You're listening to Math and Magic production I Heart Radio. For years, cosmetics companies and beauty companies will be telling people what's wrong with them. You need this cream because your skin is bad. You need this foundation because you're the wrong color. You need this because you have to change the shape of your nose. That's not true. Yes, you want to look good, but if you don't feel good, you're not gonna look good. And it's not about weight or diet, It's just about feeling good. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to Math and Magic Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing, where we examine that special mix of art and science that's behind the great marketing and business successes. On this episode, we have someone with strong creative and business skills, an unmatched charm and determination, and the successes and brands to prove it. Bobby Brown. Bobby is sometimes described as a makeup artist, but that is like calling Steve Jobs a computer salesperson. She created a billion dollar cosmetics business that carries her name. She's written nine books about beauty and makeup. She has been a contributing editor from magazines and online. She's a regular part of our own I Heart Radio's Elvis Durand's Morning show. She has danced on stage with Florida. She was a regular on The Today Show, and she is currently doing even more businesses. And with all that, she managed to find some life work balance with her family and she's a lot of fun. Bobby welcome, Thanks so much. That's so sweet. We're gonna dig into a bunch of the stories, but first I want to dig into you in sixty seconds. So this first thing that comes in your head, Tequila, I love that you asked me the first thing that came in my head. Do you prefer sunrise and sunset? Sunrise Montclair, New Jersey or who Will met? Illinois? Montclair, New Jersey, Chicago, New York, New York Instagram or Twitter Instagram snapper TikTok neither coffee or tea, espresso, Beetles or Stones, Stones chocolate or vanilla chocolate, still or sparkling Still? Are you ready? It's about to get harder? Favorite hip hop artist, flow Right, smartest person you know, my husband, childhood hero and d Alice first job selling shoes at Carson Perry Scott. Favorite movie, love story, worst de beauty trend, so many contouring one superpower you'd like to have to be a better dancer. Favorite cocktail tequila or vodka, Last vacation, Bahamas, secret talent. I think I'm funny. Title of your memoir, what would it be? It'll be all pictures, no words. Who would play you in a movie? Jennifer Anderson proudest accomplishment, my three children And what's something you can't live without? My family? Okay, let's go. You get credit for introducing natural looking makeup at the dawn of the nineteen nineties. What was going on at that time and what were you rebelling against a makeup at that time? Right before the whole scene in New York was a lot of parties, a lot of going out to the clubs. Women were doing makeup like multi colored eyes and overlined lips and all this crazy stuff. And when I came to New York, I got a job to do a cover of Cosmopolitan at Jerry Hall. I tried everything in my power to do her makeup grade and she was so kind and she said, beautiful job, but can I have the mirror. I gave her the mirror and she said, can I just make a few touches? She redid her whole face, and I learned watching I didn't feel bad, I really learned, but I realized I can't do that kind of makeup. So I started doing it my way and it kind of slowly caught on. So what was your inspiration for your way? Because this was not the way now? It was definitely not the way. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be pretty and I didn't think I was, and I would use my mom's makeup to make me look tan and pretty. I don't want anyone to know is wearing makeup. And then when I became a makeup artist, I started doing that two models. People told me I'd never worked. If you want to work, you have to learn to do the other thing. But I just couldn't do it, and so I started doing it my way, and it's slowly slowly took on. What big names adopted your style that sort of gave you cred and sort of pushed you over that tipping point for you. I did a cover of Rolling Stone with Annie Leebowitz, and I made the guys look good, and Keith Richard's manager came over to me and said, oh my god, can we book you again? And so I got a couple of times got hired to do it because I always made people look healthy. Stones that's pretty good. That was pretty good. That's pretty good. So I want to dig into this a lot more, But first I want to go back to your roots. You were born in the late fifties in Chicago. You grew up in the suburbs will matt home of the famous New Trier High School. Can you paint the picture of those times. I'm the oldest of three kids. I was born to my family when my mother was twenty and my dad one very good looking couple. My dad and a tourney and my mama homemaker. By the time they were had three kids, were living in the suburbs, pretty normal, but my parents were very young. So I would come home and they'd be in our TV room with all their friends going to a concerts, and like, guys, I smell that. What is that? So I kind of grew up around a lot of you know, things that were happening at the time. I understand you had a very special bond with a very entrepreneurial grandfather. Yes, Papa Sam. What impact did he have on your business, because evidently he was a hell of an entrepreneur and a great business mine. Well, it's funny. I really learned a lot watching Papa Sam. I just saw how much he cared about the people that bought his cars, the people that worked for him. He was constantly marketing his own business. He was putting his photos and envelopes with kids, would sit with them and mail the things out, and told great stories. He knew al Capone and Whitey and all these guys. They all bought cars from him, and he was just larger than life for a teeny little funny man. All of five too, by the way. So what was the best Alcohoone story? Not the best Alcophone store. But my favorite Papa story was one day this man came into the car dealership, looked like he'd been sleeping on the street at two garbage bags, and no one would wait on him, not one person in his office. So he went over and he said, hey, doc, what can I do for you? And the guy said, I want to buy a car. He said, all right, I'll show you some cars. The bags were full of cash. He bought two cars cash. And so Papa always taught me that you cannot judge by what someone looks like. How about your dad a lawyer and my dad he was a business person, big influence. My dad was a lawyer till he was seventy. He retired and is now a children's book author. He's a very cool young eighty four year old. He's had quite a life. But my dad used to come home from his law job and sit down with me and do creative things, drawing and photography and art, and he talked about things that father's you wouldn't think they would talk about. He taught me about dating, He taught me about men. He really wanted me to go away to school and study something super interesting in Spain or somewhere, and I ended up studying makeup in college. It worked, It worked out for me, But he wouldn't have known that at the time. When did you discover makeup? And how I discovered makeup when I was a young kid, because I used to watch my mom get ready to go out at night. They would go out on Wednesday night and Saturday night, and my mother was very glamorous, and she was very, very skinny, and always wore really high heels, and she would sit in the bathroom basically in her underwear with her high heels on her jewelry cigarette hanging off the counter, and I would watch her do this glamorous makeup and I would just be in awe. I've never been a glamour girl. I've never personally felt that it was right for me, but I think it's because I watched my mom master it. When did you start wearing makeup? I started wearing makeup probably around middle school, and I was allowed to wear a little bit to school when you couldn't see it, but on the bus, I remember putting blue mass gara and you know, purple eyeliner in because that's what all the kids did. But I really fell in love with makeup when I was in Florida, because we would take our winter breaks in Florida and coming home, I would literally go into the airplane bathroom and put bronze all over my face because it was always like a competition who had the best hand. So I had the best hand because I knew how to give myself the best hand. I was so