Sarah Creal: Founder & CEO of Sarah Creal Beauty

Episode 759

On today’s episode, Kara welcomes Sarah Creal, Founder and CEO of Sarah Creal Beauty, the luxury makeup and skincare brand redefining beauty for women 40+. With nearly 30 years of experience as a Brand Architect and Product Developer for some of the world’s most iconic beauty houses — including Prada Beauty, Tom Ford Beauty, Aerin, Bobbi Brown, and Victoria Beckham Beauty — Sarah has built her career creating products that women around the world love. Now, she’s taken all that expertise to launch a brand of her own.
Sarah shares the story behind Sarah Creal Beauty — a line born out of listening to the real beauty needs of women 40+, and creating high-performance products that deliver moisture, wear, and repair. We dive into her journey from working behind the Clinique counter at Bergdorf Goodman to shaping global brands, and how she’s bringing authenticity, science, and representation to an often-overlooked demographic. From the lessons she’s learned in leadership to the art of brand-building with purpose, this episode is filled with insights for founders, creatives, and anyone ready to reinvent what beauty means at every age. 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 Sarah Creal, who is the founder and CEO of one of my new favorite brands. Sarah Creal beauty, a first of its kind, luxury makeup and skincare brand designed specifically for the women 40 plus crowd. So with nearly 30 years as a brand architect and product developer for some of the most iconic beauty brands that are out there, Kara Tom Ford, Victoria Beck, just to name a few, Sarah’s fingerprints are all over modern beauty as we know it, and now she’s channeling everything she’s learned into her own brand, one that celebrates women, 40 plus and Sarah Creal. Beauty isn’t just a brand, it’s a movement redefining representation and elegance in beauty, and I can’t wait to dive into hearing all about Sarah’s journey and also a lot more about the brand, and kind of hear what she’s seeing and where it’s going. So Sarah, welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So excited to meet you. Thank

Sarah Creal 1:55
you. So excited to be here and great to meet you. Thanks.

Kara Goldin 1:59
Super, super excited. So it is my Sarah Creal, beauty is my new obsession. So as I told you, I’ve got this beautiful My pleasure, which is in the no further questions, lip treatment with me, and I’m absolutely loving it. So let’s start at the beginning. So what is Sarah Creal beauty, how do you define it? I talked a little bit about who you’re focused on, but I’d love to hear you talk about the actual brand and what it means to you. Yeah, well,

Sarah Creal 2:37
you know, I’ve been a product developer for 30 years, as you mentioned, and and I realized I literally woke up from a dream in December of 2022 and I sat up in bed, and I was like, wait a minute, like no one is talking to me. I feel like no one is talking to me. And I was 52 at the time, and I was like, nobody is formulating for me. Nobody is educating me, telling me, like, what’s happening. And really, certainly, nobody is reflecting me back to me, especially in makeup. I mean, really not in makeup and in a way that I found aspirational. And so literally, that day Sarah Creal beauty was born, and it’s a line of luxury essentials across skin care and makeup. I focus on this trifecta of wear repair and moisturization, because that’s really where it’s at, and that’s also very hard to do, to have those things be in the same in the same formula, but that’s my focus, and it’s for babes 40 plus. So I test on babes 40 plus. I photograph only babes 40 plus, because I just, you know, I just really want women, I just want women to feel better. That’s really my mission. It’s super simple, but how I’m getting there is through my expertise. I am trying to serve them. What is it that they want, and what is it that they need? And then my product development skills hopefully can get us all there.

Kara Goldin 4:23
So you started your career behind the Clinique counter at Bergdorf Goodman. I heard, how did those early days of kind of customer facing experience shape your philosophy on on beauty? Obviously, this is very personal for you. You were looking for products like this, but you probably saw a lot of kind of different stories and what people were most concerned about when they came. You know, in that first experience,

Sarah Creal 4:55
you know, I mean, I think I Yes, I understood. Maybe, you know what some pain. Points were for women coming to the counter, but I think more importantly, what I took from that experience was the being on both sides of the counter. What does it take for a woman to come to a counter and ask for help? What level of vulnerability does she have to have to ask for help? And then also the learning of being the person who is giving the help and what it takes to understand what all of these products are that this company has told you, you know you’re supposed to be selling, what that person needs to learn? What did I need to learn? How did I get comfortable getting close to a stranger, and what would it take to actually close a sale? And, you know, how did that work? How did that whole interaction work? And I think all of those things have informed products as I’ve gone along, because I’ve always kept the customer for me. Like, what am I giving to her? Has always been my thing. But I also so empathize with selling a product, and what does it take and that shows up in my line. Like, I can give you examples of how that shows up, but yeah, that’s that was an incredible learning experience, and I would not not have had the career. Or certainly, Sarah Kara beauty would not be what it is if I hadn’t started in sales like that.

