Shows
Rooibos cosmeticsClaudia Sulewski on Cyklar's rebrand 1 year after launchClaudia Sulewski's career started at age 11, when she launched her YouTube channel with a video about applying her mom's blue eyeshadow. Today, the channel has 2.46 million followers. On Instagram, Sulewski also has 2 million followers, and she has yet another 1.1 million on TikTok. Last year, she translated her success as a creator into the launch of her brand, Cyklar, which she bootstrapped and debuted with one product, a body cream. In March of this year, Cyklar received investment from The Center, the brand incubator and investment firm that runs Phlur, Make, Prequel and Saltair — it sold Naturium to E.l.f. Bea...
2024-10-1038 min
Rooibos cosmeticsLuminaire’s Sukeena Rao: 'VICs are the driving force of the luxury business'“VICs are the driving force of the luxury business,” Sukeena Rao, co-founder of London-based personal shopping firm Luminaire, told Glossy. “They count for a large percentage of global sales with pretty much every brand.” VICs, or "very important customers," is shorthand in the luxury market for a growing subset of high-end, wealthy shoppers that are “very low key, very off the radar [and] not known to the public,” Rao told Glossy. It’s part of what she calls a shifting market where, 15-20 years ago, the luxury shopper was mostly well-known celebrities or very wealthy public figures. Whereas now, luxury shopping has b...
2024-10-0346 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDedCool's Carina Chaz on 'reshaping the way fragrance is defined and experienced'With the fragrance industry expected to generate $59.9 billion in 2024, both new and heritage brands are strategizing to differentiate in the growing market. For some, the result is offering niche scents, and for others, it's leveraging communities. For 8-year-old DedCool, a genderless, planet-first and functional approach is what sets it apart, said founder Carina Chaz. Since launching DedCool in 2016 with a self-investment of $10,000, Chaz has made her brand one to watch. In August 2022, Dedcool expanded to Sephora stores and its e-commerce channels and introduced three new product categories, including air fresheners, candles and laundry detergent. The latter, Chaz told Glossy, now...
2024-09-2634 min
Rooibos cosmeticsBlack Girl Sunscreen founder Shontay Lundy: ‘The retail landscape is not what it used to be’Shontay Lundy is on a mission to disrupt the sun-care space. She is the founder of Black Girl Sunscreen, a sunscreen brand she launched in 2016 as an alternative to the many sunscreen formulas that leave a white cast on skin, a problem that’s particularly noticeable on medium and dark complexions. The line was an instant hit and she quickly gained wide distribution at Target, CVS, Ulta Beauty, Walgreens, and Walmart, among other retailers. The brand also sells direct-to-consumer and on Amazon. In 2019, Lundy launched a children’s line called BGS Kids, which features its own branding and social marketing chann...
2024-09-1955 min
Rooibos cosmeticsExperiment's Lisa Guerrera and Emmy Ketcham on creating a brand for the 'nerdy, smart girl who ends up being cool in adulthood'Lisa Guerrera and Emmy Ketcham, co-founders of Experiment, met in 2019 at an event for the Sephora Accelerate program, which Guerrera participated in with her first business. Together, they soft-launched their skin-care brand in 2020 with a lime-green silicone sheet mask. Since then, the brand has grown to include products including a glycerin-based hydrating serum, a “micro-slugging” oil gel and a lip balm. Its first cleanser will launch in a few weeks. In April, Experiment announced a $3.3 million seed round, led by Greycroft. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, the duo discusses how they launched the company with $8,500, why th...
2024-09-1254 min
Rooibos cosmeticsEstée Lauder VP Chloe Green-Vamos talks data, AI and reverse mentorshipChloe Green-Vamos, the vp of global innovation strategy at the Estée Lauder Companies, leads the company's global research and development strategy, innovation portfolio insights and analytics, and enterprise innovation planning. She’s also the chief of staff to Estee Lauder Companies’ chief research, product and innovation officer, Carl Haney. Green-Vamos represents a new kind of executive role at a company like Estée Lauder — one that heavily relies upon collecting and understanding all types of new and emerging digital and consumer data, as well as the newest forms of media, technology and social media. On the latest episode of the Glos...
2024-09-0545 min
Rooibos cosmeticsIndustry veteran Sarah Creal on creating a brand for women over 40: 'I was part of the problem'Sarah Creal got her start in beauty while working at a Clinique counter. But it wasn't long before Creal was working in product development and marketing at major brands including Bobbi Brown, Tom Ford and Prada Beauty. In 2018, she co-founded Victoria Beckham Beauty with the former Spice Girl herself — she was CEO of that company until 2022. Then, earlier this summer, she debuted Sarah Creal Beauty, designed for luxury shoppers over 40. Sold direct-to-consumer since its launch, the brand is made up of a tight edit of skin-care and color cosmetics products including a concealer, a brightening and hydrating essence, a lip ba...
2024-08-2944 min
Rooibos cosmeticsTennis star Sloane Stephens on launching Doc & Glo: ‘Entrepreneurship is not for the weak’Sloane Stephens started playing tennis at 9 years old and quickly climbed the ranks, beating Serena Williams in the 2013 Australian Open at age 19. She is the founder of The Sloane Stephens Foundation, which works to introduce tennis to underserved students — and, as of August 21, she is the founder of Doc & Glo, a body-care line that debuted with two products: the $18 Game-Changing Deodorant and the $22 24/7 Hustle Deodorizing Body Mist. The brand is named after Stephens’ grandparents. Her grandfather was an OB/GYN, while her grandmother "had all these girls' groups and always gave back," Stephens said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. The bran...
2024-08-2240 min
Rooibos cosmeticsBeautyCounter alum and Ritual chief impact officer Lindsay Dahl on how to lead a mission-driven brandBack in 2014, Lindsay Dahl’s career trajectory took an unexpected turn. She’d spent a decade working at chemical safety- and environmental-focused nonprofits in Washington D.C. before she got an offer she couldn’t refuse. “I never thought I would go to the corporate side,” Dahl told Glossy. “If I'm being honest, I really liked being a part of the nonprofit community where I felt like I could be both challenging companies and also challenging those in power in government.” But then she got a call from BeautyCounter. “I sat down and talked to Gregg [Renfrew], the founder and CEO, and she said...
2024-08-1546 min
Rooibos cosmeticsL'Oréal President Nathalie Gerschtein on intuition, trends and the mass beauty shopper: ‘There's really only one consumer’Nathalie Gerschtein’s career at L’Oréal started before she even graduated college. “One of the reasons I joined L'Oréal, [which I met] on campus [in college], was because it would give me the opportunity to work internationally, and I knew I really wanted to discover different cultures, different go-to-market strategies,” she told Glossy. “Then when I started to work in beauty, I realized how joyful it is because beauty is about self-esteem, it's about self-confidence, it's about self-expression. And it makes people happy to interact with this category. So here I am, 22 years after starting in L'Oréal, [and] I'm...
2024-08-0840 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCosmetic chemist Javon Ford on his unorthodox career pathWhen Javon Ford (@javonford16, 455,400 TikTok followers) graduated college, he knew he wanted to be a chemist and wanted to work in the cosmetics industry. What he didn’t anticipate was becoming wildly popular on TikTok with nearly half a million followers. Ford’s background in chemistry, working on making new formulations for cosmetics companies, has given him an in-depth knowledge of what goes into beauty and skin-care products. His videos involve him busting some of the most widespread myths in beauty and skin care, pointing out which ingredients are harmful or, more commonly, useless. In a recent video, he helped diag...
