From HGTV to Beauty: The Art of Reinvention with Alison Victoria

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. Today's a very, very special episode because we're going to be talking to a true expert when it comes to understanding the interior environment we're always in, the home environment. She is such an expert in the home interior decorating side and also an executive producer and television host. So without further ado, please welcome Alison Victoria. Welcome, Alison.

0:19Alison Victoria:Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah. No, it's an honor to host you. I'm so excited to chat with you. I can't wait to like learn more about your journey. You know, you have had such an amazing, amazing career so far. And I would love for you to kind of walk us down memory lane if you don't mind. And like, where did it start for you? Especially the television. Oh my gosh. It's a long journey. I'm going to give cliff notes. I always wanted to be a designer, which really helped me beeline it to exactly where I am. It wasn't wondering like, oh, do I maybe want to do this? No, I maybe want to do that. That came way later in life.

0:52Alison Victoria:And I'm actually very glad for that because I was very steadfast in my journey of becoming an interior designer. I knew I wanted to do it since I was 11. And so it was easy to go to school for that and then get my job right out of college doing that with a home builder. And then came those moments of what do I really want to do in my life and adding to it, but always keeping the baseline of what I love the most, which is interiors. Doing design makes me happy and being happy makes me healthy. And that's to me the most important thing. So yes, I'm stressed to the max right now and doing too much, but I know that it will pay off.

1:30Alison Victoria:So it's worth it. I mean, you have so many projects, I feel like, that you're always juggling. And I think that's what's really extraordinary when I talk to professionals to yourself, because I feel like we never get to hear about that in terms of what that means for like how much time you have for yourself, you know, like what do you do for like self-care? I'd love to dive into like your own self-care journey. Like, you know, did you have any moments, especially in the television side and the producing side? I mean, that's such a busy lifestyle. You know what I mean? So like, did you have moments where you're like, wait, I need to slow down for a minute, you know, and take care of myself?

2:01Alison Victoria:Yeah, I would say that I'm not doing the best job at it right now. Definitely not. Like when I was on my phone last night, because I work only from a phone. So everything I do is on my Apple iPhone. I have a laptop that sits here. It doesn't get much use, but my life is on the go. And so it's a constant. And I don't love that because it is very hard to detach. So last night, for instance, I was like, okay, put the phone down. I never watch TV ever. I have one television in my house and it never gets turned on. So last night I was like, okay, I'm going to do it tonight. Tonight's the night. I went into my movie room and never turned it on.

2:34Alison Victoria:I was working. And then I had to tell myself, like, I was like, Paul Brandt, my partner, my boyfriend, just to stop working. And so I don't know the balance. I do know that every morning I wake up and I work out. That is my one hour of just pure detachment, put it that way. And I do it with a trainer, not because I'm so fancy, but because I have to hold myself accountable and she does that for me. If I worked out by myself, I'd be on my phone. So it's like knowing what my boundaries are and also making sure that at least there's one thing that I do every day for me. I would say two things, like the workout and then sleep.

3:10Alison Victoria:I sleep nine, 10 hours a night. So that's awesome. Yeah, very important for my skin, my health, everything. I mean, I do attribute so much of that to my sleep ability. No, I love that though. You brought up such a good point because we don't talk about like the bare essentials of like what actually keeps us healthy. You know, like I literally every day, I'm like, you know, talking to brands that are coming out with like the latest innovations. And it's like, you know, we're trying to biohack right now. And we've got the peptide bros in one corner, but it's like, no one talks about like, what are the bare necessities to have this like healthy, beautiful life, right?

3:43And you wake up and you feel like, okay, I want to go do something today. And I feel like a lot of people struggle with that, but no one talks about things like sleep. So I'm glad you spotlighted that, you know?

3:53Alison Victoria:Yeah. Why not talk about the things that are free? Everyone's talking like all these like keywords right now, peptides and longevity, and that costs money. And a lot of us don't have that disposable income to go and start doing peptides for$1 ,500 a month. So it's like, what are the things that we can do that cost nothing? And I think for me, I look at it like my workout, I can do a very similar workout in a hotel room on a floor with a towel. And I can make a choice to say, you know what, I'm not going to sit here and be on my phone doing work. I'm going to go for a walk and do it there and moving your body.

4:29Alison Victoria:Those things cost nothing. And those things make a massive difference in your overall well-being. No, I couldn't agree more. And I kind of want to ask you this, especially because I know right now, and I feel like this started with COVID because we were all so locked up for like so long, is our home environment. Because I mean, you are the expert here, you know, when it comes to interior design, understanding the space and like elevating our own spaces. I just want to get your real thoughts on this about where do you think all of that fits in when we're thinking about what is going to actually make me feel better at the end of the day, you know, because just like sleep, like what you just brought up, that's in my mind, also one of those big, big things that impact us in so many different areas of life.

