The Glossy Beauty Podcast

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 a business or a career. To me, it's my best friend and the thing I love doing most in the whole world,” said Malone on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast.Jo Loves has become a Gen-Z favorite. And it's notable for its fragrance paintbrushes, released in 2017, and an in-store tapas bar concept to introduce customers to scents in a playful way. As the brand steadily expands internationally, it’s also adding more hospitality partnerships including Shangri-La The Shard in London and the Park Lane Hotel in New York. For Malone, the goal is to change the world through fragrance.Malone spoke with Glossy about how she restarted a brand from scratch, why Dubai inspires her creatively, what she thinks of clean-beauty fragrances and why she aspires to create 101 fragrances. 

For 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 built her robust following of "nerds," as she calls her followers, by calling out trends she's deemed unworthy of their hype and mostly shying away from paid brand deals, it's worth noting that she's also very funny.When PillowtalkDerm, the brand, became available for pre-sale in September 2022, it sold out in less than 36 hours. It launched with three products, all aimed at hyperpigmentation and discoloration and labeled the Major Fade collection. Since then, it has released just one more product, the Depuffer, in April 2023. The arnica-filled roller serum was inspired by Dr. Idriss's patients recovering from treatments including injectables and Sculptra.Dr. Shereene Idriss, spoke with Glossy senior reporter Sara Spruch-Feiner about the inception of #PillowtalkDerm on social, the reason she's turned down lucrative brand deals and the decision to kick off the brand with a focus on hyperpigmentation.

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 and has since signed on actress Jodie Comer as a brand ambassador. The brand is distributed in 13 countries and sold through retailers like Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Net-a-Porter and Moda Operandi. It has approximately 50 full-time employees.Céline Talabaza, CEO of Noble Panacea, spoke with Glossy beauty and wellness editor Emma Sandler about what attracted her to the brand, how the brand is approaching the Asian market and what a luxury approach to social media looks like. 

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 beauty aficionado from an early period. But the co-founder of S’able Labs said she also struggled as the only Black person in high school and felt the lack of representation in beauty, too.“My relationship with beauty early on felt a lot like an investment on my part into brands that weren't investing in me,” she said. “I had a complete misunderstanding about how to care for melanated skin. But it wasn't only because I wasn't surrounded by people who looked like me, but it was also because the beauty industry didn't cater to people who looked like me.”As her relationship and eventual marriage to Idris Elba blossomed, Sabrina was exposed to a more entrepreneurial culture and mindset, which eventually translated into S’able Labs. Today, the brand is just over 1 year old and sells five products ranging from $28-$50 through its e-commerce site and SpaceNK.Zooming in from Camden, London, joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss how the Instagram Live series inspired the brand, what it’s like operating a celebrity brand and what it means to be a melanin-inclusive brand.

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, Adusumilli finally created the Multi-Stick, which sells for $27.“Being a broke college student, I could barely afford to like get one makeup product, let alone several,” said Adusumilli. “That's how the idea of the Multi-Stick came to be; I focused on having safe ingredients on your eyes, cheeks and lips. And all you need is five minutes to look put together, which is all I had at the time.”The hero ingredient, mango butter, helped inspire the name, as did the popularity of South Asian countries, many of which practice Ayurveda. Ayurveda is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. Popular therapies include yoga and therapeutic oils and ingredients like ashwagandha, ginger and turmeric.Adusumilli joined the Glossy Beauty podcast to discuss how she created the brand, how her chemical engineering background is a boon to entrepreneurship and what it means to be the first Ayurvedic makeup brand at Sephora. 

Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson, co-founders of Too Faced, discuss their new makeup venture, Polite Society, and its collaboration with Ulta Beauty. They reflect on their journey in the beauty industry, highlight the clean ingredients focus of their new brand, and praise their retail partnership with Ulta. They aim to create high impact makeup for millennials and Gen Z, leveraging social media platforms. Additionally, they discuss funding, future plans, and upcoming projects for Polite Society, focusing on women empowerment and embracing femininity.

Curie founder and CEO Sarah Moret discusses the challenges faced by clean beauty consumers and the recent entry of her brand, Curie, into Walmart. She highlights the evolution of aluminum-free deodorant and the impact of the pandemic on her business. Moret also shares her experience on Shark Tank and the benefits it brought to her company. Additionally, she talks about Curie's marketing strategy and the diverse customer base they have acquired through various channels.

Makeup artist and founder Patrick Ta speaks about his journey to success, his celebrity clients, and the influence of social media. He discusses his brand expansion, the uniqueness of his products, and the impact of TikTok and influencer collaborations on his brand. Ta also shares insights into upcoming launches and his passion for empowering and confidence-boosting makeup.

Calvin Quallis, Founder of Scotch Porter and expert in the men's grooming industry, shares the founding story and success of the brand. The podcast covers men’s care trends, their bet on new categories such as fragrance and skin care, and their $11 million dollar series B funding round. They also discuss the impact of social marketing, wholesale expansion, and the importance of retail in maintaining a connection with consumers. Lastly, they touch on men's skincare trends on TikTok and the brand's fragrance expansion and branding strategy.

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 at Google, which offers her firsthand knowledge of the process of researching search trends to find what beauty shoppers want. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, DiDonato and Uribe discuss the founding story of the brand, the Covey lip balm that went viral on TikTok, and the state of mainstream consumer awareness about popular skin-care trends like vitamin C and SPF.