Welcome back to she Pivots and I'm Victoria Jackson.
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who dare to pivot out of one career and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacts these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman today. I'm so excited to have on Victoria Jackson to talk
about her many pivots and plot twists. Victoria is someone whose life embodies everything we talk about on she Pivots, the way our personal stories shape our professional paths, and how reinvention isn't a one time decision, it's a way of living. She may be best known as the woman who coined no Makeup makeup, the beauty pioneer who built a billion dollar empire by championing natural confidence's first beauty long before it was trending, but her story goes far
beyond the surface. She launched Victoria Jackson Cosmetics from her garage in the nineteen eighties with a singular mission to help women feel like the best version of themselves. She was scrappy, bold, and entirely self taught, selling her products on infomercials and later on QBC, becoming a household name in the process. But in two thousand and eight, everything changed when her daughter Ali was diagnosed with a rare, life threatening disease called neuromya litis optica or NMO. Victoria
didn't hesitate. She walked away from the business she had built and pivoted without question into a world she knew nothing about medicine. She taught herself the language of molecular immunology, founded the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation, and mobilized nearly eighty million dollars for research that helped fund the first ever ET approved treatments for the disease. She became an advocate, a fundraiser, a force in a space that she had never expected to enter. But never once did she doubt
her decision to put love, purpose, and motherhood first. Now, at seventy years old, Victoria's pivoting again. She's returning to where it all began, with a new generation of no makeup makeup products, blending skin care and simplicity with the same mission that started it all, helping people feel confident in their own skin. She's not just reviving a brand, She's reimagining beauty for women who like her are still evolving.
Victoria's story is raw, resilient, and deeply human. It's all about surviving trauma, building success from scratch, and walking away from an all for something even greater. And now, decades later, it's about choosing joy and creativity again on her own Termslet's get into.
It, Victoria Jackson, and I do so many things. Philanthropist, entrepreneur, mother, makeup creator, really kind of an accentrist and alchemist, you name it. That's just sort of who I am.
Okay, we're rewinding, we're going all the way back. So little Victoria, when you were growing up, what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up?
You know, I always say I was born prematurely. I was born in the six and a half month, so I think. And I was born I think early on I had that little worry gene and worried about everything. So probably I was just worried about the stability of my parents. And you know, how did I get into a situation where I never quite knew what was coming next?
So I don't even know that. It was very much later in life that I started thinking about what I wanted to do and that question bothered me more than anything, not the way you've just asked it, but the way people in my life did at the time, which is probably for a lot of young people when they say, well, what do you want to do or what do you and I had no sense. I was always a person that was just trying to figure out who I was, let alone where I was going or you know, what
my career might look like. Things seemed to evolve in a different way for me as I was always struggling and fighting and dealing with much bigger inner demons. You know, I was always in survival mode. Is one thing that I realized, having come from a childhood that was, you know, filled with a lot of uncertainty. And then you know, the episode that happened when we'll call it beyond an episode of what happened in my life, the incident with
pillowcase rapist when I was seventeen. So I've always really struggled with trying to figure things out and not knowing where my place was, not coming from a family that, I said, a lot of instability, there wasn't a lot of money, just sort of you know, I wasn't great going to school. I was ditching school all the time. So yeah, it's just a lot. I was always dealing with a lot internally.
One of the first moments that forced Victoria to pivot was once she just touched on one of the most horrific moments of her life. When she was just seventeen, she was the victim of a violent attack from a man known as the Pillowcase rapist, and it changed her life forever.
