February 11, 2025 • 44 mins
Clean Beauty Series
Episode Description:
“You also need a little bit of luck. You can make decisions, and they can cut both ways— you can make a decision and your brand goes through the roof, and you can make a good decision but it just didn't work and you can't recover from it. So you have to stick around long enough for luck to happen too. You just have to be patient.” —Kelly Kovack
The lines between wellness and beauty continue to blur, as innovative brands harness the power of functional ingredients and cutting-edge biotech to redefine what it means to look and feel our best. As the industry evolves, navigating the clean beauty landscape has become a minefield of misinformation and greenwashing, underscoring the need for transparency and scientific rigor. Yet, amidst the challenges, a new generation of experts and entrepreneurs are paving the way for a more sustainable, efficacious future.
Kelly Kovack is the founder and CEO of BeautyMatter. With over two decades of experience in the beauty and wellness space, she is a respected thought leader known for her insights on the business of beauty.
Tune in as Justine and Kelly dive deep into the impact of food on the beauty industry, the rise of biotech and clean beauty, the role of education, the future of expert-backed brands, the importance of ensuring legal issues in brand innovation, the importance of patience and perseverance, and more.
Meet Kelly:
Kelly launched BeautyMatter in the Fall of 2016 with the firm belief that in a fast-moving world, information is knowledge, but context matters. And more importantly, innovation comes from the cross-pollination of industries and expertise. She set out to use her experience building brands and scaling businesses to offer a new perspective and holistic approach to B2B content that filled a void in the beauty industry.
Connect with NextGen Purpose:
Episode Highlights:
02:04 Ingestible Beauty
08:17 Historical Context of Food and Beauty
12:13 Biotech in Beauty
20:04 Lawsuits and Legal Threats in Product Innovation
29:36 The Future of Clean Beauty
33:39 Doctor-Made Products and Brand Innovation
37:53 The Timeline of Building a Product
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justine Reichman (00:12):
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I'm here with KellyKovack. She is the Founder and
CEO of Beauty Matter. She is athought leader in the beauty
industry, and I'm so pleased tohave you here.
Kelly Kovack (00:23):
Thanks for having me.
Justine Reichman (00:24):
Yes, welcome Kelly. So as my friend and as
somebody that's in thisindustry, I'm super excited to
have this conversation, becauseI already have so much trust. I
want to know what you have totell me about the future of
food, and how we can see itimpacting beauty as beauty
continues to innovate. Can youtell me about when you first
(00:45):
started seeing food impactingthe future of food?
Kelly Kovack (00:49):
I think the food industry has always been an
adjacent, an adjacency that madesense for beauty. And I think
historically, where we saw theimpact was on an ingredient
level. So very often, the foodindustry tends to be a little
(01:11):
further ahead when it comes toingredient friends, especially,
obviously related to naturals,right? And I think that as
beauty and wellness have merged,I think now, we're seeing a lot
of products that would have oncebeen considered kind of food and
(01:33):
beverage actually being on theshelves next to beauty products,
and they're kind of live in thefunctional food space. And in
some cases as ingestible beautyis growing, a lot of the formats
are based on food trends. So Ithink we're seeing the
(01:56):
convergence as beauty, wellnessand health have merged.
Justine Reichman (02:00):
I'm curious about the food and beverage, and
the products that you weretalking about there. Can you
give us a few examples?
Kelly Kovack (02:07):
I knew you were going to ask me that one. What
comes to mind is like Alicemushrooms. So there's a ton of
functional beverages. One of thethings that we do at our events,
lieu of a goodie bag, we createthis pop up market called the
(02:31):
Supermarket, and we alwaysinclude startup food and
beverage companies. So we've hadtons of them come in and out, a
lot of CBD drinks, some drinksthat are based on supporting
collagen. There are functionalingredients. Actually one of our
partners is called Tosla, andthey produce collagen, and a lot
(02:57):
of ingestible collagen. Usuallyingestible collagen is
disgusting. It's absolutelygross. But they have this
technology that masks the labor,and it actually tastes great
without the sugar. So we'reactually seeing a lot of
suppliers supplying food andbeverage companies and beauty
(03:21):
companies from an ingestiblestandpoint.
Justine Reichman (03:24):
Wow, super interesting. Do you use
ingestibles?
Kelly Kovack (03:28):
I do, but not necessarily. I think more from a
supplementation standpoint. Ithink some of the mushroom
ingestibles. Not the microdosing mushroom ingestibles, but
more. But those are interestingtoo. The more adaptogens. So
(03:48):
putting them in coffee and thatkind of stuff, we have them
around the office. So we'realways trying stuff out.
Justine Reichman (03:55):
Is there any statistics you could share
around the impact of that? Whatwe're seeing with that new
product versus doing it the oldfashioned way?
Kelly Kovack (04:09):
There are many that I could, if I were to
conjure up any statistics, theywould probably be wrong. But
what I can tell you is that it'sa growing segment. So what we're
seeing is a lot of early stageinvestors that were focused on
beauty and have expanded intowellness, and some of them have
(04:33):
expanded into these functionalfood and beverages under the
wellness umbrella. So I thinkone of the things we do when we
do trends is, one marker isfollowing the money. It becomes
a self fulfilling prophecy froma trend perspective. I think the
(04:53):
other indicator is Ulta andSephora are leaning into
wellness a bit more. So in orderto really scale these
businesses, you need to haveretail distribution. So the fact
that the two largest beautyretailers are playing in this
space, or have begun to play inthis space, I think bodes well
(05:16):
for growth. But the ingestibleside is still a little tricky.
Because if you're building abusiness to sell and the path is
a strategic exit, and you're abeauty ingestible brand, the
(05:36):
only one really acquiring themis Unilever.None of the other
yet. Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, theJapanese strategics, no one has
touched ingestibles other thanUnilever so there's not a clear
path to an exit. Doesn't meanthat it's not going to happen,
(05:57):
but I guess it's a traditionalpath if you've chosen to grow
that way. If you're selffunding, it's a totally
different story.
Justine Reichman (06:07):
I'm curious, I don't know if you know the
answer to this. Do you know whyUnilever has taken this on?
Kelly Kovack (06:14):
I think probably is because part of their
portfolio is nutrition, sothey're already in
supplementation. Was it liquidIV that they acquired? I don't
know. They made two very bigacquisitions collagen and
hydration. IV is all over theplace now.
Justine Reichman (06:35):
We had one of the founders on the podcast
previously.
Kelly Kovack (06:40):
Hydration is always tied to beauty too
because it impacts the skin.
Justine Reichman (06:46):
Actually, there's a spa out in the
Hamptons. I forget where,because I don't really remember.
But it was just opened a coupleyears ago. And one of the women
that I had on the podcast is ananthropologist and a scientist,
and did all this work on water.Her name was Gina Bria in the
(07:07):
Hydration Foundation. She's aleader resource for hydration.
She wrote a book called Quench,and it was a five day plan to
optimal hydration, andrecommended for New York Times
blah, blah, blah. But anyway, itwas all about the impact of
water on beauty, and that's whythe spot brought her in was to
create a more hydrating systemto include in their beauty.
Kelly Kovack (07:34):
Yeah. It's super interesting because I just went
to the press event for theglobal wellness Institute, and
they had thermal spa's as one ofthe big growth areas, really,
for the wellness space, which isreally interesting. Because if
you think about it, it's thisancient practice that is become
(07:58):
new again. But there is a ton ofresearch, not only around the
benefits of water, but theability to manipulate the
molecular structure of water.But on the flip side of it, the
crisis of certain areas runningout of water is also real.
Justine Reichman (08:17):
Yeah, it's true. So when did you first
start to see the beauty industrychanging as a result of food? I
know that we've always seen itas part of it, but when did you
really see that it made this bigpivot, if you will. Or not
pivot, but took this directionon.
