Despite taking a self-proclaimed non-traditional career path, Julian Reis, founder and CEO of beauty incubator SuperOrdinary, credits his initial experience in the conventional finance industry as the catalyst to understanding the potential of the e-commerce beauty market.  ?E-commerce 1.0 was just beginning,? said Reis, who, while working in finance in Singapore in 2013, successfully facilitated the growth of laser-facial company Skin Laundry. But that was not the end of his innovation within the beauty market in China.  ?I noticed that a lot of the luxury store counters -- many of the big shops like Lane Crawford -- were being dominated by Chinese tourists. [They were] buying lots of product and bringing it back to China,? said Reis, who made it his mission to ?solve this problem in a much more efficient manner.?  While Reis was aware of the many marketing agencies and ?trade partners? present in China, ?No one was bringing all this together under one roof to provide a full service,? said Reis of distribution, marketing and influencer relationships. Reis has begun to fill this gap with SuperOrdinary, which has brought buzz-worthy U.S. brands like Farmacy and Drunk Elephant into China via TMall. The company hit $90 million in revenue alone this past year, but Reis asserts that there is still room for growth.  SuperOrdinary comes into play in this area by serving as an ?extension of the brands? arms, eyes, [and] ears,? said Reis. ?What we did is focus on each and every brand that we work with to make sure we understand the DNA of the brand and to see whether it would translate in the local market.? Now, Reis is taking that same expertise and applying it to another mega-market and platform: the U.S. and Amazon.

From pouring over Revlon magazine ads as a young girl to becoming the first female CEO of the company in 2018, Debra Perelman personifies the ?emotional connection? consumers have with beauty. ?A big focus of mine has always been, ?How do you utilize these iconic brands and products in order to really leverage this emotional connection that we can have with the consumer?'? said Perelman on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. For Perelman, this emotional connection is rooted in her own mainstay products, like Revlon?s Super Lustrous lipstick, which she used as a teen, and her grandmother?s perfume. By maintaining the aspect of heritage while also adapting to changes in the beauty industry and the world, in general, ?We?re able to create beauty innovations to inspire confidence and ignite joy in the consumer,? Perelman said. While Revlon has maintained a focus on personal beauty and confidence throughout the brand?s history, the emergence of Covid pushed to the forefront of the beauty industry the ideas of ?[making] sure that people are staying safe? and ?[giving] back to the communities around us,? she said. Perelman facilitated Revlon?s adaptation to the pandemic by not only transforming some of the company's production lines to make hand sanitizers and donating to underserved communities but also navigating the management of employees who were managing Covid in their personal lives. The pandemic also accelerated the desire for digitization within Revlon. ?I was focused on making quick decisions, in terms of further accelerating our digital transformation,? said Perelman. To achieve this, Perelman ?focused on moving from a siloed organization to a much more collaborative organization,? with small ?pods?, or teams, centered on e-commerce, product development and marketing. In addition, Perelman emphasized her mission to transform Revlon's oldest, most iconic beauty brands, Revlon and Elizabeth Arden. The focus: diversity, inclusion, and sustainability -- not only for consumers, but also for Revlon employees behind the scenes. ?For Revlon, the future is just so bright,? said Perelman, who hopes to ?leave [the company] in a way that's a bit more positive than when I started.?

Gillian Gorman Round may have spent her career in big beauty, from L'Oréal to Gucci Group to most recently Revlon, but she couldn't turn down the opportunity to become CEO at Kjaer Weis, even in the middle of a pandemic. Like her former boss Revlon CEO Debbie Perelman, Gorman Round is one of the few female CEOs in the beauty industry today. She joined the organic and refillable makeup brand in December 2020. Many of Kjaer Weis' points of differentiation are catching on industry-wide, namely its organic formulas, high performance, and sustainable and refillable practices. As such, Gorman Round believes the brand awareness opportunity is ripe for the taking. This is especially true since founder and makeup artist Kirsten Kjaer Weis has been perfecting that proposition for 11 years. It helps that Waldencast, which recently announced its better-for-you SPAC, recently took a majority stake in the brand. "Kirsten, when she founded the brand a decade ago, was the very first creator to be able to develop certified organic, high-performance, refillable, sustainable products. Now we see a decent amount of activity within that space...but [in] certified organic, which is our principal and our philosophy, we really stand alone, " said Gorman Round on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Throughout the pandemic, Kjaer Weis was able to own that point of view digitally and with retail partners. To date, its DTC business, which is up 300% for the year, accounts for 50% of the business. Sales in the wholesale segment, which makes up the remaining 50%, doubled year-over-year. "It's not that we are shifting 50% of our business to DTC because our wholesale business isn't performing," she said. "A rising tide lifts all boats."

