When skoah started in Vancouver’s Yaletown district in 2001, the spa and beauty industry felt intimidating, scary and sort of boring. Many felt intimidated by spas and beauty counters. And the customer experience seemed to fall short of a wonderful dining experience or memorable hotel visit. Chris and Andrea Scott, the owners and founders of skoah were not ‘spa people’. They didn’t have any experience running – or even visiting – spas. They would say this was their biggest asset. Why? They looked at the industry from the eyes of their customers.

They set out to create a different type of ‘spa experience”. Change that atmosphere. Think downtempo lounge beats rather than whale music or pan pipes. Think clean, uncluttered, and gender neutral, yet warm spaces. Change the attitude. Create a blissful and relaxing experience, but in a way that also respects the value of the guest’s time. Our initial skoah tag line was aptly “No whale music, no bubbling cherubs, no pretentious attitudes.” As we grow, this remains true.

Many of skoah’s first customers had never been to a spa. skoah was a completely new experience in their lives. A new experience that helped provide a roadmap to healthy skin! Relying on an empathetic krew who listen to undertstand what customers want, was the most critical building block. Hiring a chemist to work with to develop products meant we could guide the process by listening to real customer needs and desires. Andrea even went back to school to become a certified makeup artist and developed a makeup line to accompany the skoah skin care line.

Our goal is to bring skoah’s uniquely personalized skin care training – and roadmap to healthy skin – into new communities across North America one face at a time. skoah has become a place to learn about your skin and how to take care of it. But most importantly its a place to always leave with a “skoah glow” and feeling great from the skin in.

- See more at: http://www.skoah.com/our-story/#sthash.iEGdXQxs.dpuf