Has there been a campaign that you turned down despite a lot of
money it? Was $80,000.
This is the third time I've like turned down their sponsorship.
People have been so inundated with influencer marketing that
they can tell when they're being sold to, and they don't want
that you're. Paying someone that much for a
scripted video? People are actually like
following this because we're not actors, exactly because they
want the unfiltered honesty. What is a category in makeup or
skin care that you think really should be luxury?
If you don't have the budget, just don't launch complexion
first. There's so many other skews that
you could start with that don't need 50 Shades.
People know me for my authenticity being non filtered
and especially like not lying like I don't care what anyone
else thinks. Like, I'm not going to go on set
and lie about that. Especially with the offers, I
don't take all of them but easily could make way more as an
influencer than I did as a double board certified
reconstructive microvascular surgeon working for a mega
hospital system as an academic surgeon.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Inside Thoughts Out Loud.
I am super excited to sit down and chat with Monica Ravi
Chandran today. Many of you know her from the
Internet as Monica Ravi. She has over 1,000,000 followers
on YouTube and over 600,000 followers on Instagram.
She has grown her platform to be a real representation of where
authenticity and consistency can get you.
She has spoken so much about beauty in a way that is
relatable and actually lands with the consumer.
She's worked with some of the biggest brands in beauty and I
think it's a really interesting and specific opportunity to ask
someone who started in another field, she used to be an
engineer full time and who left that for the platforms that she
created. How did she get here?
Would she do anything differently?
What are the lessons that she's learned?
And ask her some questions about where is the color inclusivity
conversation going? Should we really require brands
to have a fully color inclusive palette?
If not, how do we as a consumer express to them where we're
disappointed? Is it fair to expect that of
them? I think it's also interesting to
ask someone like Monica, where do you feel comfortable landing
on what you owe the viewer? Do you think that as a consumer
or as a viewer where we deserve to know where you fall on
certain political topics? What about the current political
climate? Is that something that we should
be Privy to? I'm really excited to chat with
Monica about all of this and more.
So welcome to this week's episode of Inside Thoughts Out
Loud. Monica, thank you for coming on
Inside Thoughts Out Loud. I am so grateful for your time.
Thank you for having me, I'm so excited.
I have so many questions for you.
OK, So the first thing that I actually wanted to talk about is
it just popped up as a controversy on the Internet.
Obviously we've been talking about color inclusivity for a
while and that is a huge part of your platform.
So I saw that Gloria had had posted about Hourglass
cosmetics. And what really killed me is I
mean, like the woman comes with facts, right?
Like she has receipts for everything and she puts up a, an
ad for Hourglass where there is a Sudanese model front and
center, which is clearly advertising for a fully color
inclusive range, right? And her point was, girl, you and
I are the same skin tone. And I can tell you that there is
not a single product in this line that matches which is your
skin tone. And I have to ask, where do you
fall on? I mean, I know where you fall,
but I just want, I want everybody else to hear it.
When you are an influencer, a model, a creator, someone of
notoriety and a brand comes to you and they're like, hey, we
need you to represent our brand on your page.
Where do you draw the line? Because I want to ask this model
like, I'm like, come forth like I want to ask you, why did you
agree to this? Did they use their products on
you? No, immediately, no.
And I know that for a fact because I've actually, OK, I
think the NDA is definitely no longer there.
But I actually did a couple like shoots for a large brand before
and I would get in arguments with the hair and makeup artist
because they were not using the product that was promoted that I
was like, so like, what's it called then?
I was like, not sold to promote, but like I was being the model
to promote. It was an ad for product A and
product A and was not used I. Didn't know that was a thing
until I got on set. And then the hair, the hair
stylist goes, yeah, we're going to use these five other things.
And I'm like, I'm not doing that.
And he called me a like a influencer brat or something
like that for like, like, no one cares.
Like you're just a model here. We just need your hair and face.
I'm like, well, if anyone like people know me for my
authenticity, like, you know, my being non filtered and
especially like not lying like I'm not going to go, I don't
care what anyone else thinks, like I'm not going to go on set
and lie about that. I also think it's it is hard
being a model because I do think that like like my most of my
income does come from like sponsorships.
I feel like income, YouTube Adsense, etcetera.
So I have like the privilege. I definitely think of like
saying no to like those opportunities if it doesn't make
sense or doesn't align, but I do.
You you do think there's a difference between being a model
for a brand and being a content creator for a brand?
Yes. And I, I, so I wouldn't say
like, like, I, let me put it this way, I don't hold models to
the same level of, of integrity or whatever you want to call it.
As someone like like who constantly speaks out against
these sort of things. I would have seen that and
thought, yeah, that doesn't make any sense at all.
But I also think like they were trying to be like inclusive, if
that makes sense, and like trying to bring that, bring the
like inclusivity there. But I think it is absolutely
wrong to not have the shades, if that makes sense.
It's almost like a. Double, I think you sort of just
changed my mind on it 'cause I was very annoyed with the model.
Like how would you, how could you agree to especially 'cause
it was, it's a well known model. It's someone who's doing very
well for themselves. She didn't need this.
But I I agree with you. If a brand that could use the
inclusivity comes to you, I could see wanting to say yes.
Yeah, and you don't exactly know.
She definitely though does not have the products on the.
Face no for sure, yeah. Hourglass also makes primers and
whatnot. So I could also imagine I could
see how the model maybe didn't even know exactly which product
she was promoting because they have so many and some of them
are not necessarily complexion products, right.
