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S3E10 Rio Viera Newton
236 Plays6 months ago
Content People Show Notes
Thanks for listening to our episode with Rio!
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We loved talking Rio!
Stay in touch with her:
Subscribe to her substack: https://riovieranewton.substack.com/
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Book a skincare consultation: https://www.rvnbeauty.com/booking
Buy her book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Face-Secrets-Skincare-Obsessive/dp/0316540137
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Content People. I am your host Meredith Farley. Thank you again so much for doing this. I've been a reader and a fan of yours for a long time and I was really glad that you were down to come on. So thank you. I'm truly so happy to be here.
00:00:30
Speaker
For anyone who doesn't know you, could you just say a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yes, absolutely. I am a writer, probably first and foremost. I am author of the book, Let's Face It, Secrets of a Skincare Obsessive. I am a beauty journalist. I have a column at New York Magazine's The Strategist.
00:00:50
Speaker
And I am an esthetician. I do skincare consultations virtually for people, which I'm sure we'll get into later. And I also, as of quite recently, have a newsletter called Fun Little Treat, where I review beauty treatments and destinations all across the world.
00:01:05
Speaker
Good. I'm excited to talk about all of those things.
Personal Skincare Journey
00:01:10
Speaker
I want to start off by talking about kind of the great skincare doc, which I think of it as like the inciting Rio incident, or it's when you came into my consciousness, but I'm curious if you could explain it, tell folks what it was, talk about
00:01:25
Speaker
It was a big deal. Yeah, definitely a big deal for me. I'm so happy that it's something I still get asked about because it was such an enormous moment in my life and continues to be an enormous moment in my life. I was fresh out of college at this point, 22, and I have had acne my entire life. And I think this is something that people don't often understand about acne is that it's not usually a linear thing. It's not, I have acne.
00:01:52
Speaker
And then I grow out of it. Sometimes that happens to people, but a lot of times if you're someone with problematic skin or acne prone skin, it's something you're going to have to deal with for most of your life, just in varying degrees of severity in different sort of pockets and phases of your life as you grow up or grow older and your hormones change, et cetera.
00:02:11
Speaker
But when I look back at my life, even though I've had acne my whole life, this period of time was the worst it has ever been. It was the most severe, consistent and really painful and uncomfortable it's ever been in my life was during this period of time. I was fresh out of college and I think it was a perfect storm of things that contributed to it being the worst it's ever been. I think the number one thing was probably the fact that I had just gone off of birth control. A doctor had recommended that I went off of birth control.
00:02:40
Speaker
And going off of birth control is a whole journey and it's something I talk about a lot in my skincare consultations, one-on-one with people. But I think it can be a particularly intense period if you're someone that is acne prone. I was very stressed. I think that classic post-college, post-graduation, just tremendous anxiety when all of a sudden life becomes like capital L life. And then also on the most superficial level, I had just moved to New York and I was dealing, I had lived upstate.
00:03:07
Speaker
For college and I think just coming to the city and dealing with different kinds of water different kinds of pollution, all of those sorts of things really was not helpful to it. So I was dealing with very persistent and very painful acne and a lot of the products that I had access to were products in CVS and products in Sephora.
00:03:25
Speaker
And the things that I had bought from those two places just weren't really working for me. I have very temperamental skin. I have dry and acne-prone skin. I also am sensitive. I have eczema. And a lot of the products that I would try just ended up, yeah, maybe they would sometimes get rid of the swelling itself of the acne. But I was really noticing a lot of issues in texture, in redness, in dryness, in flakiness.
Career Breakthrough
00:03:53
Speaker
And I think as most young people did and still do to this day, I like took to the internet to start sleuthing to try and find other options for me. And this is when I came across the subreddit, skincare addiction and Asian beauty. And this is when the world of Korean beauty and K-beauty, yeah, just really unlocked for me. And I was able to discover this community online. K-beauty
00:04:17
Speaker
It was definitely, I had a real cult following in America, but properly cult in the sense where now you walk into Ulta or you walk into Target and you walk into Sephora, you see all of these K-beauty brands. And even in American brands, they are so heavily influenced by K-beauty, but at the time that wasn't really a thing. So everything I was learning about it was really online.
00:04:40
Speaker
And I felt I was spending hours and hours on the internet. And because of this, I became obsessed with talking about these products because they had done so much for my skin, but I just wasn't seeing them in stores. So I made a list of all of the products that I had discovered in a Google doc and ended up sending it to a bunch of my friends. And I think I originally sent it to only three or four people.
00:05:03
Speaker
but they would send it to other friends and friends of friends. And I remember going onto the Google Doc one night and seeing that there was I think 45 or 50 people actively looking. And I remember panicking and being like, who are these people? But eventually it got passed around and it ended up in the hands of a editor at the strategist who reached out to me and asked if I would be open to publishing the document on
00:05:30
Speaker
They, yeah, they were like, the strategist had been a section of the print magazine for a long time, but they had just launched the digital vertical. And they were like, we would love for this to be a part of it. I was so excited. I had always wanted to be a writer and I also obviously loved beauty so much. So I was so stoked and the article went
00:05:50
Speaker
But yeah, it went pretty viral. I still don't know all of the stats for that specific article. I wish I did. Cause I think it would be so interesting to see, but I've never actually been given access to the stats on that particular document, but yeah, it did really well. And then honestly, the rest is kind of history. I started writing for the strategist and that was how my career began.
