Powering a Purpose-Driven Cosmetics Brand: Jenn Harper, CEO of Cheekbone Beauty

Welcome to Logistics with Purpose, presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain Now. We spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact. Join us for this behind-the-scenes glimpse of the origin stories, change-making progress, and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference. Our goal isn't just entertaining, but to inspire you to go out and change the world. And now here's today's episode of Logistics with Purpose. Hi, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Logistics with Purpose. I am Christie Porter with Vector Global Logistics, and this is, of course, Logistics with Purpose Podcast, the only podcast dedicated to Supply Chain's positive impact. Today, we have an amazing example of that in motion. Somebody I got to hear speak last year. I'm excited to introduce you to her today. Jen Harper, she is a visionary entrepreneur, changemaker, named one of women Canada's most powerful women, top 1224. What a title. She's also the CEO and founder of Cheekbone Beauty, if you haven't heard of them, and Canada, you have heard of them. If you haven't heard of them yet outside of there, you will soon, I'm sure. Probably certified B-Corp Cosmetics Company redefining sustainability and indigenous representation in the beauty industry. She is an ultimate example of purpose-driven innovation, leadership, and cultural empowerment. Jen, how are you? Welcome to the show. I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here, and I'm so excited after that. I'm ramped up just after your interview. I'm so excited to talk to you, and I know a little bit of your story, but so excited to hear more of it and bring more of it to our audience and learn more about you myself. We were just having some fun conversation behind the scenes, but we'll bring that now to our listeners. Before we get into Cheekbone and some more of your background, then I'm going to ask you just some quick questions to get warmed up, and you can respond with the first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Okay, so what's your favorite hobby? A walking. Oh, good. That's a good one. What's one thing you do to stay productive? Schedule. And really, I think the word, like, time block, right? Yes. So schedule kind of everything that has to be scheduled or sadly won't happen. Agreed. Agreed. Favorite book or movie? Oh, wow. My favorite book. I just finished reading it last year. Oh, my goodness. The title is about hospitality. Oh, it's like a fancy adjective and then the word hospitality. All right, but it's about the one of the co-founding partners of Madison Park in Toronto, and I'm Toronto in New York City, and just the incredible lengths that they would go to for at the end of the day, customer service and what that looks like on just such an excellent scale. Remarkable hospitality and something like that. I'm sorry. I'm like, no, that's great. I'll probably break that fancy adjective. No, it wasn't a book made in impression on you. That's what matters and find it linked to it. Yeah, I read that at the end of last year, and it was just like a standout of I think what all businesses should be striving for. And for me, as you'll learn, like, my history prior to getting into beauty was my origins, if you will, are rooted in the hospitality industry. So I found it to be very fascinating. Oh, okay. I can't wait to talk about that. We have that in common. And then of course we have to ask you make a wish. I love that. Thank you. So I do want to hear it. You know, the hardest thing I think about asking people those short answer questions is really I wanted to dig into those as well, but thank you for those answers. But I also want to hear more about your background. We started talking about that before we got on the call. And now I want to hear more about it. So tell us a little bit more about your childhood and where you grew up. So I was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, which is the largest sort of city between Toronto and Winnipeg, if you will, because there's a lot of small towns between here and that part of Canada. So Ontario being the province in the middle, if you will, in Toronto is like the biggest city in our country, but it's still relatively small community kind of situated in the middle of nowhere. So I was born there because my mom was a lake head university student and she had met my dad. They were very young when they had me. Well, young and I think she was just turning 20 and he was 20 to 23 almost 23 and they had moved to Toronto, partly thereafter, their relationship didn't last very long. So then moved to the Niagara region in St. Catharines, Ontario with my mom at the both the age of four and her and I. She was a single mom. We lived here until she met my stepfather and then had my two brothers and my dad went on to meet someone else and had three boys with them with her. And so very like blended family, but I'm the only child of my parents and St. Catharines is and was as I was growing up. Again, another very small but big kind of town like it has all this, but it's not a big city like Toronto ward or anything like that. But yeah, so really quiet. I think upbringing, if you will. Fantastic. Well, it sounds like you already had some interesting experiences, both in locale, blended family, the superpowers that come with being a single mother. Is there story from your early years now that you're looking back that you think, oh, that I can see kind of now how that's led me to the path that I'm on or I really resonate with that or, you know, how we've somehow turned into our parents despite not wanting to. So true. So true. Oh my goodness. So like so many things like and you know therapy takes us on all these wild journeys of understanding our parents and but I really believe and see because sometimes people ask this question. They're like, you came from this and you started this and you're still working on this. And though I don't think of cheap bones being super successful, it's perceived that way and I feel like we're just getting started and there's so much more work for us to do. But people wonder like how do you not give up is I think a big question I get a lot. And my mom, even though has like, it comes from her own massive dysfunction of her upbringing and childhood. I really recognize how she had created me to be confident and confident with the sense of like that. I know it's not this false confidence word. I learn that like you get that confidence and I've learned you get