If the idea of Walmart as a beauty hub seems new, then the expansion of the nation?s leading grocer?s beauty e-commerce business by Musab Balbale may be equally disruptive. Balbale, the merchandising vp of omnichannel beauty at Walmart, has worked within consumer retail for the past 20 years and most recently has transitioned from wellness to the beauty space. This transition, which he said is ?exciting? began when he had the chance to spearhead the beauty and health e-commerce businesses for Walmart in 2016. ?[Beauty] combines considered purchases -- those that are infrequent higher price points [alongside] daily regimen purchases. And [the consumer] is also looking to be inspired,? said Balbale on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Within the last year, Walmart's beauty team has ?nearly doubled" the number of new brands coming into the beauty aisle by ?[evolving] our stores to work in a new way to accelerate the freshness of our assortment on our shelves and to make it easier for the customer,? said Balbale. The ingenuity of products on Walmart?s shelves isn't the only measure that the team has taken to increase customer engagement. They have also begun to step into the popular worlds of TikTok and livestream shopping, hosting their first live shopping event through TikTok in March. According to Balbale, Walmart?s involvement with TikTok has to do with its new customer base: Gen Z. ?This was the first live selling event on TikTok,? said Balbale. ?We were striking the balance between showcasing products that you care about and talking about it in an authentic and genuine way, while also making it a selling event.? He said the ultimate goal was to ?create energy in the industry.? Along with their identity as ?digital natives,? Balbale admits that Gen Z is ?leading us to be more focused on inclusivity and equality,? a core value that the omnichannel beauty team has capitalized on through their selection of mission-driven beauty products. The current political climate, with calls from the public for racial and environmental justice, has become ?articulated in the beauty shelves? in the past 12 months, according to Balbale. Walmart beauty?s new partnership with Uoma by Sharon C, a Black-owned, sustainable beauty brand from Sharom Chuter that is inspired by Gen Z, exemplifies the team?s push to ?change how we engage the beauty community? through ?diversity," as well as ?inclusivity, accessibility [and] sustainability,? said Balbale. Uoma by Sharon ?has pushed the boundaries on sustainability? by including vegan, eco-friendly and cruelty-free products within the line. Both the omnichannel beauty team and Chuter shared the desire to ?bring these values that we all care more about now than we did pre-Covid and make them more accessible, both in terms of price point and physical reach to consumers.? Also during the pandemic, Balbale said the beauty team translated to beauty products the ?simplicity and convenience? of grocery pick-up. ?We were conscious about making sure that the beauty products she was already purchasing were in front of her [and] easy for her to reorder,? said Balbale.

From growing up on a cattle ranch to having his face grace the shelves of Sephora, skinfluencer Hyram Yarbro, 25, has taken the beauty world by storm due to his honest yet informative persona.  ?When you're brand new to this world of skin care, you ask, ?What do all these things mean??? said Yarbro, on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. He himself had wondered just that at 18, when he first started to notice signs of premature aging in his skin. ?I realized that there was a gap where there wasn't anyone simplifying skin care and teaching people how to do the basics -- how to have a good, simple skin-care routine.? Just a few years later, in 2017, Yarbro started his YouTube channel to try and fill that gap with an authentic ?documentation of [his] personal skin-care philosophy.? Yarbro?s progression to TikTok at the height of the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, was a natural extension of his philosophy to remain ?reliable and trustworthy,? while also simplifying important skin-care information in short 60-second videos.  ?I wanted my videos to feel like you were talking to a friend -- like you're just sitting down with your best friend,? said Yarbro. ?What I try to do is unapologetically show my skin-care opinions and push brands to be more accessible, while still being respectful.? In doing so, Yarbro captured and held the attention of millions. He experienced rapid growth from 4,000 to around 4 million followers within six months -- a milestone that he doesn?t take lightly. ?Every single day, I'm still in awe and in shock, and I don't take it for granted,? he said. The exponential growth of his following yielded a plethora of sponsorship opportunities, which, according to Yarbro, can be ?a slippery slope.?  ?I see the mistake of a lot of people taking sponsorships that don't align with their personal philosophy,? said Yarbro. ?I only accept the ones that fall in line exactly with my philosophy, and I encourage that for other creators, too.? With the release of his own skin-care brand, Selfless By Hyram, in partnership with The Inkey List, Yarbro is living proof of the benefits of staying true to one?s own philosophy in what can be a cutthroat industry. When looking at his options for launching his own brand, Yarbro ?didn't want the purpose and entire philosophy of the brand to be swept away by corporate semantics.? The philosophy in question for Yarbro is about social change, specifically through reforestation and clean drinking water efforts, which he found to be perfectly aligned with The Inkey List, founded by Mark Curry and Colette Laxton.  ?I think it's amazing, and it's definitely not something that fell into our laps. Mark and Colette can attest to the sheer workload that is involved,? said Yarbro. ?But it's a testament to the power that we as a collective can have when everyone is aligned on the same philosophy.?

It was Ben Bennett?s first job working at Limited Brands that showed him the power of working on a portfolio of businesses. Early in his career, Bennett, the founder and CEO of beauty brand incubator The Center, worked on 14 different apparel businesses at Limited Brands, but it was his time helping to conceive Bath & Body Works that got him hooked on beauty. ?I?d never considered developing fragrances or personal care products,? he said on this week?s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. ?I looked at Bath & Body Works like this was another specialty business that I was brought in to help influence seasonality and trend: What would that mean, season after season, to look at what was happening culturally in the world and how we could incorporate that into the things that we were developing?? At the time, body wash hadn?t quite upended bar soap and consumers were shopping in drugstores. ?Body wash was something that maybe wealthy people used when they went to a spa. It wasn?t such a common item. Bath & Body Works opened up a whole new category of personal care for consumers and created almost a frenzy around coming in and experiencing the new fragrance,? he said. Since then, Bennett has been instrumental in creating the next guard of beauty brands, first at incubator Hatchbeauty and now at The Center, which he founded in 2020. At just over a year old, The Center has been busy, relaunching Make Beauty under new ownership and debuting Naturium with skin-care influencer Susan Yara. Bennett will bring Phlur?s rebrand to market in fall and launch a fourth brand in the first quarter of 2022.