into tans in Chicago that in March, as soon as the sun would kind of peek its head, I would take a big giant box that had a refrigerator or something in it, put tinfoil in it, put iodine and baby oil all over my body, and just lay there and we would all get tanned. No one said, that's probably not a good idea. Were you talented and makeup at that age? Where like kids going wow, how did you do? No? No, I've never been talented to makeup. I just have honed my craft. Not like some of my peers who are incredibly painters. I'm not a painter. I'm just I make sure it looks the way I wanted to look. Let's jump to college. You tried out University of Wisconsin, osh, gosh, not you. You tried University of Arizona in Tucson, not for you. Then you discovered Emerson College in Boston, and it clicked. Why when I found Emerson, I really found my people. I was always under the impression that I wasn't very smart. I would sit in school and be completely bored out of my mind, even in high school. Unless it was a teacher that taught with creativity, with this visual vision, then I would get engaged and be really into it. I'm a visual learner. I didn't know that at the time. I thought that there was something wrong with me and I wasn't smart, but when I finally found Emerson, I found other people that were as creative minded as I was and learned differently. Emerson College let me study makeup. They didn't have a makeup program. They had something called an interdisciplinary program. I got to make up my own major. How did you find Emerson? My mother sat me down and said, if today was your birthday, you could do anything you want. And I could have said go to Paris, buy new gene something, but I said I wanted to go to Marshall Fields and play with makeup. She says, well, why don't you become a makeup artist, And I said, I don't want to go to beauty school. The thought of being in a beauty salon was not intriguing to me. And she said, I'm sure there's a college somewhere. And my father's friend told me about Emerson. You have been, I know this, a lifelong supporter of Emerson. What did you get out of Emerson? What did that put you on a path to? What about you is Emerson? Honestly everything? Because they allowed me to study makeup, they allowed me to create my own major. I did the plays, I did theater. I took classes on speech. I took classes on filmmaking, but I would decide what film I wanted to do based on what makeup I felt like doing. So I would create the characters and then right afterwards and I realized, I'm not like everybody else, I'm only like me, and it's okay. So who were your early influences on beauty makeup style? Well, when I graduated college, there was a makeup artist named Bonnie Mallor. I read an article about her in Mademoiselle magazine and she was the makeup artist that worked with Bruce Weber, Patrick de Marcialer did all the fashion shows from Ralph Lauren to Perry Ellis, and she had a very natural style and she was freelance. And I read the article. I'm like, that's what I want to do, and so I called her up. She's never called me back. I wrote her a letter. She didn't answer me back. I moved to New York. I called her again and I got her answering machine that said, I'm probably traveling, but if you need anything, call my agent, Brian Bantry. I called Brian Bantry. I went to see him and he said, I can't represent you. Because you have no experience. I'm like, all right, dude, how do you get experience? He said, I'll start sending you on jobs. So I got out the Yellow Pages and I looked up models, modeling agencies, makeup. I went to the makeup Union. I just started, of course there is yeah, and I walked in there. I said, I'm here, I'm ready to sign up. They're like, okay, well sit down, let me tell you how it works. It takes about seven to fifteen years to get in unless you know someone, and then it will take about two to three years to get in the union. Yes, but they said we can help you though. Some of our artists who are in the union need assistance. So they sent me to one girl. Her name was Bobby. She was the makeup arts for Serday Night Live, so I got to assist her. Eventually I assisted Bonnie, but I ended up doing a lot of work that she couldn't do, and one of them was Bruce Weber, and that was a big break. I eventually got hired to do magazine work, which is what I wanted to do. Took me seven years, but I got a Vogue cover. Used to a lesson in this and everybody that's building their career wants to know how do you get that big break? Just know that there isn't necessarily a big break. There's a lot of little things that lead up to it, and it's the simple rules. Number one is you have to be open. Number two is you have to keep going no matter what. You just got to keep at it. And number three is you gotta be nice to people. If you're not nice, no one's gonna want to either help you or do anything for you. And you just got to keep doing it. What made you unique as a makeup artist in that phase of your life, Well, I think what made me unique was my style was different, and I was always ready to go and if there was some other jobs that needed to be done, like I needed to fan the models or get them water. I was the kid that did anything. I was so happy to be working. I was a sponge. I wanted to learn a lot, and I just kept trying things. And I think people sense that I was just an eager beaver. Late eighties early nineties, You began to make your own makeup. How did that start? Well, not in my kitchen. People say they started making in their kitchen. I did a shoot for a magazine. I think it was Mademoiselle magazine. The story was actually on me how a makeup artist shops in New York City for off the Beaten Path makeup. We went to Keels, nice guy behind the counter, he's a chemist. I started talking to him about this lipstick I can't find and he's like, oh, I could make it for you. I said, really, and I told him exactly what I wanted. He made it, sent it back a couple of times, not right to dry the color. And I said, all right, these are the ten colors that I think all the you need really to get any color out there. And he said, how about this, I'll make the lipstick, you sell it, will sell it for fifteen dollars, you get seven fifty. I'll get seven Fifty's great idea. And he made them for me and we started selling them out of my house. By the time you debuted in Bergdorf Goodman in New York, by figured something out. Well do you know how I figured it out? I want to hear that. I was in the elevator in my then apartment in New York and there was a girl on the elevator and I said, hello, and she said hello, and I said, my name is Bobby. Her name was Sharon, and I said what do you do. She said, I work at a lab, a cosmetics lab. I said, really, do you have a card? And that lab still makes the lipsticks today. That is true story you debuted in Bergdorf Goodman. They estimated they would sell a hundred lipsticks in the first month, and instead they sold the hundred in the first day. Did that surprise you, Oh, it was pretty cool. But at the time, I had one baby, I was commuting back and forth from New Jersey to New York. I was still working as a makeup artist. My husband was in law school. You know, money was tight. Everything was kind of a blur. You had to scramble, obviously to get more. And berg Doorf must have said, wait a minute, we got a hit here, let's give it the shelf space. Right. Well, we were originally on a table, and the only reason we were on a table is because they didn't have any counter space. People now think it was a brilliant marketing idea, and it was in retrospect. And then they said, okay, we need lip pencils, we need I pencils. So we slowly started adding and it grew. Then Neiman Marcus called and said, we'd love to take you in four stores, and then Barney's called, and then Bendal's called. We didn't have a salesperson to go sell it. That's pretty good on It sells itself because it was different than what was on the market and it was really hitting a nerve. And I think the combination of having this product that actually didn't really look like makeup that was out there just made you look better. It didn't smell, it felt good. It wasn't greasy, it wasn't dry. Women looked pretty. It was a more natural look. It's what people wanted. And at the same time, not because there was a strategy, but I was the makeup artist doing makeup for the fashion shows, so I got to talk about the trends. I was also on the Today's Show. I got to talk about it, and everything together look like brilliance. But it was just really