5:10And we never discuss it like in the wellness conversation never comes up.

5:14Alison Victoria:Well, I'm doing my entire sub stack about sleep. And I can't wait for that one to come out in like four weeks or something. That's really exciting because it's my superpower. So this is my house and I love it more than anything. And I feel safe here. And I feel like hugged every time I come in the door. And I've created an environment that I want to be in and that makes me happy. So every morning when I wake up and I look at this house, I'm like, oh my. Now it is a shit show in here because there's samples everywhere and my work is everywhere. I mean, if you saw behind the camera, you'd be like, this girl does not have her shit together.

5:49Alison Victoria:But that's actually kind of my life. It's always like, oh, this might look pretty, but don't open the drawers. but what you do see is what I know this house can be when things are not so chaotic but I walk in I wake up and I walk out and I'm like oh my god this is my house like I get to live here and you know I designed my life this way not just in the way that I live it but in the place and things that I've surrounded myself with I like tchotchkes I like open shelving I like memories of travels and photos of family and reminders of the good life that I live. And my home is a collection of those moments.

6:28Alison Victoria:And so you come into my home, there's a story for everything. I was here when I bought that. I negotiated this price for that and I bought it here. And then I turned it into this. It's a really positive way of being because even when I'm alone, I'm reminded of these happy moments. And so I'm surrounded by it at all times. And that's what makes home so great to come back to every day at the end of a long one, at the start of a very busy one. Home is where life happens. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I know that's one of the biggest things I have had a hard time kind of getting my head around is how much it impacts our wellness and our overall like just everyday disposition.

7:08You know, like when you wake up and go about your day, like all of that is impacted about like how you're waking up, where you're waking up, what's your environment? What have you created for yourself in the morning first thing when you open your eyes? Like that kind of thing. I don't know. It just never gets discussed, you know? And I feel like when the world of interior design, if you really think about like for me personally, every single time I've seen something that I really like in terms of interior design, you know, like a concept, it's always centered around like how much comfort will this bring me at the end of the day?

7:36You know, like am I going to feel like exactly what you were describing really comfortable in my space, really like taken care of in my space? And I feel like that's something that that conversation needs to happen more, you know, in terms of like what we can do to enhance that.

7:49Alison Victoria:Yeah. And that's what I try to do every second that I can, whether it's on social or now through my new platform that I literally just launched this morning, where I get to talk in depth about those things, about creating a happy home, about creating healthy decisions in home and in life. Because on social, you know, like you only get to put a little blurb out or in a podcast, you get to touch on one subject and it's longer doing a podcast than it is doing a social post. But these things are really exciting to dive into deeper. And yeah, I mean, look, I think that having a happy home creates a healthy lifestyle.

8:28So yeah, I mean, so can you dive into it a little bit with us? Like, what do you think we can all incorporate in our home environment?

8:34Alison Victoria:Well, I touched on it a little bit, but like moments and memories for me are important. And so when I design, I always, always do open shelving. Open shelving is an opportunity for you to bring those memories into your space and be a constant reminder of the good life that you've lived. So pictures and tchotchkes from travels and all of those things, things that you're proud of, things that you want to show off, things that you want to talk about, and things that make you think about those happy moments. Having those right in front of your face every day, very important. I don't like walking into a sterile home.

9:08Alison Victoria:It does nothing for me. In fact, it makes me kind of shut down and close up. So that's not my type of interior. I love a mix of old and new. Anybody who watches my design knows that. I'm sitting at this credenza that's from 1942. And I'm like in love with it. I think about the life that this piece has lived and the home that I've given it and this rebirth that it's experiencing in my lifetime. And it's really important to have that. So I've got an old bar from Chicago that's from a speakeasy from like the 60s. And then I built the back bar to try to match it. So it's old and new again. I love the mix of those two worlds and I will never design any differently.

9:52Alison Victoria:So that is the way I like to design. And I like a cozy home and doesn't mean it needs to be traditional or shabby chic or whatever, but it's like, it's just, I can do a house that's modern and still mix old and new. I can do a house that is mid-century and still make it old and new. There's a balance to it. And I think it's just making sure you're incorporating things that you love and that you're not just pointing to a catalog or in a magazine or something online and saying, I want exactly that. I mean, look, that's why restoration hardware is so popular because people copy and paste. And if I walk into one more home that looks like it's right out of a restoration hardware showroom, I'm going to throw up.

