239 - Breaking Beauty Norms: The Rise of Indie Brands and Authenticity in Skincare with eu2be's Charla Jones

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Charla Jones, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder and owner of a skincare company called Eutobe, which can be found at eutobe.com. And I think it, we need to spell that E-U-2 numeral 2 B-B-E dot com. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm delighted to spend some time with you, especially around listening.

Well, we'll get there. Let's just dive into it. Tell me a little bit about your backstory, who you are and how you ended up being, having a ecommerce site. I think it's an ecommerce site from what I can tell looking at the website. Yeah.

I'd have to say that creativity is the through line for my career. I've done a number of different things over the years, which I won't name, but for a long time. And my creativity has shown up in ways where I have helped entrepreneurs and as well as other actually Fortune 500 companies do realize their dreams and their goals. And I've had the pleasure of working with so many different types of companies from high-tech, nanotechnology, semiconductor, ice cream company, like you name it. I've done a number of different things and basically I worked in marketing communications. And yeah, so that's where I started. I would say that's where I started my work for a number of years.

How do you end up going from working for other people to becoming an entrepreneur yourself?

Yeah. So the last time— so I lived in the Bay Area for 10 years, and then I decided to move back to the East Coast. And when I did, I started— I brought a marketing communications firm that was based in the Bay Area to Boston. And I did that. And when I did that, it was a company that was focused on high technology and medical devices and semiconductors. And I didn't even know what a semiconductor was, honestly. But I'm a good listener, and I— we all have strengths, and my strength was really being able to connect ideas strategically. And I found that I was connecting ideas strategically for other businesses and doing it at such a great rate. Like, I'd had clients that would start off like these nerdy guys out of a very small town in Massachusetts, and They, their company was bought for $18 million and then another company. No, it went on like that. And I thought, wait, wait a minute. I could do this. I have some ideas that I'd like to put into the world and make the world a better place. And so that's when I decided to, to take the leap and do my own thing with, with YouToBe.

How did you decide on skincare products as a product, as a niche to jump into?

It had to do with the fact that I'm— I worked with engineers, I advise CEOs, I taught them public relations. I did a number of functions that are consumer-facing. And one of the things I noticed about this audience of people that I was serving is that everyone was doing their work towards this idea of beauty. Like, beauty was fundamentally the thing that they were working towards. So whether I was working with, like, geeky engineers or nerds who were in the chemistry lab or what— or whatever lab they were in, there's something about us human beings that we understand beauty fundamentally. Now, it's a word that has been captured by commercial interest and made into a particular thing. But beauty is a fundamental right that we all know and we recognize when we experience it. No one has to tell you when you experience a beautiful piece of music or when you stand in front of an artwork or when you just simply have the experience of just being out in nature and you have this experience and you don't necessarily name it to be beauty. But you know, that is fundamentally what it is. And, and I'm very passionate about that. I'm passionate about that as our birthright and as a place to start the conversation that we have to have with ourselves within our own lives. And I found like people were having it in these siloed ways through their work, but it's like, how do you have that conversation with yourself? And I saw the fact that the I work in an industry, skincare, beauty, skincare. It's so loaded and it's, it's not, it's very, it's, we have mistaken glamour for beauty. So a lot of what happens in the beauty industry from my personal point of view has a lot to do with superficiality. It has to do with corrective measures. It has to do with looking a particular way by these artificial standards. And it's— and everything about it takes us outside of our bodies and outside of our basic connection with beauty. So I know that sounds a little complicated, but really that's the sort of stuff I was thinking about.

That's really— we could spend hours unpacking all that. But you made the choice to get into— okay, I don't want to make any assumptions, but look, and looking at your website, it looks like it's a consumer-based e-commerce site where people order product off the website. It doesn't look like you're brick and order at all, or distribute?

Right. That's correct. That's correct.

Direct to consumer. So how, what made you decide on that model? And then, and also, and not, well, let's just say, what made you decide to go with the direct to consumer model over the internet?

It's not that I decided to do that model. It was the model that was the most available to me. So we are, we're what's called, U2B is what's called in the beauty industry, we're what's called an indie brand. And consumers won't know this, but the, in the beauty industry has undergone in the last few years a tremendous transformation. The industry is set up along the lines of these giant companies that have control over the entire supply chain of how the products actually get on the shelves and the people who have the shelves. And there have always been people making product in their basement, in their home, and selling stuff at the market and doing things like that. And then there came along a group of people who were working at these entities who decided, I love this, but I don't agree exactly with how it's being done at this big giant company. I'm going to start my own business. So there's a whole crop of people who have had great success there. And anyone who's leading— all the thought leaders in the beauty industry When I started U2B, which is— I started formulating in 2012, and then I went, I went out into the market, put my toe in the water in 2015. And it was the year when one of the leading beauty— one of the leading beauty conferences, and I'm blanking on the guy's name. I think it's Mark Greenberg or something. I can't remember his name, but he's been in the industry for 30 years and he was on stage and he said, we've never had this kind of disruptive force in the beauty industry in the 20-some years that I've been doing this. And so people like me who had our own ideas about what products should be promoted, the ideas that should be promoted, all came into the market during this particular moment in time. And I think the industry is not set up like I can't just go over to like Bergdorf's or Ulta and say, hey, I've got this great product. I think you guys should try it. It's very complicated to get into those rooms. Although I, I do have a great story about Ulta Beauty, which I'll share later.

