AIA's Academy of Legends
One of the richest resources of our industry is within the knowledge of those who came before us. AIA’s Academy of Legends reads as a “Who’s Who” in the skin care industry. We have long been blessed with key relationships with those who blazed the path upon which we tread! The Academy of Legends serves to uphold the leadership of our industry as mentors and role models and is nominated by our members. Legend inductees are granted lifetime membership in AIA and are asked to continuously share their knowledge and passion and be accessible to the AIA membership-at-large. See all of our Legends below!
The purpose of the Academy of Legends award is to publicly recognize individuals throughout our industry who embody the spirit of the Academy’s mission to uphold the leadership of our industry as mentors and role models for educating, empowering and advancing our profession.
Criteria for Nominees:
- Active in aesthetics industry a minimum of 20 years
- Contributed educationally to the benefit of the masses by serving as a role model and mentor, thereby raising the standards of our profession
- Gained the respect of peers by maintaining a standard of excellence exemplary of leadership, and be considered honorable by their colleagues
- Furthered the consumer awareness of our profession
If you have a mentor or friend whom you believe deserves this honor, please submit a nomination using the online form. If you have any questions please e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
From ingredients and formulations to therapeutic modalities to aesthetic practices, Dr. James Fulton and Sara Fulton changed skin care at every level. Dr. Fulton was the scientist, dermatologist, and formulator responsible for some of the most significant advances in modern skin care, including gold standards Retin-A (co-developer), stabilized benzoyl peroxide, topical erythromycin, and patented vitamin A propionate. Sara Fulton was a noted researcher and formulator…
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AIA Legend
It is a Saturday morning in 1980 and my mother and I are in the car making the 30-minute drive to Le Nouveau Moi, a full-service day spa. It was a drive I was quite familiar with as we made it often. As we rounded the corner into the parking lot, we filed out of the car and up to the front door. Once my…
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AIA Legend
Vincent Jeffre - Roux Kehoe: Leader and Legend “Being less than the best encourages men to do better; but, when and if you are the best, you can never do less.” -Vincent K-R Kehoe Quoting Vincent J-R Kehoe, a professional make-up artist, as well as aesthetician, author, historian, and photographer, Dermascope recognizes him as a “renaissance man,” a leader in his field, and someone who…
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AIA Legend
Sue Riley - The Gift of Giving This legendary beauty and skin are expert shares her success with the industry and community. Sue Riley’s beauty career began when she was a small girl visiting her aunt’s beauty salon in Durant, Okla. She took every opportunity to visit this exciting place, watching her aunt deal with a variety of customers and witnessing innovative facial techniques. As…
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AIA Legend
Mila Bravi- A Legend in the Windy City and Around the World Some call Oak Street a street of dreams, Chicago’s low-rise, high-fashion block of elegant boutiques at the northern tip of Michigan Avenue. The place to find Armani, Hermes, Versace, Rykiel and Pratesi among other shops and spas, it is home to the skin care star in Oaks’s fashion square, Mila Bravi. Always the…
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AIA Legend
Miki Giunta- A Legend in Aesthetics One Woman’s Vision -This Legendary innovator uses her insight to improve the aesthetics field. Growing up in New Jersey, Miki Giunta spent countless hours with her Irish grandmother, listening to stories of the old county and watching as she planted and puttered in the family garden. “My grandmother taught me a great deal about the natural world,” recalls Miki,…
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AIA Legend
Mary Ann Graffeo- A Legend in Aesthetics Making Her Dreams Come True Mary Ann Graffeo, a renaissance woman of sort, with an insatiable desire to learn, teach, and progress, is a cosmetologist, aesthetician, makeup artist, businesswoman, paramedical clinical cosmetologist, and lecturer. She has been a veteran in the beauty industry and a pillar in the field of aesthetics for more than 43 years. Her makeup…
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AIA Legend
Marvin Westmore--- A Legend in Aesthetics The name Westmore is to makeup what the name Ford is to cars. They founded the arena of makeup for the Hollywood Motion Picture Studios going back to the days of silent films. They developed the methods that made starts look old, young, beautiful, ugly, big, small, etc. at one time or another, a Westmore headed up the makeup…
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AIA Legend
Mark Traynor- A Legend Through Time Antoine, the very famous French hairstylist, made a dramatic appearance in the archway of his luscious Parisian salon. He was indeed singularly elegant in his beautifully tailored suit, a soft dove grey with a hint of blue. He tinted his unique coiffure the exact color of his suit. His outstanding appearance was not lost on his devoted and adoring…