confidence from actually accomplishing things and doing things. And so it's really I think with the support of a really solid parent in that way that that confidence can be developed in us. And so I'm really grateful for that and then flip side when I think of like parenting skills and my mother's still alive and I lever to death, but like just some awful decisions for sure, but really made me in a sense stronger. Yeah. I'm able to handle more challenges like I went to like, oh my goodness, no joke like 10 different schools through elementary and high school. Yeah, three different high schools that how hard is high school to begin with. Yeah. So just in my mom being an army kid or she calls herself an army brat that they moved around the world and she thought that was normal. Right. I moved every year, every two years and when I met my husband, he has lived in the same house as entire like with both of his back. So it's just really interesting people's different perspectives, but being forced to start a new school every couple of years makes you learn to adapt, you know, I recognize I used to bend my personality to get kids to like me and make up stories and all kinds of things. And that really proved to be a great skill when I got into sales later on, right? Like you're just trying to get someone to like you or buy your thing. It's come to the same thing. It's that influence. So yeah, really strangely odd and tough and dysfunctional, but super loving. Like we were never wealthy, super poor, but never starved like my mom would always come up with I could always when I look back, I could tell obviously when money was tight because it would be like we're having all of this sort of vegetable dish and there's no meat. There are something like that, right? So you I would just like I would notice things like that now when I recognize, but it was still delicious that we were still fed. Right. Yeah, it wasn't a conscious meatless Monday decision. That's like affordability. Yes, for sure. Well, and even just the moving around, you must have learned a lot about adaptability and flexibility, which are incredible lessons for an entrepreneur. Certainly hard ones to learn to live as a young kid, but ones that can certainly help pay off when you run your own business as well. Exactly. Well, let's talk about your professional journey. So you started in sales and marketing, working for some of those international corporations, telling me about the hospitality background. My first job ever was as a dishwasher in like a restaurant. That was like famous for like a family of Sunday dinner, family style kind of place. And I remember that just being such a horrible job, but for some reason I had sort of stuck in that industry. And so it went from being the dishwasher, then to like the bus girl, then to a server, and then spent probably about 12 years in and then in management, even through school kind of thing. So I was always in that space. In Niagara, we have a lot of wineries in our area. So lots of like boutique style hotels and fine dining restaurants. And so I found myself in my later years before leaving that path in hospitality in those kinds of places. And it's so heavily focused on the details of the customer experience, just like I know the rooms in this one in there's only like 20 rooms or 24 rooms, but the detail of how each room was designed to like marry one of the vineyards in the local area. And then even just the detail that went into designing the menus. And when you're working with like not only a chef, the pastry chef like the Garmanger chef and like the details that each of these people would put into the food that they're putting on the plate and how the dining room experience was I learned so many things from being in that space and reading that book. I was like, Oh, wow, it's just brought back so many incredible experiences and then how you sort of strive for that when you are in that kind of environment and learning under that kind of environment, you really recognize the power of making someone's day special in the hospitality industry. You have that opportunity a lot in the early days of building chief when I knew that that was the kind of place that we wanted people to feel we knew we're e-commerce business. That's where we started, but even through e-commerce how your customer service experience operates is really important. You're kind of like this unknown entity in the ethos of the internet and how do you really connect with the customer and it was it's about providing really thoughtful intentional experiences. Because we used to wrap our orders hand wrap them and then each order you're getting it was a pink feather in the origin days. And I was really just trying to come up with something that would be super special and memorable for the customer and that was just one of the unique things that we had done. It really has led to how we try to accommodate all of our customers. We don't want people to purchase a cheap own product and them not be happy with it. So even when it is something that they don't like in terms of maybe a shade. We really are super accommodating and to try to make like we're not like no refunds. If you buy it, it's yours forever. We're like, no, we want you to have an incredible experience with our brand and we layer and weave all of that into the brand even today. I love that. And yes, I think everybody should have a hospitality experience at some point. It's very humbling. There's a very short feedback loop. Somebody is immediately happy or immediately angry. And it is, yeah, it is one of those where when you make somebody's day, it is worth all those hours on your feet and it is, you know, a whole different subculture unto itself as, you know, of course, the bear is very popular in less now. But I'm like, how we not had more shows about this industry because it is so it's own ecosystem, for sure. But yes, everyone should have that experience because I feel like so many people, you lose all sense of entitlement. If you've been on the other side, when you walk into a restaurant and you know, like, I am very, we should always make a restaurant to how big is our group, you know, I'm always very thinking through those aspects having been on the other side of it. And you are very personalized to how you treat people. And so, yeah, it is, it is definitely a new lived experience. So I love that. And it's, it's, I feel like it's, I was just having this conversation with someone the other day. It's very sad that we have to remark so much about good customer service because it has become so rare. So