The Bossticks - Drunk Elephant's Founder & Chief Creative Officer Tiffany Masterson On Skincare, Beauty Routines, & Questionable Skincare Ingredients

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

#221: On this episode we sit down with Tiffany Masterson, the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of the mega skincare brand, Drunk Elephant. Tiffany came in to discuss skincare, beauty routines questionable ingredients and more. This episode covers a lot of ground for those of you who are interested in learning more about beautiful skin and how to take care of it.  To learn more about Drunk Elephant click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Vistaprint Vistaprint is offering our listeners 50% off one item to help you showcase your brand, customize office supplies etc. Just go to vistaprint.com/tscpodcast and use code TSCPODCAST now through November 4th. This episode is brought o you by Equal Parts Get into the rhythm of the kitchen, with friendly and inviting cookware, coaching, and guidance from Equal Parts. All with free shipping and free returns. Visit Equalparts.com and get $50 off any cookware kit over $200 with code SKINNY Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Skinker is expensive and formulating is expensive and all that. So the goal is to just have people really, really see a date. difference from the products. They want to come back. They want to not only come back and buy the same product they just tried, but the whole line instead. Having people have believed that it's made an impact in their life or, you know, actually change something for them, made them feel better about something is actually the goal. Drumroll, please. Welcome back, everybody, to the skinny confidential him and her show. That clip was from our guests of the show today. Tiffany Masterson, who is the founder and chief creative officer at the mega skin care brand, Drunk Elephant. On this episode, we're talking

skin care, clean skin care, beauty, how to take care of your skin. A lot of skin stuff. For those of you that are new to the show, my name is Michael Bostic and across from me, my lovely wife, Lauren Everts, the creator of the Skinny Competential. And I actually have some really exciting news. This actually went live two days ago. Tiffany was just bought by Shishito. Is that how Cito? Shishito. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. So it's news to me. Taylor, pull it up on the screen. It's called, I don't know if I'm pronouncing you right, but drunk elephant was just, especially, spending $845 million to acquire drunk elephant. Wow.

Well, I wish we would have been able to talk about that when she was on the show. We'll have to have her back on because congratulations, Tiffany. I think that's obviously some big news. Holy shit. Good for you. God damn. Amazing. There's a whole article on the internet.

845 million they are spending to acquire a drunk elephant. I am not surprised. That company gets it when it comes to branding. Michael and I have been using a bunch of their stuff. It's pregnancy safe. I personally am very much about the vitamin C serum. And guys, they're going to do a big, huge giveaway. So TSC-esque, drunk elephant has offered to give away two bags of their littles.

And the littles are so cute. It's like a mini jelly cleanser day serum, hydrating serum, night serum, facial oil, cream, all this stuff, mini, super branded. You want it on your Instagram feed. I've been using them. you're going to love them. They're going to give away two bags, so two winners. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this podcast on my latest post at the skinny confidential and follow their brand at drunk elephant on Instagram. And guys, honestly, this is probably one of my favorite giveaways that

we've done on the podcast because this is something that I really use all the time and it's so cute. But what I love most about it is that you can travel with it so you don't have to put in all this different skincare into your bag. You can just grab your basket. It's called the littles and go. on a side note, before we get into the show, we are going to start doing a question of the week from you guys to start off the show. So if you have a question and you want to be featured with your Instagram handle, you can just leave the question on my Instagram or at TSC podcast. It can be any question. Get specific. It could be anything from how to manipulate your husband into skincare or business tips or wellness tricks. Anything you want, ask away. And you'll be featured on the show.

With that, let's welcome Tiffany Masterson of the brand, mega brand, drunk elephant. I am so excited to pick her brain on everything skin. Before we dive into that, I am going to talk to you about branding. And we're going to get specific because this is something I've been talking about a lot on Instagram stories and on my blog, Vista Print. If you are a blogger or a small business owner and you have not checked out Vista print, you are missing out. I'm going to tell you exactly what I ordered from them and why I ordered each thing. So first I got business cards. They're these cute, cheeky, pink skinny confidential business cards. I got these door hangers and we weren't really funny here. We did like pictures of me with my mouth hanging open on the airplane that Michael took. And then I even got like

notepads, pens, of course. Like we wanted skinny confidential pens. T-shirts. We did the same thing with the t-shirts, my mouth hanging open. And then like this hot pink visor that the whole team wears. And then we did skinny confidential mouse pads. They're so cute and chic. And what I like about Vistaprint is you can use your own designer. So we have this graphic girl that we use. She's awesome. She knows my aesthetic and I got all the files from her and I just quickly uploaded it to VistaPrint and had everything in my office within a week. Another thing is, is my team gets so excited when they have all this when they're rocking like their hot pink visor or I know that they have their door hanger on their door handle at home. Like that gets me off. It gets me so excited. Anyway, I feel like these

details make such a huge difference overall. And it's very, it's very Chris Jenner-esque, okay? So if you want to design some items, make sure you guys use my code for 50% off one item. I personally would recommend starting with the notebook or the business card just to lay the foundation. My notebook says the skinny confidential everywhere. It's pink. It's cheeky. You could also do a funny saying. And then like I said, my business card straight to the point. I would recommend adding your Instagram handle. And then I made a business card for each member of my team. team. Make sure to use my code for 50% off one item. The code is TSC Podcast. It's in all caps. And like I said, check out the business cards, the notebooks, the pens. VistaPrint is offering all skinny confidential

listeners. Like I said, 50% off one item to help showcase your brand, customize office supplies, or pimp your blog out. Just go to vistoprint.com slash TSC podcast and use code TSC Podcast now through November 4th. Let's get back into the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Tiffany Masterson, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you here. We're talking a little bit. I got your skincare on right now.

