The Glossy Beauty Podcast

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 birthed DIBS Beauty, short for Desert Island Beauty Status, in September 2021.

The co-founders secured $2.6 million in an initial funding round from Tula's co-founders, as well as major stakeholders at finance company L Catterton, which also invested in Tula, and influencers. DIBS Beauty's less intimidating and more inclusive approach to beauty also made it one of the fastest-growing brands in 2022, according to research firm Spate. Thanks in part to the virality of the brand's hero product, Status Stick, average monthly searches for the brand grew to 2,470 in 2022.

"The mission of DIBS Beauty is desert island beauty status. It's the makeup you would take with you to a desert island," Lee said on the latest episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast.

In January, the company reported 700% year-over-year sales growth. With expansion top of mind for the co-founders, creating new, innovative products and expanding to new distribution channels are the biggest priorities this year.

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%.

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."

Nearly every turn in Isamaya Ffrench’s career was unexpected. Ffrench grew up in a family of engineers and didn’t ascribe to the glamorous rituals her mother and grandmother practiced when she was a child. Her introduction to beauty came by way of discovering Kevyn Aucoin’s iconic beauty book “Making Faces.”

But even after studying that book cover to cover, Ffrench still didn’t have dreams of becoming a makeup artist, content creator or founder of her namesake beauty brand — all of which she is now. In fact, Ffrench danced professionally for 15 years. But a colleague at the contemporary theatrical performance group Theo Adams Company put her up for a body painting job at i-D magazine, knowing Ffrench painted faces at children’s parties. While unplanned, that gig planted the seeds for Ffrench’s future career.

“I was hired to do a very specific thing,” said Ffrench on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “I was using clay and mixed media and turning these models into Demigods. It was all very creative, but there was another makeup artist on set who had been booked to do the beauty because I guess I was a wildcard. I just remember there was this moment when I was washing up my really dirty, grubby brushes in the sink with washing liquid. I had big paintbrushes and sponges and all this grimy stuff. I looked over at this makeup artist who sat there with her beautiful kit laid out looking very clean. I was like, ‘Hold on a sec, why am I not doing that job? I should be doing that job, as well.'”

Ffrench continued to book editorial jobs, all while refining her subverted beauty aesthetic. Her work landed her ambassador and creative director posts at YSL Beauté, Tom Ford Beauty, Burberry and Byredo, which proved to be fortuitous primers to launching her own brand, Isamaya, in June.

“I don’t ever think I planned to do my own brand, or not until very, very recently, probably because I was very happy doing it for other people. ... And then I sort of thought, ‘Well, maybe there are some things I would like to do for myself that brands wouldn’t let me do because they have their own language,'” she said.

Since debuting Isamaya this summer, Ffrench has leaned into the drop model, first launching the Industrial collection, a BDSM-inspired offering. Wild Star, a rhinestone cowgirl-esque drop, debuted Thursday with L.A. pop-ups supporting the collection.

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 company's place amid the current coronavirus' outbreak. "Because it may be just a three-month, short term gig for them." But for others, she added, it could be a way to "continue to pay their mortgages, their rent, when other things have dried up."

Renfrew said Beautycounter has seen a rise in younger consultants joining as a way not just to make money, but to find community in a time of frequent isolation.

Overall, she thinks the pandemic will amplify the advantage of direct-to-consumer businesses like hers. "I think the wholesalers in general are in a lot of trouble right now. I hope some of them weather the storm. I think some of them will not, unfortunately," she said.