So you became a disruptor. And yes, obviously the internet is the great equalizer if you're working.

Exactly.

Learn how to do it and can manage, manage all the everything. But you have a background in public relations and communications, especially on the consumer-facing side. So the most difficult part of the e-commerce business, which is getting out, you're getting your name out there, is something that you already knew how to do.

I, I would say this, I worked a lot with B2B businesses. So in B2C, business to consumer, is like a whole other universe, right? And it is fascinating, and there's been a learning curve.

So what— so you've been doing this now for almost 10 years. What is it that gets you up in the morning, gets you really excited to, to—

oh, my focus was really to bring my folk— it is what we're doing is disruptive. What U2B is all about is disruptive. It's disruptive because Back in 2015, we placed the body at the center of the skincare conversation. When I tell someone I have an award-winning skincare line, they start telling me about their complexion and their wrinkles and what needs to be done. And oh my God, my spots and my this and my that. The second thing is I've always come from this place around beauty, from the definition that we talked about, which has nothing whatsoever to do corrective measures. It has to do with understanding this calling that we each have within us. If we can quiet ourselves or develop the practices and the rituals that put us in contact with it. And, and simply the other thing is when I started doing this, the products and the leaders of the drive to change things were a lot of skincare brands, indie brands that were, to me, I have to be careful here because I'm not putting anybody down, but we were all like natural skincare ingredients. A lot of entities came forward letting people know that what, what you put on your body is very important. A lot of conversation about chemicals and bad things and that sort of thing going into your blood system. And the real— so I come from a very sciencey family. And the thing about it is, one, we— U2B is about skin health and we were never interested, quite frankly, in essential oils, which are a wonderful kind of botanical and natural oil, but they are not the oils that do the heavy lifting in a skincare formula. The oils that do the work, that give you— that really make the possibility of what all the marketing says possible are what are called carrier oils. And what I spent a long time doing and going all over the world and sourcing the most high-performing of this kind of oil. These are the oils that come from the most powerful part of the plant. They come from the seed. So it's like the power of the seed. And they're amazing because they have within them the naturally existing sorts of things that we all buy products on. Everyone's, you need retinol. These oils have retinol naturally in them. And they're called— I call them biomimetic carrier oils. And what they have, not essential fatty— not essential oils, but essential fatty acids, which are the thing that your body, your skin needs them but can't produce them. So voilà. Yeah.

So just getting back to what is it that, so what is it today that motivates you to continue doing the work that you're doing?

It's educating people about this. I think people find out that there's nothing wrong with you. The fact of the matter is like 80% of the products on the market today are all made by a handful of ingredients, a handful of essential oils, coconut oil. If you're doing naturals, like coconut oil or shea oil or butter mixed with some form of essential oil. And we are— our skin is up against a lot of stressors today that are really important. I don't think that— and I also think that we miss the boat in talking about skin in a way that is meaningful for people and preparing us for the future. Skin— most people know this. I'll say it. I feel like I'm— I'm giving old news. Skin is your largest organ. I say skin is the one organ that doesn't fail you. There's heart failure, there's liver failure, there's kidney failure. Your skin actually is the organ that gives you sovereignty over you. It keeps the outside stuff out. The inside stuff in. You may have problems with it. It may have spots. It may have wrinkles. It may have bumps. It may behave in ways that you don't want. But your skin is an organ that is implicated in your overall health. There's a reason your doctor wants to see you because your skin tells a story about what's going on inside the body. The skin is implicated in so many other vital functions. Of your health in your body, in your systems, particularly like people in transition, whether you're male— men and women go through a menopause, if you will, and you go through and there's all these hormonal changes and your skin is implicated in that. And we learned through COVID that your skin is your first line of defense in your immune system. So these are the things that we could have been learning about, but instead we learn these other sort of things that keep us focused on stuff that is really, I don't think, are that they're not important, particularly for me. But I would love for people to understand the incredible possibility of skin because it took centuries of evolution for skin to be what it is. And it's magnificent and it's amazing. It's not that you feed it because it's an exfoliating kind of— it operates in the opposite way than what you would think because all the messaging is about feed your skin. And but it's a magnificent organ. And you need to take care of it. And it takes care of you 24/7, whether you're doing it or not. And I know tons of people who do absolutely nothing for their skin. You know what? Your skin shows up for you and takes care of you in very basic ways.

