The Evolution of Beauty: A Conversation with Industry Pioneer Wende Zomnir
Celebrating a Milestone with a Visionary
Hello, beauty enthusiasts and loyal listeners! I’m thrilled to share with you a special edition of the Beyond Beauty podcast. Not only is this our 100th episode, but we also have the honor of hosting Wende Zomnir, a trailblazer in the beauty industry and the co-founder of Caliray. Wende’s journey from launching Urban Decay to advocating for sustainability in beauty is nothing short of inspiring. So, let’s dive into the insights and stories she shared with us.
The Birth of Urban Decay and the Rise of Caliray
Wende Zomnir is a name synonymous with innovation in the beauty world. Her vision led to the creation of Urban Decay in 1996, a brand that challenged the status quo and democratized beauty. Under her leadership, Urban Decay skyrocketed to $1 billion in annual retail sales, claiming the top brand spot at Sephora and Ulta. But Wende didn’t stop there. Her passion for clean formulas and sustainability gave birth to Caliray, a west coast beauty brand that’s making waves with its commitment to the environment.
A Passion for Cosmetics and the Journey to Success
Wende’s love for makeup began with her mother’s makeup drawer, a treasure trove that sparked a lifelong fascination. Despite facing challenges, such as being sent home from school for her bold makeup choices, Wende’s passion never wavered. She shared with us the hurdles of building Urban Decay as an indie brand, from sourcing manufacturing to marketing in a competitive landscape. Her scrappy approach and unwavering determination were key to her success.
Embracing Change and Challenging Beauty Standards
The beauty industry has undergone a transformation over the past 27 years, and Wende has been at the forefront. She discussed the impact of influencers and the double-edged sword of democratizing beauty. While new standards have emerged, Wende remains focused on the positive aspects of beauty—empowerment, self-expression, and inclusivity.
Sustainability: The Heart of Caliray
The inception of Caliray was a response to the growing concern for our planet’s health and the California dream of wellness and freedom. Wende’s travels with Urban Decay revealed a global fascination with this lifestyle, which she wanted to encapsulate in her new brand. Caliray’s commitment to sustainability is evident in its use of bioplastics and innovative packaging solutions, like the bamboo palette with recyclable aluminum pans.
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Starting a business is no small feat, and Wende’s advice to entrepreneurs is to be prepared for hard work. Delegation, resourcefulness, and resilience are the pillars of building a successful brand. Wende’s journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of pushing through challenges.
The Future of Beauty and a Tease of a Book
As our conversation came to a close, Wende left us with a tantalizing thought—the possibility of a book. Her stories, rich with experience and wisdom, would undoubtedly be a treasure trove for anyone interested in entrepreneurship and the beauty industry. Wende’s legacy, from Urban Decay to Caliray, is a narrative of resilience, innovation, and a relentless pursuit of balance in an ever-changing world.
Where to Find Caliray
For those eager to experience the magic of Caliray, you can find their products online at caliray.com and follow Wende’s journey on social media at Wende Zomnir (with an ‘e’, not a ‘y’). It’s been an absolute pleasure having Wende on the podcast, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Thank you for joining me on this milestone episode of Beyond Beauty. Wende Zomnir’s insights are a beacon for all of us in the beauty industry, reminding us that with passion and perseverance, we can make a significant impact. Here’s to the next hundred episodes, and to all the beauty pioneers out there—keep pushing the boundaries!
Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) – Welcome to the Beyond Beauty podcast, a platform to highlight the beauty industry’s talent, deconstruct their learnings and spark ideas for your own business. The Beyond Beauty podcast is created by Dilley, the leading creative agency working with the fastest growing brands and beauty. Here, we’ll interview guests from major beauty corporations, creative directors, influencers, founders and risk taking entrepreneurs. Our guests are not only changing the traditional beauty landscape, they are also innovating in ecommerce, branding and digital marketing. Join us as they share valuable advice, how they launch their businesses and most importantly, ignite thought provoking conversations across beauty, tech and marketing. Hello everyone! We are so excited to have Wende Zomnir on the Beyond Beauty podcast. So Wende, thank you so much for coming out today.
Speaker 2 (00:00:53) – Thanks for having me on. It’s exciting.
Speaker 1 (00:00:56) – Well, we’re so excited to hear your story. And I’m gonna dive into your bio before we get started. Okay, so Wende Zomnir is a modern beauty industry pioneer. She envisioned a shakeup on an unexpected and stodgy beauty industry and unleashed Urban Decay from her Laguna Beach bungalow in 1996, filling the void with makeup that fueled a beauty revolution.