You know, I always felt, I don't know if a lot of the people that are listening to this, they always feel like, you know, there's a sense of foreboding about maybe something in their life and then it happens. For me, it was always I felt like somebody was out to get me, and that was always, you know, and I would be teased about it in the family, like Who's going to get you? And to the point where one a night, my brother was, you know, always
making jokes at a step brother. My mom remarried and I had a stepbrother who basically was a good guy, but he would play jokes on me. And so one night when I was home in my room alone, I saw behind me, you know, that awful scene in a horror movie where there's somebody standing behind you that I was looking in a mirror and someone was behind me and had on a ski mask and looked like a dish towel hanging over something and was all covered up
with gloves and lots of clothes. And I thought it was my brother playing a joke, saying don't move, and it turned out it was not my brother. And you know, I don't really need to go into all the details of it, because I do talk about it in my book. We all worry, now what, but enough that I thought my whole family was, you know, had been killed and I was the last victim. And so that's all I
kept thinking about. And really from that experience, which manifested in severe claustrophobia for me, and you know, he had a knife and I stabbed and brutally raped, and it was I learned about something called which I talk about in my book called zooming out. But for at the time, it was really disassociating from what was happening to my body, kind of you know, sort of floating above looking down and really being very cognizant of there was a reason
that I was here. This wasn't going to be how I went out and was very clear that when I had a moment to scream and break free, that's what I did. And that was obviously another pivot point, for sure, you know, a brutal pivot, but a pivot to there's a reason I'm here, I've been spared, there's a reason I'm here, and what is that reason?
And from there you wrote that you never went back home after that.
Yeah, I never went back in my room. I was seventeen, I didn't graduate high school. I was in my final year, of my final months actually of graduating in the twelfth grade. Yeah, I just could never go back in the room. And then at eighteen, when I turned eighteen, I got married because you know, I had to be eighteen and just
didn't want to be alone, basically, was it. So you know, I married sort of like almost like a high school friend and to not be by myself, and I was you know, I think we lasted about nine months, and because you know, his last name was Jackson, and I wanted to just sort of like, I think it raised so much of the past. And I'd had different names because I was born one name and then my stepfather
adopted me and I had a different name. And then you know, I just thought, as in this pivot, I'm going to now be Victoria Jackson, and I decided to go to beauty school, which is because I am more of a creative and learn about doing makeup and hair and went to Marinello's School of Beauty. I was able to get a scholarship and did that. My marriage didn't survive that, but it really wasn't a marriage marriage. It
was a friendship. And I think we've both figured out it was best to go our separate ways.
After everything that happened, Victoria leaned into beauty school, carving out a new life for herself. She hustled, made connections, and eventually, after spotting a gap in the market, she decided to start her own makeup company out of her garage.
I mean, while I was, you know, when I decided I wanted to be a makeup artist, and to be a makeup artist, a Hollywood makeup artist, you have to start building a portfolio. And at the time I started doing that by working. I'd look through which no longer exists, the phone book, and I would look to see different photographers. I'd look on magazines credits, you know, for photographers, I'd go see them and I had to ask if I
could work for free to start building my portfolio. And I noticed as I was doing that, and that was after graduating from a beauty school sixteen hundred hours later, that makeup was really what I was excited about. I would, during the day work for in the makeup counters, you know, clinique or different department stores. I'd work in the makeup counters and be familiar with different brands and makeup, and
I didn't find anything. As I was now working and testing and building my portfolio with photographers, a makeup that was more of a neutral base foundation. And so I decided that everything was like two pink and orange. This is going back aways before there was you know the companies now that have eight hundred shades of foundations. So I started to create in my garage my own makeup by mixing and matching different things so to create what was more of what I called at the time, it
was Victoria Jackson Beauty Basics. That was my first line. And while I was doing that, I started I thought I would see if I could teach makeup class, and I was doing that at ACLA in an extension course, and I started to perfect and see what people were responding to with my makeup. But it was all really started in my garage.
So you really started it out of necessity looking for the products that It wasn't like you were approaching this as saying I'm going to be an entrepreneur, let me find the product. It was really the tool that you needed to make your business work.
I always believe like if you build it, they will come. But yeah, I wasn't thinking I had no idea. Everything very organically came from that where I was in my class and a student in my UCLA class also said that she basically worked with a group of guys that were selling products on television, and I said, I had a great idea of how to sell cosmetics and TV, although I wasn't really sure that I had a great idea for how to do that. But I thought I
would take what I'd been doing in my classes. I'd put together these color coordinated kits, and I took a lot of what I was teaching, which are now you see on TikTok all the time as these tutorials. I was doing a three hour class and lessons on you know, a ten over a ten week course of how to do your makeup. So I started to extract a lot of that and thought, how could I take all of what I do and bring it down to where, you know, I could sell this on television.
And here we are with Victoria, and.
I'm going to take you through a complete makeover or I make someone up from the start to finish, and show you all the right techniques for a general makeup application. And now joining me is Victoria Jackson. Hi, Cathleen, So what are we going to do today?
What are we going to learn?
And I got on the set and I did a million dollars a week in sales. From that point on, I did thirteen years of inpromercials, ten years of QVC. Where by the way, I just went back on QVC twenty five years later last week and it was amazing. So, yeah, I've talked about full circle.
Yeah I got yeah, Well when did you Maybe it was now, But at this point, when did you know that you'd made it in the cosmetics industry or even just like made it professionally.
I don't know that I ever thought about. It's so strange, but the making it. When you deal with low self esteem and insecurity, you're always sort of like did I make it? And I always saw I was just saying
the next thing. You know, when you do things like QBC at the time, you know, I'm I'm very hard on myself, so I'm a perfectionist, so I never quite Only now I think as I'm this year about to turn seventy, and I thought, you know what, this year I'm starting to take you know what, I'm looking at my resume and I'm ticking over a lot of boxes off, going, oh, you've done a lot, so I think it's just catching up now to all that I've done.
By all accounts, Victoria had found success in her career. She was doing millions in sales. I was bringing in over twenty two thousand new customers a week in the nineteen eighties. No less. When we come back, Victoria's life takes an unexpected turn as we explore the more personal side of her story. Stay tuned. Before the break, Victoria was setting records and breaking glass ceilings at QBC, But while she was growing Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, her personal life grew as well.
I was married for my first marriage, which was very short with the gentleman named last name Jackson. I remarried years later to you know, the love of my life, the first love of my life. I now have a new love of my life. I'm very lucky. And I was married and I had a son who is now forty years old. And you know, as our I was going up kind of in the world of infomercials. You know, we drifted a little bit apart, and again we split, you know, amicably, and have a beautiful son now as
I say that we have together. And during that separation and as we were finalizing our divorce, I met my current husband, Bill Guthi of Gutty Ranker, and we have two children. So I have three beautiful children. And it was really during my time married with Bill, as we have a son and a daughter, that I was going along in my makeup world. And all things have been going well. And you know, I think Victoria Jackson enjoyed sales up to a billion dollars, thirteen years of infomercials,
ten years of QVC. I created about six hundred beauty products, and just overnight my daughter said she had an eyeball headache, and so began this kind of nightmare of she was diagnosed with this rare auto immune disease called NMO used to be known as Devik's disease. And they told me, and by the way, it's not so rare, that she had four years to live. And then I basically said, I'm closing the door on makeup, and I'm opening the
door on everything medicine. And you know, I never went to college, as I said, I didn't graduate high school. So now I was really going to have how do I learn to cure this autoimmune disease when I've been making like foundation and lib gloss for the last fifteen years.
Her daughter's diagnosis changed everything. Neuromyolite as optica or NMO, is an autoimmune disease where your immune system, which usually protects you, mistakenly attacks parts of your nervous system, usually your optic nerves and the spinal cord. So without his second thought, Victoria dropped everything to find a cure, not once looking back, people react to these moments differently. I think it probably just depends on you know, your life
experience and kind of your disposition. But for some people they jump immediately into action. For some people they need to have a down period, they need to evaluate. When she got this diagnosis, can you talk us through, I mean obviously devastating, but you know, what were your feelings, what were your thoughts then, and what did you pull from in your past to help you get on a on an active track of figuring out trying to find the diagnosis.
