Latest / Divine Skintervention / Sephora's First Plastic-Free Mexican Beauty Brand (w/ Nour Tayara)

Transcript

Sephora's First Plastic-Free Mexican Beauty Brand (w/ Nour Tayara) · Divine Skintervention

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Ramon.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Ruby.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Angeline.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We are doing an episode about makeup.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have a great conversation with Norteara, the founder of Eor Mexico, coming up.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, I must know like what was your first makeup product, your first color cosmetic that you ever used?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think we talked about this in the episode we did with Salem and Larry.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably, I think, foundation, Maybelline Fit Me Foundation or L'Oreal Concealer.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was a complexion product.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: My segue into like what I do now is I first started with makeup because I had really bad acne.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me it was covering up the breakouts.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had a bad acne as a teenager too.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think maybe that's a way in for a lot of people.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to steal maybe like my sister's concealer or something, but I think my first product that I bought was a Mapleine Fit Me Concealer, which I will still pick up today every now and again if I need a concealer.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Gorgeous product.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybelline complexion is stunning.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's like, even looking now, going to an Ulta, like Jugstore Complexion, really it's improved substantially.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But um really fun textures, really fun, um, really, really good performance.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, okay, when it comes to like guys wearing makeup, I think maybe this is something to pick up on.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think my second ever product that I bought was like a tart pressed powder or something because I was looking shiny as hell.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just, you know, put that on and like not be as shiny.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like makeup doesn't necessarily have to be super bold.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It could just be something that makes you feel more confident.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: A thousand percent.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we see we are seeing some more complexion-focused products for men.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, you have like the really gimmicky ones like War Paint and all those.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have, I think, some that are more intentionally done.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about in the same episode, we talked about Apostle, the founder from that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Jamie.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he worked with Francois Nars back in the day, so he's like a makeup artist.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The complexion products are like skin, it literally just uh your skin, but better.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really elegant masculine packaging, gender, gender neutral packaging.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Are you aware?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I recently saw an inspired review.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you aware?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Are you aware of uh Maybelline's Dream Matte Moose?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am, and the thing is, the stereotype is that shit was orange and nasty and cakey, but there's a creator, her name is Crystal Renee, one of the most gorgeous people I've seen ever in person, flawless complexion, and I was like, girl, what do you got on?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Maybelline the moose.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: The moose.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: My older sister used to use it, and I remember the elegance of it, the textural feel, the softness on the skin.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they I recently somebody saw somebody made a video that I saw that they were talking about, they turned it into an entire franchise for a while, and I think most of it's been discontinued except for the foundation.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then they have like blushes and everything that's in the middle.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: They have blushes, they have bronzer, they like, yeah, anything that you could make in that mousse mousse finish, they did.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes drugstore is where the innovation is, I think.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about who's behind uh L'Oreal, L'Oreal.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are, I think they always do a lot uh innovating around ingredients, textures, performance, and then that technology like disseminates through the L'Oreal brands.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you will see L'Oreal Paris have something that is also uh present in like Lancome, for example.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I forget who owns Maybelline.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who owns Maybelline?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: L'Oreal.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there you go.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: NYX L'Oreal.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um oh Nyx Nyx was kind of like that elevated drugstore.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Great performance, great at one point, great price points.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Drag queens loved Nyx back in the day, I remember, because like the some of the products, like the pencils, the stick, like the eyeshadow stuff, it's like very opaque and not expensive.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have to use a ton of it, it's like not a big deal.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: For me, right now, so I'm I think full complexion today is drugstore.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right now it's the um L'Oreal Cushion Foundation, Versed uh bronzer, Neutrogena blush.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh Milani setting spray.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Milani is one of my favorite uh drugstore brands.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, this is fun.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wait, what do I have on?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I um mixed in some of Elra's uh Inisia primer with the Chanel uh very drugstore.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's the the water fresh foundation.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, with the drops in it?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: With the drops in it, which is surprisingly full coverage, very like uh they make a skin tint version of that that I'm like, it's one of my holy grails.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying out the foundation.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not for me, which is why I thinned it out.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm testing out the Rode Pocket Blush and Pocket Bronzer, but I had to add more from other brands on top of it because I don't know.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had to give it some dimensionality, and then what concealer did I put on?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the NARS like matte in the in the pot.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, she's cute.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Use it on your under eyes.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: That no.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, my my under eyes, I'm like, I'm experimenting with different things, like just putting powder foundation under sometimes, or like I'll just go in with whatever I'm using on the rest of my face, because like I don't really have dark circles like that, but um pick me, pick me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh ain't nobody gotta pick me.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one doing the pick in.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so me when I pick my nose.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, my under eyes is like a whole concoction of like seven layers of things.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have really oily skin, but the driest fucking under eyes.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it's how do I counterbalance?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I in my head I have darkness, but it's not substantial.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I will be rational about that.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But like, how do I brighten, conceal, keep it really smooth, keep it very flawless airbrush without it being too dry?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's a process.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you use a separate eye cream before you do makeup?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it depends.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about in content I love to use hydrating serums.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So experiments, super saturated, I love for prepping the under-eye.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um what else am I using today?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean uh I saw Charlotte Palermino do a video about uh peptide flooding.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So just like, and because I have the privilege of I get sent so many products, I just have layered so many hydrating peptide products on my under-eye like this summer, and then I just like uh chop that in with like just my regular sunscreen.