The Glossy Beauty Podcast
The Glossy Beauty Podcast is a show from Glossy that explores the latest trends shaping the beauty and wellness industries. Each episode features candid conversations with a variety of guests, covering topics like CBD, self-care, and new retail strategies. The podcast aims to help listeners understand current developments and prepare for future trends in the beauty space.
Episodes
How Supergoop CMO Lauren Weinberg is tackling Amazon and TikTokShop amid channel mix expansion
It’s tough to compete with Supergoop, the sunscreen startup that entered the market in 2006 and quickly became the industry darling before selling to private equity firm Blackstone in 2021. In many ways, the company created the modern sunscreen playbook by marketing it as skin care, not sun care.
“[Supergoop started] with the mission of really transforming the SPF category, so that people wouldn
How Nutrafol CEO Cindy Gustafson is reaching men, growing retention with tech and plotting expansion
Cindy Gustafson has checked off a laundry list of accomplishments during her first 18 months as CEO of Nutrafol.
This includes an app launch designed to improve retention and a product release tailored to reach one of its smallest customer demographics in men over 50. These rollouts happened while she led the team toward double-digit growth during 2025, her first full year as CEO, on a path to s
Inside Revlon’s comeback bet on fragrance with president Amber Garrison
How execs from Ulta Beauty, Tarte and Beekman 1802 are implementing AI into workflows
How are beauty and wellness business leaders actually using AI today?
That was the question posed to three longtime industry executives on stage during Glossy’s annual E-Commerce Summit in Miami Beach earlier this month — and the answers may surprise you.
For example, Jenna Manula Linares, vp of digital marketing and TikTok Shop at Tarte Cosmetics, has recently added 15-minute team check-ins a
UTA's Daniel Landver knows what makes an influencer brand work
Daniel Landver is the head of UTA's creators product group — a role most people may not even realize exists. While his job keeps him behind the scenes, Landver is behind some of the buzziest brand launches of the past decade. Think: Patrick Starrr's One/Size, Alex Cooper's Unwell (beverages), Mikayla Nogueira's POV Beauty and Alix Earle's recently launched Reale Actives, to name a few.
Much has c
Is agentic shopping the next big thing in beauty? Sephora and Ulta are betting yes
Artificial intelligence is the undisputed main character of 2026, showing up everywhere from the wedding industry to perfume creation. But even while AI’s place in society remains contentious — in the buzzy “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” AI is a bigger antagonist than Miranda Priestly — beauty brands and retailers are rushing to adopt AI into their platforms. That includes two of beauty’s major player
L'Oréal-owned Lancôme is leveraging longevity in prestige skin care under veteran exec Vania Lacascade
Over the past three years, L'Oréal Group has been quietly assembling the perfect team, ingredient, product and marketing rollout for its next big skin-care category: longevity.
Helmed by veteran L'Oréal Group executive Vania Lacascade, a doctor of pharmacy and MBA who has spent more than 15 years with the conglomerate, the first longevity skin-care range dropped on May 1 under the Lancôme brand.
Amazon wants to be a beauty powerhouse. Is a big beauty sale the answer?
On Sunday, Amazon wrapped up its fourth-annual Summer Beauty Event. Over two weeks, Amazon tempted shoppers with discounts of up to 50% on everything from makeup to vitamins. Even prior to the sale, the retailer did not seem to have trouble courting the beauty consumer. According to data from e-commerce agency Front Row, Amazon cleared $8 billion in U.S. beauty revenue in the first quarter of 2026
Why are people flying to Korea to inject salmon sperm in their faces?
What is PDRN?
You've probably seen the four letters on serum bottles, sheet masks and even lip balms — or heard them on TikTok. PDRN stands for polydeoxyribonucleotide and typically refers to a DNA fragment that's often, but not always, derived from salmon sperm and most commonly found in K-Beauty. Of course, on social media, PDRN has an obvious shock value to it, which has led to an onslaught of
L’Oréal's product placement strategy for "The Devil Wears Prada 2" with exec Laura Branik
L’Oréal Paris is betting on “The Devil Wears Prada 2” through an official partnership that spans TV ads, OOH advertising, social campaigns, consumer eventing and product placement in the film.