good luck. I'm sure you made your luck. Let's go back. How did you get the introduction? It's gonna sounds like I make this up, but I was at a party, someone's fancy party in New York City, and I said thank you, for inviting me. My name is Bobby. I said, what do you do and she said, I'm my cousina expire Berg doorf goodman, I'm not even kidding, and actually give you some money to put on the roulette table. And I think we do very well there. So you've got to look at that moment and go, Okay, something's happening here. What did you make of it? What I remember about that moment is I was still a working makeup artist. My husband was probably still in law school, I had a second baby, I was still commuting. We had business partners. We did not get along with them, just two different visions or styles or both both and everything. Yeah, it was really a tough time and it's probably the reason we ended up selling the company. I'm the person at night that starts thinking about my day and everything, and I'm like really stressed, and my husband's the guy that says, not now, we'll talk about it in the morning. So I had to somehow go to bed and I woke up in the morning every day and we would talk about it. We knew it wasn't a forever situation, but we were also young kids at the time. We didn't know any better. You had this instant success almost and on a spectrum of this must be a mistake. I don't believe I'm worthy of this too. I'm a freaking genius. Look at me. Where were you falling at that? Neither neither of those. I was just the person that would roll up my sleeves, having a notebook, writing in a drawing in it, coming out with new ideas. That was the next thing. I wrote a book, What you were to write? My first book. It was after Dylan was born, so it's got to be around nine two. I didn't know a book agent. I don't know how you write a book. Okay, so tell us this story. It's a story. We were in Nantucket for a vacation. I'm on the beach. My kids are playing with some older girl, her mother. I introduced myself, what do you do that? I'm a book agent. She was my first book agent, and I did a book. Had the book. It was on the New York Times bestsellers list. Just hold on a second, because we've got so much more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome back to math and Magic. We're here with Bobby Brown. So you had a really quick pay day, you launched A ninety one by Frederick Fakai. Our friend introduced you to Leonard Water, and you sold Esta Lauter in nine and became the chief Creative Officer. I was actually the CEO in the beginning because I got to pick my title and I it sounded cool. I didn't notice CEO was But after a few years they kindly asked me not to be the CEO, and I said, okay. Was the only reason you sold Unwind a partnership? Well, it was a combination. When Leonard Lauder invited me over for dinner and we have this talk dinner on top of his building looking over Central Park. I don't know how he got the Philharmonic to play, but you know it did, and he somehow figured out the food. I like. It was exactly a Bobby meal with the best wines you've ever had. And he said to me, I know what you want to do. You want to be a mom, You want to be a wife and a creative person. You don't want all this headache. We can grow you and we promise you total autonomy. I didn't know what autonomy was, but I said, okay, did you get it? I did? I stayed twenty two years. What was his pitch other than I know you want to do this. How did he get you so excited about Estay lauder Well? He said to me, you remind me of my mother. You are so what the brand is, and I know women really live on every word. What you've done is so different. And I believed him. I think he was the best thing that ever happened to me, and certainly that company an amazing guy. Is how did your life change working inside a major company and how did people begin to treat you once you weren't Bobby Brown but you were at State Water Well, it was like being in grad school, sitting in these big corporate meetings with these guys in suits and ties. Me sitting there with some uncomfortable little suit because I thought that mostly guys that are mostly guys, even not doing Yeah, the top tiers were mostly guys. There were women there. They were kind of the lifers they've been there forever. I would try to dress up in this way that I fit in. I was channeling Melanie Griffith and working girl. I used to have to leave my house in the morning with a bag of clothes, one outfit for dropping my kids off, one for going to the corporate office, one going down to do a shoot, and god forbid I had a party to go to. I would just have different outfits, and finally one day I said this is really stupid, and I chose one outfit. And the only thing I would ever bring with me is a high pair of shoes. If I had a party, I even wore blue jeans to the White House every time my one. I didn't care. So if you could reach back in time, give yourself some great advice just as you were ready to sell the company. What would that advice be? Just do exactly what you did, you would I wouldn't change anything. Maybe I wouldn't have made sure that there was a twenty five year noncompete. But it's almost over. Wo never heard of one of those we must not pay on your name, They on my name, and they can have that name after the sale. You, as we were talking about, became an even bigger personality and expanded your scope. But you've sort of done everything. As you mentioned, you are a regular contributor on the Today Show. You know how I got that? Tell us the story because it's a religious story. I was promoting my first book at Name and Marcus. I did my thing and afterwards any questions. There was as cute as little lady in the back of the room, and I went over to her and she said, yeah, how do I keep my lipstick out of the lines? And I told her and she said, I've seen you on the Today's show. I had been on once. I said, oh, thank you, and she said, you've done so much. What would you like to do? I said, I'd like to be a regular. She said, honey, Jeff Zucker is my grandson. She called Jeff, and I got on the show on Monday. So that's the way to get in. Find the grandmother. Find the grandmother. That's the lesson in this. You been a regular contributor on the Elvis Rand Show and see all the stations he's on, as well as the Rart Radio app. You were a contributing editor several magazines. You were actually the editor in chief of Yahoo Beauty. You and your husband even have a hotel. Now, yes, what did you become? This sounds like another phase of Bobby Brown. Well, honestly, I learned early on that it's not what I know that excites me, it's what I don't know. The projects I get excited about, especially if I've never done them before. I didn't know anything about being an editor in chief when I did Yahoo Beauty, I didn't know anything, but I'm like, Okay, how would I like to do this. It's kind of the same thing with the podcast and the same thing with the hotel. Never done a hotel before, but I stayed in enough of them. So what turned you on was it was new, it was different, you were learning something, cultivating it, and creative. It's got to be visual, it's got to be creative. I don't like working alone. I like working with the team of people, and I like having people that are good at all these things that I'm not good at. That excites me. So talk a little bit about how does the work life balance work. I've somehow learned over time what is more important and what isn't. But you know, when I was a younger working coming up, I was torn. I would get a call to do Nicole Kidman's makeup and Saurday Night Live, but I had a surprise party for my friend Gino Goldberg. Two weeks I agonized about what to do, what to do, what to do, and I finally made a decision. I went to the birthday party and I don't regret it. So you've had a lucky life, although you've worked hard for that luck. Talk a little bit about how you get back you've done some amazing things, and how you figure out what you're going to We're very big on local. We do a lot of local things that make a difference. We have an organization called Reaching Out Montclair, which helps the underserved. We also just brought a family from the Bahamas that lost their house in the Hurricane sixteen. People showed up at my house and stayed with us for a couple of weeks until we got them a house. And they're here on tourist visas and they will be here as long as they can because they have nothing to go back to. I went to see them last night in the house, and these are the