I love the fact of how much time and effort you've put into that and wanting to, especially as an e-commerce business, you could be very hands off. You could be like, sorry, it's just, you can't return it to a store. You can't, you know, do all of those things, but you've really gone the extra links tonight. I love to hear that. So what brought you to cheekbone that, you know, it's a hard left from hospitality to a beauty business. So how did you end up there and what gap did you see? Yeah. So in between hospitality, I then left that because obviously we're constantly dealing with sales people from food service suppliers. And so left hospitality and went to work for Cisco Broadline Food Distribution and then found myself in just strictly seafood. And so I was a sales and marketing rep for a seafood company and that was in 2015 when I was still there. I had a actual pop out of bed, middle of the night dream, because how does someone go from, yeah, it's like it's complete. And like you said, hard left of these three name of little girls covered in lip gloss and it was so crystal clear to me, like I still can't, like because I'm when I think about it in my reasonable sensible self mind right now is like in the right mind does that, right? Like says, yeah, I'm falling your dreams, yeah, selling fish to starting what I thought was going to be this brand and it was at the time just a lip gloss, but that it felt so real. I felt like that was my path and face it, I really believe it was right. It was what I was intended and supposed to do is as challenging as entrepreneurship is, I feel like we've just been able to one exist in a really competitive market space, but also fill a gap in the sense that. So I have this dream and those three native little girls so the whole like if I'm just being like, hey, why how well there's clearly never been a brand that marketed to people of color and like in general we see and have seen a lot of black founded brands come, but even now we're talking this dream was just almost it was 10 years ago now. And that is sort of just feels like it's coming to the surface, like when you're going to like the Liberty. Yeah, like that I swear that was only like seven years ago that launched Fenty eight years ago maybe. And so it's relatively new and back then I was like really strongly just focused on this idea of representation and how much I thought it mattered and still do, but that was the initial foundation and then I get into the beauty industry as people learn and start to discover things about a space. They find themselves in there was just so many like areas or like needs improvement right like went down the list of like just an industry, notorious for waste, like regulated single use product like there was just so many gaps in the beauty space once I started to spend more time here that I realized, OK, if we can get this in front of enough people, like I feel like that's where we can truly make a difference. And yeah, and everybody is focused on these things like the clean category and clean beauty and surely make up safer humans is number one priority on many people's list, but the longer we've been here the more we saw this gap of like clean doesn't necessarily mean safe for the planet. And that's where we really have honed in we're taking these indigenous route seriously about this idea of land stewardship right like that's what indigenous people are known for around the world. How can we incorporate that into this brand and that meant thinking really deeply and thoughtfully and honestly and transparently about supply chain, how and where things are made. And at the end of the life of this product what's really happening to it like are things being recycled aren't they like so so many questions over the years so many more to answer and figure out but that was essentially the foundation and how we started and where did the name come from. I was had worked on this for quite some time almost like nine months to a year I think, but I hadn't had a name so you have this idea this thing you're working on you're talking about it with like some few close people. And I was listening to a podcast and the founder of spanks was on it terribly clear and so she was talking about how she named spanks and one was the K sound from the letter K how it's memorable and people remember it. So then I became obsessed with finding a K sounding word and she rhymed off a bunch of brands like Nike Coca-Cola like all of these brands with K in it and another day driving around because as a rep you do a lot of driving work. And I was like cheekbone oh my goodness like I love cheekbones on every human indigenous people are known for having higher more prominent cheekbones like at historical pictures and paintings and you see like chiefs of try like it's just cheekbones were always popping in those photos and anything that you look up and then I got home and did some marketing research on it and people with higher cheekbones were perceived as more trustworthy so I was like a new brand you're looking for trust in building that and. And the word became cheekbone and at first in Canada when we applied for our trademark it's our logo with the word cheekbone and Canada rejected it but then I applied for it in the United States and then they approved it and so then Canada we went back to them and they're like okay fine. Like your bigger they said yes you but you can have it then so it works. Oh that's so interesting I again I'm gonna have to find that podcast or get you to send it to me that's really I don't even remember which one where she was talking about it. That's interesting and she I always feel like I would love to see her kitchen for many reasons but I love following her on Instagram because she must have an endless supply of coffee mugs because they all have these what we say and things and so like every photo and I feel as her of the saying in this coffee mug so she must have an endless supply of them but I bet you should have the coffee mug covered. I bet so I bet so I love a very large one but that's really cool about the sound of that and and how it all came to be speaking of your core values all of this has sort of blended together so well based on the seven indigenous grandfather teachings love respect bravery truth honesty humility wisdom. Tell us more about this how do they influence your day to day leadership and how do they kind of you know there's at the center of your brand people are learning much more about your culture at the same time they're trying to buy makeup which is so cool and so tell us