The Glossy Beauty Podcast

Created for BIPOC in mission and purpose, Tristan Walker’s health and beauty brand, Walker & Company, has been instrumental in shifting the norms of the beauty industry since its conception in 2013. At W&C, Black women and people of color hold the majority of leadership positions. It's changed the diversity in beauty aisles of department stores like Walmart and Target by putting razor and hair-care collections for all different hair textures on the shelves. After almost a decade of simplifying beauty and grooming for BIPOC, hygiene and home goods corporation P&G acquired Walker & Company in 2018 for an estimated $20 million to $40 million. Walker & Company's business has often been led by technology. But Walker, founder and CEO, said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast that, moving forward, the business will be led by culture. Walker’s perspective on how closely culture affects business was instrumental in the creation of Bevel and Form, W&C’s grooming and beauty brands, respectively. And prioritizing the needs of BIPOC doesn't stop at W&C's products. W&C has partnered with various community outreach programs, like Urban Prep academies in Chicago, where it donated laptops for students forced to remote-learn during Covid. Plus, it provides free mental health resources on Headpsace for W&C customers. 

NYC-based makeup artist Meredith Duxbury is a well-known digital content creator among the TikTok beauty community with over 14.8 million followers on the platform. Referred to as “the complexion queen of TikTok,” she is also the face of the Morphe Making You Blush collection, which launched in March 2022.Duxbury grew up following beauty creators like Jacqueline Hill before deciding she wanted to post her own beauty content on social media. “I started on TikTok. I would stack up some cardboard boxes and make a random tripod out of whatever I could find, and I started doing [before-and-after] transitions here and there," Duxbury said on the latest Glossy Podcast. "My videos took off when I started doing rap lip-syncing videos to Nicki Minaj’s 'I’m Legit' song. And I created a trend called #thefoundationchallenge where I would smear foundation all over my face. It would get hundreds of millions of views.”The TikTok star hit 1 million followers in December 2020, and one month later, she reached 7 million followers.“I created three videos a day during quarantine and learned so much about the [influencer] industry. But I’d say 2019 was when I [first] immersed myself in the beauty world,” said Duxbury. “[The TikTok algorithm] shows that, if you’re consistent, you can grow."

When Pinterest launched in 2010, it was pegged as a supplemental platform for bloggers. Fast forward to over a decade later and it's now a regular go-to for beauty brands, beauty fans and far beyond with its buzzy ecosystem of content creators.At the helm of Pinterest's beauty division is Rachel Goodman, head of beauty partnerships, who has been with the company for seven years. During her tenure, she has witnessed the evolution of how Pinterest fits within people’s social media consumption. It has gone from being a special-occasion platform for people decorating apartments or getting married to becoming an “always-on” website for seeking inspiration and shopping. With this in mind, Pinterest has focused over the last two years on connecting the dots from providing inspiration for an idea to facilitating its realization through a purchase.“People aren't coming to Pinterest to broadcast their thoughts and opinions to a social network,” Goodman said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “People come to Pinterest to look for ideas, to discover [ideas], to save them, and to go out and do them.”In the last 12 months alone, Pinterest has launched an inclusive beauty search for hair inspiration for Black, brown and Latinx people. It launched the Creator Fund in April 2021, which aims to recruit and amplify creators of color on the platform through a mix of education, tools, free advertising and income-generating opportunities. Pinterest also became more shoppable through a new program called Idea Pins and launched a daily live-streaming show called "Pinterest TV" in 2021.Goodman spoke further with Glossy about how Pinterest is working with creators differently, which beauty brands perform well on the platform and how Pinterest is helping brands adapt their tactics.

After a wide range of beauty collaborations under her belt from her 12 years as a beauty influencer, Desi Perkins finally took the plunge and became a beauty founder herself a year ago. Launched in April 2021, her skin-care brand, Dezi Skin, now has four products, with names such as “Claro Que C” and ingredients inspired by her Mexican heritage. With over 3 million YouTube subscribers and 4.3 million Instagram followers, Perkins is focused on Instagram for her brand’s marketing but is eyeing TikTok, too. “[Instagram] is targeting its platform toward brands and a shopping experience. For brands, this is still a really, really great platform. But I would also like to dip into TikTok with the brand, in a more casual sense. That's definitely in our forecast,” she said on the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast. Check out the entire podcast episode to learn about Perkins' development process for her brand and the way she uses audience feedback to develop products. She also shares her views on the beauty social media landscape and how it’s changed over the past decade. 

