Our story.
Have you ever struggled with breakouts or acne? I have. In my teens & 20s, I found myself resorting to self-solving. I did things like put toothpaste on my zits, poke them with safety pins, and even steam my face over pots of boiling hot water. We've all done crazy things to help our skin when we didn't know any better. I felt that when I spoke, people were staring at my bad skin and not paying attention to the words coming out of my mouth. To hide how ugly my breakouts made me feel, I used makeup as a mask. I was covering my problem instead of solving it.
So, what was my solution? I left my career as an attorney and later, I started a business that I wish was available to me when I struggled with my breakouts. In 2015, I opened the first Clean Your Dirty Face® facial bar in Chicago where I invested in educated skincare professionals to deliver honest & basic skincare knowledge so they could help people like me achieve healthy skin no matter their skin struggles. Once we opened, I was on the hunt for products with ingredients I could understand, but in 2015, nothing like that existed. So, I asked our estheticians to help me formulate products that I could believe in. Through continuous testing and client feedback, we developed what would be the beginning of the CYDF product line. Each product goes through at least 100,000 facials before it even reaches our shelves. Our products are created with intention, formulated with integrity, and designed so you can spin the box around and understand exactly what ingredients you’re putting on your face.
I created CYDF with so much love, complexity, and depth. It scratches below the surface of just skincare, it delivers education and confidence — two tools that I think are incredibly powerful not just in skincare, but in life. I learned from my estheticians that it’s not about miracle products, but rather, about consistency & routine. Now in my 40s, I have better skin than I did in my 20s, and find myself using makeup only when I want, not something that I need to cover up.
Clean Your Dirty Face® has empowered me to live my life instead of feeling like my skin was taking away from it. My goal is to share this experience with every person who walks through our doors. I hope you’re one of them.
Shama Patel
Founder + CEO
@cleanyourdirtyface
3 things you don’t know about our facials.
1️⃣ We are also the creators of AIR® and in keeping with that foundation, our facials are rooted in yoga, health + wellness instead of beauty. We designed the 30-minute facial to flow like a vinyasa yoga class by allowing our licensed estheticians’ hands to flow seamlessly from one step to another.
2️⃣ Every CYDF facial uses our signature 5-point acupressure face massage, which was developed with our in-house, 500-hour certified yoga instructor to help with blood circulation, lymphatic drainage and relaxation.
3️⃣ It is a fact that daily exposure to the environment, diet + lifestyle leaves your face dirty. The solution to clean, more radiant skin is routine skincare. We created our 30-minute facial not to replace the zen-like experience one gets with a spa day full of steam rooms and saunas, but in terms of skincare, it's the place to visit an esthetician consistently and receive personalized, professional skincare in a vibrant setting.
3 things you don’t know about our products.
1️⃣ We worked with our licensed estheticians, all-natural apothecaries, and direct client feedback from over 100,000 facials to invent really powerful skincare formulations jam-packed with clean ingredients to deliver consistently happy skin.
2️⃣ Our Flash Facial was created from an *oh shit* moment when our professional-grade pumpkin peel third party vendor went out of business. At first, we went into panic mode. But then, to ensure that we would never find ourselves in that predicament again, we began formulating our own pumpkin peel. In the process, we made it 1000x better and 2 years later, debuted a 2-in-1 resurfacing mask with a spicy blend of pumpkin enzymes, cinnamon bark and ginger root that deep cleans and brightens skin in 5 minutes.
3️⃣ Like our facials, our products + clean ingredients are rooted in yoga, and health + wellness versus beauty. Products like
✔️Savasana Stress Fix
✔️Lotus Cleanser
✔️Goddess Face Oil
✔️Third Eye Boost
✔️Chakra Cleanser
✔️Warrior Scrub are all a nod to our yoga + wellness background.