happiest, most amazing people, and there's nothing that fills me up more than seeing people joyous and happy. Montclair. While we're on the subject so long, he's telling me that's now the new artist town, that the artists are moving to Montclair. Well, Montclair is kind of like the Brooklyn of New Jersey. It really is. It's the coolest town and the reason it's it's twelve miles out of New York. It's easy and it's a complete melting pot. Anything goes there in your hotels there. My hotel is there, and we also have a film and TV studio. We have a soccer bubble. My office is right between it. The Food Network shoots across the street from me. We have Stephen Colbert Patrick Wilson, who is Aquaman. I saw him this morning at the Chiropractor. It's a really fun town. So you're back in the thick of business again. You left in two thousand and sixteen. It was doing over a million dollars in revenue. Your company aspirations for that again? Never so whatever. Tell us a little bit about the new businesses. Well, when I left the brand, I literally had no clue what I was going to do. The first thing I did is I called two friends, two of my besties. One is Mickey Drexler. He was amazing emotional support. The other was Richard Baker, who happened to own Lord and Taylor and Sex. Richard said, awesome, I got a project for you and gave me a Just Bobby concept shop in Lord and Taylor. It was successful enough. Didn't save Lord and Taylor, but it was successful enough. And then I brought it in house digital. I opened up Just Bobby dot com digital magazine, started doing speeches and just seeing people. Opened an office, hired an assistant out of the Apple Store because I needed someone to help me with my iPhones. Office in Montclair or New York. Montclair. I will never have an office in New York again. Sorry. I literally walked to work. My dog comes with me, people's babies come with them. We have a manicurist every other week. It's just so different. Then I got this opportunity to create a wellness brand. The wellness brand is growing the fastest thing right now. We're in a lot of retail, we're digital, We're going to the UK opening boots. I'm also launching a podcast, as we said, with my Heart, which I'm really excited beyond the beauty, pretty excited about that. We're very excited about folks have worked with you. Honestly, all that stuff means a lot. I just launched a master class, which was the first ever makeup I had to get models and I got to teach my philosophy, which is health and wellness and entrepreneurship and not contouring, So talk about Beyond the Beauty. The podcast Beyond the Beauty is basically I talked to everyone from my husband, my kids, my Aunt Alice, to hair restoration people, to fitness people to entrepreneurs things that I want to learn, because beauty isn't just makeup, it's really what is beauty. Beauty is what like to look at, what you like to feel like. I'm a very curious person trying to better myself. I like to share with people the things that I want to know. And guess what, it's not that complicated. Are you doing one a week? One a week? Yeah? Tell me about podcasting. When you first get interested in podcasting, when did it pop on your radar screen? Well, I had no clue what podcasting was. I met Gary Vannerchuk, so I was on his show a couple of times. He invited me to come back, and then one day he started a podcast division. He wanted to do a podcast. I said, okay, I don't have an agent. By the way, I don't sound like I've never had an agent. So I did it for about a year and a half and that was called long Story Short. I would just come in and I have all these interesting people, people I didn't know, people I would bring in and just start talking and ask them like, who are you? This podcast is really for marketers and entrepreneurs. What a marketers not understand about beauty and health? People that are beauty people don't understand that beauty is more than just makeup. There are other things that are beauty, and women are more interested in lifestyle than just beauty. So it's not about this perfect thing in your face. It's about how everything goes together. So when you look at models, and you look at magazines, or you look at online or social how are they getting wrong and how they're representing things to women in America. Not everyone is doing it wrong, but I think that there's a big opportunity because for years, cosmetics companies and beauty companies will be telling people what's wrong with them. You need this cream because your skin is bad. You need this foundation because you're the wrong color. You need this because you have to change in the shape of your nose. That's not true. Yes, you want to look good, but if you don't feel good, you're not gonna look good. And it's not about weight or diet. It's just about feeling good thinking about this moment in time and beauty and fashion. How would you describe where we are right now? We're at a very interesting time because there's a combination of the YouTube makeup tutorials and people becoming brands because of this platform them in makeup that supports it. We also have the big brands that are trying to figure out what's going on. We have the digital brands that are some are doing brilliant jobs. There's so many of them. And there's also the new clean movement. So I find it a really exciting time. But I see a really big white space talk about ingredients and the products. It's changed a lot. It has changed a lot, and hopefully it will change permanently because there are a lot of ingredients that when I was making cosmetics, I had no clue they weren't good for you. Everything gets absorbed through the skin, So I only use organic, clean things to clean my house. I make sure that what I eat is as clean as possible. I know not everyone listening could afford organic food, but if I have a choice, I don't want chemicals. There's no reason to do that. The best quality food that you can put in your body is going to make you look better. The clean beauty space is going to keep growing, and I think eventually no one's gonna have a choice. Every company is going to have to have clean products. So you've been a big success by almost every measure of success, family, financial, work, fame, etcetera. I know there are a lot of folks listening who are building their careers today. What advice would you give them? I mean, I would first of all say there is no rush. I help a lot of young entrepreneurs that I'm friends with, and they always seem like it has to be done now. Oh my god, has we done? Oh my god? Series A, Series B, I don't even know what. Like, guys, calm down. You've got to build a brand. People think that the whole idea of building a brand is to sell it and make a lot of money. No, build a brand that you love. It takes time. It's like a baby. You've got to nurture it. So I would tell people to relax and chill and not be afraid to change if something they're doing isn't working. Change. So as we wrap up, we end each episode with a shout out to those special people on the creative side. And on the analytical side of marketing and business, who is your choice for that math person, that analytical brain that you've encountered or know about. I mean, right now, I'm going to say David Nass, who was my CFO, just because he was the one that understood and he knew exactly how to explain it to me and teach me. So on the creative side, who's the magician? I would say a photographer named Henry let Wilder. And I've been looking for my creative marketing partner for a hundred years. Bobby, you have an amazing life story, lots of valuable lessons. Thanks for sharing, thanks for asking me. Nice to see you. Here are a few things I've picked up in my conversation with Bobby. One, there's no such thing as a big break. As Bobby says, it's a lot of little breaks that eventually add up to a big success. To get excited about what you don't know, whether it's becoming a magazine editor or hosting a podcast. Bobby is always eager to step outside her comfort zone and try new things. Three talk to everyone you can. Some of Bobby's most important relationships from her makeup manufacturer to her distributor to her book agent. All started with a simple conversation with a stranger. Bobby has our own podcast, Beyond the Beauty with Bobby Brown. Be sure to give it a listen. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which just no small feat. Nikkiatore for pulling research bill plaques and Michael Asar for their recording help, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,

