Sophie Marcoux | Founder of Ficifolia Fragrances

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

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

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

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

In episode 140 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of Airyday, Frances van der Velden. I knew this was going to be a great storytelling episode, because I was already reasonably versed in the Airyday backstory, but what blew me away in this conversation was how much actual tangible business advice Frances so openly shared. Frances was diagnosed with a Basal Cell Carcinoma, which led to her trying more or less every sunscreen on the market to find a formula she loved and would be happy to wear every day. When she couldn’t find one that ticked every box, she set to work on developing Airyday- an SPF wardrobe that launched in 2022 with four sunscreens. Beauty retail giant Sephora reached out to Frances a mere six weeks post-launch, and today, two years in, Airyday is stocked in Sephora stores nationally and through a whopping 600 clinic stockists. Frances explains that this was largely thanks to a high risk ad spend strategy that she explains far better than I can. In this conversation, Frances shares the realities of such major growth in such a short timeframe, how her marketing investment allowed Airyday to cut through the noise in a saturated market, and her advice on getting your brand seen by the decision makers at the country’s biggest retailers. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Airyday on Instagram @airyday.officialStay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Six years in and it’s time for my first solo episode. The botox bit is clickbait. Hi! Gem here. This is probably the most honest and open I’ve been about a bunch of things on the internet. This was cathartic! We're talking my studies, how I got into the beauty industry, my career prior to leaving my job and going out on my own 8 years ago, career advice... you understand. Thank you to everyone who submitted such thoughtful questions. If you enjoyed this and would like me to do another solo ep somewhere down the line, please let me know. If you didn’t enjoy it, don’t tell me. Thanks!Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 138 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the co founder of Augustinus Bader, Professor Augustinus Bader. The Augustinus Bader brand turned over $7 million USD in 2018, the year it launched. Within 2 years that figure had grown to $70 million, and this year it’s reported that sales will have topped $130 million. That is the power of Augustinus Bader, both the man and the brand, the latter having won over 120 beauty industry awards since launch, including being named The Greatest Skincare of All Time by WWD. Professor Bader, however, never intended to enter the beauty industry. Following over 3 decades of work in medicine and garnering global acclaim for his work with burns victims, it was in 2013 that he met French financier Charles Rosier who saw his work and began the two year process of convincing the Professor to start a skincare brand with him. The term “cult brand” gets thrown around a little loosely in beauty, but that truly is the status Augustinus Bader has reached. This is a man who said “yes” to developing skincare almost entirely so he could self-fund future medical innovations, but whose products have become so, so popular that he is now a frequent collaborator of Victoria Beckham and has grown the product line from 2 face creams to somewhere between 30 and 40 SKUs.In this conversation, Professor Bader shares how he took a hospital grade burn cream and made it into a shelf stable luxury beauty brand, how his collaborations with both Victoria Beckham and Sofia Coppola came to fruition, and what exactly his patented TCF8 technology can actually do for the skin. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Augustinus Bader on Instagram @augustinusbader.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 137 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founder of O&M, Jose Bryce Smith. When we talk about a founder being “ahead of their time,” Jose Bryce Smith may well be the very best example. Jose co-founded Australia’s first ammonia-free hair salon and launched one of the first ever ammonia and PPD free hair colours, but beyond being a pioneer (something Jose tells me she’s not so sure she’d ever want to do again), Jose’s story is really just one of the best I have ever heard. She, naturally, tells it far better than I do, but this is just an objectively great founder story regardless of whether you’ve got an interest in beauty, business, or neither. In short- she got fake clients in the salon to secure a Vogue feature, she had a Legally Blonde moment in which she bought back her business, she can claim ownership of one of the funniest first date stories I’ve ever heard, and in 2015 she lost $500,000 of product- and against all odds, O&M is now one of the biggest haircare and colour brands in the world. In this conversation, Jose shares how she worked to earn back the trust of hairdressers country-wide after a major manufacturing error, how a first date became her first board member, and the advice from her late father that she always comes back to. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow O&M on Instagram @originalmineral.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20% off sitewide at thebeautychef.com with code GLOWJOURNALIn episode 136 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks once again to the founder of The Beauty Chef, Carla Oates. Something of an unintentional theme over the last couple of months of the podcast has been founders who’ve truly been first to market with something- not just saying they identified a gap for something, actually identifying a gap (easier said than done in the beauty space). I last had Carla on the show in season 1, almost 6 years ago, but we’ve worked together several times since and I really do find her to be one of the most interesting and innovative founders in the country. For those unfamiliar with The Beauty Chef, and Carla’s story, The Beauty Chef really was the first of its kind on launch in 2009- Carla totally pioneered the “inner beauty” category that most of us are well and truly across now, but keep in mind the market looked very, very different then.Carla is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to inner beauty as a category, but also on the business of beauty. There is, of course, a huge education piece that needs to come alongside being first to market with anything, and I’ve always found Carla’s approach to this really, really interesting. Since our last episode together, the range has grown to include 14 inner and 3 outer beauty products, the most recent addition being Body Protein+ which launched just last week. In this conversation, Carla shares how her background in fashion and beauty has shaped her own relationship with beauty and self worth, how she ensures her products always have a point of difference as the market grows saturated, and how she differentiates between a fleeting wellness trend and one worth investing in.Read more at glowjournal.comFollow The Beauty Chef on Instagram @thebeautychef.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 135 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the founders of Glow Culture, Holly Holub, Donna Chan and Lori Pirozzi.Holly, Donna and Lori have a number of things in common- two of those things being an early wish to run a business and create something of their own, and a deep seated love of beauty. The three women met years ago, working on the corporate side of beauty, and over long conversations during lockdown they realised just how much their stories and interests overlapped. A few years ago, all three of them decided it was time to reevaluate what they were doing professionally and finally go after their dream- and so the seed for Glow Culture was planted. Holly, Donna and Lori had taken a particular interest in the science surrounding fermented ingredients, and while they’d seen the occasional mention of probiotics in skincare marketing, they’d never seen an Australian brand as single-minded about fermentation in that way that Korean skincare brands had. They felt there was a gap in the Australian market for skincare rich in fermented ingredients, as opposed to products that only contained one or two, and it would appear that their instincts were correct- less than 10 weeks post-launch, Glow Culture has already been picked up by retail giants Adore Beauty and Chemist Warehouse. In this conversation, Holly, Donna and Lori share why they feel Australia has been a bit of a late adopter of K Beauty trends, their take on the rise of niche and independent brands, and the pros and cons of being digitally native vs being available in physical stores. Read more at glowjournal.comFollow Glow Culture on Instagram @glowculturehq.Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemdimond and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.