The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview with NUDESTIX Co Founder Taylor Frankel now on iTunes and Spotify.
GLOW JOURNAL: Your mother is a chemical engineer, she’s developed products for MAC, she co-founded CoverFX prior to launching Nudestix, so I have a sneaking suspicion that she might factor into your answer for this one- but what is your very earliest memory of beauty?
TAYLOR FRANKEL: Probably at the age of 11 or 12 years old, I remember my mom, who had a previous company, CoverFx- this was in Toronto, Canada. I remember she, in our basement, had a little lab. She also obviously had their warehouse, and this maybe is what also instilled a little bit of entrepreneurship in me, because every single day that we had off as a province or a city, I had no day off. All my friends were hanging out with each other, maybe playing games, whatever they were doing. But my mom was like “Okay, you’re going to come to work, and you’re going to come to the warehouse, and you’re going to pack boxes.” It was kind of like child labour *laughs*- but not really! But that was probably my earliest memory.
And then I remember, my second memory, it was the first time I got into makeup, which was at the age of 12 years old. I had my bat mitzvah. I remember I wanted to wear all this makeup, because it’s kind of like this coming of age thing, now you’re a woman, you’re wearing makeup, whatever. I remember my mom was like “No, no, we’re not putting makeup on you. We’re just going to do a little mascara.” So even at a very early age, my mom always instilled that natural look because she just didn’t want us to cover up with so much makeup, being so young and obviously having such a fresh face. So those are probably two of my earliest memories.
Isn’t it wild that that’s what signifies a coming of age? I can wear makeup now- I’m a woman.
Right?! And I think it’s kind of something that you look up to. When you’re super young, you look at older women or girls who are wearing makeup, and they do have that air of maturity. So you feel like that’s the rite of passage to womanhood- putting on makeup. Or you watch movies and you see someone getting ready in the morning and she’s putting on a red lipstick or putting on eyeshadow and she’s getting ready to go for dinner or out with friends or on a date. And you’re like “That’s what I want to do!” It’s very aspirational in a way.
What did you think that you might be when you grew up?
Honestly, at the age of 11 or 12, I thought I was going to be a professional tennis player. That was like my stretch goal. Obviously that didn’t happen! But I was always very creative as a kid. I loved art. But I never really had any, specific, I would say “career goals”. I was very much wanting to follow where life would take me.
I remember my sister at the time of like 12 years old, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to go into dermatology. She had a very specific timeline, whereas I was like “We’re going to see where life takes me. I’m creative. I like this. I like that.
We’ll see.” So I never really had anything specific… I feel like that’s weird. I feel like everyone, especially our generation, we know exactly what we want to do, at what time, what our life is essentially going to look like.
But I think that’s just a pressure thing. I feel like it’s kind of the case with everything- you just go online and it looks as though everything just happens instantly. So you feel like, “Okay, I have to have a goal that can also happen in a similar timeframe.” We do it to ourselves.
For sure, we do it to ourselves.
That’s interesting that your sister had an interesting dermatology!
Yeah! She always had skin concerns growing up, from acne to eczema to just dealing with other issues and with allergies and skin products. So she always had a certain love for just treating skin. And that was what inspired her to want to get into dermatology. She’s always loved that. And it’s funny because that was pre Nudestix, and goes hand in hand, even with something I’m going to give you a little sneaky preview of. It will make even more sense.
Oh how’s that for a teaser! usually when I’m talking to founders, I ask them what they went on to study and their career trajectory prior to launch, but you were 17 when you launched Nudestix and your sister, Ally, your co-founder, was 14. What was your relationship with beauty, and more specifically makeup, like in high school? Aside from your mum coaxing you out of a full face at your bat mitzvah.
At the age of 17, I was in my last year of high school. My mom, after exiting her previous company, she had this two year non-compete. She had this two year Eat, Pray, Love moment where she just decided to be a full time mom. She had no intention of starting another beauty brand- especially with her two teenage daughters.
