Episode 284: The Real Story Behind Glossier with Marisa Meltzer

“I basically “single-white-femaled” my way into becoming a yoga teacher.”

- Sophie Strauss

You’re familiar with Glossier products, but do you know the hot gloss-ip behind them? Kate and Doree welcome journalist Marisa Meltzer on Forever35 to talk about her new book Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier, all about the brand’s enigmatic founder Emily Weiss, how Glossier went from go-to beauty blog to a millennial beauty brand success, and when it all took a turn.

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Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer.

Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.

Kate: And we are not experts.

Doree: We're not, we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums

Kate: Oh my goodness.

Doree: I don't know Kate. It's been like almost six years. I got to mix it up a little bit.

Kate: I feel you. We have been doing this podcast for a long time. When we started I was in my thirties.

Doree: Yeah. I mean I wasn't, but

Kate: You were closer to your thirties.

Doree: I was much closer to my thirties. It's true.

Kate: I had a realization that when Covid started, I was 40 and now I'm 44. And I was like, oh my God, that's a fricking long. The time has stretched on. So I was giving my kids Covid tests last night and I was like, sorry, here we go again. And then I had this sad moment of half their childhood has been me shoving things up their nose, digging around to see if they have this scary virus that's going to be a core fucking memory for them. And then I kind of started reflecting on the passing of time and geez, it's been a long time. So here we are.

Doree: Here we are.

Kate: Once we did this podcast before Covid, can you imagine? We used to meet up every week in person.

Doree: We used to have our guests meet us in person.

Kate: Yeah. I mean, I had to go through a whole rigmarole to get into your house with cheese so I could record at your house because Bo, your dog doesn't love strangers and he had to learn to accept me into the fold.

Doree: He did.

Kate: And Sammy,

Doree: And then he accepted both of you.

Kate: He did. I feel like Sammy, our producer didn't have to do anything with cheese. They just are like natural naturally beloved by dogs.

Doree: No, no, They definitely did the cheese. They definitely did the cheese.

Kate: Okay.

Doree: Maybe you didn't see them do the cheese

Kate: You gotta do the cheese,

Doree: But they did the cheese.

Kate: Yeah.

Doree: You can't not do the cheese.

Kate: Okay. I just was kind of thinking like dogs love Sammy. My dog loves Sammy so much. So I just was like, maybe Sammy just breezed on in and was like, I've got the thing the dogs want. Some people have the thing the dogs want.

Doree: That is also possible. Know that Sammy had to do the cheese.

Kate: Just want to be clear,

Doree: Sammy also had cheese.

Kate: Well, I coming to you, I'm coming to you with a bunch of updates, but I feel like I'm just going to give you a quick one because we have a really delicious interview today that we want to get to.

Doree: Give me that update

Kate: Okay. I mean you've seen it in our show notes, I imagine.

Doree: But I want to hear you say it.

Kate: Wow. You're parading me through the town. Like that woman on Game of Thrones who has to They ring. They ring the bell and shout shame as she walks through the town.

Doree: No, it's not like that.

Kate: I come to You. You're allowed to gloat because I come to you.

Doree: Thank you.

Kate: I come to you. I've reached the end today. I was driving my youngest child to school after having driven my oldest child to school and it was a really frantic morning in her house and I had my ember coffee mug with the lid on it, which doesn't fit into the cup holder of my car. I dunno if it's just the size.

Doree: I was just going to say those embers do not fit.

Kate: We have the 14 ounce. It's possible. They also I think have a travel mug.

Doree: They have a travel. Yeah, they have a travel mug.

Kate: Right. But we don't have, you and I both have ember mugs, correct? We don't have the ember travel. We have the one that I'm pretty sure they just want you to keep in your house.

Doree: Yeah,

Kate: because the travel mug looks very slender, like it would fit into a cup holder. So this is not me disparaging ember. This is me disparaging me. I brought my ember mug to 14 ouncer with its lid into the car and I crammed it half into the cup holder and my daughter got into the car next the seat, the front seat next to me, and it somehow got knocked around and coffee spilled into the cup holder. And I was like, I have no one to blame but myself for this. I can't spill coffee in my car again. I keep doing this and then I wipe it up with the most ridiculous things like the face masks that are on the seat. I don't even have a paper towel roll or tissues. I have a face mask and then a dried hand, a dried container of hand wipes. So I finally realized this has to stop. This has to stop one, I'm ruining my car. It's not safe.

Doree: Yeah.

Kate: Look all the reasons that maybe you've mentioned, but I like to be a rebel and I Also just love drinking out of a mug and this is where it's gotten me. So I pulled back into my house and I just Googled. I think I Googled travel mug for people who like coffee cups. I Googled something absurd. I Googled something very weird, but I ended up ordering, and I have to be clear, I have 8 million travel mugs, but I feel like a lot of them don't fit in my cup holder.

Doree: So I feel like with travel mugs, okay, first of all, I should say, Welcome. Look, sometimes it takes people longer to see the light than others. It's fine. I get that you needed to see it for yourself.

Kate: I don't know if I'm going to stay here, but what I did was I somehow landed on a Yeti Rambler in 18 ounce capacity. I'm drinking out of a 14 ounce coffee cup now.

Doree: Wait, are you talking about this one?

