Inside Saie: Clean Beauty, Cult Products & Disrupting the Make-Up Industry | SheerLuxe Conversations

0:00Charlotte Collins:Welcome to the Sheer Lights podcast with me, Charlotte Collins. This week, we have a bit of a beauty founder special. I am joined by Laney Crowell, founder of Say. And if you don't know Say, you should. Where have you been? Since launching in 2019, Say has become a go-to for... I'm going to read this so we'll get this absolutely right, okay? A go-to for skin-first, clean, high-performance makeup. Winning fans for its thoughtful approach and transparent ethos. Today, we are diving into Laney's journey. buckle up for like the best ride of your life all the products that you need to know about as i mentioned we had launched four months before covid so people couldn't get eyelash extensions and everybody was messaging us saying oh my god your mascara saved me and what's coming next for the brand welcome thank you so much for having me i mean you were looking annoyingly fresh for somebody who just who has just got off a red eye this is let's hope let's hope I make sense okay yeah it's true you haven't said anything yet so exactly this could all go to shit um lady first of all tell us a bit about for those who don't know yes tell us about the brand sort of what's the potted history where did it come from what were you doing before oh my gosh well we launched in 2019 perfect four months before covid so you know we've been on a journey I started my career in fashion, part of why I'm such a huge fan, decided to move in-house in beauty.

1:26And I worked at one of the biggest beauty companies for five years. I say I got my MBA there because I learned from the best of the best. And I left to, I kind of just, I had a feeling about this conversation about beauty being better. I was, before wellness was a word, I was diving into that world. And I started a blog to have that conversation. And it's where the name of the brand comes from, you say it, we create it. My community said loud and clear, here is exactly what is missing from the market. Here's exactly what we want. And I had that aha moment that I think most founders have where I was like, I think I'm the person to do this.

2:07And what my community said was, as I said, very clear. They wanted high performance, truly clean, good for their skin products. um they wanted products that gave them butterflies that excited them and to me what that represents is a no compromise approach makeup that is not only good for your skin but makes your skin better

2:29Charlotte Collins:and what does truly clean mean you know the words clean beauty are kind of banded around quite a lot and it's you know there's there's the sort of buzziness of all of that what does actually clean look like well what clean means to say is products that are good for your skin so yes there are two thousand ingredients that we don't use because they are known irritants and all of our products are non-comedogenic dermatologist tested safe for sensitive skin and safe for acne skin and so what I focus on and what we focus on it say are the ingredients that we do put into our products so when you aren't putting silicones into your products you're putting in nourishing ingredients that are hydrating brightening um protecting your skin all the goodness you talked about your following and you know your audience and what they wanted tell me a bit about what that means you were content creating you were working for a beauty brand I've always been content creating that is my I storytelling is what I love I start I moved to New York to work in magazines because I was obsessed with magazines and someone aptly said to me you should do what you love and I was I really love reading magazines.

3:41So I moved to New York. I didn't know a soul, not one person. I literally went and knocked on doors. And I remember the fashion editor at New York Times. I think her name was Alex Brown. And I was downstairs and had them call up to her. And I somehow got upstairs and she said, the only reason why I let you up is because you had the guts to do this. So I kind of just made it happen. I ended up getting my first job at Lucky because I ran into the editor in chief, I think Banana Republic. And I introduced myself and I said, Miss France, I moved here to work in magazines. How do I get my foot in the door?

4:24She gave me her card on the on Fifth Avenue and said, you have the number one most important skill and that's fearlessness.

4:31Charlotte Collins:How old were you when you did the worst? it's probably 24 25 oh like well because you almost like don't know I mean I do remember being very scared and intimidated in the moment but I don't know also like what do you have to lose you shot your shot yeah okay so that's that's how you got into magazines and then as you said you went into beauty that was in the PR space right so I started an editorial at the time when social media was and not even social media it was websites every magazine was making a website and jobs were dropping on the print side, sometimes being replaced on the digital side.

5:07And I kind of just saw what was coming. And when I discovered social media, I just was obsessed. This frictionless conversation, the ability to go from three monthly times in editorial to instant, I thought was just incredible, like blew my mind. And so I was very early in that space. And Estee Lauder reached out and said, will you help us create our digital footprint? And I'd never been in house. I'd never had dental insurance.