2024-08-0139 min
Rooibos cosmeticsAfter selling Kiehl’s to L’Oréal, the Heidegger family is ready to scale RetrouvéWhen it comes to influential families in the beauty industry, Jami Morse Heidegger and daughter Hannah Heidegger are in a class all their own. They represent the third and fourth generations of skin-care brand owners in the U.S. dating back to the late 1800s. After immigrating to the U.S. as a child, Jami’s grandfather Irving Morse apprenticed for John Kiehl, the founder of Kiehl’s Apothecary in New York City. In 1921, when Kiehl retired, he allowed Morse to buy the brand and, for the next eight decades, it was Morse’s family business. For Jami, Kiehl’s Apothecar...
2024-07-251h 18
2024-07-1828 min
Rooibos cosmetics213Deli founders on building a ‘text commerce’ beauty retailer: ‘Nobody wants to download an app’Before business partners Nicole Collins and Corey Weiss launched the 213Deli text-commerce beauty shopping platform last year, they were behind the scenes working for digital commerce trailblazers like Ipsy and Flip. Weiss worked in media at Sony Pictures and Yahoo before spending a decade growing the business side of Ipsy, a beauty subscription service started by Michelle Phan in 2011, where he met Collins. Meanwhile, Collins spent four years at Ipsy growing the brand partnerships team before joining the founding team at Flip, a shopping social network. Collins was also the co-founder of Yume, a Chinese-American company responsible for launching American b...
2024-07-1137 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJess Hunt on Refy Beauty's signature Brow Sculpt, recent complexion launch and success at SephoraJess Hunt, now 27, has been creating content for over a decade. She has 1.7 million followers on Instagram, where she got started, and another 184,000 on TikTok. Through her career as a content creator, she met Jenna Meek, formerly the founder of a beauty brand called Shrine, who eventually became her co-founder. Today, the duo runs Refy Beauty. Refy launched in 2020 and hit shelves at Sephora by 2021. Hunt's bold, bushy brows provided the impetus for Refy. On set for a photoshoot, Meek watched Hunt doing her brow makeup and asked her for details. Hunt spilled that it took a multitude of products...
2024-06-2736 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDC attorney Katlin McKelvie on forming MOCRA in the Senate and the 'black box' deadline coming next from FDAIn December, America’s first big move to regulate the beauty industry in more than 80 years went into effect with the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulatory Act of 2022, best known as MoCRA. But it isn’t until the end of this month that the industry will meet its first big deadline from the Food & Drug Administration. By July 1, brands and manufacturers must provide a list of their products and where they were made to the FDA through its online portal called Cosmetics Direct. It’s the first of many deadlines and requirements, some of which are still in flux, that will slowly...
2024-06-2032 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDeepica Mutyala on growing Live Tinted's complexion categoryIn May, Live Tinted turned five years old. The brand was founded by Deepica Mutyala, a veteran of both the corporate beauty space, as a one-time manager at Birchbox, and the creator space — Mutyala has 502,000 followers on Instagram. Live Tinted launched in 2018, four years after Mutyala went viral on YouTube (333,000 followers) for a video about correcting dark circles with red lipstick. That video, which has 10 million views, landed her a segment on "The Today Show," and led to her quitting her full-time job and focusing full-time on the beauty brand. Today, Live Tinted sells the Huestick All-Over Color Corrector, which is i...
2024-06-1334 min
Rooibos cosmeticsAS Beauty Group's Sara Mitzner: 'We keep women 40 and older in mind' at every stage of the brandUnlike many beauty executives, Sara Mitzner, vp of brand marketing at AS Beauty Group since 2019, started her career in fashion. Her resume includes roles a Complex, Fullbeauty Brands and Swimsuits for All. AS Beauty Group is a personal care product company that owns Cover FX, Laura Geller Beauty, Julep Beauty, Mally Beauty and Bliss brands. Mitzner has led many of AS Beauty brands' biggest marketing moves, including Laura Geller Beauty pivoting its strategy to attract and acquire more mature consumers. According to Mitzner, in April, AS Beauty Group's sales were up 140% year-over-year. "It's been fun for me to be at...
2024-06-0647 min
Rooibos cosmeticsTaylor Frankel on 10 years of NudestixTaylor Frankel is one of three co-founders of Toronto-based Nudestix. And, as the beauty brand's main face, she has been spending the year celebrating its 10-year anniversary. She founded the brand with her sister, Ally Frankel, and her mother, industry veteran Jenny Frankel, when the two sisters were teenagers. In today's competitive beauty market, making it to the 10-year mark deserves to be celebrated. As such, the brand has kicked off a tour, during which Frankel will participate in brand activations in her home base in Toronto, as well as in New York, Los Angeles and London. These customer-facing events...
2024-05-3045 min
2024-05-2334 min
Rooibos cosmeticsPrequel Skin's Dr. Sam Ellis: 'A dermatologist founded brand can be approachable, rather than prestige'
2024-05-1635 min
Rooibos cosmeticsProse CMO Megan Streeter: AI is at the core of who we areWhen Prose launched in 2017, custom hair care was an untapped market, allowing the brand to disrupt the space. Since then, Prose has sold over 10 million units and expanded to skin care, in May 2023. May 2023 also marked a significant milestone for Prose: It reached profitability before bringing in about $135 million in sales for the year. In 2024, co-founder and CEO Arnaud Plas estimates the brand will do about $160 million in sales. Plas credited the brand's skin-care line as a major driving force behind its profitability. It has been reported that the category accounts for about 10% of the brand's sales. In its next...
2024-05-0931 min
Rooibos cosmeticsWestman Atelier's Gucci Westman & David Neville: An engaging, authentic founder is 'very rare in the luxury category'Since launching in 2018, Westman Atelier has become one of the most covetable brands in luxury beauty. From the $68 foundation sticks that introduced the brand to the market to newer launches like the Lip Suede Matte Lipstick ($50) and, most recently, the Suprême C serum ($325), the brand's products are the kind that people like to show off on their vanities or pull out of their handbags. The Suprême C serum is its second skin care product — the brand will be leaning more heavily into the category in the months ahead, with plans to grow it to 10% of its business in the...
2024-05-0250 min
Rooibos cosmeticsBillie's Georgina Gooley on the company's post-acquisition growthAs more consumers indulge in self-care at home, the body-care category is continuing to grow, allowing brands to seize the moment. For 7-year-old body-care brand Billie, which was acquired for $310 million by personal care company Edgewell in 2021, the body-care surge couldn't have come at a better time. Before the acquisition, Billie solely sold direct-to-consumer. But in 2022, it launched in Walmart before expanding to Amazon, Target, Ulta and Kroger last year. In February, Billie rolled out its biggest category expansion yet with new body wash, body lotion and deodorant products. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Cooley talks...
2024-04-2527 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDigiday Media Presents: The Return Season ThreeDigiday Media's WorkLife is proud to present season three of The Return, a podcast about the modern workforce, with this season focused on middle management. Last season, we heard what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world. We highlighted themes like why values are so important to Gen Zers, whether or not they are loyal to their employers, how they use TikTok for career advice, what it means to be a young professional who is a boss to older workers, and so much more. This time, we’re hearing from...
2024-04-2103 min
Rooibos cosmeticsTina Chen Craig on being 'the world's most reluctant beauty founder'Tina Chen Craig started Bag Snob, her original claim to fame, in 2005. She hustled her way to the front row of New York Fashion Week when "blogger" was still a dirty word and before "influencer" was in anyone's vocabulary. Then, in 2019, she did something she never expected to do and launched a beauty product, marking her first step in building a full beauty brand spanning skin care, body care and color cosmetics. Called U Beauty, the brand launched on Net-a-Porter in November 2019 with Chen Craig's original product, the Resurfacing Compound. Based on units sold, it's still the brand's bestseller. The...
2024-04-1853 min
Rooibos cosmeticsRodial Group CEO Maria Hatzistefanis on growing a self-funded beauty brandRunning two beauty businesses without outside funding is no small feat, but Maria Hatzistefanis, founder and CEO of Rodial and Nip+Fab, is making it work. And her businesses are thriving. Hatzistefanis launched the luxury skin-care and makeup brand Rodial in 1999, after being fired from her investment banking job in her early 20s. She went on to launch Nip+Fab in 2010. Now best known for its bestselling Glycolic Fix product range, Nip+Fab was originally meant to be Rodial's more accessible, mass-market little sister. "My idea [for both brands] was to come up with products that would give you instant...
