Rooibos cosmetics

In the past, most of the celebrity hairstylists that launched their own salons and hair-care lines were men. That’s been changing, as more female celebrity stylists are becoming founders. Mara Roszak is a member of this new generation shaking up the hair-care market. You’ve probably seen her styling work on Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Michelle Yeoh, Olivia Wilde or Zoe Saldana on the red carpet....

In 2022, Chriselle Lim and Ben Bennett, re-launched Phlur, a dormant "clean" fragrance brand at the time, with Ben Bennett. Bennett is the founder of the brand incubator The Center, which is behind Saltair, Naturium and Make Beauty. The brand was a near-instant success, with its first fragrance, Missing Person, going viral on TikTok. That year, Lim was named to the annual Glossy 50, a list of peop...

In a timely Glossy Beauty Podcast episode for the height of summer, this week features a category that has blown up in beauty: sunscreen. Long gone are the days when options were limited to a handful of brands like Coppertone and Hawaiian Tropic. In recent years, a wide range of chic new sunscreen labels have been hitting the market, while skin-care brands are churning out new SPF product launches...

When Snapchat first tapped into the power of augmented reality circa 2015, no one understood how impactful it would be to the social media platform and the beauty industry. Snapchat's “Lens” feature was introduced in 2015. This feature, powered by augmented reality technology, allows users to change how they and the world around them look. But it wasn’t until at least 2017 that the beauty industry...

The star of Netflix’s "Queer Eye," Jonathan Van Ness has captivated a massive fan base as a comedian, best-selling author and podcast host with a prolific social media presence. But he definitely hasn’t forgotten about hair. Nearly two years ago, he added hair-care brand founder to his expanding resume with the launch of JVN Hair.  For this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Van Ness was joined...

If you are one of Mikayla Nogueira’s 14.6 million TikTok followers, then you already know that one of the app’s biggest beauty influencers is getting married this weekend. But what you may not know is that she custom-created the lipstick and liner for her big day, with E.l.f. Cosmetics. The color resulting from the collaboration, which launched on Thursday, is cheekily named “Til Death Do Us Paht,...

If you’re familiar with skin-care brand Dieux, you probably first came across its cult eye masks that all the cool kids have been wearing on Instagram. Now with multiple products, the brand’s celebrity fans include everyone from Hailey Bieber to Harrison Ford. This week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast features an interview with Charlotte Palermino, who co-founded the brand in 2020 with Joyc...

While economic headwinds are impacting the beauty industry these days, one area that’s still going strong is fragrance. Take InterParfums, for example. It’s the fragrance company that holds the licenses for over 20 fashion and luxury goods labels including Montblanc and Jimmy Choo. The first quarter of this year was its best in its 40-year history as it reported 24% sales growth and surpassed $1 b...

When Kim Chi made the finals on season 8 of "RuPaul’s Drag Race" back in 2016, fans were captivated by her stunning makeup artistry. Not long after, she became the CEO and founder of her own makeup brand, KimChi Chic Beauty. Launched in 2019 under Bespoke Beauty Brands, the incubator founded by Nyx Professional Makeup founder Toni Ko, the brand made its national retailer debut in CVS last year.  O...

Luxury fragrance brands have long relied on big celebrity brand ambassadors and traditional ad formats. Niche fragrance brands, however, are moving away from traditional strategies and finding major success on their own terms.  For fragrance house Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the Baccarat Rouge 540 has earned cult status without a single official celebrity ad campaign. And despite not having partners...

Mike Einziger, the lead guitarist of the ’90s rock band Incubus, and his wife, science teacher-turned-rock violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, did not intend to start a beauty brand.  Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger organically came upon her hero ingredient, a yeast-derived compound called malassezin, after being diagnosed with a harmless skin condition. The diagnosis led her to question whether some...

Influencer brands might be common now, but that wasn’t the case half a decade ago. One of the original Instagram influencers, Marianna Hewitt launched Summer Fridays with her co-founder Lauren Ireland in 2018. As the first influencer brand at Sephora, Summer Fridays quickly became a top seller with its cult Jet Lag Mask. Funded by Prelude Growth Partners, the brand now has a full lineup of skincar...

If you’ve been into a CVS lately, you’ve probably noticed that the term “drugstore beauty” doesn’t mean what it used to. Amid the conglomerate-owned giants like Maybelline and Covergirl, you can now find hip indie startups on the shelves. Behind that strategy is Andrea Harrison, the retailer's vp of merchandising for beauty and personal care. For this episode of the podcast, Harrison talked about...

