The Glossy Beauty Podcast

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's episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lee joins co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner to explore why now was the right time to launch a lower-priced line, how she approached maintaining efficacy while cutting costs, and how t...

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 visual ‘wow factor’ helped us tremendously in capturing attention, but just standing out is a small part [of success],” Malinsky said. “Delivering curiosity, entertainment and ultimately the desire to try a product is what we spent the first two...

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 Emily Jensen to discuss the staple millennial brand — which famously helped pioneer the modern "clean girl" aesthetic — and what its next chapter may hold. 

In recent months, the company has unde...

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 launch of Taia, a first-of-its-kind generative AI advisor that lives on Thorne’s homepage. 
“In the first six months, [Taia has fielded] over 200,000 messages and more than 350,000 product and lifestyle recommendations,” said Nathan Price, PhD., chief sc...

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 that transparently documented the whole process, including those rejections.

On this episode, van Haaster candidly shares how Bloomeffects reworked its packaging and assortment to turn Ulta's no into a yes, what the brand change...

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 AI at Oura, told Glossy. “We want to change that narrative when it comes to women's health.”

LLMs are the brains behind AI chatbots, including Oura’s in-app Advisor chat where users can ask general welln...

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 transactional deals — to three teenage creators. The initiative, called Generation E, launches in tandem with the brand's nationwide Sephora expansion and reflects Ho’s belief that the next phase of brand-building means inviting the next g...

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. 

These tariffs have been a major source of revenue for the Federal government. In January, the U.S. collected more than $30 billion in duties, more than double the amount generated in January of 2025. 

Last week, in a 6-3 d...

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 partnerships and product seeding (First Aid gifted all Team USA members) to behind-the-scenes content and performance-focused skin care. Brands including Fenty Beauty, L'Oréal Paris and Glossier have previously activated ar...

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 issues to curbing wrinkles and dull skin.

There are several well-studied, FDA-approved peptides available today, such as insulin and GLP-1s like Ozempic and Wegovy, but that’s just a sliver of the peptide pie. There...

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 grown to rival eBay in scale, estimating that it sold $19 billion worth of products globally between July and September of last year.

Even before these most recent changes, as TikTok Shop...

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 Good.clean.goop.

At the helm of two of these brands, CoverFX and Mally Beauty, is AS Beauty CEO Joey Shamah, the founder and former CEO of E.l.f. Cosmetics.

“We’ve been c...

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 evolution of the Wellness Shop.”

Launching next week, the retailer is rolling out a pilot program called “Wellness by Ulta Beauty,” a shop-in-shop bou...

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 School and former Proactiv and L’Oréal Group executive. “But I think we’ll see something different [this year].”

In 2025, E.l.f. Beauty purchased Hailey Bieber’s Rhode for $1...

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. For her part, Kaplan built her industry prowess through roles at brands including Droplette, Dr. Barbara Sturm and Augustinus Bader. 

Dermatologist-founded brands continue to resonate with beauty consumers, who are seeking credibility, education and expertise in an oversaturated market. On the...

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 shoppers. The hosts also made specific predictions, such as an increase in savory scents in fragrance and more clean, value-priced body care in big-box stores. The trio also muses about the bubbles that could burst in 2026, and so much...

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 to deliver for this younger demographic. Jensen examines a challenging year for color cosmetics, where lip care and lip liner emerged as bright spots. And Lebsack points to longevity as a key grow...

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 nearly three years. She took over as CEO in January, and by March, she unveiled her Ulta Beauty Unleashed comeback plan — and in just 11 months, her strategy has paid off. <...

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, Spruch-Feiner also interviewed Anna Andreeva, managing director of footwear, beauty and brands at Piper Sandler. Piper Sandler, a financial services company, is well-known for its biannual teen survey...

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 shopper, then unpack some of the buzziest activations and sales strategies today. This includes both discounting and non-discounting strategies, value-focused sales, bundles and collaborations, among other tactics. The trio also walk...

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 dryer on the market and the most expensive at the time, priced at $200. Dr. Chung and Yu quickly found a consumer, and before long, T3 was the first hair tool sold in stores like...

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 about them was the story,” he told Glossy on stage at this week’s annual Glossy Beauty and Wellness Summit about its Byoma acquisition. “It's the story: they've de-complicated complicated skin-care rout...

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 goes by @AllisonTurquoise, her insights can be seen in an upcoming Cosmetic Science Textbook used in packaging courses. 

Today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast —  a special episode dedicated to the best, and worst, be...

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 and Ursa Major. On today's episode, she takes listeners through mini case studies, examining her work on products like Rhode's iconic phone case, Glossier's first foray into body care and Merit's logo.

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 pull of millennial pink) to font, every packaging element is carefully considered. As our first guest in the series, FIT Professor Sebba Alqetrani, said, “The first thing the consumer sees, touches and interacts with is the package. [It] is your first...

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-influencer duo Jordan and Salish Matter, and Evereden, which will hit Sephora.com on October 14.

They examine what will happen, on Sephora's shelves and beyond, as Gen Alpha grows into its purchasing p...

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 Pop Award-winning campaigns. 

These winning campaigns drove audience engagement, generated buzz and successfully met their set business goals. 

To start, host Lexy Lebsack welcomes Leslie Ann Hall...

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 points, intuition and conviction [while] becoming your own leader to navigate the decisions that need to be made on a daily basis," Bennett said.

But today, Bennett is part of a g...

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 Hot Tools, among others. But Gibson Tuttle was intent on remaining involved in her brand's operations — operating essentially as it did prior to the acquisition, but with greater support.

Now, nearly a year post-acquisition, Gib...

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 in 2021, his team has released a light-powered blowdryer called the AirLight Pro; an in-store skin diagnostic device called Cell BioPrint; Water Saver, an in-salon water reduction tool; a hom...

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 cleaning up the brand’s Amazon presence and expanding into Ulta Beauty, to reestablishing a social presence and reducing the brand's SKU count from 87 to 27. 

But first, host Lexy Lebsack is...

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 a look at disappointing revenue at conglomerates Shiseido and Estée Lauder Companies. The team also discusses the biggest acquisitions of the season — including Rhode, Dr. Squatch, Space NK and Touchland — and the tariff-related topics we’re watchin...

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 discussed in last week’s episode. 

Next, Lebsack and Daniels discuss the likely voluntary recall of mousse sunscreens, which includes offerings from Vacation and Supergoop sold through Sephora, Target, Nordstrom...

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 after he made jokes about domestic violence in his Netflix special. Commenters have flooded the brand's TikTok and Instagram pages, and have also created their own content condemning Rife's casting.

Later, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner sits down with New York City-based p...

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 Stewart’s incoming new beauty brand, Elm Biosciences, which was developed with past Glossy Beauty Podcast guest Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali. They also talk about Bath & Body Works’s push into college bookstores and Dyson’s...

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 I literally tried everything,” she said. “Nothing worked until I pressed reset and simplified my routine, going from a 14-step skin-care routine to a super minimal three-step skin-care routine...

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 make progress in the field, and what's at stake (20:00).

But first, co-hosts Lexy Lebsack and Emily Jensen discuss some of the week’s biggest beauty news, including TSG Group's acquisition of Ch...

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 product that presents itself as the original. 

It's very common for duped brands to regularly bring lawsuits against the companies allegedly infringing on their trade dress, or IP, such as packaging, branding, logos or any...

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.

This beetle pigment can be found on ingredient labels as “carmine,” “cochineal extract,” “crimson lake,” “natural red 4” or “C.I. 75470.” A quick online search reveals carmine in products from Stila, Fenty Beauty, M...