Speaker 1 (00:01:19) – Urban Decay democratize beauty before anyone else, and Wende paved the way for the indie beauty movement and every beauty entrepreneur. After transforming the beauty industry and helping grow Urban Decay to $1 billion in annual retail sales and elevate it to the number one brand spot at both Sephora and Alta, then selling the brand to L’Oreal. Wende, a lifelong surfer, was faced to head on by the amount of plastic trash in the ocean while riding the waves, so she turned her sights on another beauty revolution sustainability. In October 2021, Wende Zomnir cofounded Caliray, a West Coast beauty brand made of clean formulas, dirty minds and sexy sustainability. The Sephora Clean and Planet positive brand blends makeup with wellness to create innovative concoctions with innocent ingredients. Amazing. Wende, we are so excited to have you on today. So first of all, Urban Decay is such an incredible brand. I cannot think of any person that wears makeup that doesn’t have a product in their makeup bag from Urban Decay, and I’m so excited to hear about Caliray.
Speaker 1 (00:02:22) – As a lover of the beach myself, I live in Santa Monica. I’m always at the beach. I love the water. So what you’re doing across healthy ingredients as well as sustainability and reducing plastic in a world that is so incredible, especially within the beauty industry, that really needs to shake up. So excited to have you here. So let’s go back to where it started. How did you get into makeup? Like where did this whole journey begin? Where do you want to take us back to?
Speaker 2 (00:02:44) – I kind of want to like, go back to the intersection between Urban and Cali really quick. Okay, perfect. Only to make it really clear that all of the stuff I’m doing with Caliray is things I was doing at urban all along. It’s just that Urban Decay had a certain ethos, a certain brand personality, a certain look. That was a place where we had all non off gassing materials. I built all the workstations out of things that didn’t off gas. I had a dog friendly workplace so people could bring their dog and feel good during the day.
Speaker 2 (00:03:14) – I did yoga classes. I had a biodynamic garden that people could pick their lunch from. Like I was really into the whole wellness piece in my own home. Emfs turn off at night. I had my kids with a midwife, like I’m all into all of it, and Caliray was just really an opportunity for me to take. Oh, and I was also doing trying to do sustainability urban. All of our boxes were made with FSC certified paper. Recycled paper. I even tried to do bioplastics like 18 years ago. 18 years ago. I also took all the parabens out of Urban Decay products. So basically making them clean before clean was a thing and nobody cared, which is fine, but but I cared, so I it’s not like I did. I just want everyone to know it’s not like I did this like crazy. 180 with Caliray. It just was taking all of the things I really believed in and putting them into another makeup brand. And I really feel like it’s time for beauty and wellness to intersect.
Speaker 2 (00:04:15) – So I had such a great moment. I was flying back from San Francisco yesterday, and the TSA agent, she was like, oh my God, rookie mistake. I’m like, I shouldn’t have made it. But I left a bottle of water in my bag. But she’s digging through and she sees like this old naked three palette and she’s, oh, this is cool. I love Urban Decay. And I’m like, oh, I founded it. And she was like, no way. So it was really cool because she asked for a picture with me and then I was like, but I have this new line, Caliray. And so it was just a super cool moment like to have yesterday with her.
Speaker 1 (00:04:44) – And that naked palette is so iconic. It’s every single girl I’ve ever gone on, like a girls trip with. Everyone has. We always joke, everyone pulled up our naked palette and it’s all everyone’s hit pan on their favorite three shades and the the potion. The eye primer to primer potion.
Speaker 2 (00:04:58) – Yeah, that was a pretty interesting concoction because I went through a lot of different iterations of that. It would be like too thick. And this product, we created it in 22,005. So this is like an older it’s like almost a 20 year old formula. Yeah., and back then it was like okay, it would flake. It was this, it was that like I went through so many iterations on that formula and I remember getting a new lab sample, putting it on, and then thinking, I’m just going to test this, give this a road test today. And I had all this, like, smoky purple eyeshadow on for a photoshoot. And then I had to go straight to LAX and fly to London. And I remember getting to London and going, okay, I need ten minutes to get my I got to go to dinner, I got ten minutes to fix my makeup, and I remember looking at my eyeshadow and it’s perfect after all of that.
Speaker 1 (00:05:44) – Wild.
Speaker 2 (00:05:45) – There’s the formula.
Speaker 1 (00:05:45) – Like that’s a 15 hour flight on top of, like, the dryness of an airplane.
Speaker 1 (00:05:50) – Everything that withstands a test of time, for sure. So where did this all begin? Did you grow up loving makeup, where you were always into doing your makeup and your friends makeup? We were always into ingredients like, how did this all start?
Speaker 2 (00:06:01) – No one was going to ingredients back in the day. That’s true. That’s very true. I got into ingredients because I like to I love to figure out what they do, but I was always in a makeup. I remember as a little girl, like digging through my mom’s makeup drawer. I remember I wasn’t allowed to have 17 magazine. I remember going over to one of their friends homes, and they had a teenage daughter who was allowed to have 17 magazine and going through it. And just like my mind being blown about the makeup the girls were wearing and everything, and I remember getting for Christmas one year, one of those big blockbuster kind of cheapy makeup sets. It was like the first generation of Calvin Klein makeup and had four blushes and like 20 eyeshadow, like more stuff than you should have in a kit.
Speaker 2 (00:06:44) – But I loved it. So it’s the favorite Christmas gift I ever got from my mom. And I remember I would tear pictures out of magazines by the time I was allowed to have them, and I would put them on my mirror. And because this is obviously pre-internet.
