The Glossy Beauty Podcast

Mara Beauty founder Allison McNamara was surrounded by beauty growing up — her father Michael McNamara is a longstanding executive in the space. But beauty wasn't an obvious career path for her, at least not at first. "I was actually a television host and reporter before doing Mara," said McNamara, on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I worked at Popsugar, and for a long time, I did everything from fashion to beauty to entertainment, and hosted a show that was taken from digital to linear television. … I thought I was going to be the next Ryan Seacrest." After that show got canceled, McNamara had a rethink, which led her to revisit her childhood notebooks. There, she found page after page of beauty brand and product ideas. "I thought of the idea for Mara and I didn't know what would become of it," she said. "I went on the journey of creating the business but had no true intention of like, 'I'm going to build this type of brand.' It happened organically," she said. Mara Beauty officially launched in 2018, DTC first before launching in Credo. In the four years since, McNamara has been sure to keep a thoughtful eye on what she delivers: new, innovative luxury products with a clear sustainability component. "When I started the business, it was a side hustle. Now it's become a true business, which is really exciting. But at the same time, I have such a clear idea of the products I want to create and where I want to go."

When co-founders and partners Matthew Herman and David Kien started developing Boy Smells, they weren't exactly sure they had a brand. In fact, Herman said the process of making candles in their living room in 2016 was a side hustle. Both Herman and Kien were working in fashion at the time; Herman was a designer at Nasty Gal and Kien worked in production at The Elder Statesman. "We didn't have a ton of high aspirations for the brand when we first started it because we really wanted it to be a recreational little side hustle. It was in years two and three that we really started to get serious. We left our jobs. We were running the entire business out of the living room, then it was the living room and kitchen, and then the living room, kitchen and sunroom. All of a sudden, there was inventory in the hallways," said Herman on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. While "genderful" Boy Smells launched at Sephora this month, it first launched into retail via independent stores like Boy George in Austin and now closed Barneys New York, positioning the line as for a fashion savvy person but sold at a more accessible price. Equally thoughtful is the brand's perspective on collaborations. After the runway success of Boy Smells' Slowburn candle with singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves, it would have been easy for the team to take a rinse and repeat mentality to other partnerships. But Herman said whoever Boy Smells works with has to represent what Boy Smells is all about, which led the brand to its latest work with Grace Jones. In essence, Hermand said, "[We asked ourselves], 'If we could choose one person that represents our genderful values and who we are as a brand, who would we want to work with?' And we went after that person, who is not the person that the digital people who want to inform every decision about ... audience reach or whatever [would choose]. We went after the person that we really felt represented our brand values," said Herman.

The beauty industry is filled with experts, dermatologists, aestheticians and makeup artists, all trying to leverage their expertise in an increasingly crowded market. But the cosmetic chemist — the person who formulates products and oversees development — has long stayed behind the scenes. That changed when Ron Robinson debuted his skin-care brand, BeautyStat, where he is founder and CEO. After working as a cosmetic chemist at nearly all of the major beauty companies — including Estée Lauder Companies, Avon, Revlon and L’Oréal, for 25 years — Robinson decided to strike out on his own upon arming himself with compelling data. Robinson saw that there was a lack of stabilized vitamin C serums on the market and simultaneously saw strong Google search data for vitamin C. Thus, BeautyStat debuted with its hero product, the Universal C Skin Refiner in 2019, which Hailey Bieber now calls her “Holy Grail.” The brand, which started as a pure play DTC company, is sold at Violet Grey, Nordstom and Dermstore. Earlier this year, it launched in Ulta Beauty, where it is expanding nationwide. While Robinson was at ease formulating high-quality products, he didn’t expect to be such a forward-facing founder. “I had no idea that I would have that type of consumer reception,” said Robinson on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “I launched the brand with content creators and influencers being the face of the brand, but every time I stepped out in front of the camera and I showed consumers, ‘Hey, this is our vitamin C, this is why it’s important to use, this is why you need a stable form,’ consumers listened in. They asked questions, they were intrigued. They wanted to try it, they wanted to buy it.”

When Andrew Stanleick left Coty in February to become president and CEO of The Beauty Health Co., the parent company of Hydrafacial, some in the beauty industry were surprised. Stanleick was responsible for much of Coty’s recent turnaround, including the revamp of Covergirl, as well as leading the company’s joint ventures with Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics and Kim Kardashian West’s KKW Beauty. In other words, he had a dream job. But then again, the role of public beauty CEO doesn’t come up often. “I turned 50 last year, and I think what I realized was that it was a real milestone; I wanted to build and create a company and take it internationally, really leverage all of those experiences I’ve garnered from living all over the world and use that to build a company, a culture and a brand,” said Stanleick on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “Truth be told, I hadn’t heard of HydraFacial, which … I think you know, [awareness is] our biggest opportunity.” Though Stanleick has only been at the company for six months, The Beauty Health Co. has seen impressive results in his tenure — namely, the organization’s first $100 million-plus revenue quarter. Additionally, Hydrafacial has been thinking outside the box with partnerships, including with Galeries Lafayette and Jennifer Lopez’s JLo Beauty. But as Stanleick explained, there’s much more he wants to accomplish. “We feel we’re just at the start of this journey ahead of us,” he said.

Like many beauty entrepreneurs, Rachel Roff, founder and CEO of Urban Skin Rx, came up with the idea for her brand after a workplace epiphany. As a trained aesthetician, she discovered that the tried-and-true treatments found in dermatology and aesthetics environments were not suited for darker skin tones. “When it came time for me to do practicals [hands-on experience to graduate and receive a license], you have to service friends and family. I would bring in my group of friends and family, many of whom had melanin-rich skin. I would get from teachers, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that. Darker skin burns so easily. We have to keep it very basic,” Roff said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Unsatisfied with the limited skin-care solutions that were offered for people of color, Roff opened the Urban Skin Solutions Medical Spa in 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After seeing demand in that environment, Roff spun out the Urban Skin Rx brand in 2010 to serve more people. Today, it is sold in Target, Walmart and Ulta Beauty. Part of its more recent success was largely due to a viral TikTok moment in 2020. An unpaid influencer posted a before-and-after of the brand’s hero cleansing bar that forever changed the brand’s trajectory. Last year, Urban Skin Rx hit $30 million in sales. “One day at the office, my head of e-commerce [was like], our sales are triple what they should be at noon,” she said. “This girl ended up emailing us and was like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I posted this on my TikTok, and it’s now at like a million views.’ We were not on TikTok at this point as a company,” she said. “It really has been a wild ride since, even to this day, the positive and negative effects of that moment will have forever changed our brand. It has given me a lot of life lessons as a leader, as a CEO, on what I would do if it happened again.”

The road from investment banking to baking to beauty isn’t obvious, but it's a circuitous career path that led Kate McLeod to launch her eponymous skin-care brand. “I was a trader at Goldman Sachs and ended up leaving Goldman and went to culinary school. I had a made-to-order bakery and I loved what I was doing, but then life always changes,” said McLeod on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “Something very unexpected happened — I was living abroad — that brought me back to New York City in 2015.” McLeod reunited with a former boyfriend, Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge, thanks to the help of a New York Times journalist, and the two married shortly thereafter. With her love life on track, McLeod started rediscovering her own passions and personal rituals. A chance introduction by her sister-in-law to solid cocoa butter, the key ingredient of her now hero body stones, led her to play with the material in a deeper way. “The pastry chef in me came alive,” she said. “I also have a really long history and training of working with chocolate, so I took the cocoa butter into the kitchen and I thought, 'If I play with this, pretend I'm making a good ganache, what can I do to enhance that application process?’ That's really what sets us apart.” Thanks to a key endorsement from Naomi Watts, McLeod went from handmaking her body stones for friends and family to selling 20 body stones in a day in Watts’ Onda Beauty and then 40 more on a weekend. It was then that McLeod went from wrapping her stones in parchment paper to repackaging them in canisters with an official brand label. Three years later, the line is now sold at QVC and Sephora.