Kelly Kovack (08:32):
I think it's always been there, but I think
it lived on the professionalside of the industry. And more
specifically, the spa side. Anddestination resort spa's where
food is always integral intotheir programming, whether it's
(08:54):
cleansing or eating a certainway, or farm to table. That has
always been there as long asI've been in the industry. The
concept of beauty from theinside out has also always been
in the beauty industry, but itlived in the world of spa's. I
started my career in spa's,albeit the reinvention of the
(09:18):
urban day spa with bliss. Butthat was in 1996. All of these
conversations were happening inthe professional space, and I
think it really started, I don'tknow, probably 10 years ago if I
had to put a time on it where itkind of came out of the
(09:38):
professional space and became abit more mainstream. And I think
it was really, perhaps driven bymillennials who were more
focused on balanced lives andeating well, journaling and all
those things apply balance, allthat kind of stuff. I think
(10:05):
where it probably the biggestinflection point, like so many
trends, was COVID. People reallystarted looking at how they were
living and what they wereputting in and on their body in
a very different way. But Iwould also say that there's a
whole other aspect of thecorrelation between food and
(10:27):
beauty. And I would say thatstarted also about 10 years ago,
and it is kind of around theconversation of clean beauty. So
there were some reallyinnovative founders who were
trying to take on the task ofthe beauty supply chain. Where
(10:48):
we get ingredients from, and howproducts are made? So you saw
euro waste brands kind ofemerge, and you also saw
ingredient upcycling. So takinga byproduct of the food industry
and then turning that byproductinto an ingredient to be used in
(11:08):
beauty products, and it is beingscaled to a certain extent. But
a lot of these things start outsmall, right? And the ability to
commercialize them, you have tofind someone who is going to
create enough volume to build abusiness out of it. But there's
a ton of food waste that can berepurposed for beauty.
Justine Reichman (11:33):
The skins of oranges and eggplants, and all
sorts of things. I want to goback to something that you just
said about, people areconcerned, or the millennials.
It was about what you're puttingon your body and what you're
ingesting in your body. There'sa lot of conversation around,
when you put it on your body,it's not going into the
(11:54):
bloodstream. So if that's thecase, how do you look at that if
it's not going into thebloodstream? I care what I put
on my body, but I feel like ifI'm allergic to sugar, why
should I put sugar on my body.Like a sugar scrub. That is an
example, right? People arereally concerned about it being
(12:14):
clean beauty, and not havinganything that they can't
pronounce or they don't knowwhat it is. And I'm wondering,
as we shift over to these cleanbeauty products, and we know
everything of the most of what'sin there, are we getting the
same kinds of results? Are theyshowing this being as, are we
giving anything up?
Kelly Kovack (12:36):
It depends. Clean beauty, first of all, there is
no definition of what cleanbeauty is. And I think it
started out with the rightintentions, and then it turned
into a bit of fear mongering andscaring people. And it doesn't
mean anything at the end of theday. It's not black and white
(13:01):
because there is not aninherently good or bad
ingredient. It's about how it'sbeing used in the formulation
and the percentage at which it'sbeing used. The most common
example is, Poison Ivy isnatural, but you're not going to
rub it all over your body,right? So there are also needs
(13:24):
to be sort of a level of commonsense around these conversations
into a certain extent. Ceanbeauty has become table stakes.
But I will say that regardlessof what people say, they want?
Purchasing is different. Theywant products that work. But I
(13:45):
think what the next step ofbeauty is when it comes to
dealing with kind of the cleanbeauty conversation, are biotech
ingredients. They're inherentlymore sustainable than natural
ingredients. They're morereliable than natural
ingredients, so that if you sortof extrapolate further, that
(14:10):
makes them safer too. You knowwhat you're getting every single
time. It's made in the lab, butit's made through fermentation.
It's a natural process. So thismerging of biotech and beauty,
there are some really powerfulnovel molecules that are being
(14:32):
extracted from nature in reallyinteresting ways.
Justine Reichman (14:38):
What role does education play in this for the
businesses? Because theconsumers don't necessarily know
all this, right? They readsomething, they read two words
of it, they hear some greenwashing, and they don't really
know the answers. They don'tknow that some of these
ingredients are not as amazingjust because they're natural.
Kelly Kovack (14:57):
I think beauty is a big business, and I would
argue that beauty marketers aresome of the best in the world.
We know our way aroundregulations. And I think that
there's always a spectrum whenit comes to trends. There are
(15:19):
people who are pushing trendsforward, and then there are
people who follow them. Thereare people who create brands and
do things because they reallybelieve in it. And then you have
others that are just trying tooptimize a business opportunity.
And all of those intentions arevery different when you build a
(15:40):
business and educating theconsumer for beauty. It kind of
goes hand in hand withmarketing, but it is this
tightrope. Because even if youlead with science, not everyone
cares about it. You kind of haveto build these levels of
communication so you have superhigh level marketing focused on
(16:03):
benefits. People want to knowwhat things are going to do, and
what the result is going to be.And then you have these citizen
scientists that have emergedduring the pandemic that really
get into the weeds on thescience. The science of there, I
think, where the beauty industryis going is far more clinical.
(16:26):
It's substantiation of claims.So a lot of these natural
products that can't stand uplike, I love a face oil. Love
it. But am I going to get thesame result as I would with
something that's biotech basedand has done clinical, probably
not. So some of it is just aboutsensations and feeling good. And
(16:50):
then I think some products areabout performance. But educating
consumers is, I think, thebiggest challenge for brands
because there's always a lot ofmisinformation out there.
Although it seems like the thefederal government was more
(17:13):
interested in regulating beauty.We'll see how that goes and
claims around greenwashing, andall these tools. You have apps
that can scan anything, butthey're always working on this
binary system of good, bad. Ialso wonder, it's like, are they
really helping anyone? Or arethey perpetuating this
(17:35):
misinformation?
Justine Reichman (17:37):
That was going to be my next question to you.
It is about misinformation, andabout what people latch on to
that's actually not really thereason they should make that
choice.
Kelly Kovack (17:48):
The clean beauty movement, one of the ingredients
that there were theseingredients that, all of a
sudden, it was like the fearmongering was insane around
parabens and sulfates. And thefunny thing is, a lot of people
don't even want to go on therecord. They're just like, screw
(18:11):
it. I'm gonna take the parabensout of the formulation. If you
ask most cog medic chemists,they will tell you that parabens
are the safest preservative, andthey're used at such a small
percentage that they're notreally doing any harm. I mean,
(18:32):
highly loaded question. Andthere are a lot of natural
preservatives that have come.It's the chemistry around clean
preservatives has come a longway, but they're more expensive.
You need to use more of them.And if you think about it, these
(18:53):
ingredients are there to inhibitthe growth of bacteria. And it's
important. But that's aningredient where it's like,
there was a lot of press aroundit, and it just became so
ingrained in the consumer's mindthat parabens are bad, sulfates
(19:13):
are bad. But there was never aconversation. There was like one
study. It's in food as well. Youhave this group of lawyers that
are looking for brands that looklike they're big enough to have
some money, but not so bigenough that they will go to
(19:34):
court, and they go after thesebrands and file lawsuits. So
some of it is also defensive,because there's someone that
does a one off report that makessome claim, it gets picked up by
the press, and it becomes athing. The lawyers come, the
(19:54):
lawsuits come, and it's one ofthe things about having business
in the United States.Culturally, we are very litigious.
Justine Reichman (20:04):
Yeah. And I think that a lot of times, by
making those claims and by thepress enhancing it and bringing
attention to it, we're guidingpeople in the wrong way. We're
telling them to think this whenthis may not even be right. So I
think it's kind ofirresponsible.
Kelly Kovack (20:21):
I agree. I get press releases all the time from
law firms or PR firms that arelike, this study has been done,
and they take a product, andthey put it in these really
extreme conditions wheresomething happens. But all you
need is someone to pick thatstory up, and then the narrative
(20:43):
is out there.