Speaker 1 (00:06:58) – Yeah, true.
Speaker 2 (00:06:59) – And I would put them on my mirror and I would try to recreate those makeup looks that’s basically doing YouTube tutorials before there was to post the.
Speaker 1 (00:07:07) – Way.
Speaker 2 (00:07:08) – I was like, super into makeup. I always tell the story. I grew up in Texas. Girls and makeup love big hair and makeup, and I loved it so much that I got sent home from school for wearing too much.
Speaker 1 (00:07:20) – Oh my gosh. And were you wearing the bold colors? I know you mentioned you were wearing purple on your flight to London, but you were wearing like the bold colors back then versus the I.
Speaker 2 (00:07:28) – Was obsessed with like cosmetics. Like, you probably don’t even know what that is.
Speaker 1 (00:07:32) – It was like, no, I definitely do.
Speaker 1 (00:07:33) – Yes, yes, the eyeliner to all of it.
Speaker 2 (00:07:35) – So I just yes it was. Sometimes it was all brown, sometimes it was colored, sometimes it was a lot every day though. And there were hot rollers involved too.
Speaker 1 (00:07:43) – Oh my gosh. Hot rollers are great. They’re coming. They have making a comeback. I use them myself. I do love those hot rollers.
Speaker 2 (00:07:48) – They need to be a little hotter for my hair. Now. I don’t know why like used to work, but now my hair needs a little more heat. But honestly, a great hot roller like you can just roll up your hair, do your makeup hair and you’re ready to go. It’s the most efficient it is.
Speaker 1 (00:08:03) – It’s like this trend cycling back. Okay, so you’re into makeup. You’re playing with makeup. You’re going to school, you’re getting in trouble for wearing makeup. You’re into the trends. And also a big deal to talk about is that back like like right now a lot of indie brands are entering the space.
Speaker 1 (00:08:16) – And I think with social media, a lot of brands are able to get in touch with their consumers. I don’t know what to say. Height of social media of Instagram and TikTok indie brands, really. It was so difficult to enter the space, especially within that Sephora market. And when I think of Urban Decay, I think of that brand that’s like facing these quote heritage lines behind maybe like an Estee Lauder of the world and the Mac and Clinique, and you’re able to really push forward and then get to that number one spot at Sephora and Ulta. So like, how did you start building this brand?
Speaker 2 (00:08:48) – Yeah, I think that’s a it’s really different now. So brands that are entering the space now, the barriers to entry are completely different than the barriers to entry at Urban Decay. So you can go online and you can like Google how to make lipstick. And you can find a bunch of labs and you can call enough of them and you can figure out how to make lip gloss. If you have the capital and you don’t even need that much, you can make a lip gloss and you can put you can build your own Shopify site and you can have a makeup line.
Speaker 2 (00:09:16) – It is completely doable. I think that’s great actually. I also so back in the day that we didn’t we weren’t able to do that. It wasn’t until really 19. I remember 1998, 1999, I was able to start using the internet to source things and find things. So I had to like, get creative, like how did you.
Speaker 1 (00:09:38) – How did you find, how did you find, like your manufacturers for boxes versus sourcing the ingredients and like testing things.
Speaker 2 (00:09:44) – Then you just have to be like super networking and it’s the same thing with the marketing of it. So the barriers to entry when I started were not. It was, how do you get this stuff made? Because it was all big companies. It was big companies and the stock and trade. We are a beauty brand. Here is our beautiful model and she is usually blonde, white, skinny, blue eyed and even featured usually every once in a while. Maybe they spice her up, I don’t know, go with a more exotic girl, but she was still.
Speaker 2 (00:10:19) – Even if she was exotic, she was still really thin and beautiful and perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:10:23) – Very true.
Speaker 2 (00:10:24) – And the marketing behind those products was, if you buy this product I’ve made, then maybe, just maybe, you will take one step closer to looking like her. You never will, but you could try. And we just really wanted to turn it on its head. We wanted to say you’re awesome and. And here’s a bunch of tools to just show off your awesomeness.
Speaker 1 (00:10:48) – I love that.
Speaker 2 (00:10:49) – And I think what’s cool about what we did with urban was that is now table stakes. If you went into the beauty industry and said, here is my perfect model, and you had that whole aspirational beauty in a box kind of point of view, you would be shamed off the internet, which is great. That’s great because that’s what we wanted to do. So we were starting from this weird place anyway. We were super counterculture going up against these big brands. There was no distribution for a brand like us.
Speaker 2 (00:11:22) – So Urban’s 27 years old. Sephora’s 25. Wow. So we were on we were one of the first brands to sell on the internet, but no one was buying. People didn’t even have computers. There were no.
Speaker 1 (00:11:34) – That was on your own direct to consumers.
Speaker 2 (00:11:37) – This was pretty flip phone. Wow. You can you couldn’t buy your phone. There was no mobile shopping and then there was no social media. So we did things like, I would find these girls who were it girls, right. And I would send them boxes of product in some money and they would pass it out and talk to their friends. Wow. And that was.
