- 2 days ago
A panel discussion with Michelle Lee, Charlotte Palermino & Peyton List during Beauty Con.
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00:00all righty guys who's ready for our next panel okay so this next panel is actually one of my
00:24favorite subjects back when I was in school and it's science we're gonna be talking about
00:29the science of beauty and all the things that are in our favorite makeup and skincare products
00:35I've definitely found myself wondering once or twice what's in there so this next conversation
00:41is going to give us a little bit of that coming to the stage now to introduce our panelists please
00:46welcome Michelle Lee founder of monologue and former editor-in-chief of allure magazine
00:53hello hello everyone hi there so I am Michelle Lee I am like she said the founder of monologue which
01:05is a creative agency for beauty brands I also was the editor-in-chief of allure for six years and I
01:11also absolutely love science so very thrilled to talk with our amazing panelists today who I will
01:17go ahead and intro okay so joining me we have Charlotte Palomino founder and CEO of Do Skin
01:24and we also have actress and founder of Play Beauty Peyton List
01:32hi ladies hi hi how are you okay so I always love starting off with an icebreaker just wanted to ask
01:49you all a question that I feel like will help set the stage for who you are and what you really care
01:53about would love for you both to tell me what your beauty philosophy is in three words or less and tell me
02:02a little bit about why so for example my beauty philosophy is you do you right like to me I feel
02:08like that's important because I can give you advice about a lot of different things people sometimes ask
02:13about Botox or other things and I'm like you do you right like maybe it's not something that's right
02:18for everybody but if that's what you want to do go for it and I can give you the education about it
02:24okay so Charlotte let's start with you all right so my beauty philosophy would probably be it depends
02:30I think that getting my esthetician's license in 2020 starting the skincare journey over five years
02:36ago with my company do everyone is so different and so brands love to collapse information people
02:43love to give you a simple straight answer because you're like oh I don't have to think about this
02:46anymore I can just do it but for us and our brand and just my general philosophy is I really want to
02:51service people and I want to help you find your perfect routine or whatever it may be in the least
02:55amount of steps and so for me I'm always like it depends on so many different factors so those are
03:00my two and thank you everyone for coming this is very cool to see everyone hi love that Peyton what's
03:06your beauty philosophy I feel like mine right now has just been beauty is subjective I've just been
03:12really non-judgmental and just want to experiment as much as possible and I just feel like I find really
03:19different unique weird things really beautiful and so I'm just trying to not be judgmental and just be
03:25really open in the beauty space I love that having been someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s where
03:31I feel like it was not that way I'm always really happy to hear that um okay so Charlotte I feel like
03:38anyone who knows you and who follows you knows that you are all about transparency and I think we've all
03:44heard about radical transparency but I think you are like extreme radical transparency um would love to
03:51hear a little bit about like where that comes from like where why is that important to you and like
03:56why should we all care about what's in our products and transparency yeah I think for me the biggest
04:02thing is is that people just want to make informed decisions right you never want to be scammed like no
04:07one's like oh please take advantage of me or the fact that I don't know something or just frame
04:11something in a way where I can't make an informed decision and so my entire kind of like philosophy
04:16around that is let's just really explain to people what's going on we call ourselves sometimes like a
04:22TMI brand like we have way too much information but we found this incredible community of people who
04:27also want education and so when you look at say something that's you know petroleum free you'll see
04:34that a lot on packaging it's like for us we're like well what is petroleum free and in what context
04:39because if the product is in plastic plastic is derived from fossil fuels but also a lot of plant
04:45alternatives right a plant you need tractors to farm it you need water you need to have arable land
04:53which is industrial agriculture and then there's the other part where it's like if you're doing
04:57industrial agriculture a lot of the fertilizer has nitrogen in it where does nitrogen come from
05:02the fossil fuel industry so for us we're like if you want to divest from fossil fuels a noble goal
05:08I'm just not going to sell to you based off of that concept I'm going to explain to you every piece
05:13of information so like that you can make the decision that is best for you your family your
05:18friends and I think that that's really what it is is that I see beauty as a tool for education
05:23and it can be used for good or it can be used for kind of misdirection and so for us we're like how do
05:28we make things as clear as possible give all the information and then you make a decision and if
05:34you're like I just want a simple answer we're like okay well we'll give you just like a little bit
05:38more we just want to pull you a little bit further in yeah do you hope that um by you and your brand
05:44being that transparent that you are I don't want to say forcing but that you're encouraging other
05:50brands to also be as radically transparent yeah I mean I think for us like we're really focused on