10:33Alison Victoria:There's no thinking there. It takes away from the talent that people like me and other designers have. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's so, so important to have that. And I won't lie. I think sometimes we just feel like we can copy a magazine and we're going to recreate the ambiance or whatever we saw on this piece of paper. You know what I mean? And it just like, it really gets me because I think that whole industry is so hard for a lot of concern. I know it is for me. When I go into any place, when I'm shopping for furniture, when I'm shopping for pieces for any kind of surface in my house, I get overwhelmed.

11:09And I think that's like really interesting, you know, psychologically, if you think about it, like for so many people, like why something like creating comfort for yourself becomes like a stress point, you know, like why, why does it take us there mentally? But I think it's that pressure of like, I got to have like a really nice space, but then you create so much pressure around it. I don't know if that makes sense, but.

11:28Alison Victoria:Well, it does. It's why I have a job. Yeah. Because it creates stress and anxiety for people to do it themselves, which is why they seek the advice of a designer. They watch HGTV. They read magazines. They look at Pinterest. That's what that's there for. Inspiration or something that like makes you go, oh, wait. Okay. That's a starting point. This is what I like. Going through this Pinterest board makes me happy. I feel something. Okay. If I feel happy looking at it, then can I imagine living in it? And so that's why I love what I do. I love that. No, I actually wanted to ask you about your journey with HGTV.

12:08I know that HGTV, I think for a lot of people represented like the first time that you could like sit down and feel like, okay, this is accomplishable. You know, like all of the shows on there, I think were at one point really catered towards an audience that was like trying to understand like how to navigate this space of like, how can I, you know, elevate my own surroundings? And I would love for you to kind of speak on that in terms of like, what did that teach you? Like being on that platform, trying to educate so many people about, you know, your talent, your craft, like, I mean, walk us through that journey.

12:37Alison Victoria:You know, the journey is very simple. It's, we are here to show you what we do, how we do it, and you only get little tidbits of it. So my show takes me almost 11 months to film and you guys get to watch all of those episodes in two and a half weeks. So the meat of it is sometimes lost, but then it's up to me to be able to show people the in-between. I love my show. I created my show to be different from every other show where it's a true docu-series and it follows my life as best as I can without having cameras up my ass every day. You know, like that I could not live with where it was constant.

13:19Alison Victoria:But, you know, things happen when the cameras aren't there. And so I have to do the best job I can as a producer to try to recreate them in the most authentic way to tell the story. But my story with HGTV started with me doing a show called Kitchen Crashers. And I did Kitchen Crashers for nine years, 13 seasons, 113 episodes. And they were 30 minutes. And I would go to a home improvement store and I would find somebody and I would ask them if they wanted me to come home with them and do their kitchen. and I would give them a kitchen in three days. It was a very regimented show. They just brought that show back.

13:57Alison Victoria:My good friend is doing that show now, but he's doing any space in your house, not just kitchens. And so that show, like you said, was very like formatted. I'm going here, I'm doing this. And then I get to teach you three different DIYs that you can do at home. So definitely feel like it was more instructional how-to back then. Now, as I've morphed into my shows, Windy City Rehab and Sin City Rehab. It's more of watch how I do this. Less of teaching you how, more of inspiring you to do. It's been 17 years I've been doing HGTV shows and yeah. I love that. That's really cool how you describe that because I think sometimes like you just need to see things come to life.

14:40And I think this is like across the board in wellness. Like I've seen this a lot that people, we get overwhelmed. And I think if you have like some sort of a guiding light, it just becomes easier step by step. And I think for me, HGTV was always like that for me. I would literally turn it on and just binge watch it because I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm not going to pretend like I do.

14:59Alison Victoria:Yeah. Well, that's you and everyone else, right? It's their wallpaper on their television and it's a constant. I love that. Yeah. I actually really want to ask you because I know you recently you did a collab, right? With Volition for the bronzer drops. That's so cool. That was a really cool collab. Like tell us about that. So the opportunity came to me about a year and four months ago. Volition Beauty had asked if I would be wanting to get into the beauty space. The beauty space for me is what I've been living since I was a little girl. I love beauty products. My countertops are filled with them.

