When word first broke of a part-exposé, part-company profile on the most prominent beauty brand of the past ten years, I knew the end was near. Whenever a book details the life and times of a company or its former leader, I immediately assume it’s some kind of company obituary — why write a book on a brand empire unless it has already peaked, or else some juicy, potentially scandalous fodder has come to light? Especially considering the book in question was about millennial beauty brand Glossier, I knew journalist Marisa Meltzer was about to dish.
And dish she did — Meltzer penned Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier as a deep dive into the history of Glossier, from its roots as the famed blog Into the Gloss to the departure of its CEO and founder, Emily Weiss. Weiss is the core subject of the book, yet as Meltzer voices with well-concealed frustration, she manages to disclose very little, both about herself and about the company. Expansive, well-researched, and filled with comments from employees, investors, and Weiss herself, Glossy is a tell-all that reveals a surprising amount of discourse on the direct-to-consumer industry and the conversation surrounding toxic trends that make it even harder to be a woman CEO in the 21st century.
It’s worth noting my investment in this particular story and the lengths I went to acquire this book in its pink, hardcover glory — it involved a 20-minute phone call and a quest to no more than two Waterstones before I managed to reserve the very last copy in what felt like all of London. Though there’s little I wouldn’t do for a book, this was special. Glossier, more specifically, Into the Gloss, was a formative part of my teenage years, not unlike many other young twenty-somethings.
When I was 13, my mom bought me my first Boy Brow. The name, catchy and evocative of the exact tomboyish style I found myself most comfortable in, was something I’d seen teased on Into the Gloss, the beauty blog I read with a reverence usually reserved for the church. Into the Gloss was my first foray into the beauty world, a site dedicated to detailing everything from the contents of Emma Watson’s medicine cabinet to the merits of bubble baths. As someone with little patience for makeup but plenty of free time to decide which serum I should be using before I moisturized, ITG was the place to be.
The site was the brainchild of Weiss, a former Vogue super-intern who saw an opportunity to carve a niche for beauty editorial and conversation online and, subsequently, an opportunity to turn a blog into a tangible brand with a monopoly over millennial pink. Into the Gloss created the iconic “Top Shelf,” an interview column with the ultimate peek inside celebrities’ bathrooms and vanities, embodying the casually cool insider knowledge that broke down traditional barriers about staged perfection in the beauty industry. Known for its comments by devotees of La Mer and Japanese Salux cloths, the writing, especially under Editorial Director Emily Ferber, who left the company in 2021 (and whose omission from this book was glaring, at least to me), was clever, sharp, and remarkably conversational. It’s difficult to imagine Weiss had the foresight to know just how much ITG would push the envelope in the beauty industry, but the way Meltzer describes her unashamed ambition, with just a dash of lucky girl syndrome, she might have had a better idea than we thought.
The candid tone of Glossy is notably more serious than the girl-to-girl tone ITG’s profiles take. While she doesn’t have a stake in the story, Meltzer does have a history with Glossier as both a customer and a journalist. Possessing what she calls a “warmly professional” relationship with Weiss, having covered her in profiles for Vanity Fair and other high-profile names, Meltzer often mentions times when she was invited to Glossier product launches in addition to her opinion about the product. I found this quite engaging because she crafts such a trusting narrative — she gives honest opinions and makes clear her history covering the company, which serves to establish a kind of rapport between the audience and the author. There’s no understating Meltzer’s professionalism and experience, and that’s worth a great deal in books like this.
The book places Weiss at the centre of things while managing expectations surrounding the founder, as she has stayed relatively tight-lipped regarding divulging personal information. The subject of the general mystery surrounding Emily Weiss is the backbone of Glossy; Meltzer’s candid confession that she was “wondering if [she] was…a complete asshole for writing this book and putting this woman [she] respect[s] through such anxiety and turmoil,” is understandable as she consistently insinuates that throughout the writing process, Weiss was avoidant and remarkably poorly-spoken, regurgitating the same reused founder-speak. This is when the book felt the most like an investigative piece, and Meltzer’s chops as a journalist showed through; she questions Weiss’s intentions while holding her accountable, recounting all sides of a narrative without being accusatory.
