The Glossy Beauty Podcast

West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack is joined by senior reporter Emily Jensen to discuss this week’s news, starting with a buzzy new lawsuit that could impact the future of beauty dupes. They discuss Glow Recipe’s new lawsuit against MCo Beauty for allegedly copying one of its hero products, $36 Watermelon Glow Dew Drops, with MCo’s $11.99 Hydrate & Glow Ultra-Dew Serum. Jensen and Lebsack also discuss L'Oréal Group’s latest acquisition of the British skin-care brand Medik8. Announced this week, the conglomerate acquired a majority stake in the brand, which launched stateside in 2023, to bolster its luxury and dermatological beauty division. The line is omnichannel, doctor-founded and led, results-based, rooted in clinical science, and priced under its competitors — a cocktail of the top attributes many investment firms and conglomerates are looking for today. And finally, Drybar founder Alli Webb is back with a new hair brand (16:27) — but it’s not what you think. Glossy Pop senior reporter Sara Spruch-Feiner sat down with Webb to learn about the line’s origin story and launch.

On this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast, Sara Spruch-Feiner, senior reporter at Glossy Pop, and Emily Jensen, Glossy senior beauty reporter, are joined by Gabi Barko, senior reporter at Glossy's sister publication Modern Retail, and Brit Starr, CMO at influencer marketing platform Creator IQ. Kicking off the episode, Jensen and Spruch-Feiner chat what's happening on TikTok in beauty this week, why Pride Month will look a little different this year, and why Huda Kattan is taking back full ownership of Huda Beauty. Later (16:18), Spruch-Feiner, Barkho and Starr discuss the biggest beauty news of the year, announced last Wednesday: E.l.f. Beauty is acquiring Rhode, the 3-year-old brand launched by Hailey Bieber. The acquisition was notable for numerous reasons, but some of the bold headlines include the fact that, though a Sephora launch is coming soon, it hasn't happened yet. Plus, the brand currently sells under ten SKUs, including its viral phone case. E.l.f., for its part, has had 25 quarters of consecutive net-sales and market-share growth. In addition to her roles as Chief Creative Officer and head of innovation at Rhode, Bieber will also serve as a strategic advisor to E.l.f. Beauty, across its portfolio, which includes E.l.f. Cosmetics and E.l.f. Skin, W3ll People, Keys Soulcare, and Naturium, the last of which it acquired in 2023.

Matthew Berkson and Marie du Petit Thouars, the visionary founders of Maison Louis Marie, dive into the evolution of their fragrance brand rooted in a family legacy. They discuss their commitment to sustainability and slow growth, avoiding excessive influencer marketing. The couple highlights the excitement of their new retail space where customers can fully explore their offerings. They also share insights on attracting younger audiences and the changing landscape of beauty shopping in a digital era, emphasizing the importance of personal recommendations and engaging in-store experiences.

The WNBA kicked off its new season last week with beauty brands lining up to gain access to the league’s growing cohort of fans.  In a gold rush that started around 2020, some of the industry’s top brands have entered into multi-year sponsorships with the league or its top players. The most recent, Fenty’s sponsorship of the New York Liberty, was announced earlier this month and kicked off on Saturday’s home game opener with several activations including a "Gloss Bomb glam cam" where fans show off their beauty look.  The NY Liberty, a top team in the league, has also received sponsorships from L’Oréal-owned brands Essie nail polish and NYX color cosmetics. Meanwhile, Amorepacific-owned Laneige became the Phoenix Mercury’s official sponsor last year, mass hair-care brand Odele Beauty sponsors the Minnesota Lynx, and Glossier has been a league sponsor since 2020.  What’s more, Youth To The People has partnered with the Seattle Storm, and L’Oréal-owned Urban Decay was the official L.A. Sparks sponsor for two seasons. Plus, the Chicago Sky has partnerships with Covergirl, Olay and hair-care band Jamaican Mango and Lime. But perhaps one of the biggest deals is Sephora’s sponsorship of the league’s newest team, San Francisco’s Golden State Valkyries, who will now play at the newly-renamed "Sephora Performance Center" in Oakland. And this is just a snapshot of the WNBA deals Glossy is tracking.  “There was limited broadcast for women's sports [a few years ago], and now we have record-breaking viewership, which has been just absolutely amazing,” said Jacki Gemelos, a former WNBA player and coach turned sports agent. “Major brands rarely built campaigns around female athletes. And now athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Alex Morgan and Simone Biles, just to name a few, are leading campaigns and not just being included.”  As previously reported by Glossy, attention from the beauty industry aligns with a sharp rise in WNBA audience attention. Viewership on ESPN was up 155% last season and, within this, viewership among people aged 18–34 rose by 164% and viewership among women increased by 165% year-over-year.  Glossy welcomed Gemelos to the podcast to discuss this change and provide context and advice for beauty execs looking to join in on the action. She provides context as to different types of deals, including the average costs and what makes a deal authentic. Gemelos is a lifelong basketball player who spent more than a decade playing professionally overseas and in the WNBA for the Chicago Sky and the Connecticut Sun. She was an assistant coach for the NY Liberty before joining Nike as an athlete community coordinator. Today, she’s an agent at prestigious boutique firm Disrupt the Game, where she oversees deals for a roster of top talent.  In today’s episode, Gemelos discusses everything beauty execs need to know about this cultural shift. But first, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner discuss the top headlines of the week. This includes QVC’s foray into 24/7 social commerce selling through TikTok Shop, plus a bird’s eye view on how the beauty industry did in the first quarter of the year, according to a new report from Circana market research company. 

