The idea is that people have many personalities and many personas, and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And the reason why beauty companies will never go out of business is that beauty is the one thing that is a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation. But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
John Dempsey's life is full of color in every way. During three decades in the beauty business, he helped turn mac Cosmetics into a global brand and launched the enormously successful tom Board Fragrance line. He is a passionate collector of art, furniture, objects, pets and friends. In fact, he told me he now has how many pets?
I have nine dogs and two cats.
Congratulations, Thank you. You're a man after my own heart.
A lot of emotional support, unconditional, exactly or conditional, you might say.
He designed a wildly eclectic, five story townhouse on the Upper east Side that is so full of the things he loves that he published a book showing them all behind the blue door. He joins me here today at Rockefeller Center to talk about that book and what it takes to build a business in multi billion dollar beauty industry. Welcome to my podcast, John Martha.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
You are looking extremely dapper today. He is dressed in a double breasted navy blue beautiful suit. What's the wool.
It's a I think it's a light worsted role. It's from Trifonili in Paris.
Oh, it's very beautiful. And he has a said this is a navy blue suit. Yes, a little bright navy. And then he has a brighter navy pocket handkerchief in his breast pocket on the left side, and he has a beautifully tailored pale blue button down shirt which is made by whom.
This is made by?
Oh, it is Sharve. I used to wear Sharvey's shirts. And what kind of watch did you wear?
I'm wearing an automar royal oak that my father gave to me on my sixteenth birthday. I found that it was I wasn't really wearing them the way I used to wear them.
Yeah, I think we've all come to that point now with our thought ubiquitous phone, right.
I know. So it's just more of an ornament than it is anything.
And also the reason we're talking is silly talk is because you know, John comes out of the high high high fashion world, the world of skincare and makeup and dealing with the finest designers and the most popular of brands. So thank you for coming here today and taking time.
I'm prilled to be here.
So I love your book on my friend and your friend. Of course, Douglas Friedman took all the pictures. This is a tome. This is a big, heavy book. It's a fifty oh wow. And it comes in a slipcase of leopard. Now what's the saying about leopard? When the going gets tough, the tough goal leopard. See, okay, that's it. And there is a lion of no leverriy you should have a leopard there?
No, Well, that's the door knocker on the I know it's the front cover.
Is the door with the door knocker of a beautiful, really mean looking lion with a big ring in his mouth. Is that a ruby there or an emerald?
It's a fake one.
It's fake, of of course.
It's in New York City.
And it was published by Von Dome Press, which makes very beautiful art books, and it is treated like an art book. Only I've never seen acid yellow and papers in my life before this book.
I love it.
Have you No, I've never seen it. Never it Steve Spress, it is, it is. And the bright red, well, there's end papers of bright red. And when you see the house that John built, which is really what year was that house built?
Well, the house was built in eighteen ninety five, okay, and it was under many renovations. When I got it, it was in an eighties kIPS Bay innovation.
Oh, so you bought a Kipps Bay house?
Was a Kipps Bay house that needed to be purged of the nineteen eighties. Yes, there was a lot of nineteen eighties stuff elements, but it was the plumbing good or did you have to redo that too?
Or suit to redo everything everything?
When they did the eighties renovation, they never really went into the pipes.
This is an East side of Manhattan townhouse, which looks like all the other townhouses on the street until you walk in the door and wow, you are absolutely shocked at the volume of stuff in the house. You are a real collector, John, I'm a collector. Yeah, you are a college.
Some people call me a luxury order.
Oh is that that is so great. But you, I mean, you grew up kind of in a normal home, normal and not normal.
I guess you know that you never know I've learned anything in life. You don't judge a book by its coming.
Describe your Describe your growing up.
I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, preppy town.
My there wasn't there was no house that looked like this Shaker Heights, Ohio.
No, no, no, it looked very It looked very much like the Rady bunch. And my father was in the steel business. And love is he still He's no longer with us. He passed away this past year.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
And my mother, who's still with us, was a painter. And I was lucky that growing up in this Midwestern city, I had very glamorous parents. And my mother's father was in the yarn business. And actually who was the father was the supplier of Harmon knitwear and I'll actually help launch Rudy Greenwright. So my mother and I had Rudy
Garnrake knitted dresses. My mother, my mother would she didn't wear a mono bathing suit topless, but she would walk around in hot pants and these Rudy green right numbers in Prepstown and it was like the Harper Valley PTA. So it's great.
