Erin Piper: Founder of Saint Crewe

Episode 758

On today’s episode, Kara welcomes Erin Piper, Founder of Saint Crewe, the skincare brand redefining what it means to care for young skin. With over 15 years of experience working with teens and young women as a licensed therapist, Erin witnessed firsthand how skincare is deeply tied to confidence, self-esteem, and the way we present ourselves to the world. Her insight led her to create Saint Crewe — a clinically tested, dermatologist-approved, vegan, and cruelty-free line designed specifically for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
Erin shares the story behind Saint Crewe’s creation, how her background in psychology and years of supporting young women informed her brand philosophy, and why she’s committed to changing the conversation around “clean beauty” for younger generations. We dive into her journey from therapy to entrepreneurship, how she’s cutting through viral TikTok trends with science-backed products, and what it means to build a purpose-driven brand that parents and teens alike can trust. This episode is filled with insights for founders, beauty lovers, and anyone inspired by mission-led innovation. Don’t miss it!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m joined by Erin Piper, who is the founder of Saint Crewe, a new brand, skin care brand redefining what it means to care for young skin and the confidence behind it. Erin isn’t your typical beauty. Beauty product, beauty company, founder with over 15 years of experience working as a licensed therapist, supporting teens and young women, she’s seen firsthand how skincare connects to self esteem, self expression, and the way we see ourselves. And when her own tween daughter started exploring skin care, Erin noticed how many harsh products were out there, and looked for a product like Saint Crewe, so she developed it and a brand built on clinically tested, dermatologist, approved vegan, all of the things that are so, so key for brands, but really, really a focus for Gen Z and Gen alpha in particular. So her approach blends psychology with science, and I cannot wait to dive into the backstory. I absolutely love the products, and I’m the young skin. I like to think that right and but regardless of of whether you are in the Gen Z or Gen alpha, these products are amazing. I was saying that the gel moisturizer I was using this morning, and I am obsessed. I love it. So, Erin, what a great job you’ve done on this. So thank you so much for coming on.

Erin Piper 2:29
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I This is an honor. So thank you so much, and thank you for the kind words about the products. That’s so kind. Makes me so happy. Thank you

Kara Goldin 2:38
absolutely so I’d love to start with hearing you define the brand Saint crew, and what inspired you, and you have a co founder as well. Correct the CEO of the company?

Erin Piper 2:51
Yes, Laura Lucia Carruthers is my CEO, and she has been a huge part of helping me shape the brand.

Kara Goldin 2:57
That’s incredible. So what inspired you to launch a skincare brand rooted in psychology. I talked a little bit about it, but I’d love to hear it from you.

