Rooibos cosmetics

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...

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...

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, whic...

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 Sepho...

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 ph...

The age of ongoing confinement seems tailor-made for the industry's clean beauty segment. "We couldn't be in a more timely position in terms of what we've been pushing for as a brand," said Kosas founder Sheena Yaitanes on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. Kosas launched in 2015 with lipstick before moving on to a full clean color assortment. It recently flexed its personal care mu...

Some beauty products trickle down from medical use to everyday consumers by happenstance, but Augustinus Bader's skincare line is the opposite, according to the company's CEO Charles Rosier. Rosier first learned about Professor Augustinus Bader's research around a "wound gel" in a case study involving a young burn victim. "Basically, using that wound gel [Augustinus] was able to prevent skin graft...

Credo is betting that customers stuck at home are as beauty-minded as always, but that more than ever, they now have the time to do their research about clean beauty. "Health is what anyone is thinking about right now," Credo co-founder Annie Jackson said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I think if we didn't have a customer before this and we do now, it's because she's really understanding that inve...

Millions of Americans are still out of work as the coronavirus pandemic's ripples through the economy, and many are unlikely to return to the jobs they held a few months ago. A few companies -- including Stella & Dot, Ever and Keep -- have stepped into that vacuum, offering gig economy work for people willing and able to sell cosmetics, clothes and fashion accessories. "We really started growi...

Ted Gibson and Jason Backe had to close one business to make another work. The married couple (a hairstylist and colorist, respectively) and business partners say it took closing down their flagship salon location on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 2017 to allow them to rethink their futures. What they landed on was a L.A. smart salon "powered by Amazon," that had no receptionist and no inventory...

Uoma Beauty founder Sharon Chuter is more than ready for the reckoning coming to monocultural corporations in America. "Now I can be more vocal about it because I have little to lose," Chuter said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I didn't start my business to be a billionaire. It was part of me using a platform to speak up against what was going on." The Nigerian-born founder...

Beauty companies that fail to bring diverse employees into their teams, for executive-level to entry-level roles, aren't just at risk of failing on a moral front -- they're also leaving money on the table, according to Mented co-founders KJ Miller and Amanda Johnson. "Money talks. So maybe you don't understand why it's important that I have a lipstick that works for my skin tone, but you can under...

The coronavirus pandemic has created more uncertainty for brick-and-mortar locations, but it's an opportunity for companies to ramp up the expertise and service stores were known for digitally. "That is not going away," Unilever Prestige Group CEO and EVP Vasiliki Petrou said in regard to virtual consultations and other digital innovations. "It just will grow stronger. Being future fit is definite...

When Murad CEO Michelle Shigemasa turned the skin care company's focus to direct-to-consumer sales versus wholesale last year, it was with the goal of getting to 50% DTC within five years. Now Shigemasa estimates a much faster timeline. "I think that'll happen in the next two years, max," Shigemasa said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "We've seen digital sales that frankly surprised us. We knew that...

In beauty, Biologique Recherche is the industry's definition of a cult brand. The French skincare company's products are only available in a limited assortment of spas globally, despite regular inbound requests from retailers. And on partners' digital sites, product prices are at first hidden; viewers must log in to see what they're in for. That might seem like a tough sell in a world where brick-...

Telemedicine visits may be up, but people have less usual access to their doctors and other hair specialists (like stylists and plastic surgeons) for less than urgent care. Hair and wellness company Nutrafol works with more than 1,500 specialists, using them as their frontline to reach consumers with their clinically tested products. "We started to sell in doctors' offices, we started to sell in s...

Biossance president Catherine Gore has always considered skin care as medically significant, and believes customers will be more inclined to share that thinking as coronavirus lockdowns continue around the world. "Our skin is our largest organ, and it's also our first line of defense against outside aggressors," Gore said on the latest Glossy Beauty podcast. Education is a big part of Biossance's...

Korean-based and -inspired beauty companies expanded rapidly in the U.S. and globally in the last few years, but AmorePacific turned to e-commerce sooner than others, a saving grace in this coronavirus climate. "E-commerce was already very top of mind for us. This just sped that up. Right now, our penetration of our own brand dot coms has already doubled for year to date," Jessica Hanson, the comp...

Beautycounter isn't your typical beauty brand. Given its network of roughly 50,000 independent consultants marketing and selling its products, company founder and CEO Gregg Renfrew feels "an enormous sense of responsibility to make sure that we are operationally sound," she said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "I say it's both our opportunity and our responsibility right now," she said of the compan...

RéVive Skincare CEO Elana Drell-Szyfer has been in the beauty industry long enough to weather past global crises. "I've lived through them all," she said on this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, in reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. But this is her first time at a smaller, independently-owned company. Drell-Szyfer was at L'Oréal and Estée Lauder Comp...

Sylvie Chantecaille has no illusions about the commercial difficulties presented by the coronavirus pandemic. "Basically our business went dead overnight," she said of her eponymous prestige beauty company, Chantecaille, where she serves as president and CEO. And whereas her industry competitors anticipate a run back to stores once the world-spanning practices of social distancing soften, Chanteca...

Like many entrepreneurs, hair colorist Josh Wood has had to change how he does business in the midst of the pandemic. "We have no salon operations at the moment, but boy oh boy, the DTC has gone crazy," Wood said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast, regarding product sales. Wood founded Josh Wood Colour a year and a half ago, after 30 years of working as a hair colorist and 20 as the owner of a salon in...

BeautyBio founder and CEO Jamie O'Banion describes part of her job as "always thinking through worst-case scenario and planning for it." With the coronavirus pandemic overtaking consumers' health and simultaneously slowing down the U.S. and global economy, that scenario is now -- with one respite, according to O'Banion. "Most beauty brands are really seeing this hockey-stick revenue uptick, the ba...

Sasha Plavsic is pretty clear that she picked the right beauty category to start a business in. "The clean category, as they're calling it now, is on an extreme growth pattern," Plavsic said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast, calling it "one of the fastest categories in Sephora, if not the market in general." Plavsic founded Ilia Beauty in 2011, a few years after turning 30 and returning to her hometow...

When Kim Kardashian 'broke the internet' by way of a photo shoot in Paper magazine, Drew Elliott was its chief creative officer. Now a few months into his new role as global creative director at MAC Cosmetics, he sees continuity between the two roles. "If pop culture could be a brand of cosmetics, it would be MAC. So to me, it was just a new kind of editorial challenge," Elliott said on this week'...