Speaker 1 (00:11:55) – Influencers.
Speaker 2 (00:11:56) – It was influencer work before there was real influencer work, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (00:12:00) – Grassroots, like people on the ground, roots like kind of the people you turn to. And you’re like, okay, what eyeline are you wearing? Tell me about it. Look cool.
Speaker 2 (00:12:08) – I would go. I decided there was this band. Super cool. I loved Gwen at No Doubt, with No Doubt and then Shirley Manson, who was a who was the lead singer for band called garbage, which was a super cool band.
Speaker 2 (00:12:22) – They’re having another moment, but and I eventually got to work with Gwen, which was great, but I remember thinking I had read in a magazine that garbage was going to be recording their next album in Milwaukee or something. And so I went to this is going to be like, people listening to this are going to be like, I don’t even understand what she’s saying. I went to the library. Are they probably going to a library? But I went to the library, and at the library they have this archaic thing. Or they used to called a phonebook, and they have different cities. And it was like basically a printed book this thick of a city of people’s phone numbers. You could look them up, businesses in the back would advertise. So I went to the public library. I got the Milwaukee phone book. I, I looked in the back in the yellow pages for different recording studios, and I started calling recording studios until someone answered and was like, oh yeah, Shirley’s here. And they put me on.
Speaker 2 (00:13:20) – And then I sent her all my little lab samples. I didn’t even have perfect samples. I sent her a little lab samples, and she wore the nail polish on her tour, and I would just do stuff like that, really random things. I was so scrappy because I had nothing.
Speaker 1 (00:13:34) – Yeah. And you found a way to connect with these, like, people that are influential in their own right and they’re cool and just I almost think of it back in the day of people are cool because they were cool. It wasn’t because they monetized it, per se. It was just because that’s whether they were a singer or they’re a surfer or their street style fashion girl or guy or whatever. They were just cool because they were cool. They weren’t making money off of it.
Speaker 2 (00:13:56) – You know, money.
Speaker 1 (00:13:57) – They’re just that’s just their style and their personality and their quirks, and you don’t see that much anymore. So I really love that we.
Speaker 2 (00:14:05) – Had that barrier to entry. And then we had what you had asked about earlier, which was the manufacturing barrier to entry.
Speaker 2 (00:14:09) – And so we had gone to a car paint like a body shop and said, like, where do you get your car paint? Because we figured car paint was like nail polish. And then we got a lead on car paint manufacturer, and then we called them in new Jersey, and they were like, yeah, we make nail polish too. And so we got the name nail polish manufacturer. And then we asked them, like, where can we buy a bottle? And then the bottle guys were like, I would be like, where can I make lipstick? And they’re like, oh yeah, we know these guys. And then I asked the lipstick manufacturer, where can I buy case to put it in? And so I would just make sure I wasn’t asking people who were in competition with each other for referral, but because now everyone’s like collaborative and let’s do a, let’s do a collab or let’s do a cross promo. And that wasn’t like that back then. Wow. So I had to make really sure I wasn’t asking people to undercut themselves.
Speaker 2 (00:14:59) – So I was like continually I was playing detective. It was a lot of detective work. And the super cool thing is I just went to makeup LA. I can’t believe 27 years later still, I went to makeup LA because I love it. I went to makeup L.A. with my team and I ended up meeting. I had a meeting with a guy who was one of those first people.
Speaker 1 (00:15:22) – Oh gosh, oh my gosh. Was it the first time that you met them in person? Is it one of those people that you’re calling and no. Like.
Speaker 2 (00:15:30) – No, we met in person, like people came to, you know, he was the first vendor like packaging vendor who would give me the time of day. He was like, yeah, I’ll come bring you some samples. And he sat with me in my little Laguna Beach bungalow and showed me stuff, and I bought little lipstick cases from him. And then we’re just it’s so cool. We’re still doing business together.
Speaker 1 (00:15:48) – And a lot of times it’s like you have that one person who believes in you, and that is like a spark that like, propels you forward and you don’t know why.
Speaker 1 (00:15:55) – Maybe they took your phone call or they met with you, but they believed in you, and you needed to see that for yourself to say, I’m on to something great.
Speaker 2 (00:16:02) – I would tell anybody who’s listening, who’s thinking about starting a beauty business or any other business, look for that person that will help you and believe in you. I think it’s scary when you reach out to people that can help you and you say, I want you to be my mentor. I’m not saying don’t ask for mentors, but it can be like for someone who’s really busy, it can feel like, oh my God, I have to take on this thing. I am mentoring through the Sephora Accelerate program and I’m really excited about that. But then someone else wrote me and was like, Will you be my mentor? And I was like, I can’t, like, I can’t handle all that.
Speaker 1 (00:16:32) – Like, I like an organic fit for your who you’re going to.
Speaker 2 (00:16:35) – But if you had to, if just texted me with a question here or there, I’d be like, yeah, I’ll answer that.
