IMAGE Skincare

IMAGE Skincare is an American clinical skincare company founded in 2003 and based in Lantana, Florida [1]. It was started by Janna Ronert, a licensed esthetician, who later developed its formulas together with Dr. Marc A. Ronert, a board-certified plastic surgeon [1]. The company sells through professional channels — estheticians, spas and physician offices — rather than ordinary retail, and says its products are used by tens of thousands of skincare professionals across more than 60 countries.

The brand built its identity around the idea of helping people "Age Later," its trademarked tagline, and positions itself at the meeting point of professional skincare and clinical formulation. Since 2015 it has been majority-owned by the New York private equity firm MidOcean Partners [9].

According to the company, IMAGE Skincare began at home: Janna Ronert created the line from her apartment after she could not find a professional skincare range free of parabens to address her own rosacea [12]. Her first collection, VITAL C, was formulated for sensitivity, dryness and rosacea, and it remains the brand's best-known range [12].

Ronert is described by the company as an entrepreneur with more than twenty years of industry experience. She developed the line in partnership with Dr. Marc A. Ronert, a board-certified plastic surgeon, who the company says contributed to the formulation of its collections and authored a book also titled Age Later. This pairing of an esthetician and a physician became the brand's central founding narrative, summarised on its own site as "founded by an esthetician and physician formulated."

On 1 September 2015, MidOcean Partners — a middle-market private equity firm headquartered in New York — announced a significant investment in IMAGE Skincare [9]. The founders retained a significant ownership stake at the time of the deal. The company was then sold exclusively through spas, physician offices and other professional channels, and was available in more than 40 countries.

MidOcean continues to list IMAGE Skincare as a current portfolio company, describing it as a leader in evidence-based clinical products for the professional skincare channel [10]. As of mid-2023, the firm was still reported as the brand's majority owner.

IMAGE Skincare describes itself as the place "Where Professional Skincare Meets Clinical Innovation," and frames its mission as helping the world "Age Later" through clinically advanced, results-driven formulas. The company emphasises what it calls "Intentional Innovation" and the use of medical-grade ingredients at high allowable concentrations.

Its products are organised around a four-step routine the brand calls the Core 4 Method — cleanse, treat, protect and repair. Distribution is a defining feature: the company operates a professional-exclusive model aimed at licensed estheticians, medical professionals, spas and salons, offering business, personal and student accounts, with certain products and professional peels reserved for trained practitioners.

The VITAL C range is the brand's signature, anchored by the VITAL C Hydrating Anti-Aging Serum, which the company lists as its number-one bestseller [5]. Other frequently cited products include the VITAL C Hydrating Repair Crème, the ORMEDIC balancing facial cleanser and the I MASK hydrating hydrogel sheet mask. A separate professional-only line, IMAGE MD, includes the Restoring Power-C Serum, formulated with 20% tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate vitamin C.

Across its collections the company highlights actives such as vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, peptides, retinol, niacinamide, glycolic acid, bakuchiol and squalane. It also markets proprietary technologies, including XOSM Technology, which it describes as a smart encapsulation delivery system using astaxanthin-rich microalgae, and a Phyto NAD+ Booster used in its IMAGE MD line. The brand attaches clinical claims to several products; for the CLEAR CELL collection, for example, it reports that 89% of users saw improved skin appearance [2].

IMAGE Skincare's third-party coverage is concentrated in professional and aesthetician-focused media rather than mass consumer beauty press. In a 2024 review, NewBeauty described the VITAL C Hydrating Repair Crème as one of the brand's best-selling moisturizers, calling it lightweight and "a perfect all-in-one nighttime treatment" [11]. The VITAL C line has also appeared in NewBeauty roundups of aesthetician- and dermatologist-recommended products, where a board-certified dermatologist named one of its vitamin C moisturizers a favourite everyday option.

The company frames its social responsibility chiefly through the Care for Skin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit it established in 2011 [4]. The foundation supports people who have experienced skin loss from accidents, tumors, burns, scars or genetic conditions, and organises reconstructive surgical missions to underserved regions — including a documented 2018 trip to Mandalay, Myanmar [4]. IMAGE Skincare states that it covers the foundation's administrative costs so that donations go directly to patient care. The brand publishes no environmental or packaging sustainability commitments; on product ethics it states that it avoids parabens and does not test on animals, though it lists no third-party cruelty-free certification.

IMAGE Skincare remains active. The company marked its 23rd anniversary in 2026 with on-site promotions, consistent with its 2003 founding, and continues to launch new products such as the IMAGE MD Molecular Defense line and the Cellular Age Defense Duo [2]. Leadership has changed in recent years: Sennen Pamich was named chief executive in 2023, and in January 2026 co-founder Dr. Marc Ronert was announced as CEO to lead what the company described as its next phase of global growth. It continues to operate as a current portfolio company of MidOcean Partners [10].