Kate: It says, hold on, lemme go back to my screen. No, I will send you the link. The Yeti Rambler 18 ounce hot shot bottle. I don't think it is the same one as you. It doesn't increase in size. It is just kind of like a slender tube. And the description was

Doree: Yes,

Kate: Hundred percent leak proof for bumpy commutes and off-roading excursions. Now I'm not off-roading, but there are a lot of speed bumps on my roads to school. It says it's cup holder compatible and it has a 360 drinking experience, meaning I believe you can drink from any side. So it's not like you have to drink from a hole, which is what makes me crazy about

Doree: No, there isnt many. there is a whole...

Kate: so many. Doree says 360 degree. Think the hole is in the middle degree drinking experience. The middle,

Doree: there has to be a hole. I see what you're saying.

Kate: The hole in the middle so

Doree: You can drink,

Kate: Right. So you don't have to.

Doree: Yes, yes.

Kate: You get it.

Doree: I do get it

Kate: Now. I haven't gotten this. This just happened today. This just happened today. But here it's dishwasher safe, which I need.

Doree: I hope that this works for you. I don't think this would work for me because I feel like I would need two hands to take that cap off.

Kate: Oh no. Wait, can I not drink out of the cap?

Doree: Am I looking at the right thing?

Kate: Oh, I see.

Doree: Do you see what I mean? I looked at rambling 18. Have to, yeah.

Kate: Yep. You do have to twist that off.

Doree: That would not work for me.

Kate: This could be a disaster. This could be a disaster. We're going to just see how this goes. I might have also done the thing I do where I frantically just buy something without really doing my research. And luckily I didn't get this monogrammed and I can return it

Doree: Kate, if I may. If I may.

Kate: Okay. Okay.

Doree: The one that I have, which is the 20 ounce Tumblr Rambler is great because accept it comes with a slide opener. So yes, it's not 360, but you can do it with one hand and then you can also get a lid that has a straw. And I know you like a straw.

Kate: I do for water. I do.

Doree: There's a Tumblr straw lid. So I have this right now. I have it set up with the straw lid and I have ice coffee in it, but then it's also good for hot coffee.

Kate: Okay.

Doree: So just want to put that on your radar.

Kate: Alright. I mean I will look into it after I go through this hotshot experience that I'm about to embark on

Doree: Okay, keep me posted.

Kate: I'm confused by the hotshot. Feel like it should be for people who drink coffee cups and cars.

Doree: Yes, but I'm confused by the opening.

Kate: That's what she said.

Doree: I know.

Kate: I know. I'm so sorry.

Doree: Look, I'm excited. I hope this works for you and keep me posted please.

Kate: I need help. I need help because I have such specific, I'm so fucking high maintenance when it comes to drinks. I think that is the biggest problem. It's not you, it's me. I say this to cups to travel mugs. It's not you, it's me.

Doree: Oh my gosh.

Kate: And also I think the way our capitalist brains work is we're like, we got to find the next best one. This one isn't perfect. I've got to find we're all tiny wire cutters just walking. I mean the New York Times review site, not the actual tool. Do you ever feel like you're walking around being like, oh, this would be good if it only had this, this and this. I'm going to try to find the next best one. I don't know. There's just something about the ways in which we share information now and are constantly gathering consumer information and sharing it that it just kind of always feels like I'm hunting for something better, but I know that's also just the trap of capitalism.

Doree: Right. Well, and I do think that sites like the wire cutter do exacerbate this by giving us the illusion that they exist, these perfect items that are the best, when in fact that is subjective. What is your best is not my best.

Kate: I have learned this through My Toast Oven, which was a wire cutter recommendation and frankly I hate it.

Doree: Yeah. There have been a couple things where I'm like, what? This is wrong. There was a great article recently in the Atlantic by my former Buzzfeed colleague, Charlie Worzel, about why Wirecutter isn't that great anymore. Essentially I feel like there is a Wirecutter backlash. I just don't trust their taste.

Kate: Oh, interesting.

Doree: You know what I mean? Even when they're talking about best underwear, I'm like, no, best brass. I was like, Uhuh, this is wrong. But again, that's my opinion. My opinion.

Kate: We also all have different butts.

Doree: Yes.

Kate: How can there be one perfect pair of underwear

Doree: There Can't be. Speaking of underwear, I am back on my girlfriend Collective underwear.

Kate: Oh wow, you really circled back around. I've never tried their underwear. I'm just typing into my computer. If you hear the Tippity Tap, that's just me now typing in Girlfriend Collective underwear. Oh, cute. I like this. This looks like it goes high.

Doree: Yes. I like a high cut. I mean a high waist. I had tried the Arc ARQ underwear because people raved about it and I liked it for a while and then I was like, it stretched out. It was too thick. It didn't work for me anymore. So then I went back to Girlfriend Collective and I'm like, you know what, second time around. I like it better. The High Rise brief. That's the one I get.

Kate: I didn't come onto this episode to be discussing brands, but can I just say something for soul that everybody already knows, but I feel like I really need to shout it out.

Doree: What?

Kate: Okay. You know the stars above line at Target.

Doree: I do.

Kate: Okay. Their button down PJs are a bit of a knockoff for other PJs from ever J and Lake. And I know a lot of people like them. I have never liked them, but the stars above Loose t-shirt and shorts, pajamas that you can get are so great that I now am fully, they're called beautifully Soft Women's Beautifully Soft Sleep T-shirt from Stars above and they also have shorts and they have longer sleep shirts and they have pants. Whatever is happening with this beautifully soft. I love the fit, I love the comfort. I don't sweat. I have these other Costco pajamas that I bought that I think are Eddie Bauer, that they sweat and smell bad.