The indie fragrance market has gained steam in recent years as newcomer perfume brands attempt to reinvigorate the industry. One brand that is getting it right is D.S. & Durga, founded by husband and wife David Seth and Kavi Moltz. Like many small business owners at the time, the two founders launched their Brooklyn-based fragrance house nearly 14 years ago with their own funding. David Seth Moltz's love for the arts paired with Kavi Moltz's expertise in architecture helped create a brand that was different from anything on the market. Their unique approach to scents and packaging is still what separates D.S. & Durga from other competitors, but the two say, ultimately, their biggest goal is to spread joy through scents. The founders got their start in luxury through a merchandising partnership with Barneys in 2016 and recently secured a deal to sell their products in Bergdorf's in March. D.S. & Durga currently has one physical retail store in New York that opened in 2019, though there are plans to open more locations. As the company focuses on scaling this year, David Seth Moltz said those retail partnerships, and future ones, are crucial to building a strong foundation. The brand's three main business pillars are wholesale sales, direct sales and the founder. "You have to know people who know how to sell well in wholesale and how that whole system works. We have such a great sales team that does that for us," he said. In terms of the other two pillars, he said "direct" refers to speaking directly to your consumer in your stores and online. Under the founder pillar, both David Seth and Kavi Moltz are tasked with going out, building relationships, growing as leaders and collaborating with like-minded partners.

With roots in science and technology, Suveen Sahib, co-founder and CEO of K18, has been able to crack the code behind the science of hair. For Sahib, an understanding of the biology of hair was the missing component in the hair-care industry. "I took a deep dive into trying to understand the biophysics and biochemistry of hair to learn that what looks like a fiber is actually one of the most sophisticated biological composites. And, the solutions to our caring for a hair do not lie outside of hair, [but instead] they lie inside of hair," Sahib said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. After launching in the middle of the pandemic in Dec. 2020, K18 hit $75 million in sales in 2021 with just one consumer-facing product. This year, the company projects it will garner more than $100 million in sales. Though K18's strategic TikTok marketing strategy, which has included partnering with top beauty influencers Mikayla Nogueira and Brad Mondo, is partly to thank for its buzzy debut, Sahib credits the brand's tried-and-tested bio-tech formula as the main driver of its success. "We launched it at the height of a pandemic and decided to go with a global launch in 50-plus countries. It was the most brutal way of testing the product. [We wanted to make sure] that it worked literally across every hair type, every generation and every [hair-care] service," Sahib said. "That's where it delivered on its promise. Stylists loved it because they could use it in every service, no matter what hair type. It saved them time, and it made [customers'] routine much simpler in a post-pandemic world."

Despite the bevy of beauty brands hitting the market, makeup artist and industry veteran Jeanine Lobell believes every creative has the right to do just that: create. "I don't mind that [beauty is] crowded. I don't want to tell anyone not to do something. If you want to make something, go for it," Lobell said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I always feel like I need to say, 'Well, why?' 'Who are you making it for?' 'What are you making?' If you're just making it because it's an 'I want to have a brand, too' [type of] thing, that's a difficult way to go about it. But if you're making it from yourself, then — not to sound like a total nerd, but — you're trying to live your dream and I'm all for it." After successfully founding '90s "it" brand Stila in 1994 and selling it to Estée Lauder Companies five years later, Lobell knows what it takes to start a beauty brand. But her latest venture, Neen, a DTC makeup line that operates via a subscription model, required considerable unconventional thinking. Case in point: Each month, shoppers receive a Neen postcard showcasing five models all wearing the same shades in varying makeup looks. The cards include color samples to encourage trying before buying, as well as a QR code for each look that leads to a tutorial video on the brand's website. And while Lobell is considered a master in cool-girl makeup, the models — not Lobell — lead the video tutorials. As for the products themselves, they are clean, and both the postcards and product packaging are made from recycled materials. As for integrating multiple concepts into Neen, Lobell said, "I wanted to bring all these sides of myself, the person who likes to design, [prioritize sustainable] packaging [and] make product, and bring that into the culture of my brand."

Michelle Brett started her career as a travel agent before landing in beauty and working for L'Occitane and Living Proof. She worked her way up the ranks until January 2022, when she was appointed CEO of Ren, a buzzy British skin-care brand hoping to make a bigger splash in the U.S. market. “I had fallen in love with Ren in 2002 in London. Ren has always been a brand that has been differentiated. It’s always had a large niche consumer to serve and such a strong purpose,” Brett said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast episode. As a pioneer of clean skin care since its creation in East London in 2000, Ren has catered to sensitive skin. But as that conversation has become more mainstream, Ren sees itself as a leader in the space. In the last four months, Ren jumped from No. 56 to No. 24 in the U.S. skin-care brand earned media chart, according to Brett. Ren has made significant strides on the sustainability front: Last year, it met its 2018 zero-waste goal, committing to using recyclable and reusable packaging made out of recycled material. But Brett wants to remind shoppers about how good the product is. "Our job is to show people what sensitive skin is … and how our products can work on sensitive skin, not irritate it, and also deliver benefits," said Brett.

As sustainable products and packaging further cement themselves as top initiatives for beauty companies, luxury French fragrance brand Guerlain, owned by LVMH, is at the forefront of innovation. At the helm of these initiatives is Cécile Lochard, the brand's chief sustainability officer. Lochard joined Guerlain in January 2019 and was quickly promoted to her current role, a first for the brand, in March 2020. That Lochard was not your typical tried-and-true beauty executive -- she came from World Wildlife Fund -- has enabled the heritage brand to be nimble and experimental. "I was working for WWF because I was fond of animals. And I'm so lucky that integrated into Guerlain's purpose is to preserve the bee, the sentinel of the environment and the first pollinator," Lochard said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. Under Lochard's leadership, bee preservation, biodiversity regeneration, climate change, eco-packaging and women's empowerment have been some of the biggest areas of the brand's focus. Alongside UNESCO, the company launched Women for Bees in July 2021, a five-year female beekeeping entrepreneurship program. The entrepreneur program is just one of the many ways the brand is sticking true to its mission.

