We were lucky to catch up with Elizabeth Grace Hand recently and have shared our conversation below.

Elizabeth Grace, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

My very first client I actually met in esthetician school. To graduate with honors we were required to perform at least 50 facials in the clinical portion. This meant I had to reach out to literally every single person I had ever met and beg them to let me practice on their face. One of the people I texted was my friend Lindsay Cullen who I had interned for at my first college internship when I was 19 and hadn’t seen in probably 5 years. She sent in her actress friend Gabriella Piazza. Gabby stayed with me post-graduation and became my first paying client. Way before I had my own studio, she would come to my East Village apartment ‘spa’ for monthly facials in between juggling castings and working at Mr.Purple. Years later she ended up booking a starring role in the Sopranos movie The Many Saints of Newark and I got to prep her skin for the premiere – which coincidentally was the same month I launched my studio.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a licensed esthetician and founder of Ställe Studios in Soho New York City where my team and I offer bespoke facial treatments.

My journey into opening my own facial studio is light years away from where I started getting serious about the beauty business, which began with a years-long bought of severe teenage acne. I tried everything — peels, microdermabrasion, prescription and OTC topicals, supplements and antibiotics, including one whose potential side effect was turning skin yellow! Nothing worked. Until I did a course of Accutane. The acne went away, but I was left with horrible scarring, which at 19 led me to try Fraxel laser treatments. Fraxel really helped with the scars but when I moved to New York a few months later, the acne returned along with years of product experimentation in an attempt to clear my skin.

My move to New York in 2009 was actually to start my career in fashion, not beauty. I always loved both, but I couldn’t see a direct career path with beauty like I could with fashion. Times were so, so different then. It wasn’t as common to get regular monthly facials, they were more for special occasions like birthdays and more about relaxation versus treating the skin. To treat the skin it was more common to endure intense procedures at sterile dermatologists offices. Of course you had the one-offs but there were very few people who were doing something in-between, and there was not much emphasis on the importance of daily maintenance. Daily SPF usage wasn’t even in the lexicon.

Once I graduated from FIT in 2012 with a degree in Fashion Business Management (they have since changed the name to Fashion Business), I worked in wholesale fashion for a few years before considering a move to beauty as the industry was starting to change. (Daily SPF usage starting becoming a thing!)

It took me a bit to get my foot in the door and multiple rejections because I lacked any beauty experience but I eventually did, with a role in wholesale for corrective cosmetics brand Dermablend at L’Oreal. In my role there I worked with dermatologists, estheticians and plastic surgeons throughout the country where I gained first-hand exposure to various skin conditions such as acne, rosacea and melasma. At that point it clicked that I should become an esthetician. I enrolled in esthetician school but kept my job at L’Oreal and did everything I could to learn from and meet people in the industry. During my first semester, I attended an industry event where I met the Sales Director for Dr. Barbara Sturm. It was THE cool up-and-coming brand at the time, combining clean skincare with clinical results. I emailed her for three months until she finally replied. Eventually, I was hired to do field sales and facial events for the brand. Once the Sturm Boutique & Spa opened, I transitioned to doing in-spa treatments where I found my true calling which years later led to me launching my own facial studio to combine bough my medical and spa backgrounds in a boutique setting using the best of the best skincare products.

In addition to running my own facial studio, I consult with various medspas and doctors offices through the country on facial program development including Ject NYC, Derm Specialists and James Rose Studio. In 2021 I was selected to be a member of the Violet Grey curation committee, a community of the worlds top makeup artists, hairstylists, estheticians, dermatologists and celebrity influencers whose expertise is used to distinguish the finest beauty products in the world from the tens of thousands on the market.

How did you come up with the idea?

Ställe is short for my favorite swedish word smultrunställe. I’m part Swedish and my fiancé was born and raised there so I have a huge connection to it. There isn’t a direct translation in English but in Swedish the figurative meaning of the word is ‘a secret special place discovered, treasured and returned to often for comfort and relaxation; completely free from stress, worries and sadness’ – and that is exactly what I created Ställe to be. This secret escape from the craziness of Manhattan that provides the most tranquil experience and that also gives you the best results.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stallestudios.com
• Instagram: @stallestudios
• Yelp: Stalle Studios
• Other: TikTok: @stallestudios