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AIA Legend
AIA Legend: Margaret Ancira Changing the Face of Skin Care and Aesthetic Medicine Margaret Ancira is the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit, even if her path to prosperity didn’t begin until age 40. She grew up in a military family of eight siblings that ultimately settled in Texas. She married young, had a daughter, and became a single mother by the time she was 22.…
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AIA Legend
Lydia Safarti- A Legend in Aesthetics “I’ve never believed in taking no for an answer, “Sarfati says, with a smile. “If people say no, I don’t get mad. I just think, “Well, they don’t understand, and it is my job to educate them.” Ask people who know her to describe Lydia Sarfati physically, and one image almost always comes to mind. Oh, they might mention…
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AIA Legend
Luella Bailey- A Legend in Aesthetics Luella Bailey has been an active cosmetologist since 1973. She became a member of the National Hairdressers and Cosmetologists Association in 1948, and since that time has served in many capacities. She served as an affiliate officer in her home town of Duluth, Minnesota, also on the state level she served as State Styles Director. In Florida she also…
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AIA Legend
Linda Seidel- A Legend in Aesthetics Healing through Concealing Linda Seidel brings new hope to those with special challenges. Linda Seidel scooped small amounts of corrective makeup onto the back of her band and blended it. “Watch exactly what I am doing because you are going to learn to do this yourself,” she told the tiny children seated in her chair at her Owings Mills…
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AIA Legend
Linda Palumbo- Passion Play Linda Palumbo’s life-long love affair with the aesthetics field makes her one of the industry’s most respected educators. Linda Palumbo refers to her career in aesthetics as an extraordinary journey. It is a journey that began 20 years ago in Bologna, Italy. As a student at the University of Bologna, Lina majored in pre-med and developed a keen interest in botany,…
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AIA Legend
Lia Schorr- A Legend’s Struggle to Success Lia Schorr may be best known as an international skin care expert, but she is most proud of all the other roles that make her the exceptional person she is today: the daughter of parents who survived the persecution of World War II; a solider in the Israeli Army; an entrepreneur; single parent; and a working mother. Born…
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AIA Legend
Letti Lynn- A Legend in Aesthetics Letti Lynn’s career began as a teenager in modeling. She attended the Nancy Taylor Modeling and Finishing School in New Orleans. During her modeling days, she also worked for the Glemby Company as a makeup artist. Bu 1957, at the age of seventeen, Letti Lynn was already a trained makeup artist. She also free lanced for the Revlon Company…
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AIA Legend
Leah Kovitz- A Legend in Aesthetics It is difficult to reconcile the two pictures of Leah Kovitz. The first image is of one of the world’s leading aestheticians: a graceful, cosmopolitan, multi-lingual beauty, elegantly attired to greet guests at one of her resort’s spa salons. The other is that of a soldier, dressed in drab fatigues and clunky boots, sitting under an ancient olive tree,…
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AIA Legend
Kay Acuazzo- A Legend in Aesthetics Europeans have long known the importance of proper skin care. In the beauty centers of France, Italy, England and Germany, research and product development have been going on for years. So has the training of ski-care professionals. Philadelphia’s skin and body-care pioneer, Kay Acuazzo, realized early in her career that America needed to embrace this same European philosophy. But,…
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AIA Legend
Judith Sans- A Legend in Aesthetics “Beauty is only skin deep”, goes the old saying. But, for Judith Sans, founder and president of Judith Sans International, that beauty starts from within. “Saving face” is her business, and it thrives on preparation made with ordinary frits and vegetables. Judith often jokes about her childhoods surrounded by a Hungarian mother and a host of vain aunts, “We’d…
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AIA Legend
Joel Gerson- A Legend in Aesthetics When Joel Gerson graduated from high school in Detroit, he had no idea what he wanted to do as a career. He drove a truck for about a year delivering building supplies to housing projects. Then, after serving two years in the army, he returned home still not knowing what it was he wanted to do. Then a friend…
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AIA Legend
Jerry Weitzel- A Legend in Aesthetics “President Carter looked at me and said, ‘Please keep the makeup light, I don’t want the press to think I am totally unscathed,’” This is but one of the many interesting, anecdotal incidents that have occurred over the past 22 years in Jerry Weitzel’s fascinating and colorful career. Weitzel is President of CRO and Syd Simons Cosmetics, Inc. The…
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AIA Legend
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