Doree: Oh no.

Kate: Now again, as we've previously discussed, everything is subjective. Not everything is going to work for everybody, but take a chance on these stars. Aboves, these stars above.

Doree: Take chance everyone

Kate: Take a chance on the stars above because you might just find they're twinkling just for you.

Doree: Kate, that was beautiful.

Kate: I'm a writer. Speaking of writers,

Doree: we introduce our guests, our guests, guests. It's just one guest.

Kate: It is. Unless there's a ghost guest that we don't know about.

Doree: No, there's not.

Kate: I would love nothing more. This is somebody who I have admired for a long time. So our guest today is Marissa Meltzer. She's a journalist based in New York City whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, vanity Fair, Vogue and more. Look, if you've read a juicy, wonderful profile of some sort of fascinating pop subculture, chances are high that Marissa has written it. She is the author of the new book, glossy Ambition Beauty and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier. She's also written three previous books. I loved the book that she wrote right before this about the founder of Weight Watchers. She's just a fantastic fun investigative journalist and you can find out all about her work marissameltzer.com. But you can also find out about it here on this podcast episode because we talked to Marissa all about her new book and Glossier and the last 10 years of beauty and tech and girl bosses and cloud paint and boy brow and just millennial pink. I mean, we just

Doree: Got into it.

Kate: We got into it and we didn't name our favorite Glossier products, but we did ask Marissa for her favorite Glossier products. I would probably go with Boy Brow has been a staple and also the perfume. I still love that perfume. Do you have a favorite Glossier product?

Doree: So one of my favorite Glossier products is one that doesn't really get talked about that much, but I've mentioned it on the pod several times. It is their priming moisturizer rich. It's a really great thick, as you would like to say, but not greasy moisturizer as they just say Dry skin's best friend, an ultra rich buttery moisturizer. It's a great moisturizer.

Kate: A moisturizers nice. Yeah, I like it too. I mean, I also like balm.com and one thing that was very fun to read in Marissa's book was how she interviewed people who had worked on products at Glossier and they were like, it's basically just Vaseline. And I was like, oh, no wonder. I like balm.com.

Doree: Kate, I literally thought of you when I read that.

Kate: And then do you know what? I just actually bought a tiny little Vaseline lip therapy in the color rosy that I found at Target. So I'll test it, see how it goes.

Doree: Think vaseline is like Goddammit, we should have just rebranded our packaging to be more millennial friendly

Kate: If only, if only Vaseline. Anyway, we had a great chat with her.

Doree: And before we get to our chat with Marissa, just a reminder to visit our website Forever35podcast.com for links to everything we mention on the show. We are on Instagram @Forever35podcast. We have a newsletter at Forever35podcast.com. You can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 and email us at Forever35Podcast@gmail and on our patreon at patreon.com/Forever35. You can watch this episode on video as well as listen to it at free if you join us at the $10 tier, which is pretty cool. I think

Kate: You're wearing a really great shirt that people can see.

Doree: Thank you, Kate,

Kate: Which is also from Target because I've asked,

Doree: It's a target and we're chatting about stuff on the Discord. Also, if you are in our Patreon, you've heard this already, but Kate has promised to write OC Fanfic if we get to a certain number of Patreon subscribers that we have not yet determined, but if you're interested in some Ryan Luke Fanfic and if you know, you know then Bop on over to our Patreon

Kate: and then there's going to be a quick summer one-off retelling from a different lens than the one that she is given on the show.

Doree: I am so here for this.

Kate: You know what, this might be my midlife crisis and that is fine. That is fine.

Doree: This is great. All right, we will be right back.

Kate: Well, I'm so excited to have you here, Marissa. I fricking love this book.

Marisa: Yay.

Kate: I'm trying to remember the exact words that I texted to you, Doree, which was like, I'm literally devouring this. What did I say? I'm slurping it down like a martini. That might have been my direct quote.

Doree: Yes, you did say that.

Marisa: That's honestly the best compliment I could get. Maybe for me it's maybe a little more of a rose with ice.

Kate: That sounds good too.

Marisa: I'm just chugging along, but yeah,

Doree: Or look a kombucha.

Kate: Oh, a rose would be good.

Marisa: Oh, kombucha. No, this definitely has, I mean, I do acknowledge that some people don't drink, but for me at the very least, it would be a Coke Zero or something like a fountain soda. Coke Zero.

Kate: Yeah. Okay, I'm with you.

Doree: I mean we'll get into it, but it's so nice to read what is basically a business book but is so fun and gossipy and about a company that I'm actually interested in and care about. So it was very refreshing, like a froze. Anyway.

Marisa: Yeah, I mean it's amazing. It made me be like, wow, it must be so great to be a man where there's just books like this about companies you're interested by people of your same gender expression, just lining the shelves of bookstores. What if there was a one about a woman that wasn't about a literal felon? Right. I dunno if she's actually, I think she's a but a criminal will say that.

Kate: Yeah, those are our two options. Yep.

Marisa: Yeah, it's very mother and the whore.

Kate: Well, we always kick off our interviews asking our guests about a self-care practice, and I'm very curious as to what yours is as a person who has followed you on Instagram. I have questions I want to ask about your self-care, but for you right now, what does that look like?

