Forbes: Celebrity Dermatologist Dr. Harold Lancer Is About To Turn 73 Years Old. He’s Just Getting Started: ‘I Will Never Retire’

By Rachel Burchfield, Contributor at Forbes

Dr. Harold Lancer, a Beverly Hills dermatologist, launched Lancer Skincare in 1985 fueled by the belief that “skincare could do more.” After being sold exclusively at his clinic on Rodeo Drive, in 2011 it became available to the masses following encouragement by none other than Oprah Winfrey—one of his clients.

But Lancer’s interest in skincare started long before that—and came from a harrowing experience. When he was a young boy, Lancer accidentally fell into a vat of near boiling water, burning over 10% of his body. “While the experience was unfortunate and painful, it was to be remembered as an event that changed his life forever,” according to his website. In his recovery, Lancer “became fascinated with the skin’s healing and regeneration process” and spent “countless hours” creating kid-friendly “treatments” and testing them on his siblings.

The accident led him to a career in dermatology and “also greatly influenced his belief in restoration as opposed to alteration as the most effective way to obtain healthy, radiant skin,” his biography explained.

As far back as 1985, he introduced The Lancer Method, a three-step regimen of Polish (or, said differently, exfoliating), Cleanse and Nourish (moisturizing) that is still adopted today and designed to stimulate the skin’s natural renewal process. The method is rooted in his “practice to product” approach, where his product offerings mimic the professional treatments offered at his clinic. Even if you aren’t in Beverly Hills and aren’t Kim Kardashian, Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé or Margot Robbie—just some of Lancer’s clientele—you can buy the products that Lancer’s patients use after a visit with him.

A fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, Lancer completed his graduate dermatology training at Harvard Medical School and opened his practice in 1983, two years before he began selling products to his patients. Allure described Lancer as “one of the main men behind the faces (and bodies) of Hollywood’s elite”; as The Times put it, “With his snowy-white hair and affable manner,” Lancer “seems more like a laid-back university professor than the much-lauded skincare guru to half of Hollywood.”

The aforementioned Beckham famously mentioned in an interview that Lancer—who she described as “incredible”—gave her the secret to flawless skin and “sorted my skin out.”

“I used to have really problematic skin, and he said to me, ‘You have to eat salmon every single day,’” she said. “I said, ‘Really, every day?’ And he said, ‘Yes—breakfast, lunch or dinner, you have to eat it every single day.’” (Hey—if it’s good enough for Beckham, it’s good enough for me.)

Lancer drives home the importance of a good skincare regimen—along with nutrition, diet, exercise and sunscreen use—as a key component of combatting signs of aging. When asked by Cosmopolitan U.K. what the most common mistake women make with their respective skincare routines, the doctor said, “Same ol’ thing—not washing off makeup; mixing products from different brands causes inflammation and pore congestion—both promote aging. And not using Lancer Skincare.”

Over 40 years into practice and with a client list numbering upwards of 35,000, Lancer doesn’t advertise; his patients all come “through word of mouth and referral,” he told Hello!. “I work with celebrities and affluent members of society who tend to run in the same circles and only speak to one another, so that’s probably helped grow the business as it has.”

His first celebrity client back in the early 1980s? None other than Katharine Hepburn. “That’s quite a way to start a career, from my viewpoint,” he told Page Six. Since then, many other A-listers have followed. After a visit to his clinic, patients often get an anti-inflammatory sheet mask after procedures like chemical peels, facial treatments and lasers. “People walk out of the office wearing it because it’s a status symbol to be a patient in the office,” Lancer told W. “So they’ll walk around Rodeo Drive with a mask on.”

“Sometimes the tour buses will stop and say, ‘See that face walking? That’s a Lancer face,’” he quipped.

He’s a practitioner of “less is more,” he told Glamour U.K., telling the outlet that he recommends that clients “only have treatments where the positive outweighs that consequence.” Lancer is also a believer in “combination treatments performed during the same procedure,” which he told Page Six “are significantly additive and may provide an overall benefit during the same healing period, rather than having multiple spaced-out healing periods.”

Lancer is one of a handful of dermatologist-led skincare brands—others include Dr. Howard Murad’s Murad, which launched in 1989; Dr. Dennis Gross’s eponymous brand, which he founded in 2000; and more in recent years, like Dr. Shereene Idriss and Dr. Whitney Bowe’s lines, which both launched in 2022, and Rose Ingleton MD, started by Dr. Rose Ingleton in 2019.

“For a number of years now, celebrity-founded brands have taken a lion’s share of media and consumer attention,” Glossy reported. “But doctor-founded brands have impressively maintained their relevance. Thanks to their founders’ unquestionable expertise, these brands remain credible and trusted.”