Justine Reichman (20:44):
And it's hard to change the narrative when
they're saying it withconviction, and they're saying
it like they own it. It isemphatic. People take on that
energy for lack of a better wordand are like, oh, this must be
true. And then all of thesudden, people are no longer
looking for different answers orbeing curious. They're just
(21:06):
taking that as if it's gospel.
Kelly Kovack (21:09):
Some of these lawsuits have done significant
financial damage to businesses.And even if the lawsuit, even if
the it goes through the courtsand they are found that the
lawsuit was frivolous, itdoesn't matter. The damage has
been done. Really hard torecover from it.
Justine Reichman (21:28):
The name, the information, it's really hard to
recover both financially, butalso to change that narrative
back.
Kelly Kovack (21:38):
The reputational damage is tough. It's kind of
the world we live in. It's likesome things you want to go
viral, and then others whereyou're like, I hope no one finds
out about this. These lawsuitsare a real thing. I'm sure they
(21:58):
happen in food as well.
Justine Reichman (22:00):
Yeah, every kind of business. And I think
for startups, when people try toswash them with these things,
people end up losing theirshirts. They no longer get in
themselves. Because if they wereself funded, they now used all
their money to get this pushedaway, which didn't even move the
needle. And frankly, whetherthey're going to succeed or not,
(22:23):
their idea could have impactedand influenced other people to
continue to innovate. That'sdoing a disservice to everyone.
Kelly Kovack (22:32):
I agree. Personally, I think there should
A $1,000 an hour for anattorney. One's doing research.
be consequences. If you bring alawsuit and it goes to the
courts and you lose, thereshould be consequences. But I
don't think that's gonna happenanytime soon, but it is
something that startup foundersneed to be aware of. They need
to invest in having the legalreview of their labels to make
(22:56):
sure they're not making anyclaims, because these lawsuits
can cost hundreds of thousandsof dollars. The legal fees, most
startups are not going tolitigate. But they're going to
have to get a lawyer, and thenthey're going to have to come to
somesettlement. And that's moneythat could have been spent
(23:17):
somewhere else.
One's doing this. It gets reallyprohibitively expensive where
they're not even in a positionto be able to afford to do that.
And their idea, it's sort ofpsychic energy too. You're
(23:38):
trying to learn your business,and you have this legal thing
hanging over your head. Butwe've totally gone off on a
bizarre tangent. It's real.
Justine Reichman (23:47):
And to our founders, it's important whether
you're in beauty or in wellness.When we started this
conversation, you kind of saidthat they were coming underneath
the umbrella, and underneaththat umbrella are the startups
too. All the information kind ofinterconnects. We did distract
(24:09):
from the impact of food on thefuture of beauty. That being
said. So if we get back to whatyou had said, biotech companies
could be the future of beauty,or you see them as being, are
there any that you could callout that are doing anything
interesting in this moment thatyou're seeing?
Kelly Kovack (24:27):
One that is really interesting is called Debut.
They are based in San Diego, andthey have a really interesting
approach. Because the challengewith biotech is, like you said,
the education. So there is amoment where people don't really
(24:48):
know what biotech means, butthey have set up a very
interesting business structure.So they've launched a brand
called Diende, and they useDiende as almost like a lab to
learn. And when I say that, it'sout there, it's being sold on
(25:12):
retail shelves. But they they'reconstantly changing the
messaging and learning, whatworks and what doesn't work. And
that informs how they buildproducts for their other beauty
brands. So they also got a lotof investment from L'Oreal,
(25:33):
sothey have a path tocommercialization that has
volume behind it. They've alsopartnered with one of the
largest contract manufacturersin the world, KDC/ONE, and so
they are able to help brandsformulate with these ingredients
and get to market. Depend onwhat you're doing between 9 and
(25:59):
18 Months, which is very fastfor a product like this. So
there's another biotech companycalled Archaea that's doing very
interesting work. And then youalso have some beauty brands
that are founded by scientists.So one of them that I'm
(26:20):
personally obsessed with isOneSkin, they're based in San
Francisco. It's three femalePhDs, and they have done all
this research around a peptide,and the products are phenomenal.
So you have scientists launchingbrands, and then you have
(26:42):
biotech ingredient companiestrying to compete with big
ingredient companies. And theseingredients are more
sustainable. Ultimately, they'rederived from nature, and they're
more sustainable than taking itfrom nature. But I think
Archaea, and also called Mibellein Geneva, is another biotech
(27:06):
company. They've been doingthese ingredients for 30 years.
They were the company that kindof broke through with plant stem
cells, and specifically theapple plant stem cells. The
research is not new, but it'sbecoming much more mainstream.
Justine Reichman (27:26):
I think that I haven't heard of these brands,
which I'm very excited.
Kelly Kovack (27:32):
They're way down the value chain. So these are
the people making the moleculesand making the ingredients that
then go into products. Unlessyou're in the industry, you
probably wouldn't care aboutthem.
Justine Reichman (27:47):
Well, I'm curious now, when I was in
Switzerland a long time ago, youmay remember 20 years ago that a
lot of the creams and stuff justseemed natural and had a lot
more advanced technology to themwhen we were in Switzerland. I
(28:09):
don't know what your thoughtsare on that today, because they
talked a lot about theregulations in Europe and
Switzerland versus theregulations here. Are they able
to create other products thatwe're not because of certain
regulations?
Kelly Kovack (28:24):
Yeah, in the regulatory world. So the EU has
been more restrictive from aningredient standpoint than the
US. But I don't know, it doesn'treally impact the efficacy of
products, I would say. With theexception of sunscreen, in the
(28:45):
It's super interesting. So forthe future, if you look at the
United States, we do not havethe best sunscreens because the
regulations are so old, and sosome of the more sophisticated
SPF ingredients can't be usedhere. So if you want to buy
sunscreen, buy it in Asia,Australia or Europe. Even some
(29:06):
of the big brands, the formulasaren't the same. The Australian
sunscreens are pretty amazing. Ijust had a conversation there,
seems like there's a lot ofinnovation happening in
Switzerland right now, and it isaround biotech. It's around
(29:27):
longevity. It's always beenthere. But for some more reason,
it's sort of bubbling up, and ina different way.
next three to five years, how doyou see Clean Beauty and the
biotech beauty, whetherconverging or surpassing as it
(29:47):
relates to the overall industry?
Clean beauty, it depends onwhere you live. Like in the US,
I don't know that clean beautyis really a thing anymore. I
think consumers assume, and Iwould say most beauty brands are
(30:09):
trying to use sort of what isperceived as clean beauty
guidelines. But in other marketslike the Middle East or even
Asia, the concept of cleanbeauty is totally new to them.
We kind of assume, like trendsmove at the speed of Tiktok and
they're global, but they're notreally right. And so clean
(30:31):
beauty is a really nascentconversation in the Middle East
and Asia. But where I reallythink the beauty industry is
going in 5 to 10 years, it isgoing to go a step further. I
believe we're going to seebeauty and a pharma going head
(30:52):
to head, and I think it is goingto be led by these, what biotech
can achieve? And consumersdoubling down on wanting
efficacy and demanding clinicalstudies. If you think about
where longevity is going, it'sall about performance and
(31:13):
optimization. So I honestlythink it's lean, will be like a
distant memory, and you're gonnasee beauty and pharma kind of
going head to head. Which isinteresting because for pharma,
beauty brands just don't get bigenough to be interesting for
(31:33):
them. But I think that mightchange.
Justine Reichman (31:36):
There's the whole thing around big pharma,
and people don't like that. Youhave that obstacle and challenge
for many people.
Kelly Kovack (31:44):
I think in terms of beauty, though, the rigor
that comes with pharma, it wouldactually be a good thing for
beauty from the testingrequired, the test--
Justine Reichman (31:58):
The studies and everything, it's really
expensive to do when you'reindependent.
