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In 2006, Jasmina Vico arrived in London with £30 in her pocket. Having completed a course in cosmetology at college and assisted various dermatologists back in her native Croatia, she had set her eyes on the British capital. But back then the beauty industry wasn’t what it is now. “It was either surgery or a spa day,” she says. Twelve-step routines were also non-existent. “At most, people would use a wipe to take off their makeup.”
Vico soon began working at London salon Cowshed, which was one of the first salons to stock medical-grade skincare Skinceuticals. “That was when I got excited by working with cosmeceutical products. That completely convinced me there was something different happening in the industry.” Inspired, she took out a loan and invested in a high-tech laser machine and in 2015 set up her famed “Vico House” clinic in Fitzrovia. Before long, she took on one of her first clients, actress Jodie Comer, who found the clinic through a friend’s recommendation. “It was before she was in Killing Eve, and we almost grew together,” she says.
Now with 22 years of experience studying aesthetics and skin health, Vico’s science-backed approach to skincare has earned her a legion of A-list fans. Through word-of-mouth recommendations, her regulars include Elizabeth Debicki, Sienna Miller, Courtney Love, Nicola Coughlan, Gwendoline Christie and Saoirse Ronan. She also made headlines last year when it was revealed that the Barbie movie tapped Vico to be the cast’s official facialist throughout filming (lead Margot Robbie was a longtime admirer of her work).
“I’ve been coming to Jasmina for almost eight years now because she is as committed as I am to the latest innovations, treatments and care for skin and face health,” says make-up executive and beauty brand owner Isamaya Ffrench on Vico’s industry-wide regarded reputation. “I love her holistic approach that goes beyond just the technology and into the realities of the human experience and how to manage stress, sleep and gut function as part of a wider approach to skin health.”
Whilst on the Barbie set, Vico began testing her debut skincare line, Vico Skin, and its hero product, Screen Star — an in-clinic serum made from a triple-coded network of rare algae and seaweed, that provides a rich source of diverse bioactives, which aim to quickly ease inflammation and to deliver intense hydration post-treatment. It received rave reviews from the Barbie cast, and last November it officially launched to the public online and in-clinic, alongside a milk thistle tea extract and three supplements, retailing at £105, £30 and £85. However, an A-list following and a hugely successful clinic is one thing, but launching a brand in a saturated market — full of not just celebrity facialists but celebrities themselves — is a different ballgame.
“At Vico Skin we believe in an inside-out approach,” Vico explains of her product offering. A fan of neuroscience and quantum physics, Vico is guided by an obsession with the number three. “The number three throughout history, ancient civilizations and practically all cultures, religions, spirituality and even science, plays a major role. For example, our three main organs, which represent the maintenance of life, are the heart, lungs and brain. Resultantly, we are treating the gut-brain-skin connection, applying principles of connectivity to reduce heat and inflammation in the body.”
So far it’s a winning formula, one that a 2024 wellness report McKinsey backed when they stated that “clinical” has become the new “clean”. Having self-funded the whole project, Vico started with a test batch of 1,000 units of Screen Star that quickly sold out and is now on its second run. Many of her clients buy it in-house, however, online sales are quickly picking up. Last year the whole of Vico House turned over £558,900, and is projected to turn over £650,000 this year, thanks in part to the skincare line’s growing success, according to the company. There are currently six employees working across the clinic and brand.
Currently, Vico Skin is 100 per cent direct-to-consumer. “I believe if you do your own thing, it’s better, especially in the early days,” she explains of the decision, adding that although retailers offer a lot of visibility, they also take a huge cut and can be risky. “I mean, look what happened with Matches,” Vico adds, referencing the e-tailer going into administration earlier this year. However, she is currently speaking to a few different channels, like Liberty in the UK and Violet Grey in the US, to partner with next year, which she feels align with her brand.
Remaining authentic in a lucrative industry
In 2022, the UK health and beauty market was worth £39.04 billion, and is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of more than 2 per cent from 2022-2027. For Vico, this presents a problem, as more and more players enter the space making bold claims about their skincare, and upping the competition, even from those without qualifications or experience.