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to keep it lighter if I'm gonna like wear a lot of makeup, just because I'm so afraid of pilling.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am God's favorite, so I don't pill like that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I do sometimes, and when you get to the end of doing your full face and then it starts pilling, it's like oh, literally like jump in front of a train.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's like clap if you've ever wanted to kill somebody.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So uh nothing ruins your day, your week, then you're doing your makeup, and it's always a concealer on the under eyes.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what fucks it up.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's honestly, I'm so jealous of you right now.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: For what reason today?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: That you said nothing pills on you.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It rarely happens, especially like the big thing for me is um I'm notorious.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can just take sunscreen and straight up put it in my eye, no burning, and then uh most, if not all the sunscreens I've tried, I don't pill.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: If a sunscreen pills on me, I'm like, oh that's a really bad sunscreen.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it and just so you know, if a product is pilling, it doesn't mean it's bad.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's like the layers of stuff that you're putting on.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Generally it's the gelling agents, like the reality modifiers you call them.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: The there's an incompatibil incompatibility issue, and that's what causes that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the reason I say I go like lighter on the products under the makeup is because the less stuff you use, the less chances you have of one of those reactions.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: On other days when I'm not wearing makeup, it's free-for-all.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: A free-for-all, well slip and slide.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Up here and down there.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
• 8:56
  unknown: Hi, Angelo.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Ramon.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: We have a very special heavenly thoughty today, don't we?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: All the way from Mexico, we have Noor, the founder of Aura Mexico.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing very well.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're here.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're here.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's hot in New York.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about this earlier.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those things where it's like, I mean, in Mexico, it's also hot.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not this hot.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a difference.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because is it a more like desert in Mexico City?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, Mexico City can get quite humid, but it rains a lot more in the summer.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then for the when it's wintertime here or wintertime there, it's a bit more moderate, the weather.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not as hot, it's a bit drier, it's quite dry with the altitude, really.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't feel this.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: New York is just extreme.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: You're either under a pile of snow or sweating on asphalt.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or drowning somewhere in Williamsburg because it flooded.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or drowning in Soho or Williamsburg, exactly.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you lived in New York for quite a while, and I guess that was one of your uh past lives working in the beauty industry for a big conglomerate, and now you are a founder.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what was that journey?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what was that journey?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you go?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna leave the security of you know this career that I have, and I have to go out and do this on my own.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, necessity.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think for me the necessity was uh like emotional.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think everyone kept everything kept bubbling up.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was definitely years and years when I lived in Paris and New York and worked of being like, I want to be a founder, I want to do my own thing.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was a mix of I want creative freedom.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was a mix as well of I have a lot of ideas and I think I want to really make something happen, and I have this strong idea about plastic free, and I want to do it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And number three, it was a bit of unhappiness because I think you'd be surprised how much being unhappy allows you to take risks because I was unhappy in my marriage, I was unhappy at work, it was COVID, I was unhappy in New York.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so time frame is 2020?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, time frame, COVID had just hit.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: We suddenly my marriage had become something that oh my god, we have to spend all day together.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it does allow you to see each other in a bit differently.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I loved it, he didn't.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how could he not?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know, honestly.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it was, and then it was like, why are we why are we living in New York?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you I don't know if you were here with COVID, but it's just if you didn't have a backyard or a terrace or a lot of light, you're like, what is oh my god, I'm stuck inside, and this is the life, and I'm paying fortunes to live like a rat.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it does make you rethink a lot of these things.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: And at work, it was also getting to the point where I'm like, I want to break free, and suddenly everything broke free.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Suddenly it was a divorce from absolutely everything, a complete, call it a midlife renaissance.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I like that.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's I will not call it a crisis.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was a midlife renaissance.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: I just like shed everything, let go of everything, went to a nudest beach in the south of Mexico, and rediscovered myself.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And discovered a lot of things on the world.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Discovered so much stuff.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I like that framing as a midlife renaissance, and I feel like your renaissance is continuing because now your brand is in Sephora.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm correct, the first plastic free brand brand in Sephora.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: The first plastic free brand that's Sephora.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: I almost want to say the first plastic free brand that a major retailer Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: We'll bookmark that one.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: In beauty, because In Beauty.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple, uh I don't know if they're completely plastic free.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple color brands I saw in the UK, like at Selfridges.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Sephridges is not a lot of locations.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be come 2027 in a lot of major, in a lot of physical doorways in the US.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and the scale, honestly, of a Sephora overall, I think the status of a Sephora.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's yes, the units and the volume count here.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: For us, it's the Sephora being uh being an authority, co-signing the fact that plastic free could be premium and could have a space and a market and a consumer in Big Beauty.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about packaging so much on the podcast.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So can you talk a little bit more about like the approach to how you created the packaging?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people have maybe used a plastic-free product, things made out of aluminum, and it's not always like the most elegant or aesthetically pleasing.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, how did you approach that?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because the products are beautiful.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um look, I think the first thing we wanted to do was exactly uh prove a point with that because I feel like a lot of our work on the brand is to prove a thesis that sustainability can be sexy and desirable.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: I come from a place of knowledge that consumers, look, despite every study we're gonna bring out that people are willing to pay more for a sustainable product, they're not.