2024-04-1133 min
Rooibos cosmeticsKatie Sturino on bringing Megababe to the massesAlong with being the founder of 7-year-old Megababe, Katie Sturino is an influencer (803,000 followers on Instagram, 25,000 on TikTok), a body positivity advocate and the author of the book "Body Talk," published in 2021. Megababe is best known for its first product: Thigh Rescue, an anti-chafe stick of which over 1 million units have sold. In addition to being sold at Target, Ulta, Goop, Anthropologie and Nordstrom, among other retailers, the brand launched at Walmart in early March. "Megababe is still self-funded; we have never taken $1 of fundraising," Sturino said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "It's a different type...
2024-04-0431 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCEO Oliver Zak on Mad Rabbit's Walmart expansion, Discord community and competitionTattoos are now big business for the beauty industry. Since 2021, tattooing and tattoo care products have attracted both investor and strategic acquirer attention. Brands like Mad Rabbit have raised millions in outside funding to provide tattooed customers with before, during and aftercare products. According to a 2015 Harris Poll, more Americans are getting tattoos, with 29% having at least one. Specifically, 47% of millennials have one compared to over 36% of Gen Xers. What was previously associated with only select groups of people, tattoos are now more common among people from all walks of life. “A big agenda of Mad Rabbit overall is continuing to...
2024-03-2830 min
Rooibos cosmeticsLo Bosworth on expanding Love Wellness beyond vaginal healthLove Wellness, the supplements brand created by "Laguna Beach" alum Lo Bosworth in 2019, is now five years old. The brand's bestsellers include its Good Girl Probiotics and The Killer boric acid suppositories, both designed to support vaginal health, as well as its Bye Bye Bloat de-bloating supplement, of which 2 million bottles have sold. Last week, Bye Bye Bloat became a full-blown franchise with the launch of the brand's first true body-care products: a $14.99 Lymphatic Massage Roller, a $24.99 Firming Clay Body Mask and a $19.99 Detoxifying Body Oil. On this week's episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Bosworth discusses the origin story...
2024-03-2137 min
Rooibos cosmeticsClinique global brand president Michelle Freyre: Brand relevancy is key to 'break through and achieve success'
2024-03-1452 min
Rooibos cosmeticsSara Foster on Favorite Daughter's expansion to 'multiple categories'Though actor, podcaster, investor and brand founder Sara Foster never intended to launch a clothing line, it turns out she's quite good at it. Four-year-old Favorite Daughter, which she and her sister Erin Foster created in partnership with Centric Brands, was profitable by year two, she said. In 2023, the brand tiptoed into beauty, launching a duo of lip oils with Saint Jane, the "clean" beauty brand founded by Casey Georgeson. Now, with Georgeson's help, Favorite Daughter is launching its first two fragrances — one for each sister. Sara Foster's signature is called "Grecian Nights," while Erin Foster's is "Italian Summers." "We kne...
2024-03-0741 min
Rooibos cosmeticsKendo Brands' Sarah Koch: Brand relevance is 'the million-dollar question'Maintaining the cultural relevancy of a 40-year-old brand is no small feat. However, Sarah Koch, svp and gm of Kendo Brands, is up to the task when it comes to OleHenriksen skin care. “You have to be true to your core as a brand, but then you have to continue to evolve with the consumer so that you're relevant to where he or she is in their lives,” said Koch on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. The anti-aging brand was founded in 1983 by Ole Henriksen, a Danish esthetician who developed a collection of products that exfoliate, treat and...
2024-02-2933 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCEO Kyle Leahy on what Glossier has in common with Taylor Swift and whether it's reformulated its You fragranceKyle Leahy, Glossier's first CEO after its founder Emily Weiss vacated the role in May 2022, has had a busy first year-and-a-half in the job. She brought the brand into wholesale for the first time. brokering its partnership with Sephora, which has been a great success. She's also continued the brand's WNBA partnership, launched its first college tour and increased the cadence of its launches. But perhaps most importantly, she can be credited with the revival of the brand, which, as she said in her 2023 Glossy 50 profile, is a long-haul job: “We genuinely believe we’re on year 10 of building a 100-year...
2024-02-2236 min
Rooibos cosmeticsAllergan Aesthetics' Carrie Strom on the 'aesthetics generation' and new frontiers for injectablesBotox has dominated the neurotoxin market since its FDA approval for cosmetic use in 2002. However, its iconic status would not be possible without the backing of global company Allergan Aesthetics. In addition to Botox, Allergan Aesthetics itself a subsidiary of pharmaceutical company AbbVie, which houses aesthetics brands including Juvéderm, SkinVive, Kybella and Coolsculpting, among others. In its full-year 2023 earnings released in February, AbbVie reported that the global net revenue of its aesthetics portfolio was about $5.3 billion, with global Botox Cosmetic's net revenue reaching $2.7 billion and global Juvéderm's net revenue equalling $1.4 billion. Leading this portfolio of aesthetics products, and gu...
2024-02-1530 min
Rooibos cosmeticsRenée Rouleau on taking on retail partners after 27 years in businessRenée Rouleau, the celebrity esthetician and entrepreneur, opened her first spa and launched her first product in 1996. By 1999, she had become an early entrant in e-commerce. Today, rather than giving facials, Rouleau is focused on her role of founder and CEO of her brand, which offers a robust assortment of SKUs. Still, she makes time for celebrity clients, which include Lili Reinhart and Demi Lovato. Rouleau is known for her unique approach to categorizing skin — she does so by assigning it to nine types, rather than the traditional three or four. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty...
2024-02-0834 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMoroccanoil's Carmen Tal: 'The way the consumer is going to the salon has changed'Though Moroccanoil co-founder Carmen Tal initially launched the 15-year-old hair- and body-care brand with little to no beauty experience, she has been able to grow it into a global empire. In February 2023, Moroccanoil, which is currently distributed through thousands of salons, announced a three-day, Las Vegas-based event for professional hairstylists called The Collective. Meant to showcase the brand's network of global talent, the sold-out event eventually hosted 2,000 people in Las Vegas. "Every [attendee] had the opportunity to either learn or demonstrate their skills. It was incredible to see the [hair-care] community, which is very close, share information," Tal said on...
2024-02-0135 min
Rooibos cosmeticsE.l.f. Beauty's Laurie Lam on the brand's latest marketing project, a film dubbed 'Cosmetic Criminals'This week, we’re doing things a little differently. Joining us on the Glossy Beauty Podcast is Laurie Lam, E.l.f. Beauty's chief brand officer, providing an up-close look at the beauty brand’s latest project: a 15-minute short film, “Cosmetic Criminals,” which is playing in select AMC theaters before the start of the movie “Mean Girls”. It is also streaming on Amazon Freevee. The film parodies the true crime genre, prompting viewers to piece together who is “E.l.f.-pinching,” which is the brand’s term for “borrowing” products without intending to return them. The concept, Lam said, was introduced t...
2024-01-2523 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCalifornia Naturals founder Shelby Wild: In mass retailers, 'the focus is on clean'With over a decade's worth of experience in the hair-care industry, entrepreneur Shelby Wild is now venturing into the mass hair-care space. In July 2023, Wild unveiled California Naturals, a clean hair-care brand that launched direct-to-consumer and with exclusive distribution at Target. Compared to her previous hair-care brand, Playa, Wild is taking a different approach to hair care by zeroing in on more affordable but still effective products. Currently, all of California Naturals products are priced under $10. According to previous Glossy reporting, prior to launching California Naturals, Wild raised $4 million from consumer investors L Catterton, Sandbridge, Midnight Venture Partners and Elizabeth...
