From Viral Nail Trends To Beauty Innovation: Inside Essie With Melanie Ioanna | Nailing It

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1:13Welcome to Nailing It, Sheerlux's brand new podcast series celebrating the people, brands and businesses getting it right. Welcome, Melanie. Thank you. Thanks for having me. We should say we are getting our nails done whilst in this podcast because it's called Nailing It And also because obviously we're working with Essie today. So shall we pick our shades? Yes, you go first. Well, I was saying to you that I'm like a chronic dark red nail girl, so it's not going to be super surprising that I've gone for Bordeaux today. So there we go. Beautiful. What about you? I'm going to layer Sheer Fantasy from Gel by Essie and Drip Drip for a little chrome.

1:45Lovely. Sort of like the glazed doughnut vibe. Exactly. Do you always have like a signature nail or are you someone who just like switches up lots?

1:53Melanie Ioanna:I switch it up. I usually go back and forth between either something dark and moody and then something a little fresher and lighter. Well, this is what I'm stressed about because I only do dark nails. And I was saying to you earlier, like for my wedding, it's a bit weird to do like a dark nail, but maybe I just go for it. I think you go with your signature. Yeah. OK, well, we're going to start off talking about you. I'd love to get to know a bit more about how you got into the industry or sort of start with nails. So actually, let's let's put our hands down because these guys are like ready and raring to go.

2:21So how did you get into beauty? Because I know you've had quite a long career at L 'Oreal.

2:27Melanie Ioanna:Yes, at L 'Oreal, exactly. 15 years at L 'Oreal. I was always really into fashion, beauty, lifestyle, that kind of world. And when I was studying in university, I'm from Canada, actually. So I started out. And you're in New York now. I'm in New York now, exactly. I studied in Montreal and kind of came across L 'Oreal. Fell in love with the company, you know, global brands. like these amazing brands, these amazing products and started my career there and have it looked back. So what kind of brought you to Essie from that sort of within? How long ago was that? A couple of years ago, wasn't it? I've been working with Essie for two and a half years now.

3:03Melanie Ioanna:Yes, exactly. So I spent the majority of my time at L 'Oreal on Maybelline, actually, working across makeup. That's where I fell in love with color, makeup, trends, which obviously is so important in nails. And then I got this opportunity a little over two years ago to lead the global team for us. That's so exciting. And also, I think having been across sort of makeup and skincare probably as well, and now nails, there are so many different sort of learnings I'm sure you've gained from consumers. You have to be very consumer centric in the beauty business. And today, you know, things move so fast.

3:38I'd love to know what does senior vice president mean? You know, what is your day to day? What are you working on?

3:44Melanie Ioanna:Yeah, sure. So I lead the global team for SE and what we do is we basically build the brand, anything from like brand equity, content, campaigns, product development as well. So we are sort of the headquarters, if you will, of the brand globally. Every day is different. So it depends, you know, what phase of the year we're in. But the team will, you know, come up with ideas for new product ranges, new collections, build the stories around them. You know, they pitch it to me. We work together to finesse all of that. And then we'll go and, you know, shoot the content, the campaign around it and launch it into the world.

4:24It's so like interesting to me how you I mean, you've got so many viral shades and sort of classic ones that everyone knows. like what is the pipeline or the process of that? Like you obviously work with multiple teams for that to come to life, but what is the sort of initial thing? Like where do you find the inspiration? How do you think of the name? Like what goes into all of that?

4:42Melanie Ioanna:It's a big process. I mean, we have a time of the year, it's actually usually in the fall where the teams are starting to work sometimes two, three years ahead. And basically, you know, looking at what do we need to fill it like in the plan for the year? What's trending obviously, what's going to be trending in two three years depending on what we're what timing we're working on you know is there an unmet consumer insight which in nail actually there are a lot and can we come up with some a product to solve that or if it's on if it's shades you know like what do we project that's going to be trending in a year or so and like build a shade collection around that so the teams will you know put together we have we have people in marketing we have people in product development we have a color designer on the team as well that comes up with these unique shades and they'll put together a story for a collection or you know a concept for a new product pitch it to myself and the team and then we kind of go to the labs and make the thing and then present it to our markets and then it all comes to life.