Community vs. Professional Skincare Advice
00:06:12
Speaker
That's like the oral history of the Google doc, which I really wanted to know in what you're talking about.
00:06:20
Speaker
I actually have pretty good skin, not good wood, but I had, I didn't know how to take care of it when I was younger. And similarly, when I was like 92, moved from upstate New York to Boston and, yup. Yes. And it's funny. Like I didn't really, double cleansing was nothing I'd ever heard of.
00:06:40
Speaker
I didn't know I had dry dehydrated skin. I thought because I had acne, I had oily skin, but it actually was, it was like, it was some of your content and it was some of like Snow White and the Asian Pear. I was just talking about her yesterday. I loved her blog so much. I hope her and Fifty Shades of Snail are on TikTok because I bet they would make such amazing TikTok content.
00:07:05
Speaker
Oh, it would. Hold on. I'm going to make a note to look that up for myself. I never even thought about that. But that is the content that helped me. But one thing that annoys me is that I was going to the doctor. I was being like, I have acne. And they're giving me prescription benzoyl peroxide, prescription salicylic acid, acne wash, and giving me retinol and not telling me how to use it at all. So I found you guys.
00:07:34
Speaker
It like overnight truly was like a miracle. And then I too became like a big skincare enthusiast, beauty enthusiast. And then a couple of years ago I went and I actually, it ended up being related to anxiety, but it was like some weird skin sensations that were pretty persistent and uncomfortable. And at first three doctors in a row were like, women don't need to do so much stuff to their skin. It's all this stuff you're using.
00:08:03
Speaker
And in the end, it wasn't that at all. And I felt like a frustration. I was like, you guys actually never helped with the acne problem. When I had it, I went to, and I solved it through research and like learning from people like yourself. And then when I go there with another problem, I was like, almost blamed for
00:08:21
Speaker
being like here's the products i'm using it's so interesting and i think a lot of people do have your experience and obviously dermatologists are incredible and there are so many dermatologists that are not like that that are so kind and considerate and also have that real passion for beauty and tiktok and all of these fun things and going online and discovery but i have found in the past that a lot of times my skin has
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, been its worst when I feel like I'm using very strong prescription products without really, I don't know, taking other precautions to make sure that they aren't drying out my skin.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks for listening to that from me and thanks for sharing your story on it. Do you remember the moment when the strategist was like, do you want to write for us? Like, where were you? It was a crazy moment in my life. I remember just being so excited. I also went to school for journalism. So I had been reading New York Magazine for years. I was obsessed with the magazine. I thought that it was, I always loved how funny and snarky it was. And
00:09:25
Speaker
I just remember feeling like I had won the lottery almost, because I think writing can be a really difficult thing. So much of it is pitching and pushing yourself, and I'm not necessarily very good at doing that. I'm not someone that is good at chasing people and following up on people. The fact that this opportunity had been given to me by a magazine as incredible as New York Magazine was one of those moments that
00:09:55
Speaker
I don't know. I honestly, I remember crying. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I was, I was just, I couldn't believe it. And I think the thing that made it the most emotional was how well it was received. Sure. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I love your writing for The Strategist. I feel like everyone reads The Strategist. I want to pick your brain about the behind the scenes a little bit.
Writing Influences and Style Development
00:10:16
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So I've gone through different degrees of working with The Strategist. When I first started writing for them, I was freelance. Then I worked.
00:10:23
Speaker
in the New York magazine office on staff for a long time. And now I just have my twice monthly column. So I've gone through different phases with them, but I definitely remember what the pitch meetings are like and those kinds of fun things. Yeah. They're really exciting. The thing that I love about the strategist is, and I think this is what makes the, obviously when I speak about this, I'm speaking mostly about like their beauty content because that's what I was most participating in, but
00:10:52
Speaker
What I think is so cool about the strategist is, unlike a lot of other beauty platforms, most of the people that write there and most of the people that edit there are not people who care particularly much about beauty. So when I would go into the pitch meetings, I was pitching to people who had varying degrees of interest in beauty.
00:11:10
Speaker
Some people really liked it. I had another writer who I worked with who also wrote about beauty. He was amazing and she was an amazing person for me to just like riff off of and talk about new brands and talk about fun things with. I had people who liked beauty in the sense where they owned like a Glossier blush and they liked Cosis concealer and they also were into Serebene, things like that. But then there were also people who weren't there who were like, I don't care at all.
00:11:33
Speaker
It's not something I care about. So when I was pitching my ideas in these ideas meetings, I wasn't just pitching to people who cared about beauty. I was pitching to all the different kinds of beauty. And the goal was always to come up with an idea that every single person found interesting. Oh, wow. And now I have an editor, Crystal, who has a long, incredible career in the beauty industry and in beauty writing. But before, my prior editor, Katie, didn't really care about beauty at all. So when I was writing,
00:12:03
Speaker
I was always having to write with that in mind. So I would say something like, I double cleansed my skin and she would be like, what the hell is that? So because of that, I basically acquired this skill of like educational writing almost. Like I got really good at describing things very simply through my writing. And I would say that as a skill that I would not have gotten if I hadn't worked at the strategist.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's like almost like explanatory writing. So every single thing I mentioned from setting my under eyes to what a toner is to exfoliating or things like that, I would always have to explain what every single one of those things was. I could never just say it without explaining it, which is I think why a lot of the strategist writing ends up connecting with such a wide variety of people because you have these experts speaking about topics, but they're writing for everyone.
