Kim Walls is one of the nation’s foremost experts in the science, business, and culture behind the beauty industry. Beauty has always been Kim’s passion as the daughter of Robert Heiman, the founder of Epicuren, a pioneering brand in natural beauty and self-care.
Over the past several decades, she has made a significant impact in the industry as a master product formulator, award-winning products innovator, clean beauty pioneer, and social change advocate.
After graduating from the University of California Santa Barbara with honors, Kim joined a wellness tech startup as their skincare guru. She also spent the early part of her career studying organic and biochemistry as well as ethnobotany, which led to her broad expertise as a clinical skincare educator, esthetician, nutritionist, and award-winning serial entrepreneur in the natural skincare space. In addition to cultivating her own brands, she is often tapped as a public speaker and as an industry trailblazer to advise other global personal care and beauty companies.
Kim’s deep interest in the connection between optimal health and clean beauty has been the driving force throughout her many endeavors to advance the world of wellness through building cause-driven brands. In 2003, Kim founded Babytime! by Episencial, a line of safe, effective, and eco-friendly skincare products for children. In 2014, she launched a collaborative online and in-hospital resource to provide birth planning guidance and evidence-based parenting information, which grew into the creation of a specialized line of natural skincare products designed to amplify the benefits of touch for babies, BEB Organic.
Her most recent endeavors include Furtuna Skin, a luxury performance-driven skincare brand for men and women, launched in spring of 2020, Bambini Furtuna, a line of topical wellness products for children, and Kelsen Products, an organic grooming line.
As the CEO and Co-founder of Furtuna Skin, Kim leads development, from concept and formulation through storytelling for this luxury Italian skincare brand. She continues to raise the bar for clean beauty efficacy by debuting powerful new ingredients and processing methods, like the Soundbath extraction method, to deliver groundbreaking, transformative results.
Kim cares deeply about social change and actively advocates for safe beauty, family health, and human rights. At the forefront of the clean beauty movement, she is dedicated to galvanizing brands to remove unsafe ingredients and create more eco-friendly standards. Kim is currently collaborating with The Good Face Project (GFP) to create breakthroughs in brand accountability and authenticity. Kim and GFP Founder, Iva Teixeira, spearheaded a new way to harness the data from The Good Face App (and the tech that powers it) in innovative ways to perform consumer product testing.
Kim also works with doctors, nurses, and lab chemists to research and develop breakthrough clean beauty products that lead the industry forward. She was the first to use probiotics in children’s skincare products back in 2003, and continues to play an integral role in debuting powerful new ingredients and processing methods in the skincare industry.
Kim has served as leader of the Retail Advisory Committee for the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and on other non-profit boards such as 2020Mom, founded an NGO, and has been named a “Wonder Woman of the Natural Products Industry” by New Hope Media. Ken Cook, founder and President of EWG noted “Kim Walls has been a force of nature in her advisory role to EWG and we give a lot of credit to her for the success we've had in our sun safety work.”
Kim’s philanthropic focus is on charities that offset environmental challenges that are linked to social injustices and the mental health crisis. She also mentors other women on how to grow their business through the Female Founders Collective, CEW, and Hey Mama in NYC.
