Amy Liu and Getting By With a Little Help from Your Friends to Found Tower 28
The clean beauty brand built on community and care.
I love Amy Liu and I love Tower 28. Amy, I don’t actually know, but knowing her story and the community she’s built is to love her. She is a real person behind a real, purpose-driven brand — the kind of founder C’est Cool exists to celebrate. Someone I am proud to support, and someone I believe has the ability to inspire.
Unfortunately, too many founder stories start with a person who didn’t believe in themselves until someone else shined a light on them. It’s a reflection of how society has made it challenging — or, at the very least, layered — for many marginalized founders to bet on themselves. I hope the stories we share every Thursday help to shift that self-belief. But I digress…
Let’s get back to Amy Liu.
After more than 20 years in the beauty industry, with senior roles at Estée Lauder, Smashbox, Kate Somerville, and Josie Maran, Amy had the résumé most people would consider primed for entrepreneurship. And she desired it - she hadn’t been able to find the balance as an executive and a mother and wanted to find a way to get back to work without conceding to the same previous sacrifies. But after stepping back from her career to focus on raising her three children, the idea of starting her own business felt out of reach, despite her 23 years of experience. She thought she was too far behind, too tied down, too late. A mortgage. A family. And so on.
Then a friend from business school offered her $250K — on the condition that she raise another $250K in the next 30 days. Unsure where to begin, she shared the news with friend, who immediately said they’d invest. And that organic investment continued until within a month, she had the backing she needed to take the first steps towards what we now know as Tower 28.
Community First
What I love most about this story is that it grew out of community. Not a glossy pitch deck. Not a trust fund. But personal relationships, people who believed in her, people who showed up.
Friends helped Amy get the business off the ground. Others tested early formulations. Customers with sensitive skin shared feedback that shaped product improvements and spread the word. From its inception, Tower 28 has been built on connection — and that DNA is still felt in everything it does.
Even the name itself reflects this ethos. Tower 28 is named after a lifeguard tower in Santa Monica, a symbol of community, safety, and inclusivity. It’s a brand as approachable as the beach itself — not intimidating, not exclusive, but a place where everyone belongs.
Purpose Over Profit
The beauty industry has long thrived on glamour, fantasy, and, unfortunately, opacity. For decades, formulations have been filled with ingredients that were, at best, irritating and, at worst, linked to long-term health concerns.
Amy’s approach with Tower 28 was radically different. She wanted products that worked for her and her daughter, who both live with eczema. She wanted safety without sacrifice, performance without compromise. Every formula would be dermatologist-tested, rigorously vetted, and designed to solve real problems — not cover them up with marketing smoke and mirrors.
The brand’s breakout (and dare I say, magical) product, the SOS Daily Rescue Spray, is proof of that philosophy. Made with hypochlorous acid, a naturally occurring compound in the body, it calms irritation, soothes inflammation, and supports the skin barrier. During the pandemic, when “maskne” became a universal frustration, the spray exploded in popularity and went on to become Sephora’s number one toner. (It was also my gateway into the brand in 2020 and a product I swear by to this day to keep my skin in check.)
Beyond Products: Building with Intention
Tower 28’s difference exists both in its formulas, and in it’s values.
Amy launched the Clean Beauty Summer School, a mentorship program for beauty founders who have historically faced the steepest barriers to capital and resources. The initiative is an extension of the same principle that brought Tower 28 to life: when people support one another, possibilities multiply.
To me, this is what defines a purpose-driven founder. It’s one thing to build a company with products that serve a customer. It’s another to use that platform to lift others up, even potential competitors. That’s leadership outside of ego — and further proof that Amy was meant to be a founder.
Why We Love Amy and Tower 28
Amy’s story is a reminder that business can — and should — be human. That some of the strongest companies grow not just from personal ambition, but from collective support. And that a founder’s lived experiences can become the foundation of something much bigger.
For consumers, Tower 28 represents a new kind of beauty promise. Not unattainable ideals, but products that are safe, effective, joyful to use, and rooted in empathy. Products that make you feel included, cared for, and confident in what you put on your skin.
In a time when profit often comes at the expense of our health, clean beauty founders like Amy Liu push back with integrity. They give us a way to love beauty without sacrificing ourselves. And that deserves to be celebrated.
Talk soon <3
Kelly