So I could see that. So I think in real time you've
sort of changed my mind about it yes, I could see how the model
shouldn't be held responsible, but I I do think the brand
should be and if the brand is hiring a Sudanese model for the
purpose of advertising inclusivity, whose job is it?
Like who do you point the finger out within the company to say if
you guys are going to go that far, but you can't actually take
the meaningful step to make the products?
It comes to like top down is what I've learned.
Especially like a lot of like these companies, they don't have
a diverse representation in their own company.
They don't have a lot of like women of color, black woman,
brown woman, Asian woman, everything like.
To hit the brakes that are high enough in the company to say,
yeah, excuse me, this is not how it's done.
And honestly, like Hourglass has always done that.
Like you look at their what blew my mind recently as I learned
that at Sephora, that palette that you know that $92.00,
what's it called? That palette is their number one
one of the number one sold pallets like an all the.
Highlighter palette is what you're talking about the Ambien?
The Ambien, like the one that launches every year?
Yeah, Yeah, I learned that. I was like, I was like, it blew
my mind because like I, I, I'm not even that deep.
We're probably around the same shade.
They don't have a shade for us. No, I know I bought it and I
don't use it. It's like got like a red, really
red bronzer and one of them comes out every year.
That's like for. Me, it's either a sketchy or
it's too red. Yeah, there's nothing in the
middle. And then it goes, if you're any
deeper than me, they have nothing past that, if that makes
sense. So I'm like, I, it, it breaks my
heart because I do know they have a lot of really nice
formulas and a lot of luxurious formulas.
And I used to love, love, love and like save my money up for
the, that primer. And back in the day, like a lot
of like Youtubers were talking about their foundation.
They had like a matte foundation or whatever.
And I remember like saving up my like lunch money and like high
school and like trying to like, I bought the darkest shade back
then. I was the darkest shade and it
was still like the undertone was off.
It looked really weird and buying like a $60.00 foundation
as someone in high school was honestly ridiculous.
But at the same time. Also, how disappointing to save
up and then realize that they didn't care enough for your
depth and shade. But here's you know my now that
I'm a brand founder and I work in skin care, so I don't have to
worry about shades. But I have learned a lot about
minimum purchase orders. And you know, for me when I make
a skin care product and it isn't shade dependent, then I can
order the minimum of whether it's 10,100 thousand, I can put
that order in. The problem is when you have to
have shades right is the minimum purchase order is.
Like 10,000. Shades, so you have to know that
you're going to sell it and you have to know that the demand
will be there and if you're a small brand, I can absolutely
understand how it would be difficult for both extremes
right? How you sort of focus on the
most common skin tones. So I myself kind of I'm like
where, where do we start holding people accountable?
At what point do we say OK now hourglass, y'all have no excuse.
You guys are a mega mega mega brand.
You have the resources. This is just lazy, but how do
you feel about that? How?
Where do we get to start holding people accountable?
I think IA 100% agree with what you said.
I mean it is very expensive. Like as someone who's like, I've
done a lot of lab consulting now and they always talk about that,
right? So, and every time that I do now
lab consulting, I'm presenting them with the data that like
This is why we need the shade. I like have built scrapers to
kind of like scrape the Internet and my own comment sections to
sort of help them present the data.
And now there's software tools to kind of help with that.
But they of course, like you need, they need the data to be
able to put the shades out first, first and foremost.
But I think the second part of it is that this might be like, I
also think like, how do I say this?
Like it's like beauty is like more than just like beauty
itself. I think it's also like a feeling
the way it makes you feel, right?
It's like when Gloria mentioned in that video, like she walked
up to that Hourglass gondola and saw her someone with her skin
tone. Like if you if you don't know
better about Hourglass, like you would think that they would have
shades for you, right? It's about feeling seen and
represented. So I think beyond the business
side of things, I personally would say like if you don't have
the budget, just don't launch complexion first.
There's so many other skews that you could start with that don't
that don't need 50 Shades. Get the data from that who are
your customers like based on what you can do there and then
apply it to like complexion if that makes sense It makes.
Later. A lot down the line so.
You're just saying don't do it until you can do it right.
Yeah. And I think a lot of most, like
women of colour say that, right? I mean, it's not cheap.
I very much know that. And it's different when it's
like how do you get the data if there's no data, right?
Like you kind of have to get the data 1st.
And I think the easiest way to do that is sort of launching
blushes, launching a lip, launching something unique in
those categories, if that makes sense.
And then sort of finding the customer base there and then
using that data and then launching like the foundations
based off that. Yeah, I mean, that makes
complete sense to me. Plus on top of that like the
like complexion is the hardest to get.
I find it like scary when brands like do foundations like first,
if that makes sense. Like I think even kind of going
back to like the like foundation inclusivity conversation like
euphoria. I think it's like.
Oh my God. I.
Know it's like last year, like 2 years ago, tea or whatever.
No, but still. But she launched with blush
first, right? But then she got funding and
then launched 4 shades of foundation or like 8 shades or
whatever. And and it was like 3 shades of
peanut butter. I'm not gonna lie when I
reviewed it. That was the one where like the
darkest shade was literally black.
Paint yeah. What I didn't get about that is
that she got funding and but maybe like I'm, I'm assuming
Mark Cuban or whatever doesn't understand.
I'm, I'm not, I don't want to get cancelled for saying that,
but I don't know what his expertise is on color cosmetics,
if that makes sense. But like I feel like she's been
in the industry to kind of know that like this backlash would
have happened because she's been working in beauty for a while.
So you know. How many times have we seen it
where you think like you should have known better?
How did you let this happen? Whether it was Blenciaga and
Debna's ads, whether it's youthful, You know, there's so
many examples across industries of.
