Meet the lady bosses behind two Australian success stories: colour cosmetics collection, Velvet Concepts, and serious skincare line, The Dermal Diary.
The beauty industry – encompassing skincare, cosmetics, hair care, fragrances and personal care – is undoubtedly a huge part of our lives. But only very few take the giant leap of creating their own brand and manufacturing new products for other women and men to benefit from and enjoy. We chat with Cassandra Nichterlein from Velvet Concepts and Isabella Loneragan from The Dermal Diary about their entrepreneurial journeys.
Cassandra Nichterlein
Founder, Velvet Concepts
You have been in beauty all your working life. How did you start out?
When I was 21, I got a job at a really cool, trendy PR agency. I was very lucky to be looking after great clients such as Aveda and Becca Cosmetics, learning so much at a young age and meeting the amazing creators of these prestigious companies. I fell in love with the industry straight away.
How did you take the next step of founding your own Beauty PR agency and becoming the boss? After working for other agencies for a decade, I developed chronic fatigue and burnout from running around too much and surviving on 10 coffees a day.
I decided I need to run my own schedule. I was also inspired by the really great international brands that weren’t available here locally at the time, so I decided to import them and do all the marketing. I started Style Patisserie with some really special brands, such as Butter London nail polish, and they blew up and sold well from the start.
Your favourite international brands became your clients. When did you decide to join in and become a brand creator yourself?
I started my own line, Velvet Concepts, when it became apparent that big conglomerates were snapping up so many great new brands. I love exciting, up-and-coming companies with passionate founders, great backstories
and a point of difference. I had developed a great connection with local Australian retailers who knew how to love and nurture these little brands and grow them.
After a decade running my own PR firm, I saw global companies gobble up these small, cool brands then dial down what made them so special in the first place. They would also remove them from boutique, independent beauty stores to sell them exclusively through massive commercial outlets instead, which was heartbreaking for everyone.
Seeing as boutique retailers were getting fewer and fewer options of stylish, beautiful products that aren’t available in mass retailers, I thought up my experiment: perhaps I could create something that their loyal beauty fans would love?
Did you research what kind of products those would be or just do what appealed the most? Heart or head?
Both! I’ve always adored the glamour of colour and cosmetics. I used to put YSL ads under protective contact sheets on all my exercise books in Year 8. I also knew that small retailers have a more intimate knowledge of their customers and could give me constant insider knowledge that I could listen to and respond to their feedback quite quickly. Big corporates, on the hand, can take years to make a product.
Now the fun part. How did you design your Velvet Concepts collection from scratch?
Right from the get-go, I wanted to make the line super luxe and minimal, which is what I like to buy. As a customer, I’m not into overwhelming options at a beauty counter. I just want direction: “this is the best foundation”, “this is the blackest eyeliner you asked for”, etc. I don’t mind if there are a couple of choices, but I don’t want 25. Also, as much as I love a green, sparkly eyeliner, that’s not what I wear every day. My mission was to make neutrals and staples; classic but never boring. That was always my vision.
Velvet Concepts stands apart with its signature lavender grey. What was it like to take the journey from dream to packaged reality?
I was adamant that the packaging had to be a custom colour. The majority of beauty packaging is black
and white, which I soon learned is cheaper because stock packaging is easier to come by. I find all the really great brands are associated with a distinctive colour though. I’ve always loved the combination of gold and grey. If I had my way, everything in my house and wardrobe would be that colour combo!
What was the biggest challenge in manufacturing?
Well, I knew that if I was going to do this, I wanted to work with the best possible people. And in the beauty world, I believe Italians are the best, full stop. However, I had to learn to work on their schedule and deal with the language and cultural barriers. I was frustrated and did not take it very well. Looking back on the delays, I think, “Well, what else did you expect?”
Manufacturing requires endless patience, so you have to factor in a lot of time to get it right. The path is not linear, but up and down. You will save yourself a lot of unnecessary frustration if you understand that that’s what you’re signing up for.
What qualities does an entrepreneur need to have in the beauty game?
A thick skin. You can’t be afraid to keep pushing, refining, sending samples back or going back to the drawing board. Any entrepreneur will tell you that if you want something done your way, you have to stick with it. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone; you have to be patient, dog-minded and tactful all at once. Building a brand is really about building relationships, which will have their ups and downs. It requires a long- term view.
Did lockdown have a negative or positive effect?
Most of our product was already shipped over from Italy, so it was quite good. Some things sell more than others in lockdown – with masks, lip colour isn’t as much a priority as eyes. We will see it all come back. Before the pandemic a lot of our customers would ordinarily just buy something, but when everyone had more time they started asking more questions. We could dedicate time to chat with customers so it gave us a lovely dynamic; we had FaceTime chats to match foundations!
How important is human interaction in an increasingly online world?
With makeup and cosmetics – any business really – customers will trust you when you give personalised service. People know that they are dealing with an automated program when they add to cart and they accept that, but personalisation optimises the experience. People assume we will just have a bot, so when they get a real person interaction they are really chuffed.
Who is your customer?
Someone with a natural, pared-down aesthetic who wants curated, luxurious products. Essentially I made the products with the ingredients and texture that I wanted to use.
How did you decide on your price point?
The reality is that product manufacture is like cooking: the better the ingredients, the more it costs. There are so many fun, cheaper products out there; there was no need for any more of that. There are also really, really expensive French designer products available. There wasn’t anything that was really luxe and Australian. We do have our own aesthetic and luxurious twist that is unique to Australia. The idea was, can we export that? That beautiful, pared down Aussie girl. We are no-fuss, generally speaking, glamorous in our own way but not uber put-together or perfect. There is a little bit of undoneness about us, which I embrace.