You're listening to Math and Magic production I Heart Radio. For years, cosmetics companies and beauty companies will be telling people what's wrong with them. You need this cream because your skin is bad. You need this foundation because you're the wrong color. You need this because you have to change the shape of your nose. That's not true. Yes, you want to look good, but if you don't feel good, you're not gonna look good. And it's not about weight or diet, It's just about feeling good. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to Math and Magic Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing, where we examine that special mix of art and science that's behind the great marketing and business successes. On this episode, we have someone with strong creative and business skills, an unmatched charm and determination, and the successes and brands to prove it. Bobby Brown. Bobby is sometimes described as a makeup artist, but that is like calling Steve Jobs a computer salesperson. She created a billion dollar cosmetics business that carries her name. She's written nine books about beauty and makeup. She has been a contributing editor from magazines and online. She's a regular part of our own I Heart Radio's Elvis Durand's Morning show. She has danced on stage with Florida. She was a regular on The Today Show, and she is currently doing even more businesses. And with all that, she managed to find some life work balance with her family and she's a lot of fun. Bobby welcome, Thanks so much. That's so sweet. We're gonna dig into a bunch of the stories, but first I want to dig into you in sixty seconds. So this first thing that comes in your head, Tequila, I love that you asked me the first thing that came in my head. Do you prefer sunrise and sunset? Sunrise Montclair, New Jersey or who Will met? Illinois? Montclair, New Jersey, Chicago, New York, New York Instagram or Twitter Instagram snapper TikTok neither coffee or tea, espresso, Beetles or Stones, Stones chocolate or vanilla chocolate, still or sparkling Still? Are you ready? It's about to get harder? Favorite hip hop artist, flow Right, smartest person you know, my husband, childhood hero and d Alice first job selling shoes at Carson Perry Scott. Favorite movie, love story, worst de beauty trend, so many contouring one superpower you'd like to have to be a better dancer. Favorite cocktail tequila or vodka, Last vacation, Bahamas, secret talent. I think I'm funny. Title of your memoir, what would it be? It'll be all pictures, no words. Who would play you in a movie? Jennifer Anderson proudest accomplishment, my three children And what's something you can't live without? My family? Okay, let's go. You get credit for introducing natural looking makeup at the dawn of the nineteen nineties. What was going on at that time and what were you rebelling against a makeup at that time? Right before the whole scene in New York was a lot of parties, a lot of going out to the clubs. Women were doing makeup like multi colored eyes and overlined lips and all this crazy stuff. And when I came to New York, I got a job to do a cover of Cosmopolitan at Jerry Hall. I tried everything in my power to do her makeup grade and she was so kind and she said, beautiful job, but can I have the mirror. I gave her the mirror and she said, can I just make a few touches? She redid her whole face, and I learned watching I didn't feel bad, I really learned, but I realized I can't do that kind of makeup. So I started doing it my way and it kind of slowly caught on. So what was your inspiration for your way? Because this was not the way now? It was definitely not the way. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be pretty and I didn't think I was, and I would use my mom's makeup to make me look tan and pretty. I don't want anyone to know is wearing makeup. And then when I became a makeup artist, I started doing that two models. People told me I'd never worked. If you want to work, you have to learn to do the other thing. But I just couldn't do it, and so I started doing it my way, and it's slowly slowly took on. What big names adopted your style that sort of gave you cred and sort of pushed you over that tipping point for you. I did a cover of Rolling Stone with Annie Leebowitz, and I made the guys look good, and Keith Richard's manager came over to me and said, oh my god, can we book you again? And so I got a couple of times got hired to do it because I always made people look healthy. Stones that's pretty good. That was pretty good. That's pretty good. So I want to dig into this a lot more, But first I want to go back to your roots. You were born in the late fifties in Chicago. You grew up in the suburbs will matt home of the famous New Trier High School. Can you paint the picture of those times. I'm the oldest of three kids. I was born to my family when my mother was twenty and my dad one very good looking couple. My dad and a tourney and my mama homemaker. By the time they were had three kids, were living in the suburbs, pretty normal, but my parents were very young. So I would come home and they'd be in our TV room with all their friends going to a concerts, and like, guys, I smell that. What is that? So I kind of grew up around a lot of you know, things that were happening at the time. I understand you had a very special bond with a very entrepreneurial grandfather. Yes, Papa Sam. What impact did he have on your business, because evidently he was a hell of an entrepreneur and a great business mine. Well, it's funny. I really learned a lot watching Papa Sam. I just saw how much he cared about the people that bought his cars, the people that worked for him. He was constantly marketing his own business. He was putting his photos and envelopes with kids, would sit with them and mail the things out, and told great stories. He knew al Capone and Whitey and all these guys. They all bought cars from him, and he was just larger than life for a teeny little funny man. All of five too, by the way. So what was the best Alcohoone story? Not the best Alcophone store. But my favorite Papa story was one day this man came into the car dealership, looked like he'd been sleeping on the street at two garbage bags, and no one would wait on him, not one person in his office. So he went over and he said, hey, doc, what can I do for you? And the guy said, I want to buy a car. He said, all right, I'll show you some cars. The bags were full of cash. He bought two cars cash. And so Papa always taught me that you cannot judge by what someone looks like. How about your dad a lawyer and my dad he was a business person, big influence. My dad was a lawyer till he was seventy. He retired and is now a children's book author. He's a very cool young eighty four year old. He's had quite a life. But my dad used to come home from his law job and sit down with me and do creative things, drawing and photography and art, and he talked about things that father's you wouldn't think they would talk about. He taught me about dating, He taught me about men. He really wanted me to go away to school and study something super interesting in Spain or somewhere, and I ended up studying makeup in college. It worked, It worked out for me, But he wouldn't have known that at the time. When did you discover makeup? And how I discovered makeup when I was a young kid, because I used to watch my mom get ready to go out at night. They would go out on Wednesday night and Saturday night, and my mother was very glamorous, and she was very, very skinny, and always wore really high heels, and she would sit in the bathroom basically in her underwear with her high heels on her jewelry cigarette hanging off the counter, and I would watch her do this glamorous makeup and I would just be in awe. I've never been a glamour girl. I've never personally felt that it was right for me, but I think it's because I watched my mom master it. When did you start wearing makeup? I started wearing makeup probably around middle school, and I was allowed to wear a little bit to school when you couldn't see it, but on the bus, I remember putting blue mass gara and you know, purple eyeliner in because that's what all the kids did. But I really fell in love with makeup when I was in Florida, because we would take our winter breaks in Florida and coming home, I would literally go into the airplane bathroom and put bronze all over my face because it was always like a competition who had the best hand. So I had the best hand because I knew how to give myself the best hand. I was so