Skin is forever! Fortunately, Caire Beauty founded by Lorrie King and Celeste Lee – both Wharton/University of Pennsylvania graduates – is a science backed female-biology focused skincare company working to counteract slowing skin cell regeneration, caused by hormonal decline, which is normal and happens to all women. The brand believes in age-positive female strength, confidence, and capability.



Lorrie King and Celeste Lee, were in their 40s themselves when they discovered that hormone-associated skin aging was ignored in the beauty industry. Now the Caire Lab makes scientifically advanced formulations and delivery systems to address menopause and midlife skin health challenges. They bring high performance science, typically only in luxury and physician branded products directly to any woman for an affordable price.


Caire Beauty’s secret is a clean, vegan, science superpowered approach to the challenge of ‘internal’ skin aging. Tiny molecular size nutrition is designed to not only infuse hydration nutrition deep into skin but to activate faster skin cell generation from inside, where skin cells are born. To learn more about the product as well as the founders I had an intimate conversation with Celeste Lee regarding the products and the fascinating story behind its life changing discovery.

Tell me about your big event…

It’s called Beauty With Benefits which is a huge annual fundraiser on QVC on behalf of Cancer and Careers. This is their 11th year, and it will be broadcast Tuesday night, May 16thfrom 9:00 to 11:00 pm, which I understand is a primo time slot! They showcase their biggest brands and some new brands. It is all a donation to this very worthwhile charity that supports women during tough times. Over the years, they’ve raised over $14 Million dollars. So, it’s a big thing to be asked to be part of the Event. Of course, we’re hoping that women will be excited by our new skincare which focuses specifically on peri to post-menopausal skin changes. We hope we’ll be invited back to be on regular QVC. It’s a very short segment, only about 4 minutes whereas a normal segment is between 8 and 12 minutes. So, I’m going to have to be really connected and succinct!  

So my first question is what motivated you or inspired you to decide to do this?

I have always been interested in innovation, but that’s not what it was. What happened was very natural. In our late 40s, early 50s everybody we knew was complaining about undereye circles, bags and lines. My partner, Lorrie, and I would “argue” over what concealers to recommend. Lorrie, back in the day, to pay for Business school, did a side hustle before that was even a thing. She had a job at a Yves Saint Laurent beauty counter. And to this day is a fan of with the YSL Touche Eclat concealer line. 

I would say to her, this can’t be the only brand, there’s Hourglass, Laura Mercier, It Cosmetics and so on and so forth. We had a lot of laughs about it. One day, Lorrie said, “Why are we always talking about concealing! Conceal…conceal, conceal. There’s got to be something you can do for your actual skin.” 

We started researching. We talked to doctors, scientists, and dermatologists. It did not take long to find out that sex hormones are not just about having babies and wanting to have sex. They have all kinds of impacts on the body. In skin they’re critical. You must have estrogen (and progesterone and testosterone) in order to even make skin cells. So, the lower your estrogen levels are, the fewer skin cells you make. It is really that simple. 

When we found this out, we were horrified because we are both beauty veterans, in the business for a long time. We couldn’t believe it. Nobody talks about menopause and midlife. That’s when we decided we should do something about it ourselves. We researched what could be done. Botox is a great thing, but a lot of people have no interest in it. Also it is pretty expensive and doesn’t do anything for your fundamental skin health and strength.  

Our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Joseph Librizzi, worked at J&J for 15 years. He not only has a PhD in Biochemistry but also a Masters’ in Physiology. He is an expert on the science of skin structure and our female-first approach comes from his knowledge as to skin changes with hormone change. It happens to men and women but for women, it’s so much more dramatic. So at Caire, we care (haha!) not only about ingredients which the beauty world is obsessed with but about formulation. There are a lot of good ingredients out there, but if they are just sitting on the top of your skin, it has a benefit in that it’s blocking the outside, but it’s not doing much of anything for what’s going on inside. When you have skin changes in menopause, you see looser, less firm skin, you see lines & wrinkles, you get more redness, dryness and sensitivity. You need different thinking to compensate for the loss in skin density and hydration that causes all this. That’s why we started Caire. And that is why we are working as hard as we can to think about how we can impact skin strength, repair and regeneration from the inside out. 

What do you hope to see your product be in 5 years?

We already have a very good unique and award-winning Serum, but there’s so much more. One of the things our product does not do – yet – is to work on elastin regeneration. Currently, we are very effective with collagen and hyaluronic acid generation – 2 of your 3 key skin building blocks. Collagen which everybody talks about is critical. Elastin your other major protein. By the way collagen is made up of about 40 components and fibers and is really complicated. The same with elastin. We want to research how to accelerate elastin creation because that is where some of that bounce comes from in your skin.

You’ve had experience in this business tell me a little bit about that, how did you start?

It started by accident. I was working with AMC Entertainment – the movie theatres. We had a Pre-show Program. I don’t know if you remember the slides that used to come on with the trivia questions and pictures of Hollywood legends. That was me. It was a fun job, and I got to go to all of these fabulous premieres, private screenings, and I went to the Oscars. But I was making no money and was broke. This friend of mine from college said, you always have interesting creative ideas, would you like to do some consulting? My very first consulting gig was for the Body Shop. They were one of the clients at this fragrance house, who wanted to come up with a new concept. After consulting for several years, the largest fragrance and flavor house in the world, Givaudan, hired me as a head of fine fragrance marketing. It was a blast. I have a good ‘nose’, loved the perfumers and fell in love with all things beauty. 

But then 9/11 happened, and I got a little fearful. I started a boutique consulting practice in Beauty but also in fine jewelry and timepieces, and even wine and spirits. My core love has always been fragrance and skincare. I still have clients I advise in fragrance. And to this day, nobody truly understands why certain smells can take you back to when you were 6 years old.

I was always annoyed about the phrase ‘anti-aging’. Not only is it saying aging is terrible, but it implies that being older is being somehow worthless, which is totally unacceptable. Anti-aging in the world of skincare is a bit of a lie. It really is. I’ll tell you why. Anti-aging skin care is good for anybody from age 14 to 104. So, it is essentially for everybody. But in real life, the menopausal transition, from pre to post, is very profound and deserves serious consideration. 

Hormones are natural and they’re great. They are the green lights in our bodies. They make life magnificent but when they decline, the impacts they have affect women negatively, and why should women be punished for it? It has to do with the patriarchy. And our youth-obsessed culture. But also, we women ourselves have a subconscious taboo against menopause. Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to admit it. Except maybe behind closed doors with a bottle of tequila. But Lorrie and I think that times are changing. Women are beginning to understand that a woman of 50 and 60 today is in her midyears. She is not old and has only lived half of her adulthood. She is in midlife, and midlife can be vibrant and fabulous. There are new lifestyle brands, health access platforms and all kinds of reinvention dedicated to women from 40 to 70. It’s really fascinating. There are not a lot of us, perhaps 20 or 30 startups changing how you can experience menopause, changing hormones and beyond. Which as I said shouldn’t be this hidden embarrassing awful thing but rather a natural, normal part of the great story of life. 

The official website for Caire Beauty may be found at https://www.cairebeauty.com