What ended up happening, through connecting with us and through talking at the dinner table and speaking about beauty… because my sister [and I], we essentially grew up in the [beauty] industry from watching my mom you know launch these beautiful brands and work with MAC and CoverFX, we always had this just intuition- a natural intuition. In the year 2014, 2013, that’s also when Instagram and influencers and YouTube started to become very popular, specifically with beauty. We would always look and we would see what was out there. And we said “Wait a second- who’s wearing all this makeup?” We wouldn’t necessarily watch a one hour beauty tutorial. We were those girls who just opted for less-is-more makeup. We wanted to draw and smudge. We wanted shades of neutral for all skin tone. We just felt that everything out there, every single brand out there, was preaching “You need more, you need more colour and you need more artistry and you need more product, you need more application.” Who, what woman today, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a student or you’re a modern day woman who has a career or you’re a mom, who actually has that time to spend? The majority of people don’t.
And so that was kind of how my mom, my sister and I developed Nudestix and where the inspiration came from. Not necessarily because we had all of this experience- our experience was just life and what we felt was missing. And then obviously my mom, being an engineer and working with a variety of beauty companies, was able to bring that to life. But we all felt the same, and it’s interesting because we all really speak to different generations- my sister being more that digital generation, I’m more so that millennial and then you have my mom who’s more your Gen X. So we were able to really relate to so many different women out there.
We also just felt that it didn’t matter what beauty products a brand had or what they had to offer- if they weren’t speaking to their customer in an authentic or relatable way, the customer wasn’t seeing they had to offer. It doesn’t matter how beautiful their products are. So that’s why we wanted to create Nudestix.
It’s so interesting hearing you talk about that time because, really, you were completely ahead of the curve. In 2013 and 14, when I think about myself as a consumer, I only really started really embracing this more “natural” look probably in the last couple of years. In 2013/14, it was still all about the heavy contour, the matte lip and the full on lashes. So I think that’s incredible that you guys tapped into what has become the “look” now.
It’s interesting that you say that because when we first launched in 2014, and even in 2015 and 2016, we were really disruptive. There’s pros and cons of being disruptive. The pros… there’s very little pros, but the pros are that you can foresee trends and you are standing out within a crowd of so many beauty brands that are speaking about the same message. You’re also creating a really beautiful community of people who strongly believe in your message.
The cons are that you’re kind of one step ahead of the industry and one step ahead of the consumer. And when that happens, it’s very hard to infiltrate a very saturated market. So we had to preach our message and tell our stories so many times. Even at retail level, even with retailers. I remember we pitched to beautiful retailers and we said “Our concept is all about less is more, minimalism, neutral tones, quick drawn smudge, use your fingers,” and they’re like “Okay, well that’s not going to sell product.” And we were like “No, no, no. Trust me.”
If you want to create a no-makeup makeup look, sometimes that takes even more expertise and sometimes even more products, or the same amount products as if you were to create this full glam look. You still need your brows, your mascara, your blush, your bronze, your highlight, your foundation. But it’s about the tones that you use, the way that you wear it, and the beautiful texture and formula of the products. So it was definitely difficult at first. Now that’s it’s kind of the new “trend” over the past two years, the con of that is that we need to find new ways to be disruptive, because everyone’s in our bubble. Now everyone’s speaking to this thing, so how do we keep our brand messaging and ethos and still be disruptive. It’s interesting to navigate.
It’s a funny thing, I imagine, going into a retailer and explaining it- just physically the phrase “less is more” because they’re like “Okay, well we actually want to sell more products, that’s how you make money- but thank you for completely going against how retail works.”
Pretty much! It was a lot of education, a lot of education. My mom, my sister and I, I remember the first year of launch, we would just travel to all of our markets, we would just hit the ground running and we would just speak to people and show them and demonstrate for them. And because at thay age, my sister was 14 and I was 17, and were were like “Okay, this is how you use Nudestix! You draw, you smudge,” and everyone, once they saw the products and once they started to use it was like “Wait a second, this is so easy. Why doesn’t everyone do this?”
