Sustainable Scents | Bee Shapiro and the Ellis Brooklyn Legacy

In this episode, we dive into the world of clean beauty with the visionary entrepreneur, Bee Shapiro. Tune in as she shares her remarkable journey from hard work to success, and how she became the driving force behind Ellis Brooklyn, a renowned perfume brand that not only smells divine but also champions clean ingredients.

Transcript

Harry: 0:07

Welcome to Season Two of the good market podcast. I'm your host, Harry Cunningham. Each month we hear from good people with great products, supporting exceptional causes and making incredible impacts on communities around the world. Join us now as we hear another good story about impact. It's happening right near you. Hey, everybody, welcome to a very special episode of good market live one in a topic that we've not yet discussed before. So I'm really excited to share this with you today. I've got be Shapiro joining me welcome b.

Bee Shapiro: 0:39

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Unknown: 0:41

We're happy to have you here. B is the founder of Ellis Brooklyn, and it's a clean fragrance brand. But there's also products beyond fragrance. So we're going to talk a little bit about that today. And be let's just jump right in. This is obviously not your first career. You had a whole career before Ellis Brooklyn. And we'll get into the story behind those Brooklyn, but I'd love to hear a little bit about what you were doing that you know, before you did fragrance before you were a founder before you join this crazy world of entrepreneurship.

Bee Shapiro: 1:08

It is a crazy world for sure. I actually had two careers before if you can imagine this. So I actually went to law school. I went to Georgetown Law, I didn't actually really know what I wanted to do. I think back then when I think about careers, I think we were allowed to make more mistakes, maybe I think that no one really knew what was going on. We didn't have social media, we didn't know what everyone was up to. We only knew what our close circle was up to. So I went to law school, not because I wanted to be a lawyer because I actually couldn't get a job coming out of undergrad. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I had no internships, I had nothing. So I took the LSAT went to law school. And so I went to law school and actually realized that okay, there's some really interesting stuff here. But I actually did not enjoy the practice of law. I did do some internships. And I was like, What am I doing? That being said, you know, I was in my early 20s. And I went to New York, worked at a law firm in New York City and hedge fund law for oh my gosh, I think nine months. That's it. And then I was like, This can't be life. So I quit. I don't recommend this necessarily, for anyone because I really had no plan, I didn't have a whole lot in savings. I just remember being like, oh my gosh, I have X amount of dollars. You know, I didn't have the safety net of my parents or anything like that. And so if I was going to do something, I better do it now. And so long story short, I realized the reason why I went to law school is actually love, love, love the written word. And, and so I started writing for a little publications, and I always loved fashion. I always loved culture. And so I found my way to the New York Times. And I wrote for the paper,

Unknown: 3:00

I wrote a little paper, not the New York Times. The funny part is that a lot of people don't know this actually tried to apply to so many different places just to even get an internship and no one would hire me. Because yes, because if you think about it, my resume was super weird. Like I went to law school, I worked as a lawyer. Now I want to be an intern. Like, it was a hard story to sell. And, and so I started writing for a little publications. And that's how I found my way to the times is just build and build and build. So I wrote in the New York Times, I think, for almost 14 years. So it was a long run. Super cool. Did you start writing in beauty? Because I know that background, but did it? Was that where you started? Or what did you start with? I actually started in fashion first and the intersection of art and fashion. Okay. And it was that moment where there was like imagery by Ryan McGinley, there was imagery, you know, a crossover of Terence Koh into fashion and there was all of that happening, which I found super fascinating. And and I did cover runway show so I covered a lot of the not necessarily critique of the actual fashions but I covered the the people who went the backstage, the atmosphere, that kind of thing, sort of the Bill Cunningham of the written word, right. He was he was amazing. He used to come to my desk and water my flowers for me because they were always a little bit you know, he was way out there. He was like, in that in the sense that he was always out like shooting. Um, I definitely, you know, did some story digging, did some research and he was always on the ground. Yeah. Interesting that you were covering people. In anybody that hasn't been to fashion shows and those of