Episode 15: From Curiosity to Clean Beauty | Lacey Haegen | Founder of Beaute Nouveau

Women in BusinessBeautyLifestyle & Culture

May 29

Lacey Haegen never set out to start a skincare company. A professional makeup artist with a love for learning, she began digging into the ingredients inside the products she used every day. What she found shocked her, and sent her on a mission to create something better. Drawing on her creative, resourceful upbringing and a lifetime surrounded by entrepreneurs, she launched Beaute Nouveau, a handmade skincare line built on integrity, artistry, and purpose. We talk about the realities of entrepreneurship, why beauty should never come at the expense of your health, and how to build a business that reflects the life you want to live.

“Stop getting through your days, cause you only have so many. And start making the most of every day. Be exhausted and in tears if you have to, but do what lights your fire.”

— Lacey Haegen

San Diego
Atmosphe ric River
Ryann Gaspa ra
Michi gan
Al aska
B ay Area
Ma rin County
Hippies
Bell Bottoms
W atercolor
Fire Roads
French Approach to Childcare
Wi lliam Sonoma
H old Everything
G arden Botani ka
Macy’s
Cliniq ue
Origi ns
San Di ego
Chane l
Sociology
Large Scale Policy Im plementat ion
P soriasis
Thy roid Issues
Naturopa thic
Dietary R estrictions
Good Reads App
The Wellness Project by P hoebe LaPine
Bi oaccu mulation
Silicone
D imethicone
Ac rylates
Slim T oni c
Essential Oils
Apothebeauty.com
Lily Lolo Mascar a
Vegan
Petroleum
Lanolin
Carmin
Vien na Fin gers t he cookie
Red #40
Stearic A cid
France
France Handmade Local Product Ba n
Current status of Fre nch & Entrepreneurism
Small Business Saturday
Harvard Business School
Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Curiosity that sparked a skincare revolution
01:12 Early influences and an entrepreneurial family
03:05 From Michigan to Alaska to the Bay Area
05:40 First jobs in beauty retail and what they taught her
08:15 Discovering the hidden truths in beauty product labels
11:00 Creating Beaute Nouveau from scratch
13:45 Ingredients that matter and why she avoids toxins
16:20 Balancing artistry and business savvy
19:05 Lessons learned from building a handmade brand
21:30 Tips for cleaning out your beauty cabinet
24:00 Navigating growth while staying true to your mission
26:50 The mindset needed for long-term success
29:30 Self-care routines that fuel creativity
31:15 Advice for new entrepreneurs entering the beauty space
Stop getting through your days because you only have so many and start making the most of every day. Go to bed exhausted and in tears if you have to. But do what? Lights
your fire. That's Lacey Haegen, and this is a Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something, and the extraordinary to come and share their story. These are people that inspire me and remind me that everything is possible. I hope that you will be left, entertained, inspired, and moved to take action towards living your most powerful life.
Lacey is a makeup artist and the owner of Butte Novo, a handmade skincare collection. Her whole life, she was taught and encouraged to be learning, questioning, creative, and resourceful. When she began to investigate what was really in all the products that she was using and that we all put on her skin, she was horrified.
She knew there had to be a better way. And so she made it herself. This episode is one of my favorites so far. As we deep dive into the realities of entrepreneurship and the truths behind our skincare and makeup products, there is so much good stuff in this episode all that's coming up. But first, are you looking for a way that you can be part of the Powerful Ladies Ambassador program?
Well, you are in luck. We're currently looking for women who wanna host our one Day of giving events as part of our charity campaign that supports women for women.org. It's really simple to figure out how to host. We send you a full host kit with all the details that you need and all the resources, and of course, we support you along the way.
Powerful ladies, one day of giving events are an opportunity for you to have fun, connect with your community, and make a difference in the lives of women around the world. These events do not need to be big. They should be like small, simple, easy things that you enjoy doing from your, the yoga class that you teach, to the dinner party that you love to have to even going to your local like paint and wine, uh, location and ask if they wanna co-host with you.
You invite your friends, they provide the space. All the money goes to the powerful ladies. One day of giving charity. For more questions, you can email us hello@thepowerfulladies.com, or you can go to. The powerful ladies.com/giving. We can't wait for you to join us. There are tons of awesome benefits of being a powerful ladies ambassador, which we'll tell you more about once you sign up.
Yay. Yeah, don't be worded. Doubt them. Putting my cough drop aside.
Not gonna be weird because it's too
loud, but, um, that's precious right there. Uh, if it was gum, I would never do that. That's gross. No, that goes under the table. Nap the table. In fact, actually, we were, uh, I was at a very nice restaurant one day, and I went to look for like the hook underneath.
I've done that and I touched gum and I was like, disgust. OMG. Like, was that, is that new gum? Is it old gum? I couldn't tell. I paid way too much money to have gum on my fingers in here. Oh. Mm-hmm. It freaked me out. I had to like, get underneath a table, remove it, because like it's, I haven't, uh, we were talking about this on another podcast, about having this philosophy of like, being responsible for the space, even if it's not your space.
So if you go into a bathroom and there's toilet everywhere, like you have to pick it up before you leave. Yeah. Otherwise, so if it comes in after you, it's like, damn, look, you're messy. And so I could, I had to do the same thing with the gum. And Jesse's like my boyfriend, he's like, um. Please get off your knees.
You are. We're in a restaurant right now. I'm like, no. I'm like, this is so gross. Clearly
we're in a circus 'cause there's gum under the table.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who does this? And then I thought of like, how bold of someone to do this. Were they just like, yeah. Like intentionally like, we're gonna screw the system or This restaurant sucks.
I wasn't quite sure what the clue was. Yeah. The
server was bad. Like, yeah. Screw you. Exactly. Oh look, my name's already there.
It's not really me. Well, welcome. Thank you so much for coming to The Powerful Ladies podcast. Thank you for inviting me. You were very brave to drive all the way from San Diego in torrential, what is it called?
The Atmospheric River that we are having right now. Holy smokes. They come up with new, ridiculous words every day, I think. Mm-hmm. Um, so let's start by just introducing yourself and telling people who you are and what you're up to.
All right. My name is Lacey Hagan and I am a professional makeup artist who, uh, basically decided to create my own skincare line about 12 years ago.
And I'm just living that dream every day, make the products handmade and I sell them all over the country. And that's really what I'm up to.
You, we were introduced because you are friends with my friend Ryan. Mm-hmm. Who has already been on the podcast. And I love her because she keeps referring me to these amazing, powerful ladies.
And you were the first one. Well, technically her first was her cousin. So family. I understand. Then she's like, okay, after you talked to Allie, call my friend. I'm like, okay, awesome. And we talked on the phone and it was supposed to be like a 10 minute conversation. I think we talked for 45 minutes the first time.
And I was like, yes, we are on the same team of creating things that we care about. And even the way our mindset was working about like what we're worried about, what we're doing, and how you have to make the same, you know, and the same choices. So I'm really excited to talk to you today and hear more about your entrepreneurial journey and how you got there.
And thank you again, Ryan, for recommending you.
Yeah. Ryan is amazing at connecting people.
Yes. Yeah. I, I love that she's not just a powerful lady entrepreneur, but she's really the person who is always bringing up people around her.
She's the quintessential collaboration over competition. Yes. A hundred percent.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, let's start from the beginning. Okay. Tell us where you grew up. What was life like, kind of between like zero and 20.
Ugh. I was trying to think about this as I was driving up here, and I, I, I have so many memories, but then, you know, some of it is very. Spotty. But basically I think I had a very normal, yet, probably not normal upbringing.
I was, um, born in Michigan during a really tough economic time, and that pushed my parents to move to Alaska because that's where the work was. So we went up to Alaska and that's a very different existence when you're, um, a female and you're used to, uh, growing up in the Bay Area where my mom grew up. So I think we made it about three or four years.
And then my mom decided to, uh, take her daughter and her sewing machine and head back down to the Bay Area. So, um, I sort of started just as a kid, sort of moving around a lot. We ended up in Northern California, the Bay Area. I went to three different kindergartens. I, I went back and forth to Alaska during kindergarten.
I used to fly to Alaska as a five-year-old by myself and back every like three or four months. And did you just feel like a
grownup? You're like, I got this.
Well, I would, there just like wasn't another option. It was like, okay, well I've got my crackle bag with my cards and I'm gonna find a grandma and I'm gonna get myself to Alaska.
So I think I sort of developed these skills of always being aware and always observing everything and just. Sponging everything I could. So, um, I also grew up in Marin County, which was a place of a lot of privilege and a lot of progressive thinking. So a lot of hippies, a lot of artsy-fartsy types vary into, um, nutrition and growing your own food and, you know, just kind of folk songs and freedom.
Mm-hmm. And bell bottoms. And I, I really took a lot of that in as a kid. And, um, my grandmother was a watercolor painter and so I was always very influenced by what I like to call now as an adult eccentric female artists. Mm-hmm. And female entrepreneurs. You know, when my mom and I came down from Alaska, she hadn't had the opportunity to go to college or she didn't really have a very supportive family.
Um, but she started her own business, you know, 26 years old, a 3-year-old, no money, and opened a business, bought a monogram machine, and just went for it. So I got to see a lot of great examples of strong females and also people who just sort of didn't accept the status quo and didn't, didn't walk the straight line really all the time, and were very creative in their, um, employment.
Mm-hmm.
So, uh, that's sort of where I think it all sort of began for me. And I also. Got to run around and do a lot of fun things without a lot of supervision. I got to hike the fire roads in Marin County and ride my bike wherever I wanted to go and sort of make a mess wherever I went. Mm-hmm. Because it was a different time too.
People weren't really watching so closely. So that's really where it started for me, I think, of just making things, creating things, thinking outside the box, critically thinking about mm-hmm what I was doing, what I was looking at. Uh, and I had great teachers. I had great teachers who really pushed you regardless if you were a female or a male.
Lots of math, lots of science, lots of reading. Um, so I, that's sort, sort of, I think my background and mm-hmm. Where I got the don't be fearful and yeah. My mom got remarried when I was nine and I moved to a different school again and got to meet all these new kids. And I don't know, I just have always sort of been very fluid and flexible.
I didn't have the, you know, you, you're born, you have a house, you go to a school, you grow up with the same kids, and then you go to college and you do the same thing. It was a very different
mm-hmm.
And we didn't have a lot of money. So you had to be creative in a lot of ways. Yeah. And my parents both were like, go play.
Go take care of yourself. Go be independent. We are not here to entertain you. It is adult time. We need you to go create some skills.
Yep. Go discover something. Get in, get in safe trouble. Right. I, I really appreciate how the French approach to childcare is being talked about. It's, it's been popular in the past 10 years probably, but very similar.
And now you're describing your childhood of there are kids and there are adults. And the adult responsibility is not to entertain you the whole time. It's to provide you what you need to be a great human. And part of that is being able to take care of yourself.
Yeah. And entertain yourself.
Yeah. And use your own
imagination
to create something on your own when you're an adult.
I remember spending so much time by myself as a kid. Not that I didn't have friends or like enjoy that time too, but I, I like, similar to what you're describing of having the time to create and explore whether I was like writing stories for hours or, you know, organizing, not even playing with my dolls. I was such a weirdo.
I would be organizing the dolls and the dolls things in their house. Like, I'm like, okay, yep. Everyone's a professional organizer at three. Totally normal.
So I used to go collect the banana boxes at the grocery stores and take them home and cut out windows and doors and wallpaper them with wrapping paper and create giant houses for them with like pulleys and um, elevators and make up these stories.
