From Miss World to Parliament: Beauty, Power, and Reinvention with Lisa Hanna

0:00Lisa Hanna:Welcome back to Skin Anarchy. I'm so excited about our episode today because we are going to be really diving into the world of beauty from I think a very unique angle. Our guest today has so much amazing experience in her career from so many different avenues when it comes to looking at what women go through when it comes to understanding how we perceive ourselves, what we go through day to day in our careers and and now creating her own line and coming into the beauty space as an entrepreneur. So I'm so excited. Please welcome Lisa Hanna. Welcome Lisa. So excited. Hi, thanks. Thanks, it's good to be here.

0:31Good to communicate with you. I've listened to your podcast for a long time. And I like it because not only is it deep and profound, but you definitely delve into the more substantive issues that sometimes are not the superficial ones that people want to hear. So I'm always for listening to what you have to say.

0:52Lisa Hanna:thank you so much that means a lot coming from you and i i i'm hoping we can we can do some things because your career is truly truly you know profound it's so amazing what you've already accomplished um and seen you know all the different angles and i really actually want to start there at least if you don't mind kind of walking us down memory lane you started in the beauty world you know with miss world in 1993 and then you moved into politics i mean that's that's very you know Oh, interesting. Walk us down that lane. Well, I was an accidental beauty queen. So I left high school and then my mother, who used to make all my clothes, I think it was more of a dream of hers for me to enter Mr.

1:34Mako. So I was more of a freedom fighter, school leader, community activist. But I used to model her clothes when she made them. So I think she thought that it would have been OK. And I was also a black belt instructor. So I was a tomboy. So I entered Miss Jamaica when I was 17, just leaving high school, I think, more as a, to satisfy her. And I won. And I won big. At the time, I was a host of a national television program. So the country had already known who I was, but I certainly didn't know how to tweeze my eyebrows. And I had very big hair. I was just not that girl that dreamed of being a beauty queen.

2:18So won that in September. Then I went to Miss World in South Africa and won. And at the time, South Africa was going through its democratization. So apartheid had just ended. Mandela had come to Jamaica. And I was so inspired by this man all my life. And so I was more interested in what was happening in South Africa. So I would sneak out of my hotel room. I think what happened for me truly is I didn't typify the aesthetic of what standards of beauty were to be like. Because I was more organic. I was more of a people person. I would sneak out of my room to talk to the guards and the janitors and the housekeepers to just get a sense of what was happening in Southern City, South Africa.

3:07because it was such a symbol of, of in the world where Sun City was and what was happening in South Africa. And I found myself in this, in this place that I had heard so much about and I wanted to get a sense of how they felt about it. So I think what happened for me is there was this big groundswell among the masses of the people in South Africa and the working class about Miss Jamaica. And Jamaica had played such a formidable role in the fight of apartheid as a country who didn't in the 1950s have its own independence from Britain. So fast forward, I won this world. It was at 18 and I was thrust into a world that was very different.

3:52I felt as if I was an other. In other words, I wasn't the person who was a superficial person, not saying that beauty was superficial, but it was not something that I was accustomed to the makeup artists the hair the modeling how to how to project in that way I was much more of an introvert in in a certain respect I mean if you see me on stage you'll be like no she's not so I decided at the end of that and I before I even won Miss World I was a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador which which which was the direction I was heading into so did two degrees after Miss world, worked around the world in project management.

4:36In my early 30s, I was the youngest member of parliament, a female member of parliament in Jamaica, became a minister of government very early, a cabinet minister, spent 20 years basically in politics. I retired last year. I'm a kick-ass political strategist, and I was good at it. And I said, you know, well, at 50, this is, I think it's time to give other people. I think leadership has an obligation to give other people an opportunity to present their ideas. And I think as leaders, especially in national policy, there comes a point where you need to give the generation coming forward the ability to express themselves about what their generation needs.

5:22And I had always believed that. And I thought, well, if this is your belief system, you need to step. And so in stepping, I knew that I also still had to fund a lot of the activist things that I was still doing. And I found that there was this very big idea, because as I got older, the concept of becoming more was something that I believed. You know, we accumulate with age. You know, you sit down and you want to speak to wise people when we want. when we go to a surgeon, we want somebody with experience. You typically want to get advice from your parents or your grandparents, but for some reason, the language that we were taught in the beauty industry has been built around correction and reversing.

6:15And language is never neutral. You know, if we're constantly told that the evidence of time is something to correct, eventually we see ourselves and believe that time has diminished us. And I rejected that. So there was the narrative of beauty that I was rejecting because I was seeing so many young women insecure and so many of my colleagues insecure about getting older. You know, what am I going to do? And then there was the other thing where, because I was working in fields and farms and I had the largest constituency in Jamaica, geographically, the temperatures are fixing roads and you're in gullies.

