Taylor Frankel on 10 years of Nudestix
Taylor Frankel is one of three co-founders of Toronto-based Nudestix. And, as the beauty brand’s main face, she has been spending the year celebrating its 10-year anniversary. She founded the brand with her sister, Ally Frankel, and her mother, industry veteran Jenny Frankel, when the two sisters were teenagers.
In today’s competitive beauty market, making it to the 10-year mark deserves to be celebrated. As such, the brand has kicked off a tour, during which Frankel will participate in brand activations in her home base in Toronto, as well as in New York, Los Angeles and London. These customer-facing events will include panel discussions, workout classes and influencer dinners.
On this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Frankel discusses Nudestix’s points of difference, the unique ways it works with influencers and celebrities, and the strategies it’s using to grow its skin-care business.
The excerpts below have been slightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Unexpected beginnings and timelessness
“If we think about 2012 and what the industry looked like back then, … it was really about artistry and you had skin care. … We felt like there were no brands that were speaking to this lifestyle approach to beauty — this less-is-more approach to beauty that was relatable, fun and easy. We always looked at our mom’s makeup. … It was really this old-school approach to beauty — [meanwhile] we wanted products that easily fit into our bag, along with our phone, and that we could take on the go. … [Back then, it was the] YouTube era of transformational beauty. … It was all one-hour tutorials on how to create the perfect colorful, smoky eye. I remember watching those videos and thinking, ‘Who’s actually wearing all of this makeup, unless you’re an influencer or you work at Sephora? It’s very unlikely that you’re wearing a full [face] every single day and spending hours on your makeup. …
There have been so many changes over the past 10 years in the beauty industry. … But I think what’s really unique about Nudestix is that less-is-more beauty, natural makeup and looking like yourself will never go out of style. It really isn’t about trend. When we launched in 2014, it was disruptive to talk about natural makeup, to talk about pencils or sticks that you would literally just draw and blend with your fingers. … I remember speaking to influencers at the time, and it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to use a cream stick or to get anyone to just put a product right on their face and blend with their fingers. … At the time, we would approach retailers and pitch them on our concept, and they would say, ‘Well, less-is-more isn’t going to sell beauty, More is more is going to sell beauty.’”
“We loved the idea of an influencer partnering with us — getting in the kitchen and actually developing a product that they loved. That was really important, rather than just putting someone’s name on a product. We realized that long-term partnerships, specifically, were super, super crucial in building trust around influencers and brands. Let’s say Stephanie Valentine [aka, Glamzilla] just posted about Nudestix once. It’s very unlikely that her community is going to think, … ‘Oh, there’s an authentic, organic relationship.’ But if she’s talking about us frequently over a few years, then that’s really impactful, [in terms of] credibility as well as loyalty. So we then started to work very closely with influencers who were already, organically using the products and in a long-term capacity, which led to the CSOP model. … We said, ‘How do we get creative [with] these long-term partnerships, [so that they are] financially beneficial for us and also for the influencer?’ And that’s when we decided, ‘OK, maybe there’s an equity model that we can create where the influencer has a vested interest in the long-term success of the business.’”
On growing Nudestix’s skin-care business, Nude Skin
“We felt like, to really speak to less-is-more beauty, we had to speak to skin prep. … We felt like there was a gap in the skin-care world — this was a few years ago — for this modern take on the Clinique three-step [routine]. … There were beautiful targeted treatments, whether it was a retinol or a serum — but when it came to daily skin health, that was commonly being ignored, and we wanted to break it down in a very simple way. … Obviously, we’re a makeup brand, so it’s very hard to achieve credibility when it comes to skin. There’s a lot of brand awareness [work] to be done on our end. But the loyalty and the replenishment with our products is insane. We project that, by the end of 2024, Nude Skin will be about 10% of our total business. … We launched a 30-day results-guaranteed program on Nudestix.com, which is essentially a really good return program: You can buy any Nude Skin product on our site, and even if you finish it, you don’t like it or you don’t see results — because we know it takes at least 2-4 weeks to see results, when it comes to switching up your skin-care routine — you can return it for a full refund. We have a 0% return rate. The replenishment, the loyalty, the love is there.”