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: People want to pay more for something more desirable, something more flavorful.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh organic strawberries, you get them because they're tiny and small and red and sugary and delicious.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's not because you're trying to save soil somewhere.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and electric cars that were not good until like Tesla came and made the car a bit sexier and now a bit unsexy.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: But um, and in a way, we wanted to do that because to your point, yes, there has been lip glosses that are plastic free, and you can find them at Whole Foods, and they come in cardboard packaging, and you have to like push your finger and push it up, and then it seeps oil everywhere, and the formula is not that scientific in a way, because somehow being good for the planet needed for a long time to mean also being homemade batch with essential oils.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of the experience you were getting.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: The experience you were getting was also the same with clothing.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot of beige and linen and running in the fields, and it's it's a lot of it's a there is that image, and we wanted to break that image in every kind of way.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in packaging, in particular, our idea was not simply to go plastic-free to go plastic free.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was being plastic-free so that we can prove recyclability.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: The issue with plastic, I don't have anything against plastic.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Plastic has been a fantastic material for our planet.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, your Tupperware should be plastic, in my opinion.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like it works.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: You can, there's a lot of things that that work.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not I'm not extreme about this idea of uh it's affecting our health to an insane way.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think we can tackle multiple things.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm very focused on the trash problem of the beauty industry because it is massive.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we wanted to focus on that, the recyclability.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea was one, how do we find the right materials that are recyclable?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we looked at ecosystems that exist, work streams that our society have already adopted.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: You open a can of garbanzo or soup that is tin, everyone knows what to do with it when it finishes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: You wash it out a tiny bit, and then you put it in a recycling bin and it will get recycled.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: If not, you will put it in your garbage, it will still get picked up.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: If not, someone will find it in the garbage and go and get some sense because it's the metal has value.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Same with aluminum.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Your can of beer, your can of soda.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: You really know what to do with it when it finishes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: So those were our two premium focused materials.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's use materials that have a recycling stream that is so well established that no one has to think about it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that is why the grand majority of our products, you will see our eyeshadow palette, is made out of tin, everything.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Even the mirror is not glass.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's tin with a very crazy coating on top that is a similar coating to the jaunts of like German cars that make them super shiny and mirror-like.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's why it's mirror-like, but it's tin, it's not even glass.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's tin on tin on tin.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Our lip serums are aluminum, our tubes are aluminum.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard to do, but at the end of the day, the material that stays in the end has a value, which is super important.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to finish with a product that one is easy to recycle and there's a process to do so, and two has value because recycling is not charity.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be a business for a recycling facility to take a material that has value and sell it for a value.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think um one of the things people don't take into account was some of the beauty packaging, to your point about you know, making the entire pallet out of tin, it's like mixed materials don't get recycled.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you have a tube that's you know partially aluminum, partially plastic, like nobody's taking that apart at the recycling plant.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's getting thrown in the trash.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot, that is the problem.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot with cheap, low-value materials.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Think of jewelry.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: You will forever be able to separate metals.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a ring with silver, gold, platinum, you are able to separate because these materials don't they have very separate melting temperatures, they have very separate properties.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's the issue with plastic.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that mixing metal together is okay, but mixing plastic together is not because it's just like the the melting temperature is so low and they just get like just melt on each other and become disgusting.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So was there any like particular ways that you had to design the formulas of the products to be viable in this packaging versus like a traditional packaging that you would have for a lip product or an eyeshadow palette?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: The eyeshadow palette, I would say no.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Just because think about it, eyeshadow pants are just really they can survive anything.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: You like they don't you usually always need an airtight packaging.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can see them in cardboard, you can see them alone, you can.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: That was fine.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was more about us choosing the right colors, the right finish.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: The lip serum 100%.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: We had to rework the formulas in the beginning, but then we started.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: The more you do tests, you learn one thing that none of us thought about, and then it delayed us in the beginning as well, when we were about to launch, was temperature.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: We did not think how conductive the aluminum is, so it was melting.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, okay.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like during transit or during use, or like holding oh human temperature.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I got one in my pocket right now.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: So now it doesn't anymore because we had to change the formula's melting point because it was taking the body temperature much quicker than a plastic product would be.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because metal is so much, aluminum is so much more conductive of temperature.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: That was a learning that I couldn't even.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: In the beginning, yes, we've changed the formulas a bit on how do you slide on metal versus plastic, how do you there was a bunch of stuff that we've also had to work the packaging itself.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like doing that kind of thread that goes up and down like a bullet in aluminum was so hard because it's a really precise thread.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Aluminum is not the most precise metal.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Usually you want to go with something like zinc or zamak, which is a lot more expensive, and that's why forever we could not do it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we figured out how to do the thread really small, going up and down.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: That was the hardest.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then the formula was the surprise of the temperature, for example.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: When it came to initia the primer, that one we had to work a lot, the formula as well on how do you with an aluminum tube, it's really about the amount of air you leave inside.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, like the way a formula reacts to an aluminum tube is very different than the way it reacts to a plastic tube.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just because it aluminum tubes don't take air back in, it doesn't refill.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you do need a formula that doesn't burst out too fast or too little, so you have to work on the viscosity a lot to have a product that isn't just gonna explode in someone's face.