Intoxicated Cosmetics

After becoming a licensed Esthetician and working for years in a medical spa, CEO and founder, Rachel Sommers-Ash launched Intoxicated Cosmetics. That's the really short version. But much, much more has really gone into this labor of love.

After graduating from Suffolk University in 2011, CEO & Founder Rachel Sommers-Ash started off her career in advertising. However, after less than 2 years, her father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Rachel's Story, as told by her:

Our family was told by the many hospitals that we toured that my fathers was essentially not going to make it, no matter what the treatment. At the time although I knew nothing about medicine, I started doing my own research, looking into alternative methods of treatment for cancer, thinking that perhaps there would be something in Eastern medicine that we weren’t thinking of that could potentially help treat him.

In my research, I stumbled upon a naturally occurring chemical compound known as Mellittin. This compound was the only naturally occurring chemical compound known to man that was able to break into disease wall barriers such as HIV & cancer. Although it did not cure cancer so to speak, I was intrigued by this chemical compound enough to write it down and note it. In addition to its ability to break into the disease wall barriers, it also contained antimicrobial properties, was used to treat patients with Multiple Sclerosis, and there was so much more – it even reproduced collagen and elastin in the skin and had a similar effect to Botox in the sense that it inhibited neuromuscular transmitters which essentially enable facial muscle movement, just on a smaller scale. To me, it was fascinating.

I noted this research but did not think too much of it as unfortunately, a few weeks later, my father passed away. And of course, as my entire family was, I was devastated, and what began as “a little time off” to grieve soon snowballed into me being unable to perform at my job in advertising.

So, for obvious reasons, during this time I was incredibly stressed out and my skin was starting to show it. I remember walking into Sephora in Union Square and telling one of the associates there that I was looking for an effective anti-aging serum, stating that I didn't care how much it cost, but that I just needed it to work and that I believed I was too young to get Botox. When the answer I got back was "Botox is the only answer", I knew there had to be another way.

As I walked back to my apartment that afternoon, I had a lightbulb moment. I started walking more and more quickly back home, remembering my findings on bee venom. Being the product junkie and the girly-girl that I have always been, I was intrigued. It got me thinking – if this is just bee venom, what other venoms are out there? Can they also be applicable to skin care?

From then on, I spent hours and days teaching myself about chemical compounds, peptides, & reading through lab analysis, seeing words that I hadn't heard since chemistry class in high school. Lost in content but eager to learn, things finally started to click. Writing things down and connecting the dots, I started to be able to talk about chemical compounds, and why certain chemicals reacted with others.

Shortly thereafter, I moved back to Boston, and I took the time to go to school to become an esthetician to understand skin care even further. After graduating and getting licensed, I applied for a job at a medical spa in order to be able to “talk the talk and walk the walk”. After leaving work at my day job, I would go home and work at my company for hours on end.

With the help of mentors, I created a business plan, hundreds of pages of notes, partnered with a female-founded lab based in California, collaborated with a marketing company on my packaging, and created a timeline. Finally, in 2019 I launched my business, Intoxicated Cosmetics.

Now, think about what happened in the beginning of 2020. A global pandemic. But as I had before, I decided to make lemons into lemonade. Since so many women couldn’t visit their favorite salon or spa to get treatments, they started to look to alternative solutions, just as I had done, and so they found my business, Intoxicated Cosmetics – bridging the gap between topical anti-aging solutions and your typical run of the mill serums.

Since its launch in 2019, Intoxicated Cosmetics has been featured in Forbes, BoxyCharm, IPSY, The Daily Northwesterner, NewBeauty, BeautyNewsNYC, and much more. We are also in a number of major retailers such as Target and Nordstrom.