00:13:02
Speaker
So you get the interest of other experts as well as people who have never read or learned about this stuff before. Does that make sense? Yes, that is fascinating. Is that intentional to their structure, do you think, or is that just incidentally how they're... I think that initially
00:13:22
Speaker
that wasn't something that was intentional. It just ended up happening that way. But now they know that is their strong point. And that is something that is of the utmost importance to them is making sure that they have people who are making sure that everyone is included in the conversation about these big articles, not just people who are experts in that field. And I think it just makes it so much more interesting.
00:13:47
Speaker
I'm so happy you said that. I feel I already read this strategist kind of obsessively, but I feel like I'm going to look at it with a different lens now. And that's super interesting. Is there anything you feel like any.
00:14:00
Speaker
tactics or strategies you learned about positioning or even little, I don't know if you write the headlines, but anything like that. The strategist is very specific. And I am so flattered when people reach out to me and they say, Hey, whether this is someone's little sibling or someone a stranger on the internet or something. And they say, I just started out writing. I want to write for the strategist. What do you have any advice like?
00:14:27
Speaker
The strategist is very specific and they definitely have a formula. And it's not the easiest to gauge from the outside, but once you know it, what I just said, like that little tip I just gave you about how the infrastructure works, like you'll start to notice it more and more. Something I love about the strategist is we, because of TikTok, which is, as I think we all do, we all have a hate love relationship with it. But the thing that I hate the most about the influence that TikTok has had on magazines is
00:14:57
Speaker
content is just so recycled. You end up reading about the same thing over and over again. And I think that is the nature of just how the algorithm works. But the strategist really prides itself on following trends in person. And this is a trend that you
00:15:14
Speaker
It's more, there's a bigger emphasis on trends that you notice in person, whether it be within your friend group, in a yoga class you go to. One of my favorite articles, and I tried to find it like last minute before we hopped on this because I was like, this is one of my favorite articles. Can't remember who wrote it. Someone at Strat wrote about how when they would go on their long COVID walks, they noticed the same lamp in every person's window.
00:15:42
Speaker
in like cool neighborhoods in Brooklyn. And they wrote an entire article deep diving on this lamp and then figuring out what kinds of person, who the designer is, what kind of person gets it, what kind of houses are the kinds of people that would, what kind of jobs people would have in these homes to own this lamp. That is like one of the most interesting things a strategist does. Or when people are like, I always go to this bar on the Lower East Side and I notice that
00:16:11
Speaker
10 people were wearing this purse or something like that. Those are the things that I love because I think that it's so much more fascinating when it is something you are noticing in person versus online because the algorithm will basically feed you the same thing over and over again that it'll make it seem like a trend is more popular than it actually is. But when you are noticing something in person, it's so much more intense and so much more fascinating.
00:16:39
Speaker
Whereas if you go on Instagram and you notice all of these people wearing the same shoe, a lot of times it's the same Pinterest photo is being fed to them. And that is why all of these people are owning the same things. It's actually not that deep or that interesting. But I think noticing these kinds of things in person is, it's almost like spookier. Like it's a bit like that's so weird. Or when you go to a yoga class and everyone is using the same yoga mat or wearing the same sports bra or something, you're quite like, whoa, that's crazy.
00:17:08
Speaker
But if you see the same people wearing the same thing on TikTok, it's, I don't know, less interesting. And I think that's something the strategist really prides itself on is they're more interested in trends that you notice in your everyday life versus things that you're exposed to online.
00:17:25
Speaker
That is fascinating. It's making me think of a couple things. I remember I was going to a yoga studio in Boston for a while, like a different one than I had usually been going to. And I noticed that all of the women there had the Apple watch, but also two or three delicate, but like really nice tennis bracelets. Like it was a thing. And I was, I really need to up my bracelet game. Like how much do I need to spend on these bracelets? Okay. A couple other questions. Do you think
00:17:55
Speaker
Is it complicated because do you think like TikTok could fuel the in-person trends that you happen to notice in person?
Trend Analysis: Social Media vs. Real Life
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, the thing is with TikTok, it's easier to, I have personally found that it is easier to pinpoint when you see trends influencing the outside world. But I think sometimes they're so niche and hyper specific.
00:18:18
Speaker
that you just tell it's because all of these people are drawn to the same things. And it's, trends on TikTok just become so massive so quickly that they're easier to track. I've heard that. But when I noticed that a group of friends, for example, this is a one, this is a great example. And it's, this is a non beauty article that I wrote a couple of years ago about these pants.
00:18:42
Speaker
And I don't even know if you remember this, there are a pair of Wrangler pants that I found through a friend of mine. And I have this like insanely chic friend who was wearing just like a really beautiful pair of slacks. And I remember saying, these are so gorgeous. Where did you get these slacks? And she's guess what? I got them on Amazon. They're from Wrangler. And I was like, that's crazy. You got them on Amazon. That's wild. And then a couple of days later, I went to a shoot for something and
00:19:10
Speaker
this really gorgeous photographer was also wearing the pants. And it turned out that we had found the pants through the same girl completely separately. I didn't even know that she knew them. But then I would continue to see the ripple effects of these two very cool people's pants. More of my friends were showing up in these pants. More of her friends were showing up with these pants. And all of a sudden these pants I found were everywhere. To the naked eye, you wouldn't know that these were the same pants. Most people wouldn't.
