Hi guys welcome back to inside thoughts out loud.
I am so excited to speak with Charlotte Paul Rimino today.
She is so cool for so many reasons, but the very specific
reason I wanted to talk to her was because she is such an
incredible voice of reason education.
She is not afraid to talk about anything really.
And when you take that and you also are a part of a founding
group for a major skin care line do that is a really interesting
paradigm. And I think it really speaks to
just how groundbreaking Charlotte is and the brand is
and where I think we're really heading when it comes to the
beauty industry. So everyone welcome Charlotte.
Thanks for having me. What an intro.
So much for like accepting my random DM.
I've been such a fan girl for that's.
How I Met Joyce, I slid into her DM.
Yeah, I, I, I truly, I maintain the most successful relationship
in my life was by sliding into DMS a woman.
But yeah, it's fine. I love it, honestly, I'm like
girl crushing way more than anything else, so it's the way
that it is. I I don't have many men to crush
for so women on the other hand, Benny. 2026 The situation is
dire. It's rough out here.
Yeah, and I say that as a happily married woman.
I love my husband but like. I love my boyfriend.
I see what's out there and I'm like, I worry about society,
yeah, I want to talk about. I want to talk about so many
things, but I feel like I have to set the stage about what do
is to then be able to talk about all these other things that you
speak about that you contribute. To it was really the forever
Imas that kind of put us first on the map.
And I think 2020 was probably the best time to launch a skin
care brand in this current market because everybody was
home, skin care was trending skin care for those don't know,
it's actually trending down this year in the beauty industry, but
that's just normal, right? Everything goes up, down.
Makeup was down exactly. And so it's really interesting
running a business that is kind of my background.
My background was I was marketing and political science
and which is what I studied. I then started working in
publishing and then I actually started writing.
And so I kind of have done the full.
And then I worked briefly, I worked for a couple of years in
tech, but I saw enough, quite frankly, I was like, I've seen
enough. I'm good.
And so it was all those experiences that made me need to
start making videos during the pandemic because really when
we're talking about beauty, I saw how non-toxic beauty was
becoming a pipeline. And I was noticing this pipeline
before a lot of people were writing about it because my
family, it was happening to my family where one day they're
detoxifying their lives, they're doing the non tox lifestyle.
And these are and. You're like, What does that even
mean? Highly educated.
Oh I was. I've almost fell for it too
because I don't have a scientific background.
I think it's harder, even though you do see some doctors kind of
get red pilled. I think that just like you can
find a scientist to tell you that climate change isn't real,
doesn't mean that that's actually what doesn't mean that
they're they're right. But I think that you're much
more susceptible to this kind of marketing when you don't have a
strong background in science in particular.
And so I started doing it, but then my skin got fucked.
And so I met, I can swear, right?
So I'm so my friend's mom is a dermatologist.
She saw my face. She wrote me a script because
she's like, that looks painful, like pariol dermatitis.
And I've been struggling with it ever since.
None the last like 5 years, eight years really since I met
Joyce. But all this to say that I saw
how marketing was education and it was leading women down a path
to less empowerment. I was watching my family not get
vaccinated, not vaccinating their kids.
And I was like, this is serious and people don't take beauty
seriously because it's women's work.
And I was like, no, not on my watch.
It is incredibly political, cultural, but also there's so
much amazing science. Like, I've learned so much about
science through this. And it's almost making me want
to go back to school to get a degree.
Refreshing take because as a brand founder myself, I really
started my Instagram journey two years ago.
I was not really on social media.
I was very late to the game. And the advice I got from
marketing was you have to have a founder story.
And if you're going to have a founder story then it has to be
compelling, it has to be real. And I I had the story.
It's not that I didn't have the story.
I knew very much who I was and what I wanted the brand to be.
I just, it didn't, there was no social proof for it.
It didn't exist online. So when I got online, the advice
then was don't be controversial, which if you know me now.
But what's controversial? Having an opinion?
Apparently, but it was like you don't don't talk about politics,
don't do this, don't do that. Just keep it to like, you know,
things about plastic surgery, things about, you know, skin
care, what not. And there was literally no way
in which I could engage with the digital world because of exactly
what you said. There's so much falsehood out
there, there's so many just frank lies that if I'm not here
to combat those lies or say what is true, I don't really know
what I'm doing now. And I think it was different 20
years ago. So when did Facebook start?
Started when I was actually in university.
So around like 2008, 2009, So we're talking about all we're
almost on 20 years of social media.
It has completely changed how we move through the world, but also
what people can and cannot say before being not political as a
brand makes a lot of sense because what were you going to
do? Like run ads on it?
No, but now you have a platform every single day to make an
impact and you are watching as rampant misinformation is being
shared. But people, but also people
raise. You I would still say 90 to 95%.
Nobody have religious guilt. I think that you're the
exception to the rule. I can tell you how I
compulsively follow beauty brand founders and they are
notoriously noncommittal when it comes to making statements about
things. But that's one of the things
that drew me to you is that you are not afraid in that capacity.
Did you get that advice to like, not be so outspoken?
I mean, I think it's hard because I was working in media
beforehand and so I saw how the sausage is made.
You know, I didn't work in tech for that long.
I worked like at a tech company for about two years.
But what people don't understand is that before that, my entire
career was digital. And so I'd seen how things were
going sideways. And so if I had worked in a
corporate setting, like I actually got a job offer from
Loreal when I graduated, it got lost in my inbox.
And then I didn't realize that you could, after you did accept,
accepted a job, you could then turn it down.
So I was like, no, I've already accepted a job.
That would be a terrible thing to do to them, like.
Thank you idea of a conscience. Well, I just, I it's just like
so funny to me now because I'm like, I still have like that
little like that little girl in me just being like, that's not
the right thing to do. So I'm not going to do it.
I'm so sorry L'Oreal. I would have, but I would have
been trained differently. And how you brand build is
different and do is doing very well.
But maybe we'd be doing better or worse if we weren't talking
out about different subjects. But that's what we know how to
do. And so I don't begrudge people
who don't talk about politics to start talking about politics
because I'm just like, maybe I don't want to hear your opinion
in the sense of what if it's not informed?
What if you don't care? Things like.