Works for you, right? I mean just.
Where are where are y'all like I don't understand is anybody in
the building because it's so outrageous.
So then what you realize is that everything has become what's the
what's the right way like like money can't solve every problem,
right? At some point you have to have
real thought behind things, which means you have to have
intention. So if your intention is just
we're just going to make money and your intention is not, I
need to create an inclusive whatever it is that you're
doing, then people will find out.
Yeah. So if it's my intention is I'm
just going to have a viral line of Balenciaga because everyone's
talking about Balenciaga. OK, then sure.
You're going to just be focused on how to make it viral and
you're going to lose a part of how am I going to make a
meaningful ad campaign for my avant-garde fashion, right.
If you come out and you go, hey, I made this pH blush, whatever
color changing blush go viral. I just need to ride that wave
and make money now that I have funding I need.
If that's where your head's at, then you're not going to
prioritize the actual shades, the quality of the product,
which means you got to have the right people in your corner.
So you can have the Mark Cubans and the money and the business
acumen. But then you got to have the
people who understand the beauty market, the beauty industry, the
target demographic who understand what the lab is
supposed to do. And if you don't surround
yourself with those people, I mean, good luck because you're
going to find yourself in hot water inevitably.
Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that.
And I actually had the chance before she this whole debacle
happened really early on. I actually met the founder of
Euphoria in San Francisco because I was living in San
Francisco at the time and she told me she had a team of like
3. She didn't have like a head PD
person, at least when I had originally met her, and it was
just her doing all the PD. She doesn't have like a makeup
artist's background or like I don't think she has, at least
for my like what I remember. Like has like that knowledge of
like the undertones and like the skin tone ranges of course.
So to your point, she should have just waited.
You know you had a do an eye shadow, do a liquid shadow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that's what was also
surprising. It's like you also look at even
a product market fit. It's like, is there the a market
for a foundation you could sleep in?
I don't know. That's what everyone is also
arguing. So overall, the launches were
always just getting more and more controversial.
So I, I alluded to this before. I know that you get many, many
offers from many different brands.
Has there been a campaign that you turned down despite a lot of
money, and why? And if you can tell us how much?
But you don't have to name the brand.
I won't make a name of the brand.
OK, it was actually, I mean, it broke my heart.
It was pretty recently. It was $80,000.
OK, I would say this wasn't the last.
I'm only doing it based on recent recency bias.
But like this brand will not name names because it's
actually, this is the third time I've like turned down their
sponsorship. I actually love their brand and
I'm wearing it on my face right now because it's a great they
make great products, but that's a pretty affordable.
But I just think that they don't understand influencer marketing
in a way that's meaningful and authentic to the creator.
They wanted me to like stitch a particular creator who was going
super viral and it didn't make any sense with my content.
I even had a a great call with their head of marketing and was
like, hey, like this is not how I would approach this
sponsorship. Like this is going to make me
look funny and on top of that, like my audience and the person
you want me to stitch is audience, especially on YouTube,
dude. They don't intersect.
That's what like people need to understand when with the stitch
concept. Additionally, no one wants to
see 50 stitches of the same like like creator, if that makes
sense. Like it doesn't feel authentic
at that point. And then there was also like a
YouTube integration, but they wanted a whole YouTube video to
be about that product. And, and I think that's fine
with you. Like, let's say you launch a, a
range of like 20 lipsticks. I could do like there's a,
there's a need for 20 minutes of, of, of going through every
shade breakdown of the color. Like, do you see what I'm trying
to say there? But this was like for, for lack
of better words, it was a face wash, the one I'm supposed to
talk on. That's how I thought about it.
It was like, how am I going to sit here and gut on YouTube?
I can't talk about anything else on YouTube long format that and
talk about a face wash that makes that's meaningless full to
my audience. And we tried to re pitch it as
an integrated video because integrated sponsorships do
really well on YouTube when it's integrated with other things in
it. Such a point, right, because I'm
seeing more and more of this pop up just in in the marketing
pages that I follow that people are now have been so inundated
with influencer marketing that the the consumer and the viewer
now can tell they can tell when they're being sold to and they
don't want that. So the more organic and
authentic you can make it, they are not immediately enough by
your content and they can tell. And it's funny because I really
don't do a lot of brand partnerships.
I, it's not primarily where I make my income.
And I frankly don't care too unless I genuinely love the
brand. And my, the very first e-mail
I'll send back is we can talk about this, but you have to
understand that it's going to be a video that I make on my terms
that makes sense. Otherwise, my viewers
immediately we'll be like, why are you being a sellout?
Why are you like, we know this is not your usual content.
Not to mention it will actually do.
I'm telling you it will do better.
You think I don't know what sells when I link and don't
link, I can tell you what does well.
And it's if I'm using your lip liner, let me do it with a
different lip gloss or a different lipstick or a
different, you know, company's eyeshadow palette.
It will not take away from the sales of your lip liner.
And they just don't believe me. I I agree.
I, I, I, I this, I've been doing this for like 6 years,
especially in with beauty and makeup.
And you would think that it's gotten better.
I actually feel like it's, if anything, it's going back in
time a little bit. Like I've actually just say no
to more partnerships in the last few months than when I did
initially. And maybe it's because I've also
grown so much and I've grown such a authentic audience that
like maybe there are more brands who like want to be partake in
that or whatever. But I just as the other thing I
want to mention is I actually used to work in influencer
marketing. That was my last, last job.
I was a product manager at a Rakatan subsidiary company that
did affiliate marketing and I was on the campaign side, so I
was building like the campaign's dashboard, so.