00:19:39
Speaker
but I just noticed it because I had been like tracking them. And that's a perfect example of a trend that just that didn't happen on TikTok or anything like that. That just happened because I noticed it within this niche group of friends in New York. And that was a perfect example of a strategist article that ended up performing really well. Do you find yourself like
00:20:01
Speaker
constantly scanning for these trends now or is it everywhere you're like, what's happening? Yes, yes, totally. I find myself doing it a lot more when I'm in New York. I don't know why. I feel like trends cycle really quickly in New York.
00:20:17
Speaker
Someone said to me, a friend of mine once said to me that living in New York is the closest you'll ever come to living inside a computer. And I'm inclined to agree because it's almost like an algorithm live in a lot of weird ways. So I just feel like trends happen. They go hard and they die fast in New York. So I find myself doing it a lot, a little bit less so in like London and LA. Though I do notice a lot of trends in both those places too. Where are you right now?
00:20:46
Speaker
Right now I'm in London. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to really be thinking on this for a while. It's fine. I'm also thinking, I feel like Cup of Joe does a really good job with this. They're always like, my friends are this really cool turtlenecks.
00:21:00
Speaker
And I don't know how strategic it is, but it strikes me as something nice about Cup of Job. I just, I also, I think that because of the TikTok-ification of trends, a lot of people say trends in like a derogatory way. Like people say it like trend, following trends or micro trends or things like that. And I think that is a product of.
00:21:23
Speaker
just the way that we're constantly consuming off of the algorithm. Interestingly enough, the reason why I have this sort of aversion to Pinterest now is so I'm getting married soon.
00:21:33
Speaker
And I was talking, thank you. And I was talking to my wedding planner and I had sent her a Pinterest and she called me and she said, Listen, all of these pins are beautiful, but I just want to tell you that the way that Pinterest works is it has a similar ish algorithm to tick tock and I just want to let you know all of these things that you've pinned I've seen.
00:21:54
Speaker
about a dozen times. You guys are all basically being fed the same photos on Pinterest. And it really freaked me out because Pinterest had always been this place where I thought that I was finding new inspiration. And I think that everyone wants to feel individual. But I think trends in person, trends that you notice offline amongst friend groups or amongst people that you think are cool or chic or interesting,
00:22:23
Speaker
Like, when you noticed that to like, I forget, there was something, I can't remember what it was, but I remembered that I noticed once I was reading, I was looking through like books for something. And I noticed that there was a sweater that both Elsa Peretti and Joan Didion had both worn. And I was like, that's so cool, I need this sweater. But if it was a online thing, I would have been less excited by it.
00:22:51
Speaker
You've really got me thinking this is super interesting. One final strategist question that much when I read your content, it feels very much like you to me because I know you're writing. I'm wondering how much of your work for the strategist is like your natural voice.
00:23:08
Speaker
versus how much of it is the house voice? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's interesting because it's something I've really been thinking about recently. I think since starting my sub stack and basically having a sub stack that is completely my voice and I can write however I want. What's so fascinating is that when my Google doc article was published for the strategist, the vertical was still so young that I don't think I realized.
00:23:36
Speaker
And I hope I don't sound obnoxious in saying this, but I don't think I realized how much of my voice was integral in creating the strategist voice because it was so young and I was their first columnist.
00:23:51
Speaker
So that is something I love so much about the strategist is the reason why it's worked, why my relationship with the strategist has worked so well is because I felt like we really grew together. So it's not like I worked for the strategist and all of a sudden had to start writing in a different style. The site and my writing kind of informed one another.
00:24:13
Speaker
So it's not like I had to make an active choice to write in a certain way. It was that my editor was very encouraging of how I wanted to write because it was working for them and it was also allowing them to explore how they wanted the voice to sound. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. Like you were
00:24:32
Speaker
forming your own voice at the time they were forming theirs. And it's a little bit of a kind of. Yeah. And I think that is a very special synergy. And I don't think it's something a lot of people have the opportunity to do because I don't know how often like new magazines or new verticals are being launched. But I was definitely in this amazing position where I was able to grow with them.
00:24:53
Speaker
That's so interesting. I do want to talk about your sub stack too, because I, for some reason I totally missed that you had one and it wasn't until we were prepping this interview.
Starting a Substack: Motivation and Challenges
00:25:04
Speaker
It's a baby. It's very new. That's probably why I'm still like figuring out how it works. So if I answer any questions about sub stock, I just want to let all of you guys know I'm by no means an expert. I am very new to this and it's a baby newsletter, but I have definitely been enjoying it a lot. So,
00:25:19
Speaker
Hopefully I can say things that maybe someone who wants to start out will find interesting. Totally. From just tooling around on it a little, I absolutely love it. And it's cool to read through in a different context. I was reading this morning, the one about the astrology reading. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Izzie Cross, she's great. Really recommend her.
00:25:45
Speaker
And I didn't realize you went to Bard. I'm from Saratoga Springs. Oh, so you get it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We went to Bard together, me and that astrologer. So there was something in the stars for us to reconnect, no pun intended. So the strategist, as I've been talking about so much, it's such a big part of my career and my writing career. But the strategist is a very like singular format website in the sense where it is at the end of the day, an e-commerce website.