Speaker 2 (00:16:39) – So just look for that person. But maybe don’t hit them up with the mentor thing right away. Like maybe hit them up with, just what do you think about this? Or could I, could I tap into you for this or and let them start to believe in you? I’m not saying if you really need a mentor in someone’s looking to be your mentor, don’t do it. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying maybe if there’s someone you want to have involved or you want to have believe in you.
Speaker 1 (00:17:02) – That’s good advice. Someone once told me that if you have to ask your mentor if they’re your mentor, then they’re not your mentor. Like it should just be. Most naturally. It’s like a fit, like they believe in you and you respect their advice. And you came together and like you’re growing through this relationship of the ups and downs of building a business or a career in general. And that’s how like, very similar to what you said. That’s how you slowly, over time, build a great relationship of someone who’s empowering you and saying, you can do this through the highs and the lows.
Speaker 2 (00:17:33) – I agree. Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1 (00:17:35) – So a lot has happened in the past 27 years in the beauty industry. I probably stay here for three days and talk about the changes that have happened in the beauty industry. But what is the biggest shift that you’ve seen? Like the good, the bad? It’s very competitive space right now. As you said, a lot of people are getting into it, but there’s on top of social media and more. What is the biggest shift you’ve seen and like how have you navigated like a 180 in the industry in so many ways?
Speaker 2 (00:18:02) – The reason I’m still doing it is because I love challenges. I love learning things. I don’t want to turn my brain off. And I think starting a beauty brand now is so different than when I did it. So it’s a completely different challenge. But I still know the industry and that’s why I’m doing it. Just because I love this business, I love working with people. I love creating products. I still get fired up on that.
Speaker 2 (00:18:23) – I think how much the beauty industry has changed is it’s the good and the bad. It’s everything’s a double edged sword, right? I feel like my point of view on most things is that you’re always seeking the balance. The problem with balance is it’s a dynamic state. You can’t just find it and just hang out there. That doesn’t happen. The only constant is changed. So the balance is going to be changing. Once you get settled in a spot, it’s going to shift on you. I think that’s so you’re looking for that, but it’s not easy to maintain. I think the biggest change in the beauty industry was when you had Sephora get to a pretty big size. You had brands like urban two Faced benefit get to a big size. So these first round of Indies got to a fairly big size. And then you had the influencer thing happen, and that was really where you had this perfect storm to really revolutionize beauty. I always say it was the democratization of beauty. That’s true because before then it still, even though I had this whole challenge to that industry and how you looked at yourself, it still wasn’t those table stakes, weren’t there like that.
Speaker 2 (00:19:33) – You better be a brand that embraces all kinds, all types, all genders, all everything. Back in 1996, we were saying Urban Decay was for boys and girls. We were encouraging mentor nail polish. We were doing unisex packaging or binary packaging or whatever it’s supposed to be called today. That wasn’t really embraced until that perfect storm happened, and you had guys putting makeup on YouTube, and you had them becoming big influencers, which was really cool. You had all kinds of different people becoming influencers, not just that perfect model type. And the good side of that is that it did democratize beauty. The bad side of that is, and it did break down some beauty standards. The bad side of that is there’s a lot of filters, there’s a lot of unrealistic things. And so you created a whole nother beauty standard that was unrealistic. So you just traded one for the other. And do you.
Speaker 1 (00:20:27) – Think that propelled the beauty industry in such a way where people are saying, oh, I need to look like that? And then maybe they never meet that person in person and realize that that is a filter.
Speaker 1 (00:20:36) – It’s covering it up the redness on their face, or people are changing the shape of their own face, like the bone structure. People are even changing. And so I do think people dove into makeup more.
Speaker 2 (00:20:46) – I mean, just you put a basic filter on and all of a sudden my skin is not I don’t look like a mom anymore. I look like a kid. So it just you can change anything. And so just I think there’s always that. Dark side of beauty. But there’s also this really beautiful, positive side, which is the side I love embracing, which is these products. We make these products. We’re not curing cancer, but we can give people tools that make them feel confident. We can make tools that give them, make them feel like it’s self-expression. For some people. They love to express themselves through fashion. Some people love to paint their face. And I think transforming every day, like one day I’m like crazy, brilliant multicolored eyes. And I love that look.
Speaker 2 (00:21:35) – And what other days I just barely have any eyeshadow on. And I think that’s really powerful for a lot of people. That transformation moment.
Speaker 1 (00:21:45) – And it’s kind of like a ritual that they can.
Speaker 2 (00:21:47) – Do. Yeah. And it’s like a makeup can be like a hobby for them. It’s how they instead of getting dressed, they wear white t shirt, jeans and then they do their makeup. Exactly. And it was a really great outlet. It’s a really inclusive communities. It brought in. I felt a lot of people who may not have felt embraced by fashion, especially back at that time, like fashion has recently started to embrace more people. But it’s a little slower and I think beauty great. So I think there’s a lot of good. Obviously there’s always the dark side to things and you just gotta be aware of it.
