Creating Iconic Products and Intentional Beauty with Jaimee Holmes of Fel Beauty

0:08Guys, welcome back to Makeup Monday. you know and you fell in love with the idea of putting it on and playing with it I just feel like the entire category has been so up and down over the years as a consumer I have gone from like hating all the shades and never finding my perfect shade to now having so many shades I don't know what to pick from so it's just really cool to see any innovation come out in this specific beauty cosmetic category so without further ado I want to welcome back a guest who I hold in such high regard she has been behind some of the most iconic beauty launches of our time and you know she has seen product development from so many different angles.

0:45And so please welcome back Jamie Holmes, who is here to talk about her own brand today, Feel Beauty. Welcome, Jamie. Hi, Ekta. Thanks so much for having me. So, so happy to be here with you. No, I'm so excited because I can't believe we're talking about your brand. And I can't believe that we're introducing it to all of our listeners. And you know, I've already fallen in love. I think I've told like literally like more people than I can imagine, you know, already. So I can't wait to like just kind of learn more from you. I mean, we've talked so much about skincare before, you and I, you know, on previous episodes.

1:16And I think talking about like color cosmetics with you is going to be so fun, you know, just to learn that world. But let's get started. For all, any listeners that don't really, they haven't listened to our previous episodes, like tell us more about you, Jamie, and your career. Because you've had such a fantastic career in the beauty space and you've seen so much and your experience is extraordinary. So walk us down memory lane, you know? Oh, thank you so much for that. Yeah, you know, I got my start early on in my career, actually at Sephora in merchandising 20 years ago. I had no beauty experience before that.

1:49I wasn't even totally sure that's where I wanted to be in the world. But when I got my first taste, I was super, super lucky that my manager there saw something in me. She saw some potential. And I was in color merchandising then. And what really made such a lifelong impression on me was being super young, not only in my career, but just in life, sitting in rooms with, you know, the founders and executives from what I always considered to be these rock star like brands like Urban Decay and Stila, Tarte Cosmetics even. And just to be around their presence and hear how they thought about the creation of products, how they thought about branding, was just something that I really loved being a part of and understanding how I could help support in any way, whether it was through product evolution, go-to-market strategies, even just placement in store, really meant the world to me just to be in their presence and bring things to life.

2:50And then from the Sephora days, I went on to the brand side. And so I was at Benefit Cosmetics early in my career, Paracone MD, skincare. But I always think back to my time at Too Faced Cosmetics as being sort of the pivotal turning point for me when things started to get interesting. And truthfully, like I learned a lot about myself during the time that I was at that brand. The brand had been around for about 15 years and, you know, was going through some transformational changes for sure. So we were doing a little bit of rebranding, but also deciding to take really new and different sort of measured risks in innovating and products.

3:33And so one of my very special projects was developing and launching Better Than Sex Mascara. And that was a product that of its day, you know, it's become iconic now, but of its day at the time, felt new and different, but also felt risky to some. And so I remember presenting the product to Sephora and them giving us some pretty strong feedback about the name, about even the packaging and suggesting that maybe we should make some changes to that. And I just remember having a ton of conviction behind what we were doing and even taking, you know, some of the inspiration from the founders to create the look and feel and aesthetic and story and saying things like, I know this is going to be your number one mascara.

4:19Like, I just I know it. And we're going to build a strong plan behind it. And it took probably eight months of convincing Sephora to get into it, be excited about it. And truthfully, within the first, you know, month or two of our launch, we became that number one mascara in the category for them and then ultimately around the world. So I learned a lot about myself just in having conviction and good instincts even on creating something and taking inspiration from a really authentic place and just being sort of comfortable in that ambiguity to drive change. um after two-faced i went to kendo brands and that's where i um was overseeing ula henriksson's skincare and so i had a pretty tall order it was a brand that had been around for more than 30 years at the time i joined to transform it to rebrand it to even just think about how to work with and collaborate with ula and new and different ways and with a lot of uh pressure i would say from our parent company, LVMH, we had a little over a year to change some things or otherwise, you know, there were some questions around the future of the brand, certainly.

5:37And this is where I would say working with somebody like Ula as the founder was really such an incredible gift to me as a human being. How he approached everything that he did really just was with a lot of heart and soul behind it, a really authentic, wonderful, beautiful human being. We did rebrand. We changed everything within navigation of the brand packaging and how we showed up introducing new color codes just to make the consumer journey so much easier to understand for the brand. But it's also how we stepped out and started to innovate in product again. And this is where we created products like the first of their kind makeup meets skincare hybrid formats like Banana Bright Eye Cream.