2024-01-1830 min
Rooibos cosmeticsAshley Tisdale on transitioning from actress to wellness brand founderAfter working in Hollywood for over two decades, Ashley Tisdale has now set her sights on the wellness space. In 2020, she launched an online community platform called Frenshe with the goal of making wellness and wellness-focused goals a bit more accessible to all. Two years later, that community transformed into the wellness brand Being Frenshe. And in July 2022, the brand launched at Target with a 45-product assortment spanning candles, body washes, hair masks and bath bombs. "I wasn’t even thinking about doing a product line. I was very much just wanting to connect with people," Tisdale told Glossy in a...
2024-01-1133 min
Rooibos cosmeticsPacifica Beauty's Brooke Harvey-Taylor: 'We've always been part of the clean movement'Before the term "clean beauty" was coined, brands were making notable strides in the space. One of those was Pacficia Beauty, a 100% vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand founded in 1996 by Brooke Harvey-Taylor and her then-partner-now-husband Billy Taylor. The brand, which is currently based in Portland, Oregon, is partly a love letter to Harvey-Taylor's childhood, she said. She grew up on a ranch in Montana where she was first introduced to the world of clean, cruelty-free beauty. "[Pacifica] is a beauty company based on the strong beliefs that animals, humans and the planet should be treated with compassion and that fearlessness...
2024-01-0437 min
Rooibos cosmeticsGlossy Year-in-Review Beauty Podcast: A contracting finance landscape, TikTok’s big opportunity and the regulatory learning curveOver the past year, the Glossy Beauty Podcast has provided an insider’s look into the beauty industry through thoughtful interviews, unique perspectives and forward-thinking commentary. But this week, we’re taking a look backward. For the final episode of the year, hosts Emma Sandler, Glossy’s beauty and wellness editor, and senior reporter Sara Spruch-Feiner, are joined by myself, Glossy’s West Coast Correspondent, to reflect on 2023 and offer our predictions for the year ahead. The changing finance landscape — and how it impacted brand closures, as well as mergers and acquisitions — was a topic du jour. As was the opportunity fo...
2023-12-2835 min
Rooibos cosmeticsITK's Brooklyn & Bailey McKnight on simplifying skin care for Gen Z and Gen AlphaBrooklyn and Bailey McKnight, the 23-year-old identical twins and co-founders of ITK Skin, got their start on YouTube in 2013, where they now have over 7 million subscribers. They also have 9.3 million followers on Instagram and 6.6 million on TikTok. Together, in partnership with the beauty incubator Maesa, the sisters launched ITK in August 2022. The brand started at Walmart, with 15 products priced at $7-$15. But, by the time they launched ITK, the McKnight sisters were already veteran founders, having launched their first business venture, clothing and mascara brand Lash Next Door, when they were just 16. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beaut...
2023-12-2146 min
Rooibos cosmeticsAccess VC's Rakesh Narayana: Investors have a responsibility to envision the future of consumer productsOver the past five years, corporate venture capital (CVC) has emerged as a major player in the startup funding space. And CPG company Reckitt plans to be front and center of that change through its own CVC firm, Access VC. In 2020, Rakesh Narayana, gm of Access VC, saw that most consumer venture funding was flowing toward traditional food and beverage consumer brands, not categories like sexual health and hygiene, to which Reckitt is dedicated. Reckitt owns brands like condom brand Durex, feminine hygiene brand Queen V and sexual wellness brand KY. Additionally, there was a dearth of brands serving or...
2023-12-1439 min
Rooibos cosmeticsChillhouse's Cyndi Ramirez on filling a white space in self-careCyndi Ramirez founded Chillhouse, a self-care spot in SoHo, in 2017. The idea was to solve for a white space she’d observed: a place to get an affordable massage, a manicure and an adaptogenic matcha latte, all under one roof. During Covid, Chillhouse pivoted quickly to ensure its survival, launching press-on nails featuring its signature cool-girl nail art. Since then, the brand has also launched a suite of body-care products including a body scrub, mist and in-shower lotion. Today, these products account for around 70% of the brand’s business and are sold at retailers like Target and Urban Outfitters. On this...
2023-12-0743 min
Rooibos cosmeticsOlamide Olowe on teaching Topicals customers about skin neutrality: 'There's no wrong or right answer in your quest for beauty'Olamide Olowe is a born entrepreneur. The Topicals skin-care founder grew up in an entrepreneurial household and pursued track running, which enabled her to earn a scholarship to UCLA, where she initially studied pre-med to become a dermatologist. Topicals was born after Olowe's college roommate revealed a family connection to SheaMoisture. On the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast, Olowe said she learned that skin care, dermatology and beauty could be made accessible over the counter. The name Topicals serves a dual function because it means both something applied on the skin and something that is culturally relevant or...
2023-11-3032 min
Rooibos cosmeticsPritika Swarup on using her Prakti beauty brand to mainstream AyurvedaPritika Swarup has built a large following, thanks, in part, to her successful career as a model. A graduate of Columbia Business School, Swarup founded her skin-care brand, Prakti, in 2021. It was designed to blend Ayurvedic tradition with modern skin-care ingredients. It soft-launched with one product, an exfoliating powder. Today, the brand has six products and sells direct-to-consumer, though expansion into retail will come next year. On this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pritika discusses balancing modeling and brand-building, introducing the U.S. consumer to Ayurvedic ingredients, and giving back via Operation Smile, for which she is a global a...
2023-11-1637 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMona Kattan on growing Kayali: 'Every delay has a blessing'Mona Kattan has been obsessed with fragrance her whole life. So after building Huda Beauty with her sister, Huda, following its launch in 2013, she decided to build her own brand, Kayali, starting in 2018. Now, Huda Beauty, Kayali and Wishful (which makes skin care) form the Kattan sisters' beauty empire. Kattan's passion for scent is evident when she speaks about perfume. In January, she shared a video on YouTube displaying her "fragrance library," which stores over 3,500 bottles. Kayali, she shares on this episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast, had a big year. It launched its Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 perfume, a limited...
2023-11-0939 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDr. Dhaval Bhanusali on dermatology, serial entrepreneurship and working on Rhode with Hailey BieberDr. Dhaval Bhanusali's office is in New York City. But, on any given day, he could be in Miami or Los Angeles, or just about anywhere else, working on one of the various side projects that keep him busy both in and out of the dermatology office. Dr. Bhanusali has founded multiple companies including Skin Medicinals, a prescribing platform allowing dermatologists to custom-create formulas for their patients at lower prices than traditional prescriptions. There's also HairStim Labs, which similarly aids in the creation of products helping patients experiencing hair loss, and Aire Health, which lets dermatologists create over-the-counter skin-care routines...
2023-11-0240 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJoey Gonzalez, CEO of Barry’s, on why after 25-years, Barry’s fitness is just getting startedJoey Gonzalez, CEO of Barry’s, said he used to hate working out in group settings. Living in Los Angeles in 2004, Gonzalez found his way into the workout studio and fell in love with it. Barry's -- formerly Barry's Bootcamp until 2015 -- first began in Los Angeles in 1998 under Barry Jay. At the time, Barry's had a military boot camp theme with camouflage decorations and dog tags for clients. But over time, the fitness brand has shed that image in favor of a broader and more high-end aesthetic, including its well-known red lighting. The cult favorite workout studio now celebrates it...
2023-10-2634 min
Rooibos cosmeticsViolette Serrat on building Violette FR to be a 'modern maison'Violette Serrat, the mostly mononymous makeup artist behind the brand Violette FR, decided to become a makeup artist as the result of a costume party. She put some glitter on a friend’s face for the event, and inspiration struck. After pounding the pavement doing various makeup jobs, in 2011, she was discovered by Vogue France, which helped to kickstart her career. Since then, she has worked with the biggest beauty brands in the world. She's been a product development consultant for Sephora, an ambassador for La Mer and global beauty director of Estée Lauder. She is currently Guerlain’s global...
