Newton native and Glowbar founder and CEO Rachel Liverman talks skincare and the women who inspire her.
Glowbar founder and CEO Rachel Liverman
Rachel Liverman’s skin is literally glowing. The founder and CEO of Glowbar (glowbar.com) credits the sun shining in through her New York City office windows and her genes, which, in more ways than one, are responsible for her dewy complexion. Her grandmother is Catherine E. Hinds, a skincare pioneer who opened salons in Boston in the 1960s as a single mother and eventually founded the esthetician training school The Catherine Hinds Institute, which Liverman’s mother An G. Hinds took over in 2001. As can be expected, the talk around the family’s kitchen table was of skincare. Growing up, Liverman visited spas and was a guinea pig for waxes and peels. In between the lessons to cleanse and moisturize was a larger takeaway, that women could be in charge. “As a little girl, I thought that my mom and grandma were the coolest women ever. That’s where my confidence comes from. I grew up knowing that young women start businesses all the time, grandmas start businesses all the time,” says Liverman.
Her path to Glowbar feels like kismet. Liverman had forged a decade-long career in business development in the beauty industry but was neglecting her own skincare, which did not go unnoticed by her mother, who asked why she wasn’t getting facials. Liverman listed the often-heard excuses that it takes too much time and is too expensive. “I said if there were a 30-minute option for $60 that was results-focused, I would do it,’ she says. That was in 2017. Two years later, she opened Glowbar’s first location in Tribeca. Today, the customized yet affordable, results-driven, 30-minute facials are available at 18 Glowbar locations across the country, with more openings planned this year, including two in Massachusetts, which will join locations in Back Bay and Chestnut Hill. “My greatest joy was bringing Glowbar to my backyard. Opening Chestnut Hill was a full circle, three-generation legacy story,” she says.
Photography by: GLOWBAR