6:25And that really came from inspiration of being with Ula on set and watching him apply mascara to his eyes. And I was like, wait, what's going on here? What's the secret here? Because he wanted to make his eyes pop on camera. And so we didn't have an eye cream in the assortment at the time. And I said, well, what if we take that idea and interpret that into a really incredible vitamin C rich skincare product first, but then we found banana powder as a makeup artist sort of secret ingredient, put those two things together and magic happened. And ultimately the rebrand was a great success. We grew it to be a top three global prestige skincare brand around the world.

7:04Ula is my most favorite and treasured founder that I ever had the pleasure and privilege to work with. It's just a really incredible human being. And then I did a couple other things along the way. I built and launched a K-beauty color brand called Kaja exclusively at Sephora. And then I went to Goop for many years. And Goop was a really incredible transformational time for me again in my career because it combined both brand building and developing the in-house portfolio. But I was also back in merchandising for the first time in many, many years. So this was where on any given day, I'd be managing a couple of hundred brands, thousands of SKUs in the portfolio, making those tough decisions, just like Sephora and other retailers do every single day.

7:50And I would say, you know, this is where that experience left a different kind of impression on me. The last sort of year and a half that I was there, what I was starting to see amongst the brand community was a lot of repetition. And it got to a point where I could almost start to predict what my brands were going to present to me in their upcoming marketing decks and pitches. And it just, it left an impression on me where I took a step back and just really started to think about what that meant for the industry, what my own impact on that even was. And so, because of all of that, combined with some life experiences I was going through, my father passed away.

8:36I really, I just, I just took a pause and a beat to think about honestly what I, what I loved again and what type of impact I might be able to have differently in my life as well as my career. Wow. I mean, first of all, like, you know, my sincere condolences, like going past, passing of a parent is so difficult and I feel like it puts so much into like perspective, but I mean, you have played such a pivotal role in this industry because all of the products you went through, they weren't just great products. They were like category defining products, you know, and they were, I mean, that's so huge to me that you have seen that side of this.

9:16And you know what I mean? It's not, it's one thing to have a viral product, but it's so different when you, you know, you're explaining products that have literally like taken people's entire perspective on beauty and changed it. You know what I mean? And so like, I remember being like a consumer and discovering, you know, Too Faced, the Better Than Sex mascara and being a woman of color and feeling like I never found mascaras that fit, you know what I mean? Like they were never dark enough. They were never highlighting enough for my eyes. It hit so many points for me, that product. Same thing with the Banana Bright Eye Cream, you know, Ula Hendrickson has been such a pivotal brand, you know what I mean?

9:54And then that product came out and everybody was like, wait a minute, you know, what's going on? You know? And so it's like, it's like the whole mindset that that's where I want to really like kind of applaud you so much because it's, you've done this from a place of like, all right, cool. We want to make a viral brand, but no, we want to define something here, you know, and like give consumer something new. Where is that? Like, you know, where is that in today's world? Like when you look out into the beauty world, What do you see in terms of that? Like, do you feel like we've created bottlenecks or something?

10:29And what are the things you think are holding us back from those moments right now in the beauty space? You know, I think to innovate and to create change is not easy. It's hard to do that. And there's more noise than there's ever been. There's noise in the world for so many reasons we won't even get into on this podcast today. It's a lot. Yeah. But even within the beauty community, there's a lot of noise. And I think to truly break through to innovate, it's not for the faint of heart and it's not an easy journey to go on. And I think that's why sometimes it may be easier to create something that maybe fits into a box or fills maybe a category that doesn't exist within a brand versus sort of pulling back the layers and saying, what do we really stand for?

11:22What do we want to bring into this community and to the world at large and in what we're developing and what we're introducing to a consumer? You know, distractions can play a role in that sometimes when there is a lot of noise. Yeah, no, I really like that you said that. I agree. I think that for me, from a consumer standpoint, I can like kind of attest to what you're saying because the noise is it's insane right now, you know, and I think the brands that are standing out to me are like they're speaking to you on a much deeper level. You know, when you first showed me, Phil, I was like, this is awesome, you know, because it brought me back to a place.