L’Oréal officially announced the partnership in March through a commercial that debuted during the Oscars, which drew more than 17 million viewers this year. “It was a huge, huge success and [created] huge
Can a diffusion beauty line work? Indie Lee hopes to prove it can
Indie Lee launched her namesake beauty brand — a pioneer of the "clean" beauty movement — in 2010. Now owned by parent company American Exchange, the brand is embarking on a new chapter: a diffusion line, Indie Lee Botanicals, which launched at Whole Foods in February. The range launched with a tight edit including a cleanser, toning mist, serum and moisturizer, each priced $20-$25.
On this week'
Wonderskin CEO Michael Malinsky on turning a viral product into a thriving beauty brand
Michael Malinsky’s 6-year-old brand Wonderskin could have easily become a one-hit wonder.
Wonderskin launched in 2020 with a peel-off lip stain that immediately went viral on TikTok for its metallic blue formula and social media-friendly reveal. Since launch, the brand has sold more than 6 million units of the $22 Wonder Blading Lip Stain Peel-Off Mask, according to Malinsky.
“The unique visua
What's going on at Glossier?
As the beauty industry moves past the direct-to-consumer boom of the 2010s, some of its most influential brands are being forced to redefine what success looks like. One of the most closely watched is Glossier, which recently appointed a new CEO, Colin Walsh, who joined from Ouai.
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by senior beauty reporter
Why AI-powered wellness chatbots will be 'table stakes' for supplement brands, with Thorne CSO Dr. Nathan Price
As beauty and wellness industry insiders are well aware, the supplement space has exploded in size and scope over the past decade.
Stiff competition has driven new ways for brands, retailers and adjacent tech companies to stand out, from third-party certification to award programs, and more recently, the advent of AI-powered wellness chatbots. Last year, Thorne became a first-mover with the laun
How fitness brands can leverage partnerships for growth with Pvolve’s Julie Cartwright
How to turn a no from Ulta into a yes, even if it takes 7 years
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner sits down with Kim van Haaster, founder of Bloomeffects, to discuss the brand’s seven-year journey to Ulta Beauty.
Bloomeffects officially launched at the retailer in February, but the journey was years in the making — and included multiple rejections, a brand redesign and, perhaps most compellingly, a social post tha
Oura Ring’s Dr. Tanvi Jayaraman on serving women in the AI era with its first female-focused LLM, chatbot
Oura Health, the Finnish wearables company that has sold more than 5 million health tracker rings, is betting on women’s health with the launch of its first-ever proprietary large language model designed specifically for women.
“We know historically that women have been underrepresented when it comes to a lot of [medical and pharmaceutical] research,” Tanvi Jayaraman, MD, clinical lead of health
Why Evereden is giving equity to teenagers
As influencer marketing evolves beyond one-off paid posts, brands are finding new ways to build relationships that last and go deeper than a hashtag-sponsored post.
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by Kimberly Ho, founder and CEO of Evereden, to discuss why her $100 million Gen Alpha–focused skin-care brand is giving equity — not just tr
How brands are responding to Trump’s tariff reversal, plus the latest on tariff refunds
There’s a new chapter in President Donald Trump's ongoing tariff rollercoaster.
In April of 2025, President Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariff plan, which stacked new tariffs onto existing duties to raise overall import taxes as high as 145% for certain countries. The “Liberation Day” announcement left the beauty, fashion and wellness industries struggling to properly plan for 2025 and beyond
The Olympics' beauty moments, plus CEO Catherine D'Aragon on First Aid Beauty's role as Team USA's skin-care partner
On this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by Catherine D’Aragon, CEO of First Aid Beauty, to discuss the brand’s recent rebrand — its first in its near-20-year lifespan — and its decision to partner with Team USA ahead of the Winter Olympics.
The conversation comes at a time when beauty brands are increasingly showing up at the Olympics — from athlete p
Peptides 101: How BPC-157 & "peptide stacks" are driving wellness culture with NYT's David Dodge and McGill's Jonathan Jarry
Injectable peptide therapy, a controversial wellness trend that caught fire online in 2025, shows no signs of slowing down in 2026 despite an overwhelming lack of safety data.