Kara Goldin 6:34
So you built and launched some of the world’s most iconic brands, their beauty lines, at least the Tom Ford beauty, Prada, Victoria Beckham beauty. What were some of the biggest lessons you took from working with I guess in many ways, were they all founder led companies? Still those, maybe the beauty side of it. But yeah, they those three that I mentioned, the founder was still around. Oh

Sarah Creal 7:06
yes, yes. Like Prada beauty, for example, was the Prada beauty of 2000 let’s be, let’s be clear, it’s not the one that’s out there. Now, just because, you know, I just don’t want to get anything confused. But so, yes, so mutual. Prada was super involved. I also worked for Bobby Brown for five years as her head of product development and her head of marketing, Tom Ford that was directly with him, and I did that with Charlotte Tilbury, and also Annie karrulo, who was my boss at the time I was I was acting as a consultant, because I just had my second baby, and Annie was my boss, and she was in charge of all of Estee Lauder. And I came back to do that project with with Charlotte. And then I went on to, yeah, to Victoria Beckham, doing the capsule collections with Estee Lauder. And then Victoria and I decided to start our own company and do that, and I would say one of the biggest lessons I learned, and I had to have this talk with myself one day when I launched Sarah Creal beauty, I had to have this conversation with myself in the shower. And I was like, Okay, Sarah, this is advice that you have given so many times, and it’s time for you to take it, which is you only have one shot to launch a brand. You really only have one shot, and you better do it right. And the reason I had to have that conversation with myself, and I had had that conversation with many of those people that I just mentioned, not Bobbi, because she already had her brand, but with others. You know, it’s expensive. It is expensive if you want to do what I wanted to do, not everybody wants to do prestige, custom packaging, you know, custom formulations. I totally get that, but that’s what I love, and that’s where I am, and that is expensive. It’s expensive to get the design work done. It’s expensive to tool the packages. But anyway, you know you’re just you’ve got one shot.

Kara Goldin 9:13
Yeah, definitely. So you decide to launch Sarah Kara beauty, what were the I guess, how many SKUs Did you launch with? What did you think needed to exist in this line in order to get going?

Sarah Creal 9:32
One of the things that’s a big benefit of coming from both big beauty, like I did at Estee Lauder and L’Oreal, like in my background, as well as startup like Victoria Beckham, which was just a piece of paper when I started, is that you understand that you as even if you have a great idea, you better do your homework. You better get some data. There is confirmation bias, and we’re. All, you know, we’re all vulnerable to that. So anyway, so the first thing that I did, actually, after calling my older sister, I called my older sister, and I was like, Okay, I just have a question for you. She lives in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. She’s a lawyer, like, you know. I’m like, Okay, do you have a hard time finding products that work for you. And she’s like my vanity is a graveyard of formulas that don’t work. And so I kind of had her take me through it, and you know, and I understood that, yes, she was having a hard time. But then I surveyed 2000 women across the United States over the age of 40, luxury beauty shoppers, and I asked them, not only how did they feel about beauty, did they feel like they were being represented? What were the kind of terms that they liked and they didn’t like? Turns out, anti aging is okay. Don’t you dare say mature skin, you know, just things like that. But ultimately, I wanted to know what were their real pain points, and so I started there, and that’s where the collection started, because, again, this line is not it’s got my name on it, yeah, but it’s only because I put my name there for the fact that I have actually been doing this for 30 years, and I wanted the credibility of my name. It’s not about this is what I need. These are the products I need. I’m trying to figure out what are the products that she, in general, is lacking? Where are her pain points? So one was, I can’t keep hydration in my skin, right? So I created a liquid moisturizer called moisture source, which looks like this, and and so this is a liquid moisturizer. It’s a bi phase. So that means that one part is water, one part is oil. You shake it and you use it on clean skin. But this is where my sales experience came into, you know, into play like It looks like a cold drink of water. It’s a reminder. You know, this is where the design informs the function. But, yeah, there’s just, there were so many needs so I can’t keep hydration in my skin. I hate wearing sunscreen, so I came up with something that was not just a sunscreen, but a tint that illuminates, that acts as an antioxidant serum with an SPF 50 mineral, non commuter, genic, okay, check. Like, everything. I just tried to, like, get to the, get to the bottom of like, why didn’t she want to wear something or use something, or why wasn’t it working anymore? And one of the biggest revelations in that research was that most women, by the time they are 55 which is how old I am now, quiet, quit mascara, and they’re either doing like, fake lashes, or they are just not doing anything, because when they put on their mascara after about an hour, it’s failing them. They’re getting it under their eyes. It’s smudging everywhere, and they’re like, just forget it, right? But what I realized, and it took me a while to kind of unwind the tape, I realized it’s not the mascara itself. I mean, the mascara is not helping, but the storyline goes basically like this picture, you’re in your 30s, okay? You’re like, this is my mascara. I have found the Holy Grail. It’s a traditional volumizing mascara, and it is like the best thing ever, ever, ever, and I love it. So you’ve got this thing going say you’re 30, over the next 1015, years, you’re adding an eye cream, you’re adding a concealer that has coverage and moisturization, and those things are acting like a makeup remover on this traditional mascara, but she doesn’t see that. She just sees the mascara is failing. So I realized I’m like, I need an eye cream that actually moisturizes inside the skin, doesn’t sit on top the moisture goes where it’s supposed to a concealer that is a thin filmed it sets and then flexes, which is our face flex concealer, which looks like this, and then a mascara that is volumizing, but it’s tubing, so which means that the polymer breaks at 38 degrees Celsius. It does not come off with oils, so you just use warm water and it rinses off, which, as an extra benefit, is super gentle on all of your lashes. So this the lineup. It was seven things, it was six products and a brush. And a lot of people were like, where did you come up with this line? It’s a concealer, it’s a mascara. It’s a liquid moisturizer, it’s a sunscreen. I could, you know, but all of these things came out of the research, and they, to me, were the most urgent things I had to solve for

