Our History
The Amber Products story begins with my father, Lawrence E. Madson and my mother, Martha T. Madson who in 1975 were asked by a very large beauty care corporation to develop a depilatory wax heater for professional estheticians, whom, at the time would use an open-flamed stove to melt their wax.
At the time, Lawrence was both an executive of US Steel Corporation and the owner of a small business that supplied paraffin heaters to the physical therapy market. Lawrence took on the project and after months of testing was asked to come to New York to present the heater to the corporate executives at the New York Beauty Show. Upon their arrival a rather arrogant executive informed them both that he apologized for not calling them but that they were not interested in developing a new heater any longer.
This did not sit well with either of them and thus, in the middle of the lobby of the New York Hilton Hotel, the two of them decided to buy a booth at the show. The only booth left was a table at the entrance to the trade show floor. What appeared as a misfortunate “last booth option” turned out to be just what they needed as every tradeshow attendee had to walk by their table to get into the show and thus, they sold 50 heaters over the weekend with only one sample heater to show!
Upon deciding that they needed to get a booth, my parents had to register their company with the tradeshow – so they needed to get creative quickly and come up with a name. While developing the wax heater, Lawrence also developed the first iteration of our now famous Classic Wax. Martha, noting its rich, creamy consistency and beautiful amber color calmly suggested the name of their new company be Amber Product. A new company was born.
The eventual path of Amber Product in those early days was much like the many other small business created in America – long hours, days and months of hard work developing, inventing and marketing your products, equipment and services with failures and successes along the way all supported by the will and fortitude of two driven, never quit entrepreneurs that had a vision.
Over the next two decades Lawrence and Martha and cadre of dedicated employees grew Amber into a successful provider of niche beauty equipment, waxing and paraffin products and an assortment of skin and body treatment products.
As the professional salon and spa industry began to grow in the late 1980’s and early 90’s so did Amber.
After building and selling my own business in Southern California in 1996, my wife Erin and I decided to move back east and join the family business. We both thoroughly enjoyed the go-go days of the late 1990’s as the word “spa” became a fixture in the American lexicon and the industry grew at a rapid pace. Erin and I worked with in-house and outside chemists, suppliers and long-time industry experts to expand Amber’s professional offering to over 1,000 different products, equipment and treatments. It was an exciting time for the company.
Over the last ten years, Amber’s professional skincare products and services have been the source of the company’s primary growth. We have expanded into markets all over the world as our customers have adopted our skin care system and professional treatments.
We are so blessed that Lawrence and Martha had the will to not be denied the American Dream of starting a business and the fortitude to make it work. We are also blessed to have the help of many wonderful employees as Erin and I (and someday maybe our five kids) continue on the path started by my parents.
But, as always we are most grateful to our customers who continue to support our efforts to provide the best beauty products in the professional beauty industry and cutting edge skincare products to customers around the world.
Thank you;
Mark and Erin Madson