The Wisdom of Intentional Skincare with Molly Sims of YSE Beauty

0:01Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. Today's episode is very special. We have True Icon with us today. I am such a fan of her and her brand and everything she's creating. I've been listening to Lipstick on the Rim for a long time and I was listening to it before I even started SA. So this is very full circle moment for me. So without further ado, please welcome Molly Sims, who's also the founder of Wise Beauty. Welcome Molly. I'm so excited. I am so excited. I have listened to your podcast for many years and I honestly have to say you have incredible guests. I know how hard it is as a fellow podcaster, which you get in there with different angles and I love it.

0:39So it's an honor, actually, to just be a part of this. Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. And I'm very honored to host you. I can't wait to dive in because you are so in touch with the beauty world. I love your line, by the way. I'm just going to throw that out there for everyone listening right now because I've obsessed with it. I want to really learn more about you, Molly. You have such an amazing career and you've done so many things. Where did it start in the beauty world for you? What was your first introduction to beauty? We just did a launch a few days ago. It was called It Girl.

1:07We have a new shade out. for the gloss. And the way I launched it on my Instagram was, what is a knit girl? Who is that girl? Because a knit girl, it's not about being a pretty girl. And it took me back in the way that I did it. I started in my teen. When I first fell in love with beauty, my mom was a huge, just total, she just was everything to me. She was so aspirational and she was so chic and she was so fun. I just remember I literally launched it yesterday and it was on my Instagram. It says in your teens, your twenties, your thirties, your forties, and your fifties, you'll make choices. People say you shouldn't make them anyway, make them boldly, resiliently, and with your whole heart.

1:57That's what it means to be an it girl. And if you look at this picture, yeah, it looks so cute. I love it. In your kid years, you'll use two bottles of Aussie scrunch spray to curl your hair after everyone says it looks absolutely ridiculous. But you'll do it anyway because you love it. And now, my friend, is the beginning of my beauty journey. I loved products. I would watch my mom. I would go to the Clinique counter. I would get my toner. I'd get my moisturizer. I'd do my three-step. I had my Aussie spray. I crunch up to try to be Julia Roberts. I've always just been so interested in art, entertainment, beauty.

2:43My mom would walk four miles a day with my German Shepherd major. She took very good care of herself. She worked very hard. She had a recycling company, a book company. She was a very hard worker and instilled that in us. But beauty was her thing and she embodied it. Watching her and seeing what she did and how she did it. I definitely think, listen, I was of the no phone, no internet, no nothing. So the days of waiting for Vogue or Harper's or Marie Claire or Yes or Mrs. or Mademoiselle or Lucky or like that was my Bible. Those were my, oh my God, what's it going to be? The next slide is leaving Vanderbilt, giving up a law career, taking a ticket to go to New York to try to model.

3:40And then from that, going to Europe. I think it's evolved. I have learned so many things. For me, beauty and style, I learned honestly because I traveled. so I got stuck in New York and I went to Germany and then I went to London and then I went to Paris and Milan I learned how the French girls do the undone done better than anything I learned that the Brits make it a little rock a little edge make it a little fun make it a little dirty I learned the Italians it's all very sexy very easy very flowy it was like going to school I've taken all of that, especially with beauty. I had my dermatologist in France, like it's a very different approach to skin and how they view it and what they do to take care of themselves.

4:35It's not big surgeries. It's not big things. like that maintenance. Exactly. Every day. And they do what I think is a big misconception. They absolutely do things and take care of themselves. They just do it in a very different way than Americans. I feel like that's such a powerful approach because especially when I look at the skincare space for so many years, skincare came on the market and we just said, okay, exfoliate the hell out of your skin. That's what we were doing forever. And people were going crazy in one lane. Well, look at like all the women in 2010 who did the massive Dr. Lancer microbrilla.

5:13Thank God for his product because it's a great product. But that hard again, and you saw it a little bit at the end, which I'm glad a lot of people because microdermabrasion then went into CO2. Yeah, that was the timeline was very harsh. Then you started having microdermabrasion be a little bit less oh maybe we don't do one crazy thing every year maybe we do it three times a year then maybe we do it two year two times a year and then the same thing with the co2 my best friend did a massive co2 where she was put under she was out for a month this was close to 10 years ago and now you're learning the baby co2s you're learning i think we have to be careful i think trends are trends because that's what they're called.

6:02Now we're learning a lot about some of the heated lasers, which I've talked a lot about it because I'm so olive and how it can increase melanin, increase browning of the skin and hyperpigmentation and melasma. It can really exacerbate that. But again, it's just how you look at beauty, right? I'm not looking to be 20. And that's a big misconception, right? It's like a big misconception that we need to get like you turn 35 and this is just my opinion but like a lot of us we get to 35 and we're like oh my god my skin needs something now and it's like before then it was all good and dandy and then yeah and then you hit that mark and you're like okay now i need to go i need to get everything done all the aesthetic treatments all the skincare look at what's happening with filler yeah it's insane when i see people and this is no shade to anybody do you by all means but when i see these girls that are 21 years old and their face is filled.

6:59I'm just sitting here like, where did we lose the plot? Because it is, it's gone. It has left the room at this point. I think we are turning a little bit. I think the new facelift, I think Dr. Levine, some of the younger surgeons are really trying to say, okay, it's not about pulling it all back. It's not about filling it all up. I think for a long time as cutting, it's a big thing. It's hard, But I think, again, it goes back to that. The fillers, I think people really see things they don't love after about 10 years of using it. Yeah, now they're dissolving them too. That's what I see a lot of it.

7:38It's like they're all going back, wait a minute, I didn't need all this. And that's extremely painful. And then you go through the whole process of that. A friend of mine just did it and it was painful. She looks incredible. I think the problem with filler, I've done very little. I think I've done it maybe once in my life. Does it stay where I think people think it's... Sometimes it migrates. So I think that's part of the problem with your metabolism. A lot goes into it. We all, including myself, can't see ourselves at a certain point. And some of the younger girls don't even see it. I'm not taking up for them.

8:16I just think I wish that you had a really good mentored friend, best friend, mom. saying, you don't really need this right now. You don't need this. I 100%. I 100 % agree with you. But listen, my friend got her lips done the other day and she was like, I love it. I was like, you know what? I love that you love it. She's like, I've never had an upper lip. It was actually done extremely well. I also, there is the flip side of, I can see a lot now. And whatever toss of the coin, end up with a lot of my friends, it has changed them. You think it's about the outside, what you look like, much more about how you feel about how you look.

9:01And if you do not feel good about how you look, you don't feel like you're an it girl. And for whatever this has done with addiction, diabetes, perimenopause, menopause, I have actually seen a few of my friends come back to life with their confidence. confidence. I love that. I love that because I feel like that is the whole purpose and you should feel like whatever you do to yourself, whether that's topically invasive, whatever, if you're not aligned, there's something inside that's going on that you're maybe going through a hard time. Maybe something's just a hundred percent bonkers in your life.

9:41You need to stop for a minute and be like, why am I doing what I'm doing? And is it really because I need that faith lift or I need that injectable or whatever. Best friend who is the co-host of Lipstick on the Rim, Emma says she has three girls. She just did her, how do you say the under eyes, the lower bluff. And she has talked about it for 10 years. Yeah. And I love that she loves my eye patches. She still uses them even after. I love it, but she will never look at a picture or wake up and think, I wish I could get my eyes done because she genetically had that like pocket. And finally, about six months ago, I'm like, I'm doing it.

10:29I go, we are doing it. You are doing it. We got this. And she ended up doing Dr. Schwartz out of New York. He's ocular, trained in her growth. I was so happy. We went to a premiere the night before and they were very puffy and I was so happy because it looked so bad. I'm like, we're not going to be this tomorrow morning when we wake up and to try to make her go through with it and all that. And it was just, she looks incredible. The point of the story is that she feels incredible. And again, it took her 10 years to get there and doctors to say, there's no amount of eye patches. There's no amount of full plunging.

11:07There's no amount of X, Y, or Z that's going to do what the surgery could do for you but she looks fantastic i'm super proud of her and she feels amazing yeah i love that she had that experience it's a thing you've thought about and you've gone through it in a meaningful way speaking of that i love the name of your brand let me just say that wise beauty it's such a powerful name and i think it's so powerful especially because that's what this industry needs. You need more wisdom driven decision making when it comes to what you're buying, why you're buying it. Right now, and Molly, I'm sure you've seen this.

11:46There's so many people that are like layering all sorts of stuff. Like I see this in my emails all the time that they're like, I've got the azelaic and I've got the lactic and I've got the retinoid. And I'm like, this is all the sandwiching. Yeah, sandwich. It's not their fault. It's more of I put the blame on bad education right because our education around skin health skin care topical use of products is just not where i would hope it would be for the general consumer think about retinol the lack of education around retin a retinol retinoid yes the every few months be like i know i look dry i know i look red i know it's a little patchy but my skin's getting used to it it is yeah 100 because you can't do the whole justifying adverse reactions or adverse effects this is such an important topic i don't want to go down that road too much because i feel like i'm gonna piss a lot of germs off but i feel like i have strongly felt this way as well where it's if your medication which is what retinoids are if you're on a prescription retinoid product and your prescription is not giving you any kind of result it's giving you adverse effects you need to go to your dermatologist and be like, yo, I think the dose is too high on this thing or something's broken because I'm not seeing it.

13:04There's a place for it. Right. And there's a prescription amount, right? That's why I always say go to your derm. You're in LA, go to Dr. B. If you're in New York, go to Dr. Denny, go to Dr. Nesbaum. There's amazing people. It goes back to like, let's just the strength of let's just get it done. Yeah. I think that's been the beauty of why. I think for me, I had a huge problem. I had cystic acne, acutane, diacycline, tracycline, you name it, spirolectyl. I did everything, right? I finally got through it. I didn't have it until my late 20s, early 30s, probably hormonal for cystic. In my 40s, that kind of went away.

13:51it would still wear it still wears its ugly head every now and then and then it turned into hyperpigmentation and melasma and as for me coming out of modeling getting married late in life having a baby very late in life and then having two more you can only imagine the roller coaster being that woman who represented the no makeup look i was dark splotchy and even i would do all of these things and go out into the sun. I wasn't, it's what I said about the retin-A, retinoid, the whole thing, the hydroquinone. I was dry, red, irritated. I looked older. My skin looked like it was a thirst trap, right?

14:33Like it was thirsty. And then again, I was only making it worse by living and going outside. I can't. I've lived in Southern California now for the most part. And yeah, it was a definite roller coaster. And I felt that everything for me, and I loved all the cool brands. Like I love the Glossier. I love a bomb.com. I love, but that's not going to have any efficacy on someone like me. And then everything else was what I was doing was, okay, you're going to use this once every three days and you're going to do this once every five days. Everything was so harsh. I've tried everything. I've done everything did wise happen I stopped doing the very heavy actives of tretinoid tretinoins the hydroquinone I just stopped and I think what we found through wise I think the best way to explain it to women 35 and over sometimes your skin it's called a skin plateau it's a benefit plateau so the more you raise that active and granted i have three children i don't have a lot of downtime so there is a time and place for a plastic surgeon there's time and a place for a derp but there is a time and also a place of where you not always being like you having a reaction to something any actives are too high and what it does there's balance of what you have to do to achieve that so yes you can have actives but they have to be balanced with the cushion active the beta gluconolactone the the sufectant that you met it those things that'll give your skin cushion life doing this the plumpy you've got a you've got a you're stripping and like sandpaper then You've got to make sure on the other side, you are repairing and barrier.

16:33And that I think is our superpower. Everybody told me not to do it because who needs another celebrity skincare brand? Truly wise is not that it is a clinically backed derm approved brands. I do clinicals on everything. I'm not a chemist. If this had a baby with this and this had a baby, this is how I do things. I want my products to multitask like I do. When I was pitching to everyone, they thought I was nuts because I'm not really going to do like a clarifying line and an acne line and a dark line and an enzymatic line. I don't shop like that. I shop holy grail. What does this amazing product, what can it do in a million different ways?