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, that it's a big pain in the ass with like any lotion cream texture in a tube is you squeeze a little bit out and then more just keeps coming out, and then it all collects in the lid and along the threads.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I will say I use the initial today to skim prep.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I've been staring at your skin.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: I have been like, I've been talking to you, but then his glow with this angle.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And really, this is inisia?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, it looks really good.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: It looks really good.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, nothing was like seeping out of the tube more than what I needed to actually dispense.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So rather.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: 20 trials or something.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: The amount of tubes I have with like 0.1 milliliter differences, and we've sent them on airplanes because you have to do the test of like the pressure of an airplane, and if it gets picked up a day after an airplane or a week or two weeks, how does it settle?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: And do you ship them upside down or the other way around?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: What is best?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: You have to think of every little detail like that.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the fact that the uh cap is also is a nightmare.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, it's it's unique to me because I I basically never seen it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Super hard to do.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Same.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: The threads.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've only ever seen it on one other product, and for that other one, it seemed like a really different type of metal where like the lid was a lot harder, and the way the you could literally feel and hear the metal like grating against itself, which was disgusting.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is what's super hard because it does that and then it erodes.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a bad experience, but also there's like it leaves little pieces of metal, which is not like the end of the world.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Minerals, but it is it is a bit of it could be a bad experience.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Is it as amazing and fun experience as plastic?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe not sometimes, because you do have to do it, but in the long run, honestly, I think it's we figured out a good balance and we're doing more.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: The amount of things we're working on right now to push the technologies of plastic free is so cool.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: And this is why we need this, because the more we have Sephora visibility like this, being able to talk about this, I'm gonna be able to go push factories and manufacturers a lot more because they know that we're open for business and that we're gonna go far and we're gonna scale whatever technology they take.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: So the road was super lonely before because how was this crazy person going around Cosmoprof or makeup in LA or New York being like, Do you have any plastic fee?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And no one had nothing.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: And now I have people writing me emails being like, we have technologies, we should talk.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that's cool.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: What so I mean, based off your background to where Auda is now, like how did you get into color specifically?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, um color was Mexico.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Look, I love color, it might not show today, but I'm obsessed with color.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Obsessed.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: I live, my apartment is color, every door is a different color.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've been color coding my doors in my home for the past 20 years.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: So the bathroom's always green, my bedroom's always pink.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's why you can tell people which door color it is.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: I love color so much.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: I find that color does make people happy, does make people smile, is an amazing storytelling place.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, we wanted to represent Mexico in the best way possible.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Color felt so real and authentic to Mexico because it is something that you almost don't think about.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: You live in color.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: Colors go next to each other, and you don't even think about it, and they look good, and then there's a jacaranda tree in front, and a pink car, and a yellow door, and a green wall, and it just all looks so good together.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: We also wanted to make a brand based on artistry and telling untold stories.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I am sick of seeing the same collapse everywhere, more brands doing another Warhol collection.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: He's dead.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't need the money even.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many artists everywhere, and we think in Latin America and in Mexico, there are so many artists that are doing so many different mediums and so many different colors and expressions, and we wanted to build the platform to do that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: So color appeared as the main contendant to be able to do all of that, and then the challenge part, because color cosmetics is the biggest and worst culprit from a trash point of view in beauty.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because think about it, hair care is actually doing the best because there are bottles of shampoo that are usually uh white in PET or PP with a recycling stream.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: You can recycle most shampoo bottles, except if they're black or they're too small, but usually you can, you know.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Skin care is similar as well, there's a bit of bigger sizes.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Skin care can get very complicated, of course, when everyone is making like a serum pier in a syringe made out of seven plastics and friends.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: But but then comes makeup, which is the extreme of all of this.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little tiny product that won't get recycled anyway.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: So color felt like somewhere where we can push.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the last part was when we started thinking about the brand maybe five to four years ago.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, something was telling me that the world is going through such a dark place.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: And cyclically, when you look at that in the history, this is where people need color and expression.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's happening because many people thought the same, and this is how society works.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's look around us now.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Color is back in big expressionism.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit of, it's not, I don't say it's the end of the clean girl era, it's not about that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a revival of Yves Saint Laurent went colorful, uh, Paco Rabban is back, uh, someone reopened Studio 54 for a night.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: This, like, let's express ourselves and have a bit of fun because this world is pretty dark and heavy right now is needed.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: The children crave color.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: The children are craving color.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: We and we've talked about that before.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we, I mean, we are really wanting the end of the clean girl era.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: We want drama, we want color.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we talked about how Mark Jacobs is kind of bringing that back right now with the relaunch, so it's exciting.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing, um, so we discovered Aura because uh our friend Daniela Morosini, who's on the podcast, did a story about Mexican beauty brands.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: We went and, I mean, the store in Mexico City is very much a testament to color, whimsy, vibrancy.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is an experience in itself.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: What inspired you to like create that kind of storefront?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh honestly, in the beginning, beginning, we were not gonna make a store.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then what happened is maybe two months before launch, the retail or like the real estate opportunity came.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Someone spoke to my to my business partner, co-founder, and was like, I have this store, it's open, the space.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: And the space was just on such an important street.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was a beautiful big space, and we're like, shit, we should take this because it's affordable, it's available.