759 Sarah Creal: Founder & CEO of Sarah Creal Beauty

0:00I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be.

0:09Kara Goldin:You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Cara Golden Show. Today, I'm joined by Sarah Creel, who is the founder and CEO of one of my new favorite brands, Sarah Creel Beauty, a first-of-its-kind luxury makeup and skincare brand designed specifically for the women 40 plus crowd.

1:02Kara Goldin:So with nearly 30 years as a brand architect and product developer for some of the most iconic beauty brands that are out there, Prada, Tom Ford, Victoria Beckham, just to name a few, Sarah's fingerprints are all over modern beauty as we know it. And now she's channeling everything she's learned into her own brand, one that celebrates women 40 plus. And Sarah Creole Beauty isn't just a brand, it's a movement redefining representation and elegance in beauty. And I can't wait to dive into hearing all about Sarah's journey and also a lot more about the brand and kind of hear what she's seeing and where it's going.

1:51Kara Goldin:So Sarah, welcome to the Cara Golden Show. So excited to meet you. Thank you. So excited to be here and great to meet you. Thanks. Super, super excited. So it is my Sarah Creel Beauty is my new obsession. So as I told you, I've got this beautiful, my pleasure, which is in the no further questions lip treatment with me, and I'm absolutely loving it. So let's start at the beginning. So what is Cerro Creel Beauty? How do you define it? I talked a little bit about who you're focused on, but I'd love to hear you talk about the actual brand and what it means to you. Yeah, well, you know, I've been a product developer for 30 years, as you mentioned, And I realized I literally woke up from a dream in December of 2022.

2:48And I sat up in bed and I was like, wait a minute. Like no one is talking to me. I feel like no one is talking to me. And I was 52 at the time. And I was like, nobody is formulating for me. Nobody is educating me, telling me like what's happening. and really certainly nobody is reflecting me back to me, especially in makeup. I mean, really not in makeup and in a way that I found aspirational. And so literally that day, Sarah Creel Beauty was born and it's a line of luxury essentials across skincare and makeup. I focus on this trifecta of wear, repair, and moisturization because that's really where it's at.

3:37And that's also very hard to do to have those things be in the same formula. But that's my focus and it's for Babes 40+. So I test on Babes 40+. I photograph only babes 40 plus because I just, you know, I just really want women. I just want women to feel better. That's really my mission. It's super simple. But how I'm getting there is through my expertise. I am trying to serve them. What is it that they want and what is it that they need? And then my product development skills hopefully can get us all there.

4:23Kara Goldin:So you started your career behind the Clinique counter at Bergdorf Goodman, I heard. How did those early days of kind of customer facing experience shape your philosophy on beauty? Obviously, this is very personal for you. You were looking for products like this, but you probably saw a lot of kind of different stories and what people were most concerned about when they came, you know, in that first experience. You know, I mean, I think I, yes, I understood maybe, you know, what some pain points were for women coming to the counter. But I think more importantly, what I took from that experience was the being on both sides of the counter.

5:10What does it take for a woman to come to a counter and ask for help? What level of vulnerability does she have to have to ask for help? And then also the learning of being the person who is giving the help and what it takes to understand what all of these products are that this company has told you, you know, you're supposed to be selling. what that person needs to learn. What did I need to learn? How did I get comfortable getting close to a stranger? And what would it take to actually close a sale? And, you know, how did that work? How did that whole interaction work? And I think all of those things have informed products as I've gone along because I've always kept the customer for me.

6:04Like, what am I giving to her has always been my thing. But I also so empathize with selling a product and what does it take. And that shows up in my line. Like, I can give you examples of how that shows up. But yeah, that was an incredible learning experience. And I would not have had the career or certainly Sarah Creel Beauty would not be what it is if I hadn't started in sales like that.

6:33Kara Goldin:So you built and launched some of the world's most iconic brands, their beauty lines, at least. The Tom Ford Beauty, Prada, Victoria Beckham Beauty. What were some of the biggest lessons you took from working with, I guess, in many ways, were they all founder-led companies still? Maybe the beauty side of it. But yeah, those three that I mentioned, the founder was still around. Oh, yes. Yes. Like Prada Beauty, for example, was the Prada Beauty of 2000. Let's be clear. It's not the one that's out there now. Just because, you know, I just don't want to get anything confused. But so, yes. So Mutual Prada was super involved.

7:24I also worked for Bobby Brown for five years as her head of product development and her head of marketing. Tom Ford, that was directly with him. And I did that with Charlotte Tilbury and also Annie Carullo, who was my boss at the time. I was acting as a consultant because I just had my second baby. And Annie was my boss and she was in charge of all of Estee Lauder. And I came back to do that project with Charlotte. And then I went on to, yeah, to Victoria Beckham doing the capsule collections with Estee Lauder. And then Victoria and I decided to start our own company and do that. And I would say one of the biggest lessons I learned, and I had to have this talk with myself one day when I launched Sarah Creel Beauty, I had to have this conversation with myself in the shower.