You know this inside and out. And I will have to say like from
a brand casting strategy and, and brand standpoint, like a lot
of these like beauty brands are working with the middleman, if
that makes sense. Like they're working like with
an agency. And while a lot of agencies are
great, I just think that they're working on so many different
brands that they fully maybe don't understand like.
You're too nice. I think these agencies are
great. I have yet to interact with an
agency where I'm like, wow, you're really good at your job.
Some of them are OK like, but like a lot of them are like like
even recently like so there was an agency.
They're like we need the content tomorrow.
And we were going back fighting back and forth on this.
Thankfully they had the creative was really open, which is why I
took it and I really like this product and it was skin care.
Usually if anything that has an active, I tell them if I can't
trial it for a minimum amount of time to show the progress, I'm
not posting the video. So you will not see and actives
actives video meaning like vitamin C, benzoyl peroxide
Ahas. You will not see one of those on
my on my page unless it unless like I've trialed it over a
period of time, if that makes sense.
And I was able to do that with this product.
But I but I had to fight for it. I had to really fight for it.
And the joke is that like it was that video was actually supposed
to go up yesterday. They still haven't approved it
and I submitted it over a week ago.
So it almost feels like this is my one big crux with like the
agency brand kind of back and forth.
It's like there's a lot of things missing.
It's like we're almost putting on a like we're almost being put
on a back burner a little bit. And also on top of that, like
they just want their their brand.
Promoted in a way that they want it to be heard.
That's kind of like how. They control and they're they're
so scared. I mean the number of reviews
these things go through and like can you change this word legal?
Rerecord. Yeah.
And The thing is, that is not what influencer marketing is.
You have missed the mark if you think something that scripted
will do well on a page like yours or even mine for that
matter. It won't because people realize
that's not the kind of content we make.
And so many agencies and brands don't get that.
And I just didn't like you. That's fine.
You're just. I'm not going to get your
money's worth. Yeah, you know, you're paying me
for my talent. That's the way you just heard
the about that I've taken I've turned down and it's like you're
paying someone that much for a scripted video to me, like we're
not actors and more than that, people are not people are
actually like especially following this because we're not
actors exactly because they want the unfiltered honesty.
I'll be honest with you. I can't even think of one
influencer where like where like they are the video is scripted
and it would do well. Maybe like I don't know Alex
Earl, but like her videos that are scripted, they're full on
commercials. They're like shot in like 4K,
say 8K or whatever with the professional camera.
She's got a team going on behind that and that's more.
People want to see and they like it and it works for her and
that's great. But most of us, well, I was
going to ask you like is when people just straight up copy
you, is it flattery? Because the number of creators
I've seen pop up since you because I've been like I've OG
I've known about you and followed you and loved your
content. And I see everyone else is like
they're just I was like, that's Monica's line.
What are you saying? But I don't know, is it
flattery? I think, I think, I think now
I've learned to just stay quiet. Initially I would get really
upset about it because I'd be like, damn, I worked so hard.
I, I, I put a lot of thought in my videos, even more so than a
lot of people don't see. Like we have a full Monday
board. I have two employees and we do
like the hook, the outline of the scripting, like everything
is. It's not so much like, it's more
like bullets, not like full scripts, but it's like, so that
way, like everything is like very planned and has like a
reason it goes up. Like we even have like there's a
field that's like, is it educational, inspirational?
It's very well thought out and I think it just breaks my heart a
little bit, but. Can I tell you something and
this is just as an outsider but an educated outsider you can't
fake the authenticity. So the ones who are copying you
as they make their video like this is my no BS review.
And I'm like, where did you get that line from?
OK. And then I watch it and I was
like, how much should Rd. pay you for that?
Right? I can just immediately tell that
it's actually not that not authentic and it is ABS review,
even though they're saying that it's not.
And #2 and I want to ask you about this, but I think most
people probably don't know your whole background in engineering
before all of this. And when your brain works in
that much of like a framework and constructed way, that degree
of intention cannot be replicated.
That's my take as an. Outsider, I appreciate that.
I think more than that, the way the place that I see it the most
is the color theory test when that that went viral like 4
years ago and like. I mean, everyone's a color
theory. Queen everyone's a color theory
queen. That's OK.
I'm happy that like more than anything, I'm happy that like
the knowledge of that is being spread out further than like my
own audience because I think it's really important.
But I also think it's important to give like credit where it's
like sort of due, right? Like I see it's become a global
trend like like creators in like Indonesia, like all parts of
Asia, like even parts of Africa are like doing like the trend or
whatever you want to call it. And I think that's amazing.
But again, it's like, it would be great for some credit, but I
think at some point in time it's like you, you, you know, in your
heart what you have done, if that makes sense.
And I'm proud of like what the impact of like these videos that
I've been able to make. And I think I've rephrased it in
my head more so that like, oh, OK, I see it now.
I'm like, instead of being like, damn, that person copied me,
blah, blah, blah. I think in my head I'm like, OK,
it like it pinches a little bit and then and it kind of goes,
you know what, I'm happy that this message is being spread to
an audience outside of mine. I think I get to that point.
And then if that's a level of acceptance that I'm like, I'm
at, and then because otherwise you let everything bother you
and it's just not a not a hole I want to go down in.
No, I agree. And I always say if you're going
to take something I made and you're going to expand on it,
you're going to make it better, you're going to reform, I think
that's cool. I actually love seeing that when
you just copy what I do and you just make a video that's quite
literally the one that I made, but it's just a view instead.
It's fun. But then I I always go back to,
and this is true for surgery too, right?
As a plastic surgeon, you know, my work is my work.