Charlotte Cho, Soko Glam co-founder and Then I Met You founder, was one of the original purveyors of K-Beauty in the U.S. But nearly nine years after launching the e-commerce platform Soko Glam, she acknowledges that the category has changed significantly. "Korean beauty has never been about one product, one category or even one brand. It's been a skin-first philosophy. It's really helped introduce skin care as a self-care moment. It's been about the general innovation at large; it's helped push the envelope in the beauty industry to innovate," said Cho on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. While there have been murmurs that K-beauty has plateaued, with Innisfree's recent store closures in the U.S., Canada and China, Cho disputes that point. "Maybe you're not seeing K-beauty trends popping up in the media, because honestly, the industry and the brands have wised up and they've actually started producing and manufacturing a lot of their products in Korea," she said. And though some of Cho's original K-beauty peers -- think Glow Recipe, Memebox and Peach & Lily -- have moved beyond curation to branded products, Cho was clear to state that curation will always be a part of her founder's story, even with the addition of her skin-care brand, Then I Met You, which will be launching at Cult Beauty this week. "I truly take delight in introducing Korean brands and innovations through Soko Glam, and providing a platform for new and exciting indie brands. I think that people in our community really trust us and want to hear from our lens -- a K-beauty lens but, ultimately, a quality skin care lens? That will never change," she said.

Like many beauty executives, Andrea Alvares, Natura chief brand, innovation, international and sustainability officer, saw her business completely change with the onset of Covid-19. Meetings on Zoom became commonplace and a digital-centric model became priority No. 1. But while the U.S. is close to normalcy, the bulk of Natura's business is in Latin America where the pandemic ravages on. "We're still in a weird space. In Latin America, you've got some countries like Chile that are a bit further down, in terms of the vaccination programs for everyone. The majority of the Latin American countries are still in the initial stages of vaccination," said Alvares on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "It was very difficult also to do complete lockdowns because the whole socio-economic landscape isn't a favorable one, in terms of ensuring that you keep people really in isolation. There are some situations where it's just not possible. We've seen a reduction in overall death rate -- it's dropped by half -- but it's still very high, and we can't get used to it." Still, the Natura brand saw net revenue grow by 12.6% in Brazil and 60.4% in Hispanic Latin America for the most recent quarter, announced in May. Alvares largely credits the wins to Natura's holistic approach to beauty and the brand's social selling model. Of the latter, she said. "It has been absolutely critical to the fact that we've been so resilient and that we actually fared well in 2020. We were a social network before social networks existed; they've been dialed up with digital tools [now] that actually amplify the reach of that business model. We actually helped many of our consultants up their capabilities in digital -- so, their skills using digital tools and actually be[ing] able to sell in this environment. We reached 1.3 million virtual consultants in Latin America over the past year, which is incredible -- that's more than double the size we were seeing pre-pandemic."

Lauryn Bosstick, the blogger, podcast host and beauty brand executive -- she launched her Skinny Confidential-branded product line in April -- has had an unusual route to becoming a founder. But being a disrupter has always been her m.o. "I am not an expert. I do not claim to be an expert. I am a practitioner of beauty. I am someone who's tried every product," said Bosstick on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I want to show women that you can be a bartender and be broke, and you can go disrupt a space that's cliquey." Bosstick was, in fact, a bartender and a Pure Barre instructor while attending San Diego State University, when she started her blog in 2011. It later spawned a podcast show and a line of products. "I joined a sorority, and in the sorority, they told me it was $800. I was like, 'What do you mean, it's $800 to have friends and community?' I couldn't believe it. I was already broke. I couldn't afford $800. So I left the sorority after two seconds, [thinking,] 'This isn't gonna work for me.' And [I thought,] 'How can I do this online? How can I do it better? And how can I do it for free?" she said. Bosstick was more than able to grow that community: She has 1.3 million followers on Instagram, 278,000 fans on Facebook, 38,000 newsletter subscribers and 2.6 million monthly impressions on her blog. The Skinny Confidential podcast has 90 million downloads, and the new line of "beauty wellness" products, which started with a facial roller and oil, has beat projections since launch by 300%.

"Sustainability" was a buzzword in beauty and wellness well before the pandemic. But due to 2020's stay-at-home orders, coupled with the sheer volume of boxes and waste from online shipping, beauty companies recognized they needed to up their focus on sustainable practices. For British beauty brand Bybi, which came to market in 2017, its road to "sustainability" has been a work in progress. "The term sustainable is a little bit problematic in itself. It's not regulated, so what does it even mean?," said Elsie Rutterford, co-founder of Bybi, on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Rutterford started the natural brand focused on performance with Dominika Minarovic, a friend and colleague from their time in advertising. With no professional beauty experience, the twosome first started a natural beauty content platform called Clean Beauty Insiders before going on to make products in their kitchen. A full-fledged beauty line wasn't in the cards. "When we first started, we grew this content platform... We had a book published by Penguin, which was kind of a recipe book for your skin, your hair -- all centered around natural ingredients. We were running these events, workshops in central London, where we would bring together people who were interested in making their own beauty products. We spent quite a lot of time just testing out different ways of monetizing the content that we'd sort of begun to do as a hobby. [Products] were never our end goal," said Rutterford. But their authentic approach to beauty building yielded more than they bargained for. In December 2020, Bybi raised a $7 million Series A, and it launched into 1,800 Target doors in January. Minarovic said that the brand grew 200% in the pandemic and has high hopes for Target to be a $10 million to $20 million account. Below are additional highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.