Is it still exciting or just hard work?
I still get a thrill when orders come in. People discover us through social media, beauty retailers and independent shops. During lockdown, customers had to go online to get access to more products.
Giving birth to a new brand and three gorgeous young children is no mean feat. Does working for yourself make it work?
I had no kids when I started, but I was pregnant when I signed off and made my first big payment. I remember thinking, this better bloody work because I am having a baby!
I’m way more fussy about how I spend my time since I had Alessia, Ezra and Raphael. When I was single, I used to waste a lot of time doing silly things; I’m personally far more efficient now.
I arrange certain days with a babysitter and pump all my meetings into one block instead of running around all over town, driving all over the place. I look back and think, why didn’t I do this before?
Isabella Loneragan
Founder, The Dermal Diary
Did entrepreneurship come easy to you?
My drive has always been 50% be a business owner and 50% be in the beauty industry. I started as a facialist in 2007 in South Africa, running a traditional beauty business, including nails, out of my spare room. My business had one big plus: 180-degree ocean views in Cape Town. Customers got to lie on a treatment bed and look out to the ocean.
All businesses need a unique selling point. It’s hard to open on a high street and be a regular therapist; what pulls customers in is some kind of wow factor. Whether you have your own product or a location that can’t be beat, you need to differentiate yourself somehow.
How did you switch from cosmetic grooming to clinical expert?
I wanted something with more guts, a dermal therapy role, so I studied and returned to Australia in 2011. For four years I worked alongside incredible dermatologists at a clinic, learning so much about acne, rosacea, even mental health. I worked with amazing products, such as Rationale, Aspect and Cosmedix, which were great for specific concerns and were prescribed for certain skin types and age groups.
The doctors tasked me with finding the best products, so I researched the market and sourced a lot of different options to treat all the different conditions I was seeing. A lot of patients were on antibiotics for conditions like acne. Repeat customers filling prescriptions would confide that they didn’t like the side effects, did we have other solutions? I recommended some products that would help, but realised that there was a massive hole in the market for people who prefer an alternative to medication.
How did you go back out on your own?
My career came to a crossroads. I could go back to medical school for 10 years and become a dermatologist, or set up my own skin therapy business and help people in the field straight away. I backed myself and decided to wing it. I had a side hustle to pay the mortgage and off
I went.
I chose the name The Dermal Diary because I had a blog – back in 2015 when blogging was massive – answering lots of questions about skin conditions, finding the right sunscreen or why skin goes red. The name still worked. I started my clinic in a small space and saw 11 clients on my first day, which was incredible. Old clients from the dermatology clinic had googled my name.
How did you expand from in-person treatment to manufacturing?
Two years into opening my own clinic, I hired a business coach who challenged me to research creating my own product. It hit me: I was having to juggle ingredients from five brands to get my results. I spent a couple of months researching pharmacies that create formulas and design packaging.
What boxes did your new products have to tick?
They had to be Australian made, have recyclable packaging, and you needed to be able to see how much product remained, so customers weren’t left in the lurch one night when it ran out. My production size had to be small to keep it fresh, and I wanted to design my own logo. Luckily, I eventually found a company that could do it all.
What is The Dermal Diary routine you created?
I launched eight products initially: cleanser, toner, three serums, and a couple of moisturisers.
Now I have about 25 products in total. As the demand presented itself, I just developed more.
How much does feedback from The Dermal Diary clinic influence the products?
It’s huge. People make the mistake of making a product and hoping people will like it, whereas it may not even sell. Dermal Diary products have been developed after years of listening to hundreds of clients share what they like, don’t like, want to pay and the results that they are after. My experience with real people shapes it; the clinic gave me all the case studies I needed.
The clinic helped the product – does it work the other way around?
Yes! I used to complain that I couldn’t find the perfect product for my clinic treatments. Now I have it. Having a skincare line also saved me during lockdown because I could still serve my customers around the country even though the clinic itself was shut down. No one else has it, and my clients are hooked on the results. After three years, we already had the sales momentum to get us through the worst of the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, some clinics never reopened because they couldn’t survive two lockdowns in two years.
Which is most crucial to entrepreneurial success: the idea or the passion behind it?
You have to love what you do and really enjoy it – then it doesn’t feel like you’re working. I believe that you do well when it’s not only about the money. Entrepreneurs are just not designed to work for other people. I had so much drive and so many incredible ideas but not everyone understood the vision and I got frustrated. I don’t like being told what to do. As the boss, once you make a decision and implement it, it’s done.
What’s your boss like to work for?
Haha! I laugh when people tell me how lucky I am to work for myself because it’s so flexible and I can have time off. Yes, entrepreneurs can work when they like, but ask them and they usually work all the time. Initially when I was younger with incredible drive, my day went from 7am to 9pm so that I could get where I needed to go.
I now have two kids under two years old (a 4 month- old and a 23 month-old), so I am behind the scenes a lot more, taking maternity leave and paring down to being in the clinic two days a fortnight. It’s a balancing act and the simple fact is that when I pull away, for example while breastfeeding, of course the business will suffer. Wherever you put energy will thrive. The Dermal Diary is built on my effort so I can never completely pull my foot off the accelerator. There is no such thing as annual leave or sick pay and I still need to be present, training and motivating my staff to maintain standards.
What is your product of the moment?
I created the Dream Mask because women love the idea of masks, but don’t love taking them off. I found a way to keep it simple. You can exfoliate, apply this highly nourishing, probiotic mask, leave it on, then sleep and dream in it – the lazy woman’s mask! It fits the gap perfectly and is still one of our best-selling crowd pleasers. CBM
