The Voice Behind YŪGEN’s Latest Cover Star - Jenny McCarthy

0:00Hey guys, this is a very very special day because we are launching our fourth volume of UGin today. I am so excited. This is such a special moment because for the last four years, we have had such an amazing time featuring some of the best voices in this industry, bringing you content that goes way far beyond just peripheral ideas and concepts of beauty and really dives into some of the brands, some of the people that are redefining how we look at this world and this industry. so when you guys explore the fourth volume the first thing you're going to notice is our iconic cover star i am so excited to introduce jenny mccarthy as our cover star for volume four jenny is such an icon i mean that is the biggest understatement in itself because she has literally spanned so many industries you know she's been an actress she has been a model she has been just somebody that in pop culture that has stood out for being herself for obviously representing beauty in the most obvious way but then going so much deeper than that where she brought her personality forward in a time where nobody was doing that you know and she really defined an entire category and so many people have followed her footsteps ever since and so when I interviewed Jenny this year it was such an iconic moment for me just to speak to her and to learn from her and and her experiences we really wanted to capture that in her cover story so it's a beautiful Q &A with Jenny McCarthy that you will find in this volume I cannot wait for you guys to read it and to really dive into her world.

1:25Also her beautiful brand Formless Beauty is featured in there where I think Jenny is probably one of the only people in this space that is doing clean beauty in a way that is so meaningful. She is redefining in a lot of ways what clean beauty actually stands for. So I'm going to let you guys read the spread and really dive in. I don't want to give any spoilers but if you are curious about her episode stay tuned after this announcement to listen to her full episode. Also in the volume you're going to see some amazing personalities featured. You know, we had the honor of hosting names like Ayesha Curry, Patrick Starr, Mikaela Neguera this year.

1:57We have so many wonderful moments that we've highlighted throughout the volume with their features. And so I really urge you guys check out the entire volume, share it with somebody who you know loves magazines, loves beauty, loves this entire industry. I think there's something here for everybody. And so I can't wait for you to get your hands on it. If you're interested in downloading it, everything is free. So it's open access 100%. It's available on Apple Books as a free download. So if you have any Apple device, you can download it and we will be linking everything in our Instagram bio. So make sure you go check that out.

2:29But if you just want to go to the website, it's available as open access for a few months. So go to www.saugen.com, all one word, S-A-Y-U-G-E-N.com. And you can just flip through it right there. It's open access. So I really encourage you guys to check it out. And also one more thing is that every single spread in here is dynamic meaning that there are links so if you want to shop the brand that you're looking at the spread for if you want to listen to the episode of the person that's being featured you can do that there's links in there for all of it so make sure you utilize that and you really kind of interact with the volume because that's when you're going to get the most out of it but i hope you love it as much as we love designing it and bringing it to life i also request that you go check us out on our socials we are on instagram We are on TikTok.

3:14We create content that is published every single day in the areas of beauty, fashion, travel, food, financial literacy, cultural literacy. I mean, you name it and we talk about it. So I really urge you guys follow along on our socials. Show us some love. Leave us your feedback. And again, thank you so much for all of the wonderful support and encouragement you have shown us. I cannot be more humbled and grateful for your time, for your attention, and all of the wonderful feedback you guys provide every single day. Thank you so much and stay tuned for Jenny's full interview coming up. Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy.

3:49I am so thrilled to be hosting our guest today. She is such an icon. She started her career in the 90s as a legendary Playboy cover star, and then she went on to host MTV Singled Out and also joined the panel of The View. She's built such a remarkable career. She's an accomplished author, an actress, an advocate, and also an entrepreneur with her own beauty brand. So without further ado, please welcome Jenny McCarthy. Welcome, Jenny. I'm so honored to host you. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. I am too. Thank you so much. I love being here. No, I love that you're here. I can't wait to talk all about your brand.

4:25I'm a huge fan, by the way. But I want to really start with what got you interested in the beauty industry. I know you have this amazing career, but like becoming a founder and going into entrepreneurship, what was the spark that made you want to go this direction? You know, there wasn't necessarily a goal in mind at all. And throughout my career saying, you know, someday I'm going to start my beauty brand. It literally came out of a desperate need for health. My health, especially as we get older, especially as we go through perimenopause and menopause, we notice a lot more of our underlying conditions either get worse or we decide to throw on a few.