And that was my jam. Oh
yeah.
Yeah. I didn't have a Barbie Dream house. My mom was like, make one.
Mm-hmm. You're like, okay, fine. I can do this. But, and I think it's something that gets lost a little bit in the conversation today because so many people are programmed to go to school, go to college, get married, have a family, have a career, the end.
And I think when that path doesn't work for you or it's not even appealing to you, it's hard to realize that there's so many other options. Like the majority of people in the world do not follow that path. Right. How did that become the social norm when it's actually not. Globally the norm.
Yeah. I, I don't know.
I'm just very grateful. I was encouraged to find my own path, you know, within reason, and there were things that I wanted to do that I didn't necessarily follow that path. And I went another way. And now I do see why. Yeah. And I'm glad. But yeah, I, I am very grateful for all the people who pushed me to say, feel the, oh, my mom used to say all the time, fear, feel the fear and do it anyway.
Oh yeah, there's that book no matter what. Mm-hmm. I mean, that was her big thing. Like, just go do it. Who cares? Don't be scared. I mean, and now that I'm an older woman and I can look back at 40 and look at my mom at 26 years old with all of these things to take care of, who just the, I have no other choice.
I'm just gonna create a business. And this was not in a time when, you know, it was savvy to do so. Mm-hmm. Like now it's very, um, I think common for females to start a business and we're banded together and we're supporting each other and we're creating a community. Back then, it was not really the, the norm.
Mm-hmm. It was like, what do you mean? You, you have your own company? Yeah. It was very different. So, um. What type of business did she have? She's had quite a few different businesses, but at that point she bought a monogram machine. Mm-hmm. Which is this huge thing, it's like the size of this table. And she basically knocked on the corporate offices of every big company like Williams Sonoma and hold everything.
And I don't even remember what they were, but she, she, if you would have a catalog and you would get monogram towels or monogram, um, sheets or anything like that, they would take the order and she would do all the monogramming. So she had this retail store in the front, a factory in the back, and she literally built, uh, a daycare inside where she then took care of my siblings once they were born.
But it was incredible. And she just, I mean, this was a time when there was no email, there was no way to connect with a company like this other than just, Hey, I have a machine and I could do your monogramming. And they were like, okay. Yeah. So that's how she started. But she's always been in sales and retail and she's incredibly creative.
Her, she, her store right now is, uh, like vintage and new home, like everything from smalls to large scale furniture. And she's just amazing. She's pivoted a million times with the market changes and lease changes and mm-hmm. All the things that come along with owning a business.
So it must be so nice to have someone in your life that you can really go to.
As an entrepreneur who's, who's been there Yes. And have that support. I mean, what has it been like with your relationship with her since you started your own company?
It's been great. She's been a huge support of mine from the very beginning. Even if she doesn't even always understand what I am doing. I mean, skincare, not her passion.
Um, side note, she's always had beautiful skin and it's always been something she's taken care of, but you know, obviously I've taken it to the next level. But she's, um, never questioned like, well, why would you do that? Or, how do you know how to do that? Or any of those questions that some people ask. She's always been just, yeah, sure, of course.
Do it. Don't let anything get in your way. And she is there to ask questions and bounce things off of and
mm-hmm.
She's always really supportive, but the one thing that she does really well is she doesn't tell me what to do. She really has never held my hand through all that. I even remember, you know, being so frustrated with her as a kid when I'd say, oh, how do you spell this?
And she'd be like, go look it up. There was no, well, let me tell you exactly how to spell that word. You know, her whole thing was if you figure it out, it'll be more meaningful and you'll remember it. So that's, I feel like, sort of the approach. But she's very supportive and it's really amazing to have somebody with that longevity that you can go to.
Mm-hmm. Even just vent. Yeah. It's
really nice. Well, 'cause it's not, it's not a world, it's like anything, what if no one else has experienced it? It's really hard for them to get it to the full expression of getting it. Um, so I really feel for people who are entrepreneurs that don't have that in their immediate family, or even if you're not an entrepreneur, but just the, the mindset of one, because it really is different.
It's always easy to choose the safer, more logical path that's more stable mm-hmm. Than, than to creating your own business sometimes. So I applaud everyone that does it anyway. Yes. And a
lot of people approach the conversation with questions that are very fear-based.
Mm-hmm.
And when you have to answer a question that comes from fear, it automatically ignites a weird fear in the pit of your stomach that you try so hard to just stay away from.
Mm-hmm. Because the minute fear takes any hold, it makes things so much harder and it's very hard to explain that verbally to somebody. Mm-hmm. When most of your business, when you're creating something out of nothing, is literally living in your imagination. Yes. In bits and pieces of ether that you slowly put together.
And that is not something you can verbally articulate and. When you're verbally articulating it to somebody you don't know what they're coming at you with. What fear, what family member had a business that lost a business mm-hmm.
Or
what their background, understanding of entrepreneurship even is or your product category.
Right. Exactly. And then the next question is always posed with, you know, what you should do and it's a quick rapid fire change and you're like, wait a second, you were just scared for me on this new idea. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, you know what I should do. So it is really lovely to have somebody in your corner that you don't have to go through that dance with and get straight answers.
And my mom is my biggest fan, but she does not sugar coat thing. So it's, it's a very valuable thing.
How did you go from the girl who was building dollhouses out of banana boxes to a makeup artist?
Good question. Uh, I got a driver's license and I got myself to the mall and the first job I got was working for a store called Garden Botanica, which was, I mean, at 16 years old is a happy place and it's gone now, but it was a place where you could go in and you could make your own lotions and create your own scents.
And it was just magical. And then I realized, oh, this is so good, but this is kind of like body shop level, like, let's go bigger. So then I went to Macy's and I got a job at, um, Clinique and Origins, and that was amazing. And then I graduated high school, moved to San Diego, and then continued on and just, it was always a great job that I could have when I went to school, because you could go to school in the morning, worked till nine and vice versa.
Mm-hmm. It was open seven days a week, so you had flexibility. And then there were so many wonderful females that I worked with in these departments and the community was just so great and supportive and it was built in friends and it was just years of women's wisdom. And I loved it. I, I tried to leave a few times to get a quote unquote real job and I just couldn't.
And in being in that environment, it was so fun to learn the artistry skills and. I work with people and you know, I've always been very artistic and I, my grandma was a, was a painter and my mom's a decorator and my aunt was a concert pianist. We've always been very eccentric and artistic and good with making things.
Mm-hmm. And I just loved the immediate, uh, gratification that I would get doing makeup on a person and then they get to see it and it lights up their face. Yeah. And I get an emotional connection with them. It's just, it was always so fun and, uh, it was a great expression and it was ever changing. Mm-hmm.
Products were always coming in, colors were always available. You were always encouraged to be really artistic, and so it just continued to evolve. I, I went from clinic and origins to Estee Lauder and then I went to, uh, grad school and out of grad school came back with no money. So I went back in as a Chanel counter manager and then I went the management route and I got to work with all the lines as a manager and.
It's just an industry I loved,
and that's my art. What did you go to school for where you were discovering your art, sociology, your, uh, undergrad and graduates?
Yes. Apparently I'm really schooled in large scale policy implement implementation, which I don't even really know what that means anymore, but I think that was a really great thing to do because it gave me a polish, it gave me a practice.
Mm-hmm.
It really tested commitment and, uh, ability to get through something. And it was really, really interesting. And people always say, well, how did you use that? Well, when you're 29 and you are managing a department of 50 women that span the age group from 16 to 60, you need to know how to manage a social situation.
Mm-hmm. With a sort of a scientific evaluative eye versus an emotional driven agenda. So I, I do think I got my money's worth outta that program.
For sure. Yeah.
I, I, I,
you know, often people say you go to college because making it through college gives you like a set of life skills regardless of what you study.
But I do think, especially, um, in the psychology world, it's just knowing how humans work. Mm-hmm. And knowing how people interact with each other. And if you can do large scale policy implementation, then you, you're probably okay to start a business because it's gonna be, I'm just, it'll feel like a big scale to you, but it'll be much smaller in regards to the level of everything else that would normally have to be orchestrated.
Yeah. And it's funny too, because I think I have a jaded view of the word scale, because I, I'm also asked that a lot. How are you gonna scale your business? Yeah. And I think to myself, I scale this business every day. What are you talking about? Mm-hmm. I've scaled it from an idea in my, the back of my brain to a living, breathing thing.
And you know, how scaled big scale, global scale, I mean, scaled within my neighborhood, scaled within the state. I mean, there's so many different ways to think about scale. And that program really helped me see that through multiple lenses. So that's another thing that I'm like, Ugh. Can't,
well, it's just like a trendy word right now too, because, I mean, I think there's so many great ideas that are being stifled because they don't have an answer to the scale question.
Mm-hmm. Or an investor wants to 10 times their investment and you're like, hold on. Right. Uh, when is that reality?
Right? And just because I get to the level of, let's just say in a department store, is that scaled enough? Is that successful? Is that where I wanna go? Is that the scale we're looking at?
What's the measurement? What does this general term scale mean? Yes. So that is something I like to keep in my pocket also.
For sure. Listen, you're a successful entrepreneur if people are buying your things end.
Yeah. And the end, and you feel good
at
the end of the
day. Mm-hmm. Which I do. Yes. And, and I always, um, when I'm working with a small business client, because I do coaching on the side with them, um, I guess not on the side.
It's a parallel business. I should stop diminishing that business. 'cause ultimately it's paying the bills right now. Yeah. Um, and it's so valuable. Yeah. Yes. Because we happen to know how to make things happen. So yes, I'd love to help you make your thing happen. Um, but one of the things that they get really stressed out about is the expectation today.
When you look at these mega entrepreneurs that have the bajillion social media followers, they have all the celebrity status. And it's like, the reality is most businesses in the world are just as big as you want them to be. Which usually means to support yourself. Right. And then anything beyond that is like, oh, we get to go on vacation.
Yeah. Whoa. Yeah.
I mean, I've really started this accidentally, I will be honest. Mm-hmm. But when I decided to fully go for it, one of my main reasons was because I wanted to control my life. Meaning I wanted the freedom to choose my days, how my days were spent, how many days I got to work, which I did learn that that's not a choice.
It's every day now. Yes. But I no longer have to ask a manager for a day off. I no longer have to work Christmas Eve. I no longer have to do these things. I do trade some things, like maybe I didn't make any money for a lot of years, but, and I had to have a side hustle.
Mm-hmm.
But at the same time, I'm able to dictate what my life is and that to me is my level of success.
Yes.
My quality of life choice. Mm-hmm. You're, you are a hundred percent in charge. Um, and you know, I think I'm gonna group you in with me in here 'cause I, I, I'm imagining that there's a similar approach, but, um, yes, there's the choice of, of what we get to choose and do, but we also get so passionate about what we're creating.
That sometimes we're like, oh, I gotta be careful. I'm getting sucked into the business being more important than I am. Oh, a hundred percent. So what, what was it as you were in, um, in the makeup world and being a makeup artist that made you want to start this business? Like how did this all begin?
Well, I always, always thought of myself as having my own business.
I've always been very much in charge of myself. Yeah. And I've always had a, basically a problem with authority and, you know, not in an uber rebellious way, but enough to get myself in trouble on certain occasions. And I also have a very, very hard time doing anything I don't believe in. And so that was always a driver for me.
