The Livy Method Podcast - You Were Never Supposed to Do This Alone with Jenn Harper

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Jenn Harper was newly sober and selling seafood when she woke from a dream that became Cheekbone Beauty, now stocked at Sephora. In this conversation with Gina Livy, she names the belief that nearly cost her the business: that she was supposed to figure it out on her own.Jenn and Gina get into the old stories that block change, what a year of everything-failing actually teaches you, the difference between regret and shame, and the morning routine that keeps Jenn steady. Her rule for anything worth doing: if you don't give up, you can't fail.This podcast aligns with Day 9 of our Fall Program, members can find video in our Livy Method app or Livy Method Community Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodThere is still time to join the Fall Program and there are two ways to join you can purchase the Fall Session for $99, or become a member for $20/month for year-round support, access to every session, Livy AI, member perks and more. The program is meant to fit into your life, not make your life the program. So start when you’re ready, make it work for you, and visit livymethod.com to join us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New season, new name, bigger conversations. Welcome to Live Lighter with Gina, because lightness isn't something you find. It's something you create in your body, your mind, your home, and in your life. Real conversations, no bullshit. So let's lighten things up for you. If you're looking to lose weight and you want to keep it off, you have got to check out the Living Method. Our next live session starts September 14th. Better than ever.

easy to follow. We have the most incredible community and it works. Head over to living method.com to sign out today. Well, I've never been so nervous about getting my makeup right for a podcast before I. Hi, Jen. Welcome to Live Lighter. Hello. Hello. How are you? Good. You were coming from a straight from a lab, it looks like. Yes, we're at our headquarters in St. Catharines and then this is the lab where all the cheek bone beauty formulas start and then they grow from here. But this is the only, like, room that completely shuts off at our headquarters from everybody else. This is your quiet place. Yes. Yeah. I work from home. So my quiet place is sitting in my car in my driveway.

I've done that many occasions, like those last moments of peace before you have to go into the chaos. I want to get right into it with you today. We all know you of being the creator of the super successful cheekbone beauty. But I really want to start with the woman you were before cheekbone existed because so many of the people watching us right now, we're looking to make change in our lives. We can feel that change, that person that we know we are meant to be. Yet it feels so far away. So can we just start? This is just start at the beginning. Yeah, for sure. So, oh, wow. Yeah. We're going to go back and we're going to I go deep real quick, right?

Yeah. Let's go. I am an overshare, so this is my jam. And truthfully, so everyone fully understands, like, even though you can make massive changes in your life and incredible things can happen, like life still happens while you're in the new space and you just learn to manage it differently. And it's still hard, but it was really hard back then. So if everyone knows the, well, if you're familiar with the brain, you may know the origin

story of cheekbone, but others don't. So I didn't come from the beauty scope. I actually was in the food and hospitality industry for most of my career. So I was working in restaurants as like restaurant management and then got into sales and marketing through food distribution. So worked for Cisco and then ended up working for a seafood company. I was there for eight years. And while I was there, it's January of 2015.

and I have this actual like pop out of bed, middle of the night dream, three indigenous little girls covered in lip gloss. And it was so, this is so wild because I was selling fish. Like I always have to be like, let's just be real about how crazy this clowns now when I say it and how ridiculously naive I was to the industry I would eventually enter. So I believed in that moment, I was like, oh my goodness, like this is going to be the next thing I do. Like this is my new career path. And so wanted to figure out how to make lip loss. That was the original product that we started with. But I have to rewind even a little bit further when you say go back. Because what a lot of people might not know is before that dream, I was recently sober. So I had been battling alcoholism

for many, many years. And it's November 26th of 2014 that I finally get sober. I'd been in rehab twice. relapse after relapse. And my addiction was to alcohol. And it just took so long to get sober. And I always share that because there's no like, there's no perfect path for anyone that's trying to, if anyone is struggling in that space. And it took a long time. But finally did.

