Meet Cristy Mical and Amber Sandoval

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cristy Mical and Amber Sandoval. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Cristy Mical and Amber Sandoval came together in the early 2000s through shared interests and a long-lasting friendship. Amber, who suffers from severe psoriasis and troublesome acneic skin embraced Cristy’s early formulations and was blown away by the results. In tandem, while Cristy furthered her education as a licensed esthetician and formulator, Amber developed a successful career in marketing and design. In 2012, Mical Skincare was established, and we launched our line of high-performance natural skincare products.

In the early days, our commitment was really rooted in our passion for creating something that was both natural and functional. Amber had spent decades traveling down unsuccessful roads with prescription acne therapies and psoriasis medications. These therapies, although sometimes functional, often came with unwelcome side effects and worrisome uncertainties. Cristy is inherently relentless about quality; she is a licensed esthetician and chemist who is known for spending days deeply focused in the lab with an unwavering commitment to solve a problem and formulate a solution. She is a deeply compassionate person, and the vast majority of our product line is made up of products that were originally formulated specifically for individuals in Cristy’s life — friends and clients alike.

When it was time to take our business to the next level, we founded the Mical Skincare brand with clear intentions to make healthy, safe, functional skincare available to our local community and beyond. Community is a huge part of our lifestyle, and we believe that skincare is an essential service that feeds health into the lives of those who embrace a daily self-care ritual. Skincare is weirdly personal, so we have created a company culture and space that welcomes people from all walks of life. It’s not uncommon that we will spend hours in the studio with a single client to help them choose the perfect skincare routine.

We encourage our clients to believe with us that consciously taking care of yourself and your skin will improve your self-confidence and allow you to move through life with ease. Both your personal life and your community can benefit from this kind of self-care.

Today, we serve our community digitally through our website and with over-the-phone consultations, along with walk-ins that visit our retail space in downtown Cayucos and by appointment for skincare consultations and facial services.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Typically, it’s more practical to grow a product-based business with a small product line that can organically expand over time. However, because we don’t believe in a 1,2,3 skincare philosophy, we decided to bring over 45 products to market at once. We’re also really passionate about the quality of our skincare products and have chosen to grow without the comfort of investors. This way, we can continue to have total control over our product innovation pipeline and production protocols.

These two choices have definitely made growing our company challenging. Funding has been incredibly limited, and supply chain issues that are inherent in this business, paired with pandemic bottlenecks, have doubled the amount of time and work that go into vendor relationships, sourcing ingredients, and securing packaging.

That said, it’s been a pretty smooth ride. Our partnership is strong, and our very different but complementary strengths have made it easy for us to divide and conquer to create a successful business.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We’ve all known people in our lives that are natural innovators, and Cristy Mical is one of them. In the early days, she would take a simple challenge (such as feeling like the skincare cleanser that her friend gifted her wasn’t actually getting her face clean) and then spend months formulating a new cleanser that solved this problem.

For years, she poured her time into becoming an educated formulator, creating advanced skincare therapies that were derived from natural ingredients. Now, after becoming a licensed esthetician, Cristy is known for combining these formulas with technical skincare modalities such as microcurrent and sound resonance therapies for notable results. If Cristy had it her way, she would spend 100% of her time in the lab and working directly with clients on skincare solutions.

Co-founder Amber Sandoval on the other hand, brings an entrepreneurial spirit and an unquenchable thirst for creating to the table. She has a degree in marketing and spent the early part of her career in the wellness industry, bringing new technologies to spas and yoga studios, followed by over a decade in branding and design for the wine industry. She loves bringing people together, creating new spaces, custom design, and the impact that a comfortable vibe can bring to an individual or a community.

One thing that Amber and Cristy have in common is an unwavering understanding that details are everything. We want every aspect of our brand and product line to reflect the love that we put into creating for our clients. And we hope that everyone who interacts with our work can feel welcome, valued, and inspired to find time in their lives to make space for skincare as self-care.

What matters most to you? 
Community
Discovery
Self-Care
Quality
Nature

Contact Info:

• Website: micalskincare.com
• Instagram: @micalskincare
• Facebook: facebook.com/micalskincare