Alpha-H

A Gold Coast beauty therapist with Cystic Acne, her doctors could not treat, began mixing glycolic acid in her own kitchen in 1995. Thirty years later, her formulation sold to a Hong Kong supplements group for 50 million Australian dollars. Michelle Doherty founded Alpha H from a garage, Tharsiis, in Helensvale, Queensland in 1995 with four products. Glycolic acid was a clinical exfoliant considered too harsh for home use. Doherty bottled it anyway. The hero liquid gold exfoliating treatment with 5% glycolic acid retailed at around 48 US dollars per 100 millilitres and was applied at home overnight as a leave on resurfacing step. The category was the strategic claim. The global skincare industry had decided clinical actives belonged in clinics.