Kailey Bradt: CEO of Sonsie

Episode 808

On today’s episode, we welcome Kailey Bradt, CEO of Sonsie — the clean, vegan, and cruelty-free skincare brand redefining mindful beauty through high-performance essentials rooted in simplicity and self-acceptance. A chemical engineer and former beauty founder, Kailey represents a new generation of leaders bringing technical rigor, sustainability, and product-first thinking to an industry often driven by hype.
In this episode, Kailey shares her journey from engineering to entrepreneurship to CEO, what she had to unlearn transitioning from founder to leader, and how she’s helping build a slower, more intentional beauty brand. We talk about translating authenticity into formulation, raising the bar on sustainability with compostable packaging, and leading with credibility in a high-visibility space. A thoughtful conversation for founders, operators, and anyone building brands grounded in integrity and innovation.

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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, we 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. Have you ever stopped to think about what clean beauty really means our next guest has and she’s approaching it from a completely different angle. So what happens when a chemical engineer, someone trained to think in systems, formulation and science, step into the CEO role of a mindful skin care brand built around simplicity and self acceptance. I cannot wait to talk to Kailey and hear a lot more about this incredible brand that she is the CEO of, called Sonsie. She launched it with none other than Pamela Anderson. So it was a very, very exciting cooperation that the two came up with. And I’m so, so excited and happy that she did so Sonsie, you are going to hear a lot about them going forward. So such an incredible, incredible beauty and skin care brand. So very excited to meet you.

Kailey Bradt 1:49
Kailey, thank you so much for having me. Kara, absolutely

Kara Goldin 1:53
so for listeners who are just hearing about sonsy for the first time, how do you describe the brand and what makes it unique and different?

Kailey Bradt 2:04
Yeah, sons is really about embracing who you are and being the truest version of yourself. Really obviously, Pamela is a huge inspiration behind the brand, but she really felt most herself when she went back to her garden and peeled it all back and really remembered who she was, where she came from, and kind of who she is day to day. And so when you experience sanzi, when you see sanzi on a shelf, we just want you to kind of remember, like, this is what you come home to. This is like, where you ground yourself. This is your reminder to, like, just be you. It’s the most beautiful thing that you can be.

Kara Goldin 2:43
Okay, so Pamela Anderson, amazing, amazing celebrity to have involved. And when I think about her skin and her beauty secrets that she must have to stay in the kind of like to look like she I hate to say it about looks, but you can just tell that her skin is healthy, so it’s, it’s exciting to see that she’s decided to really not just launch a company with great products, but also A philosophy around authenticity and, you know, real, tangible product decisions. So can you talk to me about sort of how sansi came about? I mean, what was it that, like, how did this, this come about?

Kailey Bradt 3:33
Yeah, we really started with this idea of, like, what is, what are the essentials, and we were building for people specifically with sensitive skin. So Pamela has very sensitive skin. I have very sensitive skin. And it really came from this place of like, okay, where are people buying their essentials? And when we started asking around, it was like, you know, oh, my friend picks up stuff for me when she goes to France and goes to the French pharmacy. You know, that’s a huge trend. It was a lot of people who were having reactions to something they had been using for years. So we were kind of getting these different groups of people, but everybody fundamentally gathered around the same thing, which was, essentially, I have sensitive skin. I’m either, you know, having a really hard time finding something that’s consistently okay for me, or, you know, I’m kind of aging out of the brands I was using, you know, kind of the elder millennial who was outgrowing like these bright colored, you know, kind of like birthday cake lip balms and things like this. But they they didn’t want to go to, like, necessarily, like a highly clinical brand, because they didn’t like the smell or it was too intense for their skin. They didn’t really know where to go to next. So we had, like, this older demo and this younger demo coming together in this really beautiful way, connecting around, like, I just want something that works. Is for a sensitive skin. A lot of people have dry skin as well. In our community and coming together, of like, we just want something we don’t have to worry about. And when you you know, you can rely on these things, you don’t have to stress about it. And I think that’s really where you know, especially Pamela, who’s going on red carpets and traveling all the time, it’s just like you want something you can depend on, and that feels like grounding, as I said, just like, Okay, this is a piece of home I can take with me that I know I can count on, and it feels really nice. So that’s really where it started, and obviously it’s grown so much since then. But that was our beginning point, our Launchpad.