Peptides, especially “research peptides” like BPC-157 and TB-500, have been hailed by famous podcasters, biohackers, and longevity gurus as a miracle cure for just about anything that ails you, from torn ligaments and gut i
Why creators are building systems — not chasing virality — on TikTok Shop
With the new year, changes are afoot at TikTok. On January 22, the U.S. version of the app sold for approximately $14 billion to an investor group that includes Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and investment firm MGX. It's yet to be seen how these changes will impact TikTok Shop, which has become an e-commerce behemoth. In December 2025, Wired reported that the social commerce platform had
AS Beauty CEO Joey Shamah on shuttering CoverFX and Mally Beauty (for now), plus warning signs a brand is going under
Over the last week, the beauty industry has seen the closure of three major makeup brands: CoverFX and Mally Beauty are shuttering, while Pat McGrath Labs, once valued at $1 billion, is headed to bankruptcy. This comes on the heels of unexpected 2025 closures that included Ami Colé, Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty, REN Clean Skincare, Apostrophe telehealth skincare and Gwyneth Paltrow’s mass line G
Ulta Beauty’s Laura Beres talks the company’s new wellness boutique pilot
Ulta Beauty is doubling down on the wellness category.
“We’ve been on the journey with wellness since 2021 when we launched the wellness shop at Ulta Beauty, and we’ve learned so much about the category,” Laura Beres, vp of wellness at Ulta Beauty, told Glossy. “Wellness continues to grow in the market, and importantly, our guests just continue to demand more of it. … This is really an evolutio
2026 beauty M&A predictions with industry vet Kimber Maderazzo
After a few sleepy years, beauty M&A had a gangbuster 2025, including three deals worth more than a billion each, leading many insiders to speculate on whether the momentum can continue in 2026.
“We were excited to see what we saw last year; M&A had become so dormant for a while, we were getting a little concerned,” said Kimber Maderazzo, professor of marketing at Pepperdine Graziadio Business S
Dr. Marnie's founder and CEO on the rise and longevity of derm-led beauty brands
The latest Glossy Beauty Podcast episode features board-certified dermatologist Dr. Marnie Nussbaum and beauty industry veteran Jodi Kaplan — the founder and CEO, respectively, of the Dr. Marnie skin-care brand. Dr. Nussbaum gained popularity while catering to dermatology clients in New York City’s Upper East Side before launching the brand, which was called Lines before rebranding in November. Fo
The Glossy Beauty Podcast’s 2026 predictions
What will 2026 mean for the beauty and wellness industries?
In today’s special episode, hosts Lexy Lebsack, Emily Jensen and Sara Spruch-Feiner share their 2026 industry predictions.
This includes a slowdown of the "no-makeup makeup" aesthetic in favor of bolder color cosmetics trends, the rise of experimental peptide therapy among wellness consumers and an uptick in budget-conscious beauty sh
The Glossy Beauty Podcast looks back at beauty in 2025
As 2025 comes to a close, the Glossy Beauty team — Sara Spruch-Feiner, Lexy Lebsack and Emily Jensen — came together on the Glossy Beauty Podcast to reflect on some of the defining themes that shaped the beauty industry this year, and their own reporting.
Spruch-Feiner unpacks the continued rise of Gen Alpha as a beauty consumer, the brands emerging to meet that demand and the retailers adapting
Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman unpacks her first year in charge and 2026 goals
In January, Kecia Steelman became one of the most powerful executives in beauty.
After more than a decade at Ulta Beauty in positions like COO and head of international, she stepped into the president and CEO role with an uphill battle ahead of her.
That’s because sales at Ulta tumbled during the 2020 pandemic, and despite an uptick in 2021, year-over-year sales had been steadily falling for n
What beauty products do teens want for the holidays?
On this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, we're exploring what teens are hoping to receive for the holidays. To do so, Sara Spruch-Feiner speaks to 13-year-old Indy (whose last name is omitted for privacy), based in Los Angeles, who shares her full wishlist with us, as well as the picks of members of her volleyball team.
But to get a broader look at the gifting landscape in 2025, Spruc
Special Crossover Episode: The Shopper’s Black Friday Playbook
How can shoppers, brands and retailers win Black Friday?
In this week’s special holiday crossover episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Danny Parisi, host of the Glossy Podcast, and Gabi Barkho, host of the Modern Retail podcast, to unpack all things Black Friday.
The three reporters start by sharing their own experiences and plans for navigating Black Friday as a shopp
T3 founders Dr. Julie Chung and Kent Yu on creating the luxury hair tool category
Few beauty executives currently compete in a category they created, but that’s the case for Dr. Julie Chung and Kent Yu, the married co-founders behind T3 hair tools (19:00).