Marisa: I mean, I've done yoga for years and I think I started doing it very regularly in high school and I live down the street from my yoga studio and actually went so often that they were finally, you should do teacher training, teach I basically single white female to my way into becoming a yoga teacher. And so definitely yoga and for me yoga is sort of, it's an all encompassing the kind that I do always has breath work and meditation and so I feel like I'm getting sort of doing it all and I don't do it on my own. I'm trying to think of what else I enjoy Dog walks is something that I do every day and I bring my phone sometimes to listen to a podcast, but I often don't bring it. And I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of other dogs and so now I'm friends with a Tibetan monk and the monks have adopted a dog together named Happy.

Kate: I love this.

Marisa: I know. But there's one main monk who mostly takes care of the dog and humors me by me being like, where does he sleep? Is he a vegetarian? He can sleep wherever he wants. He mostly sleeps in the living room and no, he's not a vegetarian, he's a dog. Anyway, so just kind of wandering my neighborhood that's kind of a social neighborhood in that there's lots of cafes and so I just run into a lot of people I know without actually having to make plans make, which is my basically tip for living in a city or being middle aged and being busy, but also wanting to have a social life. But being stressed out at the idea of constantly making plans with people. It's a nice way to see people and have them in my life, but never actually having to do that thing where you're like, oh, let's get coffee twice a year or something. I just run into them constantly and we stop and chat for one minute and it's very nice. I find it very relaxing way to live a life.

Kate: It also sounds like very before times like,

Marisa: Oh yeah.

Kate: I remember this time when we would just run into people and that is how we saw them. Everything is so Dore and I were just recapping an episode of the OC where people just knock on each other's doors to check in on how they're doing, which feels that doesn't happen anymore. We're always just texting. So there's something so human about running into people and that feeling and that long conversation and standing on the street corner and it's such a good feeling.

Marisa: It's partially, I think it's something that would be hard to do in LA just because of the nature of how people are spread out and stuff. So I'm going to say it's one of the few advantages of living in New York and I dunno, people can make fun of me for living in a hipster neighborhood, but it's really, there's a certain amount of efficiency to it that makes, that's sort of self-care. I can just go and I have my walk and I feel like I've talked to a few people and then I can go home and be alone and write or whatever I have to do for my job, which is often kind of solitary and feel I still make plans. I'm not like a hermit. I still make plans with friends, but there is that level of people in your lives that making plans with can be stressful. I dunno if I sound totally,

Doree: No, I mean I think this was one of the things that I feel like people were talking about as we were coming out of the pandemic, that those loose ties type of friends, we had lost those because we weren't out and about, we weren't running into people. We weren't having these kind of casual conversations with people that, as you say, you might not actively make plans with, but it's nice to run into them and maybe end up getting coffee with them. And these casual interactions, we had completely lost them. And so I have found that I was kind of out of practice with that. Yes, LA is different, but you still do see people run into them. That does happen for sure.

Marisa: I was like, part, everyone I know basically lives in Northeast la, right? So it's like that's not a huge area you're going to run into people at Target or Stones or whatever

Doree: You do end up running into people. And I was like, I found that I was sort of out of practice and also that I hadn't realized how much I'd missed those interactions.

Kate: Oh my gosh, yes. Or just your regular person. And that's the other thing I feel like now, I mean I really feel like I'm leaning into my Gen X here, but just the

Marisa: We're all Gen X here.

Doree: Yeah. Yes. Majorly the ways in which everything is do

Marisa: And I just made, are we all just kind of on the cutoff?

Kate: I'm 79.

Doree: I'm 77 are you?

Marisa: I'm 77. I feel like every year they're like, no, actually now millennials start at 84 or something. I feel like for a while Gen X stopped at like 75 and I was Like, oh, I think I'm a millennial. And then suddenly, yeah. Anyway,

Doree: I mean my theory about this and then we can move on, but my theory about this is that no one wanted to confront the idea that millennials were turning 40, so they just kept pushing the boundary of millennials. So it just kept being like, anyone under 40 is a millennial, and now that's sort of like, well, not really anymore.

Marisa: Yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah.

Doree: Anyway, let's talk about your book.

Kate: Want to circle back Marissa? Yeah.

Marisa: Can we circle back to Gen X vs Millennials?

Kate: Yeah. I want to talk about you as a Gen X reporter covering such a millennial brand. But first can we start with a very superficial question, which is what is your favorite Glossier product? Do you even have one?

Marisa: Oh yeah, definitely. The perfume is by far my favorite. Do Kate, I think you and I actually, I've wanted to say this to you for a long time. I think you and I the most have some kind of exact same taste in perfumes because every time you talk about them, I think I own all the ones that you talk about loving. And so we must have the same body chemistry or something because we have very similar taste in perfumes.

Doree: I love that.

Kate: Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm going to email you a list and we can compare because I love you. I love you.

Marisa: Me too. I layer a lot

Kate: You the perfume.

Marisa: I layer mine a lot. I do not. It smells really good. Layered with Keels Musk, which is one a lot of people have. It smells so good. They both have kind of a light musky scent. Sometimes I'll layer you with a sort of more summery fragrance to bring down the floral a little bit. Yeah. But U is my favorite. Also, the deodorant is kind of expensive for deodorant, considering I go through it quickly. But it's good. I like it a lot. And I'm pretty picky about deodorant formulations. I think like Boy Brow, I don't use any other brow product. I think it's really good. And then Cloud Paint, the liquid blush I think is so beautiful. I use Puff, which is their sort of very light pink, which is I think good for pale skin. It just gives me a really nice blush. Yeah, it's good. I have products I don't like to, but those are, I don't like them all, but those are my favorites.

