New York Post’s Post

Transcript

I had this vision for beauty being better and I meant it in a really big way. After five years at Estee Lauder, Laney Crawl left in 2019 to start her own company, say. Today I sit down with her to discuss the climate neutral and quote UN quote earth minded beauty brand. I'm here with Laney Crowell, who started say, Laney, thank you so much for being here with us. It's incredible. You made the jump from a very institutional beauty company to go out on your own. And that was a big step. Like, yes, it was scary. How how do you even begin? You leave, you have this idea. How do you create an entire company? So fundraising was definitely the hardest part. So I have this thing where I tell myself that I just have to talk to 70 people. I make a list in Google Sheets. That's where I keep everything organized and I literally just cross people off the list. And then when I talked to them, I ask for who their recommendation is for me to talk to. So I get when I get another name, maybe I get 2 names and then I just keep going. My mantra is just get up one more day than the next person and you'll get there. And, and tell us more about that community too, because I know I've heard you speak about Facebook groups and people who you're kind of, you know, getting their take on for, for what you think you should do next. Well, communities. Everything right? And I think that was one thing that I've always thought about is that we're in business for the consumer, we're in business for the people who are buying our products. So I always want to be talking to them and asking them what they're looking for and listening to what they're saying. And I think that's where brands can really get in troubles when they get too distant from that conversation. And what does that look like? Do you pose a question or how do you engage with your audience so on Instagram broadcast. He asked the question, you know, you guys wanna setting spray. What do you want it to look like? Is it refreshing your makeup? Is it holding your makeup? Is it doing both? I actually think it feels unnatural for us not to do it. You know, we ask our community everything because I'm not a makeup artist and you know, there's lots of brands born from makeup artists and that's their vision. I'm just your everyday girl trying to look her best to have my skin be great. And so we like to work with our community on what they want next. As a consumer, I'm trying to learn about clean beauty and what that means. But there are so many labels out there. It's organic, it's natural, it's clean. What does clean beauty mean? And is there any sort of like regulation around who can use that term? There isn't any regulation around it. I think when So that was one of the things my community had said to me. They said I want it to be really clean. I don't want it to just be marketing. And so that was the first question I had to answer when it came to say was is it possible? Can we make high performance? Products that are really, really clean. We have over 2000 ingredients that we don't use. But what I think about clean, it's more about what's in the product first, what's not in the product. So when you read our ingredient list, it reads like skin care. You know, it's, you feel your skin getting hydrated, nourished, even brightening over time. And just to go back to fundraising a little bit, how did you build credibility with investors? What did you do to get that first investment? So I definitely relied on my experience in big beauty, but I was kind of the first person in clean to come with that big beauty background. So I was able to talk about this incredible experience I had had. Learning from the best of the best and bringing that expertise, that mentality to clean, which is I think a testament to how we've grown so quickly in the last five years, is because of that rigor and that vision. How do you think the beauty industry is going to look five years from now? What what are the big changes you expect to see? I think right now it's really interesting. Consumers are showing that they want brands that have some depth to them. They want to know what a brand values are. They want to be able to connect with a brand on a deeper level. So I think brands that have those vocal values are going to rise to the top. You know, you spoke a little bit about how New York was important, obviously in your career and building this company specifically. What other ways do you think it's impacted your career journey? New York has been vital to my career. I got my first job because I ran into the editor in chief of Lucky Magazine on 5th Ave. I was my dream to work in magazines. That's why I moved to New York and I read every single magazine front to back. And so of course I knew what the editors looked like because I would read their editor letter. And this was pre social media. And so I was in, I think, but in our public and I saw Kim France and I got the courage to introduce myself. Her and she gave me her card with her e-mail address on it and I emailed her and she wrote back and she said, you have what it takes to be in this industry and that's fearlessness. So you should come into my office and let's see where we can find a place for you. And true to her word, she did. That's where I got my first job. I think that proximity is everything. And New York is such it's a hub for innovation, talent and and it's compact. Right. So like you, not only do you have the accessibility to people that you need, but you can get everywhere really quickly.