The Behind-the-Scenes Story of Glossier
By Marquita K. Harris
The year is 2014. Sia’s Chandelier rules Billboard’s top 10. You’ve just purchased a wide-brimmed hat and printed midi skirt from NastyGal.com. Kim Kardashian has shared yet another makeup tutorial on baking — an effective, but in your inept hands, intimidating, contouring technique.
It was into this landscape of contouring and heavy foundation that barely there makeup brand Glossier launched. Riding on press generated partly from its own influential website, Into the Gloss, and on the auspices of its (close to) celeb-status founder, Emily Weiss, the brand was an immediate hit.
Weiss, and her company’s origins, are the subject of a new book by journalist Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier.
Though Weiss emerged as a fan favorite on the hit MTV reality series The Hills (she was the TeenVogue “super intern”) and went on to launch a unicorn company with a $1.2 billion valuation, little is known about Glossier’s beginnings. Even less is known about Weiss herself.
In Meltzer’s book, out September 12th, readers are given a glimpse into the makeup brand that ushered in a laissez-faire aesthetic: makeup for people who didn’t like wearing makeup.
Glossy is not messy. If you’re looking for the mean-girl takedown of a founder, fallen on her own sword, look elsewhere. That being said, there’s still much to learn from the woman sometimes referred to as the last Girl Boss.
While reading your book, there was a moment about halfway through when I realized I was on pins and needles waiting for some big toxic reveal about the company or Emily Weiss. We’ve gotten so used to these takedown stories about founders. Once I realized this wasn’t that kind of book, I…
Oh god, were you disappointed? (laughter)
Absolutely not. But I could finally relax while reading it. Was this approach intentional?
I interviewed Emily several times and had followed Into The Gloss and Glossier since the beginning. But there's something different about focusing on one company where there’s a chorus of voices that makes up the experience. Truth is subjective and everyone thinks they know it. [The book] was more about looking at all of the layers of what was happening throughout the company. I would've been in absolute shock if there was some kind of skeleton in the closet that I was going to uncover. But yes, we are conditioned to these business stories lately — like the WeWork founders or Elizabeth Holmes; these kinds of villainous characters and, in some cases, convicted criminals. Or you have biographies written by founders that are very laudatory. I knew that my book was probably not going to easily mirror those subgenres. I had to accept that. It would've been easier for me and my editorial team if I said, Glossier is bad, and here's why.
Early in the book, you described how Emily, like so many founders, was very invested in her own origin story. At first, she’s humble and kind of passive, as if she stumbled into her success by sheer luck. With Glossier, that persona shifted drastically. Were you surprised?
I had written a profile on her for Vanity Fair around the time the company had been valued at a billion dollars. That was one big change in her tech/entrepreneur makeover. It was also the height of the Girl Boss moment. I had seen all of the business books in her apartment. But I didn't fully understand the pressure of it all until I was writing this book.
Venture capitalists and people who are business-school graduates all speak with a certain kind of tech bravado. It's very seductive, [particularly] when conveyed with a lot of confidence and gravitas. I also heard these stories from Emily and some of her colleagues about the early days of trying to launch and fund Glossier. The rooms they dealt with were mostly or entirely men who were, I imagine, cis, straight, and white. They were dismissive of the product. They would respond like, "Oh, I'll go talk to my wife about it."
Yes, in the book, I remember that section about potential investors (i.e. men) frequently responding to Emily in pitch meetings, that they’ll have their wives look at the product, which was very cringe.
So cringe. I could understand how, after being in all of these rooms and trying to pitch your female-founded, -coded, and -marketed product, you're trying to find language that they can relate to and understand. Using the words of the people [who hold] the purse strings makes a lot of sense. I also think that there was mythmaking going on, like, You know what's better than being a woman who got their start in fashion, in reality TV, and founded a beauty blog? Becoming a tech founder and billionaire! It's sexier. It's a better story [for potential investors]. It's The Social Network instead of The Bold Type.
Glossier’s story really marks a specific era, especially in women’s media. It was the dawn of influencers, millennial pink, and the Girl Boss hashtag. But it was also a time when a white beauty founder could launch a line of skin tints with only three shades.
One thing that immediately stuck out to me was just how much the dynamics of power had changed. Women's magazines still had a lot of power, but people were also blogging. There were so many places for content. Fashion blogs were widely read and were kind of their own little magazines when Weiss founded her Into The Gloss platform. This feels like such a long time ago because now, the power is with a company that maybe has its own branded content or a personal influencer. It's changed so much and so quickly. It feels very much like an era that's over.
Even a place like Glossier, with its leadership — which maybe had some people of color and almost no one who was Black — could produce such a limited range of one of its very first products. Of that three-shade range [of skin tints], I wore the medium shade, and I’m very pale.
What do you want readers to take from the book?
I want them to think about the missteps and also the things that should be celebrated, the good decisions that we all make, and maybe how that would come across when told in a book, in the media, or in a larger audience. Before we try to take down another “girl boss” or something, it's important to examine it all. I hope they understand the real power that beauty has, both as an industry and as something that captures people's imagination. Especially as a way to present yourself to the world.
What was the most difficult part of writing it?
The most challenging aspect was how to end it. I wanted to land the plane, so to speak. I was reporting until like February. I forget exactly where I was in the writing process, perhaps the second draft, when Emily announced that she was stepping down as CEO. For a second I thought, Does this lessen the importance of the book? But then I realized it gave me a clean ending, telling this act in this woman's life that seemed significant instead of surmising about what might happen next.
Are you rooting for Glossier?
On some level, I'm rooting for everyone that I write about because I want everyone to succeed and thrive on their own terms. There is so much about Glossier that is truly exemplary and smart, and was done by a young woman who employed and still employs a lot of women.
This is your fourth book. With each one, I assume you learn something about yourself. What did you learn while writing Glossy?
I would probably be ill-suited to take venture capital from a company, or just to be a startup entrepreneur, founder, and CEO intermingling with that sort of world and lifestyle. I've always thought that being thoughtful and fair is important and hopefully a hallmark of my writing. But this made me realize how dedicated I felt to telling stories about women and doing it in a way that isn't afraid of being critical.
People are all about being fans, which has its place. But criticism is important, especially when it's informed and thoughtful. I didn't want to hurt anyone in this book. It's not easy to be written about, and I certainly understand that. Though I also had to remind myself that I have a job and that's just as valuable. Writing about these things is important.