5:53And how many like new shades do you have

5:54Melanie Ioanna:average in a year we have about right now I think we have about five collections a year maybe six shades each so I'm doing the math that's maybe 30 30 to 40 new shades a year yes we do you know some things are permanent which means they'll go in our permanent assortment for the long term and other collections are more limited edition seasonal drops I want to dive a bit deeper into product in a bit but back to sort of your career what has kept you sort of so excited by the beauty industry it changes so much so much like you know like you say about the trends everything change every like month every season something changes so what keeps you kind of stuck into it and not sort of you know stepping back from it too much I mean I think it's that yeah it is the fact that it's constantly evolving and it's constantly changing of course some you know big trends are are cyclical but there's always newness there's always freshness there's you especially now with social media, you know, like before the beauty industry you had the professionals and then you had the consumers and everything was very separate.

6:58Melanie Ioanna:Today, you know, people are watching so much content of these like makeup artists, these pros, these manicurists and they're learning so much and the consumers are very educated, very talented and sometimes, you know, they will come up with a new hack that even us working in the industry, you know, didn't think of or didn't come out. So it is, I think it's a very dynamic business, the beauty business. And I think that's why it's exciting to be working there and you don't really get bored. Yeah, that's actually really interesting in the way that like where trends are coming from now. I think like you say, it used to be sort of from the brands and from the professionals, and now it's very driven by consumers.

7:37How do you guys stay on top of that? It's a little bit of everything. I mean, you know, you have to be, I'm sure you know, you have to be hyper-connected. To be chronically online. Yes, exactly.

7:45Melanie Ioanna:Chronically online. And I think, you know, it's not one person's job to do that or one team job. It's everyone is. Yeah, our whole team is chronically online. And we're always discussing sharing things. Yeah, I've seen this. Have you seen that? And it can come from, you know, a runway show from a certain, you know, fashion house that you see this beautiful color, you know, or it can come from like you said, like, just someone on TikTok that, you know, like had an idea. and then we're like or we see an insight um for example we launched a product this year called break fix which is a liquid nail patch um and that was really cool because we saw you know nail breaks are super common everyone experiences it um and we were seeing that people had to do these like crazy hacks you know like meshes tea bags nail glue it's not something that a regular consumer would yeah um you know be doing on the daily and so we were like there's a huge like insight here to be solved but there's no simple product that just like fixes it easily and so that's how that idea for that product came about.

8:49I also wanted to ask you because I'm quite like woo and I really believe in like fate and everything happens for a reason and was there anything early in your career or maybe more recently sort of a decision you made or opportunity you took which you feel like changed everything for you in your career? I think moving to New York was a big unlock. Which is a huge thing because you moved from Canada to New York. Correct, yes from Montreal Canada to New York

9:12Melanie Ioanna:2016 so 10 years ago now and you know i had always dreamed of living in in new york city and it's still such a magical amazing place and i think that that really you know the beauty industry new york is the heart of the beauty industry and so i think that was a very important decision in my career and in my life trajectory that allowed me to meet some amazing people be exposed to be exposed to the heart of the industry and learn so much and really be like in it and yeah that you know brought me where I am today. Do you consider yourself a New Yorker? I saw this whole thing. I'm hitting 10 years this fall and that's the rule.

9:49That is the rule of course yes. And what about instincts? I feel like we get asked this a lot from you know our audience how do you sort of trust your instinct versus fact or what someone in a boardroom tells you or you know how have you sort of learned to do that?

