What a guest’s skin goes through before she reaches the front desk, and what a hotel or airline can do about it before she has to ask.
A client at So Fresh Spa came back from a tropical vacation frustrated. She takes great care of her skin. She has regular facial treatments and uses her skincare consistently at home. She had packed her familiar products and she was using SPF. After the flight and the time in sun and heat, her skin felt dehydrated and tight and looked dull.
“She wasn’t neglecting her skin,” says the esthetician who treated her. “She was following the routine she trusted.” The moment that mattered to the esthetician was this one: a woman who “invested time, money, and effort into caring for her skin, yet felt unsure how to care for it away from home.”
One appointment couldn’t establish a single cause, and the esthetician doesn’t claim it did. Published research does describe one part of a trip like that. In a study of eight women on long-distance flights, published in 2012, cabin humidity dropped below 10% within two hours of takeoff, and cheek skin capacitance, a measure of surface hydration, decreased by up to 37%. The women were not using skincare during the flights. A flight followed by a different climate is an ordinary shape for a trip.
The esthetician is Lorrie Feeser. She has been licensed since 2005 and has owned So Fresh Spa in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, since 2018. She’s also the founder of The Skin CEO, which she describes as “intentional skincare for women who travel, created to support their skin through the flight, the destination, and every experience along the way.” There are three products, sold at So Fresh Spa and online at theskinceo.com. Dew Drop Facial Mist is for in-flight use, as a mid-day refresher, and any time the skin is feeling or looking dull. Sunset Glow Balm is an after-sun repair balm for skin after sun, wind and heat exposure, for face and body. Snowberry Balm protects the skin in cold, windy climates and can be used before heading into the elements and afterwards to repair the barrier. The people she wants to recognize the need are hospitality partners, the teams who decide what a guest finds waiting in a hotel room, an aircraft cabin or a spa.
Home, Airport, Cabin, Destination, Hotel Room
Lorrie’s argument starts from one sentence: “Travel-size skincare is not travel skincare.” Between departure and destination, she says, a woman can move through several environments within hours: “her home, an airport, a dry aircraft cabin, the weather at her destination, and a heated or air-conditioned hotel room.” Low cabin humidity can reduce hydration in the skin’s outermost layer. The traveler may notice tightness around her cheeks, a dull appearance, or makeup that no longer sits the way it did when she left home. A cold, dry destination may prolong the dryness. A warm one brings heat, perspiration, sun exposure and time outdoors.
“A smaller bottle answers the packing question. It doesn’t answer what happens to her skin along the way.”
Lorrie Feeser, Founder, The Skin CEO
Lorrie doesn’t conclude that the routine at home was wrong. “Her home routine hasn’t necessarily stopped working,” she says. “It was meeting her needs under familiar conditions.” Nor, in her view, does every traveler need an entirely new routine. “It means she may need to adjust the amount, texture, timing, or frequency of her care.”
The distinction she draws is between the skin and its surroundings. “We talk a lot about skin type,” she wrote in a post. “We don’t talk enough about skin environment.”
“For the woman experiencing this, it’s personal,” Lorrie says. “She packed the products she trusted. She expected to feel like herself.” Now she’s getting ready for a dinner, a meeting or a trip she has looked forward to, and her skin feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar.
Lorrie has seen it in clients for more than 20 years.
The Treatment Room, Since 2005
Lorrie trained at Von Lee School of Esthetics, graduated at the top of her class, and has been a licensed esthetician since 2005. In 2018 she founded So Fresh Spa. As she puts it on her profile, she wanted “an experience where women could slow down, feel cared for, and leave feeling more confident in their skin.” She leads and mentors a team of estheticians there and develops the treatment protocols and service standards.
The first question she asks every client is the same: “How’s your skin feeling today?” She asks it even of someone she has treated for years. “I want to understand what she is experiencing now,” she says. “Seasons, travel, hormones, and stress can all influence how her skin feels.”
The spa gave her what she calls “a front-row seat to thousands of conversations about women, their skin, their lifestyles, and the environments they move through.” Some of those conversations were with clients back from a trip. She has written about what she saw: “dehydrated skin, sensitivity, dryness and a barrier that simply doesn’t feel like it did before they left.” Her conclusion was that travelers didn’t need more skincare. They needed “skincare designed for where they were going.”
She started The Skin CEO in May 2025 and continues to own So Fresh Spa. With the new company she’s taking the treatment-room question to hospitality.
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What a Buyer Asks, and One More Question
Asked what a hotel or airline gets wrong about skincare for its guests, Lorrie describes a missed opportunity: “treating skincare as a standard item to stock rather than considering when and why a guest might need it.” A product can look beautiful in a bathroom or an amenity bag, she says, and still leave the traveler wondering what it does for her or when to use it.
She doesn’t set the buyer’s job aside. Buyers answer for product quality, credible claims, pricing, reliable supply, responsible sourcing and compliance with their purchasing standards. They also need packaging, storage, replenishment and staff instructions that work in daily operations. “Those considerations are essential,” she says. Her point is that the buying question becomes too narrow when it stops at whether a brand is recognizable, looks luxurious and fits the budget. She’d set another question alongside it.
“What has our guest experienced getting here, what does she want from this trip, and how can this amenity support her?”
Lorrie, Founder, The Skin CEO
An airline, in her view, has an opportunity to consider skin comfort during the flight. A hotel can consider both the journey its guest has just completed and the environment she’ll encounter during her stay. “Those are connected moments of care,” she says. She also sees travel itself changing: “People are choosing journeys to rest, reconnect, celebrate, and care for themselves.” Amenities, she believes, should reflect that intention “with a clear purpose the guest can understand.”