2023-10-1931 minRooibos cosmeticsIntroducing The Return Season TwoDigiday Media and WorkLife is proud to present season two of The Return, a podcast about what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world. In season one, The Return followed an Atlanta-based advertising agency as the company returned to the office after a two-year pandemic hiatus. There were clear challenges among this population of workers who knew what a “normal” office used to look like. But what about a generation that is entering the workforce post-pandemic and has nothing to compare it to? That’s what we uncover across eight ep...
2023-10-1502 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJo Malone on her second act, Jo Loves: 'I wanted to sit at the banquet of opportunity.’Jo Malone, CBE, was born special. She was born with synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon wherein one sensory stimulation can create involuntary experiences for another. For Malone, this means she can experience smells visually. Malone parlayed this uniqueness into creating Jo Malone London, a global fragrance brand that The Estée Lauder Companies bought in 1999 for an undisclosed sum. Malone left the brand in 2006 after a breast cancer diagnosis, which rendered her unable to smell at the time. After a 5-year hiatus from fragrance, she reentered the category with Jo Loves. “I've learned over the last few years that fragrance is not...
2023-10-1230 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDr. Shereene Idriss on building a community and rarely accepting brand partnershipsFor the past 10 years, Dr. Shereene Idriss has been a practicing dermatologist in New York City. And in 2018, she also became a social media star. Today, Dr. Idriss has 657,000 followers on Instagram, 441,000 on TikTok and 704,000 on YouTube. In October 2021, she opened her own practice, Idriss Dermatology, in Manhattan. Then, a year later, in October 2022, she launched PillowtalkDerm, her skin-care brand, named for the content series she'd become known for. In #PillowtalkDerm social media content, Dr. Idriss can often be found in bed, in her pajamas, educating her followers about skin care in her typical no-B.S. style. While Dr. Idriss...
2023-10-0537 min
Rooibos cosmeticsNoble Panacea CEO Céline Talabaza on why luxury beauty ‘cannot be copied’It is notoriously difficult to succeed in the luxury indie beauty space, and not many brands do. But by all accounts, Noble Panacea has superseded all expectations. Noble Panacea launched in Oct. 2019, emerging as the result of the scientific discoveries of Sir Fraser Stoddard, a scientist who has received numerous awards, including the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His discovery of the organic super molecular vessel technology, also called OSMV, is the core of Nobel Panacea and its unique ingredient delivery system. The brand made a splash with a launch event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City...
2023-09-2842 min
Rooibos cosmeticsSabrina Elba on creating S’able Labs with husband Idris Elba: 'We never wanted this to be about us.'When Idris and Sabrina Elba, husband and wife, launched their gender-neutral skin-care brand, S’able Labs, in July 2022, it was just ahead of the boom in celebrity beauty launches. The brand had been in development for over a year, born during the height of the Covid-19 era. The impetus was an Instagram Live series the couple started together called "Together Tuesdays," in which they talked about couples. The idea of S’able Labs is that skin care is genderless and something that couples can share. Growing up in Vancouver, Canada and experiencing acne as a teenager, Sabrina Elba became a beau...
2023-09-2140 minRooibos cosmeticsMango People founder Sravya Adusumilli: 'Launching the brand was the hardest part'Sravya Adusumilli, the founder of Mango People, never thought she would become a makeup brand founder. But, after spending her academic career in a chemistry lab, she found she preferred being an entrepreneur. Mango People is Sephora’s first Ayurvedic-inspired makeup brand, selling via Sephora.com. Mango People products include a bronzer stick, a highlighter stick and a multi-stick for cheek, lip and eye application. After becoming unsatisfied with the lipsticks she used, Adusumilli developed the brand around 2017 while she was a college student studying chemical engineering. After a series of experimentations, which included accidentally dying her mother’s kitchen pink...
2023-09-1438 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson on going clean and glam with new makeup venture, Polite SocietyWhen Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson first launched Too Faced back in 1998, the beauty startup world was a whole different game. Over the decades, the co-founders powered through all the big changes in the beauty industry, from the rise of Sephora to the onset of the influencer era. After Estée Lauder Companies acquired Too Faced in 2016, Blandino and Johnson are at it again with a new company and two brand launches. Their new makeup brand, Polite Society, was unveiled on August 27 with Ulta Beauty as its retail partner. It joins the roster of Blandino and Johnson's new parent company, T...
2023-09-0749 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCurie founder and CEO Sarah Moret on leveraging 'Shark Tank' and Walmart to grow the businessIt's no secret that natural deodorant gets a bad rap. Clean beauty consumers looking for brands that leave out ingredients such as aluminum have long complained of having trouble finding something that works. These frustrations were what inspired Sarah Moret to found body-care brand Curie in 2018. Aluminum-free deodorant has come a long way since then, as Curie’s latest news shows: The brand launched into 4,300 Walmart locations nationwide on August 22. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Moret tells the story of the early days of the brand and the pivots she made along the way, including the i...
2023-08-3136 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMakeup artist and founder Patrick Ta on finding success through social mediaPatrick Ta has come a long way from the MAC counter, where he started working over 12 years ago in Scottsdale, Arizona. Today, the brand founder and full-time makeup artist travels the country creating looks for Gigi Hadid, Sydney Sweeney, Camila Cabello and Alix Earle, among other well-known names. He often documents the process or the finished looks for his following of 3.4 million on Instagram and 1.2 million on TikTok. In 2019, Ta launched his namesake brand with a small array of products including a body oil, a lip gloss, a face mist and a fan to set the makeup in place. Since...
2023-08-2436 min
Rooibos cosmeticsScotch Porter founder Calvin Quallis: 'Beards have staying power’Back in the day, the men’s grooming category was synonymous with shaving products. But not anymore. The rising acceptance of facial hair has led to a boom in beard-care products. Take Scotch Porter, for example. On top of the fact that it's the top-selling beard-care brand at Target, its beard conditioning balm is the No. 2 best-selling product in the retailer's entire men’s care category. “Beards have the staying power,” said Scotch Porter founder Calvin Quallis on this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Investors agree that beard care is big business, as well. The brand’s $11 million dollar...
2023-08-1740 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCovey co-founders Emily DiDonato and Christina Uribe: Our customer ‘doesn't want to go down the skin-care rabbit hole’We all know that there are diehard skin-care enthusiasts out there who spend hours researching the ingredients. In 2021, Emily DiDonato and Christina Uribe launched skin-care brand Covey to target the opposite of that type of customer. Instead of "skintellectuals," they’re focused on the busy millennial who doesn’t have time to go down what they call the “skin-care rabbit hole.” Both founders are bringing unique expertise to the brand. As a fashion model who has worked with countless brands including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, DiDonato has had firsthand experience with time-consuming skin-care routines. Uribe, meanwhile, is still working full-time...
2023-08-1037 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCeleb hairstylist and Rōz Haircare founder Mara Roszak: 'You really can’ use clean beauty for the red carpetIn the past, most of the celebrity hairstylists that launched their own salons and hair-care lines were men. That’s been changing, as more female celebrity stylists are becoming founders. Mara Roszak is a member of this new generation shaking up the hair-care market. You’ve probably seen her styling work on Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Michelle Yeoh, Olivia Wilde or Zoe Saldana on the red carpet. When she’s not doing celebrity looks, she runs her salon, Mare, and her new hair-care line, Rōz, which launched in 2021. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Roszak shares th...
2023-08-0341 min
Rooibos cosmeticsPhlur co-founder Chriselle Lim on the importance of 'being nimble and able to adapt to different platforms'In 2022, Chriselle Lim and Ben Bennett, re-launched Phlur, a dormant "clean" fragrance brand at the time, with Ben Bennett. Bennett is the founder of the brand incubator The Center, which is behind Saltair, Naturium and Make Beauty. The brand was a near-instant success, with its first fragrance, Missing Person, going viral on TikTok. That year, Lim was named to the annual Glossy 50, a list of people who made a mark on the fashion or beauty industry. Last week, Lim launched the brand's ninth new fragrance, Father Figure. It launched with a splashy campaign featuring some of Lim's notable, powerful female...