The duo created the luxury hair tool category back in 2004 when they launched T3 with the first lightweight, sleek and quiet blowdryer that delivered smoother, faster results. T3’s Featherweight model was the first luxury d
Bansk Beauty’s Reuben Carranza on building a distinct brand that lasts
Reuben Carranza knows a good brand when he sees it.
Bansk Beauty, where he serves as executive chairman, made headlines in September after acquiring the buzzy, clinical skin-care brand Byoma. It’s part of the late-stage private investment firm’s growing beauty roster, which includes Amika, Eva NYC and Ethique.
“No. 1, they're on a tear, right? They're growing rapidly. But I think what we loved
Beauty packaging hall of fame and shame with Allison Kent-Gunn, plus news
Allison Kent-Gunn knows good beauty packaging when she sees it.
The Los Angeles-based aesthetician-turned-packaging consultant has become one of the leading voices in beauty packaging on social media thanks to her "hot takes" on packaging wins and misses. She’s a former cosmetic packaging instructor at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, and outside of her social media, where she
Helen Steed gives an inside look at packaging for Glossier, Merit and Rhode
The Glossy Beauty Podcast is back with its second of three deep dives into beauty packaging. Today, our guest is Helen Steed, a veteran in the field, whose resume includes a 10-year stint leading creative at Bumble & Bumble, and a gig as Glossier's founding creative director before striking out on her own. Now, she helms Steed & Friends, which has worked with brands including Rhode, Lore, Sakara a
Inside the world of beauty packaging
This week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast introduces a three-week series dedicated to beauty packaging. Despite daily interacting with beauty products — including face wash, body wash, lipstick or shampoo — consumers rarely spend time thinking about the countless decisions that go into a brand’s packaging. From sustainability (Are refills offered? Is the plastic PCR?) to color (think: the p
Sephora welcomes Gen Alpha shoppers with brands designed for them
On this week’s episode of “The Glossy Beauty Podcast,” co-hosts Sara Spruch-Feiner and Lexy Lebsack dive into one of beauty’s buzziest topics: Gen Alpha’s rapid emergence as consumers in their own right.
They discuss Spruch-Feiner’s reporting on Sephora tweens and teens, as well as Sephora’s first two brands geared directly at Gen Alpha: Sincerely Yours, brought to market by father-daughter mega
Amazon bets on K-Beauty, Ulta Beauty embraces Squishmallows, and 3 Glossy Pop Award winners share their campaign success secrets
What does it take for a beauty campaign or brand to cut through the noise in 2025?
Our second-annual Glossy Pop Awards is one place where our team recognizes the best and most culturally relevant beauty and fashion campaigns, people, products, and brands.
In today’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, we welcome three esteemed beauty executives to discuss the secret sauce behind their Glossy
Executive coach Angela Bennet shares her top 3 tips for execs, plus industry news
Executive coach Angela Bennett knows a thing or two about the unique needs of beauty and wellness industry leaders. She spent more than two decades working across L’Oréal and Estee Lauder brands like La Roche-Posay, Maybelline and Clinique in roles like vice president, general manager and svp of talent acquisition.
"The subjective nature of [the beauty industry] requires an art of balancing data
Olive & June's Sarah Gibson Tuttle on life after acquisition: You have to 'focus on the consumer obsessively'
After starting as a brick-and-mortar nail salon in Los Angeles in 2013, Olive & June closed up shop in 2020, with founder and CEO Sarah Gibson Tuttle pivoting her focus to DIY manis. By November 2024, Helen of Troy had acquired the brand for $225 million in cash and a $15 million earnout subject to performance over three years. Helen of Troy's beauty portfolio also includes Drybar, Curlsmith and H
L’Oréal tech leader Guive Balooch on what’s driving beauty innovation today, plus industry news
When it comes to innovation in the beauty industry, few wield more power and influence than Guive Balooch, L’Oréal Group’s longtime tech leader.
“In the last three or four years, [we’ve seen] this incredible shift in the speed of innovation,” Balooch told Glossy. “It feels great to work on things that are shaping the future of our industry.”
Since Balooch last joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast
Reinventing a heritage beauty brand with Borghese COO Dawn Hilarczyk — plus, industry news
What does it take to successfully reinvent a heritage beauty brand?
Industry veteran Dawn Hilarczyk is on a mission to completely transform Borghese, the 68-year-old heritage brand famous for its Italian skin care and Fango mud masks — and it’s working.