So that, I get curious then, what is it, what is it that's unique about you that you bring to the table that's made this whole venture successful?

I am, I feel privileged that I was raised in a family where I got the ingredients to show up in the world, to be who I am. And I think that prepared me to be where I am today. I'm not a Southerner, but both my parents are from the South during an era in our history where it was very difficult to be in the South. And, and the idea that the whole focus was to push for a world, to work towards a world where we were all human beings. And not choosing any boxes per se, working with the boxes that exist to correct them and to bring awareness to them, but to just be myself. So I don't know. I'm not sure this is a great answer, but I've really— I know that I've prioritized the job of being attuned to myself and to work with what I have and in environments that I have to do the work that I think that I can do to make the world a better place. Or as John Coltrane would say, for the purpose of the good, to the— to acting in ways that for the good of these things that I value.

You listen to jazz?

Yeah, of course. My cousin was the French horn player for— in the Town Hall recordings of Thelonious Monk. So I come from a family that is like these— a creative side. My cousin is a chemist. I have another cousin. I— everyone's Everybody in my family is more educated than I am. They're anthropologists and chemists and psychologists. And I'm like the, I'm the black sheep, but yeah.

You'd probably be interested in knowing that I'm a jazz violinist.

Oh, yay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Music is a whole other language and if you really are attuned to it, it takes you down a different path and understanding around humanity, the world. Yeah.

But that kind of gets me into the next kind of thing I want to talk about, which is the topic of this podcast, which is listening. Because jazz, it's all about— as a musician, it's all about listening. It's not about listening. And I think how to listen is what learning to play jazz is all about. And we're not taught how to listen. Children were ordered to listen. Yeah, but we're never taught how to do it. So tell me about your experience with listening as you've move through the world.

One of the practices about U2B is something when I'm talking to potential investors and people, consumers and people who come into contact with me around U2B, one of the things I talk a lot about, which is that there are so many— there are a lot of practices around skincare in the world. They're not all related to the face. And they're not all related to going to a spa or things like that. And these practices come from somewhere. We stand— we humans today stand on a wealth of knowledge that is available to us. And I think it's the intelligence that the body has. The body has incredible intelligence and where do you know you make your listening with your ear, but you feel music here like it's in here that really gets you going. And if you think about that in the context of other things, whether it's just having a pleasurable experience or even a frightening experience, your body is this incredible listening device, period. Like it's always alert and it's always there. It's present even when your mind, when you're not. And one of the practices of skincare that we are proponents of, which is that this body has incredible knowledge and wisdom for you. And when you engage in a practice of skincare or care of it, not big stuff, not like I got to get— go to the gym and I've got to do all these rigorous things. It's more the small day-to-day, right in your palm to do. The power of touch, the power of just being quiet with yourself. These are the things that come out of— it's real and there's scientific knowledge, like getting in the shower and you're in a shower and all of a sudden you have this like million-dollar idea. That's real. That has been tested. That's a real thing. But there's so many other things like that come through. Moisturizing your body and just giving yourself that 3 to 5 minutes. It's not a big commitment. It's just a small thing. And so I'm very keen around this idea that listening is fundamental to reaching your depths. You can't get there until you open the channels and have the— risk the vulnerability of just like being in yourself, being in your body. I so believe in that. And I think it's— you really can't go out in the world, no matter how expressive you are. And we're living with a lot of expressive personalities today. But there's something in our body that knows and recognizes authenticity. It doesn't even— we don't even have to think about it. If we quiet ourselves, we know it. It's there. And it's like availing ourselves to all of this ancient wisdom that's just been stored. If you understand science and you understand like how we got here. There's like, we're— we come from our— these bodies were evolved to be what they are today. And I think technology is taking us way beyond the evolution of that, and that is causing some severe challenges for us. But we were able to survive because these bodies were evolved the way that they are, and that— and all the beautiful things that we get to experience today are because of that evolution. And I think that the biggest thing— and I used to tell people this when I would teach them about public speaking— it's the idea when you get on the stage and you're talking to people, it's not getting out of your body, it's going deep into your body and standing there and holding and teaching them the physical stances and positions to— that would bring them more and deeper into their bodies so that they could get comfortable because your body knows how to make you comfortable. That's your, that's your status there. Like, your body knows and wants to be available to you. It knows. It's, it's got more knowledge about, hey, we're here. And, and so I really, I, I really believe in that. And I think that the more in tune you are, I just— it makes a lot of stuff not possible for you to do. It makes a lot of stuff you're just, you're just gonna, you're just gonna really zero in more to the, the incredible opportunities that being in a body, your body, your unique who you are, has for you. You'll be able to, as my science buddies talk about, flow, achieving flow, where you just are doing something and you just are not at all anchored in the external, but you're anchored in this otherness, but it is you as well.

