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Susan Yara has worn almost every hat in the beauty industry. After graduating from the University of New Mexico with a degree in journalism, she worked as a broadcast reporter and beauty editor (hey, girl!). From there, she successfully pivoted to content creation, building a loyal following through her educational YouTube channel Mixed Makeup. If you were deep into beauty YouTube between 2014 and 2019, you couldn't miss her.
In 2019, Yara pivoted again — something the Seoul, Korea-born, New Mexico-raised entrepreneur is great at. She founded ingredient-focused skin-care brand Naturium alongside beauty incubator The Center. In 2023, Naturium sold to E.l.f. Beauty for a reported $355 million, making her one of the first-ever beauty creators to successfully build and sell a brand at that scale. This past May, Yara continued to build her portfolio by (re)launching fragrance-forward body and hair-care brand, Playa (after having acquired the rights to it from Forma Brands).
Yara is still involved with Naturium, though. So involved, in fact, we caught up with the beauty mogul at E.l.f. Beauty's office in Los Angeles, where she chatted all things skin care, the creator business, TikTok Shop and more.
Photo: Getty Images
What's a beauty trend everyone loves that you just don't get?
People will hop on board with something, even if it's good, and then they take it overboard. Like barrier care, for instance. It's great to take care of your barrier. It's a big part of your skin. But then we go way too far into barrier care and then suddenly everyone is hydrating and moisturizing even too much for your skin, which can kind of be a thing. We see that with PDRN; it has the same effect. It's not that I don't like it, it's that it's just overdone.
What's one skin-care tip you wish more people knew?
People don't take their cleansing step very seriously and it is the most important step at times — besides your sunscreen — because it sets the tone for your skin-care routine. If your skin is stripped, if it's dry, if it's irritated from your cleansing step, then...all your next products, what they're essentially going to be doing is trying to get your skin back to normal instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing.
What's something consumers would be surprised to learn about running a beauty brand?
People think running a beauty brand is really glamorous and there are moments...but the day-to-day is actually a lot of just being in front of your computer, answering a lot of questions, thinking about things that you have to do on the backend of being on the business side of things.
What's the biggest mistake you see creators make when launching products?
They think that the success is in the selling out of the product, when it goes out of stock. But to me, that's actually leaving money on the table and also creating frustration with your customers because if they can't keep getting the product, they can't be consistent with it [and] they can't have a holy grail with it. So it's really just giving them something that's a taste of it, but then not letting them actually have true access to it.
Related: DermAngelo Thinks More People Need a 'Sun Protection Strategy'
What's one lesson you've learned as a founder that completely changed how you do business?
If we get feedback about packaging — and that's kind of constant — and it seems like feedback that really makes sense and we're seeing a real trend in this, then we go back to the drawing board, look at what we're doing and see if we can make tweaks to the packaging so we can still keep the people who love it happy, but also please the people who are having some issues. When we launched our body washes, the pumps were a little bit taller. People found that if they fell over, if they were a little top-heavy, it would break easier, so now we shortened the pump [and] we made it easier to open. Then, we have to give it some breadth and make sure this is true feedback that's coming from the majority and not the minority.
Related: What Does a Brand Acquisition Really Mean for the Founder's Net Worth?
What's a beauty industry trend you're paying close attention to right now?
TikTok Shop has basically become the biggest affiliate channel right now for beauty brands. I feel like everybody was hopping on board to get on ShopMy and LTK and everything, and they're still relevant, but TikTok Shop is truly the new-age QVC. It has taken over. I think that everyone is really trying to navigate this and figure out how to use it best. It's really just a marketing channel. It's really interesting to see how this is playing out and I'm curious to see where it's going to go in the future.
What's your most controversial beauty opinion?
I really hate seeing everybody just copy each other. It should be more about being innovative, even if it's in little ways. We try to be innovative at Naturium products all the time, looking at ingredients that might be coming up — like exosomes — in the future. It's always about how can you do it slightly different to be innovative.
Tell us about this new launch and why you love it.
A new launch that just came out is our newest shade of our Phyto-Glow Lip Balm Shimmer. This is Comet, it is a rosy coral kind of shade. It's really pretty because it gives you a lot of shine. [Editor's note: Comet is a TikTok-exclusive as of right now, but you can grab the rest of the shades at Ulta Beauty.)
* This article was originally published here