00:26:12
Speaker
So what that means is anything that I wrote about had to basically be purchasable content in one way or another. And there's ways that I've managed to play with the format and still include purchasable things, but be able to expand and write about more stuff. But I think I have always wanted to write about things that maybe there was nothing e-commerce about, nothing e-commerce in the article or in the content.
00:26:41
Speaker
But wanted to create something where I talked more about beauty experiences, because obviously beauty is something that I love so, so, so much. I'm also a big extremist, like treatment extremist. Growing up, I was obsessed with beauty montages from things as iconic and obvious as Princess Diaries or Clueless and things like that, but also things like
00:27:06
Speaker
that's a good example, like ghost world, like in ghost world when she like goes upstairs and dies her hair bright green and comes downstairs and that's her way of being like I'm pissed and like buck the world. I just always loved the way that you could express yourself through beauty and these like massive beauty transformations. My boyfriend always says to me that when I go to a salon it's truly such a mystery who he's going to come home to because I've had like white hair, I've had red hair, I've had brown hair, I've had black hair, like blue black hair, like
00:27:34
Speaker
I always have to keep him on his toes. But because of this, I've always been someone that people have asked, I'm in LA for the weekend, where should I get a massage? Or I'm in London, where do I get my hair done? I'm in New York, where should I shop for skincare, et cetera. But the strategist just wasn't really a place for me to write about that kind of content because a lot of times that just doesn't really work within the e-commerce format. I was really excited to create a space and create a sub-stack where I could write about treatments.
00:28:01
Speaker
and people that I love who work in beauty, who I think everyone should know and see. And yeah, it's been really fun. I know you, you're just started, but you already have thousands of followers. Have you found anything that's worked or do you have any advice for total newbies who might be interested in the sub stack?
00:28:18
Speaker
I think as is the case with anything this day and age, I think consistency is just the most important thing when you're trying to expand something if growth is of the utmost importance to you. I think one of the things I hate about internet culture is announcement culture. I hope that doesn't sound weird. I just think people
00:28:44
Speaker
We're all addicted to engagement and addicted to likes and comments and the sort of like influx of things that happen when you post something that performs well on Instagram. But I think as a result, people have become really obsessed with announcing projects. Whether that be like announcing brands, announcing a newsletter, announcing whatever it may be.
00:29:03
Speaker
And I'm not, and I have also been victim to this. So when I am, I'm saying people are so annoying when they do this, I'm talking about myself. But I think a lot of times people announce stuff and then quit things really fast because
00:29:17
Speaker
I don't know, it's almost like people become more obsessed with the actual hype of announcing something than they do care about the longevity of a project. When in reality, the way that we know things grow is through consistency and making sure that it is actually a realistic thing that you can
00:29:34
Speaker
integrate into your weekly sort of like schedule and things like that. So that's why I think this time around with Fun Little Tree, I haven't been doing a big press push because I really want to make sure I iron it out really well before I start promoting it really heavily. I want it to be like a well-oiled machine before I start
00:29:53
Speaker
announcing things. It makes total sense. There's actually, so I was taking quick notes. These are two things that what you just said sparked to me. One is the announcement culture. It's funny you say that. So I own an agency, Medbury. And one of our biggest offerings is ghostwriting and brand management for execs on LinkedIn. And I was looking through a client's performance yesterday. And there was this one post that like,
00:30:17
Speaker
blew up like crazy. And I was just trying to figure out like, what is it? And then I realized at the top, we said, exciting new announcement. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a little hook. And I was like, we can't make everything an announcement. But it is funny you say that. And I do think that it's even with things like social media for especially for brands or people, but just the like, distant, like, updates, sharings, etc.
00:30:45
Speaker
It takes more work to keep attention and engagement around. So that's super, I think you're.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I think a lot of times, just in that similar vein, a lot of times when people ask me about the start of my career and something I always like to emphasize, it's so easy to feel like people are doing so much more than you all the time and that you're just not doing enough. Nothing you do is enough. But the truth of the matter is virality is such a big part of success in this day and age, for better or for worse. It's how so many people's careers start, including myself. But at the end of the day, virality really is luck.
00:31:24
Speaker
You can try and follow an algorithm and try and do all of these things, but it really is just a bit of luck. All you can do is your best and just try your best to be consistent. And then hopefully something in the stars will align and it'll work out. But I say that just because I think so many people just feel like their best isn't enough, but it is. It really is. I really love that. I love that. That's really great advice.
00:31:52
Speaker
And then, all right, another question I have is for me personally, I know that when writing for other people or when we're working on strategies for people or brands, it can come really easily. But then for myself, I feel more, the positioning gets murkier and I have more of a block. And I like, even with content people, like it's been a year, I think it's like really, it's starting to really take shape in a way that feels tangible to me, but it didn't start out with just like,
00:32:21
Speaker
a hard and clear plan. And I was curious in writing for yourself and your own sub stack, have you found that at all that like, when you're not writing to a brief or an assignment, it's more complex? Or does it come really easily to you? Is it easier? Because you're like, this is my show, I can make the angle whatever I want. As I said, I really think
00:32:42
Speaker
I'm a little bit messy in this way where I really am the kind of person who just throws a bunch of stuff at the wall and sees what sticks. I know what my point of view is and I know what my passion is. I know for lack of a better word, what my niche is, but in terms of how I do it, I really just throw a lot at the wall and I see what people respond well to. And it is often not what I expected, which is why I think
00:33:08
Speaker
Which is why I think it's important to try all different kinds of things and see what people connect to. Because the more you try and predict and follow a really concrete brief and things like that, I've found that's when my stuff like flops the most.