8:15And I was like, okay, Sarah, this is advice that you have given so many times, and it's time for you to take it, which is you only have one shot to launch a brand. You really only have one shot, and you better do it right. and the reason I had to have that conversation with myself and I had had that conversation with many of those people that I just mentioned, not Bobbi because she already had her brand, but with others, you know, it's expensive. It is expensive if you want to do what I wanted to do. Not everybody wants to do prestige, custom packaging, you know, custom formulations. I totally get that.

8:57But that's what I love. And that's where I am. And that is expensive. It's expensive to get the design work done. It's expensive to tool the packages. But anyway, you know, you just you've got one shot. Yeah, definitely.

9:15Kara Goldin:So you decide to launch Sarah Crea Beauty. What were the, I guess, how many SKUs did you launch with? What did you think needed to exist in this line in order to get going? One of the things that's a big benefit of coming from both big beauty, like I did at Estee Lauder and L 'Oreal, like in my background, as well as startup like Victoria Beckham, which was just a piece of paper when I started, is that you understand that you as even if you have a great idea, you better do your homework. You better get some data. There is confirmation bias. And we're all, you know, we're all vulnerable to that.

10:03So anyway, so the first thing that I did, actually, after calling my older sister, I called my older sister and I was like, OK, I just have a question for you. She lives in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. She's a lawyer. Like, you know, I'm like, OK, do you have a hard time finding products that work for you? and she's like, my vanity is a graveyard of formulas that don't work. And so I kind of had her take me through it and, you know, and I understood that, yes, she was having a hard time. But then I surveyed 2 ,000 women across the United States over the age of 40, luxury beauty shoppers.

10:42And I asked them not only how did they feel about beauty, did they feel like they were being represented? What were the kind of terms that they liked and they didn't like? Turns out anti-aging is okay. Don't you dare say mature skin. You know, just things like that. But ultimately, I wanted to know what were their real pain points. And so I started there. And that's where the collection started. Because again, this line is not, it's got my name on it, yeah, but it's only because I put my name there for the fact that I have actually been doing this for 30 years and I wanted the credibility of my name.

11:22It's not about this is what I need. These are the products I need. I'm trying to figure out what are the products that she in general is lacking? Where are her pain points? So one was I can't keep hydration in my skin, right? So I created a liquid moisturizer called Moisture Source, which looks like this. And so this is a liquid moisturizer. It's a bi-phase. So that means that one part is water, one part is oil. You shake it and you use it on clean skin. But this is where my sales experience came into play. It looks like a cold drink of water. It's a reminder. You know, this is where the design informs the function.

12:13But yeah, there's just, there were so many needs. So I can't keep hydration in my skin. I hate wearing sunscreen. So I came up with something that was not just a sunscreen, but a tint that illuminates, that acts as an antioxidant serum with an SPF 50 mineral, non-comedogenic. Okay, check. Like everything I just tried to like get to the bottom of like, why didn't she want to wear something or use something or why wasn't it working anymore? And one of the biggest revelations in that research was that most women by the time they are 55, which is how old I am now, quiet quit mascara. and they're either doing like fake lashes or they are just not doing anything because when they put on their mascara after about an hour it's failing them they're getting it under their eyes it's smudging everywhere and they're like just forget it right but what I realized and it took me a while to kind of unwind the tape I realized it's not the mascara itself I mean the mascara is not helping, but the storyline goes basically like this.

13:30Picture you're in your 30s, okay? You're like, this is my mascara. I have found the holy grail. It's a traditional volumizing mascara, and it is like the best thing ever, ever, ever. And I love it. So you've got this thing going. Say you're 30. Over the next 10, 15 years, you're adding an eye cream. You're adding a concealer that has coverage and moisturization. And those things are acting like a makeup remover on this traditional mascara. But she doesn't see that. She just sees the mascara is failing. So I realized, I'm like, I need an eye cream that actually moisturizes inside the skin, doesn't sit on top.

14:14The moisture goes where it's supposed to. A concealer that is a thin filmed, It sets and then flexes, which is our face flex concealer, which looks like this. And then a mascara that is volumizing, but it's tubing. So which means that the polymer breaks at 38 degrees Celsius. It does not come off with oils. So you just use warm water and it rinses off, which as an extra benefit is super gentle on all of your lashes. So this, the lineup, it was seven things. It was six products and a brush. And a lot of people were like, where did you come up with this line? It's a concealer. It's a mascara. It's a liquid moisturizer.