us that have been lucky enough to attend them as part of our job No. as glamorous as they look on TV and in movies. It's nothing like the real production of glamour and I want to say this to any One Young Living out there who is thinking about this is really truly that production. And if you don't love the production, then you probably don't want to be in it, you know, because it's it's truly a manifestation of a creative vision. But that creative vision is just the surface and it only happens for what, 10 minutes, and then it's done. And then it's done. And you know, and if you don't enjoy that, the build up to that, then it's probably not for you. Interesting, it's interesting to hear your thoughts about that with regards to production. And then we'll talk a little bit about production your fragrance to because that's something that sort of the opposite, like you spend a lot of time in production, and then a fragrance hits, and arguably could become lifetime for someone. That is so true time and beauty is different. And that's actually something I really enjoy. It's funny when I speak with my former fashion friends, a lot of them want to move to beauty. Because I think beauty in some ways, is more beautiful and beautiful. by that. I mean, it really integrates into your life, as opposed to fashion is so glitzy and so shiny and so sexy, and all those things that you want when you're younger. But when you're older, you kind of have a more defined version of yourself. So I don't know, but I'm always looking at fashion anymore. Whereas Beauty for me, is this like gorgeous constant that yes, it's something that you love, literally you could be using, you know, two decades. So you move from fashion into beauty by choice, or just because there was something there like, how did that happen? How did that transition happen? It was by accident. So the Beauty columnist at the Times left to take her dream job and then travel section. So they had this beauty column open. And at that time, beauty wasn't that covered in the New York Times they had, you know, a piece a week, and sometimes it was large. And sometimes it wasn't, it was definitely consistent. It just wasn't a huge priority for them. And so when that column opened up, I believe I was probably the last person asked to take it. I was the youngest in the section at that point in time. And so you know what I separated gratefully. And I remember going to my first beauty event and I didn't even really know what was going on. I knew on a very surface level it was going on and it was I'll never forget I was for a Salvatore Ferragamo fragrance launch. It was super cool. I just didn't completely understand everything that went into it. And I fell in love with beauty is what I like to say over the years. Interesting so and a fragrance launch kind of ironic that you started with a fragrance launch and then ended up creating a fragrance. So let's fast forward a little bit. You're writing for beauty. And then you have your first child. Right? Yes, so I became pregnant with Ellis. And that's really when I started germinating all these different ideas. So you know, it's funny, I never connected them. But my very first beauty of that was fragrance until now, but it's true. For me, I was so wowed by fragrance. And maybe because they did start in fashion of all the beauty categories. I do think fragrance is a little bit more closely tied to fashion. And the reason why I say that is because it's more dreamy, there isn't functional, it isn't something that you can even describe really well. It's very emotional. And so for me seeing all these different products come across my desk, I wanted to create fragrance from a different perspective. So imagine Ellis is almost turning nine. So when I was pregnant with her, this is quite a while ago, and then took me several years to actually come out with a product. But I really wanted to come from a different perspective and fragrance that at that time did not exist. So that was a very non diverse world. It was a very closed off world. It had beautiful aspects such as craftsmanship and artisanship, etc. But it actually had very little diversity as far as who was actually dictating the sense. And so for me seeing that, I was like, why is that? Why is it always dictated by certain kind of person. And two is that I want to have cleaner ingredients. I felt like this sustainability story that ingredient story wasn't being told and fragrance and I felt like being pregnant, particularly that it was really important. I mean, that was really you were early. I mean 10 years ago people were not talking about clean at all and it's obviously much more prevalent now which is a great thing but I love that you were kind of thinking that way. I'm a parent as well and it's certainly becoming apparent changes your perspective on a lot of things arguably clean being one of the most important organic whether that's the food you eat or the the products you're putting on your body. So really interesting idea. So you want to create a fragrance great, I mean I've been around fragrance lot in my career, it's