*For decades, the beauty industry sold midlife women on anti-aging promises without ever asking why their skin was changing in the first place. Stacey Berger, a 25-year beauty industry veteran turning 52 this year, decided to change that. Her answer is Sum of All, a clinically backed, hormone-conscious skincare line built specifically for the biological complexity of perimenopause and menopause.
“My skin was becoming very unpredictable as my hormones were fluctuating,” Berger said. “I started doing a deep dive and talking with my OB-GYN colleagues, my dermatologist friends and colleagues, trying to understand what’s going on with my skin.” What she learned reshaped how she thought about skincare entirely.
Berger said the industry has long ignored this demographic, focusing on the visible outcomes of aging rather than the internal shifts driving them. “They were focused on that anti-aging outcome, like how to make you look younger, instead of really looking at what’s affecting your skin at this stage of life,” she said. That gap became the foundation for Sum of All.
At the center of every Sum of All product is the patent-pending AP² Complex, a blend of adaptogens, peptides, and phytoestrogens that works together to support the systems estrogen decline disrupts. During perimenopause and menopause, estrogen fluctuations trigger seven distinct biological shifts in the skin, including changes to collagen production, barrier function, hydration, elasticity, cell turnover, sensitivity, and pigmentation. Skin can feel oily one day and dry the next.
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Berger said most anti-aging products miss the mark for women in this stage. “Most anti-aging products are focusing on more stimulation, more renewal, but hormonally changing skin doesn’t always need more,” she explained. The AP² Longevity Platform was built to give skin a foundation to respond effectively again, stabilizing the skin environment so active ingredients can perform with greater consistency and less irritation.
The current Sum of All lineup is built around a morning and nighttime routine. The Energizing Day Cream ($90) is an ultra-active daytime treatment clinically proven to increase hydration, smoothness, and firmness, earning a 90% overall satisfaction rating. For the eye area, the Flash Effect Eye Cream ($125) delivers visible smoothing in as little as 30 minutes while targeting fine lines, hydration, and radiance over time.
Berger called the eye cream one of her personal essentials. “In 30 minutes, you will see that the lines around your eyes will smooth out,” she said. “But we didn’t just stop at that. We didn’t compromise and just say, let’s give you an immediate benefit. We have a lot of ingredients in there that give you long-term benefits.” At night, the Replenishing Night Cream ($125) is clinically proven to improve hydration, strengthen the barrier, and visibly improve tone, lines, and wrinkles within 28 nights.
One finding from her research that surprised even Berger was how broadly estrogen impacts the skin. “A lot of people have reduced the idea of estrogen’s impact on the skin to just collagen and hydration, but that’s actually not true,” she said. “There’s elasticity issues. There’s inflammation issues. The barrier is affected. The pH levels are different.” Estrogen receptors exist throughout the skin, and their decline sets off a cascade of changes that a simple moisturizer was never designed to address.
All Sum of All products are formulated to work across a wide range of skin types and were clinically tested on diverse skin to support that. The brand is endorsed by OB-GYNs and dermatologists and is available through select medical offices and med spas, as well as directly through the brand’s website at www.sumofall.com.
Berger said she hopes the industry catches up to where the cultural conversation is heading. “My hope is that there will be a greater understanding and a deeper dive into the impact of hormones on skin, and there’ll be more innovation around ingredients that support improving those systems that are affected by hormonal health,” she said.
For the millions of women navigating midlife skin changes largely on their own, Sum of All is a signal that the beauty industry is finally starting to listen.
Watch our conversation with Stacey Berger below.
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