Meet the Founder Aiming to Get “Medical-Grade” Jewelry for Sensitive Skin into Sephora Aisles. Plus! No-Fail Outfit Formulas From the TikTok Expert

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

0:07Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

0:20Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Breaking Beauty podcast. It's Jill and Carlene here like we are every single Wednesday sharing the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. Hey, Carlene. Hey, Jill. And we always love when a good style and beauty moment comes together. And that's what we're doing in today's episode. This week, we're welcoming Jackie Burke. Jackie is the founder behind the jewelry brand Tiny Lux that she describes as the first clean jewelry brand. That's right. And the whole MO of Tiny Lux is about jewelry for sensitive skin types. I mean, when I first read about Tiny Lux, I saw that Jackie said she wants to be the first jewelry brand in Sephora.

0:59And I thought, say what now? But then the more I thought about it, I thought that actually makes a lot of sense because it's essentially eliminating the use of metals that can cause skin reactions. So Jackie left a career in engineering to found Tiny Lux after years of frustration with so-called hypoallergenic earrings and finally decided to solve the problem once and for all. We love someone who gets shit done around here. Yes. Recently, Jackie has also gained a cult-like following on TikTok with her viral videos on outfit formulas, all about how to put together the perfect outfits using pieces, kind of like style math.

1:38And this uninterrupted conversation today is brought to you in partnership with TinyLux. And we have a very special promo code. So you can visit tinylux.com, that's spelled T-I-N-I-L-U-X.com and use code BEAUTY for 20 % off your first purchase. So with all of that being said, welcome to Breaking Beauty, Jackie. Thank you guys for having me. I'm so excited. So can you share a little bit about your background and how you came to start Tiny Lux? I'm so fascinated when people sort of shift gears and they come from a different industry and get into fashion and beauty. Absolutely. I did not set out to start a business.

2:13I, like you guys mentioned, I worked in engineering. I really loved my career in engineering. But at the same time, I also love style and fashion and following influencers. And there was this one influencer that I followed and I loved and I would buy everything that she posted. And she did this huge collab with the jewelry brand and it was all focused around earrings. And I hadn't worn earrings in over 10 years at that point because I would get these horrible reactions every time I tried. So I wanted to buy every earring she was selling, but I knew I've tried this over and over again. I'm not going to waste my money.

2:51But then I kind of had this light bulb moment knowing, well, I want to buy earrings. And I know other people have this issue with sensitive ears. Let me actually find a solution for this. And I really just set out to like find myself a pair of earrings. I didn't set out to start a business, but as I was researching and trying to find a solution, I realized there was just no good options out there. And when I found the solution, I thought, okay, this is my label moment. I could be the one to bring a solution to the market. Yeah, that's amazing. But your business, so it might seem kind of niche on the surface, but it's actually surpassed$10 million in sales.

3:33So why do you think it took off the way that it did? I think because there really is a need for this. More than 20 % of people actually have issues with wearing earrings and sensitivities to earrings. And words like hypoallergenic are very misleading. They're really, at least in the jewelry industry, marketing buzzwords. And what I discovered is that the issue is really a metal allergy. The clinical term is contact dermatitis. So you're actually, if you're experiencing sensitive ears, it's because you're allergic to a metal that's in your earring. So then if you start looking at words like hypoallergenic and you see that every brand is using them across every type of metal, you realize, okay, that doesn't really add up if everyone's calling their products hypoallergenic.

4:20So there's so many people that have experienced this issue of just being burned by brands claiming their products are hypoallergenic and wanting a solution that they can trust in a place that they feel like is a safe haven and they can wear anything without having to like dig into the materials on their own and do research on their own. So when people find us, they are initially skeptical because they're like, I've tried everything out there. And then when it works, they're like, okay, I'm a customer for life because I finally found something that works. So I think that is why we've been able to grow such a cult-like following because one, where we work and so people are very loyal and they keep repurchasing.