4:59They're like a la carte as we get older. I'm like, oh, I'll take a little bit more of this autoimmune, this problem, new rashes. So things started happening to me that I realized, okay, I've got to make a choice here. And that choice is I can follow a path of prevention or I can be chasing a path looking for cures. So I took health in my own hands and cleaned up my own life. I stopped drinking. I don't eat sugar. I eat organic. I eat as clean as possible, all because I've got multiple issues, such as maybe people can relate. I have an MTH of our gene mutation. What that means is basically I have a hard time kind of detoxing exposures, chemicals, toxins.

5:40They tend to play around my system. And I see that in my blood work. They just don't want to go anywhere unless I really put forth the effort and be mindful about what I'm putting in me. Along with things like celiac disease, I have candida, I have leaky gut. I've got some autoimmune arthritic conditions. So there was a lot and it was a lot for, you know, someone in their forties. So I decided to go researching for super uber clean brands. And I was kind of shocked when I first started this company. It's a little bit more trend right now where people are taking notice to clean. But a while ago, it was still kind of, you know, you might be able to find them only on Environmental Working Group, EWG.

6:22And now people kind of use that term a little bit too loosely for my comfort. There's no regulations in terms of the word clean. Who's monitoring that? And that's the problem I had. I was like, wait a minute, these people like go to Sephora and there's a clean section. But when you actually do the research underneath those ingredients, you go, wait a minute, that isn't clean. How can a phthalate be considered clean or formaldehyde or things like that? So I, out of my own desperate need, I said, I'm going to start my own company. And I'm not one of those people who have millions of dollars at all to start my own company.

6:57I didn't even go to a bunch of investors. I had myself and a buddy of mine that I said, let's start with three lip glosses, super clean. And I just want to see if people care about it as much as me. And so we started Formless with just three glosses. And now, what is it, five years it's gone by. We've expanded the line to now have skincare, mascara, which I would love to, because we have enough time to get into those products, what I love about them, but I don't want to be too verbose. So you'll have to tell me. No, no, I love it. First of all, I love that you actually went on this journey for yourself, because that's so meaningful.

7:33And you know, being a physician myself, I've seen a lot of people have this, we all go through these frustrations, right? Where it's like the medical system is not set up to give us preventative options. It's just not. Allopathic medicine is all about, oh, something's broken. Okay, cool. We'll start fixing it now. You know, it's like that. And so if we keep going down that road, we're never going to come to this realization that, you know what? Health is dynamic. It's always changing. And if I don't do something personally and take that into my own hands in some ways, we're never going to reach the solution.

8:05I'm a huge advocate for that as well. I don't love that you have to deal with, you know, so many things going on with your health, But I love that you had that in you to say, I need to figure this out because many people don't do that. Or when they do, it's too late, unfortunately. So that's huge. And you know, the thing is, I'm in this business where I pound myself with makeup and I'm a lover of it. I love it. I just don't want to die for it. Yeah. So I'm like, I know enough about it, about being in this industry for 30 years. And I just decided to partner up with my own makeup artist. So she has that keen eye for performance because this is what happened.

8:41When I would look into organic or clean, things might be clean, but they didn't perform well. So I was like, well, let me see if I can combine those two worlds because we all like our granola and clean stuff. But then you're like random mascara, you know, it flaked. So I asked my partner, Crime, my makeup artist to be my director of products and help me develop. Together, I feel like we're a little bit of a superhero group because she won't pass anything until it performs well. And I won't pass anything until it meets environmental working group guidelines. And to me, EWG, and I'm sure you're familiar with them.

9:13Yeah, I interviewed Ken Cook. I love it. You guys, just for people that might not know, you know, like the FDA isn't really into regulating makeup. Like they did something back in 1918 and then they made an amendment, I think about seven years ago. Don't quote me on that. But it's in the last decade where the amendment was where they just call companies to make sure we're basically not making makeup in our basement. That's as far as the FDA gets. We get a call. Where's your manufacturer located? And we're, of course, in the United States, so I could be hands-on, and I'm very hands-on. So EWG, though, to me, is what I leaned into to know what's clean and what's not.

9:52They have the team, and I'm sure you know this, they have such a remarkable team for decades that go in and do the work. So when I met with them, I said, I have an idea to create an entire beauty round around your restrictions. And they were so excited. And they said, good luck, because not many people come in here because it's almost impossible for brands to do this. That's why a lot of brands don't have that certification. So they handed me, I'm not even kidding you, 900 pages of restricted ingredients that you cannot use. And me and my chemist were like, what do we get ourselves into? It's like everything's, can't use anything, you know?

