Meet Cristy Mical & Amber Sandoval | Co-Founders, Mical Skincare

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cristy Mical & Amber Sandoval and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cristy Mical & Amber Sandoval, what is the most important factor behind your success?
As a team, my business partner (Cristy Mical), and I (Amber Sandoval) are obsessed with quality and community.

This collective mission is the driving force behind almost everything we do. We feel really strongly that skincare is an essential service. We’ve avoided positioning ourselves as a beauty brand and we continue to communicate our true belief that skincare is about health, wellness, and discovering sustainable self confidence.

This commitment has led to many business decisions that we attribute to our success.

First, we decided to pursue a DTC business model and we intentionally priced the retail value of our product line closer to wholesale values so that our products could be affordable and accessible to a broad demographic of everyday people looking to take care of themselves in a meaningful way.

We also chose to abandon an aggressive digital spend on internet marketing, and to instead build a brick and mortar community skin studio where we can interact with our clients in person, and meet them where they are to guide their skincare journey with a personal touch.

The love and attention we put into our packaging, our studio space, and our client services experience is an extension of the commitment to quality that goes into every bottle of Mical Skincare product. Details are everything, so we pour every ounce of our knowledge and creativity into all aspects of our business.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Patience is a virtue. We started developing our product line and brand vision over 15 years ago while we were both still working full time for other avenues.

During this time, Cristy sank thousands of hours into research and development to assure our product formulations were stable, safe, and ready to go to market. Amber spent decades in the brand development and design landscape working in wellness, fine jewelry, and the wine industry for an array of clients ranging from successful boutique brands to some of the largest companies in the world.

Behind the scenes we developed our brand with both honesty and strategy. We wanted to create a brand that was a true reflection of who we are and what we stand for, while also creating a brand message that gave service to the complexity and success of our formulations as functional high-performance skincare.

Doing this well and in a meaningful way meant being patient and honest with ourselves. We took several leaps to try to grow the brand in the early days, but we simply did not have the financial stability to give it our full time professional attention, and we always ended back into an alternative full time job to pay the bills. It wasn’t until 10 years into the project that we realized that we must give Mical Skincare our full attention if we wanted the business to be viable and sustainable. So we took the leap! We rented an expansive physical location, designed new packaging, borrowed money, and went for it.

Today, we are filled with gratitude for having the courage to take the leap, and we value our clients deeply as they are the reason we are here today with our doors open thriving.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
On the drive from LA to Cayucos:

Lunch at Industrial Eats in Buelton

Stop for a walk on the Bob Jones trail in Avila

Roll into town and enjoy downtown Cayucos, visit Bijou Bakery, Maven Leather, and Mical Skincare!

Happy hour and sunset at Schooners on the water

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Special thanks to our design partner, Kayla King! Our tenured collaboration over the years has made us a match made in heaven for evolving Mical Skincare into what it is today. She is an invaluable member of our team.

And the local community! It takes a village and we’ve received an outpouring of support from the people we grew up with here in town. So many folks have offered their trade and skills to help us bring our project to life and we couldn’t have done it without them.

Website: micalskincare.com

Instagram: @micalskincare

Facebook: facebook.com/micalskincare