5:08And then they also want to tell all their friends, wow, I finally found something that actually works for me. I'm one of those good old fashioned word of word of mouth. I think it's still very powerful. It's still the most powerful. Absolutely. When something really works, we love that. On this show, we call it damn good. We test everything on the market. If it's damn good, we share it with all of our listeners. And on that note, I wore Tiny Lux earrings last night. We had a big beauty event in Toronto. It was very fancy. And my ears felt like there was nothing on. I'm wearing them right now. It feels like there's nothing on.

5:45And that is so unusual for me. I usually get the redness, the itching. Like, Jill knows me for this. Usually on the way back from an event, I'll take that immediately in the Uber. So I have like random earrings flying around my purse, which is not good either, because I cannot wait to get them out. Now, one of the things that my mom used to tell me, and I think a lot of people will jive with this as well, is that I needed to buy real gold earrings, right? So anything that was sort of affordable or costume jewelry was a no-no, but you're kind of turning that whole notion on its head. Am I right?

6:20Correct. Yes. I call it the fine jewelry myth, that if you spend more money, it's safer. And that's just simply not the case. I really think there should be three categories of jewelry. There should be fine jewelry, there's costume jewelry, and then there's something in between, which is the category that Tiny Lux is trying to define, where we're clean jewelry, where jewelry made with metals specifically for the skin and for the human body. So there have been studies in the medical profession to find the best metal for medical implants. So when you're going to your doctor or your dentist and you need a medical implant for whatever reason, whether it's like a screw or a tooth implant, they're always made with titanium because it's one of the only metals that doesn't react with the human body.

7:13They have studied other metals. They've studied gold, silver, copper, zinc, metals that are commonly used in jewelry. All of those metals are shown to have reactions in 15 to 17 % of people. So gold in particular, around 15 % of people in these medical studies react to gold. And that is testing pure gold, 24 karat gold. So anything less than 24 karat gold is an alloy, which means it's not just gold. It's mixed with other metals as well. So you don't necessarily know when you're buying 14 karat gold or 18 karat gold what those other metals are, and those metals could be causing allergies. So even to me, even if 24 karat gold was the perfect solution, which it's not, it's also incredibly expensive.

8:07and 24 karat gold is a little bit too soft for earrings. So it's not the miracle solution for sensitive ears that people have believed in the past. Titanium is an incredible alternative because it's affordable. It actually works. Less than half a percent of people are allergic to it. And it also has the added benefit of being incredibly lightweight, which is why you probably felt like you didn't even feel them. It doesn't turn it, it doesn't turn green. So it's this really perfect material for this product and this group of people. Why do you think that this hasn't just been table stakes? Like why isn't like every costume jewelry brand using titanium?

8:55Yeah, I think there's two reasons. One, I think obviously there's always going to be a market for fine jewelry. so people love gold and I don't think gold or other fine jewelry should should ever go away and then in the costume jewelry space titanium is more expensive than brass which is typically used but also it's a lot harder to manufacture so titanium has to be cold worked which means like you basically start from a block and you machine it down to a style that you want to produce whereas a metal like brass which most costume jewelry is made with can be melted and formed into any shape. So some of it, a lot of other brands are fashion brands, they're accessory brands, and their whole ethos and reason for existing is their style.

9:43So it's hard to produce every single style in titanium. For Tiny Lux, our whole mission is to create a product that actually works for sensitive ears. So we're willing to work within the parameters of what you can manufacture with titanium in order to make a product that works. Hmm. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. Now, is it just like the backing and the stud that is titanium or the entire earring? And is that important? It is important. We make our entire earring with titanium, including the coating. Some other brands will say they have just a titanium post, but anything that is touching your skin could cause an allergy.

10:25So we make sure that every single piece of the earring is made with titanium because every single piece could be touching your skin at some point. Earrings in particular really live inside your body more than any other piece of jewelry. So it's really important to us that the entire piece of the jewelry be safe for sensitive skin and sensitive ears. I feel like this is something that, as Jill said, should be table stakes when it comes to body jewelry. Have you gotten into that where it's like a belly piercing or... you know, face piercing or whatever. Yeah, a little. So a lot of piercing jewelry and body jewelry is already made with titanium.