Kelly Kovack (32:04):
I think science has become more important. If
you're just talking aboutbiotech, there's always going to
be people who love justbeautiful natural products. But
(32:26):
there's the implication ofclimate on the supply chain. So
if you base your products onnatural ingredients, you have
the fluctuation of theingredient cost that's based on
the climate, you have issuesaround availability. So there
(32:46):
are all these things that,if youare truly in the kind of in the
natural space, you have to thinkabout. And you also have to
think that these naturalingredients are living
organisms. So as theirenvironment changes, they change
and evolve. So what the extract1 to 10 years ago could be very
(33:08):
different than what you'regetting from the plant today
that is evolving to deal withall the crazy climate things
that are happening.
Justine Reichman (33:16):
We just had snow in Florida, I know it's
insane. If you think about allthe things that are natural to
Florida and indigenous toFlorida, and can grow as the
weather changes, it's going tochange what you can grow there,
what's going to thrive. That theavailability of those things are
going to be fewer and farbetween, and it's going to
(33:38):
change across around the worldas we see stuff like that. So as
people start to build theirproducts and they think about,
oh, we only want to be within a30 mile radius in five years,
that ingredient list. My otherquestion too is, what role do
you think the doctor madeproducts? So you go to a
dermatologist and they havetheir own line, and they all
(34:02):
make their own lines a lot of.What role do you think that's
going to play in here? And whatdirection will then go?
Kelly Kovack (34:11):
I think that there have always been Doctor brands.
They kind of come in and out offashion. And I think a lot of
these brands also reflect thelarger landscape of beauty. So
some lean really into biotech,some lean more towards natural.
(34:31):
Some are in between. But I thinkthe interesting thing is that
there's a segment of consumersthat want to get their
information from experts. Sowe've seen a rise in Doctor
brands. We've seen a rise inbrands created by estheticians
(34:52):
and even cosmetic chemists. Soconsumers, influencers like the
traditional Instagram influencerstill exists, but there are
certain categories where peoplewant to get their information
from experts.
Justine Reichman (35:12):
Vetted resource. Someone that's done
their due diligence, that hasthe expertise in the industry.
So if there are new brands outthere that are innovating in
this space, what are the topthree things you tell them to
look for brands that are lookingto innovate as they're
innovating? What are the topthree things they should
consider?
Kelly Kovack (35:34):
First thing is to really make sure that you have a
point of difference, becauseit's a really crowded space.
It's super competitive. Sothat's the first thing. Make
sure that you have a trulyunique point of difference, and
(35:54):
you articulate it well throughall of the touch points, from
the name, through the marketing,through the package. I think the
other thing is have a plan forwhere you're going to sell it,
because creating a brand is theeasy part. It's very easy to
say, I'm going to sell D to C onmy website. And yeah, it's
(36:17):
definitely an option, butacquiring customers is a whole
different ball game. So knowwhere you want to sell the
product, and know that you havea plan for distribution. And
when you're planning the launch,make sure that you don't spend
all your money on the brandingand the production, because you
(36:43):
have to market the stuff. Makesure that you have enough money
for operating expenses. And alsobe patient. It takes a long time
to build a brand. We've allheard these stories of brands
launching and scaling to $100million in three years. Yeah,
(37:05):
it's possible, but it takes anawful lot of money. And, you
know, I think even when, and Ithink this is not limited to
beauty. I think launching abrand is hard, and it takes
time. And even when you checkall the boxes, it looks great.
You win tons of awards. You'rein the best retailers. You also
(37:28):
need a little bit of luckbecause you can make decisions,
and they can kind of cut bothways. You can make a decision
and your brand goes through theroof. And you can make a
decision, and it was a gooddecision. But it just didn't
work, and can't recover from it.I think you have to stick around
(37:50):
long enough for luck to happentoo. You just have to be
patient.
Justine Reichman (37:53):
This resonates with me. I remember when I had
Bjorn Oste on who is one of theco founders of Oatly Milk. Oatly
Milk to me seemed like ithappened overnight. Like one
that went into a coffee shop,and Oatly was everywhere. It was
like this barista version, andit felt like, wow, that just
came. So to me, that happenedovernight, right? I sit down and
(38:16):
have a conversation with him,and that was like 8 years later
from where they started. Thatall the sudden, it became a
sensation. And it wasn't thatthey weren't selling, it just
hadn't made that big leap yet.So 8 years later, there they are
in every coffee shop. And now,they're sold in every store. It
(38:37):
really resonated with me whenyou were saying that, I'm like,
yeah, exactly. They went public.
Kelly Kovack (38:42):
I think a really great example is K18, that just
sold the Unilever last year.That brand was kind of 20 years
in the making, and it came outof another business. And so,
yeah, it was a 20 year overnightsuccess. And also, I think the
other thing is a reality checkfor founders. The reality is
(39:07):
most startups fail. I have awhole string of them. But I
think if you're a realentrepreneurial, it's about
reframing failure too. It's likesome businesses just have a time
frame that they were supposed toexist. It doesn't mean that they
(39:28):
were a failure, right? Theycould have been successful for
that period of time. And I thinkwhat real entrepreneurs do is
they learn, and then they moveon again. And even some
investors that I've talked tosay, even founders that have had
that huge exit, if that's beenthe only exit, they question it.
(39:56):
How much of it was luck? Someinvestors like to see founders
that are scrappy, and they justdon't give up. I think it is
also important to be the wholefounder, idea of founders has
been so glamorized. It's not foreveryone, and that's okay. But
(40:19):
the reality is, most startupsfail. Or it starts as one thing,
and it evolves into somethingelse. But it's a lot of patience
and perseverance.
Justine Reichman (40:32):
I would agree with that. I would agree with
that wholeheartedly.
Kelly Kovack (40:35):
I know. I think since we've known each other,
we've probably collectivelystarted like 10 businesses.
Justine Reichman (40:43):
God, you remember all the businesses? I
remembered. I knew kitchens overdollar oysters.
Kelly Kovack (40:48):
Yes, I do you. And your virtual world, which you
were so way ahead of things. Whowas it? Cherry pie or someone
that you're gonna deal withevery day?
Justine Reichman (41:00):
I can't believe you remember that other
guy that worked for the UNinterpreter, and there was
something else? Oh, apsychiatrist.
Kelly Kovack (41:15):
It's kind of crazy because that was like 15 years
ago, you were selling virtualgoods, which are now like a
billion dollar business. And Ithought it was the craziest
thing.
Justine Reichman (41:25):
Yeah, we're like, what are you doing? I
remember those rides back fromthe Hamptons.
Kelly Kovack (41:33):
Anyway, here we are older and wiser.
Justine Reichman (41:37):
So for those folks interested in, I want to
say in beauty, but I also wantto say wellness, because I think
it expand. You've expanded thatcategory. And whether it's with
a supermarket, which by the wayonly occurred to me that it's a
supermarket.
(41:58):
Exactly.
So for those folks that areinterested in learning more and
getting more insight, what's thebest way to connect with Beauty
Matter and you?
Kelly Kovack (42:08):
Yeah. So beautymatter.com, very easy to
find. And if you want to connectwith me, don't DM me on
Instagram. That's a horribleway. But LinkedIn, I check all
the time.
Justine Reichman (42:21):
I know you have a subscription based, yeah,
is it newsletter? So for folksthat are not familiar with this,
can you just tell us a littlebit about that and how? And if
they wanted to sign up, whatwould be the best way to do?
Kelly Kovack (42:35):
There's different levels to engage. So we also
have free membership. We have alot of sponsored content, so
that's available to everyone.And then if you sign up for our
newsletter, you can get threefree pieces of content a month.
And then beyond that, we havepremium and professional
(42:56):
memberships that have differentlevels of benefits. But if
you're just interested, you canpoke around for free. It's not
totally gated.
Justine Reichman (43:06):
And what kind of content can they expect if
they sign up to get three piecesof content?
