In Full Bloom: jane iredale Is March’s Brand Spotlight
Long before clean beauty was a thing, former casting director and producer turned mineral makeup guru, Jane Iredale, noticed that stage makeup was wreaking havoc on actors’ skin. As a solution to the breakouts and irritation she was seeing on a daily basis, she created her clean, beauty-enhancing namesake brand that ended up all but starting the fusion of skin care & makeup, with high-performing mineral formulas that prioritize skin health. 30 years later, jane iredale has become a holy grail among dermatologists and makeup artists alike, with formulas for even the most sensitive and reactive skin. Their commitment to clean is a through line that runs through every aspect of the brand, from their formulas to their community and environmental impact.
In honor of their 30th anniversary, we sat down with Jane Iredale and Nicole Musco, jane iredale's Director of Product Development, to chat about the brand, inspiration, how they create new products and how they're marking three decades of clean beauty.
Jane Iredale: My inspiration came from my entertainment career where I watched actors and models struggling to keep their skins healthy. This was a challenge because of all the makeup they had to wear for TV, theater and film. Models especially went from job to job wearing whatever was in the makeup artist’s bag. No one would hire a model with bad skin.
Jane Iredale: It was important because skincare had received a lot of time and attention from chemists and then dermatologists. It wasn’t hope in a jar anymore; it had real science behind it. I wanted to do something to enhance women’s lives so I wondered why we couldn’t do the same for makeup. Something that was good for the skin as well as protective. So many women are sensitive to makeup and don’t even know it.
Jane Iredale: I had the usual roadblocks a start-up company faces – credibility with financial institutions being one. But the roadblocks didn’t have anything to do with being a woman, because I have always found the beauty industry to be supportive of women. Organizations such as [Cosmetic Executive Women] are havens for newcomers.
Jane Iredale: My inspiration has always been the women who work for me. Somehow, they juggle their dedication to job and family with a dexterity that amazes me. I’m proud of the way they have taken on new challenges and proved themselves to be able to deal with more and more responsibility. Some of these women have been with us for over 20 years.
Nicole Musco: Developing innovation and new products is an important and exciting aspect of what we do at jane iredale. For us, ideas can come from anywhere and we prioritize communication with our customers, brand partners and skin professionals who know and love our brand to give us intel on what they need from us. We also host bi-annual innovation summits with our team to brainstorm new innovations and products.
Once we decide on what we want to create, we work with our chemists to co-develop a product suitable to our customer’s needs. It takes a lot of different submissions and months, sometimes even years, to find the get the formula perfect. Every formula is evaluated and tested with a group of internal and external formula experts to ensure the product behaves exactly as expected before we approve a product for launch. It can be a very tedious process, but we need to ensure we launch the right products for our customers and the brand.
Nicole Musco: Ready to Bloom is not just a color collection, it signifies our past, and our heritage deeply connected to products that make you feel your best. The collection was inspired by Jane's flower garden and the use of natural and botanical ingredients in our products since our inception.
Ready to Bloom also signifies our present, with relevant tones of peaches, apricot and corals that evoke a sense of warmth, familiarity and happiness. Using finishes that elevate the presence of color on the skin, with mica and pearls that dance on the lid or glow on the cheeks.
Ready to Bloom also nods to our future, with the name itself suggesting we are still early on our journey and have so much further to go. We intend to continue to formulate products with only the most premium ingredients and skin compatibility in mind, that make women look and feel more confident in themselves.
Nicole Musco: I really do love the whole Ready to Bloom collection, but the PurePressed Blushes are some of my favorite blush tones to wear this spring. Velvet Petal is such a beautifully eclectic shade and emits a stunning glow on the skin.
I also love Honeysuckle and Wildflower from our PurePressed Eyeshadow Triples. We focused on bringing in new tones that we presently did not have and doing it in a wearable way that was inclusive to all complexions and levels of expertise. The finishes are incredible, from silky mattes, to sheens and high metallics that look wet when layered on the lids.
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Teresa Greenfeld has worked in fashion and beauty for over 15 years as a writer, editor and content strategist. She has been privileged to work at Carbon38 as a Senior Editor, at OliviaPalermo.com as the Fashion and Beauty Director, and has amassed a resume that includes Vogue, Allure and Elle magazines. Her passions include back-to-back sheet masks, reading peer-reviewed papers on skin care, and obsessive sunscreen application. Though born in Manhattan, she currently lives in LA, and will always consider herself a New Yorker at heart.
