The Glossy Beauty Podcast

In the past, most of the celebrity hairstylists that launched their own salons and hair-care lines were men. That’s been changing, as more female celebrity stylists are becoming founders.Mara Roszak is a member of this new generation shaking up the hair-care market. You’ve probably seen her styling work on Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Michelle Yeoh, Olivia Wilde or Zoe Saldana on the red carpet. When she’s not doing celebrity looks, she runs her salon, Mare, and her new hair-care line, Rōz, which launched in 2021.On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Roszak shares the story of how she got started working with celebrities and how that led her to found her own brand. She also discusses the processes of coming up with silicone-free formulations and ensuring the efficacy needed for celebrity public appearances. And finally, she talks about how she's approaching sustainable packaging, and where she’s putting her focus during the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes.

In 2022, Chriselle Lim and Ben Bennett, re-launched Phlur, a dormant "clean" fragrance brand at the time, with Ben Bennett. Bennett is the founder of the brand incubator The Center, which is behind Saltair, Naturium and Make Beauty. The brand was a near-instant success, with its first fragrance, Missing Person, going viral on TikTok. That year, Lim was named to the annual Glossy 50, a list of people who made a mark on the fashion or beauty industry.Last week, Lim launched the brand's ninth new fragrance, Father Figure. It launched with a splashy campaign featuring some of Lim's notable, powerful female friends, including influencer Aimee Song; founder of Make, Carrie Barber; founder of Arrae, Siffat Haider; co-CEO of Baby2Baby, Kelly Sawyer; and stylist Monica Rose.Lim is also heavily featured in the campaign imagery, alongside phrases like, "I'll be your Daddy," and "One week they love me. Next week they hate me. Both weeks I got paid."In this monthly Glossy Pop edition of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lim speaks about Phlur's boom of a relaunch and newest perfume, and her journey from college vlogger to mega-influencer.

In a timely Glossy Beauty Podcast episode for the height of summer, this week features a category that has blown up in beauty: sunscreen. Long gone are the days when options were limited to a handful of brands like Coppertone and Hawaiian Tropic. In recent years, a wide range of chic new sunscreen labels have been hitting the market, while skin-care brands are churning out new SPF product launches.One of these hip new brands is one-year-old Dune Suncare, which uses a colorful, nostalgic aesthetic to appeal to both men and women across all age groups. This week’s episode features the brand’s co-founders, Emily Doyle, an event production and marketing pro, and Mei Kwok, who also produces events and performs as a highly sought-after DJ. The founders have created a cool factor for the brand by working with luxury hotels, including QR codes to Kwok’s playlists in its packaging, and shooting campaigns with top fashion photographers. But its distribution plan is all about accessibility as they focus on scaling through wholesale partners including Amazon and Ulta Beauty.

When Snapchat first tapped into the power of augmented reality circa 2015, no one understood how impactful it would be to the social media platform and the beauty industry.Snapchat's “Lens” feature was introduced in 2015. This feature, powered by augmented reality technology, allows users to change how they and the world around them look. But it wasn’t until at least 2017 that the beauty industry started to catch up through independent providers like Modiface, which was later acquired by L'Oréal Group in 2018. To help further Snapchat’s relationship with the beauty and fashion industries and promote its AR strategy, Snapchat hired Rajni Jacques, head of fashion and beauty partnerships at Snapchat, to lead the charge.Jacques joined the social media platform in April 2021 from her previous role as fashion director at Teen Vogue and Allure. Jacques has been in the editorial world for the last two decades, holding positions at InStyle, Glamour, Nylon, The Fader, Vibe and Honey. Jacques sat down with Liz Flora, Glossy’s West Coast correspondent and host of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, to chat about all things augmented reality, Gen Z and the ways both play into beauty. 