I got all of it. I'm drunk elephant up. Glowy. Thank you. Do we? I'm going by the colors right now. So we're going to have to dive into what the colors all mean for some of the males out there that may not be as well versed. But thank you for coming on.

Thank you for having me. Can you give us a little brief introduction about how you started in the skincare business? Sure. So I have four children. I was a stay-at-home mom, and that's kind of always what I thought I would do. I started sort of selling things on the side and getting involved and kind of making a little extra money with kind of random things. I sold Arbon for a while.

I sold this bar cleanser from Malaysia that was imported by my brother-in-law and brother, and so I sold that in Houston, just kind of on the side. And I got super interested while I was doing that in ingredients. And I just started studying them, and I would have people. that would buy this bar for me and they call me and say, my skin cleared up and then it was bad again and what am I doing? And I would ask them what they were, you know, what they were using and I would look at their whole routine. And I started reading about all the ingredients. I would study the ingredient decks and then if I didn't understand something, I'd go look it up, which in the

beginning, of course, I didn't understand a ton, go go look it up, read about it. I, you know, go to lots of different sources of information and just study as much as I could. And I remember staying up late at night. I was just fascinated with that. I wasn't getting paid for it. I was just super fascinated with the skin, its function, ingredients, their roles and formulations, what they did or didn't do for skin, and maybe things that maybe didn't have to be there were just there for marketing purposes and maybe weren't there for the benefit of the skin directly. And so all of that just, and I did that for like a couple years, just reading as much as I could and making sense of it all. So then you take a trip and on the trip you find this oil. Can you talk about?

No, no, no, there was no trip. Actually, there was a trip to California. Okay. And, yeah, no, there was no trip to Africa. There was no trip. You just found this randomly. Right. Well, a lot of people think that, and rightly so, because of the story kind of gets confusing. Okay. No, I was in, I was looking for ingredients for the line. I was wanting to use apricot oil, actually, for the main moisturizer. I wanted to use a bioavailable or skin identical oil as the moisturizer because I thought creams just broke you out. In my experience, they had broken me out. So I was in Los Angeles, in an apothecary and came across marula oil and put it on my hand and fell in love with it.

And it actually had essential oils in it, which I didn't want because my skin always reacted to when I used essential oils. It just seemed wonky my skin. But I love the way it felt. I could tell it soaked right in. So I went home and got on the computer and Googled it. And these videos of elephants and other animals came up with them eating marula fruit and getting tipsy, stumbling.

And, you know, it was a really cute video. but I think I'd been struggling with what I would name this line. You know, my brother-in-law had decided to invest in me, and I knew exactly what I wanted on my counter as far as products went, and I was choosing all the ingredients, but I didn't have a name. You know, I didn't have a name. And I didn't want to call it Tiffany Masterson. I'm pretty shy, and I didn't really,

I thought I could actually launch this line and kind of stay behind the scenes, sort of. Drunk Elephant's an amazing name. I actually haven't written. I was like, where does the name come from? You just kind of answered it without me asking. That's where the name comes from. But it's incredible name. I mean, it gets, it gets just from a brand perspective, like, what is that?

You know? And I think that that's, so many people don't pay attention to, like, how important a brand and a name is. And it's like, it can do so much for a business. It has to reflect your personality, I think. And the brand is my personality. And so it's perfect because it's, it's kind of making fun. It's kind of, I'm self-deprecating.

I laugh at myself all the time. And, but I'm very serious when it comes to working hard and the product themselves working. But as far as I'm concerned, I mean, I have. fun and I laugh and it's kind of reflective so of that what was the strategy when you launched did you launch with one product did you have a strategy or did you just sort of throw it up my head my head yeah my my my strategy was super super clear it was six products to start um I would add on products as as I as I needed them personally and I was going to launch in Sephora and then eventually I would sell my company in order to help me launch it all over the world and I had a philosophy in my head

that was super, super clear. And actually, I looked around the marketplace to find other brands or products that followed this sort of philosophy that I had decided, worked well for my skin. And I couldn't find anything out there like that. So it was this philosophy of using ingredients, both synthetic and natural, all with a direct benefit to either the skin itself or the formulation, but also avoiding ingredients that I had found to be problematic for my skin that I was seeing in everything that I picked up. So that's where the suspicious six came in.

It got its name later. But in my mind, this philosophy of avoiding those six ingredients was going to allow people to use acids and allow people to figure out that maybe they didn't have sensitive skin after all, that it was just sensitized, or that they weren't really acne-prone or really didn't have an oily, you know, a combination skin, all these skin types. And I do believe in skin types to clarify that you're born with truly sensitive. you're born with truly, you know, oily or drier skin. I just don't think that they necessarily needed to be treated differently

as far as which ingredients were feeding it, feeding the skin and which ingredients we avoid for, like, for skin types that we read about on packaging, oily, combination, sensitive, acne-prone. Those sometimes, I think, can be induced by the ingredients we're using. So my philosophy was remove these six categories of ingredients, and then you have a line that everyone can use and that can sort of, you know, get past some of these mind barriers that we have. I can't use vitamin C. I can't use acids, et cetera.

