Interview | Fluff Founder Erika Geraerts

The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview now on iTunes and Spotify. 

A few years ago, Erika Geraerts made the decision to walk away from the $20 million business that she had helped to build- Frank Body.

“I don’t think that I ever thought that I was going to be my own boss,” Erika tells me. “Quite early on I experienced some form of success and made a fair bit of money. It was great, I made money and I spent it on stuff. It allowed for a certain lifestyle. After a while, that wasn’t that fun for me. Now I want to reward myself in a different way. I want to give back or create something that’s going to impact the world outside of a way that’s just going to impact my personal world. That, for me, is the success that I’m chasing.”

While success of that level would blind many young people, Erika took the opportunity to give herself pause and reassess the direction in which she wanted to take the business. “Something I learnt from Frank was don’t get blinded by the light or the shiny things,” she tells me of her decision to leave. “It’s really not the important part of business or success, and in the moment it’s very hard to step outside of yourself and think about the bigger picture. I summarise that by saying that purpose is so much more important than profit.

“I was probably thinking about leaving for a year or year and a half before I decided to talk to the girls. It was a feeling that started quite small. I realised that maybe I was on a different page in terms of what we wanted for the brand and for the business. That was a confronting conversation to have with myself, first and foremost, before I spoke to them.

“There was a catalyst for me leaving,” says Erika, “and that was that we were seeking investment from overseas and having investments discussions, and as part of those discussions we were asked to sign on as founders for five years. I am grateful for that catalyst. I don’t know if, without it, I would have left. That made me start thinking about it and looking at my future. I saw myself in five years and it was quite a successful me- living out my dream somewhere overseas, lots of fancy things around me, an incredible brand and social status, but it was a very sad me. I had to confront that and I had to make a call. One day I woke up and I literally didn’t want to get out of bed and go to work. A lot of us have been there when we’ve been working for someone else. I thought “This is your own job that you created that you don’t want to go to. There’s something very wrong with that. You need to be honest with yourself and honest with your business partners. I made that decision, which was very hard for everyone. It was sad, because Bree, Jess and I wanted to grow old together in business, but it’s actually more likely and more normal that you don’t with business partners. When you start something so young, you grow up and you go your own ways and do your own things.”

The appeal, for some, of starting their own business is the idea of control, however given that Frank had five founders, Erika had to redefine what control meant to her. “I would say I’m a control freak,” Erika tells me of one of the greatest challenges she experienced during her tenure at Frank. “Even when you’re the boss of your own company, there are things outside of your control. It’s more about how you react or respond to certain instances- that’s really how you control a situation. For me, it’s about controlling how I respond to certain situations and being okay with the idea that nothing is really in my control- except how I respond.“

After leaving Frank, it took Erika roughly one year to truly set the Fluff wheels in motion. “I took about four months off and I travelled,” she tells me. “I think that was something I needed to do and wanted to do as a reward for building something. In hindsight, maybe I should have taken some more time to really think about what it was I was going to be doing next, but here I am!

“I had been thinking about this idea, an unnamed business at the time, for maybe a year. I’d spent so much time in the industry and was always looking at other brands, talking to other founders and talking to influencers and going to retail spaces, and I was always looking at what was happening. I had spent a lot of time in the US with Frank Body and that allowed me to see the industry from a whole other perspective. I think in Australia we’re very conservative compared to the US market. Over there, they’re just trying to make a million things happen at once, and they’re doing things at ten times the pace that we are. That made me think “What else could exist?” It was just a thought in the back of my mind. I thought “That could be cool. Maybe that’s something I could do with the girls, or maybe there’s a space for us to try another brand in the future.” It wasn’t until I left Frank that I thought “Do I want to stay in the beauty space?” I felt compelled to do it because there was still this need for it. I really wanted to create this brand for a younger audience that challenged the beauty industry.”