6:59And as an MP, you had to press flesh. If you're not with the people day in, day out, apart from parliament and in the ministry, you're not going to win your seat again. And so an election was every five years. So my skin as it aged, I felt the difference. So I couldn't do retinol, I couldn't do alpha hydroxy, I couldn't do vitamin C. And what I was finding is that as trends developed, the industry would pump copious amounts of actives into products that wouldn't match skin. And so I felt the industry was more homogenous. And it was aggressive in this fight to reverse correct. And it felt, I felt there wasn't anything out there.

7:46And I tried everything. So from, I was a teenager, I knew about beauty. I knew about the beauty lines. I was, I was a person with Estee Lauder with that, when the yellow moisturizer came out and then it was Lancome and then it was La Mer and then it was Guerlain and then it was Chanel and so many different things. And then there was this real explosion of other brands, which I also tried. But I would have to shop across brands. And I said, you know what? This is not helping me because as a woman that needs 30 hours in a 24-hour day, I don't have the time to do this. And nothing is existing to give my skin what it really needs at this point.

8:29So that's it in a nutshell, basically.

8:33Lisa Hanna:Yeah, no, I mean, I have so many questions, honestly, because you've touched on so many topics that I, you know, first of all, I mean, I'm just, I'm blown away with all of the things that you've, you know, you've done and you've seen and you've accomplished. And I, and I really want to actually ask you this, because I feel like a lot of times women in power, the way that we perceive them is even more, like we scrutinize them even more than we already scrutinize women, you know, with beauty. Before we open our mouth. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I see, I mean, I think all of us have seen headlines where, you know, someone who, a woman who is in politics, you hear about the dress she's wearing or the way her hair is before you hear about her work or her advocacy or her passion.

9:11Lisa Hanna:And I would love for you to touch on this and talk about how was that, you know, tiptoeing around all of that and, you know, still maintaining who you are from that stance of like beauty and those things. That's a really good question. And to answer it, I would have to tell you that in the beginning, I was a novelty. So when I went into parliament, it was, where's this beauty queen going? She can't have any sense. And why is she coming here? And maybe for the first couple of months, you got heckled. I got heckled. And that was very clear. But I think very quickly, they realized that there was such a deep intellectualism to who I was.

9:57And that was the first thing. The second thing is I was not a pushover. I was a blood sporter. And so my ability on the X and Y axis to not only be intellectual, but to kick your ass in the field and to stand up to you. So I'm fearless. And they learned, the men in the parliament learned very, very quickly just not to judge me that way. And then over the course of my nearly 20 years in politics, there was always a fight. And you learned, or certainly I was good at it. So I knew that in any political war, somebody would have to die on the political battlefield, but it wasn't going to be me.

10:40Lisa Hanna:So a lot of my political career, both as minister, as MP, as regional chairman, as treasurer of the party, as somebody who was always in the top three in the polls of the country as a representative. Yes, I was a target. The second thing that would happen though, is I'm somebody that has always lifted weights and was very much into exercise. So what I would wear, and it wasn't that I was not elegant or graceful, but I would always be picked on. So there were two motions, for example, in parliament about how women should dress because one day I wore something sleepless. Or I remember the speaker called me once to say, you know, Lisa, the men are having problems because they said your pants are too tight when nothing like that but I you know the funny thing is I've never dwelled on those things because I have always been a iron fist in a silk glove so I've never focused on that and I think they knew that those things never bothered me and even when some of the harshest political critics.

11:55I just kept going. And so to know, there was a real sadness on the part of the country when I decided to retire, because there was, this is a woman who has grown up in front of the country. We've seen her since she was 14. We saw her win Miss World. We've seen her do this. We were hoping she would be our prime minister. And so there is still this longing. and but you get that and way before you open your mouth there is this judgment so even I remember once I wore a swimsuit and posted it in 2013 and that created a national debate the newspapers wrote articles about it the catholic church came out about it you know she how can our minister of government be in a swimsuit in a bikini and I had a t-shirt on so So there was always, I think there was always something that somebody would have to say, no, it's very interesting because there's an ageist component to the beauty.

13:05So no, because I put on a swimsuit and it's like, well, why is she in 50, 51 in a swimsuit? She should be covering up. So I think in all the parts of my life, there's always been something that I have had to surmount or to hurdle. So now I'm getting that other part. And people are saying, well, you know, she's showing how our products work. And it's true.

13:31Lisa Hanna:Yeah. I mean, that's such a very, very strong statement, what you said, the ageist component in beauty. I think now more than ever, we're starting to see it resurface and now it's getting rebranded. And it kind of bothers me a little bit because I'm like, we're still dealing with all of these problems still. They haven't gone away. You know, the stereotypes, the siloing of women, you know, all of it is still there. We're just wrapping it up in prettier packaging and selling it again. You know, and I think for me, I'm sure you've seen longevity everywhere. Longevity for me, a lot of it is like that, you know.