And you can copy, you can try and recreate, but the skill set
with which I do it will always shine through.
You're amazing at like what you do.
Like when I first learned like about your background in the 1st
place and I even was telling my husband to like, it's really
inspirational. And I'm so excited to see like
all the women who are like, following you, like what they
get with from your content because I feel like I've gotten
a lot from it too. Oh, thank you.
I appreciate that. But I, yeah, I it's funny, this
this sort of imitation concept on social media.
The way I draw the line is when people take what I've done and
they make it better, they make it funnier, they make it cooler,
they bring it to a new. I'm like, that's great.
I love that. If you're just doing it again,
it's what it's the intention that you're going into it with.
If it's literally just to watch that follower count go up, I
don't know what the intent is there.
If your intent is to take a good idea and make it better, spread
the word. I think that's great.
I love that. And with credits?
With the credits. With credits.
I don't know, I mean, it's like as simple as inspired by yeah,
whoever right in the caption comments, whatever it may be,
but I think people want to take want to invent the idea for
their own, if that makes sense. There was even like a few
creators, like during like the color theory test, they were
consistently tagging like me and my, my friend who it was color
theory at, at Jaslemao, Jasmine. And then eventually like they
like completely stopped like tagging us and just continued on
with their series. And then when we approached
them, they were like, yeah, we're like doing our own thing
now with it. It's like ours.
I was like, OK, yeah, we're doing that now, OK.
OK. OK, I didn't respond.
I was like, OK, yeah. I'm like, I'm not someone who is
like confrontational on that end.
It's like people know what people believe, what they want
to believe. And I know the truth of my my
truth. I know my truth and that's about
it. Yeah, and I think that's the
healthiest pocket to sit in and especially in the world that we
live in. But I do want to talk a little
bit about color theory. I so I definitely have golden
olive undertones. We're very similar in skin tone.
And one of the things that frustrated me, and you're going
to have to correct me because this is my theory, this is my
color theory, OK. And I want to know if this is
true because I have golden olive undertones to neutralize them.
I actually need something that doesn't make it more olive.
And what frustrates me is what, you know, you do like the
questionnaire on sephora.com or whatever, and you go, you know
this undertone and I'm golden and I'm warm, whatever.
And you click through all the things and then I will land on a
very warm foundation. But actually I don't need a warm
foundation. I need a slightly cooler tone
foundation to offset how warm my skin actually is.
Otherwise I look jaundiced. So I'm, and to this day you can
check you guys can go to, you know, Rare and Fenty and
Givenchy and all these different foundation brands and you can
see based on what you feed in what they spit out.
And I like, do I have it right? Am I right about this?
Am I wrong about this? Do we need to educate the labs?
Why are people naming their foundations this way?
Because in my or the opposite is true as well.
If you're very cool toned and you have a little bit of Gray
under, you know, if that's your skin tone, you need a little
warm. So your your response to the
questionnaire should be something that brings a little
bit of golden olive into your skin tone.
So why isn't it like that? So I think we'll first to answer
like the golden olive question. I think the hard part with
anything olive and in particular because I definitely see you
like on your skin tone, like what you're saying is that when
it comes to like oliveness, it's actually like a desaturation in
place, if that makes sense. Like your skin tone is like
slightly not, I wouldn't say grayish in hue.
Almost greenish. It's like, yeah, But more than
that, it's not as fluorescent as a lot of these foundations in
the market. Like it's like that's the one
thing when I go to these labs, they're making these foundations
so fluorescent they almost have like a brightness to them, like
human skin tone almost doesn't have, especially in our range,
in our range in particular. And that's because most of them
are not using. But then it just makes me look
more fluorescent or like orange. Orange, yes.
So I just, I just need somebody, somebody please pay attention to
this conversation and rename your foundation.
So there's no standard system. In fact, the I like a lot of
Korean brands because they've standardized it.
So like we're you and I are probably between the shades of
like 30 and 35 in Korea. How?
Smart is that? Every shade is labeled on a
number. Maybe it's not like 100% correct
but if you know around the same. Like I wear a shade 34.5 in
Esquire, 35 N and tier tier 33.5 in a Cleo or something like
that. Like they're all the same number
ranges if that makes sense. And the undertones are
standardized. But the American system I'm like
shade neutral and L'Oreal. I want shade warm and stay
Lauder and then cool in lancome. Like it makes no and that's the
normal. That's what I started doing is
adding. I have a cool tone Givenchy
foundation that I mix with my way to Yellow house labs, but I
love the formula. But it's what?
Shade do you have in the house lab?
I have the same problem with the house lab.
I love the formula. It wears so it looks orange on
me and so I have to mix my cool tone.
Givenchy, That's what I have on today.
Is it looks good? Thank you.
That honestly, I was like, did somebody get that on camera?
But we did. It looks good.
Because Monica said my foundation looks good, I have to
mix the two because I can't get it to match and then I just get
irritable because why are you? If I take this quiz online it
will land me at a very warm foundation, which is actually
not what I need for my skin tone.
OK, that was just my rant. No IIA, 100% agree.
Agree with that. I honestly was like even
thinking about it like you can make 100 shades of foundation
and I still don't think everyone's going to find their
shade because there's so many like different like variants of
human skin tone, if that makes sense.
But I also think that like these foundation shade matchers online
are like trash. Like they're like, I'm actually
like doing. What's funny is that, and I
thought my next whatever you want to call adventure would
sort of be like a makeup brand. But my team and I are actually
looking more back into stuff between the intersection of
beauty and tech. Yeah.
