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In episode 151 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Supernova Body, Cici Stefanova. By virtue of my job, I’m asked pretty often which beauty brands I’m genuinely excited by or who I think both the industry and consumers should be keeping an eye on, and for the last 18 months my first answer has been Supernova Body without a second of hesitation.  This brand is everything I love in a new brand- the products are genuinely innovative and fill a legitimate market gap, it’s making beauty fun and sexy and that’s what beauty is to me, and it’s led by a founder who is only in this for the right reasons. Cici actually reminds me a lot of Deciem and The Ordinary’s Nicola Kilner, who I often cite as one of my all time favourite guests, as they’re both really beautiful examples of female founders leading with kindness.  Supernova Body is an active, high performance body care brand, formulated specifically to target and treat body acne, that Cici launched in 2024 following four years of product development and, in this episode, Cici very kindly gave me an exclusive on the brand’s next launch coming in early 2026…  In this conversation, Cici shares how she landed Sephora UK as Supernova’s very first retailer, some of the unexpected benefits of remaining D2C and self funded for the first year, and why her exit interview from British Vogue didn’t go quite as expected. Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Supernova Body on Instagram @supernova.body Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 150 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks once again to the founder and CEO of Conserving Beauty, Natassia Nicolao.  I mentioned earlier this season that, given we’re now 7 seasons in, I wanted to go back and revisit some of my favourite beauty brand stories- I wanted to bring back previous guests from earlier seasons and look at how their brands and the beauty industry at large has evolved since we last recorded.  For the uninitiated, Conserving Beauty is Australia’s first ever waterless beauty brand, the first beauty brand globally to be part of the Water Footprint network, the first Australian beauty brand to be backed by both government and impact investment funds, and the brand behind the world’s first dissolving facial wipes. Natassia launched the brand when she was just 27 years old.  Since we last spoke the brand has launched into Mecca and Priceline locally as well as expanding into the UK and US markets, the latter of which is now responsible for a whopping 70% of the brand’s revenue. What I found the most interesting, however, is that the data that Natassia and her team have gathered over the last 3 and a half years has shown them that their customer is actually not who they initially thought it was, and how they’ve changed tack to make sure they’re formulating for and marketing to the right consumers.  In this conversation, Natassia shares exactly how they’ve pivoted for an audience they didn’t realise was theirs’, how she’s approaching Conserving Beauty’s US launch differently from their UK launch, and why the pharmacy customer has proven surprisingly lucrative.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Conserving Beauty on Instagram @conservingbeauty Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've been on the Insta for some time, this is essentially a 40 minute #notsponsoredjustgood. Another solo episode this week, wrapping up the year (almost- still a few guest episodes left in Season 7) with my favourite new beauty launches of 2025. We'll add the full list in these shownotes eventually but, for now, enjoy. Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I almost ran out of P words and alliteration is important here. I promised you more solo episodes last year, and in absolutely no way have I delivered. Here's one! A little life update, then answering your questions on work, my studies, how I got into MCing, and whether or not I think PR sendouts actually move product... then into some beauty chat about prescription actives and wedding perfumes. As always, thank you to everyone who submitted questions! Stay up to date on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 149 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the Naturium, Susan Yara. Two years before Hailey Bieber sold Rhode to e.l.f. Beauty, Susan Yara and her team sold Naturium to the beauty juggernaut for $355 million USD.  The Naturium growth story is the kind of story you hear and think “This could be a Netflix doco.” Susan, naturally, tells it better than I do, but this may be one of the biggest beauty comebacks in recent history.  Susan Yara, then a popular YouTuber, joined Naturium in a founder and CEO role in the year 2020. There was a controversy, the internet called for her to be cancelled, but against the odds the brand achieved a whopping 80% compound annual growth rate and were acquired by e.l.f. for that eye watering $355 million in 2023- just three years post-launch. This week, Naturium launches into Sephora Australia (into physical stores TODAY), with Susan still very much fronting the brand and, as she tells me, “getting to do all the fun stuff.”  So. How did she do it? In this conversation, Susan shares a timeline of that 2020 controversy, whether “clean” means anything in 2025, and why your customer’s return rate is the most important stat to be looking at .  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Naturium on Instagram @naturium Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 148 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Haléau Beauty, Eleanor Pendleton. Eleanor Pendleton knows beauty. She was the youngest Beauty Editor in Australia, taking the title at FAMOUS magazine when she was only 20 years old and has spent the better part of the last two decades in beauty publishing, largely at the helm of her own publication, Gritty Pretty.  Eleanor is an unbelievable example of a journalist who has been able to not just adapt to but embrace the changing face of the media landscape of whatever we’re calling it, and to this day I really think nobody navigated that change better than Eleanor and her Gritty Pretty team- it was the gloss and the production value of a magazine, but it was digital and, most importantly, it was honest. That in mind, there are very few people I’d trust more than Eleanor to create their own beauty line.  Haléau Beauty, a skin-first, Australian made cosmetics line, launches today, October 1st, and Eleanor so kindly gave me the exclusive. This is a brand that harnesses, quite literally, two decades worth of insider beauty knowledge and places it in our hands.  