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.

When reviewing the beauty landscape, there are increasingly fewer companies that are built as family businesses. Today, the market skews heavily toward building a company and selling it at a faster-than-ever clip. Though deal flow continues to be hot, NuFace's founders Carol Cole and her daughters, Tera Peterson and Kim Morales, are focused on building their brand while keeping themselves at the helm for as long as possible.

"My mom, my sister and I started NuFace back in 2005. My mom's been an esthetician since the 1980s. After business school, I decided to go to esthetician school. We created our first device out of our family home in Leucadia, which is a little beach community of Encinitas [outside] San Diego," said Peterson on the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.

Since founding the brand 17 years ago, NuFace has sold over 4 million devices. Peterson added that NuFace is up 24% in sell-through for 2022. The device category is typically a difficult market to create ongoing value, but NuFace has also avoided the fate of competitors, which saw initial buzz and interaction with their brands but never saw the repeat purchase.

"The innovation is key; that's where typical devices fail," she said. "They go, 'OK, I'm gonna do X and then I'm going to launch this completely non-related other device." Like, what are you? Are you cleansing? Are you microdermabrasion? It really confuses people, and that's where other devices have really struggled. They don't stay true to themselves."

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%.

When beauty and personal care executive Rod Little joined personal care conglomerate Edgewell as CFO in 2018, the company’s core businesses of shaving and feminine care were seeing mid-single-digit declines. Competing with giants like Procter & Gamble and DTC disruptors like Billie, the company was in need of a transformation.

Rising to CEO in 2019, Little identified the areas that needed to change at the company, which owns household name brands such as Schick, Banana Boat and Playtex.

“We had gotten into a rhythm of being too technology-focused, and we had been led by technology, as opposed to being led by the consumer,” he said on this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.

His turnaround strategy included not only moving the focus to the consumer, but also adopting a startup mentality and embracing new acquisitions in growth categories. While the company’s attempted acquisition of Harry’s was blocked by the FTC in 2020, the company has made four acquisitions in the past five years: men’s grooming brands Bulldog, Jack Black and Cremo, and razor startup Billie. With its new brands driving double-digit growth, Edgewell’s shaving and feminine care categories have moved up to “mid-single-digit” growth this year, while its sun-care category is going strong. On this week’s episode, Little shares details on the company’s acquisition strategy, his thoughts on the FTC decision and ways brands can stay innovative while scaling.

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.