Glow Journal

In episode 111 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the co-founder of Sundae Body, Lizzie Waley.

Imagine not just trying to get customers on board with a new brand, but getting them to entirely change the way they’ve done something for their entire life.

That is precisely the task Lizzie Waley was faced with on launched Sundae Body.

Lizzie had had a conversation with her business partner about how bath time is so fun when you’re a kid, and by adulthood it’s totally lost its magic- likely because, realistically, your only options are a bar of soap or a liquid body wash, neither of which inspire a whole lot of play or joy. Armed with that thought, Lizzie asked a chemist if there were any other mechanisms or mediums that could be explored in the body care space, to which that chemist suggested a foam.

Sundae Body took about 18 months to develop, beginning with a can designed to look like whipped cream and ending with a range fruit and dessert scented whipped body foams, formulated to put the fun back into showering- at any age. Lizzie pitched Sundae Body to both Woolworths and Priceline before launch and was picked up by both, meaning Sundae Body had space on over 1200 shelves before they’d launched a single product.

In this conversation, Lizzie shares both the pros and cons of self funding a startup, the lessons learned from her first job in a call centre, and why the right distributor was key to securing space with two of the country’s retail giants.

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Follow Sundae Body on Instagram @sundaebody.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 110 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the CEO and founder of Gem, Georgia Danos.

This conversation is essentially a marketing masterclass.

One of Georgia’s earliest roles was at Remedy Kombucha. Now, we all know what kombucha is now, but keep in mind this was in 2014, before the brand was even on Instagram, so Georgia’s job wasn’t just to build the brand’s social media presence- she was more or less responsible for bringing the product to mainstream recognition.

After helping to launch the brand in the UK, Georgia had well and truly caught what she refers to as “the start up bug,” and this is where her story gets really interesting- rather than identifying a gap for a product and then deciding to launch a brand to fill it, Georgia first decided she wanted to start a business of her own and then identified that gap. Where she landed was the oral care sphere. Given that beauty was and remains so saturated, she found space for a product at the intersection of beauty and health and wanted to develop a product that had a daily, or in this case twice-daily, touchpoint with consumers.

Georgia launched Gem, an Australian made, premium, natural oral care brand in March 2020 following four years of product development. The brand has since been picked up by both Mecca and Woolworths stores nationally, has extended its product range to over 30 SKUs, and is launching into Boots in the UK next week.

In this conversation, Georgia shares how she and her team manage to educate without fear mongering (no mean feat in this industry), how she got her brand on the shelves at Mecca, Woolworth and Boots, and how she got her product’s entire first run of packaging for free.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Gem on Instagram @gem.au.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 109 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of YŌLI and En Gold, Steffanie Ball.

Steffanie Ball’s ties to beauty come through YŌLI, a brand centred around “elevated bathing rituals” that was launched in December of last year with a range including luxury towelling (emphasis on the word luxury), a scent range and a dry body brush. You’ve likely heard of Steff’s first business, furniture and homewares brand En Gold, which began as an Instagram account selling vintage furniture and morphed into a furniture brand that celebrates the design and workmanship of century old crafts.

What I love most about the story behind both of Steff’s businesses is the ways in which she’s reconnected with her Filipino heritage throughout the business development process. She tells one story in particular about connecting with the original maker of the vintage pieces she was selling on Instagram and how, through En Gold, he and Steff were able to give all of his former workers their jobs back that you will love.

In this conversation, Steff shares why the art of ritual is so important to her, why she believes that retail is one of the best industries within which to learn and why she insists her team all spend time in the customer care department, and how an American skateboarder (her now husband of 14 years) proposed after 2 days…

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow YŌLI on Instagram @yoli_haus.

Follow En Gold on Instagram @en._gold

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 108 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Vida Glow, Anna Lahey.

Vida Glow is the number one marine collagen brand in the world, with one unit sold every four seconds.

