The Glossy Beauty Podcast

When Julien Bouzitat, AmorePacific chief marketing and digital officer, started working in marketing in 2000, his proposed path ahead looked very different from what he does today."In the early 2000s, it was actually trade marketing, working with retailers or distributors on promotions and displays, pricing, and a little bit of advertising. There was no social media, there were no influencers, there was not even e-commerce," said Bouzitat on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "Not to date myself, but we were just at the very beginning of adding websites to present the brand or present the product. I would say 80% of what I do today did not exist, literally."After stints with L'Oréal, Bastide and Fresh, Bouzitat landed at AmorePacific's Innisfree about five years ago, where he led the indie brand's expansion from Korea to the U.S. In August 2020, he was appointed to his current role, where he oversees the conglomerate's U.S. brands, Laneige, Innisfree, Sulwhasoo and AmorePacific. Like most beauty companies operating under the veil of Covid-19, the AmorePacific's digital strategy has never been more important."When the pandemic hit back in March, we were actually finalizing all our re-platforming and optimization of our ecosystem, so we got kind of lucky. We were able to maximize that growth very quickly and, of course, change our investments and our programs to go digital-first," he said.But the right partnerships are still driving growth in the U.S. Case in point: the company's partnership with Sephora for Laneige.

As startup beauty brands and newly minted founders emerge almost daily, it's easy to forget that some companies are not made overnight. Take, for instance, makeup artist-turned-founder Danessa Myricks, who has been building her authority in beauty for more than two decades. After a layoff from a publishing company, Myricks decided to change her future by teaching herself how to do makeup."I started at [age] 30. I've been doing makeup now for over 20 years, so you get a sense of how old I am," said Myricks on a recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "So back then, there was no Instagram, there was no social media. There weren't all these beauty schools. They weren't masterclasses. There was nothing. You can go to the library, you can buy a book. And so there really weren't resources that way, and [the same for] even in cosmetology school -- not that I had the time to do it because I needed to earn money."That lack of public access and education led to one of Myricks' first business endeavors. She began to sell makeup DVDs to beauty enthusiasts. "I don't even know anyone who owns a DVD player player right now, but that really was the thing. Early on in my career, I always had a business mindset; I wanted to turn this into a business, [because] it was going to be the thing that I used to feed my family... When one hairstylist asked me if I can come to their salon and teach them and their staff how to do makeup, a bell went off. I was like, 'I can hold little classes.' These sessions started off with, like, five people, and then 20, and it started to grow. I started getting invitations from different hair shows to teach the audience how to do makeup. And I was like, 'Wow, how can I amplify this?' Because I can't be everywhere. I can't go to every show."In many ways those, original DVDs set the stage for Myricks' cult following on Instagram (she's largely responsibly for the neon trend on social) and her namesake online university, which she launched during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.But product development has always been Myricks' true calling, especially with the lack of diverse and inclusive shade ranges she experienced as both a customer and a makeup artist. Today, her self-funded Danessa Myricks Beauty line that launched five years ago experienced 100% sales growth in 2020. It is sold in 50 stores in 13 countries worldwide; this month, it made its foray into Sephora.

When Tata Harper launched her namesake skin-care brand over a decade ago, she was one of the first beauty pioneers who decided that all-natural formulations and luxury were not mutually exclusive."It was about making the best products in the world, always -- and using the best ingredients, which are natural ingredients," said Harper on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.Harper's road to her own brand began when her stepfather was diagnosed with cancer in the mid 2000s, and she was introduced to the concept of toxic load, which is an accumulation of toxins and chemicals in our bodies that people ingest, by one of his doctors. After transitioning to natural home cleaning products, skin care was the "last frontier," she said."I was very attached to the products that I bought; I had bought them since I was a little girl," she said. "They were the most high-tech, the highest quality. My mom had always been like that, that 'It's really important to invest in beauty.' I remember looking for natural beauty and, at the time [around 2004], that meant going to Whole Foods and little apothecaries here and there. I would find things that weren't natural, or they were so simple like three oils together."Frustrated with the experience, she rushed to department stores for advice. There, associates provided her with products with roses or orchids mixed with synthetic ingredients for so-called efficacy. "I started Googling ... and I'm like, 'Oh, this is petroleum,' and then, 'Oh, propylene glycol. What is this stuff? Oh, it's antifreeze.' I don't want to be putting ingredients that belong in my car on my skin. Why are they there? This obviously can't be what's giving results."In the last five years, a rush of new clean, natural and organic brands have made the white space Harper found more crowded, but she isn't concerned with the competition. This is especially true as Tata Harper Skincare remains a product company first and limits outsourcing to PR, she said."I had no idea how revolutionary [focusing on skin care] was gonna be or how or how different it was. I had no idea the extent that the industry did," she said. "I just wanted to make sure that I fulfilled that compromise, that commitment that I had with the customer that I'm going to do this."

