Finding Confidence (and Bras) Post-Explant with the Founder of Love, Lexxi

Today I've got Meg Smith on, and she is the founder of Love Lexi, who is a bra company yet bra company that I recently discovered and love Post X Plan. And I wanted to interview her because she did something that I had not found from anyone else. She's personally been through an explant. Many of you have heard my. My Journey. We'll recap a little bit about that. But she saw a niche for something that I felt was missing. You know, a lot of reasons we get implants to begin with is to feel better about ourselves, to feel sexy, to feel attractive, feel all the things. And you love dressing in that. And then when you go through the idea of an explant, there's not a lot of options there. At least I didn't see a lot of options. All I had was my old bras that definitely didn't fit right. I had underwires that were hurting. I could not find one that looked attractive on that. And she saw that need. But not just for explants, but for women of all shapes and sizes that have struggled with bras and want to feel sexy in them, want to feel attractive in them. So we're going to be diving into that today. I've got a lot of questions I'm going to ask her about in the story. But I got to tell you all, before we started recording, I. I'm like, it's too funny not to share. So we have one of. I have a dog who's older. He does. My dog does not have accidents in the house ever. Like, flops is really good. But I walked in my office to sit down and record with Meg, and I smelled something.

I'm like, what?

It smells like there's food in here. I was just telling Meg this. It smells like there's food in here. And I couldn't figure out what. So I'm like, looking, looking, looking. And then so I call my husband and I'm like, brooks, do you smell that?

He's like.

So we're both walking around like dogs with sniffers going, yeah, we smell. We smell something. And all of a sudden we look like behind my desk area and there's, like, smeared poop. And I'm like, what do you mean? What is this? What did this come from? And then to make matters worse, I noticed that our little. Do you know those robo vacuums? Like, we have a robo vacuum? Yeah, that, like.

Oh, yeah.

Well, it. The robo vacuum discovered it. So the reason I didn't see it, it was all smeared into the ground. And not only. This was like, everywhere. All through the house now. So I had to start my interview a little late with Meg because we are like a meme. This will be a real later I'm sure about Flops apparently pooped in my office without telling anyone. The nerve. And then the vacuum found it, and it's all through my house. So I've got toxic candles lit right now. Toxic candles. Because I need to cover up the smell. It was a crappy situation, Meg.

Quite literally. Quite literally.

Thanks for understanding.

Of course. Of course.

That's how my morning's going. But for those of you you listening, I think we're gonna have a good conversation today. So, Meg, first of all, I don't even know. How did I find you? Did you message me on Instagram? I think you messaged me and told me about your browser. Did someone from your team?

How did I. I think there was somebody. There was. There was Aaron.

No, Aaron. That's right. Aaron connected us. Aaron connected us. Aaron is like a explant recovery expert, and so she knew about your brand and she connected us. So Meg sent me, you all. I get a lot of free things, and I usually just ignore that. I'm like, this is. There's People are like, can I send you a free phone case for exchange for blah, blah, blah. And I like, whatever. But this one, I was like, you know what? These look really pretty. Let me try. But I message. I messaged you after because I loved them. I was like, wait a minute. Like, right out of the package. First of all, they're gorgeous. The packaging, the lace, they're, like, attractive. I put it on. They fit perfectly. So I messaged you right away, and I had to know the story.

Yeah, yeah. No, and it's. And that's why there's so much to uncover. You know, it's not just another pretty broad brand. There's a lot of bra brands out there. And when I had my explant, I was looking for something that was going to make me feel celebrated and feminine in my skin. And what really, I struggled with. Because you're already going through this healing journey emotionally, psychologically, when you're trying on all these beautiful bras and there's all these ailments and issues, whether it's itchy, scratchy, lace cup gaps, you start to feel like less than, and you're not seen and heard, so that it really kind of like delays and, like, hurts your whole process of trying to love your body again and make it feel beautiful. Bras are very complex and so not only understanding that missing piece for myself, I dove into focus groups and I talked to thousands and thousands of women. And I was part of a lot of these private groups where women were talking about it. And not just women with explants. These are women who have been through breast cancer. These are moms who have breastfed before and now have, you know, the pancake breasts. And just women who are just looking for a good quality, beautiful bra that's comfortable and fits well. And so that's where I just. That was the start of this whole journey. Which bras are the most. One of the most complex things to engineer and produce. But we've. We've really spent a lot of time which, as you can, you can see from what you've received, that's just our launch collection. So, like anything, right, there's always room for improvement. But the fact we came out of the gates pretty strong is an incredible thing. And the feedback has been just, just a dream. So.