05:56what we're doing I think for me a lot of people don't take beauty seriously but beauty can have impacts
06:01on how we feel but also policy if we are not asking politicians for the right things to do
06:08and if we're like okay get rid of petrolatum in skincare but everything is still in plastic
06:13we're not actually moving the agenda forward we're not helping the climate crisis we're not helping
06:19plastic pollution or any of the other ways that the fossil fuel industry touches our lives and so
06:24for me it's actually much bigger than just what other brands do it's about what you do and I want
06:29to make sure that y'all are doing the things that get you to the next place where you want to go
06:32super interesting okay Peyton your line play is all about clean beauty which certainly has been a big
06:39buzzy term recently and so we were talking about backstage you know clean means a lot of different
06:45things to a lot of different brands where some brands unfortunately are kind of using it more as a
06:49marketing term and maybe not really walking the walk how do you define what clean means and also just
06:56talk a little bit about how all quote-unquote clean ingredients are not equal yeah I feel like
07:01clean is becoming table stakes and yeah we were talking about every brand has a different definition
07:06of clean and you shouldn't have to do all this research it should be pretty transparent we just we
07:11followed a big made without list of over 1300 ingredients of what not to use we make sure all of
07:17our products are non-toxic which seems pretty reasonable for a product um we developed this product
07:24disco dust it's this shimmer I've developed it after going to so many music festivals and just
07:30seeing the whole sink covered in glitter and I was getting anxious about all the microplastics going
07:34into the ocean and so this is like the most beautiful shimmery product and it looks like glitter but it's
07:41vegan pearl instead and so just developing these things that make me feel a little bit better because
07:46I couldn't create products that contributed to this anxiety that I have around beauty um and we also
07:53partnered with repurpose global and so we're a certified plastic neutral brand so we basically take
08:01every piece of plastic that we use we also clean equally the amount from the environment and and use it to
08:06make eco wood and we're building playgrounds in columbia so uh it's it's a really cool community that I've
08:14gotten to know um I'm staring at your eyeshadow that you're wearing now is that vegan pearl
08:19yeah yeah it is it's beautiful oh thanks it's really gorgeous okay Charlotte um okay let's get a little
08:26controversial um nobody ever comes to me for hot gossip what are you what are you talking about what are
08:33some dirty little secrets of the beauty industry when it comes to ingredients right we all know like I think
08:40that you know there are certain consumers who are like very very in the know when it comes to
08:44ingredients and then sometimes they can kind of have the wool pulled over their eyes on certain
08:48things about how there are different grades of ingredients that like all hyaluronic acid is not
08:54equal to each other etc can you talk to us a little bit about some of the things that people have to be
08:58careful of so before I mean I could go on for a very long time I could write a dissertation on this
09:04subject but I think one thing that people don't necessarily realize is that stability of your
09:10products is probably the first place to start and that's one of the industry's biggest dirty little
09:14secrets um we'll just call it hot gossip though because I'm like I don't want I don't want somebody
09:19reporting this later and it's like I'm dropping all this teeth but basically when you're looking at
09:23the stability of your products think about food right you don't expect your food to have a shelf life of
09:27whenever so what is the shelf life of your products and we talk a lot about you know what
09:32regulation is in the United States you can put whatever you want in a bottle claim it as a
09:37percentage on the bottle but then it doesn't have to last for more than a day okay well there's also
09:43some scandals where companies literally weren't even adding in the active ingredient but we're not
09:47going to go into that tea so when we're looking at stability a great ingredient to look at is retinol
09:52everybody always talks about vitamin c and that vitamin c degrades so quickly it oxidizes
09:58all antioxidants have the capacity to degrade and oxidize so when you're looking at retinol it is
10:04a sensitive she's a sensitive soul and so she degrades very quickly there was a study done that
10:09showed that some retinol products degrade up to 80 percent after six months okay so that means that
10:16by the time you're getting it that retinol it's not there you're buying basically a fancy face oil or a
10:21fancy glycerin all of those things and so I think that one dirty little secret is that if you're going to be
10:27making a claim on an active my first thing is that I'm like oh do they know what stability testing is
10:32do they know what challenge testing is and anybody who follows me knows that I am very um how do I
10:38put this irritated um frustrated by the sunscreen regulations in the United States because it
10:44actually impedes innovation but one great thing I'm going to say something great about American
10:49sunscreen is that we do have it as a drug this requires extended challenge and stability testing
10:55I do not want sunscreen in the U.S. to become a cosmetic because then we know that brands are
11:00going to do what they've been doing where it's like you can put it in they're not doing that very
11:03extensive testing and so that would be kind of like my baseline dirty little secret is that there's a
11:09reason why clinical brands you're like oh my god this retinol burned my face off it's at one percent