into tans in Chicago that in March, as soon as the sun would kind of peek its head, I would take a big giant box that had a refrigerator or something in it, put tinfoil in it, put iodine and baby oil all over my body, and just lay there and we would all get tanned. No one said, that's probably not a good idea. Were you talented and makeup at that age? Where like kids going wow, how did you do? No? No, I've never been talented to makeup. I just have honed my craft. Not like some of my peers who are incredibly painters. I'm not a painter. I'm just I make sure it looks the way I wanted to look. Let's jump to college. You tried out University of Wisconsin, osh, gosh, not you. You tried University of Arizona in Tucson, not for you. Then you discovered Emerson College in Boston, and it clicked. Why when I found Emerson, I really found my people. I was always under the impression that I wasn't very smart. I would sit in school and be completely bored out of my mind, even in high school. Unless it was a teacher that taught with creativity, with this visual vision, then I would get engaged and be really into it. I'm a visual learner. I didn't know that at the time. I thought that there was something wrong with me and I wasn't smart, but when I finally found Emerson, I found other people that were as creative minded as I was and learned differently. Emerson College let me study makeup. They didn't have a makeup program. They had something called an interdisciplinary program. I got to make up my own major. How did you find Emerson? My mother sat me down and said, if today was your birthday, you could do anything you want. And I could have said go to Paris, buy new gene something, but I said I wanted to go to Marshall Fields and play with makeup. She says, well, why don't you become a makeup artist, And I said, I don't want to go to beauty school. The thought of being in a beauty salon was not intriguing to me. And she said, I'm sure there's a college somewhere. And my father's friend told me about Emerson. You have been, I know this, a lifelong supporter of Emerson. What did you get out of Emerson? What did that put you on a path to? What about you is Emerson? Honestly everything? Because they allowed me to study makeup, they allowed me to create my own major. I did the plays, I did theater. I took classes on speech. I took classes on filmmaking, but I would decide what film I wanted to do based on what makeup I felt like doing. So I would create the characters and then right afterwards and I realized, I'm not like everybody else, I'm only like me, and it's okay. So who were your early influences on beauty makeup style? Well, when I graduated college, there was a makeup artist named Bonnie Mallor. I read an article about her in Mademoiselle magazine and she was the makeup artist that worked with Bruce Weber, Patrick de Marcialer did all the fashion shows from Ralph Lauren to Perry Ellis, and she had a very natural style and she was freelance. And I read the article. I'm like, that's what I want to do, and so I called her up. She's never called me back. I wrote her a letter. She didn't answer me back. I moved to New York. I called her again and I got her answering machine that said, I'm probably traveling, but if you need anything, call my agent, Brian Bantry. I called Brian Bantry. I went to see him and he said, I can't represent you. Because you have no experience. I'm like, all right, dude, how do you get experience? He said, I'll start sending you on jobs. So I got out the Yellow Pages and I looked up models, modeling agencies, makeup. I went to the makeup Union. I just started, of course there is yeah, and I walked in there. I said, I'm here, I'm ready to sign up. They're like, okay, well sit down, let me tell you how it works. It takes about seven to fifteen years to get in unless you know someone, and then it will take about two to three years to get in the union. Yes, but they said we can help you though. Some of our artists who are in the union need assistance. So they sent me to one girl. Her name was Bobby. She was the makeup arts for Serday Night Live, so I got to assist her. Eventually I assisted Bonnie, but I ended up doing a lot of work that she couldn't do, and one of them was Bruce Weber, and that was a big break. I eventually got hired to do magazine work, which is what I wanted to do. Took me seven years, but I got a Vogue cover. Used to a lesson in this and everybody that's building their career wants to know how do you get that big break? Just know that there isn't necessarily a big break. There's a lot of little things that lead up to it, and it's the simple rules. Number one is you have to be open. Number two is you have to keep going no matter what. You just got to keep at it. And number three is you gotta be nice to people. If you're not nice, no one's gonna want to either help you or do anything for you. And you just got to keep doing it. What made you unique as a makeup artist in that phase of your life, Well, I think what made me unique was my style was different, and I was always ready to go and if there was some other jobs that needed to be done, like I needed to fan the models or get them water. I was the kid that did anything. I was so happy to be working. I was a sponge. I wanted to learn a lot, and I just kept trying things. And I think people sense that I was just an eager beaver. Late eighties early nineties, You began to make your own makeup. How did that start? Well, not in my kitchen. People say they started making in their kitchen. I did a shoot for a magazine. I think it was Mademoiselle magazine. The story was actually on me how a makeup artist shops in New York City for off the Beaten Path makeup. We went to Keels, nice guy behind the counter, he's a chemist. I started talking to him about this lipstick I can't find and he's like, oh, I could make it for you. I said, really, and I told him exactly what I wanted. He made it, sent it back a couple of times, not right to dry the color. And I said, all right, these are the ten colors that I think all the you need really to get any color out there. And he said, how about this, I'll make the lipstick, you sell it, will sell it for fifteen dollars, you get seven fifty. I'll get seven Fifty's great idea. And he made them for me and we started selling them out of my house. By the time you debuted in Bergdorf Goodman in New York, by figured something out. Well do you know how I figured it out? I want to hear that. I was in the elevator in my then apartment in New York and there was a girl on the elevator and I said, hello, and she said hello, and I said, my name is Bobby. Her name was Sharon, and I said what do you do. She said, I work at a lab, a cosmetics lab. I said, really, do you have a card? And that lab still makes the lipsticks today. That is true story you debuted in Bergdorf Goodman. They estimated they would sell a hundred lipsticks in the first month, and instead they sold the hundred in the first day. Did that surprise you, Oh, it was pretty cool. But at the time, I had one baby, I was commuting back and forth from New Jersey to New York. I was still working as a makeup artist. My husband was in law school. You know, money was tight. Everything was kind of a blur. You had to scramble, obviously to get more. And berg Doorf must have said, wait a minute, we got a hit here, let's give it the shelf space. Right. Well, we were originally on a table, and the only reason we were on a table is because they didn't have any counter space. People now think it was a brilliant marketing idea, and it was in retrospect. And then they said, okay, we need lip pencils, we need I pencils. So we slowly started adding and it grew. Then Neiman Marcus called and said, we'd love to take you in four stores, and then Barney's called, and then Bendal's called. We didn't have a salesperson to go sell it. That's pretty good on It sells itself because it was different than what was on the market and it was really hitting a nerve. And I think the combination of having this product that actually didn't really look like makeup that was out there just made you look better. It didn't smell, it felt good. It wasn't greasy, it wasn't dry. Women looked pretty. It was a more natural look. It's what people wanted. And at the same time, not because there was a strategy, but I was the makeup artist doing makeup for the fashion shows, so I got to talk about the trends. I was also on the Today's Show. I got to talk about it, and everything together look like brilliance. But it was just really