Doree: And you came into reporting on the brand and Emily Weiss very early on, her journey starts before Glossier. Can you give us the backstory on how you started covering her as a reporter and what your parallel journey has been?

Marisa: Yeah. Well, I think probably many people. I first saw her on The Hills. I was watching that show in 2007, and she appeared, I think on a three episode arc as this hyper capable New York City intern who was just so different from Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port, but was also really kind of what New York City fashion and media sort of girlies were like. It was in reality tv. You finally got this dose of actual reality, but she was also an intern on steroids. She was like, that's Chin. This is a cottage Rose, what kind of 20 year old is this? And then years later I heard that she was launching a beauty blog or saw the beauty blogs right around the time it had come out called Into the Gloss. And I read it and always thought it was pretty good and fun and it had a lot of very intimate interviews with people and just fun beauty recommendations. It was sort of the early days when things were less codified. So someone talking about what they bought when they went to a French pharmacy was pretty novel and exciting and I was taking notes. And then so our sort of professional relationship, I guess started just because I would be writing a story on platinum hair for the New York Times and she had just dyed her hair platinum, so she would be a source or someone that I sort of interviewed. And then I met her for the first time on a beach in Mexico over the holidays because I just recognized her and she was topless on the beach.

Kate: That's right.

Marisa: Which wasn't a super topless beach. And I was just like, is it weird for me to go up to someone who's topless and introduce and be like, I know we've never met in person. And I was like, no, I'll just go and say hi. And I did. And it was kind of exactly as weird, but sort of nice I guess as you would expect. And then I profiled her a couple times when she started Glossier, the beauty company.

Doree: Although as you write about in your book when you initially had trouble getting magazine editors to think she was newsworthy,

Kate: that was amazing.

Marisa: Yeah, I was shocked because as soon as I found out that Into The Gloss was launching a beauty brand, I was like, oh, this is a perfect story. I'm going to pitch it to some of my editors. And they were sort of like, is it a tech story? Is it a media story? Is it a beauty brand story? One editor kind of thought it was competition to their publication because Into The Gloss. And so it was my first sort of understanding that what I thought was this really buzzy company with a charismatic leader that was going to be huge was not something that was an easy sell, especially to people who had not been following the company or the story all along. Of course, that changed quickly, but even Vogue didn't even really cover Glossier for a couple years, but then by then Glossier was valued at a billion dollars within four or five years of its debut. So it was rocketed out there.

Doree: So for people who might not be familiar, can you just give us the very quick rundown of what you talk about in your book? Just the history of how Glossier came to be. Because one thing that struck me as I was reading this is I sort of forgotten how quickly it all happened.

Kate: Yeah, totally.

Doree: I remember, so my novel came out in 2017 and my novel was about the New York Tech world. And Glossier had me come in, I talked to some of their, I came in and talked to some of their employees about my book.

Marisa: Did you do one of the famous fireside chat?

Doree: It wasn't like a real fireside chat. Emily Weiss was not in charge of it. It was some other, I forget who it was.

Marisa: We did talk about Yeah, the fireside chats are in there. Yeah,

Doree: I think it was like they were doing a book club or something.

Marisa: But anyway, that's cool. Yeah,

Doree: It was very cool. And I remember thinking, oh, this is so cool. Glossier is so cool. And that was,

Marisa: Their office is beautiful,

Doree: Their office is beautiful. They had the store that people were lined up to get into because they were still on Lafayette. And as I was reading your book, I was like, oh my gosh, they had only launched, what, a year before that or something? They launched in a year in 2015

Marisa: October, 2014. So all pretty quickly, but also they launched. Okay, so I guess talking about Glossier. So when they, Emily Weiss who had founded Into the Gloss, and it was kind of the go-to beauty blog of that era. And at some point she had the idea to branch out into products and maybe more, maybe there'd be an app, who knows. And she decided to, she had all of this sort of data from just people talking about their favorite products. And there was also a very robust and actually pretty non-problematic community of commenters. People were very cheerful and helpful in the comments about I stuff. And so there was just this very big community and they could use that to help pinpoint products to formulate. And so when debuted in late 2014, they only had a couple products. There were four, and it wasn't even a full routine. There was no cleanser yet. There was no sunscreen. And I remember even then being like, this feels kind random, But now it's normal to start a brand and have two great products or something. But I think I was still more in this, I didn't think it was going to be, but I thought there would be maybe five lipsticks shades and a full skin routine or something. And so even I had to adjust what my expectations were for their launch, but also it was kind of inspired by Supreme or street wear brands that would give you a little bit of time and make you so excited for what are they coming up with next. And there was also this idea of, oh, we want to come out with more stuff, but we're tweaking it and getting your feedback of what you're like, which is very ideal cleanser

Doree: Which is very tech Company of them to be so iterative and all that.

Marisa: Exactly.

Doree: All that kind of stuff.