Before we dive into like the specifics of skin and skin types, which I for sure want to get into, can you think back when you childhood, think like what did you, when you were growing up, did you envision yourself doing something like this? What did you want to be when you were a child? A mom. I wanted to have, my mom had four children. I wanted to have four children. I love to cook. I love to be in the kitchen. I love doing their laundry.

I love being with them and being at home. and no, I never ever, in fact, I would have laughed had you told me that I was going to be, but an entrepreneur or a professional, you know, like that, I just, that's, I just wanted to be a state-home mom. For moms that want to have it all, right? They want to do what you've done and raise a great family and also have. Give me the tips. Because I think, I mean, you're living proof of someone that's been able to do both,

and I don't think it's, I know it's not easy. So what would you tell new moms or moms that are thinking, hey, I do want to spend time with my family and develop these great kids, but I also want to have my own. thing. I want to have my business. I want to have a career. Right. Well, you have to, so, you know, I love what I do so much and I do it at home a lot. I mean, I'm at home a lot. I don't go into the office very much because if someone needs to be picked up or, you know, I need to go to grocery store, I have to be there. But, you know, you have to, they see your passion. They see you working and that's good for them. And you have to travel. I have to travel and be gone. That's good

for them. I was scared of that to begin with. I agree with you. If you give them a good, you know, if you try to instill strong values in them. But when you're there, it counts. So I try to go in all their bedrooms. I try to sit with them one-on-one. They can see my eyes and have, I call it a gem moment, a genuine encounter moment. It doesn't matter if you're doing that all day and you're with them. If you're with them all day and your mind is somewhere else and you're stressed and you're doing this, that's not good either.

Yeah, it's like the dad that goes home and sits and plays video games. I'm at home with the kids. I was like, are you really there? Are you really there? And so that's not good either. So even though I'm gone, you know, I'm calling them. I'm having every single one of them I call. And I ask them about their day.

And we're very in touch and in tune. They also love that I work and it's been fine. They're also incredibly and surprisingly independent, much more so than I was. I was scared of it, but it's actually ended up being a really good thing. That balance happens naturally when you're doing something you love and you don't feel forced to do it. Say there's no bitterness involved in having to leave. It's all good and all happy and they see that. You said earlier that you were shy.

How are you transitioning with that? Like now you're on social media. You guys are such a well-known brand. How is that? Are you just forcing yourself to get uncomfortable? You're just talking to the last seven minutes. I would never think you were shy. Yeah, I wouldn't think you were shy either.

Well, because I'm, I feel like I'm sitting with you guys just talking. I could talk like we're at lunch and we're just talking. I don't envision like what's happening. Like if anybody is really listening to this. I guess they are. A few people are. I think I do force myself. And also, I think I decided at some point, I don't like flying. I don't like being away from my family. I don't like public speaking. I don't like taking pictures or being on video. But if you're out of your comfort zone, I think that's how you grow, obviously. That sounds obvious. But, you know, I do force myself to be. I mean, those are the things I fear in life. And here I am at 50. And these are the things I'm doing constantly, the very things I fear. So I think it's been good for me. And I have gotten. I've gotten over some of it, and I can stand up in front of people and talk now.

What are some business principles that you think that your company stands for? Like, what are some strong principles that you see? I think that, you know, we try to, I mean, the consumers first with me. We really try, we answer every single question. Like, for example, on social media, we try to like everything that someone tags us in. We answer every DM that comes our way. We try to acknowledge and appreciate. We also, a business practice is that we like to share the products with people who want to try them.

We don't advertise. We don't pay influencers. I want to talk about that. Can you elaborate on that? It's a business. Well, I wanted to make products that really truly work and make a difference for people. And I don't think that you can, there's a substitute. If you, you know, I don't think there's anything better.

You can't. It's priceless to have somebody use your products. And then if they really work and they really have an effect and, you know, makes a difference for them. You can't stop people from looking at their spouse, friend, sister, or the person on the bus next to them from telling them, look what I'm doing. One or two things is going to happen. They're going to want to share it or someone's going to say your skin looks great and then they're going to want to share it. So the goal was to have products that really worked. And that's the first and the main thing that we want. Then we want the consumer to be

satisfied. We want our customer to, you know, feel appreciated and feel like they're getting their money's worth and feel because it's expensive, you know, skincare is expensive and formulating is expensive and all of that. So the goal is to just have people really, really see a difference from the products. They want to come back. They want to not only come back and buy the same product they just tried, but the whole line instead. It's a solution line. It works well together. So I think having people believe that it's made an impact in their life or actually change something for them, made them feel better about something is actually the goal. I love that. All right, we're going to get into that.

But there's one thing I've got to jump in here real quick. Lauren needs a lot of help in this department. A lot of help. Guys, we've talked about it for a long time on this show. I've basically been starving to death in the house. Nothing to eat, nothing to cook. No help from my loving wife. Pari Mia River.

So I decided to take things into my own hands, guys. It starts with equal parts, Lauren. Equal parts cookware, one of my favorite new show partners. Guys, if you want some of the most amazing cookware and you want to get in the kitchen and start slicing it up, what's that guy's name, Emerald Cook Guy, whatever, you know what I'm talking about. Emerald Bostic. Whatever, Emerald Bostic. You guys got to look into equal parts.

