The Glossy Beauty Podcast

Richard Christiansen has learned many priceless lessons since he began fundraising for his brand, Flamingo Estate, around two years ago. 

This includes his surprising realization that many investors care little about the brand or the founder’s story. Instead, he said, there's a near-universal desire among the VC set for 90% margins across personal care products. 

“Know your audience; they're there to look at the numbers. … No one cares about the [brand or founder] story,” he told Glossy. "I, too, spent so much time on the storytelling, but at that moment, in those meetings, it's only about the numbers.” 

In the 160 investor meetings he’s attended in the past two years, he’s been told to abandon key parts of his business to increase profitability and to trade its sourcing practices — many of which reflect a hallmark of the brand — for cheaper, faster ingredients. 

On the podcast, Christiansen also shares with Glossy that he has secured his dream investor and, pending contract finalization this week, will have funding for brand expansion in the coming months. 

Christiansen launched Flamingo Estate in 2020, during the pandemic, by selling boxes of produce in a Los Angeles parking lot. Nearly five years later, the brand has become an in-the-know measure of luxury and has expanded to subscription produce boxes, candles, books, and personal care products available at Anthropologie, Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman, Forward, Mecca and many smaller retailers. 

The story behind Flamingo Estate, which Christiansen shared on the Glossy Beauty Podcast three years ago, is a departure from the luxury marketing Christiansen was well known for over the past decades, but it still possesses the elevated luxury branding consumers love. 

The latest in his releases is “The Guide to Becoming Alive,” out this week from San Francisco-based Chronicle Books. The 600-page coffee table book retails for $50 DTC and across the brand's retailers. Its chapters are anchored around in-depth interviews with Jane Fonda, Martha Stewart, Kelly Werstler, Chrissy Teigen, Mecca CEO Jo Horgan and many more influential people. The book includes life lessons from Christiansen's garden, anecdotes from his life and stories about growing his business. 

Before the "aha" moment that led to the creation of JB Skrub, the brand she co-founded with "Modern Family" star Julie Bowen, Jill Biren worked in magazine publishing at Condé Nast for 16 years. But then, one day, she was packing her 9-year-old son up for camp and realized there wasn't a personal care brand made for him. He was too old to bring baby soap to camp, and she didn't want to send him with a synthetically fragranced men's product. And so, an idea was born.

Bowen, also a boy mom, related to this struggle, and the two came together to work on a brand of body care products for tween boys. They chose to do so independently and spent eight years taking it from concept to reality, until finally launching in January of 2023 with five products: a body wash, a body spray, a face wash, a face lotion and toner pads. Recently, JB Skrub added hair care to the mix with the introduction of a shampoo.

On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Biren discusses the moment she realized she'd stumbled upon a white space in the market, JB Skrub's unique motto for teaching boys good hygiene and the power of telling this rarely-spoken-to consumer that this product was, in fact, made for him.

After more than seven years in business, Angela Caglia Skincare is having its hockey stick moment. 

“Our sales are up 437% in the past year,” founder Angela Caglia told Glossy. “We'll finish this year at close to $4 million [in sales] and around 90% of that will be the Cell Forté Serum; it’s all we're promoting.”

Since launching the hero product in October 2023, the brand’s Cell Forté Serum has garnered several beauty industry awards from publications like Elle, Byrdie, TZR and Essence, and sold out three times on Violet Grey. And it was the catalyst for the brand’s expansion into Nordstrom last month. 

Caglia’s focus now is keeping the serum in stock, and she hopes to expand the franchise next year with face and eye creams. The serum retails for $395 for 1 ounce.

The serum’s value proposition rests on its ability to replace antioxidant and hydrating serums, like those focused on vitamin C and hyaluronic acid, as well as exfoliating products and retinols, Caglia told Glossy. 

The brand leads marketing materials with results from a 28-day clinical study where nearly all participants (87-91%) reported less hyperpigmentation, increased luminosity, improved skin elasticity and a more youthful appearance. 

