FACE Stockholm: 25 Years of Beauty

FACE Stockholm is the only Swedish cosmetics company to give you makeup and skin care that is true to the Swedish beauty ideal—natural, trend-forward, simple, clean, gorgeous and fun!

FACE Stockholm offers a spectacular range of colors and uses only the highest quality and most natural ingredients. With more than 200 lip shades, over 150 eye shadows, blushes, foundations, powders, professional makeup tools, and a natural skin care line, we are eco-conscious, using minimal and recycled packaging and never testing on animals.

Every FACE Stockholm store is staffed with professional makeup artists who are the top talent in the business, yet are unpretentious and approachable and will give you a makeup lesson that looks like YOU! Our intimate retail spaces create a friendly, easy atmosphere, where you will find the products that help you look your best.

Owned and operated by Gun Nowak and her daughter Martina Arfwidson, their personal journeys guide the philosophy of Face Stockholm. They find as much inspiration for colors and ingredients from trekking to meet the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala or antique shopping in Sweden, as they do walking down the street in New York City.

Born in a small village in the Swedish countryside, founder Gun Nowak always had plans to travel the world. She owned three of the hippest fashion boutiques in Sweden in the 70's and 80's, but grew tired of not being able to find makeup to match the crazy neon fashions of that time. "I didn't set out to do a makeup business per se," says Nowak, "But then I couldn't find colors anywhere and I was into crazy makeup! I saw the opportunity. I wanted all the colors!"

Nowak used her innate sixth sense for color and interior design to carve an unusual niche for herself in the cosmetics business. Starting with her first shop in 1980, Face Stockholm was an immediate success. Soon, Nowak needed help and turned to her daughter, Martina Arfwidson, who was launching a singing career in New York.

"For me," says Arfwidson, "When I started to work with Mom, I could see the link that this business shared with music—bringing out a woman's inner beauty is the same as finding your inner voice. To me, Face Stockholm became a mission about healing, getting to one's inner truth and ultimately about self-expression."

Nowak adds, "Putting makeup on a woman is as intimate an experience as you'll find. It allows you to see who they really are. And Face Stockholm touches women. That is the part of our work that we both love."

By 1990 the first New York City location opened on The Upper West Side and it wasn’t long before Face Stockholm appeared in SOHO and on Madison Avenue. Face Stockholm products are now available at 40 locations worldwide, through mail order, via the Internet and include a hotel amenities line as well as an eyewear collection.