Trinny Woodall was well-known and beloved in her native U.K. as style writer and "What Not to Wear" host, well before she started her DTC makeup brand Trinny London in 2017. But, Woodall, who acts as founder and CEO of her brand, doesn't think of herself as an "influencer" who is dabbling in beauty. "I'm not really an influencer who's launched a brand. I think I always knew I would launch a brand," she said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Woodall said her business was on her mind for at least five years prior to its debut, but actually started taking shape when she was a child. "From six years of age, I did makeovers on girls in my boarding school, and I think I got the bug then of how you could transform how a person feels by these different aspects: by doing their makeup, their hair, their clothing. I spent 20 years refining that." The pandemic helped solidify Woodall's point of differentiation. Her brand remains digital-only -- a saving grace during Covid-19 -- and banks on its Match2Me technology that personalizes the makeup assortment a customer sees based on their hair, eye and skin color. Last year, Trinny London hit about $62 million in revenue, and growth is on Woodall's mind -- but not necessarily in the same way that others increase their market share. "I don't want to be a [founder] that goes in and says, 'OK, here's brow. Let's see if the 28 different variations of brow we can do [work],'" she said. "I feel that, because we have so much choice, it makes it harder and harder to decide what woman you are and what you want to buy."

Unlike many beauty entrepreneurs, Melissa Butler, founder and CEO of The Lip Bar, wasn't a makeup or skin-care fanatic. Butler started her professional career at Barclay's, and her entree into beauty was driven by being frustrated with how women were judged by their looks -- this was especially true on Wall Street. "I oftentimes was having to show up for myself in a multitude of ways, thinking about what my hair looked like, what my makeup looked like, and also, ultimately, thinking about what my core work performance was," she said on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "In thinking about how I showed up and what beauty meant to me, I became incredibly frustrated -- frustrated with the beauty industry, its lack of diversity, not seeing people who look like me. [It] really was just this idea that beauty was linear. And I was like, 'Wait, no'. Beauty doesn't look like one thing. It looks like all things, and I'm included within that." In many ways, The Lip Bar, launched in 2011, was the opposite of what was prevalent in beauty at the time. "I very vividly remember the beauty industry and the media essentially putting the Kim K. look on a pedestal. That Kim K. look was supposed to be aspirational for every single woman in the United States. Meanwhile, only probably 2% of the women in the country look like her," said Butler. "It's like, 'Well, if she is the standard of beauty, then how am I to be made to feel?' That's something that I was questioning -- I was questioning it for myself, for my friends, for my family and just everyday women." The Lip Bar, which first debuted with lip products, launched with unexpected colors like purple, blue, yellow and orange. "We didn't even have a single red or nude lipstick... [That was] really to say I'm making a statement that beauty is a matter of self-expression," she said. Ten years later, the once DTC-only Lip Bar has expanded beyond lip to complexion products, launched in national retailers like Target and Walmart, and doubled its sales every year for the last four years.

When Jenna Lyons left her role as president and executive creative director of J.Crew in 2017, few assumed that her next act would be in beauty. But in September 2020, Lyons debuted LoveSeen, her eyelash extension brand with digital connection and content at its core. Lessons Lyons enforced at J.Crew -- personality, individuality, stretching the boundaries of style and owning your message -- have been amplified tenfold with LoveSeen. "Having felt not seen when I was young, feeling left out of a lot of things or just not feeling beautiful, I realized how powerful it is to feel attractive. It really is transformative. It can make you happy, simply happy," she said on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Like many beauty founders, Lyons zeroed in on a category, eyelashes, because of personal experience. She doesn't have any, due to a genetic disorder, and wasn't able to participate in the growing trend of professional eyelash extensions. "Anyone who has something that they feel deficient in, I'm sure that's the thing that you notice on everyone else," she said. "I was super attuned to other people's eyelashes. I noticed all the women in my office coming in with eyelash extensions that literally would arrive in the room before they did. I was doing research for a beauty company separately, and I was watching all these Huda Beauty videos, where she was putting on, like, seven layers of concealer, eyeliner, eyeshadow and highlighter. How many products can one person put on their face? But I loved it. At the end, [she always] put on an eyelash. I thought it was really interesting that it was two really opposite ends of the beauty spectrum: these girls at J.Crew who were wearing no other makeup and Huda Beauty candidates who were, like, full makeup."

Amy Liu, founder and CEO of Tower 28, had dreams of being a beauty founder, in large part because she watched her father live out his own entrepreneurial dreams. But instead, she chose to work for some of the biggest founder-led brands before starting her own clean makeup company in 2019. "I sought out founder-based brands here in Los Angeles, and prestige ones, color, skin care. I worked at Kate Somerville, Smashbox Cosmetics, Josie Maran. And really, with all the companies -- I went to went from bigger company to smaller company -- my role kept getting bigger. The hope there was that I just wanted to see what it was like to have a seat at the table," she said on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Because of Liu's own chronic eczema, Tower 28 was created to go beyond the proposition of clean. "I tried to make the switch to clean beauty, but a lot of clean beauty felt like it was actually pretty hard on my sensitive skin because there are essential oils and plant botanicals in it." Moreover, there were few clean color cosmetics options when Liu was conceiving of her brand. Layering a youthful and accessible positioning has been a boon for the new brand --- products are all under $28. It's ranked No. 7 at Sephora, and it's penetrating 1% of Sephora sales worldwide. "One percent of all Sephora customers are buying Tower 28, which is actually a feat that a lot of big brands never get to; that is partly because of the fact that our price point is low, so then a lot of people can have the ability to try our products."  