00:33:22
Speaker
But when I just like allow things to happen and care less about, this is another thing. I really don't care if something performs poorly or if something performs well. I'm just learning more about what people connect with, but I really try to not get down on myself when things don't do well. The beauty of the internet is that it all moves so fast. Everything's forgotten about in a second. Just try it out.
00:33:50
Speaker
Hey guys, interrupting this interview for 10 seconds to talk about Medbury. Medbury is a social media agency that I founded in 2023 and we produced this podcast. Our promise is pretty simple. We create social media strategies that really work. We offer management for founders, execs, entrepreneurs, public figures, and brands. Our clients often see significant results within just a few weeks of us working together.
00:34:16
Speaker
You can check out our website or shoot us an email. Everything's in the show notes. Okay, back to the interview. Yeah, no, I think that's also really good advice. I know we don't have too much time left, but there's like a bunch of stuff I want to dig into. So for anyone in the rush.
00:34:39
Speaker
Can we talk about your skincare consults?
Skincare Consultation Insights
00:34:41
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. My skincare consultations are probably one of the most rewarding things I've done in my career. I always knew that the thing that I loved the most about my column was helping people. I think it's really easy to say that skincare is frivolous and vain and all of those things are true. Obviously, the industry itself is insanely oppressive and responsible for a lot of terrible things.
00:35:05
Speaker
I also do completely understand when you are going through bouts of really bad acne or really bad dermatitis or rosacea or things like that because it really just makes you feel really disconnected from your body and really out of control of your body and I think it can just be a very disorienting moment in time and
00:35:26
Speaker
That is why I always love just being someone that can provide some sort of like grounding force in those moments and just tell people everything's going to be okay. Cause it is, everything is going to be okay. We're going to figure this out. Don't worry about it. But I think with the way that the internet operates right now.
00:35:42
Speaker
And I'm interested to hear how you feel about this and how you discover products. Cause I think beauty discovery is so interesting at this moment in time. And it's one of the reasons why I launched this consultation business is when I sit down with a client, people will have products from all different areas of their life. Some of their products will be a prescription they got from a dermatologist.
00:36:06
Speaker
Another thing will be two products they got from their esthetician. One product will be something they picked up on a whim at Sephora. And then the last thing will be something they found on TikTok. So they have found all of these products through all different avenues, but no one has looked at all of those products together as a complete system.
00:36:27
Speaker
And this is where I see people's skincare routines so often go wrong. A lot of times I'll sit people down and I'm like, you're using two of the same products. One is just a resurfacing serum and the other one is like a prescription retinoid, but both of those have retinoids in them. People are like, what? Because I think, first of all, products don't make it easy to know. There are a lot of amazing brands like the Ordinary and the Inkey List that are very like ingredient transparent and you know exactly what's in it.
00:36:57
Speaker
But a lot of times it's like glow drops and you're like, okay, not everyone, not everyone wants to be a little like citizen scientist chemist and sit down and go through the ingredient list and figure out what's in it. So it can be really confusing for people. So what I love about my consultations is sitting people down, going through their entire skincare routine and basically figuring out
00:37:22
Speaker
whether all of their products work together, what things should be used on what days. A lot of times in these consultations, I don't recommend anyone new products. They have amazing products because obviously the internet makes it so easy for us to buy stuff now, but they'll have this amazing cabinet of stuff. They just have no idea how to use it, but more specifically, they don't know how to be using it for their skin.
00:37:45
Speaker
skincare is so individual and that is something that I really struggled with when writing about for the strategist. I could only really write from a first-person perspective because I didn't want to give advice, I didn't want to generalize and give advice to people because everyone's skin is so different. But what I could do is write about my own skin and then maybe if there was someone out there that had similar skin to mine,
00:38:09
Speaker
they could resonate with my stuff. But I found it really difficult to connect with people who had skincare that was different, skin type that was different to mine because I couldn't write about it. But when I have a one on one session with someone in these consultations, I can get super bespoke. It's as personalized as it could possibly be. And we
00:38:29
Speaker
They send me a forum forehand too. And so they'll tell me any products they've used in the past that haven't worked for them. So then I'll do research in advance to see if there's any through line. Is there one ingredient in all of these products that haven't worked for you? And then I can figure out what products tend to make you break out. Or, you know, on the other hand, products that you have a lot of luck with. Is there one ingredient in all of these things that seems to be working really well for you? So I do these.
00:38:55
Speaker
Consultations over zoom. They are about 45 minutes and they're a blast. I've met so many different people I was not expecting it to be so global but I see people from all over the world and it is so fascinating and so interesting just to see what all of the trends are even from just like a work perspective as someone that still writes it is the most Incredible crowdsourcing opportunity I have ever had in order to figure out like what how people shop and
00:39:23
Speaker
where people shop, what products people are using, and how people are using products. I almost feel like I'm cheating somehow. Well, I have to ask, are you keeping a Google Doc of your observations?
00:39:36
Speaker
Definitely key. I definitely have a notes app. I will go through, so I will do these consultations with people and then I have, I will send them a report the next day of everything we talked about, links to all the products that we talked about and just the best way to use them. And so occasionally, yeah, at the end of the year, I'll look over and see if there's any product that just like continuously came up. And I do find that varies.