Digiday Media is proud to present The Return, a podcast about what the return to the office can look like as corporate America adapts to the new, not quite post-pandemic normal. The Return follows the staff at one Atlanta-based advertising agency through Covid outbreaks, as well as the highs and lows of transitioning to hybrid work after two years of pandemic lockdown and working remotely. While the future of work is still under construction, employees across the country are forging their own paths to determine what that future looks like amidst parenthood, corporate mandates, long commutes and an ever-looming pandemic. The Return is hosted by Kimeko McCoy, senior marketing reporter at Digiday, and produced by Digiday audio producer Sara Patterson. Listen to The Return on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Bubble Skincare has been one of the most talked-about Gen-Z-focused beauty brands since launching in November 2020. “My passion was always about creating brands that could emotionally connect to consumers,” said founder and CEO Shai Eisenman on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. Eisenman began her entrepreneurial journey at just 21 years old. Out of the gate, Bubble launched its affordable skin-care products with fun packaging through its own direct-to-consumer website, but in June 2021, it went big, launching in 3,900 Walmart stores. While Walmart was seemingly an unusual beauty retailer to partner with, Eisenman said that 42% of U.S. teens shop at Walmart once or twice a month for skin-care products. Since its debut, Bubble has seen week-over-week sales growth in Walmart, and Bubble has been a key pillar of the retailer's larger beauty strategy. Since the very beginning, Bubble has engaged with Gen Z; the company’s first focus groups were comprised of teens who provided feedback on the brand’s initial product lineup and formulations, as well as branding and marketing strategies. Eisenman engaged friends and family members' teens in exchange for Sephora gift cards. Looking ahead, Bubble is focused on further customizing its product offerings to satisfy customers' wants and needs. Additionally, the company is launching over-the-counter products which will enable it to steal more market share from heritage skin-care brands like Clearasil and Neutrogena.

In 1989, the six co-founders of beauty brand Lush created the now-iconic bath bomb. From there, they haven’t looked back. Lush was officially founded in 1995 as an ethical beauty brand, which now has nearly 1,000 global stores, 210 stores of which are in the U.S. Its bath, skin and hair products are sold via its DTC website and owned brick-and-mortar stores. Amid today's common need among beauty brands for wholesale distribution, Lush has managed to remain independent, setting its own agenda. “We're trying to create a cosmetic revolution and trying to get people [on board],” said Rowena Bird, one of the co-founders, on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. From the start, Lush has always favored minimalism and activism. Early on, with a small budget, the company’s co-founders decided to minimize excess packaging. It is a part of the brand's DNA that has been maintained to this day; now nearly 60% of Lush’s products are sold without any packaging and are referred to as "naked." Its revolutionary agenda also extends to social justice campaigns. Lush uses in-store campaigns, like a 2015 "Gay is OK" U.K.-focused campaign, as a form of social justice education for consumers. In 2015, Lush used its retail stores as billboards when launching the limited edition Love Soap, with 100% of every sale going to the Love Fund that supports the LGBTQ+ community. It raised nearly $400,000 then and recently brought the special soap back in May to inform consumers of the "Don’t Say Gay" bill in Florida. In 2021, the company also took a bold stance regarding social media, after studies demonstrated the harm of social media to young people. Globally, Lush left Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook. When someone goes to the brand's Lush Instagram page, they are confronted with nine posts forming the phrase "Be somewhere else." Despite this stance negatively impacting sales and brand awareness, Bird said, “You have to look at your ethics rather than your bank balance, and think [about] what's right to do.” Since its inception, Lush has always been ahead of the curve, and still, many innovative plans are in the pipeline. The company is continuing to reduce packaging, develop self-preserving products to protect product freshness and become a carbon-positive company.

When indie makeup brand Lime Crime appointed Andrea Blieden as CEO in May 2020, her first order of business was to chart a more transparent and vocal era for the business. Despite being one of the first digitally-native indie makeup brands, Lime Crime was plagued by a series of controversial incidents in the 2010s. In 2018, Lime Crime was acquired by Tengram Capital Partners. “It was time to start humanizing the brand and being transparent, because [our internal team works] transparently. I want us to operate with our customers in that same regard,” Blieden said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Blieden is also focused on continuing Lime Crime’s legacy of never putting a price on creativity. As comparable beauty brands increase price due to supply chain and inflation, Lime Crime has dropped its prices. Its Glimmering Skin Stick went from $25 to $15, for example. Lime Crime’s recent expansion into Walmart, Target and Sally Beauty has helped offset the price drop strategy, she said.

Tina Bou-Saba didn't anticipate becoming a dedicated beauty investor, but the path become clearer once she started investing in indie brands. "A few years into investing as an individual, founders started telling me, 'Tina, you've been our best investor. Could you lead our next round?'" Bou-Saba said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. Bou-Saba started her career in investment banking before transitioning to angel investing. As an angel investor, she was early to makeup brands like Kosas. "As a small individual investor, that was certainly not something that I could do, but it highlighted the opportunity for a specialist investor that could lead deals at the early stage and truly be a value-add," she said. In 2021, she co-founded Verity Venture Partners, a consumer-focused firm. The firm's focus is on female-founded beauty and wellness brands, and its portfolio brands include August, Dae and Noto. Bou-Saba said, "Independent beauty has been an incredible vehicle for female entrepreneurship. For me personally, that was something I was excited to get behind." Bou-Saba's said that, as an early-stage investor, she has to push herself and brands to think of what comes next and where consumers and the beauty industry are headed. "What I found, which gives me confidence, is that I have developed an informed perspective on the needs of [beauty and wellness] companies. I see the same questions coming up again and again," said Bou-Saba.

The Honey Pot is still only an 8-year-old indie brand, but co-founder, CEO and chief innovation officer Bea Dixon has seen her fair share of ups and downs. After a preservative system reformulation this year, the sexual wellness and feminine health brand has been involved in controversy since May. Customers took to social media to question the reformulated ingredient list, which now features the preservative phenoxyethanol and new emulsifiers. Rumors were even spreading that the company had been sold and was no longer Black-owned. In the latest Glossy beauty podcast, Dixon shares the pitfalls of going "viral." "We admitted to the fact that we could have communicated better," said Dixon. "You work so hard to do something, and when people feel like there's an opposite communication happening, you want so badly to prove that that's not the case. Sometimes it can almost be worse to do that because it looks like you're being reactive and like you're defending something. [I] try to find the fine line between not being defensive, but [rather] owning up, being vulnerable and being responsible.” However, Dixon states that the company's investors and retail partners have remained supportive throughout. "[They] understand the good preservative system, they understand things change, and they understand the complexity of social media," she said. Still, Dixon emphasized how important her customer's journey is, as the products came to life from a very personal experience. After suffering from bacterial vaginosis for eight months in 2014, Dixon woke up from a visionary dream from her grandmother with a list of ingredients to heal her condition. That led Dixon, who was then working as a buyer at Whole Foods, to found the brand as a plant-derived vaginal wellness brand. Glossy's Priya Rao spoke to Dixon about The Honey Pot’s founding story, growing list of retail partners and reformulation challenges that led to the recent social media backlash.

After becoming a mother in 2017, Sarah Paiji Yoo cut out all single-use plastics from her life for the sake of her family. In 2019, she took that practice a step further by creating Blueland, a brand offering sustainable home goods and hygiene products. Blueland sells hand soaps, home cleaners, dish soaps and laundry products, made with respective plant-based formulas. And all products come in a reusable bottle and are shipped in recyclable cardboard. Its newest product, body wash, released in May, further expands the brand into beauty. "Blueland tackles the bulkiest products people use in the personal care and beauty space," Yoo said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. In February 2022, Prelude Growth Partners, a female-founded growth equity firm, led Blueland’s fundraising round of $20 million. Blueland has raised a total of $35 million to date from investors including pop star Justin Timberlake; Nicolas Jammet, CEO of Sweetgreen; and Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway.