And then I have this dream two months later. But it was also like, it's important to recognize, like, feel like what the was happening in the world at the time. So as an indigenous woman, I am half Ojibwe. My family lives on a reservation in northwestern Ontario. My mom is white, and I grew up with my mom here in the Niagara region. And so I was just grew up truthfully, if I'm being really honest, completely ashamed of my Ojibwe roots. Number one, I guess how the world treated indigenous people or Native people in Canada and how I personally was treated because of that.

And then so you just struggle with like massive identity issues because I never knew where I, I felt like I fit in nowhere. Years of therapy and thankfully recognizing I am who I am and I fit in anywhere I want to fit in. And I get to be as much indigenous as I want to be. I get to be as much as my person as I want to be. Like, I am who I am. And this is what I present to the world. And I'm healthy enough now to recognize that.

But it's amazing how much identity really blocked my growth. And I see how for me that was so related to my addiction, feeling abandoned by my dad when I was a little girl. Just I think all the things so many people go through that we just normally don't talk about, right? Yeah. Like, I'm listening to you and your backstory. And I can feel bits and pieces, like of my own life. You know, everyone has their own individual story, obviously. But I think the way they were raised plays a massive role, their perception of life and where they fit in who they are now.

So I think it's really important to go back and be like, what is your story? You have to know where you come from. from to know where you're at, to know where you want to go. But how did you trust? Like you, okay, so dealing with alcohol and becoming sober, that in itself is a huge feat. And then going from the food industry into creating a cosmetic line based on a dream, how did you trust yourself? Oh, I, I feel like, okay, this is, this part might be hard for me to execute, but So those early days became about this new thing I had to like this, I have had like a new thing to be obsessed with or addicted to, if you will, right? Okay.

A whole new idea. So not knowing anything about beauty. So I'm sober. And now I have a whole bunch of time on my hands. Yeah. And so I was like obsessed with this idea of figuring out this industry, products, ingredients, all of those things. So that became my new obsession. And then really tragically on the journey, I lost a brother to suicide.

Oh my gosh. It was 10 years ago this week, actually, that we lost my brother BJ. And from that moment on, the idea of cheekbone then became and the idea of sobriety then became about this is so much bigger than just me. like I just really recognized from things he would share with me. So he grew up on the res with my dad for most of his life. He was a youth worker in the community, like just well loved and adored, always tried to do his best,

but obviously was struggling with severe like mental health issues that nobody really recognized or spoke to. And losing him really for me became this massive reason why. And as I always say as horrible as, this sounds like losing him is I truthfully believe the only reason that I've been able to make this business somewhat successful. And I say somewhat because I still feel like I have so many more things to go. But he would say to me things like when I started to share with them before the business even had a name, I would be like, yeah, we're going to make this lip gloss. And I want to use a

portion of the profits to do something to help our First Nations community. And and then it became so much bigger. It was like, how can we honor our grandmother who was a residential school survivor? So the whole country in 2015, myself included, even though I'm Ojibwe, was learning how much this residential school system impacted our families. And it's, so my stories, I'm not alone. It's just, like, it's truly impacted indigenous people across the country, across North America, in very negative ways. And so this idea of like making a brand that was just like bright, bold, beautiful, where indigenous people could feel seen, albeit products. because people do ask and think sometimes people still quite like ask if it's just for indigenous people.

And my answer is Lancombe is just not for French people, right? Like no brand. But IKEA is not just for Swedish people. Yes. And so we would look at brands like IKEA and like car companies like Ferrari in the early days. And because my world came from like sales and marketing, I always knew that like you had to build this beautiful culture around a brand for people. people to fall in love with. And the more I was learning about my indigenous roots, the more I recognized, oh, this has to be embedded into the brand because this is such a beautiful story to tell.