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how we thought about it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know what?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: In the beginning, it was white, it was mainly white.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was telling you this offline before.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: We we hired like an interior architect to do the whole thing.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh something was telling me it was gonna go wrong, but I'm like, trust the process, trust the experts.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: It ended up being quite beige.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was that like Mexican, very terracotta-ish, like kind of like this, but for us it wasn't right, it was very beige.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Structurally, it was amazing.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: We created these like mirrors, I wanted like art deco mirrors that looked like photo shoots from the disco era and a curtain that closes on the whole thing, and we wanted, but if it was a big beige and we launched it like that, I'll show you pictures.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was hard because I could not feel anything.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: For reference, when we went, I think you had just launched uh one of the products that had like chile in it, so like the entire store was red, you had like chiles everywhere, it was very cute.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: That was the funnest part.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then look, maybe three months after opening the store, I had a I don't even know what to call it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I had like a moment, an aha moment, and I think within a week I called in painters, everything, and I painted the whole thing.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was a full like reinvention of color.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: And now you go in and almost absolutely everything is in color.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, the experience is on the brand to immerse you in a world of color.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever that color is, by the way, we can immerse you in black or white, but I think it's about having an immersion, I think it's about having a point of view.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we do believe in maximalism on the brand, so I think whatever it is, it will be.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be a minimal brand.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's enough minimal brands out there.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: My personal aesthetic, the aesthetic of the brand, is maximal.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Maximal doesn't mean necessarily over the top, maximal doesn't mean too much, but maximal means trying intentionally to marry a lot of ideas and thoughts together.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the fun part about it, is the fusion of elements.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like speaking of the fusion part of it, obviously you talked about the incorporation of the color and like the vibrancy of Mexico.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're also Lebanese.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: You also you were a citizen of the world, you lived everywhere.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do each of those little parts play into what Autumnico is?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oof.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, each have contributed in its own.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Lebanon is my is my hometown.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is I think it contributed for me in generosity, because I think that's what the culture is in Beirut.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's a culture of generosity, of food.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: It is a culture of maximalism.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a lot of the and it's a culture of knowing how to marry.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: We've been colonized by the whole world.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we marry cultures and fusions.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: In one sentence, we speak three different languages.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I learned that marrying of cultures, I think, from Beirut and from Lebanon.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um Montreal, I think it was a lot of openness and having diversity not even be a thought.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like there's something about Canada and Montreal in particular, where I'm so lucky to have been able at 17 to experience my my homosexuality, to experience other the concept of otherness of people from around the world with absolutely zero judge.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like you just get there and you understand that life is full of people from so many different walks and skin tones and heights and body shapes and views and then a lot of openness.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's that that came from Montreal.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Paris, I would say discipline of luxury.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: I learned that in Paris.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: I learned that in Paris because I had I had amazing mentors.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was exposed to art and luxury in at work in a in a my first husband worked at Chanel and Lanvin in Visual Merch.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a crazy OCD about detail.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I learned how do you look at things creatively very differently from him there.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: And at work, I learned about how do you create things that are timeless?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: How do you get inspired by real art and artists?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: How do you check a sense of detail to another level?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like it made me the developer I am in terms of detail and symmetry and alignment.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: That is Paris.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: New York.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think New York was the like dream big part.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Was the anything is possible.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can network your way to anything, uh dream big, and like on almost like create the headline, and the rest will come.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Manifest.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Manifest.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Manifest, I think that's that's exactly that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: The headline, like, what do you want the headline?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want people to say about you in a year?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let's make it happen.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: That was for me very US, especially New York.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And voila, in Mexico, we know color.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: Question.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, I never thought about all that.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start journaling this way.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, every day say one thing about each country.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for all of us, it's a matter of like we are into intersections of a lot of different things, and obviously that's always gonna be uh represented in projects that we do or how we like present ourselves.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the thing with out a Mexico and like knowing your story.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: I only I only learned recently there was like this really interesting exodus of like um Lebanese people to Mexico.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Huge, huge, and I did not know that.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was this book I was reading called Silver Nitrate, which is like a horror book about this um Lebanese Mexican actor and like this like curse that it's it's a great book.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Silver Nitrate.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that was the first time I was like, wait, what is this like trend?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, and then you like confirmed that.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yes.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Multiple actually migration periods.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's very early, the migration to Mexico, end of the like 1890, maybe the first one, like migrations of famine and Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, went to Mexico.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: The thing is, it's pretty funny because a lot of people didn't really know where they were going.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: You hear stories that are so funny, people who ended up in like so many places in Latin America, or even like Trinidad and Tobago, or everyone thought they were going to New York, by the way.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then the ship, and then your Google Maps didn't work in 1902, and then someone is like, here you go.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: So Mexico actually, the culture got so ingrained with a lot of Lebanese influence.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: You have it on finance, where like the biggest telecommunication and banks is Carlos Slim, maybe the richest man in Mexico who's of Lebanese descent.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have Samahayek, also of Lebanese descent.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have like more than almost a million right now of Lebanese descent.