Cathy Kangas owns her own skin care company, but her focus extends well beyond beauty products.
Kangas, 53, started PRAI Beauty in 2000 with an emphasis on skin care for women above age 50. A longtime animal activist who served on the board of the Humane Society of the United States, she was recently named to the board of the directors of the New Canaan Historical Society and was once part of a committee of women entrepreneurs put together by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Most recently, Kangas has used proceeds from her skin-care line to cover the cost of animal adoptions at 10 different shelters across the country since May, resulting in the adoption of more than 650 animals.
Q: When did PRAI start?
A: I started the actual business 17 years ago. I started it in the basement of my house in New Canaan.
I worked for one of the big, mega-giants, Revlon, for many years and I decided to create my own skincare brand. I felt like the beauty industry had really left women over 50 behind. Any magazine you open, they're showing a wrinkle cream or a firming, lifting cream and it's got a 16-year-old model.
Q: Where are you from originally?
A: I'm from England originally. Just outside of London, in Surrey. I fly back and forth now to do shows on QVC.
Be careful what you wish for, because at one point I was saying, "Oh, I miss England," all the silly things like fish and chips and now I end up flying there every six weeks.
Q: When did you come over to the U.S. and why?
A: I came over in 1983, many, many moons ago. I came over as an intern with Revlon. I had actually studied law and I was going to be a lawyer, and they were going to bring me over as a paralegal.
Revlon put me through my paces. So they had me working product development, in sales, in marketing, out in their lab in New Jersey. Then they stuck me for a month behind the counter at Macy's Herald Square as part of the internship. While I was there the bug got me. I loved sales and marketing and I suddenly went, "Oh, I'm not quite so excited about the legal side."
So I ended up staying with Revlon for a long time. Cartier Jewelers hired me away and I was with them until I got married. I was on the road all the time. And then I decided I would start my own skin-care company.
Q: In what ways has the company expanded in 17 years?
A: It went from a tiny, tiny business to now we're sold in nine countries. Globally, we have $30 million in sales and it's all been done sitting here in New Canaan.
We have 25 people: 15 here and then two people doing shows around the world, two people in Maryland, a couple people in New York.
Q: You mentioned that the beauty industry had left behind older women. What is it that you've done to separate yourself and to better serve women over 50?
A: We realized that there can be two creams that have all the same ingredients, but one of the mega-giants sells it for over $600. We can sell the same exact formula for $45. The difference is, we don't spend millions, like the big boys, on marketing, big glossy ads in magazines. We put all the money into the ingredient. We decided, let's not do that. Let's take it on shopping TV, because there at least you can really educate the customer.
And we've really become known as the "neck-perts." We realized that everybody in the beauty industry is going after the face. But this neck area is the big area. So when you see people who have had a lot of work done, all you have to do is look at their neck and you really know her real age. So our biggest selling product is our neck cream.
Q: How did you become involved with the Humane Society?
A: I became involved with them through the Canadian seal hunt. I think it was about 12 years ago now, I approached Wayne Purcell, who's the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. And they were right in the throes of fighting the Canadian seal hunt and I became passionately involved in that cause.
I was one of the lead strategists on the project. We went finally to the European Union, who shut off the import of baby seal pelts going through Europe, and that's what created, pretty much, the demise of the cost of the pelts.
It's not over yet, we're still working it. It's a big dent that we've made but we're obviously not completely happy that it's still happening.
Q: Can you tell me more about Canadian seal hunting?
A: Harp seals are nicknamed "white coats." And they only stay white and furry and cute for a couple weeks and then they turn kind of smooth coated and gray.
Off the Maritime area of Canada is the largest harp seal nursery in the world. Thousands of mothers come to give birth on the ice floes there. Sadly, within a couple of weeks, along come the sealers. Almost 50 percent of them are being skinned alive. They leave the meat and the body behind and take the pelt.
Q: Have customers responded to your animal activism?
A: To be honest, I think the reason that women have really jumped on the bandwagon of our brand and are very excited to be part of this, is that we don't do animal testing and we don't use animal ingredients. Every time we're on air now we're sponsoring shelters. We take our proceeds from PRAI beauty and we sponsor adoption feeds.
They know when they buy PRAI, proceeds go right back to the animals.
Q: Have you always been passionate about animals?
A: I have. At home I've got six rescue dogs, much to my poor husband's chagrin. We have 12 rescue horses, we have a rescue donkey.
I think what it really comes down to, the reason I'm so committed to animals, is we all know that we hold all the power over animals. And I think how you use that power shows who you are. Are you a bully? Or are you a good person? So I judge people by that.
Q: For how many animals have you paid the adoption fee?
A: We're up over 650 animals to date, and that's literally since we started at the end of May. And we're not going to stop until we've gone coast to coast. We are slammed. It's like half of our day's work now.
When you remove that adoption fee you remove that final barrier. We've had some snippy people say, ‘If they can't afford the adoption fee, they shouldn't have an animal.' I actually strongly disagree. We've looked at a lot of research and whether somebody has a tiny paycheck or a massive paycheck, it doesn't affect how much that animal is cared for or loved.