So thank God because last night we cooked tacos and we needed a lot of help, especially in the non-stick department. they have these pans that don't, it doesn't make anything stick to the pan. Now, this is a really big deal when it comes to someone like me who's not the best cook. All the cookware is made to work together. It's designed with recycled materials. Dishwashers safe, Lauren, dishwasher safe. There's a tongue choice of there.

Non-toxic, non-stick, non-stick ceramic, easy to clean, lightweight of aluminum that heats up quickly. And it's Teflon and PFOA-free, which is all harmful chemicals that you don't want in your cookware. Michael's like really specific about how to cook the meat for me now because of the baby and he's even more specific about what's in the pan, so we like this. And I feel like when you have the right cookware and techniques, cooking becomes like a time to unplug and be all therapeutic and enjoy each other in the kitchen. You know what I mean? Yep. And every time we bring on a show partner, I say, listen, guys, you're not coming on unless you give our listeners, our favorite people, a really good deal. Guys, the deal you want to take advantage of is the your prep set on there.

It comes with so many different items. Everyday knife, accessories, you can beat your eggs, flip your meat, put a spoon in that bowl, mixing bowls, everyday colander's measuring sets, woodboards. The woodboards the best for tacos. You can like lay everything out and see it and it makes the best Instagram story. And with our deal, it's going to be less than 200 bucks. Get into the rhythm of the kitchen with friendly and inviting cookware, coaching and guidance from equal parts, all with free shipping and free returns. Visit equalparts.com and get $50 off any cookware kit over $200 with code skinny. That's equalparts.com and enter code skinny. Like I said, guys, check out the your upset and get all this stuff for less than 200 bucks. Be like me and do a Taco Thursday. Can you talk

to us about your personal skincare routine? I read that you do not like to over cleanse. I hate overcleansing. I do not cleanse in the morning. I just cleanse at night. And when I read that, I was like, oh, we have the same practice. Hopefully you don't cleanse in the morning. Well, I've been doing her routine. I just used the one, the cleanser at night. And then the pink and then the jelly cleanser. Yeah. The jelly cleanser's great. For men that are listening, one thing I think that's so smart about line outside. There's a million things. But the brand is, it was so easy for me to follow. I just did it by the colors. Which we can dive into. But I think for women that want their men to try these lines, like, you guys sent me a nice package, which I really appreciate. And then it was really easy to follow.

I'm like, okay, orange, then light blue, then green. He also, but you guys gave him that pink bag to hold everything. And so he's been carrying that around. Carrying his pink bag. I've been carrying out. Listen, I got like a whole briefcase going on. Yeah, it's, you know what? It's like, It's men use the line. Kids use the line and kids follow it with the colors as well. My newborn is going to use the line. Yeah, I have, I have, actually I've got a grandson, my husband's son's son, and he has never had anything touch his skin except for the line. Okay.

And then I have a niece and nephew who also same thing. It's interesting the way that's happened. It wasn't a real plan. With the colors? It wasn't a plan with the colors. It wasn't a plan to have whole families using the line. It's more of a household thing. Every member of my family, extended family, and all my friends and their families and kids and teenage boys, they all use the line.

And it's not, I don't think it's intimidating for a kid to use it. I mean, they just want something that works. Again, it goes back to the same principle. It has to work, you know? It's one of the questions that personally now I get asked all time, like, what am I using? Because what's happened over the years. Oh, my God. Taylor, can you put a projectile vomit sound.

You saw it when you came in, Taylor, our producer wants to know because us men, we just have never been educated. Right. You know, we don't know. And so I looked at what my wife's doing, she said, oh, you should use these. And then when it's laid out the way you've laid it out, it's simple to follow. It's easy. Right. Well, to answer your question, so the way that we formulated the products was super specific in

that all the ingredients can be mixed together and they absorb into your skin. And so the acid mantle, which sits on top of your skin, like a protective shield, is actually made up of sweat and sebum and, you know, it's protective. It's our first line of defense against the world. So when you have that intact, your skin's going to be youthful and glowy. It kind of does the job of a toner. Which color is this? Because I know them by colors.

No, the acid mantle is on your skin. Oh, it's on your skin. It's already there. You already have it. Okay. Yeah, your skin does this without having a brand in your life. It's not anything on it. It's on your actual skin.

Yeah, your skin just, yeah, it does it. It's free. It's like it. I've heard anyone say that. That's interesting. Well, it acts like, so it does the job of a toner. Okay. So instead of toning your skin and, you know, trying to restore the pH after using a harsh

cleanser, for example. It already does that. It's already holding the pH of your skin. It's called the acid metal, the microbiome, and it protects against, you know, harsh bacteria and pollutants. It also does the job of an occlusive moisturizer because it helps lock in hydration and moisture. So our products are formulated all bioavailable. So it means that molecules are small. They can soak in your skin. So at night, when you cleanse, you cleanse well, you know, you make sure that you cleanse well. I don't wear a foundation, so it's not like a daunting thing. I'm not worried that I'm not going to get everything off. You don't have any foundation on right now. I don't wear, I've never worn foundation. Okay, you guys, her skin looks amazing.

Well, I was just, you know, sort of my mom didn't wear foundation. So your skin looks so good. Thank you. It's so even. If I took my makeup off right now, it's like there's brown spots everywhere. I think, you know, your skin looks beautiful. I can't, I can't even tell that you have foundation on. But, I mean, I think that foundation can be, I don't know. I mean, depending on what's in it, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think there are lots of things out there that keep our skin sort of in a chaotic state where it's red and blotchy and, you know, uneven and all of those things. But cleanse at night and then I put on my mixture of the pink, which is the acid, is the glycolic acid, and then the marula. I mix that together. And I usually will add the Bhydra, which is the blue, which think of water, blue.