But when I, um, got married, my husband was at the peak of being so miserable with psoriasis. Mm-hmm. And thyroid issues and all kinds of health problems. And being that I was in the position I was in, I had access to every. Skincare item I could get my hands on. I mean, nothing was off limits. If it was a $2,000 cream, it didn't matter.
That account executive was giving it to me to try. So I'm going home and I'm saying, oh, try this and put this on, and oh, this is for sensitive skin and this is that and this is this. And, and he's like, okay, I'll do whatever. But at the same time, we were working with all these different doctors and naturopaths and going through all these different protocols for dietary restrictions and medications and diagnoses and tests, and the food restrictions were so strict.
I mean, we were so thin he was terrified to eat any food because they were really talking about food as the flareup and the toxicity being the flareup and the inflammations and the, um, deterioration of his intestinal walls and all these problems. So I just really started taking that microscope that we were applying to food and applying it to these creams, and I realized that it doesn't matter how much these cost or who is making them, they are all so full of ingredients that I don't know what they are.
And at first, I didn't approach them as toxic ingredients or questionable ingredients or troublesome ingredients. I just was like, whoa, what are these? I mean, I've glazed over them for years, but I've never really looked at them. I've never really critically thought about what a 12 syllable word on this jar actually means.
Mm-hmm.
So I started really deep diving, and every time I'd Google one of these ingredients, all I would get was this chemical equation picture with no explanation really as to what it was. And then I started looking at the more basic words that I still didn't understand, like words like silicone and dimethicone and aate.
And when you start applying critical thinking skills to those words, you start thinking things like, Hmm, AATE acrylic nails. Oh, that's kind of the same thing. Silicone. Oh, isn't that, isn't that what I got at Home Depot to cock my shower with? Uh oh. It's the same thing. Oh, these things are related. They're the same.
They're in my skincare, they're in the products I'm putting on him to help him heal. Wait a minute. And then personally, I had always had really eruptive cystic acne and very congested pores, and also really dry skin. So I was always really attracted to the very rich, creamy creams and the creamy foundations and things that were just very rich and thick and buttery and wonderful because I was so dry.
But then at the same time, I'm like, why are my pores always clogged? What is the problem here? So then I started putting together that it was polymers and acrylates. Mm-hmm. And silicones, and dimethicone and copolymers and binders, and all of these ingredients that are the basis of these products that are clogging our pores and basically in a way suffocating our skin.
So when I'm doing this deep dive and I'm finding all this information, it was just very unsettling to me. And then I hit the point where I was like, whoa, I have drank the Kool-Aid for so long. I have been the star employee. I have crushed it in these companies. I have loved every moment of it, but now it's like I took the pill on the matrix.
I don't remember if it was green or red, but like my eyes are open and I can't go back now. So I thought, okay, this is my job. I have to figure it out, but I have to give myself a time limit and I have to do something. So I never intended to create a skincare company or do any of this. I just really wanted to make something for him that he could use.
And psoriasis is weird because it's it's skin that. It's really rare that it does heal, but it overturns really fast, so you need to exfoliate it. But if you exfoliate it, then you have basically an open wound. So that's kind of a catch 22 oxymoron type situation. So I just got into the kitchen and I started making things with basic ingredients and I'd make a big vat of it and I'd give it away to coworkers and friends.
And eventually people started asking to buy it, and then they started asking to buy other things. And then they started saying, well, you know what else I would really like? And then it just kind of started organically snowballing in a way. And then I started realizing that, oh this, this might have some traction and maybe we should keep going.
So I basically, now that I look back, I'm like, you idiot. But I had one product and giant hopes and no idea what I was in for. And I quit my very fancy job that everybody thought I was crazy to leave. And I just went for it. And I rented a studio apartment that had a kitchen so I could make things. And then I did makeup on one side and made product on the other.
And. I just inched along every day. I just went to that studio and worked silently by myself for years. And that's kind of how it came to be, really. And then when I really realized one day after doing makeup on this woman that never in my life of doing makeup, and I mean, when I've done makeup, like you don't know who's gonna come to your chair.
You have no idea how many customers you're gonna talk to in a day. You don't know if that person's gonna be a 16-year-old or 85. You don't know. You don't know the condition of their skin. You don't know how much money they have, you don't nothing. And you have to be there and give them perfect customer service regardless and make them feel special.
Mm-hmm. So not one person has ever sat down in my chair and said, you know what I really love about myself ever. Yeah. The conversation always begins, what makes me unattractive? What needs to be fixed? What needs to be changed? What needs to be covered up? Why somebody else is more beautiful than I am? And I thought, you know what?
I gotta make. Products for women that take away that issue.
Mm-hmm.
No longer should we be looking for products to make us feel beautiful. We shouldn't be spending our time going back and back and back to a makeup counter looking for products that make us feel beautiful. We should have a great relationship with a person that we wanna talk to.
We should not be wasting our hard-earned money buying this and this and this, and this again and again and again. Just to find out we didn't like it and put it in our drawer and forget about it. We should be able to find one thing that we love, that is of value to us, that enhances our life, doesn't take extra time away from us in the morning.
Doesn't use marketing images that make us feel uncomfortable or inadequate and really, truly you. That we have to read the ingredients like we are scientists. We should just be able to say, I know that this is handmade, this is beautiful. I, I'm just gonna use this for what it is, and I'm gonna do amazing things with my life.
Mm-hmm.
So that's really when I flipped it into a brand.
And did, did you have a eureka moment when you were in the kitchen working on a initial solution for your husband where you were like, yes, I have to give this to other people?
No, I had to give it away because I had way too much. Yeah. I had no idea anybody would like it.
I mean, I really, I thought. People might not hate it, but I didn't ever anticipate that they would like it or want more. I just didn't wanna throw it away. Yeah. I didn't wanna use it all myself.
But it was it something that was working for him or you were like, I like this one. I'll share it like it's, yeah.
And I would use it and I was like,
gosh, this feels
amazing.
Because it was like a, it was an exfoliator that you can use to exfoliate, but also moisturize at the same time. But it wasn't, I remember one line I used to work for, and it was a, the, the sugar scrub was really, really popular and you flipped it open and the glass, you know, it was like one of those pop glass jars.
Yeah. And the lid would go over to the side and you would dump it over in your bathtub because of the lid situation, but it was oil and sugar and you had to like churn it up in the shower and it was this giant mess. And so I wanted something that was, uh, hard mm-hmm. That you could scrape out and not have this big mixing mess.
Yeah.
And it was just all a fluke. I mean, it really was, it was just an experiment that landed. Mm-hmm. And I've had a lot of experiments that didn't land.
Yeah.
Seriously.
Because you've been doing this business for how many years now? I made my first product in
2006.
Yeah. And, um, you're experimenting all the time.
Like when we talked on the phone the first time, you were just pausing from being locked down in the kitchen mm-hmm. For like a week prior. Right.
And it's gotten to the point now where there's so many products in the line and. I am so good at making those recipes, and I have to make them so often, but I'm just itching to make new things.
There's so many things I wanna make and I just need to get in there and start creating. But I did hit a little bit of a point where I was like, Ooh, I don't know if I'm good enough to do that. So I'm pushing myself now to just say, okay, it's okay if it's not perfect the first time, because I'm used to things being perfect now.
Yeah. I mean, I make them in, they're perfect. So I'm gonna need to get back into the experimenting hat and just be okay with that. So that's kind of where I'm working on this next week. And you always have to push yourself. Mm-hmm. You can't just say, oh, I, I, I got there.
It's never comfortable. No. But there's something really beautiful on the other side of that.
Mm-hmm. And whether it's a lesson you learn or you're, it's a, oh my gosh, I didn't know that was possible moment. Either way. It's great. It's, you just keep choosing the adventure path, right?
Yeah. Well, and I've been really passionate about this anti chemical skincare for a very long time. And when I really started getting on a soapbox early about it, I was a crazy person.
I mean, people looked at me like, oh, talk to her. And they didn't really understand. They'd be like, what do you mean I, what? It's not important. And now everyone's an expert. Mm-hmm. So it's great that that conversation has moved forward. But now we're also in a stage where so many companies are marketing natural, quote unquote, and they're jumping on the bandwagon and they're not necessarily, it makes me
crazy.
Oh, girl. So crazy. So what line, what are the products that are in your line today? Um,
so there is a full face care side, and then there is a full body care side. So the facial line has everything from cleansers to flower waters, moisturizers. There's a beautiful facial oil, um, uh, masks, a facial polish, uh.
Rose quartz crystal. There's a signature facial that goes along with it for spas and estheticians. Um, I'm very all about just protect and pamper what you have. Mm-hmm. I'm not trying to say we're going to reverse aging. I'm not saying that you're gonna look younger tomorrow than you look today. I am all about taking care of your skin more so in the European style.
Yep. Just feed it, give it water, give it love, give it rest. Do to your skin what you would do to your body. I'm not trying to say it's gonna work because I don't know what that means. It's not going to clog your pores with plastics and silicones. It's gonna let your skin relax and just do its job, which is protecting your organs, keeping your blood in place.
I mean, our expectation of our skin should look a certain way and it should be this perfect base for perfect makeup and all these things. It's, you know, I think we forgot that it is an organ, you know, it's not a type. It has health needs. It's biologically programmed towards health, not sickness, but we are making it so sick with what we're putting on it and what we're expecting it to do and look like.
Mm-hmm. Uh, so that is, um, kind of my mo with all the skincare. So it's very gentle, it's very nourishing, it's very rich in value. It's very concentrated. So. That's my facial side. And then the body side is kinda more fun, but also very functional. I've, I've heard women say the same thing a thousand times and that's where the sociology part comes in, which is recognizing patterns in groups.
And one thing that I've heard women say a thousand times is I want one product that does it all. I don't want a day cream, a night cream, a serum, a neck cream, an eye cream of all the things. It's too much. It's too much. I just want one thing. So that's what creme novo is. It's one thing. And then I've also heard, I don't have time for body lotion.
Nobody puts on body lotion. And if you do great
job, but you're a unicorn. If I do, it's 'cause there's like we're at the edge, like it is serious. Or I just started wearing shorts. Right. And we're gonna have, we're gonna have to focus,
right? Help me with this alligator situation on my shins. But one thing I do know is that women will take one more moment in the shower.
So the most popular body product is called a butter balm and it's an in shower body cream. So you're in the shower, you wash your body, you do everything you normally do. And right before you get out, you get one more glorious moment where you just scoop a little out, massage it on just like lotion while the water is still running over you.
It melting like butter on a hot pancake. Then when you're done, you turn the water off, you pat yourself dry with your towel, you put your clothes on, you go, you don't have to worry about dry skin. You're super soft for 24 hours and it is a game changer. So that's the most popular thing you just sold me, so I'm in.
Yeah. But then it also is a range of anything from bar soaps to bath milk to bath, salt to whatever you want, but sugar balms, soap scrubs, butter bombs, lotions. I mean, I cover every single base.
I, I, I wish that I'm already coming up the ideas where I'm like, I want you in this area of my life as well. I love to be in all areas
of
lives.
Yeah. And I'm like, I want your haircare. Like that's, it's, I I, I read the book. Um, I'm gonna mess up the name right now, so have to come back to this, but, um, I'm actually gonna take a second to find it. Okay. Because it's, um, it's the happiness book. I'm a nerd and I keep all of the books I read in the Good Reads app.
Oh, I good idea. It's partly because I am so competitive, even with myself, that I wanna read more books than the year before, and so I can actually count them. So my super nerd confession of the moment, there'll be more I'm sure today. Um, but there's the, um, happiness book where the woman takes on, like finding happiness in her, with her family.