So tell us your personal story a little bit with explant, like, where that even happened, like, how long did you have them?

What.

Tell us your journey and how you ended up creating this company for sure.

So I grew up during a time which I'm sure a lot of women who are listening to this can relate in some aspect when the perfect body, quote unquote, was plastered on billboards, magazine covers, fashion show runways. And that really took a toll on my body image. So through university, I struggled for years and years, even, even with food, always trying to conforming to this, like, idea of what the perfect body looks like. F forward to getting married and having a husband who made me feel beautiful, it was still an inside, an internal struggle. I had two babies, and after my second baby was born, my already like eight cups deflated to nothing. And I was still struggling inside about feeling just sexy and beautiful on my skin. So I thought that breast implants were the key to unlocking this confidence I never had. That was in 2016. I got them in. After a few months, I started to develop, like, weird symptoms like fluid speech, light sensitivity, brain fog, which never associated to my implants. And over the course of four years developed into on and off grades, disease, hyperthyroidism, lock joints, a slew of debilitating symptoms, and I hit rock bottom. Like, I felt like I was dying. And I had this personally huge self love revelation of, like, what matters most in life, you know, health, happiness, Like, I was able to disassociate beauty and my worth with, like, my physical being. Breasts didn't define who I was. And so for me, that was really pivotal. So I had them taken out in 2020. I have large scars. I even have some adhesion on one side. But I'll be honest to say, like, I've never felt better in my skin. I've never felt more beautiful. Like, do I have a beautiful chest? No. But it's. It's. I've really been able to kind of, like, see beauty through a different lens, which is incredible. And that's when I was on a mission to just find a pretty bra that would fit me. No cup gaps, very comfortable. I'm an active mom. I wanted function and comfort and quality. And when I couldn't find it, that's when I kind of woke up in the night, which I never thought I'd be in this category. I had a branding and marketing agency, like, my career. I had a great career, but this was, like, this was a space I needed to step in. Not only on the product side to solve it there, but psychologically. This whole body image movement and making women feel and see themselves in a better light is something that is so close to my heart. So impacting women is equally as important that success to me.

It's so interesting because I don't know if you feel like me or maybe many of you listening. Like, when I. Confidence is attractive to me. So, like, I don't want. I look at a woman and I think that they're attractive. Like, I find them visually attractive. There is no set, like, size that somebody is weight, height, boob size, whatever. Like, it's just that confidence, like, typically shines through. Like, if someone's confident and they dress well and they. They glow. Like, there's something about that there. And I was personally just like, you really stuck on the. The breast thing. Like, I was teased when I was younger, like, for being flat. And then I. I was really self conscious. But I got them at age 19. I was working at Hooters, and I had none. I remember, like, walking up to this table of guys, and they were kind of joking about how I was flat. And that was, like, it in my head. I'm like, I will get. I will get boobs. Like, that's what I decided at that time. Right or wrong. Like, that's what I decided. And when, you know, so many women, when I explanted. Well, first of all, a lot of women are super supportive, but I definitely had some women, like, you know, you're part of the problem. Like, that's why I got implants, like, because I, I was, I did fitness modeling. I was on covers with big, huge silicone boobs. Like, I, I did, I, I fell into that. I created that body image thing and women were like, that's why I got them. And that made me, that made me feel really sad about how, why did I get them and did I play a role in other people doing this to themselves? And then when I explained it and decided, like, I'm not going to be wearing big padded sport bras, like, I'm just, I'm going to rock what I am, whatever, like totally flat.

Yeah.

What's amazing to me is also because I became confident around that. I'm like, I don't care. Like, I feel good. I don't have to wear nipple pads anymore. I just feel, I'm like, yeah, I'm just rocking it.

Yeah.

And then, then other women were like, you look so good without them. Now I'm going to remove mine or I love, I think it looks so good. And it was just another reminder. It's like the confidence piece. It's not what actually is. And what I love about your bras is it helps like celebrate that too. Like you feel confident in those bras for sure.

And when you think back to the days of, without naming names, you know, those really, that are just like all the lace and those sexy bombshell bras, there is a psychological connection between something that's lacy and beautiful and the confidence and self esteem of a woman. This is like that. I'm a bit of a neuroscience geek, but it makes so much sense when you think about it. And so it's like, how can we marry the beautiful sexy bra? Something really pretty with something that's actually comfortable, that feels very light. Doesn't feel like you get home at the end of the day and you're like, I can't wait to get this off me. So that was where, you know, we really had to pull in some of the best product engineers in the industry, which we did.

