Episode 132: Jessica Johnson, Founder and CEO of Jessica Johnson Beauty

12.04.2019

Summary

From a performer who did her own makeup to the Chanel beauty counter in San Francisco’s elegant I. Magnin, to running her own brow and facial salon in Maine and New York and developing her own skincare line, makeup artist Jessica Johnson has learned a lot in her 30 years in beauty. She emphasizes the “artist” in makeup artist, working with a living canvas (that moves and sweats and sometimes sags!). One of her goals has been to declutter and simplify the beauty experience and reclaim the glamour, the pampering and the one-on-one connection between a customer and her stylist.

Tune in to hear how she’s doing it, and the wisdom she’s acquired along the way. Hers is an inspiring entrepreneurial journey. Catch this episode.

Transcript

Jodi Katz	Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I am excited to be sitting with Jessica Johnson. She is the founder and CEO of Jessica Johnson Beauty. Welcome to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY®.
Jessica Johnson	Oh, thank you. Great to be here.
Jodi Katz	I'm excited to see you. It's been a while. How did we first meet? Remember?
Jessica Johnson	Through Alex Clyburn.
Jodi Katz	Oh, wow. That's a long time ago.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah, and I'm not sure exactly, maybe you guys were on a project together.
Jodi Katz	Yeah, she's a writer.
Jessica Johnson	She's a writer, yeah.
Jodi Katz	Yeah, and she worked with us like years and years ago.
Jessica Johnson	Years ago, yeah.
Jodi Katz	Yeah. That's so cool.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah.
Jodi Katz	She lives in my town.
Jessica Johnson	Oh, you're in Maplewood?
Jodi Katz	Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jessica Johnson	Oh, wonderful. Yeah.
Jodi Katz	Yeah.
Jessica Johnson	Through Alex. She was my maid of honor and her husband was my husband's best man in our wedding. Yeah.
Jodi Katz	Oh, that's so cool.
Jessica Johnson	They're old friend, dear friends.
Jodi Katz	Are you going to see them on this trip?
Jessica Johnson	No. Pretty busy this trip. Yeah.
Jodi Katz	Well, that leads me to my first question, which is, how have you spent your day today?
Jessica Johnson	Well, I flew in at 6:00 this morning, so if I am tongue tied, it's because I'm a little tired from being up too late with my kids last night. So flew in early and I had my hair done, just for to treat myself, and then did some work from my hotel room at the Surrey, and I came in a day early to do this with you, and we're doing a two day special event with them Friday and Saturday.
Jodi Katz	So let's give some back story about you and your expertise. You're a brow specialist.
Jessica Johnson	No. Well, yes and no. I didn't start in the business as a brow expert.
Jodi Katz	You didn't?
Jessica Johnson	No. No, that came much later. I started actually as a makeup artist.
Jodi Katz	Oh, interesting.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah.
Jodi Katz	So a commercial makeup artist?
Jessica Johnson	Well, actually, I paid my way through college working for Chanel and working for Lancôme, but I grew up performing, so I did my own stage makeup. I really developed a passion for makeup in the theater first and foremost, and then needed a way to make the most money as possible. I paid my way through college, and working at a counter I could do that, and also fulfill pursuing one of my great dreams, which was being in the beauty industry.
Jodi Katz	And when you were at counters, was that in Maine?
Jessica Johnson	No, that was in Sacramento and San Francisco.
Jodi Katz	Oh, that's where you grew up?
Jessica Johnson	Yes.
Jodi Katz	Because now you are in Maine, based in Maine.
Jessica Johnson	I'm in Maine, but I'm from Northern California.
Jodi Katz	So you were one of the many people who got their start in the beauty industry working at a department store counter.
Jessica Johnson	I did at I. Magnin. I don't know if you ... Do you remember I. Magnin?
Jodi Katz	No, mm-mm (negative).
Jessica Johnson	Oh, my gosh. It was a jewel. It was lovely. It was based out of San Francisco, and it was just beloved. And sadly, it went out of business and Macy's bought it, I think, or I forget exactly what the transition was, but we were right near Neiman Marcus and Saks, and it was really lovely.
Jodi Katz	And were you really great at working on the floor?
Jessica Johnson	I think I was, because I loved it. It was a time, the industry 30+ years ago was so different, and people, those jobs were coveted. There were two of us to a line, so there were women just in line to get those jobs, and you first and foremost had to be a makeup artist, not a salesperson, and then you had to go through really rigorous customer training, customer service and customer care, and that was number one. I think that level of customer service, it's hard to find now. So I think that is what made it so special. We became very close friends with our customers.