good luck. I'm sure you made your luck. Let's go back. How did you get the introduction? It's gonna sounds like I make this up, but I was at a party, someone's fancy party in New York City, and I said thank you, for inviting me. My name is Bobby. I said, what do you do and she said, I'm my cousina expire Berg doorf goodman, I'm not even kidding, and actually give you some money to put on the roulette table. And I think we do very well there. So you've got to look at that moment and go, Okay, something's happening here. What did you make of it? What I remember about that moment is I was still a working makeup artist. My husband was probably still in law school, I had a second baby, I was still commuting. We had business partners. We did not get along with them, just two different visions or styles or both both and everything. Yeah, it was really a tough time and it's probably the reason we ended up selling the company. I'm the person at night that starts thinking about my day and everything, and I'm like really stressed, and my husband's the guy that says, not now, we'll talk about it in the morning. So I had to somehow go to bed and I woke up in the morning every day and we would talk about it. We knew it wasn't a forever situation, but we were also young kids at the time. We didn't know any better. You had this instant success almost and on a spectrum of this must be a mistake. I don't believe I'm worthy of this too. I'm a freaking genius. Look at me. Where were you falling at that? Neither neither of those. I was just the person that would roll up my sleeves, having a notebook, writing in a drawing in it, coming out with new ideas. That was the next thing. I wrote a book, What you were to write? My first book. It was after Dylan was born, so it's got to be around nine two. I didn't know a book agent. I don't know how you write a book. Okay, so tell us this story. It's a story. We were in Nantucket for a vacation. I'm on the beach. My kids are playing with some older girl, her mother. I introduced myself, what do you do that? I'm a book agent. She was my first book agent, and I did a book. Had the book. It was on the New York Times bestsellers list. Just hold on a second, because we've got so much more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome back to math and Magic. We're here with Bobby Brown. So you had a really quick pay day, you launched A ninety one by Frederick Fakai. Our friend introduced you to Leonard Water, and you sold Esta Lauter in nine and became the chief Creative Officer. I was actually the CEO in the beginning because I got to pick my title and I it sounded cool. I didn't notice CEO was But after a few years they kindly asked me not to be the CEO, and I said, okay. Was the only reason you sold Unwind a partnership? Well, it was a combination. When Leonard Lauder invited me over for dinner and we have this talk dinner on top of his building looking over Central Park. I don't know how he got the Philharmonic to play, but you know it did, and he somehow figured out the food. I like. It was exactly a Bobby meal with the best wines you've ever had. And he said to me, I know what you want to do. You want to be a mom, You want to be a wife and a creative person. You don't want all this headache. We can grow you and we promise you total autonomy. I didn't know what autonomy was, but I said, okay, did you get it? I did? I stayed twenty two years. What was his pitch other than I know you want to do this. How did he get you so excited about Estay lauder Well? He said to me, you remind me of my mother. You are so what the brand is, and I know women really live on every word. What you've done is so different. And I believed him. I think he was the best thing that ever happened to me, and certainly that company an amazing guy. Is how did your life change working inside a major company and how did people begin to treat you once you weren't Bobby Brown but you were at State Water Well, it was like being in grad school, sitting in these big corporate meetings with these guys in suits and ties. Me sitting there with some uncomfortable little suit because I thought that mostly guys that are mostly guys, even not doing Yeah, the top tiers were mostly guys. There were women there. They were kind of the lifers they've been there forever. I would try to dress up in this way that I fit in. I was channeling Melanie Griffith and working girl. I used to have to leave my house in the morning with a bag of clothes, one outfit for dropping my kids off, one for going to the corporate office, one going down to do a shoot, and god forbid I had a party to go to. I would just have different outfits, and finally one day I said this is really stupid, and I chose one outfit. And the only thing I would ever bring with me is a high pair of shoes. If I had a party, I even wore blue jeans to the White House every time my one. I didn't care. So if you could reach back in time, give yourself some great advice just as you were ready to sell the company. What would that advice be? Just do exactly what you did, you would I wouldn't change anything. Maybe I wouldn't have made sure that there was a twenty five year noncompete. But it's almost over. Wo never heard of one of those we must not pay on your name, They on my name, and they can have that name after the sale. You, as we were talking about, became an even bigger personality and expanded your scope. But you've sort of done everything. As you mentioned, you are a regular contributor on the Today Show. You know how I got that? Tell us the story because it's a religious story. I was promoting my first book at Name and Marcus. I did my thing and afterwards any questions. There was as cute as little lady in the back of the room, and I went over to her and she said, yeah, how do I keep my lipstick out of the lines? And I told her and she said, I've seen you on the Today's show. I had been on once. I said, oh, thank you, and she said, you've done so much. What would you like to do? I said, I'd like to be a regular. She said, honey, Jeff Zucker is my grandson. She called Jeff, and I got on the show on Monday. So that's the way to get in. Find the grandmother. Find the grandmother. That's the lesson in this. You been a regular contributor on the Elvis Rand Show and see all the stations he's on, as well as the Rart Radio app. You were a contributing editor several magazines. You were actually the editor in chief of Yahoo Beauty. You and your husband even have a hotel. Now, yes, what did you become? This sounds like another phase of Bobby Brown. Well, honestly, I learned early on that it's not what I know that excites me, it's what I don't know. The projects I get excited about, especially if I've never done them before. I didn't know anything about being an editor in chief when I did Yahoo Beauty, I didn't know anything, but I'm like, Okay, how would I like to do this. It's kind of the same thing with the podcast and the same thing with the hotel. Never done a hotel before, but I stayed in enough of them. So what turned you on was it was new, it was different, you were learning something, cultivating it, and creative. It's got to be visual, it's got to be creative. I don't like working alone. I like working with the team of people, and I like having people that are good at all these things that I'm not good at. That excites me. So talk a little bit about how does the work life balance work. I've somehow learned over time what is more important and what isn't. But you know, when I was a younger working coming up, I was torn. I would get a call to do Nicole Kidman's makeup and Saurday Night Live, but I had a surprise party for my friend Gino Goldberg. Two weeks I agonized about what to do, what to do, what to do, and I finally made a decision. I went to the birthday party and I don't regret it. So you've had a lucky life, although you've worked hard for that luck. Talk a little bit about how you get back you've done some amazing things, and how you figure out what you're going to We're very big on local. We do a lot of local things that make a difference. We have an organization called Reaching Out Montclair, which helps the underserved. We also just brought a family from the Bahamas that lost their house in the Hurricane sixteen. People showed up at my house and stayed with us for a couple of weeks until we got them a house. And they're here on tourist visas and they will be here as long as they can because they have nothing to go back to. I went to see them last night in the house, and these are the