So the oil, the Bhydra, and then the acid. So you can use the blue in the morning and the night. Yeah, you can use the – I think of it as a drink of water with every meal. I add a pump of it to every time I put anything on my face. It's a great tip. Yeah, so I actually think of ingredients and the products sort of as food. You know, like you're mixing up. You've got a fat.

You've got the acid. You've got the water, whatever. So I do that night. I put them all on at the same time. They're all going the same place. There's no reason to layer them at all. They absorb into your skin. They support your acid mantle.

Okay. So when you wake up, and you haven't stripped your acid mantle, by the way, because you're using a good cleanser. So when you say there's no reason to layer them, what you're saying is you could just pump all three into the hand at once and roam them together and then put it on. Yeah, there's no reason to layer them. They're all going the same place and there's no heavy occlusives in there that will block anything

from getting in your skin. That makes it even easier. It makes it easy. And so the idea is you're using a cleanser that won't strip your skin that has a low pH that's similar to that of our skin already. And then so then you go into that mixture, put it on, go to sleep. So when you wake up, you know, your

acid metal's intact. It's not like you're going to wake up with dirty skin. There's nothing better to when I always test a product, and I don't know if this is just me, when you wake up and your skin still feels plump and dewy. There's nothing, it's the best. There's nothing to replace that. You can't. There's not a product in the world that'll do that. It's so nice when you apply your skincare and you wake up and you just feel like it's set in and your skin feels so nice in the morning. Right. And so it's all absorbed everything. You wake up. And when I wake up, if I'm taking, if I take a shower,

you know, it doesn't matter if water gets on there. I mean, you've got your acid mantle intact. It's fine. You can splash it if you want. And then, and then you go straight into your routine. The, orange, which is the vitamin C, the water again, the Bhydra. And then I use Lala in the morning now, and I also add retinol. I use all those, and then I top it with a physical sunscreen, which is another layer of protection. Is there a drunk elephant sunscreen? Umbra. Umbra. Right. I haven't tried it. Umbra. And I have a, they're both physical, so zinc oxide. Okay. One's tinted and one's not. Okay. Yeah, I'll make sure you get that. I need to try that because the brown spots. Definitely. We'll send you some. And then we have D. Bronzy, which is a kind of a, uh,

It kind of gives you warmth. And so, yes. When you think of people, when it comes to skincare, what do you think some of the biggest misconceptions or mistakes people make with their skin? You know, maybe there's people that don't know how to take care of their skin. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making when it comes to skincare? Well, so that's the main one is scrubbing everything off. It's just this idea of, you know, scrubbing it off twice a day and using harsh exfoliants,

then following that with the toner. And so if you think about it, you've got your eyes. of metal, right? Okay, you go and you scrub it off. You wash your skin too often, or you use a harshic foliant. You're taking that off. Then your skin feels tight and dry or irritated or whatever. Then you're going in with a toner that may or may not have sensitizing ingredients in it and may even have alcohol in it that strips your skin even further. And then you go in with a moisturizer to, quote, like, replenish and the moisture that you've just taken off your skin with, you know, it may have silicones, it may have heavy oils. And then you've

got this issue of, you know, is that like real moisture or is that a moisture that will evaporate later on? Silicons can evaporate and then leave you feeling dry two hours later. So all of that can be skipped and you can just skip the cleanse altogether. You've got your acid mail doing the work of the toner and the moisturizer practically and then you can just supplement with more moisture if you need it based on based on your skin, based on the environment, based on what's going on, and the hydration and the, and then the correct, you know, the vitamin C or the retinal or whatever you need. What are some ingredients that you would recommend that the audience avoids? I know it's like maybe blanket advice, but if you were talking to your daughter, what are you telling her to avoid?

I would say, so these are the suspicious six, I call them the suspicious six on social media. Essential oils, silicones, drying alcohol, drying alcohols. There's different kinds of alcohol, too, but there's certain drying alcohols, and then there's other that are fatty alcohols that are actually good for your skin. So essential oils, silicones, drying alcohol, fragrance dye. Fragrance and dye, I leave in one category because they're both just kind of, there's not real, you know, any. What's the real purpose for fragrance and dye?

It's just to make it smell and look pretty. That's really, there's no benefit there for your skin. SLS, which is a harsh cindic, like a detergent. There are other sulfate detergents that are milder, but this one is one that can penetrate your skin and actually will strip it as high pH and it's just not good for the skin barrier at all. And so we're all in support of the skin barrier. What we talked about is the acid mantle. And then chemical screens. Chemical screens are great. However, some people, it triggers breakouts. So the ingredients that I'm that I'm recommending as a troubleshooting,

it's more like a troubleshooting list of things to remove from your routine if you're having issues. They're not unsafe ingredients. They're not scary. They're not a part of this clean beauty movement thing. These are more ingredients that I found to be problematic for my skin and my customers found the same that once removed, your skin can then reset, and then you sort of know what you're dealing with. Your skin type can normalize. You can then, you know, kind of treat what you're dealing with, which may be hyperpigmentation or, you know, some natural redness or, you know, hormonal acne, whatever it is. But the point is that once removed, a lot of people have found that their skin is transformed by eliminating these things that are kind of, and they're everywhere, you know, they're in a lot of