Despite a new, 90-day pause on President Trump’s sky-high tariffs on goods imported from China, near-shoring and multi-shoring are leading topics on the minds of business insiders now.  But the idea of near-shoring, or moving a supply chain closer to the brand’s home country, as well as multi-shoring, or diversifying your supply chain to additional regions, comes with many pros and cons.  On today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Melissa Daniels, senior reporter at Glossy’s sister publication Modern Retail and co-host of the Modern Retail Podcast, to unpack the nuances in supply chain pivots today (23:24).  “I'm hearing a lot of brands talk about this supply chain risk assessment that they're trying to make now,” Daniels said. “Even if it's not tariffs [prompting this], it might be something else: There was Covid that messed up supply chains, [and] certain weather events can have a huge impact on shipping and delivery, so if you are a company that has the resources to re-shore, you are looking into that much more seriously than you were a year ago.”  The two hosts share their latest reporting, including insights from brands actively looking to move their supply chains to places like Mexico, foreign manufacturers looking for U.S.-based brands to work with and the companies connecting them.  “If you're insulated by having products in multiple places, that prevents that really scary situation where you have no inventory [because of an unexpected global event],” Daniels said.  As previously reported by Glossy, many experts believe that “every purchase order is up for grabs” right now as brands rethink their suppliers. However, a future-proofed supply chain can take decades to build, so it’s important to think through changes.  “This is such a relational business,” Daniels said. “Brands have a really close relationship with their suppliers and their manufacturers; they've worked together for a very long time, in some cases, and there's trust there.” What’s more, there is a question over whether or not big supply chain shifts can be investigated fast enough, let alone implemented, to avoid tariffs this year. Ahead, Lebsack and Daniels discuss expected timelines, which can range from weeks to years, as well as the unexpected environmental and marketing benefits of near-shoring. But first, Lebsack is joined by co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner to unpack this week’s industry news.  This includes one of the biggest brand exits of the year: Announced Monday, consumer goods company Church & Dwight is set to acquire hand sanitizer company Touchland for $700 million in cash and stock, plus a potential 2025 earnout of over $100 million. The team also dives into a new study out of the U.K. from watchdog group Advertising Standards Authority that found around a third of influencers fail to disclose their ties to brands.  And finally, a look at Drunk Elephant’s sales tumble. Japanese beauty conglomerate Shiseido, which owns brands like Nars and Drunk Elephant, reported an 8.5% decline in sales on Monday. This is partially due to a 65% year-over-year drop in Drunk Elephant sales, the once golden child of the beauty industry. 