11:56I don't know if it's like childhood or just memories I've had, like playing with makeup and like playing with like cosmetics and like getting excited. Like to bring that memory up, like I've had this conversation before with like fragrance brands where it's like, you know, like that nostalgia, like no brand can spend enough ad dollars to create that. It has to be built in from the beginning. And so I kind of want to start there with your brand is like the concept. Where did you like where were the starting places with the blueprint for the lip line? You know, like where did you start to walk us down all that?

12:27Totally. So I think because I was going through such life moments in the early days of just inception of the brand, what you said really rings true in that when you're having these moments, you kind of go back to childhood moments and memories. deeper than that for me like it was going back to inspirations that made sort of lasting and lifelong impressions on me and what was sort of true in all of that was just understanding how important love honestly really is how these really incredible special moments and memories and our lives become unforgettable. They shape who we are. That feels like a big idea and it's very emotionally rooted.

13:18But then I started to think, you know, a little deeper than that. Well, how can we take this desire to sort of recreate these moments and memories in our lives and transform them into a physical product that actually helps you relive these moments as well? So Kissy Lips is the first collection that we've introduced. And the inspiration behind that was really coming from the inspiration of how special a kiss is, whether it's your first kiss, your favorite kiss, your most unforgettable kiss. and thinking about how we could take the idea of that and turn it into a physical product that you can literally kiss on application with and be reminded of whatever that memory and that moment is to you that feels really special kissy lips was born really from that i love that yeah no when i first saw it it reminded me of like you know the packaging is so freaking cool like it was like you You remember like the stationery we had growing up?

14:24Yeah. That's where it took me to. And I like instantly fell in love because I was obsessed with my stationery. It's like, that's what I mean. It's like, it just brought me, you know, to a place. And so, I mean, obviously the products are amazing, you know, like I've used, like I use it as my lipstick. And so it's amazing, amazing product. But like, yeah, that experience itself was just like, I love this. You know, I love this. this something I'd take with me, you know, just because it feels like home. It feels like, you know, and so from that side, like, I mean, I guess my question really is then that where is that, that balance between like staying on top of trends, but then not, you know, and like creating a trend versus hopping on a trend.

15:08Like, how do you feel about that? And like, how did that play a role when you were crafting the brand? So how it started and how it will always and forever be is truthfully our inspiration just comes from unique and authentic places. We're never going to launch a product just because it's a trending format or category. Everything that we pursue in development has to have a reason for being not only in the inspiration behind it, but it also has to deliver a new experience for consumers through the formula, the form factor, and even the application method. It's a tall order to do all of those things.

15:45And we don't make it any easier on ourselves because this means everything that we develop is custom development and we invest in that as a brand. But it's so, so important for us to make sure that everything we're doing is bringing something unique to a really saturated industry. If we can't fully differentiate, then we won't pursue it. And truthfully, there have been times when we maybe started with an interesting idea, but we had to walk away from it ultimately if it didn't align with those values. Yeah. I mean, I love that though, because I think that's how you're going to get people excited again about makeup.

16:24I remember discovering Mac for the first time. What excited me about Mac was I could go play around with 80 shades. And so any brand that's ever like especially like the younger audience if there's like there's any I mean there's a lot of parents that listen in but like you you guys know how it is when your teenagers discover makeup you know like yeah what's gonna catch their eye so it's like when you when you're creating a product like I feel like that needs to be at the forefront it's like what is really going to like captivate this consumer at the end of the day you know yeah yeah and my hope truly with kissy lips was that it could be something to that point.

17:04Maybe if you're a younger consumer, you're trying color for the very first time, maybe you're getting ready for your first kiss, then this is a product that'll speak to you. But it'll also speak to someone who's my age, who can remember what those moments and eras of like the 90s and the 2000s were like. And it inspires those feelings of nostalgia again. And so what I really hoped to bring in all of this was that multi-generational connection. Yeah, no, I think it's definitely there. And I was also going to say, I feel like it's a dream for makeup artists too, because like the applicator itself, like it's beautiful to use, but then I find myself sometimes like I'll go in with like my lip brush, you know, and like it's easy to dip into it.

