Former Kiehl’s Since 1851 President Chris Salgardo Launches Men’s Skincare Brand Atwater

Chris Salgardo’s beauty industry career includes leadership roles at iconic L’Oréal-owned brands Shu Uemura, Giorgio Armani Beauty and Kiehl’s Since 1851.

Most recently, the author of “Manmade: The Essential Skincare and Grooming Reference for Every Man” spent time in Spain as the CEO of Chipican LLC, a joint venture between actress Sofia Vergara and personal care conglomerate Cantabria Labs, where he worked on brand development before stepping away in the spring.

Not tied to an existing beauty company, Salgardo committed himself over the last few months to finalizing premium grooming and skincare range Atwater, a passion project he’s been working for three years and dreamed about for decades. Today, it launches at 22 Nordstrom locations and on the department store retailer’s website as well its own site with eight—soon to be 10–face, body and shaving products designed to “uncomplicate the daily routine.” The products are priced from $12 to $35. 

Salgardo began his beauty industry career on department store floors, which were ideal venues for him to experiment with a variety of products. “I would always hop counter to counter and try everything,” he recalls. “I was so intrigued. Here’s a late teen guy, women were barely using all this stuff, and here I was like bring it on, let me try it, but I had acne, probably not the best one to be using six acids every other month.”

The more products he tried, the more he learned what worked and what didn’t for his skin and for skin in general. He learned that the majority of men use skincare—and they use it to look better. They want simple routines comprised of efficacious products. Salgardo believes the beauty industry hasn’t interacted with male consumers in a manner he learned resonates with them. “We were still treating them in a very stereotypical way,” he says. “We’re all bros or sasquatches or we want to smell like the woods or the sea, not really coming at men intelligently and meeting them where they are.”

Salgardo shared his insights in his book and, of course, they informed the creation of Atwater. “I’m not somebody who had a big name and paid somebody to build something for me,” he says. “I’ve actually done the work at the most granular level and been successful at it. So, for me, when I looked at everything that I’ve studied, everything that I’ve launched, everything that I knew and everything that I had experienced and learned from the consumer, the brand basically developed itself.”

Enamored with top-notch ingredients, Salgardo didn’t let staid gender norms guide Atwater’s formulations. For example, a star player in Atwater’s Smooth Target Shaving Cream is rose gallica, a plant-based active known for its soothing, calming and anti-inflammatory properties. “It actually grows in my garden,” says Salgardo. “It’s a powerful rose. You don’t hear a lot of roses and men’s products, but I thought, ‘You’re going to hear it now.’ The formula is nice and rich and doesn’t melt off too fast.”

Other ingredients Atwater incorporates are rye seed extract in its Armor Eye Armor Moisturizer and sargassum filipendula extract, a type of brown algae, in its Clean Impact Body Cleansing Scrub Bar.

Though the men’s category is mostly a mass play, Atwater sits in prestige because that’s where Salgardo’s expertise lies. Nordstrom was always his target retail partner for the brand’s launch. “Everyone thought post-COVID that department stores [would be] dead and everyone’s going to shop online, and now we’re coming out,” he says. “I can’t wait to be in store meeting my future clients and having those conversations.” Atwater has an exclusivity agreement with Nordstrom with no defined end date. 

Salgardo declines to disclose the amount of money it took to get Atwater off the ground, but he mentions it’s self-funded. Given his decades of experience as an executive at global brands, the entrepreneur could’ve probably had his pick of investors, but he wasn’t interested in ceding his vision to outsiders. “I wanted to be able to look back and say, ‘I did that,’ and not have to, at least at this stage in the game, get things approved with somebody else,” says Salgardo. “I feel like it is such a gift. I feel so grateful for it, and I hope that my story inspires others to do the same thing.”