just how how it influences you and how it's kind of come to become the ethos of your brand. This is so tough because culture is very precious to many of us right like depending on who we are where we come from it's got different perspectives based on people and so this was always really tough one the word indigenous is like a pan term. So much like Asian like week it be from totally different countries have totally different cultural practices and all of our tribes and nations around the world really are different yet the same in many ways and I think when building brand. I looked at this as this opportunity to express and I think teach more people about indigenous people in particular where I came from so I'm Ojibwe I come from the Ojibwe nation in Canada. But our tribe and nation literally and I'm only using these two different words just so everyone understands from like a perspective depending on where you are we talk about ourselves in different ways. So in the US the word tribe is very common in Canada nation is how we talk about our groups of people and historically though for us there was never that border so Ojibwe people if you go to Minneapolis or Minnesota like that entire area is all of our people. And my home reservation where my father lives is literally like I think half an hour from the Minnesota border not even right and so in building this I was like okay we're going to incorporate my culture but also when we talk about it publicly we're going to like use the language of indigenous so that it feels more encompassing of us as a whole. And yet there are similarities and differences so because I feel like I can only really speak to my culture that's where we then add into the branding and building the really the teachings but which is really interesting about many indigenous groups we all have teachings that come from our certain nations and tribes right so. And a lot of them have very similar stories and story lines and our history as groups of people is also fascinating because no one was ever writing books back then we really are what they call an oral society we passed everything down through storytelling it's still even to this day how many of our communities operate. The older ones are elders as we call them in our communities will really passed on on wisdom and knowledge to the next generation through storytelling at ceremonies events family events if I'm into my family is very traditional and I'm not because I grew up with my mom who's not indigenous right so obviously I have a different upbringing then if I would have lived with my dad and so any family event now if I'm there and my father's there and our family there's always sort of and I know I'm going to be like I'm going to have a family. There is sort of an elder from our community there and literally it's just conversation but what's happening is this transfer of information from one generation to the next and it's really a beautiful way to see how these things are passed on I knew from my experience in the corporate world of all the organizations I work for that every company has a set of core values. When building cheekbone I thought wow I'm like how this opportunity I can think about you know all the good companies I've worked for and when I've loved about them and then the opposite of like oh what did I not like about. And we can build core values and based on the kind of business that we want to work in and what we want to see in the world and so we took these seven grandfather teachings and married them together in different ways but really important for us is just this and what they really are is a set of values and principles. So we all have those as our own individual humans and human beings like we would hope we all have our own set of values and principles that we stand by. And so we just layered that into the business and when I think about how we hire like are these people demonstrating these core values or these values and principles that we know operate and work well within our organization right. So it's been helpful in that manner and that it's also been helpful for so many things like when I think about just the teaching about humility like to me it's one of the most important ones because we're so imperfect and I'm having conversations like this one with you I'm on stages and I'm sharing information about this idea of protecting our planet. But the facts are like we humans we've not done a great job in this arena and that's why we're in the state that we're in and so I think it's about being really open and honest and clear and that's where humility comes in. I feel so many times people think they've solved something and it's like even if there's imperfections and that they'd rather like die on that mountain. And instead of seeing the imperfections and seeing where we can change things like right now like brands are existing to like vilify things. Like they just love saying how horrible it is meanwhile if we don't look at the overall picture yes we know it's material humans created that we know is not going anywhere it can be repurposed we now know that energy consumption to use it is less than was required in making aluminum wood glass all of these things later multiple reasons but it's like are we being clear about where it's coming from now in this PCR version and what that means and is that being made safely and all those things. So there's tons of questions and nuances surrounding that but instead of us as a brand ever just like vilifying something without sort of having all the facts. And the only reason I'm sharing this is because this is sort of a new space for us and we're moving into more wholesale opportunities and some small independent boutiques are like literally sending us oh you use plastic. No and I'm like well what kind of education is this poor independent retailer getting based on what they've been told about certain things and I can tell them but it's just amazing to me how much and fast misinformation travels because what marketers love to do and what they've been great at is just one line or as one words. Clean beauty you know eco front like we all think these things mean something but nothing means anything unless you have the facts and evidence to back it up right and really be clear that nothing's 100%. That's what people want to they would like we get the question about pfa's which is a horrible chemical thing but the truth is if you test it all of us it's in us now because we have so much of this crap on the planet that it's literally seeped into everything. So I would I can never say to