After 20 years in big beauty, with stints at L'Oréal and Procter & Gamble, Waldencast founder and CEO Michel Brousset set out to start over, with an eye on the future. "We started with a dream, which was to create this big global company, but you [have to] start as an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur, just like founders are," said Brousset on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Brousset was most recently group president of L?Oréal's consumer products division in North America. In 2019, he started Waldencast by investing in and providing operational support for emerging brands. Early investments included refillable cosmetics line Kjaer Weis and Francisco Costa's beauty debut Costa Brazil, which was recently sold to Amyris. And while that is still one arm of the business, brand incubation is also a focus. It debuted its first foray last week, a travel-inspired line dubbed Whind, and it has three other brands in the works. With multiple goals and scale as its focus, Waldencast recently announced its special purpose acquisition company (or SPAC), Waldencast Acquisition Corp, with $633 million to invest. "As we were developing these two areas of how to create this new, next-generation company -- in a way, we're creating it from a blank sheet of paper, the way we want to create it and with the values that we want to create -- we started thinking relatively early that we wanted to do larger acquisitions," he said. "When we started developing and firming up how to do that is where we landed with a SPAC, as an efficient way of building that capability." Still, Brousset said the focus for Waldencast is to bet on brands with a similar ethos. "If you look at all the brands in our portfolio, they have certain threads or flows between them, some commonality between them. They are brands that have in their DNA, not just a perspective on beauty, but also a perspective relative to important social values like sustainability, inclusivity, responsibility and conscious entrepreneurship, which happen to be our values," said Brousset.

Private equity firm VMG Partners has invested in some of beauty's biggest disrupters: Drunk Elephant, Briogeo and Perfect Diary. But the 16-year-old firm didn't have a firm playbook when it first started out, said Robin Tsai, a general partner at VMG who leads the company's beauty and wellness practice. "As a first-time fund, you're really more defined by what works and what doesn't," he said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "You can have all these great theses at that point in time, but it's a lot easier to connect the dots when you're actually looking backward than when you're looking forward. What I would say that we're good at is working with founders. It's just something that was part of our DNA. It probably also came from the fact that we were a startup, as well, so we could really empathize with what people were going through. We found that we were very good with brands and had a certain gut in terms of what consumers really cared about and where they were headed." To date, VMG has realized many of its beauty and wellness investments, including Drunk Elephant, which sold to Shiseido for $845 million in 2019, which is something that Tsai said founders recognize. "We have sold the most businesses of any consumer fund to strategics over the last 15 years. That track record is an important one, and it's something that founders truly care about," he said. And while the investing landscape is changing rapidly, with firms investing earlier and SPACs becoming part of the equation, Tsai said VMG's focus is on "elevating" the businesses it invests in. "Our M.O. is really more about investing deeply within the ecosystem of the categories that we're investing in, so that's food and beverage, beauty and personal care, the wellness space, alcohol and spirits, the pet space. It really is having a super, super deep knowledge of who the stakeholders are, what makes them tick," he said

During a full year of uncertainty and change, companies found few things they could bet on. But for Estée Lauder Companies, its hero product strategy provided to be fundamental. In its latest quarterly earnings, 10 of ELC?s brands saw growth. La Mer and its namesake brand Estée Lauder saw double-digit sales growth, thanks to iconic franchises. "[The strategy is] really to focus on our hero products. Because first and foremost, these products are absolutely loved," said Jane Hertzmark Hudis, executive group president of the Estée Lauder Companies, on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "They will drive the greatest amount of recruitment, which is new consumers to our brand, and repeat business, which is the loyalty to the products. Advanced Night Repair and Crème de la Mer are great examples. However, we do innovate in what we call those franchises." A long-term ELC veteran, Hertzmark Hudis started at Prescriptives within the company before taking leadership roles at Origins and Estée Lauder. She is often pointed to as the driver of the organization's skin-care wins. In July, she became the first woman promoted to executive group president at the conglomerate. Though the concept of prestige beauty is evolving, Hertzmark Hudis affirmed that Estée Lauder Companies will "be pure-play, focused on prestige and luxury." "The luxury business is booming, and people want more and more luxury, and more and more luxury experiences. So luxury is, quite frankly, here to stay," she said

Casey Georgeson, founder and CEO of Saint Jane Beauty, was building brands for others, like LVMH's Kendo and Cupcake Vineyards, before she saw herself as a "founder." "I've always been that behind the scenes," she said on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Oftentimes people would ask me, 'When are you going to start your own brand?' 'When are you going to be a founder?' I never felt like I had the big idea to do that, to make the leap. I knew what went into it, and I knew how extraordinarily difficult it would be." That changed, however, when Georgeson was introduced to CBD while working in the wine industry. Though many people had negative opinions of CBD because of its connection to marijuana, Georgeson believed it had greater appeal. "I fell in love with what it promised," she said. And despite the stoner presentation in dispensaries, she also believed that CBD had the power to be a luxury skin-care and wellness ingredient. Today, Saint Jane is sold at Sephora and Credo, and on its own DTC site. The company's sales grew 300% in 2020.

Though a 15-year-veteran in beauty, Guive Balooch, head of L'Oréal's technology incubator, considers his outsider-turned-insider perspective a skill. Balooch started his professional career as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley before working in pharmaceuticals. "I spent almost half of my life really focused on academia and science," he said on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I fell upon this job in L'Oréal, because I was moving to Chicago for family reasons .. I didn't know anything about the company. I will say that I did like fashion and beauty, in general, even before joining L'Oreal, but I didn't really know much. I discovered this incredible industry ... I feel like if I didn't grow up in an academic family that I probably would have ended up being a marketer, because I really like business and product and consumers. At the same time, I feel a bit lucky because I have this fundamental science background, and I used my experience of being at L'Oréal almost 15 years to learn the marketing and the consumer part." In the early to mid 2000's L'Oréal's technology and digital ambitions were just getting started. Balooch found his footing in the now timely skin and hair sectors, but he knew technology had the power to transform the beauty industry, even back then. "The idea that we've have had from day one on my team has been: How can we really elevate the beauty experience for people around the world by using tech?"