Anna doesn’t hold her cards close to her chest. From sharing the brand’s Shopify launch strategy, what goes into developing packaging and sourcing ingredients, how many products Vida Glow have discontinued and the rationale behind the brand’s 2021 rebrand, Anna sincerely believes that the increasing saturation of the ingestible beauty market is only going to push the category forward- and honestly, it was refreshing to hear.

Anna and her husband Keiran launched Vida Glow in 2014 after years of importing collagen for herself from Japan, having experienced hair loss due to a blood clotting condition which she opened up about in our chat. Realising that making the ingredient accessible here in Australia could have a positive impact on so many people, Vida Glow was born.

In this conversation, Anna shares the power of a rebrand and the strategy that went into Vida Glow’s, what to look for when purchasing ingestible beauty supplements, and the million dollar question, what collagen actually is and what it can do.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Vida Glow on Instagram @vida_glow.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 107 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the co-founder of ABHATI Suisse, Shirin Dörig.

A British-born Indian who now lives with her family in Switzerland, Shirin’s mother Anju has been described as a serial entrepreneur. She studied sociology and ethnology, she worked as a social worker in the UK, and was instrumental in setting up a shelter for victims of domestic violence.

Her interest in beauty began in the same way her daughter, Shirin’s, did, with both women being introduced to the time honoured beauty rituals of their Indian heritage from a young age.

After relocating to Switzerland, Anju traveled to the Himalayas whilst working with an NGO and learnt about native plants from the tribal farmers she met. Inspired to combine their teachings and Swiss science with the aforementioned time honoured Indian rituals, Anju launched altitude-active beauty company ABHATI Suisse in 2015 with Shirin officially joining the brand as both co-founder and trade marketing manager last year.

Each ABHATI Suisse purchase funds days of school for girls in India through the brand’s partnership with Educate Girls, with the brand having enabled over 530,000 school days at the time of recording. In something of a full circle moment, 1% of the brand’s revenue is given to environmental organisations like WeForest in partnership with 1% for the Planet- WeForest being one of the organisations Shirin’s mother co-founded.

In this conversation, Shirin shares the importance of retailing through true brand builders, how her mother inspired so many people to aid the brand pro bono, and the surprising connection between ABHATI Suisse and a perfume brand with a particularly cult following.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow ABHATI Suisse on Instagram @abhatisuisse.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 106 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of VIOLETTE_FR and Creative Director of Makeup for Guerlain, Violette Serrat.

Violette has been a bucket list guest of mine since Season 1 as I became aware of her work at something of a pivotal time, career wise, for me.

Violette realised she wanted to become a makeup artist at the age of 19 after applying glitter to a friends face ahead of a party. She promptly moved to New York, with no training beyond a Kevyn Aucoin library book, and began to network her way into the industry.

Between 2012 and 2020, Violette worked as a Makeup Designer at Dior, a Product Development Consultant at Sephora, and as Estee Lauder’s Global Beauty Director, and was discovered by Vogue France in 2015.

In 2021, Violette was named Creative Director of Makeup for heritage brand Guerlain, AND launched her own brand, VIOLETTE_FR.

In this conversation, Violette shares why she’s an advocate for self-funding where possible, the value in staying true to your personal style when others suggest otherwise, and why she’d prefer it if her daughter weren’t to follow in her footsteps.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Violette on Instagram @violette_fr.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 105 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of Verso, Lars Fredriksson.

It was a love of interaction, communication, and connection that led Lars Fredriksson to the beauty world. Having spent years in business, sales and marketing, he found himself talking to a stranger at a music industry party. Lars and this man were the only two guests who didn’t work in music, and it was this conversation that led Lars to his first role in the beauty world.

Lars launched Verso in Sweden a decade ago- a brand built around a patented ingredient called Retinol8 and steeped in science. The brand is now available in 25 countries and the product range consists of about 25 SKUs, each of which has taken years to develop and perfect before hitting the market.