Kelly Kovack (43:15):
We cover the business of beauty and wellness.
It's a B to B proposition, butit can be anything from Tiktok
trends to murders andacquisitions. We do a lot of
profiles of founders and theirbusinesses. We do round ups of
(43:36):
launches,anything that's relatedto the business of beauty and
wellness.
Justine Reichman (43:40):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Kelly. We'll make
sure to join our website and thedetails so that people can
connect.
Kelly Kovack (43:47):
Thank you.
Justine Reichman (43:48):
Thank you. It's great to connect. I'm going
to thank our listeners fortuning. If you're watching the
videocast, don't forget that youcan download the podcast and
listen to it on the go whereveryou listen to your podcasts. And
if you are listening to thepodcast and haven't checked out
the YouTube video, make sure tocheck us out under Essential
(44:09):
Ingredients. It's in the NextGenPurpose channel, and we hope
you'll follow along on Instagramat essential.ingredients. Talk
to you soon. Bye.
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I'm here with KellyKovack. She is the Founder and
CEO of Beauty Matter. She is athought leader in the beauty
industry, and I'm so pleased tohave you here.
Kelly Kovack (00:23):
Thanks for having me.
Justine Reichman (00:24):
Yes, welcome Kelly. So as my friend and as
somebody that's in thisindustry, I'm super excited to
have this conversation, becauseI already have so much trust. I
want to know what you have totell me about the future of
food, and how we can see itimpacting beauty as beauty
continues to innovate. Can youtell me about when you first
(00:45):
started seeing food impactingthe future of food?
Kelly Kovack (00:49):
I think the food industry has always been an
adjacent, an adjacency that madesense for beauty. And I think
historically, where we saw theimpact was on an ingredient
level. So very often, the foodindustry tends to be a little
(01:11):
further ahead when it comes toingredient friends, especially,
obviously related to naturals,right? And I think that as
beauty and wellness have merged,I think now, we're seeing a lot
of products that would have oncebeen considered kind of food and
(01:33):
beverage actually being on theshelves next to beauty products,
and they're kind of live in thefunctional food space. And in
some cases as ingestible beautyis growing, a lot of the formats
are based on food trends. So Ithink we're seeing the
(01:56):
convergence as beauty, wellnessand health have merged.
Justine Reichman (02:00):
I'm curious about the food and beverage, and
the products that you weretalking about there. Can you
give us a few examples?
Kelly Kovack (02:07):
I knew you were going to ask me that one. What
comes to mind is like Alicemushrooms. So there's a ton of
functional beverages. One of thethings that we do at our events,
lieu of a goodie bag, we createthis pop up market called the
(02:31):
Supermarket, and we alwaysinclude startup food and
beverage companies. So we've hadtons of them come in and out, a
lot of CBD drinks, some drinksthat are based on supporting
collagen. There are functionalingredients. Actually one of our
partners is called Tosla, andthey produce collagen, and a lot
(02:57):
of ingestible collagen. Usuallyingestible collagen is
disgusting. It's absolutelygross. But they have this
technology that masks the labor,and it actually tastes great
without the sugar. So we'reactually seeing a lot of
suppliers supplying food andbeverage companies and beauty
(03:21):
companies from an ingestiblestandpoint.
Justine Reichman (03:24):
Wow, super interesting. Do you use
ingestibles?
Kelly Kovack (03:28):
I do, but not necessarily. I think more from a
supplementation standpoint. Ithink some of the mushroom
ingestibles. Not the microdosing mushroom ingestibles, but
more. But those are interestingtoo. The more adaptogens. So
(03:48):
putting them in coffee and thatkind of stuff, we have them
around the office. So we'realways trying stuff out.
Justine Reichman (03:55):
Is there any statistics you could share
around the impact of that? Whatwe're seeing with that new
product versus doing it the oldfashioned way?
Kelly Kovack (04:09):
There are many that I could, if I were to
conjure up any statistics, theywould probably be wrong. But
what I can tell you is that it'sa growing segment. So what we're
seeing is a lot of early stageinvestors that were focused on
beauty and have expanded intowellness, and some of them have
(04:33):
expanded into these functionalfood and beverages under the
wellness umbrella. So I thinkone of the things we do when we
do trends is, one marker isfollowing the money. It becomes
a self fulfilling prophecy froma trend perspective. I think the
(04:53):
other indicator is Ulta andSephora are leaning into
wellness a bit more. So in orderto really scale these
businesses, you need to haveretail distribution. So the fact
that the two largest beautyretailers are playing in this
space, or have begun to play inthis space, I think bodes well
(05:16):
for growth. But the ingestibleside is still a little tricky.
Because if you're building abusiness to sell and the path is
a strategic exit, and you're abeauty ingestible brand, the
(05:36):
only one really acquiring themis Unilever.None of the other
yet. Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, theJapanese strategics, no one has
touched ingestibles other thanUnilever so there's not a clear
path to an exit. Doesn't meanthat it's not going to happen,
(05:57):
but I guess it's a traditionalpath if you've chosen to grow
that way. If you're selffunding, it's a totally
different story.
Justine Reichman (06:07):
I'm curious, I don't know if you know the
answer to this. Do you know whyUnilever has taken this on?
Kelly Kovack (06:14):
I think probably is because part of their
portfolio is nutrition, sothey're already in
supplementation. Was it liquidIV that they acquired? I don't
know. They made two very bigacquisitions collagen and
hydration. IV is all over theplace now.
Justine Reichman (06:35):
We had one of the founders on the podcast
previously.
Kelly Kovack (06:40):
Hydration is always tied to beauty too
because it impacts the skin.
Justine Reichman (06:46):
Actually, there's a spa out in the
Hamptons. I forget where,because I don't really remember.
But it was just opened a coupleyears ago. And one of the women
that I had on the podcast is ananthropologist and a scientist,
and did all this work on water.Her name was Gina Bria in the
(07:07):
Hydration Foundation. She's aleader resource for hydration.
She wrote a book called Quench,and it was a five day plan to
optimal hydration, andrecommended for New York Times
blah, blah, blah. But anyway, itwas all about the impact of
water on beauty, and that's whythe spot brought her in was to
create a more hydrating systemto include in their beauty.
Kelly Kovack (07:34):
Yeah. It's super interesting because I just went
to the press event for theglobal wellness Institute, and
they had thermal spa's as one ofthe big growth areas, really,
for the wellness space, which isreally interesting. Because if
you think about it, it's thisancient practice that is become
(07:58):
new again. But there is a ton ofresearch, not only around the
benefits of water, but theability to manipulate the
molecular structure of water.But on the flip side of it, the
crisis of certain areas runningout of water is also real.
Justine Reichman (08:17):
Yeah, it's true. So when did you first
start to see the beauty industrychanging as a result of food? I
know that we've always seen itas part of it, but when did you
really see that it made this bigpivot, if you will. Or not
pivot, but took this directionon.
Kelly Kovack (08:32):
I think it's always been there, but I think
it lived on the professionalside of the industry. And more
specifically, the spa side. Anddestination resort spa's where
food is always integral intotheir programming, whether it's
(08:54):
cleansing or eating a certainway, or farm to table. That has
always been there as long asI've been in the industry. The
concept of beauty from theinside out has also always been
in the beauty industry, but itlived in the world of spa's. I
started my career in spa's,albeit the reinvention of the
(09:18):
urban day spa with bliss. Butthat was in 1996. All of these
conversations were happening inthe professional space, and I
think it really started, I don'tknow, probably 10 years ago if I
had to put a time on it where itkind of came out of the
(09:38):
professional space and became abit more mainstream. And I think
it was really, perhaps driven bymillennials who were more
focused on balanced lives andeating well, journaling and all
those things apply balance, allthat kind of stuff. I think
(10:05):
where it probably the biggestinflection point, like so many
trends, was COVID. People reallystarted looking at how they were
living and what they wereputting in and on their body in
a very different way. But Iwould also say that there's a
whole other aspect of thecorrelation between food and
(10:27):
beauty. And I would say thatstarted also about 10 years ago,
and it is kind of around theconversation of clean beauty. So
there were some reallyinnovative founders who were
trying to take on the task ofthe beauty supply chain. Where
(10:48):
we get ingredients from, and howproducts are made? So you saw
euro waste brands kind ofemerge, and you also saw
ingredient upcycling. So takinga byproduct of the food industry
and then turning that byproductinto an ingredient to be used in
(11:08):
beauty products, and it is beingscaled to a certain extent. But
a lot of these things start outsmall, right? And the ability to
commercialize them, you have tofind someone who is going to
create enough volume to build abusiness out of it. But there's
a ton of food waste that can berepurposed for beauty.