Despite the fact that Erika, now 29, has now sat at the helm of two cosmetics brands, the beauty industry was never an industry Erika had a vested interest in. “I’m not obsessed with beauty in any way. I obviously like makeup and I wear makeup, but it’s not something that defines my life. The thing I am really passionate about it people, and I’ve had various jobs and businesses where I’m talking to people or offering something to people. They were all ways to talk to to people. I’m always obsessed with how people interact with brands and products- why they buy what they buy and wear what they wear. For the last two years, makeup has been the vehicle through which I can talk to people.”

Given that the catalyst for leaving Frank was a longing for beauty brands to do things differently, Erika approached Fluff very differently in the brands infancy- and continues to do so. “I raised money,” she tells me of her renewed approach to business ownership. “I have 11 investors in Fluff and I have raised almost 700 thousand dollars. It makes me cry every second day, and laugh, because I’m like “Where did that money go?” I couldn’t create Fluff in the way that I wanted to without investment. I actually really wanted people around me to hold me accountable to what I wanted to build, and that’s been really amazing for me. I enjoyed the investment discussions we had when we were at Frank Body, so I wanted to continue that. I knew that it would help me build something of substantial value if I had people literally invested- financially and emotionally in what we were trying to do.

“Having a team of advisors has been different, and that’s something I knew I wanted from day one. I learnt so much from Frank, but I knew there was so much that I still didn’t know. I’d met so many incredible people in the industry, and I thought “I can have these people around me to lean on.” Whether that’s about staff management and culture, whether it’s from the financial side, whether that’s from a production side. I want the best people around me.”

After recognising specifically who she wanted her Fluff audience to be, Erika spent roughly 18 months physically having conversations with the brand’s target demographic. “While I knew that I can be quite intuitive with consumers, because I’d spent a bunch of time in the beauty industry meeting these people, I knew that I was still 10, 15 years older than the audience that I wanted to speak to,” she explains of the process, “It’s a Gen Z customer, so anybody between 13 and 22. As a copywriter, I knew I could do an okay job talking and writing to them, but I could never do the same job that they could do. I have three cousins that are within this age group, and I feel like they’re my little sisters. For so long I’ve been fascinated watching them grow up and turn into these incredible women. I can relate to them in what they’re going through, in figuring out who they are, but there are ways that I can’t relate to them in terms of the way they consume technology and the way they interact with brands and communicate with each other on social. It would be crazy for me not to include them in the brand development.

“That’s what separates Fluff from other beauty brands. This brand has been made with these girls. It’s not just us doing a little bit of research and involving them in a photoshoot- we sit with them and talk to them every single day. They really inform and challenge us on what we’re creating, which is nice. We really listen to them when a young girl tells me something is ‘lame,’ I’m not above that. I think “Fuck, we’re doing something lame and we need to pivot.” We can challenge them, because there’s stuff that we know and that we’ve experienced that they haven’t, so there’s balance. It’s been amazing getting to know all these girls and guys, and understanding what they want from brands and from the beauty industry.”

It’s this open dialogue between brand and consumer that, Erika believe, allows smaller, independent beauty brand to compete with multinational cosmetics conglomerates. “There are pros and cons to being an indie brand, just as there are to being a big heritage brand. We’ve all got our own battles on our hands, but I agree that it’s hard for the more established, bigger brands to be able to sit with the consumer and actually action the conversations that they have or genuinely be enthused with that conversation. It’s super time consuming as well. We have girls come in, and it’s not a 20 minute meeting- it’s a few hours. We have to give something back to them, and I think that’s where bigger brands probably struggle. They’re taking from their audience, but they’re not truly giving anything back other than products.”

What Frank and Fluff do have in common is similarly unique voices and brand identities thanks, in large part, to their founders’ backgrounds in copywriting and tone of voice development. It was these early, one-on-one conversations with her new brand’s audience that saw the Fluff identity begin to take shape- Erika took what she intuitively felt the brand should sound like, then asked her audience to challenge her on it. “The reason why the brand is called Fluff,” she explains, “is that we really want to build this awareness in girls that while makeup is great and fun, it’s not necessary. It’s fluff. We think that you can have that attitude towards makeup. It can be a part of your routine but it doesn’t have to define her you are. It’s not the be all and end all. That’s where this idea of “casual cosmetics” came from. We want this to be a casual relationship but girls have. Fluff was essentially going to be defined by these girls. Beauty is so much more than makeup.

