OUR FOUNDER
Mattia Miglio
Globetrotter. Skincare expert with a formulator's eye. Ambassador of beauty — and the researcher behind the Nine Skin Longevity Zones.
Where it began
A childhood inside a museum of the world
Before the passport stamps, there was a mountain. Mattia Miglio grew up in Varese — a lake town in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, about an hour northwest of Milan and a short drive west of Lake Como, close to the Swiss border. Above the town, a cobbled pilgrims’ way climbs to Sacro Monte, and near its top sits one of the region’s most extraordinary houses: the Casa Museo Lodovico Pogliaghi.
Pogliaghi — the same artist who sculpted the cathedral door in Milan — spent more than sixty years filling his villa with the world. Mattia kept climbing that mountain to see it. The lesson lodged early: the world can be gathered, studied, and made to speak in one place.
The journey
88 countries, one question: where does skin live longest?
What Pogliaghi collected in marble and bronze, Mattia set out to collect in person. Across 88 countries, and through five years leading the global marketing and business development of Cosmoprof — the beauty industry’s largest trade-show network — his work took him where skincare is actually made: the ingredient growers, the harvests, the laboratories, the formulation benches. Everywhere he went, he studied the same question: why does skin age so differently from place to place?
A pattern emerged. In a handful of regions, skin keeps its vitality visibly longer. He followed that pattern for five years — mapping climate, water, botany, diet and daily ritual, gathering more than 100,000 data points — until nine regions stood apart: the Nine Skin Longevity Zones, from the springs of Hveragerði to the Argan Forest, from Shizuoka’s green-tea hills to the fjords of Lyngen. Every Nine Aurora formula begins in those nine places.
Explore the Nine ZonesThe science
Nine zones, turned into a science
Discovery is only half the work. Everything the journey brought home — waters, botanicals, oils, rituals — goes to the laboratory, where each ingredient is identified, characterised and studied for what it actually does for skin longevity: barrier support, hydration, elasticity and radiance over time.
Formulas are then built the way the zones taught us: actives chosen to support one another, 92% ingredients of natural origin, dermatologically tested on sensitive skin — and results measured in clinical studies before a single claim reaches a label. That is skin longevity in practice: care for the body’s largest organ, verified for the long term.
To build it, Mattia reached out to Pink Frogs Cosmetics, one of the world’s leading OEM skincare manufacturers. Its founder, Matteo Locatelli, became part of The Nine Aurora Beauty Zones journey — not only as manufacturer, laboratory and science advisor, but as a shareholder and investor in Mattia’s vision: to bring to market, for the first time, a fully skin-longevity brand.
Discover our science
The turning point
The moment skin became personal
Then life brought the subject closer than any laboratory could. Mattia is a breast cancer survivor. The experience placed him inside a journey lived overwhelmingly by women — the waiting rooms, the treatments, the conversations that change how you understand your own body — and it brought him profoundly close to the women around him.
It also changed what skin meant to him: not a surface, but the body’s largest organ — a living barrier that deserves the same patience, science and care we give the rest of our health. The Nine Aurora grew from that understanding: five years of research, more than 100,000 data points, nine regions of the world where skin keeps its vitality longer — and a daily ritual designed to nurture skin for the long term.
And along the way, one of his best friends — the award-winning designer Thomas Berloffa, whose work spans from Marina Abramović to Libeskind, from Ferragamo to Lonza — chose to translate Mattia’s vision into design and packaging, creating the logo of The Nine Aurora. Today he too is a shareholder of The Nine Aurora Beauty Zones.
Long live the skin — it reads differently when you know where it comes from.
“We didn’t find one fountain of youth in our journey — we found nine and brought them together.”Mattia Miglio, founder
Good to know
Questions, answered
Mattia Miglio is the founder of The Nine Aurora Beauty Zones. A globetrotter and skincare expert with hands-on knowledge of ingredients, formulation and sourcing, he spent five years as Chief Marketing Officer of Cosmoprof, has traveled 88 countries and counting, and is now based in San Francisco.
Varese is a lake town in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy — about an hour northwest of Milan, a short drive west of Lake Como, and close to the Swiss border. Above the town, a historic pilgrims' way climbs to Sacro Monte.
The Casa Museo Lodovico Pogliaghi sits near the top of Sacro Monte above Varese — the villa of the artist who sculpted the bronze main door of Milan's cathedral, filled over sixty years with Egyptian sarcophagi, Greco-Roman marbles, Chinese vases and Javanese shadow puppets. Visiting it as a boy taught the founder that pieces of the world can be gathered and studied in one place — the idea that became the Nine Skin Longevity Zones.
Mattia is a breast cancer survivor. The experience brought him profoundly close to the women who share that journey, and it changed how he understood skin — not as a surface, but as the body's largest organ, deserving patient, science-backed care over a lifetime rather than quick fixes.
Years inside the global beauty industry — including five years as CMO of Cosmoprof — gave him practical knowledge of how ingredients are grown, harvested, certified and sourced. The Nine Aurora reflects that method: 39 zone-native botanicals paired with 67 functional actives in calibrated combinations, not a single hero ingredient.
The founder is based in San Francisco, and the brand's research spans the nine Skin Longevity Zones across the world — with formulas developed alongside experts internationally and sold in the United States and Europe.
Read the full interview "Long live the skin" in the journal, explore the science and zones pages for the research he led, or visit the Press & Creators page for coverage of the brand's story.
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