That don't you feel like the? IA lot of consumers don't care
and so I think that's the bigger thing that is the bigger thing
that I like to address is talking about how these things
impact you so like that over time they start caring but for
example, it's like earth month sustainability everyone should
be caring so deeply about it but the reality is people do not
care they speak very loudly on social media they.
The virtue. The virtue signal a lot saying,
well, I don't buy like that. Numbers don't reflect it.
I look at lip balms. Lip balms are products that go
directly into the trash. You can fill multiple football
stadiums with all the lip glosses that are sold just in
the United States and there's no sign of it slowing down.
Look at all of the top brands at Sephora, at Ulta, they're all
the lip brands. And it's like, for us, we're
like, I don't know if we're going to really change the
conversation that much. But also it's we're going to
have to launch products with plastic.
It stresses me out to do that with a lip product.
And so at the end of the day, like my advice for founders is
always do what you are very good at.
I think that the people who don't talk about politics,
unless if you are a massive celebrity like an Alex Earl or a
Hailey Bieber who actually does post about ice and politics.
So I would put Hailey Bieber in a different category because
even her brand does a lot of work for mothers and they talk
about inherently political subjects because women are
political. I, I don't know if you're going
to be successful, it's going to take you a lot more time.
You're going to have to get funding.
It's it's harder now to launch a brand And so you better have
values because I think that that is something as you said.
That's that's my thing is when people say don't speak out, I
go. I actually think my brand is
doing as well as it is because they know who I am.
They don't mind supporting the bridge.
And then of course, hopefully they fall in love with the
product and the cycle continues. But I really combat that take
of, you know, no, just play middle of the road is I combat
that with no. I think people like to know
where I stand, and even if they may disagree with me here or
there, knowing that the founder has a moral compass, has an
opinion in general, like is bending towards the benefit of
humanity, I think is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Well, I think I've been wanting to make this video forever.
I'm so bad about it's like everyone's like you make such
great content you always make. I'm like, I don't like I have no
time because I I work like for like for do is quite
all-encompassing. But I've been wanting to make
this video for so long where it's like, how is not being
political working out for you? Because costs and beauty are out
of control. Companies are going.
People are like, oh, companies are going under because of the
market and because no, they can't.
Afford to make There's no margin anymore.
Snaps it's there's no margin anymore.
It is really hard with AI and AI influencers and all the stuff
that's just flooding social media.
So your costs actually to be seen and to get attention in
this economy is insane. Now plastic is set to increase
3X in price. It's what the entire industry is
built on. I hate plastic for for many
reasons. Even though DO is going to be
launching products with plastic. Full transparency, we tried to
minimize our plasma. I hate the material for a lot of
reasons. But I think the biggest thing
for me is that I'm like, oh, actually do trying to make a
more ethical choice is going to actually pay dividends for once.
Because we people also don't realize is that every single
incentive for a business right now financially is to do the
wrong thing. It is.
And I made a video yesterday that totally flopped.
And I was like, I knew it would. But Amazon, which gets more tax
cuts than any other company, OK, just in the state of New York
alone, they get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts.
What did they use that money for?
They turned around and then lobbied against a bill that
would have better recycling facilities in New York and that
actually would be funded by companies like Amazon, by
companies like Apple. And they all lobbied against.
It even though that makes total sense because these it's
companies that are being trashed.
Yeah, I was. Like it's their fault.
And if you look at Europe, they have better recycling because
they've had these laws for decades.
And so it's not that, well, Europe in many ways, I think
they're they have more regulations, which I mean, I
think it's better because corporations are not benevolent.
Like you do not want a free market because a free market
just means that you're actually going to go back to probably
indentured servitude or worse. But I think for me, what I'm
looking at is I'm just like, you are being scammed.
And it's not by the beauty companies.
It's by the system that forces beauty companies to make bad
decisions that then makes them win.
And it drives me crazy. But honestly, I don't know how
to I don't know how else to operate.
I have one volume. I don't, I don't it's funny.
It's like I I don't know how else to operate.
I want to do the right thing and I don't want to run a business.
If that's what it is, I'll go back to school and go find
another career. But if it has to mean selling my
soul, I can't do it. Do it.
No, I love it because I think the education.
Guilt, I think just a little bit.
Say that again, That's my Catholic guilt, just a little
bit. I just the education from your
platform. I've learned so much from it,
but I, I learned a lot from it as a consumer, but now as a
beauty brand founder, again, small company.
But as I make decisions and you were talking about, you know,
you're rewarded for making the wrong decision.
I think a lot of I'm learning a lot.
And a perfect example is we have reusable packaging.
You just have to buy the insert. The thing is, I have to be able
to sell enough units to then order the inserts so that you
can buy just the inserts. So I have to hit a certain
threshold in sales to even have any margin or profit to then be
able to order the the inserts and.
The person needs to be loyal enough to actually buy.
It and not get distracted by the AI ad for some other company
that's not trying to do the right thing.
So you just chronically at every turn get punished for wanting to
do the better thing, which is I think why I love supporting you
so much because you know, every time I take the my my number one
favorite product of yours is the makeup remover.
I love it. Yeah, it's it's cool, it's
concentrated. We so a lot of cleansing oils
will use sunflower oil, no shade on it.
It just makes it look bigger and it just increases the volume
size and you can still charge the same price.
And so we actually tried it with and without the sunflower oil.
And so, so with the sunflower oil, we were able to get it to
like 200ML for $28.00. And everybody like, Oh my God,
that's like K beauty pricing. But what we realized we're like,
well, we're just making it work less and you have to use more,
right? So we just had concentrated.
Yeah, we just, I love it. You just need a little bit.
I love the bottle because I can take the full size bottle
through as a carry on through TSA and I am a travel girlie.
I am always on the go but also the twist cap so it does not
leak but it's an aluminum jar so I I geek and.
It will get recovered. It will get recovered in most
recycling facilities, but more if we taxed companies to pay for
their trash. Yeah, that they make.
That they make, of course. But every time I use it, I like
geek out over it. I'm like telling my husband, I
was like, do you see this package?
It's so good, but also the product is so good as you just
need a little bit and takes off my full face of makeup.