And so that became the reason why. For me, for addiction, Barry, I have a really close relationship with the creator of the universe. Like for me, it's very, I guess, spiritual is for lack of a better word, but that I don't own that. Like, I, it's not, I came to this conclusion if you, when I, in my early days of sobriety that, like, I cannot do this. And I literally, like, said that and realized this is something that I can't do alone. And once I recognize that, which took a lot of humility, because I'm kind of the person who thinks I can do everything on my own and figure it out.

And it was almost like in that moment where I recognize, no, I can't do this on my own that I needed help that truthfully, I've never struggled with craving alcohol. And I talk to so many people with the same kind of addiction. And it still can be a deep, deep struggle for many people, even like 20, 30 years into sobriety. And so I feel super grateful that I just like literally surrendered all of the belief that I could handle that. And the moment I did, it was like this weight was lifted off my shoulders. Oh, okay. Let's talk about that weight. And because so many of our listeners, obviously I run a weight loss and maintenance program, are trying to make this change in their lives. Gosh, there's so many, so many places I want to go with this.

One, your makeup is incredible. I'm going to share some of my favorite products. It truly is for everybody, especially this blush, which is fire, my goodness. But I actually want to bring it back. And I'm so sorry to hear about your brother. But one of the things that I have been thinking on a lot lately is grief and how so many people are showing. up in the world and I know you had this bigger mission, but from a personal perspective, how did you keep showing up and working towards your goal when dealing with such an immense amount of grief? I know that's quite the pivot from blush to grief, but. So it probably wasn't, like, I feel like grief is processed in a different way for everyone.

Yeah. For me, it was like action was required. like I just didn't want to sit in it and I I did I did I was like literally felt in those first few weeks like we were going to launch the brand in September then this thing happened this tragedy this like enormous thing happens and I was like there's no point like why am I doing this like it's just it felt pointless and then I sat there and I thought about all the things he said to me and he said Jen are you? youth need help and they need help and I think what you're doing is going to be great.

And this is on a drive down this beautiful highway in Lake of the Woods. If you've ever been to that part of Ontario, it's like stunning. So when those days are that I feel like I don't, I can't do this, like it's too hard. And there has been several over these last 10 years. I think every entrepreneur knows that, that you just want to give up. And even just a regular person when you're facing this challenge of like you're trying to maintain this new life. style that you want and you're just like screw it some days you're like it's not worth it i can't move an inch and i i know i don't i don't know how you talk about this with i'm like you know it's fighting

those those um things in our own minds which is yeah i think it's the stories that are old and they keep coming back and those are really hard to get rid of right they like they almost like haunt us these old stories of like no i'm and you know i've i've been on a diet since i'm was 10 years old. Yeah. And I still, and so I have a daughter who's going to be 21 this year. And it's so interesting that you don't want to raise these kids anymore with that the way we were raised.

And it was like, oh, my, you know, mom's saying, and I love my mom to death, but like, obviously would say things that like, you're like, why are you saying that? And I can catch myself doing the same thing to my daughter. And so it's like haunting that we're just trying to fight all of these like things. But how to keep going. I would just, if there's even a day that you're like, nope, not doing it, take the break. Stop. Stop for the hour.

Stop for the five minutes. Stop for the 24 hours, whatever it takes. But just pick it up and do it again. And many times over these last 10 years, people have said to me, how have you been able to keep going with cheekbone to make, because there's been, we in 24, we're almost $800,000 in the red. And I'm ready to like, you're just like, what am I doing? Like, this isn't working. Everything we had, and we had the most epic strategic plan that year, by the way, like four incredible things that all failed. Oh my gosh. But I just didn't give up. I keep telling people that the whole thing is you

just don't give up no matter what it is we're working on. And like, if you don't give up, it cannot fail. Maybe you're going to stop and take a break for that five minutes, one hour, 24 hours, but then you're going to get up and you're going to just go and you're going to look at something differently. You're going to go talk to someone. Like me learning that I can't rely on myself was the biggest saving grace of my entire life because now I recognize when something's not going well or I'm in trouble. I need to go ask for help. Okay, wait, stop, stop, stop. Say that again. you realize that you couldn't rely on yourself. Is this, you couldn't do it or you just needed help and you recognize I needed to reach out for help?