One of the things we always say at Nudestix is sometimes the simplest things are often forgotten- and that even goes with the whole minimalist trend. Now, I think people are just… there’s so much clutter. There’s so much out there and I think people are just craving minimalism and craving simplicity. And a lot of the time also, when it comes to beauty, unless you’re a makeup artist or you’re a beauty junkie, you want to simplify your entire life and your routine because there are other priorities that you may have. Maybe that’s getting your kids out the door or maybe that’s because you have to wake up at 6am for a podcast, maybe that’s because you just have other things going on- and that’s okay! That’s the reality of the modern day woman today. We are not just sitting at home. We have careers and we’re busy and we just want to feel beautiful and feel confident without feeling like we have to spend an hour on our makeup in the morning. That’s just real life.
I feel like it’s one thing to physically identify a gap in the market, which you obviously did, but very few people actually identify the gap and then decide “Okay, I can and will fill this gap.” It’s another skill set entirely. Was there a specific moment when you, your mum and your sister actually sat down and thought “We need to develop our own brand”?
It was on an airplane. We were coming back from a family wedding in Florida, and we were on the plane. Obviously when you go to events, when you have a wedding, when you have any type of event where you have to get ready, you’re putting on makeup- so you talk about beauty. I remember that weekend, we were so passionate because, I remember, at that time we just had some labs samples of products, and we were using other products as well. And we’re like “Wait a second. There’s nothing on the market currently that is, easy to use, multitasking, speaks to the modern day woman today, that’s shades of neutral that just make you feel good and confident, and is compact, affordable, eco-friendly, vegan.
It was on the plane, going back to Toronto, where we actually sat down and we created a really quick marketing deck. We wrote out what we wanted from this brand, we named it, and it was just the three hour flight of just instant… you know when you just have those moments when you’re so inspired and passionate, and you’re like “We need to write this down now, because we have this adrenaline rush going through us.”
My sister and I were in high school at the time, so we couldn’t just drop out of high school, but my mom was able to meet with different manufacturers and get labs samples in. I remember we’d meet at the kitchen table and go through all these samples. It was my mom who actually pitched the brand initially to a retailer in the UK. It was a small apothecary retailer, and she was like “I just have lab samples, but this is our brand. This is our story. This is our messaging. What do you think?” And this is going back six years ago. But they were like “We love it. We love this millennial mindset. We love how young and we love how fresh it feels. The products look beautiful. We just want you.” And then they provided us with three months exclusivity in return for press. So they would organise press events for us, they would host press interviews, we would travel to New York and LA and we would meet with different media and influencers and editors. And once we started to get a lot of buzz and traction from that three month exclusivity, that’s when we started to have other retailers approach us and say “Oh my God, I saw this, it’s so cool, it’s so fresh, we want to launch you.”
Obviously the first thing we did as a brand was we launched an Instagram account with our handle. It was a lot of organic marketing, a lot of… we pushed a lot of our content through Instagram, through YouTube, and we worked with a lot of editors, a lot of media. It was very organic growth. It wasn’t up until probably three years ago when we started to realise “Wait, the industry is changing. We need to invest in digital marketing.” We launched our own website. We started to work with paid influencers. So to answer your question, how do we take that from a concept to reality, I think sometimes when you overthink… I think ignorance was bliss in a way, because we weren’t necessarily thinking about all of the failures that we can encounter along the way. It was about taking every little step and seeing where it takes us- from getting product in, to pitching it to retailers, to reaching out to a designer to design our packaging, all the way to just building our Instagram platform and gaining followers in a very organic way. And back then it was hashtagging, following people, it was the most organic thing. And we had a kind of paid sampling program and we just developed different strategies along the way. And, all of a sudden, six years later… there’s so many different trial and error kind of events that happen, but we grew up with social media in a way. We grew with the influencer community. We were very agile when we launched, and because we were a smaller brand, we had the ability to try new things.