“Derm brands,” as they’re known, are in high demand, marketing researcher Kevin P. Giang Barrera previously told Forbes. “The skincare market is booming,” he said, noting that the global industry is projected to reach $236 billion U.S. dollars by 2030, according to Statistica. The U.S. market alone “is one of the hottest markets,” he added. When it comes to dermatologists starting skincare brands, “from a business standpoint, launching their own skincare line is a smart way to tap into that momentum.”

“Unlike traditional brand influencers or celebrities, dermatologists have medical expertise, which gives their products a sort of built-in trust factor,” Giang Barrera continued. “Consumers see them as experts, not just marketers, which make their products feel more effective and reliable.” He added that “Dermatologists who start their own skincare lines is a smart move that blends expert credibility with genuine success stories, making it a powerful formula in today’s skincare market.”

That said, for some doctors, “it’s more about PR than science,” international cosmetic surgery insider Wendy Lewis told Allure. “There’s a distinct difference between a doctor who has a personal vision and is directly involved in every step of the formulary process and one who simply slaps his or her name on a contract manufacturer’s existing formula.”

Lancer is one that’s in the “personal vision” camp. “Dermatologists and physicians used to be [the experts] in diseases of skin, hair and nails,” he told Glossy. “Now it appears that everybody and their grandmother is a dermatology expert. I find it repulsive that there are so many people involved in producing brands that are confusing the public and detracting from the true concept of what home skincare is supposed to be.”

On the day that I chatted with Dr. Lancer on Zoom, he’d been up since 3 a.m.—not atypical for him. He tells me that he was in the office by 4 a.m., which is when he started going through his reading and research. By 7:30 a.m., his staff arrived, and “we get to see patients,” he tells me. “And I love every single patient. And it’s interesting how they always bring new ideas.” (In fact, he says, that’s how many of his ideas for Lancer Skincare products pop up.) Of his early wakeup call, “I can tell you, when it’s peaceful and calm, it lets you do a lot of thinking, and you come up with some of the most brilliant ideas,” he tells me.

For the latest iteration in my Unsung Heroes series, we talked about how his childhood burn influenced his path into dermatology, how his business is expanding imminently from Beverly Hills to Las Vegas, why he is not a big fan of surgery and how he never plans to retire.

Rachel Burchfield: When you founded the brand, what was your why? And how have you stuck to that in the years since?

Dr. Harold Lancer: That’s a great question if you think about it, because it’s really the question of “How did I get to be a practicing dermatologist?” So if you think about it, the product line comes from years of training, and that years of training comes from the fact that skincare is important. And it started, if I really think back to my childhood, skincare had to do with my childhood severe burn—it was an accident. And I was fascinated by the fact that if you take care of even injured skin, it will repair itself. And that entire thought process led to my studies in science, and then it went to medical school. And then the skincare line came to the fact that, after seeing thousands of patients in the dermatology clinic, that I realized that most people have no concept of how to take care of their complexion.

And complexion is really from head to toe. Everybody thinks it’s just the face, but it’s not. Some people have a complexion issue with the décolletage or the side of the neck or the hands or the arms. It’s really from head to toe. Complexion care is a mystery to most of the consumers. And as a student, I realized that most people get products and they choose products without any rhyme or reason. They think of just, “Oh, I’m going to get something to wash with and something to moisturize the skin with,” and that’s where it ends. So most people had no idea of the complexity of what we call skin hygiene. So developing the brand came from the idea that I started even as a resident asking people, even if I were treating their skin cancers or psoriasis or whatever else I was doing, medical or surgical, I would say, “I want you to bring in whatever you’re using.” And they said, “Well, Dr. Lancer, what does that have to do with the skin cancer on my forehead?” I said, “Well, once I get rid of the skin cancer, you’re going to have to get rid of the mark, and you’re going to have to make sure your facial complexion is good.” And people would bring in all sorts of stuff. Most of the things were never even opened.

Somebody bought it for them. It was a gift. They never used it or they used it and barely opened it. It just told me—lack of education. So I came to the idea that the consumer needed education first in terms of skincare. And then it’s from head to toe, and that the skincare that they were being educated on before Lancer was basically, “Oh, I’m going to wash with something, some sort of cleanser, then I’m going to actually use some sort of toner, and then I’m going to use some sort of moisturizer.” And that’s where it ends. They had no idea about skin biology. So Lancer Skincare was born by reeducating or the desire to reeducate the consuming public.

RB: What would you consider your “hero” product to be?

DHL: I would like to think that all Lancer SKUs are hero products. To me, they are. Every single Lancer product is generated by patients bringing things to my attention. And so basically when I’m saying it, bedside diagnosis leads to creativity—that’s really what goes on. So the majority of product [is] stimulated by patient interaction, and the hero product has to be the Polish. It has to be the Polish.

And you may or may not know there are three Polishes, because it occurred to me there’s an anti-aging Polish, there’s an acne prone, oily skin Polish, and then everybody in the Lancer office thinks they have sensitive skin. So this is the sensitive skin Polish. And so that’s how the brand really was developed back in ‘84, ‘85. There was a Polish, Cleanse, Nourish.