After 15 years in the beauty industry holding various positions, Alisa Metzger founded Innbeauty Project in 2019. This clean beauty brand, which is aimed at Gen-Z consumers through an accessible pricing strategy, sells its products in major retailers like Sephora and Credo, as well as on its direct-to-consumer site. "If you think about the average [skin-care] product price and even the average [skin-care] routine being $100 and up, and then you match that with the average U.S. salary being less than $45,000 a year, it became really evident that clean skin-care was not something that most Americans can afford," Metzger said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. Metzger worked with Jen Shane, co-founder of Innbeauty, at Tula when they noticed, “The wellness movement had taken over [beauty],” Metzer said. The early pioneers of clean beauty were at the forefront of the industry because the ingredient messaging resonated with consumers within the wellness movement. However, Metzger and Shane said they noticed that clean products at an accessible price point seemed nonexistent. The two were passionate about democratizing clean beauty. Innbeauty's prices range from $15 for a single lip oil to $120 for a 6-piece kit, which is still more affordable than the prices of individual products from some competitors. “We wanted to create a brand that spoke to [Gen Z] that didn’t exist. This industry is driven by innovation, which comes in many forms, including creating something that doesn't exist for an audience that's starving to consume," Metzger said. Metzer spoke to Glossy about the clean beauty industry, Gen-Z skin-care marketing and Innbeauty's future goals for further innovation in the beauty space.

“We're in a makeup [and] a self-expression renaissance right now," "Euphoria" makeup artist Donni Davy said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. After three years in development, Half Magic, the beauty brand by Davy and A24, debuted this week to extreme fanfare. Davy sees the brand to be an expression of "dopamine makeup," where it encourages its users to experiment with their self-expression and identity through makeup. Half Magic is selling DTC to consumers and will stay that way in order to maintain Davy’s direct and close relationships with customers. Despite the bold colors and glitter rhinestone masterpieces seen in "Euphoria," Davy wants to showcase all types of looks with Half Magic. With a wide variety of beginner-friendly lip kits, rhinestone packs, eye paint and applicator tools, Half Magic reassures customers that the "magic" of a makeup look is within oneself.

Created for BIPOC in mission and purpose, Tristan Walker’s health and beauty brand, Walker & Company, has been instrumental in shifting the norms of the beauty industry since its conception in 2013. At W&C, Black women and people of color hold the majority of leadership positions. It's changed the diversity in beauty aisles of department stores like Walmart and Target by putting razor and hair-care collections for all different hair textures on the shelves. After almost a decade of simplifying beauty and grooming for BIPOC, hygiene and home goods corporation P&G acquired Walker & Company in 2018 for an estimated $20 million to $40 million. Walker & Company's business has often been led by technology. But Walker, founder and CEO, said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast that, moving forward, the business will be led by culture. Walker’s perspective on how closely culture affects business was instrumental in the creation of Bevel and Form, W&C’s grooming and beauty brands, respectively. And prioritizing the needs of BIPOC doesn't stop at W&C's products. W&C has partnered with various community outreach programs, like Urban Prep academies in Chicago, where it donated laptops for students forced to remote-learn during Covid. Plus, it provides free mental health resources on Headpsace for W&C customers.

NYC-based makeup artist Meredith Duxbury is a well-known digital content creator among the TikTok beauty community with over 14.8 million followers on the platform. Referred to as “the complexion queen of TikTok,” she is also the face of the Morphe Making You Blush collection, which launched in March 2022. Duxbury grew up following beauty creators like Jacqueline Hill before deciding she wanted to post her own beauty content on social media. “I started on TikTok. I would stack up some cardboard boxes and make a random tripod out of whatever I could find, and I started doing [before-and-after] transitions here and there," Duxbury said on the latest Glossy Podcast. "My videos took off when I started doing rap lip-syncing videos to Nicki Minaj’s 'I’m Legit' song. And I created a trend called #thefoundationchallenge where I would smear foundation all over my face. It would get hundreds of millions of views.” The TikTok star hit 1 million followers in December 2020, and one month later, she reached 7 million followers. “I created three videos a day during quarantine and learned so much about the [influencer] industry. But I’d say 2019 was when I [first] immersed myself in the beauty world,” said Duxbury. “[The TikTok algorithm] shows that, if you’re consistent, you can grow."

When Pinterest launched in 2010, it was pegged as a supplemental platform for bloggers. Fast forward to over a decade later and it's now a regular go-to for beauty brands, beauty fans and far beyond with its buzzy ecosystem of content creators. At the helm of Pinterest's beauty division is Rachel Goodman, head of beauty partnerships, who has been with the company for seven years. During her tenure, she has witnessed the evolution of how Pinterest fits within people’s social media consumption. It has gone from being a special-occasion platform for people decorating apartments or getting married to becoming an “always-on” website for seeking inspiration and shopping. With this in mind, Pinterest has focused over the last two years on connecting the dots from providing inspiration for an idea to facilitating its realization through a purchase. “People aren't coming to Pinterest to broadcast their thoughts and opinions to a social network,” Goodman said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “People come to Pinterest to look for ideas, to discover [ideas], to save them, and to go out and do them.” In the last 12 months alone, Pinterest has launched an inclusive beauty search for hair inspiration for Black, brown and Latinx people. It launched the Creator Fund in April 2021, which aims to recruit and amplify creators of color on the platform through a mix of education, tools, free advertising and income-generating opportunities. Pinterest also became more shoppable through a new program called Idea Pins and launched a daily live-streaming show called "Pinterest TV" in 2021. Goodman spoke further with Glossy about how Pinterest is working with creators differently, which beauty brands perform well on the platform and how Pinterest is helping brands adapt their tactics.

After a wide range of beauty collaborations under her belt from her 12 years as a beauty influencer, Desi Perkins finally took the plunge and became a beauty founder herself a year ago. Launched in April 2021, her skin-care brand, Dezi Skin, now has four products, with names such as “Claro Que C” and ingredients inspired by her Mexican heritage. With over 3 million YouTube subscribers and 4.3 million Instagram followers, Perkins is focused on Instagram for her brand’s marketing but is eyeing TikTok, too. “[Instagram] is targeting its platform toward brands and a shopping experience. For brands, this is still a really, really great platform. But I would also like to dip into TikTok with the brand, in a more casual sense. That's definitely in our forecast,” she said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. Check out the entire podcast episode to learn about Perkins' development process for her brand and the way she uses audience feedback to develop products. She also shares her views on the beauty social media landscape and how it’s changed over the past decade.

Hair care has been a passion for Annie Young-Scrivner, CEO of Wella Company, since she was 13 years old when she started a side business cutting and perming hair. So when the executive was recruited from Godiva where she served as CEO for three years to join the 140-year-old hair-care and nail company, she jumped at the opportunity. Private equity firm KKR named Young-Scrivner as the CEO of Wella Company in Oct. 2020 following the announcement of its acquisition of 60% of the company from Coty. Wella distributes hair-care brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, Nioxin, GHD and nail polish brand OPI. In Dec. 2021, the company celebrated its first anniversary as an independent company. KKR and Wella Company have noted the ambitions to IPO in approximately four years. “We have a tremendous opportunity to be an incredible company. The first thing we're focused on is making sure we have the right [products] to meet the needs of the consumer,” said Young-Scrivner on the Glossy Beauty podcast. “The second thing is making sure we're growing in the right way. There's going to be lots of [exit] options for us.” When it comes to building a product and brand portfolio that stands the test of time, Wella is focusing on storytelling across all of its brands. This includes Wella Professional. Its Shinefinity long-lasting color glaze speaks to the health of hair, with the tagline “Shine you can feel." Wella has over 1,000 patented products and technologies it can use to position itself as a superior beauty company offering innovative products, Young-Scrivner said. OPI has also looked to unique opportunities to capture new customers and communities by partnering with Xbox in January. So far these efforts are paying off, as Wella’s professional sales channel has experienced a double-digit sales growth compared to the fiscal year 2019, and both its e-commerce and retail channels are growing substantially, said Young-Scrivner.