How long did that process take, from coming up with the concept through to the actual launch in 2014?
So that was about six months.
God, that’s a short lead time!
Yeah! It was about six months. That was from the concept. When we had the concept, I remember, I think a week later, my mom flew to a trade show and came home with all of this product. We had, at the time, her name is Wanda who is now our Vice President of Retail, she’s been with my mom for a very long time, but I remember we all sat at our kitchen table saying yes or saying to different shades. After that it was kind of “Okay, now we need to go to production.” We had our design, my mom had a previous relationship with a designer and we just went from there.
The thing about launching a brand is we had a very clear vision. We had a very clear idea of what our brand needed to look like, because we spent the two years before that really brainstorming and really thinking about what this gap was and what this white space was. So then when we actually decided to launch, we were already so clear. We already had this clear path of what this brand needs to be and where it’s going to go. We knew exactly what we wanted to do. We knew what our marketing needed to be. We know what the packaging needs to be. And that’s why I think it went so quickly.
Do you remember which specific products you launched with?
Our first products were lip pencils, we launched with a cream formula which was our OG, we launched with our eye pencils, we launched with concealer, we had mascara and I think that was it at the time.
The perfect starting point! That’s a few bases covered there.
And everything was multitasking. So if it was a lip pencil it was your lip liner, lip colour and cheek blush. If it was an eyeshadow, it was your eyeshadow, eye liner and eye primer. Then you have your mascara and your concealer. And for us, that kind of just touched all your bases. Those were, for us, what we felt like we needed first and foremost.
Lip in general is just such an amazing client acquisition product. It’s really based on colour and trying the formula, trying the product, and when someone loves a lip from a certain brand, they’re not as necessarily loyal to lipstick so then if they love it, they’re going to go and see what else the brand has to offer.
Yeah, that’s 100% accurate. The fact that you launched when you were 17, and when your sister was 14, is awe inspiring. I would imagine that the advantage of sitting at the helm of a brand that young is that you are so tapped in to what consumers want- you are basically your own focus group. I would love your take on that though, because I imagine there would also be some challenges too- so what would you say were the advantages and the challenges that launching so young presented you with.
First and foremost, being 14 and 17 years old, it’s really hard to get executives or anyone to take you that seriously. We really had to act the part. And I think what was really important was being and feeling very confident in what we had to say. Our mom was very instrumental in that. And I think whether it’s a mother, whether it’s a mentor, whether it’s a friend, whether it’s a business partner, having someone who can really just say words of affirmation tell you that what you have to say is important and give you that confidence to speak up issues or whatever it may be that’s important to you… She just ensured that we were always aware that our voice mattered and our voice was important. People want to listen to us. Once we had that confidence, it felt a lot more seamless and easier to walk into a room, whether it was an executive meeting, whether it was a media interview, whether it was with fellow colleagues or employees. She really gave us that confidence to do that.
At the end of the day, I think regardless of that, at the age of 14 and 17, you’re never completely confident. At 17 years old I was not nearly as confident as I am now. I won’t say “I’m a completely different person,” which is such a typical thing to say, but I would say that I’ve really been able to grow into more of a leadership position. Whereas at the age of 17, you don’t necessarily feel comfortable giving directions or even delegating to fellow colleagues or employees that may be more experienced or older than you. That in itself can be a big hurdle, and sometimes it prevents you from making certain decisions because you may feel that someone else knows more, when in reality it’s your brand and you need to feel confident in the fact that you know your brand better than anyone else.
I was going to ask if there were any lessons that your mum taught you that you find you’re still applying to your work now, but I guess confidence is the overarching theme.
Yeah, I would say confidence, definitely. She has been able to teach me how to be a great leader. What she’s always differentiated between has been the difference between a leader and a boss. A boss tells you what to do, and a leader inspires you on what to do.