10:02Melanie Ioanna:I think you know marketing and especially in the beauty industry it's a mix of both so I talked about being consumer centric you need to know what's going on but at the same time there's a big part that is instinct, taste, gut feeling, subjectivity of course. I mean I think it comes with time you know like it's connected to confidence which you don't always have when you're just breaking in and you know when you're a little baby like starting your career but with time you know you make some good decisions you say some things that uh work out and then you just learn to trust your instinct i'd love to move on and talk a bit about essie itself you know everyone knows the name everyone knows the brand but how did it start actually essie has an amazing um heritage story so it was founded by a woman named essie winegrodon um who started making nail polishes in her garage.

10:55Oh, wow, I didn't know that.

10:56Melanie Ioanna:Yeah, yeah. And she flew with her suitcase of nail plush to Las Vegas. Wow. And was basically, you know, meeting with the showgirls, the dancers, you know, and basically like showing them her product range and they were obsessed, they loved it. And then it got into salons in Vegas around the United States and then went global. but you know today there's so many amazing female founders but if you think back in the 80s yeah i mean she was like yeah exactly she was a pioneer of women in business and a female founder and so it's a really beautiful story and i think she also you know she was the first to do six different shades of red at the time there was like one one red you know and so this idea of nuance and depth and undertones of shades really she was almost like the mother of that you know Yeah, for sure.

11:52And also, you know, at Shailups we talk a lot about stickiness, sort of getting under people's kind of epidermis and, you know, making them think about you all the time. And I feel like Essie has really done that with the way that they've kind of gone into the zeitgeist and, you know, everyone knows an Essie shade and can sort of quote one. How do you think that has happened over time?

12:12Melanie Ioanna:I mean, there's a few things. I think one, the quality of the product has always been, you know best in class and of course you can't be sticky if you don't have a good quality product then I think you talked about the shade names that's a big part of it so branding exactly I think you know especially at the time like it was quite innovative to have these cheeky shade names sometimes provocative shade names and they're very memorable to people and then I think you know Essie was, still is, like a PR darling brand. So, you know, celebrity endorsements. We have a lot of celebrity fans. The brand was very big in media and in press.

12:57Melanie Ioanna:And, you know, we were also sponsoring New York Fashion Week for a long time. So being backstage. So the brand was kind of everywhere. And I think people have, which has been really interesting, you know, working on this brand over the past few years and kind of diving into people's relationships with it. Everyone has a very strong emotional attachment to Essie. And when you ask someone, you know, when you or when I say to someone, I work at Essie, you're like, oh, my God, yes, I wore, you know, ballet slippers to my wedding or, oh, I wear, I wore this shade to my graduation. Everyone has a memory that they remember wearing Essie, which is.

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14:17Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Very cool. I mean, you can't say that for a lot of brands. that you could, you know, sort of like a fragrance, you know, the different moments in your life that you remember. Another thing that I find really interesting about the brand is the sort of balance between feeling elevated, but also accessible. And how do you strike that? Because I think that is a really specific kind of mass market that you can then target there.

14:52Melanie Ioanna:Of course, yes. I mean, you know, again, when when Essie Weingarten founded the brand, it was kind of this mix of elegance but also accessibility. She wanted it to be for everyone. And that's been something that's been so important to maintain throughout time. And we actually just, we just rebranded. We just launched our rebrand a couple of months ago. And our new creative platform is called Cheeky Luxury. And so, you know, for us, this is kind of a modern take on that heritage. The luxury aspect is quite important because of course, like at our price point, at our quality of formula, we are you know on the more elevated side within the mass market but we're still in the mass market and we're still you know an at-home nail polish um and then the cheeky side is really that playful boldness that personality that's so important to the to the brand so is that sort of the main way it's evolved would you say kind of leaning more into that in the last few years yeah i mean i it's evolved for a brand that's been around for over 40 years it's important that you know yeah and the consumer landscape has evolved you know so it's important that we it was important that we looked at what makes a modern brand and like what will appeal to of course our core consumer target and our consumers that have been with us forever but also a newer consumer or younger consumer and yeah I think with with cheeky luxury it's not a 180 of the brand like I said it's really an evolution but it's bringing that playful elegance to the modern day and you know I think we are having a lot of fun with our tone of voice with our visual identity we just launched a new campaign called color with a reputation where yeah where we basically told stories around these iconic shades that have been around for ages like ballet slippers bikini so teeny we have a shade called birthday girl and um the imagery that we created around birthday girl is a 99 year old woman um you know blowing out the candles of her cake and kind of like smoking a candle so it's pushing the the envelope a little bit but in this like very kind of cheeky and emotionally appealing way because we see um the modern consumer today they really they want to emotionally connect with friends, right?

