A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Repêchage’s R&D Facility

When Lydia Sarfati relocated her beloved seaweed-based Repêchage brand from Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to Secaucus, NJ, she couldn’t sleep. Today, the respected aesthetician, entrepreneur and all-around skin-care icon says it was “the best decision of her life.”

Family First

Sarfati launched Repêchage in 1980 at the Pierre Hotel to around 150 salon owners. While her products and protocols from her original skin care and spa were incredibly popular, she credits her husband, David, to giving her a needed “push” to start the line. “What we were doing was very popular, but I didn’t know how we could teach others to do the same and make it consistent,” recalls Sarfati. “David just kept saying: ‘Why not? Why don’t we try to sell what you know?’”

And sold they did. “It all became very popular, very quickly,” Sarfati says. “The Four-Layer facial grew wildly popular, and back then, it was the most expensive facial you could have. We launched with the price of $65, which everyone told me would never work, but everyone wanted it. Here we are, 45 years later, and everyone still wants it!”

Success aside, Sarfati pegs 1996 as the year things changed. “The company was flourishing, and I was very much a Manhattanite. We lived and worked there; I would get a rash when I left!” she jokes. “Then, my landlord called and said he was raising our rent from $7 a square foot to $45. By then, we had 15,000 square feet. I didn’t know what to do.”

Moving Parts

While the skin-care sales were solid, Sarfati says next steps for the company’s growth can again be credited to her husband’s unwavering support and smart perspective. “When the rent went up, David came to the rescue and said: ‘Enough with paying rent! Let’s buy a building.’”

But where do you buy a building in New York? “We were looking for a while, and then we started looking for a property and decided on Secaucus, because it’s close to Manhattan,” recalls Sarfati. “At that time, there were no trains going out there, but there were some buses, and we would run vans for our employees. At first, I was not very happy…I felt like I left Fifth Avenue for the middle of the desert. But all these years later, I can honestly say it was the best decision I ever made. We’ve made a beautiful facility. It is paradise.”

Paradise Island

Today, the Sarfatis still cross state lines to get to their 50,000-square-foot headquarters and training facility, where the brand impressively develops and manufactures every single product.

The success is not lost on Lydia, who shares she often feels overwhelmed driving up to work and seeing not only the office, but the destinations where her products are being shipped: “Of course, you have dreams, and you have goals, and you have desires in business. My dad always said: ‘You plan and God is laughing.’ In this instance, we’ve planned and we are laughing because our goals and our objectives were met.”

Business aside, she is strict about keeping family and work separate. (In addition to David, their daughter Shiri has been with the company for 20-plus years). “I realized long ago that, in order to live together, sleep together and work together, you have to set boundaries, and we’ve done a good job at that,” she says. “My other rule is that when we get together socially, we don’t talk about business. If we did, we’d have no life!”