2023-07-2745 min
She CultivatesBeauty, Fashion & Brains: What Women Should Be Empowered About With Brendalin CaceresSend Us A Question You Want ON AIR!Episode 143:Brendalin Caceres is the founder along side her business partner Ivana Cora, of Brendalin and Cora, a local e-commerce brand specializing in women's clothing and accessories. Through their commitment and vision, they have successfully built a brand that resonates with customers, empowering them to express their individual style and confidence. They are also the creators of the patent pending BC Body which is a bodysuit that solves all of the problems women have when wearing them. With a strong educational background, she graduated from the U...
2023-07-2456 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDune Suncare founders Emily Doyle and Mei Kwok: ‘We want to speak to as wide an audience as possible’In a timely Glossy Beauty Podcast episode for the height of summer, this week features a category that has blown up in beauty: sunscreen. Long gone are the days when options were limited to a handful of brands like Coppertone and Hawaiian Tropic. In recent years, a wide range of chic new sunscreen labels have been hitting the market, while skin-care brands are churning out new SPF product launches. One of these hip new brands is one-year-old Dune Suncare, which uses a colorful, nostalgic aesthetic to appeal to both men and women across all age groups. This week’s episode fe...
2023-07-2051 min
Rooibos cosmeticsSnapchat head of beauty & fashion partnerships Rajni Jacques: Gen Z shops 'on their own terms'When Snapchat first tapped into the power of augmented reality circa 2015, no one understood how impactful it would be to the social media platform and the beauty industry. Snapchat's “Lens” feature was introduced in 2015. This feature, powered by augmented reality technology, allows users to change how they and the world around them look. But it wasn’t until at least 2017 that the beauty industry started to catch up through independent providers like Modiface, which was later acquired by L'Oréal Group in 2018. To help further Snapchat’s relationship with the beauty and fashion industries and promote its AR strategy, Snapchat hired Rajn...
2023-07-1337 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJonathan Van Ness and Teresa Lo of JVN Hair: 'We don't want to create products just to create products'The star of Netflix’s "Queer Eye," Jonathan Van Ness has captivated a massive fan base as a comedian, best-selling author and podcast host with a prolific social media presence. But he definitely hasn’t forgotten about hair. Nearly two years ago, he added hair-care brand founder to his expanding resume with the launch of JVN Hair. For this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Van Ness was joined by Teresa Lo, JVN Hair’s global vp and gm who has been with the brand from the start. Topics covered include Van Ness’s career journey, JVN Hair's founding story and the p...
2023-07-0650 min
Rooibos cosmeticsTikTok beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira: 'Don't strive to do this career'If you are one of Mikayla Nogueira’s 14.6 million TikTok followers, then you already know that one of the app’s biggest beauty influencers is getting married this weekend. But what you may not know is that she custom-created the lipstick and liner for her big day, with E.l.f. Cosmetics. The color resulting from the collaboration, which launched on Thursday, is cheekily named “Til Death Do Us Paht,” a reference to Nogueira’s famous Boston accent. Nogueira had partnered with E.l.f. before, and, as she struggled to find a lipstick she deemed perfect for her wedding day, she d...
2023-06-2943 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCharlotte Palermino of Dieux: ‘We're a TMI brand’If you’re familiar with skin-care brand Dieux, you probably first came across its cult eye masks that all the cool kids have been wearing on Instagram. Now with multiple products, the brand’s celebrity fans include everyone from Hailey Bieber to Harrison Ford. This week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast features an interview with Charlotte Palermino, who co-founded the brand in 2020 with Joyce de Lemos and Marta Freedman. In addition to Dieux, Palermino is known for her prolific social media presence with a fan base of over 668,000 combined followers on TikTok and Instagram. In this conversation, she talked...
2023-06-2244 min
Rooibos cosmeticsInterParfums CEO Jean Madar on surpassing $1 billion in sales during a ‘crazy moment for fragrance’While economic headwinds are impacting the beauty industry these days, one area that’s still going strong is fragrance. Take InterParfums, for example. It’s the fragrance company that holds the licenses for over 20 fashion and luxury goods labels including Montblanc and Jimmy Choo. The first quarter of this year was its best in its 40-year history as it reported 24% sales growth and surpassed $1 billion in sales. On this week’s podcast, InterParfums CEO and co-founder Jean Madar shared what’s driving that growth. He talked about the surge in sales that the category has been seeing globally since the pandemic...
2023-06-1545 min
Rooibos cosmeticsKim Chi of KimChi Chic Beauty: ‘I want this to be a staple in a lot of people's lives’When Kim Chi made the finals on season 8 of "RuPaul’s Drag Race" back in 2016, fans were captivated by her stunning makeup artistry. Not long after, she became the CEO and founder of her own makeup brand, KimChi Chic Beauty. Launched in 2019 under Bespoke Beauty Brands, the incubator founded by Nyx Professional Makeup founder Toni Ko, the brand made its national retailer debut in CVS last year. On this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Kim Chi shares how she became what she calls an “accidental drag queen” back in 2012 and learned her elaborate makeup artistry techniques with no formal trainin...
2023-06-0841 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMaison Francis Kurkdjian's Marc Chaya: 'We use marketing at the service of creativity'Luxury fragrance brands have long relied on big celebrity brand ambassadors and traditional ad formats. Niche fragrance brands, however, are moving away from traditional strategies and finding major success on their own terms. For fragrance house Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the Baccarat Rouge 540 has earned cult status without a single official celebrity ad campaign. And despite not having partnerships, the brand has earned celebrity approval — Olivia Rodrigo wears it, and Drake has been rumored to wear it. On TikTok, the hashtag for the fragrance #baccaratrouge540 has received over 432 million views to date, and it was listed among the fragrance success highlights in p...
2023-06-0149 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMother Science's Mike Einziger and Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger on their path from rock stars to beauty foundersMike Einziger, the lead guitarist of the ’90s rock band Incubus, and his wife, science teacher-turned-rock violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, did not intend to start a beauty brand. Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger organically came upon her hero ingredient, a yeast-derived compound called malassezin, after being diagnosed with a harmless skin condition. The diagnosis led her to question whether something that "most people would view as a negative" could be harnessed to address common skin concerns — namely, hyperpigmentation and the common desire people have to lighten darkened patches of skin. That was over six years ago — that's how long it's taken the couple t...
2023-05-2548 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMarianna Hewitt of Summer Fridays: ‘Video is really what gets people to convert’Influencer brands might be common now, but that wasn’t the case half a decade ago. One of the original Instagram influencers, Marianna Hewitt launched Summer Fridays with her co-founder Lauren Ireland in 2018. As the first influencer brand at Sephora, Summer Fridays quickly became a top seller with its cult Jet Lag Mask. Funded by Prelude Growth Partners, the brand now has a full lineup of skincare and makeup products. On this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast episode, Hewitt joined to talk about her career and how she discovered the power of Instagram early after starting out her influencer career on Y...
2023-05-1837 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCVS beauty merchandising vp Andrea Harrison on what’s behind its indie beauty influxIf you’ve been into a CVS lately, you’ve probably noticed that the term “drugstore beauty” doesn’t mean what it used to. Amid the conglomerate-owned giants like Maybelline and Covergirl, you can now find hip indie startups on the shelves. Behind that strategy is Andrea Harrison, the retailer's vp of merchandising for beauty and personal care. For this episode of the podcast, Harrison talked about how CVS has been experimenting with its new "Beauty IRL" store format, what beauty trends are on her radar and what CVS looks for in startup brands ready to enter a major national retailer. Sh...