For a supplier, that sets a standard, and she states it for her own company: “The product needs to be relevant, its claims credible, and its delivery dependable.” The better question for a buyer, she says, is this: “Can this supplier help us anticipate a meaningful guest need and deliver that care consistently, within our budget and standards?”
That leaves the question of evidence.
What the Research Shows, and What It Doesn’t
Lorrie separates the evidence into two parts: “what researchers can measure in the skin and what people report feeling during air travel.”
The measurement is the flight study, and she gives its limits herself. It followed eight women aged 29 to 39 who had stopped using skincare at least 12 hours before departure and did not apply any during the flights. The researchers linked the change in the skin to the discomfort airline travelers commonly experience, she notes, although the study did not report a numerical score for sensations such as tightness or itchiness.
On reported discomfort, she cites a 2006 study of 71 crew members across 16 intercontinental flights, in which humidifying the cabin air reduced reported skin symptoms. “That finding suggests the environment can influence how comfortable skin feels,” she says. Of an older survey of airline crew she also cites, she adds that its percentages “should not be presented as representative of today’s guests.”
She asks the reader to try one thing as well, thinking back to a last flight: “How did your skin feel and look when you landed compared with when you boarded?” Then she qualifies it. “That reflection is not scientific evidence, but it connects the research to an experience readers may recognize.”
What the studies support, in her reading, is taking the travel environment seriously. They say nothing about her products, and she says so.
“At this stage, the published evidence supports the need we are addressing. Our product outcomes require their own evaluation.”
Lorrie, Founder, The Skin CEO
She has said the same in public. Sharing the flight study with hospitality readers in a post, she wrote that the research “supports the need for this approach” and “does not establish results for my products.”
A Welcome Note at a Winter Resort
Lorrie’s definition is short: “Anticipatory care begins before a guest has to say, ‘I need something.’”
To show it, she asks the reader to imagine a woman arriving at a winter resort after a long flight. She has planned the trip carefully, perhaps to reconnect with her partner or to take a break from a demanding schedule. As she gets ready for dinner, her skin feels uncomfortable, and the products she brought aren’t giving her the comfort she expected.
In Lorrie’s picture, the hotel has considered that possibility before she arrives. Alongside the welcome note is a skincare offering selected with the flight and the cold-weather stay in mind, with clear, simple instructions. The note she imagines reads: “After your journey, take a moment to care for your skin before enjoying the mountain air.” The guest understands why the product was chosen, when to use it, and how it can complement the routine she already trusts. If she has questions or sensitivities, the team can connect her with the spa. Lorrie adds that the selection should account for individual suitability: “destination alone cannot tell us everything about someone’s skin.”
“The meaningful part is what this communicates,” she says: “We thought about what getting here might feel like for you.”
For the hotel, she sees “a purposeful connection between the welcome, the room, and the spa.” She suggests a small pilot, which could help a team understand whether guests use the offering, find the guidance helpful, and feel that it adds value to their stay.
Where Lorrie Is Now
The Skin CEO has no hospitality partners at this time. Lorrie sells the three products at So Fresh Spa and online, runs the spa alongside the company, and has written about how she wants the partnerships to come about. “Not every conversation needs to turn into something immediately,” she wrote. “Genuine relationships first. Great partnerships naturally follow.”
The partners she has in mind are luxury hotels, private aviation companies, resorts, spas, yacht charters and other hospitality brands. What she wants to bring them is the connection of “thoughtful guest care with practical purchasing.” She wants to hear from people working in luxury hospitality, travel wellness, guest experience and brand partnerships, and from hospitality teams willing to test a small, well-timed offering and learn what guests actually use.
Her ambition for the company is in her own post: “To build the #1 skincare brand known for travel.” She follows it with what she means by that, skincare “created around where she’s going, how she’s getting there, and what her skin will experience along the way.”
“To me, anticipatory care is paying attention to the experiences that happen between the obvious service moments,” she says. A guest “arrives with more than luggage.” She brings, in Lorrie’s words, “the effects of her journey, expectations for her stay, and a reason for being there.” What The Skin CEO offers hospitality partners, as she puts it, is “a relevant product, understandable guidance, and a thoughtful moment that allows her to feel cared for before she ever has to ask.”
Five Lines from Lorrie’s Diary
1. “Travel-size skincare is not travel skincare.”
2. “Her journey doesn’t end at check-in, and neither do its effects on her skin.”
3. “We talk a lot about skin type. We don’t talk enough about skin environment.”
4. “Anticipatory care begins before a guest has to say, ‘I need something.’”
5. “Genuine relationships first. Great partnerships naturally follow.”
From the Diary of Lorrie Feeser
Lorrie Feeser is a United States-based licensed esthetician and the Founder of The Skin CEO.
| Role | Founder, The Skin CEO. Owner and esthetician, So Fresh Spa |
| Based in | Washington DC-Baltimore Area, United States |
| Also | Licensed esthetician since 2005 |
“Travel-size skincare is not travel skincare.”
Editor’s Note
Executives Diary features Lorrie Feeser because she brings more than 20 years of treatment-room observation to a question she wants hospitality buyers to ask: what has the guest’s skin been through before she arrives. Her argument is specific about environments, timing and guidance, and it accounts for what a buyer has to weigh. What convinces the editors is how she handles evidence. She cites published research for the need and states that it does not establish results for her own products. The Skin CEO is at an early stage, and she describes it that way.
Executives Diary, Editorial