5:37Charlotte Collins:So I was like, let's do this. Sold. See, you're working in this space and then you decide that you're gonna launch the brand. What was the journey from that? How did you actually day one say, okay, this is how we launch? So I had that aha moment that I mentioned and it was a true Oprah style aha moment where I was going out one night, I wanted some makeup and I was like, oh, let me go to the beauty closet it that I had created in my apartment after I'd started the blog because brands started sending me product to review from day one. And every bin was overflowing except for the makeup bin. And like it was one, it was such a defining moment for me that I can still visualize the entire thing of like opening the doors, looking at the bin, seeing the product, pulling the makeup bin out.

6:21And I think there was like four things in it. and so that night I had the Instagram stories conversation with my community I stayed up late just asking them questions and you know it was like that was kind of the moment I had the calling and then I was pregnant at the time I had my daughter Isabella and it probably took me three months after that to kind of be like okay like what does this really look like I had been mulling it over in my brain for a long time but I hadn't actually put pen to paper started fundraising started um hiring reaching out to people I sold my stock in Estee Lauder to pay my first two employees and I just put one foot after the next I mean I had no I had no idea how to do anything I didn't know how to start a business I didn't know how to incorporate I didn't know what equity meant I didn't know anything I want to ask more about that business journey but just just going back to those four products am i right in thinking the point you're

7:18Charlotte Collins:making is that you were using very little and there wasn't enough is that what you mean about having this oh there just wasn't there was like five brands that existed and the products oftentimes just weren't high performance yeah you know i remember using a clean mascara that just fell immediately onto my face and the products were um there would kind of disappear quickly they wouldn't really stick to your face um that high performance factor in everything that we make it say is to me essential because you have to make something that is a hero that works so what did you start with product wise you started this business i started with mascara and you started with mascara why because that other one was so shit yeah and that was because the community had said make a mascara and when looking back because i remember editors being like this is interesting that you're launching first with the mascara.

8:12Like nobody does that. And why does nobody do that? I don't know. I think maybe because it's a hard category to break into. It's a very, there's a lot of amazing mascaras on the market. Ours is 100 % natural or naturally derived ingredients. It's so nourishing. We actually have a growth extract in it. So as I mentioned, we had launched four months before COVID. So people couldn't get eyelash extensions and everybody was messaging us saying, oh my God, your mascara saved me because it's helping my lashes grow back. That's what I mean when your products can actually improve your skin.

8:49Charlotte Collins:Okay, so you launched with the mascara. We launched with the mascara. We also had a lip balm and a brow pomade. And one thing for me, especially in clean, because raw ingredients are always improving, we're always looking at our formulas and improving them and evolving them. And so the only SKU that we have still is mascara because that's an incredible product. And then the next, like two months after we launched Glowy Super Gel, which is our hero and the number one highlighter at Sephora. And I want to know about who you use, how you spoke to people. You know, did you already have a list of ingredients that you were like, OK, these are the absolute bad?

9:30Charlotte Collins:I mean, you mentioned 2000 ingredients you don't use. It's kind of who educated you to get you to the point that you could create what you wanted to create? So because I was pretty entrenched in this world, thanks to the blog, there was a woman in Gay Timmons and everyone referred to her as the Gandalf of clean beauty because she is a toxicologist. and credo folane all of the kind of big clean beauty retailers we used her um to help them create their list of products that um ingredients that they watched out for and so i cold called her and said hey can you help me and here's what i want this to look like here's what i want to focus on and we still tap her today okay amazing yeah so i just i just want to dig into that how you got the mascara to launch so you met you've spoken with her you get the product going and then where do you even start in terms of distribution you still have a website what happens okay so for so i the two hires i made was i hired a product developer who i had worked with previously because that was my first call i had to even understand is this hypothesis possible can you make truly clean products that are high performance and she was like not only yes but this is the only thing that I've been wanting to work on is exactly this.