But then there was a girl who read it. And came up with another book and it will be important. Yes. Um, it's called The Wellness Project, A Hedonist Guide to Making Healthier Choices by Phoebe Lapin. Hmm. And I listened to an audio, so it's available on, on Audible and wherever else you listen to books. Um, but she took on for each month of the a year doing something that was supposed to be good for her.
So she'd take a category like, um, reducing sugar. So she cut out sugars and alcohol and to see how she felt. 'cause she had dealt with some different types of inflammation related things and other stuff that she was also, I think she might also have, um, a thyroid condition. So she, she's already gluten-free because of it.
And in our household, um, Jesse and I deal with the same stuff all the time. Like, I get my fascia gets inflamed for no reason and gets my muscles will get tighter. Mm-hmm. And we can't figure out why. And it might be an allergy, like something I can't do much about, like a dust. Um, but we're constantly trying to, to find new things and he has psoriasis and.
You know, we're always trying to experiment with, with food like you guys were and products. And she has a whole section where she took a month in the book of getting rid of all her products that she used in her house and on her body that she didn't understand the label to and switched to knowing stuff.
And she goes through like how expensive it can be and how hard it is. And we talked on it very briefly, so I'd love to go into more about it. But it breaks my heart that there are reputable retailers that provide so many amazing organic, healthy options. And there are still these phonies that sneak in and I dunno how they do it.
Uh, great marketing, great distributors. Um, but it's, it's almost overwhelming how as a consumer today, like we have to be so on top of knowing what we're buying. It's overwhelming.
It's crazy. I went to a health food store to buy a conditioner the other day for my hair because I didn't order the one I like in time.
And out of all the brands and all the products, there was only one that I would buy. And that's at a health food store. Yeah. And granted I am quite picky, but if we were all as picky as I am, one. And realistically that's the healthiest one. There was not the ideal. So it's not really just being picky. I mean, if you're really concerned mm-hmm.
There's one option. Luckily it's great, but there's one option and there's a whole aisle to choose from. So if you don't have an hour and you don't know exactly what you're looking for mm-hmm. Or at
who knows what you're spending your money on. And, and most people like how you were when you started, you don't know what the bottle says.
Oh, I have wasted so much money and gotten home and been like, no, but, and then you had a really good point about the cost of things, and I hear that a lot. Like, oh, it's so expensive, and Oh, I've invested so much money and I get that, and that is valid.
Mm-hmm.
But when you have spent as many hours working at a cosmetic counter as I have, I can tell you that the thousands of dollars that women spend on average in their lifetime on products is astronomical.
Mm-hmm. In relation to what you would spend if you legit just took the time and stuck to a truly, truly natural line. I mean, my cleansers are $28. They last four to six months. That's, that's crazy. It's like crazy amazing. Yeah, it's a great value. And yeah, if you bought a cleanser, a toner, a moisturizer, if you bought it all at the same time, you could definitely spend $500.
But I guarantee you that $500 would last you a very, very long time. And then you'd only have to add things in a little bit at a time. And the money, you would not spend trying all these different things on impulse buy situations. It would balance itself out so quickly, because I have the nicest showers, I'm not gonna lie.
I'm, I do make my own products. So I'm, I'm a little, you know, spoiled, but the experience I get to have in there, and it's really only four or five products that I use. Mm-hmm. And I switch 'em up a little bit, but I, I stick to what's in there. I don't have time to think about it. I just set it up and use it.
But it just brings me so much joy and knowing that I don't have cupboards and drawers full of old stuff that I wasted money on, that I don't know how to get rid of
mm-hmm.
Is priceless to me.
It, it hits on taking care of yourself, taking care of the environment, you know, being frugal. Being minimalistic, like all the checkbox of what people are talking about today.
It checks them all in that sense. And I can vouch for everyone who can't see you, that you have luminous, glowing skin. Like when, and that's why people like care so much about what their skin looks like. Because your face tells people biologically, how healthy are you? Right? And I'm not gonna
lie, I have vanity.
I, I like to look good. Mm-hmm. Who doesn't, I mean that's, there's nothing wrong with that, but when it takes over or it makes you feel bad, that's when there's a problem, in my opinion. Yes. Because that is so counterproductive. You're a human being on this earth to do great things, and you should be living a beautiful existence that you love every day.
And if something like a moisturizer is chipping away at that, that is not okay.
Well, and just like the food you put in your body, if you're using something that is organic and natural and doesn't have all the junk in it. Like, it's going to make you feel better, right? Like you're more energized after you have a juice than if you eat french fries.
Like there's just no way around it, right?
There's no argument there.
So why would it not be the same thing? Like, we don't think about the fact that when you put things on your skin, it's being absorbed into your body,
right?
It's not like a layer that you can't
No. Um, penetrate. No, and that's inarguable at this point too, especially given that things like patches with medications are so effective.
Mm-hmm. It is definitely absorbed through the skin. It hits your lymph nodes, it hits your lymphatic system, it hits your bloodstream, it hits all your organs. It's in there. I mean, a word that's very common now is bioaccumulation. That's a great word. It's a really descriptive, uh, identity basically of what is happening with all of these chemicals that are bio accumulating.
They're accumulating and you're biology and they're not biological in origin, so your body does not know what to do with them. They don't flush out like the blueberries you just ate. It's a very different situation, and I do think that's where skincare will eventually go. And that's one of the things that I am really passionate about, but I don't really get to talk a lot about, because again, it's sort of like ahead of the time and I'm that crazy lady on a soapbox when I talk about it, but skincare.
Needs to be thought of in, in the same terms of organ care. And I know we're getting our, it's an organ. It's an organ. And that's a common thing. We know it's an organ, you know, nobody's really like blown away by that revelation. But we go to places to buy products based on our skin type. Right? I've heard that a thousand jillion times.
And that is strictly marketing. There's no such thing as a skin type. Skin could be angry, it could be dehydrated, it could be, um, unhealthy. It could be congested. It could have a hormonal imbalance. It could be under attack. It could be a lot of things. But it cannot be a type because you cannot say, I have a heart type and I have a pancreas type and I have a lung type and I have an eye type.
And we cannot buy products based on that. So it doesn't make any sense that we consider our skin a type. Plus, the skin on your face is very different than the skin on your shins or the skin on the back of your arms, or it's different all over. And it has different requirements. So when we think about skincare, we're right now conditioned to put products on our skin that feel a certain way, which is why things like silicone dimethicone, mm-hmm.
Accolades, they feel creamy, they feel lovely, but they're plastic because they have to get the perfectly round shape to get that smooth feeling right. It has to be that smooth feel. But it's not caring for your skin almost. It's like eating a wax apple and be like. I got my fruit for the day. No, you didn't.
It's totally different. So I have a line of products that I call slim tonic. And I really feel at this point I make them for myself because it's hard to tell somebody, Hey, if you really want your skin to be super vibrant, it's not about a highlighter, it's about cleansing out your lymphatic system. It's about moving the fluid that sits in your skin and flushing out a fluid you can't see.
And nobody talks about, we talk about blood, we talk about our hearts. Mm-hmm. We don't talk about our lymphatic systems and our lymph fluid. And our lymph nodes. The only time we ever really hear about that is when we're talking about disease. Yeah. Like lymphedema or lymphoma. But that all impacts that end result.
That's so crisis. But flushing these things out and caring for your lymph nodes and your armpits and your, uh, fluid flushing is really I think the future of skincare.
Well, 'cause the lymphatic system is the, like it's the canals, right? Right. That go through your body. So it's like your
garbage system.
Yeah.
Things are gonna get stuck in there. Mm-hmm. Because they either are too big or get stuck or they're not moving the same way other stuff should, um. So that's why it's so important. Yeah. Just so if anyone's listening doesn't know what it does. Yes.
And, sorry, I do take some of this for granted because I'm talking about it in my own mind for so long.
But, you know, if you have a bioaccumulation of plastics for synthetics in your skin and in your lymph nodes, eventually that will move into the lymph or in the lymph fluid. It moves into your lymph nodes. And if the lymph nodes are clogged, they can't cleanse out the fluids. And then you get a backlog of toxic fluids, and then basically you become stagnant and toxic.
And then you are much more predisposed to having degenerative diseases, inflammation, all these things that we don't want in our lives. So not only is it just avoiding these chemicals, it's reversing it by starting to flush out. And that's, that's where things like essential oils coming mm-hmm. Come in and, um, sweating and
I'm, I'm showing the essential oils I have today.
'cause I was feeling a little down.
Yeah. You gotta have 'em with you. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm not saying that they're in place of medicine or whatever, but it, they do have great benefits. And I talked to somebody one time who is a, he's a very well known in the community, and one of the things that he was saying was they, the molecular structure in some essential oils is so complex we don't even have words for it yet.
Whereas you look at like a silicone and it's like a single chain mm-hmm. Line. It's very, very simple. It doesn't have much, much impact or much purpose. But something like the, an essential oil, the impact could be. Astounding. We just don't really know yet. So yeah, I'm, that's my soapbox. My current
soapbox.
So if people are nervous about this mm-hmm. They can of course go and buy your products right now, but what, what would be like the real starting point? Like in my head I'm thinking, okay, let's just clean out the cabinets. Step one.
Yes, definitely. And for some reason it's very hard for people to let go of things that they've spent money on.
Mm-hmm. Whether it's clothes or kitchen utensils, or, I mean, people have a very hard time letting go of things. I used to be an
organizer. I totally understand. Right.
And I get that, you know, you, you at one point put so much value into the purchase of that item. It's very hard to let it go. So my first suggestion for most people is a number one, adjust your priorities.
You have to make the switch in your mind. You have to adjust your expectations. Also, you cannot make this giant shift and have the same expectations that you had of the last slew of things that you were looking for, you decided to purchase. Because it's going to be a very different experience. And unless you're really ready to do that, don't waste your time because you're gonna beat yourself up throughout the process that you did something before, badly or wrong.
And then you're gonna question what you're doing in the future, and you're going to question the fact that you made a mistake again. Mm-hmm. And then you're gonna be beating yourself up that you spent money again, and it's still not right. So I would say take your expectations and. Manage them first and then take one thing because people get overwhelmed and they're like, I gotta throw everything away.
What do I do? I gotta start again. Yeah, just start with one item, whether it's your tinted moisturizer or it's your nail polish, or just, it can be one thing at a time. It's like anything. If you're gonna start a health regimen, like maybe it's just, I'm just gonna double my water intake and I'm not gonna beat myself up if I'm not perfect.
Mm-hmm. Just gonna do that one thing and then once I'm adjusted to that and I'm fine, I can do it again and I can do one more thing. The things I like to suggest first, anything you put on your mouth, your lip glosses, your lipstick, please get the petroleum out of your mouth. A number one, if you can just start there.
Great. Also, your nail polish. There's so many great 10 free, eight free nail polishes out there. Start with that. Mm-hmm. Also, your body lotion, if it costs less than $15, I know it's a lot when you're at Target and you're like, Ugh, another $15. It's a lot of money, but it's not. Stop slathering on plastic lotion.
Just stop. So those three things, lipstick, lip gloss. Lotion for things. Nail polish. Yeah.
Start there. Well, you'll be very pleased to know that we recorded a session last weekend with, uh, Sandy, who owns a plant-based glitter you can put on your body. It's made from eucalyptus. There's no more plastic in it.