We’re working really closely as a team, in every aspect of the business, so [she has taught me to be] always leading with good intention and being authentic to ourselves. And that’s all we can ask for. And that’s all we can ask of our team. Also, to lead while being very transparent with your team is very meaningful to us as a business.
Then I would say another thing, she’s just really taught me the power of work ethic. As young adults, or as adolescents, or as teens, we’re very worrisome of “What are the next five years going to look like for me? What’s that timeline going to look like? What university am I going to go to? What am I going to do after I graduate?” What she’s taught me is, firstly, experience is so meaningful. Having that experience in the workforce and actually traveling and meeting with different [people], whether it’s brand founders or executives or even customers, and also just working so hard because, at the end of the day, I think anyone who’s looking to become an entrepreneur, it’s just a lot of work. It’s a lot of work day in and day out. Nonstop.
Also, accepting failures as learning experiences, and not dwelling on those failures because that will just prevent you from moving forward.
You mentioned that your first retailer was a store in the UK, and then from there obviously there was a bit of buzz, and that’s when other people started coming to you- like Sephora. That’s a big deal. For those unaware, Sephora don’t just start knocking on the doors of brands saying “We want to stock you,” but that’s essentially what happened. I would imagine that being picked up by Sephora so early on would require a bit of quick growth on your end, and obviously a higher demand for product. How did growing so quickly change the way that you were operating?
Well, we went from our basement to a warehouse. We really had to grow our facilities. We still had a pretty, well very, small office- I wouldn’t even call it a warehouse. It was an office, and we had boxes flooding everywhere. We had four employees at the time.
It forced us to grow our facilities. It forced us to grow our team.It forced us to invest in other areas of the business that were meaningful, whether that means social paid marketing and influencers, rom a traveling expense perspective, we now had that opportunity to travel to different markets around the US as well as Canada. And then eventually to Southeast Asia and Australia, those were actually some of our first markets, Australia along with Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Canada, and the US. So Australia has a really close place in our hearts, because Sephora Australia essentially grew with Nudestix, which is really special.
So it actually accelerated the growth so quickly because we had all of these Sephoras globally, so from a product perspective we needed all of these quantities. And then from a travel perspective, that definitely comprised a lot of our time and expenses. But it was such an exciting time. We were literally launching all of these markets for the first time and meeting with customers and meeting with media and head offices. It was a lot of fun.
A large part of your role, as you’ve mentioned, is traveling to educate retailers. You’ve got Sephora Australia, Europe, South East Asia and so forth. Given that you are stocked globally now, have you noticed any major differences in the way that consumers from each of these different regions approaches beauty?
Yes, it’s funny because there’s definitely a lot of different trends in different parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, and even China and South Korea, it’s all about the skin. Super glowy skin, super fresh skin. They love a good glow. Then you go to Australia, the UK and Canada… I find Canada and Australia are probably the most similar when it comes to makeup. They love natural makeup. They love glowy makeup. I think you definitely have both ends of the spectrum, which is similar to the US as well, where you have your girls that are very into natural, then you also have your more glam, similar to Mexico even.
But I think across the board, what we’ve realised, and traveling to regions like India, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, the modern day woman, she wants the same thing. And regardless of the trend, she wants easy-to-use products and she wants makeup that looks like her, but better. She wants products that just give her that confidence to look like the best version of herself. It’s interesting because I think everyone, once the go on Instagram or even sometime on the news, you hear about how everyone is so different. And then you travel to all of these countries and all these regions, and we’re all so similar. The woman wants the same thing. And I think that was my biggest learning and what was really inspiring to me, because it doesn’t matter if I’m in my local city of Toronto and I would go to a woman in store and she would say “Oh my god I love Nudestix because I’m a mom, I have no time, and I just want to draw and smudge, and I love how easy it is but it makes me feel so good.” And then you go to India and you’re in Delhi, and they’re like “Thank god Nudestix is launching because I’m so busy, I take public transport and I just want something that’s really quick and I can just draw and smudge,” and I’m like “Oh my god, everyone says the same thing!” It’s really the Nudestix customer who is just the same globally, which is really cool.
