About seven minutes after I was greeted by Elizabeth Grace Hand, founder and chief esthetician of the Sterl Studio, dressed in a flawless black suit and kitten heels, I slipped into a strapless toweling robe. About 25 minutes into our encounter, as Hand was lightly zapping my face with a collagen-stimulating laser, she learned my zodiac sign (Scorpio), how long I had known my husband (about 10 years), and why I had moved to New York (work). She also knows that I am quite unsure of my dry, stressed, breakout-prone skin and that I can't help but drink coffee to make it so.

Facials are usually intimate treatments. After all, a complete stranger is standing this close to your face, examining flaws you never noticed. But after a 50-minute session with Hand and a slash interview, you feel like you're meeting with a close friend in her immaculately decorated apartment. The Swedish Grace-inspired décor is white, black, and cream khakis, vintage photos are displayed, and tea is served in dainty Hermes cups. When our time is up and we step outside into the afternoon sun, our skin much more glowing than when we arrived, we are tempted to ask Hand if we can have a cup of coffee.

It is the right combination of Hand's engaging attitude, intensive treatments, and service that could be described as therapeutic that has turned her three-year-old business into a popular spot for custom-made facials. In addition to offering fan-favorite C02 masks, hydrating infusions, and sculpting cheek massages, Steele Studios is run by a founder whom clients can trust like a close friend. Not surprisingly, the Howard Street studio has become a haven for fashion and beauty editors, A-list celebrities, and what Hand calls “downtown's it girls,” the ethereally cool 20- and 30-somethings.

Hand's business name comes from the Swedish word “smultronställe,” which translates as “wild. (The literal translation is “wild strawberry fields,” but it is the figurative definition that Hand is trying to express in her studio. ) “Nobody knows where you go,” she says, wrapping my face in a warm towel. 'But a secret place. But it's a secret place. It's a place where you go to feel so strange and wonderful and good that you want to keep it a secret. It's a hidden, wonderful place.” [When you step off the elevator and into the spacious waiting room, lined with jars of Augustinus Bader products and photogenic, low-slung furniture, you feel like you've left the city and come to an it-girl oasis. But this studio is not hidden. The estheticians (including hand) at Sterle Studio see at least six clients a day, seven days a week. Longtime clients are not shy about telling where they got their glowing skin. Says Richelle Mary, owner of the medspa, “I'm so enamored with Elizabeth and Sterl Studio's facials that if there are no facials in heaven, I'm not going.” 'It's the best investment I've ever made.'

Health chef Jess Buka says the hand treatments do more than treat her cystic acne or contour her face. She says, “Her hands are the hands of God. 'When I leave her studio, I feel like my whole life has been elevated.'

Hand comes from a background where she was pre-destined to be the favorite facialist of Hollywood stars and fashion editors, but carving out a corner of New York City's crowded market for transformative facials and skin care required some leveling up. It was necessary. She says she was always the friend who did everyone's hair and makeup on spring break trips during college, and one of the highlights of her teenage years was an hour-long drive with her mother and sister to the nearest Sephora in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Shortly after graduation, living in Atlanta, she convinced her male roommate to start using K-Beauty sheet masks.

After working in the fashion industry, Hand attended esthetician school to recapture her love of beauty in a professional sense. After being introduced to Barbara Sturm at a networking event, Hand kept sending cold emails until she was hired by a well-known label's wholesale facial team. Then Covid came along and most beauty and skin care treatments were suspended. But even after the salon closed, Hand recalls, women were still asking for facials. 'So I told them to come to my apartment. That's how I started my own business.”

Hand opened the spa in her one-bedroom apartment in July 2021, letting John, her fiancé at the time, out of the house while she gathered clients. Soon, the combination of her med-spa tools and top-of-the-line products generated enough business to secure a temporary non-apartment space, eventually moving into a Soho retreat I visited in September.

These days, Ställe reservations attract viral TikTok reviews and insider Substack newsletter plugs, often with waiting lists. The manifesto did not prepare me for how quickly things were changing, Hand told me mid-infusion. 'I never thought of it this way,' she says. 'And she says. [Actress Gabriella Piazza is one of Hand's living room clients who still goes regularly for facials. She says the Sterle Studio has changed her life and her attitude toward skin care, teaching her the best regimen for her own skin. Piazza says of Hand, “She's also wildly stylish and the nicest person on the planet in a world where beauty can feel too exclusive to even try.”

Hand is not the type of skin care expert who will usher in what you are doing wrong or shame you for your bad habits. (The Hand at Sterle Studio is fine with you as you are. Clients often confide in him about their work and their New York dating blunders. They become friends during monthly visits and are sometimes invited to weddings.

When clients open up, “I really enjoy being a therapist,” she says. 'It's always more fun to deal with other people's problems,' she says.”

Of course, clients visit Hand first for their skin and then for their social life. 'There are lots of places that are relaxing and have a nice atmosphere,' she says. 'But when I return, of course, I'm hydrated. Her studio is the exact opposite: a customizable menu of peels, masks, massages, and liquid microneedling work just as hard as Hand does at every appointment.

The day after my first visit to Sterle Studio, I received an email from Elizabeth herself checking out my skin. I know she is just doing the work of an excellent facialist, but I couldn't help but feel as if I had heard from a friend.