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have a lot of food.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: The taco is called the taco arabe.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: The taco al pastor, the thing, that's a shawarma.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: The taco al pastor is a direct shawarma, uh, you have kidbe, you have a lot of, you have a lot of food that has really what I love about it though is that it's really ingrained.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: It is not, oh, I'm gonna have Lebanese today.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm gonna have choke, and choke is Lebanon and it's a Lebanese thing, and it's part of Mexican cuisine.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is part of the Mexican cuisine today.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: Mexico has a spectacular way of welcoming people.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're never made to feel like the other.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is one of the most beautiful things.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure you've seen it with the World Cup right now, with all the videos you see online, it's just fans feel at home.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Mexico makes you feel at home.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: They don't make like the country doesn't make you feel like you do not belong.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's impossible to feel that way.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, not to not to get too heavy, but yeah, like having the World Cup in North America, I think, like through all three countries kind of showed like we're all kind of the same in a way.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody could find some sort of commonality.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And like, unfortunately, with like the rise of nationalism everywhere, it's like people don't realize that like these intersections have been happening constantly for you know centuries now, and you can't go anywhere and find some sort of like pure whatever culture because yeah, pure what and why?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, who wants that anymore?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Once we honestly, once we know better, who wants a pure bred culture that has not been exposed to to others?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it's uh the far right.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: The far right you're like actually a lot actually 43% I think they don't realize that that just like doesn't exist.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't exist, that's the thing.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: So the richness that fusion brings is so wonderful.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look at us here.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: See getting back to Aramehiko, you talked about specifically with your work, you really had a learning moment about creating something that's very timeless.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you approach product development with Aura and creating very unique but also like they're standalone products, they themselves are very timeless because you're not churning out a new product every other month.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've been very intentional with what you launch and how you launch it.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think one, we're from a packaging point of view, we're not trying to follow trends at all.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um partly because we can't, because we're doing metal, and I think it's very important to do it in a very specific way.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: And two, because look, it's very expensive to do product development.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I've learned in my career, and I think it's being very proven right now, that it's important to build legacy products, hero products, and we're thinking about it exactly that way.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think we have a strategy right now on the brand of building franchises in a very, very, very strong way.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: So we have Acadisyame, the solid lip serum, and that is a franchise of its own, and we come and sprinkle some fun into it all the time.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you will see us launching something really exciting in a couple of weeks.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um when is this coming out?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: In a couple of weeks.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: In a couple of weeks.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll show you.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you have it on you?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to show it now?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: I can show it now.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: An exclusive.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exclusive.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get it out of here.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Also, for reference, Angela and I are both wearing acariciame.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing the shade rosa.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I have the same, I think.
• 42:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I have it here, and it's part of our hot like Mexico collection.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a new acariciame más, which is our chile rojo.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: But this one is called cristal, and it's a hundred percent transparent.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it is such a cool formula.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's insane.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look at this, it looks like glass.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's insane.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because we think that transparency is hot, uh, and plastic is not, and it is a really beautiful formula, and it's and it's meant to be completely clear even on application.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that like color changing?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Zero.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it has the five chiles in it, it's super spicy, it's plumping, but now everyone can be plumped without necessarily the red.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: It is a really cool technology.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was super hard to do.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Could you layer it on colored products?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: You can put a lipstick, then a lip gloss.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: This could be like kind of the glazing, the spicy glaze.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: We love a good glaze.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Spicy glaze.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Spicy glaze.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I like the just come up with that.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a spicy glaze.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm having so much fun with slogans right now.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, transfercy is hot.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's clear.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: The other one was don't you wish your lip gloss was hot like me?
• 44:06
  unknown: Okay.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so, for example, we're still gonna push innovation, but this for me is timeless.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: It actually doesn't get more timeless than this.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: To be a colorless, transparent formula that we've already proven that the formula itself is loved.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: We bring a transparent version that can go for absolutely everyone.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Then later on in the fall, we have a very fun, much more fun collection on Acaricia made that is a lot more tied to culture and imaginaries and creativity.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that will allow us to do limited edition packaging.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's meant to do two things for us.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: One, test new metal technologies that we're afraid to put at big scale on the whole brand.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: We get to do it in a limited edition and then see if we scale it later.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we do have to think like that in a very uh surgically precise way because we can't afford to go the whole way.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we try it out, we see if it works, and then Inisia will become a big, big, big franchise because it just uh the demand is crazy.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful product.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I like how multifunctional it is too.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like today it's like as I was you know doing my on-camera makeup, I was like mixing it in to my foundation and like just like making everything like more glowy and everything.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: It is just like I have my little I don't go I don't go anywhere with oh you're ready.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's like plus Odyssey always.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um here, inisia, like here it's so good.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mixing a little bit into your body lotion.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: My thing is I like to use it, I'll prep my under-eye area with it so you have that extra layer of like reflect and shimmer, so you can use less color corrector, less concealer, and you still have that very um good neutralization.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good idea because it's not shimmery, it's like glowy, but it's not you're not getting mica.