17:47Like I feel like a lot of times with lipsticks, like I've definitely broken the head off my lipstick. Yeah, same. No, thank you so much for saying that. I think, you know, the balance is always making sure that even though you're introducing something new and different, that it still feels easy and effortless to use and that you can still approach it in the ways that work best for you. So like you said, like you can apply it with a brush if that's how you want to amplify the color or the benefits of the formula. Or you can just kiss it on. You can go one swipe and you're good to go. really just making sure that we could make the experience effortless even though it was going to be new and different yeah no I really I think this is really cool and for you know all of the makeup artists that do tune in like you know I'm just curious what your your thoughts are because I always thought you know remember when the paint like the I don't know if you remember those like paint pots that came out like I think Mac introduced them or something yeah that concept like was so great but then like we kind of lost it I feel like over time it's like I wish you could have more versatility you know and how these products are presented so I want to actually kind of dive into your formulation though because it is an amazing amazing product I mean like the actual formula itself kind of blew me away because I have really dry lips and for me a lot of like color products exacerbate that so like talk us through that like what was the formulation part like for you like what were some pillars you really wanted to focus on so I think for us making sure that the formula could give these really incredible skincare benefits as well was super, super important.

19:23The way that we really sort of think about formulation as a whole is feel good formulas that are going to give you good for you results. Our philosophy is making sure also that we are providing sort of the safest ingredients out there. And so we're really doing a lot of diligence every single day on what the best, safest ingredients are. We do have the Sephora Clean Seal. We're meeting global standards of clean. Everything is vegan. It's cruelty-free. The textures you'll notice also are really, really unique and highly sensorial. They've got sort of a cushion and a bounce. They're lightweight.

20:06They're buildable. They're really effortless. And you can layer them. And so I think that always feels surprising when people try it for the first time. Something else that we've incorporated into all the formulas are trilite esters. And so you'll notice that that contributes to the cushion, but there's also this sort of light catching effect, this bounce and this really beautiful lasting shine. One of the ingredients that we're most excited about and that we've trademarked is called our feel-good complex. This comes from a naturally derived ingredient. It's sourced from the south of France. This ingredient is rich in petroselanic acid, and that's an essential fatty acid that's nourishing, it's soothing, it's anti-inflammatory, really comforting on the skin.

21:00And what's really innovative about this particular complex is it's been studied to support production of endorphins and oxytocin, also known as the happy and love hormones. And a high percentage of users demonstrated that they felt overall increased well-being in using this ingredient. And so I think one of the things that was really important to us is you're going to get this really amazing sensorial experience. You're going to get incredible, good for you, safe quality ingredients. You're going to get skincare benefits and all of that. But beyond that, what else are we going to give you that goes beyond just the surface level?

21:44And so this ingredient was really, really important to include and introduce. And we're the only brand to commercialize it and put it out into the marketplace. That's amazing. I love that you thought about it from different lens because I always wondered that about like, especially color cosmetics is like, how does that innovation really take place? Because I never hear about, you know what I mean? Like new things coming out in terms of like, I mean, we always hear about the whole like, oh, it's skincare infused makeup, right? Like that's like super buzzy, but then you never hear about like, well, what's in there?

22:17That's really helpful. So that's very interesting. I find it to be unique because for me, lip products, I think, are really at that intersection between true like skincare and makeup, you know. Like I've always felt that way. Like I feel like it was never like I remember those liquid lipsticks that came out, you know, when everybody was going viral about liquid lipsticks. And like my lips were wrecked, dude. Like I literally wrecked my entire like lip barrier for like years. yeah so i can appreciate this so much you know from that angle because i i feel like you know it kind of deterred me as a consumer from using lip products for a long time you know so i totally understand that like we we wanted this to to give back again to just feel really good on the lips and to that point about helping support healthy lip barrier function this does that as well there's some beautiful oils in there, including raspberry seed oil.

23:12There's a rich rice brand wax. And so it does feel really good and nourishing. But the fun factor is kissing it for sure. Like just to be able to kiss on the color, kiss those lips. The one thing I'll say too, which was such a learning and a journey in all of this, I remember early on someone saying to me like, how has this never been done before? Surely like lips exist out there in the world. They didn't because the truth is it was extremely hard to even create a shape that could work for lip shapes and sizes of all varieties is the truth. Like for me, I've got smaller, thinner lips. So thinking about how it could flex from, you know, a smaller, thinner lip, even to like a full voluptuous lip took us 56 trials to get there.

24:00And we had a lot of failures along the way in the size of the bullet, the shape itself. in the formula itself to get to something ultimately that would be stable, would be the right shape, right experience for a broad audience of users. But also just be the experience you described that feels really beautiful on the lips as well. I love that because also like, I think when you're, especially just for the younger audience and any teenagers that are using it, like if you don't know how to do your lips, this is kind of like your tool. Like it's like a guide. I mean, you can definitely kiss it on, but then also just look at it, you know, look at the way the lips are.