10:50And so she joined the team and then I hired someone for finance and that was it. That was the team. I put a list of here, all the products that I would want. And then I reached out to the community and I said, well, what do you guys want? And so we just kind of built our product pipeline from there, but very much through that lens of easy and effortless, because I'm not a makeup artist. And I think that's a big difference between say and other brands is that I look at everything through the lens of a consumer. What do I want to use? What do my friends want to use? What is missing from the market?

11:22Charlotte Collins:You still to this day have a very tight product edit. I mean, we'll get into some of the products in a minute. Tell me kind of why that is. How deliberate has that been? Well, I love to hear about products one by one. When a brand launches a collection, I'm always a little bit confused of like, well, what should I be focusing on? how can they all be great and so there's that and there's also the fact that it's really hard for us to develop products uh that product developer that I mentioned she calls it the olympics of product development and the amount of time that takes her to develop one say product she said she could do 30 of traditional products because I was going my next question was going to be why do you think that there is such a lack of focus on clean beauty in the industry as a whole but that kind of explains it right I think it's hard to do I think there's that fact I also think that say is pioneering this conversation about products that are improving your skin when was the first time you thought oh this is really working I might be going to something here when women's wear daily launched an article about three months before we were going to launch the brand that said this brand is coming and the next day I got an email from Sephora and I couldn't believe it I mean it was it was like instant so you were stocked in Sephora from the get-go no I just got an email not the same thing got it okay but contact was made but the biggest retailer prestige retailer in the world emailing you um I was I mean I still have moments where I'm shocked like that and pinch me moments but that was wild how did you actually get into Sephora in the end okay this is a great story so we had that call I went out to Sephora twice and they were like you're not ready and so we launched and we had so much buzz I mean I have a background in social media influencer marketing we went for it and no call and I was like that's weird kind of thought I'd get a call by now and someone introduced me to a woman I think at the time she was at herbivore botanicals and she had worked at Sephora before and I said what's your advice I was like I feel like I'm dating an emotionally unavailable guy like the signals are mixed I'm like what's happening and she was like here's exactly what you should say and she helped me draft my email and I sent it and the next day I got a response and they said um let's chat and I got a call in April of 2020 that we were going to launch in every single Sephora nationwide which was not a time in which many people were taking on new businesses.

13:54Charlotte Collins:Nope. And we were supposed to launch that fall. And then of course, stores continued to be closed. And so then we ended up launching in the spring of 2021. Can you tell us what was in that email? It was very effusive. I was really, I was really honest and like, this is my dream. I created this brand to be at Sephora and I don't, in the past, I never would have been so honest. What about on that launch journey? Any hiccups? What were the things that were the kind of challenges to get over oh my gosh I think about this because my daughter the other day said to me she's like well mommy you never fail at anything and I was like girl I fail all day long every day for me it's like how fast can I recover like how fast can I get up I mean COVID was pretty um that was a crash course in resilience uh I had never experienced a pandemic before and I definitely had never experienced it as a first-time founder so that was I mean I just had to keep going yeah and here you are tell me about the state of the brand today the products that you have kind of that's that's the background that's the history where are we now I'm just laughing a little bit about that last question because now it's all flooding into my brain i brought back all the traumatic memories uh i mean you know it's really exciting we're a leading brand at sephora in um the u.s and north america we're at cult beauty in the uk and we launched in the middle east last year and that glowy super gel which was one of our second products that we launched is the number one highlighter at sephora we actually have seven products in the top 10 at sephora which is something i'm really let's dwell on that for a that's insane of their top 10 selling best products in the states so in each category we have seven products that are in the top 10 that's wild and actually glowy super gel of their five top highlighters glowy super gel is one two and three in just different shades yeah what are the other what are the others of those seven well slip tinted moisturizer of course is a hero Dew Blush and Dew Bronze.