You’ve had such a clear vision for the brand from the beginning, from the tones, to the delivery system, to who the Nudestix woman is. You’ve managed to stay so true to that and really maintain that authenticity, but is that ever difficult? When you see other trends popping up in colour and you different sort of delivery systems and formulas, do you ever feel that little temptation to perhaps stray from that core system and palette?
Yeah, I feel like we’re always looking at new trends, we’re very in tune with everything from Instagram trends all the way to runway trends, all the way to just anything that it really comes up on in the media. But for us, what we’ve been able to do, and I think this is why the Nudestix community is strong and why we’ve been able to keep it that authenticity for so long is, even if it’s a specific trend, we will make it Nudestix. And we know, so well, who out customer is. We know them so well that it doesn’t matter if marine blue eyeshadow was trending, our customer just wouldn’t wear it. And I think that’s how you create longevity. I truly think as a brand, when you know your customer, you know what products they want. And that’s not to say that we’re not going to have that limited edition something, or something that’s maybe a little bit more trend focused or a little bit more colour focused. But I think that if you’re a really strong brand and you’re a really authentic brand, you know who your customer is and you continue to launch products that are meaningful to them.
But even from a foundation perspective, even retailers are like “Are you going to launch full coverage?” But our customer doesn’t want full coverage. They want skincare, and they want skin to look like skin, and something that’s natural and light. But I think what we’ll continue to do, and I think you can’t necessarily stop when it comes to this because there’s so many skin tones out there, we want to own the neutral category. We want to own the nude category. So we’re continuing to work on expanding our shades and expanding our blushes and our bronzes and our glows, and making sure that we have a beautiful assortment for so many different skin tones. For us, that is where we really want to focus on, because that’s a differentiator in itself. We know that other brands are going to launch the trends. We know that other brands are gonna launch the colours, but where going people are going to go for that everyday product is Nudestix.
How does the product development process work for you? Are you constantly thinking about the next thing, or are you working off consumer demand, or a little bit of both?
Yes, it’s definitely a little bit of everything. When we decide to launch a new product, if it’s a completely new innovation, so for example we just launched our concealer, our Nudefix Concealer, which was a labor of love. It took a few years to launch this concealer because we were really working so closely with the formulation to make sure that it was perfect. We developed it as a skin care infused concealer. For us, something like that is a completely new innovation and can take up to two years to launch because we’re continuously perfecting it. It’s a lot of trial and error. We’re always trying to just improve the formulation, and that’s obviously coming from shades as well. That can take up to two years. We also want to focus on products that we know are your everyday staples as well. We did have a previous concealer in the past, but because of innovation and formulas, we decided to just relaunch a new concealer that we felt was really strong- a lot stronger than our previous one. And then when it comes to shade extensions, that can take from six to eight months. So the formula is already done, everything on that end is good, it’s more so just that we want to expand shades. And that, with our manufacturer, usually takes six to eight months. So it depends a lot on consumer feedback, for sure.
Across 2018 and 2019, you launched collaborations with Mary Phillips and Hilary Duff, respectively. How did the collaborative process differ from your traditional product development process? And what would you say is the key to a successful collaboration?
I’ll start with Mary. We love Mary, she’s awesome, that was super authentic. She was using our products prior, and the key to that was ensuring that whoever you’re collaborating with is super involved in the process. With Mary, she loved our Nudies category so that was a no brainer. She was like “I just want to create my own shade in your Nudies category.” So we would ask her “What shade you want to create?” For her, it was all about bronze. Because when you think about her clients, from the Kardashians to the Jenners, to Chrissy Teigen to Jennifer Lopez, she’s known for her beautiful bronze glam looks. She wanted to create something that was kind of a combination of a blush and a bronzer, because whenever she would use bronzer she always felt like she needed to add a lot more blush,just because the bronzer would look maybe muddy or just too dull on the skin, because it wasn’t very dimensional. It was more about adding sculpting, rather than actually like brightening the skin.