K-beauty was certainly taking off in the U.S. in 2012. But, when Hero Cosmetics cofounder and CEO Ju Rhyu discovered hydrocolloid patches to treat acne in Korea, it was one innovation that had not landed stateside."I was living [in South Korea] as an expat, and I was breaking out. I don't really know why -- maybe it was a different environment, different lifestyle stress -- but I was breaking out and really frustrated. I saw a lot of people in Korea walking around with these stickers on their faces. I had asked around, like, 'Oh, what is this? Why are people wearing these patches?' And someone told me that it was for acne. I bought some and I tried it for myself; I was blown away at how well it worked," she said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast.After putting the Hero Cosmetics stamp on hydrocolloid patches, the brand debuted first on Amazon in 2017 and then launched its own DTC website the following year. Though Amazon dissenters in beauty have existed for some time, Rhyu said the platform was the "fastest, cheapest and easiest" way to come to market as a startup. "I wanted to prove out my hypothesis, which was that if I create an acne patch brand for the Western audience, it was going to be successful," she said. Rhyu was more than right. Hero Cosmetics has spurred an acne patch phenomenon and is expected to close the year with more than $80 million in retail sales.

For 26 years, beauty brand Paula's Choice has traded on the principles of truth and transparency in skin care. This was pioneered by its founder Paula Begoun, known in beauty as "The Cosmetics Cop."But when Erika Kussmann, CMO and general manager, arrived at the clean beauty brand about five years ago, she knew Paula's Choice had an opportunity to reintroduce its story with a larger audience. Begoun had stepped back from daily operations, and though Paula's Choice was a cult beauty brand, Kussman admitted it was a "pretty small cult" at the time."Awareness is so important," said Kussmann. "If you're going to be raising and really driving awareness, you want to be consistent so that you get that recognition and it's working harder for you." This was especially true as Paula's Choice was facing more competition from emerging skin-care brands like Drunk Elephant and The Ordinary. Both -- and many others -- had adopted their takes on non-irritating, fragrance-free clean ingredients.Following a rebrand complete with visual cues, the digitally-native indie brand has found its way to a Gen-Z audience. "These younger generations are quite savvy; they're doing a lot of ingredient research. Specifically, what's interesting about TikTok is that it's a place where you can have quick education and hacks," Kussman said. "We have everything from this long-form, more serious research content that can be translated into a skin-care routine to [content] that's fun for these channels."

As the skin-care category boomed in the last decade, there were certain standout brands that captivated consumers and industry executives alike. Alongside Drunk Elephant, Tatcha, Augustinus Bader and others, there was Dr. Barbara Sturm.A celebrity in her own right, founder Dr. Barbara Sturm's clients include Kate Moss, Cher, Angela Bassett and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley -- and she's been credited with creating the A-lister favorite vampire facial. Sturm's aesthetics business gave her the concept for her namesake brand, which is now a best seller at Sephora and Net-a-Porter, and sells on its DTC site. But as a trained German aesthetics doctor, she never planned on becoming a beauty brand founder and CEO."I started creating products, and that's how I got into that industry, but [it was] still only designed for helping my patients," Sturm said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "Because of distribution issues -- I actually only wanted to be on Net-a-Porter to be able to distribute to my patients [around the] world -- they launched me. From that point, every retailer called me up and said, 'Dr. Sturm, we want your products.'"Despite the pandemic, the brand has grown from a cult beauty favorite into a mainstream business. The company has seen DTC sales grow 400% since March, and it relaunched its website last September."It's kind of tricky to launch a new website during this period, but we did super, super well with it. It could have been quite a catastrophic experience," said Dr. Strum. "We are so happy to have it. We put a lot of love and effort into it to really serve our customers as well as we can. It's not just like, 'Oh, buy my products.' It's more like you get education here; you get so much more insight."