anyone with a clean conscience that yes we don't intentionally add any of those ingredients are against like that to our product but would I be able to ever say something's 100% well no right I just even feel comfortable doing that because I feel like what if it that day in the manifold like I just you know what I mean like this is how we try to do it this is the ingredients we've sourced and supplied but the 100% scenario and it's unfortunate because as human beings we just love everything to be black and white and it's just that way right we want about this but this is where these teachings play such a big role like I know some brands will just be like yep we 100% don't do this and I'm like how could they say that they don't like and brands about ingredients they use and then like we're vegan and then there's like Sarah Elba I'm like you know that's beeswax right like it's just there's such a lack of information and when you talked about regulation I think you mentioned that a little yep so regulation happens on a large scale for giant companies that have a team of lawyers but I'm sorry the scariest part that we should all be afraid of is an individual that doesn't have necessarily the education or the background that's making makeup in their kitchen that's possibly getting a supply chain from somewhere around the world that they know nothing about and now they have an e-commerce business but they don't know enough information actually and that's not regulated but if this is where the tough thing is because we beat up all these giant conglomerates but the truth is they're so protected and have done the legwork to make sure their regulatory and compliance concerns are covered you know we all know they've done like ingredient I think for a long time there was ingredients that were like lead and heavy metals and things that of course should never have been right we're talking about those were removed I think during like the industrial age yeah it was so long ago that that is certainly not going to happen anymore and it's this shift because we know people like me who have this idea and started a business and I knew nothing from the beginning and what I know now I wouldn't have bought from me in the beginning because I'm telling the truth like how we started to where we are is completely different but on my path I've admitted and learned and when I learned something it's what the Maya Angel quote will be no better we will do better right and so that has been who we have been all along and that's why we're really open and transparent about the path and the journey but to me the scariest part is the folks that just like have no background in the industry and they're just selling stuff on the internet right yeah it's a lot of great points thank you for unpacking that and thank you for there's always two sides to every conversation nobody can know enough nobody can do enough I feel like that's always there's always a full conversation to have and like you said we are people who want guarantees we want that hundred pursuit we want that logo even you know as busy consumers I think there's a lot to even learn like you know you're hoping a logo helps you make a better decision and a certification and you're at least making a better choice than you did the day before but they're all very complex scenarios and as you said you know one of the things we learn and marketing is one of the easiest and best tactics is to create a villain and so I feel like all of that comes into play so thank you for doing that and thank you for also just the leadership and saying here's where I where I've learned and here's where we messed up and here's where we're trying to do better and I feel like that's an important part to play as well and I want to talk about speaking of those topics the B Corp certification which we're both proud members one of the reasons we chose to do it is because as a marketer I fall for marketing tactics every day very gladling and happily and you know I wanted I wanted us to have a certification that said it's not just what we say there's somebody else you know there as well and we wanted people to feel better about those things and so I'd be curious you know that's where I first heard you speak was at the conference last year you've been certified since 2022 so you're a couple years ahead of us and I'd love to hear why did you take that journey what has that process been for you and how has it helped you refine your process yeah so a lot of times I do get this question of like where when it comes to sustainability like where did you start how did you start I discovered the B Corp community many years ago and had not done a deep dive into it you're just seeing the logo yeah you know hit the website try to figure out who they are and really discovered that oh okay this is really interesting and then you know whether it's coming from my seafood world you know you start to learn a lot about certifications and seals and what they really mean and if they actually mean something and unfortunately on this journey I've learned that many seals and certifications don't mean anything except a brand is willing to write a check to the organization right and that felt so unfortunate like and then we started to do this deep dive of B Corp and what that would mean for us as a small business and it really just gave us a platform to start from like like and I was we were willing to like go all in and recognize where we would need to make changes and improvements but then at least we would have somewhere to start from and no matter what the results were and so that was our journey and really discovered that this is a process and it's about questioning everything that you're doing yeah supplying the B Corp people with the answers and looking at your entire supply chain from everything that you're doing employee engagement all of those sorts of things and really seeing where you stand and I feel personally that the B Corp community and this certification isn't just a matter of writing a check it's it takes time and it's a process and it's one of the only ones that I personally now believe and after this process of seeing how many others operate and it aligns so well with our indigenous values they're extremely similar and the belief system and so I felt it was just something that as an indigenous brand that it would give the consumer who's educated enough to understand a seal of approval but then it would also have now create for us a framework to make changes and grow right so on this journey of like transparency we now know and see when