I remember we were in LA, we met with her, we tried all these shades. We ensured that she, obviously, had the final sign off on the product. So that was very successful because it was so authentic to Mary.
With Hilary, she’s actually an investor in the brand. After she invested in the brand, she was like, “You know what? I literally use your products every day.” She’s a mom, and she is also just super busy, and she’s like “I use your products all the time- use me. I want to create a kit with Nudestix.” So we’re like “Oh my god, YES, 100% yes, we would love that.” Literally all my dreams were coming true, my childhood dreams were coming to life. We went to her house in Beverly Hills, we sat down super casually in her kitchen, we brought in all these different samples and were like “We want to see what your favourite products are. Give us your favourite shades and favourite products.” She brought in from her vanity, from her bathroom, a collection of her favourite products and just rolled them onto the table. So we were just swatching and playing, like “This would be really good as a Nudie, this would be good as a lipstick or an eyeshadow.” That was really fun, we had a really cool creative session with her.
And then from there, she designed everything. She designed the pouch, she had the messaging, she essentially curated the entire kit with all of the shades. It’s super important just to make sure that they’re super involved, because then it’s easier for them to speak to [the products and brand] because they genuinely love it. And their community knows exactly who they are- sometimes even more than they know themselves, which is kind of scary. But it’s more authentic. So that was the process with them.
That’s so refreshing to hear that they were that involved. You’d think that it would just be the norm, but unfortunately that’s not always the case.
No, not always! I think that’s what differentiates our collaborations a lot, and why we love doing them, because the whole point and the whole fun of a collaboration is when they get to be involved. Then, when we launch, they’re so much more passionate about it and they’re so much more engaged and willing to go above and beyond to support their product, because it’s something that they made and something that they worked on versus like “Oh, here’s a product that my name is on.”
A Nudestix point of difference that I do think it is important to touch on is the brand’s sustainability program. Nudestix products come in reusable and recyclable tins, and have done so since launch- again ahead of the curve. We talk a lot about sustainability now, but you were, without a doubt, one of the first brands globally to really be talking recycling back in 2014. In as much, or as little detail as you like, can you talk me through why sustainability is and always has been so important to the brand, and also the brands Save A Tin sustainability program? I think that’s really interesting.
I would love that. At Nudestix, we’re big sustainability junkies. At the end of the day, we’re always trying to strive for perfection, but it’s always a work in progress. When we first launched Nudestix, this was actually my sister- I’m gonna give my sister a little bit of credit here! At the age of 14, I remember her writing letters to our prime minister about the environment. She was super involved.
I remember we went to a local retailer and we bought all of this product. In a matter of maybe five minutes, all of the packaging was in the trash and the trash went from empty to full. She looked at the trash and she said “Okay, if we’re actually going to launch a brand, can we please create a sustainable packaging system?” And that’s what we decided to do. And me on the other hand, I love reusing just in general, I like vintage shopping, I love sustainability in that way and I love actually reusing my Altoids mints vintage looking tins. I would always collect them and I’d reuse them for so many different things. I love the vintage feel of the tin.
We also wanted to have our product come in a package that you can actually take with you on the go, so that you can actually reuse it and that you can put all of your products inside, and that you can reuse it for jewellery and hair ties and bobbu pins. And we realised that, even as 14 and 17 year olds, and even obviously now even more so that everyone’s carrying around super tiny bags, like think of Jacquemus the little tiny purse. We wanted to ensure that your packaging and your tin was smaller than your smartphone, because you can always take it with you on the go.
Our tins are made out of a material called tinplate. Tinplate plate is actually one of the most recyclable materials there are, because it’s infinitely recyclable- similar to aluminum. Even the mirror inside is a recyclable plastic. So that was really the inspiration behind our tins.