not something you just do randomly. It's like you didn't throw this together in your kitchen. Like, how did this happen? Like, how did you say, I'm gonna make a fragrance and then like start jumping into it. That's why it took us at least three years, I believe to come out with the fragrance collection. Absolutely. It's funny because I thought because I was in New York Times Beauty columnist and I knew all these connections, I knew all these things about beauty, that'd be relatively easy for me to put something together a team together, creative, brief, etc, etc. It was so difficult. I think that fragrance, like I said, it's very difficult to describe. And so because it's so difficult to describe, it's actually one just really hard to connect with a master perfumer, like, what do they want to work with you, they don't have to work with you, but they have their choice of clients. And so when you're describing your vision to someone who doesn't know you, who has their choice of whoever they want to work with, it was so tough in the beginning. I was really so tough. I had many non answer phone calls. And it was a surprise to me, because I was like, Hey, I wrote for The New York Times, but I realized behind the scenes on manufacturing, no one really cared, you know, like, so what? Yeah, they're like, great, good for you. So how did you get this, this idea of clean fragrance? How did you find somebody that was doing clean? Or how did you kind of go down that path of clean and sustainably sourced? So we were so early that I really, I always say I was, so I must have been so difficult for them in the beginning, because we were so early that a lot of these things weren't being discussed. And so it was even just sitting down with the early partners that we had on what exactly are the issues in fragrance, right? I think that clean is sometimes a little bit simpler in skincare in the sense that we know XYZ does XYZ on your system. Fragrance sometimes is about percentages. And this is not just synthetic ingredients. By the way. This is also, you know, things like oakmoss, or things that are regulated that are natural, but can be very irritating. So it was really okay, where's our baseline? And so we realized one quick cut at clean is number one, following the EU baseline because they had done all this research, they had done all this testing on allergens, etc. So number one, we chose to be globally compliant, not just in the EU, but also Australia, etc. But without animal testing. So that that was our first like, okay, let's just set a baseline of what clean means to us. And you have to imagine it still is the case in the US. There's no regulation here at all. So it is totally voluntary of a brand wants to be compliant. Yeah, they it is a free for all. And so because I think I wrote for The Times for so long, I had tried so many products a lot there. Early, clean products actually broke out in rashes, because I think they weren't necessarily thinking this way. You have to imagine 10 years ago, eight years ago, it was really about natural, not natural. And we were never that company because of the fact that I was pregnant. So we really went deep with the safety testing. So we started that as a baseline. And then we started to have a lot of regular conversations with our suppliers on what exactly are the issue? So for example, fragrance when the issues is actually accurate plates, which isn't as much of an issue in anything else except for nail polish. So that's kind of wow, yeah. So it was a process of step by step. So you have this idea for this fragrance. You're having a child so hence the name, right? Right. Yes, Ella is pregnant with Ellis living in Williamsburg Brooklyn, so perfect. And but you didn't name it for yourself. However you have a fragrance name for yourself. The fragrance that came later actually initially the working name was so low. Oh, cool. Yeah. And it was created during COVID. And it was I call it my fragrance for falling and self love. It was very the adjustment from the beginning of COVID into COVID was a very difficult for me. I had been traveling quite a bit for Ellis Brooklyn, I derive a lot of my inspiration from travels and to suddenly just stay still was a very odd and to sit to sit in this little office you know at home and even the perfumer I worked with on B who's whose name is lock Dong. He's one of the few if not only master perfumers who's Asian. So I basically somewhat stalked him to work with him because he's amazing and talented. And so I'd never met lock in person till after the Senate came out. It was my first time really Yeah, we work very closely with perfumer so that was the first time for me, and it was unusual, you know? We would get on these zooms together and smell what we call mods or modifications together on Zoom. But it wasn't the same as sitting there in person and making a little header out of it. He had a sense of it. You're both smelling it. Interesting that you could actually do that over zoom. I wouldn't know I wouldn't have thought about that. That's kind of cool, though. So it was definitely