Glow Journal

In episode 140 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Airyday, Frances van der Velden. I knew this was going to be a great storytelling episode, because I was already reasonably versed in the Airyday backstory, but what blew me away in this conversation was how much actual tangible business advice Frances so openly shared. Frances was diagnosed with a Basal Cell Carcinoma, which led to her trying more or less every sunscreen on the market to find a formula she loved and would be happy to wear every day. When she couldn’t find one that ticked every box, she set to work on developing Airyday- an SPF wardrobe that launched in 2022 with four sunscreens. Beauty retail giant Sephora reached out to Frances a mere six weeks post-launch, and today, two years in, Airyday is stocked in Sephora stores nationally and through a whopping 600 clinic stockists. Frances explains that this was largely thanks to a high risk ad spend strategy that she explains far better than I can. In this conversation, Frances shares the realities of such major growth in such a short timeframe, how her marketing investment allowed Airyday to cut through the noise in a saturated market, and her advice on getting your brand seen by the decision makers at the country’s biggest retailers. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Airyday on Instagram @airyday.officialStay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

Six years in and it’s time for my first solo episode. The botox bit is clickbait. Hi! Gem here. This is probably the most honest and open I’ve been about a bunch of things on the internet. This was cathartic! We're talking my studies, how I got into the beauty industry, my career prior to leaving my job and going out on my own 8 years ago, career advice... you understand. Thank you to everyone who submitted such thoughtful questions. If you enjoyed this and would like me to do another solo ep somewhere down the line, please let me know. If you didn’t enjoy it, don’t tell me. Thanks!Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 138 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the co founder of Augustinus Bader, Professor Augustinus Bader. The Augustinus Bader brand turned over $7 million USD in 2018, the year it launched. Within 2 years that figure had grown to $70 million, and this year it’s reported that sales will have topped $130 million. That is the power of Augustinus Bader, both the man and the brand, the latter having won over 120 beauty industry awards since launch, including being named The Greatest Skincare of All Time by WWD. Professor Bader, however, never intended to enter the beauty industry. Following over 3 decades of work in medicine and garnering global acclaim for his work with burns victims, it was in 2013 that he met French financier Charles Rosier who saw his work and began the two year process of convincing the Professor to start a skincare brand with him. The term “cult brand” gets thrown around a little loosely in beauty, but that truly is the status Augustinus Bader has reached. This is a man who said “yes” to developing skincare almost entirely so he could self-fund future medical innovations, but whose products have become so, so popular that he is now a frequent collaborator of Victoria Beckham and has grown the product line from 2 face creams to somewhere between 30 and 40 SKUs.In this conversation, Professor Bader shares how he took a hospital grade burn cream and made it into a shelf stable luxury beauty brand, how his collaborations with both Victoria Beckham and Sofia Coppola came to fruition, and what exactly his patented TCF8 technology can actually do for the skin. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Augustinus Bader on Instagram @augustinusbader.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 137 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of O&M, Jose Bryce Smith. When we talk about a founder being “ahead of their time,” Jose Bryce Smith may well be the very best example. Jose co-founded Australia’s first ammonia-free hair salon and launched one of the first ever ammonia and PPD free hair colours, but beyond being a pioneer (something Jose tells me she’s not so sure she’d ever want to do again), Jose’s story is really just one of the best I have ever heard. She, naturally, tells it far better than I do, but this is just an objectively great founder story regardless of whether you’ve got an interest in beauty, business, or neither. In short- she got fake clients in the salon to secure a Vogue feature, she had a Legally Blonde moment in which she bought back her business, she can claim ownership of one of the funniest first date stories I’ve ever heard, and in 2015 she lost $500,000 of product- and against all odds, O&M is now one of the biggest haircare and colour brands in the world. In this conversation, Jose shares how she worked to earn back the trust of hairdressers country-wide after a major manufacturing error, how a first date became her first board member, and the advice from her late father that she always comes back to. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow O&M on Instagram @originalmineral.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