00:39:59
Speaker
quite drastically country to country, not necessarily like anything mind blowing, but it's just interesting to see what brands resonate more with people in the UK versus in the States. Like drunk elephant in the States is out of control. It's so crazy. Like young people are addicted to drunk elephant because it's so colorful and tactile. But I have these like 19 year old girls who are in college and their entire routine is I'm like, wow.
00:40:25
Speaker
Cool. Is it all the babies? Yeah, it's oftentimes babies. But yeah, it's crazy. I don't know how I feel about the nine-year-olds using Drunk Elephant, but good for them. Good for the parents.
00:40:39
Speaker
If folks wanted to book this with you, where can they go to? It's on my site, which is linked in my Instagram. I launch dates at the beginning of every month. I won't have dates available for the rest of the year, but on the end of March now, on April 1st, I'll upload all of my dates so that people will be able to book it.
00:41:00
Speaker
So I do it month to month just to make sure because since I'm freelance, it really depends on what projects I have available because on top of doing my infrastructure and other things, I also do a lot of copywriting products and work with brands in that way. So I just need to make sure that I am like allocating enough time for all of these things. So yeah. I'll look for it and I'll make sure we put it in the show notes so that if anyone wants to watch it or keep an eye on your dates, they can definitely do some stuff. Perfect.
00:41:29
Speaker
Uh, that sounds super cool. And then you also, you've also written a book, but as we go through it, I'm like, you're being prolific. Can you talk about your book? That is so kind. That is so kind. Thank you so much. Yes. I wrote a book. I think it came out March, 2021. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah. 2021. All of that time period is, whoa, 2020 2019 to 2021. I'm like, where were we? And what were we?
00:41:56
Speaker
But it was one of the most, like, beautiful, rewarding things I've ever done. I'm sure, I know you have a lot of writers on this podcast, I'm sure they've told you a million times, digital writing versus writing a book could not be more different. It is really quite crazy because, especially when you're working for a site like The Strategist, but I think any digital platform is the same. You're writing an article with the expectation that it will be live in an hour, whereas with a book, you are literally writing
00:42:23
Speaker
trying to predict the landscape of the subject two years from now, which especially at the time in 2019, I was like, what in the actual hell is the world gonna be like in two years? I have no idea, will we still be inside? Will we be outside? I don't even wanna know who the president's gonna be. Like it was just so stressful. And now when I look back at it,
00:42:52
Speaker
I was just, I was so frazzled all the time because you're trying to predict how the, yeah, a very effort changing world is going to look. And also there's just a lot of, it's a lot less about trends and it's more about trying to figure out what the long game of what you're trying to say is. Yeah. I can see that being really different. So were you full-time at New York magazine? Oh my goodness. Okay. So this is actually wild at the time.
00:43:18
Speaker
I don't know if you're into astrology. I'm a Capricorn, so this might make sense to some people. I was full nine to five strategist. I was also writing this book and I was also in nighttime esthetician school. I don't recommend navigating through the world at that time.
00:43:40
Speaker
I mean, navigating through the world like this, but it was definitely a big challenge. But I also felt because I was so overwhelmed with work, I would only allocate a certain amount of time to work on my book. And I actually feel like in a really roundabout way, it forced me to write because I only had it prevented writer's block because I had to get things done in that period of time. Otherwise, it just wouldn't have happened.
00:44:05
Speaker
If I had written a book now, where as I'm freelance and I can make up my schedule as I want, I feel like I would have procrastinated a lot, but I quite literally didn't have the time to be able to do that. If I missed a week or if I missed a day of writing, everything like fell apart. But was I well? No. Frankly, no.
00:44:31
Speaker
I am so impressed by that. I was a copywriter for an agency for a while and I had no brain power at the end of the day to write more. How many hours a week were you writing during that period? Oh my God. Honestly, I'm not kidding. It felt like 100% of the time.
00:44:54
Speaker
But the only time I wasn't writing was in esthetician school, but I was still like reading a lot because this is what was the point where I wasn't going to esthetician school in person yet. I was doing it virtually. So I would wake up, write for my book, then I would go to I would clock in for work, would work on the strategist would be in meetings all day, pitch meetings, idea meetings, writing meetings, whatever.
00:45:17
Speaker
and then write. And then at the end of the day, I would have dinner and I would do esthetician school in front of the computer, which I think was about three hours every night. But school, I did have a little bit of an upper hand though, full disclosure in esthetician school because I had been writing about beauty and skincare for so long and I had been writing about it and interviewing people about it and interviewing doctors. So a lot of things that people really struggled with in school that would be so difficult. Like I have a friend that's in esthetician school right now
00:45:46
Speaker
She texted me the other day just being like, how do you memorize all of these things? But I had, I'd spent more time with under, I had basically written about skin histology and anatomy before. So I had a sort of like baseline understanding of it and a statistician school just allowed me to really deepen it. So I did have, I do feel a little bit fortunate in that way. It was maybe not as grueling as it was if I was just like starting fresh.