Kara Goldin 15:12
well, and I love how you focused on the basics, and definitely for the 40 plus, because hydration in the skin is personally my number one, and the it what you have done. I mean, your foundations are beautiful as well. So they’re, they’re absolutely gorgeous. I’m so curious because, well, first of all, your packaging, too, is just so unique and so beautiful, but also the foundations seem really small. Was there a conscious decision about that? Like, how did you decide that? Well, the

Sarah Creal 15:53
reality is, I mean, this is, I call this a concealer and complexion enhancer. It can be used so many different ways. It can be used three different ways. You can use it as a concealer just under the eyes, like dot, dot, dot, okay. You can use it as a full face coverage. Or you can also blend it. I formulated it so you can mix it with moisture source. So you put a couple of drops of moisture source in your hand. You put one swab of this the face flex in your hand, and then you use the concealer brush, and you mix the whole thing, and you paint it on. And for me, having that level of flexibility, I It’s an I. It’s not that women aren’t wearing full coverage every day. But this is more of a concealer than it is a foundation, really. And so I made it a concealer size, and it also a little bit this package used as a concealer and a tint lasts for six months.

Kara Goldin 17:01
Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. It seemed, yeah, it seems very concentrated. You don’t really have to lose very much of it.

Sarah Creal 17:10
No, no. It’s really, if I, if I made it like a one ounce size, you would just have it forever. It would be, you know, and eventually, you know, you need products go bad. You don’t want to keep using something that you’re dipping in and out. I mean, obviously it has the all the preservative system in it that’s going to keep it pristine. But, you know, you don’t want something that’s going to last for two years.

Kara Goldin 17:35
No, was there? Were there any products that you developed? You’ve been doing this for a while so and have a huge familiarity with with formulating and and doing products. But is there one product that you developed, either for Sarah Creal beauty or throughout your career that you really are most proud of that was so hard to develop? But yes,