“I say that Fluff is a “casual cosmetics company”, which people either laugh at or furrow their brow. It’s a category that we’re trying to create, and it’s twofold. One is our approach to our products, which is the casual, natural, and uncomplicated. And two is our attitude and approach to beauty- that people who wear Fluff aren’t defined by their face. They believe beauty is so much more than makeup. We want girls to feel most like themselves in Fluff.”

Where other beauty brands were using advertising to tell their customers what is and was beautiful, Fluff directed the microphone towards their audience. “Instead of us telling girls what beauty is, we said “You tell us what it is.” It’s everything that you’re currently doing, that you’re saying, that you’re thinking, that you’re feeling, and Fluff is going to provide a platform for you to publish that content and those thoughts.”

It’s this concept of giving the consumer a voice that Erika has taken quite literally with Fluff, by publishing consumer generated content on the brand’s print and digital collateral. “We started off with a magazine that we published in which girls responded to the brief “What is Beauty? Anything other than the obvious. Tell us what it means to you.” Fluff really wants to encourage them to explore who their own person is and to talk about it and to share it.

Accountability seems to be a running theme across all facets of the Fluff business, with Erika making a pact with her colleagues that she will personally read each and every article published on the brand’s “Issues” platform and tell them how it made her feel. “We have one product right now, our bronzing powder. There’s only so many blog articles I can write about it and ways to apply it. It was never our intention to have the editorial side of our site be about makeup. Again, it was about what else can beauty be. There are pieces of writing, whether that’s fiction or profiles, that really speak to me. That’s what I love. That’s lacking from digital content right now- writing for the sake of writing and sharing things, as opposed to getting a click or a sale. The Issues platform on our site is something I’m so proud of. I don’t want to just put a blog post out for the sake of hitting a number. This kind of content should and can exist.”

Given that Fluff came to be based almost entirely on a gap for brands that didn’t insist on makeup being “essential,” I quizzed Erika on her choice to create colour cosmetics rather than skincare. “I had a non compete,” she laughs. “It’s that simple. I think I was also a little bit bored of skincare. I use two skincare products- a cleanser and an oil. I can’t sell something that I don’t really believe in. While there’s so many colour cosmetics [on the market] as well, I thought “There’s something here.” My issue was the ideal of beauty that brands were selling to young girls. It didn’t feel right. I was overwhelmed with content of “The Instagram Face”- the way that girls were being told to change how they looked through cosmetics. There was room for a brand that said “no” to that. I’m not the first- there’s plenty of brands in the US and the UK, and even in Australia, that are championing this “less makeup” look which is great because it has started the conversation. I feel like there’s room for Fluff to exist beside them, but as a different brand with a different personality.”

Beyond product, what Erika believed the industry needed was a brand that did have a purpose beyond cosmetics. “There are so many makeup companies that have products, but what do they stand for?” she asks. “That’s the one thing that I want everything to think about. Other than it being a cool product, what does that brand care about? What are they saying to you about beauty? Do they want anything from you other than just your money? If they do have a personality, is it their own or are they just ticking boxes? There is definitely a wave of brands that connect with consumers but their messages don’t often change. They’re just what a couple of marketing managers have decided is needed. I really want people to purchase from brands more than products, because there’s really not that much differentiation between products nowadays.

I don’t think the world needs more makeup. I think we need better makeup, and more transparency around ingredients. More than anything we need better, more responsible brands. I can talk to you about why our bronzing powder formula is great and why I love it, but I can also say there are some other great bronzers that you can go out and buy. If Fluff speaks to you as a brand and you want to make a statement about what you care about and what you value, then buy things from people who care.”