15:36Alison Victoria:I am a very loyal buyer. So when I like something, it's staying in the rotation. It's not getting booted. I don't try new things. Also, my skin doesn't allow me to try new things all the time. I don't have the time for a breakout or to try something to maybe break out. I'm on camera every day for the most part. So I've got to find things that work for my very sensitive skin. And I thought, wait a minute, the one thing that I'm missing in my roster is a serum that also not only works on my skin to make it better with the ingredients, but then makes my skin look amazing on the outside. So working on the inside and beautifying on the outside.

16:16Alison Victoria:So the only reason I said yes to working with Volition was because they made it very clear to me that I get to create this product with them. They're not creating something and I'm slapping my name on it. I'm naming it. I'm picking the bottle and I am testing out every single round of formula until I get it perfect. So I have 40 little samples and 10 bottles and they're in a bag. And I kept them for a reason to be like, this is like the evolution of the Greek goddess glow drops. And that I truly had my hands in it from day one. I am Greek. I'm 100 % Greek. I was like, how do I bottle up the look and the feel and the smell of what I experienced when I'm in the Greek islands during my summer?

16:59Alison Victoria:I leave next week to go to Greece. And when I'm there, and then when I get home, I'm like, oh my God, how can I bottle this up and sell it? And that is exactly what we've done. So the ingredients are very simple. They're packed with peptides. We really wanted to use like olives and grapes. So we have squalene and resveratrol. Everything's natural, which I love, but the smell of fresh figs, which is very Greek summer to me. And getting the shimmer right was very important. I didn't want this to look glittery. I didn't want it to be something that was like the first moment of seeing it is just glitter or shine.

17:35Alison Victoria:I wanted it to feel very moisturizing. I wanted it to feel like something that you could wear with zero makeup because I don't wear a lot of makeup. So this becomes my new face. And it's like that glazed donut look and feel. It's not tacky or sticky. It's just plumping and like glossy and it won't make you break out. And it's not going to come off on your clothing and it smells delicious. So I was like, oh my God, I got to create the perfect product. And I believe so much in it. And look, there takes a lot to launch a beauty product, even with a brand like Volition. It's... Yeah. No, it's a lot.

18:12It's a big, long journey, especially now. Like, I feel like there's so many steps in that process at this point. Like, I remember interviewing founders that were like pretty early on. I know Volition launched a long time ago, though. I remember interviewing them when I first started this podcast. And even from back then to now, when I look at how hard it is to create a beauty product now, it's crazy. Like all the steps, all the things you got to go through, all the checking and rechecking and testing. And I mean, it's wild. So I believe you.

18:38Alison Victoria:I went through all of it. I mean, look, we just launched. It took 11 months just to get it to a place where we could even talk about it. And then I did my launch party two months ago and I'm like, oh my God, here we go, right? And the feedback I'm getting and the quotes that I hear where it's like, this is my new base for my makeup or I love using this over sunscreen because I get that shimmer back. And also, by the way, it works on every skin color and every skin type. I recently had a girl who came up to me and said that she had the worst skin ever and had to like go to Indonesia for six months to go like wean off of her steroid topical cream that she had for her really aggressive rosacea or something like she lost her hair.

19:25Alison Victoria:She lost her eyebrows. Her skin was peeling off. She has the most sensitive skin. She just got back like two months ago. She looks like a totally different person. She tried the product and she's like, it's the first product that hasn't irritated my skin. So that's real testimonial there. That was last week when I was promoting the product and just put it on the girl that was like my cabana manager or something at the pool. But it was so awesome because she legit went right on her phone and bought it. She's like, this is like a dream. I love that. That's the difference though. That's why you have all the other iterations, you know, like you have your tons of it because it takes so long to create that, you know, that kind of efficacy.

20:04Like I would love to get your take on this because I know like you've been surrounded by beauty products. I mean, being in television, like you see so much, right? And I really would love to understand, like what do you think is happening in the beauty industry now? Because I feel like 10 years ago, we had no options, right? And like now we have like, I don't even know, like it's every day a new brand, every day a new product launch. And I'm just like, how do you as consumers keep up with that? Even when you are in like your kind of career path where you are always using because you're on television and you're in that space, how do you keep up with that?

20:35Like what are your thoughts around that? The way that the beauty industry is moving and how fast we're coming out with products now?

20:40Alison Victoria:I think the beauty world is oversaturated, which makes me feel like a hypocrite because here I am coming out with something. But that's why it was really important for me to come out with one product, one product, a hero product, where it's like, this is everything I've ever wanted all in one. I don't need like 10 items to be in my launch. I need one. And I think that we're going to watch the beauty world in makeup and skincare dwindle down to that. I think you're going to see more celebrities doing a hero product because they think that there are too many options out there. I mean, people are coming out with skincare for their children now.