Sofia Coppola’s New Hydrating Essence In Partnership With Skincare Brand And Spa Monastery Transports You To Belize

Eternal cool girl Sofia Coppola selectively employs her discerning taste in collaborations with brands she’s personal connected to. Her latest creation is with botanical skincare brand Monastery on $120 facial spray Hideaways Essence.

At her chic San Francisco spa, Monastery founder and aesthetician Athena Hewett uses seasonal skin mists during services, but never previously retailed one. At the recommendation of her friend Rashida Jones, Coppola, director of “Priscilla,” “The Virgin Suicides,” and “The Bling Ring” and daughter of famed filmmaker Francis Coppola, has been going to Hewett for facials for about a year, and she gushed during them about the sprays. Hewett offered to make her one and created six formula options, from which Coppola selected what’s become the fresh, floral spray Hideaways Essence. 

The product, formulated to hydrate, sooth and reduce inflammation, is evocative of Belize, where The Family Coppola Hideaways, a seven-property hospitality offshoot of The Family Coppola, a compendium of Coppola business ventures, operates Turtle Inn, a 25-room seaside destination with thatched cottages abutting white sand beaches that stretch into the clear Caribbean Sea, and contains ingredients from it, including astringent rosewood leaf and and a rare orchid oil prized for its antifungal benefits, along with ambrette hibiscus from South America and rose from Central America.

Hideaways Essence is available at Turtle Inn, and Hewett has trained aestheticians at the vacation getaway’s Sunset Spa to incorporate it in a signature service, The Monastery Facial. 

The process of developing the spray spanned six months. Hewett reasons that, in addition to the Belizean ingredients, the formula for Hideaways Essence appealed to Coppola because it was slightly less complex than the other five options under consideration. She says, “Sometimes when you try to retail something that’s too complex, you’re going to polarize the market a little bit, especially when it’s a sensorial experience.” 

Hideaways Essence isn’t Coppola’s first beauty partnership. Earlier this year, she teamed up with Augustinus Bader on three tinted versions of the luxury skincare brand’s popular $43 lip balm. Its lip balm is high on Coppola’s list of favorite products. Outside of beauty, Coppola has collaborated with knitwear brand Barrie and jewelry brand Catbird. 

Originally, Hideaways Essence was just meant for The Family Coppola Hideaways, but, after Hewett doled out samples to her spa staff and incorporated it in the locations’ treatments, demand poured in. “Everyone was like, ‘What? This is not fair. We want to use this,'” she recounts. “I asked [Coppola], and she was like, ‘Sure, you can retail it, wholesale it, that’s fine.’ That was so generous. That was not the intention.” 

Today, Hideaways Essence is available at Monastery and its hospitality and retail partners such as Auberge Luxury Resorts, Proper Hotels, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Chelsea Hotel and Onda Beauty. In January, it will land on Moda Operandi. Last month, Onda hosted an event attended by Hewett and Coppola to celebrate Hideaways Essence’s launch.

Onda founder Larissa Thomson says, “Mists tend to be less popular for Onda than face oils and serums but the response we are getting from the Monastery x Coppola Hideaways Hydrating Floral Essence outweighs the norm.” Acknowledging the Coppola name intrigues Onda customers, she emphasizes product is most important. Thomson says, “What wins everyone over is the intoxicating scent that feels like a transportive experience.”

“What wins everyone over is the intoxicating scent that feels like a transportive experience.”

Monastery’s partnership with Coppola may expand. Hewett imagines its products could be placed in Turtle Inn’s rooms. “That’s an area that we’re really interested in because luxury hotels and spas are a big avenue for us,” she says. “So, it seems like something good for us to do, not just with the Coppolas, but, in general, something that could sit easily in a bathroom in a hotel.”

Don’t expect a proliferation of Coppola-branded beauty products anytime soon. Hewett explains the family isn’t keen on striking beauty deals for quick money. “They only do things from the heart,” she says. 

Monastery’s spa opened in 2011 and branded products grew out of treatments Hewett conducts at it, and they’re informed by her struggles with acne, which was inflamed by clinical skincare products she turned to at med-spas she formerly worked at. Monastery’s line has 10 products priced from $48 to $700. The $700 product, an at-home LED mask called The Deep Red, is the latest launch and Monastery’s skincare device debut. 

The Deep Red sold out almost immediately. Among the consumers snapping it up, Hewett was surprised that 35% hadn’t purchased from Monastery before. She says, “We were thinking it was going to be our current customers, but it brought on this whole new consumer that doesn’t really think about skincare as much, they’re more into beauty tech, which was exciting.”