Jodi Katz	Right. And you were a really important destination for the customer.
Jessica Johnson	Yes. The makeup department at I. Magnin was just spectacular. It was just beautiful Italian marble. It was just very elegant, very over the top, and something old glamor Hollywood, so, yeah. Then they put an I. Magnin into Sacramento where I went to college so I could work at the counter there, and then I could also freelance.
Jodi Katz	And shopping that way back then, well, right now, shopping in a store feels like a chore. Right?
Jessica Johnson	That's why I don't go.
Jodi Katz	Right. Right. But back then it was not a chore. Right? It was like a pure destination, exciting. Right? Like something people wanted to do, to go buy new beauty products at the department store.
Jessica Johnson	Oh, yeah. It was you'd go to lunch, you'd go shop. It was enjoyable. It was an experience. Yeah. And you had a relationship with who you were shopping from.
Jodi Katz	So tell us about Jessica Johnson, the company now.
Jessica Johnson	Well, so much of what I wanted to infuse into this brand very much was what I brought or learned 30 years ago with that experience. I felt that so much of that kind of attention and service has been lost, and how could it not be with it's become a very crowded, I think a very crowded, noisy, and confusing space for the consumer. So versus really going after digital marketing or quantity, I wanted to really anchor my brand in that relationship with the consumer, which is why I built out a studio in Portland, Maine where I live. We moved there to raise our kids, and so many people said, "Oh, you're crazy. Don't do brick and mortar, put everything into your product, put everything into digital." I didn't want to do that. I wanted a place where women could come in and we could interact and touch them.
Jodi Katz	And how many years have you had that space?
Jessica Johnson	Well, this is my third salon, and this is our third year in business there. It's a very different niche concept. It's a open facial bar, but it's very elegant and luxurious. So we do eyebrows, we specialize in eyebrows, and we do one 30-minute treatment. After college, I got out of the industry for a few years, and then when I went back and got my license, I studied esthetics in Vienna and in Germany. And this is a 30-minute treatment that I learned in a clinic in Vienna, and we plugged it into our studio.
Jodi Katz	When you say open bar for facials, that means I'm getting my facial next to someone else?
Jessica Johnson	Yup.
Jodi Katz	Oh, and we're like, just like at the hair salon getting our hair done next to each other?
Jessica Johnson	Exactly. And there's a beautiful open receptionary with wine and an espresso machine, and three or four women will come in, and everybody will be talking and socializing and kind of getting off and on the bed, but they're still receiving a really nice high end treatment.
Jodi Katz	And how did the women in that area respond to this idea? Because facials are always behind doors, closed doors, right?
Jessica Johnson	Yup. And I wanted to do that. I didn't want it to be behind closed doors. I wanted it to be ... Well, more so it was, I wanted women to ... Women want to get facials but they don't want to spend the time and the money, but I didn't want to lower the price or make it an affordable price and compromise the experience or luxury. So at first, well, and especially, I mean, it maybe would've ... We're booming now. We're booked out three weeks in advance, but at first people would walk in and I'm out, lying out in a bed in front, but they're cubicles. You know, it's not like ... You're hidden.
Jodi Katz	Right, but it's not like you're naked, right?
Jessica Johnson	No.
Jodi Katz	I mean, we're just so used to being in a cabin with the doors shut, but there's no reason why people can't be touching my face in front of other people. Like, there's nothing really private about that. We're just used to it being private.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah. And we did it at the counter when we would have special events, and they still do, and they would just put up like a temporary partition, and so it didn't seem to be a big deal then, and it's actually not a big deal at all. It was an easy hurdle to get over.
Jodi Katz	What were some of the initial comments that you'd get from people who were startled by it?
Jessica Johnson	Oh, people will be watching me. Yes. Well, yes and no. You know, if they walk around the side of the wall and look right in at it, so you have some privacy for sure. But that really, I'd say a month in it really was not brought up again.
Jodi Katz	How much is a 30-minute facial?
Jessica Johnson	65
Jodi Katz	And that's considerably less than an hour long private room facial.
Jessica Johnson	Right. So there are three key components in a facial that actually do something to your skin, so we just basically took out all the fluff and all the extras, and we zeroed in on the three key techniques or three areas that actually do something transformative to the skin, and that's what you get. So you don't get a lot of the extra ... If you want a massage, we send you down the street to go get a massage, so. And the product line that we developed also, it ties in with the studio concept. Our trademark tagline is, "Fewer products, better beauty."