Erin Piper 3:09
No, I’ve been a social worker for a long time, and I would, I would say that’s sort of who I am. First and foremost, I don’t have the typical beauty background, but I have a very long and storied background of working with teen girls and boys, and I know what they want to know what shapes their confidence. I know how much their skin and how their skin is looking that day is tied to their confidence and how much focus they put on their looks. And they’re also very sophisticated now, a lot more sophisticated when I was when I was their age. I was using a bar of Dove soap, or, you know, whatever I could find in the Walgreens aisle that week with my allowance, right? I wasn’t putting too much thought in it, but they are very concerned about ingredients. They love their packaging the way it needs to be, and they’re very discerning consumer, and I’ve learned that, and I think that’s wonderful. I think it’s so amazing that they care about what they’re putting on their skin. And so they’ve been such a great audience for me over the years. And then, you know, so that was part of my inspiration. There just my daily therapy sessions with these teenage girls talking about their skin. But at the same time, it was January, so almost two years ago, would be two years this January, I walked into a Sephora on a Saturday morning, my daughter was with me, and I was there to get a concealer. I wasn’t getting her anything. This was sort of before I understood that girls her age were shopping for skin care. And my attitude at that point was kind of like, she doesn’t need anything. She’s good, you know, we’re just here for me. And it was slammed in there. It was slammed and there were girls just with baskets full of things and beautiful products, but maybe not for for the for the young skin, things that were appropriate for the young skin. And so Conley, that’s my daughter. She’s 11. Now. She was nine at the time, Conley came up to me with her retinol eye cream that she wanted me to buy her, and it was beautiful. Packaging, and it was a beautiful product. But again, we know, now we know that Retinol is not appropriate for an 11 year old, right, especially around the eyes. I think I might have ended up buying it too. Actually made a little pick me up. So I think I ended up getting her a lip gloss. Maybe it was a tower 28 lip gloss, which was a beautiful product, and she was thrilled. But I just started thinking, what is happening, you know, we this is, this is really interesting. And I didn’t know if I was sort of pro or against the time, because I walk a fine line with that age group and putting too much emphasis on their looks and just those sorts of things. You know, I tell them all. I’m like, can you just go climb a tree? Like, go outside, climb a tree. Don’t worry about you your makeup or your skin care, right? But here’s the thing, and I think what really, really drove me was I have to say no to my kids, especially my daughter. I mean, I’ve say no to my son plenty too, but we just as you know, I know you’ve got several children, you different no’s right, depending on the kid. I have to say no to a lot. I have to say no to a cell phone. I have to say no, you can’t be on Instagram. I have to say no, you can’t be out past, yeah, past dark, blah, blah, even when a lot of other girls her age are able to do that. Unfortunately, growing up the child of a social worker is probably a little tougher, because I do. I am neurotic about about Internet safety and all of these things, right? So I’m probably a little harsher than most, but I say no a lot, and it has felt so good to create something that I can look at her and say, Yes, you can do this. Go do this with your friends. Make your little videos. I mean, we don’t post them, but make your little videos. Enjoy this. This is safe. This is it works. It’s effective. It’s not just water in a bottle. Pretty bottle sitting on a shelf. Is an incredibly wonderful formulation that Laura Lucia and I are very proud of, and it has been so fun to be a part of that and to watch this grow and it’s not slowing down. So we can say all day that it’s not appropriate for such young girls to be involved in skin care, right? We can say that, and we can fight it. It’s kind of like fighting technology. Or we can say, let’s give them something that is appropriate to use, and let’s be responsible company and a responsible brand. And so that’s sort of how it started. That’s the four morning. Is what put that idea in my head. And I just noodled on it for a little bit, and I started going to the ends of the internet. My dad always told me just know the most about about what you’re trying to learn, no more than anyone else. And so I spent, you know, the next little bit trying to learn as much as I possibly could. Again, I’m a social worker. I don’t have a beauty background. I actually was an internal auditor for a stent for Price Waterhouse in New York, so I sort of done some different things, but, but beauty hasn’t been one of them, except that I know I love beauty products, and I’m a sucker for a pretty bottle. So I reached out to my best friend from high school. Her older sister was in the wellness space, beauty wellness space, Laura Lucia Carruthers, and she was on the original SkinCeuticals team way back in the day. And had, you know, done a ton of product development and just a ton of consulting work in that space. And I said, Would you consider, you know, helping me with this? And so she sort of joined me as a consultant, and was, you know, helped me just shape the brand. And then she came on as CEO in March when we launched. So she is one smart cookie. We just hired a director of sales who’s incredible, and we’re building our team quickly and efficiently, but also carefully, and now it’s just gone nuts, and we’re thrilled.

Kara Goldin 8:48
I love it well, it’s one thing to have an idea and see a hole in the market, but I love that you persevered, even though you didn’t have the you know, answers right away, but you just decided I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to connect with people who do I know that might be able to answer this. I’m going to go to the internet and see what I can figure out. So inspiring and and I, I love that you did that. How did you come up with the name Saint Crewe?

Erin Piper 9:27
Okay, so I love this question. It makes me so happy. So st is part of a family name. My mom’s made the name of st Claire, and I always love the name St Claire, and so I kept Saint crew is the last name of Sarah crew, and Sarah crew is the protagonist. And a book called The Little Princess, I bet you are familiar with one of your kids. I bet, yeah, yeah, Little Princess. And it was one of my favorite books as a child. And Sarah crew has embodied because she she goes through bumps and all these things, and she’s a wealthy girl, and she loses her parents. And she’s in an orphanage, and then she sort of has to, just to cope, and she has to have grit, just have resilience, and all of these things. And so that’s what I teach in my practice. It’s what I base my practice around. It’s grilled grit, resilience and coping. It’s how I attempt to parent. Doesn’t always work out that way with with the kids I’m doing my best. That’s still TBD work in progress, but it’s how we try to live. And so I thought it would be cool. I just love the way it sounded together. And so I put those two things together. We came up with same group.

Kara Goldin 10:28
So I’ve heard you talk a lot about Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Obviously, you’ve learned a lot about both generations just through your work as being a therapist, but what, what do you think is kind of the the key things that maybe the differences between the two generations as it relates to skin care and beauty? Do you think that they’re the same, or are they a little bit different.

Erin Piper 11:00
Interesting question between Gen Z and Gen Alpha. You mean the differences? I know. I think Gen Z is extremely discerning. It goes up to late 20s, right? So they’re really, really knowledgeable in their skin care, and they’re not. I think they’re getting to the point where they’re not just buying necessarily, just a pretty product on the shelf. I think they really, really care of all the formulations. Not that Gen Alpha doesn’t, I think they do, but, but they are young, and I think that they are sort of starting to get into something that, like, Okay, this is really fun to do with my friends, and I want to think for them, it’s super fun, and it’s more about the experience, maybe. And I think that it’s experience is important to Gen Z as well. But I think Gen Z needs to see more walk behind the talk, if that makes sense. And I think Gen alpha is going to get there, but they’re just getting started, so I think they’re wanting to see a pretty a pretty picture. So that’s why it’s so important to have both. That’s why the formulations have to be just as good as the outside, and the outside has to be just as good as the inside, right? I mean, as a mom and as a founder, the inside is what’s most important to me. These formulations are something that I’m incredibly proud of, because I can’t look another mother in the eye and say, this is safe to put on your your kit when I don’t know that. And I know that because we’re clinically tested, so I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, right? So it’s my responsibility as a founder and a mom, for it to be what I say it is, especially for Gen alpha, who may not be doing their own research. Gen Z probably is, but maybe they all aren’t. So it’s important for do what they may may not be doing. They have a lot of similarities. It’s, but it’s, I mean, I think it’s just, you know, normal life development and where they are. Gen Z is kind of getting a little bit more comfortable with who they are and caring about what they put on their body. Gen alpha is kind of like, ooh, this looks great. This is fun. Let’s get started in it.

Kara Goldin 12:53
When you are thinking about your consumer, is your consumer Gen Z and Gen alpha, or is it also the millennial, the Gen X? I mean, because

Erin Piper 13:06
prize consumer and who are surprised? Yes, our demo bar consumer is Gen Z, older, Gen alpha, for sure. My surprise consumer is moms. They love the cleansing balm. Every moms are out over my cleansing balm. You don’t have to double cleanse. It’s so nice. It’s such an experience. I use it every night. I look forward to using it every night. So what I’m hearing is these moms are going in and actually stealing their their tween girls things, because it’s so light and lovely and luxurious feeling. And again, I have mature skin. I’m wanting to use something that’s going to get rid of this line and this line and this line, right? And we are not an anti aging line, again, it wouldn’t be appropriate. So I’m using something a little stronger, right and in most of my routine, but the balm is just incredible. And the moms are loving the balm, so Gen Z mainly, we are definitely loving our Danila customers as well.

Kara Goldin 14:00
When you thought about ingredients, was there something that, you know, as a consumer, as a parent, that you really wanted to avoid when you were thinking about formulation? Was there something that, you know, just

Erin Piper 14:15
harsh actives and just things that we’re gonna, that we’re gonna, you know, contact dermatitis and those sorts of things. Laura Lucia was so great because she has teenage daughter. She has 16 year old and an 18 year old, and her 16 year old is allergic to everything under the skin, not under the sun, not not in a dangerous way, but is, you know, rash and redness and things like that. And so she wasn’t really able to ever use stuff that her friends were using. And this has been, she loves this. It works great. So really, just all the normal, harsh stuff that you see, and in some and it’s not, those things aren’t wrong, vitamin C. I mean, I use Vitamin C ready. I love it. Those things aren’t wrong. They’re just not appropriate for our target demographic. So we’re just avoiding, you know. Those, those actives that the grown ups need but the kids don’t. Yeah, and we definitely did for credo clean. So Sephora clean, so we formulated these with a incredibly high end formulation. House manufacturer, and we are, we are super proud of those formulations.

Kara Goldin 15:20
That’s great. So many teens and young adults are and adults are using social media to kind of learn about brands, and sometimes they’re influenced by different trends on social media, maybe Tiktok, maybe Instagram. But what are your thoughts on being a brand, and sort of how you can make people aware of your product, and as it relates to social media, media,

Erin Piper 15:53
that’s a good question, because, you know, this is a it’s a tough market. It’s a saturated market, right? And I think when I was first developed, when Laura luech and I were first developing this, you developing this, what I saw missing was a high end formulation for our target demographic that had elevated packaging. To me, it all looked baby, it looked baby ish, and if it was maybe higher end, it had ingredients that weren’t appropriate, and then if it was more targeted towards our demographic, they were sort of more mass and sort of looked baby. So I think what this group wants is something that’s sophisticated. It doesn’t feel baby. You know, a 22 year old doesn’t really want to use the same thing that their 10 year old sister is using. They want to use something that looks a little more elevated. So that’s what we tried to provide. And I think in the Instagram or in our social media, we talk a lot about ingredients, we talk a lot about our clinical testing. And so I think those things really do sort of set us apart in our message. And you know how, you know the clinical psychology behind skin care and that sort of thing. And I think me, being a social worker does help. I think it makes, you know, people sort of are like, okay, like, maybe she’s not full of it. Maybe it’s not just another beauty founder with another brand that’s saying all of these things. You know, we have testing. We walk the walk we I think we have a little bit of Bang behind our buck. And I think that does stand out, which is great.

Kara Goldin 17:30
I love it. So what has been the most surprising aspect of founding a company? So I would imagine that being a social worker for so many years. It’s not like you don’t have professional experience, right, but, but you’re now developing and products and a company that is, I mean, this is totally new to you, and the buck stops with you, right? With the you know, founding team, and what has been, maybe the most surprising, maybe the most hard,

Erin Piper 18:08
that’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of things, how much I don’t know, how much I how much I thought that I would sort of know. And I got this I laugh, because I always vote myself as having the best self awareness of anyone I know, which, trust me, I get the irony of you’re probably not supposed to vote for how good your own self awareness is, but mine’s good. And the reason I know that is because, you know, I come from a very entrepreneur, entrepreneurial family, and my dad always told me, you know, like you know what you don’t know is the best thing you can that’s the best business advice I could give you. Is know what you don’t know. I don’t have an ego here. I don’t I’m rarely the smartest person in the room, because I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room, because if I am, I’m not learning anything. I have no issue with finding, with going to ask someone who knows. And so I think the most surprising part of this was, Okay, wow. Like, there is a lot to learn. This takes a whole lot more time than you thought. This takes a whole lot more money than you thought. I mean, Laura Lucia will laugh back in the day. I told her, I think it’ll take this much time and this much money. And, I mean, she was sweet enough not to laugh in my face, right? And I think, and I think thinking how much I can do myself, I think it’s really important to understand when it’s time to delegate and when it’s time to say, Nope, you’re actually not the expert here. The expert here is this gal, and I learned that really quickly, and I think it’s the most important lesson I’ve learned, and that’s why I have Laura Lucia. That’s why we are very quick to ask questions of others. You know, there’s a lot of room for for successful women and successful founders, and I think that you don’t have to pull somebody down for. For another person to go up but but learning to ask questions, and I think realizing what I didn’t know, and realizing how much, um the realizing how much I underestimated, the time, the time commitment, and how truly much work it was. And Laura Lucia was kind enough to not bust my burst, my bubble from the very beginning. It doesn’t have to anymore, because I really quickly found out, and I have small kids, so it’s been a juggle, you know, but we’re in it now.