Speaker 1 (00:22:21) – You said find that balance too. It’s find the balance of bringing the good, fighting the bad.
Speaker 2 (00:22:25) – How much time do you spend looking at your phone? And it’s.
Speaker 1 (00:22:28) – True.
Speaker 1 (00:22:28) – It’s like, how much time do you spend looking at your phone? But maybe it helps you go on that week vacation and still be able to connect into the office, but still be able to get away at the same time, it can really take away your time from walking outside or sitting at a family dinner by looking at your phone. So yeah, definitely we need to be on our phone less and less. I strongly agree with that. Yeah. So how did you start Caliray? How did you come up with the idea of Caliray? I know we were talking about your surfing. You’re finding plastic in the ocean. There’s definitely a lot of issues going on right now with with everything in the health of our planet as well as people. So, like, how did this idea come about?
Speaker 2 (00:23:05) – I was traveling the world, opening countries for Urban Decay, and it was always interesting because no matter where I went, whether it was a journalist, a retailer or a customer, they were always asking me in Russia or Spain, oh my God, what’s it like to live in California? The California dream is real everywhere, and the dream is this dream of being able to fully express yourself and doing it with barely any clothes on.
Speaker 2 (00:23:32) – And I don’t mean really, but not having to be bundled up. And just this idea of freedom and wellness and moving well in your body, like all of those things, embrace the California dream and that if you are healthy, right, and part of healthy and wellness, right? And with your health, anything is possible. And so I think that’s why it’s such a powerful dream. And so I really felt like there was something cool there that I wanted to tap into. I’m originally, like I said, from Texas, and when I moved here, everything became possible for me. People. There were fewer barriers. There were like entrepreneurs, there were opportunities. And so I really wanted to try to embody that in a brand for everyone. I wanted something that reflected, like something happy and bright and easy, just easy to throw on and walk out the door and feel like I’m. My skin is healthier and I look a little better and I look a little healthier. So I wanted to combine that with wellness.
Speaker 2 (00:24:35) – And then all the things I told you about before that I really believed in the sustainability piece. We are now at a place where we can really resource some of these materials that I wanted to resource before that I couldn’t bioplastics, for example.
Speaker 1 (00:24:48) – And do you find that there’s been a lot of like improvement even within packaging design and the materials available from both, like the boxes and the components to the ingredients, you feel like there’s been a huge advancement or is it more that or it has existed? It’s just easier to to find or more acceptable for people.
Speaker 2 (00:25:06) – There’s more options. There are brands like mine and partners that I can partner with that want to find these sustainable materials. We still tap a lot into small plastic vials, and even though they are made out of PCR, which is great, and PCR is post-consumer recycled or post-consumer resin, so you’ve used some existing plastic, there’s some recycling going on that manufactures the new thing. Even so, we’re not it. Beauty still has a really long way to go because we make these little things, and the little things are not really curbside recyclable.
Speaker 2 (00:25:43) – That’s really the next okay. We’re starting I have this glass right here. Right. It’s in glass. How cool is that? You can recycle the glass caps made out of PCR. So it had another life. My mascara tube is made out of ocean plastic. Like, all of these things are super, super cool. And they’re step one. But it’s a big, long journey and. And we’re always finding out new information, new things. Oh, we were doing that, but we found out it wasn’t really that great. It really didn’t help that much or we’re not. We are doing that and it’s made a big impact. We’re it’s sustainability is this ongoing journey for beauty. But back to the point about the small things is that when you are doing curbside recycling, they take your recycling bin and they dump it into these municipal recycling facilities. And the screen is about two inches wide. So if your item is smaller than a yogurt cup,, it’s probably going to just fall right through and get sent to landfill.
Speaker 2 (00:26:38) – Like how do we fix that? That’s the hard part. And so one of the ways we fix that is that Sephora, there are these packed bins. And you can actually take your tiny beauty empties and packed is focused on recycling small items so that they don’t end up in the landfill. So I would really encourage everyone. If you’re interested in sustainability, one of the biggest things you can do is just save your beauty empties in a box in a shoebox and then dump them at Sephora in the packed bin.
Speaker 1 (00:27:07) – There’s probably like a big like consumer education component of this, right? So a lot of people, it’s like there are some people that are super knowledgeable. And there’s definitely I would consider myself to have some knowledge, but it definitely far from an expert in the space compared to some friends or, I don’t know, even people in the beauty space without. I think a lot of people. Sustainability is very new to people. So how are how are you educating people or is woven into the marketing? Are there things on Kelly Rae’s website?
Speaker 2 (00:27:30) – I have a sustainability consultant, and Sephora is doing a lot to with their Planet Aware, but Planet Clean and Planet Positive program that they do.