10:33It's like trying to make a without any of the ingredients. And then you still want it to perform well. So that's where, you know, it takes our company a long time to put out products because batch after batch after batch, trying to perfect it and make sure it's good. Because like I said, it can be clean, but it's got to be just as good or better than the other brands. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's so awesome though, that you did this because honestly, let me tell you, first of all, I love every product and formulas. I've tried them. I love the formulas. Like they're so nice and it doesn't feel like the brand is lacking.

11:08You know what I mean? That's where I think you really did such a great job is that you guys obviously did this approach of it has to be clean. But you're setting an example, you know, in the industry where it's like you can do this. We don't have to think that it's going to be crap. You know what I mean? The products are going to they can be great. They just have to be well thought out. So I think that's huge. But more importantly, I think showing people that there are these options is so powerful because I feel like especially like women. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had either a patient or somebody I know, right?

11:37Be like, well, I can't go without my mascara. That's like the one thing I need, you know, in my routine. I have to have this. They won't part with it because they're like, I know it's bad for me. You know, I know it might not have the best ingredients, but I have to use this. That's my routine. And so I think that's where it's so powerful because it's like, well, you can still have that. And I remember, doctor, I remember when I first started and I was like, okay, where do we start after our glosses? I had people in big makeup say to me, you know, good luck trying to make a mascara. They said, it's almost impossible to make a good mascara without some toxins in there.

12:10So when we went to work, I was more determined than ever, especially when people tell me no, or I can't do something. It's probably why I'm still around after 30 something years in this business. So it's not believed or, you know, so I went to work with my chemist. And I was like, talk about the nasty ingredients that are in mascara. And he said, Well, besides the phthalates, the formaldehydes, aluminum powders, they use sometimes to blacken it. But there's also almost all hormone disruptors in mascara. And I said, You're kidding me, the endocrine disruptors, why? And he said, because waterproof, anything waterproof, of course, and you probably know this as those hormone endocrine disruptors.

12:45And they're so, I don't need my hormones disrupted anymore. Yeah, we don't. None of us do. They already are, especially in perimenopause, menopause, the estrogen dominance is a real thing. As you know, that can be linked to breast cancer, so on and so forth. So we made ours water resistant. And the remarkable thing in that is, it works just as good. It works just as good. And that's what, when I go on live, twice a week for about four hours a night. Because when I say I'm hands-on, I'm hands-on. So I am educating people every week on my TikTok, on Formless Beauty's TikTok, about ingredients. And everyone always says to me about the mascara, well, I don't want it to flake.

13:26I'm like, ours doesn't flake. Well, I need waterproof because I just do. And then I break it down. Well, why? Why? Well, I'm afraid of, you know, having the flakes since the end of the day. And I'm like, ours doesn't. Ours is water resistant. If you just bend out of that, we all got sucked into that water resistant because we're afraid if we sweat, if we cry. Anything, anything. Tearing up. Yeah, we think it's going to run. Now, water resistant, remarkably, at least ours, I haven't tested other people's, works remarkable. And it's our number one bestseller. It's our MVP of our company. We sold out in the first month.

14:04It took us four months to restock because we did it. Like we cracked the code. And that's another one where I hope companies go, oh crap, look at, she actually did it. She's able, now I just need to educate people. Like you don't need to have the water resistant. Just break out of that brainwashing and give it a try. Because I was like that too. I was crying to my chemist going, you don't understand. I'm a menopausal actress. I need water proof. Yeah. And I mean, no, but you know, it's so relatable. And I think a lot of us are like that. And that's what I meant. I feel like people don't believe it till they see it.

14:37You know, we have to tangibly hold something for us to say, wait a minute, this is possible. Here we go. And I think that's where like, I love you had brought this up earlier about the whole clean movement and what clean beauty actually means. And I think this is such an important discussion because I've tried to like talk about this a little bit on the show where it's like, you know, clean doesn't tell you anything. You know what I mean? Like that word doesn't tell you anything. So you're saying things like this is water resistant, you know, and like really explain it. what the product is supposed to do.