Jodi Katz	Right, because there you're taking out the fluff as well.
Jessica Johnson	Exactly. Exactly.
Jodi Katz	Okay, so let's talk about the time where you were working at counters and now you own your own facial bar. Why become an entrepreneur in the beauty industry? Where did that idea come from?
Jessica Johnson	Well, I was raised in a family of entrepreneurs. Well, nobody in my family, even my extended family, worked for the man. They all owned their own businesses, literally since my grandfather and great-grandfather started the first lumber company in Los Angeles in 1903 I think, so I just grew up in a family that was always self-employed.
Jodi Katz	What were some of the other businesses that people in your family had?
Jessica Johnson	My uncle had an architecture firm. My father was an architectural ceramicist. He was an artist. He had his own studio.
Jodi Katz	What does that mean, an architectural ceramicists?
Jessica Johnson	He created like the first handmade pottery sink, custom hand thrown sinks on wheels in the '70s that were all with the great glazes and carvings, and he was an art professor before he went into business for himself. So it's ceramics specifically to go in and work with architects that work along with the architectural design of the home specifically. Both of them were big fans of Frank Lloyd Wright and that style of architecture, so he worked a lot with his brother. My aunt was an interior designer, so she had her own firm in San Francisco. Let's see what else. Mostly in the arts. Not in my field. It was a rough road with my family getting into the beauty business.
Jodi Katz	In what way?
Jessica Johnson	It wasn't what they considered intellectual enough. They were a little perplexed that I was drawn to something like this. I think they had this image of ... Well, my dad always said women that have long nails sit around and eat bonbons all day. It was not something that was important in my family.
Jodi Katz	And why do you think you were drawn to it?
Jessica Johnson	Because I think there's ... beauty is art. I mean, fashion is art. The way you look at a beautiful woman, a woman who is beautifully put together, that to me is a work of art in itself. And I think my dad, as I started to work in the business more and more, he turned a corner. He saw it in a different way.
Jodi Katz	Yeah. I mean, you are an artist through and through when you're a makeup artist. The canvas is more complicated. The canvases change. They evolve, they sweat, right? Like this is very different than, or more challenging necessarily, than on walls or canvas.
Jessica Johnson	Definitely. I evolved into doing print and some video and some television, and that's a whole other level of artistic creation, artistic expression, because you're dealing with a crew and personalities and yeah.
Jodi Katz	So was the commercial aspect of being a makeup artist not that exciting to you, like working on sets?
Jessica Johnson	Oh, no, I loved it. I loved it, but I wanted to work for myself.
Jodi Katz	So what drove you to that point? Right? It's like, becoming an entrepreneur is not really that easy a decision, giving up a salary somewhere else or work somewhere else, being confident in your ideas. So what really pushed you to that decision?
Jodi Katz	Right. So inspiration by Marcia, getting your license to be an esthetician. What happened next?
Jessica Johnson	Oh, I was still in D.C., and once I finished school, my family, they were all in the Bay Area and I wanted to go back to California. So I moved back to San Francisco and I worked as a hair assistant because you couldn't get any advanced education in skincare. I think the International Dermal Institute was just spreading their wings. She was an incredible visionary as well. She saw that opportunity for advanced post-licensing education. But anyway, it was very hard to get an advanced education, but I was introduced at the hairdresser I was assisting, which is a horrible job. Every time I see an assistant now I go hug them because it's a very, very hard job. But there was a woman, her name was Georgina Acosta, and she was from Chile, and she was trained in Vienna. She was the Elizabeth Arden of San Francisco, and she was looking for an assistant/apprentice.
Jodi Katz	So, the hairstylist you were working for knew her?
Jessica Johnson	Knew her, and he pulled me aside and he said, "You're really good with hair, but you're really not cut out for the hair world, this part of the industry. You really belong in skin care." And so he introduced me to her and I went to work for her.
Jodi Katz	Oh, that's so cool.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah. And she really taught me everything, and then she introduced me to a pretty famous dermatologist named Kathy Fields, Dr. Kathy Fields, and she was just starting her practice in San Francisco and just formulating Proactiv, just starting to formulate it. So when I opened my first studio in San Francisco, she was unbelievable. She sent me her patients, she gave me a lot of support. She'd invite me to lectures at UCSF and really took me under her wing. I'm grateful for some great mentors along the way.
Jodi Katz	So you had your own spa?