The serum is powered by "human-derived adipose mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) conditioned media," a technology Caglia discovered when researching treatment options for her mother’s ongoing treatment of dementia. Today, she sources the material from a stem cell research lab based in Texas that specializes in stem cell banking and FDA-cleared clinical trials, she told Glossy.

MSC-conditioned media is sourced from fat, called adipose tissue, which is donated by young and healthy plastic surgery patients and then processed in a lab. As Caglia explained in the latest Glossy Podcast episode, the stem cells are removed from the tissue and placed in a human-like environment where they excrete growth factors, cytokines and proteins, which are then used in the serum. The stem cells, which hold the patient’s DNA, are removed before the broth goes into the serum. 

Growth factors are a bit like little emails: They tell the other cells how to regenerate and act younger, which we don’t fully understand yet. 

Caglia is only one of very few brands playing in this space. Whereas there are many brands — like Eighth Day and Dr Diamond Metacine — that offer "bio-identical copies" of growth factors, few brands offer human-derived versions of growth factors. 

According to market research company Spate, growth factors are a rising trend in online searches alongside skin care, with an average of more than 32,000 Google searches per month over the past year, marking a notable +202.7% surge.

Coglia joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss her new hero product, Cell Forté, as wll as her journey to the brand's hockey stick moment. 

Years ago, a strong retail strategy often included brands staying in one pricing category, such as mass, prestige or luxury. Today, those best practices have come into question. 

“It’s strategic, … and it's also nerve-racking at the same time,” Rosie Jane Johnston, founder of fine fragrance and body-care line By Rosie Jane, told Glossy about her company’s expansion into the mass market this month through Target. “It’s always been in the back of my mind to make By Rosie Jane, particularly the body-care side of the brand, accessible in a real way.” 

As of this week, Johnston is executing against that goal with a strategic expansion onto Target.com — the line’s first and only mass retailer — with just the brand’s body-care line, which Johnston developed during the pandemic. 

“Body care is a new category for us, [and] we take it very seriously,” Johnston said. “I don't want [this expansion] to just feel like an extension of my perfume line — that's a different experience. I want this experience to be something unique.”

By Rosie Jane launched with a clean, fine fragrance direct-to-consumer in 2012 before expanding into Sephora in 2019. The brand currently offers seven fine fragrances. It also sells through Revolve, Nordstrom and other select retailers, and has maintained its DTC channel. 

By Rosie Jane has sold limited-edition body-care extensions of its fine fragrance in the past, including body oil and body wash in best-selling scents like Rosie or Missy. But today, Johnston is focused on three new fragrance franchises called Wake the F Up, Calm the F Down and Chill the F Out. 

Based on mood-boosting ingredients like essential oils, the line is meant to evoke feel-good emotions and was inspired by Johnston’s menopause journey. The line includes body wash, oil, lotion and deodorant all priced between $15-$42. To start, the products will be sold on Target.com, though the hope is to further expand to Target stores. By Rosie Jane fine fragrances will remain exclusive to retailers like Sephora and Nordstrom, while the body-care will be offered at both mass and prestige retailers. 

According to a rep from By Rosie Jane, the company is set to reach $10 million in sales in 2024, with body care making up around 8% of revenue. 

Johnston joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss her brand's expansion, including her hopes for the body-care category. 

When the pandemic hit, Matt Newman, like many hairstylists, found himself at home unoccupied. Eventually, though, he took his expertise to TikTok — and today, he has 2.4 million followers on the platform and another 1.2 million on Instagram.

Regularly working with brands like Tresemmé, he's known for both his tutorials and his takes on viral trends and hacks. But what he is most proud of in his four years of content creation is simply teaching people how to do their hair, he said. "The thing people tell me when I meet my internet friends in real life, is, 'You taught me how to blowdry my hair.' That's my biggest accomplishment — and it's not always my most viral content, but it's my most meaningful content. It's empowering to know how to fall in love with your own hair in your bathroom, with the stuff you already own."