and how we can make improvements and everything doesn't have to happen overnight it's like a process yeah and so you talked about the early days of which now looking back you probably wouldn't buy it from yourself now you've gone through this certification you have some benchmarking also being completely new to this industry what have you learned about sourcing and supply chain what have some of those challenges been for you in trying to do it in a way with integrity and being aligned to your own and your company values because again it is you know it's sometimes I describe it as the Wild West out there so what was that journey like? yeah extremely challenging because we learned many partners aren't willing to divulge a lot of information which is an immediate red flag, immediate and so for many of them we were doing great with and they would give us the correct information but then you really learned okay well if they don't have anything to prove this to us then we can no longer work with them so you're then trying to figure out solutions and go down different paths but it's kind of pretty obvious it was early on like that okay we will continue this relationship or not and I think it's really even over the last few years I've just noticed the huge change in partnerships people understanding you have to share this information right like we have what we call our product dossier so for every product we sell we have the supply of the every ingredient which includes pack all of it is in this dossier and detailed of origins everything and people I really think it's fascinating and this is really interesting time we're in right now because in Canada with this whole tariff conversation there was such a whole movement on by Canadian and you can't buy beauty that is like when we mean this I was like well what do you mean if you want the labor of course okay our lipsticks and glosses those are made here in Canada other products we have are made in Italy so we're really just like supporting the labor supply because I can tell you the ingredients is not coming from anywhere here in Canada yeah which a lot of it's really interesting to me that like people are loud and now swinging their Canadian this around me I just like I told you your supply chain channels and I'm going to call you out because you look like even big companies I think it's like craft roasted your peanuts here in Canada because you're not buying freaking peanuts here you know you can't buy peanuts again right like it's like it's silly this whole concept is silly to be present in Canada and I on the news this morning I heard a new term maple washing I was like what I'd heard greenwashing I heard the group was washing I heard all these things and then I heard it yeah I hear in Nova Scotia this morning I heard the term maple washing and then they were explaining that exact thing but if they have their maple too close you have to really examine is it actually made in Canada or not and I was like well all new education this morning but how are we all going to even like find that step and it's going to happen even so we have a wine industry in Canada and I know honestly here in Niagara there's not enough grapes for all the wine in this area is producing they're coming from overseas whether it's South America or European vines or South Africa whatever but no one can manufacture enough grapes so they're allowed to call it you know Ontario made wine as long as it has I think it was like 60% or okay it was even I think they went less for a while because the supply was so low so they have to bulk it up with grapes that are coming from other parts of the world so as much as we think these things you know it's like we're beholden to the environment too like what if it's a broad grape season like nobody's getting wine right so yeah yeah but for businesses still the function operate they have to make wine and so they're going to get a supply from somewhere absolutely yes it's been yes fascinating to watch from start to finish and as an American traveling through Canada it's been yeah I completely knew education as well and fascinating to see and yes all kinds of things we'll we'll have to do a little more talking offline but I also want to know you've also thank you for speaking with us today I have heard you speak you know at the Champions retreat you spoke into Apple Canada and First Nations communities so you're obviously using your voice, your platform for creating these conversations, how do you hope to inspire people for change? is it more of an education? is it more about what are a couple things that you hope to really get out and really change conversations? yeah so I do speak in many places and a lot of times it's for different reasons and I think the main reason I started was I felt like there's just like we make up a lot of stories as humans about people, places, group, everything we just love making up stories so I felt like I really want to share that like our communities have struggled but I think we are changing that narrative and because I want them to people that is in that space of like look we can have these horrible things in our lives happen but it's possible to make change and I felt like that was just important for me to do for my community and then I recognized oh wow it's even powerful when I do it outside of my community because there's a lot of misconceptions right unconscious bias so I felt like that was really important it also from a business perspective like quite honestly it's a great way that we've been able to build brand awareness when you're a small scrappy startup like we just don't have all of the marketing dollars that giant companies have and so and I've really found it to be so healing as well like at the end of the day like wow what a side of it I don't think I ever realized until the last few years of like oh the more I get to tell this story the more I get to heal and then that also in turn creates opportunities for people to recognize that you know healing out loud isn't for everyone it most definitely not but what if someone who needed to hear a story like that on that day got to hear it and so there's like so many features of it that have been beneficial for sure and I think when we find work that we love and we feel like we're doing something good we just get to feel good about ourselves and share with people that it is possible to to create the work and life that you want right that makes your life feel purposeful and so that's been part of it but I don't know if I have any like if Vanessa's before about like a big grander