Starting out on Etsy and made by hand in the kitchen of co-founders Alex Kummerow and Julia Wills, skin-care brand Herbivore is now a rainbow-colored powerhouse with $15 million in Series A funding and distribution at Sephora. The brand’s Instagram-friendly aesthetic, emphasis on plant-based ingredients and glass-heavy packaging have attracted a loyal following. It has recently been rolling out a range of new products focused on active ingredients, including its latest vitamin C launch, as well as its bakuchiol Moon Fruit Serum, which launched this week. For this Glossy Beauty Podcast, Kummerow joined us from his home base in Hawaii to talk about Herbivore's founding story, growth and next steps. He shared details on how Herbivore went from a homemade brand to being stocked in top national retailers, how it's approached sustainability, and where he predicts beauty is headed.

After 26-years in business, Greek beauty brand Korres has a rich history to tell. Korres began as a homeopathic herbal remedy brand within a Greek pharmacy that was founded by George Korres in 1992. In 1996, the beauty brand was born, and it has since built up a portfolio of skin care, body care and fragrance products. They include staple Greek ingredients like olive oil, Greek yogurt, white pine and Assyrtiko, a white grape variety from the Greek island of Santorini. After first selling through Henri Bendel department store in 2000, Korres relaunched in the U.S. market in 2018 with a digital-first approach. This shortly followed Morgan Stanley’s investment of over $56 million into Korres in Nov. 2017, allowing the brand to push further into international markets. More recently, in Jan. 2021, the 26-year-old brand entered Ulta Beauty stores through the retailer’s Conscious Beauty program, following its Ulta.com launch in Dec. 2020. Korres is also sold at Sephora, HSN and Dermstore, With Ulta Beauty, the Korres team hopes to reach Gen-Z customers, which is a big focus for the beauty brand. Additionally, Korres plans to set up livestream shopping on its DTC e-commerce site in April. The goal is to better control its brand story and introduce people to its history as a Greek apothecary-pharmacy brand, while focusing on ingredient harvesting within Greece, in-house formulations and productions. “My vision is not to sit here and tell a story. My vision is to bring people in,” said Lena Korres, Korres co-founder and gm of North America, on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. “That’s why livestream shopping and being able to show things and introduce people [to Korres] and [let them] ask questions [is important]. That’s where I see our brand heading toward and making a difference.” In 2020, Korres earned $30 million in U.S. sales and $97 million globally. Korres expected to earn $120 million in 2021 global sales, she said, in a Glossy Jan. 2021 story.

After meeting while working at Glossier, Rebecca Zhou and Annie Kreighbaum went their own ways in the DTC world. But in 2019, they decided to get back into beauty. Nearly a year ago, they launched their body-care startup, Soft Services, which offers products addressing skin issues such as body acne and keratosis pilaris in chic packages you’d want to display on your counter instead of hiding it in your medicine cabinet. Investors have taken notice: The brand has already raised $3 million in seed funding. The idea was inspired by Kreighbaum’s beauty editorial years at Into the Gloss, where she learned that articles about common skin issues were incredibly popular, yet products offering solutions to them were hard to come by. Rather than joining the bandwagon of Gen Z-focused brands, Soft Services calls its approach “elastic branding,” when it comes to its target demographics -- and it’s not leaving out millennials. On the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Zhou and Kreighbaum discuss the need to remember millennial consumers, their approach to fundraising and the reason they don’t take a “purist” approach to DTC.

When Milk Makeup launched in February 2016, it brought a refreshing yet irreverent take on the beauty world and promoted that being bold and different was to be celebrated. Born out of the NYC-based Milk Studios, Milk Makeup made a name for itself through daring and playful products like Kush Mascara and creating blotting papers that doubled as rolling papers for marijuana joints. Today, Milk Makeup is sold in 20 countries and is a Sephora U.S.-exclusive brand. It was acquired by a special-purpose acquisition vehicle from Waldencast in Nov. 2021 alongside Obagi skin care in a three-way transaction for $1.2 billion. “Milk Makeup started with the objective of broadening and challenging the definition of beauty. The founders talk about it not as a business but as a movement rooted in the core values of inclusion, diversity, creativity, self-expression,” Tim Coolican, CEO of Milk Makeup, said on this week’s Glossy beauty podcast. Milk Makeup was founded by Milk Studios co-founder Mazdack Rassi, fashion editor and entertainment reporter Zanna Roberts Rassi, creative director Georgie Greville and product developer Dianna Ruth. As the Milk Makeup team looks toward the future of its business post-acquisition, they are focusing business efforts towards merch and product collaborations, international expansion and what it means to be a “cool” brand.

There’s no doubt that beauty brands are lining up for the chance to sign Scarlett Johansson as a brand ambassador. But now, the award-winning actress is all about The Outset, her new skin-care brand. “For a long time, I was a brand ambassador for different luxury beauty brands and beauty brands. And right around I'd say my late 20s, I was just done representing someone else's beauty, ideal or beauty standard, and felt like I was confident enough to do something that really was true to me,” she said on this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Five years in the making, The Outset was unveiled March 1 with six products. Johansson teamed up with fashion and beauty executive Kate Foster Lengyel to found the brand, which is available via DTC sales now and will launch with Sephora on April 26. Lengyel oversees the day-to-day business operations of the brand, “and then I look after Kate,” said Johansson. The marketing strategy is focused on Instagram and TikTok, but through the brand’s accounts, specifically — Johansson famously steers clear of having a personal Instagram account. “My ego is far too fragile for me to have my own social media,” she said. While she said “never say never,” when it comes to starting her own account, she added, “I cannot imagine it happening anytime soon.” On the podcast, the business partners went into more detail on the brand’s founding, including how it was inspired by Johansson's straightforward approach to skin care, as well as consumer research.

For Julian Addo, founder and CEO of textured hair-care brand Adwoa Beauty, her business is deeply intertwined with her own life story. Addo was born in Monrovia, Liberia to a Ghanaian father and Liberian mother and moved to the U.S. in 1982. She worked in a beauty salon as a stylist and then as a salon owner. After a period in banking, while still doubling as a salon owner, Addo began to see how the DTC space was disrupting not only business models, but also branding itself. Inspired by the likes of Glossier and Warby Parker, Addo saw a stark lack of such branding innovation in the natural and textured hair sector. She said she woke up one day in March 2016 determined to develop Adwoa Beauty, which shares Addo’s traditional Ghanian name meaning “female born on a Monday.” “I knew that I had to pull from my life and my experiences and my vision super heavily so that I could enjoy the brand, because it came from a passionate place,” Addo shared on this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Adwoa Beauty has been a Sephora-exclusive brand since Nov. 2019 and has 11 products. It plans to expand to an additional 158 doors in the first half of 2022, to a total of 448 U.S. Sephora doors. Adwoa Beauty is also in 48 Sephora Canada doors and will expand to all 98 locations. Approximately 65% of Adwoa Beauty sales are from Sephora, and Adwoa grew its Sephora sales 200% year-over-year between 2021 and 2020. “For me, it’s about being smart on where we go and how we move. We want to grow but not grow too fast, because there are a lot of pain points that come with just spreading yourself too thin,” said Addo. “I never really saw Adwoa Beauty as a type of brand that was in 100,000 doors. I want this brand to provide its audience with an experience they hadn’t had before.”

