“I propose that you give yourself the gift of knowledge. Resolve to become the best esthetician you can be. Be proud and confident as you evolve into a highly trained skin care expert.”
– Lydia Sarfati
“To be successful is a choice. I think everyone can be successful if they choose to fuel their passion with education.”
— Lydia Sarfati
My Mission
For me, the greatest pleasure is to see others become successful. I have been in beauty industry for over 46 years as an esthetician, spa owner, educator, author, product formulator, Founder/CEO of Repêchage®, and as the President of CIDESCO Section U.S.A, the world standard for esthetics education.
I am dedicated to educating others because I want to assure that everyone can have access to the highest standards in esthetics education.
I was born in Legnica, Poland and came with my parents to New York from Europe, starting my career in beauty as a makeup artist and skin care specialist in 1971 at a Madison Avenue salon. After I received my license in cosmetology in 1975, I became the skin care manager in a top NYC Salon and then, in 1977, I opened Klisar, my first day spa in Manhattan on 53rd Street off of 5th Ave. This was at a time when businesses were leaving New York, and when women couldn’t get a bank loan without a man. Everyone told me not to do it, but I persevered and the business was a success within six months. In 1980, I developed and launched Repêchage® treatments and products based on seaweed at the Pierre Hotel on 5th Avenue, pioneering seaweed-based skin care in the United States. My Four-Layer Facial®, based on seaweed, and using the revolutionary unidose application system, was featured in Vogue and the New York Times Magazine, and had a 9 minute segment on the Today Show (an unheard-of amount of time.) It was also named “the facial of the century” by Cosmopolitan UK.
I share my story, as well as provide all the information I learned about starting a beauty business in my book, Success at Your Fingertips: How to Succeed in the Skin Care Business. To provide ongoing esthetics education, I have written The Book of Skincare Science & Protocols. I also contributed several chapters to textbooks, including the Milady Standard Esthetics: Fundamentals, Twelfth Edition, (Cengage Learning, 2019) and Oncology Esthetics®, (Oncology Training International, 2020). You will find I am a frequent contributor to NewBeauty, Les Nouvelles Esthétiques & Spa, Dermascope and Skin Inc. magazines as well as leading European publications and I am a member of the NewBeauty Brain Trust, a group of the leading innovators and most highly regarded experts in the beauty industry.
New York has been my home since the early 1970s. NYC is where I met my husband, David, raised my daughters, sent them to schools, took them to museums, shows and operas to open their minds and empower them to become passionate, giving and sophisticated women. It is where I became a leading skin care expert, contributing editorially to magazines such as Glamour, Vogue, GQ and many others, where I became founder of my own business, opening my very first skin care center on 53rd Street during the height of the recession, with high inflation, interest rates and in the midst of the Middle East crisis. It was not easy, but New York was and still is the center of the world and the beauty industry in the United States and I was determined to create a successful life and business for myself and my family here. I never let challenges and mistakes stand in my way, and I hope to inspire the next spa generation to do the same.
Through-out my career, it has been my honor to receive prestigious awards, such as the Chevalerie “Knight Award” by Intercoiffure Mondial, LNE Crystal Award and the Dermascope Legend Award, but perhaps my greatest honor was receiving the 2019 CIDESCO Medaille du Merite for my work in bringing CIDESCO’s internationally recognized highest level of standards to esthetics education in the US.
Today, together with my husband David Sarfati, Co-Founder and COO, and daughter Shiri Sarfati, Chief Marketing Officer and Partner, we oversee Repêchage Global Headquarters, a 50,000 square foot, ISO 9001:2015 certified manufacturing and distribution center, with Research and Development, Sales and Marketing as well as the Lydia Sarfati Post Graduate Skin Care Academy all under one roof.
It is here that you can join me as I offer my Master Courses and advanced brand education classes both on site and from the Lydia Sarfati Post Graduate Skin Care Academy’s state-of-the-art digital studio. I also invite you to attend my classes on advanced esthetics and business building skills at trade shows and at my educational workshop classes at CIDESCO conferences round the world.
If you keep learning, and love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Here’s to your success!
Today, together with my husband David Sarfati, Co-Founder and COO, and daughter Shiri Sarfati, Chief Marketing Officer and Partner, we oversee Repêchage Global Headquarters, a 50,000 square foot, ISO 9001:2015 certified manufacturing and distribution center, with Research and Development, Sales and Marketing as well as the Lydia Sarfati Post Graduate Skin Care Academy all under one roof.
It is here that you can join me as I offer my Master Courses and advanced brand education classes both on site and from the Lydia Sarfati Post Graduate Skin Care Academy’s state-of-the-art digital studio. I also invite you to attend my classes on advanced esthetics and business building skills at trade shows and at my educational workshop classes at CIDESCO conferences round the world.
If you keep learning, and love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Here’s to your success!
Meet Lydia Sarfati