mission and it's really about empowering our communities women to see anything's possible moms to see that indigenous people like anyone who might need to hear it or see that you can build something from absolutely nothing I always think that concept is just so interesting like the brand didn't exist 10 years ago it started from a dream and here it is today amazing well and you have certainly grown it in many ways and being able to tell those stories one of the places you've been able to do that of course is Tiktok you have over 200,000 followers which is amazing if I run Tiktok I would follow you I have not made myself do that yet that is your marketing also your background in action you know I think one of the difficulties you had the hospitality industry again we talked about that's immediate feedback right there you had your visiting suppliers when you're in the seafood industry your more reveals from people in e-commerce but social media of course allows you that deeper connection so what has that been like how has that been connecting with people what kind of feedback have you received there good and bad I think that is always like the moment you put yourself in sort of a public platform which social media platforms are you're gonna get good and bad feedback and we get to decide you know one is a brand we take all feedback right seriously and then me personally I get to decide what feedback I'm gonna listen to and pay attention to and then there is some great feedback out there like I am not perfect this brand is not perfect like change is needed constantly I am one of those lifetime learning people that loves that kind of stuff and I'm always looking for ways to improve and grow and I know I have so many weaknesses so I love the feedback although social media can be tough and I feel like my biggest concern is always for younger generations like I feel really frightened for the stuff that happens online because there is so much hate that comes in the moment you put something even like my husband does like his cooking stuff on social media and it was just funny to read like people if they don't like the way you like butchered the piece of chicken or whatever right like they're gonna make a comment about it I was like you just put yourself out there that's what it takes but paying attention to the feedback that's needed is important. Well you've also done something outside of all of this incredible work you've also another innovation you've had is the Cheekbound Beauty Scholarship Fund in 2021 what led to this initiative how have you seen it grow and what is your long term hope for this? I just want to see this keep growing and growing and growing and I think we will but I'm really proud like I'm so proud of that like that's just something that I'm so so proud of is being able to do this work of making incredible makeup but then at the same time have like this mission behind it that we want to see Indigenous youth empower themselves and arm themselves with whatever type of education they need but the scholarship fund is there for them to use very cool and I also kind of along the lines of lessons learned and reminds me of something you said a minute ago on LinkedIn you recently put out a powerful reflection about an event that didn't go well you talked about earlier about being able to admit your mistakes and admit to those and talk through those and lessons learned and move forward and so you talked about low turnout missed expectations but you also highlighted how your team quickly pivoted and found unexpected win so it is hard to admit mistakes it is hard to admit them publicly what was that experience like for you and I guess share for those who haven't read it yet it will link to it as well in the interview but tell us a little bit more about that and kind of where that came from yeah because it's tough you dedicate a lot of time and dollars to something and when it doesn't work out it is frustrating but I love that we have such an incredible team of people that work around us and immediately we're like okay what can we do we're all the way here like this is not going well this didn't go well can we invest this time and money into something else and so we found really just quickly opportunities and made them happen right and it just goes to show that it's just about not giving up right despite it being awful yes I would have loved that organizer to call us a week before and say this isn't going well we haven't sold enough tickets let's cancel and I'd rather have that airline credit for the you know what I mean and saved all the time and energy to get to the place but that didn't happen and so we got to figure it out and fast and make that work and so we did and I'm just so grateful that sometimes I was the one to be perfectly honest in the most negative headspace that day and it was my team that was like okay there's this here this here this and like go do this and I was like oh wow so it's always about you know when I think about hiring and the people that are have great set of values and principles and adhere to the seven-room father teaching even sometimes myself I need to be reminded of them right and we just like picked up and moved on really and and was able to make it worthwhile in the end yeah but super tough like it's not easy not at all and that's where it's like your team matters like the people around you like it matters so much I fully believe that like it matters more than we think and I recognize that now as someone who has been working on building this brand for 10 years the right people around you is critical and we can't positive people that in the not like toxic positivity it was just like real actionable okay like we're here this didn't go well here's what you can do and like yeah incredible so I'm just so grateful for those folks that's fantastic thank you and it yeah hard lessons learned but that's also what inspires you to keep going and obviously the times you look back on as well that will help you continue to grow as well well a couple final questions as we wrap up here so you have been in this business for 10 years you've learned a lot personally professionally through the industry so what are a couple of changes that you'd like to see in the beauty industry across the board oh wow that is such a big question because I feel like there's so many things obviously I think some more policy I guess around the platforms that we think are helping us as consumers I'm not naming names but there's apps there's platforms and what can honestly happen and we've experienced and it's very negative