In this conversation, which took place during Lars’ most recent trip to Australia, Lars shares why he believes everyone should use at least one Vitamin A product daily, why we really have his wife to thank for his move into the beauty space, and why we probably won’t ever be seeing a Verso neck cream on the shelves…

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Verso on Instagram @versoskincare.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 104 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of FaceGym, Inge Theron.

From early ambitions to become a CNN correspondent to a job as radio DJ, founding a branding agency to launching a board game, it was a job in the wellness space that really made Inge Theron feel as though she was home.

Inge spent 11 years as the Financial Times' Wellbeing, Beauty & Spa writer, a job that quite literally saw her trialling the best and, in some cases the worst, beauty and wellness treatments and trends in the world, before an idea struck her in 2013. She hadn’t just trialled, she’d studied, the wellness industry for over a decade- what if she took the very best bits and created something she knew would work?

The idea for FaceGym came to Inge in December 2013- a gym, rather than a spa, offering facial workouts instead of invasive treatments. The first FaceGym location opened in May the following year, with each workout following a “warm up, sculpting, cardio and cool down” formula. In just 8 years, that 1 location has expanded beyond 15. In 2021, FaceGym launched their own line of topical skincare products, and in January of this year, Inge opened FaceGym’s first Southern Hemisphere location at Mecca George Street.

In this conversation, Inge shares how she convinced a heritage retailer to take on her brand, how she learnt the importance of understanding the operations of your brand and not just the creative, and why she takes stock of where she’s at, both personally and professionally, every single year.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow FaceGym on Instagram @facegym.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 103 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the co-founders of JB SKRUB, Julie Bowen and Jill Biren.

USE CODE GLOWJOURNAL15 FOR 15% OFF YOUR JB SKRUB ORDER.

Julie Bowen has been acting professionally since 1992, perhaps most notably spending 11 years in the role of Claire Dunphy on Modern Family. Jill Biren spent close to two decades in publishing at Condé Nast, working across titles including Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair.

Both mothers of sons, Julie and Jill got to chatting at a birthday party about the changes their sons were going through as pre-teens, realising there was a glaring gap in the market for a skincare brand aimed at young men, given the existing offering was either too young, too overtly feminine, or just that bit too adult and intimidating, rather than easy and fun.

JB SKRUB spent three years in product development ensuring each of the five formulas was perfect, with not a single corner cut and each product being certified European Union compliant for clean skincare, and launched in January of this year. Less than two months in, the brand already has multiple new products on the horizon as well as plans to launch internationally very soon.

In this conversation, Julie and Jill share how their respective careers in show business and media have affected their personal relationships with beauty, their advice on having difficult conversations with adolescents, and Julie shares how playing the role of a mother of three prepared her for her own motherhood journey.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow JB Skrub on Instagram @jbskrub.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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In episode 102 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Recreation Beauty, Nedahl Stelio.

Despite steadily building a name for herself as one of the country’s most influential voices in fashion and beauty media, Nedahl didn’t enter the industry with a specific niche in mind. Having worked at Girlfriend Magazine as Beauty and Features Editor, Cosmopolitan Magazine as Beauty Editor, Features Editor and Deputy Editor, and as Editor of Cleo Magazine, she tells me that while she fell into beauty, over time she fell in love with it.

Around 14 years ago, Nedahl found herself struggling to conceive and elected to switch to “natural” products in her home and beauty routines, and it was at this time that she discovered there were really no luxury options in the natural perfume space.

Still working as a journalist, Nedahl placed her idea on the backburner, however after some years wearing no perfume at all, she decided it was time to create a solution to her own problem.

Recreation Beauty, a natural, vegan, and Australian made fragrance and beauty brand was launched in 2019 following over two years of product development, and now boasts one of the most innovative sustainability frameworks I’ve come across.

In this conversation, Nedahl shares the ways in which the media landscape has evolved across her nearly three decades in the industry and, perhaps surprisingly, the ways in which it has stayed the same, her advice for those deciding if their startup should launch wholesale or direct to consumer, and the advantages of starting a business on your own.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Recreation Beauty on Instagram @recreationbeauty.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.