Winky Lux may be in growth mode, but it’s faced its fair share of pandemic-driven challenges.“It's such a fun mental exercise to go back to pre-pandemic life. I think our mental outlook was super arrogant,” said Natalie Mackey, co-founder and CEO of The Glow Concept and Winky Lux, on the Glossy Beauty Podcast.Still, Mackey’s been pushing forward with Winky Lux. The brand has cemented a strong wholesale partnership with Target, which it launched in early March 2020, just prior to the pandemic hitting the states. And earlier this month, it joined a long list of color cosmetics brands that have expanded to skin care in the last year.Earning market share in the skin care category won’t be easy, said Mackey, but she’s up to the challenge.“We really believe this is a 360 [degree] brand,” said Mackey. “But it's going to take time to build trust with the [skin-care customer]. Skin care is a more intimate relationship.”And despite slumping makeup sales industry-wide, Mackey said has no plans to turn her back on the category.“My take is that color will come back with a vengeance. I think it's going to be 6-18 months, depending on what happens with the vaccine. But women have been wearing color cosmetics for 2000 years. We're not giving it up.”Mackey also discussed the importance of profitability, Instagrammable products and product reviews.

Despite the difficulties of 2020, some beauty brands made strides that have set them up for long-term growth. Case in point: customized and personalized Function of Beauty, best known for its hair care products.The 4-year-old startup closed out December 2020 with a $150 million Series B raise led by L Catterton, which it followed with a brick-and-mortar retail expansion with Target. And before that, the brand made several strategic moves, such as extending into body care and skin care, and launching national linear television ads.Of the success, on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Function of Beauty co-founder and CEO Zahir Dossa said, "It's getting borderline politically incorrect to ever say you had a great 2020, so I will not commit to having a great one. For the business itself, we've had some wins, but we had a lot of tough challenges to overcome, as well. Overall, I think it was a huge success with the ability to carry out all our ambitious plans, all in one year."

Alpyn Beauty founder and CEO Kendra Kolb Butler had plans to leave the beauty industry in 2015. She moved from New York City to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, following long-term stints in marketing and public relations at Dr. Dennis Gross and Clarins. But, after living in her new hometown for a week, she "missed talking to women about their skin and their problems," she said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.Kolb Butler quickly set up a beauty shop, Alpyn Beauty Bar, to cater to locals' skin-care needs, but customers kept coming in saying they needed different solutions for dryness and hyperpigementation caused by the Jackson Hole climate. "I started to notice a trend that they would come back in with the product they purchased, and they would say, 'What else do you have in the store? This isn't working,'" she said. "I didn't really know what to do. I was selling the best brands in skin care and the best cosmetic lines, and I didn't have anything else to offer. I was sitting in my backyard one summer, and I was looking at the National Forest. I'm pondering, 'I'm going to go out of business in these stores,' and as I'm thinking about this, I'm looking at the plants that are growing in the wild. They are so plump, juicy, hydrated and full of nutrients. And I'm thinking, 'What is growing here?'"Those wildcrafted plants sparked the idea for Kolb Butler's skin-care brand Alpyn Beauty, one of the fastest-growing new beauty brands. Sales of the 2-year-old company, which is sold at Sephora, QVC and Credo, have grown 115% in the last year. And though plenty of private equity and VC firms have taken notice of the company, Kolb Butler is taking her time, in order to strive for long-term, global growth.

In this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, our editorial team takes a look ahead at what 2021 may have in store for the beauty industry, from the rise of livestreaming and TikTok influencers to genuine strides in product sustainability.