On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Newman discusses the value of educational content, the power of creating with brand partnership opportunities in mind and the reason he's not creating tons of TikTok Shop-forward content.

Sarah Potempa, celebrity hairstylist and co-founder of The Beachwaver, is a live-selling expert.

It all started in 2012 when she launched her first product, the original Beachwaver rotating curling iron, live on QVC. “It was wild because they said, ‘Don't get too excited — you might get four or five shows in your first year.’ … And then I was on QVC over 50 times my first year,” she told Glossy. 

She thrived in the medium and was able to reach a growing number of consumers looking for an easier way to create beachy waves at home. She sold out frequently, became a viewer favorite and was asked to return time after time. 

Unlike traditional curling irons and waving wands, The Beachwaver allows the user to clamp the end of a section of hair in place before pressing a button to wrap the section of hair around the electric iron. This avoids an unintended arm workout and the likelihood of burnt fingers, both common with the then-popular waving wands. Although she was already a well-known celebrity hairstylist and a regular in beauty publications for her styling advice, Potempa’s ability to connect with viewers while live-selling forever shifted the trajectory of her career. 

Potempa has since launched more than 100 SKUs — including a variety of hot tools, hair care and accessories — and has sold more than 2 million Beachwaver irons, which retail for $99 and up. Her line is available at Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Target, Anthropologie and Dillards, among other retailers.

Today, she uses the skills she learned on QVC to be a leader in social media-based live-selling, often going live for hours at a time on TikTok, Amazon, Beachwaver’s own DTC site and anywhere else experimenting with the medium. This has translated to massive success on TikTok: As of October of 2024, she’s sold more than 1.1 million units on TikTokShop, making her one of the most prolific sellers on the platform. 

Beachwaver is an independently held family business co-founded with Potepa’s two sisters, Erin and Emily, and her extended family regularly appears in the company’s many TikTok content franchises, which she calls “shows”. Her team and family stream from Beachwaver’s Illinois warehouse and offices, and this month she opened a second office and content studio in New York City. 

Potempa joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the nuances of live-selling and the benefits of an in-house content studio.

Claudia Sulewski's career started at age 11, when she launched her YouTube channel with a video about applying her mom's blue eyeshadow. Today, the channel has 2.46 million followers. On Instagram, Sulewski also has 2 million followers, and she has yet another 1.1 million on TikTok. Last year, she translated her success as a creator into the launch of her brand, Cyklar, which she bootstrapped and debuted with one product, a body cream.

In March of this year, Cyklar received investment from The Center, the brand incubator and investment firm that runs Phlur, Make, Prequel and Saltair — it sold Naturium to E.l.f. Beauty in August 2023. Now, Cyklar is relaunching with a wider product range, including four body washes and four body lotions, which will be sold direct-to-consumer.

On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Sulewski discusses self-funding the brand to get it off the ground, deciding to take on investment and emphasizing fragrance in the brand's second iteration.

“VICs are the driving force of the luxury business,” Sukeena Rao, co-founder of London-based personal shopping firm Luminaire, told Glossy. “They count for a large percentage of global sales with pretty much every brand.”

VICs, or "very important customers," is shorthand in the luxury market for a growing subset of high-end, wealthy shoppers that are “very low key, very off the radar [and] not known to the public,” Rao told Glossy. It’s part of what she calls a shifting market where, 15-20 years ago, the luxury shopper was mostly well-known celebrities or very wealthy public figures. Whereas now, luxury shopping has become more curated and discreet. To wit: The internet calls this "quiet luxury." 

“It’s not always about wearing [a luxury piece] on a red carpet or being shown to the public,” Rao said. “It's done in a much more stealth way.” 

This changing luxury customer also has changing needs. Whereas a high-profile individual or celebrity may not need an introduction to a luxury brand or referral to an in-demand makeup artist or hairstylist, today’s VIC is looking for access to top lifestyle, beauty, wellness, fitness and health brands and experts, as well as the fashion, jewelry and accessory markets. 