One of the things Fluff does care about is sustainable, ethical beauty- without greenwashing or fear mongering. The brand’s extensive blacklist, however, has ensured the product development and manufacturing processes take almost twice as long as they otherwise could. “It’s taken so long. Our mascara will probably be ready in 2100 at this rate,” she laughs. “Our blacklist is pretty strict and the hardest thing for us was to not have any palm oil in our products- a good decision in the long run, but it’s been an exhausting one. It’s been a decision that has meant we didn’t get to launch with all four products, that we’re launching a year later than we could have, but I am proud of that. With these younger consumers, they’re aware of it. They are talking about this, and it’s only going to be a conversation of greater significance in five years time.”

While the delays in development meant that Erika had to alter the brand’s launch strategy, what it did allow her to do was invest in one meaningful product and set something of a “Fluff Standard.”

“I wanted to create something iconic that people would remember. I wanted makeup to be something you were proud of- something you could hold and look at. We took a lot of inspiration from art deco makeup, vanities and compacts. A woman’s makeup pieces [during the art deco period], she only had a few- a lipstick and a compact. But she would take it with her and it was like jewellery. It was of value. That’s what we wanted. We call our bronzer a pocket cloud, and you can feel it. We based the design off a grounding stone. It’s essentially a mirror, so you can apply it anywhere and you can’t stuff it up. We could put all of our weight or equity into this one product and say “This is Fluff standard,” and then we can pull back and have stuff that is more… not disposable, but something you can have and not be worried if it breaks.”

Where Frank were one of the first brands, globally, to capitalise on influencer marketing, Fluff is leading a charge in the opposite direction. “There will, unfortunately, always be a space for “social influencers” for some brands,” Erika explains. “It works for some brands and it’s probably going to go on for a while. For Fluff, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. [At the time of Frank’s launch] influencers were influential people. I still believe in influential people, I just think we need to change our definition of what that is. It was five, six years ago when an influencer wasn’t a job- they were just people interested in these particular industries, be it beauty, fashion, or fitness and health, who genuinely wanted to share what they were consuming and why. There were genuine referrals being put out there, and people looked to these individuals for advice and recommendations. Five years on, things have moved so quickly. Technology has advanced so quickly and we’ve become desensitised to these messages. You have the bigger brands with huge budgets who can afford to pay these influencers a lot of money, and in many instances that’s fine. This is their business, they should be paid for the work they do. I like playing devil’s advocate to myself, but, for the most part, I don’t believe in them [influencers] because I don’t believe we have genuine referrals any more. I know that with our audience, they see through that shit.

“Beauty is interesting because girls are still intrigued by the art, the transformations that can take place and the creativity in makeup artistry, so these girls [online influencers] hold value there. They [consumers] know, though, when something is an ad. They’d rather blatantly be told “This is an ad, buy this product,” than for it to go under the radar. For me, word of mouth is better than any kind of advertising, and I think we can create that genuine value with our audience before we intend to, or want to, work with an influencer. I can’t work with an influencer who doesn’t care about our brand. It means that we are going to have much slower growth than other brands in terms of scale, because we can’t just be put in front of all these millions of followers, but it does mean we’re creating genuine relationships with these girls and hopefully that we’ll be around for a lot longer. We can earn their trust, rather than being put in front of them for a quick minute only for the same influencer to post about another bronzer the next day. I derive so much more value when we get these genuine referrals, rather than “We just paid that person to post about our product.”

As for the future of the influencer currency? “I hope that consumers take more control,” Erika tells me, “and that they dictate and steer the conversation as opposed to brands or influencers. I think that there will be less brands because I know that consumers are seeing through all that shit and there can’t possibly be all of these brands. Something’s gotta give. People are going to realise which brands have intent and meaning, and which products are better as well.

“Something has got to change, and I really do think that there is this movement happening in which consumers are taking more control of their purchase decisions and not being as “influenced.”  But it’s going to take some time.”

In talks about the future, Erika brings her ethos back to something we discussed at the very beginning of our conversation- the idea that we are never truly in control. “I think we have to have a vision and to know where we want to be, but it’s not about being attached to it. It’s about being able to pivot and react because we are in this volatile industry that is underpinned by social media, and consumers have the upper hand in a lot of ways. I think that there is so much potential for us to be more than makeup.

“We all have so much to say, so let’s stop talking about surface level shit. Let’s have important conversations and see where they go.”