that your information about your ingredient lists are uploaded into these platforms but the truth is those platforms don't know your supply chain they don't know anything about your dossiers that you have on each product and surely pigment from one source could be terrible and loaded with heavy metals but from another source it cannot be and it's tested and it's proven safe and unfortunately that's just one example of what that actually could mean so the source of a raw material where it's made how it's made all matters but unfortunately on these what is the international nomenclature the inky lists or ingredient lists that we find on products these platforms and apps are just uploading information that they honestly don't know anything about and giving you a score yeah how can they right how is that even possible we never mind legal trust me I've been trying to figure that part out without having it to cost us a whole bunch of money and what they want me to do now is pay them to then fix it all and do it properly is that fair okay so then let me turn that question around what would you like consumers to do oh wow this is always so heavily weighted because I feel like the job is on the brand to provide the proper information but that's not happening I really think the weight because consumers are just regular people that aren't scientists that aren't researchers like it's not up to them to go researching on Google which one Google is a messed up platform now because which they're going to research is the paid information that's falling to the top so like it's so frustrating that I don't think the weight is on the consumer but at the end of the day we know the people have power and so I think it's just my whole mission for the consumer is just consciousness right and being really conscious about how what you use purchase by where do you need it do you not like there's I think consciousness is just where I want the consumer to lie I really believe if the brands aren't going to do this correctly then unfortunately we need policy put in place which would include all of these platforms that came into existence I'm going to say with good intention sure right trying to make us safer consumers and purchasers and then there's a big disconnect between some of the platforms are talking about food regulated versus cosmetics industry regulated and they're two different narratives completely they're not the same industry right like there's this whole push a couple years ago about the palm industry and palm ingredients and unlike the cosmetics it's like less than 10% of palm consumption that the even the cosmetics space takes up this is a food industry mass concern and should be right of of palm supply and responsible palm supply and all those sorts of things but it's really interesting but we know that a headline can say anything and doesn't really mean anything below so there's a lot of frustrations but I just don't fix it on this one call yeah but it's important to have the conversation I think that's part of you know that's part of we're continuing to discover here and you're getting this one that's at the top of my list yeah this is something that's just so irritating because we get messages from customers being like you have this ingredient this is bad and I'm like oh my goodness it's not though right yeah here's why and then but for us our time is our resource and energy and for me it's well-used if I'm educating our customers correctly yeah absolutely well speaking of what's next to her cheekbone beauty what's coming soon what can we expect what is next we are just we are working so hard to just build and scale in a what's the right word here like a healthy way I was really in a different mindset a few years ago but I think for longevity we're doing this a lot slower than I imagined five years ago and I'm finally okay with that yeah so our scale is gonna be slower we know in Canada we're really well known and of course our mission is global beauty recognition we want to be recognized as this indigenous brand for beauty and we really are excited about this process of us defining this category which we feel we have pioneered is called indigenous beauty and the word indigenous beauty we want to be synonymous with sustainability but based on all of this inherit conversation if you will there's so many parts and pieces to that but based on our indigenous roots we really feel like this is where if you're in the indigenous beauty category your protection of the land air and sea should be a big part of the work that you do on and we we feel culturally that's where we fit the best and just like Korean beauty is known for skin care French beauty is known for perfume Indian beauty is known for your evadec beauty practices and so like this is what we want to be not for is sustainability and so we're working really hard at making that known yeah I have no doubt it will happen and finally what does the phrase logistics with purpose mean to you that would mean that you really understand your business and how would you get things and why and that's supply chain and all of those pieces of information i think we've looked at it sometimes and even like one product there's legitimately what you might think is this one thing but there's literally you know six other partners that are impacted by that product coming into the world and so really understanding that and thinking about it from this model of being really mindful right in and how you approach it yeah thank you thank you so much this has been a delight i have loved having this conversation and just being able to talk through some of these complex topics with you so how can our listeners find you online where do they go to buy cheekbone tell us all the things so we are cheekbone beauty on instagram and tech talk and you can find us at cheekbonebeauty.com you can purchase our products at Sephora.ca or jcpenny.com in the United States and you can find us and you find me i'm cheekbone jan on instagram and tech talk as well and i'm on LinkedIn if anyone has any more questions too perfect thank you so much for your time for everything you're doing i can't wait to see what the next 10 years brings to you and to cheekbone and how we continue to see it grow and see you lead with your voice and your values in this space so thank you for being here with me jan i really appreciate it as always listeners thank you for tuning in and if you have enjoyed this conversation then we'll be here again in two weeks with another fantastic guest so be sure to subscribe thanks so much have a good day bye bye