17:17Melanie Ioanna:That's important in their job. They don't want to just buy a product. And you know, we say a lot at the office, like when they feel something, they do something. So you want to create that emotional spark with the consumer. In terms of luxury more generally, what do you think it is that consumers in the beauty industry particularly really want today? Because it's sort of like what you're talking about. It's that emotional connection. If we're talking luxury, they definitely want a good product, right? First and foremost, I think they want something beautiful as well so beautiful of course on once they wear it but a beautiful object is something so important and with SDR bottle is such an iconic part of our brand and has you know stayed timeless throughout the years and then I think they are starting more and more to want that story and that you know feeling that for the brand to make them feel so that they can connect with it and what excites you the most about this next chapter you know I'm sure you can't reveal too much about what else is coming up this year, but is there anything fun that you're like, that's going to be a good one?

18:15Melanie Ioanna:Yeah, we have a lot of exciting products coming up. Like you said, I can't unfortunately reveal too much. So we are paying more attention to the nail care category, which we see as very dynamic and like very exciting. So I talked about BreakFix, our liquid nail patch. We saw, you're familiar with, you know, the boom that skincare has had over the past few years. So people are really like, as much as they're caring for their skin they're also realizing that you know they need to care for their nails there's a lot of people UV gel is huge right so like that with that comes nail damage. People are getting so genned up about it as well like people understand the ingredients and skincare and things so I think yeah with nails with body care with hair care like they want to see those same things.

19:00Melanie Ioanna:Exactly yeah exactly and you know we talked a little bit about some consumer insights and you know what is something that's missing in a routine so there's a big problem that people have with nails that has no solution yet and we have a very exciting launch coming in the beginning of next year that is going to resolve that and divulge anything about that I can't say I can't say too too much but I can say that you know when you get your nails done or when you are doing your nails at home, typically you have to wait a long time, you know, before you can leave or do anything or touch something, you know, smudging and such.

19:46Melanie Ioanna:So potentially we'll be addressing something around that. Watch this space. Let's talk about formula a little bit, actually. What is it that makes the Essie formula so good? I mean, it's our secret formula. She can't tell us. I mean, you know, I think we have, different franchises in SE. So we have two main franchises in our color skews that you see here. We have our original franchise, this one, the iconic exactly. And with that, we say it's vivid streak-free color in every coat. So basically we have, you know, really great coverage. It doesn't streak. It doesn't dent. The brush is amazing too.

20:26Melanie Ioanna:So it's very easy to apply. You know, you don't need today we're very lucky to be getting professional medicals but you don't need a professional to apply for you you can do it yourself and it'll still turn out really beautiful so um i think it's that perfect combination of that full you know coverage base super smooth the pigment shines through really well the shine is great um and then we have our gel by essie formula i mean they're both best in class but yes exactly it's a beautiful formula also you know incredibly easy to apply it wears through everything so you can be washing your dishes you can be like you know doing your laundry whatever it is and um it'll last you can you kind of layer them so if you were to do the original can you do a top coat and then just kind of lock it in so it stays longer or do you need to kind of you can you really should wear the the two-step routine so the color and then the top coat which is amazing but you know like if you want to layer shades cocktails and yeah of course yeah oh i actually love mixing shades have you ever done a fun like mixture have you got any hats yeah i mean well what i'm doing what i'm doing now is we're doing sheer fantasy which is a light pink with um one of our liquid diamond shades called drip drip which is amazing name um on top for that glaze effect but you know i think you can with effects being such a big thing now you can do so much by mixing them actually i used do that a lot when I go to nail salon because I would want like a very specific like dark red so I'd get them to either mix brown with red or do like a black base and then do the red on top so it's dark enough.