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.

In the winner-takes-all conversations around beauty, much has changed including what a winner looks like in the midst of a pandemic. Fortunately for Sally Beauty, it had embarked on a digital-centric strategy before Covid-19 became an industry-rocking crisis. ?We had a pretty extensive brand relaunch that we were in the throes of. It was about modernizing the brand, showcasing to consumers that we will deliver the confidence they needed to DIY at home. The strategy honestly has not changed, because that?s become even more important during the pandemic,? said Sally Beauty group vice president of marketing Carolyne Guss on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Online sales for Sally Beauty Holdings were up 250% in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, compared to the prior year.

Alongside food, no industry has driven the way companies and influencers use social media quite like beauty. "Beauty brands and creators have always been early movers in that space," said Kristie Dash, Instagram's manager of fashion and beauty strategic partnerships, on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "And Instagram continues to evolve based off of those behaviors." In recent years, beauty giants like Sephora have taken to connecting with their followers in the same casual way that individual creators might, Dash said. "If you're not a creator-led brand that has an obvious face of the brand -- in those examples, that's what people love to connect with, almost like a FaceTime with your followers -- then brands like Sephora and MAC Cosmetics, with their built-in creator network of hundreds of global makeup artists, are leaning into that. A creator mentality has really helped them," she said. "They're utilizing those personalities almost to replicate the in-store experience of having that conversation with the makeup artist or the ambassador; they're replicating that on Instagram Live." 

If there's one thing that makes Tracy Anderson's workout routines stand out, it's the iteration. Joseph Pilates "stopped at 350 moves," Anderson said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "And I've got thousands upon thousands of sequences." That extends to live workouts, which Anderson favors over a rote streaming approach. "I'm not nervous to put the pressure on me. Every week, no matter what's going on in my life, I have to show up for everybody." This includes running the business side of her eponymous company, which she previously parsed out to other people. Despite having high-profile clientele like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez, Anderson has preferred the slow and steady approach to growth versus rapidly scaling. "I'm the CEO now because other CEOs did not share my vision, and they felt really uncomfortable to me," she said. "At the end of the day, when you want to own a business, or if you're a founder, it's like parenting, in a sense. You might wish that the nanny can teach your kid all the lessons or parent them, but that's not parenting at all. That's giving away all of your power. That's not going to inject your child with all of your magic and all you have to offer.... There have been chapters of owning this business that I'm definitely not proud of. So me being in the CEO position is the moment for me to say, 'OK, you can't let somebody else change all the diapers.'"

This past January, JuE Wong joined hair-care brand Olaplex as its CEO -- not because it had budding potential, but because of the strength of its existing assets. For one, the demand is there. "What we are seeing is that, when people are looking at their hair, they look at it as an extension of their skin care," Wong said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. And skin care, of course, has emerged as a major category in recent years. Olaplex has also developed a strong reputation among stylists and other salon professionals, "which gave it a lot of credibility and authority," Wong said. "So when I joined I saw that equity." Olaplex launched in 2014 and only developed a few products to start. "They knew that if they were going to launch anything else, it had to be best in class and best in category," Wong said. "And that is what I mandated myself to do. I told my team that we are not going to go for SKU proliferation, but we are going to hone in on innovation."

For La Prairie Group regional vice president François Le Gloan, what the luxury beauty brand didn't do in response to the coronavirus pandemic is as important as what it did. Le Gloan is responsible for the company's operations in the Americas and Oceania. "We have seen a flurry of promotions," he said about the larger beauty industry, on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "With the help of our retail partners, we have managed to stay a bit away from this surge of promotional activity." One front for change, however, is how the company sells product online. La Prairie organizes online events; participants receive samples in the mail in advance, so that they can mimic the typical learning and sampling experience that was the industry's bread and butter in-store before the crisis. Le Gloan anticipates that many of La Prairie's digital pivots will stick around for the long haul. "Looking back maybe two or three years time, we will realize that it has enriched the palette of the way we are doing things," he said.

When Luxury Brand Partners founder and CEO Tev Finger pitched his idea to Estée Lauder Companies -- an in-house brand incubator that he would run after the company bought his brand Bumble & Bumble -- the company almost went for it. "I give a lot of credit. It's hard for a company that buys brands that are profitable to even contemplate taking a risk on incubators," Finger said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "It ended up not happening." That was around 2006, Finger recalled. But all these years later, he still sees Luxury Brand Partners, which he founded in 2012, as an incubator for beauty conglomerates in everything but name. "I'm actually an arm of them," Finger said. "We kind of line it up for them to make an easy acquisition. We know the things they're looking for." Since the Bumble & Bumble acquisition, Finger has sold Becca to ELC, Pulp Riot to L'Oréal and Oribe to Kao Corporation. Other brands in the LBP portfolio include R+Co, Patrick Starrr's One/Size and Camila Coelho's Elaluz -- the latter two launched during the pandemic. Which of the giant beauty companies ends up buying the small companies he sets up is beside the point, as long as one of them does. Not that it's easy. "It has to be profitable, and it has to be well executed. And you have to have trademarks around the world and licenses -- so when they buy it it's seamless," Finger said. "If you can erase the roadblocks and put it to them on a platter, you're going to get a lot of buyers."

