My Skin Feels - Danielle Close

0:03Hello there and welcome to episode 126 of People Doing Things. Today we're swapping the confectionery aisle for the bathroom cabinet with a founder who is turning the entire skincare world on its head. I'm excited to introduce Danielle Close, founder of My Skin Feels, the award-winning brand that's turning food waste into feel-good skincare. Danielle spent nearly 15 years in the beauty industry, including a formative role on the founding team of Sharbot Tilbury, where she saw firsthand how unsustainable and confusing the industry had become, followed by 10 years as a creative consultant. The light-loyed moment came when she realized if no one was going to change the industry, she had to prove it could be done.

0:45Now, her products are created using antioxidant-rich byproducts from things like tomato ketchup, olive oil, and breakfast oats. This is rescued food that is not only kind to the planet, but is showing incredible results on sensitive and eczema-prone skin. In this episode, we dive into how Danielle went from the high-glamour world of mega brands to finding beauty in waste, the fascinating connection between intuition and entrepreneurship. Yes, she is also a professional psychic medium and how listening to your skin is the quickest way to listen to your entire self. Grab your cleanser and enjoy.

1:23Hello. Hello. How are you doing? I'm good, how are you? I'm very excited to finally have you on People Doing Things. I'm very excited too. I know you've had a busy week and it's going to get busier later. Busy year. Busy year. Busy end of the year. We're in Christmas now. Is now the time that gets super busy for you? Yeah, like from next week all the way till December the 25th, I am somewhere. And then you've got a few days off in January. Yeah, January is normally quiet. So January, if you are a founder, taking a holiday in January is the ideal situation. But you have to go across another continent, like way over to get sunshine.

2:00But yeah, quite excited for January. Do people not refresh their skincare routine in January? They do. I do, but I don't need to sell it because it's already on subscription. Yeah, they've already got it in their Christmas parcel. It's already in a stocking. Yeah, no, these next few months are pretty nuts. Yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling about it? I'm quite excited though. I know it's tiring, but actually we do a lot of in-person selling and I actually love it. Like I hate it at the time, so I'm so tired and exhausted, but I get a real buzz from meeting our customers. I actually would way prefer that than sitting in front of a laptop.

2:31So I'm quite excited to like go around the country and like... Have you got loads of markets then? 45 from now 45 and maybe 50 actually just added a few more but definitely 45 from now until mid december you should totally do like a tiktok or something every single one just like market one yeah literally this is day one of markets and we're doing spirit of christmas this year which if you've ever been is that the chaos taste great tasting it's a similar but in like christmas gifting it's a kensley olympia i went last year to like check it out and it was hell on earth i get very over stimulated and very sensitive to noise and it was like lights and noise and people everywhere and i was like there's no way i can do this and then we signed up and we've got a week every day 10 to 9 o 'clock but it's where everyone comes from outside of london to do their christmas shopping it's nuts and so we've got a stand there i kind of want to go oh you should i'll get your ticket if anybody wants to come come and say hi we're on stand 027 um but it's like a big trade show stands we've got like a big like stand um but it is full on yeah so So slightly excited, but slightly dreading that one.

3:35Well, we're going to come back to the retail stuff in a bit. But I think it's nice for our listeners to just hear about how it started. I know that originally in your career, you were on the founding team of Sharbot Tilbury. That's obviously gone on to do really well. What were some of the things or lessons that you took from working and scaling that business that have now been useful or full circle in starting up your own? I will say that that was the most amazing interesting journey of my life I was really young I was 19 to like 24 and I literally got to see Charlotte Tilbury as a brand as an idea before the brand started working for like Tom Ford and other people going all the way to America and I actually definitely got to America but I literally saw the full thing from like before a team even got there to like taking it to the US and so it was just like money can't buy blueprint experience of launching a challenger brand in the beauty industry and Charlotte is tenacious and And I definitely learned how never taking no for an answer or something, which I've used that my whole life since I met her.

4:37And really the coolest thing for me is working. The team we had was so small. It just clicked, you know, and just it just clicks and it just worked. And everyone was at the top of their game. I mean, I wasn't because I was like 19, didn't know what I was doing. But I was managing the social media, which wasn't a thing. So it was like a new thing. So it was like it started when we started and really seeing how to make a brand different and also how to capture onto a moment. Like Charlotte was a makeup artist, the first one ever to really be on Instagram, the first one ever to really use her like status as a makeup artist to make a brand.