In today’s episode, Hilarczyk dives into the nitty-gritty of her brand turnaround efforts. She breaks down her strategy in great detail, from c
Summer recap: The investments, strategies and revenue tumbles that defined the beauty industry
The beauty industry had an eventful summer marked by changing retailer strategies, stark revenue tumbles and a flurry of pricey acquisitions.
In this special episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, reporters Lexy Lebsack, Emily Jensen and Sara Spruch-Feiner walk through the stories that defined the season.
This includes strategy shifts within retailers like Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Target, plus
Target and Ulta break up, foam sunscreen is recalled — plus, what makes a successful pop-up?
Host Lexy Lebsack is joined by reporter Melissa Daniels from Glossy’s sister publication Modern Retail and co-host of the Modern Retail Podcast, to walk through this week’s biggest beauty news stories.
This includes a brief analysis of E.l.f. Beauty’s response to consumer outcry over casting controversial comedian Matt Rife in its latest campaign, a topic Lebsack and Glossy reporter Emily Jensen
What's new in beauty brick-and-mortar, why E.l.f. is getting backlash — Dr. Thomas Sterry on plastic surgery trends
co-hosts Lexy Lebsack and Emily Jensen discuss industry news of the week, including changes to beauty brick-and-mortar retail, from Nordstrom's NYC flagship's approach to Mecca's new 40,000-square-foot flagship in Melbourne. They also discuss the controversy immediately surrounding E.l.f. Cosmetics' new ad featuring drag queen Heidi N Closet and comedian Matt Rife, who, in 2023, sparked outrage af
An insider’s guide to K-beauty’s US renaissance, plus industry news
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Lexy Lebsack interviews co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner about her recent reporting on the topic, diving into what’s fueling K-beauty’s renewed popularity, what trending ingredients are capturing attention and how affordability continues to play a key role in the category’s appeal.
But first, Lebsack and co-host Emily Jensen discuss Martha
Rare Beauty's fragrance, C-suite hires, L'Oréal earnings — and K-beauty brand Krave Beauty’s Liah Yoo
Krave Beauty isn’t your average K-Beauty brand.
“[Our mission] resonates with a lot of people who are really tired of the beauty industry's narrative of ‘more is more,’” CEO and co-founder Liah Yoo told Glossy.
After getting her start working for Amorepacific in Seoul, South Korea, Yoo joined YouTube to share her own skin challenges. “I was documenting my acne skin struggles in my mid 20s, and
TSG Group's Phlur acquisition, Shiseido's layoffs — and everything you should know about sunscreen in the US
In this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, board-certified dermatologist and Mohs surgeon Dr. Jane Yoo, and the Melanoma Research Foundation's director of advocacy, Kim Wezik, MPH, chat with Glossy podcast co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner about how the U.S. wound up so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to sunscreen, how the Melanoma Research Foundation is working with congress to try to
Prime Day's results, Beauty's wrestling opportunity — and a lawyer's take on beauty’s dupe lawsuits
Beauty dupes have never been more popular. But is mimicking a competitor a sound business decision?
“This might surprise people, [but] dupes may not be illegal on their own," brand protection attorney Elizabeth Milian told Glossy. The word “dupe” is shorthand for “duplicate” and often denotes a product that is inspired by a higher-priced luxury offering. A dupe is different from a counterfeit p
Debut Biotech’s Joshua Britton on the breakthrough beetle pigment set to disrupt beauty, plus Amazon Prime sale news
The female cochineal beetle may not be aware of it, but it owes a debt of gratitude to Joshua Britton.
In February, Britton’s Debut Biotech unveiled a breakthrough set to disrupt how beauty products are formulated. Using biotechnology, the San Diego-based company created a vegan, bio-identical alternative to a common red cosmetics colorant traditionally harvested from the cochineal beetle.
Unilever's acquisition, Glossier's CEO shakeup and Arrae's Siff Haider on predicting wellness trends
In the big wide world of health and wellness, there is always a buzzword du jour. In the past couple months, you've likely heard buzz about gut health and GLP-1s, ingredients like creatine and colostrum, and, of course, protein. For many of these trends, Arrae, the supplement brand co-founded by Siffat "Siff" Haider and her husband, Nishant Samantray, has been right there, answering consumer deman
Beauty news from L’Oréal, Coty and Byredo — plus, Sahajan Skincare’s Lisa Mattam on clinical testing
Earlier this year, Sahajan founder Lisa Mattam shared insights into her clinical testing strategy with Glossy, including the difference between clinical testing and consumer perception testing; the cost, challenges and complications that can arise with this sort of investment; and how she uses the results to market her line.