11:13but this other one's so gentle and I'm like I want to send that to a lab and see how much retinol is
11:20actually in it so maybe you're the you're a reporter maybe all good all good I love all of
11:26those things um okay so Peyton let's talk a little bit about the creation process um as an editor I
11:33used to have some brands send me lab samples and other things and I love that I loved it loved it and
11:38like got very into the whole like creation process used to sometimes go to labs and see how things were
11:43made and just seeing things from start to finish to me is is just fascinating um can you talk to us a
11:49little bit about some of the interesting things that you've learned in the creation process for
11:54your products the whole thing was really a learning experience for me I think I realized
11:59um just how difficult it is to make a clean high pigment performing product um but it was just a
12:07non-negotiable for me when developing it I feel like the developers really wanted me to make it not
12:12clean um and so that was just a big learning experience and a lot of trial and error with the products
12:17um a lot of testing it out um can you talk a little bit about sustainability too like I know
12:24we're talking more about science and ingredients but I feel like sustainability is so much a part of
12:29your brand too that again it's become such a big buzzy word out there in the beauty industry but
12:34it means so many different things to different brands and I feel like your brand in particular is
12:39really taking it up a notch or two um why was that important to you and like what are some of the
12:44things that you're doing it is really important I learned so much about packaging um if it's all of
12:51our eyeshadow palettes are paper and they're made out of 100 recycled paper um same with our blushes
12:56any paper product and um yeah they're all just I think I learned that if you use a plastic compact
13:03and it has a mirror in it and you put it in the recycling and it has the recycling symbol
13:07it is not being recycled um if it has a mirror in it at all it's not being recycled so it's just a
13:14little accessory the little recycling symbol so I just feel like I I didn't yeah so I don't have a
13:20mirror in the in the compact but I'm like we can I went to an antique antique store and I found an
13:25old vintage mirror that I keep in my purse and I love it and I love knowing that our products are
13:30completely recyclable but there was just little things like that along the way super important okay
13:36so question for both of you um Charlotte we'll start with you first what are you most excited about or
13:42what do you hope to see when you think about the future of beauty and products um so it's funny
13:48one of my co-founders is in the audience here and she hears me talk about this all the time but for
13:53me biotechnology is actually where I'm the most interested um and it's because I think we need
13:59to divest from ingredients that are both fossil fuel derived for sure animals there's why don't do it
14:05we don't need it but also plants I don't think we should be using farms for cosmetics I think this
14:12um almost like greenwashing nature nature is setting a boundary and nature's like leave me alone and so
14:20we want to listen to that as much as possible so for those who don't know biotechnology it's when you
14:25take bacteria yeast and you actually have them spit out these different ingredients after you feed them
14:31food right so that food can be actually waste from our food industry which in the United States
14:35we waste an obscene amount of food every day that yeast then spits out an ingredient and you can edit
14:42it to whatever the natural ingredient is so a great example for this is palm oil the way that palm oil is
14:47farmed is pretty gnarly you have to burn down a lot of the forests and a lot of this is done in like the
14:54Philippines and like the global south and you're also hurting these amazing carbon sinks and so even when you
15:00see like these like very like oh we're going to certify this as ethical even brands like Unilever
15:05are investing millions upon millions of dollars in companies like I think I'm saying straight
15:10Genomatica which is a biotechnology company and so one of the things that Marta Joyce Joyce is my
15:16co-founder she used to do patents at like SkinCeuticals La Roche-Posay so she does all of our formulas
15:20but basically what we do is that we actually go out we go all over the world and we try to find
15:25biotechnology ingredients to really kind of start replacing some of like things like glycerin things
15:31like that but also those active and new and novel ingredients and so if anyone's in Vegas on October 26th
15:37I'm actually talking on a panel about biotechnology but I think again it like rolls back to like the
15:43it depends I really want people to make the decisions that they want to make and I see that
15:47sustainability it appears to be something that people care about but to the point where they're like
15:52we don't want to hurt performance of the product like they don't want to sacrifice anything but
15:56they want to have the good product so instead of trying to make all of these like design for the
16:01problem and so for us I want a product that performs well that does everything that every
16:06other product does but it's actually delivering on some of those promises but also being very honest
16:11about the fact that any product you buy is going to have waste and so we get a little like
16:16sustainable I'm like I don't know if I'm comfortable with that word because we're not doing it
16:20perfectly but what we found is that people really appreciate that honesty and they bring it out
16:24into the world so for me biotech and I you're going to hear it a lot you're going to see brands
16:29launching with this and there's a lot of greenwashing happening right there because biotechnology is