Well, I knew that I had to work let's call it, at the speed of life, and so certainly I fell apart, you know, and I curled up in a ball, and you know, was like, couldn't move off my bathroom floor for a while. But it's the thing that separates, you know, people from like you can stay in that position or you can allow yourself that and then you get up
and you start making a plan. I was so focused, you know, I literally have to remember, like I was picturing the hour glass of the sands of time running out, and I was on this like had to get something done. So sure it was upsetting, but I became so singularly focused because I knew without me driving that narrative and being the person who's doing it and the quote unquote mom on the mission, as they called me, there was
no other choice. So I just knew that I was going to have to put together a group of really smart people, doctors, researchers, scientists, anybody that knew anything about this, and start I just started thinking through in business, what would you do to solve something. You'd start bringing in the people, You start building on the foundation, you start getting great minds together, you start about collaboration. All the fundamentals that I built in my beauty business, I just
started to apply that here. So I started to seek out the experts and build this team. And I was just going to be as I've always been, just my authentic self telling the story. Because infomercials were telling a story for thirty minutes. I'm going to tell the story of my daughter where I am, what I'm trying to do, and I'm going to pay. I've spent eighty million dollars of my own money. But people are going to work the way I need them to work, which is they
need to collaborate, share information. And I'm going to change the way in which medical research is done. So I set a big bar for myself and a big agenda. But I knew this was serious and I was going to save her life and the life of all the people that have this condition. I will say, in the
midst of all of that I was diagnosed with cancer. So, but I always see things as a movie and I was sort of like, this can't be the part in the movie where the mom dies trying to save the daughter, you know, And so I was able to get through that.
It's unbelievable what you've done. Can you walk us through a little bit of that, like how did you know what barriers needed to be fixed? And it sounds like you had some idea about how to solve them by funding them and forcing them to work in a collaborative way, But how did you even know that that was a problem? And then how did you force it forward? You did it very quickly.
Yeah, I've done it very very quickly, because it became apparent to me early on and people let me know. And I have to give a lot of credit to the head of my scientific team, who is the head of molecular Medicine at an Infectious Disease at UCLA, doctor Michael Gaman, And it became clear to me. I was like, well, tell me what are the challenges of getting cures and getting things made? And the biggest one was collaboration, people
not wanting to work together. And so immediately became clear to me, what I was going to need to do was sort of create new rules of the road for how I was going to if I was going to give money, how people were going to have to work together and share. And then I brought together a group of people where I said, help me build this, build it together. You tell me what you need and I'll go and get it. You know, you tell me if you need a certain specialist or research in a certain area.
And I mean, I'm so simplifying what has been over seventeen years of problem solving, bringing people together, hundreds of people's together, forty plus countries together, over fifty short films that I've made, creating apps, building my own blood bank that has over one hundred thousand specimens, where I started with nothing because who knew that to you know, have research, they needed the material to work on. So I had to kind of go back in my old way of thinking.
This is how creative you start thinking. I needed blood from people in the world that had this, and I was like, instance, it's mostly women that have autoimmune diseases. I was like, I'll give you blush if you give me some blood. Right, Like, I'm going back into my old makeup role. I'm thinking again that creative, which sounds kind of insane now, But I started with one nurse
going across the country. She'd have extra blush in her bag, getting specimens, and that's how I started creating a blood bank. So anything that I saw was an obstacle. I tried to figure out the solution.