Amazing. Yeah. So I'll, I, I brought it so I, you could see it. 'cause I was like, you wanna touch it? I'm sure. Um, but that's a
really good point too. There's so many people who are doing such exciting things. Mm-hmm. Instead of being fearful of what not to do. Yeah. I mean, social media's amazing. Find a few people that you think are doing cool things and just start following along.
See what ideas they're presenting, see if that's something that would fit in your life and like, get excited about it. And you're supporting somebody who's doing something creative and different and carving out a new niche in the world. It's great to be a part of something like that versus a giant conglomerate who's just buying one company to funnel debt out of one area to reduce their tax liability.
I mean, shop the people who are doing these fun things
well. And there's so much opportunity. If there's something you love that you don't wanna give up that you know is full of chemicals or plastic or things that you shouldn't be interacting with. Either request from the people already making things to make whatever you need or try to figure it out yourself.
Yeah. Like I would've thought pri previously that there was no more glitter in my life. And that would be a very uns, sparkly and sad world. And I'm relieved to know that somebody didn't want that world and decide to create it. So there's no reason why we can't live in a chemical free world.
Right. And we are gonna be bombarded in our environments, but you can control parts of it.
Mm-hmm. And you know what? Sometimes you've just got your favorite thing, you're just not gonna let go of, and you know what? That's okay too. Yep. And there is a category I like to promote, which is called the best of the worst. Sometimes that's where you gotta live. Sometimes you're just gonna find the best of the worst.
Mm-hmm. And you're just gonna have to move on.
Yep. Yeah. You can't dwell on it. Mm-hmm. Especially as you mentioned before, like people don't wanna even put body lotion on. Like, the biggest struggle I have lately is that I don't wanna blow dry my hair. Who, I don't remember it being such a struggle. It's,
it's a lot of work.
Yeah.
That's why I only wash my hair for, for four days. No, uh, same. I'm like, I can't handle this anymore. I know it. I don't have, it sounds insane, but to say I don't have the 15 minutes it takes to do it the right way. I have long hair. There's a lot of it.
Yeah.
It's like, no,
I stopped using a flat iron or a wand because I couldn't handle the pressure of not being able to remember if I turned it off.
It was so stressful. I was like, I'm just not doing my hair anymore. That's it. I'm alleviating that stress for my life. Mm-hmm. Did you have a question? I did have a question. So, um, this is all about more like face and body products, but because you worked at makeup facilities also, do you have particular products, one that you've made yourself makeup wise or, and also, I don't know if this is like, um, this was gonna be down the road later in the interview.
Yeah. But, um, 'cause for me, I, it's one thing to think about the chemicals that are in the product. And like the other side for me is like making sure that they're, like, they're not tested on animals and it's, they have so many different labels on stuff, but are there like certain, like, I love mascara. I will do mascara today.
I have nothing on, but I'll do mascara. Um, and I'm always like, oh, what else is in this mascara? Like, how is this hurting my eye? How is this not hurting my eye? So what is your intake on makeup sides? Great question. So I had a really hard time feeling like such a hypocrite. Mm-hmm. For a long time promoting natural makeup, natural skincare, and then being a professional makeup artist where the expectation was, I'm paying you a lot of money to come and do my makeup and I want my makeup to last through an unreasonable day.
I'm gonna put it through. Yeah. So obviously things that have. Basically the whole world, word of long wear is plastic, more silicones, dimethicone, all those things equal longer wearing makeup. And you have to choose purpose, longevity, you know, do you want it for a purpose for the day? Do you want it for a lifestyle, for a health concern?
Choose. And sometimes those choices are different every day. So, so many of my customers, because they were really into the green, non-toxic skincare, and they were feeling confident that they had found their products and they were great with the transition, then they started asking me about makeup. And I just thought, I don't, I cannot take on making makeup.
I don't wanna do a, a line. And I also don't wanna private label a line and just put my name on it and have somebody else be in control of the formulation. So I actually started really testing and researching what's available and what other companies are doing. And I, I opened a store that was for my line, but also to showcase and have available all the best natural products in the makeup categories.
The nail polish, the makeup.
Mm-hmm.
Because a, it's really hard to always buy something online 'cause you don't know the color, what it's gonna look like. You don't know what the texture is gonna be like. You don't know how to wear this with that. That's why people love a makeup counter, because they have a guide who can say, oh, this goes with this and this is how you put this on and this is what goes together.
So I started a secondary company and we no longer have the store, but it's great online and we do a lot of communication via social media. And one of my superpowers is being able to match your foundation via a picture or just even a conversation. It's just a superpower.
And yeah, every powerful lady has
at least one, I mean, you know, and so it's called APO Beauty, so it's kind of like apothecary, but for beauty.
And all of my favorite makeup lines are there. And it's sometimes just one product from a line. Like the mascara that I love is Lily Lolo. And it is fantastic. It's better than any mascara I've ever used from a big corporation. So they are out there, but it's, it is tough to pick and choose. But I've sort of done some homework on all those categories with the foundation, the powders, the mascara, blushes, eyeliners, brows, lipsticks, lip liners, basically all basic categories.
Are you gonna find 17 colors in each category of lip color? No, but it's the best of the best for, uh, wearability ingredients and. How they work together all in one spot.
I was, uh, previously working at a company where we did some beauty lines and there was a big discussion about vegan, uh, makeup. Oh, don't get me started.
Well, I'm hoping to because I think it's a really important topic Yes. That people aren't speaking about. Right. And most people do not know at all how products are made. Mm-hmm. And especially when it comes to color and how you get the colors that we have. So a lot of the colors in the world exist because of a, something in nature that enables us to make it Right.
We can't guarantee that thing is not a living thing. Nope. We make colors in the world and there's a beetle that is required to make red. Yep. So if you like red lipstick. Yep. It's not vegan. Right. I'm sorry to break everybody's heart right now. Here's the thing.
Yeah. So the thing about vegan too, I, it's multilevel for me.
Mm-hmm. All right. So, vegan. Vegan, anything can be vegan if it doesn't have something from an animal, which means anything that is a petroleum derivative is vegan because petroleum is all natural because it comes from the earth. It's basically fractioned from crude oil. So they pump crude oil out of the ground.
And it's crude oil. And in a laboratory, it's fractioned into different components. Some of it is turned into gasoline, some of it is turned into basically the base ingredients for cosmetics. It's synthesized like rubber. And then it's further synthesized, further synthesized, and further synthesized and further synthesized.
Well, it's vegan and it's all natural because it comes from the ground, but it doesn't necessarily have any benefit to human health. And it's really just a byproduct of a giant industry, and it's in everything. So that is vegan. But then really what we're looking for in terms of ingredients, when we're knowing what we're looking for, is we're looking for things like lanolin.
We don't want lanolin because that's lamb fat. It's in a lot of lipsticks. And Carmine is from crushing beetles. And there's so many things that you have to know about. And it's so complicated. Like there's so many vegan brush sets now that just means plastic bristles, A vegan brush set. Oh yeah. Like ve, the word vegan is being used as such a sales tactic.
It's almost offensive in a way, to me. Anyways, BNA Fingers, the cookies
are vegan. Oh, which don't, you're just gonna scare me when you tell me what's in them. Well, I don't. I don't know. But there's a cream-based center, and last time I checked, it wasn't made with coconut. Oil. Right? So, so is, so is like a Reese's Pieces, uh, sundae, hard fudge topper.
Like wait, it comes out, um, liquid as a liquid and then, and then comes a hard crunch top also vegan. So if something says it's vegan, I get very suspicious if it's, if it's not for ingredients, if I can't read them. Oh, because then it is a hundred percent chemical based. Yeah, a hundred percent.
And that's one of the things that gets me with cosmetics.
Like people are still so in question of all these auxiliary things, like, is it gonna work and is it expensive? And all, you know, all these questions. Whereas if you see something on a package of food that you know is a chemical, it's really easy to say, no, I'm not gonna eat that.
Mm-hmm.
Or I'm gonna make the choice and eat that and I'm okay with it.
But when it comes to cosmetics, it's like, ah, it's okay. Well, uh, it's not really, and you have to question everything. I mean, if you think about like, so yeah, Carmine, that's an issue. And some people care and some people don't. And sometimes it's like, okay, well I, I want a red lipstick and so I'm gonna do the best of the worst.
And that's where that category comes in. Yeah. Because you gotta trade some things out sometimes, but you know, or your other option is red number 40, which is also made from petroleum. And then there was one I read the other day that Oh my goodness, it scared me. Well, it was, it was very interesting because.
So many of these, oh, steric acid is one preservative that, um, could potentially be used in something vegan because it is what it is. It's not what it was. It's a naturally occurring fast fatty acid that could be derived from the fat from cows and sheeps and from dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters.
No. Yes. I mean, and okay, so let's just take this from a grain of salt. You know, this is from a, uh, reputable source of where you can research ingredients, but that's not something you read on a package. And it could be, and it could not be created from those sources, but
it's loose. Right. And, and so often because recipes are protected, especially in the cosmetics and beauty space mm-hmm.
They, there's things you can hide behind to not tell everything that's in something, right? Like they have a lot of very generic categories where like, that it could be from these 85 options that are potentially horrifying, right. Based on your personal opinion. Right. Or these other 85. That could be equally horrifying for other reasons, but we don't, we can't tell you.
Well, and that's my beef with patented ingredients. We've been taught that if you go to a place that is selling a product that has a patent pending ingredient, or it's a patented ingredient. If you told me that I was gonna eat something with a patented ingredient and it, I'd be like, oh, no, no, no, no thanks.
I don't want to eat patented ingredients. But with skincare it's got, it's under this guise of, well, then it's gonna work. It's gonna be so powerful, it's gonna be so anti-aging, it's gonna regrow my collagen, it's gonna do whatever it says it's gonna do. But really what it is, it's a chemical that's been created in the laboratory in a new revolutionary way that has never been done before.
And that is a secret that is protected for 25 years. It doesn't necessarily mean anything other than, nobody can know what this is, where it comes from, how we made it or anything else about it. We don't know if it's good for you. We don't know what's gonna happen in 25 years after you've used it. So, I mean, whether you think that's good or not.
I mean, this is obviously all my own personal experiences or personal opinions. I just make the choices for myself that I would rather have wrinkles when I'm 90. 'cause I'm gonna, anyway.
There's just some, when you start to look at all the things you use all day long, the same way that we now look at food, it's a game changer for everything that you touch and use. Even with using essential oils, people use them all the time. Majority in the marketplace are horrifying because we have no idea if they're a synthetic oil or a natural oil.
People aren't saying if they are or not, and nobody tells you step two, which is you can't put essential oils in a plastic container to drink if you're gonna drink your oils as an example and only drink your oils if you know it comes from the certified, um, CPTG certified the, um, pure therapeutic grade,
which is not even a real thing.
Not even a real
thing. That's a made up word anyway. Right. So, um, so do not drink your essential oils unless you talk to somebody who knows about essential oils and says you won't die. Yeah. Um, but if you are going to do that, you have to put it in glass or metal because the essential oils, just like they do for your body, will break down the plastic pull, pull out the toxins, and suddenly you're drinking the plastic that your cup is made of.
Yep. And like it's food, right? Yeah. You putting rubber made into the microwave, you're now eating a little bit. Mm-hmm. It's, it's like chemistry is amazing. There's so many amazing things it can do, and I think we've swung a little too far and I'm glad we're starting to come back, especially in California.
