FaceGym's Inge Theron on the value of science-backed skincare
“I used to say I want to live in a spa” (Now she builds them)
- Words By Natalie Salmon
By all accounts, Inge Theron should have burned out a long time ago.
Before founding FaceGym, the now-global chain of facial workout studios with a cult following, Theron was a columnist for the Financial Times. But the FaceGym origin mythology skips a few chapters.
Theron was an entrepreneur long before she was a journalist. With £100 and a dream, she landed in London and hustled her way into the media world, starting out at a bar where she met radio mogul Chris Evans. That led to a stint at Virgin Radio, then TV. She went on to launch a marketing agency. Then came a board game, Hollywood Domino, later sold to Hasbro.
But in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, everything collapsed. Burned out and disillusioned, Theron booked a one-way ticket to Rishikesh, meditation’s spiritual epicentre, “with the sole purpose of learning how to sleep because I had basically become a shadow of my former self”.
Out of that silence came a voice, or should I say, a column. Her FT series ‘The Spa Junkie’ saw her trial the world’s most luxurious and experimental wellness treatments. “I was the human Petri dish,” she laughs. “I got the procedures so you didn’t have to.”
During her time as ‘The Spa Junkie’ the Faena Group came knocking, asking her to help create its hotel spas. She worked with Baz Luhrmann on the Faena hotel projects — an experience that still informs her creative process. “I used design from my time with Baz to really question everything, help me think through and see future trends.”
Theron didn’t stumble into beauty — she charged into it. Through her writing gig, she absorbed the industry’s extremes. “I looked like I’d been in a car accident,” she recalls of a botched thread lift. This was a turning point. She saw a gap between product-heavy facials and clinical aesthetics.
“I realised there had to be a better way,” she explains. “Why are we working every muscle in our bodies and ignoring the 40 in our face?” This reckoning became the seed of a new philosophy: non-invasive, science-backed, and empowering.
When FaceGym launched in 2014, it was met with confusion and condescension. But she had seen the rise of boutique fitness and applied that model to beauty: short, effective treatments, open-plan studios, and trainers instead of therapists. “What I really wanted to do at the time was basically bring that energy, bring the community, bring the togetherness for FaceGym.
“I knew that there was this gap in the market. People were actively spending money to sit in a sweaty room with loud music and cycle or do reformer Pilates together… it didn’t matter what you looked like, just come in and participate.”
She knew the opposite was true for beauty. “Everything was in private rooms, everything was super discreet. No one wanted to share what they’d done, so I literally wanted to break the walls down. I wanted to make beauty way more accessible and democratic.” She started with facials that cost £30 for 30 minutes.
“Why are we working every muscle in our bodies and ignoring the 40 in our face?”
Her conviction in FaceGym’s signature combination of beauty-tech treatments and massage is backed up by data. “Massage stimulates fibroblasts, builds collagen and detoxifies,” Theron insists. FaceGym is not fluff, she says. It’s science.
At 49, Theron is still sprinting ahead of the industry she helped reshape. She’s not afraid to challenge the industry’s sacred cows — from calling out clean beauty marketing to rejecting one-size-fits-all skincare. “I really am the girl for biotech ingredients,” she declares. “I’m actually much more on the side of science.”
While FaceGym continues to scale globally — launching its UK franchises and introducing advanced tools like EMS and radiofrequency — Theron’s “day job” is still designing spas and futuristic longevity clinics around the world.
As a wellness futurist, she’s not content with creating spaces that make you look good; they have to make you live better, too. Think hyperbaric chambers, biometric diagnostics and daily stool analysis. “I used to say I want to live in a spa,” she laughs. Now she builds them.
In an industry that so often trades on shame, Inge Theron has built something quietly radical: a brand that invites you to engage with your face, not fix it. “We’ve actually always been the brand that’s putting you in charge, that’s empowering you,” she says, when asked whether FaceGym profits from women’s insecurities.
Theron didn’t just disrupt beauty. She redefined what it could look like. Accessible, energetic and proudly unapologetic. Her most beautiful idea? That self-care doesn’t have to be solitary — or silent