00:46:13
Speaker
How did it come about? Did you pitch it or were you approached to write the book? I was actually approached to write the book, which is very unusual and maybe not all that unusual, but I just found it crazy. I was like, are you guys sure? This seems crazy. But I had an agent reach out to me and she said, I really like your writing for a long time. I think we could make a really cool
00:46:36
Speaker
coffee table book like I think we could make a really beautiful book about skincare that people would love to display on their homes and display in their bathroom and I had always been such a big fan of
00:46:48
Speaker
things like rookie mag and things like that, that were all of these sort of like secret spilling for, it's really for anyone, but in mind, I really had like younger sisters in mind when I was writing it. And I was really excited about it. I was actually really hesitant, but my best friend is a book editor and I spoke to him at length about it and he was like, I think this could be really cool. And I think that you should do it. I think it's going to be hard and I think it's going to break you, but I think you should do it. And I was like,
00:47:17
Speaker
Okay. I did it with also my best friend. One of my best friends in the whole world did the illustrations and that was such a gift because so rarely do you get to work with friends in completely different fields, but I, we made it together and it was just like an absolute joy to work with her. And we ended up making something that I'm so proud of and I love so much. That's super cool. What's called let's face it. Secrets of a skincare obsessive. And we'll put the link.
00:47:45
Speaker
in the show notes so folks can grab it if they want. Amazing. And as you mentioned astrology, and I know we only have a couple of minutes left, but I mentioned earlier before we start recording, my new favorite question is, have you ever seen a ghost?
Cultural Influences and Personal Beliefs
00:48:01
Speaker
Have you? Okay, so this is really interesting because it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently. My mom had been talking about this because my mom, so my mom is Brazilian. She is not a
00:48:12
Speaker
necessarily a religious person, but she is a very superstitious person. And she is a very like spiritual person. So my entire life, she's called me and been like, the moon is full. You can't wear X, Y and Z color tonight. And you have to save your apartment and all of these things. So I was always very, I was always like a very spooked out kid.
00:48:35
Speaker
Like I always thought that there was something haunting me. To answer your question, I have never explicitly seen a ghost, but my entire life, you know how a lot of parents are like, no, honey, vampires aren't real. Ghosts aren't real. My mom was like, there will be a ghost in your room tomorrow if you don't get it together tonight. So I was like, always having to do all of these things to bring in good energy. And it's a lot of things I still practice to this day. I definitely am informed by her behavior and do a lot of things.
00:49:05
Speaker
definitely believe in astrology and things like that. So yeah. Okay. So would you tell us a, like a ritual you do that's a holdover from your mom or childhood to get bad energy out?
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah, my mom did a lot of really fun things. She found, obviously I'm describing really spooky things that she did that were less comforting, but something my mom always did too is anytime I would come home from hanging out with friends and I felt sad or I felt like they had been mean to me, she did a lot of rituals in which she would cleanse me afterwards. If I had hung out with negative people, she would cleanse me and give me crystals to sleep with.
00:49:49
Speaker
and would basically just do a lot of manifesting like sending them like positive energy if they were people who I don't know my mom was like they're probably just not happy people and let's send them positivity and let's like send them love and things like that that's like probably the sweetest one from my memory from my childhood that I have like a memory of but yeah those kinds of things I definitely still do try and practice
00:50:13
Speaker
That is really nice. It's funny. Actually, I'm looking at it. I've got this little like a little sage spray that's when I was before a call or something. I'll be like, if you record a podcast and it goes really bad, you're just like spraying it. You're like, I don't know about that one. That's none of my business. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you feel like is relevant to our combo that you'd want to say or advice you'd want to give anyone listening? You already gave great career advice. I love what you said about consistency and virality being luck.
00:50:40
Speaker
You just have to show up and do your best. That really resonated with me.
Maintaining Mental Health in a Digital World
00:50:44
Speaker
I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, I think the internet can be so good and so bad in so many different ways. And I think we're all at a point, I think as we get older too, and we still have these careers that are contingent on our online presence. I think we're all just trying to figure out a way to make it work without just being clobbered by it.
00:51:00
Speaker
because the internet is just like this necessary tool. But I also think that it can be really harmful and horrible. So I think it's all really important that we figure out a balance of how to do it in a way that's helpful. And really try and limit your screen time. That is the last piece of advice I will give. I'm begging you all, please join me on this quest of putting our phones down.
00:51:21
Speaker
Let me know if anyone wants to start a book club or something like a little bit more wholesome to get us from stop scrolling. I feel like there are ways we can connect besides Instagram and TikTok. And I love those things. Obviously, they're so fun. But I also think that it's about time we all log off a little bit.
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah, from your lips to the universe is yours, Rio. I hear you, totally. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was such a treat to talk to you. I'm so grateful that you did this. This was really fun. This was so fun. You asked such amazing questions, and it was so wonderful to finally get to meet you. And yeah, this was divine. This was a lovely chat. So thanks again for having me.
00:52:02
Speaker
Hey content people, do you mind if I call you that? If you like the show, there are a few ways you can stay in touch and support us. The first is you could subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. The second is you could leave a five star rating and a review.
00:52:18
Speaker
Those make a really big impact. I know they're a pain and they take a little bit of time, but if you're feeling generous and you've been listening to the show, I'd appreciate it so much. And the third is you could sign up for the Content People newsletter. The link is in the show notes. We share news about the show and episodes. And I also write a lot about the intersection between work and creativity, which is at the heart of so many of these Content People conversations. We also love feedback. If you want to request a guest or a topic,
00:52:46
Speaker
Put yourself to be on the show, advertise with us, learn more about Medberry social media, or otherwise just be in touch. Shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. It's Meredith at medberryagency.com. That's M-E-D-B-U-R-Y agency.com. I will throw that in the show notes too. All right, until next time.