It's so wonderful. And I I love supporting the
company because I know who you are and I know how intentional
it is. And I love learning about the
price transparency and the component and the sustainability
packaging. But I was you already answered
the question, but I was going to ask you like at some point you
have to decide how far down that rabbit hole you can go because
you have like you almost have to Then it invent the company that
makes the sustainable packaging and then another company to
source the material and then another company to make the cat
or like the drawing. Because when I reach out to
companies to say like, well, this is what I want because it's
more sustainable or can you make it?
They're just like, no, yeah. And also, if you want a custom,
you're going to need to order a minimum per disorder of a
million, you know, and you're. Just like even Even so, there's
this amazing company called Shellworks.
And So what people don't realize is like, and you and they're
like, oh, there's micro plastics in your skin care because
they're polymers. And I'm like, I'm sorry, the
rubber tree makes a polymer. Not all polymers are the same.
Like this is foolish. And again, this is science
literacy. I myself have fallen for it.
You know, unless if you're putting microbeads in it, it's
just not the same thing. And so this company Shell works,
they make a plastic equivalent. It looks like plastic.
It feels like plastic, but it's actually made by bacteria and
the bacteria is waste by. Product.
It's like you do like like lipo on these little bacteria, you
pull out all their extra like waste or their extra like I
guess like bacteria fat. And when you clean it and when
you basically like synthesize it, it's or purify is what they
would say is it is, is this polymer that you can then make
plastic pellets out of. So I don't know if anybody's
seen production of plastic, but it comes in these like very like
cutesy little like pellets, like microplastics.
And then after that you melt it and you injection mold it into
the. Shape that you want.
You can do that with Shell Works now.
Shell works if it hits critical scale.
If it grows, then it becomes much less expensive.
But right now, because oil is subsidized, our tax dollars are
used to subsidize oil, not SNAP, not Agri.
Well, I guess agriculture, yes, but like not through SNAP.
For the end consumer. There's so many parts are our
healthcare, there's our childcare, I can go on in the
list that would actually make our economy stronger and better
for things that we subsidized. Instead, we subsidized fossil
fuels. And that is why plastic is so
cheap. That is why you see so much of
it. That's what I'm talking about
when I say all the incentives are in the wrong place.
And so when companies see the price of Shellworks, which I
think is very good for a sustainable material, it's still
2 to 3X the cost of plastic, which is why I'm like, well, if
plastic goes up this much, everyone should jump ship over
to shell works because it's actually going to be at the same
cost. And what happens is that you can
actually put it in your compost and microorganisms will
recognize it and break it down. And it takes time, right?
Industrial compost, it'll take very little time, but in your
backyard, it'll take a couple months, if not longer, depending
on the time of year and the health of your soil, but still
super impressive. And so I'm like more shit like.
That and I love the site, right? But you have to then incentivize
the scientists and the innovators to the and.
How do you market that? Because it's not cool girl.
Like it's funny when you call me cool, I'm like, oh, am I because
like I think I'm a total nerd, which I I wear as a badge of
honor because at the end of the day, like I'll never like our
brand will never be the aesthetic cool brand in the
sense of you cannot beat out celebrities that are starting
skin care lines. I don't know if you saw this,
this quote. It's one of my favorites.
I'm so sorry. I can't credit it, but it was, I
saw it on threads, but it's founders became celebrities.
So then celebrities became founders and it was, it's really
fascinating and but in CPG that's where you're seeing it
happening the most. Like not tech, you're seeing it
in food and beverage and beauty. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
It's I hadn't heard that quote, but I definitely I was like,
what an interesting pipeline. Like it's like this one big
circle that's now happened. And I see I would disagree.
I feel like do is like for the real cool girl because to me, if
you're cool, you're looking at sustainability, you're looking
at ingredient profiles, you're looking at, you know, a lot of
people question like which products I came out with and
like one of my things was like, I just want to make moisturizer
sexy again. Like I feel like everyone is in
their actives era, but their skin barrier is wretched.
And as a plastic surgeon who helps a lot of patients with
their skin conditions and works closely with dermatologists.
You're cutting through skin and then having to heal it.
Totally. I'm like, I love that you are on
your AHABHA journey, but like also, could you just use a
moisturizer? Like could you just use a skin
barrier, you know? So that was why we did face
restore. I loved that Hyper Chloris was
having a moment, but there were a lot of.
Did you ever use hypochloris to irrigate during surgery?
Yeah, cool. Yeah, it's not.
Commonplace. That's like it was.
It's original indeed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But and tranexamic acid we used in our surgical trauma patients
all the it's. Really, it's used a lot in birth
as well, right? To save women when they're
hemorrhaging. Absolutely.
It's it basically. That's how they found out it
brightened because women were taking it and then they're like,
my skin doesn't have as much hyperpigmentation, but it was
actually through oral. OK, so we.
Would give it IV in acute trauma settings and also for again for
pregnant yeah, IVTXA to help with the hemorrhage So there
were all these ingredients that I know of and then I was sort of
reading the synergy or like learning about how it plays out
in skin care. And so that's why I wanted to do
a hypercourse, but I wanted to put tranexamic acid in it.
So I had that, you know, so I had a very specific.
Intention with each product. So the reason I haven't come out
with everything under the sun is either I feel like somebody's
already doing it, or I don't feel like in this moment, the
innovation is where it needs to be for me to make a meaningful
change. But back to your point, you
don't really get rewarded for being like that, because if you
just jump on the viral bandwagon, you'll sell.
But I think it's what what's your goal as a company?
If your goal as a company is to sell to private equity, then
that model works. My goal is actually to create a
legacy brand that changes how people think about beauty, but
how they think about science and experts.
My goal is not the same as them. Like I always joke whenever
somebody's like, don't talk about politics.
I'm like, I worked for Ben and Jerry's.
It really did. And it's not because they were
trying to use politics as marketing play.
It's because they actually care. And I think that's for do.
It's like we've been accused of using marketing, our politics as
a marketing plan. I'm like, we deeply care.
Like that's like it's like, and that actually is a cut that goes
deep because I'm like, wait, deep.
Like it's why we started the whole company.
But that's OK, right? The.
Proof is in the pudding. That's the thing.
They can say whatever they want, but we know that you care.
I can tell that you care as a consumer.
I'm looking at the packaging. I can tell how much volume is in
there. I know how much I have to use
and it's very, you can see the intention and sustainability you
can see. But also, I mean, it's so silly,
but just like, why doesn't everything have A twist cap?