2023-05-1147 min
Rooibos cosmeticsHayley Williams and Brian O’Connor of Good Dye Young: hair color is ‘much more a fashion accessory than it’s ever been’If you’ve noticed hair has been getting a lot more colorful in the past few years, you’re not alone. Pink, purple, blue or orange hair is no longer just for rebellious teens and rock stars. Hair dye brand Good Dye Young has been riding this wave of popularity—and helping drive it. Launched by Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams and her longtime hairstylist Brian O’Connor in 2016, the brand has been making its way into the biggest national retailers as it experiences double-digit growth. In addition to being stocked at Target and Walmart, it’s going to be launching...
2023-05-0450 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMolly Sims on developing YSE Beauty: 'I didn't want it to be another celebrity or influencer brand'There are countless ways to launch a celebrity-founded skin-care brand nowadays. One can partner with an incubator (à la Peyton List and Pley Beauty), build a company within the framework of a larger conglomerate (i.e., Fenty Beauty and Rihanna with Kendo, or JVN and Jonathan Van Ness with Amyris) — or, you can build from the ground up. Some of the most successful celebrity-founded brands were birthed from the final option. They include Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez and Rhode by Hailey Bieber. Molly Sims has taken a somewhat hybrid approach to create her new skin-care line, YSE Beauty. She built her own...
2023-04-2743 min
Rooibos cosmeticsWende Zomnir of Caliray and Urban Decay on sustainability messaging: ‘We don’t want it to be all gloom and doom’When Wende Zomnir co-founded Urban Decay in 1996, there was no Instagram or TikTok, and Sephora was still two years out from entering the U.S. Fast forward to today, she wrapped up her tenure at Urban Decay in December and has re-entered the beauty startup game with a new brand, Caliray. Since Zomnir launched Caliray in 2021, it entered Sephora in 2022 and just secured a Series A round of funding in February this year. In the episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Zomnir discusses what’s different about launching a beauty startup in 2022, compared to the ’90s. And with Earth Day this...
2023-04-2035 min
Rooibos cosmeticsCheekbone Beauty's Jenn Harper on launching a beauty brand with no experienceLaunching Cheekbone Beauty in 2016 was a bit of a serendipitous moment for founder Jenn Harper. It all started in Jan. 2015 when she dreamed about "Native little girls with their brown little skin and rosy cheeks, covered in lip gloss." The dream, paired with Harper's recent sobriety journey and deeper discovery about her lineage and Ojibwe culture, inspired her to create a beauty brand. The journey to becoming a beauty founder was no easy feat for Harper. Until 2016, Harper's professional career was rooted in the food industry, specifically seafood. Though she had no formal experience in beauty, her determination to launch a...
2023-04-1346 min
Rooibos cosmeticsevolvetogether’s Cynthia Sakai: 'We want to lead the way as an elevated sustainable brand'Like many people who rerouted their career path in the last three years, Cynthia Sakai made a mid-pandemic leap from the fashion industry to personal care. "I had been in the fashion space for a really long time, and there was something missing. I felt I wasn't doing enough; I wasn't doing something that was making a difference," Sakai said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "The beauty space and the wellness space was something that, as a consumer, I always loved — but I never wanted to create a brand just to create another brand." A CFDA de...
2023-04-0642 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMilani Cosmetics CMO Jeremy Lowenstein on TikTok’s dupe culture and that Depp-Heard trial videoIf you’ve followed beauty dupe trends on TikTok, you’ve most likely come across a product or two from Milani Cosmetics. From its lip oil to its concealer, the mass makeup brand has seen multiple products go viral thanks to dupe-obsessed influencers like Mikayla Nogueira. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, the brand’s CMO, Jeremy Lowenstein, shares the details on the brand’s marketing strategy at a time when both TikTok and inflation are making price a big focus in beauty. Topics included how Milani responds to viral product moments on TikTok through campaigns and invent...
2023-03-3044 min
Rooibos cosmeticsOdele co-founders Lindsay Holden and Britta Chatterjee: ‘Design is so much more accessible’Not long ago, the options for beauty consumers looking for clean hair care were limited to a handful of brands at either the luxury or the crunchy granola ends of the spectrum. Former business school classmates Lindsay Holden, Britta Chatterjee and Shannon Kearney saw an opening in the market for a mass premium brand appealing to millennials’ ingredient- and style-consciousness. Odele launched in 2020, quickly entering Target, where Holden was previously a senior buyer. Gender-neutral, minimalist, and at an accessible price point, it has since expanded to Ulta Beauty and CVS, and is in the process of launching products geared toward sp...
2023-03-2344 min
Rooibos cosmeticsVanessa Hudgens is doing things differently with the second launch of Know BeautyWhile she may be best known for her acting and singing, Vanessa Hudgens, is not new to entrepreneurship. The 34-year-old star, with 49 million Instagram followers, is behind Caliwater, a cactus water she said she drinks every morning. She also has a margarita line, which she co-created with Ashley Benson and Rosario Dawson for Thomas Ashbourne. She first launched Know Beauty in 2021 with singer, Madison Beer. It was a somewhat complicated concept in which users used a DNA kit, which was used to pair them with personalized products matched to their skin type and concerns. Hudgens admits it didn't land and dec...
2023-03-1637 min
Rooibos cosmeticsInside Loops Beauty’s celebrity creative director strategyMeg Bedford has always been attracted to startups. Bedford, CEO of Loops Beauty, dabbled in editorial at Vogue before joining Tom Ford and eventually Pat McGrath Beauty, finally landing at Loops in Aug. 2022. Loops, the 3-year-old hydrogel face mask brand, has made a name for itself as a buzzy celeb-loved brand. In Oct. 2020, Loops announced model Emily Ratajkowski as its partner and creative director. Then, in July 2022, Loops appointed “Riverdale” actress Camila Mendes as its partner and creative director. Loops is sold through Ulta Beauty and expanded to Target in February. It was founded by brand incubator Syllable, in collaboration with...
2023-03-0941 min
Rooibos cosmeticsRóen Beauty's Tiffany Scott and Kate Synnott on authenticity: 'The real girl resonates so much more'When Tiffany Scott got the idea for Róen Beauty in 2017, her goal was to create a glam luxury brand centered on clean beauty products. After two years of searching, she found lab partners that understood her vision and mission. And she launched Róen Beauty in 2019 with non-toxic eyeshadows and a makeup brush. Shortly after the brand's inception, Scott met Róen Beauty's current creative director, Kate Synott, and the two hit it off. Scott's passion and innovative vision have successfully complemented Synott's expertise in makeup and skin care; together, they've transformed Róen Beauty into a premiere clean beaut...
2023-03-0243 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDIBS Beauty's Jeff Lee and Courtney Shields: 'The customer is smarter than ever'Growing up in communities of color, Jeff Lee and Courtney Shields were both early to understanding the importance of diversity and inclusion in beauty. When they met virtually through peers during the pandemic, they instantly connected over a shared desire to create a multicultural collection of beauty products catering to all. Their mutual passions for making all women feel seen and beautiful birthed DIBS Beauty, short for Desert Island Beauty Status, in September 2021. The co-founders secured $2.6 million in an initial funding round from Tula's co-founders, as well as major stakeholders at finance company L Catterton, which also invested in Tula, and...
2023-02-2343 min
Rooibos cosmeticsOurself co-founders Lauren Otsuki and Vimla Black-Gupta: 'Clinical skin care is back'When Lauren Otsuki and Vimla Black-Gupta launched skin-care brand Ourself in February 2022, their main goal was to provide beauty consumers with cosmetic enhancement options other than injections and lasers. To date, the indie brand has received $30 million in funding for its groundbreaking, at-home biotech alternatives to clinical products. Ourself's science-backed products are said to give the same effects as fillers and toxins. The company's ability to leverage science has helped it gain a large following in less than a year. Currently, the brand has 23 products, with some standouts being a two-step lip filler alternative and a five-product hyperpigmentation healer. "The id...