“There are so many people coming into this industry overnight, and you can see them popping out, left, right and centre,” she says, explaining that many use the same teams, formulas and messaging. “When people start inventing words like ‘harnessing’ and ‘cutting edge’, and then they all end up using the same word. My head goes, ‘Oh, my God. Shut up. Where’s your story? What can you actually do for me?’”
A huge driver of this pile-in has been the rise of celebrity brands, from Pharrell’s Humanrace to Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, as well as Alicia Keys’s Soulcare and Brad Pitt’s Le Domaine. Also, over the last decade, anxiety around ageing has skyrocketed, Vico says, meaning the appetite for anti-ageing products is as high as ever. “Your face has become your currency. More than ever people want to look after their skin, which is why the market is always saturated. There’s always another ingredient, another product, another laser, another practitioner.”
Vico decided to only offer a limited product range when launching Vico Skin last year, to keep her messaging tight. “I’d rather put out less. I feel that people are overusing products so much all the time. Your skin does not need that many products.”
While developing her line, she worked alongside friend Lauren Bowker, an alchemist who founded pioneering beauty laboratory The Unseen, and together they decided on the Screen Star serum’s main ingredient: Fucus vesiculosus (also known as Bladderwrack). Sourced from the Baltic Sea during the summer, Vico claims it can boost Type One collagen production in the skin by 126 per cent. It also ties into Vico’s Croatian roots, having grown up next to the sea, and her fascination with all things marine. “Jellyfishes are my muse,” she continues, pointing to recent research that dubbed one species, Turritopsis dohrnii, immortal due to its ability to reverse its life cycle. It’s a fascination shared by the industry, with ocean ingredients from salmon DNA serums to Haeckels using seaweed as a base for all their products.
“Everything is transactional, and not everything has to be. I think that’s where a lot of trust is broken in this industry,” she continues. “In Screen Star what you’re getting from that bottle is not just a product, but a little piece of me and my energy. All my experience and all my passion has gone into that, which is what makes it so special.”
A new model of aspiration
Last summer’s backlash to brands jumping onto aesthetic-based TikTok microtrends reached a fever pitch, while the recent “unsexy beauty product” trend (where creators prioritise products that “aren’t aesthetic but get the job done”) shows that there is demand for a new model of marketing online. Especially one rooted in knowledge sharing and trusted expert voices.
However, just because Vico Skin is clinical doesn’t mean the messaging has to be sterile, Vico says. “If you give people information to learn about [ingredient] C E Ferulic, 99 per cent of the population will lose interest in two minutes. If I am alienating you from conversation, you are not hearing me, which means you are not going to trust me or vice versa.”
Instead, Vico prides herself on telling stories on social media that resonate due to her genuine expertise in the industry. In one post she explained how Fujifilm was instrumental in the cosmetics business due to analogue film being made from collagen. This was to prevent oxidation from exposure to light, which is a major problem for protecting rolls of films — and as they later found — for preventing skin damage. “They’ll remember it because it’s interesting.” It is currently one of her best-performing posts with 80 per cent more likes than other posts.
Still, as is the case with other clinical-backed skincare lines that have come to the forefront, like Barbara Sturm and Augustinus Bader, the pressure to grow a public profile is mounting.
“It’s important to experiment with what does well online, but also with what accurately represents the brand,” she says. So far popular posts have included “In conversation with” collaborations with makeup artist Ffrench, on YouTube, as well as partnering with art-based Instagram account Make Up Brutalism on skincare-inspired editorials.
“I wanted to bring her knowledge to my audience because skin health is the first step in a good foundation for makeup. She has so much knowledge to offer and is an endless resource for me and my community’s questions about skin,” says Ffrench of the partnership.
So far, Vico has taken zero investment, despite the huge costs associated with getting a skincare line off the ground. “The more money, the more music. But there is a different way of doing business, maybe it takes a longer time, but then you build trust in a different way,” she says, adding, “A tree can’t grow in a year, especially those with strong bases.”
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