I just, why can't everything have A twist cap?
Because I just, I travel a lot and things are always spilling
and I just love that I can toss it in my bag and I don't have to
worry about it. So there is obviously thought
behind. Is the consumer getting what
they need and want out of this? How is this being formulated?
What is the volume? What's the packaging?
What's the sustainability? What's the price transparency?
So the, the proof is in the pudding.
And also, everybody's always going to have something.
To say, Oh no, and I think, and I think it's also because we're
women. There's like a lot of things
behind it, but I look at brands like Mac and they're one of the,
and so when I was, I went to McGill University in Canada.
So I lived in Montreal for a while and we used to do these
fashion shows as fundraisers for AIDS.
And for me, I care deeply about, you know, people that are, you
know, suffering with AIDS and getting them medication to make
sure they don't have it because my uncle passed away from AIDS
in the 80s. And so, you know, for me, it's
something that's very personal. And so I wanted to do this, but
that was for a beauty brand. And so I think that there have
been beauty brands with purpose, but I think that people are
really afraid to be torn apart on social media.
People are you get horrible messages, you get death threats,
you get all those things. But I was like, I've been
talking about abortion on social and very public platforms
because I worked at Cosmopolitan.
I'm used to that. Sadly, for me, it's more about
we things are really scary to me.
Like I'm genuinely afraid about where society is going.
And so I'd rather say something and say that I tried versus
saying absolutely nothing and saying, see, it was going to
always end up this way. People have to change it.
It's not going to come from Paul.
It's not going to come from politicians unless if you demand
it. It's not going to come from
corporations unless if you demand it.
Even when you look at all the sustainability things that
companies said that they were doing, they've rolled it all
back the second that their profits into with tariffs.
And that was actually one of the reasons why.
So it's extended producer responsibility bills that got
lobbied against in New York. All I read all the letters from
these companies like, well, with tariffs, it's going to get too
expensive. I then look at who they
supported in the election, Trump, and I'm like, Oh my God,
you voted for this. So can you at least clean up
your shit? The mess that you.
Made once you made this mess and I think that I am actually
shocked at how much corporate lobbying there is and I should
have known. I was always aware because
Healthcare is that and has been that for so long that even
though I wasn't necessarily and I still have so much to learn
about how that plays into the beauty world.
It's to see like how much of A stronghold insurance companies
have. Like why do you think it is this
bad and we just can't do anything about it.
Why do you think that is? Because they have put in
hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions into lobbying
and influence so that they run Capitol Hill.
And no dramatic change is going to come unless we collectively a
have to be educated that there's a problem to then be outraged.
We've to deprogram ourselves like keep America Beautiful.
I will never shut up about this organization.
It was started by Philip Morris and Coca-Cola, OK, great
companies. And they then started teaching
children in schools. They started putting programs,
pamphlets, programs for teachers to teach children that they were
why the world was polluted because they didn't pick up
their trash. They were the litterbugs.
Stop litterbugs. How about you stop companies
from making packaging that cannot be recycled ends up in
landfills? How do how about you make
regulations about stopping single use products?
Like what? Like obviously there are
situations, right? Like I've learned that like
people with disabilities, they really need things like plastic
straws and things like that. I am not talking about that.
I am talking about just endless product launches that we do not
need, that are going to be helping us with convenience,
that are just actually polluting the earth and we're just
shipping off all this trash to other interests.
What we think is a convenience, no for sure, But what we think
is a convenience is actually contributing to a massive,
what's going to be chronic inconvenience for all of us.
Not all communities. Yeah, But you know what, at the
end of the day, when at some point the damage that we do to
this planet will become something permanent, something
insurmountable, and that will affect everybody.
So at some point we'll get that far.
And so for this minor inconvenience, now we're not
even thinking about what's down the road.
And and it's hard. I, you know, I tell people all
the time I live in my own hypocrisy because I'm like the
typical California liberal. Well no, we all live in
cognitive dissonance. Like for me, I hate how women
are treated as they get older. And it's like, here I am selling
you products that, yeah, they're going to help your skin look
younger. And so that's kind of a
contradiction that everybody lives in the.
Living in hypocrisy and the example I always give is I'm a
vegetarian and I'm Hindu but like I'm pretty sure I have a
leather interior on my car right?
So like it I I tried to be at least you're just.
Sitting on it. Yeah, I, I, oh, yeah, exactly.
Totally different. At least I tried to be as aware
of the hypocrisy, you know, as much as possible.
And so when I, when I made a Vara, I, I actually found so
much comfort and solace in people like you, who I'm like,
you know what? She's outspoken.
She's trying to do the right thing.
It can't. It's impossible to be perfect
about it, because at the end of the day you have to function
within what's available and and exist.
We are starting companies, to be clear, these are companies do as
a company, it needs to make money and profit in order to
survive. These are not NGOs, these are
not nonprofits, these are not charities.
And so for me, I want you to be very informed as to what you are
buying and why. And I think that that for me is
a relationship with a consumer, with our community that I am
comfortable with. I am not comfortable with
selling you pipe dreams, lies, misinformation to get the sale
right. When you look at non-toxic
beauty and clean beauty in these things.
These were promises and cells being made to you based off of
misinformation. I don't think the founders know.
I I truly do not think the founders understand.
No, they just think it's like a cool marketing term and they're.
Like, or they genuinely think these are toxins.
Like you genuinely look, if you are not a scientist and you look
at the body of work, which is a very generous term I'm using on
the Internet for sunscreen and you talk about endocrine
disruption, etcetera, you can truly think that mineral
sunscreen is a better option. But the gag of it is because you
are not a scientist and you make your mineral sunscreen and then
you have butyl octosalicylate, which is an analog for
octosalate. That's a fucking hybrid
sunscreen and they don't even understand that.
And that is why I say you must have scientists when you are
making things that are based in science, when you are making
claims, you are making OTC products.
I could have never have started do without Joyce who is a
biochemist. We also now have Becca Perry,
who's an amazing formulator, is now our senior innovation
manager. She just got a promotion.
And so it's like working with scientists has been like the
honor of like my life because I'm like, we need better
marketing for this. And to just give you a data
point, you would think that based off of all the fear
mongering that we get about sunscreen and cancer and that
sunscreen causes cancer, that everyone's wearing sunscreen.
Do you know how? Many people wear sunscreen in
America every day. Guess how many people wear
sunscreen in America every day as a percentage?
As a percentage, 20%. 13% and so, and I can guarantee you that
of that 13%, some of them are just using that tiny little pea
size amount in their foundation. The amount of people that are
applying 1/4 of a teaspoon and then reapplying throughout the
day as you need is infinitesimal.
So the idea that sunscreen causes cancer and that's why
cancer rates are skyrocketing. You'd have to wear the fucking
sunscreen to get the cancer. No one's wearing sunscreen.
And so we've create like we've created these echo chambers on
social where what's happening on social is.
True. And I'm like, Oh my God, people
aren't even putting on sunscreen in the morning. 13.5% That's
what all of this education has got.
That's where all this education has gotten us.
I thought we were getting somewhere we are not.
And so that's kind of what. Really motivated him.
I mean, I was again, deep dark hole on the Internet and I
always like to see like, what are they saying on the other
side, right? I want to know so that I can
then at least try to combat it. And it was like, well, there's
no autism in the Amish people and they don't vaccinate.
So that's why vaccines don't cause autism.
I'm like, they in general, as a population, don't engage with
modern medicine. You think they're getting
diagnosis. You have to diagnose autism to
then be able to say that you have it.
So if you're not getting diagnosed, you can't say that
you don't have it. And to me, it's so clear and
it's so obvious, but there is an, I mean, there are Facebook
forums and mom groups and all the people that just like you
said, it's an echo chamber. And I, I get scared and sad
because I'm like, are we too far gone?
Like how are we going to bring the how are, how is the pendulum
going to speak back? You know, so my dad was an
Italian Renaissance professor. And so I think also I am, I'm a
humanist by like, like by thought process.
But I think what's always funny is I'm like, the Black Plague
must have felt pretty end times. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, we recovered. The bubonic plague, well, you
know, I will say like Europeans have been very destructive on
the rest of the planet and just generally like white
colonization culture. I'm I'm sad that that is what
has taken dominance in many parts of the world because it's
also led to what we are seeing right now.
But you know, people that that time must have been absolutely
apocalyptic and people lived through it.
I also am slightly. Comfortable.
That makes me thank you for saying that.
It's like it's, it's also comforting for me to think of
like the planet is going to planet.
They're going to be bacteria that live.
And if we destroy everything, it's going to be destroying it
for us. The planet will survive and it's
horrific how so many species are being taken down based off of
our folly. But at the end of the day, the
Earth is going to keep earthing and then it will just find
another way to survive. We will be the ones who don't
survive. And that will be because of our
own foolishness and because of our inability, because of our
not wanting to be political. And so for me, I don't begrudge
people for because I don't know you, I'm not going to start.
Making better person than me, Charlotte, I don't know.
I don't know if I am. I think I just, I've done so
much therapy and ketamine therapy that at this point I'm
just kind of like, how do I enact change?
And I, I have a family that is quite conservative and yelling
at them and screaming at them and telling them that they're
fools. Not going to, it doesn't work.
But at the same token, it doesn't work to do the opposite,
which is I'm going to talk to you and everything's OK.
I'm going to pretend like nothing happened and.
So what do you do? What's your response?
Some people I don't talk to. That's that's OK.
Some people I maintain conversations and I slowly try
to bring them over to the side of education.
But also just at the end of the day, like I want things to be
better. Like my, and The thing is, I'm
a, I'm a thin white lady. Like I have a lot of privilege.
I am very scared for my trans friends.
And it's just like, I am very scared for, you know, black
people in America, black women in America, and they're the ones
who always are voting, right. And so it's like, that's where I
get a lot of my like, I think anger is actually great.
Like, I don't know, everybody needs to read more about how
anger can be a really motivating thing, but you have to use it in
a way where you're building versus destruction.
And so for me, I'm like, how do I keep building, right?
I don't think I'm a better person.
I think I just really. I just get frustrated because I
feel like we're so far gone that if at this point you can't have
an. I'm not saying you have to.
Every post has to be political or that you know but just.
Not all my posts. Are a little yeah, I mean a lot
of mine are, but not all of it. But but I also feel like there's
some people who they, maybe not they don't even post about it,
but they've through their own subtleties.
Let me know where they fall. Yes, and I'm that I'm that I'm
happy with because I don't want to support businesses.
My big thing is I don't want to support businesses that are
going to then. That are going to have a super.
PAC that is then going to donate to Trump like I don't like.
There's many reasons why I don't support AI, but one of the main
reasons why you should be deleting ChatGPT is Sam.
Sam Altman has paid for Trump. He's besties with Peter Thiel
like these are not. Good people, no.
And if they're not good people, they're not making products with
good intentions. No.
And it's like, I just read, Oh my gosh, is it Ronan Farrow?
Ronan Farrow? I'm like, not to say Mia
Farrow's son. He's a very prolific reporter,
but he just did a massive investigative piece in The New
Yorker. I highly recommend everybody
reads it. And it's just like what Sam
Altman said opening AI was going to be.
It's just not that. And it's like we don't hold men
accountable for that. We'd never hold men accountable
for that. But meanwhile, women who run
businesses are accountable for every little thing we say is
picked a part into pieces. Do it for men.
Just pretend men are women. Just pretend men are women.
And I think the world would be a much better.
Place accountability would show up because.
Accountability would show up and like, that's really what I'm
asking for is just a little bit more accountability, yeah.
No, I, I think I try not to be nihilistic about it, but I just
get so. It's hard.
It really is. You know a lot.
Well, it's know a lot. And then also the more the
deeper I get into just people who hold like make friends who
with people who are powerful, who have companies, who are who
they're the ones donating and like finding out who they
donated to or what they support and they can't really verbalize.
Why is it's just like a devastating reality that I hate
to accept? I always like, I'm, I'm always
like, villains always win. You know, I, I think that when
you look currently at our system, like the villains are,
are winning and at the end of the day, like a lot of people,
people want to win #1 like look at Trump's vocabulary.
Winning is very big in that vocabulary.
And I think people are scared. They want what's in it for them.
And I think that there's just not, there's been a dissolution
of the concept of community. And for me, it's like I am a
recluse. I love being at home.
I'm a homebody. I'm in what they call an
introverted extrovert. But I deeply want people to be
OK. And I don't need that much money
to live my life well. And when I say, like you, I live
in New York, so I need money. But what I mean is like, to be a
billionaire is just embarrassing and not.
And a lot of people don't see it that way.
A lot of people see it as aspirational.
So I think we're going to need a massive culture shift.
And you know, my grandmother who lived through World War, World
War 2, you know, she was like, I think just unfortunately, a lot
of people are going to have to get hurt.
That's what happened in our generation to make people
understand that fascism is very, very, very fucking bad.
But now we have extreme surveillance.
So it might, I don't know what's going to happen, but I have to
believe that the majority, when people experience bad things
happening to themselves, that's when they act.
And I don't think we're at that critical point yet where enough
which? Is crazy to me.
Because, but again. It all goes back to education,
vacation. I have so many friends, Well,
not friends anymore, but people who were who were like, you know
what? I can't sit here and think
about, you know, everybody on the streets at the end of the
day, like I have to support my family and I'll payless in
taxes. And I'm like, did you actually
payless in taxes? Because I'm pretty sure you
didn't, unless you're like and. All those gains are gone now
with consumption taxes, through tariffs and through the rising
cost of oil. And so I think.
Everything is expensive, including for these companies
big and small that are manufacturing.
So I don't know that anyone except for a few select people
actually saved money. And back to what you said, like
I enjoy living life. We travel, we travel well, I
Lord knows I love a good shopping splurge, but I only
need so much. And there's never been a time in
my life where I felt like what I paid in taxes or supporting, you
know, social construct would somehow affect my quality of
life. It's that Delta isn't there for
me to not want it and it's just, and that's mis education among
wealthy people. So I'm like, we're fucked.
I mean, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens.
I find that people get really loud and motivated when bad
things happen to them. And I I hope it doesn't get to
that point, but. Now they're delusional.
People are just. They refuse to.
Something bad has happened to everybody.
I mean, it's just like your G wagon.
If you're one of those, your G wagon gas is really expensive
right now so even you should be pissed and you're not.
Yeah, I do. I I think the US is in a very
unique spot because there is a lot of propaganda everywhere.
Like I'm so I'm a. Backup country like where?
You well I'm half French, so I don't have to be here.
I choose to be here because I, I actually love America.
I and I, it feels so weird saying that because there's like
so many things I don't love, but I think being able to talk about
those things. But like, all of my friends are
just like such incredible people and they're American.
And yes, I have friends who are Canadian, They live here.
I have friends that are Lebanese, they live here.
Like there is something. Well, also partly because the US
is funding, you know, people to, to bomb them.
So that also is something that, you know, we have to address.
But it's like at the end of the day, like New York in particular
is a place where you get to meet so many people and you get to
have so many different perspectives and it just makes
you very empathetic. And for me, I'm very, it's a,
it's a beautiful thing to feel empathy, but also to help people
like that is I love doing it. And so I think for me, the US is
such an amazing country. I could move to Europe.
Things aren't that things are better there in some ways, but
they aren't in others. And I think that ultimately we
are experiencing them something global.
It is the fault of social media platforms.
AOCII can't remember what hearing she was doing, but she
was grilling somebody and she was like, there's going to be
research coming out that social media is as detrimental to
people's health as cigarette companies.
And I truly have seen social. I think that division has always
been there. You know, look at what was
happening in the 60s and 70s of the civil rights movement in the
United United States. Look at what's happening Earth
Day. Like literally people were
fucking rioting about the planet.
And so I think that there have always been these times of deep
social unrest. And if you look at what's
happening now, this is 20 years of social media, this like this
needs to be fixed. And also AI, which is an
incredible tool for propaganda. That shit needs to be fixed.
Until that happens, I think things are going to keep going
really off the rails. And our representatives, the
reason why Mamdani got elected is because it's an overturning
of the old guard, the Democrats, the like the, what do you call
them, institutional Democrats? Y'all didn't do your fucking
job. Get the fuck out.
We need new people in. I'm like and Republicans get the
fuck out. All of y'all out and it's like I
even like I'm reading We the People by Joe Lepore.
Fantastic book. She's an amazing historian and I
didn't even really understand this, but you know, Supreme, the
Supreme Court isn't supposed to be determining all the laws of
the land. The 5th Amendment should be
invoked and the 5th Amendment is when you actually just like, add
amendments, change amendments, things like that.
This is what our elected representatives are supposed to
be doing and it hasn't happened since the 90s.
You all are bad at your fucking jobs and you can't work
together. You would be fired from any
corporation. And so this idea we've been
brainwashed into thinking that government can't work for us.
No, we've been electing really, really incompetent people that
can't work together and that are literally like war mongers at
this point. So get the fuck out and let's
elect people who can actually do stuff.
Mandani has already done so much for New York.
He's not going to win every time.
He's going to fail. Sometimes you have to give grace
for that, but you have to be moving for something better.
In general, the needle has to move forward, literally has.
But what I love about Mandani and Talarico is that they
represent the fact that you don't, that you can stand for
something, you can have an opinion, for example, about
Palestine, and you can avoid taking APEC money and you can
win. But you shouldn't be taking any
corporate money. Overturn Citizens United.
And it's crazy because people say it's like, why are you
talking about this? You're a skin care brand.
And I'm like it's. All Oh my God, I was like what
we do? I'm like, well, First off, I
want to make, I want to make products that are more
accessible, more accessible, priced for you.
We were going to do a price drop on all of our products here.
We could only do one because of all this bullshit that's
happening politically. So #1 your products are getting
more expensive because of this. Then the science suffers because
you can't do all this cool stuff with formulation because it
increased it's cost. Prohibitive.
At some point you just cannot do it as a, especially as a small
brand. It also disincentivizes
innovation because innovation costs fucking money.
And so at the end of the day, you're going to end up with the
worst beauty industry, with worst products, with more brands
that are lying to you. You want that?
You don't because then you complain about that.
And so at the end of the day, I talk about politics because I'm
desperate for people to take action.
You don't have to say shit on social media, but you do have to
vote. You do have to vote locally
because when I saw this bill with the New York State, I was
like, I need to be more involved locally in New York because all
the shit that's going through. It goes, right, Nobody is aware.
It's like right under your nose. I mean, I went through the same
realization. I thought I was politically
aware and I realized I was only paying attention to what's
happening at the national level, but no clue really what's
happening locally, which many would argue affects me a lot
more on a day-to-day basis and what's going on.
And yet that desire for education isn't there where I
think we're getting a little bit better at it.
But what I, I'm really hoping the Democratic Party picks up on
is, look, we have these people who had an opinion, they refused
funding from certain people and they won.
So if I, I was like, if I were a political scientist working for
the Democratic Party right now, I would be studying the shit out
of the Mandani campaign and figure out how to scale it to a
national level because it worked.
And there's a lot of reasons probably why it worked, but it
challenges a lot of what we're being told needs to happen for a
candidate to win. If you please, if you try to
please everyone, you're saying nothing.
And that is kind of how I approach my content.
It's how I approach do obviously in different ways because it's
it's separate. But at the end of the day, I
think that so many people are afraid to say something because
they're afraid of being criticized.
And I'm like, damn, y'all got to be raised by a French woman
because that's like the the least of my concerns is I'm
like, you should be critiquing me because some critique is
valid and I will take it and I will implement it and some
critique. Thank you for telling me exactly
who you are. I now know exactly what to do
with you and I'm going to put you in this bucket.
Yeah. And I tell my team all the time,
I'm like, I'm not looking to acquire every customer.
Every customer is not for Avara and for me, you know, we were
talking, we started by talking about what is it that you want
to do with the company. My thing has always been, I
think the white space is health, inclusive beauty.
We are starting to talk about color inclusivity.
We're we're getting to that. We're getting warmer.
But for. Me.
Yeah, health inclusivity is really important because I'm a
breast cancer reconstructive surgeon.
So like, where's the shelf at Sephora for pregnancy, IVF,
postpartum? Where is the perimenopausal,
menopausal section of skin care? I don't see it.
So that's what I'm going to do because you, when I'm a doctor
and I know science and I have the degrees.
And you know what happens in perimenopause?
Because I'm coming up on it and it's, it's, it's shocking.
I'm glad that more people are talking.
About it you don't feel crazy, you don't feel.
Crazy. And you're just like, oh, this
is just what happens with my skin.
That's fine. Like I can, I can accept this.
But when it's almost like worse, when you don't know what's
coming and then it hits you and then you feel alone and you're
not alone. It's happening to everyone.
It's happening to everyone, but everyone wants to make you seem
or feel crazy because it's never been described even though it's
been happening. Or people are getting like
plastic surgery and then being like, well, my skin looks like
this and then I'm like also there's like melanation.
Like you cannot compare yourself to somebody in Korea because you
have different, if you look like me, you're going to age
different, babe. There is there's so much
research on that. Like I have less fibroblasts in
my skin and then and I've been fighting the sun and I've lived
in regions where I am ancestrally not supposed to be
all those things. Multifactorial.
Also, I smoked a little as a kid.
I'm French. I was just about to say that I
mean, yeah. And I and so that's that's what
I want to do is I want to open the door for health inclusive
beauty. If I've my, if Avara is a reason
that everybody else starts thinking about it and we can
take that step forward, then then I've done my job with
Avara. But it, it brings it, I, I get
frustrated because, you know, even when it comes to like
packaging components, like you said, we take the feedback
right. We have ghee in our eye bomb and
ghee is very temperature sensitive.
It's not necessarily the most form stable ingredient.
It's difficult. And so if you live in Boston and
you receive your package in January, you might have a
different experience with it versus in California.
So I purposely made it a pump, but also a screw top so that you
can get to every last bit of product.
And because that's a pet peeve of mine.
I I thought, I thought of it all like I thought that I was being
smart about it. And the emails come in right,
like, well, mine is a little bit thicker.
And you know, when I bought it three months ago, it was more
liquidy. And I liked the liquidy and you
know, like, we'll just open the top.
It's, it's literally the same product with, with human, like
with your core temperature with between your fingers, it will
melt to the same thing. But consumers don't want to hear
it. And a part of me is like, if we
really want better, then the consumer has to be a little bit
more accepting. You can't be so obsessed with
like the color and how pretty it is and how aesthetic it looks on
your shelf. And like you, you, you cannot
dare be inconvenienced by anything ever.
Because if you have that kind of consumer, you're never going to
be able to actually innovate in the beauty space because
innovation requires. Flexibility.
I mean, whenever I get messages like that, like my first thing
is I'm like, yeah, like, I understand why people don't
trust companies. I get it, right.
It's kind of the same thing with like, the reason women get red
pilled into thinking all sorts of conspiracy theories about
health when really, like, doctors are looking out for you.
The thing is, is that unfortunately, women have been
treated like shit within, you know, medicine and also just
aren't researched as much. Like, there are very real forces
against you. As somebody who had, you know,
my own issues, it's like, yeah, like I can understand.
I can see where it comes from. And doctors, yes, you could say
they need to do better. But as you said, it's like
running up against insurance. They're running up against
insane cost. They're running up against, you
know, insane medical debt from. Doctors have a guaranteed pay
cut every overtime. Guaranteed pay cut because CMS
will systematically decrease reimbursement for our codes.
And then on top of that, you have medical debt because
education costs too much. And that's going up cost of
running a practice goes. Up I saw.
But we have a guaranteed pay cut.
When one of my friend's kids told me what they were paying
for their kid to go to in state I actually screamed.
I was like this is fucking crazy we need to get these costs down.
Which truly is what I think every every Democrat should be
running on. You should just be talking about
the cost of things because holy shit, that's you know, but it's
like from my perspective, it's like, I think about that from
like the first level where I'm like, OK, you don't trust
corporations and you have every reason to not trust
corporations. Say I'm a company, right?
You're buying like some people buy from me as a person, but
ultimately I'm a company. Start there.
And then you're like, I'm going to try to explain to you things
why it happens. And if you don't accept that,
you can go somewhere else. That's like very much so where
I'm like, I wish you I. Wish you well in your journey.
Because we're really trying so hard and I know other brands are
not some are, but at the other day, I'm like, I wish you well
in your journey on finding the company that does every single
thing that you said because sometimes it is literally a, a
chemical impossibility. Impossibility.