Right. It's a very different perspective in California than other parts of the US about moving back to things that are one step away from their original source. Mm-hmm. Um, otherwise we just so much of what we interact with every day we don't know about.
And to, to add to the whole California bringing things back.
If you, I will not buy anything on Amazon anymore because there's so many of like warning, um, like in the state of California, this product is, is recognized to have lead in it or this product and it causes cancer or birth. Like if there's so many products that I've looked at, then I'm like, well I can't buy this 'cause I didn't know any of this stuff.
So California's been pretty good at like, even with Amazon to like, Hey, before you buy this has terrible things in it. Yeah. Which is like, it's just, you think about back in the olden days, I mean, you bought your eggs from the guy who had the chickens down the street and you bought your whatever from the other lady down the street.
I mean, it was a localized community. You could really control what you were getting. You didn't have the options we have now. You didn't have the convenience, you didn't have a lot of the things that we have now. And obviously we can't go back to that unless we move to some commune out in the middle of nowhere.
But we do have to look further at what we're consuming. We do have to pull back our consuming of things we don't understand. I, I don't know when and why and how we got Well, I do, but that's a whole nother podcast. But so far into this not knowing, you know, it, it's just, we gotta just start really questioning and looking and making things, making our communities thrive locally.
Mm-hmm. You know, I love that people buy my stuff from all over the country, but I also love that I got so much love coming from my local community because that's where it really counts, and that's how you can make things natural. You are never going to be able to have fully natural products from a large scale conglomerate because it's impossible.
The scale that they have to produce products on to, to stock their reaches, they can't do it. Small batch. It's just not possible. And. They have to have a certain level of profitability to continue their processes and their employment and their facilities and their growth and their research. They just can't turn around and be like, oh, we're gonna go small batch now.
And they have to make things in such giant quantities. And the things in giant quantities have a sell through. It's not gonna be sold immediately. So it does have to last. It does have to transport, it does have to be heat sensitive. It does have to be on a truck from one side of the country to the other side, or on a boat to another place in the world.
So I completely understand why that happens. And that's great, you know, they can continue to do what they do. And I'm personally not gonna try to fight against that because my power comes in what I personally choose to buy and who I choose to support. And we all have that choice. We all are so inconvenienced by having the privilege of taking the time to shop locally.
You know, anytime somebody's like, oh, well there's no parking, whatever. Like take a minute to be inconvenienced and make a connection in your community. It's so powerful. And the ripple effect is so big, so close to you and it's really impactful. And if everybody just decided to enjoy the inconvenience of.
Connecting with their community, there would be huge changes. I mean, I, I have this conversation about like the whole regulation question because people are really pushing for regulations. But my personal opinion is like, everybody stop. Please. Yes, things need to change, but the only way it's gonna change is with your almighty dollar.
Mm-hmm.
$1 at a time. Because that's what made these companies giant, was the influx of women spending their money again and again and again on these products and believing advertisements and believing magazines. That's where the power came from originally, and the need to mass produce on a giant scale.
I met with a woman who is, she's French and she's incredible, and France has very strict standards, even though a lot of the beauty products come from there, even if they have questionable ingredients. And in France there are band ingredients and then there are questionable ingredients. And those are the only two words you can apply to them.
You can't say that they're toxic, you can't say that they're harmful, it's questionable or banned. So she created a skincare line that was very clean, but it has to be created in a laboratory by scientists, so it must be at least somewhat chemical based and it just can't have band. And she chose to have no questionable ingredients.
She created this brand and it's a beautiful skincare line. And then she decided she would create an app where people could go into any store, scan the. Barcode and would pop up the ingredients highlighted with anything that was questionable. And so people were taking this app, this app blew up. So they're in these stores and they're scanning these barcodes and they stopped buying the products.
And so the retailers started freaking out and they were like, what are these people looking at? We're not selling anything. What's going on? And then they started realizing they didn't really know what they were selling. So then they reached out to this woman and said, please educate us as to what we're selling, and please now help us change our product offering.
So then the stores started changing the product offering, which meant that the manufacturers had to start changing their formulas. So she's created this crazy empire, and here I am sitting there having this conversation with her, just like, I can't believe this woman is talking to me right now. And she's telling me that in France, should they joke that every time they added a regulation, a small business died.
Because every time there was stronger and stronger regulations, it did not paralyze or immobilize the big companies because they had the power and they had the money to, to pivot. It only put out of business the small companies that couldn't afford to make the big changes or they couldn't afford to do it in that certain way.
So eventually. It became illegal to make small batch handmade products. So you cannot buy something local. You cannot buy a handmade bar of soap. You cannot buy a locally sourced hydrosol. You cannot buy a locally made cream from the woman who's been making creams that her grandma taught her. It's illegal.
In France. In France, which I think is a very sobering example of something to consider.
Mm-hmm.
Because we are a very entrepreneurial based society and we, we have power in consumer spending and that's really the only power we have against conglomerates because they are only motivated to change processes based on sales.
And if that impetus isn't there, there is nothing coming from above them that's going to make them change. So if you have local companies that you can patronize that are filling this niche, patronize them, strengthen them, support them, versus trying to make the big ones change, trying to hope that the brand you've been using, 'cause your mom did, is going to make this huge shift because they're not going to, so instead of trying to bring one down.
Bring one up. Yep. Let them be, let them do what they're doing. Don't patronize them and support your local community. That's where you're gonna see the power in how we do things as a society here. And another point she made was she said, you know, in France we are not taught to be entrepreneurs. We are taught to get a job.
You know, it's a socialist company or country, so they do things differently than we do. It's a different mindset. And she said, you know, it's, it's very scary to be an entrepreneur 'cause it's a lonely territory. And I said, well, you know, that's so challenging for me to hear because entrepreneur is a French word.
Mm-hmm. And she was like, oh, you're right. And it was just a funny moment. But she said, you know, be very careful of this large scale regulation that you're pushing for because it, it has unintended consequences that you really are not looking for
when you see it today in the organic foods market, in even the, uh, weed market in the us.
People who are doing everything they're supposed to, can't necessarily afford to get the official certification because it's thousands of dollars. Right. And thousands of dollars when you're a small organic farmer is not what you have laying around.
No. And then you have to pass that on to your consumer who is saying, well, why is it so expensive?
Mm-hmm. Well, because you needed to have a little triangle on your package that said organic and. I had to pay $10,000 for that. So I have to recoup that money somehow and it's gonna have to come from the price of my product versus just, I don't know if it's, it's not the best of the worst category at all.
It's just growing together. Mm-hmm. You know, starting from nothing and putting every penny you have back into your business is not a fun endeavor. No. When you're watching all your friends go to work and collect their paycheck and their 4 0 1 ks and their health benefits, it's not a comfortable place at all times.
And it takes a lot of courage. And you have a lot of nights where you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and you do not go back to sleep. 'cause you are just racing your mind with all these things. Mm-hmm. And to have the support of the community around you while you're in your growing stages is necessary because we're asking people to put their lives on hold, basically step outside the box and do something incredible.
Yeah.
So that we have choices.
Yes. Uh, it's, it's, um, you need the community and you need the support and you know, I, I recently have been sending letters out, right. 'cause we're powerful ladies just launched. Like, we just went visible to the community. And in the letter I'm asking everyone, like, we've had so much momentum behind the scenes, we're making so much progress, but now I really need you.
And it's not a fake request. It really is like, I need you guys to subscribe. I need you to follow. I need you to like show up, tell people, because if that doesn't happen, this isn't gonna work.
Right. And one thing I have found too is it is not your close inner circle. And it's usually not your family who supports you because for some reason they knew you since you were in diapers.
So they don't really give you the benefit or whatever it is. But when I launched this, I was shocked at who I thought would be there to support me, who really wasn't. And also equally shocked and encouraged by the people that I barely knew that were so excited, so encouraging, and brought their people.
Mm-hmm. It was mind blowing. My whole circle changed. Everything changed the people that I thought would be ride or die next to me, gone. Family members. I have a huge family. I think one person buys my products. I probably have a hundred people in my immediate family.
Mm-hmm.
I have 19 cousins. Not one of them buys my products.
I have donated baskets to their fundraising campaigns. I have given them products for Christmas, not one. It is shocking. But I hear that story amongst, um, entrepreneurs a lot. It's not your inner circle, it's the people that you never expected. Mm-hmm. So all the more reason we are so reliant on our local communities to be our mavens to support us, but also to get their friends and activated.
Even if it's just as something as small as buying a lip balm instead of a brand name at the checkout counter at Yeah. A store you frequent. Mm-hmm. You know, go to somebody's fancy little store, put in a web order. You know, so many people Oh, so inconvenient to shop on online. I, I wish you had a store. I'm sorry.
I'm pretty sure I see boxes from Amazon every day. It's the same thing. It's just a different address. It's not hard.
Yeah. Yeah. I feel you. It's, it's all local. How did you, how did you, um, accept that the people who were gonna support you the most were people that you either didn't know well or had never met before?
I think every day I learn that I had no idea what to expect. I have no idea what to expect. Even when I think I know, I don't know. It changes constantly. I think this ride in general has taught me that you have just gotta be ready to ride any wave at any time. 'cause it's coming at you from. Any direction and you have no control over it.
Yeah. So if, if you, if you take things really personally or you get really upset about things, it takes so much energy that reduces the energy you have to work on something productive that makes you feel so, so good, which is your, your mission. So I think just letting it just roll off your back is a practice you must master as an entrepreneur.
Mm-hmm. What are things that you do, uh, on a daily basis or weekly basis to set yourself up to being your best at your work?
I think the one thing I do really well is I get enough sleep, which I'm privileged 'cause I don't have children, so I know that's very hard for most people. But my rule is, and I learned this early, is get up, get ready, get up, get in the shower, get ready, have tea, put your makeup on, brush your teeth, do your hair, get your clothes on, even if you're working from home mm-hmm.
Get up and get ready because you don't know what email's coming in, what phone calls coming in, what last minute thing you have no control over is changing. And if you're ready, you're ready. Yeah. You can just say yes. You can just say yes or you can say no, but you're not saying no because you're like, I haven't even taken a shower.
And then it gives you some normalcy in your life. You have a start, you have a, a revving up, you have your momentum is beginning. And plus I feel like when you wake up, you're still sort of in that dream state. You're still sort of connected to not being awake. And when you're in the shower and you're in the water, that's when you get all these little universal hits in your brain and you know, you get, oh yeah.
These ideas that then you're like, oh, well maybe that's how I'm gonna use my day today. So I think that's the one thing that really, really helps me just stay focused because I'm all over the place most of the time.
Mm-hmm. What is your regular day like? Like are you, are you in the kitchen most days? Are you working late?
What does it look like?
It changes all the time. I do spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I spend a lot of time on Instagram. I, I mean, I, I, I message people all day about what are they doing with their skin, what are their questions. I mean, I am, so, I will put that in front of anything. Um, a lot of days are making products, but some, it sounds very exhausting sometimes because I do do it myself.
I still make the products because I love to make the products and I love that process, and I love the learning. And I, I, I just, it, that's what I really love to do. But, you know, it just really depends. It, it's, it's all day, every day. I do a lot of my own design work as an entrepreneur. When you start with nothing, you don't have a lot of money to pay for things.
Mm-hmm. So you learn how to do a lot of things. So. I've learned how to use graphic design programs and do my own design, and I do, I just, maybe I'm a control freak, but I like to have hands in all aspects. I like to know exactly where my numbers are and what my business is, and my bookkeeping and my
mm-hmm.