Justine Reichman (11:33):
The skins of oranges and eggplants, and all
sorts of things. I want to goback to something that you just
said about, people areconcerned, or the millennials.
It was about what you're puttingon your body and what you're
ingesting in your body. There'sa lot of conversation around,
when you put it on your body,it's not going into the
(11:54):
bloodstream. So if that's thecase, how do you look at that if
it's not going into thebloodstream? I care what I put
on my body, but I feel like ifI'm allergic to sugar, why
should I put sugar on my body.Like a sugar scrub. That is an
example, right? People arereally concerned about it being
(12:14):
clean beauty, and not havinganything that they can't
pronounce or they don't knowwhat it is. And I'm wondering,
as we shift over to these cleanbeauty products, and we know
everything of the most of what'sin there, are we getting the
same kinds of results? Are theyshowing this being as, are we
giving anything up?
Kelly Kovack (12:36):
It depends. Clean beauty, first of all, there is
no definition of what cleanbeauty is. And I think it
started out with the rightintentions, and then it turned
into a bit of fear mongering andscaring people. And it doesn't
mean anything at the end of theday. It's not black and white
(13:01):
because there is not aninherently good or bad
ingredient. It's about how it'sbeing used in the formulation
and the percentage at which it'sbeing used. The most common
example is, Poison Ivy isnatural, but you're not going to
rub it all over your body,right? So there are also needs
(13:24):
to be sort of a level of commonsense around these conversations
into a certain extent. Ceanbeauty has become table stakes.
But I will say that regardlessof what people say, they want?
Purchasing is different. Theywant products that work. But I
(13:45):
think what the next step ofbeauty is when it comes to
dealing with kind of the cleanbeauty conversation, are biotech
ingredients. They're inherentlymore sustainable than natural
ingredients. They're morereliable than natural
ingredients, so that if you sortof extrapolate further, that
(14:10):
makes them safer too. You knowwhat you're getting every single
time. It's made in the lab, butit's made through fermentation.
It's a natural process. So thismerging of biotech and beauty,
there are some really powerfulnovel molecules that are being
(14:32):
extracted from nature in reallyinteresting ways.
Justine Reichman (14:38):
What role does education play in this for the
businesses? Because theconsumers don't necessarily know
all this, right? They readsomething, they read two words
of it, they hear some greenwashing, and they don't really
know the answers. They don'tknow that some of these
ingredients are not as amazingjust because they're natural.
Kelly Kovack (14:57):
I think beauty is a big business, and I would
argue that beauty marketers aresome of the best in the world.
We know our way aroundregulations. And I think that
there's always a spectrum whenit comes to trends. There are
(15:19):
people who are pushing trendsforward, and then there are
people who follow them. Thereare people who create brands and
do things because they reallybelieve in it. And then you have
others that are just trying tooptimize a business opportunity.
And all of those intentions arevery different when you build a
(15:40):
business and educating theconsumer for beauty. It kind of
goes hand in hand withmarketing, but it is this
tightrope. Because even if youlead with science, not everyone
cares about it. You kind of haveto build these levels of
communication so you have superhigh level marketing focused on
(16:03):
benefits. People want to knowwhat things are going to do, and
what the result is going to be.And then you have these citizen
scientists that have emergedduring the pandemic that really
get into the weeds on thescience. The science of there, I
think, where the beauty industryis going is far more clinical.
(16:26):
It's substantiation of claims.So a lot of these natural
products that can't stand uplike, I love a face oil. Love
it. But am I going to get thesame result as I would with
something that's biotech basedand has done clinical, probably
not. So some of it is just aboutsensations and feeling good. And
(16:50):
then I think some products areabout performance. But educating
consumers is, I think, thebiggest challenge for brands
because there's always a lot ofmisinformation out there.
Although it seems like the thefederal government was more
(17:13):
interested in regulating beauty.We'll see how that goes and
claims around greenwashing, andall these tools. You have apps
that can scan anything, butthey're always working on this
binary system of good, bad. Ialso wonder, it's like, are they
really helping anyone? Or arethey perpetuating this
(17:35):
misinformation?
Justine Reichman (17:37):
That was going to be my next question to you.
It is about misinformation, andabout what people latch on to
that's actually not really thereason they should make that
choice.
Kelly Kovack (17:48):
The clean beauty movement, one of the ingredients
that there were theseingredients that, all of a
sudden, it was like the fearmongering was insane around
parabens and sulfates. And thefunny thing is, a lot of people
don't even want to go on therecord. They're just like, screw
(18:11):
it. I'm gonna take the parabensout of the formulation. If you
ask most cog medic chemists,they will tell you that parabens
are the safest preservative, andthey're used at such a small
percentage that they're notreally doing any harm. I mean,
(18:32):
highly loaded question. Andthere are a lot of natural
preservatives that have come.It's the chemistry around clean
preservatives has come a longway, but they're more expensive.
You need to use more of them.And if you think about it, these
(18:53):
ingredients are there to inhibitthe growth of bacteria. And it's
important. But that's aningredient where it's like,
there was a lot of press aroundit, and it just became so
ingrained in the consumer's mindthat parabens are bad, sulfates
(19:13):
are bad. But there was never aconversation. There was like one
study. It's in food as well. Youhave this group of lawyers that
are looking for brands that looklike they're big enough to have
some money, but not so bigenough that they will go to
(19:34):
court, and they go after thesebrands and file lawsuits. So
some of it is also defensive,because there's someone that
does a one off report that makessome claim, it gets picked up by
the press, and it becomes athing. The lawyers come, the
(19:54):
lawsuits come, and it's one ofthe things about having business
in the United States.Culturally, we are very litigious.
Justine Reichman (20:04):
Yeah. And I think that a lot of times, by
making those claims and by thepress enhancing it and bringing
attention to it, we're guidingpeople in the wrong way. We're
telling them to think this whenthis may not even be right. So I
think it's kind ofirresponsible.
Kelly Kovack (20:21):
I agree. I get press releases all the time from
law firms or PR firms that arelike, this study has been done,
and they take a product, andthey put it in these really
extreme conditions wheresomething happens. But all you
need is someone to pick thatstory up, and then the narrative
(20:43):
is out there.
Justine Reichman (20:44):
And it's hard to change the narrative when
they're saying it withconviction, and they're saying
it like they own it. It isemphatic. People take on that
energy for lack of a better wordand are like, oh, this must be
true. And then all of thesudden, people are no longer
looking for different answers orbeing curious. They're just
(21:06):
taking that as if it's gospel.
Kelly Kovack (21:09):
Some of these lawsuits have done significant
financial damage to businesses.And even if the lawsuit, even if
the it goes through the courtsand they are found that the
lawsuit was frivolous, itdoesn't matter. The damage has
been done. Really hard torecover from it.
Justine Reichman (21:28):
The name, the information, it's really hard to
recover both financially, butalso to change that narrative
back.
Kelly Kovack (21:38):
The reputational damage is tough. It's kind of
the world we live in. It's likesome things you want to go
viral, and then others whereyou're like, I hope no one finds
out about this. These lawsuitsare a real thing. I'm sure they
(21:58):
happen in food as well.