Kara Goldin 20:30
We’re in it. You’re you’re in it. I love it. Well, I I think I love your philosophy. I always said that in in building a team, I mean, it takes a lot of confidence, actually, to do this well, but to hire people who know more than you do and and I’ve given that talk to many people who worked for me over The years, when they’re hiring people that they believe it are, you know, going to help them do stuff? My first question is, what are you going to learn from them? Like, just name, name, like, two things that you’re going to that you’re going to learn from them that you don’t know a lot about, because if they are just taking a load off of what you’re doing, then that’s not going to be very interesting for very long. I mean, they’ll get that pretty quickly, but what are you going to learn from them? And I think that that’s a really important piece of it, and they can be any age, right? I mean, I I learned more about social media, and not all social media, but things like Tiktok. We have a 23

Erin Piper 21:42
year old marketing coordinator who teaches me about social media all the time. She’s hilarious,

Kara Goldin 21:47
yeah, and so I think that that is that’s really, really key. And not everybody thinks that way or or is able to do that, go out and hire people that are better than them. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s such a key trait, for sure. So when you were developing, I guess, the products, and initially getting it out there into some retailers, but then also launching it online, I’m sure you started to hear from consumers who were purchasing the product and trying the product, how you have, how you’ve, like, changed their life in some way, whether it’s parents or whether it’s people trying the products. I always call them love letters, and they’re so important to read the consumer love letters, but I’d love to hear from you like one that you remember that really affected you.

Erin Piper 22:48
I think one was I got somehow, someone tracked down an email, my email, and it was really cute. It was they had had a rough day, and sort of were overlooked at school. And so look, and got home, and their mom had gotten them some Saint crew products as a treat, and they got to use them that night, and how much fun it was to have that routine and take a minute to focus on themselves. And then they got to be the ones to be like, Look what bye bye got, and then share with their friends. And, you know, I laugh because my 15 year old niece will constantly say, it’s not that deep, and in a way, it’s not right, it’s lotion in a bottle on a shelf. So I, I don’t make want to make it sound like it is truly life changing, because I can’t. We’re not, I’m not life changing. Things come from other inside the four walls of your own house, right, and your family and your support system. But it’s really, it was really fun to get that because I have a sixth grade daughter, and she’s had moments. She’s had tough times at school, so to hear from a little girl and say, Look, this actually made my day better. And they she felt special because she was able to introduce it to her friends. I think that was, that was fun. I mean, that just kind of warmed my heart as a mom and as a social worker, right? Because there’s a lot that’s going to change your life, and it’s not skin care, however, to have it make your day a little bit better. I mean, to hear that it did, like, does it get much better than having someone look at you and say, you kind of made my day today, you know? Like, that’s really cool.

Kara Goldin 24:21
I love that. So you had some big news around a new retail partnership. Can you share about that? That is very exciting.

Erin Piper 24:31
So exciting we launched on revolve today. So that exciting, huge, and we are thrilled. And we just are so excited to work with them. I mean so much, and such a huge step for the brand. And Laura Lucia and I just could not be more excited about working with that. We’re

Kara Goldin 24:49
thrilled. That’s very exciting. How many SKUs do you have now?