Yeah. I just recognized much like sobriety. I had to surrender and believe that I couldn't do this on my own. And then I had to believe in something bigger, even on the small things in life. Okay. I am not understanding, you know, this financial statement. Why did this not work out like this? I'm not stupid. I just don't know what that means. So I'm going to go to my CFO and be like,

explain this deeply to me like I don't. And just learned that I have to ask no matter what it is, right? Yeah, why do we feel like we should know everything? I don't know. They, because that's what they taught. Like, I don't know. I feel like schools teach us that we feel like we have to know everything and you don't. It's all based on the test. Remember? Like at the test, at the test, we have to know everything. We failed us. Jen, do you, do you meditate? Do you journal do you work out like what are your like i i know you've done a lot of work in changing your right so you are what's the process what's your process for that so when people often ask like so what is the routine um yeah it's all of those things you just mentioned so i always love

sharing this i don't know why someone shared it with me a long time ago and it's like i call it like these four quadrants of like physical emotional mental and spiritual And it's like, it's like if liquid we're filling them up each day, where am I at in all of those things? And then for me, that starts in the morning. So I am an avid person in prayer. That's the first thing I do. But I try to go outside and do it. Like I don't touch my phone.

And it took me a long time to get to this space. Phone never is touched for like in the morning trying at least for the first 15, 20 minutes to hour. I try not touch the phone at all. And then it's all about just start moving and like literally moving and praying at the same time. Like that's my routine. And being in nature is for me the place I feel the most connected to the creator. Right. Like when I look at everything that exists, I'm like, wow, this is all made for me.

And I'm grateful it's made for all of us essentially. But like just seeing it in action, like the sun, it's rising. It does that every day. And it's the perfect distance from this earth to keep us at the perfect temperature. And so to believe in something bigger than ourselves, we are just so powerful because there's times when we can't handle it all. There's things that happen in our lives that none of us were intended to deal with. Yeah.

And if somebody made that sun in that perfect position connected to the earth, then I know that there's something bigger that can help me and I can just let it go. and literally not have to worry about it, right? Like, that's just like so that, okay, let me just worry about the thing I actually understand and can do. Yeah. Yeah. And then do deeper research on, like when we said asking for help, like I don't know all

the things. None of us know all the things. So like find the people, the resources that can help. I love that. I love that. Your company has been so successful. And you, a lot of times are the face of your company. I see Fiona here.

Hi, Jen, met you on Saturday. at your event, Mississauga, love your products. Do you ever feel not worthy or like, I don't want to say imposter syndrome, but like, yes, like with not having that background or coming from a cosmetic family or any of that? Like, how do you, how do you, how do you, do you feel that? And because it seems like you don't. And if you do, how do you navigate that? I do. Um, because we all, you, have those insecurities of not not belonging and it's normal and I think just no you're like everyone feels this way no matter what like I don't I don't believe anyone that says they never feel that way I just don't I don't think and if they do

maybe they're a psychopath like like truth willy there's got to be places you've walked in where you're I feel so like where I'm going to an event in L.A. in October and I'm I don't even want to think about it. Yeah. I think yesterday about going and I was like oh my goodness like I just like I don't belong in those spaces same I'm right like I feel so cringy and uncomfortable um but I always thought no maybe I do belong there and if I don't belong there maybe another woman does and I got to show up because she's around watching me and one day she's going to get there kind of thing right like so if you don't take ownership that it's all about you for me that personally helps me like this is for everything I've ever done is for this next generation

of indigenous youth. And then now so many women, like, I'm just here for other women to feel like we all can belong in these spaces. And it's hard. Like, I've hidden in bathrooms at events. I don't know if you've ever done that for me. I don't want to get back out there, but I'm just like, I'm not even talking to anyone. I have nothing to say.