With over 20 years of experience in her dermatology practice, Dr. Rose Ingleton is known as the “dermatologist to the stars.” Reported to be the dermatologist of Iman, Chrissy Teigan and Adriana Lima, Ingleton took the leap and branched out with her own skin-care brand in 2019. Now stocked at eight retailers including Sephora and Net-a-Porter, Rose Ingleton MD Skincare was developed to address the most common skin issues that Ingleton sees among her patients. Dr. Ingleton, who still practices dermatology, sat down with the Glossy Beauty Podcast from her Manhattan practice to discuss all things skin care. While she won’t confirm which celebrities see her — “Unless you see them coming in and out of my office, you’ll never know who comes here,” she said — she shared details on her approach to skin care, the growth of her brand and her belief that luxury skin care is shifting toward experts.

When Mina Chae, CEO of Farmacy, first joined the farm-to-face skin-care brand five years ago as director of marketing and consumer engagement, the team was small -- so much so that she had to help box up influencer mailers and even drive to the warehouse to pack shipments during Black Friday shopping. Farmacy was founded in 2016 and was acquired by P&G for an undisclosed sum at the end of 2021. The acquisition coincided with the appointment of Chae as CEO of Farmacy. Chae stepped into the CEO role in January after previously holding the role of vp of marketing and consumer engagement. Now as CEO, her plans are to increase brand awareness, including through more advertising and marketing with out-of-home advertising and the Farmacy’s first-ever pop-up in April. “When I first started, I was responding to all of the DMs in the [Instagram] comments myself. I would stay up all night reading all of the reviews, and I still stay up all night reading all of the reviews,” Chae said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. “That puts me in a unique perspective, because I am connected to the consumer. My goal as CEO is to continue that [relationship].” Chae spoke to Glossy further about her transition to the CEO role, her plans to boost brand awareness and the brand's focus on sustainability moving forward.

When Tisha Thompson was choosing her major in college, she listened to her parents’ advice to go with a “safe” career path and choose accounting. But her passion was always makeup. “My parents were really firm on, ‘We don't want you to be a starving artist,’” she said on this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast. Fast-forward to today, past several career moves that meant leaving her comfort zone, and she has a brand -- LYS Beauty, launched in February 2021 -- that's stocked at Sephora. Thompson became inspired to found LYS Beauty while spearheading the development of 100 foundation shades when she worked at PÜR Cosmetics. When her brand entered Sephora in the fall of last year, it became the first Black-owned cosmetics brand in the retailer’s “Clean at Sephora” category. LYS Beauty is bringing inclusivity to the clean beauty space with both product range and price point. Its foundation is its No. 1 seller, followed by its distinct triangle-shaped cream blush.

While COO at The Clorox Company and, prior, vp and gm of Burt’s Bees, Nick Vlahos knew the better-for-you categorywas a key driver of consumer-packaged goods' future. The Honest Co. was first launched in 2012 by actress and entrepreneur Jessica Alba, and Vlahos has been at the helm as CEO since March 2017. Since his appointment, Vlahos has committed the brand to reinvest 2% of its revenue into research and development. He overhauled the beauty category in 2018 to have fewer products, new formulations and packaging, simpler names, and lower price points. He also moved the company from a DTC e-commerce strategy to an omnichannel one. Today, The Honest Co. products are sold online and in 32,000 retail locations, including Walgreens, Amazon and Nordstrom, and Boots in the U.K. Vlahos cites international expansion as a significant opportunity for the business in 2022, especially through its partnership with German retailer Douglas. “As we look to the future, we're going to continue to partner with the right retailers, both domestically and internationally, to be able to drive our accessibility strategy through an omnichannel lens,” Vlahos said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. The Honest Co. went public via an IPO in May 2021 at $16 a share. Currently, shares are trading below $7. In the conversation, Vlahos explains recent updates to The Honest Co.'s beauty portfolio, questions over the company’s fallen stock price and the strategy for international expansion.

When Freck Beauty's founder, who goes by Remi, first launched her brand on Kickstarter, her idea was a novel one: a makeup product that could recreate the look of freckles. Not everyone understood the idea, at first -- Jimmy Kimmel even made fun of the brand on his show. But Remi is having the last laugh. Freck Beauty launched at Sephora in February of 2021, after receiving VC investment in 2020 and widening its range of skin-care and makeup products. The brand’s freckle pen, called “Freck OG,” is a TikTok beauty darling. Its fans include a wide range of "it" girls, influencers and celebrities, including Emily Ratajokwski, Doja Cat and Lady Gaga. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast, Remi discusses the history of the brand, including its founding story, as well as its organic rise on TikTok, where #FreckleTok has billions of views. She also went over the product lineup, which has expanded well beyond the “freckle franchise.” Her approach to edgy branding and her plans for upcoming product launches were also covered.

When U.K.-based brand Pai Skincare first launched 14 years ago as an organic beauty brand, the clean category was barely in its infancy. Since then, Sarah Brown, founder and CEO of Pai, has seen the rise and transformation of the clean category. She credits the clean beauty concept for "exploding" the natural category, but said she sees a lot of greenwashing and supports legislation and regulations around clean claims. Brown came from outside the industry when she launched the brand, after trying to soothe her skin condition known as chronic urticaria, she said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Pai has since become known for its hero Rosehip Oil, as well as products including its Rosehip Fruit Extract Cleansing Oil and Chamomile & Rosehip Soothing Moisturizer. Pai sells through U.S. retailers like Credo, Free People, Bloomingdales and Skinstore. In 2020, Pai underwent a rebrand to focus on two main areas: packaging design and third-party certification. The packaging was updated to be more sustainable and better communicate Pai's brand positioning, and to incorporate third-party certification to provide credibility. "We wanted to make the brand look more contemporary and relevant, and [ensure that it also] embodied and communicated our values," said Brown. "It took about two years. It was really about [asking], 'How do we sit within this clean category and this big movement?'" In April 2021, the brand raised a Series B investment round of $9 million, which it used to increase its manufacturing output and distribution. The brand maintains a vertically integrated supply chain with a 12,000-square-foot office in West London, which houses a corporate office, a lab and a manufacturing facility.