product. The suspicious six. I like that. I'm going to call you and your friends that, the suspicious six. I wanted to be a detective when I was like a long time ago when I was younger and I'm super suspicious. My son calls himself and his buddies the suspicious six. I'm into it. So how do you utilize social media to build your brand? Like I mean with Instagram, Instagram stories, is there a strategy there? Do you guys have a social team? We do have a social team just to help make sure we answer all the questions. I go on there a lot, get myself in trouble all the time by going on there answering all sorts of questions, but I focus on that a lot. The reason why is because I think this brand is really word of mouth. We have to make sure that people are understanding the

philosophy, understanding how to use the products, making sure that if they have an issue, we can address it. A lot of people say that, you know, when we're trying to, you know, the whole growth strategy is just to have people spread it by word of mouth, you know, have a good experience, tell their friends about it, and that's really what we're counting on for the growth of the brand. But as far as like putting the consumer first and saying, look, we're here. If you have an issue, let us help you with it. We do often tell them, like, if they're using something, it's very common for someone using a lot of different, tons of different products.

And we're in the age of people using like 20 different things, right? You've got these shelfies with all these ingredients. it's really hard to tell what's working and what's not when you're using so many things. We do ask people to just use drunk elephants so they can benefit from the philosophy, which is distinct. But also, we will say, you know, like if you're breaking out or you're using one of our acids and you're breaking out terribly, you might check your ingredients, your routine for sensitizers, things like that that maybe could be causing your skin to be reactive.

And so we just try to, you know, manage the consumer and stay in close touch. It's the way that I grow. It's the way I learn. It's the way I know if something's wrong. If there's a packaging, a package that's not working out well or formulation that's bothering people with the Besty when I first launched the Besty. I had to change it. I had to change the packaging, had to change the formulation. So I think it's just a place for us to, it's like a huge focus group that we have every day.

And we just stay and we listen and we stay close to our consumer that way. And the packaging is so beautiful that you wanted on your Instagram. Personally, for me, you know, because when I'm, when I'm get interested in something, I have to go and like dive deep. but what I've done with skincare because I've, you know, until doing the show, I didn't know. I never, I mean, I used proactive when I was a kid. When you were talking about stripping the skin and all, I was like, oh, that was probably not so great back then. It was all I knew, right?

You know, you had acne as a kid and they'd give you proactive. Right. We all did that. Yeah. That's all I knew. But when I think about what I've done experimenting with skin, I've done something where anytime I have a new brand, I only use that specific brand for like two months and figure out how it works.

And so that's what I've been doing with your brand. I'm using nothing else. Right. It makes sense. because, you know, if you've got somebody formulating products with the same philosophy, every brand has its philosophy. So it really does make sense to do it that way. Then you can get the benefit of the philosophy and make sure you get your money's worth of the products and so that they, you know, that they can, hopefully can work. And a line is designed to work, like you said,

with each other and a me. Now, if you include a foreign line in there, then it's, it's hard to figure out. It's not brand dependent. It's actually philosophy or it's ingredient dependent. So if you have another product from any other line that doesn't contain some of these ingredients, that we avoid, then you're still benefiting from, you're still getting the benefit of the philosophy. So, I mean, I'm very, you know, it's like, it's great as long as I just want people to try the philosophy and see what it does for their skin. And from there, if they're using other brands, or even if they're using some of the six and their skin's doing great, that's great. It's my, my goal is really just to get people who have issues to be able to address them. What's something that you believe when it comes

to skincare that you get the most pushback for? Well, probably. my philosophy of avoiding the suspicious six and probably this idea that when people come to me and say, hey, I'm using your TLC and your C-form and I'm breaking out like crazy or I tried baby facial and I broke out in a huge rash, rash and hives. And what people want me to say in the skincare industry is it's my fault. It's not my personal fault, but or maybe, depending on how you look at it, it's the product's fault and I'm sorry and just take the product out of your routine and use something else. I mean, I think that's the standard typical response is like, oh, gosh, it must be the product.

But the truth is that if you have sensitized skin, then you will react poorly to glycolic acids or acids or actives. You can react poorly to vitamin C. You can react poorly, actually, to any benign ingredient if your skin is sensitized. And so my, you know, it's like I get tons of pushback for that basically described as you're telling your consumers that they're wrong and you're not. you're right and you blame it on them and you don't blame it on your product. It's not that.

It's that I'm blaming it on other ingredients in someone's routine. And I'm, you know, I will never like blame it on another brand or blame it on a person. But I do believe that if you have ingredients in your routine, it's like this. If you're eating a hamburger, shake, wine, smoking a pack of cigarettes every day, and then you go to a nutritionist who says, here, try my line of supplements or whatever. or try my diet that I've prescribed for you and follow these recipes. And they're doing that, but then they're still eating all this stuff on the side. And you kind of go, well, it didn't work.

Well, it may not have worked because of other things that you're doing. That's always a natural thing. Humans never want to face up to that. Well, and we don't think of it that way. Unfortunately, we always blame the product, but we should be looking at skin and care of skin in a more holistic way. Look at the whole picture. Look at what you're doing, eating.

what your environment is, but everything you're using, everything that touches your face should come into play when you're trying to figure out why you're having issues. I even think getting so micro, like whenever an audience member messages me about their skin, I mean, I'm not a doctor, but I would say, what kind of pillowcase are you using? Have you washed it?