16:34not oh having a crop of corn and then taking that entire piece of corn and then turning it into an
16:41ingredient you're still using plants I'm talking about vats and like leaving nature alone and really just
16:47kind of taking it into a different direction amazing Peyton how about you what are you excited
16:52for for the future of beauty well that was super informative wow thank you for that we'll talk biotech
16:59later yeah wow I've already been watching her tiktoks and I'm fascinated but I guess I'm just excited
17:05for more innovation and for more of this and it's something that I'm just taking in constantly
17:09and yeah I'm really just excited for the future of clean beauty and for truly getting clean and that was
17:14the whole plant I completely agree with you about leaving nature alone so I'm excited to see what
17:21happens but I'm learning along the way so somewhat related to that question like listening to you
17:28talk I'm like you're so informed and one of the dangers I think of social like one of the great
17:33things about social media is that you can learn so much one of the dangers is there's a lot of
17:38misinformation out there it's a question for both of you but like for people out there who want to
17:43educate themselves and make sure that they're getting the right information what would your
17:47advice be for them okay so first off everybody has a bias we're all humans I tend to go to experts
17:55but sometimes I'm like what's happening over there sometimes experts can also be wrong and so what you
18:01do is that you get as many sources of information as possible and you try to make the best decision
18:06from where you can so when I was very briefly a writer you didn't take one source and take that source
18:12is truth you would go to multiple different sources see if they kind of match up and see where that
18:17goes and also understand that science is a study of nature and there is so much that we're uncovering
18:24and learning so don't lose hope because somebody is wrong just take it as another data point to go
18:30towards a conclusion where you might not actually get to that final conclusion so for me I love reading
18:36studies I am not a scientist I have friends who are scientists and one of those friends is my sister
18:42and I'm like hey Jean Marie I will literally sit down with her and have her walk me through it
18:46and I think for me it's more a responsibility if I'm going to be spreading this information
18:51if you're reading something and it's just for your own edification go have fun but I think for me
18:57be very wary when somebody talks in absolute terms because that is a big red flag for two reasons
19:04the first one is that you know it's great for content I'm right everyone else is wrong and so
19:11it's really great for clout and so the second thing is is that actually everything is a variation of
19:16it depends and it depends on how you frame the information and then another thing that I would
19:21remind people is that if something is very negative remember that humans are hardwired for negativity bias
19:28we are literally hardwired to remember negative information to protect ourselves you saw a bear
19:34on a hill you're gonna you're gonna clock that and be like don't go by the bear on the hill again
19:39so when you see a really negative piece of information your knee-jerk reaction is to share it
19:44to comment to give them all of these engagements and interactions which then boost the virality
19:49so just take a minute just take a minute try to find some sources and then if you have some friends
19:55who are in the scientific community lean on them because that's what I do yep very very good advice
20:00Peyton do you have sources or people that you lean on when you want to ask questions or just want to
20:05like understand some of the science more I mean I feel like I refer to I so many different articles I am
20:14just constantly trying to learn I love Jessica Dufino I love her all of her articles and her
20:20podcasts and she's gone completely independent so I think I just trust her because you pay a
20:25subscription and she's alone and she is not not unkind but she's very honest and blunt about beauty and
20:32about the space and I really love her and I appreciate that I feel like she's like the the tough love that
20:38I need to hear um but then I also feel like I refer to you as well and I refer to editors because you
20:43guys get sent all kinds of products and I loved asking you questions backstage as well how do you
20:49do it well I think like Charlotte said I think that when you are a trained journalist you do ask a lot
20:55of questions you ask a lot of sources you don't just go with one person and it is so much about
21:00reporting and digging for the truth and I do wish that more people would do that and sort of understand
21:05that a lot of times what seems to be the answer on the surface might not be um but I think that we are
21:12coming up on our time fascinating loved our conversation so much I feel like the key takeaways
21:17are definitely for me transparency honesty real truth everything before we exit the stage I just
21:23wanted to have each of you tell our audience where they can follow you and where they can find you
21:28online Peyton you can find me on Instagram TikTok just my name Peyton List um the beauty brand is play
21:35beauty so awesome Charlotte uh Charlotte Parlay on Instagram Parlay is the French word for to speak
21:42which I feel like I I talked a lot today and do skin D-I-E-U-X skin on Instagram and the ticky talk
21:50amazing and I'm at hey Michelle Lee on pretty much every social channel and I also just launched my own
21:57beauty sub stack which you can find under my name but it's also called go ahead try me ladies thank you
22:03so much this was awesome thank you so much to our audience thanks everyone please join me in giving
22:08everyone a big round of applause
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