Speaker 2 (00:27:39) – So they they identify the brands that are clean and planet positive. It’s a little easier to do in skincare with glass jars and things like that, than it is in beauty, in makeup. It’s ongoing and everyone’s pushing towards that direction, so it’s a good direction. It feels frustrating to not be make these beauty products and then run them under water and they dissolve and all is good. But it’s not like that yet. We’re still working really hard. I did make a palette though. I have to say I was really proud of. I had all milled out of bamboo and the pans were aluminum and I ended up. You could pop the pans out. I put little holes in the back to make it easy so you could pop the pans out when you were done. I didn’t put a mirror in it because mirrors are super unrecyclable and the glues toxic. Okay. And basically you could take this palette and you could throw it in a loamy or a composter. And I turned it into dirt.
Speaker 1 (00:28:32) – Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:28:33) – Oh, that’s so cool.
Speaker 2 (00:28:34) – That was really cool.
Speaker 1 (00:28:35) – I feel like you need to make a TikTok video on that, and that would really excite some people. As a second time business owner, I’m assuming this is a second business, and there might be other businesses as well that you probably have started to a lot of entrepreneurs, they burn out, they start a business, they get through a few years and they either walk away. They say, once I have my one business, I this is it. It’s so much work and there’s so much passion that is involved. So starting Caliray a second business that is like a big undertaking that you have committed to. So what is your advice for entrepreneurs who are either just getting started, maybe they’re five years into their business, maybe this is a point where I need to step away. This is taking over my life. Maybe they they are looking for that person. That spark was going to keep them going. Like what advice do you want to share to entrepreneurs in any stage of their career?
Speaker 2 (00:29:25) – You just have to know how much hard work it is before you get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:29:29) – And I had honestly forgotten. It’s something I enjoy. I would tell entrepreneurs that are feeling that burnout. If you’re making progress, don’t totally step away. You’ve got something on your hands. If you if your business is falling apart, then maybe, yeah, it’s time to just copy. If you’ve got something there, then just set some boundaries for your life. And if you’ve got something there, maybe you can bring on someone to help you with some other aspects of your life. Maybe only you can do parts of your business. But I used to get college kids to go buy my groceries for me. Now you can do Instacart. But that’s one example of outsource the dumb stuff. Really.
Speaker 1 (00:30:11) – Delegation really sets the difference between a business and stealing a business.
Speaker 2 (00:30:15) – And and you’re thinking like, oh, I’ve got all these big projects and I’ve desire the senior person like, and I can’t afford that. Maybe don’t maybe you can still do that piece of it and you can just get rid of some of the small stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:30:29) – , there’s something like, we’re just talking with someone the other day and they said trusting someone and saying, okay, I know I can do this task. Maybe someone can do it better. Maybe someone won’t ever do it as good as you, but you really need to delegate and spread your wings. And it’s that trust beyond the delegation. And that’s like the difference between a small business owner and an entrepreneur. And it might not always work. You might hire someone, it might not be the best fit, but keep going because that’s the way to grow in scale.
Speaker 2 (00:30:54) – That’s great. And you’re going to hire that fits.
Speaker 1 (00:30:56) – Yep.
Speaker 2 (00:30:57) – It’s going to happen. You’re going to have people that are you think they’re going to be like, oh, this is the. Right. They’re going to help move my business forward, and they’re going to be great, and they’re awesome, and they’re everything I ever wanted, and they’re going to disappoint you. And then there’s going to be people who walk into your life, and that they’ll always be with you on this journey with you.
Speaker 2 (00:31:18) – It’s just there’s all kinds.
Speaker 1 (00:31:20) – It’s that resiliency. It’s keep going. There will always be that spark coming.
Speaker 2 (00:31:24) – You want to look for people who are also really resourceful. Like you got to look for people who don’t need to have their handheld who okay, you don’t have money to hire that fancy agency. How are you going to still get that done? Like how are you going to figure it out? What are you.
Speaker 1 (00:31:39) – Going to do? And that’s what you said. Like you went through the yellow Pages back in the day and you’re like, I’m going to find these people. I’m going to. It takes me 100 phone calls to find that person. You will do it. And that’s the scrappiness you need and those entrepreneurs and your team.
Speaker 2 (00:31:51) – And it’s hard because today you it’s harder to build a business being scrappy than it was in the late 90s when no one was watching what you were doing. Not everything was monetized, like you said earlier. So it’s just a really different world, and it’s hard to do it without funding because you have so much work to do, media work to do to cut through the clutter.
Speaker 2 (00:32:16) – There’s so much competition in a lot of industries, even like DTC toothbrushes and razors, like how many can we have? And so it’s hard to be scrappy, but you still have to be.
Speaker 1 (00:32:29) – It’s really interesting to talk about the two different worlds of marketing and beauty, and how it’s changed and the positives and negatives, the challenges, some easy things that have come along and more. And I’ve already realized I’ve kept you over even over five minutes for a timeline so we could chat forever. I definitely could chat forever. So I want to ask you one final question. It is one of our favorites, and maybe one day we can do a part two because you’ve been so cool. So it is where do you sit in the stands in your life? And it comes from Mel Robbins. And what it means is that when we sit in the stands, maybe we’re at a sports game and we’re like yelling at the basketball player or the football player saying, why did you toss the ball to him? Why did you run down the sideline? Should have gone to the left versus the right.