16:01If you haven't tried Dew Bronze, it's the easiest way to bronze and contour. Our other bronzer is also in the Top 10 Sun Melt, which is my, I can't get ready without it. Our Super Suede Baked Powder Blush. Every day I put it on, I'm like, wow. It doesn't look like powder. It doesn't feel like powder. It gives you this beautiful skin radiance. I mean everything that we create is to solve a problem you know when I was having a makeup artist do my makeup and put a setting powder on me and I looked 10 years older afterwards I couldn't believe it I was like this is the leading setting powder and so we created a setting powder that it actually fills your fine lines and then melts into your skin thanks to hydration properties and we infuse humidity into the oven to have it be as it almost feels like a cream but it's a powder so and every formula that we create is like that you talked about the the time and energy it takes

17:06Charlotte Collins:to create each one of these what what are you looking for to get it right at what point do you say yes right done this is ready to hit the market I think the launch that we're about to come out with is the most perfect example of this because our community had been asking for a setting spray almost since we launched. And I have such sensitive skin. I have such acne prone skin. I'd never been a setting spray user. I mean, maybe on occasion I would, but, um, you know, setting sprays originated as hairspray and that's essentially what they are. And so we started working on a setting spray and all that we were able to create was a hydration spray.

17:46and I was like this isn't it first of all there's tons of hydration sprays on the market I don't think we need another one and two the whole point is that it sets your makeup hydration does the opposite and so it took us five years and we developed a setting spray with 16 hour wear and when we got that 16 hour wear claim I was like let's go so basically you wait for the testing to confirm and the testing and also instincts okay do you want to tell me about

18:12Charlotte Collins:the product since since we're on it um here's what you made earlier it's i think we have a little mini right here you guys i'm obsessed not only let's have a spritz first thing you're going to feel is this ultra fine mist do i need to shake it nope that is an unbelievably fine mist it's almost spotlight yes i mean it's a moment of self-care and it feels like nothing it actually gives you a really beautiful glow to the point where now i don't want to get ready without it i'm looking for my it's just this like gorgeous radiance it's unbelievably light yeah it doesn't feel like a setting spray which does feel like it's not sticky it's not tacky and that's because there's no synthetic polymers in it um and it's actually um quite hydrating but we are focusing on the 16 hour wear conversation to not confuse people because i find that confusing as a consumer i'm like well is it hydrating or is it a setting spray this is both yeah but the fact that we got that 16 hour claim I'm like I'm shouting that from the rooftops lead into that part no one's ever done it before amazing the branding is obviously gorgeous thank you where does where did that come from what was your presumably you had a bit of an eye yourself what what what kind of led you in the direction that you took I wanted something that gave me butterflies I wanted I had this really distinct moment where I was walking into this clean beauty store and it was it was quite near NARS.

19:33And I had this moment where I was like, I wish I was walking into NARS. I want that feeling. I mean, I'm a beauty lover. I've always been a beauty lover. I remember like walking to department stores and seeing all the counters and like being almost like a kid in a candy store. And that was the emotion that I wanted to capture. So when we were working on the talking about like, well, what's the name of the brand? And I kept going back to that conversation that we had on our blog. You say it, we create it. So essay Y. And I was like, that doesn't really feel very feminine to me. And so I, in middle school, I lived in Paris.

20:08And so I changed the Y to an IE and the logo is actually hand drawn. I just wanted it really simple. I didn't want our consumer paying for packaging, but I wanted it to still feel like something you were proud to put on your vanity that made you happy and joyful when you saw it. so we went with this really sleek minimal you know black and white aesthetic that just felt timeless

20:33Charlotte Collins:what about the marketing that went into it you talked about your social media kind of knowledge and background what what do you think has been the most effective thing that you've done in terms of branding PR marketing what has been like the best call you've made as a founder investing in our community and from day one having a conversation with them like they are just part of the brand um because they are and throwing events for them conversing with them having we have private we had a private facebook group it's now on tyb um we have lots of perks for them we do zooms and master classes um it's about them and i think they feel that you really straddle the gen z millennial space right the spaces between the two you know we i know from our office that you've got plenty of gen z fans but also millennial how do you speak to the two different customers in different ways from day one i wanted the voice of the brand to be a friend probably because i'm not a makeup artist and you know that's where i get my recommendations from or from my friends and word of mouth and so that's always been our voice i we tweak it for tiktok versus instagram versus newsletter to be appropriate for that setting i think the same way in which you talk differently in a business meeting as you talk to one of your girlfriends versus how you text.