• 46:08
  unknown: No.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hate that.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked on the podcast before about this.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I hate when you could see like the little particles of the mica and everything.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hate.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's and usually you don't see a lot of them, but there's like one or two, and I'm like, and then it catches every light, and suddenly you have a tiny little square on your face of a of a particle, and it's like, no, no, no, this is what is working for Nisia because like any gender, any skin tone, any if you're a mature skin or a super like young skin, it just nothing settles in nooks.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's working really well.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: It mixes with things.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a beautiful, we knew we had a beautiful product, but the the reception, even at Sephora right now, we've only launched a week ago and it's doing super good.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: You said it's in the top skew of primers right now?
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: Number two online.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can, but we just did.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a hot seller right now, Sephora.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hot seller, it's a hot seller.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: You said it's like the it's the start, ironic because of the name, of something bigger with Aura.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's next after Inisia?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is that gonna be a whole range of things?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think inisia we're gonna take we're gonna take the philosophy behind Inisia and sprinkle it into some other things in a very intentional way, again.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're still at the beginning of it all.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Inisia, for me, we're gonna keep working on Inisia as the product as it is for a long time still, because yes, it's doing great for us, but we want to be up there as a brand.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Our idea is to get like okay, plastic free at Sephora, like next is plastic free as a top 10 brand.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's so, and to do that, you have to get your best players on the field.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: And inisia right now is is our best player.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: The MVP.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: Is that inisia is the MVP, honestly?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Inisia is the MVP.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're raising its salary, we're we're getting everything for initial.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Anything inisia wants.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: She gets she got it.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um talking about like how you want to grow Aura Mexico and like you want it to be not just top at Sephora, top, period.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: How are you approaching that growth as an independent brand?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: And scaling up, and really like, you know, you just expanded into the North American market across the US in the coming year, but like beyond that, world domination.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, I think we'll take our time though.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're gonna take our time.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we are absolutely not thinking of any other markets right now.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe Canada will come just naturally, a bit after the US, but it is not it is not something we are actively looking at.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: We get asked about Europe, the Middle East, I would love to launch the Middle East, for example, but it takes so much effort and work, and I think brands today really work when you're when you're part of culture, and when the way you approach community is really authentic, and it's very hard to scale that.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's as simple as that.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: It would be a lie to say that you can build that quickly real communities authentically, or be in touch with cultures where they are, because yes, TikTok is big, yes, Instagram is big, but no, the the way people speak, the kind of content that resonates, the social topics.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like yesterday was quite a disgusting talk online about Latina power, and that I don't know if you saw the congressman that was questioning why was there Latina power merchandising at the Smithsonian, and isn't that wrong?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just and then it really opened the big conversation about like this is a big subset of population.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: That we how are we even questioning that or discussing it?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a very specific topic, and I think it's important as a brand to be able to take the time to listen and to partake, if it's right for you to partake in a topic, and you can't do that in multiple countries, so we want to take our time doing that.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: But something you said about an independent brand, it's funny because I'm not scared at all anymore about being an independent brand with big ambitions, because I feel like it's working in it does work in the advantage.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: People say that it's it's a world today for indie brands and founder-led brands, and it's true because people want to help people.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think if this was a big corporation today, I don't know if I'll be here today with you.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think you you wanted to help me and talk to me and our brand that is small, and I think that is happening more and more, and we're doing the same with other brands and other founders and other podcasts and other.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is what's beautiful about the world today because the same thing we say about a lot of things is that governments are not gonna save us, and corporations are not gonna save us because it's true.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the same grassroot activism is happening in a lot of things, and it's happening in media, and it's happening in brands, and it's happening in politics, and it's fun to be in this world.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's definitely interesting to be in this world.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's true.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like um, you know, also as a founder of an independent brand, it's like you do kind of rely on other people lifting you up, whether that's your customers who are gonna speak out about the product and talk about how much they love it, or just people giving you the time to really um, you know, talk about your venture and like what's behind it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it it does give me a little bit of hope in this world that it's like people are willing to help each other.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: People are really willing to help each other.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have so much hope in the world.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: I really believe that the grand majority of people wake up wanting to do something good.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that's true, but yeah.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe let me rephrase it.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: Most people don't wake up wanting to do something bad.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: See.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Depends on the day.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wanna do something bad?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you tease the next launch for Adam Hico.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else exciting in the pipeline in the near future?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love sneak peeks.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Launch-wise?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, a lot.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And are you delving into any new product categories soon?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh within the next year, yes.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: We have some really I think what I'm most excited about is end of next year, packaging.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: We have some packaging technologies that are just, I'm gonna say it's the most for me, it is the most beautiful makeup packaging I've ever seen.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Big statement.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it is, it is, it makes me like, I mean, I just like I get goosebumps thinking about it now because we get to, we're at a point where we can where we know a lot more.