Jessica Johnson	I had a skincare studio. Yeah. Again, I didn't want a full spa at that point. Georgina, the woman that trained me, she was strictly skincare, and funny, with coming back to how I got into eyebrows, her entire philosophy was, "I can make your skin gorgeous, but if your eyebrows don't look right and you have a hairy upper lip, nobody's going to notice your great skin." So you couldn't ... She didn't have a menu. You would go in, and it just said skincare treatment, and everybody got brows, lip wax, and her facial.
Jodi Katz	Interesting. So she would decide if she liked your brows or not?
Jessica Johnson	Yup.
Jodi Katz	Did she like your brows?
Jessica Johnson	She did, and she taught me ... I had learned how to do brows as a makeup artist, but she really was a master at it before it, my gosh, who thought it would become such a huge part of the industry now, but she was the place to go for eyebrows.
Jodi Katz	You have a nice thick, bold brow. Is that the brow you've always had?
Jessica Johnson	Yup.
Jodi Katz	I love a bold brow.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah. Everybody that comes to me, I see brow clients here in New York as well, and that's my signature look for everybody. I tell them, "Keep your brows full." It's far more youthful.
Jodi Katz	Imagine that she didn't like a bold brow and she gave you thin brows and you had to suffer through that. Because it happens.
Jessica Johnson	Oh, I can't tell you how many people come to me and they're in tears because over the years they've gone to people and their brows have been thinned out, but that's why the first product I came out with, with my brow bar, was a ... We can't call it a growth serum. A conditioning serum. But it does grow your brows and lashes.
Jodi Katz	So you had your studio in San Francisco.
Jessica Johnson	Mm-hmm (affirmative). I did.
Jodi Katz	How many years did you have that?
Jessica Johnson	So the first studio I had was on Sutter Street. Oh, my gosh. It was a jewel. It was great. We had three little treatment rooms. We had a beautiful perfumery. It looked like, when you walked in, you were walking into a Parisian perfumery candle shop, which is very typical of a lot of the skin care clinics in Europe, and then in the back you'd have your treatment rooms, and we had three treatment rooms. We did facials. You could have a manicure/pedicure during your facial.
Jodi Katz	That's cool.
Jessica Johnson	It was great. And then we had, I hired a woman from Brazil who was this master body waxer because body waxing was becoming so big. That was it. Again, we were small, but we were very specialized in what we did.
Jodi Katz	And how many years did you have that business?
Jessica Johnson	So I had that business for three years, and we were so busy that I thought, "Oh, well, if this is going great, we should get bigger and we should become full service. Right?" So an opportunity came up to purchase a salon that was for sale further down into Union Square in this great prime location. So I bought a full service salon and tried to infuse my successful little skincare clinic into that, and it did not go well. It was a really great lesson in business about growing too fast, taking on more than you should too soon, but more importantly, getting away from your core passion and focus, that staying really focused on what you love to do first and foremost will always serve you much better in the long run than trying to be everything to everybody.
Jodi Katz	And how long did it take for you to realize this was not going well?
Jessica Johnson	Oh, two years. Well, two ... I take that back. I had four years on Sutter Street. Yeah, two years.
Jodi Katz	And then what happened?
Jessica Johnson	Well, every ... 9/11 happened, and Union Square shut down. I got into a lawsuit with a hairstylist. I mean, those can be very costly. And then in '02 the Dot-Com crash happened, so everybody's businesses, we were just slowly, slowly slowing down, and my lease came up, and I had a good opportunity. It was like, "Okay, well, I'm not going to renew my lease," and that was that.
Jodi Katz	And did you beat yourself up about this? Like what was your attitude while these like things weren't working out?
Jessica Johnson	Oh, I moved to Maine.
Jodi Katz	It's like your therapy was picking up and leaving. Like you told your husband and your children, "I can't deal with this anymore. We're leaving."
Jessica Johnson	We didn't have children yet. I thought, "Well, maybe this is a sign that now it's, oh, that's right, I'm 38. Maybe I should have a child," and yeah.
Jodi Katz	Like, really?
Jessica Johnson	Yeah.
Jodi Katz	You were like, "This stinks, this isn't going well. I'm getting sued by a hairstylist. I'm losing business. I can't afford to do this, so let's move"?
Jessica Johnson	It was, I closed at first, because it was failing. I mean, I couldn't get out from underneath the hurdle, and I was really, really coming apart at the seams. It was just every day. I got into this industry to get up every day and love what I do, and that is not what was happening. So once I closed it, my husband grew up near Boston, he summered in Maine, and we had a summer home there. He was like, "Let's just move to Maine." I said, "Okay." And I really, it took me six months of just really licking my wounds and feeling really, really sorry for myself.