11:08So that's the thing that we've discovered is that professional piercers know about this, but it's kind of been almost gatekept in a way, or it just, it hasn't been clear to the mass market that this is the material because there's so much muddiness around like words like hypoallergenic and brands just saying that their products are safe when they're really not. So we know that professional piercers, body jewelry companies use this material, but there was no one making like fun fashion jewelry made with titanium. Can you say which metals are typically responsible for those allergies? I've heard nickel is a big one, cadium, like to determine which metals are typically the biggest culprits for skin sensitivities?

11:58I looked into medical studies that had been done and they're published on the National Institute of Health and looked at the metals that are typically used for jewelry. Like what, what were the percentages in these studies that people reacted to? So nickel is definitely a big culprit. Gold and silver are shockingly culprits as well. Zinc and copper, which are typically used in brass. Those are big culprits. There's a few others, but I would say the nickel, copper, zinc, those are the ones that are kind of hidden and you wouldn't necessarily know that they're in a metal or in a pair of earrings.

12:38Those are often the biggest culprits. Did you ever actually try to get this line into Sephora? So this is like a new goal of mine just in the last few months. I'm kind of manifesting it and putting it out there. So I'm hoping someone's listening, but yeah, we're making some efforts this year to make it happen. But I really believe that we're earrings and jewelry in general are so beauty adjacent, but our product in particular, we're treating metal allergies. We're giving people the opportunity to accessorize without pain. I think we fit best in a place like Sephora or Ulta, where people are so conscious of all these things, they're conscious of their skin and their wellness.

13:27I don't think to me, I just don't see us as a fashion brand. I see us as a skincare brand. That's interesting. Well, I can see it because we have, it's so popular with like, you know, there's a lot of brands out there that have their own piercing studios and there it's like it's on every corner now. And then I know like Target has a piercing studio as well. So it's not that far fetched of an idea that you have, Jackie. I'll be honest, I never thought of it until I started talking to you. But it is kind of genius. So to from our microphones to Sephora's head office, let's let's have it happen. Exactly.

14:08We've already said it's damn good, everyone. So for what it's worth, we've put our stamp of approval on it. I'm so interested in this viral story from People magazine a while ago about an influencer named Erin Dunn. She's not related to me, even though I do have a niece named Erin Dunn. And she went completely viral for this skin reaction that she had. It was like a painful red patch circling her eyes to everyone. It was like a raccoon. Even the whites of her eyes were tomato red. And she had tried all of these dermatological interventions to fix her skin, but come to find out it was her jewelry all along.

14:44So you're familiar with this story, right, Jackie? Yes, we saw it on TikTok. We saw her story and immediately reached out to her and offered to send her some of her earrings. But what happened was she was, yes, like you said, she was getting these eczema-like reactions all over her face, not just on her ears. And she went to doctors and dermatologist and couldn't get an answer and then eventually just took her earrings out and when she took the earrings out the reactions went away and the ex went away so wild so she yeah yeah and it's not the only story like that there's others out there we've had people reach out to us to say that they get reactions that they have like had acne like reactions from maybe their glasses their earrings and when they remove them that goes away so it's not just yeah so there it's not just an issue where it's like your ear ear lobes are a little sore it could be these kind of like systemic reactions and it's not to like scare people but it is a very it is it happens and your ear piercings in particular, the skin inside is so delicate.

15:57It's scar tissue and it's easily damaged and torn. And once these like micro tears are introduced, then your body is more exposed to these metals. And if you don't really know what you're putting in your piercings or in your body, then that's when these reactions can happen. Wow. Okay, this is all fascinating. I bet somebody's listening right now going, oh my God, when I had eczema on my eyelids, it was probably my earrings. But truly. Eureka moments. Now I want to ask you about, because you've kind of taken off on TikTok, which is great. And I saw that you had a viral video that garnered 50 million views.