I always sound awkward. Like, yeah. Many members have met me for long conversations in bathrooms. They're like, what are you doing here? I'm hiding. At your own event, probably. Yeah, but, you know, listen, I, yeah, I'm just a nervous now. And it's why I love community because I really feel like I, for some reason, I've just not

ever belonged. And maybe it's the, I'm a very much TMI person like you. I got big dreams. I'm all kind of like whatever. And I just, sometimes I feel like I'm in a world of my own. And one of my favorite things is community. And we have this incredible community. And I never take credit for that.

Because I feel like I've facilitated that. what what you have your own community what what is your definition of community like what and how much does like where does community fit into your life oh it's huge i mean for us as a business that's what we call our customers right yeah same yeah customers we call them community yeah it is everything because we don't like you just said like none of this exists without them and i remember like that you know when you first launch something and i know you've probably have been there and you're like, it's not your mom or your aunt or your neighbor. And my, my, my neighbor, Vicky, she actually just had me drop something. And I know she's in your community as well.

Because we always, yeah, yeah. And she, I just dropped something. I've had her place last night, but you just know, like it's these people, the ones you don't know when you saw like that first order come through or that. And you're like, I don't know this person. And, and they're trusting me to give them a product. And so it just became like everything we do is for them. Like I'll ask, we've screwed up products like the blush palette you just showed. It used to come with a twist off cap. So I don't know which one you have. I got the flippy. I got the flippy. So we made the flippy for the community. They were like especially, I didn't know, people with dexterity issues. If your hands had cream on them, the twist one was too hard to use. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, listen to everything that they

tell us and whenever we can afford to number one. I'm always like, we don't have the money for brown mascara guys. They're all asking for it. Um, and so I feel that way with my app because you also try to keep your products affordable. Like you want to give everything to everybody, but then, oh my God. Do you know how much it costs to add this to that and switch to that? And oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah. All the info and like everything we do is for them. So we made that into a flip versus a twist and just like going to, oh my goodness. So every year we do an event or a product surrounded on our scholarship fund, which is always so important where 100% of the proceeds go towards our scholarship fund. We've been able to deploy since 2021, 52 scholarships to

indigenous youth. So just like our brand has these little things. And people maybe in the, you see, oh, it's makeup. It's sitting on the shelf at Sephora, but you don't know kind of what's happening behind the seasons. And so every product. even the one sold at Sephora, we're part of what is called B Corp. I don't know if you're familiar with the B Corp. I know that you've donated a shit ton of money. Shit a ton of money. Yeah, and those are things like that's only because community is here.

Like we can't do that if people aren't supporting it. And so we did this event just last week in Ottawa. It was our first, like we literally, it's four of us as a team, loaded up suburban that we rented, drove everything to Ottawa. We did this beautiful event at the National Gallery of Canada. and the project was with our for Future Generations kit, the artist, their name is Darcy Bernhardt, and it was just their piece of art on our box. So the box, a lot of times we do these artists collaborations.

And so it was epic, beautiful, and we're at the gallery, and we're meeting all of the community that's in Ottawa, right? Like, we've never been there to do an event. So it was beautiful. And then just like the next day, this set of grandparents sends us a DM. They have brought their two granddaughters, and they're raising them because the mom had passed away, sadly, and the dad is just not in the picture at the moment. And it was just so incredible to hear the impact we made on these two little girls who happened. They look like, I'm guessing they were 12 and 14.

I could totally be wrong because the older I get, I don't know anyone's age anymore. But they were so sweet. They were sitting in the makeup chairs and the makeup artists were doing. And then we worked with Sugar Moon, so it's a business. in Toronto, Niagara, and Ottawa, and they sent their two makeup art. It's just like community comes together. And we even, like community for us is all the people we've done the collaboration, that the National Gallery, their whole team was like, this is the best thing we've ever.