Makes sense to help Marian.

Yeah. So it's important. It's important. And the amount of intimate conversations we're having with our community, these women who reach out to say like, aside from like the physical bra and how it makes me feel like they're just, they're feeling seen and heard in a way that's never been done in the intimates category. And it's just, it's a beautiful thing. There's a lot of work to still be done.

Right.

Like it's not, not everyone can have an excellent. There's A lot of women who. Their post explant journey is very different and it's a, it's a struggle. And so it's. How can we continue to step up and step in for those women who are having a harder time seeing themselves?

It's so funny to you, y', all, because there's a lot of myths that I just want to share about explaining because I was told by multiple surgeons, you're going to hate it, you're going to be concave, you're going to have nothing. Like, whatever, okay, but what's interesting, the one surgeon I ended up going with, that's not what he said. He said, look, you'll. You might end up loving it. Like, I want to be really clear. It looks nothing. Like with implants. Like, like it's nothing. It's just I'm. I've got huge scars. I'm pretty flat. Like it just like, it doesn't. There's nothing that it looks attract like attractive in comparison to an implant. But like I. There's a flip, a switch that flips when you feel healthy and you feel good, that you just don't care. Like, I, that's the only way I can explain it. Like, I just don't even. It doesn't even.

No, no. This life is like when you really. I think when you hit rock bottom, whether it's body image or health or any of those situations in life, I feel like it, it was a whole life perspective shift. Like I just appreciate time. Time is fleeting. We have this one life to live. It is so short. And so to think of how sad it is, how we can just be so over consumed by this image of what we're trying to be and make our bodies look and be a certain way, it's just, it's a powerful thing. But it's, it does feel good to be on the other side of it. And again, now that post explained, there are some women who get their implants out and they have breast tissue and they have these like beautiful small breasts. I have hardly anything and again, I have some adhesion. So even when I wear like deep plunging tops, like it's not smooth and like super attractive, I guess, like from the outside. But I'm, I'm. Again, I'm okay with that. And it's all. That's where it comes back to just like your own journey with your own self and what that's like every day. And it's, it's not like I look in the mirror and I'm like, oh, this is. I Love this. This is beautiful. It's just like, you know, it's a daily practice to say, you know what? It doesn't. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

I've also changed my opinion of what I think. Like, I used to think it looked really good to have the big fake one, but I don't like that look anymore.

I don't know. I just don't.

Like, something changed with me with that.

And.

Yeah, no, so. So what do you want women to know? Like, what's your messaging with your. What. Why you. What's your drive behind this? Like, what do you. What is that legacy that you want them to know?

To be honest with you, the drive might. The impact that we have emotionally and psychologically with our community beyond the product is what this mission is all about. Like, that is success to me. Not the revenue goals, not anything else. We are also launching a little sister brand that we're working on, which is impacting that younger generation again. It's. It's so much. It's so much more than product. I just want women to know that. I mean, there's a. There's many things. It's still as many steps as we're taking forward. There's a lot of steps backwards with the content that's on social media, everyone's highlight reels. There's filters that women can filter their bodies and videos. And so as much as you're. We have exposure to influencers like yourself who are, you know, just showing and shining your light, post explant and giving women that inspiration. There's a lot of other, you know, filters. There's a lot of face fillers, and Botox is a lot of that. So it's like this constant struggle. I just want women to understand that they can define beauty on their own terms. And this sounds so cliche. And it's not something that you can just say, like, take that mantra and it's gonna, like, make you, like, see yourself in this beautiful way every day. But it's just understanding you have one life to live. You get to define beauty. We have to, like, rewire our minds from all these decades of, like, shoving it down our throat of what beauty and sexy is supposed to look like and really just have that power within ourselves to say, like, we can make this look however we want. I get to decide.

I was just talking to a good friend of mine about this this morning because. So I. I don't know how old you are, Meg, but I grew up in the 70s, so I grew up in the ages of. I mean beauty's not going away. Like beauty have been from back from Cleopatra. Like, like beauty is always going to be a thing. It's biology. Like men are attracted, whatever, whatever woman wants to argue about it is just biology and it's a thing. It's gonna, it's not gonna go away. However, I will tell you, growing up in the 70s, it was, it was really crazy for gen people that are my age now for Gen X because not only were we held to some crazy beauty standards. Like I remember my mom eating like iceberg lettuce for dinner with like her carrot shreds and her fat free dressing and her diet tab. Like that's what we'd be eating regular food. And like it was not okay. It was ads everywhere about being skinny. Not even just like feel better in your body. It's like be safe skinny like this. It's the whole thing. And then beauty was such a big. I remember doing crazy things. I don't know about you, but I remember like laying out in the sun. You had to be as tan as you could.