Marisa: Yeah. So it's interesting because beauty is all about going back and forth with cosmetic chemists and perfecting something and testing it, and tech is more about iterations and getting something on the market and all of that. And they kind of wanted it both ways. So anyway, so Glossier was a startup. They were funded with VC money. They were direct to consumer, which was sort of all the rage at the time. And they took off very quickly both in terms of popularity and they were just sort of this company that embodied so much of the time. The millennial pink packaging, they sort of roughly took off at the same time the Instagram was taking off. So these perfect pictures of your shelf with your products and your burned down dip candle all looked very in place with the early aesthetics of Instagram. Emily Weiss herself was lumped in with some other female founders as the girl bosses. Let's see, what else was there? Just the sort of defining makeup look for a while had been that sort of heavily contoured YouTube Kardashian face. And while that didn't go away, Glossier was also this sort of alternative or something you could wear. It sort of said you could be that person that does a full face or goes out like that, but you can also be someone who just wants a few products to smear on other days or someone like me that just has never been, I have no ability to have any artistry in my makeup. I just want to smear some stuff on so that I don't look like I have jaundice or dying or something like that. And so they really appealed to me. And so Glossier became this company that within just a few was valued at a billion dollars. Emily Weiss was on a Time magazine cover. I profiled her for a giant piece in Vanity Fair. And she had this treatment that women CEOs and founders don't usually get and was sort of taken seriously and eyes were that maybe she would be the millennial version of a Phil Knight or something like that. And she certainly spoke like that. And then the pandemic hit and a lot of issues hit gloss once, like retail closures. There were some issues brought forth with former employees about working conditions and how that there was this idea that maybe their aesthetic was getting a little, they weren't moving along with the times that people were feeling a little bit like it was more of the same that they were changing formulas. And then about a little over a year ago, Emily Weiss, right before she was about to give birth to her first child, announced that she was stepping down the CEO and a Harvard Business School graduate was taken over. So this book really bookends this act in this woman's life and this phase in this company and asking the question of is this the end? Is this a plateau? Are they about to have a rebirth? But also just a way to understand the last decade or so of culture and business and beauty and all those things.

Kate: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back. It is just wild to having lived through it, of being like glossy is so cool to that sudden feeling, which you described in the book of like, oh, this isn't as cool anymore. Where do you see the brand going in the next 10 years after having this kind of massive rise? And also what do you see in terms of culture too as it kind of mirrors has gone on with Glossier?

Marisa: Well, it's hard because the beauty market is just so oversaturated when Brad Pitt decides to have a beauty line.

Kate: I mean,

Marisa: I've never tried the products. I've heard that they're great, but not really.

Doree: They're so expensive.

Marisa: I'm not the target market. I'm not buying that.

Kate: Yeah,

Marisa: I mean, maybe I'm the target, maybe women in their forties is exactly who they think will be buying that stuff, but I dunno. But yeah, so it's like Glossier is dealing with hurdles now that they just didn't have to deal with when they came out originally. And so you have rare beauty kind of having the same aesthetic as Glossier and some of the same messaging, but with the sort of added oomph of Selena Gomez being one of the most famous people in the world and huge with a younger audience. I think glossier is very fond of calling themselves. We're year nine of a hundred year old brand or something like that. And I don't want to say that's wishful thinking, but I do think it's their future. The words of the Hills theme song is unwritten, it's uncertain. They have spent the last year or so sort of trying to reboot themselves by having this messaging of we know who we are now. We're a beauty company, we're in Sephora. All these new people are going to be introduced to us. We're scaling the brand and coming out with a proper foundation for the first time. I believe the brand still does pretty well on TikTok. I think anecdotally, there seems to be a lot of Gen Z fans. The Sephora Stash is always looted and sold out. So I do think that there's a lot of potential there. I talk about in my book, and I always come back to it's, and I don't know if this is the same with you, but when I discovered Mac, I was probably in high school or college. It was a Nordstrom I think. And it was years, maybe over a decade away from its founding. I knew nothing about really its activism or that it was founded by makeup artists or anything really. I just knew that the colors seemed cool, that it was, I think what Natalie Umbrulia was wearing in the torn video, that it really spoke to me and I didn't need to know the backstory to feel connected to it. And I think that there is still that potential connection that could happen with Glossier, but it's also a crowded market. Those people might be going to different brands or their loyalty might come from some brand that we haven't heard of yet.

Doree: And when you think about their iconic products, it's boy brow, it's Cloud paint, it's Milky Jelly Cleanser, it's you, but I might be off base here, but it doesn't seem like since the pandemic, they've released anything that has really hit in the same way that those products have.

Marisa: Yeah, I mean I think that is one of their biggest challenges is product development and that sort of magic touch that they had early on. And I think part of that is no one who was there in the early days is there anymore. Part of that is a victim of their own success because being a former Glossier employee, the brand was so hot, could get you all kinds of really well paying jobs or a lot of those people went on to found lines themselves. And also I just think people burn out faster in this era. You're seeing something so much on social media that it's just easier to get tired of something or to feel saturated by it.

Doree: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. Can we talk about the way that Emily Weiss protects her image? I was so fascinated by the way you wrote about how she had kind of been cultivating and protecting her image since the time she was in high school.

Kate: Yeah, it's fascinating.

Doree: And you have that one anecdote of how her publicist reaches out to invite you over to her apartment while she makes a frittata. And it's like this huge,

Marisa: we kind of made it together to be honest, but yeah.

Doree: Okay, fair. But it's like this huge deal. She's never done anything like this before and that was so interesting to me. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that and how that both helped and hurt her ultimately.

Marisa: Yeah, so she is one of those people that people universally remember her from earlier in their lives from college. The way that actually, I hear people who went to college with Lady Gaga talk about her, where it was like,

Doree: oh, interesting.

