The Glossy Beauty Podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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