If you’ve noticed hair has been getting a lot more colorful in the past few years, you’re not alone. Pink, purple, blue or orange hair is no longer just for rebellious teens and rock stars. Hair dye brand Good Dye Young has been riding this wave of popularity—and helping drive it. Launched by Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams and her longtime hairstylist Brian O’Connor in 2016, the brand has be...

There are countless ways to launch a celebrity-founded skin-care brand nowadays. One can partner with an incubator (à la Peyton List and Pley Beauty), build a company within the framework of a larger conglomerate (i.e., Fenty Beauty and Rihanna with Kendo, or JVN and Jonathan Van Ness with Amyris) — or, you can build from the ground up.  Some of the most successful celebrity-founded brands were bi...

When Wende Zomnir co-founded Urban Decay in 1996, there was no Instagram or TikTok, and Sephora was still two years out from entering the U.S. Fast forward to today, she wrapped up her tenure at Urban Decay in December and has re-entered the beauty startup game with a new brand, Caliray. Since Zomnir launched Caliray in 2021, it entered Sephora in 2022 and just secured a Series A round of funding...

Launching Cheekbone Beauty in 2016 was a bit of a serendipitous moment for founder Jenn Harper. It all started in Jan. 2015 when she dreamed about "Native little girls with their brown little skin and rosy cheeks, covered in lip gloss." The dream, paired with Harper's recent sobriety journey and deeper discovery about her lineage and Ojibwe culture, inspired her to create a beauty brand.  The jour...

Like many people who rerouted their career path in the last three years, Cynthia Sakai made a mid-pandemic leap from the fashion industry to personal care. "I had been in the fashion space for a really long time, and there was something missing. I felt I wasn't doing enough; I wasn't doing something that was making a difference," Sakai said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "The...

If you’ve followed beauty dupe trends on TikTok, you’ve most likely come across a product or two from Milani Cosmetics. From its lip oil to its concealer, the mass makeup brand has seen multiple products go viral thanks to dupe-obsessed influencers like Mikayla Nogueira. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, the brand’s CMO, Jeremy Lowenstein, shares the details on the brand’s marke...

Not long ago, the options for beauty consumers looking for clean hair care were limited to a handful of brands at either the luxury or the crunchy granola ends of the spectrum. Former business school classmates Lindsay Holden, Britta Chatterjee and Shannon Kearney saw an opening in the market for a mass premium brand appealing to millennials’ ingredient- and style-consciousness. Odele launched in...

While she may be best known for her acting and singing, Vanessa Hudgens, is not new to entrepreneurship. The 34-year-old star, with 49 million Instagram followers, is behind Caliwater, a cactus water she said she drinks every morning. She also has a margarita line, which she co-created with Ashley Benson and Rosario Dawson for Thomas Ashbourne.  She first launched Know Beauty in 2021 with singer,...

Meg Bedford has always been attracted to startups. Bedford, CEO of Loops Beauty, dabbled in editorial at Vogue before joining Tom Ford and eventually Pat McGrath Beauty, finally landing at Loops in Aug. 2022. Loops, the 3-year-old hydrogel face mask brand, has made a name for itself as a buzzy celeb-loved brand. In Oct. 2020, Loops announced model Emily Ratajkowski as its partner and creative dire...

When Tiffany Scott got the idea for Róen Beauty in 2017, her goal was to create a glam luxury brand centered on clean beauty products. After two years of searching, she found lab partners that understood her vision and mission. And she launched Róen Beauty in 2019 with non-toxic eyeshadows and a makeup brush.  Shortly after the brand's inception, Scott met Róen Beauty's current creative director,...

Growing up in communities of color, Jeff Lee and Courtney Shields were both early to understanding the importance of diversity and inclusion in beauty. When they met virtually through peers during the pandemic, they instantly connected over a shared desire to create a multicultural collection of beauty products catering to all. Their mutual passions for making all women feel seen and beautiful bir...

When Lauren Otsuki and Vimla Black-Gupta launched skin-care brand Ourself in February 2022, their main goal was to provide beauty consumers with cosmetic enhancement options other than injections and lasers. To date, the indie brand has received $30 million in funding for its groundbreaking, at-home biotech alternatives to clinical products.  Ourself's science-backed products are said to give the...