Jodi Katz	So you did take it personal, like you blamed yourself and all that kind of stuff?
Jessica Johnson	All of the above. As harsh as you could be on yourself, yeah, check.
Jodi Katz	I asked because you're so mellow about it now. Like obviously we romance the past. It's easier when it's far away from us. But I mean, I know that I would have blamed myself and all my mistakes and blah, blah, blah. I've done that in the past too, so.
Jessica Johnson	Oh, it was bad. Yeah.
Jodi Katz	Yeah.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah, it was ... Friends wouldn't ... They were like, "Oh, let's just stay away from her for a while."
Jodi Katz	Well, they couldn't find you because you moved to Maine.
Jessica Johnson	Right? Exactly. But failure is so underrated, and you don't realize it at the time what a huge gift that it is because there's no way I would be operating and doing what I'm doing right now with this new business had I not gone through that.
Jodi Katz	Right. Of course.
Jessica Johnson	No doubt.
Jodi Katz	I mean, it's so hard to appreciate these challenges. I learned to call them opportunities, right? When things really stink, they're opportunities because the universe, I truly believe the universe is putting these things in front of me because I need to learn it. Right? I need to learn from it. There's some aspect of this that is going to help me later because something bigger is coming. But you know, I only learned that recently. I've been in plenty of rabbit holes where I just blamed myself and I told myself that I'm no good at what I do and there's no possibility that I'm going to succeed.
Jessica Johnson	And then what do you do to turn that-
Jodi Katz	Well, now I've been in therapy for 13 years. I have three different-
Jessica Johnson	Me too.
Jodi Katz	... business coaches. So like it takes a village to keep my head screwed on, but like I'm learning, like I've really evolved as a human being to the point where I don't worry as much. Things that are not in my control, I accept that they're not in my control, but I know how I can solve problems, and when I solve problems, I feel like a superwoman. When I'm like, "Okay, well, this needs my attention right now in the business, a client's unhappy, the work's not going well." I know now with confidence that I can turn this around. If the client's still not happy, I can't take responsibility for that. I know that I can put my 100% plus in and solve this problem. I also realize that clients coming and going have ... their decision to leave us as an agency has nothing to do with us. Like we do great work, we're nice people, we're responsive, so their decision to pull work is their decision. It has nothing to do with our work or who we are, and I believe that now. I used to not believe that though, of course. I shitted on myself all the time. I would talk to myself and tell myself that I'm not worthy.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah. But I think it's really important, and I think one of the things I admire most about what you're doing with this podcast is being vulnerable and sharing your story is the biggest gift to give to somebody else. Because then, gosh, then maybe they ... If what I went through can help me in the long run and help somebody else, that's huge. That's huge.
Jodi Katz	Yeah. I think that honesty is the most, it's one of like my core values. Like just being honest. Me telling you about how things don't work out well for me or how I don't have money falling out of my pockets doesn't change anything. Me telling you that is good because then you're going to be honest with me, and I'm going to put less pressure on myself, right? To some sort of ideal standard that I invented in my head. I've been to too many events in this business where I felt like less than because everybody wants to just fake their way through things.
Jessica Johnson	I'm feeling that way. I've been in the industry almost 30 years, and with the way the industry is now, it's very hard for me. I'll go to events or I'll be in situations and I'm thinking, "I've been doing this 30 years," and I wish these new young brands and entrepreneurs, great success, I do, but you start to just think, "My gosh, wow." I've been doing a lot of things right for a long time, but then you take a step back and somebody maybe this two-year overnight success comes up, and you're like, "What am I doing wrong here?" You can't do that to yourself.
Jodi Katz	Yeah. It's really hard.
Jessica Johnson	You can't.
Jodi Katz	I think it's so important to stay in your lane. Right? And also like people who are starting brands that don't have a history in the business, they're not encumbered by that old stuff. Right? So they just see what they see, the white space the way they see it. They're not hampered by the garbage and the baggage, and they can move through things lighter and easier in many ways than someone who's like, well, Lauder didn't do it this way 30 years ago. Should I do this? It feels weird because it's not what I was taught. Right? It's really hard to unravel and know what to ignore from the past, because some of this stuff just is not relevant anymore.