17:21I just don't like even my lip balm, which happens to be sitting here. It's a gloss balm, the mask all in one. It just looks good. Right. Then I turned it into a lip. You know what I mean? How can we make really good products that do a lot of different things? I don't need 57 SKUs. I need the powerhouses that I can use in a simple way. It's like people who are too busy to do skincare. Like you, I don't have time. I'm not my 10 year old. She's got time. She wears the bonnet. She does a double cleanse. She's got time up there. She's got her white. She's got her blazing milk. She's stolen a pad. She's got simplifying it to make it.

18:04But having a clinical, clinicals can be fun. I think, I think that's what my woman, like having another chapter. I didn't want a menopausal brand. I didn't want an old brand. I didn't want a grandmother brand. I've got my new packaging for something. I'm like, we can be fun we can have our glue it's an ever-changing field i've learned so much i've never thought i would deal with raws in my entire life i never even knew what a raw was but it's exciting i think i have a really good grasp on who my woman is my amy my jennifer is my lauren like and how to meet them where they are with what they want and what they need right like how can I get them to wear an eye cream?

18:49I can make a day cream that's a little bit of a blurring concealer that's great for dark circles that's great for just giving a little bright under the skin and getting moisture to this area a couple times a day. I look at WISE and I look at the products it's not just what's in them it's how you do it. How do I get someone to wear sunscreen? My dermatologist Dr. Bakshanda always said you're going to use the sunscreen that you want to wear and that's where skin glow came from that's why it's so successful because it doesn't act like a sunscreen it acts like a primer it just gives you a little bit of a glow it's not greasy it doesn't make you too shiny but it also gives you just a little bit of look of that kind of oh i've got a little bit of a filter on but yeah it's not easy i can't tell you the amount i've never worked so hard in my life it shows because there are such favorite products in your range and i feel like that's really hard for a brand to accomplish, not even having one, but having multiple.

19:48It's one thing to buy it, but then to come back and purchase it again, or to really crave it in your routine. Like when I started using the exfoliating pads, the X-Cuts, absolutely fell in love. You really killed it with these. They're probably one of my most - Three years of developing. It shows in that product, and I feel like - They don't pee. They don't make you red a little bit, but it goes away in 30 seconds. And they also take into account that the toner pad shouldn't feel like a flimsy little thing. I'm trying to hold on. Love a little pocket. Go down to your neck and deck, ladies. Let me tell you.

20:19It lasts. That's another thing. Somewhere along the line, we lost this idea of skincare can be really great, but you can build luxury into it, too. You don't have to compromise. You don't have to just make a luxury brand and then have no efficacy behind it because it's luxury. You know what I mean? Your cream is$400. dollars it doesn't matter what the hell's in it because you're buying our label i feel like we did that for so long in the industry where it was either you buy the 400 cream or you go figure out what the efficacious products are do your hunting on your own but i feel like with your brand i really see that beautiful melding of the two worlds where it's luxury and if you're in my age bracket or somebody who just wants efficacious skincare but you don't want it to look like it's a medicine cabinet on your vanity.

21:04And that's exactly who it's for. I didn't have a lot of options. It's what you said. Granted, yes, I love a great hyaluronic, but I'm not going to pay 250 for hyaluronic. Are you out of your mind? Everything got so priced out. It's what you just said. You could be paying the 350, 250. There's this brand I love. I love Natura Vise. And they've actually brought, I think it's from Spain. I'm not for sure, but so expensive, right? Here's the thing, Molly, I see this all the time. And I'm sure you get the comments too with your customers. And I'm not trying to be mean to any brand out there. They don't have money for a$500 moisturizer.

21:39They don't have it. And that's the rent. So you can't isolate people because you feel like your cream is - Let's be really honest. But let's be really honest about one thing. A lot of the$500 is spent in the packaging. Yeah, it is. The packaging, let's keep it even more honest and say, okay, you have a super biotech forward brand. I can honestly tell you as a scientist, there is absolutely no biotech out there that justifies like a five,$600 cream. I've seen the biotech. I've seen the prices on this biotech, like a crazy encapsulation, the crazy delivery mechanism. They're cool. But if you're going to tell people, yeah, I have a$650 cream and it's going to completely reverse your aging and hyperpigmentation.