Which is. Really crazy because I know you
work with AIA lot. Obviously your backgrounds in
engineering. Tell me a little bit more about
your background in engineering and where you see the future of
beauty tech. Yeah.
So I mean, I studied computer science and I was a software
engineer, data engineer for Twilio for like 2 1/2 years.
My goal with engineering was to always be a product manager
because I liked leading people. I wanted to lead the road map.
And I honestly, it felt like I had more people skills than
wanting to sort of like code behind the computer.
But the reason I went the software route was so that I had
that not relatability, but I could talk to the engineers
better in a way that was more technical than just here's
tickets, just go do it, if that makes sense.
So and that was like my reasoning to doing Compsci and
then after that again, I was a product manager at that Rakatin
subsidiary company. It was called Collective voice
or shops out collective and it actually went under last year.
Yeah. So it's no longer there, but
Rakatin is there. And I built their entire like
dashboard system, which was cool.
And and honestly, like when I quit my corporate job, it was 2
1/2 years ago or so now and I. It's crazy to me how long you
held on to that, by the way. I was like, I know she's wildly
successful. I know she doesn't need this
other job. I mean, I, I did it because I
mostly was, I was getting sick every week.
Like I, I, I, I have a really good immune system.
So I was getting sick every other month and I, and I
couldn't keep up with the momentum of like where my page
was going at some point in time I was like, OK, I've seen three
years of financial success on social media then that's
outperformed my tech job, if that makes sense.
And like I also, I felt like I almost live, live by a no
regrets mindset. Like I didn't want to be 70 or
60 and being like, I have regrets that I didn't pursue
this. What's funny is I made like 5
backup plans. I was like, OK, this is not
going to work. I'm putting money away.
That's just going in this this mutual fund to go to NBA later,
blah, blah blah. If things don't work out because
you never know, right? Like this is I'm a self, I'm
self-employed. I have a business now.
But like back then I wasn't S corped or anything like that.
Yeah, it was just me and my husband and that's it, right?
Randomly moving to LA and I'm glad we like did that because
moving here, like definitely opened up so many doors for me
in the best way ever. But you kind of going back to
like the tech thing. Like I, I really liked, let me
put it, Let me put it this way. I like the ideation side of the
tech field, if that makes sense. I liked working with tech, I
like working with the people in tech, and I also liked how fast
things iterated, if that makes sense.
Like it, let's say there was a bug or someone was complaining
about something. It's just like one couple, maybe
24 hours. You could get something.
It gets pushed, pushed to production and then like the end
user can use it. You have beauty brands out there
on their hand. It's got a one year turn around,
2 year turn around doesn't work out.
It's going in the landfill, it's creating so much waste, if that
makes sense. Like so I thought I'm like, it's
funny because again, I wanted to have like that makeup brand.
And I think eventually that one day that will happen.
Just that may not be my first venture back into whatever is
like my next journey or step. I think it's going to be back.
I'd not, I think I'd know it's going to be back to tech in some
way, shape or form because there's actually a lot of
brands, investments and tech founders sort of emerging in the
beauty space. And I'm one of the few creators
who actually has the expertise to be able to speak on both
ends. And especially with like the
emergence of AII know there's a lot of cons with AI, but I think
if there's a way to use AI in a way to almost help reduce the
waste that the beauty beauty industry reaches every year, I,
that would be something that I really want to solve.
And there is a way, I unfortunately can't fully share
what that looks like currently, but I'm, that's something that
I'm sort of working on, if that makes sense.
Because something a lot of people don't know is that the
average return rate on products overall, I think is around like
4 or 5%. The returns on foundations and
complexion products is almost 10.
Yeah, 10%, which is crazy. And what Sephora and Ulta does
with those returned, there's complexion products, trash,
trash. And then the brand eats the,
eats the waste. Yeah, it's actually like in, in.
And that's actually even something I've talked about on
my page like overconsumption, like like I make PR boxes for
people like customized to their skin tone because I even find
influencer giveaways to be like overconsumption.
Who needs like? I know people ask me if you see
them, why don't you do influence or why don't you do giveaways
and go I donate them or I love that I give them away to, you
know, any number of people in my life that I know will use it.
It's not going to go to trash. But I also get frustrated with
these ridiculous PR boxes. It's so much waste.
I don't need it. And for complexion products,
they'll send it to me and more than 50% of the time is still
the incorrection. So I can't even speak to it.
A simple questionnaire or asking me.
I can look at a description and tell you with relative security,
which shade I am. And I, nobody asked, nobody
reaches out, right? Everything is streamlined.
So I, I love that you're working on this.
And I was sort of secretly praying that's what your answer
was going to be when I asked you this question.
Because I think everyone's anti AI and I think there's a lot of
AI slop out there and there's a lot of weird paid AI
endorsements that are targeting women that I don't stand behind.
But I do think AI is a tool that we can use responsibly for
things like waste and beauty. Yes.
And 100% I think, yeah, I think there's like layers to it, if
that makes sense of like what my boundary is with it, of course.
But I think if you're there are ways as you mentioned to like
like sort of have it be used for the greater good, it's a lot
faster. And on top of that, like as I
mentioned earlier, like you a brand could make, let's say I'm
have a brand and I make 50 Shades and everyone is not going
to find their shade there, right.
So like what if there was like a tool that's pulling from?
Maybe you 50 brands, right? And what if you can upload a
photo and you can maybe put in 3 or 4 concerns as to why you
don't like the found or even say I have this foundation in this
color and it is orange on me. That's a benchmark for AI.
Plus, they're pulling the data from all of the millions of
other users and you're loading your photograph and then it
gives you the right answer. Exactly.