But you like you like Bold, I would say, you like Bold, and you like lichten Scene, and you like Warhol, and you like what are some who are some of your other favorite artists?
Well, I love pop culture. I'm inspired by every decade. If I'm inspired by music, fashion, photography, celebrities, design objects, I'm inspired by you.
Thank you.
Actually, I remember hunting down and two homes ago the special color gray paint that you had done. So I thought the gray color paint that you had done was the best tope gray at it I had ever seen.
Somebody just asked me the other day for a can of my paint. Isn't that great? That's a big compliment because he wants to paint his houses that color. And when I moved to Bedford, there were so many outbuildings that I thought, gosh, if I don't use a cohesive color.
That's where I saw it everywhere, Yeah.
And everywhere it all has to be cohesive. And it worked. It worked. And I got that color from a piece of Italian stationery. I had gotten a little box of stationary in Florence it's one of those beautiful, old, old stationary stores, and that color gray just spoke to me, and I had it matched to paint and it worked.
I left that well. Actually, that that sort of dovetails into the inspiration of my color palette in my book, because if you actually go to not this page, not this page. So on this double spread on the left hand side of the page is a photograph of Bridget Bardeaux, a publicity still that I bought when I was eighteen years old in the flea market in Paris, and.
All men were madly in love with Bridget Bardeux.
Yes, and that was the first thing I ever bought. And on the right side of the page is a pair of Christian Lubhutan boots that my friend, model suzannevon Ashinger, who is John Galliano's muse, was wearing. And I was out to dinner with her in Paris, and when I saw her boots, I was trying to determine, like what I was going to do with the house. I said, you have to give me your shoes. She said what I said, No, you have to give me your shoes.
Idea is beautiful boots. This color combination of the navy and the Evecline blue and the baby blue and the gold, the pink and the red. And I went to start carpets into the archives of David Hicks, and all the carpets that we've throughout the house carried the.
Colors they were in that color. Isn't that crazy? It's a crazy story. Well, you are unique and the house is such a unique place. And the trouble with seeing the house is that John is a very amazing party thrower, and every time you go to his house it is so packed that I don't think I've gotten past got the first floor, second floor. I tried to get up to the next floor, and I never got up there yet,
so I have to come back. Imitation's always open, Okay, But the whole book is so who designed the book.
The book was designed by Elisee Sozan, who's an art director who works with Von Doom Press. She's based in Los Angeles. But as you said, it really was the collaboration with our dear friend Douglas Friedman. The house had been photographed in a couple of interior design magazines and he said to me, this doesn't capture what you're about or what this house is about because I want to do it my way and I believe I was.
And he talked about it quite a bit while he was doing.
It, and I told him you could do whatever he wanted to do and I would give no direction. And we hired Mika Tanhae who is an amazing young stylist from Amsterdam, and Alina Cho, our close friend, wrote the book and it became sort of a project of introspection and at the same time diving deep into where I came from.
Whose eye is this ie that I is from? Rankin the photographer. I mean, really and truly, when you get your hands on a copy of this book, and it's available at Amazon.
Amazon dot Com, art bookstores, art bookstores, find and Noble find bookstores everywhere, yeap, when you get.
Your hands on this book, you will be incredibly amazed at the the volume of things that John has collected and the crazy artistry with which you display it. I mean, it really is. It is hard to find a seat in your house. I know, it's very hard. Where do the cats? Where do those cats live?
Two cats live on the fifth floor because they hate the golden doodles, Oh golden doodles. Keep trying to eat the cats. So it's a it's a it's actually.
And they're not allowed up there. They're both.
You would think in a home with so much stuff, having a teenage daughter and nine dogs and two cats, that nothing ever gets broken.
Does your daughter live in this house half the time? Yet she does? A lucky girl, she must love it.
The book was really a personal expression on my philosophy, on what I've learned in life and the experiences I've had, the people I've met, the things that I've seen. And the overarching theme is that you should be you, and you should live your life with empathy and kindness, but boldly and expressively. It doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter where you're from. Anybody can be their authentic self and put themselves out there in a unique way.
The book is called Behind the Blue Door, and that's the color, a bright, bright, beautiful blue. That is the color that he has painted his front door with the lion knocker. And he's joining me today to talk about the book, about what it takes to build this business and live in New York City in a very personal way. Yes,
so there's been a big explosion. John in the beauty space for sure, more companies, more product categories, more celebrity entrance into the world of skincare and makeup, more SKUs altogether. What do you attribute to this growth?
To many things. Actually, this wave is enabled by the new communication platforms. So when you think about the evolution of beauty post war after World War Two, in the fifties, you had the opening up of malls, You had the transition from radio which was sponsored by Pond's Cold Cream or whatever the case may be. To you arrived at the game shows and Revlon was the sponsor of the sixty four thousand dollars question which when did you work for Revlin? I worked for Revlin in the early eighties.
But I'm just from an historical perspective.
I missed you, y, I just made I was on the board.
I did not know that.
Oh. I was on the board in the nineties and that was the most fun board I have ever sat on.
Lower fun people.
But what happened with Revlin? Because I knew Revlon in the seventies.
Revlon was a great company, and Charles Revson was a visionary and he was passionate. And I still think it's a great brand name. I still think they have great products with great performance. I think somehow it got lost chang It didn't understand the change in the demographics, and it didn't understand the change in the way that media
and aspiration works. So in my little story that I started from the fifties with the shopping malls and game shows, in the sixties with broadcast television and the importance of glossy magazines and beauty editors and fashion editors and television and people talking on the Today Show like Bobby Brown, and so you had all these experts that built their business up through the local newspaper and market town market marketing.
But every every town in America or in the world had a local specialty store, a local magazine, a local beauty editor, a local TV station, a local radio station, and the business was built.
Bit by bit, community by community.
The revolution that came first was cable, where you could start to narrowcast and target an audience. And when MTV came on, the infomercials, Yes, infomercials and new ways of and home shopping, and MTV came on board, and all of a sudden, music was about the video and how you told the story about the video, and if you didn't have the video on MTV, you didn't sell the music. So all of a sudden, the media started mattering more, and the content started mattering more, not just the paid
promotional element. And during the nineties with HSN and QVC, there was this boom that took place with people actually taking the show on the airwaves and going direct to people's homes. And at the same time, the most important change in our lifetime is the year of nineteen ninety eight, because pre nineteen ninety eight, there was no Internet.
It was accessible to everybody's home very well. There was no Google, there was no sarch Board, there was no search.
There there was no Amazon, there was no there were no blogs, there was no Wikipedia.
I mean, so the early does it seemed like yesterday?
It seems like yesterday, yes, And you used to dial it up on your phone and have that funny noise no going. But that was the first or the beginning of the democratization of access to content and information and search and understanding about brands and going places that you never had to leave your house. The first seismic change came with Facebook. First of all, First was MySpace, then Facebook, and then.
My space was Rupert Murdock race then came Mark Zuckerberg, and with Facebook.
And then Instagram and YouTube, with Google and Google Search and Yahoo and all these platforms. And what started happening was the creators or the users actually became the media channels, and people that had up per sana or could make a connection with an audience all of a sudden became stars and they started doing how to videos and tutorials
and doing crazy stories and crazy content. And that coupled with the emergence of Alta and Sophara in the United States and these sort of you know, category killer beauty outlets all of a sudden cause gave an opportunity for generations of brands to be Some brands that had been around for a long time. Anastasia became an overnight success story after many years in the business because of Instagram, and then that evolution got turbo charged with the arrival
of TikTok and Snapchat. And the thing is that the beauty business, like the film business or the music business, had a lot of gatekeepers. So unless you could get the right slotting in terms of presentation in the store or the right counter.
You're talking about the companies, the manufacturers themselves, the.
Manufacturers themselves, and the retailers and the publishers. There was a system that was an ecosystem of mutual admiration and economics that created the aspiration and the outlets to buy brands and create products. And when you think back of the great beauty entrepreneurs of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, whether it was Lena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Charles Revson, Este Laud, I mean, these women and men in today's world would
have been considered to be influencers. They had social media, yet their social media was on television or in glossy magazines or in a lifestyle dimension. So they were the first first evolution of social media or social beings, but bringing together a heritage or a lifestyle or a story. The thing about Instagram and more so TikTok was that anyone with a good idea can sell it, can sell something, or become a star over an So there no longer was a studio system. There no longer was a gatekeeper.
Now there's an algorithm that actually forces you actually to play ball with the platforms exactly.
But you set up an iPhone on a little stand in your bathroom and you put on a pretty circle light around your face, you put on mascara, you can sell it.
A young girl from Tampa, Florida can go from being a beauty advisor in a department store to having twenty five million followers and having our own brand or being a channel to sell products. So this democratization of content and the ability of people to connect with content that they relate to opened up huge opportunities for people to express themselves and to actually start to create products and to create brands. And so you have the success of Chris Jenner's entire ecosystem of children.
You know there, You imagine having five daughters like that that create the product that we all devour.
It's a pretty amazing when you think that there are probably more eyeballs on those social media channels of her family than in the three legacy television networks of this country. But that could not have happened. So the change in media and the change in people's expectations about beauty and self expression opened up a much wider canvas to pain because in the earlier years, there was sort of a
standardized way that you were supposed to look. There was a universal code or standard of beauty that was imposed on men and women, and the opportunity to be whoever you wanted to be was less free, And also the concept that being whoever you wanted to be might depend on the hour of the day. And the fact of the matter is you may be glamorous one moment and effortless the next, and bare face the next and hampering
yourself in the with Martha Stewart products. But the idea is that there are people have many personalities and many personas, and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And the reason why beauty companies will never go out of business is that beauty is the one thing that is a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation. But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
I don't know anybody who doesn't want to feel good in their skin and look better and look better or feel better about themselves or project a better self. And that eternal quest to do better and be better fears fees.
Is fed by the beauty industry.
It's fed by the beauty industry and the media empire and everything else. That goes behind it because it's a universal quest.
So the celebrity beauty brands that have evolved over just the last few years, it's not a long time that except for the great econs like Helena Rubinstein and Essay Laughter, who were the most successful of these new celebrity start to.
Put it in perspective, the celebrity beauty phenomenon. After it went from the founders or the creators of these brands who were beauty experts, you had the celebrity action actually in the nineteen seventies and eighties in Fragrance.
Remember Ralph l my brother in law, did Ralph Lauren Perfume, I remember? Or George Friedman, George Friedman, goodness, yeah, he did Poloma Picasso.
I did.
I did the opening night party, the big party at the UH At that party, oh you were, yes. And it was up on Fifth Avenue in that beautiful mansion across from the Cooper Hewitt.
Yes.
And I did all the food, and I did all those red table claws and it was fabulous, and Paloma was there.
But the idea of a celebrity that was Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds, which this to this very day still ranks in the top twenty five to thirty frames in this country. Nice So celebrity became very, very important in the fragrance business, and it was one of the main drivers of QVC and HSN, which created new celebrities and new celebrities finding a new life on TV. Right. Ernest Borgnine's wife Tova created a fragrance that sold hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fred Hayman and Gail created Georgia of Beverly Hills in the Scruple.
Years, So I remember when that was launched.
So these were like bigger than life ideas. Today we have a lot of celebrities in life. Go back to Georgio. What made that so popular? It was that pretty woman period. It was rodeo drive, It was over the top Beverly Hills, It was unabashed glamour. It was access into a club that maybe you couldn't go into, but you could buy a piece of the fragrance.
Who did the advertising for that, I don't know.
Who did the advertising, but it was it was a firminiche fragrance and it was the bright yellow and white awning and it had the crest and they were the first people to use the scent strip.
It was the first time in magazines.
In magazines and that fragrance was during a period in the eighties where the fragrance arrived before you did. So it was about loud, unabashed, old, bold, fragrant expressions. And today now you have a lot of celebrity brands. There are some that carry a celebrity's name and others that are backed by celebrities with varying degrees of success, but ones that I would say have hit it out of the ballpark Rihanna Infenti, which has been an extraordinary success
and changed the whole framing of what diversity represents. Selena Gomez right now with Rare beauty.
Oh yeah, and she's coming out with uh I just read something today she's doing not makeup, but is it her fragrance.
She has Fragrance makeup skincare. She is one of the fastest growing brands.
And she's such a cute girl. She's an amazing she's so cute, she's so great in her TV with Steve Martin. I love that show. The Building.
Yes, you have Hailey Beaver as a great brand called Road. Right now, you have designers have become celebrities, and celebrities have become designers. Mary Kate and Ashley to the row, I mean, so you have a lot Actually, Lady Gaga, she has a scent, but she actually is a beauty line. And the first iteration was less successful, but the second iteration of house Labs h A U S Labs, which is all based on complexion with a bold sort of eye,
is incredibly successful. So you so celebrities who know a lot about what it takes to look good and the effort that goes into it and the professional glam squad or beauty to Tom Ford was an amazing example of a man who was a designer, a man who had a vision and ideal, who also was so good looking, so appealing, and had such star power himself that he was a celebrity and he ticked all the boxes.
And his and his makeup was beautiful.
Makeup spectacular of the spectacular, and he is listen. He was the first successful designer brand of the two thousands of the millennium. Before that, there were a lot of designers that tried to do beauty brands, including Ralpha ren the Outside of Fragrance that failed, but it was and now.
I cannot see Ralph and makeup. But Tom there makeup, I know, but I can't see him in it. But you can see Tom Ford in it, Yes, and he wore it, and he advertised himself in it for sure, and he advertises fragrances on him.
He was unbelievable star power there. You know, you can't take away the effect of Kim and Kylie. They they've done extraordinary things. And to look at the influence of a Sofia Richie right now, or to look at the younger generation. So these this younger generation of pop stars and of designers and influencers are creative, and there's been a mashup of creative product developers, suppliers and great merchants in the stores that are discovering new ways of reaching
new customers with new ideas. Some of them may not be new to you and I, but there are generations that have never seen it before.
Now, of all the celebrity brands, I hate to pinpoint, but I love to know of all the celebrity brands that and the icons that you've worked with, who stands out as like the most iconic to you?
Well, I've worked with a lot of celebrities in brands. I came from a school of thought that what was most important was that the brand be the star, and that the celebrity be in the context of the persona or the values of what the brand was about. Sometimes I think it gets a bit murky when you have a very a very strong celebrity and a very strong brand, and there's a bit of a confusion of where does
one start and what is one one end. But I will tell you that in my work at MAC and my Viva Glam campaigns over the years that I did with James gajor I work I worked with every pop star from Rue Paul and Katie Lang to Rihanna to Fergie to Elton John to Ariana Grande to Mary J. Brige and Little Kim and the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and Lady Gaga and and I got to meet a lot of these people before they were famous, and
I understood the power of community and what celebrity is really about, which is a testament of the power of Martha Stewart. Is the community that you activate connect with is your power and the ability to connect to an audience, and even if the audience is relatively small for some people, connecting with a small audience in a big way is sometimes more powerful than trying to connect with a big
audience in a small way. And that's the change. That's the change that we're seeing in the world right now. So I love I've loved working with all those celebrities. I loved working with with with Tom Ford. I had a great time at es Day Lauder, working with Aaron at the same time working with Gwyneth Paltrow.
I mean, so those were fun times. What's the biggest makeup brand right now in terms of volume? Because it is kind of confusing, there's there's so many, I think, you know, you know the numbers.
It depends how you measure the market. I would say that between.
Mac which is owned by sta Laughder, and Charlotte Tilbury, which is owned by Pooche.
Charlotte Tilbury is actually become in under fifteen years one of the top three beauty brands.
What's the what's the third one?
I would say that it's an ever changing universe, right it was fenty at one point, whereas is up there right now. And then of course you have the Diors, the Chanel's, the Saint Laurents, the Georgia Armani's, you have the Amazing. You know, you have these these incredible, great low cost brands like Elf and you know, Nicks and things that are very price point accessible. You have category killers.
So people who do like one thing really will like people who get Elephant the Trunk, Elephant who did amazing. You know, anti aging products that somehow teenagers are obsessed with right now, you know, smash Box.
Day, like they're getting old fast whatever.
Everybody. To be successful, you need to have a product that people love, that's good, that people come back and buy over and over and over again.
Charlotte Tilbury, for example, it's not to me, it's not a terribly well known brand, and yet you say it's number two. It is very good product.
She's probably not as well known because she's under distributed. She basically has been in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Sophara. She just entered into alt in a big way. But I will tell you I.
Don't even know who she is, but I like her stuff.
You will love her. She is a over the top, glamorous redhead. She's a professional makeup artist that I worked with when I was working on Mac. We sponsor Charlotte as backstage and.
Does anybody own her? Knowroach? What you said?
Barcelona? And she actually worked with Tom Ford in the origination of the original Tom Ford makeup brand and started her own brand and she is She's a media star.
So what happened to Laura Mercier?
Laura Mercy still matters. Bobby Brown, her legacy brand still matters. Yet Jones Road, Bobby's new brand matters a lot because she's speaking to an audience over fifty five years old that people forgot and the fact that she speaks to them with great products in a straight up fashion is very much well appreciated.
So and she has some new stuff is actually very interesting.
Very very very interesting. But but but what's what's interesting is there's root. There's a seat at the table for everyone now because the market has become it's not too crowded. Some of this, some of the tables have gotten a bit crowded, and some of the tables will probably thin out a bit. But cream rises to the top, and great products and great brands and great ideas stand the test of time. Some things may be a fad or
maybe fleeting. How big is the beauty industry. Oh my goodness, it's tens of billions of dollars.
I mean, it's bigger than the automotive industry.
I don't know on a unit basis, yes, but after all, twenty one dollars lipstick and I thought eighty five thousand dollars tesla. There's a lot of lipsticks that go in between that. But I would I will say that consumption of lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, and facial moisturizers and cleansers are the most commonly used products for women around the world.
And it's and it's never ending. And as each society becomes more sophisticated and you have emerging middle classes, there are billions of people ready to consume products and wanting to improve their status in life.
And I have a twelve well she's now thirteen year old granddaughter who did beauty videos that were very professional and very beautiful starting at age ten.
I know my daughter does the same.
Yeah, And they filmed themselves doing all kinds of extraordinary eye makeups and things. And it's not like she's spending all her time. She's a straight A student. It's not like she's wasting her time. You know my mother would have said, put the makeup away, dear, and study, but she does. She manages to find time to do it all. But they are fascinated. But if she ever read a magazine, read a magazine, she reads books.
I think what you and I have in common being north of thirty, how about that, yees nor to thirty years old, is having young people in our lives.
Oh, it's so important.
It's so important because in judge it keeps you current because the framing of the culture and the framing of how people consume and aspire and want, so it's curious.
It's very curious. And you, you in business and I in business, have to know who is the consumer who is going to buy the products that you are working on?
Right, It's so important, I mean, and ultimately we've gone from a dictated media, brand dictated marketplace to a consumer powered marketplace. The consumer actually votes. It's like being on the voice every minute.
I always quote Stu Leonard, you know his quote rule number one. The customer is always right. Rule number two. If the customer is wrong, see rule number one. Absolutely and they're and they do. They set the tone. They set the tone there, it's their want and their need that you have to fill right, absolutely, and I applaud you because you you have kept on top of that your entire career, providing us with really spectacular products. I've tried.
I mean, I have to tell you it's hard to keep up and everything that goes around.
How important is science in skincare? Yeah? Very important, all important.
Actually, you have so many different trends going on in the beauty business right now. You have the whole clean, beauty, vegan, natural, cruelty free zone. You have people who.
A Anderson not wearing makeup ever again, ever again. Yeah.
Well, actually I saw her some makeup on the other day. But but good, she's being hypocritical. No, no, she's being Pamela Anderson. Okay, she's being surprising and unexpected, which but she looks good, she looks fantastic.
Yeah.
We live in a world that is also powered by the ability to use experts dermatologists, estheticians.
Yeah, how important doctors? How important are the dermatologists now? Very beauty.
Well, they're very important in terms of people's personal maintenance and how they project themselves. Going to a plastic surgeon or going to a dermatologist was in the purview of only the very privileged and the very rich. Now it's available to everyone and at all levels of society, and people use beauty services is part of their health and beauty routine. There are customers that want medical grade products.
They want products that they want science and ingredients that are going to give them dramatic effect.
Some of those products have sort of disappeared from the marketplace, so I don't see them as often. Maybe I'm just not aware, but there were a couple of dermatologists who had a lot of products out a few years ago, selling them very well on QVC. And now you see less of that and more celebrity you do.
But you see a re emergence of doctors again. So it's actually.
Who are the best best, who has the best products right now?
And it's so hard to say. I mean, there's so many and there's so many great products. I mean, I myself it's not a medical just an aestheticians brand called the Algers. I mean I like that. I'm obsessed by it. I love MBR. I think that Lamaire makes great products. I think Barbara Sturm makes great products. The original formulations of Clinique designed by doctor orange Shrike.
Still he was my original dermatolog I love Doctor orange Shrike. But you know, do they still get a royalty? Does the family get a royalty?
And there's some sort of financial project?
I hope, so I hate he was so good, but he.
Understood the power of exfiliation. And there are so many brands and so many interesting brands. And by the way, as you travel around the world, because I'm traveling a lot around the world these days and spending a lot of time in Europe and a lot of time in India and Korea, uh, and you see the most unbelievable formulas and the most unbelievable packaging and the most unbelievable.
Coatia India more than others.
Korea is one of the epicenters of creativity right now. You see an incredible innovation in complexion and wait, like Tatcha.
Do you know Tacha? Tacha is a great brand. I love some of those products, the great products.
You see amazing products coming out of Japan, you see products coming out of China. I think it's one of the most beautiful brands on the market. I think their their formulations are second to none. So I respect any brand that ethically brings product to market that connects with a consumer, that makes people feel good, and we all make our own personal choices.
Does it have to cost so much?
No, there are amazing products that you can buy at CVS Dwayne Reid really between sarah v or the Derma brands like laroche Pose or Rock or Nutrient Gena. There there are fabulous, fabulous options and access points.
So you have to sort of experiment and try what you think works the best on your own skin.
That's basically there's a bit of do you.
Have to read the fine print?
I can't read the fight print anymore, you see, I don't.
But it's but it's crazy the amount of fine print and every single product is so extensive.
It's hard. The regulatory environment requires a lot of transparency relative ingredients and what's actually in the products, and what they say and what they say today it's a little bit more restrictive than what they used to say before because these things are regulated quite stringently.
What are people tired of in the beauty space.
We've been living in a period of time were effortless, no makeup. Makeup was the standard of beauty around the world. It will always be there. And it takes a lot of makeup to look like you're not wearing any makeup indeed. But the whole notion of the Mafia wife look, the fact that people want to look like Dynasty with you know, you know, it looked like John Collins.
So everybody wants eyelashes.
So you have this, this this trend culture that all of a sudden, people want to be glamorous again. People want to have gorgeous makeup looks, people want to wear eyelash extensions. I mean, the eyelash extension thing is insane.
It is, it really is. I mean, my favorite line, eyebrows shapers get like three hundred dollars.
Now, my favorite line was when I was working in the industry, we were talking about my friend Anastasia's success and someone in the room said, well, you know, Anastasia is the girl next door and I looked at them, I said, I said, well, who do.
You live next door to?
And then I went back to Cleveland and I went to the grocery store and I saw the girl at the register was or contoured cheeks like Kim Cart and her eyelash extensions, and.
There did Brown.
I thought like, oh my god, Metastasia is the girl next door. He is, Yeah, we live in trends, trends coming to go. We were in a huge eyeshadow palette cycle about four or five years ago. The user rate of an eyeshadow palate palette is about ten years. They've re emerged again, but you know, it's it's a bit cyclical. I mean, there is a skinnification taking place with people wanting more hybrids. So makeup that does things that are good for you and things that do good for you
that give you makeup effect. Because everybody wants instantaneous results and sometimes it takes a lot of care to get long term results, but they want they want to see the money right away.
What advice do you have for aspiring beauty founders.
My advice is Gypsy rose Lea said it best. They have to have a gimmick, and I'd say it in a very uplifting, nice way, not in a way that people would take a look at it as being tricky. You need to have an angle, you have a strong
point of view. You have to stand for something. You'd have a product that stands and performs at some level that speaks to an audience that you actually have permission or the authenticity to speak to because people today can sniff out when something's not real, and that's why things some things fade so fast, they're fads.
Yeah, and you've seen that in the last ten years. I've seen a lot of makeup. The lines come and go.
There are a lot of ones that should have gone, and some that are quite sad to see go. Every single time I see a great brand that was created by an entrepreneur or somebody who had great passion go away, it's like a little bit of myself dies. I mean, I understand how much people put themselves forward. They mortgage their homes, they take their life savings. I mean so much respect for the hard working entrepreneurs. And honestly, the
celebrities didn't just become celebrities without working hard either. Oh no, they were so so people, you know, don't give the respect. What does the celebrity know about makeup and skincare? I hell of a lot.