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we're also becoming better technical experts.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: And we're working with a lot more experts as well that want to work with us.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we can afford to do a bit more, and we can afford to wait.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're also learning to be patient.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying end of this is I've been we've been working on this for a year, and it's gonna launch in a year and three months.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and now I'm starting to be very okay with that, and I love it.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't be impatient, it's gonna come.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of our last guests, Jane the chemist, she was talking about how innovation does take time, and like consumers sometimes they want the innovation without the waiting part of it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want something interesting and fun and cool and intentional, it does take something.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: It takes so much time.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't want to mess it up, it takes time.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to keep if you're a perfectionist, also you want to rework and rework and fix and do, and then you can be extremely proud of what comes out.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like initial took us almost three years.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: We've been working on it since before launch.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: We delayed it.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: We had the privilege of being able to.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're less gonna be able to do that because now we're with a retailer.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I can't like push out three more weeks to Sephora.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: We could do that with Initial, like, didn't it was supposed to launch, then I'm like two weeks more, three weeks more.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: Then I would keep adding just because we would fix something here and there, or now you got deadlines.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now you got now we have deadlines.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think one really interesting perspective that you might have, and I want to ask, is like, how do Mexican beauty trends play into Aura Mexico?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: What are some like really interesting Mexican-specific beauty trends that are really different from what we do in the US?
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think lips are very, very intentional in Mexico.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, in Latinas in general.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I think the accentuation with lip liners, like lip nine lip liner is a lot more present.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: And lip duos do really well for us for that reason.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think a bit more contrast, a bit more filling, um, a bit heavier on the contour of a lip, that is definitely something.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, I mean, just overall, a bit more colorful makeup is definitely something that is much more present in in everyday Mexico, I would say.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of where when we did our eyeshadow palette, it was very much inspired by looks you would see.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's a series we have on Instagram called like uh iconic Mexicans, and it's all these Mexican women singers, actresses, and you can see how fabulous their eye makeup is and how colorful it is.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we get inspired a lot by ingredients.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I think for us, Inicia has an ingredient called te pescoite that is a magic ingredient.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like the Arnica of Mexico, in the sense that there is a lot of tepescoite creams that are a bit ancestral.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: They've been in the market for 50, 60 years.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um technologies, probably very petroleum-based, but that's what you use on burns.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great, great, great plant that has a lot of.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're still too early to know more.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, we have to pescoite, I would say, out of out of trust for now.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing studies that will take a long time to understand exactly with and without this, at percentages, what does it actually do in the formula?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have clinical claims on Initiia about anti-pollution, but they don't relate to this ingredient in particular.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: They're about the bundle of ingredients and the skeleton itself of the formula.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's I cannot claim that it's directed to this ingredient.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: We did put this ingredient at a good level, so I think the next step is to really, we'd love as a brand to understand it much further, to develop it much further, because clearly it does something, because there's a consumer-wide study of over 50 years of people swearing by it.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: These things do mean something.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a TikTok trend right now, but Mexico inspires us, I think, that way is in ingredients, in our choice of color, and in techniques.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then our products that we're launching next year are gonna be very affected by techniques of techniques of Mexico as well.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned iconic Mexicans.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you can get any iconic Mexican singer, artist, actress to be like the face of Autamexico, who would be like your little raster?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: I would say Maria Felix.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maria Felix, for sure.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's for me, she's like the she's the calas of Mexico.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: She that face is just I think she's so unapologetic.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: She is she proved something that our brand wanted to prove the same way, which is that you can bring luxury from Mexico.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: She's behind some of Cartier's most iconic collections.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: The Cartier, uh like crocodile, tiger, all of those were made for her.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: She asked, she was obsessed with these exotic animals, she asked Cartier to make them, and now there are collections about it.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: She, the way she dressed, her caftans, her wear.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think she is.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I love the the gay child in me, still loves the iconic woman star.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: She's the it's the Elizabeth Taylor, it's the Dalida, it's uh uh and she's that.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, we're in the world of glamour at the end of the day.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's what beauty is and makeup is.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I appreciate and respect all the no makeup, makeup, clean girl, but I'm in the business of glam.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was such a reference.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was not expecting that.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking more like Talia.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, someone all of the girls Talia with the guitars as a bra.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: Have you said wow?
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can't wow that that Halloween outfit.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: Make that happen.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or that can be someone's dress, and we can each be one of the guitars.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um with that being said, a big thank you to this week's Heavenly Thoughty Noor.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have all of Aramejico's socials down below.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Check out again.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing the Acari Shame in Rosa today.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: Same.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: And also Inisia on our faces.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you can find both of those at Sephora in the US.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sephora.com.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is so fun.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: We might do an episode too.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, say bye.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 1:00:49
  unknown: Bye.