I was trying to find the “interview with a founder” article to see where I got my behaviour about not using stuff bought more than a year ago - so I could ask here what your thoughts were. I’m pretty sure it was when they stocked in Space NK, they were talking about how difficult it is to get stocked in a big retailer with the production approach they had, because of the logistics and the stock requirements you need a longer shelf life or a really good logistics to support up and down in supply and demand. I can’t remember if it was RMS, de Mamiel or something else even!
Found this interesting interview with RMS founder Rose-Marie Swift though from July 2023 https://theindustry.beauty/the-interview-rms-beautys-rose-marie-swift-on-being-a-rebel-and-a-clean-pioneer/ some quotes of bits I found interesting.
obviously she’s pushing her own brand but what she says about the challenges in the industry and marketing shine a light I think.
just thought this bit showed how fickle the next big technology is and probably the pricing too! - “Especially once Miranad Kur, Giselle and Adriana Lima started saying nice things about the brand in their interviews. So it was fabulous!
Some of the models I can't mention because they've had huge contracts with makeup brands for years. They pretend to wear all these big-name brands, but they are wearing my shit! This industry is all about name-dropping. For example, trying to get into a store at the very beginning was kind of a nightmare. I was doing French Vogue in Paris and I decided to take my products into Colette. I walked in there and I said: "Hey, my name is Rosemary. I'm here doing French Vogue with Mario Sorrenti".
If you name-drop, they'll pay attention. And, of course, took my product the next day. So then we started going around in New York telling retailers we’re stocked in Collette and doors just opened.
I care about what people are putting on their faces, but I think what took the industry so long is a conflict of interests. We’d go and meet with Editors and I’d tell them what products I avoid using in products. But they couldn’t talk about RMS Beauty next to an ad from, you know, your P&G companies whose products are full of chemicals. They’re the big-paying companies that are giving plenty of advertising dollars.“ -
About ingredient claims. Didn’t someone on one of these offers threads reveal about a product saying it had “ceramide-esque” ceramide-based or something in big letters but didn’t actually have any ceramides in it? It was a Boots kit I remember. “Sometimes companies just want the claim that a certain ingredient is in their product, even if the lab tells them the quantity won’t be effective. Whether this ingredient works in the product or not, some companies don’t care, they just want to claim that it’s in there. Take hyaluronic acid, for example, companies want that claim. We actually got ourselves in trouble years ago when we said how awful it is and how it pills up under your makeup.
However, we found this unbelievable raw material version of hyaluronic acid, did the research to make sure it’s the best quality and now we’re using it in our products. It’s funny with ingredients, there's a beer version and there's a Cristal champagne version. If you're not on top of your ingredients and the products that you're making, then the labs put in the cheaper stuff because they can pocket more money.”
I’m always looking for comedegenic ingredients looks like it’s not as black and white “People have been going on for years and years about how coconut oil clogs your pores. Well, RMS paid to get ours tested… and it does not clog the pores. So we have scientific proof, that cold centrifuged coconut oil doesn’t clog the pores, but that doesn’t go for all versions of the ingredient.“