Wow, that is really extraordinary. How quickly did you feel like you were making progress? Was it immediate or was it very frustrating? No, it was very frustrating because to me, progress was going to only look like, you know, again a high bar of a cure or a therapy. So it's taken me a while to be able to sit here, Emily and say to you, and now I have four therapies. But in real time, people said, nobody gets a drug made,
even one maid this quickly. They say, you have to cross what they call, which is a not a great name, the Valley of death, where a lot of ideas, research, science just kind of goes into this chasm of like nothing happens. And I crossed the Valley of death with building bridges between a lot of people that had I think a great sense of humanity, perseverance, amazing brain trusts to help me build that bridge. You can't just have
the researchers, clinicians and scientists without the patients. And I think you would see the pharmaceutical companies and it's why I have four drugs made. They were engaged. I mean, of course it's about money, but it's also about the humanity of helping people. And that's what I had to do was try to build that bridge and show both sides we need to work together and here's how we
can do that. Remarkably, Victoria did it. She brought the right people together to create an FDA approof treatment that her daughter is still on now seventeen years later. Not only did she help other NEMO patients to fight the odds, she created a new model for bringing everyone together in the room, hundreds of researchers and clinicians from thirty two countries, plus pharmaceutical execs and tech teams at Google. She did it all within a high school or college degree. But
Victoria isn't done yet. After the break, Victoria makes another pivot. After spending years in the medical industry, Victoria was ready to take on another challenge. At this time, something a little more fun than familiar.
And what I missed most. You know, in medicine, everything's black white gray through that. Really sixteen seventeen years I was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame by Glorious da which was unbelievable. I received an amazing acknowledgment from the Pope the Vatican. I was at the Vatican like for my work around the world. I mean, amazing things happened that if somebody would have told me as a high school dropout and not knowing what I was going to do have happened in my life, I would
never have believed it. But medicine is black white gray. I've always sort of missed the color of getting back in making my cosmetics, and I still own my trademark no Makeup Makeup, and I decided, you know what, I'm not going to come back with a product until again. I feel like I have like the world's best foundation and I've been working over the last few years to create that. And when we actually came up with it, I was like, Okay, you know what, I'm ready to
go back out there again with no makeup. Makeup.
A lot of people think.
Makeup has changed so much over the years do to work.
With the cold great law reflection.
To me, beauty has always been the same.
Here is one of the most successful business women in all America.
Her name was Victoria Jackson.
Victoria Jacks Victoria Jackson is a phenomenon in the world of beauty.
My whole philosophy is really based on a no makeup, makeup, no makeup, makeup, no makeup makeup, no makeup make up, introducing no makeup makeup.
So how do you think about dividing your time. You're relaunching makeup, You're doing no makeup makeup? Why now? Why make up again?
Oh? I mean for me? Like I said, I wasn't coming back until I made what I felt was the most extraordinary product. And I'm you know, I love being in a lab and I love creating product. I just knew that it was. It's just something that I wanted to do, and I trademarked no makeup makeup early on. It's still my philosophy. I feel strongly about it. As I said, I'm turning seventy and I'm still talking about
no makeup makeup. I just went back on QVC where I was looking at old footage of me when I was there in my little mini skirt like thirty five years ago or whatever it was, and I just went back and I had three fifteen minute segments and I was fortunate. I sold out and I did over a million dollars in sale. Thank you everybody. But more than that, it's a great product and I was really excited about it, just like I was when I did my infomercials. Like
it's easy for me. I'm not just selling and pitching. It's more I know that I've got something great and I made it, and I'm really excited about it, and I want women to try it and always say, if you don't like it, send it back.
That's just me.
So this is just a continuation of it, and it's it's fun and I'm enjoying doing it.
How is building the company coming back in entering again different? I'm sure different in a million ways, But how is it different this time around? Oh?
I mean, it feels like I was asleep for seventeen years. I woke up and now I'm in the world of TikTok and there are no infomercials anymore. It's like wake up, Victoria, but there's no infomercials. Anymore. It's it's TikTok, and it's Instagram, and it's influencers and creators and tutorials. But I did all of that, so it's it's taking it now and as they say, making everything my messaging more snackable. But I was talking about a lot of the things that
I was doing then I'm doing now. It's just in a new way. And there's things that I'll I listen to my team and they're going, Okay, you need to go in the bathroom and you need to like show people before and after. And I was, you know, like in only this time, you don't have thirty minutes to do it. You've got you know, thirty seconds. So it's been a learning I sound like a you know, old lady, like, what is this new era we're in? But it's kind
of been like that for me. But you know what, I pioneered the infomercial world, and I'm sure I can navigate this and a lot of people, you know, interestingly, to a lot of people have been talking about no makeup makeup for a long time, not realizing that I originally am the one that kind of started that movement early on in trademarket so it's been nice. A lot of people now are going, wait a minute, I've heard it from so and so, but you're the one who did that, so it's kind of nice to do that.