tough. But we did it. Yeah. And where's he based? He's based in New York now. So the reason why I say I send my stock to him was because I found out he moved from Paris to New York, and I contacted the fragrance. And I work with him. That's very cool. So did he write do you when you starting to create a fragrance? Do you go right in and say, Okay, I want to create a clean fragrance, and I want it to smell like x? Or how does that? How does that how does that happen? So in the very early days, when I first started Ellis Brooklyn, you know, I created these briefs. So I put together images, maybe even songs, and I used to send it over to the perfumer and then we would go back and forth and have these modification rounds, but actually found out that's not very precise. And one of the perfumers that I've really gotten to know his name is Frank vocal, he's absolutely amazing. And he calls it building a cent vocabulary together. And I actually, yes, because we can we have different definitions of what each person's clean is, or each person's sexy is or each person's, you know, dirty is. And so because of that they're all tinged by each person's memories. If I say, Oh, I wish this fragrance was lighter and cleaner, what does that mean? And so what we did, actually, in the initial meetings was actually just to smell a bunch of random ingredients together and random little records, which are three no compositions, and what what my words were to describe those, and that has actually become much more effective than my early days of sending the brief etc. And then I do have a vision. So for example, with our new ascent florist, I knew I want to do a white floral. But what did that mean in which flowers are there? And what am I trying to convey? And so I wanted to do a white floral, but one that had air to it, like luminosity and also freshness, like can we make this category field new? And so that was the starting point for florist, as opposed to a creative brief. So the first what was the first fragrance? Myth, right, I knew that I was just kind of asking for fun. So myth, I wanted to talk a little bit about the names of the fragrances I think myth defines your your philosophy behind that really well. But I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the names and where the names come from. So the names are all really personnel. And the fragrances often have some sort of spoken word written word storytelling element to it. So with myth for me, it still is to this day, our quote unquote, Brooklyn scent, because it reflected appointed time in the city, which I still think is very relevant today is how do you live in a city. And so myth is very intimate, like you're at a loud party, and you're talking to your lover or your friend, and they lean in, and they tell you a story. And so myth is a kind of send that invites you to lean a little closer. And also, it's inspired by how stories can be spun in the city, the city, New York City is very big, but it's also very small. And so you know, there, there was the classic stories where somebody would hear something, they would tell somebody else, and it gets spun to something else. It's like a game of telephone. And so I was thinking all those things for math. So it's like the urban myth, the myth that can happen in Michigan happen in New York City where everybody's trying to be something. And so question for you on your own the New York City thing. And, you know, we both had the chance to live in New York City. And it's certainly I think, anytime anyone gets to live in the city, your perspective of the city, post city life is different than somebody that hasn't been there, right? Because to your point, it's as big as it is. It's also very small, and there's kind of made up these little communities. Do you think that New York will always inspire you in some way as the line? I mean, obviously, Brooklyn is part of your name, but you think New York will always inspire you, no matter where you live in whatever frequencies you're creating? Oh, absolutely. I'm still in the city a lot. So I'm in the city about two, three days a week. And I think the city keeps changing. And I wonder things that maybe this is my newspapers, I didn't me, one of the things I find most fascinating about New York City is that if you haven't gone for a long time, but you lived there a long time ago, and you live for a long time there. You have an impression in the city, and then you go back and you're like, oh, this corner has changed, that corner has changed. Like there's a funny little thing that happens with people that they love to talk about their era York City. I think because I'm still in the city quite a bit. I see it still for what it is in the sense that it's still changing. It's an ever changing city much more than any of the other big cities in the world. For example, I just went to London For a work trip and London that the restaurants just don't change as much right at the same speed, it still is a big, great city of the world. It's just different. And so for me, New York is always going to be inspiring because it has that spirit, that spirit of ever change. And we do actually have a false sense. That's a love letter to the city, so Oh, cool. Yeah, the love letter to the city is of that era that when I first arrived, which was very bustling, and everybody was out all the time, everybody was dressed. Yeah, you know, I love you know, what I missed about the city. I missed that era where everybody was dressed, God forbid you, you would go to brunch and leggings. You know, I was just talking about that with somebody yesterday, we were talking about me like, I don't obviously live in the city any longer. I don't have a need to be in suits. But I have so many suits because my career that was spent in New York, like we were in suits, and we weren't in suits that were three years old. We were in suits that were from that season. And so naturally, you end up with this collection of at the time current clothes that later you don't need but that was part of the idea of being dressed it was just what we did you know, you hoodies were relegated to sitting at home, you know, doing things at home, you might walk around, but you know, it's funny how the times change. So I want to talk a little bit about your logo too. And and it really interesting story behind the logo and the connection to you as a writer as well. But can you tell us a little bit about literary lion versus your current logo? Yes, so I we actually design a whole logo that was a lion and the idea was the literary line. So when you've really made it in writing world, they call you a literary lie and there's even a literary line awards and, and it's just a really iconic status. And so I thought how perfect for our quote unquote, logo icon for it to be this iconic thing and literary world. But I went to this Pan American Gala, which was one of the gallows when I was in writer world that I loved. And I felt like I was surrounded by all these amazing writing Titans. And that night, and I won't name any that night that I went. Every single literary line was like somebody I had no identification with, I was like, wow, you grew, you know, you grew up in XYZ world that I have nothing to identify with. And I just felt like maybe the term is antiquated. And so we adapted our logo and change it to a leopard, because I still love the idea of literary lion. But maybe it's a literary leopard. Now, because we're all if you're trying to re redefine a category fragrance has been very, very sad in its ways for a long time. Yeah, I love that. It's super cool. And probably a store part of your story that doesn't get told enough. It's but you know, one of the things that we love to do a good market is tell the stories of the brands not just have the brands sitting on the shelf. And I think that, you know, it's just one more part of your story that we get to tell which is exciting at a point of differentiation. It's almost like we've built here, this sort of cult is maybe not the right word, but this like kind of following of people that sort of know it, and they come in and they're excited to see the next new fragrance, even though they have their favorite and they'll pick up too. And, you know, another kind of interesting thing that you do is the the fragrance books that allow people to really get into it. Did you ever do you have sort of a count on how many fragrances like when you're going to be done when you're gonna say, okay, that's my collection, there's no more fragrances. Maybe it's my fashion side, but I actually we curate. So we actually get rid of scents that we think maybe is never resonated, or is not doing well. Or maybe we could do it better. For example, we we recently sunset to sunset at a fragrance that I think that I can do better. So So it's funny because guess I do think there is an upper tier and how many fragrances one person can have. But I also think as we grow as your brand, and start to expand a little bit globally, there are actually so many different tastes for fragrance, that it's not that we're just trying to cater to one person or inspire one person, frankly, it's really, hmm, where can I take this? And if I were in a creative juice, that's one thing, but I feel like I still have a lot of ideas. Cool. That's great. I think it's interesting too, that your fragrance with your fashion background. There are plenty of people that can live in that high glam high dollar fashion world, right. But you you actually are giving people the accessibility to that fashion world by doing what you're doing in a very different way. And they may not be able to afford the $10,000 gown and you know, we're coming off of the Met Gala recently. That kind of thing, but they can afford a fragrance that can be personal to them that can give like let them get into that fashion world really interesting approach. I think it's super cool. Yes, you know, you and I both came from fashion you were in it longer than me certainly but I think one thing about fashion is that it inherently excludes it almost is part of its nature right? Like oh, you're cool or not cool. Oh, this is a and are not in and I think during COVID era, like you said people