14:05I know, but it's a word I think is overused and also misplaced because it sounds good. And it's why I say age intelligently, because all of us on this journey that we're going forward with want to accumulate knowledge. And whether it's knowledge about your health or whether it's knowledge about your profession or whether it's knowledge about how to raise your children more appropriately and learning that, or whether it's knowledge about self-care, that's a journey that we're all on. And for me, I think what the beauty industry doesn't tell us is that our skin is an organ. And how, you know, we go to doctors for our kidney or heart or liver.

14:58But I've just seen so many young people fight the skin and doing so many things to the skin. So for me, when I decided to create this line, it was a lot of education behind it. a lot of how can I use even my own life as something to inspire people about how to take care of your skin. And that's not to say to women that you, I'm opposed to corrective surgery or what you want to do, but I'm also saying to you that remember your skin is at its best when it's supported. When you're not fighting it, when you're working in harmony with it. And for a long time, the beauty industry has told us not to work in harmony with our skin.

15:49Lisa Hanna:Yes. Yes. I couldn't agree more with you. And I know that with your line, it's wonderful because you've created a truly like a luxury focused brand, but it's very much grounded in science. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about this because I think in the world of beauty right now, I'm seeing a lot of pushback where it's like you can either have luxury or you can have science driven, but I think that's a misunderstanding. And so, I mean, tell me, why did you go to Italy to collaborate on your line? Italy, I found, was doing some very innovative things in skincare and cosmetics. And I didn't think the world was paying attention.

16:30That's one. Two, I wanted my products to be EU regulated and to pass EU standards. But they were also pushing boundaries that I liked and not boundaries in a way that was going to break the skin barrier. But for example, looking more at mastic resin as an ingredient to mimic retinol, to ensure that the body internally was now stimulated to produce the collagen, the retinoid acid. So I liked what I was seeing and hearing from this particular lab. And so I went and I remember sitting down with Vittoria and she's the owner of the lab and she's been in skincare for 30 years. And I said, listen, at this point of my life, and I think what I certainly want women to be able to feel is the internal mechanisms of who we are to be stimulated.

17:38because any change that I've seen in my lifetime, whether I worked as a student, a leader, or as a UNDP, go to ambassador, whatever it was, systemic change starts from the ground up. It never starts from the top down. So unless you get the people or unless you get the systems to change from the ground, and when I say the ground from the foundation, it's not going to move. So, and it's the same way I led. So what we did was we created this quantum RECP with a very unique molecular structure with a mastic resin. We protected the vitamin C so we didn't have an overconcentration of vitamin C and that the vitamin C didn't break until it reached your skin.

18:26I knew how important vitamin D is for your immune system, but you can't put vitamin D in skincare. And so we found molecules from green grapes, for example, a particular green grape that helped with inflammation. And then the matricans were important because I believe skin must recognize what it already knows. And I think matricans as peptides are undervalued and underrated. and what I when I when when I and the lab set out and I said listen we need to make sure that whatever we give to women has such a sensuality and it doesn't sit on top of the skin so the molecular structure and the biolipids have to be so there's a word that I'm looking for so precise and orchestrate it in such a way that as soon as it touches your skin, your skin recognizes it and it drinks it.

19:22And that's what happened. And so we took three years to get to where we wanted it to get to. But then there was something else. I felt that as women, if I spend my money on something, especially because we work so hard and coming out of COVID, I saw the data behind single households. I saw the data behind inflation. I saw the data behind what was taking place, both in terms of when consumption and surplus happened because of the war with Russia and Ukraine. I saw what happened with stimulus packages and where women were heading. And I thought, well, why don't we give women the ability, since they love luxury and they're using their stimulus packages to buy luxury, why don't we give them the opportunity to buy it without breaking their budget?

20:19Because every woman deserves when they go home to feel luxury. And so for me, it was also about not trying to make gazillions of dollars on this thing, but giving great packaging, making sure that when you held this bottle, this glass bottle, it sat beside your perfumes that were expensive and giving you a product that's going to work for your skin, that's clinically tested, dermatologically tested, but was beautiful on top of it. And that smelled great because also for me, even though it's science, I don't want to smell like formaldehyde. Yeah. And I wanted to go back to a sense where the sensuality of something made you feel sexy, made you feel sensual and good.

21:08And then built into the model and the business model, the fact that skincare can transform skin, but it can also transform lives. So 5 % of everything goes back to helping women and children with neurodivergence in particularly my country, because we only have two child psychiatrists in Jamaica. So only 7 % of our children's mental health needs are being met. And so 7 % of that population, which is 800 ,000 children, imagine all of the adults that were not diagnosed who are now adults. So for me, as a minister of youth and culture, I used to have mothers coming in, taking their children to police stations for uncontrollable behavior.