Fragrance isn't what it used to be, according to Acqua Di Parma CEO Laura Burdese. "I don't wear a fragrance anymore to represent my personality to someone else," Burdese said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I do it because of myself, because it's part of my personal, intimate life." That's partly due to the pandemic that is hitting with renewed strength, of course, both in the company's native Italy and around the world. If people are still wearing perfume, they're doing it for themselves. "On top of fragrances, we've seen the rise of so many bath and body products and home fragrances like candles and diffusers," Burdese said of the self-care momentum. "This is a shift that was probably somehow already there, but the pandemic really accelerated it." Acqua Di Parma's customer base is slowly skewing younger, Burdese added. For those generations and overall, the meaning of luxury has changed from being a simple price bracket to requiring an emotional resonance with customers, "something they believe in and feel is relevant to them," Burdese said. "To me, luxury is becoming something more personal." And that, she said, is oftentimes "more difficult."

When Covid-19 hit the U.S. in March, Ipsy, like all beauty companies, had to rethink its year ahead. But CEO Marcelo Camberos said he hoped the larger economic and consumer changes would allow Ipsy, best known for its monthly subscription Glam Bags, to become "a bigger part of members' lives." "In this world where they really need us, where it's much harder to go to physical retail and feel confident doing so, how can we provide more value?" said Camberos, on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "We thought that the key way we could do that was to give them more control." Ipsy aims to give its customers more control by allowing them to choose the merchandise that they get in Ipsy's Glam Bags and to offer more personal care products in tandem with beauty. Camberos said the big question for his team when thinking of customers is always, "Was it worth it for me this month?" in regard to the monthly shipment of products. And this line of thinking has been applied to all of Ipsy's franchises, including its events, which the company had previously gone heavy on in 2019, and incubation, as seen in its August launch of Item Beauty with TikTok star Addison Rae Easterling. "We probably changed more than half of our business initiatives for the year," said Camberos of the company's pivot. "This is a new world; we need to act quickly."

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In this bonus episode, we share a live Q&A first hosted by Unfair host Priya Rao and its producer, Pierre Bienaimé. They were joined by a source from the series' first episode: activist and speaker Nina Davuluri. Together they discuss the industry and the podcast itself, and take audience questions.

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In episode four, Unfair considers the future of the skin lightening industry -- and how the criticism it has faced this past year will or won't lead to systemic change among its biggest stakeholders. Unfair is hosted by Priya Rao, executive editor at Glossy, and produced by Digiday senior producer Pierre Bienaimé.

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In episode three, Unfair explores the deep -- and often surprising -- history of the market for skin-lightening that existed in the United States and South Africa. Unfair is hosted by Priya Rao, executive editor at Glossy, and produced by Digiday senior producer Pierre Bienaimé.

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In episode two, Unfair covers the health problems and psychological harm these products pose to consumers at large. We hear from Minnesota and California state health department workers, the World Health Organization, and Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Unfair is hosted by Priya Rao, executive editor at Glossy, and produced by Digiday senior producer Pierre Bienaimé.

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In four episodes, Unfair will explore the industry?s origins, history, systems of regulation and its future. Unfair is hosted by Priya Rao, executive editor at Glossy, and produced by Digiday senior producer Pierre Bienaimé.

Glossy is proud to present Unfair, a podcast about the global skin-lightening industry and everything it touches, from the demand for lighter skin to the beauty companies selling to it. In four episodes, Unfair will explore the industry?s origins, history and systems of regulation. It will also lay bare the societal and health problems presented by these products, whether found on store shelves around the world or sold as bootleg items on online marketplaces. This narrative series will hear from academics, activists, dermatologists, government employees and industry analysts to bring listeners a fuller understanding of this segment of the beauty industry. Unfair includes more than 30 voices, like those of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and former Miss America Nina Davuluri. The podcast will uncover how familiar consumer packaged goods companies and their customers have a lot to win or lose, especially as these companies seek to walk a line between progressive marketing and profits. Unfair is hosted by Priya Rao, executive editor at Glossy, and produced by Digiday producer Pierre Bienaimé. Subscribe to the Glossy Beauty Podcast now on Apple Podcasts -- or wherever you get your podcasts -- to hear the first episode on Thursday, September 17.

80% of Foreo's business comes from Luna, a small line of handheld gadgets that promise to clean the face through vibrating silicone bristles. Despite the demand for the brand as facials have only recently resumed in cities like New York -- "business is amazing," said Beki Hoxha, the vp and gm of business operations for Foreo Americas -- the Swedish company won't be making any changes to pricing. "There's nothing in the world that is the 'white truffle' of technology, that we'll actually charge $1,000 and be able to justify it," Hoxha said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "That's why we follow the model where Luna 1 launched at $199 -- Luna 2 came out and was a much better, improved product, but it didn't go higher in price." Hoxha talked about TikTok's big advantage over incumbents like Facebook and Instagram, what makes for a great influencer in 2020 and how one of their product lines caters to the "anti-anti-aging" crowd.