In this conversation, Eleanor shares how she convinced advertisers to buy into Gritty Pretty when she had no product to show them, her advice for anyone wanting to break into the beauty media landscape in 2025, and why she’s chosen to document the entire Haléau launch process via Substack.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Haléau on Instagram @haleaubeauty Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Mecca execs Georgie Gilbert and Camille Peressini had access to just about every luxury body care brand on the market. They’re also both mums- realistically, are you buying and using a high end body wash in the shower with your husband and kids? No, you’re doing a supermarket run and picking up something there. Both Georgie and Camille knew, however, that the supermarket body care offering was uninspiring. The products didn’t look or feel luxe, the scents were generic, and it felt like the accessible options weren’t formulated or designed with beauty consumers in mind.  Enter, SOMA. If the gap itself wasn’t compelling enough, consider that Georgie and Camille were given a 10 week launch timeline from Woolworths. That’s 10 weeks to strategise, formulate, package and market an entirely new brand, all while keeping that accessible price point in mind, and have it on the shelves of over 1000 Woolies stores nationwide in less than three months.  In this conversation, Georgie and Camille share how they’re going about converting habitual supermarket shoppers who’ve been buying the same body wash for decades, the intricacies of creating body care packaging that’s fully and easily recyclable, and what happens when your product accidentally goes viral on TikTok before you’ve officially launched.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Bronte Body Care on Instagram @brontebodycare Follow SOMA on Instagram @somapersonalcare Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 146 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of sans [ceuticals], Lucy Vincent.  We’re increasingly seeing brands bring new sustainability initiatives to the table, but the reality is that the most sustainable thing you can do is to stop producing more things. Now that’s never going to happen, is it, so the challenge here is for beauty brands to figure out how we as consumers can still experience beauty in the way we want, without compromise, but with as minimal a footprint as is possible.  I use the word “challenge” but that doesn’t feel like it has anywhere near enough gravitas when talking about what Lucy Vincent has achieved at sans [ceuticals]. She founded the brand in around 2007 and has always been very much ahead of the curve, across formulation, design, and sustainability, but this week has seen the launch of Perpetual- a completely waterless haircare range, housed in canisters that are designed to be held onto forever that have been crafted from waste to take existing plastic out of circulation, with refill cartons made from discarded sugarcane leaves that can be returned to the earth via compost when you’re done.  In seven years of this podcast, I’m not sure that I’ve ever spoken to someone who has considered every single step of the supply chain so thoroughly.  In this conversation, Lucy shares the importance of knowing how to do a number of roles within your business, why every day presents an opportunity for learning, and why your “recyclable” beauty products may not be all they appear to be.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow sans [ceuticals] on Instagram @sansceuticals Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 145 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks once again to Rachael Wilde- the founder of both Bouf Haircare and tbh Skincare.  Rach has been on the show before, back in April 2022, to talk about tbh, but this is the first time a founder has joined me for a second time to talk about an entirely new brand. I wanted to talk predominantly about Bouf today, so if you do want to hear about the tbh launch and Rach’s story as a founder, you can find that episode back in season 4. That said, we did have over three years of tbh catch up to do and, in Rach’s words, the last 3 years have really been where everything has happened- the brand launched into over 400 Priceline stores in March 2023 and Coles later that year, merged with Boost Lab the following month to create parent company York St Brands, and rebranded earlier this year ahead of global expansion.  Bouf, Rachael’s newest venture and the third brand within the York St stable, was developed in a similar manner to tbh- Rachael was presented with patented hair growth tech called the FGF5 protein, she looked at the clinical, tried it herself over several months, and upon seeing results, decided to take that tech to market in the form of a shampoo, conditioner, leave in treatment, hair growth tonic and a digestible hair growth supplement.  In this conversation, Rachael shares the reason behind that now infamous Bouf launch campaign that saw brand ambassador Indy Clinton wearing a wig, the detail behind 2023’s York St Brands merger and tbh skincare’s subsequent growth, and how she and her team survived an internet hate campaign that, quite literally, captured the attention of the world.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Bouf on Instagram @boufhaircare Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 144 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Imbibe, Felicity Evans.  Felicity’s founder story is really different to my usual guests in that she never really set out to create a “brand.” I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to show you how many different shapes the startup journey, so to speak, can take. The short version- Felicity wanted to overhaul her health, so she started making probiotic drinks in her kitchen. Her friends and family saw a change in her skin, her hair, her energy, and her health, so she started making up batches for them. Word spread, local retailers started asking if they could stock her products, and over a decade on Imbibe is a fully fledged beauty and wellness brand with SKUs spanning ingestible and topical skincare. There’s a lot you can take from this, but what I find the most interesting is the finding-the-right-manufacturer piece- if you set out specifically with the goal of becoming a “brand founder,” hearing the word “no” time and time again (a startup inevitability) would be really disheartening. In Felicity’s case, she didn’t necessarily want to start a brand, so hearing a “no” was kind of a straightforward “okay, well you’re not the right manufacturer.” Business wasn’t her primary motivator- her primary motivator was just getting a shelf stable version of her product to the people who wanted it. In this conversation, Felicity shares why the hotel space has become one of her most interesting and fruitful distribution channels, the many ways inflammation can show up in the body, and why she’s always used her customers as her biggest influencers.