In episode 106 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of VIOLETTE_FR and Creative Director of Makeup for Guerlain, Violette Serrat. 

Violette has been a bucket list guest of mine since Season 1 as I became aware of her work at something of a pivotal time, career wise, for me. 

Violette realised she wanted to become a makeup artist at the age of 19 after applying glitter to a friends face ahead of a party. She promptly moved to New York, with no training beyond a Kevyn Aucoin library book, and began to network her way into the industry. 

Between 2012 and 2020, Violette worked as a Makeup Designer at Dior, a Product Development Consultant at Sephora, and as Estee Lauder’s Global Beauty Director, and was discovered by Vogue France in 2015. 

In 2021, Violette was named Creative Director of Makeup for heritage brand Guerlain, AND launched her own brand, VIOLETTE_FR.

In this conversation, Violette shares why she’s an advocate for self-funding where possible, the value in staying true to your personal style when others suggest otherwise, and why she’d prefer it if her daughter weren’t to follow in her footsteps. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Violette on Instagram @violette_fr.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In episode 105 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of Verso, Lars Fredriksson.

It was a love of interaction, communication, and connection that led Lars Fredriksson to the beauty world. Having spent years in business, sales and marketing, he found himself talking to a stranger at a music industry party. Lars and this man were the only two guests who didn’t work in music, and it was this conversation that led Lars to his first role in the beauty world. 

Lars launched Verso in Sweden a decade ago- a brand built around a patented ingredient called Retinol8 and steeped in science. The brand is now available in 25 countries and the product range consists of about 25 SKUs, each of which has taken years to develop and perfect before hitting the market. 

In this conversation, which took place during Lars’ most recent trip to Australia, Lars shares why he believes everyone should use at least one Vitamin A product daily, why we really have his wife to thank for his move into the beauty space, and why we probably won’t ever be seeing a Verso neck cream on the shelves…

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Verso on Instagram @versoskincare.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In episode 104 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of FaceGym, Inge Theron. 

From early ambitions to become a CNN correspondent to a job as radio DJ, founding a branding agency to launching a board game, it was a job in the wellness space that really made Inge Theron feel as though she was home.

Inge spent 11 years as the Financial Times' Wellbeing, Beauty & Spa writer, a job that quite literally saw her trialling the best and, in some cases the worst, beauty and wellness treatments and trends in the world, before an idea struck her in 2013. She hadn’t just trialled, she’d studied, the wellness industry for over a decade- what if she took the very best bits and created something she knew would work?

The idea for FaceGym came to Inge in December 2013- a gym, rather than a spa, offering facial workouts instead of invasive treatments. The first FaceGym location opened in May the following year, with each workout following a “warm up, sculpting, cardio and cool down” formula. In just 8 years, that 1 location has expanded beyond 15. In 2021, FaceGym launched their own line of topical skincare products, and in January of this year, Inge opened FaceGym’s first Southern Hemisphere location at Mecca George Street.

In this conversation, Inge shares how she convinced a heritage retailer to take on her brand, how she learnt the importance of understanding the operations of your brand and not just the creative, and why she takes stock of where she’s at, both personally and professionally, every single year. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow FaceGym on Instagram @facegym.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In episode 103 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the co-founders of JB SKRUB, Julie Bowen and Jill Biren. 

USE CODE GLOWJOURNAL15 FOR 15% OFF YOUR JB SKRUB ORDER.

Julie Bowen has been acting professionally since 1992, perhaps most notably spending 11 years in the role of Claire Dunphy on Modern Family. Jill Biren spent close to two decades in publishing at Condé Nast, working across titles including Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair. 

Both mothers of sons, Julie and Jill got to chatting at a birthday party about the changes their sons were going through as pre-teens, realising there was a glaring gap in the market for a skincare brand aimed at young men, given the existing offering was either too young, too overtly feminine, or just that bit too adult and intimidating, rather than easy and fun. 

JB SKRUB spent three years in product development ensuring each of the five formulas was perfect, with not a single corner cut and each product being certified European Union compliant for clean skincare, and launched in January of this year. Less than two months in, the brand already has multiple new products on the horizon as well as plans to launch internationally very soon. 

In this conversation, Julie and Jill share how their respective careers in show business and media have affected their personal relationships with beauty, their advice on having difficult conversations with adolescents, and Julie shares how playing the role of a mother of three prepared her for her own motherhood journey. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow JB Skrub on Instagram @jbskrub.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In episode 102 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Recreation Beauty, Nedahl Stelio. 

Despite steadily building a name for herself as one of the country’s most influential voices in fashion and beauty media, Nedahl didn’t enter the industry with a specific niche in mind. Having worked at Girlfriend Magazine as Beauty and Features Editor, Cosmopolitan Magazine as Beauty Editor, Features Editor and Deputy Editor, and as Editor of Cleo Magazine, she tells me that while she fell into beauty, over time she fell in love with it. 

Around 14 years ago, Nedahl found herself struggling to conceive and elected to switch to “natural” products in her home and beauty routines, and it was at this time that she discovered there were really no luxury options in the natural perfume space.