Marisa: Love her or hate her. You totally remember her from your NYU classes. Emily Weiss also went to NYU and people really remembered her like, oh yeah, she was in my study abroad program and she showed up every day wearing Prada, but then was weird about it when I complimented her on it. She's someone whose high school yearbook quotes were, one was from Calvin Coolidge about perseverance or persistence, and the other was from Carter about fashion and style.

Kate: That was so funny when you compared it with the other yearbook page.

Marisa: One of the others was Winnie the Pooh and Vanilla Sky. So yeah, I mean, she just was this kind of singular person seemingly out of the womb. And she had this real drive and ability to ask for things that most people would feel really awkward about doing. Like, Hey, I know you work at Ralph Lauren and I'm your babysitter, but I'd actually rather be an intern at Ralph Lauren. And it worked. I would've never done that when I was 16 and I was still kind of, I wasn't like a wallflower. I was a pretty bold 16 year old I guess as they go. But that would've been no way. I wouldn't even have known how to do that. Do you know what I mean?

Doree: Right. Yes.

Marisa: I would've awkwardly tried to write a letter or something to them, you know what I mean? I didn't know how to operate in the world in that kind of self-assured way yet. Took me a long time. But she seemed to know, and as she sort of got more in the public eye as a business person, I don't know if always knew or just realized that she didn't want to be like the other girls, or she didn't want to have to do something where to be covered in a magazine. She had to show her outfits for every day at the office. You know what I mean? She wanted to be covered like a man. I would argue that actually we're as interested in the personal lives of famous men in business, especially the age of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, that that's some internalized misogyny, but that's another topic. But yeah, I mean she just had this sense of this is how I want to be seen by the world, and that's pretty rare and fascinating.

Kate: It reminds me of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy too. She was in high school knowing who she was at her core, the people who were like, I always knew I loved fashion. And you talk about her childhood and how she was an anomaly in her family. She didn't grow up with fashiony parents.

Marisa: She wasn't some daughter of a socialite or something.

Doree: She wasn't Schaefer.

Marisa: Yeah, exactly. There's a certain kind of girl that goes into fashion and it's like, oh look, here's this photo of me as a toddler trying on my mom's Chanel. Cute. So funny. And yeah, of course it makes sense that those people, this is just the world they grew up in. And while she grew up seemingly very upper middle class or above, it wasn't a fashion family. Her dad worked at Pitney Bowes, they lived in Connecticut. Her mom was an artist and stay-at-home mom. That was not her world going to New York and the world of Manhattan wasn't as far off as it would be if you were growing up in Oklahoma or living, growing up in another country or something. But it wasn't exactly her backyard either.

Kate: I was really interested, and this is circling back to what you were talking about earlier, but one anecdote that comes up a few times, and this is just, it clicked for me, this is something we've dealt with in podcasting, is when she's trying to sell her company trying to get money, she runs into pitching to men who rather than express curiosity about the brand, say they're going to go give it to their wife to try out. And

Marisa: It drives me crazy.

Kate: And this is something Doree and I have experienced in talking to podcast companies, and I think it had never dawned on me what a common refrain this must be. And I just thought you did such a great job kind of talking about the misogyny she was up against, but also the ways in which she also benefited from her whiteness and the ways in which that influenced her role and her success. This is maybe more of an observation than a question, but I just thought you discussed both things, so in such an interesting way.

Marisa: Yeah, I mean, I guess I should not be this appalled that these things happen, but it just really drives me nuts, this idea. The other thing they would say is, let me have my admin try it out, which also seems very podcast too. And it's like, God forbid, you have to show some interest for your job, something that you don't think is squarely marketed towards you. And by the way, everyone should be wearing moisturizer and sunscreen. This isn't exactly, it's not like period underwear or something. Or also they should, might as well try on period underwear too. That stuff is great for camping. It makes me feel like they're not good at their jobs. That lack of curiosity Is a real issue when it comes to financing. So if someone who is tall and conventionally beautiful and thin and white and well-educated, well-spoken very moves through the world with a huge amount of ease, like Emily Weiss is still facing that kind of challenge. I can't even fathom how hard it must be for anyone else. And I think that is something that hit me hard in the reporting and is really worth thinking about. And hopefully if men can bring themselves to read a business book with a pink cover that they too will be thinking about those things.

Kate: Well, you talk about this idea of brand friendships and how that is very kind of specific to women, and it got me thinking about almost how we have these parasocial relationships with corporations and brands, and also how this time really kind of brought into us into the space of our brand is the brands we use are our identity, but ultimately this is just very effective marketing. The concept of brand friendship can't exist in capitalism, right? We're just all being taken for a ride.

Marisa: I mean, yes, but also that's the world that we live in. Whatcha going to do move off the grid and reject everything and

Kate: No more Glossier

Marisa: Yeah, you can't really, I think if anything, the villain of this story is capitalism and this kind of system that sets people up for both success and failure. And it's kind of a rigged game in a lot of ways. And so is beauty glossy is selling you this myth of friendship when copy around their concealer. That's like, you don't need concealer, but if you want it. But it's like they're still selling you concealer. They're still asking you to follow them on social media so that they can track your moves and you can be on top of everything that they want to sell you. But the alternative is simply to, I don't know, not participate in any way in the world. And that's both impossible and not very fun. So I think that probably the best step we can take is just to be cognizant and aware that we are constantly being sold things, products, but also stories about the brands. And it's okay to have affinity for brands. I certainly do, but they're not your friends. They're not going to stick with you in the hard times unless it's like Nestle's chocolate chip cookies in which they have stuck with me in the hard times.