20% off sitewide at thebeautychef.com with code GLOWJOURNALIn episode 136 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks once again to the founder of The Beauty Chef, Carla Oates. Something of an unintentional theme over the last couple of months of the podcast has been founders who’ve truly been first to market with something- not just saying they identified a gap for something, actually identifying a gap (easier said than done in the beauty space). I last had Carla on the show in season 1, almost 6 years ago, but we’ve worked together several times since and I really do find her to be one of the most interesting and innovative founders in the country. For those unfamiliar with The Beauty Chef, and Carla’s story, The Beauty Chef really was the first of its kind on launch in 2009- Carla totally pioneered the “inner beauty” category that most of us are well and truly across now, but keep in mind the market looked very, very different then.Carla is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to inner beauty as a category, but also on the business of beauty. There is, of course, a huge education piece that needs to come alongside being first to market with anything, and I’ve always found Carla’s approach to this really, really interesting. Since our last episode together, the range has grown to include 14 inner and 3 outer beauty products, the most recent addition being Body Protein+ which launched just last week. In this conversation, Carla shares how her background in fashion and beauty has shaped her own relationship with beauty and self worth, how she ensures her products always have a point of difference as the market grows saturated, and how she differentiates between a fleeting wellness trend and one worth investing in.Read more at glowjournal.comFollow The Beauty Chef on Instagram @thebeautychef.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 135 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founders of Glow Culture, Holly Holub, Donna Chan and Lori Pirozzi.Holly, Donna and Lori have a number of things in common- two of those things being an early wish to run a business and create something of their own, and a deep seated love of beauty. The three women met years ago, working on the corporate side of beauty, and over long conversations during lockdown they realised just how much their stories and interests overlapped. A few years ago, all three of them decided it was time to reevaluate what they were doing professionally and finally go after their dream- and so the seed for Glow Culture was planted. Holly, Donna and Lori had taken a particular interest in the science surrounding fermented ingredients, and while they’d seen the occasional mention of probiotics in skincare marketing, they’d never seen an Australian brand as single-minded about fermentation in that way that Korean skincare brands had. They felt there was a gap in the Australian market for skincare rich in fermented ingredients, as opposed to products that only contained one or two, and it would appear that their instincts were correct- less than 10 weeks post-launch, Glow Culture has already been picked up by retail giants Adore Beauty and Chemist Warehouse. In this conversation, Holly, Donna and Lori share why they feel Australia has been a bit of a late adopter of K Beauty trends, their take on the rise of niche and independent brands, and the pros and cons of being digitally native vs being available in physical stores. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Glow Culture on Instagram @glowculturehq.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 134 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the OKKIYO, Dr Jacqueline Beltz. I’ve talked a lot recently about how my favourite brand stories to share are the ones that really are offering a solution to a problem; founders who genuinely have identified a gap for something no one else is doing. The fact that we’re now six years into this show and I’m still able to meet people like Jacqui, who truly are doing something new, feels really special.Dr Jacqueline Beltz is a Melbourne based ophthalmologist (ophthalmology being the specialty medical field of diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases), and last year she launched OKKIYO with a mascara specifically formulated for people with eye sensitivity. That in and of itself is impressive, but her commitment to creating something accessible and inclusive extends far beyond just the formula.The packaging of OKKIYO’s mascara is the first I’ve seen to use braille in equal hierarchy within the branding, the tube itself is a square which makes it easier to identify and negates the risk of it rolling off a bench top and the user having to rifle around to find it if they have vision impairment, the name and branding were chosen based on visibility, and even the external card packaging has been designed in a way that allows for greater readability- there’s a lot more to it, which Jacqui explains in our conversation far more eloquently than I can. What Jacqui is doing with this brand, in my opinion, really sums up all the best bits of the beauty industry- it’s innovative, it’s fun, it’s not exclusionary and, at the crux of it, it’s a really great product. In this conversation, Jacqui shares her take on the power of naivety when it comes to launching a brand, the importance of beauty on our confidence when we’re struggling with our health, and the pressure that comes with launching a brand with a singular SKU. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow OKKIYO on Instagram @okkiyoeyes.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 133 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the co-founder of Urban Decay and Caliray, Wende Zomnir. Wende Zomnir is beauty industry royalty. This is the woman behind the Naked Palette, Urban Decay’s now-iconic 2010 launch that ensured this already wildly successful brand would go down in beauty history. Wende, alongside the tech mastermind that is Sandy Lerner, founded Urban Decay in 1996 with a distinctly grunge, “punk” if you will aesthetic. That in and of itself was revolutionary, when you consider that the most popular brands at the time were the likes of Clinique who were championing that very clean, very fresh look. Urban Decay was dark and bold and edgy, and thanks to some serious guerrilla marketing from Wende it quickly found its way into the hands of Gwen Stefani and Garbage front woman Shirley Manson. Urban Decay was acquired by the L’Oréal group in 2012, with Wende staying on as CCO until 2022, soon after launching her latest beauty venture- Caliray, a brand that harnesses Wende’s love of and expertise in beauty with her longstanding passion for the environment and sustainability, with industry sources estimating that the brand generated between $20 and $25 million USD in retail sales in 2023. In this conversation, Wende shares what it was like officially working with Gwen Stefani about 20 years after hunting her down at a music festival, what she believes it takes to create a truly iconic beauty product, and the full story behind the now infamous Urban Decay Naked Palette.Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Caliray on Instagram @caliray.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

In episode 132 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the co founder of LUI, Rebecca Harding and Ingrid Kesa.This is my favourite genre, so to speak, of founder conversation to have for a number of reasons: the first being I know both Bec and Ingrid personally, and how often in life are you given an opportunity to just ask your friends questions about their job for an hour? Never; the second reason being that LUI was developed out of a very real gap in the market; and the third is one that regular listeners will know I love, and that is that LUI exists in a space where most consumers shop habitually. Bec first started thinking about LUI many, many years ago upon realising that there were no razors for women that didn’t play into that bright pink, heavily airbrushed trope, and there was really nothing on the market that placed an emphasis on design, sustainability, and the overall experience of use. The idea was strong, but razors are difficult to create and businesses are difficult to grow alone so Ingrid entered the fold as co-founder in 2020, and LUI was officially launched in August 2023. LUI was self funded, all of the brand’s products were formulated with female chemists, and what began with a razor and shaving cream has already extended to a moisturiser and exfoliant with more products on the way. In this conversation, Bec and Ingrid share the benefits of being a direct-to-consumer brand, the power of sharing your ideas, and what it’s like being a startup playing in the same space as multinational heritage brands.Read more at glowjournal.comFollow LUI on Instagram @luibody.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com