Few beauty brands have had an evolution quite like Southern California-based ColourPop cosmetics (20:50).  Launched in 2014 at the height of the DTC era, the brand once released around 40 collections per year. “That's how consumers were shopping,” Vivian Weng, ColourPop brand president, told Glossy. “For a number of years, consumers were looking for the latest launch … and looking to get their hands on limited quantities of something that was very, very specific and timely.”  Flash forward to its eleventh birthday this month and things look very different. “[Beauty shoppers] are looking for newness, but in a different way,” Weng said. “The consumer has evolved, and we're trying to evolve with that community.”  So far, ColourPop’s omnichannel evolution has become a case study for formerly-DTC brands: The brand launched into Ulta Beauty in 2018, then every Target store in 2023, and has cut its annual launches in half. “Especially post-Covid, consumers were starting to get fatigued with so many launches,” Weng said. “It felt very cluttered and noisy, and they were looking for more core, hero products.”  But hero need not mean boring: ColourPop’s top seller in Target is a $9 body glitter gel ,and its super-pigmented $7 Super Shock pressed eyeshadow is the retail’s No. 6 top eyeshadow, Weng told Glossy. The latter is also the first product the company ever made and continues to be its bestseller.  “We like to say that ColourPop is an overnight success story 70 years in the making,” Weng said. That is, the brand was born in Spatz Labs, a family-owned contract manufacturer in Oxnard, California.  ColourPop co-founders Laura and John Nelson, whose father started Spatz Labs decades before, grew up watching the top cosmetics in the country being quietly made in their family’s factory. Seed Beauty, the parent company of ColourPop, is also well-known for being the original manufacturer of Kylie Cosmetics’ first Lip Kit. However, due to the demand of ColourPop, Weng told Glossy that Spatz Labs no longer contracts for the industry. Weng joined the company in 2022. Previously, she held executive roles at Anastasia Beverly Hills and L’Oréal; she got her start at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Co. In today’s episode, Weng discusses the brand’s strategic evolution, the challenges along the way and the future of the prolific beauty brand. But first in today’s episode, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner discuss the top headlines of the week. This includes Walmart’s plan to test new high-touch beauty bars in 40 stores, the growing marketing opportunity at Formula 1 events, the rise in clinical testing among leading supplement brands and MET Gala highlights. 

About four years ago, Glossy profiled Muneeb Shah. At the time, he was a resident who had accumulated an impressive 6 million TikTok followers. He had started posting during quarantine. Now, that number has skyrocketed to 17.9 million — plus an additional 1.1 million followers on Instagram. Recent content reveals partnerships with brands including Timeless Skin Care, No. 7 Skin Care and TirTir, to name a few. Last March, Dr. Shah debuted Remedy, his own brand, which currently offers three serums, a lip balm, a moisturizer, a dandruff shampoo, a body cream for keratosis pilaris and pimple patches. In addition, Dr. Shah serves — along with Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali — as one of Neutrogena's two Global Innovation Partners. The multi-year contract saw him co-star alongside Tate McRae in Neutrogena's recent TV commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl. In this week's Glossy Beauty Podcast episode, Sara Spruch-Feiner speaks with Dr. Shah (20:12) about his TikTok growth and the content that resonates with his following, the trials and tribulations of his first year running a brand, and the work he's doing with Neutrogena. But first, co-hosts Sara Spruch-Feiner and Lexy Lebsack chat about Ulta's consumer-facing Ulta Beauty World event in San Antonio, the retailer's partnership with Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour, and the recent layoffs at Coty and UPS.

Gabby Shacknai and Zoe Weiner were already veteran beauty editors when they debuted their nonprofit, Beautyfor, in June 2024. Like many people who work in the beauty industry, they'd long been surrounded by a surplus of products and felt there had to be a way to do some good with the excess.Initially, they planned a sale with excess from their friends in the industry. But then, brands got wind and asked to donate products. "All of a sudden, Gabby's apartment was filled with hundreds and hundreds of serums and moisturizers and things, and we were just kind of like, 'Where is this stuff coming from? It's great that brands want to donate this, but why do they have all of this stuff?'" Weiner recalled.Now, the organization has formalized its processes. It hosts quarterly sales, which have become — a pleasant surprise to its founders — like community events. It just held its first online sale at the start of April.Weiner and Shacknai joined Glossy Beauty Podcast hosts Sara Spruch-Feiner and Lexy Lebsack to talk about the organization's founding, its process of redirecting products from landfill to shoppers' shelves, its philanthropic work — donating the proceeds from beauty product sales to other nonprofits — and its dedication to maintaining a curatorial viewpoint with the products it takes on.