Of course. What are you washing it with? Right. I mean, I use a silk pillowcase. I use a special wash. Like, what vitamins are you taking? Is there something in the vitamin? Yeah, what do you, that's what she said.

What are you eating? Are you drinking enough water? Are you staying out of the sun? Like, you know, some people, they, I've noticed, like, some people will put oil on their face and then they walk in the sun. And oil attracts the sun. Right. So there's like so many days. I mean, I even am so crazy that I have my car windows tinted because I just don't want the sun on my face. Right. I think that there's like so many different things that's you can't just blame one thing. No, there are so many different things. And if you just try to look at it like, like that and just kind of know it's like, like, you know, it's like, like, you know, it's like, like, like, you know, it's like, like, like, you know, it's like, like, Like, one product can't save your skin if you're still using other ingredients that are actually keeping the skin in sort of a chaotic state. How has your role in Drunk Elephant changed since you started? It really hasn't changed. And that's actually, I was talking to another founder the other day. And my message was this.

I mean, she was asking me advice because she was trying to do a few different roles in her company and she was feeling frustrated. I think the key as a founder is to go back to the day that you started. What were you doing the first year before it really took off before you got busy? The slide edge. The what? The slide edge. They call that.

Go on. Yeah. Yeah. What were you doing? I mean, I was sitting working on formulations, writing copy, you know, naming the products, doing, you know, all these things that I was doing that were creative. And that's what I do. I still do.

That's really cool. So you're very hands-on. Yeah. I'm super, super involved in. and all of it, but I'm really lucky to have people who have been in the industry before me that are smarter than me when it comes to going through this whole, you know, what we're going through right now in the growth and all of that. I don't want to worry about that. I can't balance a checkbook. I'm not good with money. I'm just the worst. And so I knew that going in,

what parts of the company I really need to stay away from, and I just need to focus on what I know. In this vein, I mean, because now this is a season company, but in this vein for young entrepreneurs starting out, what advice would you have for them when they're just starting? They're just getting ready. I have this idea in my head. There's a concept. What would you tell them? I would just say stay in your head.

Stay in your head with your idea and let it develop in your head. Don't look around. Don't look at other brands or products in the same space. Don't listen. Don't pay attention to all of the norm because then you kind of get locked into this, you know, it's already been done or, you know, you can't help but have ideas seeds planted in your head of ideas that you don't later on come out. So really, really try to stay in your own lane.

And your idea is probably a great one, especially if you're attracted to it, something you need and want your life, and go from there. And don't try to decide what the consumer's going to like. You're the consumer in that. And so I always just go, like, with the colors, I pick the colors because that's what I wanted on my counter.

I mean, I did have packaging people tell me, you're crazy because this is not sustainable. You need a system. So every category needs the same color. And I thought, well, that's always been done before. But frankly, I want a bunch of different colors on my counter and said, this is the way I'm going to do it. And no one wants brown on their Instagram feed. Let's be honest.

No, I think that's really... We want the cute colors. I think that's really solid advice. I think a lot of people, you know, in any endeavor, where you're doing a podcast and you start listening to a bunch of other podcasters and all of a sudden you start talking like them, it's not necessarily a good formula. Or you see a brand and you see, oh, that's really successful for that brand. They try to duplicate and it's another version of that. But sometimes it's hard.

to have the discipline to just stay in your own lane and focus on your own thing. But for most people we talk to, it's scary. It's scary, but that's been the formula for a lot of people for success. It's just actually like a horse with blinders, not putting, not looking around. Exactly. I want to share the product that I would start with you guys. If I was going to start with a drunk elephant product, for me personally, it's the vitamin C. There's just the consistency of your vitamin C is like amazing. And then I want to know yours and then you have to share yours. Tiffany. What's yours? If you had to start with a drunk elephant product, like, what's your thing?

For me, what's always what I find now, and listen, I'm a complete novice here. You guys are going to outshine me. But my skin, for whatever reason, responds well to vitamin C. I used to have really dark circles. Oh, you're going to copy me? Oh, that's what I said. That's the orange one, right? It is.

It's the orange one. He doesn't know what it's called. He knows that the color. But I know vitamin C works well for me when I use it. So you copied me. Well, you said me to go first, so now you're going to cover me. I just went. Did you hear? I said the vitamin C. Okay. Well, vitamin C works well for me too.

Okay, with you, a secondary product if you had to pick because I already said that. And most people agree with you guys, by the way, on the vitamin C. They like the vitamins. Probably the oil. The oil is good. The yellow oil. That would be my second. The yellow oil. And I like the way my makeup lays with it and the way it makes my foundation look when I mix it together, even though maybe you're probably like you shouldn't be wearing. But I don't know, though, because now that I think about it, maybe the light blue one

that I use with the vitamin C is also having your impact. Okay, you're going all over the face. What's your favorite, Tiffany, if you had to start with one. What I like about your products, when you send it, you usually send a sample. Right. It's extremely smart. Yeah. Oh, you mean the little? That is smart. So the follow-up product. That's mine. Well, I mean, that you're, that's mine. I always say the littles. It's not, for me, truly, it's the philosophy. It's as long as I can stay in the philosophy and just use the products, like, even if it's just one of the cleansers and one of the moisturizers,

That's all, you know, that's, you're still in the philosophy. You don't have to buy the whole line to do that. But for me, it's the, it's the, it's the little. That's how I figured out the path of colors. That's how people start. Yeah, because I got the orange. I'm like, oh, then there's the blue within the gray. So if you're picking a product and you're telling our audience to start with one thing.