21:53And when you tested the child, they either had dyscalculia, dyslexia, they were ADHD. And so my activism, so it's an activist beauty brand in terms of helping your skin, but it's also an activist beauty brand and on a mission to help more women and children that way.

22:11Lisa Hanna:I love that. I love that. I love that you didn't separate your life's passion from, you know, this new chapter. And I think that's very, it's very rare to see that, honestly, because I feel like a lot of times people come into beauty, at least from what I've seen, you know, just like watching the beauty industry, they come into beauty, they kind of lose the sense of who they are, you know? So it's hard to figure out, like, what are you bringing to the space? That actually is very, very meaningful for myself. You know, myself in neurodivergence. So I know exactly what you're talking about. My son is, my son is, and he's 25.

22:43And look at what you've been able to achieve. But, but you know, without support, you would not have been able to stay that course. And I look at my son even now, you know, and I'm sure he had, he knows that he's neurodivergent. He has ADHD, but I've seen Alex, for example, graduate in the top 100 of his class, but he has a mother and a father who, was able to understand that and support that. There's so many children from where I come from and that just don't have that. And I've seen what happens to them, especially as minister. They get lost in the system. They turn to very dangerous behaviors.

23:28And so if I can help in any way. So that's really also why the brand exists.

23:34Lisa Hanna:I love that. I love that so much. And I, you know, I want to say because one of the biggest things for me recently has been like, I love seeing brands that are founded by people of color, because myself included growing up, I did not see myself in this industry. I think most of us can relate to that we, like, you know, whether that was shade matching or finding a founder, you can get behind, like kind of relate to, it just wasn't there, you know, and so when I see brands like created by, you know, people that represent you, you know, that you can relate to. Sometimes for a long time, it was like, well, it only fit into a box.

24:11Lisa Hanna:And so seeing a beautiful luxury brand come from, you know, somebody that I can relate to is a big statement, you know, like that's a big statement in this industry. And I'd like for you to speak on this because I think there's a, for a long time, there's been this like terrible, terrible umbrella that's been put on like, you know, obviously female founded brands, but also people of color founded brands where it's like, You got to fit into this like mold. Otherwise you don't fit. And luxury was never part of the mold. Luxury packaging. It's funny. I'm a writer. So even all of the copy that you see on the website and on the boxes, that's me.

24:50And so I never had a copywriter for the brand. That was me. So the brand is really, and I have a great board of directors who are small, but they allow me to do certain things. But you're right. And when I just started out developing in the very embryonic stages, I had people saying, well, you know, you should do the brand for people of color. And I said, why? This is, I want to do skincare for all skin types. And I was, even the brand agency I was working with to do graphics and things like that were trying to pigeonhole me into that area. And I said, no, not because, and that's the West though.

25:39It's a very interesting model because in Northern Africa, in India, in the Middle East, it's not like that. In other words, if somebody like me comes along because of that melting pot of ethnicities, you know as in and I'm I'm part Lebanese my father was Lebanese and my mother is black and Chinese so I come from a very deliberate melting pot by by accident but it's just where I come from but so if I'm in Morocco or Egypt or you know Saudi Arabia I pass as that if I'm in the western part of the world I'm seen as a woman of color which is very very different so it's I think it is still typecast.

26:29Fortunately, in Europe, it's not as much like that. We've been very, very grateful that the product is for all skin types. And we definitely set out and it works the same way across skin tones, whether you are more melanated or you are of a lighter hue. The products work clinically across all skin types. The fact that I look the way I do, I don't think is a preventative step to being able to educate women about skincare. I think what it does though, is the digital mechanisms of who we are today pushes the algorithm in a particular direction, which perhaps is something we need to talk about in the beauty industry.

27:21So why is it that we're being, you know, some people are being pushed in one direction and other people are being pushed in another direction. But at 51, you know, I'm 51 on Thursday and I can't be who I am not. I can't at this point try to be in my 20s because I'm a mother of a 25 year old. And so to try and please that generation would be antithetical to who my value system is and who I have been. And I think that kind of authenticity is also important when building or doing something for a generation of women that needs leadership. They need people, I think, who have a voice of experience. and I think they also need somebody who is competent and who's prepared to stand on the front line and say, no man, I have your back.

28:16And I promise you with my integrity that based on what I've lived and what I'm giving to you, you can count on it. And I'm just, and I've always been that person. I will stand on the, I don't lead from the back. So if I'm going to war for you, you best believe I'm going to be on that front line fighting on your behalf. And that's who I am. And that's how people have come to know me in my leadership as well. So I can't change from that.