The star of Netflix’s "Queer Eye," Jonathan Van Ness has captivated a massive fan base as a comedian, best-selling author and podcast host with a prolific social media presence. But he definitely hasn’t forgotten about hair. Nearly two years ago, he added hair-care brand founder to his expanding resume with the launch of JVN Hair. For this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Van Ness was joined by Teresa Lo, JVN Hair’s global vp and gm who has been with the brand from the start. Topics covered include Van Ness’s career journey, JVN Hair's founding story and the products’ unique formulations, which use hemisqualane and are silicone-free. Lo also addressed whether the brand is seeing any impacts from the recent changes at its parent company, Amyris, after the company announced layoffs and the departure of its CEO last week. While Van Ness is known for his humor and positivity, he’s also outspoken when it comes to more serious topics. In this interview, he reflected on the end of a Pride Month that was rife with homophobic rhetoric.

TikTok beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira discusses her rise to fame, upcoming collaboration with E.l.f., and challenges of being a mega influencer. She talks about her love for makeup, daily routine of creating tutorial videos, and her upcoming wedding. Mikayla shares her experiences with brand partnerships, navigating challenges of having a large following on TikTok, and the importance of using her platform to address important issues. The speakers also discuss the concept of virality in the beauty industry and its impact on brands and mental health.

Charlotte Palermino, co-founder of skincare brand Dieux, discusses her social media presence on TikTok and Instagram where she shares strong viewpoints on SPF and clean beauty. She also talks about running a 'TMI' skincare brand that gives details on ingredients and clinical trials. Additionally, she shares the concept behind Dieux's 'God'-like branding and its customer base called 'Angels'.

While economic headwinds are impacting the beauty industry these days, one area that’s still going strong is fragrance. Take InterParfums, for example. It’s the fragrance company that holds the licenses for over 20 fashion and luxury goods labels including Montblanc and Jimmy Choo. The first quarter of this year was its best in its 40-year history as it reported 24% sales growth and surpassed $1 billion in sales.On this week’s podcast, InterParfums CEO and co-founder Jean Madar shared what’s driving that growth. He talked about the surge in sales that the category has been seeing globally since the pandemic began, and why fragrance is a means for a luxury brand to bring in new customers. And at a time when a new celebrity beauty brand is hitting the market virtually every week, he made it clear that InterParfums’ licensing business is still all about fashion partners. Madar gave the details on why the company has no interest in getting in on the fickle celebrity fragrance licensing business.

When Kim Chi made the finals on season 8 of "RuPaul’s Drag Race" back in 2016, fans were captivated by her stunning makeup artistry. Not long after, she became the CEO and founder of her own makeup brand, KimChi Chic Beauty. Launched in 2019 under Bespoke Beauty Brands, the incubator founded by Nyx Professional Makeup founder Toni Ko, the brand made its national retailer debut in CVS last year. On this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Kim Chi shares how she became what she calls an “accidental drag queen” back in 2012 and learned her elaborate makeup artistry techniques with no formal training. She also talks about the founding story of the brand and the way she's leveraging it to gain traction as one of the first beauty brands on TikTok’s shopping feature. Kim Chi also uses her platform to speak out about bias and discrimination, and is vocal about the drag queen ban attempts happening across the country. Below are some excerpts from the conversation.

Luxury fragrance brands have long relied on big celebrity brand ambassadors and traditional ad formats. Niche fragrance brands, however, are moving away from traditional strategies and finding major success on their own terms. For fragrance house Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the Baccarat Rouge 540 has earned cult status without a single official celebrity ad campaign. And despite not having partnerships, the brand has earned celebrity approval — Olivia Rodrigo wears it, and Drake has been rumored to wear it. On TikTok, the hashtag for the fragrance #baccaratrouge540 has received over 432 million views to date, and it was listed among the fragrance success highlights in parent company LVMH’s annual financial report for fiscal year 2022.On this week’s Glossy Beauty Podcast episode, the brand’s CEO, Marc Chaya, joins Glossy West Coast correspondent Liz Flora to share the story of the brand’s growth. He talks about how he co-founded the brand with perfumer Francis Kurkdjian and the ways in which the brand is disrupting traditional gender norms in fragrance. He also goes into the details of how Baccarat Rouge 540 became such a massive hit, and why the brand doesn’t work with traditional celebrity ambassadors.