Justine Reichman (22:00):
Yeah, every kind of business. And I think
for startups, when people try toswash them with these things,
people end up losing theirshirts. They no longer get in
themselves. Because if they wereself funded, they now used all
their money to get this pushedaway, which didn't even move the
needle. And frankly, whetherthey're going to succeed or not,
(22:23):
their idea could have impactedand influenced other people to
continue to innovate. That'sdoing a disservice to everyone.
Kelly Kovack (22:32):
I agree. Personally, I think there should
A $1,000 an hour for anattorney. One's doing research.
be consequences. If you bring alawsuit and it goes to the
courts and you lose, thereshould be consequences. But I
don't think that's gonna happenanytime soon, but it is
something that startup foundersneed to be aware of. They need
to invest in having the legalreview of their labels to make
(22:56):
sure they're not making anyclaims, because these lawsuits
can cost hundreds of thousandsof dollars. The legal fees, most
startups are not going tolitigate. But they're going to
have to get a lawyer, and thenthey're going to have to come to
somesettlement. And that's moneythat could have been spent
(23:17):
somewhere else.
One's doing this. It gets reallyprohibitively expensive where
they're not even in a positionto be able to afford to do that.
And their idea, it's sort ofpsychic energy too. You're
(23:38):
trying to learn your business,and you have this legal thing
hanging over your head. Butwe've totally gone off on a
bizarre tangent. It's real.
Justine Reichman (23:47):
And to our founders, it's important whether
you're in beauty or in wellness.When we started this
conversation, you kind of saidthat they were coming underneath
the umbrella, and underneaththat umbrella are the startups
too. All the information kind ofinterconnects. We did distract
(24:09):
from the impact of food on thefuture of beauty. That being
said. So if we get back to whatyou had said, biotech companies
could be the future of beauty,or you see them as being, are
there any that you could callout that are doing anything
interesting in this moment thatyou're seeing?
Kelly Kovack (24:27):
One that is really interesting is called Debut.
They are based in San Diego, andthey have a really interesting
approach. Because the challengewith biotech is, like you said,
the education. So there is amoment where people don't really
(24:48):
know what biotech means, butthey have set up a very
interesting business structure.So they've launched a brand
called Diende, and they useDiende as almost like a lab to
learn. And when I say that, it'sout there, it's being sold on
(25:12):
retail shelves. But they they'reconstantly changing the
messaging and learning, whatworks and what doesn't work. And
that informs how they buildproducts for their other beauty
brands. So they also got a lotof investment from L'Oreal,
(25:33):
sothey have a path tocommercialization that has
volume behind it. They've alsopartnered with one of the
largest contract manufacturersin the world, KDC/ONE, and so
they are able to help brandsformulate with these ingredients
and get to market. Depend onwhat you're doing between 9 and
(25:59):
18 Months, which is very fastfor a product like this. So
there's another biotech companycalled Archaea that's doing very
interesting work. And then youalso have some beauty brands
that are founded by scientists.So one of them that I'm
(26:20):
personally obsessed with isOneSkin, they're based in San
Francisco. It's three femalePhDs, and they have done all
this research around a peptide,and the products are phenomenal.
So you have scientists launchingbrands, and then you have
(26:42):
biotech ingredient companiestrying to compete with big
ingredient companies. And theseingredients are more
sustainable. Ultimately, they'rederived from nature, and they're
more sustainable than taking itfrom nature. But I think
Archaea, and also called Mibellein Geneva, is another biotech
(27:06):
company. They've been doingthese ingredients for 30 years.
They were the company that kindof broke through with plant stem
cells, and specifically theapple plant stem cells. The
research is not new, but it'sbecoming much more mainstream.
Justine Reichman (27:26):
I think that I haven't heard of these brands,
which I'm very excited.
Kelly Kovack (27:32):
They're way down the value chain. So these are
the people making the moleculesand making the ingredients that
then go into products. Unlessyou're in the industry, you
probably wouldn't care aboutthem.
Justine Reichman (27:47):
Well, I'm curious now, when I was in
Switzerland a long time ago, youmay remember 20 years ago that a
lot of the creams and stuff justseemed natural and had a lot
more advanced technology to themwhen we were in Switzerland. I
(28:09):
don't know what your thoughtsare on that today, because they
talked a lot about theregulations in Europe and
Switzerland versus theregulations here. Are they able
to create other products thatwe're not because of certain
regulations?
Kelly Kovack (28:24):
Yeah, in the regulatory world. So the EU has
been more restrictive from aningredient standpoint than the
US. But I don't know, it doesn'treally impact the efficacy of
products, I would say. With theexception of sunscreen, in the
(28:45):
It's super interesting. So forthe future, if you look at the
United States, we do not havethe best sunscreens because the
regulations are so old, and sosome of the more sophisticated
SPF ingredients can't be usedhere. So if you want to buy
sunscreen, buy it in Asia,Australia or Europe. Even some
(29:06):
of the big brands, the formulasaren't the same. The Australian
sunscreens are pretty amazing. Ijust had a conversation there,
seems like there's a lot ofinnovation happening in
Switzerland right now, and it isaround biotech. It's around
(29:27):
longevity. It's always beenthere. But for some more reason,
it's sort of bubbling up, and ina different way.
next three to five years, how doyou see Clean Beauty and the
biotech beauty, whetherconverging or surpassing as it
(29:47):
relates to the overall industry?
Clean beauty, it depends onwhere you live. Like in the US,
I don't know that clean beautyis really a thing anymore. I
think consumers assume, and Iwould say most beauty brands are
(30:09):
trying to use sort of what isperceived as clean beauty
guidelines. But in other marketslike the Middle East or even
Asia, the concept of cleanbeauty is totally new to them.
We kind of assume, like trendsmove at the speed of Tiktok and
they're global, but they're notreally right. And so clean
(30:31):
beauty is a really nascentconversation in the Middle East
and Asia. But where I reallythink the beauty industry is
going in 5 to 10 years, it isgoing to go a step further. I
believe we're going to seebeauty and a pharma going head
(30:52):
to head, and I think it is goingto be led by these, what biotech
can achieve? And consumersdoubling down on wanting
efficacy and demanding clinicalstudies. If you think about
where longevity is going, it'sall about performance and
(31:13):
optimization. So I honestlythink it's lean, will be like a
distant memory, and you're gonnasee beauty and pharma kind of
going head to head. Which isinteresting because for pharma,
beauty brands just don't get bigenough to be interesting for
(31:33):
them. But I think that mightchange.
Justine Reichman (31:36):
There's the whole thing around big pharma,
and people don't like that. Youhave that obstacle and challenge
for many people.
Kelly Kovack (31:44):
I think in terms of beauty, though, the rigor
that comes with pharma, it wouldactually be a good thing for
beauty from the testingrequired, the test--
Justine Reichman (31:58):
The studies and everything, it's really
expensive to do when you'reindependent.
Kelly Kovack (32:04):
I think science has become more important. If
you're just talking aboutbiotech, there's always going to
be people who love justbeautiful natural products. But
(32:26):
there's the implication ofclimate on the supply chain. So
if you base your products onnatural ingredients, you have
the fluctuation of theingredient cost that's based on
the climate, you have issuesaround availability. So there
(32:46):
are all these things that,if youare truly in the kind of in the
natural space, you have to thinkabout. And you also have to
think that these naturalingredients are living
organisms. So as theirenvironment changes, they change
and evolve. So what the extract1 to 10 years ago could be very
(33:08):
different than what you'regetting from the plant today
that is evolving to deal withall the crazy climate things
that are happening.