As of this year, on Earth Day, we launched our Save A Tin program. Save A Tin was actually kind of this work in progress. We’ve actually been working on it for over a year. We’re very lucky in Toronto, Canada, we have really good recycling programs and we have really good recycling, compost, all of that, but in other cities or maybe other towns, they don’t have that necessarily. So they’re like “Okay, I have all these tins. I’ve reused 20 of them. What do I do with the tins that I just don’t want to reuse?” So we designed a recycling program on nudestix.com. You can shop on nudestix.com or could have gotten your tins from other retailers, and you send your tins in to Nudestix, we send you a 100% compostable bag, you fill your bag, and then you ship it back to us and then we recycle all your tins for you. And you just feel good knowing that all of your tins have been recycled. It’s very similar to the Nespresso program.
We’re launching a product in less than a month which is skincare, and I’m so excited about it, and that whole line is sustainable packaging. So it’s aluminum tubes, our actual package that it’s coming in is going to be in a corn resin biodegradable package. We’re really focused on sustainability with all of our launches. It’s definitely important. It’s very important to us.
You have sat at the helm of Nudestix for over six years now. Over that time, what have been some of the biggest changes that you have seen within the beauty industry?
Ooh, there’s so many changes. I would say, over the past few years, other than a really big shift into that natural makeup category, you know, that no-makeup-makeup, less-is-more, I think that you’re also seeing a really big shift in the way consumers are buying products. They’re a lot more conscious of brands that they’re purchasing into. They’re a lot more conscious of brand ethos and how a brand conducts themselves- not just from a marketing perspective, but from a product perspective, from internally how a brand conducts themselves. I think that there are so many brands out there that consumers are just becoming just very woke and picky with where they’re spending their money.
I also think, from a trend perspective, you’re seeing even within the influencer community, two years ago or three years ago you’d go on YouTube and it’s like insane makeup. It’s full coverage, be able to recreate. And now, you’re kind of seeing everyone just really speak to skin, and less is more, and natural makeup on the go. And, like you said- sustainability. It’s this whole minimalist trend, that’s what I’m seeing to be the biggest difference between now and two, three years ago.
Which I’m excited about, because that’s so Nudestix- but it also just means that more brands are getting into that space. So [for us], it’s just “How do we speak to it in a different way?”
And what changes do you think that we can expect to see over the coming few years?
I’ll start with Nudestix. So over the next few years, you’re going be focusing a lot more on our core categories, and really focusing on what we do best at Nudestix, which is complexion- our Nudies, our blushes, our bronzers and our glows.
We’re going to be focusing a lot on skincare. We believe that skincare is going to really elevate the brand. What you’re seeing right now, in beauty in general, is that people are a lot more focused on taking care of their skin. People are a lot more focused on skincare, skin benefits and treating their skin. That could have been even accelerated because of COVID. Really, no one was putting on makeup and everyone was just focusing on self care, treating themselves and treating their skin. So you’ll see a lot of that going into next year and in the next few years.
I think you’re going to see a lot of skin coming from the beauty industry as well. I think that, from a retailer perspective, a lot of their trends, a lot of what they’re seeing from brands is like “This is what we need to do,” because I think consumers are, again, going more into that natural route and are also being more conscious with their skin. Every brand, based on those trends, is going to get into that space. So it’s going to be super competitive, but super exciting.
My final question, and one that you have just touched on- what is next for Nudestix?
So, skincare is our next biggest thing. We’re launching skincare as of October 10th. It’ll be available on nudestix.com, which I’m super excited about because we now ship to Australia, which is awesome. Obviously you can get the line at Sephora as well, but NudeSkin, which is our skincare line, will be exclusive to nudestix.com for some time- until 2021. We’ve worked with an amazing dermatologist based in LA to develop this line. It’s a beautiful line of simple, multitasking, vegan powered products that are just super efficacious and perfect for sensitive skin types.
To listen to the full interview with NUDESTIX’s Taylor Frankel, subscribe to the Glow Journal podcast now on iTunes or Spotify