In the heart of Los Angeles lies a seven-acre oasis known as Flamingo Estate. Flamingo Estate, the brainchild of Richard Christiansen, is a modern take on an apothecary-meets-sanctuary. Nestled in the foothills of the City of Angels, Flamingo Estate began in March 2020 during the initial upheaval of Covid-19, when all industries were reeling from its sudden shock. But what started as a passion project soon blossomed into something much more. Today, Flamingo Estate works with a collective of farmers, horticulturists and herbalists to develop a 150-product portfolio. It sells products including soap, wine, candles and condiments for the bath, garden, home and kitchen. Christiansen is also the founder of the creative agency Chandelier Creative, which he formed 16-years ago. It has since grown to have 60 employees across three offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Paris. The Australian native grew up on a honey farm but always dreamed of working in luxury goods. "I used to say to everyone at the office that our job was to fight for fantasy, because the real world is so boring," said Christiansen on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. The formation of Flamingo Estate was ultimately a confluence of coincidence, opportunity and the ineffable desire for the paradisiacal. Christiansen, whose hobby was beekeeping while living in New York, gifted people honey while on a photoshoot in Los Angeles, and one recipient asked for a favor: The favor was to place some bees in a seven-acre garden in the city, owned by an eccentric older man. When Christiansen first arrived, the man wore a leopard-print G-string and a red silk bathrobe. Eventually, Christiansen took over the Grey Gardens-esque property and turned it into a modern version of the Garden of Allah. "I put some bees in, and I saw this garden -- this amazing garden. And I thought, 'Oh my god, this is my dream.' It was all rundown and overgrown," he said. "A couple of years went by before I purchased the house." Christiansen spoke with Glossy about the origin of Flamingo Estate, his philosophy around brand building and the lifestyle brand's next steps.

In a special edition of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Jill Manoff, editor-in-chief, sat down with senior beauty reporters Liz Flora and Emma Sandler to review the year in beauty news. The previous 12 months were, in many respects, a rollercoaster. The year started and ended with a bang, in the form of multiple high-profile acquisitions and investments. Plus, the burgeoning worlds of the metaverse and NFTs ruled conversations, and social shopping and shop-in-shops increasingly dictated where and how people shop.

Not long ago, skin-care options for teens were limited to the traditional players in the market. In November 2019, beauty industry veterans Alison Haljun and Christin Powell set out to change that with the launch of Gen Z-focused skin-care brand Kinship. On this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast, the co-founders shared the brand’s founding story, as well as their approaches to distribution, marketing and learning from a younger audience. With colorful branding and a focus on sustainability and meeting clean ingredients standards, Kinship was founded by Haljun, its president, and Powell, its CEO, after they had struggled to find products for their own kids. Since its launch, the brand has entered Credo Beauty and Ulta Beauty, and collaborated with top Gen-Z skinfluencer Hyram Yarbro. The co-founders’ strategy in running the brand is based on their years of beauty industry experience. Powell co-founded original clean brand Juice Beauty, and Haljun is a Benefit Cosmetics alum, plus they sought out input from young consumers and investors. The brand consults with a Gen-Z focus group called its “Kin Circle” for everything from packaging design to product testing, and its first investor was only 18 years old.

When Dr. Yannis Alexandrides first formulated a healing serum for patients of his London-based plastic surgery clinic, he had no intention of turning it into one of the beauty industry’s most sought-after luxury brands. The brand came about after Dr. Alexandrides, a still-practicing plastic surgeon, sought a post-operative treatment that patients could use to heal any residual wounds and marks. But when one of his patients mentioned her affinity for the serum to a Harrod’s personal shopper, the famous luxury department store sought to stock the brand, and things took off from there. The location of Dr. Alexandrides' practice, at 111 Harley Street in London, inspired the brand name. Since starting with a single shelf in Harrods in 2012, the brand has slowly and quietly grown a global distribution network that includes Bergdorf Goodman, Net-a-Porter, Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols and Mecca. When the business was formed, 111Skin brought on board Eva Alexandridis, Dr. Yannis Alexandrides’ wife, as a co-founder to help with retail expansion. She now also oversees the brand's creative direction and new product development. “We never made decisions based on a board meeting or according to trends,” Dr. Alexandrides told host Priya Rao on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "We make product decisions based on patients that I see in the clinic -- on real skin problems and on real skin solutions with great results. That's what sets us apart -- being a highly scientific brand that doesn't chase the trends.” This strategy has paid for the brand, which earned $20 million in wholesale sales in 2020 and approximately $50 million in retail sales. In Feb. 2020, 111Skin raised an undisclosed amount in outside funding from Vaultier7, which previously invested in hair-care brand Gisou and fashion resale platform Vestiaire Collective.

At L’Oréal, Erica Culpepper has overseen a portfolio of brands that have been at the forefront of the beauty industry’s transformation, when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. With a tenure of over 17 years in the L’Oréal Consumer Products Division, she has worked across much of the company’s brand portfolio including holding positions at L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline and Garnier. Now the general manager for Carol’s Daughter, Softsheen-Carson and Thayers Natural Remedies, Culpepper candidly discussed the direction of the industry with host Priya Rao on this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast. “It's important to support Black-owned brands. It's also important to support Black-founded brands, as well as Black-led brands. So it's all a very big and important conversation, and we need all of it in order to be successful,” she said during the interview, discussing the backlash that some founders receive when they sell their companies. She also discussed the positive changes she’s seen in the industry, including retailers’ efforts to stock a more diverse range of brands, and the way social platforms like TikTok and a new generation of brand ambassadors are helping legacy brands reach a younger audience.

While many children begin to pursue hobbies around eight years old, they are not typically along the lines of curating a skin -care routine, unless of course, you are Shani Darden. The founder of her eponymous beauty line made a name for herself working as an esthetician for Hollywood celebrities like Jessica Alba, Kelly Rowland and Chrissy Teigen. Darden paved the way for her next role as beauty founder in 2013 after identifying a white space in the market for retinol products without the typical harsh side effects of flaking, irritation and redness, she said on this week’s Glossy Beauty podcast. After coverage in 2017 from publication US Weekly an influx of orders began. Michelle Shigemasa, former CEO of Murad and current CEO of Shani Darden Skincare, joined in July 2021 because of its “highly efficacious” products as well as Darden’s “authenticity and her approach to skin care,” said Shigemasa, who also joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast this week. Now, as the Beverly Hills-based brand approaches the end of its own eighth year, Shigemasa focuses on facilitating Shani Darden’s evolution from the inside out. In addition to building the internal team, influencer outreach, and overall brand awareness, “We want to win in a meaningful way with Sephora,” said Shigemasa. Shani Darden launched on Sephora.com and Sephora.ca in March 2020, and later in-store at Sephora in October of the same year. However, “We’re not yet a huge brand at Sephora, and that’s our ambition,” she said.

Today, "digital" is practically synonymous with fashion and beauty. But to boast an advanced knowledge of the digital world in the early aughts is what Alessio Rossi, evp of Shiseido and Clé de Peau Beauté and head of digital transformation for the Americas at Shiseido, considers "serendipitous." "I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, so that today, people can consider me a veteran of the space," said Rossi on this week's Glossy Beauty Podcast. Brands were taught to be "one talking to many," he said of the first wave of digital 20-plus years ago. "We weren't necessarily taught to listen, to get feedback and to engage in many multiple, concurrent, sometimes synchronous conversations with our audience... That was a huge change for brands around the world, specifically in luxury." Rossi landed at Shiseido six years ago, after over 12 years in the luxury industry with companies like L'Oréal and Kering. In January 2021, he transitioned to his current position, where his main task is discovering "the ongoing redefinition of what luxury beauty online means from an experiential standpoint," he said. Now, Rossi harnesses social as a community-builder, ensuring Shiseido's spot as a key successor in the U.S. beauty landscape and responding to customer preferences changed by Covid-19. The pandemic pushed shopping toward livestreaming and direct selling, he said. "We tried to reinvent the proposition immediately because this is what was needed. And we are in the process of reinventing it because consumers [have even more] options now."