21:53Have you had mentors along the way in the beauty space? My boss at Estee Lauder has always been a mentor to me. She taught me so much. Because I started, say, during COVID, it was like a very isolating two years. We moved out of the city. I had a baby and I listened to a lot of podcasts. And I think that's actually where I got a lot of the advice um on how to run a business specifically how I built this have you ever listened to that podcast um there were short episodes and I think I I would just walk and listen and you know I think about there's one particular one with Danny Myers where he says if you don't like solving problems don't start a business and you know you cannot you can get a little bit like oh my gosh everything is so much and you're like oh no no I signed up for this

22:42Charlotte Collins:I sometimes have that even from inside the business I'm like why are we always firefighting I'm like oh no wait it's our job we've been paid to fire because that's why exactly right it's just that's that's what you sign up for what do you wish that founders other founders other entrepreneurs were more honest about what didn't you know before that you would love other people to know about that it is personal you know everyone says like oh it's just business it's like it's no it's not business when it's your baby and it's your brand and you birthed it and you created it and you know I think people say that sentence all the time like oh she she's the founder she created it but to create something from nothing is an incredible thing and you know when you're starting a business you hang out with everybody that you are working with almost exclusively all you think about is work and so yeah it's personal how big is your team now so we just had our um our infamous say off site where we we go a little wild we have fun and there were 70 people there oh so it's going pretty quickly what has been the biggest lesson in leadership that you have learned in that time the importance of values before i did anything with say i thought about like what is the company that i want to create what is the footprint that we are going to leave and I thought a lot about our values and what we stand for uh and who we hire is through that lens as well if you go back to day one or the very early days what does success look like then what were you hoping for and is it miles from where we are now was it you know where where are we I think that's one of my biggest lessons is that you think that you're dreaming big enough and every time it's I end up in a place where I'm like oh wow I never could have even imagined this so it's like when they say dream big you know dream big so what have been the big milestones then what have been the things that you've been like wow we actually did this oh my gosh there's so many and I actually had a moment the other day where I was like I need to pause more and and celebrate because I'm very much on to the next.

24:49We call it say speed because I work really quickly. I got honored with Time 100 last month. I think that was something I never in my wildest dreams could have ever imagined. We were the only beauty brand in the room. I was the only beauty founder and seated next to such incredible people. That was mind-blowing. Breaking into the top 10 this summer at Sephora was something that still takes my breath away. dancing on the dance floor with my team that's the most fun I would say when you when you asked me earlier about what has been part of our success I think joy has been a really big part of it and that being something that we like actively focus on and strive for and it leads to talent retention it leads to us creating more incredible things it leads to people being just really passionate and caring.

25:39Charlotte Collins:I have a question here about sustainability and responsibility. I don't know, I'm interested to hear what you make of this. What's written here is, say is outspoken about sustainability, but sustainability and beauty is complicated. How do you balance ambition with realism? I feel like that's quite a confronting question. What do you make of that? Oh, I don't find that confronting. I think that's like what we should all be talking about. that uh we the beauty industry produces 129 billion units of plastic every single year and plastic beauty products are really hard to recycle because they're so small um it's also one of the reasons why we don't do custom packaging because when you have all different types of material you can't recycle it so we have always looked through that lens every decision we've made has been through how do we leave the smallest footprint impossible.

26:29And last year we were like, we have to solidify this. We have to put our stake in the ground. And so we started the SAI Climate Initiative. That might be one of the things I'm most proud of. We have really ambitious goals, but I 100 % believe that we can achieve them. And we have even partnered with Sephora on this, which is to me the biggest step because SAI can do all it wants, but we're just a drop in the bucket. So partnering with every brand at Sephora, that's exciting.

27:03Charlotte Collins:And what does that mean? What's, what does the initiative? We have a campaign that we tested last year. It's called planet beautiful. We had four brands, part of it. And this year we're going to have 12 brands and, um, we work with repurpose. They are absolutely amazing. If you don't know them, their entire mission is waste management. And I could probably take an entire podcast talking about this so we collect plastic through projects with them all over the world and our goal is to collect five million pounds of plastic and with the more brands that join the higher that number is getting amazing congratulations very exciting how do you personally bring that sustainability or just general kind of cleanness into your life presumably you're quite good at practicing what you preach uh well micro moments for sure I don't drink coffee for me that's a big mindfulness choice because coffee makes me so anxious it makes me ramped up it makes me emotional so I love my matcha ritual every day I start my day by like closing my eyes and just asking myself who I want to be today I did that on the car right here and it takes 30 seconds but it can completely set the trajectory of my day and walking in nature is probably the other thing that I really lean on to feel good I also need to know what you're doing to your skin I can tell me all of this before we leave I can't let you go what what's going on I can break it down I can break it down um Sophie Povett skincare has it launched in the UK yet I don't know no No, I don't think so.