22:22And this person just spent their rent money on your cream you know what i mean rent money and we'll be back and then it's like you start having these people like they start trying to justify oh we have a proprietary complex and i'm just like i'm so over that world now you can still have a proprietary complex i'm working on something right now on my product roadmap you can still have your proprietary complex and it'll cost you 250 dollars i mean it's just how you put your ross together i think you're better off spending that on your raw and your clinicals because what you don't want to do is deliver something that doesn't deliver right unless you're fixing my problem in two weeks like i don't want to hear it you know what i mean i want my skin to be baby smooth no freaking pigment problems nothing like that's just you know i think what you led with too is a lot of it is just education i think they're so lack because we're there's so much noise and i think even for me i'm like oh god what is that I think women sometimes just don't know where to go.

23:27They don't know what to do. They don't know in what order to do it. I love SkinCeuticals, right? I think they're a great brand, but I get confused on the chlorophyll, the C &E. C &E, I can't remember that. And then there's 30 SKUs, and I don't know what comes first and when to do it. I think we've done a really good job with the boyfriend and the girlfriend, your skin glow, your morning cocktail. If you want to be bright, you got to have vitamin C. So that's your morning cocktail. Mix it with your skin glow. So at nighttime, very simple, last call problem solver, a little bit of a retinol with a trindexemic.

23:58It doesn't make you irritated. It's in a cream. So I think a lot of, for me, if I'm confused and I'm in the business, even when I wasn't in the beauty business, I still, I wouldn't say that I was an expert by any means, but I knew my shit and I would get confused. And I think living so many years in Europe, especially in France, really helps me keep that dialed down. Too much can be exactly what it is. Too much. And I always say to women, more does not mean better. That's true. I say, okay, if you don't want to use my vitamin C, use a vitamin C. If you don't want to use my sunscreen, find a sunscreen you're going to use.

24:41The magic is the consistency, and the consistency will get you the long-lasting results. It's why I don't say, oh, I'm going on a diet, right? Because the moment I say, I'm going on a diet, I'm no longer on the diet. No longer on the diet. So it's just really trying to set yourself up for success. That's what I always start with three products. Start with three products. Get a good cleanser, a good moisturizer, and then pick your poison on what you want to target. If you're trying a brand, you're never going to do an entire brand with one product, with one label, with one company. right i don't have a day moisturizer right i'm working on it i can tell you five that are great different things for different if you want more of a gel if you want more of a cream if you want more of a cushion so i can break it all down for you but it's what you're going to use yeah and i think that's where wise has really i wanted women to feel proud product is an ultra april i probably shouldn't be showing it but i don't have i'm working on it want my girl to feel good with how it feels in the hand how it looks on the vanity i think she takes pride in that yeah yeah no i think you're absolutely right i i just feel like your brand and i've had this my own personal experience right i can sit here and tell my audience you guys need to go check out wise and i can do that ad nauseum but i can only tell you my experience i have loved every product but used consistently even your lip glosses i love them i'm not playing with you when i tell you i love them it's become my go-to every day like the one in the berry shade love it it's so hydrating it's so nourishing i don't know oh class app yeah the one it's like that it's a dark berry color if we get the exact name of it these are all beautiful dude like the details i think that's my main look pretty this one is it's not out i don't know i'm trying to test different ones but look how pretty this is right here look off of that yeah oh my god it's like a beautiful burgundy i know oh that's gorgeous i know it's a little it could be what is that coming out is that when you release i haven't even pitched it okay you should definitely make that a product i will be buying it i haven't even I haven't pitched the color yet.

27:04I have one color. I'm like a DIY. So I take all my colors that I love and see where they fit in the line. I really want it to be a color, but then I also want it to be, if I just wanted to do it over something or by itself. Rich girlies will love that. I'm telling you. Anyone with my complexion or darker will love that freaking shade. That is a beautiful everyday go-to done like Barry. Yeah. I know. And then I'm trying to do, we have our fashion late, which is, look at, oh, love. It's nudie. It's amazing. But I'm also trying to do one that's a little bit more mocha, a little bit more, just a little bit richer, like a little bit deeper.