Kara Goldin 5:42
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Kailey Bradt 7:46
Yeah, we started with three products. So we had a lip balm. We had a serum, which is our hero product. That’s kind of like the star of the show everyone loves the most. But we also had the multi moisture cream, which is now an allure best of beauty winner, and has been quickly catching up to the serum. Everybody loves these three products. Obviously, we didn’t launch with a cleanser. We really wanted to focus on those kind of problem areas. And we thought, you know, like, people probably have a cleanser they like. Turns out everyone was asking us for a cleanser. So that was our next product that we made. That one was actually really fun as well, because we got a lot of feedback from our customer base about how they you know, some people were coming from these brands that had heavily scented products. So a lot of those luxury brands that you’re used to the fragrance, right? And so when they were coming to our ground, they’re like, Oh, I like that. It’s fragrance free. But are you ever going to launch anything with fragrance and being focused on sensitive skin? I actually was like, wow, this is a really cool opportunity to do a fragrance transparent, you know, safe for sensitive skin, tested formula, because there aren’t a lot of those products on the market. So we were actually able to then launch this cleanser, which, again, it’s not fragrance free, but it does just have a natural rose extract, and it’s safe for sensitive skin. And it kind of gives you that, like luxury, luxury world coming into like, those really safe for sensitive skin essentials, which there’s not a lot of that on the market. So that was really fun. Our next product that we launched was the Adapt cream. So we’re up to five essentials. We’ve been around for about two and a half years, and the fifth product was actually the first one that, over time, would actually help to improve your skin beyond just the maintenance and the barrier repair, but actually help to even skin tone, smooth, fine lines and wrinkles. And that one is called the Adapt cream that sits between the serum and the multi moist. Sugar, cream, it’s more of a mid weight moisturizer, and it’s also really fun green color. So those are the five SKUs right now.

Kara Goldin 10:08
So you had been prior to jumping into the CEO role, you founded another company. What did you learn. I always love to talk to serial entrepreneurs, because you always learn something right from the previous weather, and it’s usually based on maybe the hard times, right? And I won’t call it a failure, but it’s the it’s the stuff that is just didn’t see coming, and it just makes everything really messy. I mean, I’ve heard from so many founders, whether it’s the board or the investors or, you know, building teams or relying on overseas manufacturing, whatever it is along the way, but what do you think you learned from being a serial entrepreneur in your previous venture?

Kailey Bradt 11:08
Yeah, I would say there’s like three big learnings that I would give to anyone who’s in the early days of their first business. The first one for me, which I think when I was building the first time, I didn’t value myself enough, which probably doesn’t sound great, but actually building around me and supporting more of myself and what I was doing, I really built out a team and continued to support them without giving myself more support as we scaled so, For example, making sure everyone even had an intern like to help them out on things. I never hired an assistant. I never hired someone that was really dedicated to helping me create content like things like that that today, I definitely would say like higher support around you, especially with the way that social media is number two is definitely tangible. It’s like, have really, really, really good partners. And I do agree, like you mentioned, manufacturing, it’s so great to have a place. It doesn’t matter if it’s overseas or not, because I think there’s technologies globally where everyone has their expertise. So it really does depend on the product you’re building, but make sure you can go there and you can continue to visit those locations, and they’re within reach for you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be geographically, but with your schedule, make sure you’re building that in relationships are so important and the people are so important. It’s not just your immediate team, it’s also those people that you put your trust in to develop every single part of your business, even if it’s a postcard, you know you need to make sure you can, you can call them. And the third thing is, trust your gut. I think again to your point, I went the traditional venture route. I raised over $3 million with my first business. I lost, not control of my company, but I would say some, some element of trusting myself in control of my decision making, because it was my first business. I think there’s always imposter syndrome. I was also very young. I think it was like 25 turning 26 when I closed a $3 million round, so very early in my career. And when you have that experience, I think you go from this extreme confidence to maybe even like more extreme humbling, you know, you have highs and lows. And so I really felt like these people have done it before. These people around me have done it before. And again, I always come back to the people like these three all relate to people at the end of the day, but you want to make sure you have mentors that are there that trust you because they invested in you, and they can continue to mentor you in a way that’s not prohibitive to you trusting your instincts, which I think is really important.