With roles at Target, The Home Depot, Family Dollar and now Ulta Beauty, Kecia Steelman, Ulta Beauty chief operating officer, can legitimately affirm, “Retail is in my DNA." “Life has [come] full circle because I’m leading the Ulta Beauty at Target partnership,” said Steelman, who spearheaded the collaboration, on this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast. (Steelman worked at Target between 1993 and 2005 and has been at Ulta Beauty since 2015.) Ulta Beauty at Target, which launched in August and consists of a 1,000 square foot, Ulta Beauty expert-staffed shop-in-shops in Target, is set to reach 100 new shops by the end of this year. The curated assortment of 54 prestige beauty brands is one of the ways that Steelman has facilitated a more convenient shopping experience for Ulta Beauty's existing customers as well as create a new ecosystem of shoppers at Target, said Steelman. Additionally, Steelman has worked to expand Ulta Beauty’s digital innovation with elevated curbside and same-day pickup capabilities last year. “We shifted to be focused on self-care, self-expression, and togetherness because that’s what our guests needed from us at that time,” she said.

When Carolyn Bojanowski, svp and gm of e-commerce at Sephora, joined the retailer team in 2005, it was an opportunity to pay homage to her childhood as the daughter of a candy buyer. In her mind, Sephora was the "candy store of beauty." "Sephora has always been committed to the digital experience," said Bojanowski on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. And that e-commerce experience had to go into overdrive during the pandemic. Not only did Bojanowski spearhead the acceleration of Sephora's in-store pick-up, but she facilitated an unlikely ally in Instacart. She also launched Sephora's same-day pick-up service to expand its customer reach. "If you can give someone back time, that is another way to think about having a luxury experience," she said. During Covid-19, Bojanowski was also tasked with translating the in-store customer service experience to online, where the practicality of in-store product trial did not exist. In addition to its thorough product pages, shade finders, quizzes and UGC, Sephora launched on Sephora.com its live home chat, which enables customers to chat with Sephora's in-house beauty advisors from the comfort of their homes, said Bojanowski. This has also created a whole new retail role for the company.

Clean or effective? It's a question that the beauty industry has tried to tackle for the last decade. For Tula, a probiotic-based, skin-care brand, it has attempted to combine its doctor-founded, science-backed approach with the appeal of being a modern, clean brand,said Savannah Sachs, Tula CEO, on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. Sachs joined Tula in 2018 and has seen the brand through the rapid expansion of its team, expanded retail distribution and technological development, much of which transpired under a Covid-19 lens. Though Tula launched with Ulta Beauty in 2018, its presence within the beauty retailer grew just prior to the pandemic. The brand launched its "Skin Bar takeover" in Jan. 2020. Although Ulta Beauty stores soon shut down due to Covid, Sachs said, "We retained our retail field sales team throughout the pandemic [and] cross-trained them to educate and serve customers via chat on our direct-to-consumer business." In addition to Ulta Beauty, Tula has also met its millennial and Gen-Z customer base on TikTok, where it has amassed 380,000 followers in the past year. "We have committed to being a positive force for change in the beauty landscape in social media," she said. Tula's commitment to unfiltered spon-con through the hashtag campaign #EmbraceYourSkin this September is just one way the brand has done so.

True Botanicals chief marketing officer Rebecca Boston‘s work in the fashion industry led her to beauty, and then, specifically, clean skin care. Boston was motivated to take the True Botanicals role after working at Rihanna's Fenty Beauty because of the opportunity for a “branding refresh." “There wasn't a clean beauty brand that made a woman feel herself, feel sensual,” said Boston on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. “We need to do a better job showing that a clean beauty brand can do that for you.” But Boston’s passion for beauty started even before she worked within the marketing and social media sector for Fenty Beauty and Ole Henrickson. As a child, she traveled frequently because of her parents’ work with nonprofit organizations, said Boston. “I grew up being exposed to all different types of beauty,” she said. “I recognized the need in marketing and in advertising for more people to be able to see [the diversity of beauty for] themselves.” True Botanicals’ skin-care campaign with Olivia Wilde, in which she posed nude, as well as its sexier Instagram feed are testaments to the brand’s portrayal of diverse beauty. It also shows its transition from “granola [and] crunchy” to “glowing” and “sensual.” In the next few months, Boston plans to narrow in on launching new products and “filling gaps in our assortment.” She also wants to“[bring] on new folks who will help us reach new audiences and new age groups,” she said. “Once someone uses one of our products, they add more and more, and they want their entire skin-care routine to be True Botanicals.” Boston spoke to Glossy about the recent Olivia Wilde campaign, her plan to get people to pay attention to the brand, and the current demands of a CMO role.

While emerging from a decade dominated by sans-serif typeface and millennial pink, it may be hard to remember a time when an ode to simplicity could make a brand stand out. But when Malin+Goetz, a natural apothecary beauty brand, was founded in 2004, its “less is more” approach at a time when the market was about “more and more” initiated the brand’s journey. “We came at it from a minimalist, different direction, not only in our packaging and design, but also in our formulations and the protocols,” said Matthew Malin, Malin+Goetz co-founder, on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. “Nobody was doing unisex [in beauty] at that time." Eighteen years later, in a Covid-19 riddled world, Malin+Goetz has once again proven that it's not afraid to take the road less traveled. In this case, that's meant opening a retail location in Williamsburg, after the beauty industry saw a wave of door closures. “If a store doesn't have something special, which includes beautiful design, wonderful brands and products, and great service, it's going to be challenging in the post-Covid world,” said Andrew Goetz, Malin+Goetz co-founder (and Malin’s partner) on the podcast. And while the new normal, and how brands respond, may be uncharted territory, Malin+Goetz expects to take a multifaceted approach in its appeal to the consumer. The brand’s brick-and-mortar stores, luxury hospitality partners and e-commerce play via its own site and Amazon “are all important aspects of how to be a successful brand,” said Goetz. “Being able to support that customer through those different channels is critical.”

For many people, a bad hair day would result in a few shed tears and some variation of a head covering. However in the case of Yve-Car Momperousse, CEO and co-founder of Kreyol Essence, a beauty brand specializing in natural hair-care and skin-care products from Haiti, what started as a solution to a “hair catastrophe” evolved into a “social impact brand.” “Hair, dry skin, eczema -- for any issue you had in the Haitian community, you found [a solution in] this bottle of this product,” said Momperousse on this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast. The product in question, Haitian Black castor oil, served as the solution to Momperousee’s hair loss at the time and the foundation of her brand, launched in 2014. “We're not only looking [at] how we impact our tribe, which is what we call our customers, but we’re also looking at how we impact our producers and every part of the supply chain that it takes to make the castor oil,” said Momperousse. Aside from providing “women of color” with products for “kinky, curly hair," Kreyol Essence is “creating work for farmers, helping with the environment, exporting and changing the relationship that people have with Haiti,” she said. Now, the brand has expanded with more products, like Moringa powder, which also includes “collagen, ashwagandha and vitamin C,” for a holistic approach to beauty, she said. Simultaneously, Kreyol Essence continues to expand its retail presence, from "Shark Tank" to the shelves of Ulta to QVC. Looking ahead, Momperousse continues to look at “the larger picture,” she said. The guiding question is, “Are you doing something above and beyond what a traditional business would do, with [a] clear intention for impact either on the environment [or] for a specific group of people?”