28:39Okay, well, let's get that over here ASAP. She is an acne whisperer. So if you have acne prone skin, but I think it's very much like say in the sense that maybe you don't even have acne prone skin, but it's unsafe for everything, every other type of skin as well. Medic 8, which I discovered here, the best. I have such sensitive skin that I use the retinol level one and I still think it makes the most the biggest difference. The 111 face mask the best. I don't leave home without them. Like I put one on in the car ride after I when I got off the plane a couple hours ago.

29:20Charlotte Collins:I like to take them on the plane and do it as we land. Yeah. Yeah. The best. But I pretty simple actually because I have sensitive skin but those are heroes. I feel like we can't end without talking a little bit more about the products. We talked about the new one. Tell me just just a kind kind of whistle stop tour on some of the absolute essentials from the say collection that people need to know about okay well you have to start with glowy super gel when i launched this product people didn't even know what to do with it because it was such a category disruptor it's a all-over aluminizer that is totally weightless but it doesn't have any glitter in it it just gives you this unbelievable lit from within glow i mean when you like wow look like side by side I don't know if you can see that but oh yeah wowie I mean the girl on the camera like yeah it probably just makes it probably just makes one of my hands look really old but no you know I don't start my day by putting that all over and there's a shade called sunglow that's vacation in a bottle so it's like a bronzing drop situation yeah that um yeah if you're feeling tired or you're feeling sad all the all the feelings it just misses everything uh our slipton tinted moisturizer if you have dry skin is so hydrating and dewy and has spf in it and has licorice root extract in it so it actually brightens your skin as some i've was a swimmer growing up and so i have quite a lot of dark spots and it noticeably brightens my skin i can just talk about this stuff so tell me when I have to stop.

30:55All of the skincare properties in our formulas, everything just melts into your skin. So everyone's like, oh my gosh, it's the easiest blush to apply. Well, that's because there's actually ingredients that are melting into your skin, plumping your skin. All of a sudden, your cheekbones are like popping a little bit more. Our baked products, which are revolutionary, they're winning every single award left and right because first of all, they're handmade in Italy and we it's like they're made like a dough and so we literally knead into the dough hyaluronic acid jojoba esters these really hydrating ingredients and then they're put on these terracotta discs and put into an oven where we pump the humidity into the oven and when you apply it you just you almost gasp because it's so seamless you don't see i hate the look of powder on skin and you don't see any powder on your skin our glossy bounce i have so many pictures of being out at dinner and everyone pulling one out and then and everyone is holding a glossy bounce is that what's on your lips right now that's what's on my lips right now yeah also one of the hardest products we've ever had to formulate because doing a lip gloss that is shiny that stays in place without silicones it was like a nobel peace prize moment when we finally broke through on this one um I'm really proud of this formula and then I already spoke about city set but um I'm excited for this to like change the beauty game give it a hard plug when has it launched already so city set is available now I'm so excited for everyone to try it I can't I cannot wait you have to dm us what you're thinking the most lightweight ultra fine mist you've ever tried I just like put it on to feel good like 3 p.m it feels amazing I was just in the background saying do you want

32:46Charlotte Collins:it excellent it smells gorgeous I can smell it from here if you could go back and tell the version of yourself that started the business one thing what would it be I would say buckle up for like the best ride of your life okay we're having so much fun love that and finally finally what's what's the dream what's what's still on the list to achieve oh my gosh I feel like we're just getting started watch this guy's the limit loved amazing Lainey thank you so much all of say products are available at cold beauty yeah uk including the new 16 hours oh yeah so there you go thanks so much for joining us and thank you for listening thank you if you have any feedback do stick it in the comments we'd love to hear from you and don't forget to like subscribe and tell your friends and we'll see you next time

33:45Thank you.