Still working as a journalist, Nedahl placed her idea on the backburner, however after some years wearing no perfume at all, she decided it was time to create a solution to her own problem. 

Recreation Beauty, a natural, vegan, and Australian made fragrance and beauty brand was launched in 2019 following over two years of product development, and now boasts one of the most innovative sustainability frameworks I’ve come across.

In this conversation, Nedahl shares the ways in which the media landscape has evolved across her nearly three decades in the industry and, perhaps surprisingly, the ways in which it has stayed the same, her advice for those deciding if their startup should launch wholesale or direct to consumer, and the advantages of starting a business on your own. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Recreation Beauty on Instagram @recreationbeauty.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In episode 101 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Saint Louve Skincare, Elly Seymour. 

The wheels of Elly Seymour’s career journey were set in motion when she was a child with a very specific dream of wearing surgeon’s scrubs. Elly decided she wanted to be a cosmetic nurse when she was just a teenager, convincing her parents to allow her to study a Diploma of Makeup in lieu of Year 12. Her reason was a pragmatic one- when she turned 18 she’d be able to enrol as a nurse, and a beauty qualification would allow her to freelance on the weekend to supplement the cost of the nursing course.

In 2019, with several years and even more qualifications beneath her belt, Elly opened and funded her own clinic in a similarly pragmatic way, electing to continue working as a registered nurse in her local hospital simultaneously to save money, build relationship and maintain those acute skills.

In March 2020, only a few months in and with a client waitlist close to 150 people long, the pandemic forced Elly to close the clinic’s doors indefinitely. Where many would, understandably, have crumbled, Elly used the unknown to her advantage. She used the clinic’s social media platforms to cultivate a reputation for herself as an industry authority, she took a permanent position at the hospital, the more secure income from which allowed her to fund her next project, and underwent further study in cosmetic formulations. In August 2022, the aforementioned project came to life- Saint Louve Skincare, a topical skincare brand that she runs alongside her well-and-truly up-and-running again Louve Skin Clinic. 

In this conversation, Elly shares her take on going all in with a startup versus maintaining a secondary source of income, when and why to allocate budget to outsourcing elements of the business that aren’t your areas of expertise, and why being a forward-facing founder has been of such great benefit when it comes to brand education.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Saint Louve Skincare on Instagram @saintlouveskincare.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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We're back! Season 5 of the Glow Journal Podcast begins on Feb 1st.

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In the final episode of Season 4, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of Floral Street, Michelle Feeney. 

Michelle is, quite literally, a beauty industry icon. 

Headhunted by Estée Lauder Companies in 1993, Michelle is largely responsible for turning Crème de la Mer into a cult product before becoming Vice President, Global Communications of MAC Cosmetics, helping to increase the company’s net worth from $65 million to $1 billion in less than 7 years bringing mainstream awareness to the MAC AIDS Fund, and then spending 4 years as the CEO of St Tropez and transforming the tanning industry in that time.

Michelle launched Floral Street in November 2017, the story of which she shared back on Episode 53 of the Glow Journal podcast in 2020. 

In this bonus episode, recorded at Mecca Beauty headquarters, Michelle and Gemma chat personal fragrance, scent scaping and the changing face of sustainability in beauty. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Floral Street on Instagram @floralstreet_.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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To celebrate 100 EPISODES of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Paula’s Choice, Paula Begoun. 

Paula was my first ever international guest back in 2018, Season 1, Episode 3, and I still receive messages about that episode to this very day. 

To celebrate 100 episodes and 4 seasons, we’re taking it back to basics and doing what Paula does best- myth busting. Should skin flake when we first try retinol? If a product makes our skin tingle, does that mean it’s working? Do you really have sensitive skin, or have you caused your sensitive skin? 

On a personal note, I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who has listened over the last four years and every brand founder who has trusted me to tell their story. I cannot begin to put into words how grateful I am for each and every one of you. I love you!

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Paula’s Choice on Instagram @paulaschoice and @paulaschoiceau.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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In this Bonus Episode of the Glow Journal podcast, Trinny London founder and CEO Trinny Woodall returns!

It has been three years since Trinny’s last visit to Australia and her last appearance on the podcast, so I headed to her suite on her most recent trip to catch up on three years worth of beauty and business (and for Trinny and I to do our skincare routines together, which you can see on my TikTok). 

Since we last caught up, Trinny has launched an entire skincare range, which she trialled on a whopping 3600 women ahead of its launch to test and perfect the range. 

A major topic of conversation in our last episode was the strength of the Trinny Tribe, which Trinny explains really transformed into an even stronger support network for its members over the last couple of years and now consists of 34 tribes in 16 countries. Last month saw Trinny open two Trinny London pop-ups, one in Doncaster and one in Bondi, the openings of which served as an opportunity for Trinny’s Australian tribes to finally come together in person. 

In this conversation, Trinny shares just what makes the Trinny Tribe so strong, the gap she aims to fill in the skincare space, and what we can expect to see next from the brand. 

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Trinny Woodall on Instagram @trinnywoodall.

Follow Trinny London on Instagram @trinnylondon.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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