It was just amazing. And that's what feels so good. And like you just said, like it's the women. And when you get to get together and see people and do the things, like it makes all the hard, really hard days just so worth it. And I'm so grateful for those high moments because it's truly like it's literally going to get your cup filled and giving you energy to keep going, right? Yeah. Well, and I want to I want it. I want everyone to feel that excitement and that moment of success. But you know, you have named a few missteps along the way. And a lot of times that's what trips us up, right? We have this misstep. We do this thing. We didn't want to do. We're not doing the things that we need to do. How do you how do you keep going when you have. of like when you make the wrong lid or you, you know, you make a mistake.

How do you keep moving forward? We know what success feels like. That's just a perfect explanation of it. But how do you keep going? How do you keep going? How do you keep going? Well, I feel like it's important to understand we're not perfect. Like we all make mistakes.

Like it's just part of life. And I think making mistakes, the biggest mistakes of my life have been the greatest teacher. Like, oh my goodness, the person I was, Gina, but while being an alcoholic, I was horrible. I would be, like, I just wasn't nice because I was in so much pain. Like, I was, like, I was just grumpy and, like, you know, just living and trying to live and you're literally just trying to survive. But I wasn't a nice person. I was, like, just always like the one who's, like, jealous of people and, like, just because you, and now I recognize when I see that in someone, never wishing them bad, obviously, because they're, they got to heal.

Like, they're in that space where I, when you've been there, it's horrible. You're like, okay, there is so much good on the other side of like getting well. So when you have the mistakes immediately recognizing like, yeah, what it's a mistake. Okay, what have we learned? And I mean, as a business, that's what we do? And now personally, I'm like, what did I learn? Like, I've learned so much from the mistakes. And, and sometimes the mistakes are so big.

I know people that have had to go out of business. And what did you learn? Will you operate in that business? Is it preparing you for the next business? I think it's just like it's all about how we're going to look at it. Right. And in the moment, it feels like garbage. Like no one's denying that, right? Like that year, 24, oh my goodness. Like I felt like garbage most of the time because everything we were trying was failing. And then I look back and I'm like, okay, but we tried and we did. And, you know, it was and here's the key key for me in many of those that strategy when we had these opportunities that we were going with I didn't listen to my gut in a few of the situations. Ooh yeah.

And I know that now. So I take full ownership. I mean, I have to as the founder and I am the CEO even though I probably am not a real CEO, but I am. But I so I take ownership that I was like those were mistakes and I didn't listen to my gut and my gut was red flagging me on like three of the four saying, I don't know if this is the right thing. I don't know if this is the right thing.

And I didn't listen. You know, thank you. And I'm so happy that I asked you personally because I've been there and I didn't trust my gut. And this is just I, because I, what did I know? I, what do I know about being a CEO and running a company? And so I trusted that you have to listen to other people. But when your gut is telling you that's not the right thing, that's a really hard. pill to swallow and lesson to learn. I do want to also thank you for sharing because I feel like

there were times in my career not long ago where I was not managing, well, I was dealing with a lot. I was going through menopause. My kid's dad was sick. He passed away. It was stressed. It was business. And I did not handle a lot of things really well. I made mistakes. I feel like sometimes I was a horrible person. I'm sure many people listening to be like, you know, you're amazing, but I made some mistakes and I, you know, I maybe have treated some people in ways that I would love to take back. How do you, it does help you learn and grow. And I'm working really hard to be a better person and to learn from my mistakes. And I'm sure people are like, Gina, you're being too hard on yourself. But it's the feeling that I have. How do you forgive yourself? Like, you know,

you want to do right. You know you want to grow as a person. You don't want to. You don't want to be known for who you were before. How do we forgive ourselves? Because forgiveness is really hard when we're trying to make change. It keeps pulling us back. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's deep for 930 in the morning. It's so tough because the truth is like humans, we're the problem because we have we have the trouble forgiving one another. What if like we could wipe slates clean? Is that possible? And you know, you meet some people when there's things people have done to you. and we're just not letting it go. And when you, I feel like we're sharing that thing where there's things that we've done

that we deeply feel bad about, right? And you're like, I'm penetrated that. I shouldn't have done that. Like, there's so many regrets. I wish I could go back and change. But the truth is, I cannot. I can only change where I am now. And I feel like having regret is a great natural reaction.