started wearing hoodies people started wearing all sorts of things. But I just think if you look at the history of fashion, that's just what it is. And that's okay. I think that'd be you take it as what it is. It's very interesting. But I think beauty because especially beauty now which I think is so exciting and terrific that you can include all these people and you're still cool and you're still interesting and and yes, you don't have to have such an alienating price point all the time. Yeah. And I think that you know, we talk a lot about being inclusive here. And in fact, we have a tagline you belong here that we really want everybody to feel like there's a place they can do good and that's arguably what you're doing with your fragrance like everybody has a place. It's more about you're giving different opportunities for them to find their place in the Ellis Brooklyn collection Right? Talk to me about the color the color is which which is a unique approach right? When you think about fragrance houses the kind of the big fragrance houses of the world, the the Irma's is in that one color, Tom Ford everything is looks exactly the same. I love the I don't want to take don't want to steal your thunder tell us the story about the color, I think the colors great. So when I started the line, I did take that route where it was everything black cat Black Label, and we only had four fragrances to start with. So that was our launched collection. It was for fragrances in the black hat, black bottle, and Black Label, I mean, clear, clear bottle and then Black Label. And so I really took a look at that. And it was fun when we launched as we added more sense, my vision of fragrance also got more probably nuanced. And I realized that fragrance at the end of the day is not a necessity, it is not something like I have to wash my face for cleanliness reasons. It's not like I have to have, you know fragrance over a bar soap, right. So when I thought about why we wear fragrance, it actually is ultimately tied to self pleasure. And whether it is because we wear fragrance because you know it gives her partner pleasure or whether we get compliments at the end of the day, it actually turns into self pleasure. And so because of that I wanted people to look at their vanity and look at a fragrant, understand what that fragrance is or have an idea. But also to be Yeah, I wake up with this gorgeous blue salt color and I want to reach for it. And I think the classic brands or bottles are beautiful, and they're gorgeously designed, but they're a little bit. I don't want to say serious, but they're more limited. And I think what they can or they can do as well. And so for me, I feel like the color like we look at the color of the bee bottle looks like that rich honey, you look at salts and it's inspired by big surf and beach glass. So I just I wanted people to know immediately the whole story right I do think color has so much influence in our life too. It's very cool. I think it's a really unique and certainly a differentiator for you from a lot of other brands but you know a cool place to be. I don't know if you can answer this or not. But what's your favorite like what do you wear? Do you change or do you wear the same thing every day. I do not wear the same thing every day I change all the time. So MIT is probably my go to go to like it's my default I'm taking math with me i lately have been wearing a lot of salt and sun fruit together. And yes, salt is much more unisex genderless and sanfur is very much indulgent vacation beach era and so when they go together there's something very elevated and also yummy that when they come together and so I've been doing that a lot yet fragrance layering is also something relatively new i mean i I've been around fragrance a long time longer than I should say but fragrance layering is really an interesting way to kind of even take it one step further. So you're creating fragrance that's very personal but then somebody almost make it even that much more personal by putting you know you're wearing too but maybe they were salt with who knows what maybe they were with you know a prayer or something. It's true. So vanilla milk and app pray actually go amazing together to I've discovered so fragrance layering is interesting. Other cultures around the world have actually been fragrance layering for quite some time. I think in the US. It's intimidating or can be intimidating. So I think one of the easiest ways to approach it is actually from this New York Times article I wrote way back when she's passed on now, but it was this designer Isabel Toledo. And she told me that she fragrance layered but put it in different spots. So she would put one fragrance behind her ears behind her knees and then she put another fragrance in her dougla tag. And that gave this aura when she walked by that it all came together. I actually love that idea of fragrance learning for someone who's just approaching it because I think putting two cents together can be very intimidating. You're like, Oh, how's that gonna turn out? And maybe overwhelmed. Maybe people put