Pact Collective isn’t the first company to try to solve the beauty industry’s waste problem. But in four short years, it’s already become the most successful. “It feels like a really exciting time for the industry, but we've still got a lot of work to do,” Carly Snider, executive director of Pact Collective, told Glossy. “We [as an industry] are creating 120 billion units of beauty packaging globally and only a fraction of those are recycled or reused.” This widely-shared statistic was one catalyst for Pact’s launch in 2021 as a nonprofit industry collective founded by retailer Credo Beauty and clean cosmetics brand MOB Beauty. Today, Pact has many pillars. First, it serves as a recycling alternative to city-run curbside bins and private recycling initiatives. The concept is simple: Educate consumers about their products’ end-of-life while creating a data-driven, closed-loop system that reduces waste through in-store collection bins and consumer-friendly mail-back programs. Pact has been embraced by the industry and actively has 3,300 collection bins across the U.S. and Canada in retailers like Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Credo Beauty, Nordstrom and many more. It also works with brands like L’Oréal USA, Fenty Beauty and Summer Fridays. Growth across its packaging collection program has helped the company meet volume collection requirements for its biggest program of 2024: a closed-loop manufacturing initiative called New Matter. The initiative debuted in September with pumps made from recovered plastic.“I didn't imagine this level of growth so soon,” Snider said. “Right now we have 150 members across the entire supply chain [including] brands, retailers, packaging suppliers, media, you name it. … If you're working within this space, we want you to have a seat at the table. We want to have your voice heard, because it's an all-hands-on-deck situation.”In today’s episode, Snider discusses Pact’s growth, including its plans to get recycle bins into non-retail locations like colleges and libraries and exactly what happens to the empty packaging it collects. Snider also addresses how brands and retailers can lessen their environmental footprint and educate consumers on recycling nuances.But first in today’s episode, Glossy senior reporter Emily Jensen joins host Lexy Lebsack to address the industry’s top headlines. This includes backlash over buzzy fragrance brand Boy Smells' new rebrand; Sephora as a bright spot in LVMH’s disappointing earnings; and Amorepacific’s plans to reshore manufacturing to the U.S. amid mounting tariffs. 

Esteemed beauty marketer Michelle Miller knows a thing or two about a successful TikTok strategy.Miller served as CMO of K-18 during its gangbuster rise and 2023 strategic acquisition by Unilever. Her CV also includes Kosas, Too Faced and, as of January, CMO of Vegamour hair care. “[TikTok has] an algorithm that is able to democratize beauty in a way that makes it a lot more accessible [to the average consumer],” Miller said. “With the platform being so uncertain, it's emotionally hard for brands that have invested so much time into creator communities, into content on Tiktok. And most of all, it's really, really hard for creators that have built their entire living and livelihoods on the platform.” Miller joined Glossy podcast hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner (23:21), plus Glossy managing editor Tatiana Pile, to discuss the latest movement in TikTok’s ongoing sell-or-be-banned legal predicament and what it means for the beauty industry. As previously reported by Glossy, concern over TikTok’s algorithm and its ability to influence Americans through disinformation campaigns, as well as the large amount of data being collected by ByteDance about Americans, are the top concerns of those behind the ban.This conversation goes back to 2020 when President Trump said he planned to ban the app, but it wasn’t until TikTok added commerce with TikTok Shop in September of 2023 that momentum rebuilt. Then-President Biden signed a law into effect in April of 2024 that gave TikTok owner Bytedance a window to sell the majority of the business to an American owner or be banned from being downloaded in the U.S. Despite numerous legal challenges, including one heard by the Supreme Court, Bytedance unsuccessfully fought the legislation, and the app briefly went dark in January before garnering an extension by President Trump. On April 4, TikTok received a second extension to find a buyer until June 19. Until then, the app is safe. However, alongside a developing trade war with China, TikTok’s fate hangs in the balance with a meaningful impact on the beauty and wellness industries. “It really puts into place — not only for big brands in beauty, but also for smaller brands that are just getting started — [the questions] of: ‘How do you future-proof your brand? How do you work virality today, and what's next if TikTok does go away in 75 days?” Miller said. Also included in this episode is a news rundown on the top stories of the week. The team discusses President Trump’s escalating global tariffs, Beyoncé-founded Cécred’s splashy launch into Ulta Beauty and the latest celebrity beauty brand to hire bankers to explore an exit, ahead.