happiest, most amazing people, and there's nothing that fills me up more than seeing people joyous and happy. Montclair. While we're on the subject so long, he's telling me that's now the new artist town, that the artists are moving to Montclair. Well, Montclair is kind of like the Brooklyn of New Jersey. It really is. It's the coolest town and the reason it's it's twelve miles out of New York. It's easy and it's a complete melting pot. Anything goes there in your hotels there. My hotel is there, and we also have a film and TV studio. We have a soccer bubble. My office is right between it. The Food Network shoots across the street from me. We have Stephen Colbert Patrick Wilson, who is Aquaman. I saw him this morning at the Chiropractor. It's a really fun town. So you're back in the thick of business again. You left in two thousand and sixteen. It was doing over a million dollars in revenue. Your company aspirations for that again? Never so whatever. Tell us a little bit about the new businesses. Well, when I left the brand, I literally had no clue what I was going to do. The first thing I did is I called two friends, two of my besties. One is Mickey Drexler. He was amazing emotional support. The other was Richard Baker, who happened to own Lord and Taylor and Sex. Richard said, awesome, I got a project for you and gave me a Just Bobby concept shop in Lord and Taylor. It was successful enough. Didn't save Lord and Taylor, but it was successful enough. And then I brought it in house digital. I opened up Just Bobby dot com digital magazine, started doing speeches and just seeing people. Opened an office, hired an assistant out of the Apple Store because I needed someone to help me with my iPhones. Office in Montclair or New York. Montclair. I will never have an office in New York again. Sorry. I literally walked to work. My dog comes with me, people's babies come with them. We have a manicurist every other week. It's just so different. Then I got this opportunity to create a wellness brand. The wellness brand is growing the fastest thing right now. We're in a lot of retail, we're digital, We're going to the UK opening boots. I'm also launching a podcast, as we said, with my Heart, which I'm really excited beyond the beauty, pretty excited about that. We're very excited about folks have worked with you. Honestly, all that stuff means a lot. I just launched a master class, which was the first ever makeup I had to get models and I got to teach my philosophy, which is health and wellness and entrepreneurship and not contouring, So talk about Beyond the Beauty. The podcast Beyond the Beauty is basically I talked to everyone from my husband, my kids, my Aunt Alice, to hair restoration people, to fitness people to entrepreneurs things that I want to learn, because beauty isn't just makeup, it's really what is beauty. Beauty is what like to look at, what you like to feel like. I'm a very curious person trying to better myself. I like to share with people the things that I want to know. And guess what, it's not that complicated. Are you doing one a week? One a week? Yeah? Tell me about podcasting. When you first get interested in podcasting, when did it pop on your radar screen? Well, I had no clue what podcasting was. I met Gary Vannerchuk, so I was on his show a couple of times. He invited me to come back, and then one day he started a podcast division. He wanted to do a podcast. I said, okay, I don't have an agent. By the way, I don't sound like I've never had an agent. So I did it for about a year and a half and that was called long Story Short. I would just come in and I have all these interesting people, people I didn't know, people I would bring in and just start talking and ask them like, who are you? This podcast is really for marketers and entrepreneurs. What a marketers not understand about beauty and health? People that are beauty people don't understand that beauty is more than just makeup. There are other things that are beauty, and women are more interested in lifestyle than just beauty. So it's not about this perfect thing in your face. It's about how everything goes together. So when you look at models, and you look at magazines, or you look at online or social how are they getting wrong and how they're representing things to women in America. Not everyone is doing it wrong, but I think that there's a big opportunity because for years, cosmetics companies and beauty companies will be telling people what's wrong with them. You need this cream because your skin is bad. You need this foundation because you're the wrong color. You need this because you have to change in the shape of your nose. That's not true. Yes, you want to look good, but if you don't feel good, you're not gonna look good. And it's not about weight or diet. It's just about feeling good thinking about this moment in time and beauty and fashion. How would you describe where we are right now? We're at a very interesting time because there's a combination of the YouTube makeup tutorials and people becoming brands because of this platform them in makeup that supports it. We also have the big brands that are trying to figure out what's going on. We have the digital brands that are some are doing brilliant jobs. There's so many of them. And there's also the new clean movement. So I find it a really exciting time. But I see a really big white space talk about ingredients and the products. It's changed a lot. It has changed a lot, and hopefully it will change permanently because there are a lot of ingredients that when I was making cosmetics, I had no clue they weren't good for you. Everything gets absorbed through the skin, So I only use organic, clean things to clean my house. I make sure that what I eat is as clean as possible. I know not everyone listening could afford organic food, but if I have a choice, I don't want chemicals. There's no reason to do that. The best quality food that you can put in your body is going to make you look better. The clean beauty space is going to keep growing, and I think eventually no one's gonna have a choice. Every company is going to have to have clean products. So you've been a big success by almost every measure of success, family, financial, work, fame, etcetera. I know there are a lot of folks listening who are building their careers today. What advice would you give them? I mean, I would first of all say there is no rush. I help a lot of young entrepreneurs that I'm friends with, and they always seem like it has to be done now. Oh my god, has we done? Oh my god? Series A, Series B, I don't even know what. Like, guys, calm down. You've got to build a brand. People think that the whole idea of building a brand is to sell it and make a lot of money. No, build a brand that you love. It takes time. It's like a baby. You've got to nurture it. So I would tell people to relax and chill and not be afraid to change if something they're doing isn't working. Change. So as we wrap up, we end each episode with a shout out to those special people on the creative side. And on the analytical side of marketing and business, who is your choice for that math person, that analytical brain that you've encountered or know about. I mean, right now, I'm going to say David Nass, who was my CFO, just because he was the one that understood and he knew exactly how to explain it to me and teach me. So on the creative side, who's the magician? I would say a photographer named Henry let Wilder. And I've been looking for my creative marketing partner for a hundred years. Bobby, you have an amazing life story, lots of valuable lessons. Thanks for sharing, thanks for asking me. Nice to see you. Here are a few things I've picked up in my conversation with Bobby. One, there's no such thing as a big break. As Bobby says, it's a lot of little breaks that eventually add up to a big success. To get excited about what you don't know, whether it's becoming a magazine editor or hosting a podcast. Bobby is always eager to step outside her comfort zone and try new things. Three talk to everyone you can. Some of Bobby's most important relationships from her makeup manufacturer to her distributor to her book agent. All started with a simple conversation with a stranger. Bobby has our own podcast, Beyond the Beauty with Bobby Brown. Be sure to give it a listen. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which just no small feat. Nikkiatore for pulling research bill plaques and Michael Asar for their recording help, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,