5:09So like seeing the kind of influencer culture through her was unbelievable experience. And seeing how far you can take something, I think has been really interesting. And there's been lots of learnings of so many things and also learnings about like, that isn't always the right path. That's amazing she did that. And like, it's unbelievable what she's done and the team is unbelievable. but also you don't have to launch a brand to that scale to be successful and I think that's something I got to witness and be like you know what I don't know if I ever want to take it this big because I don't know if it's worth it for me personally but I do want to do something that makes a difference and I think that when I was working there the whole time I had this thing in the back of my head about okay well if we're launching a brand how are we making a difference like what are we doing and she was doing that by making women feel confident for me if I'm going to launch a brand how can I make a difference to like other things the planet and whatever so there were lots and lots of mad learnings but for me it really was like okay that's what success looks like for someone but what does it look like for me and also never saying taking no for an answer I literally in my whole life that is something that has stuck with me and when she had an idea she went for it and it made it happen and I feel like I learned that off her like it's amazing to watch it at such a young age then to be like you know what she can do it I can do it too and it kind of feels like that I think that self-relief is incredible isn't it she's like yeah but she I feel like she put that in me actually as well like really I think I had it probably to a certain extent just like genetically it was there for some reason but I really feel that watching her just be like no I'm doing this and there were some big meetings with some big people that happened and she got turned away or said no to and she was like well screw this I'm gonna be the most successful beauty brand and she did so I guess it's like manifesting now but actually taking action yeah it was really cool and you said if I started a brand I wanted to make a difference you have started a brand I have what's the difference or the purpose that you're out to impact well for me I always wanted to launch a brand but I really umdenard for like a solid five years I was like 25 and I was like I'm bored I want to do something but what's the point in launching a beauty brand there's a million out there how's that going to help anyone like that was my thing so I umdenard about what it was for ages and then I went to this packaging show in Paris in 2020 and I was like okay if I'm going to launch a skincare brand what kind of packaging is out there that's going to be suitable it's going to be like eco-friendly that was my thing if I'm going to do it has to be sustainable and I went to this packaging show and the best thing that I could be shown on the sustainability tour of the show was a mascara wand with something like three percent less plastic and I remember being like it's 2020 how has someone not created a mascara wand that has more than three percent less plastic and so I left that show being like right okay this is what I'm going to do I'm going to make a brand that's actually sustainable to prove that you can make a skincare brand that is sustainable that actually uses good ingredients that's actually like great for your skin but actually shows other brands what can be done because even if mine isn't the most successful hopefully it's imparted wisdom into someone else that means like oh you know what we could also do that and make our brand better too like that's really what I care about is like why if you're launching a brand and you've got all the opportunity to make something as good as it can be for people on the planet why are we not doing that because if we're not doing that it just feels like greed and if you are doing that it feels like there's something more to you than just money and that's my whole thing yeah I think there's quite a few interesting things to unpack there I think this idea of impact or difference versus opportunism because I think a lot of people go into especially the beauty market opportunistically yeah trend-led and they try and go like let's sell as much crap yeah as possible with as least innovation as possible and it's very marketing heavy yeah very personality driven yeah and not not a huge amount of thought thought or integrity yeah in parts of it I mean I'm sure you know the market much better than me I don't want to cast aspersions on a market but I think it is but I do think coming to it with a sense of difference is really interesting and then I like this idea of proving that it can be done and acting as a beacon for others.

9:14Yeah. And this multiplier effect or network effect of, I'm going to do something and I want to encourage other people to do it. Yeah. You see it happen actually quite a lot in tech with people sharing code. Yeah. Or Patagonia is the one that I really admire. Body Shop Patagonia, those are the two. And what he's done and how he's tried to make this beacon to get other people to follow. And they are following in their own ways, maybe not to the same standards. But it feels like that. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to do. I think that's empowering and exciting. Yeah. I guess going back a step, like what was the ding moment?

9:50It was that show, honestly. I got back on the Eurostar and I recorded my first ever Instagram. And I was furious. I was literally like, I've just gone all the way to Paris. I paid like X amount to go on the sustainability tour of a show. And that's it. And I was like, I have to do this. Like, this is the thing. And it'd been building up to that point anyway of like really wanting to do something. And I'm really big into it. I know people hate this term, but I like it. Clean beauty, natural beauty. I'm really big into that and natural products. I live in Brighton. Like, that's just who we are. And I've seen such an effect on people's skin.

10:17And we all know about this stuff to do with clean ingredients now. If you don't, have a little look. And so that was already ticking in the back of my mind. But leaving that show made me really realize, okay, this is where all the big brands go to buy the mascara ones. And they don't care because they're not asking for it. And I had a real issue with our packaging. We have plastic caps on our packaging. I didn't want plastic caps. I tried everything to get rid of them. I even tried tooling my own aluminium cap, but it was so expensive. And they were like, until some big company cares and wants us to invest in that, we can't do it.

10:49And I was like, all it takes is one big company to be like, you know what, let's spend a little bit of money and time innovating packaging so it's better for the planet. Then everyone can benefit. And it's just not done. And so I was like, OK, maybe I'm small, but maybe one day I'll get to a point where I can have that effect. And then other people can benefit. Yeah. There is something about size and impact that's important as well, like a meaningful impact. Yeah, exactly. Which is interesting. That sounds like a starting point for the packaging. But I think what's also been interesting is the ingredients, the stuff that goes into products, using waste, and obviously the benefits in terms of people's skin.

11:23Maybe you can talk through that. Yeah, I should say, my skin feels is skincare made from rescue to food. So I went stripped back, like, what can we do and make it the most sustainable as possible? and basically we take rescued food from food manufacturing and we ferment it. So we take the skin of the tomato, the stalk of the oat, all the crushed olives from food manufacturing, so tomato, ketchup, olive oil, breakfast oats, and our water is recycled from orange juice. And then we ferment and extract the amino acid, the vitamin C, all the postbiotics, all the good stuff basically. That's what goes in our products.

11:50So it really is like an alternative for like beauty industry ingredients. And also being someone who's like super big on clean beauty, it's amazing. And someone that lives in Brighton and we're all about food waste, it like ticks every box. what has been really fascinating and really amazing is that i knew the products were great but didn't quite realize how good they were going to be for sensitive and exfant prone skin and i would say 90 of my audience now has sensitive or exfant prone skin and it's because of our like unique blend of fermented food that it's actually having an amazing effect and it just is proving my point about natural ingredients being really amazing and how you really can find beauty in waste like taking those bits that were going to be discarded turns out they're absolutely amazing for sensitive skin like what a way to prove a point and i think that that is definitely our usb yeah is that all the pre and probiotics in them postbiotics postbiotics so it gets fermented yeah the basic way to say is like kombucha it's not really like that it's a dual process fermentation like hub and so it's not a living like probiotic in there so it's not living skincare no it's not living skincare but it is the active product our fermented stuff so it's got postbiotics in it but it's that mixed with the other things in there and so it's a real mix of the food waste and the natural ingredients yeah how did you go about like actually creating the formula well that was a total accident the eczema stuff and the sensitive skin i basically from being in beauty 15 years knew what i wanted i was like i want it to feel like this i used to be a makeup artist so i wanted the wash to get rid of makeup feel really amazing on your skin be really antioxidant rich something that you can do one wash with and not have to bother with double cleansing or any of that faff and not dry your skin.

13:26Foaming washes are normally very stripping. Ours is like really hydrating. And then the moisturizer, because I was a makeup artist, I wanted it to be amazing on your skin. So my whole thing was it gives you an amazing base of makeup and really healthy skin. And now I'm like, no, scientifically, it's actually really good for like eczema and sensitive skin and all this other stuff. But it really was me over 15 years kind of working out what formulas I really loved. Yeah. And you've given me the moisturizer, the bestseller the bestseller which i'm quite pumped about and i'm going to make sure that i don't that i hide it away from laura yeah hide it away she'll find it yeah she will find it it's really amazing and yeah it's the food waste that's doing it how do you actually go about like finding the it's interesting so it's actually italian food manufacturing yeah so we work with partners that source it for us and ferment it for us what's very exciting is our next product it's actually got British farming in it so when we launched the British farming wasn't set up to get byproducts for beauty it just wasn't a thing and people would like to clap back at this and I'm like honestly you can't do anything because Europe's not exactly that far and at least we're taking something people are like oh it's not sustainable enough but you know you can't win so the next product is British food waste and it's actually from a flower that is used for pet food and supplements and they press the omegas three out of it essentially and we take the byproduct of that and that's going in our next product so we're starting to work with british farming and i wanted to find niche cool ingredients in the uk and this one i can't say what it is yet but this one is really cool it's a family-run business as well i met the founder in a sauna it's the whole thing and so we're kind of moving over to the uk but working with like farming here is what i want to do next that's that's very cool really cool yeah and finding like weird ingredients and we did actually launch a product last year in the food space i worked with a brand called meam they do like really cool like condiments and we rescued two trees of apples and made an apple compote for Christmas so we're kind of open to other things and this year we're making a wash bag made from recycled beach towels or rescued beach towels actually um for Christmas so it's not obviously it's beauty but opening the door for other things as well yeah is helping people and things a part of who you are yeah well my I have another job and in my other job that is what I do and so it just feels like what's the point if you like I just as a business owner I just don't see business as a money maker I just don't I see it as like something it's a tool to help other people if you're going to be that successful and make that much money at some point that has to be for the greater good of everyone not just for yourself otherwise there's no point you might as well work in a corporate job so yeah but don't they say that like create great work or help people and the money will follow type thing yeah well in theory yes in theory in theory it's good karma isn't it yeah but let's talk about you being a psychic medium so that's my other job yes i'm a professional psychic medium yeah the first on people doing things probably the first in a lot of things to be honest um for the first out in the world there's a lot of us that are pretty hidden in the shadows yeah yeah so i'm actually a psychic medium as well which is why the brand is called my skin feels it's all about feeling your skin and intuition intuition without being woo woo and the more conscious you are to yourself the better you can be to others all that kind of stuff but yeah no I was born with the skill it runs in my family I trained for seven years at school in London and I see clients two days a week it's incredible yeah it's mad we were chatting earlier about your story at the start of this year yeah in Thailand yeah I don't know whether we wanted to go into that that's what we should mention but I can tell you that as a young girl it was quite traumatizing being this open let's just say basically I'm super sensitive and hypersensitive to energy.

17:06That's essentially what being a psychic is. Definitely neurodivergent in some way, but just mine comes through in that kind of skill. And I grew up in a house that was from 1550 and I went to a very old school and they were very haunted, if one for a better word. And so I just would feel things and know things and sense things at a very young age. I just would know a lot of stuff is going to happen. And it used to freak me out so much. I actually managed it with OCD. So I was like, okay, if I know this is going to happen, if I do this 10 times, it's not going happen then it would happen anyway and I'd be like oh my god it's not working it was quite a struggle as a kid I even went to have a CAT scan I was like I'm totally crazy and then funny enough when I went to work for Charlotte Tilbury which you know fate is a real thing she actually sent me to my first healer because she's also this way inclined and in the healing session that's when it all came out and she was like oh don't worry you're just psychic and I was like what does that mean and then that set me on a course to go and study and figure it out and now I am that professional working wow that's so cool I had no idea that Charlotte was also yeah and the weirdest thing about that is I just backtrack one step but it's interesting I went to uni and then I hated it so I quit and in that year they were like go and do something you've always wanted to do so I actually went to train as a makeup artist because back then Instagram wasn't a thing you had to go to a school to be a makeup artist so I went to the school and I checked out a few of them and the reason I chose this one is I walked into the room and there are these posters all over the room of all these road covers and all these like w magazine covers and i was like that's weird i've got all of those on my wall and she was like oh they're all by this woman called charlotte tilbury and i was like who's that like she wasn't famous then and then it turns out it turned into this whole chain of events so for me my belief system is things are kind of already there it's just you have to grab them yeah and um yeah she really opened two worlds to me yeah it's bad that's really cool the bit that i was really keen to ask about was these two elements of your life kind of intertwine really interestingly obviously you've been raising money and have essentially completed your round but your first investors or first two investors were through the medium side of the business which when I tell people that they're always like did you say to them I feel an investment coming on I know I promise you I didn't it wasn't actually a reading it was through another type of work that we do and it's like house clearing yeah again not moving houses like clearing spirits or whatever but people seem to think i've got a moving truck and i probably see that's not what i do and yeah the first two actually came through that which is super mad how did it come about well it came back so we went to do the house and i was telling them about what i do and they're both business people and they wanted to know more and it kind of came through then me telling them about the business and doing a pitch and all that kind of stuff but it generally came about because the energy was just right like both of them are amazing get on with them super well and it just feels like okay this is what it should be about it should be especially that first round of investors and I was saying earlier I had an opportunity very early on in the business to take 250 ,000 pounds I turned it down like six months into the business I turned it down so I didn't like the investor because you have to be married to those investors and the first angels or the first round have got to be on your team and they've got to understand you and I don't think anyone can understand me better unless they've had a reading with me or understand that side of the world so it really feels like they really understand the business and they understand me and we have that kind of relationship yeah and they believe in the values of the business you know and then i think you had a couple more i want to hear this story my favorite one this is a recent investor so i go to a lot of saunas sauna culture is huge in brighton i've been like in sauna culture for like 10 years almost now I love a sauna.

20:38We started in Brighton. So the first ever really big sauna, it's called Beachbox. Shout out to Beachbox. And she, Liz, has like moved the movement across the UK. So really it's thanks to her. And I've been going this since it launched. And I was in a sauna the other day by myself. And this woman came in and she goes, oh, I see you everywhere. Like really like, oh, I see you everywhere. What are you doing here? And I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. And she was like, I just bought a product off you in Hampton Court Palace. And I just bought another one off you here. And I was like, are you not from Brighton?

21:05She was like, no. And I was like, well, why are you here? and she was like I've come from London for the weekend and I'm with my friend who's a beauty journalist and I was like oh that's so random so we all got talking in the sauna and she uses the products anyway and then her journalist was like oh my friend really loves to invest in female businesses she's amazing you should have a conversation with her and I have and she's great and she's the next one but it came through something completely not to do a business but again it's like shared values of like women talking amongst women and like sharing experiences and it sort of came through that weird door so if anyone ever asked me okay as a businesswoman like what's the best way to get investment i honestly don't know like be a psychic medium and go to a sauna like again that's how it works but no they're different types of investors for different brands and these are ones that fit us really well i think especially for founding investors exactly it's really important that you either they play like a role yeah anything that you're weak on you fill some of your gaps through the investors which i think is really smart or a shared belief system a shared set of values totally it's a long journey yeah and there's going to be some highs and some lows and it's important that you've got people that believe in the same things in your corner totally yeah really fascinating it's mad isn't it super cool though and they're all great as well i feel like we've got a really good group now how many have you got in total five five yeah and did they all come in at similar amounts or did it shift and change all but one yeah but one's a friend okay fine that's cool yeah so i've got some made something that is quite stressful actually but also not one of the other things that i think is really interesting the values piece i think you were you told me earlier you recently told that you were two values driven which sounded like a backhanded compliment i don't know it was weird it was an investor not one i've taken obviously and they basically said i think you're getting in the way of your business because you're two values led and at the time sort of took it and was like oh maybe I am like maybe I shouldn't be maybe I should be more commercial it's not like I'm not commercial I understand we have to make sales but also has to be done in a way that suits us we're not a brand that's like here today and gone tomorrow like I'm here to make a household brand that's around for 20 years not like a quick TikTok trend that's just not my vibe otherwise there's no point but she basically was like yeah you're two values led for your business and I went away and sat on it and I was like that's the whole point of the business because look at brands like Patagonia look at brands like The Body Shop look at all like these brands that are actually like like goalposts for me and they've done amazing things if we don't have our values we're just like every other brand and so I did question myself and I did go away and think oh my god I don't know what I'm doing like what am I doing and then actually I've really realized that no this is the way to be different continue with your values the minute you lose your values you lose everything and so for me values are our strong point yeah I think that's also really nice probably for people to hear yeah because we talk about it a lot in branding and strategy right the purpose of having strategy having values having a purpose all the rest of it is to help guide you to help make decisions yeah when those decisions get tough yeah or when the business gets to a certain size that it's not just one person making the decisions to give its soul to choose the right path business can get really stressful yeah you can start worrying about what everyone else is doing yeah don't do that you can want to jump on trends don't do that either well you can but you know oh a competitor's dressed up as a melon i need to do that as well and it's like yes if you are like that way inclined but you don't necessarily have to jump on every trend no every fad every marketing gimmick yeah because i think people that do it in a fresh way it's original yeah but people that copy it's yeah you know often a bit lame yeah and for me a business is a living this is where my woo-woo comes in but it's living breathing energy like we have created an energy of something here and so it's also protecting the energy of the business and what that feels like and how that it's a moving thing you know when you create something like that into the ether it becomes something and so looking at it from an energetic perspective as well and seeing like okay this how how does our business feel in that circumstance?

25:15That feels really important to me too. And our values go into that as well. And what are the, I mean, I'm not expecting you to codify them on the spot, but what are some of the values or anchors of the business that are important for decision-making? For me, the main one is being different to everyone else. Like literally, because the minute we copy anyone or the minute we go down that route or doing anything, we've lost ourselves completely. We are our own moving, breathing, living thing that has our own like storytelling and we're not here my finance director and investors will kill me but we're not here to make a million pounds tomorrow i'm here to like build something that actually really does have a purpose and does more than what a face wash and a moisturizer does yeah like we're here to bring people back to themselves to their skin using products that feel good that make them feel good in their skin like that's what it's about i'm really strong on the release system that if we are successful other people should be successful too we donate to a charity in brighton we actually just built a very own composting site with them which is really cool from the donations last year and so protecting our local community feels really important to me it's not just about making money again it's about putting it back into something for me bringing people with me on that journey is really important so the team coming with me but also making sure that it's a work-life balance but it's just about making a change somehow we just need to make sure we impart change and if i've done that i've done our job yeah so integrity integrity honesty togetherness yeah and honesty I'd say in there as well but every time and this is also just me in life and I think this is because I'm a psychic medium and we are so different generally as people but every time there's a trend I never look at it I always go the other way and I felt like that with the branding and everything I was like well let's just make something weird and different and cool because that's what we are and we're from Brighton everyone's weird different and cool it's just like inherently in us to be like that and so if everyone goes right we go left because that's where you get seen yeah and that's how we're kind of doing it i guess that way of thinking is mirrored within your retail strategy yeah our accidental retail strategy which has worked out really well touch wood um but basically when we launch in the beauty industry as well like everyone goes on digital right you have to spend so much money to be seen in beauty on digital and i to be honest when i launched i expected us to be on digital and that was it and that's how we're going to do it and then we're going to go into a big retailer and that was going to be it not at all what's happened we and i have spent the first two and a half years of the business working every single weekend at a market a pop-up or an event all over the place battersea power station to our local farmers market to like a county show to like literally name one and i've been there and it has been single-handedly the best thing we could have done for the business i've learned so much i learned exactly what works what doesn't work i've met i'd say 80 of our customers someone in my team has met or me we know exactly the feedback from people people get to try our products in real life as a beauty brand it's very hard unless you're in a retailer to try products before you buy them so we're able to actually get people to test it on their skin and because we're good for sensitive and exoproned skin they can try it on a flare-up go away and come back that's where most of our money has been made is being in person at stuff and it is very exhausting but it's really fun and i even got to meet the king recently and i sold a product to kate blanchett the other day which was totally mad and totally didn't realize it was her until afterwards and it's just been such a good strategy to start with doesn't mean it's going to be the end goal we also launched into credo and whole food so we're in some retailers but in terms of actually working it for us and being different to other beauty brands that's what we've done and it's really worked do people buy try in person try buy try buy do you see a lot of people then come and order online yeah and then they subscribe so we have a lot of subscriptions now as well so it's sort of like the in and then they're like wow this product's actually really good it works and then they subscribe online, which is really amazing.

28:54Or they come to a market. We were at one on Sunday in Battersea Power Station. Had so many people come to the market to see us to stock up. So that's become a thing now. Somebody bought one for everyone in the family. And we actually ran out of stock almost twice to get some in an Uber over to us. So that's sort of happening now as well, which is really cool. I quite like this sort of cult. Yeah, come and find us quickly before it runs out. Yeah. Or just, I guess, like, it's an alternative movement in skincare, isn't it? Totally. because everyone's doing the same thing yeah yeah do you think that's something you're going to continue for a period of time yeah how do you scale that as a channel because i guess you've proved that there's roi yeah because you do a market let's say it's 100 200 quid for the stand 45 45 maybe 30 it's so cheap yeah where are you getting these stands some of them the really amazing ones well they're all really amazing but like the big ones like the salad days if you've gotta go it's amazing it's a market about a station that's like 160 but they're never crazy because it's small businesses yeah yeah spirit of christmas is a different kettle of fish yeah but i guess you can pay for the time of someone being there yeah and make a profit on the day yeah but then you're getting the repeat revenue if people like the products by people going on and ordering online yeah or people hunting you out yeah yeah i mean i think that's kind of exciting It's almost like playing a bit hard to get in some ways.

30:21It is a little bit. And also for the first two and a half years, I didn't take a salary. So it was a huge, I'm still not taking a salary, but I'm about to. So it was a huge profit in terms of the day. But as we grow, we've now over Christmas got five people doing sales for us. Finally, it's not just me on my own with my bag across London. And then next year, we're actually hiring, again, weird story. This amazing girl who works with me, we met on a plane four years ago. I borrowed her phone charger. and then she came to Battersea Power Station at Christmas and was like, it's you. I was wondering if you'd launched your brand or not and I was like, oh my God, it's you.

30:53And she's now like our head salesperson and she's going to manage all the markets for us next year and we're going to go outside of London, we're going to get a team, we've got like a setup now, we know what works, we're just going to mirror it across the UK. That's sort of our plan. And digital and other things that are happening but like we know what works and we're just going to blank it. Yeah. Hopefully, that's the plan. That's so cool. Yeah, it's really fun. And new products and all that kind of stuff as well but yeah I do I love in-person selling and you know what I did in between Charlotte Tilbury and this brand my brand I did lots of other stuff freelance marketing and everything but I actually worked on the shop floor in Neil's Yard for 18 months I was like I need to learn how to sell if I'm going to launch a beauty business I need to find a brand that really aligns with me Neil's Yard unbelievable brand to work for by the way and so I worked on the shop floor for 18 months in Victoria Station which was gnarly because Victoria Station in winter is horrific it's open it's freezing there's pigeons everywhere and it was the most beneficial thing i could have done because i literally learned how to sell to the most stressful customers coming off a commuter train so stressed needing a gift that has directly impacted this yeah which has been amazing that's so cool i was just thinking that it's quite nice that a lot of your experiences have this like flow and serendipity to them it's like a mediumship everything is linked guys You just got to see the opportunity when it comes in.

32:10You also said that, you know, you haven't taken a salary for a few years. How do you buy your beans? Psychic mediumship. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's how I'm making my money at the moment. So two days a week of that is like doable. But now with investment, I have to take something. So it's going to be great to have a little bit of a salary. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. I've been doing the brand full time because it is full time. So it's every second of every day. But two days a week of that have been me doing readings. which is a lot back and forth yeah yeah and then normally Thursday Friday and Saturday Sunday at a market so like Monday is my weekend like a chef yeah like a chef but literally one day it's nuts it's not sustainable guys but you know you sign up for it and it's sort of what you have to do for the first bit um but yeah one of the questions we like to ask every founder on the show and obviously we kind of heard that running a business is tough and kind of time consuming what would you say are the biggest highs and lows you've experienced since launching in 2023 well start on the low end on the high I get asked this a lot and I don't think really the lows are to do with running like the business because it's all fun and games really yeah it's really stressful and like your life is on the line and it feels like that but also if it ended tomorrow like ends tomorrow and you just do something else like it's not you know it's okay and we used to say at Charlotte Tilbury it's only lipstick like it's the same thing it's only moisturizer like it's okay but obviously things are really stressful and I think the things that are most stressful when it's out of your control I'm having to learn that okay I can't control everything sometimes things go wrong and we have to get someone else to fix it and that's fine but the actual lows for me have been person little life and I don't think people really prepare you for what it's like running a business you know it's going to be stressful you know it's going to be tiring I didn't really realize the lack of social life like there's none and like I live on my own and I'm single on my own I'm always on my own and it is a very lonely place to be when you're running everything on your own and I think that is something that I would just say to other startup founders who are on their own like really on their own like definitely get some sort of support like and I don't mean support from like another founder I mean like go to therapy and get like actual something because it is a lot to manage on your own and then I was saying to you before I think also what's interesting is being a woman who's single in their mid-30s doing this as well because I was saying it's also really hard to like meet anyone or to like if you do want a family and you want to plan another part of life it is something to consider at this time and I hadn't really clocked onto that until like this year and I was like oh my god I'm like nearly 35 I'm nearly 40 and then like what do you do if you're just on your own and you put your business as everything so there is like those questions go around in my head a lot and I think that's harder than running a business the personal growth and the personal journey you go on is mad and I've changed so much in two and a half years I don't know if it's for better or for worse but here we are there have been a few founders that have ended up waiting on people doing things yeah well you never know you never know there you go there's no one else in the way um can you post it um but no i do i think the personal journey is wild very interesting also i have no tolerance for anything anymore would you ever take a co-founder i think at this stage no i've done too much of my own for it i've thought about this very early on one of the reasons i turned down that big investment is because they wouldn't invest in someone without co-founder but then they wanted to invest anyway it's very weird and at the time I was like oh maybe I can't do this on my own don't need a co-founder I think you just need a team like I haven't got anyone really so like actually building that team out is important I think that sounds like it's coming right yeah it's on the way it's on the horizon yeah and I don't want to be a Debbie Downer but it's definitely something that no one told me and I think it should just be known yeah and a lot of founders are like they have co-founders or they're in a relationship or you know there's other factors at play but it is a lot living on your own and doing it all yeah but kind of cool to also say i've done it by myself but also like i'm exhausted and then the high i mean so many highs yeah honestly the brand is like i don't want to sound like annoying but it's done really well and it's just sort of had its own life and like getting into credo is like a life goal of mine and we got into there and i just finished a tour of the u.s with them and that's amazing i met the king like so mad like just things weird things like that that happen the first person that came about with an eczema story I was like this is nuts there's so many highs I've been writing them down actually every month like the highs and lows just to keep a track of it and so much support I think that's what's really amazing it's really I feel a lot of support from like the customers and from people that we work with I think momentum is a really important word in general especially to me but in general I think it's an important word and important meaning and I think there's times where it feels that everything you're doing is pushing a big rock up a hill yeah but when you have momentum things start to happen yeah and it gets easier and it gets more enjoyable and you don't have to push so hard because you're sort of yeah you know riding the rock down the hill still pushing yeah that's how that's where i feel like we're at now actually yeah it feels like there's some momentum which is cool but at the same time this is getting momentum the psychic mediumship's also got a lot of momentum so i'm still very split between the two worlds and it's my next time just figuring out that yeah do you think you'll be able to balance them both going forward or do you think you'll need to you know put one on hold to focus on the other can't really put it on hold so it's going to have to figure out how to be balanced i think if i'm not working every weekend and we've got a team it'll be a lot easier well that sounds reasonable right you've probably done your your your market time yes i've done it guys i'll do the big ones now yeah spirit of Christmas I can't it's gonna be so stressful yeah final final question what are you most excited for what's the future hold in store for my skin feels what's kind of the next big step for me product is really exciting yeah and I spent so much time not doing product because I've been focusing on just building the business that actually getting stuck into like MPD and product with new food waste is like really exciting to me and figuring out how we can make that better and figuring out how we can sort of own that in a different way that's really exciting to me like innovation and that kind of stuff and just doing bigger and more that sounds and feels really fun yeah so that's kind of what we're i think i'm excited for that like next lift yeah i feel like we're in that start delegating a little bit yeah it's quite stressful that though because i'm also not i'm an only child as well so like delegating is a night i have to learn how to do that that's my personal growth thing i've got to figure out is like i'm such a lone wolf i'm i've freelanced for like so long by myself everything's by myself and so i do need to somehow figure that out.

38:40To build a team. Build a team and learn how to delegate. Yeah. And enjoy it. And enjoy it. So that'll be the next personal and business. Exactly. And enjoy it, I think, is someone asked me the other day, I hope, like, you're enjoying every second and you're not really when you're in it because you're just in it and you're going through it and you don't really, like, enjoy it. And I think actually having more space to enjoy it would be really nice as well. Yeah. Amazing. Well, best of luck with it all. People doing things will be cheering you on. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

39:08Thanks for having me. That was Daniel Close, founder of My Skin Feels on People Doing Things. As always, I've been your host, Ed Little. And if you are feeling particularly generous of spirit, reviews go a long way to helping this podcast grow. So please head over to Spotify or Apple and leave one. People Doing Things, on a mission to celebrate and inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

39:39You