Jessica Johnson	No. That's what everybody said, tried to talk me out of a brick and mortar, but now I'm feeling that it really was the right move because I'm seeing digital brands starting popups and brick and mortar because we're in the beauty industry. The customer at a certain point wants to ... they want our expertise and our touch and our advice live. Maybe I'm just too old, but I do really believe that.
Jodi Katz	Well, what you have in the studio is a lab, right?
Jessica Johnson	Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jodi Katz	And you have clients who are going to give you honest feedback, and you're going to be able to call them if they don't come back and you can ask them, why didn't you come back? What didn't work out for you? So it really is an incredible playground for insights.
Jessica Johnson	Well, it was a great place to do a lot of the research and development for my product line, definitely.
Jodi Katz	So tell us with the last few minutes we have what your goals are.
Jessica Johnson	Wow, that went fast.
Jodi Katz	I know, it does go fast. Right? It's like so easy. Well, you know, you get to talk about yourself. It's really nice.
Jessica Johnson	It's nice and that not so nice at times, but, anyway.
Jodi Katz	So what are your goals? Every time you and I have spoken, it's been a little bit about where should I go, what direction should I steer in? What do you want to do? Like, what's your vision for this business?
Jessica Johnson	Well, when I wrote the business plan on this business in '08, '09, I was a women's studies major in college. I know, another thing that doesn't really fit with the beauty industry, but it just, I kept hearing this mission statement in my head about liberating women from expensive, time consuming beauty routines that help ... women really want to feel and look beautiful and take good care of themselves, but they really want to do it in the least amount of time and money and fuss, and especially ... Am I answering your question?
Jodi Katz	Yeah, I'm listening.
Jessica Johnson	Yeah, yeah, no. I feel like I get lost. So the demographic or the consumer we're targeting is the, I don't want to call them old. I'm 52. I don't want to say older, but you know, the woman that's already gone through all that and she wants really elegant, high quality products, but she's just not sold by all the hype. She's secure and she's confident and she's liberated, and she wants to ... She's got really better. She wants to be beautiful; she wants to be really smart about it, though. And so that's what I want to bring through our products so that women can ... I also would like to infuse back into it some of the understated elegance that I came up in the business with, and I believe we've done that.
Jodi Katz	So how are you going to grow this business and find that customer?
Jessica Johnson	They're all going to walk into my studio, right?
Jodi Katz	All of them in Maine?
Jessica Johnson	All of them in Maine. No. So, how we're doing it, well, we have a collaboration with The Carlyle, which I've had since I started the business for five years, and that's given us some great exposure in the brow area. Now we're collaborating with the Surrey Hotel for two day special skincare events, and we're circling back, now that we are selling it and really launched it through our website, we're going to just start doing a lot more educational informational videos right out of our studio where we can talk to the consumer directly through online. That's one. That's our immediate plan.
Jodi Katz	So, you know what I'm thinking about is every time I've met you and talked with you or looked at your work or your products, elegance is really important, right? Like it is very clear to me that you are saying we don't need to be like cutesy or bubbly or everything pink or whatever the other trend is. You are so secure in this sense of elegance from a personal style perspective, but also the communication, like personal part of your business. I think that's part of your lane, you know? And if you continue sticking with it and letting the customer who loves that love it, and it's not going to be for everybody. Some people just want edgy or some people just want pink. Right? But if the customer who just wants like this kind of quiet elegance, they'll be really happy.
Jessica Johnson	And that's what we're getting back from the clients that have bought the product and experienced the service. Just when you say, "Fewer products, better beauty," they, "Oh, that sounds great. Tell me more," because they're a little exhausted I think by the industry.
Jodi Katz	And I love how the partnerships you have with the local hotel spas in the city, that they reflect that, they are like completely in that lane. Right? The brand alignment is perfect for you.
Jessica Johnson	Well, I wasn't looking for it, but Yves Durif, who's the stylist at The Carlyle, I met him by chance, and I just had such an immediate respect for him as he's just that French stylist, that class that you just don't find anymore. He's so committed to what he does. I thought, "I don't really know what we're going to do here exactly. I just want to be around him and around this environment." So yeah, just kind of take it as it comes.
Jodi Katz	Jessica, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your story with us today and your honesty.
Jessica Johnson	Thanks.
Jodi Katz	I'm very grateful.
Jessica Johnson	Thank you so much.
Jodi Katz	And for our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this interview with Jessica. Please subscribe to our series on iTunes, and for updates about the show, follow us on Instagram @wherebrainsmeetbeautypodcast.

Want to sponsor the pod?

Available On: