Forever Ageless Inc., a family-owned business started by two brothers who are doctors, Joe and Michael Cerni as well as the latter’s wife, Zara Cerni, are expanding with the goal of making Orange Countians look younger.
“We have a concentration of people who look good and want to stay looking good and who can afford it and are not afraid to say it,” Dr. Joe Cerni, or Dr. Joe, as he is commonly called, told the Business Journal. “Other areas of the country are afraid to say they had Botox.
“People here are very accepting because it’s so commonly used.”
Forever Ageless has become one of the 10 biggest clients nationwide of Allergan Aesthetics, the Botox maker that was bought by AbbVie Inc. in 2019 and is the largest drug manufacturer in Orange County by employee count.
Forever Ageless now has 34 employees and generates about $12 million in annual revenue.
The company about 16 months ago bought an 11,900-square-foot building in Newport Beach near the John Wayne Airport. Its main floor includes its key operation while it’s leased out its top floor to businesses including the BrowHouse and Culture OC, which are owned by a husband-and-wife couple.
Altogether, the three have been working together for 45 years at two different businesses.
What’s the secret?
“A willingness to cooperate and of course love,” Dr. Michael Cerni said. “I got a tremendous amount of respect for my brother and more so for my wife. Family is family. Love is trust and everyone pulling in the same direction.”
For all these reasons, Forever Ageless was one of five honored at the Business Journal’s Family-Owned Business Awards, in the medium size category, at a May 30 ceremony before an audience of 300 at the Irvine Marriott.
“The brothers have a passion and love for the patients—they treat them like family,” Zara Cerni told the audience. “Our staff is like family. They call me Mama Bear.”
White Dog
The Cerni brothers’ grandfather was an orphan from Italy who ended up working in the coal mines of Kentucky, where he ran a distillery making an early version of bourbon called “White Dog” during the Prohibition. He sent his children to Ohio, including the brothers’ father Joseph who eventually owned a gas station and a Pontiac dealership.
“My father Joseph wanted his kids to be better than him,” Michael Cerni said. “Education was important to him—he never got past the third grade.”
The brothers both became doctors and eventually opened their own general practice in Hacienda Heights where they operated out of a 6,000-square-foot facility. In the 1990s, their practice was purchased by CareMore, which was an independent physicians network.
The brothers retired in their 50s and then got bored. They began looking for their next venture, deciding to focus on aesthetics.
“I was more interested in anti-aging, people who wanted to live longer, who wanted to take care of themselves,” Dr. Joe said. “Those people also wanted to look better.”
They slowly grew the business, deciding to eventually open a 5,000-square-foot office in Newport Beach in 2018.
In late 2022, they bought their current building, an office that formerly hosted an insurance company, on Birch Street. The building is now an “integrated, full-service wellness center.”
The main facility offers services like injections, body sculpting, hair rejuvenation, skin tightening and other anti-aging treatments. About 15% of the company’s customers are men.
They have a program that can show images of what a person’s face will look like in a decade with shots like Botox and without.
“We can predict what a person looks like in 10 years,” Zara Cerni said.
Within the Forever Ageless office, Michael Cerni runs “Physicians Center for Renewal,” which focuses on injectors.
The family intends to open similar facilities in other cities like Palm Springs and San Diego.
“The growth potential in the U.S. is staggering,” Michael Cerni said.
From Tattooed Brows to Cold Plunges
Husband and wife Troy and Pia Laing have two adjoining businesses on the top floor of the Forever Ageless Inc. building in Newport Beach.
In 2016, Pia began the BrowHouse, which uses micro-blading to tattoo brows or remove them.
“We want that realistic result that you cannot tell if the eyebrow is tattooed,” Pia told the Business Journal. “If you can tell, it’s not well done.”
Pia, a licensed esthetician since 2002, has worked at spas such as the Grand Wailea in Hawaii and Beauty Kliniek in San Diego. She studied how to tattoo brows in Estonia, which she says has some of the best experts in the world.
Pia also tattoos lips as well, which can go hand in hand with filler. The industry has come far in the past two decades when it initially wasn’t done too well.
“Now it’s much better,” she said. “Everything is fixable.
“I love the idea of being able to enhance someone’s looks with the most realistic results because we’re not naturally born with good eyebrows. Brows are important because they frame the face.”
Next door is Troy’s business, Culture OC.
It provides a variety of services like Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber to promote healing from wounds, and sensory deprivation float tank where a user floats in salt water, which can help improve sleep and reduce anxiety.
“It’s not new technology—it’s new technology to the general public,” Troy said. “We’re trying to educate people that there are alternatives to health and wellness that can really put you on the path to not getting sick.”
Troy starts his day with a cold plunge every day, including one at his house.
“There’s a huge release of dopamine, which is the chemical that the brain releases that makes you feel really good. You get that from the shock experience. It’s a natural release of dopamine.
“The more you plunge, it almost becomes like a meditation practice.”
Combined, the two small businesses employ 10.
The Secrets to Botox
When Dr. Joe Cerni watched this year’s Oscars awards ceremony, he noticed a woman in her 70s who didn’t look natural.
“She had these big fat cheeks. She looked silly,” Dr. Joe said.
Dr. Joe, an expert in removing wrinkles to make people look younger by using products such as Allergan’s Botox, is a co-founder of Newport Beach’s Forever Ageless Inc.
He gave some tips to the Business Journal on the do’s and don’ts of the industry.
He recommends three to four shots a year and said the notorious frozen face look is from overuse.
“You know when they’ve done it because they’ve done too much. You don’t know when they’ve done it if it’s done right,” he said.
“We don’t want the frozen face.”
Statistically, the injections can make a person look six to seven years younger, he said.
“You get a 60-year-old lady who wants to look 30. It’s not going to happen. That will turn out goofy.”
Such mistakes are generally reversible, he said. He often recommends temporary fillers in case people change their minds.
“You got to manage expectations, what’s doable. If you go over the edge, you get the weird look, the frozen face, the pillowy face that makes it look like you’ve had too much filler like Madonna.”
He said a lot has changed in the past decade.
“It’s changing like light speed. The biggest change is the number of products available.”