Speaker 1 (00:33:06) – Or maybe you’re sitting at the ballet, maybe you’re not a sports fan and you’re saying, why did that dancer exit the stage there? Why are they wearing that outfit? Why do they do their hair that way? But they can’t hear you. And so many times in our life, we sit in the stands and maybe we’re going to stop doing something, start doing something. It could be I’m going to run a marathon next year. It could be I’m finally going to start a business. It could be that post-it note on your mirror that you remind yourself and takes two weeks to do. Maybe it’s an iPhone note that’s been sitting there for five years, but is there anything that you feel like you’re sitting in the stands with in your life? It’s hard because you’ve done so much. But as a question that we do love to ask everyone and it could be personal, professional, Caliray and beyond.
Speaker 2 (00:33:45) – I always feel like I should have written a book, but I’m really bad document or journal or like I’m just going to much to sit and take stock.
Speaker 2 (00:33:57) – And so I always look at these people, they write a book and I’m like, oh, I should write a book. Should. That’s it. Yeah it is. And I have so many great stories. And the other thing I do is someone will bring something up here and I’ll be like, oh my God, I have the weirdest story of happen. And because I’m not that young and so I have a lot I’ve lived a lot of life and I’ve been through a lot of weird stuff, like breaking down barriers in this industry and seeing a lot of sides of it, seeing the corporate side, seeing the indie side, seeing all the crazy employees. And I have a lot of weird stories, and I’ll throw one out there and people will be like, oh my God, and I’ll be like, I should write that down. You should. I should remember it. And then I forget and I’m like, send a.
Speaker 1 (00:34:36) – Voice note like send a voice note. And I collected in a Google Drive.
Speaker 1 (00:34:39) – I will definitely read your book. I will be the first one to read it because especially within the world of entrepreneurship is so cool that you started Urban Decay. Now you have Caliray, you have lived through the different worlds of the beauty industry and like that. Scrappiness and resiliency is something I so respect because you don’t see that much anymore. I think a lot of people not end on a negative note, but a lot of people have this like feeling of like they’re entitled to something or they deserve something. And I think that’s a big shift personally, that I’ve seen throughout the world. And as someone who’s worked in the beauty industry, Pre-social media height to to now, I’ve witnessed the shift even in the past 14 years, maybe. And I’m excited to see what the future is. And I love the inclusivity part. I love the creativity part. I think self-expression is something that gets you out of bed in the morning, gets you really excited, and it’s also a good way for people to bond with their friends, their moms, or anyone really.
Speaker 1 (00:35:31) – So I think it’s really cool what you’ve done.
Speaker 2 (00:35:34) – And I also have to say, just in wrapping up, one of the other awesome benefits is I have two sons. They’re pretty grown ones. The my youngest is headed off to college. Oh my God. And but it was always great to be able to have the dinner table talk where they had to hear all of the hard stuff I had to do all day, that they could see the benefits of it, but we were able to talk it through. And so. I love that I was able to pass on this scrappiness to them hopefully. Fingers crossed. But they both seem to be hard workers and diligent people and so I love being able to.
Speaker 1 (00:36:14) – That’s amazing. Yeah, like those stories I’ll take with them and they’re like, we need to hustle. We need to work hard. We need to be heads down. We need to be networkers. We need to get out there. And good things happen when you put your mind to it.
Speaker 1 (00:36:25) – So just for.
Speaker 2 (00:36:25) – Anyone out there who’s either youngish themselves or raising kids, good things happen. When you actually handwrite a personal note. It’s unbelievable. It’s a lost art. People are blown away when they get it. One thing, keep that in mind.
Speaker 1 (00:36:43) – My mom always says that. My mom always says keep stationery on hand, and the minute you run out, you need to order more stationery. And I think more people actually have a.
Speaker 2 (00:36:52) – You don’t have to do it for every thank you you send. But if something meant something to you, put a note in the actual real mail. I agree stamp.
Speaker 1 (00:37:00) – On some station. I actually have a box sitting right there and it’s every single card, whether it’s a thank you note, a birthday card, or just hey, from across the coast that I’ve received since 2009. So I have it in there. And like every day you have like maybe a bad day. I always say, open it up. Remember how many people love you and even 3 or 4 sentences go a long way.
Speaker 1 (00:37:18) – So I’m strong believing that myself. Amazing. Wende, this is so incredible. We’re so excited to have you on the podcast. And actually, this is our 100th episode of the Beyond Beauty podcast. So it’s my old whirlwind that that has happened this way with such a cool guest. So thank you so much for taking time out of your super busy schedule. And where can everyone find Caliray on the world of the internet and in stores?
Speaker 2 (00:37:38) – Interweb Caliray presence is at Caliray super simple, Caliray all one word and I’m at Wende Zomnir and my Wende is with an E, not a Y. So it’s Wende and then Zomnir.
Speaker 1 (00:37:55) – Thank you Wende, and thank you so much for sharing your stories and we hope to read your book one day. I know it’s going to come out amazing.