We recently sat down and had a chat with Founder of well-known and very well-loved skincare brand Dermalogica on her evolution in the skincare industry, her latest book on and what’s next in Jane’s world.
GLAMOUR: How did you first become interested in
JANE WURWAND: I started in the industry started when I was 13 and worked as a Saturday Girl at a local salon sweeping hair cuttings off the floor. My mother told me and my sisters “learn how to do something” so that we would always be able to provide for ourselves. I found that I was passionate about giving skincare treatments, and ultimately created a skincare brand so that professional skin therapists could get better results in their treatment rooms.
GLAMOUR:
JANE WURWAND: From day one, we bucked industry trends and were ahead of our time with clean formulas, a minimalist look, and a commitment to skin health, not a subjective concept of beauty. Today, we take advantage of new ingredient technologies and more environmentally friendly packaging, but our focus remains on creating products that achieve results in the treatment room and for millions of users at home.
GLAMOUR: There's obviously no handbook to running a successful business, but if there were,
JANE WURWAND: Know what you want to stand for and be clear. Keep coming back to that North Star because if you don’t have it strongly defined, you can lose your way. This is your purpose and will connect to all aspects of the business.
GLAMOUR: How did you come up with the title Skin In the Game? And what inspired you to write
JANE WURWAND: I wanted to write this book not as a memoir or about the skin care industry, per se, but about how anyone can achieve success through the tools you already have. I firmly believe that we are all the entrepreneurs of our own lives, and everything we need is already there – we just need to connect the dots. The title evolved as the book developed – it was the natural description of an entrepreneurial mindset and the industry that I have spent my life in.
GLAMOUR: What is the biggest failure you've ever had in business, and what did you learn from
JANE WURWAND: We launched a line of ingestible herbal and flower elixirs in the late 1990s. They were three powerful botanical liquid mix-ins that were designed for calming, detoxifying, and revitalizing the body. We were way too far ahead of our time as there was nothing even remotely like them in the market. We should have held them until we had seeded the market with education and awareness of the power of drinkable supplements. While it’s good to be on the cutting edge of a trend, if you are too far ahead it’s like trying to surf in calm water – there is no lift to take advantage of. We didn’t have the global strength to impact the market. If we launched them now, we would have had a huge success.
GLAMOUR: In one sentence, describe what you hope the reader will get out of reading the book?
JANE WURWAND: I hope readers will be inspired to harness their own resilience, creativity, and purpose to lead their biggest life and never shrink themselves.
GLAMOUR: Do you have a Dermalogica product that you prefer over the rest?
JANE WURWAND: While I can’t choose a favourite child, I’ll always champion our Daily Microfoliant, which has reached icon status and is the number one best-selling powder exfoliant.
GLAMOUR: What advice would you give to other women who want to work in the skincare
JANE WURWAND: Never shrink yourself or diminish your own potential. Think about the value you can add to the industry and use your unique traits and passion to drive your success.
GLAMOUR: What is next for Jane?
JANE WURWAND: While I am still involved with Dermalogica as Chief Visionary, I am also focusing my attention on the next generation of potential entrepreneurs. We need to create many more skilled workers to meet the needs of our job opportunities. We need to fund those least likely to receive traditional funding – women of colour, LGTBQ, immigrants all of whom receive less than 4% of all business funding. My nonprofit called FOUND has a goal to fund and coach 25,000 local entrepreneurs by 2025 and we are already at 16,000. Check out our work and their businesses at FOUNDLA.