24:40And then the packaging is almost like your guide. Really? I mean, I think it's like really, really neat in that way. I know I didn't know how to do that. I definitely didn't. I'm pretty sure I had things all over my lips. Yeah, I was like overlining beyond oblivion. Like, I don't even know what I was doing, but it's really cool. And, you know, I think my favorite part, honestly, and I wanted to actually talk to you about this and just get your view on this. was like we are entering in the beauty industry what I'm noticing is we are trying I think as an industry to cater to the younger audience in a like an ethical way you know and I think we're trying we really are I see so many brands that are like just trying to innovate you know and so from that angle I mean you really have done that with this product you are like I mean if there is a younger person that picks this up like they will feel like this is meant for them you know It kind of is, the packaging and the appeal of it.

25:32So what is, for you, when you were going through this as a founder, keeping all of that in mind, what were some of the thoughts that you had or even thoughts you have now about that ethical part of designing something truly from a meaningful place that is meant for a younger audience, that isn't going to harm them, especially with things like beauty standards, how they are now? Totally. I think first and foremost, like just understanding that it comes with responsibility to create and to introduce anything out into the world. because of my experience and my journey at Goop, really getting a deep foundational understanding of impact of ingredients and how important it is to do really thorough research on what those ingredients can and cannot do for you was a real foundational starting point for me in building the brand.

26:26And so our development cycle is usually two years and sometimes longer, depending on what it is. But it comes from a place of responsibility and from a desire for me to want to create a safer, better product. I'm not starting from a place of saying my costs only allow me to do this. I'm starting from a place of how can we infuse the best ingredients that are really right for people that are going to give them an exceptional experience first, that's safe, that's good, that's of high quality. And that's really sort of the guiding light for us as a brand. We start from that place. It's a responsibility.

27:09I love that. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, that's the thing is like, again, you can't really do that later, you know? Like you can't make a brand. And I see this. This was happening. I think we're now shifting, at least from what I've noticed, that in the beginning when we saw that there was this whole thing called Sephora kids, you know, emerging and like this was becoming a phenomena. I think the beauty industry was kind of scouring to figure out how can we like mold whatever we have now into like what's going to fit. And that just, it just doesn't work, you know, because they're meant for adults.

27:47The products were meant for adults. And so you can't pretend like they're meant for a younger audience. Like at that, so that's where I feel like this is like a very, very pivotal time, I think in the beauty industry from that standpoint where it's like, no, you got to build this in guys, you know, like you, from the beginning, you got to think about this stuff. So totally. And understand that whether that's the positioning of your brand or not, there will be access to those things from a broader community. And so again, I think it's why I use the word responsibility with intention because you do have a responsibility in what it is that you're putting out to market.

28:23Absolutely. No, I mean, I love it. I love the brand. And I want to ask you though, like where, what is the future? Like, what are you envisioning for like the, you know, expanding on the brand and like, is there anything in the works right now? Are you just like going to stay in the lip category for a while or anything that you can share with us? Well, we anticipate Kissy Lips will be the hero of the brand. Yeah, possibly always and forever. And we love that and we celebrate that. We do have two other really exciting innovations in development now. And so keep an eye out for those around Q4 to Q1 of next year in new categories.

29:00So we will be extending beyond lip. We will be expanding into new markets as well a little later this year. And so more to come on that. And I think more than anything for us, really what we hope to see unfold on the journey next is just a celebration of all of the stories of these beautiful moments within our community. So we're going to start to bring some things to life up and coming for Valentine's Day, even, which is just around the corner and really exciting. But there's a lot that's in development now and a lot that will be unfolding a little bit later this year. And we're just really, really excited for all of it.

29:38I love that. I'm so excited. I'm just so glad you, you have launched your own brand. I'm just so excited. I mean, honestly, like some coming from someone like you, it's so meaningful and it's just, it's beautiful. And it's really refreshing to see. And I, I really, really applaud you. Obviously. I mean, you've done so much in this industry as is, but then you're, you're creating something that isn't redundant. You know what I mean? And that's really, really brave to do that. So really hats off to you for doing that. Thank you, my friend, for saying that. And it's true, like, even no matter what you've done in your career, when you step out and do something on your own, it feels different.