15:06I feel like that's going to be what gets people more on board with clean beauty than the word clean. That's just my opinion. If we keep telling people like, okay, this is just clean. I don't think people are going to resonate as much as they would if we showed them, hey, listen, this is a healthier option for you, you know, rather than, yeah, like your drugstore mascara. And don't buy into the word clean, like do a little bit of research. And this is another thing I'd like to uncover. And this is a great podcast to talk When I was doing my own research in like other brands, how do they determine what's clean?

15:38Because I'm using the Environmental Working Group. To me, they are the top dog in this business. So what other brands are doing is that they make their own certification in house. So basically, I'm going to make up a brand and call it Sarah's Makeup. Okay. So Sarah's website, you can scroll to the bottom because it says like, oh, we're S verified. We're clean beauty. were S-verified. Now that sounds like, oh, they got a verification from somewhere. That means it's really clean. Then you'd go into the weeds and the S-verified is Sarah. Yeah. That's wild. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wait a minute.

16:17They're making their own verification and bragging about it. No one's looking over them. There's no one verifying it. There's no one saying it's clean except for them. The FDA doesn't give a shit. The FDA is like, what? You have all these verifications no worries like we're we still have mokra though we're here somewhat it's crazy to me i hear you i've seen it myself and i don't know if you remember sephora had that whole debacle with the clean seal or whatever it was and like and everybody was like oh my god all the products aren't clean and i'm sitting here just like what did you guys think was happening i mean look at the ingredients you know what i mean like read these ingredients and you can see that they're not clean and everybody's got a freaking check mark these days like oh yeah I'm good.

17:01You know, like says who? So I agree with you. I completely agree. A hundred percent. And then, you know, the other thing that gets me also, and this is a hard thing because we love our fragrance. We love the ways, you know, our cleansers or moisturizers smell, and we want it to smell good and la la la la. Well, just the homework on fragrance alone, I was like dead. I was like, yeah, my God, because, and I'm sure you've covered this before, fragrance is considered an IP. It's an intellectual property. So companies get to hide all of their toxic ingredients inside of the word fragrance. So they don't need to disclose it on the back of the bottle.

17:40So if you pick up a bottle and you go, oh, it's got this and it's got this, it's got aloe and it's got fragrance. Well, inside of that word fragrance could be the hormone disruptors, could be the parabens, could be it's hidden inside there. They are protected. And that's It stinks. So I, of course, we're fragrance free because we're a company that's gluten free, fragrance free, vegan, all of it free, except for the price. No, I mean, I love that, though. And I love that you brought up fragrance because this has been a huge pet peeve of mine. And I know a lot of people that tune in, like, I know a lot of you are very educated about this as well, where it's like, you know, it's very hard these days to actually find truly fragrance free products.

18:21And it's exactly what you said, Jenny, it's because everything's hidden. There's no transparency. And as much as we are like kind of sticklers about parabens, phthalates, the nasty, nasty ingredients, we don't really question fragrance for some reason. Like I still see skincare brands that are very science forward. They'll come out and I'm like, well, why does this have fragrance though? You know, like you cut all the dyes out and you cut out all these great, you know, the ingredients that shouldn't be in there, but then you still got this thing. Like fragrance is absolutely unnecessary in cosmetics.

18:50Like there's no reason for that. It's true. And guess what? We use essential oil and they smell even better. And they have a purpose. A lot of them are anti-inflammatory. So it's like, why wouldn't you? And I guess also the reason is it's more expensive. Like if I went the route of cheap ingredients that I didn't care about, I would actually be way more profitable than I am right now. Like my intention was, you know, about health. It wasn't about profit. It was about clean in the hopes of being profitable. I love this because I want you to really speak on this because I have a very different viewpoint about celebrity brands because I don't think celebrity brands are bad.

19:29Okay. I don't. And I know a lot of people out there are like, if it's a celebrity brand, obviously they've skimped on something or it's a cash cow or, you know, they have all these negative opinions about this. And I just disagree with that. You know, I don't think all celebrity brands are the same. And I would love for you to speak on this because you have such a passion for what you're doing and you've come at this with such an informed mindset. And I would love for you to speak about this kind of misunderstanding around the whole topic of like a celebrity founded brand. Could I understand why people are hesitant with celebrity brands?