In today’s podcast episode, she breaks down all of this in more detail,
Glow Recipe’s lawsuit, L'Oréal Group’s acquisition — and Drybar's Alli Webb on her new hair brand
West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack is joined by senior reporter Emily Jensen to discuss this week’s news, starting with a buzzy new lawsuit that could impact the future of beauty dupes. They discuss Glow Recipe’s new lawsuit against MCo Beauty for allegedly copying one of its hero products, $36 Watermelon Glow Dew Drops, with MCo’s $11.99 Hydrate & Glow Ultra-Dew Serum.
Jensen and Lebsack also
BeautyTok's latest and Huda Kattan's buy-back — plus, inside Rhode's big E.l.f. Beauty deal
On this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty podcast, Sara Spruch-Feiner, senior reporter at Glossy Pop, and Emily Jensen, Glossy senior beauty reporter, are joined by Gabi Barko, senior reporter at Glossy's sister publication Modern Retail, and Brit Starr, CMO at influencer marketing platform Creator IQ.
Kicking off the episode, Jensen and Spruch-Feiner chat what's happening on TikTok in beauty t
Maison Louis Marie's founders on the changing pace of fragrance — plus, the new ways shoppers are finding beauty products
Maison Louis Marie (20:00) was founded in 2012 and has never taken on investment, which, according to the married couple behind the brand, Marie du Petit Thouars and Matthew Berkson, has allowed it to focus on slow and steady growth. It is profitable and does not spend excessively on influencer marketing.
"We want to be careful with the brand. We really want to create a legacy brand," Berkson sa
Sports agent Jacki Gemelos on beauty’s WNBA sponsorship opportunity, plus industry news
The WNBA kicked off its new season last week with beauty brands lining up to gain access to the league’s growing cohort of fans.
In a gold rush that started around 2020, some of the industry’s top brands have entered into multi-year sponsorships with the league or its top players. The most recent, Fenty’s sponsorship of the New York Liberty, was announced earlier this month and kicked off on Sat
Multi-shoring your supply chain with Modern Retail’s Melissa Daniels — plus Drunk Elephant’s sales slump and Touchland’s big acquisition
Despite a new, 90-day pause on President Trump’s sky-high tariffs on goods imported from China, near-shoring and multi-shoring are leading topics on the minds of business insiders now.
But the idea of near-shoring, or moving a supply chain closer to the brand’s home country, as well as multi-shoring, or diversifying your supply chain to additional regions, comes with many pros and cons.
On tod
ColourPop’s Vivian Weng talks omnichannel evolution — plus, Walmart tests beauty bars and clinical testing gains steam
Few beauty brands have had an evolution quite like Southern California-based ColourPop cosmetics (20:50).
Launched in 2014 at the height of the DTC era, the brand once released around 40 collections per year. “That's how consumers were shopping,” Vivian Weng, ColourPop brand president, told Glossy. “For a number of years, consumers were looking for the latest launch … and looking to get their ha
TikTok derm Dr. Muneeb Shah on building content and his own brand — plus, Ulta's big weekend and layoffs at Coty and UPS
About four years ago, Glossy profiled Muneeb Shah. At the time, he was a resident who had accumulated an impressive 6 million TikTok followers. He had started posting during quarantine. Now, that number has skyrocketed to 17.9 million — plus an additional 1.1 million followers on Instagram. Recent content reveals partnerships with brands including Timeless Skin Care, No. 7 Skin Care and TirTir, to
Coachella activations, the state of 'clean' beauty, and Zoe Weiner and Gabby Shacknai on Beautyfor's mission to find a home for beauty products
Gabby Shacknai and Zoe Weiner were already veteran beauty editors when they debuted their nonprofit, Beautyfor, in June 2024. Like many people who work in the beauty industry, they'd long been surrounded by a surplus of products and felt there had to be a way to do some good with the excess.
Initially, they planned a sale with excess from their friends in the industry. But then, brands got wind a
Boy Smells’ rebrand fail, Amorepacific's manufacturing pivot, LVMH earnings, and Pact Collective’s Carly Snider on becoming beauty’s biggest recycler
Pact Collective isn’t the first company to try to solve the beauty industry’s waste problem. But in four short years, it’s already become the most successful.