21:58Okay but I do think this Bordeaux though that is like my perfect red. Yeah it's a beautiful red. It's so nice. There's also Wicked which is a little bit what you're describing

22:07Melanie Ioanna:which is that deep deep almost black adjacent red. Same with this one this one is forever yummy if I want like a summer red, which at some point in the year I then do start to transition into. So are you really a red girly? I really am. I'm now realising as I speak about it, although I was, so I got engaged last year and I had brown nails with blue polka dots. Oh, okay. Like you couldn't write that. So you didn't know it was coming then? No, absolutely not. I was like, did you know? I was like, oh, clearly not. That was the one time I had a bit of fun with my nails. yeah that's okay yeah um i'd love to talk a bit more about the market and trends and sort of the nail landscape i do feel like nails have become you know it's not just like an add-on it's like the finishing touch to an outfit i really do feel that when i'm getting dressed that like having the right shade it does just add like how do you think that shift has happened or why do you think that shift has happened it's super interesting we talk a lot about the emotionality of the nail category so yes it is an accessory but I think it's so much more than that right so nails are the only kind of makeup that you see on yourself without looking in the mirror and that's something that's such a good point yeah I've never thought of it that way yeah and you know you're staring at your hands all day like you're typing at the computer or typing on your phone or whatever um and so it's people have such you know face such importance to what they're wearing on their nails And if you have, you know, if you have a chipped nail, if your nails aren't done, like it really affects your mood.

23:41Yeah.

23:42Melanie Ioanna:And if you're not happy with the color you have on, like it really affects your mood. So I think it's twofold. It's like because it says so much about the mood you're in, the vibe you're in that day, that week and so on. And because it's just colorful, it's fun. And like you said, it adds to an outfit. it. I think that's why, you know, people are so engaged and excited around the nail category in general. I also like really have a very different foot nail situation like toe versus hands. Like my hands, I will never not have them done and looking pristine, whereas my toes, like honestly, they must be covered at all times.

24:22I don't know why that. Have you got like a, do you do the same shade usually on both? Or have you got like a different personality for your toes? Not necessarily.

24:30Melanie Ioanna:I don't love the matchy matchy look. Yeah, neither actually. Yeah, yeah. I am more, I do a lot of red on my toes. So just how you were saying about your hands, I think I can experiment more with my hands. But I tend to go either nude or red on the toes. So a little bit more classic. But it's funny that you talk about toes because part of our new Aquariereci, we're actually leveraging feet now. For free? exactly but it's been such a controversial conversation honestly and we had we posted this thing on our Instagram for a shade called very naughty which actually I don't think exists in the UK but it's in other markets and it's someone kissing a foot and well that's the whole cheeky exactly and you know it's a shades called very naughty so that's a story we told around it and it went crazy like people were crazy in the comments you You know, like it was comments like, like, feet on main for free.

25:30Melanie Ioanna:Is Quentin Tarantino running your social? It was hilarious, but it ignited such a cultural conversation. And honestly, there was a lot of press around it, that discussion, and we're starting to see feet so much more this summer. I don't know if you've noticed, like, the Chanel Runway show and all these new... Flip-flops are everywhere. Exactly. And so it's been, for me, it's been so exciting to, you know because the majority of consumers are wearing nail polish on their feet and on their toes so why can you just show a well manicured hand and not a well manicured foot but it's been cool to kind of be in this cultural discussion with that.