20:01Absolutely. I mean, even me being a celebrity has some doubts sometimes. But the ones that I trust are the ones that have the origin story behind it. You can really tell that celebrity brands from the ones that, you know, just slap their name on it. They might get a, you know, a package in the mail where they go, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. You can kind of tell that. And that's where I feel like discernment is important, even with celebrities. Like check out the meaning of why they created a brand. What was the purpose behind it? And for me, I think if people just do a little bit of digging, you can check the history of my son.

20:36I've been a health advocate for him. and now into myself, into my paramedia pause years, that I'm just madly dedicated to it. And the whole reason I started for it was like, you know what, I'm going to make this for me. And if there's people that care about it as much as me, they can join in and be part of our Formless Beauty family. That was my intention. It wasn't like, boy, I'm going to try to make millions of dollars. It was a selfish need for health and for hoping that other people care as well. And the thing that I love even more is the community of trust that I've built with our chemotherapy patients, that our lupus patients, our autoimmune patients.

21:14Like you don't mess with that group. You know what I mean? You give all the care and the respect and it helps me drive me even further to create more products for them. Cause they're like, Jenny, you know, I need such clean. And And I'm like, so do I. So my passion is honestly to help. That is it. That is to help and bring honesty, transparency, and hopefully be a trailblazer for a lot of these maybe other celebrities that want to come up and create their own brand. Like, hey, if Jenny McCarthy can do it, maybe I can be another alternative. There's room for everybody because people would say to me, why are you in this?

21:53This is a crowded market. I'm like, first of all, there's room for everybody in this world. Everybody is allowed to have an effort to at least try, including celebrities, including, you know, people we've never heard of yet. But I'm hoping that I can be a little bit of an inspiration of like, wow, if she did it, and also an inspiration of being in it, not just around it. I am in the lab. I have meetings. I work, and I'm not exaggerating, probably 50 hours a week on Formless Beauty, 5-0. I am the CEO, not just in my LinkedIn. I am in it. I am a founder. I'm a CEO. I travel. I'm doing interviews.

22:35I educate eight to 10 hours a week online. So you can tell I'm really passionate about it. Yeah, you're in it. You're like knee deep. And I love that though. And I really think you are a trailblazer, especially right now, the way the beauty industry is. I can tell you as a consumer, when I look out into this world, I personally, as a woman of color as well, I see very few real options. People say it's crowded and people say there's so many brands. There are a lot of brands, but if you really look, and I know a lot of people listening, you guys can relate, you know, like when we really look for truly good brands, you're not going to find that many.

23:09You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of fluff and there's a lot of, I call it like background noise. And I say this a lot in the podcast, I feel like there's a lot of packaging out there more than anything. It's a bunch of packaging, You know, everyone's got things coming in from Asia every day, you know, when it comes to components and stuff. And that's what they just bottle all these, the same formula over and over again. But when you look for something that is grounded in like functionality and like solving a true problem, right? Or like a white space in your own life, it doesn't have to be like even broad, but like you mentioned, for example, like autoimmune or like, you know, compromised people, immunocompromised people, like that is a real white space.

23:45You know, that's still an area where it's not being catered to. And I can't imagine going through something like chemo and then looking out and being like, I need my essential items in my life. And there's like five options. You know what I mean? And then everyone's screaming from the rooftops, hey, we're in a crowded industry. Like, no, we're not. You know, it's really I'm glad I'm so glad you said that because it is true because, you know, think about my chemo patients that write me and they're like, I want to be able to wash my face and put moisturizer on knowing I'm not absorbing toxins because that's the crazy, the juxtaposition of just a cleanser alone in terms of you're supposed to clean your face, but you're adding toxins to it.

24:22Makes my brain go crazy. It's wild. Yeah. It just makes my brain I'm like, how can you be cleaning your face with toxins? It's nuts. So that's why I made sure there's our skincare. I'm not sure if you tried a lot. I did. I'd love it. I love your skincare line, by the way. And I want to dive into that. Actually, I just, you know, I, before we get there though one thing I do I have to ask you this because this is something that's on my mind a lot we all want to fit into the world of beauty you know and somewhere I mean you've been in the limelight for so long so I'm just curious like how was your view of beauty shaped you know and when you look at the world now especially like TikTok people right like there's teens on TikTok there's so much makeup going on where everyone's got this full beat all the time you know like what's your opinion about all of that I'm so glad you brought that up because literally it was on my mental list to discuss because of the amount of young, young girls that I see walking around Sephora that, and now Sephora has all of these giant, you know, point of purchase stands that are catered to towards these, the eight year olds.