27:41It's not for the faint of heart starting a company. That's what I want to pivot to, right? Because you've done so many amazing things in the beauty community and the beauty industry. You started your own brand. You've made a successful brand. That's huge. Especially now where I feel like everybody wants a beauty brand. Everyone wants to be a founder. It's one thing to become a founder. And it's another thing to remain. a successful founder so like where is that balance i would love for you to give us some wisdom about this journey and going into this world as a career there's so many ways are trying that right now

28:17like where do i start i think the word no fuels me and i know that sounds odd but if you think about my life, most of what I get told, especially in the beginning, was no. I think that came from my mom and my dad. Like, how do you turn the no into a yes? And I think that has built that resilience, that armor, that muscle that today makes me an extremely good founder. That is my superpower. I think for women today, I was in the middle of writing my third book when we switched gears into the podcast, but I wanted to name it Unstuck. I think women get stuck. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do.

29:12I want to do something. I'm too old to do something. I can't start over. The self-sabotage is real. I think for me as a young age, probably had a little bit harder time than your average person going to college. They dealt with different things, but I dealt with people calling me fat. People saying I would just be a catalog girl. People saying, how could you give up going to Vanderbilt? Your calves are too fat. You're too muscular. You're too blonde. You're too brunette. You're too tall. You're not tall enough. You can't do Japan. You can only do Australia. So I think it was very hard to handle as a young adult.

29:53I never will put down modeling. There was a time when all the models were going into acting and they're like, I can't say you're a model. And I'm like, fuck that. Modeling helps me with so much. I would have never gotten these opportunities. I would have never, ever been where I am today, Even mentally, a lot of hills, a lot of bumps, a lot of mountains. But as a founder, I think I have been able to, with what you know you don't know and what you don't know, maybe you don't need to know when you're starting a company. Because what I know now, I don't even know if I would start a company. I've been to ops school.

30:35I've been back to business school. I've been to marketing. I have a social degree now. I have a psychologue. I, yeah. What advice would I give? I think you have to be very clear. What is your why? What problem are you solving? How does it fit in the market? And where do you see yourself in five years? I actually read a lot of books. I read, you remember the ad agency Red Antler? Her book, Emily, that was a great book. I read that and it was interesting. Know your why, know where you're positioning it. When I started, I was one of five or six celebrity skincare brands that had just launched. Know your why.

31:19Know where you fit. Think you have to surround yourself by really good people. And again, at every stage, that changes. That has been the hardest thing for me to stomach as a founder. Who you start with at a million dollars is not who you can be with at$10 million, at$20 million. Your needs change. I've been nothing but a D2C brand up until this point. That all changed in August. I went into Sephora. So then that's a different strategy. That's a different group of people. That's a different knowledge. That's a different PDP page. That's a completely different set of ops, right? How many stores?

32:00How many gondolas? How many X, Y, and Zs? I think that was the hardest part for me to stomach, it like letting people go that I loved but the needs of the business completely changed I now have two completely separate strategy to have a DTC strategy and a support strategy that's huge though that's a really huge point that you yeah I think finance having a really strong fractional you know I do think whatever business and again I know the beauty business is just like a consumer it's all consumer goods yeah but i think being careful of having when you go to someone who oh they do it all they do your packaging they do your cost of goods they do everything is like a one-stop shop in the beginning it's amazing but then you've got your cost of goods very high because you're paying a middleman so there are things if i go back i possibly would change but I do think having a strong fractional who can tell you what EBITDA is and tell you oh it's great that you want this to be$37 right like I didn't know any of that right so I have to educate myself I'm still educating myself I don't believe that everyone can make I'm just a snob that way if I'm gonna do mascara you're gonna be the best CM that does mascara I don't how you can possibly have just one place making everything there's no way people do that's crazy i love that though you gave some serious gems there because i feel like in the founder world there's so many i'm not even i'm not going to speak like i've been through it but what i see is a lot of people bsing and i think this is why every single person wants to be a founder now and i think a lot of them want to they think there's this world of i'm my own boss and i I got to make all the decisions.