You had to bleach your hair.

You had. There's all these.

Oh my gosh. Yes.

So it keeps, it keeps going up. Like there's more and more things. So what I find now like fast Forward to almost 53. I find now that like either women my age either fully fight it. Like they're like anti age everything. Let me inject, let me this, let me do that. Like fight it all the way and their list gets really long of maintenance things like really long and. Or there's the other extreme of like oh, I just age gracefully and they seem to like argue each other. Right. But there's this middle ground that people aren't talking about and that's where I think is a special place. It's like this age optimizing area of like you can pick and choose and do you now for me I'm not gonna go fully gray. Like that's not what's gonna happen right now. I wanna color my hair. I wanna. But I'm also. I choose, I choose not to do Botox.

Right.

I choose to not have gel nails anymore. I choose to not have implants anymore. Like I'm thinking like how do I lessen the just less than tax alone. How do I lessen the laundry list load of things we have to do to ourselves.

Exactly. It's a long list. Even when you bring that up, I mean, oh my gosh, the amount. And now I'm trying to just like, take care of my skin for, like, the reverse effects that I had in all the tanning beds. For years I worked at a tanning salon for that.

Me too.

But the tanning, the green. The green tea diet pills I would take every day. I mean, it's. It's all that. You're right. As we get older. Yeah. And I'm. I'm 40 next year, and so I'm already, you know, I have the smile lines, I have the wrinkles, and a lot. Most of my friends in my network where I live do the Botox and all the things, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, that one that's looking like I'm aging a lot in my group. So how do I, you know, again? And it's each their own, I think. Like you said perfectly. Like, everyone can pick and choose however they want to age and what feels good for them, but for me, it's. Yeah, it's trying to minimize that list, too. Like, well. And I.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Botox. I'm just being real.

Like, I've definitely got 100.

I have. I've done it before. I'm not doing it anymore. And the reason I'm not doing it anymore is I have a very expressive forehead. Like, if you're watching my video, it's very expressive. And when I do it, it's like an. It changes my whole face. Like, in not a good way. Like, it's weird. And it doesn't even last, like, two months on me. I don't. If you work out it, you metabolize it quick. And I don't like it. And it's also a toxin. So I'm like, to me, I'm like, how can I remove my implants and do that? So, yeah, my whole thought is, if people want to do it, awesome. But to me, women that are 50, 60, 70, with lots of filler and Botox, they just look 50, 60 or 70 with lots of filler or Botox.

That's just what I think. 20. I know.

I mean, I hate to break it to you. We don't look 20 when we do that, so.

I know, I know. It's so true. It's so true. It's a tricky situation because, again, so many, even some of my sisters, a lot of friends in my network, and so it's not. You never want to have, like, Fear Factor. It's just my own personal thing. And same with you. Like, because I was so Sick from something toxic being in my body. I'm just. It just. It scares me. Like, how is my body going to react? What if I have some, like, adverse reaction? And what does that look like? How do I sustain that for the next. That's three years.

And I'll tell you, the one time that I did do it, that I liked it like, I did. It was probably a year and a half ago. I shared on social. When I did it, I did it. I found this great surgeon. It was, like, the most expensive I had ever done, and I actually liked it. Like, it lifted my eye. I, like, did a couple things, and I sort of liked it.

Yeah.

But what it did is it made me notice everything else on my face. It. That now, then it's just like this addictive thing. Like, okay, now what else I got to do? Like, now I need to do this and that and this, and then it, like, just wears off. And it's so expensive. Never mind. So my thought is, how do we lessen it? How do we feel good with what we have and lessen it? So. So I think expressing ourselves with clothes is one of those things. And that's where I think the bras come in, too.

Totally. Yeah. There's that psychological element of it, too. And I just. There's nothing. I mean, yes, you can put on an athleisure bra and just, like, feel so good and comfortable throughout the day, but to have something that you're, like, you put on before you put on your clothes and you catch yourself in the mirror and something lacy and sexy, but you're like, awesome. Because I can also wear this all day. There's something special there. And, you know, we're continuing to innovate new product and use our community to drive that. But it's. It's that. That bigger message there about giving women something that they're going to feel just beautiful and comfortable and without sacrificing function, comfort, you know, having these big cup gaps or excessive padding, that's just not what we want.