They wear it every day and they.
Do their own makeup, and they know more about light than maybe the best makeup artists in the world. So it depends what your angle is.
Well, you've always been known for having the your finger on the pulse of where people are, of pop culture. Your book shows that of music, of fashion trends. How has it changed as you get older? Not that he's very old. I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. How old you are? How old are you?
I am sixty eight years old.
Oh you're young, okay, but old enough, old enough to have an AARP card. So that's which I know's But that's such a great organization.
It is a great organization.
That is an organizations get your medical that's right, and you have to also pay attention to them because they have a lot of money.
I believe that everybody should live their best life and their best age every day, every day the way they want to and not being judged for it. And so I think the ability to be more expansive and inclusive and diverse and a motive. Actually the trend is to be more individualistic and less conformist, and I think that that's exciting. It's incredibly creative. It's a great period of time to be alive.
Let's talk about some things we have in common. You have the abundant Pitt family, as I do.
I have a very big takes.
Care of your dogs in the daytime when you're at work.
I have a I have a housekeeper, and I have somebody that comes in and watch the dogs in a pack. They go in groups. Okay, they go in groups. Sounds like I'm I should become the global spokesperson for Nature's miracle. Actually, I think I was inspired by your French bulldogs to get a French bulldog.
Originally, there's so I think I am one of I think I'm one of the.
You're one of the first. You were the first mover of the French.
Ship with no with a pair. We had a brindle and a cream and that they became the paars walking around the city. And now I still have the pair, but with the additional additional brindle, the new one Luna Muna. He's adorable. And you have cats and no that's it. But you don't have chickens and peacocks and turkeys like I have.
No the New York City. I think that's against the law. Actually, I think having eleven animals in the house is borderline being a kennel. So I'm not exactly sure.
We both wear the hats a business executive and creators to which is which role is more important to you. It's hard.
They always say that I'm a creative that's perceived as a suit to other creatives and as a suit that's perceived as a suit of to creative.
So that's a good place to be. I think I.
Like to be in the middle. Actually, I like to have a head for business. I like to understand what it is that I'm doing and not doing at the same time. I like if I can to push boundaries and to explore what's possible. The worst thing in the world to deal with is can't, no, never will happen.
And yet you had how many years at estay Order?
I was an stay order for thirty two beautiful.
So like like your career, your big career is a staylader. Now you are with Catterson, I'm with all.
Cattered in Partners, and I'm a senior advisor working in the beauty space and traveling a lot, traveling all over the world and.
Doing what what are you doing?
Looking at businesses to buy, so you know, meeting new beauty entrepreneurs, looking at new distribution channels. And I'm doing some brand consulting work with some leading beauty brands now as well.
So it's that's fun.
It's fun, but it's a private relationship between myself and those individuals. I still need the ability to work with creative people and to see and do things that.
Are But you're doing it, You're thriving. You look great, by the way, Thank you, and I just want to mention we're almost out of time and we've been chatting it for a long time. You talk beautifully and you really are expressive about your interests. I love it so much. Your book Behind the Blue Door is a maximalist mantra, yes, and it describes beautifully the home you have created. In a couple of sentences, just tell our listeners a little bit more about the book.
Well, the core philosophy, it's about creativity without boundaries and you BEU and to have the courage to follow your dreams and your passions and that anything is possible. From growing up in a suburb in Ohio to having met and done the thing things that I've been able to do over the course of my career and the opportunities that have been given to me is a blessing. It was not an overnight sensation. It was years and years and years and years of not being visible and hard work.
Yet and the same person I was when I was sixteen years old. I am now you think so I do. Actually I never lost I never lost that part.
So nice.
I think that's why I understand the business so well, because I understand the real world and I understand what the real wood looks too.
Well, it's nice to meet someone who thinks more is more.
More is more, and less is born. Unless my friend Donald Robertson would say yes.
And well, please all of you look up the book, go to Amazon right now behind the blue door. Well you are fantastic. Thank you so much for spending time with me and our listeners a glimpse into the world of John Devc. This is amazing, John.
Thanks you, Martha. You're an icon and someone that I've looked up to my entire career, and it's an honor to be asked by you even to have a fireside chat. Thank you. M