Uh, filing systems. So it's, I'm pretty regular and where I am and what I'm doing, but it fluctuates all day long.
How long did it take from when you decided to turn it into a business to when you really started to see momentum in sales?
Uh, I think it's been gradual from the beginning because I've always sort of, what I made, I put back in and what I made, I put back in and it was just always just been growing.
But I, I really started making, I hate to even share this, but I started paying myself for the first time last year and I started in 2006 and that was 2018.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know, people say all the time like, oh, I must be so amazing to be self-employed, and Oh, it is, but it is not for the weary. It is a long road.
It can be if, if you, if somebody gives you 250,000 or you have 250,000 and you could just dump it in and have all the avenues plugged and ready, then you're probably gonna be profitable a lot faster. But when you're just organically doing it. Sort of on a dream base, putting back in what you have, what's come through it, it can take a lot longer than you may have initially thought.
Yeah. So, uh, I'd say, you know, it's finally getting traction, but I, I also think that part of that was me not really believing that it was there, it was ready, and I didn't always necessarily understand the message of the company versus just the love of what I do, like. Mm-hmm. It's still, when somebody says, oh, I love your product, I'm still like, really?
I'm shocked, you know? Yeah. Even though I'm like, yes, it's great. It's, I love it. I made it and it's beautiful. I, it's still, I'm always sort of, uh, positioned for, you know, I tried your product and I really didn't like it. Yeah. You know, and luckily that doesn't happen, knock on wood, but I'm always, what's that word?
I'm like cautious.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I, I, uh, recently spoke to a client about focusing what they wanted to do in their business, and I said, the smartest thing you can do if you want a long-term business is to have a business that revolves around tasks that you would do. Even if nobody was paying you. And I really get that.
Like you would be in the kitchen making these products whether somebody wanted them or not, because you want them and you enjoy it and you like that. Yeah. And that's how I feel about this. Like, I love celebrating other people. Like I love sharing what's available. I love helping, uh, other people figure out what they wanna do.
So I'm, I'm doing it anyway. Mm-hmm. Because if you end up creating a business where you suddenly realize you hate that business,
you're trapped.
Yes. Or you need to make some major changes, um, to get back to a place where you enjoy your life again. 'cause you just built, you, you built a, a work prison
that you to get outta.
It's really true. And a lot of people get to that point because it does become very monotonous at a mm-hmm. A certain point. And you must push yourself to create something different or change directions or see it from fresh eyes or change. And when you've poured so much into something and you had expectations of it and it didn't necessarily make the mark, it can be very hard on your ego.
Mm-hmm.
And even though, you know, you need to make the change, it's still really emotional and tough to do. And then you start the fear of, well, what if I don't do it right again? I mean, it's just, it's big.
Mm-hmm.
It is.
Besides your mother and your very amazing, interesting sounding aunts, um, I'm imagining like the three of them, like.
Running amok together, creating things. But who are the women in your life that have been really influential and supportive and just changed, you know, your life?
I am so blessed to know so many women. I am one of those. I mean, I grew up an only child in apartment complexes. I am good at making friends. If you wanted friends you had to go out and make them.
So that's always been a special thing for me. And working in cosmetics, it just became very easy 'cause they were all right there. So I have to say, I've had a lot of women in cosmetics that have challenged me in a lot of ways, but have also really supported me. And then when I decided to finally leave cosmetics in the mainstream world, I had a lovely friend.
I still have her, but she's, um, in the quote unquote professional world. So she would bring me to all these networking events full of accountants and realtors and, uh, I don't know, loan officers. Things that I don't know anything about. And. They, the first question outta their mouth is always, well, what do you do?
And I'm like, I am a makeup artist and I am developing my own skincare line. And they would be horrified that they were talking to me and they couldn't get away from me fast enough. And I would leave these events just feeling like a piece of nothing, just derailed. And so alone in this already scary adventure of mm-hmm.
Entrepreneurship, female solo entrepreneurship. And then I met these women, these creative women who had their own networking world and they would throw these networking events that were collaborations of all their talents and they were incredible. And they'd ask, what do you do? And I'd say, what I did?
And their faces would light up and they'd be like, oh my God, we have to do this and we have to do this photo shoot. And oh my gosh, it was this like revered skill and just being connected with them and finding my people and cultivating that community. That has been the number one thing for me in terms of supportive.
I mean, one of my friends, she's the one who eventually designed the packaging and one was an esthetician who helped get my start in the spa world. And that has been really, really important.
Yeah. It's, it's, I am such a firm believer in sharing what you're up to because the more you share, the more you're gonna find the people who.
Have the need for what you're offering or know someone who does.
Yeah. And I also learned don't torture yourself in places you don't feel comfortable because it might not be your people. Yeah. Just because that you, somebody says you should do that, or it could be really great for you, or it's great exposure doesn't mean it is.
Mm-hmm. You have to say, Hmm, you know what, I may not meet one person because I don't go to that. But I also might not feel so bad about myself that I under did, or I undid all the good things I did for myself. Mm-hmm. So it is okay to say, oh, maybe I need to find a different group of people.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're there, they're out there. Everyone's people are out there, you just haven't found them yet.
Right. If you don't, if you don't have them.
Right. We ask everyone on the show, uh, where you feel you stand today and on average, on the powerful Lady scale, zero being average human, 10 being Wonder Woman, powerful lady.
Where do you feel today? Where do you feel on an average day?
Oh, that's a good question. I think it probably fluctuates. Um, I would say I, I, I live in the five to eight and a half nine category. Mm-hmm. I always think there's more I could do. There's always room for learning. I am quite sure that when I'm 50 I'm gonna look back at 40 and be like, oh, you're just so cute.
You know, just like I look back at like being 18 where I'm like, oh girl, you baby. So I, I think there's, there's a lot of power in quiet, grace and just. Being without pushing. I, you know, that's where I try to keep a lot of my power. 'cause I'm a fire sign. I, I I, my, my family jokes that I got some Viking blood up in there.
I mean, I, I can get some fire.
Mm-hmm.
But I don't feel as though that always benefits me. So my practice is in just graceful, peaceful, quiet. Mm-hmm. In a lot of ways. I like a lot of alone time. So I think my greatest hope for being super powerful is being able to, through using my products, that women feel empowered whether I can touch them or not.
So I am kind of hoping that my long-term power, I don't even know about. Mm-hmm. It's just happening outside through this medium. So,
I don't know. For women who are starting out, um, as an entrepreneur or they're experimenting with their own products that they're making, what are the top five things you would tell them to start doing?
Manage your
expectations. Know your business. A lot of female entrepreneurs get really caught up in their craft. That's not your business. Your business is your numbers. Your business is how much money's coming in, how much money's going out, what you're spending on things. Um, really pay attention to it.
Don't be scared of it. You have to master it. You have to love it, or you shouldn't be in business. Um, that would be the top two. Uh, the third would be stick with it. It's not gonna happen overnight. Just keep going. Don't paralyze yourself with too many choices. Don't try to over perfect things, even if it's messy, move forward through it.
It's going to come together. It's like learning how to walk. It takes a while and still we fall down sometimes. Just keep going. Um, don't tell people things. That you are not ready to tell. A lot of times we get really excited about an idea and we wanna tell people about it, but expecting them to understand what's in your mind is impossible.
Mm-hmm.
And they will always make you second guess yourself. So people say like, oh, you gotta have a lot of feedback and you have to reach out and you have to get opinions. Hmm. No, you really don't trust yourself. Give yourself the time to materialize whatever the idea is, and present it in a way that people can understand.
You don't bring all the ingredients to bake a cake out and bring your family over and be like, oh my gosh, are you so excited about my cake? Because they're gonna be like, not really. That's flour, eggs, and sugar. But in your mind it's a pineapple. Mm-hmm. Deliciousness don't show them until it's a pineapple deliciousness.
I have shown people formulas of things and certain smells and certain products, and they've been like, eh, I've shown them the same exact product, finished, packaged, and presented a certain way, and they go gaga over it. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, it's the same thing, lady. Yep. So present it that way. Also, be very selective in who you choose to go to for validation when you work for yourself.
You spend a lot of time by yourself. You don't have anyone patting you on the back. You don't have anybody encouraging you. You don't have anybody praising you. It's all you. And once you get to the stage of having employees, you're now also praising other people with zero praise for yourself most of the time.
So a lot of women in particular, they go to their significant other for validation, and that doesn't usually pan out the way that you expect it to. So have your crew have your three women?
Mm-hmm.
Preferably women who can, you can go to and you can tell them anything and they're immediately gonna be like, yay.
You know, they're really gonna get excited for you. Yeah. Because I mean, my personal experience, I love my husband. He's amazing. He's amazing. He's amazing. He's the best husband. He's so supportive of me. And I could have not done any of this without him behind me, but I was in a really bad habit of being like, what do you think of this?
And his immediate response was, well, why would you do it that way? Or Why would you do that? And in his opinion, he was just asking me a question, right. But for me, it would make my blood boil. Like he was questioning what I was thinking. And when I stopped doing that, and I'd go to somebody like Ryan and she'd be like, yeah, girl, that's something amazing.
Then I had the enthusiasm to make it real. And then when you present it, then it's understandable. Yeah. But don't go to your significant other for business validation, you have to do that through your business community.
I mean, even on a, on an everyday level. You also know that your significant other is the worst person to ask how an outfit looks.
Right. It's a same concept. So why would we trust them with a business? And again, not to their own fault, but it's like you're partners with somebody because they see things differently than you most of the time. Right.
And your expectation is they're gonna be as enthusiastic as you are. Yeah. Which is an unrealistic expectation.
You're, you're setting yourself up for failure. Really.
Yeah. Right. There are moments when I just tell Jesse what I want him to say back. Yes. Just, I just need to hear it from someone that's not in my brain. Mm-hmm. And I'll do it like maybe like, like a kid would like, yes. That looks great. Awesome. And I'm like, all right, that was halfway.
I'll take it. Right. Um, speaking o of your husband, was he the reason that you were able to not pay yourself until now? Like, did he allow that to happen? 'cause he was, you know, he was supporting
Yes.
Through that.
He's been very supportive financially also in doing makeup. I've always been able to pay bills side hustle.
Exactly. I've always had a side hustle. You always gotta have a side hustle. If you think you're just gonna go into business and from the beginning get there. I mean, I hope you can, but if you can't, you best be able to check your ego. Mm-hmm. And know that you will be side hustling. But yes, he's been very supportive.
He's the guy who goes to work every day, never complains, gets up at five. I mean, he's magic, but he also was willing to be, I mean, we didn't go the route of buying the expensive house and having the expensive cars. And we've really tailored our lives to live in such a way that allowed this, you know, we managed our finances really well.
We didn't get into personal debt.
Mm-hmm.
We were just, you know, we've had great apartments, but they've been a one bedroom apartment. We've lived in small places in fun communities where our social hour was going on a great walk and hitting the local bar and having, sharing some fries or mm-hmm. Happy hours.
It's, we have not, we, we didn't have to come really far down to adjust to the one income for a while. Yep. And it's been such an adventure. I mean, we've always landed in the coolest places and neat neighborhoods. I think we were joking the other day that we've lived in San Diego for, uh, 22 years and we've lived in like 17 places.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, when we left, when I left my job, he was on a work training for a month, and I called him and I was like, so we're moving. He was like, what? And I moved us into a one bedroom, one bathrooms. Studio style apartment where you had to walk through the bath bedroom to get to the bathroom because it had a studio connected to it that I could use as a business.