on too much because they're thinking oh, if I put on one this is how much I put so I need to put two On with that maybe that's too much, right? It's true or like with AP array. It's a quite a strong woodsy scent. And so if you put vanilla milk on it, it is beautiful, but you can also do it where you do AP prey on your wrist and vanilla milk on your chest area. Interesting. I like a prey but that leans it. I mean, I will also like sci fi. That's it. I'm a big fan of sci fi too. So Oh, thank you. I love sci fi. I feel like it's underrated. It's like this cultish thing on tick tock, a lot of book readers love sci fi. I love that. So how many are you looking at doing a year? How many? Do you have any? Do you have a plan? Or is it more just kind of as something as inspiration hits you? I have been limited to like two a year. The truth is, you know, the thing about a certain development is interesting. Sometimes you're banging your head on the wall, because you're like, I have no scent to launch this year. What am I going to do? And then other times you get, you know, an assortment of modifications and options that you're like, oh my gosh, I actually have to limit myself because I actually don't know, you know, I have to really sort of whittle that the ideas down because I have so many good options. So I like to limit myself to two a year because sometimes I feel like I could launch more that I think that's like a good number for us. That's great. And you've expanded now beyond fragrance to which people may not be aware of can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to do that? Yeah, so we have body oils, which I absolutely adore and we also have candles so the candles is really personal for me because there are this really really beautiful vegan wax that's very safe to burn. And one thing I learned when I was formulating all that stuff and pregnant etc is that when we burn candles at home that are paraffin it's actually incredibly toxic. And I was that New York City candle burn we were that always had a candle burning, you know, and I was like why like when I read this stuff, I was like wait, what I was so blown away. And I had no idea why there weren't warning labels or something like that because it actually is bad for small pets do you have a pet at home I would definitely think about that. And so the candles were super personal in the sense I never expected them to be our top seller but I was like I want candles at home that I feel safe burning and that I love and I think are beautiful. So the sands are a little bit different and that I do think a lot of times sense that you were and sense that you burn are different. I think that home scents tend to be warmer have more woods, maybe more spices and you might not actually want to wear that so our stands for home are a little bit different. And then the body oils I just adore so the body oils are great were way to wear scent especially if you're one of those people where scent disappears on and so the thing about scent longevity is that scent itself grabs on to oil molecules so if you don't have a lot of oil in your skin, whether the weather or just naturally you don't have a lot of oil on your skin, you are going to have issues with scent longevity. It also can happen in super hot dry weather. So if you imagine like the Middle East how hot it gets or Arizona let's say that fragrance is going to dissipate like in two seconds because your skin is dry and the air is really dry. So yeah, so that's it makes so much sense in the Middle East why people wear stronger fragrances because it literally evaporates and so similarly they'll be live in Phoenix, you know, Scottsdale or even parts of Texas it's something to think about so I so so body oils, I think is a really lovely way to wear all over sent without being overwhelming to yourself. So you don't have to go for some crazy, high concentration perfume level and just have it wear evenly throughout the day. So I actually wear the body oils a lot do you do you wear the body? Oh with the fragrance or no you don't need to. So I actually when I said I was layering salt and sun through I've been wearing the salt body oil the sun through perfume. Interesting. Yeah. So we talked a lot about your first daughter Ellis but now you have two daughters. So how's that inspiring you as a as a mom of two daughters and now that they're obviously knowing one of them knows their names everywhere. And the other one is like where's my name? It's so true. My younger daughter Skye is sick. She's such a little force. She sometimes I look at her I'm like who are you like, oh, opinionated. I'm, it's funny. She's like a funny little person. And so it is true that she can read now and so she keeps asking me little things. She'll come up to me like when when am I going to have my thing and I don't have bandwidth. Is there another company so I was thinking maybe a sin but that said better sell really well? discontinued? So yes, I've definitely been brainstorming on what I can do for a sky. I do think being a parent, like you said earlier changes things. I think your priorities