RB: The Method.

DHL: Yeah. And then there was for sensitive skin. And then for acne, there were three products that started the cascade of development. Polish, Cleanse, Nourish for three different types. And then it occurred to me that a single individual doesn’t need all for blemish prone or for anti-aging or for sensitive. So some people needed the anti-aging Cleanser, but the blemish Polish. So it became a mix and match of those nine products.

RB: What is an “unsung hero” that you’d like to spotlight?

DHL: So if we establish that every single Lancer creation is a miracle—will we say that? Okay. So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and that together there’s a Polish for three categories, but the Method—it’s not an island unto itself. There’s always a Polish, rinse, Cleanse, rinse and Nourish. I think the other hero products that go along with it, the other unsung heroes would be—I think it’s skin color correction and maintenance has got to be the No. 1 patient concern. It turns out I see people from the entire planet, and the Lancer Ethnicity Scale was developed in 1998. And even to this day, that’s what it’s called. It has to do with global origin of complexion that—we always ask about ancestry, because it influences product production requests and what’s valuable. So it’s always going to be Polish, Cleanse, Nourish of some combination. And then there’s always going to be an alpha-hydroxy acid, an advanced retinol.

There’s going to be a peptide. And they’re all the additional special ones like the peptide, the Zero Gravity, the Dark Circle Correction, because the No. 1 concern for most patients is uniform color complexion. I have never found a patient who said, “I want to alter my skin color.” No, people are happy with their skin color ethnicity. They just want it to be uniform. So products that are correcting or returning skin to normal unified color is what people want. And so the dark circle product line is really an important thing. And then there’s another unsung hero, by the way, the Dani product.

RB: What drives the work the brand does?

DHL: Well, I’m glad you’re asking that, because that childhood injury—which was really extensive, I think I was 8, 9, 10 years old—and that taught me that the body, we were very, very poor farmers in Connecticut. And my mother used to take me to the local, I believe it was Dr. Jones, the local GP. There were no dermatologists in this town. This whole town looked like Andy of Mayberry. And so she would take me there, and every day this fellow—charming older man—would remove little pieces of dead tissue and give me simple instructions for skincare. And it is amazing. I have not a single scar from significant burns because the skin was maintained from the beginning. So that’s regenerative medicine.

I think that the skin, if you give it the proper footing, you maintain it, the skin can repair itself. And what keeps me going is I will never retire. I’m going to keep going. I love this office. And as you may very well know, we’re starting our second office in Las Vegas.

I’ll be 73 in September. And the next chapter is being written, where the Wynn Encore is my business partner to create a Lancer Aesthetic Clinic in the Encore Spa. It’ll be a beautiful independent facility within the spa, Lancer Aesthetic Clinic at the Encore. It’s being built as we speak. It’ll open in October, November, and it’ll be dedicated to regenerative skin health, hygiene, medicine.

It’s very exciting because it’s the only time a major corporate entity, the Wynn corporation, has been a partner, has become a partner with a solo physician to create an in-house clinic. And so it’s way beyond the med spa business. This is a Lancer duplicate of the Beverly Hills office.

RB: How will you keep that driver in mind going into the next year of the business?

DHL: Well, I can tell you that both here in Beverly Hills and in Las Vegas, the focus will be in expanding the combinations of the skincare program, because it’ll all be intertwined with the concept of self-repair and regenerative medicine, which is huge in every organ system of the body, whether it’s neurologic or cardiovascular or orthopedic. That is the trend of medicine and surgery in the future. And skin will be no different. In fact, dermatology is the leader in that category, because you can see the organ clearly. And so the driver will be the new facility and the existing facility will be geared towards whether it’s stem cell work being added in, the energy-based device combination being different. So it’ll be a huge leap forward in terms of skincare doing—well, we’re talking about first class skincare doing the priming and preparing the skin for minimally invasive procedures with minimal downtime and adding in various issues having to do with whether it’s hormone replacement, lifestyle changes, just counseling people in terms of there’s more to life than surgery.

I personally am not a big fan of surgery. In fact, we try in this office—if we see three, four, five new patients a day, it’s always, they say, “Dr. Lancer, you’re the guru of lasers. Could you please laser me from head to toe?” I say, “Let’s take a step back. Let’s rehabilitate your lifestyle first.”

Skin program, diet control, a variety of things having to do with lifestyle. And then we add in technology to help us along. Just the way Dr. Jones helped me with my burns, healing to nothing. The body, I’m thoroughly convinced, can heal itself if you give it the means of doing it. And that’ll be what drives me in the future. You can’t just sit back on your laurels and say, “Oh no, it’s been enough.” No. We’re going to continue and broaden the steps in looking and feeling your best.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Read the original article by Rachel Burchfield on forbes.com here.