“It feels like a really exciting time for the industry, but we've still got a lot of work to do,” Carly Snider, executive director of Pact Collective, told Glossy. “We [as an industry] are creating 120 billion units of beauty packaging glo
Longtime beauty CMO Michelle Miller joins Glossy reporters to discuss the future of TikTok, plus industry news
Esteemed beauty marketer Michelle Miller knows a thing or two about a successful TikTok strategy.
Miller served as CMO of K-18 during its gangbuster rise and 2023 strategic acquisition by Unilever. Her CV also includes Kosas, Too Faced and, as of January, CMO of Vegamour hair care.
“[TikTok has] an algorithm that is able to democratize beauty in a way that makes it a lot more accessible [to the
With Sephora launch, Ultra Violette readies to take the US market by storm
Sephora has launched numerous new brands in recent months, many of them buzzy and beloved — but perhaps none has been as hotly anticipated as Ultra Violette (that's pronounced "violet"), the Aussie sunscreen brand first launched in 2018.
Sephora marks the brand's official debut into the U.S. market — a landmark occasion, because, as co-founder Bec Jefferd said on this week's episode of The Glossy
Act+Acre founders on the rise of scalp-care: ‘Education is the forefront of the brand’
Act+Acre’s husband-and-wife founders were early to the growth of the scalp-care market when they launched their brand in 2019 with one product: a $48 prewash treatment called Scalp Detox Oil.
“[Scalp care] was definitely an afterthought for people [a few years ago],” brand founder and hairstylist Helen Reavey told Glossy. “Launching it in 2019, we were one of the first to solely think about scal
Hair-care tycoon Carolyn Aronson enters mass with Cloud: ‘It has the callouts Gen Z is looking for’
Very few beauty entrepreneurs have had more success than Carolyn Aronson.
In 2006, the longtime hairstylist and salon owner launched professional hair-care brand It’s a 10 with one hero product: Miracle Leave-In spray. The $21 formula was an immediate success for its ability to hydrate, smooth, condition, defrizz and protect hair with one formula. The brand had immediate success by seeding the pr
Hally Hair's Kathryn Winokur: 'Gen Z is not static — she's growing up'
Kathryn Winokur launched Hally Hair in 2021 after working for companies including PepsiCo and Dove. From engineering college partnerships to hosting a trip for Alabama sorority girls, the brand has succeeded by keeping its finger on the pulse and remaining deeply entrenched in youth culture. Its latest move is a timely one, too: On March 6, it introduced Lady H, a $39 alcohol-free hair perfume tha
C.O. Bigelow president Ian Ginsberg on unlocking profitable pharmacy retail: 'You have to create a want, not a need’
For New Yorkers, C.O. Bigelow is an institution.
“There's something about the [Bigelow] apothecary that emotionally appeals to people,” Ian Ginsberg, president, pharmacist and third generation owner of C.O. Bigelow, told Glossy. “Everybody, no matter how young or old you are, has some memory about going to the apothecary and the pharmacist telling you what to do. That's where I started [when I jo
Kelli Anne Sewell is building a different kind of makeup artist-founded business
There is a traditional path for successful makeup artists nowadays: Build up a roster of influential clients, accrue a following on social media, and start a brand of your own. After all, makeup artist-led brands — think: Makeup by Mario, Patrick Ta, Violette Fr and Fara Homidi — have never been hotter.
But makeup artist Kelli Anne Sewell is taking a different approach.
Sewell started her career i
MCoBeauty CMO Meridith Rojas: 'Dupes democratize beauty'
For MCoBeauty CMO Meridith Rojas, the ability to democratize the beauty industry lies in the power of dupes.
“We're in this moment, in this cultural zeitgeist, where people don't want to have to spend $1,000 on a face of beauty and don't want to be left out of the trends,” said Rojas. “We really want to create luxury for everyone. And of course, we have amazing dupes, but we also have some homegr
Parlux president Lori Singer on launching Billie Eilish’s 4th fragrance: ‘Her fans are anxiously waiting’
Longtime beauty executive Lori Singer has been instrumental in some of the biggest fragrance license deals of the past 20 years.