16:40It was a hack to soothe sensitive piercings using clear nail polish. So it was not a recommendation. It was saying that you absolutely should not do that. This is a very common hack that I used to do when I had sensitive ears and was trying to find a way to wear earrings. And this hack has been around forever and it's to paint your earrings with clear nail polish. And the idea is that the clear nail polish creates this barrier between your earrings and your skin and that's gonna protect your ears from reacting. Now it never really worked for me and but people still do it all the time and the reason it doesn't work is because nail polish chips very easily so as soon as there's a chip your skin is then exposed to the metal anyway you also run the risk of the nail polish chipping inside your piercing which can cause irritation or cause an infection so i would i would never recommend it just purely because it doesn't work.

17:38This video, I don't really know why it went so crazy viral, but it just really speaks to the fact that there's still so many people out there that are trying these little hacks to wear earrings when they have sensitive ears. And there's just, there's still so much opportunity for education around the topic. I used to do Vaseline that was recommended as a hack, like around, put it around the stud and then put it in your ear that's safe yeah it's it's safe it's just again it's not really going to protect you because your skin's going to absorb absorb with the vaseline or the aquaphor whatever you use and immediately your skin will be in contact with the metal once again i do always recommend aquaphor vaseline when you're putting earrings in because it can help them just slide and easier without friction.

18:30And sometimes you just end up with irritated earlobes. It's not actually an allergic reaction. So I do always recommend Vaseline or Aquaphor to eliminate any friction and irritation. And we can get skin rashes on our neck too, everyone. I'm very sensitive in that area. So I've definitely had skin like contact, metal contact allergies there before. I don't, I didn't realize it maybe at the time. I just thought it was like hot and I was wearing jewelry and maybe it didn't mix but now looking back it was definitely like a skin reaction yes definitely i we hear necklaces and we also sell rings right because we got a lot of comments yeah that makes a lot of sense really some people with really severe metal allergies have reactions to belts zippers the button on their pants wow yeah yeah so it's it happens it's common and it happens to some people really, really badly.

19:27Fascinating.

19:37Have you ever looked in the mirror and not recognized yourself? Me too. Hi, I'm Caroline Baudino from Instagram Shop with Caroline and host of Coming In Hot. This tough New Yorker, who swore she would never depend on a man, lives to wear all her jewels and look fabulous, let everyone else's expectations of being a mom, a wife, a daughter to Cuban parents take priority. I finally put my oxygen mask on first and took the biggest bet of my life. Join me every Monday on Coming In Hot to deep dive on finding your own happy tools and living your best life too. Yes, we can.

20:28now completely separate from tiny lux you've kind of harkened back to your math and engineering roots having gone viral on tiktok for your outfit formulas so tell us what an outfit formula is i love following your your videos on this topic thank you that happened purely by accident i I built, we built TinyLots on Google and through SEO because we knew people would be searching for a solution. So one of my regrets looking back is that I didn't really build in public as much as I wish I had. So there, you know, there's no time like the present to start. So around a year ago, I started posting on my personal TikTok account.

21:11I started from zero followers and I was posting behind the scenes business stuff, you know, business related topics and didn't get much of a response. And then I just kind of randomly posted this video about style and trends and it took off. And then I kept posting about style and outfits and it really, really resonated with people. And I found that I'm, I'm pretty good at observing trends and observing how style works. So I started breaking it down for people into, you know, I can show people 10 different outfits and it looks like 10 different outfits, but really they're almost the exact same formula, just replicated in slight iterations.

21:57So one, for example, is like big top, big bottom. So this is kind of like the oversized trend, but sometimes it's a big sweater, sometimes it's a big coat or a button down and then a wide leg pant. And all these outfits might look different on the surface, but when you break it down, you see like they're really the same formula, maybe with some like little tweaks inside. But then it's so much easier to pull items out of your closet when you're looking at it as a formula rather than I'm trying to copy and paste this exact outfit. And I don't have that sweater that that girl's wearing. So I have to go out and buy one.