Sarah Creal 17:59
yes, I can answer that really super easily, because I just launched it. I just launched it, and it took me two years. It took me from the very first day I got on this, and that is my new creamy Cajal, Long Wear liner. It’s called Eyes up, because why not? And and this, because this was, I started in a completely different direction than where I was at Victoria Beckham on that, on that formula, the satin Cajal for this, I started, I wanted something that was going to be completely transfer proof, so something that you has the creamy lay down, which this does, I can just show you like here, like, I mean, it’s like, super it’s like, super buttery, but it gives you a minute. You can blend it, okay, you can blend it out, and then it sets. And it sets for 24 hours. It’s transfer proof, waterproof. It really smudge proof. It’s not going to go under your eyes. And all of this I was working on, and I got to the 18 month mark, and the laboratory said to me, no more. Like, no more we’ve spent, like, all the R and D, time and effort we’re going to and I’m like, but you don’t have it. You don’t have it yet, you know. And they were like, you have it. And I’m like, nope, nope, I don’t have it. And you don’t have it. And, you know. And it really was hard, but I made enough of a business case eventually that they agreed to keep going, and they did for another six months, and then we had it. And so then, you know, I’ve tested this formula. Now I’m so excited because I tested it, I also, like, I just raised the bar for myself. I most people who are testing any kind of product or testing on a panel. It’s like ages 20 to 40. That’s your basic panel. So I recruit for usually 40 to 65 because it’s harder, you know, you can imagine, like somebody who’s evaluating your eyeliner, who has very smooth lids, is going to say, Yes, this has great glide. But if you’re putting this on people who are, you know, 5565 you know, and they have lines and wrinkles, do they say it has great glide? Is it giving them a really precise line where they want it, you know? Is it transferring onto their actual hoods of their eyes, which actually exist? You know what I mean. So I did that, and then I also made sure that the panel itself, in order to qualify to be on the panel, you had to have sensitive eyes. So the entire panel was a sensitive eye panel, and that, for me, was also important. And it’s just personal, like, at this point, it’s like, I’m running a race against myself. That’s kind of how I feel. I’m like, I want to make her life better. And I want to know when she wears this long wear eyeliner, is it going to feel comfortable? You know, not only is it not going to do all those things moving all over her face, but is she actually going to like wearing it? So that’s been the hardest so far.

Kara Goldin 21:26
Part of it, how different is this role, actually running the company or founding your own brand, versus actually doing, doing the development and really kind of the the feel of a brand for someone else, like the buck stops with you, right? Your name is on the package, all of those things. So How different is it for you to to be in this new role?

Sarah Creal 21:59
You know, honestly, it’s a joy. It’s a joy because even when you are like the number two banana, you know, you’re like second banana, which I have been for most of my career, you know, a lot of the Bucks stop with you, and not the fun ones. You know, the fun bucks don’t stop with you. And in this position, like the not so fun, and the fun buck stops with me. So I get to make the creative decisions. I get to, you know, have what’s, what is my vision of this? I’m not held back by anybody else’s idea of what this brand should be like, Oh, it’s too this. It’s too that, you know, I could say, like, No, I want to, I want to say, I want to call this, I want to call this lip gloss on top. I’m like, a woman should be on top. You know, you can take it however you want, and I don’t care, you know, it’s just fun. So, so that’s, it’s been really a joy and a privilege.

Kara Goldin 22:58
I love it. So when you launched, did you launch with a retail partner? Did you launch online initially? Did both?

Sarah Creal 23:06
Yeah, I launched online. I launched on Sarah Creal beauty.com and the truth of the matter was, I had such a hard time getting funding at the beginning, because really I just, I ran into a lot of male investors who were like, I just don’t think older women really want to look at other older women, you know? And I was like, No, I don’t really know, nope. But anyway, that was, that was kind of the feedback that I was getting, and I got a lot of it over one week, I had had three meetings and I and they were all no’s, and they were also accompanied by, like that refrain. And I thought to myself, You know what? It’s gonna this is like a Kevin Costner Field of Dreams moment, like, I am just gonna have to build this sucker. I’m gonna have to build it, and they will come. And so that’s why I had to have that conversation with myself in the shower, you know, because I was putting my own money in and, you know, trying to, trying to make it all happen. What was your original question?

Kara Goldin 24:14
Because so did you launch with a retail partner that sounds like you launched online? No, but that’s important, because it’s, you know, here you’ve had all this experience, and the, you know, the it, I mean, it’s, I remember when we were first raising money for the brand I found at hint, it’s like, you’re so excited about it, your friends are excited about your family’s excited about it, and then all of a sudden, you walk in and they’re questioning everything. I mean for me, I was a diet coke addict, and I was owning that I was a diet coke addict and that I had figured out that what I really needed was better tasting water without sweeteners in it in order to give up the. That other bad habit that I had, and I had more men looking at me saying, I’ll have to ask my wife if she feels the same way about diet coke and some of the, you know, other diet products that were out there, and ultimately, none of them invested, right? It was, it was, but it was like somebody saying your baby’s ugly, while everyone else around you is saying, Go, Sarah, right. And you’re like, Is this ever going to happen? Because I need those checks.