Singer spent more than a decade at Coty, where she worked on bestselling fragrances by Calvin Klein, Vera Wang, Balenciaga and Nautica. She also tripled global net revenues for Marc Jacobs with its iconic Daisy franchise launched in 2007. Singer got her start at Revlon,
Founder Jordan Samuel on launching less products
Jordan Samuel, a former ballet dancer, launched his eponymous skin care brand in 2013, with just two products: The After Show Treatment Cleanser and the Hydrate Facial Serum.
He has grown, since then, but remained small, which he calls, a “badge of honor.” The brand is beloved by leading skin care influencers like Caroline Hirons (776,000 Instagram followers). It is primarily DTC but is carried a
Amanda Kloots on Proper, her new brand of supplements in partnership with The Center
To her 769,000 Instagram followers, fitness entrepreneur-turned-brand founder Amanda Kloots feels like a friend who just happens to sometimes star in movies or host TV shows — she wrapped her gig on CBS's "The Talk" when the show ended last year and hosts "Live From The Other Side" on Netflix. Some of her fans have been following her journey since she started teaching fitness classes nearly a deca
Remedy Place’s Dr. Jonathan Leary: 'Social self-care' is the future of wellness
Dr. Jonathan Leary is on a mission to change how and where consumers socialize.
“We're the world's first social wellness club. What I mean by that is we're not a gym, we're not a spa, we don't do beauty, and we don't do aesthetics. All we do is self-care, but made social,” said Remedy Place founder and CEO Dr. Leary. “I'm really trying to change the narrative of how people socialize, but in a hea
Dr. David Shafer on GLP-1s, NAD and metabolic optimization
Dr. David Shafer has been a practicing plastic surgeon for 15 years, but since 2020, the Shafer Clinic, where he practices, has also operated Advitam, a metabolic aesthetics clinic. Through Dr. Shafer's work with both, he sees patients who are striving to lose weight or gain energy, and he's also had a front-row seat to the rise of GLP-1s. In the plastic surgery clinic, patients may come in for sk
Your Reformer’s Emma Stallworthy on scaling subscription pilates in the US
Despite being around for nearly 100 years, pilates has never been so popular.
As previously reported by Glossy, search volume for “pilates” was at an all-time high in January 2004, with small yearly spikes each January since. It wasn’t until 2022 that search numbers topped those 2004 numbers before hitting an all-time in January 2023 and then again in January of 2024.
However, searches have alre
The Glossy Beauty Podcast's 2025 industry predictions
For this week's special episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast co-hosts Sara Spruch-Feiner and Lexy Lebsack brought on colleague Emily Jensen to discuss six topics — all 2024 trends they expect will continue to dominate in the year to come or emerging trends they believe will be big topics of conversation. These included the pending TikTok ban and how it will affect beauty brands, the shifts in influencer
The Glossy Beauty Podcast’s 2024 can’t-miss moments
Glossy reporters Lexy Lebsack, Sara Spruch-Feiner and Emma Sandler welcomed dozens of guests onto the Glossy Beauty Podcast in 2024. This included top executives at L’Oréal Group and Kendo Brands; longtime industry leaders from Retrouvé and Versed; and breakout indie brand founders from Flamingo Estate and Fazit.
But it was the six interviews highlighted below that best capture the ways in which t
Versed's Katherine Power and Lola Gonzalez Marra: ‘Every great brand should evolve its look and feel every five years’
“I believe that every great brand should evolve its look and feel about every five years,” said Katherine Power, serial entrepreneur and the founder of Versed skin care. “Since our launch in 2019, we've seen that our core customer, who is primarily an older millennial or young Gen X — I call them Xennials — has really grown along with us, and we wanted to continue to grow with them and to create s
Fazit's founders on how Taylor Swift and her glitter freckles changed their business
Aliett Buttelman and Nina LaBruna launched Fazit Beauty in January 2022. When it first debuted, the brand focused on various skin-care patches. In the years since, it has built a following on TikTok (76,000 followers) with products like oversized acne patches, silicone scar patches and patches that help treat ingrown hairs. According to Buttelman, by October 2024, the brand had amassed around 200
Sumin Lee on why Beauty of Joseon is blowing up in the US before its native Korea
If you've scrolled TikTok lately, perhaps you've come across a sunscreen from K-beauty brand Beauty of Joseon. On the app, it's somewhat ubiquitous. Sumin Lee is part of a team that acquired the brand and totally reinvented it, introducing the version today's U.S. consumers know in 2019. In the five years since, it's become a hit, particularly for its sunscreens, including the Relief Sun Aqua-Fres
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