15:01It's a sunscreen. I could, you know, but all of these things came out of the research. And they, to me, were the most urgent things I had to solve for.

15:12Kara Goldin:Well, and I love how you focused on the basics and definitely for the 40 plus because hydration in the skin is personally my number one. And what you have done, I mean, your foundations are beautiful as well. So they're absolutely gorgeous. I'm so curious because, well, first of all, your packaging, too, is just so unique and so beautiful. Thank you. But also, the foundations seem really small. Was there a conscious decision about that? Like, how did you decide that? Well, the reality is, I mean, this is, I call this a concealer and complexion enhancer. It can be used so many different ways. It can be used three different ways.

16:03You can use it as a concealer just under the eyes, like dot, dot, dot, okay? You can use it as a full face coverage, or you can also blend it. I formulated it so you can mix it with moisture source. So you put a couple of drops of moisture source in your hand. You put one swab of this, the face flex in your hand, and then you use the concealer brush, and you mix the whole thing, and you paint it on. And for me, having that level of flexibility, it's not that women aren't wearing full coverage every day, but this is more of a concealer than it is a foundation, really. And so I made it a concealer size and it also a little bit.

16:55This package used as a concealer and a tint lasts for six months. Yeah. And that's what I was going to say.

17:04Kara Goldin:It seemed. Yeah, it seems very concentrated. You don't really have to use very much of it. No, no. It's really. If I made it like a one ounce size, you would just have it forever. It would be, you know, and eventually, you know, you need products go bad. You don't want to keep using something that you're dipping in and out. I mean, obviously, it has all the preservative system in it that's going to keep it pristine. But, you know, you don't want something that's going to last for two years. No. Were there any products that you developed? You've been doing this for a while and have a huge familiarity with formulating and doing products.

17:47Kara Goldin:But is there one product that you developed either for Sarah Creole Beauty or throughout your career that you really are most proud of that was so hard to develop? Yes, I can answer that. Yes, I can answer that really super easily because I just launched it. I just launched it and it took me two years. It took me from the very first day I got on this. And that is my new Creamy Kajal longwear liner. It's called Eyes Up. because why not? And, and this, because this was, I started in a completely different direction than where I was at Victoria Beckham on that, on that formula, the satin kajal. For this, I started, I wanted something that was going to be completely transfer proof.

18:37So something that you has the creamy lay down, which this does. I can just show you like here. Like, I mean, it's like super, it's like super buttery, but it gives you a minute. You can blend it. Okay. You can blend it out and then it sets and it sets for 24 hours. It's transfer proof, waterproof. it really smudge proof it's not going to go under your eyes and all of this I was working on and I got to the 18 month mark and the laboratory said to me no more like no more we've spent like all the R &D time and effort we're going to and I'm like but you don't have it you don't have it yet you know, and they were like, you have it.

19:30And I'm like, nope, nope, I don't have it. And you don't have it. And, you know, and it really was hard. But I made enough of a business case eventually that they agreed to keep going. And they did for another six months. And then we had it. And so then, you know, I've tested this formula now. I'm so excited because I tested it. I also like I just raised the bar for myself. Most people who are testing any kind of product are testing on a panel that's like ages 20 to 40. That's your basic panel. So I recruit for usually 40 to 65 because it's harder. You know, you can imagine like somebody who's evaluating your eyeliner who has very smooth lids is going to say, yes, this has great glide.

20:19But if you're putting this on people who are, you know, 55, 65, you know, and they have lines and wrinkles. Do they say it has great glide? Is it giving them a really precise line where they want it? You know, is it transferring onto their actual hoods of their eyes, which actually exist? You know what I mean? So I did that. And then I also made sure that the panel itself, in order to qualify to be on the panel, you had to have sensitive eyes. So the entire panel was a sensitive eye panel. And that, for me, was also important. And it's just personal. Like, at this point, it's like I'm running a race against myself.

21:03That's kind of how I feel. I'm like, I want to make her life better. And I want to know, when she wears this longwear eyeliner, is it going to feel comfortable? You know, not only is it not going to do all those things moving all over her face, but is she actually going to like wearing it? So that's been the hardest so far. Part of it.

21:27Kara Goldin:How different is this role actually running the company or founding your own brand versus actually doing the development and really kind of the feel of a brand for someone else? Like the buck stops with you, right? Your name is on the package, all of those things. So how different is it for you to be in this new role? You know, honestly, it's a joy. It's a joy because even when you are like the number two banana, you know, you're like second banana, which I have been for most of my career, you know, a lot of the bucks stop with you and not the fun ones. You know, the fun bucks don't stop with you.