So I've heard a lot of people have tagged, like, different brands when I've shared about bras. And I. To be fair, I've tried a lot, but I haven't tried all of them. This one, I'm being real, y'. All. Like, I'm not. This is not a paid podcast. She didn't pay me to do this. She didn't pay me to talk about. Like, it's not. She's not a paid add on here. Like, I just genuinely liked what I found with her and I love her company and I have a feeling it's going to grow pretty quick. Not just for those of you that are post sex plan, but for those of you that have had bra issues like that. You're like, yeah, nothing looks good or I don't. I have the like what you said, the pancake situation. They're, they're totally worth trying.

Totally. And one quick thing I want to say that's kind of broken in the industry because we have a lot of inquiries for women who are like larger C and D cups and whatnot. And so we launched. You won't really see the messaging like itty bitty titty committee on our website because our bigger vision has always been to be able to celebrate women of most, most sizes. Right. Of most cup sizes. And so what happens in the industry, typically a brand will take a 34C for example, they'll fit it on their fit models to perfection. But then they grade that size across their entire size offering from double A to double D. Well, double D cups have a completely different set of fit pain points than a double A. And so it made sense to launch with double A to see given my personal story and my size and nailing down that, that range and the fit issues there. But now we are developing D cups, larger C and D cups with addressing the pain point that they have which is, you know, slightly larger straps, a little bit more coverage in the underarm and around the back. So it's a very, we're not focused on margins and like creating the cheapest cost per unit here. It's really serving women in each size range the way they want to be served. The bra kind of will essentially look the same, but it's going to, it's going to fit women at each size range the way they deserve to have it fit. So there's is a lot of intricacies happening behind the scenes, but yeah, it's, it's been a beautiful ride. We just had our two year anniversary and it feels like we're still, we're just getting started. Which is, which is a cool feeling.

Yeah, I can't wait to keep trying your. I mean I have like some of the original sample ones. I love them y', all. If you go and look because they're, they're not cheap but they're not like crazy ridiculous either. Just so I'm just warning you, letting you know, but they're made really, really well. They fit amazing. And so I would say go start out with just get like one of the Tan. One of the black ones, just so you have two. Like, you can wear the same ones. It's like, they're awesome. What I was also telling her is they have like this to her. Different designs have like some lace that pokes out.

So it's.

They're cute. They're like, they. They're really pretty. Like, you wear them under a jacket wearing them or tank topic. We're under different things. So I highly recommend. Meg, where do they. Where do you want people to go to look for them? I mean, should they be going to your Instagram? Do you want to. What's your main website? Where do you want people to look?

Yeah, thanks for asking. So two things. Love Lexi.com which it's two X's. Love Ellie xxi.com and we are on Instagram at. We love Lexi. The thing with Instagram is, is so many brands today, as many of you know, like, they'll buy the followers because that gives the brand credibility. But we have this other angle where I'm like, constantly, like, battling with myself about is. You know, you go to the Instagram account, it's like, oh, they have under 10,000 followers. Like, are they valid? But it's just like, I refuse to also just like, pretend like we like all these fake followers. But Instagram is a beast with the algorithm.

No, I don't. My. My audience smarter than that. They know.

They know. Yeah, that's.

That's such smoke and mirror. As you can always tell by English, by the way, y', all, like, don't. It's not. It's not the likes or the number. It's the engagement. Look at engagement.

Exactly.

You can know what's exactly.

So. I love driving, driving women to the new committee community.

Meg, I gotta. I gotta. I got a message, like, recently speaking, I. That puts me on such a heated thing about that. I got a message recently about. From this guy who had 11.5 million followers on. On Instagram. Said 11.5. And he's dropping all these names and it's like, do you want to. Want me to be on his podcast? He said he was number one podcast. Like, first of all, he's not number one podcast. And when you looked at this 11.5 million. Like, his videos have like eight comments under them. Like, really? So.

Right.

So we gotta be smart in that.

Yeah, yeah, it's exactly. Exactly. And none of that matters. It's just social.

Right?

We all get like. So I think attached to it, there's. It's important to have the brand presence there. But yeah. Come find us there. Hang out there. That's. We're more active on Instagram than any other social platform right now because we're a small team, but, yeah, that'd be great. We'd love to. And again, our customer service is. Is our. Where we spend most of our time and resources. So if you have questions. Bras are hard to shop for online when you can't be in a store trying them on. So there's an online chat on our website. You can talk to us pretty much every day, and we're there.

Awesome. And I'll link all that up in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here today, Meg.

Thank you, Natalie. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. You're awesome.