change. I also think I'm way more efficient and better. decision maker in some way, because you just have no time. But my latest scent florist is actually inspired by them. So if you look at our line, it's pretty gender neutral myth is gender neutral assault operate. There isn't a whole lot if you think about gender as a spectrum on the super feminine side. And so my girls have been playing ice hockey, but they're really girly girl. So they'll go out and play ice hockey like savages and then come back, take off all their stinky pads and then like put on a tutu and paint their nails and put sparkle glitter on. And I'm like, Well, what, why can't we do that? We did, we should be able to do that. And I have no option for this girly girl down here who should have an option? And so that's where a florist came from actually. Cool. Very cool. So quick question for you. My daughter's middle name is Rose. And you have a fragrance called Rose. But yes to ours. Yes. So it's actually a French plan words. It's supposed to be a ROAs Oh, wow. Yes. And it was this provocateur Marcel Duchamp Alter Ego. He called himself Eero c'est la vie. Ah, which means like II rose like love you know, love, right? Yarrow s? Yeah, yes. That's right. Very cool. Interesting. Good. Good to know. My daughter whose middle name is Rose is not a huge fragrance wear. But she was curious about that. I was curious about that too. Interesting. Yeah. How old is she? She's 14. Oh, interesting. So I would say 14 and up they're starting to wear a lot more fragrance. So I would check in on her in two years. Yeah. So that she she has a couple that she wears. But she it's not an everyday thing. It's sort of as as the mood hits her kind of thing. But she's also a literary like you so I think she's a writer, she bought herself a vintage typewriter because she wants to be a writer. And she writes now and she types on her vintage typewriter. So I'm gonna share more of her your story with her because I think it might be inspiring for her to That's amazing. So first, first of all, I feel I love hearing stories like that because you know, we are on tick tock a lot. We're on Instagram a lot. We're on all the social media channels a lot. And you know, I'm I always get concerned for young people, because I do feel like tick tock particularly is so intense. And when I hear stories like that, where you're, you're reconnecting, she's connecting with words in a very, very manual, visceral way. I love that. Yeah, it's great, except at 530 in the morning when she wakes up, and she's typing to hear a typewriter. But we do love it. But on that note about telling stories and writing stories, I always like to ask everybody on kind of as we wrap up, part of what we do a good market, which I think is a you know, it's part of our philosophy, and part of our approach. And something that we'll always do is telling the stories of the brands. And you know, we have brands that are doing all different kinds of good, yours is obviously the clean and the standard sustainably sourced part, which is a great story to tell. But each one of our founders also has a great story, and you clearly have a great story. And if you had to pick someone to tell your story, the B story, who would you pick to tell your story and why would you pick them? Could be anybody living dead? Anything like ah, famous infamous? Oh my gosh, for posterity or for for jokes, or both? Well, you can do both. Nobody's ever asked for jokes. I'd love to hear both. Yeah. Well, you know, there's two sides to me. So there's one side that I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I want the I want a beautiful writer to write my story. And there's that side who when I was younger, the only thing I wanted was to write for The New Yorker, you know? And then there's the other side of me, that's like, let's have a laugh. So there's this author named Jenny Molan who writes hysterical things and how funny would it be? She wrote my story, like she just she's another mom. She's in New York City. And she's just as hilarious and she's just a funny person. I love following her social media because it's like motherhood but with like, a sarcastic twinge. You know, nothing ever wrong with a little sarcasm. Yes. A little humor. So when I think back on that I would have to save Jenny Molas. Good answer. Good answer will be It's great talking to you and great learning more about Ellis Brooklyn. Obviously, we are big fans of yours. And I look forward to every new fragrance that you come out with. So keep them coming. Thanks for taking the time today. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I so enjoyed this. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the good market podcast. A new episode will drop the second Tuesday of each month. So make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening. Give us a like a follow and share. And please leave a review so that we can reach even more people and grow even more good. Tune in next time to hear more stories from good people with great products supporting exceptional causes. We'll see you next month.