Hair care has been a passion for Annie Young-Scrivner, CEO of Wella Company, since she was 13 years old when she started a side business cutting and perming hair. So when the executive was recruited from Godiva where she served as CEO for three years to join the 140-year-old hair-care and nail company, she jumped at the opportunity.Private equity firm KKR named Young-Scrivner as the CEO of Wella Company in Oct. 2020 following the announcement of its acquisition of 60% of the company from Coty. Wella distributes hair-care brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, Nioxin, GHD and nail polish brand OPI. In Dec. 2021, the company celebrated its first anniversary as an independent company. KKR and Wella Company have noted the ambitions to IPO in approximately four years.“We have a tremendous opportunity to be an incredible company. The first thing we're focused on is making sure we have the right [products] to meet the needs of the consumer,” said Young-Scrivner on the Glossy Beauty podcast. “The second thing is making sure we're growing in the right way. There's going to be lots of [exit] options for us.”When it comes to building a product and brand portfolio that stands the test of time, Wella is focusing on storytelling across all of its brands. This includes Wella Professional. Its Shinefinity long-lasting color glaze speaks to the health of hair, with the tagline “Shine you can feel." Wella has over 1,000 patented products and technologies it can use to position itself as a superior beauty company offering innovative products, Young-Scrivner said.OPI has also looked to unique opportunities to capture new customers and communities by partnering with Xbox in January. So far these efforts are paying off, as Wella’s professional sales channel has experienced a double-digit sales growth compared to the fiscal year 2019, and both its e-commerce and retail channels are growing substantially, said Young-Scrivner.

Starting out on Etsy and made by hand in the kitchen of co-founders Alex Kummerow and Julia Wills, skin-care brand Herbivore is now a rainbow-colored powerhouse with $15 million in Series A funding and distribution at Sephora.The brand’s Instagram-friendly aesthetic, emphasis on plant-based ingredients and glass-heavy packaging have attracted a loyal following. It has recently been rolling out a range of new products focused on active ingredients, including its latest vitamin C launch, as well as its bakuchiol Moon Fruit Serum, which launched this week.For this Glossy Beauty Podcast, Kummerow joined us from his home base in Hawaii to talk about Herbivore's founding story, growth and next steps. He shared details on how Herbivore went from a homemade brand to being stocked in top national retailers, how it's approached sustainability, and where he predicts beauty is headed. 

After 26-years in business, Greek beauty brand Korres has a rich history to tell.Korres began as a homeopathic herbal remedy brand within a Greek pharmacy that was founded by George Korres in 1992. In 1996, the beauty brand was born, and it has since built up a portfolio of skin care, body care and fragrance products. They include staple Greek ingredients like olive oil, Greek yogurt, white pine and Assyrtiko, a white grape variety from the Greek island of Santorini.After first selling through Henri Bendel department store in 2000, Korres relaunched in the U.S. market in 2018 with a digital-first approach. This shortly followed Morgan Stanley’s investment of over $56 million into Korres in Nov. 2017, allowing the brand to push further into international markets. More recently, in Jan. 2021, the 26-year-old brand entered Ulta Beauty stores through the retailer’s Conscious Beauty program, following its Ulta.com launch in Dec. 2020. Korres is also sold at Sephora, HSN and Dermstore,With Ulta Beauty, the Korres team hopes to reach Gen-Z customers, which is a big focus for the beauty brand. Additionally, Korres plans to set up livestream shopping on its DTC e-commerce site in April. The goal is to better control its brand story and introduce people to its history as a Greek apothecary-pharmacy brand, while focusing on ingredient harvesting within Greece, in-house formulations and productions.“My vision is not to sit here and tell a story. My vision is to bring people in,” said Lena Korres, Korres co-founder and gm of North America, on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast. “That’s why livestream shopping and being able to show things and introduce people [to Korres] and [let them] ask questions [is important]. That’s where I see our brand heading toward and making a difference.”In 2020, Korres earned $30 million in U.S. sales and $97 million globally. Korres expected to earn $120 million in 2021 global sales, she said, in a Glossy Jan. 2021 story.

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

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

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