Erin Piper 24:53
So we have four products. We also have the headband. We have a really cute. Christmas kit that’s coming out. We have precious it’s a precious makeup bag with all four products and the headband in it. And then we’re also having a holiday heroes box, where we have two of the products and a cute Christmas box for a set for gifting. So we’re very excited about that. We have the cutest merch because we actually just launched an ambassador program amongst college girls across the country. We’re got several of them, and we’re counting. And college football is so huge, obviously in the south and especially Louisiana or Louisiana based company. I mean, it’s just Bible here, right? It’s crazy and so and actually, it’s cute. Our little marketing coordinator is engaged to the LSU quarterback, LSU football quarterback. She started helping us head up our ambassador program, and Laura Lucia has just done an incredible job with that. And so we have the cutest girls making the coolest content out there, and we have footballs and we have jerseys, and it’s just adorable, and it’s all going to be available on the website very soon. And then we always have things, products in development, in the hopper, that we’re pretty excited about too.

Kara Goldin 26:03
So I love it. So last question, what’s one piece of advice or leadership lesson or something that you’d give to fellow founders, potential founders, who maybe want to muster up the courage to go do what, what you’re doing, but what any pieces of wisdom or advice? Yeah.

Erin Piper 26:32
I mean, you have a lot of them. Some have already discussed right now, what you don’t know is probably my biggest one, I think be incredibly detail oriented, is probably the second most important one to the third one, I would say, Don’t strive for balance. Yeah, you can’t, you can’t. You can have it all, but you can’t have all of it. If that makes any sense, it’s okay. I agree. Don’t make it to your son’s soccer game because you have meeting. That’s okay. You’ll get to the next one. You know, I struggled when I went back to work after I had my first daughter. My daughter went back part time to social work to my I was working in an agency. I was the director of a program there. We were helping kids in South South Louisiana with coping and resilience group groups after the BP oil spill, their parents had all lost their jobs, all those things, and I went back part time, and I eventually felt like I was doing a bad job at both and I was actually, I kind of was like, I’m half assing. I’m not being 100% in both places. I didn’t know then that I didn’t have to be. What I figured out is Be present. I’m sitting at this desk right here with you, Kara, I’m not thinking about anything but this podcast. What I’ve had to train myself is, when I’m with those kids, I don’t think about anything but my kids. And that’s hard. That’s hard when you’re a founder and you’ve got money and you’ve taken I mean, it’s a massive risk, as you know, and that risk can be debilitating. It is very scary, and so it’s very hard to not bring that home. But I remember, I was working with kids who had been, you know, with complex trauma and severe PTSD, and I was coming home, and I was sort of bringing that home. And my sweet husband, he didn’t say, man, you’re, you’re coming home in a mood, but it was kind of like, hey, I can tell this is tough on you, because you’re, you’re bringing it home to us. And so as a social worker, I think I learned quickly to really mark that boundary. So what I do my best is I try to have work at work and home at home, but also the same time. It’s important for moms to remember it is okay that you are not making every kid 100% at every single moment, these kids have to learn that your world does not revolve around them, that they are top priority, but Mom has other stuff to do, and what that does is that sets them up later in life to be okay when they are not constantly first. Yeah, so don’t try to have it all, because you just don’t have to.

Kara Goldin 29:01
I smile as you’re saying that, because over the years, so many people, particularly people who are interviewing me, ask about like, how do you find the balance you have all these kids and and I always disliked that question a lot, and I started answering. I’m not balanced at all, like i There are days that I feel like I’ve got it together more than others, but when you choose to have a lot of balls in the air, you know that some are going to fall. But I always found it so interesting, because men don’t get it get answered. Oh, question, yeah, only the women who are working and and, you know, as my husband said, it’s kind of sad that they don’t get that question. You know, it’s, it’s, they just think like they don’t do any of that. And yet, especially today’s more and more. Uh, but anyway, thank you so much. Erin, Saint Crewe is amazing. I’m so happy that you launched it, and it’s off to a terrific start. So for everyone listening, be sure to check it out at SaintCrewe.com also follow along on their great social you guys have done such a great job. And as always, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Tell everybody about it. Go on revolve and see the products there too, and purchase them. Of course. Aaron Piper, founder of Saint Crewe, thank you so much. Thank you. I loved it. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show, if you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.