And he was not pleased at first, but he was like, okay, I get it. We're gonna reduce our rent in half so we can still have a fun life, but not have to worry that much. So yes, he's, he's been an angel and just letting me pull myself through this basically. Yeah.
I'm sure he knew there was a little part that he just didn't have a choice 'cause Right?
Yeah, yeah. Like, you were gonna do it, it was gonna happen. And I, and I think that similar to people seeing the very structured, um, life you're expected to have in Western society, I think the same thing about what you, how much money you're expected to spend all the time. Like we spend so much money, we don't need to, um, you know, financial literacy and helping people with their budgets and getting outta debt and like living, structuring your lifestyle so that you can afford it and still have fun, I think is such a big conversation where not having enough and knowing that the freedoms you get, whether you have a job or you're an entrepreneur or a mix of everything, when you are able to.
Minimize your spending, but not minimize your life. It is a game changer. Mm-hmm. A game changer. And you know, it's a conversation that we're having all the time in my house about like, where should we be and why, and what makes sense and how much flexibility do we have? And right now, both of us have a lot of flexibility.
So we're really of, well, like deep diving into that conversation about where to live. And it's possible to have every life that you want, but it doesn't, they all, they all are not gonna look the same. Right. So really to your point of like what matters most to you, yeah. Just hang onto those things and be willing to let go of the other parts.
I think, you know, my favorite quote is, be willing to let go of the life you had planned to have the life that is waiting for you. Yes. And there's so much behind that. Like, I have a friend who moved to LA and got rid of his car, which you think in LA like that is like, how are you gonna survive Uber biking?
There is public transport that everyone forgets about. Mm-hmm. And you just don't need it. And like you looked at the bills, like you could spend less on the Ubers or Lyfts that you need than all the car maintenance and gas and insurance and car payments and everything else. So use your creativity, be resourceful.
It's there
it is. And when you really look at what your patterns are, it's very easy if you're willing to see the pattern.
Mm-hmm.
Where you could make changes. And I, I mean, we don't live an extravagant life, but we probably do things that are extravagant to some people For sure. You know, and it's, it's all in your choices.
And everybody has different things. Like some, I had a conversation with somebody the other day and I said, oh, are you, do you have a Valentine's Day card? And she was like, we don't do that. They're too expensive. And I was like, oh, okay. I get it. Like, you don't wanna spend $5 on a card or six or seven or 9 95 mm-hmm.
But a $5 cocktail cheap. Yeah. You know, it's just how you see things. And it's funny, if you can kind of make fun of yourself a little bit and eventually this is worth it, you will make some money. Mm-hmm. But don't do it for the money. Yeah. Because then it's stressful and then you have timelines and then, you know, people say, what, where do you see yourself in five years?
I have no idea. I did not know five years from ago I would be where I am right now. Right. And I don't make products based on their profitability. I make them based on the most beautiful ingredients that I'm the most excited about. And that's how it has to be every day.
Yeah.
When I finally decided to go full force with this, I mean, I literally, to this day, I have three pairs of jeans.
I have a collection of t-shirts, I have some cardigans. If you came into my closet, you'd be like, oh girl, I wear tennis shoes. Or Impressed. Yeah. It, but it's, that's my thing. That's my priority. I'd rather put my time and energy into that. It, I don't wanna think about what I have to wear. I don't wanna do 17 loads of laundry.
I don't, that's just not my priority. Some people it is, but I'm fine with that. But that's a choice I've had to make. I used to have designer clothes and designer handbags, 'cause that was my world. Mm-hmm. Now I'm like, Nope. But I love that I can go buy a beautiful handbag from my friend's boutique that was made by these lovely women from this company that's changing local communities.
I mean, that's my jam. But when I fully did this, I realized I was driving to work and I had told myself day after day, just get through this day. And I realized that if I'm on my deathbed and I think I just got through my life mm-hmm. I am gonna be pissed. Oh yeah. So stop getting through your days because you only have so many.
And start making the most of every day. Go to bed exhausted and in tears if you have to. But do what? Lights your fire.
And you'll feel it like you've, I feel it in here. I'm pointing at my center chest. Right. But like, you feel it inside yourself, it, it gets to a point where. When you lean in into what your, uh, passion and purpose like people say these big words that are really hard to figure out what they are when you're like, I just want my passion or my purpose.
'cause you are not born with them. Right. But when you stop trying to figure out what it is and just lean into what you can't not do, that's where it shows up.
That's really true.
It, it's, it's, it's sounds backwards, but what would you like, what do you just wanna do all day? There's a way to like survive and make a living and share that with people and it's, it's all right there.
Yeah. And if in the beginning or at any stage, it means that you have to peel back your spending habits or you can't go on some crazy vacation or you had to work when your family went somewhere. I mean, sometimes those are the tough choices, but eventually they're worth it. And instead of buying a $300 pair of jeans, you buy a $30 pair of jeans and you just move on.
Mm-hmm. Or whatever that jeans example is to you. There's always ways to do things and I think that's also something that was a huge privilege of mine growing up. And I know this sounds counterintuitive, but when you don't grow up with a lot of money and you know how to live and survive and have a great life with not that much.
Mm-hmm. You can do so much because you don't have the fear of lack and you know that you can create anything out of nothing instead of having to have everything prefab for you.
Mm-hmm.
It's a privilege, I think, in a way to grow up poor. I mean, yeah, I know a lot of people would argue with that, but it, it does teach you a different set of skills.
It does give you a different way of looking at things and structuring your priorities. Of course, I want everybody to have lots and lots and lots of resources, but it is, it creates a different, um, understanding of how to make things happen.
Yeah. I recently had to, um, was asked to answer a few questions for my, where I went to grad school, and one of the things I said I liked about going there is, 'cause it was a small school and we didn't have the privileges of Harvard Business School, like you had to figure out on your own, you had to network on your own.
You had to make your business on your own. Like being scrappy and resourceful and creative and figuring out how to create something from nothing is a skill that I have been shocked at how valuable has been in the corporate world. Mm-hmm. And then in life in general, like you, we'd have these big executives come into these corporations who had run huge companies, but they'd never made one.
Yeah. It's very different.
And it's, it, there's different language, different translations. So it's been really, I think it is privileged to, to know how to create something from nothing. How to create something. Like to see it and be like, okay, we can't have the thousand dollar one, but let's figure out how to make it.
Yeah. My dad said something to me a long time ago that I thought was so smart. He said, most people don't know what to do with raw materials. Yeah. And if you can take raw materials, I mean, it's a very simple concept. It's like taking an egg and making a souffle. Mm-hmm. You can do that with pretty much any element.
It's just, what is it that is your craft.
Yeah.
But taking raw elements and turning them into something is quite a scale. It's real magic. Mm-hmm. I don't know, I, I think we're sort of all in this together and
mm-hmm.
Thanks for listening and thanks for taking any parts of this and applying them to your life in any way if they make it a positive impact.
I don't know. It's been really cool to share this information. I don't often get the time to sit down and sort of hash these things out 'cause it's so f forward focused all the time and task driven and
mm-hmm. To
do lists and things like that. But to sit down and really think about these concept is really great.
I think one thing you had asked, one of the questions that you sent me was, um, what are you shocked about? And I do, a lot of my Instagram stories are basically just about like shining lights on things and. The one thing I thought about that question a lot 'cause you know, there's a lot of things that shock me.
Yeah. But how much we watch and how little we see. I just wish that people would start seeing more. I mean, it's so fast in front of our eyes all the time and we're shown so many things and we're shown so many things that we just don't look at and we don't see a lot of the details. And we don't stop and think, what did I just see?
Mm-hmm. What's the agenda? Who put that in front of me? What else could it mean? What does it link to? What does it lead to? How does it apply to my life? We're watching things constantly.
Mm-hmm.
Very quickly. So that, I think that was like a very powerful question that you asked that made me really think.
Well, thank you so much for being on this podcast. Thank you. I'm so glad that, uh, I've gotten to meet you. I'm so glad you got to share all of this. Like this was such a great conversation today and I am really excited to collaborate with you and, you know, be a partner and you continuing to grow and be awesome.
So thank you so much. Thank you so much. I feel the same way
after listening to this episode. If you're running to clean out your beauty products and stop adding toxins to your body, join the club. I was completely freaked out and immediately had to go home and throw away like half of my stuff. And I was using that app, which we talk about on the website, the powerful ladies.com, where you get to scan everything and see if it's healthy or not.
I was actually really surprised which products were totally fine, like my generic eye makeup remover, and then ones that you thought were good and weren't like, just like she said in the episode, they were over marketing the use of natural and organic. So because we know how stressful and scary it can be, after listening to this episode about what to do with all your products, we've included a series of posts on the powerful ladies.com and checklists and how to start guides about how to clean out your cabinets step-by-step, and also where to find products that you know are safe to use thanks to what Lacey's recommended to us.
Lacey, on her own like holy smoke. She is so dynamite. She's such a great conversationalist, so passionate about what she's making as products and as a business. The learner in me sees and admires the learner in her. She literally followed her questions down the Google Rabbit hole and popped out with a new business at the end.
May we all have such fortuitous Google Black holes. I mean, that's how I assume every black hole I go down on Google is gonna end up a new business, a new friend, but. Vie. If you are as obsessed with Lacey as we are, you can support her in a lot of ways. First, you can go to butta novo.com and get all the new products that you need for your now cleaned out cabinets that are safe for you to use.
You can follow her on Instagram at butta novo. You can also visit her other shop, apo beauty.com, which is where she recommends all the clean makeups that she has. And if you have questions, you wanna work with her, collaborate, you just have more information you wanna know about best way to take care of your skin in a natural, safe way.
You can email her info@buttenovo.com. And of course, with all of these fancy French spellings, all of the correct spellings for her website and her Instagram and her email are all in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. If you'd like to support the work that we're doing here at Powerful Ladies, there's a couple of ways you can do that.
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Leave a review on any of these platforms. Share the show with all the powerful ladies and gentlemen in your life. Join our Patreon account. Check out the website, the powerful ladies.com. To hear more inspiring stories.
Get practical tools to be your most powerful. Get 15% off your first order in the Powerful Lady Shop. Or donate to the Powerful Ladies one Day of Giving campaign, and of course, follow us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies for show notes and to get the links to the books, podcasts, and people we talk about.
Go to the powerful ladies.com. I'd like to thank our producer, composer, and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. She's one of the first female audio engineers in the podcasting world, if not the first. And she also happens to be the best. We're very lucky to have her. She's a powerful lady in her own right, in addition to taking over the podcasting world.
She's a singer songwriter working on her next album, and she's one of my sisters. So it's amazing to be creating this with her, and I'm so thankful that she finds time in her crazy busy schedule to make this happen. It's a testament to her belief in what we're creating through Powerful Ladies, and I'm honored that she shares my vision.
Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then. I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
Hey guys, did you know that there is a way that you can show powerful ladies some real love? You can be a Patreon of The Powerful Ladies Podcast. Go to patreon.com/powerful. Ladies, there are over six choices for you to figure out how you would like to support us from $5 all the way up to unicorn support.
Really, that's what it's called. You can be a powerful Lady Unicorn, who doesn't wanna be that. The great part is by your contributions. You get more cool free stuff and access to new and exclusive opportunities. Everything from Hidden podcast to free merch, to free coaching what you can be a unicorn and get free coaching or win a trip to LA paid for by us.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
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Music by Joakim Karud

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