Doree: Do you have any events or anything that you want to plug that will be happening after the episodes airs?

Marisa: I don't have any. I don't. I'm very open to events. Please send me out to please get me out of New York and have me come and speak to you. I accept all offers probably

Kate: awesome.

Marisa: But mostly I just want people to read the book and to dm me with all of their thoughts, gossip, idle chatter, anytime they met someone at Glossier and had a bitchy or nice thing to say, this is why I wrote the book, basically. Amazing to hear all of that.

Doree: And before we let you go, you're working on another book, right?

Marisa: Yeah, I mean, I haven't started it yet because I got the book deal sort of right as all of this Glossier promotion was starting to come out. But my next book is a biography of Jane Birkin and going to interrogate the idea of the French girl myth, sort of the same way that the girl is the background of this gloss story. I see this invention of the perfect French girl is the background of the Jane Burkin story.

Kate: Oh my god, I cannot wait.

Doree: Amazing.

Kate: And also, I have to shout out your previous book. This is Big. I loved so much.

Marisa: Oh, thank you.

Kate: It's all about the founder of Weight Watchers, but also you really talk about your personal story and it's just fucking great.

Marisa: Oh, thank you.

Kate: Get all of Marissa's books and have a great, and Marissa,

Doree: If people do want to send you those dishy dms, where can they do that?

Kate: Yeah, where do we send them to

Marisa: On Instagram? I'm @MarissaMeltzer. It's my first name, last name, and yeah, marissameltzer.com is my website. I think it just has my one and only email on it. I'm not very mysterious or hard to find.

Doree: Well, thank you so much. This was so fun. And yes, everyone please read Marissa's book. It's really great.

Kate: It's great. You're going to love it.

Marisa: Thank you.

Kate: Well, I really do just want to plug Marissa's book because it is just such a fun and fast read and it's really fascinating, and I think she just does such a great even-handed job of digging into beauty culture of the last 10 years, as told through the prominent white woman girl boss lens.

Doree: Well, one thing that I did think about a lot as I was reading the book, and she brings this up as well, is it doesn't seem like that long ago, but things have really changed just sort of culturally,

Kate: Societally, even just style wise. Yeah. Even just kind of talking about millennials becoming not cool anymore. Maybe they cool,

Doree: Right? Yes. But today launching a makeup line with three shades of foundation.

Kate: Oh my gosh.

Doree: And we didn't even get into that with Marissa, but that's something that she talks about in her book. So I don't know. There was just a lot in there that I was like, oh my gosh, yes, that wow. That wouldn't happen now. Anyway, Kate, last week, your intention was my ankle, fuck my life. How is that going?

Kate: I have a very bad sprained ankle. Well, I did finally get to go see an orthopedic ankle doctor yesterday at the same place where my hand surgeon works. So that was just keeping it all in the family. And the exciting news is that my ankle's definitely just sprained. I didn't tear anything, which is good. And I can ride a stationary bike and I can walk, which I'm excited about. He was like, no hiking. And I was like, no shit, but also no pickleball for a while, which is a really big bummer because pickleball is a big part of just my joy, but I'm really glad that I can just kind of move a little bit and walk my dog without worrying. And he was even like, don't worry about icing it unless you really need to. It's just going to be swollen for a while. And I was like, okay. So I'm going to start physical therapy and ankle strength, I guess. Take care of those ankles. We're getting old. We're getting old. So I'm doing it. I'm doing it, and I'm feeling a little bit better. My foot looked, it's still swollen and bruised, but much better.

Doree: Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that.

Kate: This week I am really focusing on, well, a couple things I want to focus on just being more patient with my kids. I feel like I've been really just kind of exasperated lately. I'm on a big work deadline and I'm just finding myself being really short. And one thing that when I've had the time to do a quick meditation, actually I did one just the other day with past Forever35 guest Chelsea Jackson Roberts. I've been really focusing on doing loving kindness meditations, which I have always really liked, but haven't done in a while. And if you're not familiar, it's basically just like a meditation practice of focusing on kindness, not just toward yourself and the people that you love, but also folks that you don't know and also folks that you might not love. Yeah, it's challenging. I've taken workshops in it in the past with Sharon Salzberg, who's a big meditation teacher who really is focused on this. And so I kind of have just been revisiting that as something that might be good for me. It's a lot of intentions there.

Doree: Yeah.

Kate: Anyway, how about you? You had to get back into bedtime mode when we last talked.

Doree: I've pretty good about that.

Kate: Okay.

Doree: Pretty good about it.

Kate: Pretty good is good. Yeah.

Doree: Yeah. And then this week, it's that time again for the Jewish High Holidays.

Kate: Wow. This year went by so fast.

Doree: I know.

Kate: Are you going to Temple this year?

Doree: I am.

Kate: Okay. Rosh Hashanah is soon.

Doree: Rosh Hashanah is soon. It's like two days after this episode airs three days, two days, yeah. It starts the 15th. The night of the 15th. Yeah. I'm just not going back to the same place I went last year. Didn't love that place. Going back to somewhere that I've gone before, that's doing the services in a slightly more convenient location to my house, which is always important. And yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Kate: Well, happy early New Year to you.

Doree: Thank you so much, Kate. Alright, well Forever35 is hosted and produced by me Doree Shafrir, and Kate Spencer and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, our note partners Acast. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye.

Kate: Bye.

Full EpisodesForever 35 PodcastSeptember 13, 2023