What has your journey been like building your career in the beauty industry?
The coolest roller coaster I’ve ever been on. It’s been thrilling, fun and scary! There have been high highs and pit in the stomach moments but at every twist and turn, it has still felt like the ride I am supposed to be on.
Regardless of industry, and maybe most business owners feel this way; I also feel like a student every day. There is always something I don’t know that I need to ask, look up, research or youtube my way through.
Why did you choose Beauty and how did you come about the name for your brand?
It chose me in a way because it was a nagging inner feeling to be involved in improving how women feel about themselves. I developed this sort of love/hate relationship with beauty. Even though I started out in life knowing the definition of true beauty, I lost sight of it along the way.
I felt drawn to an industry I innately want to love and to make better for other women. “Revved” is a feeling. It is how I wanted women to feel, not bogged down or overwhelmed but REVVED, leveled up and ready for anything (inside & out!) It’s how I want our products to make women feel.
As an expert in the beauty industry, what is the most important concept of creating a clean product?
Entire brand trust across all products is very important to us but the most important is eliminating any gray area surrounding ingredients. If an ingredient is questionable from a safety standpoint, it is a clear no for us.
There has been a lot of manipulation when it comes to listing ingredients or marketing clean beauty products. I can say this as a consumer myself, it has caused a lot of confusion. Clean and CLEAR is where we need to go from here!
With many teenagers being on board with beauty products from social media, how can you elaborate on the importance of parents being aware of safety and ethical concerns?
In general, I think most teenagers want to grow up faster & are hungry for independence but until things improve in this space, social media and/or beauty are not necessarily a safe place for young people to play unsupervised. Social media is a breeding ground for insecurity and comparison disease.
We have to be aware of it as adults so during an already emotionally tricky & formative time for teenagers, it stands to have an even greater influence. I will never forget a news story I saw about a gorgeous young college freshman that had her whole life ahead of her.
She was intelligent, a track star, beautiful and from the outside, the world was her oyster. She became overwhelmed though and compared how she felt about her unhappy college experience to those of her friends at other schools, widely based on social media posts.
She took her own life. It never left me. From filters to staged moments, social media is skewed and dangerous to an already fragile ecosystem. Comparison is truly the thief of joy. Also, as parents we need to concern ourselves with skincare and makeup safety.
Just as much as we have become aware of what is going into our children’s bodies, we need to be monitoring what goes on them. Our largest organ is our skin. With as much light that has been shed on hormone disruptors, infertility, cancer etc. beauty is not a care-free play space unless it’s clean.
What do you want people to take away from your products?
Empowerment. I want our messaging to align with their inner cheerleader, I want them to feel supported by our effective products and I want them to be able to trust the decision they made based on our safe ingredients.
What qualities make your brand different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
Our empowering messaging, our straightforward approach to safety and the efficacy of our products. We will always be focused on product quality over quantity. The size of a product line is not an indication of success.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you’re doing what you were born to do.
There were two times actually where I had a deep visceral reaction. The first was when I was on a Friday morning drive, a couple hours away to the mountains, to meet my best friend of 14 years for a girl’s weekend getaway. It was a cool, sunny fall morning and the leaves were just starting to change.
This is my favorite time of year, and no drive is complete without loud tunes. I was listening to Taylor Swift’s older album Lover. I was sweatered up, makeup done, fresh blow out, feeling cute and so ready for a laughter filled weekend.
I started thinking about all of the topics we needed to catch up on and I played the fantasy convo in my head about what I had been up to (life, dating, work, etc.) making sure I didn’t leave anything out when out of nowhere it hit me like a switch was flipped.
Every life chapter she and I had ever chatted about flashed in my head. I realized then that every success and every failure led me to HERE. Every skill set mastered for a prior job, the nagging pull towards helping women with confidence and self-worth, even to include my failed marriage and how that came to be.
Every pain, every pull, every talent that was developed or explored brought me to this point. All of my experiences united. I felt this electric wave go through my body. I can feel it now as I describe the moment. It all finally made sense.
Tears just started rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably like a release! Unfortunately, I ruined my makeup, but they were happy tears, and I had the best weekend!! And never again did a doubtful voice get my attention.
The second time was when I received feedback about Mug Shot, our energizing green tea face tonic. The product that started it all. It was from someone who genuinely experienced the ultimate benefits and felt like it saved her skin.
Her words brought chills to my body because before that it’s just you and your loved ones gauging the importance of your products. Their love and support feels amazing but when someone who doesn’t have to support you shares that kind of feedback, it becomes REAL!!
The confirmation of helping someone made me emotional and for the second time, I physically felt electricity roll through my body. I knew I was doing what I was born to do.
Photo credit: Gina Farmer
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve had to go through while building your Revved Beauty?
Being a one woman show has probably been the biggest challenge. I often laugh that CEO actually means “Chief Everything Officer.” It was hard not to have a sounding board at times and very easy to feel paralyzed in decision making.
The beauty industry in particular is challenging to navigate because there are so many big players in the space. I’ve always loved an underdog story though.
Another challenge is having patience in the process because I am very much a RIGHT NOW sort of person.
Who are the TOP 3 people you’d love to try your products? Why these specific individuals?
Hard to pick just 3. Reese Witherspoon, she is a fellow Nashvillian woman making great strides for other women. She is empowering vibes and I feel like she would get us.
My Grandmothers, it would mean they were still here, and they would be extremely proud of my efforts to inspire change for women. They were both strong, stoic women. One was never without a vibrant lip! lol
Oprah, because well she is Oprah Winfrey and has great influence on spreading the good word about products and brands. I have also always loved and admired Oprah. When I was in my early twenties, I tried to get a job with her company and fan-girled on my cover letter. I wouldn’t have hired me either, I was probably giving a stalker.