The Glossy Beauty Podcast

Mike 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 to build a team, complete extensive testing, develop a formula and bring it to testing. Plus, they fundraised to the tune of $6.2 million dollars, with key investors including The Female Founders Fund, Nyx founder Toni Ko and Paul Mitchell co-founder John Paul DeJoria. On May 9, the brand finally launched, with one product — Molecular Hero Serum — offered for sale on its e-commerce site.

Marianna Hewitt, co-founder of Summer Fridays, talks about her journey as an influencer, the success of their cult jetlag mask, strategies for going viral on social media, and the rise of short videos and TikTok. She discusses launching Summer Fridays with Sephora, their collaborations and offline community building efforts. Marianna emphasizes the importance of video content in attracting and converting consumers in the beauty industry.

If 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. She also talked about what happens when a product sold at CVS goes viral on TikTok.

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 in-store at Ulta Beauty on May 8.Hayley and Brian join this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast to talk about the new launch and all things hair dye. They share the history of the brand and Hayley’s iconic Riot orange color, how they’re working to break down stigmas about colorful hair as it becomes more mainstream, their creative hair inspirations, their salon in Nashville that they opened last year, and more.

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 team, tapping veterans from brands like Dr. Barbara Sturm and Poosh. However, she brought in a partner in the business, too —formulation expert and founder of SOS Beauty Charlene Valledor, who has created products for brands including Shani Darden and Patrick Ta. YSE Beauty is launching with six products, all focused on addressing hyperpigmentation, which became a major concern for Sims in her 40s — Sims will turn 50 in May. Sims has been working on the brand and its product development for the past three years, but she's been enmeshed in the beauty space for much longer. She has a weekly beauty podcast — "Lipstick On The Rim," which launched in 2021 — plus she's published beauty content on her shoppable blog, Mollysims.com, for the past seven years. Of course, she's also gained valuable beauty experience through her modeling and acting careers.The latest Pop Edition of the Glossy Beauty Podcast features Sims discussing the development of YSE.

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 Saturday, she goes into detail about the brand’s sustainable packaging innovations, including its new compostable bamboo eyeshadow palette.

Launching 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 successful brand and celebrate her indigenous culture were her biggest motivators. Through thorough research and sourcing, Harper launched Cheekbone Beauty in Nov. 2016 as a DTC brand."Going back, of course, I'd love to do things differently," Harper shared on the latest episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast. "However, I learned so much from starting things the way [I did], by being super scrappy about how we were going to build and learning how to [launch a business in real time]." In 2019, after Cheekbone Beauty's launch, Harper went on "Dragon's Den," a fundraising show similar to "Shark Tank." She did not accept an offer, but the exposure helped catapult Cheekbone Beauty's brand awareness. In addition to her experience on "Dragon's Den," Harper connected with Raven Capital, the first Indigenous investment fund in the world. The company initially offered Harper $350,000 to transition her business from being a private white label to creating its own products and packaging. Thanks to the funding, in March 2020, Cheekbone Beauty launched with its first proprietaryproduct, the Sustain Lipstick. As Harper looks to the future, she said she's excited about Cheekbone Beauty's direction. In 2021, the brand launched in Sephora Canada. And most recently, Cheekbone Beauty secured a partnership with Thirteen Lune — it will be available to shop on the marketplace's website and in 600 J.C. Penney locations. Apart from retail expansion, Cheekbone Beauty is also committed to innovation on the sustainability front through its packaging and clean ingredients. 

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 designer who founded the Vita Fede jewelry brand, Sakai switched gears in 2020 by introducing evolvetogether with a line of medical-grade face masks. After proving popular among celebs including Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, the masks’ sales funded the brand’s expansion to a range of gender-neutral personal care products, each with innovative sustainable packaging. Among them: a powder face wash with dissolvable packaging, refillable hand sanitizer in glass bottles and biodegradable storage bags. Its best-sellers are a lip balm, a hand cream and a deodorant. “Consumers today want high-performing products that feature beautiful design, and are good for people and the planet,” she said. She added that sustainability alone has never been enough to clinch the sale. “You can't expect to change consumer behavior,” she said. “So we want to create a brand [where] people love the product first. They love the performance of it. And even if it wasn't sustainable, they would come back to us to purchase it."In the year ahead, evolvetogether plans to roll out new products, including candles and body care. It will also be fundraising, Sakai said.

If 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 inventory, how it chooses its influencer collab partners, and why it’s important to have the right content for the right platforms. Also addressed: that viral TikTok video the brand made during the Depp-Heard trial last year.

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 specific hair types. On this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Holden and Chatterjee talked about the opportunity they saw for clean hair-care at mass retail and their process for branding and design.