It would be the littles and sort of set aside everything you're doing. Okay. And start with the littles and give it, give it 30 days. It's a 30 to 45 day supply. Okay. But give it 30 days and use nothing else. Don't let anything else touch your face and give your, skin a chance to adjust and go slow with the acids if you need to. But I think typically people

will come back and say, wow, I thought I was sensitive or I thought I had oily skin. I don't. My skin's pretty normal. And that's really the main goal for me is to help people feel that reconnect with their skin. I love it. I was thinking about it. When it comes to clean beauty, what is clean beauty? I'm having a discussion about this actually on social media right now with somebody who had mistaken this suspicious six idea for me saying, these are dangerous ingredients and my product's clean because it doesn't have these six, which is completely wrong. And I don't blame them. A lot of people have thought that.

There's been a lot of missed kind of communication about that on other people's parts. But I'll say, you know, it's like clean beauty is not regulated. You can't just clean beauty is a way to get the message to the consumer that I'm avoiding certain things. Okay. So if there are ingredients that are proven to be not safe, if they get in your bloodstream and they're linked to disease or disruption, I would say avoiding those ingredients that are proven to be harmful, that's clean beauty, okay? And it's safe.

Mine is more like clean compatible where I'm also using ingredients that are shown to be beneficial to the skin and effective at what they do for the skin, the health of the skin organ itself. There's two different things. Clean. Everyone's using it now. It's super diluted. Who knows what it means?

And it's kind of a shame because I think the consumer wants more definition around it, but it's not a regulated term. So now it's like all natural or anything else. It doesn't really mean a lot. So maybe it wasn't a stupid question. It wasn't stupid. And it's going to happen soon that people are going to be like, what is clean? Because I see, I was reading and correct me if I'm wrong here,

but you said or you said or the company said that one of the company those is that organic, all organic or all natural doesn't necessarily mean it's good. No. Is that correct? I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good for your skin. I mean, you know, I mean the obvious, what everybody says, cyanide is all natural. It doesn't mean it's good. It can be, it can actually be perceived by your skin to be toxic.

Something all natural can be perceived by the skin to be sensitizing, like I believe essential oils present to your skin. So, you know, all natural doesn't really mean anything and neither does, I mean, there are good synthetics, good naturals, bad synthetics, bad nata, bad nataithes. You just have to, you know, kind of know what you're putting on your face. The all-natural organic people are going to come out with pitchforks against me. Right. They'll be fine.

They'll be fine. Don't come for me. Come for Tiffany. Come for me. I'm used to it. They won't come. No one's coming for Tiffany. Her products are so good.

The second that you guys use them, you'll understand. Okay. Book Resource Podcasts that you would leave our audience with. You know, I've lately, well, first of all, there's one book called Not Giving a Shit. What is it? The Sun-Al-Lard-N-N-A-N-Giving? Oh yeah, Mark Mason. He's been on a show a couple times.

Okay. He's great. Such a great book. But also, I would say, like, what really sort of gets me through when I'm, when I'm frustrated or having a, you know, is Brene Brown. I love her. I want it on the podcast. I mean, honestly, you've got to get her.

Yeah, I love her. That's the resource because she's got these videos that you can just put on your, you can listen or you can watch on YouTube. And even the short ones, it literally, like, gives you this lift and you kind of, it kind of readjust your way of thinking. I think we're living in such a crazy environment with social media. People can say whatever they want, people, and they will. It's hard for teenagers, I think.

It's hard for millennials. It's hard for people in general. I mean, it's hard. And I think just that reset and just understanding, like, you know, the boundaries and how to be, you know, vulnerable and all those things that she talks about. It's important. And I think it's a great tool. I've told my daughter to do it.

And I'm sure she didn't, but I really think it's great. I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to go listen to her in the car. It's fascinating. Yeah. You know, it just, and you get addicted pretty quickly. Is there one you'd start with? I know she's got a couple different books.

Well, there's the TED Talk, the original TED Talk. That's the one. It's just incredible. It really makes you think, and it's, I think it's just super healthy emotionally. Taylor, make a note that we've got to reach out to her to try to get around the show. Yeah, she's great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You're incredible.

Where can everyone find you and Drunk Elephant? It's website, Pimp Yourself Out. Yeah, the website, DrunkElephant.com. and there's hopefully lots of education on there, educational material that people can learn from, and they can contact us too, but also Sephora. We're with Sephora right now exclusively in North America. And then, you know, we're also available in Australia

and Southeast Asia, the U.K. And Instagram's at Drunk Elephant? Instagram is, yeah, is at Drunk Elephant. Perfect. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's nice to meet.

you guys. Nice to meet you too. Do not miss this giveaway with Drunk Elephant, guys. They are giving away two bags of the Littles. The Littles have the whole set in each two winners. All you have to do is head to my latest Instagram post at the Skiny Confidential and tell us your favorite part of the show. Then follow at Drunk Elephant on Instagram. You will not be disappointed. It is so cute. As always, make sure you've rated and reviewed the show on iTunes. It takes five seconds, especially if this show's brought you any kind of value. And with that, we'll see you on Friday for a very special him and her episode with two badass bosses.