2023-02-1639 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMario Badescu’s Joseph Cabasso on Martha Stewart, inflation and TikTok’s skin-care cancel cultureFrom Kylie Jenner to Martha Stewart, 51-year-old skin-care brand Mario Badescu has been cited as a go-to by a wide range of celebrities known for their strong thirst trap game. What started as a small facial studio in New York City has now become a brand stocked in thousands of stores at national and international retailers. Joseph Cabasso, the president of sales and co-owner of Mario Badescu, joins this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast to talk the past, present and future of the brand. He tells the story of the brand’s history, including how his family acquired the brand and...
2023-02-0937 min
Rooibos cosmeticsJohn Legend on his new skin-care brand, life with a newborn, toxic masculinity and backlash politicsOne of only 17 artists to ever achieve EGOT status, singer-songwriter John Legend is also a man of many business ventures, such as wine, fashion and now skin care. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, he shares all the details of his newly launched brand, Loved01, which debuted in CVS on February 1 and enters Walmart in March. Speaking to Glossy not long after welcoming his third baby, he talked about the process of developing the brand, including how it caters to melanin-rich skin, what inspired him during the creative design process and why he chose the brand’s acc...
2023-02-0242 min
Rooibos cosmeticsUnilever CEO of Health & Wellbeing Jostein Solheim on the new definition of healthFormerly the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, Jostein Solheim took the helm of Unilever’s Health & Wellbeing division in June 2021. He’s drawing on over 30 years of experience at Unilever to guide the 4-year-old division through its acquisitions, which have so far included wellness and supplements brands including Nutrafol, Liquid I.V. and Olly. The company has high hopes for the new division with “well north of €1 billion” in net sales annually, he said. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Solheim weighs in on what’s driving “the fusion of wellness into beauty and beauty into wellness,” as he p...
2023-01-2639 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMOB Beauty and Pure Culture Beauty's Victor Casale on fighting the ‘purchase, consume, and discard’ mentalityA beauty industry veteran, Victor Casale knows a thing or two about building brands. After serving as the chief chemist at MAC Cosmetics from its inception through its acquisition, he later went on to found CoverFX. Now, he’s back in the beauty startup world in a big way as the co-founder of two brands he’s helping run simultaneously: custom skin-care brand Pure Culture Beauty and refillable makeup brand MOB Beauty. His interest in revamping the way beauty is packaged and sold comes from a long-held interest in sustainability. In fact, he spearheaded MAC’s “Back to MAC” package recycling...
2023-01-1942 min
Rooibos cosmeticsRationale's Richard Parker on building a trusted skin-care brandFrom an early age, Richard Parker was aware of his skin. When Parker was a teenager, he was diagnosed with a skin condition caused by sun damage called ochronosis. And in his early 20s, he suffered from acne. After meeting multiple dermatologists and learning more about products and ingredients that could help his conditions, Parker was inspired to venture into health and beauty to share that knowledge with others. The knowledge Parker gained from medical experts and his own studies led him to launch Rationale in 1992. Since its creation, the skin-care brand's sole purpose has been to equip consumers with...
2023-01-1228 min
Rooibos cosmeticsThirteen Lune’s Nyakio Grieco: ‘People buy into people before they buy into products’After selling her skin-care brand Nyakio Beauty to Unilever in 2017, Nyakio Grieco set her sights on beauty retail with the launch of Thirteen Lune in 2020. As multiple beauty retailers were pledging to offer at least 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned brands, she came up with a “90/10” model for Thirteen Lune: 90% of brands are BIPOC-owned, with 10% owned by those who demonstrate allyship. With $1 million in funding from celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean Combs and a $3 million seed round led by Fearless Fund, Thirteen Lune is in the process of taking over all of JCPenney’s former Sephora locations. It also sto...
2023-01-0539 min
Rooibos cosmeticsYear in Review Beauty Podcast: TikTok-driven sales spikes, the end of the DTC era, and a metaverse reckoningIt’s that time of year again. To wrap up 2022 on the Glossy Beauty Podcast, West Coast correspondent Liz Flora, beauty and wellness editor Emma Sandler, and senior reporter Sara Spruch-Feiner sat down from New York and Los Angeles to have a Zoom chat about the biggest beauty industry trends of the year. The power of short video for beauty was more obvious than ever this year, thanks to not only the impact of viral TikTok trends driving sales spikes for brands, but also to an influx of social platforms emphasizing the format. But challenges with social advertising due to Ap...
2022-12-2246 min
Rooibos cosmeticsDr. Dennis Gross: 'I'm a big believer in no downtime'For many consumers in the market for cosmetic procedures, busy lives often mean that anything with an at-home recovery period isn’t always possible. That concept has been a big selling point for Dr. Dennis Gross’ eponymous skin-care brand, which is still going strong with its cult Alpha Beta Universal Daily Peel after over two decades. Created to offer a chemical peel with no skin redness or need to stay home, Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare’s peel is “now the number one selling peel in the world,” said Dr. Gross on this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast. With a growing number of pr...
2022-12-1539 min
Rooibos cosmeticsMario Dedivanovic: ‘Makeup is going to start really picking up’In 2008, Mario Dedivanovic was working the retail floor at Sephora. Now, his own eponymous brand can be found on its shelves. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, celebrity makeup artist and brand founder Dedivanovic sat down to discuss his epic career journey and how it brought him from becoming a top celebrity makeup artist to launching his brand Makeup by Mario in 2020. The conversation, of course, includes Kim Kardashian. Fans of her reality shows have likely seen him by her side in glam session scenes throughout the years. While most closely associated with Kardashian, he’s work...
2022-12-0828 min
Rooibos cosmeticsFable & Mane founder Akash Mehta on creating space for Ayurveda beautyFor Akash Mehta, Ayurvedic beauty is a family business. Growing up in a British-Indian household, Mehta interacted with Ayurveda, an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent, through his mother and grandparents. Meanwhile, his father worked in the beauty industry as a fragrance entrepreneur. Despite not initially planning to work in beauty, Mehta now sees the value in his exposure to the industry through his father. In early 2020, Mehta launched Fable & Mane, an Ayurvedic-inspired hair-care brand, with his sister Nikita Mehta. It debuted out of SOS Beauty, an incubator behind brands like Summer Fridays, Ouai, Patrick Ta B...
2022-12-0147 min
Rooibos cosmeticsSlatkin & Co.'s Harry Slatkin on staying entrepreneurial while building billion-dollar brandsWhen Harry Slatkin and his wife, Laura, built Slatkin & Co., they disrupted the fragrance industry by making home fragrances accessible to a wider demographic. Slatkin sold Slatkin & Co. to Limited Brands, which owns Bath & Body Works, in 2005. But he kept his role as executive chairman and president of the company, and eventually took over the entire home fragrance division. After growing the business to $1.3 billion, Slatkin stepped down from his role in 2012. Today, the company does $2.3 billion in home fragrance sales, according to Slatkin. 'When I started, I was entrepreneurial at Limited Brands. [Lex Wexner] let me set up offices...
2022-11-1747 min
Rooibos cosmeticsEdgewell CEO Rod Little: ‘We're operating more like a startup and disruptor’When beauty and personal care executive Rod Little joined personal care conglomerate Edgewell as CFO in 2018, the company’s core businesses of shaving and feminine care were seeing mid-single-digit declines. Competing with giants like Procter & Gamble and DTC disruptors like Billie, the company was in need of a transformation. Rising to CEO in 2019, Little identified the areas that needed to change at the company, which owns household name brands such as Schick, Banana Boat and Playtex. “We had gotten into a rhythm of being too technology-focused, and we had been led by technology, as opposed to being led by the consum...
2022-11-1044 min