But I think living and keeping yourself in that spot of shame is really bad. Like I feel like it's okay to have that moment, but then recognizing, okay, that is not who I am anymore. And there is truthfully, there is consequences for human beings and our bad actions. And that could be that someone may never forgive you for how you made them feel. And all I can do now is try my very, very best to make every interaction possible that I'm not making someone feel bad ever again, right? And so, yeah, because there's, because there's nothing you can do to change it. You're not going to change how someone feels about you. Um, yeah, until they're ready. And I can, you know, I can say it till I'm blue in the face that the only way I ever healed

was forgiving everyone from my past, right? Regardless, you know, I forget it. My parents, they just did the best they could with what they had and what they knew, right? And that's every, I think every family has a scenario like that. It's like we could blame our parents forever. They did really stupid thing. Like I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Like they were, you know, smoking in the cars with the windows. Right?

The baby seat was so we could see out the window, not. Yeah, yeah. Most of it was all just like crazy things. It was a different time for sure. But also they were learning to be parents for the first time too, just as I was. And nobody gives you anything. Emmanuel. I beat myself up because it's always usually relates to my kids. And then of course, you know, things I've said to people in the past was never very nice sometimes. And, but it's your

kids that you feel the most guilt for, I think, as a mom sometimes. And it's just, I hope they just recognize I've done the best I could with what I had at the time and have made changes in my life. I am sure you and I could do a whole podcast on mom guilt. But our time has come. Thank you for going so deep. I mean, it's not a lot of time to go there, but this is what we're doing. Like, we're week one of our program. This is the conversations that we're having. I do want to talk about your out. I got a ton of products here. So I was sharing my, my Dior makeup I got from Sifora and Jen reached out. Okay. I'm going to send you some product because there's some, there's some stuff. We love Dior. We love Dior. I know. You weren't throwing any shade, but you're like, there's some

product. It's good for you. And I was like, okay, I will take your product. lady if you come on my podcast. So this was our exchange. You sent me this bright blush. And I was like, what the, what am I going to do with this? It has become my favorite bold accessory. Like I love it. Love it. And I just, this is like my, my, my thing. I tell people blush is non-negotiable. It just immediately, I don't have much anything else on. I just decided, okay, I'm going on camera right now. I needed some blush because it makes you look a little alive. And I'm going out there sometimes like my blush is blushing. I don't give a fog.

I feel fantastic. This is my by far, hands down, favorite lipstick I've ever had in my entire life. I cannot read the name of it. It's like it looks brown but goes on pink. I've shared it's like I can't. It's like the perfect shade of. Yeah. Yes.

Or ash peak? Yes, that one I think. Ashkeek, okay. I know. I can't read it. And this, I know you're coming out with your skincare line. you can tell us about this. This is my favorite.

I feel like it takes my wrinkles away. I put it on before. I also put it on after my blush. And it gives me that super dewy look. Yes. It is like made to be like underneath the makeup to keep you hydrated for the whole day. But I've seen everyone do what you do. They put it on top of you.

All day. Why not? Yeah. It feels cool. You're moving into skincare. We are. That's true. I was going to say, are you nervous?

Are you excited? What do you feel? Yes. That's a big space, girl. Well, hello. I mean, everything was and not knowing anything about it is always very frightening. But for the last three years, I've learned to formulate natural skin care here in this lab. And so we've taken those formulas.