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Imbibe on Instagram @imbibeliving Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 143 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks once again to the co founder of Frank Body, Bree Johnson.  This is something I’d been thinking about doing for a while and, for whatever reason, season 7 feels like the right time to do it.  I had Bree and her Frank co founder, Jess Hatzis, on the podcast back in 2018, season 1- back when I thought this would just be a miniseries on the business of beauty. What I’d been wanting to do is bring back previous guests from the first few seasons and look at not just how their brand has evolved in the 7 or so years since I last interviewed them, but also get their take on the evolution of the beauty industry as a whole since we last did a deep dive and compare their answers from then to now.  Bree was the perfect founder to do this with. She was SO down to compare her previous answers to today’s feelings, I’ve worked with Bree and the larger frank team a lot over the last decade, I MC’d their newest launch on Monday so it has been really fun to just immerse myself in the Frank world this week. On top of that, Bree is a branding and beauty MASTERMIND. So few brands have been able to achieve what Frank has achieved, globally, so this was a really fun chat for me not just from a beauty perspective but from a marketing perspective.  Something I loved talking to Bree about was how she knew it was time to step away from her day-to-day role at Frank Body. Bree is still on the advisory board at Frank but isn’t there day-to-day anymore, so she’s got some really beautiful insight to share on knowing when the time is right for such a big change, navigating that change, and the identity piece that comes along with it. In this conversation, Bree shares her thoughts on how new businesses can cut through the noise on social media with a 2025 lens, why frank body has moved away from novelty launches and has moved into high performance body care, and we compare her take on the state of the beauty industry with the answers she gave me back in season 1.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Frank Body on Instagram @frank_bod Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 142 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Ficifolia Fragrances, Sophie Marcoux.  Ficifolia Fragrances is only two and a half years old, in which time Sophie has launched 6 individual perfumes as well as the fragrance Flight Deck- a first-to-market offering that I consider one of the most a beautiful examples of thinking outside the box when it comes to converting customers, regardless of industry, that I’ve come across. I had some questions for Soph about brand building, as that’s really the cornerstone of her professional background. She said that for her, it’s about “creating a world that people want to return to.” I made note of that while she was speaking and it’s stuck with me. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I think this was the perfect episode to start the season with because as much as we do talk about beauty and how that space lights us up, there’s so many business nuggets in here- why your journey to starting a brand doesn’t have to be linear, why the market circuit is so beneficial for startups, we talked a bit about the natural vs synthetic debate (which, as you can imagine, I have a lot of thoughts on)… just a really juicy but fun chat about a fragrance brand that I am personally obsessed with.  In this conversation, Sophie the importance of bringing in someone objective to assist with making decisions that may be too close to your brand, how she’s giving e-commerce customers a tactile entry point to the world of Ficifolia, and we both share some of our thoughts on beauty dupe culture.  Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Ficifolia Fragrances on Instagram @ficifoliafragrances Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back! I'm back on mic and it feels good. It feels different, and I feel different, but it feels good. Here's an update on why I've been so quiet on here since November, plus a little bit of a listener Q&A on ageing, botox, everything showers and switching off. Season 7 baby, let's do it. Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wrapping up Season 6 with another solo episode! To wind up an incredible incredible year I'm answering your questions- we're talking my semi-recent PCOS diagnosis, 2025 beauty predictions, New Year's Resolutions and a few more career questions for good measure. Thank you once again to everyone who submitted such thoughtful questions. I will see you next year for Season 7 (!) of the Glow Journal Podcast! Stay up to date on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 141 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the co founder of Outside Beauty & Skincare, Maddison Brown.  Outside Beauty & Skincare is not your average celebrity beauty brand. I already knew this, but it just becomes more and more clear the longer you speak to Maddison for.  Given how impressive her career has been thus far (acting opposite Nicole Kidman when she was still a teenager, then spending 4 seasons in the role of Kirby Anders in Dynasty on The CW), you’d be forgiven for assuming this is another private label brand- an existing product with a celebrity endorsement attached. But this is so far from the case here. Outside Beauty & Skincare, which launched in January of this year, is just Maddison and her sister, Allyson. They’ve self-funded, they spent the 12 months prior to launch working through every single stage of starting a business themselves, and in just under a year they’ve brought four (five if we include the Kabuki brush) really, really beautiful sun protection products to market (with plenty more in the pipeline).  In this conversation, Maddison shares the surprising differences in the response to Dynasty across Europe and Australia compared to the show’s home in the US, her refreshingly level-headed approach to social media (and the media in general), and why she thinks Australia’s famously strict regulations around sunscreen are a really, really positive thing. Read more at glowjournal.com Follow Outside Beauty & Skincare on Instagram @outsidebeautyskincare Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.