Love it. Hit it.
Hit the nail on the head. I love it.
All right, I wanted to do some rapid fire questions name #1
brand right off the top of your head that we shouldn't be
sleeping on, right? Now we shouldn't be sleeping on
OK color pop. OK, name a brand that everyone's
obsessed with and you do not understand the hype.
Hourglass. Hourglass.
Easy. OK, what is a skin care or
makeup category that you think everybody should buy drugstore
because you never understood why it needed to be luxury?
Eyeliner. OK, same.
Yeah, same. Same same.
I love the eye. I love.
Nyx the next. I'm wearing a NYX.
Yeah, I'm wearing a NYX eyeliner with a Maybelline mascara.
Yep. OK.
What is this is I, I'm curious what what you say about this
because I know a lot of your content is also drugstore versus
luxury. What's worth it?
What is a category in makeup or skin care that you think really
should be luxury? Oh, foundation everything is
still orange still, and you can't try every try anything
like you can't go into like CVS and try on a foundation.
So unfortunately like I'm I still buy most of my like
foundation products from. Like Sephora?
Yeah. OK, Your favorite brand that
nailed a brand trip? Oh, that nailed a brand trip.
Honestly, I haven't gone on too many brand trips lately.
My my my brand trips have been consulting trips.
That's awesome. Recently I went went on with
Armani, but it was a consulting trip, so it's.
OK. OK.
I'm going to ask you about that offline because you know, Sydney
Sweeney represents Armani. Oh, she does.
And if they ask me, I'd say no. OK.
Because I think it's ridiculous that they hired Sydney Sweeney
to represent I wear, I don't. Think they represent Sydney
Sweeney? Do they?
She represents the Marina. Carpenter No, that's who I I
knew on on my end. Is one of the brand is the one
of the brand ambassadors for Armani Beauty.
OK, I didn't know that. So anyways, but we all have our
different thresholds and I'm just.
They have 9. They're the only brand that has
9 olive shades and the blue and green pigment.
See, that makes sense. Yeah, and I and they.
And it's probably because they use you as a consultant.
So we need people like you. And see, this is it, It's
interesting. I like to ask people these.
Questions because I was looking at you.
If you want to stop mixing your foundation, I would recommend
shade 7.8 in the Armani foundation.
I think that would be your match. 7.8 yeah OK, I have the
Armani. One, I'm more than shade 9.
OK, I think I have 8.75. OK.
I would try like 7.8 or 8 point something.
They reformulated. I don't.
Know if you tried the new one? They did.
I have the old one and the new one.
The old one matches me better but I also may have purchased
the wrong shade. OK, are you allowed to say worst
brand trip you've ever been on? Oh.
But I think you're honest. Sometimes you just post about
that. You're like, this was terrible
and I did. This worst brand trip that I've
ever been on. I don't know if I've I've I've
been on a worst brand trip, but I'm pretty intentional with
brand trips. I also I'm also not a lifestyle
creator, so I don't yeah, get flown around like like the
average lifestyle creator or whatever you want to call it.
I mostly and I have a lot of a lot of brands like like.
Don't work with me in that capacity because they, I also
don't like every single one of their products, if that makes
sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I don't know if I have a worst one.
OK. Yeah, this Armani 1 is really
interesting to me because I was so frustrated when they used
Sidney Sweeney for their advertising.
But then I'm also so happy that they have the most olive shades
and that they would know to hire you for consulting.
Like that is redemptive for me. I now I'm like oh.
Yeah, they're the only like brand at Sephora.
Their shades actually run the olive shades run neutral because
their competitor for olive shades is about face and Dior.
And I'm I'm super anti Dior for the range.
They it's 2026 and they still have 4 shades of brown.
I I cannot find a shade I whenever I bring people to
Sephora they were like Oh my God I want to buy the.
So would you say Armani is one of is the most color inclusive
luxury makeup line on? Yes, OK.
And by far, but especially in luxury, by far it's got
especially with the shade extension.
I couldn't say that before, which is why I wasn't screaming
on the top of my lungs for it. But now with the shade range
expansion and the reformulation IA 100% agree.
And it's only been reformulated once.
So the fact that they had that also like the previous range, I
think don't think was like the best, but it had more shades
ahead of its time, if that makes sense.
And now that. They that was my go to formula
and foundation for years and years and years.
When they reform. I still like it.
I still like it a lot. I just am personally offended
that's who they would choose to represent.
I didn't know that. I thought it was a Sabrina
Carpenter, because that's who I work.
I'll ask them. Yeah, multiple brand
ambassadors, right? Sabrina.
So I'm not a fan of her either by far.
I hate what she represents. That's a whole other topic.
Yeah, that's why I'm I'm. So that's actually interesting
to me that they would have the insight.
Obviously there's people on their team being like, no, you
need color inclusivity. Look at their shade range.
Hire someone like Monica. More than that, they're insane
obsessive with their like the way that they get their shade
ranges. They go to every country.
Not every country, but they go to a couple countries on every
continent. They even went to India and they
even went to places in Africa too, which is rare in my opinion
to do a shade distribution chart of the average skin tone.
To try, That's impressive commitment.
No, it is. It's to try to understand.
We all hired Sydney Sweeney. I don't.
Know why that's crazy? To me, it's like, yeah, that
makes sense. Yeah, there's not a.
Podcast. Episode you know they're they're
I would say way ahead of like especially when it comes to
Sephora brands there's a lot of brands who like say they care
but they. Would you say Dior is the worst
of the luxury houses? I would.
Say YSL is the worst. I don't have any YSL.