Yeah, chemistry doesn't allow. Yeah, right.
Exactly. Or like let us take the steps to
get you where you want to be. Like we'll get you that product,
but we got to, we got to get there.
You know what I mean. What is your favorite skin care
company other than do at the moment?
My favorite skin care company other than DO at the moment.
I'm not just saying this because they pay me, but I do love
Medicaid. Me.
Too. I do love Medicaid.
They pay me though. Let's be clear.
Disclosures The thing is if you look at my page, I don't
actually take that many brand deals and it's because a lot of
the times the science doesn't match up for what my skin needs.
I think K Beauty is an amazing movement but it's a lot of
hydration and very low percentage of actives if.
That's why I like Medicaid is like the science is there.
Because they're putting the right amount of stuff, they're
stabilizing things. They're actually vertically
integrated. They actually own their CMS. So
they're actually, CMS are contract manufacturers.
So they're able to actually control the manufacturing
process. So they're able to get some of.
Those because they were recently acquired, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I remember that one into the sales price because they were
vertically integrated, yeah. Yeah, yeah, 1.4 billion.
And that's also another thing is like Medicaid I think, I hope is
a legacy brand. They've been around for 15
years. I hope they're around for 20
more. And they're not a flash in the
pan and they're not duping. They're not chasing.
Tetra Lux is my favorite. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I love that one. That's C Tetra C.
Tetra, C Tetra. I just didn't add for it.
So say Tetra advanced and then another brand that I really love
is Iope, but I don't love some of the products that they're
launching in the US because they have this retinol in Korea that
is top tier. I, I, I'm like, I feel like my
results are better than with treadmill and I'm going to be
honest and it's $120.00 for 20ML.
So for me, every time I buy it, because I've bought it, because
they don't, they've only sent me like once or twice and then
they're like, you don't post that much of those going on.
So I'm like, please send me more.
But anyways, I, I buy it and it, it's very, it's very expensive
for the US market. What did they launch in the
United States? A $58 spicule version with
retinol at the very bottom of the ingredient.
It's just not the. Same.
It's just not the fucking same. And I'm like, why?
And I'm like, oh, because people think K beauty is cheap.
But if a product is cheap, I'm telling you right now, their
ingredient stack is not going to be super sophisticated.
It's probably a hydrating product or it's a product that,
yes, it might be able to tackle dark spots to a certain level,
but probably if you're a certain age.
Yeah, yeah, no, I totally. And we could do a whole nother
episode on that, just like the duping market.
And you know, I'm all for like drugstore beauty and things like
that, but I, I think if you really look at the ingredients,
where they're sourced from and where they fall on the list
because that matters like how much percentages.
You know how expensive La Roche Pose now is in the drugstore?
Because we're working on a sunscreen right now.
I'm currently testing it and we're doing it with a new
filter. BEMT Parcel Shield.
First sunscreen filter in the United States to be approved
since 1999. Which is why beauty is
political. Literally like the amount of
lobbying that had to be done to get this shit approved because
the FDA doesn't prioritize it. They have, quite frankly, more
important things to worry about than sunscreen because our
country is a fucking mess and they're underfunded.
But that's. Going to be the name of the
podcast episode of you guys. Our country is a fucking mess
and it's underfunded. Yeah, it.
Is all of our money goes to defense yes let's just like to
defend our. Children.
Yeah. Defend our children.
And so with the sunscreen and all these things, it's like
ultimately it is like a new product, like new development.
Sorry, I completely lost my train of thought.
You were talking about the the sunscreen and how it beauty is
political because we're not incentivize.
The FDA is not incentivized to approve these things.
Then you just get stuck in this rut and then the people are
price conscious and they're only getting more price conscious
because of the politics. And then you're de incentivized
for the, I mean, have we made our point?
Have we made our point? But then also K beauty companies
were breaking the law for years, selling their sunscreens into
the US with unapproved filters. They were breaking the law, and
I had no problem promoting them because anything to get people
to wear sunscreen. But now what's happened is that
there's this market that's been created where you can't trust
American sunscreen. And it's like, no, we, we
actually just need to be fighting more to get these
things approved because now the FDA has put a kibosh on, they've
stopped all international sunscreens from being sold and
much harder to find. Now people are getting these
like counterfeits and counterfeit sunscreen is like
the last thing you want to be putting on your face because
it's actually sometimes doesn't even have sunscreen.
It's totally unreal, yeah. Yeah.
I asked you your favorite brands.
Which brand do you think stands to make the most improvement?
Oh, a brand that stands to make the most improvement.
Transparency, Sustainability. I mean that's a hard one because
at the end of the day, beauty brands that don't built make
their don't cut their teeth on that.
I think any duping brand you're like, oh, it's more accessible.
I'm like Maybelline's accessible.
No, you want you want to buy things that.
If you buy 10 bottles of something does that doesn't work
versus 1 bottle of something that works.
Like think for me, like MC Co is a company that makes me sad,
makes me deeply sad. They revel in stealing.
And stealing, but also like what are you selling it's.
Like, but and then. No, I'm sure the products are
perfectly fine. I, I've never tried one, but I
think for me it was actually the, I think that that company
used to create things that were innovative and then realized it
was too expensive and it was too hard.
And So what do they do? They proved, well, no, they
proved that if you do shit, you get to a billion dollars real
quick. And I think that ultimately
morality doesn't make you money. So if you're going to do the
right thing in business, it's not because you're chasing
correct. And I think that that's why
whenever I hear any sort of critique of a brand that I see
is more moral, I'm like, you have no fucking idea.
Because like, actually, they would make so much more money
doing the shitty thing and they aren't doing the shitty thing.
And so for me, I give a lot of props to brands that do the
right thing, that stand on science, that are innovating,
things like that. Like I love like I love K-18 as
well as like a hair care brand. So it's like I'm like, I love
those, but like when I see like. I love that we have the same
brands that we. Well, that's my taste, but it's
like I get really sad when I see duping brands and the the way
that people are like cheering them on.
It makes me sad because I'm like, you're disincentivizing
innovation. There's going to be nothing left
to dupe. There will be no more companies
to dupe. Right.
It's a somber note, but I think that's what we're going to end
on Happy. Take care, buy it.
Sephora sale.