22:31But then you can see that you can kind of easily replicate these looks and get the same vibe with things you already own. Yeah, that's so smart. You also developed a four-step process for finding your own personal style. And I think that can be really tricky these days because even I, like today, I'm kind of doing this boho thing and I'm like, my God, like the day before I'm doing a minimalist thing. It's like, how do you find your style without just kind of being all over the place? It's something that's really hard. I wasn't, again, I wasn't intending to do that, but I had a lot of people reach out to me and ask for styling advice when these TikTok videos started going a little bit viral.

23:13So I wanted to really like formulate it and write it down and say like, what are the steps that you should take? What are the steps that I feel like I've taken to kind of like solidify my personal style? And I broke it down into four phases. The first one is really to like, just commit to it, edit your purse, edit what you already own. And then this can be the hardest part, but go on a shopping freeze. I found that when I was pregnant, I kind of unintentionally went on a shopping freeze because my body was changing rapidly. So I wasn't, I just wasn't making purchases. And during that time, it was easier to kind of take a step back and look at how my relationship with trends and buying and purchasing and, and really like develop an idea of like what I actually liked rather than just quickly consuming and trying to copy and paste.

24:04So I think that's the first step, which can be the hardest, but it's a good to take a few months to look at what you already own. And then during that time, learn the actual like objective elements of what makes an outfit work. There's no color, texture, structure, learn different outfit formulas, practice with what you already own. And then the third step I see as building your foundation. So I find like the idea of the capsule wardrobe, a little stifling because there's always, there's always room to change and to build. So rather than a capsule wardrobe, I just see it as a wardrobe foundation.

24:41And whether your style is boho or minimal, there's probably different foundations that you can use to build outfits. And then after that, you can really start elevating. And once you have this foundation, then start buying like the fun pieces that can take your style from just sort of like basic to a little bit more fun. Cool. I love this. I need to try this myself. Yeah. I love the idea. And I think TikTok has helped style so much. Like if you even think about like the wrong shoe theory and because people are confused and they do every like the big, big stylists in the world, they'll be like, there's no rules.

25:15Fashion is fun. And it's like, no, no, we need rules because we need to get out. We need to leave the house within 10 minutes. And like, I am definitely guilty of like, Like when I leave the house and I come back after if I'm going to an event or something, my entire closet is on my bed, basically, because it's like just like, what do you want to wear? And it's so stressful. And so putting these rules in place helps it be less stressful. Yeah, 100 percent. And I think what you said there, like the stylists and influencers, they take this stuff for granted because they already understand these kind of fundamentals.

25:50Exactly. So they're, they're going, they're teaching you these kind of higher level tips and like the wrong shoe formula is great, but you kind of already need this foundation understanding in order to implement that in a way that's works without you just randomly buying things and feeling like, oh, now I have nothing to wear because I have all these like miss smashed pieces. Yeah, right. This was like my approach to like, like the regular girl like me, who's like, just, you know, starting from let's say we're starting from zero. And like, what are the fundamentals that you need? And then you can start implementing the stuff from the stylist and the influencers.

26:28And we know that color analysis has popped off on social media, decoding of your winter, spring, summer, fall palette. I had my colors, quote unquote, done at an event last year. And I'm like winter cool, I think. I'm autumn, autumn warm. So let's talk a little bit about that idea, Jackie, when it comes to jewelry. Do people ask you about this? And what's your advice on determining if you look better in gold versus silver? My feeling is for most people, it's a personal preference. I also love to mix metals. And I think that's a big trend right now. So I wouldn't restrict anyone based on skin tone.

27:09My trick to mixing metal tones is to try to do it in multiple places. So if you have a watch, wear mixed metals bracelets with it, and then also mixed metal earrings, so it looks like it's intentional. But then instead of just one random piece of silver and everything else is gold. Now, one of your most popular TikTok playlists is current, not trendy. Can you explain what you mean by that? Like what's an example of a style movement that's current, but not trendy right now? Yeah, absolutely. So that was one that kind of like accidentally took off. But I think that a lot of people, there's always been this difference between what people consider to be timeless style and what people consider to be trendy style.