Sarah Creal 25:32
Yes, yes, right. Well, so then I ended up, I ended up actually going to my ex husband for a second time. Like, if you can imagine, you know, it’s like, you talk about Humble Pie. It was like, a lot of humble pie. I mean, we have a really good relationship. But he had said no at the beginning. And he was like, You know what? He’s like, I know nothing about beauty. I’m in the record business, you know. And so, so he initially said no, but then I went back to him, and I was like, Listen, I’ve never raised money before, but what I understand is, like, if one person jumps in the pool, other people will jump in the pool. Can you just please jump in the pool? And he was one, actually, who said, okay, yeah, I’ll do it on one condition, one condition. And I was like, what’s that? And he was like, that, you call it by your name. So he said, because otherwise, you know, he goes, you’re gonna spend the first five minutes of every interview explaining how you’re related to the company, blah, blah. And he’s like, and you’ve been doing this, and a lot of those brands that are out there that have like five letters and don’t make any sense, it’s because the people behind them have never done anything like this, you know. So anyway, I got started that way, and then I just put my head down, and I just got it done. I developed the packages, I developed the formulas, and I was like, just had a small team, and we were off to the races, and we were going to launch on Sarah Crealbeauty.com On June 3 in 2024 Okay, that was our Go date. And I kind of just forgot about the rest of the world. I really did, because I took the nose kind of so seriously that I was like, I’m just gonna do it until it’s like, done, and then, and then people will see what I mean, what I’m talking about. So but what happened was I ended up reaching out to Allison Han at Sephora and congratulating her for like, 12 years at Sephora. I was like, you know, amazing. And she wrote back. She was like, It’s awfully quiet over the Creole camp. She’s like, What are you up to? What are you doing? And I said, Well, believe it or not, I’m creating my own brand. And she was like, oh my god, I would love to see that when I come to New York next. So, long story short, she took a quick look. I didn’t have very much together. It was February of 2024, and she said, I’d really like Amy Abrams, who’s on my team, you know, who’s amazing. She’s like, I’d like her to come when the next time she comes to New York, to come see you, and you can show her, you know, where you are. So I was like, Okay, great. So Amy came to my apartment in April, and by then, I had everything done, and she walked in and she was like, Wait a minute. What? Like, when are you launch? Are you ready to launch? And I’m like, I’m gonna launch. June 3. Yeah. And she was like, Are you insane? She’s like, I can’t believe I haven’t seen this. This is amazing. And what was I scheduled? A one hour meeting. She made it a two hour meeting. It ended up being a three and a half hour meeting. And at the end of that meeting, it was done. She was like, I would like to launch this with you exclusively as soon as possible. Would you do that with us? And I was like, Yes, I would. And so what I didn’t realize up until that moment was that as much as So, much of the face of investment is male. Guess what? The face of retail is female, and they are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. And they really, really, you know, are the decision makers and and they saw the need for this brand like immensely. So it was the quickest that they’d ever put together a gondola. And we launched September 3, so three months after we launched on our own.com we launched in Sephora, in 22 doors, and on sephora.com now we’re in a little over 80

Kara Goldin 29:36
doors. That’s terrific. Well, and that’s, I mean, that is not an easy thing to to have happen, but it just goes to show you. I mean, like, the quality of your work over the years, it’s time, right? And I think that’s what people were telling you. So that’s so, so cool. So five. Finally, what’s one piece of advice you’d give, maybe, to women over 40 who are thinking about starting something new, starting a business, and whether it’s a business that is in the beauty industry or not. I mean, what is the one piece of advice you would give to

Sarah Creal 30:18
people? I mean, really, I would say, get started. Yeah, I love it. Do not do not wait for perfection. I tell my team all the time like we are prizing speed and agility over perfection. And it’s true for a brand. It’s true for yourself. It’s true for your own project. You know, do your homework. Make sure you’ve done the obvious. Because I hear from investors a lot of times they get presented things that people have really not done their homework. Like, is there anything else they’re out there? Like, what you’ve got, you know, going on? So make sure you definitely do your homework. But once you’ve done that, like, just start, just put one foot in front of the other and just get in there.

Kara Goldin 31:04
I love it. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today, and I love hearing about you, about your journey, and also all of the great work you’ve done. You should be so proud. Sarah Creal, beauty is it’s such a beautiful line. I’ve told so many people about it. I’m definitely in your strike zone. Yeah, definitely. And for everyone listening, definitely go to Sarah Creal beauty.com or Sephora.

Sarah Creal 31:35
And if you want to find a Sephora, also that is near you on my website, we have a store locator, so because I’m not in full distribution yet, so go on to like Sarah Crealbeauty.com and you can find a Sephora near you if you want to go that route. Amazing.

Kara Goldin 31:53
So, and as always, please share this episode with friends, leave a quick review, and until next time on the Kara Goldin show, Sarah, thank you so much.

Sarah Creal 32:03
Thank you. You’re so welcome, and thanks so much. It’s been such a pleasure to talk with you.

Kara Goldin 32:08
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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