On today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Rao shares the ins and outs of this growing demographic, which she reaches through her London-based personal shopping firm, Luminaire. 

“We have a waitlist right now. … [We’re] very selective about new clients, because we never want to under-deliver,” she says. “We do keep people waiting until we really have the capacity to look after them.” 

Rao launched Luminaire in 2022 with co-founder Harriet Quick, a former fashion features director at British Vogue. While billed as personal shopping, the company is more nuanced than that. For around $57,307 (£45,000) per year, clients receive high-touch appointments with Luminaire’s stylists, personalized mood boards, unlimited sourcing and gift procurement, as well as brokerage of just about anything one can desire, from apartments to cars. 

Meanwhile, entry-level membership starts at $6,367 (£5,000) per year and includes recommendations, mood boards, unlimited sourcing, fashion edits and basic access to luxury wardrobe and gift procurement and planning. 

However, Rao told Glossy that beauty, wellness and health products and services are the fastest-growing requests from clients, whether that is a haircut with a celeb stylist, an appointment with a holistic doctor, a masterclass with a renowned makeup artist or a private shopping experience. “If you really drill down on the data, you will see that, for us, beauty and wellness — alongside jewelry, which is a hugely growing category — is leading,” Rao said. 

Rao discusses these topics, as well as her predictions for the future of the luxury industry, in today’s episode. 

With the fragrance industry expected to generate $59.9 billion in 2024, both new and heritage brands are strategizing to differentiate in the growing market. For some, the result is offering niche scents, and for others, it's leveraging communities. For 8-year-old DedCool, a genderless, planet-first and functional approach is what sets it apart, said founder Carina Chaz.

Since launching DedCool in 2016 with a self-investment of $10,000, Chaz has made her brand one to watch. In August 2022, Dedcool expanded to Sephora stores and its e-commerce channels and introduced three new product categories, including air fresheners, candles and laundry detergent. The latter, Chaz told Glossy, now drives 30% of the business.

"The fragrance category has expanded so much, and DedCool was never meant to be a true fragrance brand. We want to speak to fragrance in ways that our competitors aren't speaking to fragrance," Chaz said on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.

Also on the podcast, Chaz shares how she grew DedCool in its early stages and how she has created a brand that appeals to people in different life stages. 

Shontay Lundy is on a mission to disrupt the sun-care space. 

She is the founder of Black Girl Sunscreen, a sunscreen brand she launched in 2016 as an alternative to the many sunscreen formulas that leave a white cast on skin, a problem that’s particularly noticeable on medium and dark complexions. The line was an instant hit and she quickly gained wide distribution at Target, CVS, Ulta Beauty, Walgreens, and Walmart, among other retailers. The brand also sells direct-to-consumer and on Amazon.

In 2019, Lundy launched a children’s line called BGS Kids, which features its own branding and social marketing channels, and just this month, a men’s line called BGS Mens. The latter also has its own branding, to match the matte finish and more masculine scent. 

All of the brands' products range in price from $10-$23 and are formulated to melt seamlessly into all complexions, whether the formula uses a chemical, mineral or hybrid UV filter. They also feature hydrating ingredients like jojoba oil and shea butter, which deliver a dewy, hydrated finish in some formulas. 

But beyond products, Lundy is on a mission to educate Black consumers about the value of sunscreen, in hopes of debunking the myth that people with dark complexions don’t need sunscreen. As we know, the deadliest form of skin cancer, called melanoma, impacts people of all skin tones and ethnic backgrounds. 

Lundy spoke about managing the line’s omnichannel distribution on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. She shares that being in the biggest retailers in the country comes with its own unique set of difficulties. What’s more, Black Girl Sunscreen's success means that resources must be allocated for battling counterfeiters on marketplace sites. She also discusses the brand’s robust out-of-home marketing strategy, which includes billboards celebrating its many campaigns.