It hasn't been the best year to start a whole new venture in beauty. But Victoria Beckham Beauty has done just that, launching in September 2019 and already tackling a huge market that brands with less star power might hesitate to tackle: China. Co-founder and CEO Sarah Creal (formerly of Estée Lauder) pointed to China's claim to have "the most advanced social media" as one of the big attractions to the region. "It will inform the rest of our digital strategy in the other parts of the world where we sell," Creal said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Despite retail interest, the brand is sold exclusively online. Victoria Beckham Beauty is primarily selling skin care in China, alongside a few makeup items on Tmall, the Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform. "We are seeing upticks in eye makeup, and that makes sense because of the mask-wearing," Creal said. The pandemic has meant an uncertain forecast for growth in the direct-to-consumer company's first full calendar year. But sales have grown by double digits in recent months, said Creal. "And I don't see that slowing down. I only see that increasing." Three-quarters of customers have returned to make a purchase, she said.

For skincare brand Youth To The People, the death of retail comes to what kind of store you're running. "I think the luxury stores, the specific stores, will actually do really well because people will want that customized, very succinct experience," said co-founder Joe Cloyes on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "Whereas I think the bigger stores, people are realizing how easy it is to buy online." The company's own pop-up store in Los Angeles, which only lasted a few months until January of this year, was in the former camp, said Cloyes. He and his cousin (and fellow co-founder) Greg Gonzalez are still planning on opening their own space at a later date. Youth To The People also sells through Sephora, it's biggest partner, but "we want people to come in and generally walk into something unique," Gonzalez said. "When you walk into a strong retail environment, especially one that's specific to a brand, you feel the essence of that brand. You know it. There's something specific you can call out."

Cara Sabin joined Sundial Brands as its CEO last December. That was when the coronavirus pandemic was a regional story rather than a global one, and before months of social unrest would renew the challenge for companies to hire and serve diverse groups. "We are so fully in support of these conversations around supporting Black founders and businesses," Sabin said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "At SheaMoisture, we developed what we call a 'Shea List' -- a listing of over 100 businesses that we admire, first and foremost, but that we've also personally invested in to help cultivate and help them grow." SheaMoisture also announced a $1 million fund for founders of color. In addition to SheaMoisture, Sundial's brands include Nubian Heritage, Madam C.J. Walker and Nyakio. Sundial Brands was acquired by Unilever in 2017. One brand Sundial Brands recently partnered with is Brown Girl Jane, which was founded by three Black women. "Through that partnership, we're encouraging consumers to take the 'Brown Girl Swap' pledge, where they take five of their existing beauty products and swap them for products that are founded by Black women," Sabin said.

The pandemic has made Ulta Beauty's most progressive goals tougher to reach, but the beauty retailer's president, Dave Kimbell, doesn't want to put them on hold. "Increasingly, guests of all ages and all types are making choices based on their values," Kimbell said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. This is coming to life most dynamically in Ulta's Conscious Beauty platform, which debuts fully in October and focuses on "five pillars:" "clean ingredients, cruelty-free, vegan, sustainable packaging and positive impact," Kimbell said. Sustainable packaging is the one Ulta Beauty (and the industry as a whole, according to Kimbell) can flex on most. "We probably have the most runway ahead of us to drive greater change and have a more positive impact as it relates to packaging," Kimbell said. Last month. Ulta announced that by 2025, half of its in-store packaging will be either recycled, bio-sourced, recyclable or refillable. As for economic headwinds, Kimbell is optimistic that beauty will enjoy a rebound after the end of the pandemic. "There will be in some ways I think a new renaissance in beauty, a new resurgence in beauty," Kimbell said.

Before joining Sephora, Sol de Janeiro's premium body products had another retailer stumped. "They said, 'You know, we don't know what to do with you guys,' recalled Heela Yang, one of the company's three founders and its CEO, on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. The company's butt cream, foot cream and body hair lightener put them apart from brands in beauty. "And then she said, 'You know, I think Sephora might be really into you guys.' And she was right." Yang founded the company with Camila Pierotti and Marc Capra in 2015. It partnered with Sephora the following year, going into stores nationwide weeks after its Bum Bum Cream for the derrière and its foot cream performed well on Sephora's site. A few years ago, Yang said, it was unclear whether the market for upscale products for the body was even sustainable. "If we had made a decision based on the size of the premium body care category back then, we probably wouldn't have launched this brand," she said. According to Yang, the company started with the idea of sharing Brazil's inclusive beauty culture before it started a product line. Yang lived in Brazil for a time (as did Capra), and Pierotti is from Rio de Janeiro. "There is something that starts in the beach culture of Rio -- that beauty is not any sort of universal standard to achieve, it is a feeling. Feeling comfortable in your own skin and feeling happy in your own skin. Brazilians love taking care of their bodies," said Pierotti. In the months since the Covid-19 pandemic went global, Sol de Janeiro has pivoted from in-person promotion of its products and events to a DTC-focused model. Its first fragrance, launched in mid-March just as the world came to a halt, had to be quickly shipped back from Sephora stores to fulfill online orders. But, the company's digital business is three times what it was last year, Yang said, and now makes up almost half of its total business.

Skin care isn't just for the face, according to Nécessaire co-founder Randi Christiansen. Christiansen founded the company with Nécessaire co-founder Nick Axelrod in 2018 and debuted digitally first. Their original lineup of clean products -- a curated assortment of body washes, body lotions and sex gels -- was quite unorthodox for the beauty industry just two years ago. "Nick and I really felt philosophically that skin doesn't stop at the neck," she said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Christiansen saw a gap in how much money people were willing to spend on skin care for the face, as well as for their favorite matchas. "It was very clear to both of us that there was just room for what we call real ingredients in body," Christiansen said. Nécessaire's now expanded product line entered Sephora.com last month, and pandemic permitting, will debut in its stores in August. The company plans to grow 300% to 400% this year, Christiansen said, in part thanks to this new relationship with Sephora.