YSL is the worst. Did you see like that?
That that Ashley blush? It was so that ridiculous that
that I. Have one powder YSL blush.
I didn't buy any other liquid blushes cause not a singular
one. Yeah, it was.
It was Gray. They launched like a really at
Lil Ashley lilac blush and then then I remember.
Your video. Oh my God, I had to bring my dad
and my husband into that. They're like they yeah, that was
so frustrating because the model had actually, you know, like the
initial question you asked me. With the South Sudanese model,
the same sort of thing happened. It was someone around my
complexion who was claiming. I remember.
That you want the picture on your video?
Yeah, yeah. Who was claiming to wear that
ashy blush? And you're like, no, you are
not. Yeah.
Then it's like, I was like sitting there like, this is not
that blush. This is they mixed it with
something else. It's giving lies.
Yeah. But if someone like had seen
that and actually half my comment section or I would say
25% of my comment section became, oh, I bought that blush
because the model was wearing it.
People don't realize like they're your marketing Swatch is
a part of like your, your the swatches are a part of your
marketing messaging. Yeah, right.
So it's like like I get that like that to me that blush
inherently wasn't controversial. Like if they put it on a really
white water model or whatever, like a really fair skin model,
it's not for like not every shade is meant to work for you.
They. Just lead with that honesty and
integrity. It's not that hard.
Exactly. And more than that, they also
didn't have like, dark. They didn't have many darker
shades. Yeah, if that makes sense.
Like they have. They launched like 5 shades and
they did a shade extension later, but then of the 5 shades,
they had one Berry shade. Everything else was too light.
Yeah, it was like like that white base.
OK, let's talk about drugstore makeup.
Most shade inclusively. Shade inclusive.
Most shade inclusive L'Oreal true match by far, and at least
shade inclusive. Everybody else.
Probably it may be Essence, maybe Revlon's getting better.
I would say Essence and CoverGirl are really lagging
behind in the shade range category.
OK. I have one last question for
you. You started in in computer
science and engineering, right? So clearly a very different
world than the one that you live in now.
What I think is so cool is you found such an incredible natural
intersection of the two and it's great to see that you're taking
that to new heights. Knowing who you are today in
2026, would you still go through the engineering education degree
training or knowing who you've become in the beauty world,
would you just jump straight to where would you have just said,
forget that? I don't need that to be a
content creator, a consultant, you know, function the beauty
world and just Fast forward to where you are today.
That's a great question. I truly believe that I'm here
where I am today because of the choices that I made years ago.
So I would, I would do it again, like do I would I say like what
I work in the in the field probably for four or five years?
No, maybe not. I was dying for a while, at
least the last year I was doing it, I was, I was very much like
on the brink of burnout. But I think having that
background, that mindset sort of prepared me also like working in
corporate, even sort of like helped me be a better brand
partner, helped me understand like how to talk to investors,
how to talk to brand founders, how to talk to honestly, a wide
variety of people that I probably wouldn't have been able
to if I didn't have that corporate experience.
Right. I think that the perspective
that people have is what is truly unique, right?
When you talk about diversity, there's a lot of different
things you can look at and I think the education and
perspective that you bring to something is unique.
I was a surgeon who worked for a hospital system before I went
private and I can tell you right now I make more money.
I mean, especially with the offers.
I don't take all of them, but easily could make way more as an
influencer than I did as a double board certified
reconstructive microvascular surgeon working for a mega
hospital system as an academic surgeon in Los Angeles.
Which is wild and blows my mind because of how much time and
money I spent to become that. But I wouldn't change having
worked for that system, because having the perspective of all
the ways people get it wrong in medicine is what allowed me to
help get it right in private practice.
Being an influencer today, I have these perspectives on
beauty and womanhood and advocacy because of the women
that I treat and because of the surgery that I do and because of
all of the training that I did. And so, you know, my advice when
people ask me is you, your uniqueness will be your
education and perspective, other things too, but that will very
much practically benefit whatever you choose to do.
So, you know, I I always say the more feathers in your cap, the
better off you'll be. 101,000 I 1000% believe that.
But adding on top of that too, like especially as a woman of
color, yeah, we're like we're and in the United States in
particular, it's a different if like you're an Indian crater in,
in India or an African creator in like Africa or Nigeria,
whatever you want to call it. But I think like in being a
minority, like influencing woman in the United States in
particular is a completely like you're you almost have to find a
reason to separate yourself because like people are not
watching you just for the way you look.
No. Does that make sense?
They'll turn away because of that often times because you
don't represent whatever demographic that they have been
traditionally told is aesthetic is beautiful, is, you know,
whatever it is. But that's I think also why I'm
like, I'm going to grow out my Gray hair.
I'm going to tell people that I don't get manicures.
I'm going to, but I also love beauty and I also have three
kids and I have a full time job, many full time jobs.
And all of that creates this unique little hodgepodge
perspective. And I think that's what makes me
unique. So that's one of the things that
I really love about your delivery on your content is you
can tell that your brain is functioning at a capacity that
is so much wider than than and just the beauty content that I
see delivered by other people, which is why we love Monica.
I appreciate that a lot of thought gets put in everything
we do. Well, I I as a consumer, I I can
tell for sure. Thank you so much for joining me
on Inside Thoughts Out Loud. I truly, truly love everything
that you're doing. And I am so excited because I
think Sky's the limit on what we can do with computer science,
engineering, AI and beauty. And I just, I'm like making a
premonition. I think you're just going to be
on the forefront of that. And for that, I'm very excited.
Me too, me too. Thank you for having me.
This was amazing. My pleasure.