Fascinating. I completely agree with you. So I'm curious, a lot of the people that you worked with in the past, and a lot of the people that watch this show, mm-hmm, I, I think that at an intellectual level, understand the importance of being authentic and being vulnerable and being open and being heart-centered.

Mm-hmm.

But the whole idea of that scares the crap out of them.

Yeah.

What do you say to those people?

I say to those people that— I say to those people that, yeah, you know what? We face scary challenges and we're living in a scary time. And I just really so strongly believe in our ability. Let's talk, let's just bring, let's just introduce someone who was really super smart and that we all kind of respect. Einstein talked about knowledge, and Newton did a lot of great things, but he really took us off, he really took us away from some fundamental principles that have to do with where real, like, what, and the kind of tools and the kinds of the things that we really need to avail ourselves today, which have to do not so much with knowledge. See, that's— technology has just— anybody can tap into information and knowledge and have that. But in— but the imagination is the key. Ever— and, and Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge, and it really truly is. And we're all going to live that if we're alive today, and especially with the onset of— we're going to live and know that to be true in ways that the people who came before us never could have anticipated. And all the things that we try to erase about ourselves to make ourselves more perfect and be so externalized— like, I, we just— I think when you're really scared, you're very externalized. You're not in, you're not in here, you're way out there, and you're listening to somebody else's story, you're buying into somebody else's thing. And I think that if you Again, I, I just— so this is why I started U2B, is to— we need these daily. We've had them for centuries. This is what people did forever. We have these ways of taking care of this instrument that we live in that really nurtures who we are. That's what U2B is all, you know, it's what it's all about. It's about empowering the you to be your best. And we just really have to repeat that and really be mindful of, wait, coming back to center, coming back home, coming back to in here, and knowing that we, as I said in the beginning, beauty is our birthright. There are guys I worked with, I could— there was nothing. If you put us in a really like, you would never— like, there's nothing relative to us. But I recognized with these guys the passion that they had. And I didn't even understand the science that they were doing, but they're passionate. They were in— they were working. They were answering beauty's call. And beauty calls to every one of us in a unique way. That's the beautiful thing about being alive is we don't all have the same calling. And so it's just— it's a— to me, it's a fantastic thing If you can just take the risk to be courageous, to be inside yourself and whatever it is that can bring you there and that does that for you. And I don't think it has to be big things. A whole yoga industry was set off because yoga is a way that a lot of people attune themselves to that. It doesn't have to be that. It can be something really basic. One of the things I found, like, people were so busy, but just, oh, if I could just have I don't have 5 minutes for myself. And it's, guess what? You do have 5 minutes. Did you take a shower today? Here's the deal. You get in that shower and just really be in it and be in it with the kinds of products, like, not this artificial stuff that, again, takes you out of yourself, but the kinds of things that really bring you inside of this practice of care. And it really is a practice of care. It's— if you go to Istanbul, there are places all over Greece and Turkey and everywhere you go down into these incredible underground lands where the hot springs are. And they were like warrioring up down there and they were indulging in this practice. They really had this connection to the body in a way that is about skin. As I made the case for skin being implicated in our health, in our overall physical health. But the real truth is that skin is implicated in our mental and emotional health as well, in a way that we are just now even starting to get into. I think, again, the industry has taken it off into a narcissistic place where obsessively putting on masks and doing all these things— and I'm not denigrating any of those things, but I think it's just really more straightforward and clean than that. I think it's really about when you sit down with ingredients that— the kinds of ingredients that have been used for centuries throughout human practice of skincare, coming from trees that cultures around the world worship, that they not only worship the tree and the stuff that came from the tree, and it's in your— and it is in, like, it's in our products. There's something very— there's something that's— that gets— I feel like there's a layering effect that happens. It's— think of it this way. There are a lot of ways to feed your body. You're hungry. You can take off the road and get fast food. Okay. You're going to get— you're going to— you're going to be— you're going to— that's a way to satisfy hunger. And a whole other way is to get something. You can have just one thing, but if it's— if it hits all the— if it's whole and it's natural and it's— it's going to satisfy you in a way that that you could eat tons of fast food and it just— you just can't get there. And that's the same thing that's happening with skincare products.

You obviously have a huge passion for this, and we've come to the end of our time, but I wanted to really thank you for a really inspiring conversation.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having the platform for having inspiring conversations like this. I hope I was inspiring.

I don't know.

I just— very— I'm sharing what I can share.. And yeah, I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com. Podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.