I was nervous about traveling to Hong Kong from New York for my scheduled training of the Kahina line and interviews with Hong Kong press at the prestigious Joyce stores.It wasn’t the long flight or the challenges of foreign travel, and certainly not meeting the Joyce executives who had been so kind in our email conversations.I was nervous because of Asian women’s skin – I had been told that Asian women prefer to take multiple steps (seven was the number that was conveyed to me) to achieve their skin ideal.Rarely does one of these steps include an oil.In truth, I was somewhat intimidated by the idea of these porcelain beauties and their elaborate beauty rituals, and worried that my philosophy of simple and meaningful beauty based on argan oil would not resonate with them.I typically advise people to layer and combine our products according to skin type and/or season.How would these women respond?

To my pleasant surprise, these women, both the salespeople in the store and the press, all who are very knowledgeable about skincare, received Kahina with enthusiasm. It was great fun to compare our beauty rituals (many of them told me that they personally don't undertake seven steps at all) and a joy for me to connect the women of Morocco to the women of Hong Kong. My sincere thanks goes to the women of Joyce and Lane Crawford stores for their incredibly gracious hospitality.