Kara Goldin 13:56
Yeah, definitely. I couldn’t agree more. So many celebrity brands rely heavily on marketing, and sansi feels product LED. So Was that intentional from day one, as you took on this role of CEO, and obviously Pamela is very involved in the company as well. But why did you want to lead so much with with product, versus having a person and and the marketing? Obviously, she’s, she’s attached to the brand, but it’s not all about marketing.

Kailey Bradt 14:36
Yeah, I think we’re, we’re looking to build this world. And you know, Pamela is part of that world. Products part of that world. Our entire team is part of that entire world, right? And so with product, I think, especially for our brand, it’s really important to make sure we have a strong product story, because think a lot of people do write off celebrity brands, and you know, it. It’s look, in some cases, it’s not without reason. In other cases, there’s brands that have celebrities attached to them that have felt built incredibly well, like obviously, road was the most successful recent exit we saw. But even rare beauty is doing a phenomenal job. They haven’t sold whether they do or not, you know, I think they’ve built a great brand outside of Selena and so with sons. I do think it’s very important to obviously have strong product story and show what we’re doing differently, because we are very different than those other brands out there. We’re putting sustainable sustainability first in a really big way, and we’re also putting innovation first as it relates to sustainability. So there will be much more of that this year that we’re starting to share. I don’t know when this episode will come out, but I’m going to harvest some kelp in Alaska, and we’re going to talk about this ingredient that we’re using that’s really good for the planet. So we just want to show a little bit more and not get stuck into this kind of like celebrity led brand where, you know, we continuously pull inspiration from Pamela. And I speak to her all the time. We text. It’s really fun to have her be a part of this, but we want to build a world of sanzi that people really feel like they belong in. And so that’s so much bigger than one person.

Kara Goldin 16:28
Where did the name sanzi come from?

Kailey Bradt 16:31
So it’s actually this idea that you know your inner beauty is present on the outside. So kind of the feel good, you look good. Sanzi Like literally means healthy outer appearance. So we just really felt like it it tied to skin care as a part of wellness, and it’s really the connection between the two.

Kara Goldin 16:54
So sanzi is focusing on the High Performance essentials rooted in simplicity. So simplicity in kind of any lab setting, right? Is it? There’s a lot of components to it, but how? How do you keep it simple, right? How can you keep simplicity there? You’re a chemical engineer by background, which is amazing, but I’d love for you to sort of talk about that a bit.

Kailey Bradt 17:28
Yeah, I think, you know, every industry has trends, right? Even in fashion, we see, like, really extravagant clothes, and we see paring back to the simple silhouettes, like, I think beauty is in that simple silhouette era, and we need a little bit more of that. I think we got a little bit crazy with clean, even, like clean got a bad rap for a while. And you know, for me, clean has always been synonymous with safe, actually. And that doesn’t always necessarily equal every term across the industry, like sustainability and clean, to me, are separate, but I think sustainability should be present in a clean brand, because for us, like it goes back to our ethos, right? And so when we’re talking about product, we always look at like, what is a simple formulation that does the job with good, proven ingredients. And then can we source those ingredients better? And can we get all the claims we’re looking for when it comes to sensitive, dry skin? And then, of course, the final step is, does the customer actually notice it working? So we don’t try to over complicate it. We’re not the brand that is going to launch the $300 stem cell, you know, plant Peptide Serum that’s going to, like, lift your face in a week. You know, we’re, you’re never going to see that from us. A lot of our customers do other things, like, for example, they might get laser once a year, and again, they want those products that they can come back and recover with. This actually happened to me last year. I got a laser treatment for the first time, and I was given this cream. She’s like, use this. It’s the only thing that doesn’t irritate your skin. And let me tell you, it irritated my skin. And I went, I just put the multi moisture cream on, and I did two rounds of this laser, and the second time was like a piece of cake compared to the first time, because I had such a negative reaction. And it’s funny, I think, you know, we’re becoming more sensitive to these things, especially as I’ve aged, I’ve noticed more sensitivity in my skin versus less. I’m like, That’s never happened to me before, so you have to be really careful. And that’s, that’s where our formula is. Like, they’re simple. You’re not going to see 100 ingredients on the back. We don’t do the sprinkling of marketing ingredients, just so we can name seven actives. We’re like, here are two actives. Here are their percents. The rest of the formula won’t irritate your. Skin, and they all play nice together. It’s really that simple. And if you do have that crazy serum that you want to try out, maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. I’ve seen, I’ve seen some pretty good technology recently, but you know, it’s okay to include that in your routine, because you can build your essentials around it like you’re still going to need a cleanser, right? But your cleanser doesn’t need to be $80 and it doesn’t need to have peptides in a client. You know, there’s crazy things out there. So that’s, that’s really where we’re coming from.

Kara Goldin 20:32
When you think about the, I mean, you have a, it’s a system, right? You have the five products. And can you talk a bit about what people should do when they’re using your products to have better skin?

Kailey Bradt 20:50
Yeah, absolutely. So you can use literally all of our products, Morning or night or both. Again, we really look at like every ingredient and cumulative as well. So our cleanser great again, Morning or night. It’s meant to be like a calming and hydrating cleanser. So it has a ginger root extract, which is honestly so nice for cleansing the skin. I know, like origins used to have this, like ginger line. My Grammy always used it. And so I pulled the little inspiration from this cleanser that she loved as well back in the day. I don’t even know if they still sell it, but that is actually an amazing ingredient for calming skin from inflammation to redness. It’s amazing. So if you’re one of those people that gets really irritated with cleansers, or has that, like, dry tightening feeling after, like, give this cleanser a shot. I’m so picky with cleansers. Like, the first product I ever made in cosmetics was a shampoo. So cleanser chemistry, I feel like, is like my bread and butter. And then we have the serum, which is super nice. It’s a water and oil serum. So it’s an emulsion. It’s not just a water based serum. So you see a lot of hyaluronic acid serums, these kind of things. This one actually takes you straight into your moisturizing routine. So it does hydrate and it also lightly moisturizes. It has 4% niacinamide, which is great for skin at all ages. It’s great at controlling oil, supporting the barrier. If you have acne or your acne prone, it’s really nice. If you have fine lines and wrinkles, it’s really nice because it’s helping to maintain hydration. So that’s the first step. It’s kind of the lightest step of everything. Then you have the Adapt cream, which I mentioned, is this, like green cream. It’s really fun. The green actually immediately gives like a slight redness cancelation. But then it has this bacillus ferment ingredient that comes from this bright, glowing red river in Spain. It’s like this crazy River, Rio Tinto. You can look it up. It looks like it’s from another planet, and that actually helps your skin with firmness, so essentially increasing elasticity, and with rebuilding your skin barrier and evening skin tone, you can literally see it working sometimes in two days, like I’ve had friends of mine send me photos and be like, What did you put in this, and then you want to keep using it. And I think this is the problem with some products. Is like the peptide serums, for example, you expect them to work right away. So this one, we have the short term benefit from the bacillus ferment, and we have the long term benefit from this peptide that we put in there. And it’s a really cool peptide. It actually helps maintain collagen, not just build it. So that is a beautiful formula. Like you can use it as an eye cream. You can use it as a spa treatment. You can use it on your whole face. I put it all over. I have a lot of redness, so I love it. And then multi moisture cream, as I mentioned, it’s an allure best beauty winner. It’s one of our favorite products, especially amongst the more mature skin demo. Like you can literally see the smoothing effect on skin when you put it on. You can also wear it as a mask overnight or just like a quick daytime mask. It’s such a cool product. I don’t know how I survive winters before it because it’s just like, the best rich cream doesn’t clog pores, like it’s it’s so good. I also use it as a hand cream during the winter. So that’s a little like hack and then our lip balm. I actually we re released the lip balm because I put a peptide in it. So we have this peptide in there that not only increases collagen production, but also helps increase the hyaluronic acid in your lips. So your lips stay hydrated longer over time. The more you use it, you know, the more production you’ll get. So again, it has short term like, you know, benefits. You would have with a normal lip balm, softening, nourishing, it has kind of a glossy finish, and then literally, like, you’ll just be like, my lips don’t get dry anymore, and I like to have short and long term benefits. So people use products long enough to see them working.