22:17And in this position, like the not so fun and the fun buck stops with me. So I get to make the creative decisions. I get to, you know, have what what is my vision of this? I'm not held back by anybody else's idea of what this brand should be like. Like, oh, it's to this, it's to that. You know, I could say like, no, I want to, I want to say, I want to call this, I want to call this lip gloss on top. I'm like, a woman should be on top. You know, you can take it however you want and I don't care. You know, it's just fun. So, so that's, it's been really a joy and a privilege.

22:57Kara Goldin:I love it. So when you launched, did you launch with a retail partner? Did you launch online initially? to both. Yeah, I launched online. I launched on Sarah Creelbeauty.com. And the truth of the matter was I had such a hard time getting funding at the beginning because really, I just, I ran into a lot of male investors who were like, I just don't think older women really want to look at other older women, you know? And I was like, no, I don't really know. Nope. But anyway, that was kind of the feedback that I was getting. And I got a lot of it over one week. I had had three meetings and they were all no's and they were also accompanied by like that refrain.

23:48And I thought to myself, you know what? This is like a Kevin Costner Field of Dreams moment. Like I am just going to have to build this sucker. I'm going to have to build it and they will come. And so that's why I had to have that conversation with myself in the shower, you know, because I was putting my own money in and, you know, trying to, trying to make it all happen. What was your original question?

24:15Kara Goldin:So did you launch with a retail partner? It sounds like you launched online. No, but that's important because it's, you know, here you've had all this experience and the, you know, the, I mean, it's, I remember when we were first raising money for the brand I founded Hint, it's like, you're so excited about it. Your friends are excited about it. Your family's excited about it. And then all of a sudden you walk in and they're questioning everything. I I mean, for me, I was a Diet Coke addict and I was owning that I was a Diet Coke addict and that I had figured out that what I really needed was better tasting water without sweeteners in it in order to give up that other bad habit that I had.

25:02Kara Goldin:And I had more men looking at me saying, I'll have to ask my wife if she feels the same way about Diet Coke and some of the other diet products that were out there. And ultimately, none of them invested, right? But it was like somebody saying your baby's ugly, while everyone else around you is saying, go Sarah, right? And you're like, is this ever going to happen? Because I need those checks. Yes, yes, right. Well, so then I ended up actually going to my ex-husband for a second time. like if you can imagine you know it's like you talk about humble pie it was like a lot of humble pie I mean we have a really good relationship but he had said no at the beginning and he was like you know what he's like I know nothing about beauty I'm in the record business you know and so so he initially said no but then I went back to him and I was like listen I've never raised money before but what I understand is like if one person jumps in the pool other people will jump in the pool.

26:11Can you just please jump in the pool? And he was the one actually who said, okay, yeah, I'll do it on one condition, one condition. And I was like, what's that? And he was like, that you call it by your name. So he said, because otherwise, you know, he goes, you're going to spend the first five minutes of every interview explaining how you're related to the company, blah, blah. And he's like, and you've been doing this. And a lot of those brands that are out there that have like five letters and don't make any sense, it's because the people behind them have never done anything like this, you know?

26:41So anyway, I got started that way. And then I just put my head down and I just got it done. I developed the packages. I developed the formulas. And I was like, just had a small team and we were off to the races and we were going to launch on Sarah Creelbeauty.com on June 3rd in 2024. Okay. That was our go date. And I kind of just forgot about the rest of the world. I really did. Because I took the no's kind of so seriously that I was like, I'm just going to do it until it's like done. And then people will see what I mean, what I'm talking about. But what happened was I ended up reaching out to Alison Han at Sephora and congratulating her for like 12 years at Sephora.

27:35I was like, you know, amazing. And she wrote back, she was like, it's awfully quiet over the Creole camp. She's like, what are you up to? What are you doing? And I said, well, believe it or not, I'm creating my own brand. And she was like, oh my God, I would love to see that when I come to New York next. so long story short she took a quick look I didn't have very much together it was February of 2024 and she said I'd really like Amy Abrams who's on my team you know who's amazing she's like I'd like her to come with next time she comes to New York to come see you and you can show her you know where you are so I was like okay great so Amy came to my apartment in April and by then I had everything done.

28:22And she walked in and she was like, wait a minute, what? Like, when are you ready to launch? And I'm like, I'm going to launch June 3rd. Yeah. And she was like, are you insane? She's like, I can't believe I haven't seen this. This is amazing. And what was, I scheduled a one hour meeting. She made it a two hour meeting. It ended up being a three and a half hour meeting. And at the end of that meeting, it was done. She was like, I would like to launch this with you exclusively as soon as possible. Would you do that with us? And I was like, yes, I would. And so what I didn't realize up until that moment was that as much as so much of the face of investment is male, guess what?