Justine Reichman (33:16):
We just had snow in Florida, I know it's
insane. If you think about allthe things that are natural to
Florida and indigenous toFlorida, and can grow as the
weather changes, it's going tochange what you can grow there,
what's going to thrive. That theavailability of those things are
going to be fewer and farbetween, and it's going to
(33:38):
change across around the worldas we see stuff like that. So as
people start to build theirproducts and they think about,
oh, we only want to be within a30 mile radius in five years,
that ingredient list. My otherquestion too is, what role do
you think the doctor madeproducts? So you go to a
dermatologist and they havetheir own line, and they all
(34:02):
make their own lines a lot of.What role do you think that's
going to play in here? And whatdirection will then go?
Kelly Kovack (34:11):
I think that there have always been Doctor brands.
They kind of come in and out offashion. And I think a lot of
these brands also reflect thelarger landscape of beauty. So
some lean really into biotech,some lean more towards natural.
(34:31):
Some are in between. But I thinkthe interesting thing is that
there's a segment of consumersthat want to get their
information from experts. Sowe've seen a rise in Doctor
brands. We've seen a rise inbrands created by estheticians
(34:52):
and even cosmetic chemists. Soconsumers, influencers like the
traditional Instagram influencerstill exists, but there are
certain categories where peoplewant to get their information
from experts.
Justine Reichman (35:12):
Vetted resource. Someone that's done
their due diligence, that hasthe expertise in the industry.
So if there are new brands outthere that are innovating in
this space, what are the topthree things you tell them to
look for brands that are lookingto innovate as they're
innovating? What are the topthree things they should
consider?
Kelly Kovack (35:34):
First thing is to really make sure that you have a
point of difference, becauseit's a really crowded space.
It's super competitive. Sothat's the first thing. Make
sure that you have a trulyunique point of difference, and
(35:54):
you articulate it well throughall of the touch points, from
the name, through the marketing,through the package. I think the
other thing is have a plan forwhere you're going to sell it,
because creating a brand is theeasy part. It's very easy to
say, I'm going to sell D to C onmy website. And yeah, it's
(36:17):
definitely an option, butacquiring customers is a whole
different ball game. So knowwhere you want to sell the
product, and know that you havea plan for distribution. And
when you're planning the launch,make sure that you don't spend
all your money on the brandingand the production, because you
(36:43):
have to market the stuff. Makesure that you have enough money
for operating expenses. And alsobe patient. It takes a long time
to build a brand. We've allheard these stories of brands
launching and scaling to $100million in three years. Yeah,
(37:05):
it's possible, but it takes anawful lot of money. And, you
know, I think even when, and Ithink this is not limited to
beauty. I think launching abrand is hard, and it takes
time. And even when you checkall the boxes, it looks great.
You win tons of awards. You'rein the best retailers. You also
(37:28):
need a little bit of luckbecause you can make decisions,
and they can kind of cut bothways. You can make a decision
and your brand goes through theroof. And you can make a
decision, and it was a gooddecision. But it just didn't
work, and can't recover from it.I think you have to stick around
(37:50):
long enough for luck to happentoo. You just have to be
patient.
Justine Reichman (37:53):
This resonates with me. I remember when I had
Bjorn Oste on who is one of theco founders of Oatly Milk. Oatly
Milk to me seemed like ithappened overnight. Like one
that went into a coffee shop,and Oatly was everywhere. It was
like this barista version, andit felt like, wow, that just
came. So to me, that happenedovernight, right? I sit down and
(38:16):
have a conversation with him,and that was like 8 years later
from where they started. Thatall the sudden, it became a
sensation. And it wasn't thatthey weren't selling, it just
hadn't made that big leap yet.So 8 years later, there they are
in every coffee shop. And now,they're sold in every store. It
(38:37):
really resonated with me whenyou were saying that, I'm like,
yeah, exactly. They went public.
Kelly Kovack (38:42):
I think a really great example is K18, that just
sold the Unilever last year.That brand was kind of 20 years
in the making, and it came outof another business. And so,
yeah, it was a 20 year overnightsuccess. And also, I think the
other thing is a reality checkfor founders. The reality is
(39:07):
most startups fail. I have awhole string of them. But I
think if you're a realentrepreneurial, it's about
reframing failure too. It's likesome businesses just have a time
frame that they were supposed toexist. It doesn't mean that they
(39:28):
were a failure, right? Theycould have been successful for
that period of time. And I thinkwhat real entrepreneurs do is
they learn, and then they moveon again. And even some
investors that I've talked tosay, even founders that have had
that huge exit, if that's beenthe only exit, they question it.
(39:56):
How much of it was luck? Someinvestors like to see founders
that are scrappy, and they justdon't give up. I think it is
also important to be the wholefounder, idea of founders has
been so glamorized. It's not foreveryone, and that's okay. But
(40:19):
the reality is, most startupsfail. Or it starts as one thing,
and it evolves into somethingelse. But it's a lot of patience
and perseverance.
Justine Reichman (40:32):
I would agree with that. I would agree with
that wholeheartedly.
Kelly Kovack (40:35):
I know. I think since we've known each other,
we've probably collectivelystarted like 10 businesses.
Justine Reichman (40:43):
God, you remember all the businesses? I
remembered. I knew kitchens overdollar oysters.
Kelly Kovack (40:48):
Yes, I do you. And your virtual world, which you
were so way ahead of things. Whowas it? Cherry pie or someone
that you're gonna deal withevery day?
Justine Reichman (41:00):
I can't believe you remember that other
guy that worked for the UNinterpreter, and there was
something else? Oh, apsychiatrist.
Kelly Kovack (41:15):
It's kind of crazy because that was like 15 years
ago, you were selling virtualgoods, which are now like a
billion dollar business. And Ithought it was the craziest
thing.
Justine Reichman (41:25):
Yeah, we're like, what are you doing? I
remember those rides back fromthe Hamptons.
Kelly Kovack (41:33):
Anyway, here we are older and wiser.
Justine Reichman (41:37):
So for those folks interested in, I want to
say in beauty, but I also wantto say wellness, because I think
it expand. You've expanded thatcategory. And whether it's with
a supermarket, which by the wayonly occurred to me that it's a
supermarket.
(41:58):
Exactly.
So for those folks that areinterested in learning more and
getting more insight, what's thebest way to connect with Beauty
Matter and you?
Kelly Kovack (42:08):
Yeah. So beautymatter.com, very easy to
find. And if you want to connectwith me, don't DM me on
Instagram. That's a horribleway. But LinkedIn, I check all
the time.
Justine Reichman (42:21):
I know you have a subscription based, yeah,
is it newsletter? So for folksthat are not familiar with this,
can you just tell us a littlebit about that and how? And if
they wanted to sign up, whatwould be the best way to do?
Kelly Kovack (42:35):
There's different levels to engage. So we also
have free membership. We have alot of sponsored content, so
that's available to everyone.And then if you sign up for our
newsletter, you can get threefree pieces of content a month.
And then beyond that, we havepremium and professional
(42:56):
memberships that have differentlevels of benefits. But if
you're just interested, you canpoke around for free. It's not
totally gated.
Justine Reichman (43:06):
And what kind of content can they expect if
they sign up to get three piecesof content?
Kelly Kovack (43:15):
We cover the business of beauty and wellness.
It's a B to B proposition, butit can be anything from Tiktok
trends to murders andacquisitions. We do a lot of
profiles of founders and theirbusinesses. We do round ups of
(43:36):
launches,anything that's relatedto the business of beauty and
wellness.
Justine Reichman (43:40):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Kelly. We'll make
sure to join our website and thedetails so that people can
connect.
Kelly Kovack (43:47):
Thank you.
Justine Reichman (43:48):
Thank you. It's great to connect. I'm going
to thank our listeners fortuning. If you're watching the
videocast, don't forget that youcan download the podcast and
listen to it on the go whereveryou listen to your podcasts. And
if you are listening to thepodcast and haven't checked out
the YouTube video, make sure tocheck us out under Essential
(44:09):
Ingredients. It's in the NextGenPurpose channel, and we hope
you'll follow along on Instagramat essential.ingredients. Talk
to you soon. Bye.
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