And thinking about your metric for success, what are your dreams for your relaunch of the makeup Like, is your metric of success different this time around?
I think ultimately will be since I kind of walked away from that, will be to sell this company when the time is right. That will be a metric. Like it'll sort of be like it was something that I was wanting to do then and they all will have recreated something that I can do now. So I think
that will be a metric for me. But again, going back to already, I'm feeling pretty amazed because I can see how people are responding to it, and that's really there's no better metric than that than people just loving something that you've created.
Yeah, you know, I have a lot of conversations with listeners where especially after they've had young kids, once they have sort of medium aged kids and maybe they had taken a step back from the workforce at that time and then they think, oh, well, you know, I'm too old to start something new. Ah, what would I start now? I can't start again now. But you are starting a new company at almost seventy So what is your message to them?
Oh? Just do it, just you know, don't even like seriously like I think it's harder the thought of not doing something. You're already failing. If you don't do it, you've already failed. So why not see if you can succeed? Because not doing it, to me is already a failure. So it's really like, you put yourself out there, you know, and do it if it's real for you, if you
believe it. Don't do it just to do it. Do it because there's something in you that you want to do it and you feel passionate around that to me, is always makes it authentic and people can feel your authenticity, your excitement.
So I asked this question of all of my guests. What is something that at one point you saw as really a negative or a low point, and now you see it as having really launched you into the path that you are on now or the success that you found now.
I mean, I'd say so many, so many things, things like obviously my daughter's illness was clearly the lowest point, but I see out of that, and I certainly wouldn't wish that or say oh, but ultimately it was the best thing that happened. No, it wasn't the best thing that happened. But I see what I was able to make of it, and how I was able to you know, help thousands, hundreds of thousands of people and getting drugs made.
That's pretty extraordinary. So something that was so low and I felt like I didn't even know where to begin, where to begin, and to see what it's turned into that's been extraordinary. And the same thing with the makeup, that you start from this tiny little seed. And you know, I always remember this, Jay Shetty had said it, and I remember it. You can water the seeds or the weeds, you know, And I always try to water the seeds
and try to get rid of those weeds. And I've seen all those seeds now really grow into something pretty extraordinary, and I'm very, very proud of that.
Do you think you'll pivot again?
Absolutely, I think I'll be pivoting, you know, I think I'll be like pivoting in my grave. I mean, i'd just be like, I think that's just who I am. But I pivot. But It's not like I pivot and then the other thing is shit. I just bring something new into my life and I keep them all going. They're all on burners, and you know, the heat is turned up a little more on one than the other.
But I keep them all going. They're all cooking. So I think sometimes people can think pivot, like you know, you turn, and then are you turning your back on something or closing a door. I really try not to always do that to sort of now, Like I say, they're all on a burner, they're all cooking, and I know it's part of those ms, which one am I in and what am I giving a little bit more love or attention to today? But they all coexist in the world of Victoria Jackson.
Well, thank you so much, Thank.
You so much. I appreciate it.
Victoria still has all her burners going, from publishing her latest book, We All Worry Now What, to growing her company no makeup Makeup, to running her bookstore, Godmother Books. She doesn't slow down. You can keep up with Victoria and her many pivots on Instagram at official Victoria Jackson Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of She pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast dot com. This episode was produced and edited by Emily Davelosk, with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock, Audio production and social media by Hannah Cousins, research by Christine Dickinson, and logistics and planning by Emma Stopic and Kendall Krupkin.
She pivots is proud to be a part of the iHeart Podcast Network. I endorse g pivots