We send them to our partners and they create them so they can mass produce them at larger scales. For us, we can do products in here, but it's like 100 at a time. And we have obviously more customers want more shades than just 100. So, yeah, and it's what I've learned about skin is that it's, and truthfully makeup, like this is the key. Your makeup only looks great if your skin is at its very best. And that means you need an excellent skincare routine. And after like literally staring at faces now for the last 11 years being right up in them and being nosy about everybody's products, the number one issue I naturally see is like this dehydration.

So, and especially, I started this when I was 38. I'm now 50. And I've seen my skin go through perimenopause, like crazy changes and just dehydrate. Like, I can't believe how much more water I have to drink, which means I just go to the bathroom. Like, it's just nuts. But trying to be as hydrated as possible and finding products to do that. And our first one is this one comes in the same kind of stick, but this one has the green label. and it goes on at night before bed.

So I'm sending you to this to try. Is it a stick? It is a stick too. Oh, I love a good stick. Literally, gather your neck under your eyes. And it's honestly going to help reduce all of like, like anything that's causing lines because the plumber,

our skin and hydrated our skin is, it just will wrinkle naturally less. So that's why hydration is so important. And then this formula is plant-based retinoles. So I am a sensitive skin person. And so everything we've made is purposely made for people with more sensitive skin or skin issues or eye issues. So I can't wear traditional eye makeup. I'll scratch my eyeballs out.

So everything we've done is like based on that idea of like let's make sure it's made for sensitive skin with more naturally derived formulas. Yeah. So you're going to get one of these. But it's incredible people. I'm addicted at nighttime. I'm putting it on. And it's not like your regular night cream. So it's kind, it's that idea of slugging.

which was traditionally done with which our community in the natural beauty space hates petroleum-based ingredients. So people used to put like Vaseline all over their faces at night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've done this with natural ingredients, plant-based retinels called Bidens Polosa, which is like proven in clinical studies that is bringing back radiance, but without using retinels or can be really harsh on sensitive skin. So I've not been able to use them. So this was my way of coming up with a solution for that. And I've found, like my, people, when they do see me, maybe this morning here, but they're like, oh, you're always radiant and glowing. I will attest that it's like an excellent. It's also fun with makeup, but it's having a great skincare routine. I love it. I love it.

I know what this conversation to end. I know this conversation to end. I just went on the website, cheekbonebeautcom. Yes. You can also follow Jen's company Cheekbone Beauty over on Instagram. If you're looking for her products, or you can follow her cheekbone, Jen. Do you want to follow her? I feel like we're friends now. We are. We are. We are.

We're friends. We need an event. One of those events. Like combined community events. We got to do something. Well, this is the year of community and events, actually. Because I was just, I just picked up your another, I was just at Revolution Her. And I picked up one of your, um, another lipstick in a red color because we do pop up

events with them. We're also going to be doing our own event in April. So we should talk. Let's talk. We'll hang out. We'll talk. do it. Like all for women's events.

Jen Harper. Last words of wisdom. What are you going to say? You know, we're here. We are doing our best to make change in our lives, live our best lives. You know,

yes, it's losing way, but, you know, that always leads to a bigger goal in life. So parting words of wisdom. No pressure. Yes. One thing,

everyone has always asked, okay, why, how did you keep going? How does it just keep happening? And my, the only, like, answer I could come back to, is that consistency. So like every day doing something to work on the thing that you're working on,

starting with yourself is number one. Like that morning routine for me is the only way I survive. I literally doing the fitness, taking care of the things I put into my body, all of that. It just all matters and boils down to like, and nothing, like, we don't have to go do these massive things, but it just makes you feel so good, right? When you start your, yeah, and just like it's that consistency. So it's that consistency. If you don't give up, you can't fail. Well, that's what it's, it's, it's all the little things. It's my, that's the thing.

That's my big thing this year. It's not anyone big thing. It's all the little things. Just keep going. Jen Harper, absolutely brilliant. Thank you for going deep with us. Thank you for your time that you've shared with us today. Thanks to everyone joining us live or listening after the fact.

Thank you. I appreciate all of you. Thanks, Jen. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.