Kara Goldin 25:17
I love watching you build this brand and talk about this brand, because it’s clear that you’re building a legacy brand versus a hype driven brand. And oftentimes you see that in beauty, right? You’re going to launch with hundreds of SKUs, and, you know, try and get into the sephoras of the world immediately and do this, but, but for you and Pamela, it just seems like you’re very conscious about building a brand that is going to be around for a long time to really help people. Was there a moment when you thought, I we need to launch makeup and foundations and do a lot of that, or did you really want to focus on the skin care side of this industry first?

Kailey Bradt 26:08
Yeah, I think skin is so important, like, we forget that it’s our largest organ sometimes. Like, there’s so much to do with skin, and I think there’s also so much we’re learning about skin as well, which is really interesting. Um, but in terms of like product, like I said, we’ve been two and a half years, we launched with three SKUs. We’ve only launched two additional core SKUs since then, and we’re really mindful about like, what our community is asking for, and I will say they’re asking for quite a few things, but we also want to make sure that there’s a reason for that product to exist. So, you know, we we will do a couple more skin care products that are specific to the face, and then from there, you know, I don’t see us going into like color in a big way anytime soon, but there might be some things that we play with here and there, depending on, you know, what our community wants, and what they feel like is missing, and all those things. But, yeah, we’re really mindful. And I think me too, being so passionate about sustainability and being really mindful about what we put into the world, like I just don’t want to create something. To create something. I think a lot of brands rely on launching products for growth, and there’s so many people in the world that aren’t using, you know, the products you already made. So it’s very important to be mindful about what you’re putting out there. And again, like you know, a product for everyone is a product for no one. So find your niche and start building for those people and kind of see where it goes from there, naturally.

Kara Goldin 27:44
How are you distributing, like your go to market strategy currently and, and can you talk about how people find you?

Kailey Bradt 27:52
Yeah, we’re really focused on online. We actually haven’t even activated Tiktok shop in a big way. So because we’ve seen so much growth in that channel, that’s a big thing that we’re doing this year. We’re strictly D to C via our website right now, but we are opening global distribution facilities. So warehouses in our primary market obviously, obviously already exists, because we’re here in the US, but our second largest markets are Canada, the EU and the UK. So we’re looking to activate warehouses in all those places this year, which is really exciting, you know, really taking care of the customers that we have first, and we have the volume to support it globally. Obviously, Pamela is a huge part of that, because she’s got so much awareness. And, yeah, we’re really just getting the word out there through social right now, obviously podcasts, and I’m going to try to do some more panels and interviews this year and really talk about what we’re doing as a brand. But I just became CEO in September, so these are kind of the early days for me leading the brand, and I’m just really excited about everything we’re doing, and there’s so much potential, I feel like we fairly tapped the surface.

Kara Goldin 29:09
Kailey, thank you so much for joining me today. YOUR Story and the brand story of sansi is is so good, and it’s such a powerful reminder that great brands are built on intention integrity and products that truly stand on their own. So be sure to check out sonsy Skin calm, and follow Sonsie and Kailey and Pamela Anderson on social as well. Thank you again. Kailey really, really loved our conversation, and I’m very, very excited for you guys, great, great products, and I know that you’ll be coming out with more as well in the line, but very excited to see the next, the next few months for you guys, I should leave it at that, but I’ll see everyone. Next time on the Kara Goldin show, but Kailey, thank you again. Really, really loved our conversation.

Kailey Bradt 30:05
Thank you so much, Kara. Thank you for having me and thank you for the very thoughtful questions. Awesome.

Kara Goldin 30:11
Thanks again. Kailey, Brandt, CEO of Sonsie, 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.

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