental needs and therefore, it gets important for skincare companies to produce products that are sustainable as well as safe. At DermaConcepts®, Rob says, “Environ® maintains its own pharmaceutical grade factory using only ethically sourced and tested ingredients.”
Along with production, it is also important to make it aesthetically sound in terms of product packaging to ensure consumer satisfaction, efficacy and also the safety of the product. The company has invested in its packaging that is designed to protect and ensure the effectiveness and results of the ingredients.
Promoting Inclusive Skincare
It is a common understanding that skin care is limited by gender and age. But DermaConcepts® is changing this notion as all its products are designed to maximize skin health. The breadth of offerings ensures that young, old, men, women, and skin of color can achieve optimum results. Citing an example, Rob says, “Our formulations are widely used in hospitals, burn centers, pediatric facilities, medical offices, and literally thousands of medical spas and wellness centers.”
Additionally, Environ® Skin Care contains a vitamin A step-up system, and the product line is based on varying intensities and levels of ingredients (vitamins. peptides, growth factors, AHA’s) to ensure safe at-home and clinical treatments to meet all individual skin types, concerns, and lifestyles.
A Mindful Skincare Routine
DermaConcepts® annually offers over 4,000 in-person training and educational events plus a myriad of virtual programs on skin science, ingredients, products and the latest technology available to ensure and enhance skin health. In addition, Rob and Carol have published over 140 articles and recently a book, for skin care professionals, on skin science and running a skincare practice – all unbranded.
Rob shares, “Carol, I and our team work tirelessly to debunk myths in the skin care industry and set straight some of the misconceptions about ingredients.”
Bringing clarity to the statements, he further adds, “For example, while antioxidants are known to be protective against the effects of free radicals, they offer other benefits. That is, they are preventive and rejuvenating. Certain vitamins, most prominently Vitamin A, offers us both the preventive benefits of an effective antioxidant, while also providing the beneficial look of repair and rejuvenation.”
To promote an efficient skincare routine, Environ® Skin Care and its leaders are focusing on scientific research to explore key ingredients to bring uniqueness and trustworthiness to the product provision.
Taking the example of vitamin A and vitamin C, Rob says, “Vitamin A has long been known as the “skin vitamin” but only recently has attention been focused on it as a “skin normalizer” and an indispensable factor in the maintenance of youthful-appearing and healthy-looking skin. Scientific research shows it helps to prevent and reverse the effects of photo-aging, and to improve the look of hydration. Environ® Skin Care has also pioneered the use of stabilized and highly effective forms of Vitamin C as ascorbyl tetraisopalmitate (VC-IP). Scientific studies show this is a fat-soluble and extremely stable form of vitamin C, making it more effective. Besides its basic action as a free radical scavenger, vitamin C has an important part to play in improving the appearance of firmer, less wrinkled skin. It also improves the look of uneven skin tone. For the healthiest-looking, most radiant skin, vitamin C is essential.”
Maintaining empirical research as a guiding force for the products, Rob proudly says, “DermaConcepts® is proud to be the official United States distributor for Environ® Skin Care as it offers all this together with powerful antioxidants, inorganic UV-A & UV-B sun reflectants (titanium dioxide), pro-vitamin B5 (panthenol), growth factors, synergistic cocktails of peptides, the industry leading Cool Peel system and the targeted use of alpha and beta hydroxy acids.”
A Guiding Light
A leader acts as a luminescent person who not only helps the company grow but also helps its members grow. This is also true at DermaConcepts®, as its CEO shares, “Simply put, we listen before we speak. Ask before we recommend. We strongly believe the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.”
And hence, a very important value that they instill in their colleagues is “family first.”
The CEO’s Life Lessons
Events affect every human being, making them learn more and shape them as individuals. The CEO shares the most important learnings that have helped him grow personally and professionally. He says, “Learning that it is OKAY to say I don’t know something and to ask and listen to others. Our success is due to the world wide Environ® family.