Weiss is a powerhouse, the epitome of a driven, creative woman who knows what she wants and is not afraid of working her ass off to achieve it. But while she doesn’t entirely fit the archetype of female CEOs, she does fit the mold of privilege. It’s a reality that I think Meltzer does well to dwell on, given Glossier’s 2020 “Outta the Gloss” scandal, where they came under fire for their treatment of POC employees, and the demographic they have historically catered (and distinctly not catered) to. Facing distrust and even disgust from followers who watched the brand lay off over a third of their employees and come under fire for racism and toxic workplace culture, it’s unlikely that Glossier will ever regain its former standing in public opinion, despite its growth in valuation. The brand has since taken serious initiatives to improve their inclusivity and accessibility, but as Meltzer continuously reiterates, its early image is a double-edged sword, simultaneously reminiscent of a brand who treated its employees like the industry royalty they were but also one lacking in consideration for all of their audience.
Meltzer never indicates that Weiss was ever revered by young girls or enjoyed the same kind of god-like CEO status that we typically attribute to people like Steve Jobs, and considers whether this could be due to her nature as the pinnacle of an unattainable standard — a wealthy, naturally beautiful, slightly chilly white woman from Connecticut — while the “Glossier Girl” she had created was branded to remove all of those beauty hierarchies. Weiss didn’t exactly match the image she so vigorously defended, and when she stepped down from her CEO position in 2022 after nine years, many thought the changeover was too little too late. But Meltzer does acknowledge that Weiss, now married with a young child, deserves to take a step away from the project she has helmed, nurtured, and fought relentlessly for since the beginning, and admirably so.
Addressing the difficulties women CEOs face beyond just sexism is a necessary conversation in our current climate, and Glossy critiques the “girl boss” culture that has evolved parallel to the company’s rise to fame. Weiss was a girl boss if there ever was one, but the term is often used to chip away at female CEOs as opposed to building them up, feminizing something, as opposed to understanding a position as equally impressive regardless of gender. One of the most fascinating connections the book draws is between Glossier’s attempt at being a tech company and its female CEO. In an era where companies like Apple were showcasing their leaders, who were seen as influential people more than simply leaders, labeling a company as “tech” instead of “beauty” was a lucrative edge, however rooted in misogyny. It’s an exciting callout and drives home the double standards placed on women in leadership positions. No one would think of Glossier as a tech company, yet Weiss tried; through acquisitions, new employees, leadership styles, and a (failed) attempt at an app, the direction of the brand is unmistakably connected to the tech and start-up culture of the 2010s.
One of Glossy’s strengths is its use of chronological structure without sacrificing context and insider knowledge — Meltzer strategically imbues the story with explanations of business models and the venture capital funding series alongside comments from former employees. While it’s fun for beauty industry aficionados to have lightbulb moments every two pages when a cult French product or niche DTC founder is mentioned, Meltzer keeps everyone in the loop. Timing is everything, Glossy seems to argue, framing Glossier’s rise with social media and startup culture, two major trends of the early 2010s when Weiss turned her blog into a full-fledged brand. From the influence of movies like “The Social Network” to Instagram branding, many of Glossier’s growth plays make even more sense when placed in social and company chronology.
Meltzer divulges a great deal of information on the economic and tech side of the company, which was an entirely new perspective, which many readers will be surprised by. Reading the numbers for series funding, valuation, and other monetary elements of Glossier was almost sobering; it’s hard to appreciate the legitimate elements of building a company when all you see of them is fresh faces and bright pink packaging. Whether through other failures (the Play line) or major successes (launching store-specific lifestyle products), Glossy assesses the strengths and weaknesses, no matter whether inevitable or self-inflicted, of a brand built during the rise of digital consumerism.
Glossy’s narrative emphasizes that even more than their products, Glossier is known as an innovator in marketing and product branding. They held a monopoly over Instagram marketing and bright, clean filters, and their product campaigns were the stuff of legends — Glossier wrote the playbook on trendy beauty branding and no one has quite managed to have a comparable second act. But what fans must inevitably understand and reconcile with, perhaps through reading this book, is that Glossier is built on the world of tech employee structures and DTC growth tactics and will always, regardless of the opinions of their loyal customers, move towards the payout and the “next big thing.” This has little to do with their audience and everything to do with business culture.
I can’t help but think of the implications of writing a book like this at a time when Glossier has just partnered with Sephora and has hinted that they are massively growing the countries they ship to. I was genuinely surprised and almost a little hurt when they announced the partnership; “They’re selling out. They’ve finally gone retail!” I texted my friend last July. And this, while a massive step for the company, comes at a cost; Meltzer spends time detailing how Into the Gloss took a backseat, with no room for the editorial work amongst the brick-and-mortar stores and international expansion. She even quotes Weiss as saying she felt ITG was competing with Glossier, an interesting indication of just how much Weiss strayed from her roots in the name of building an empire. This past month, Glossier has revived ITG after almost two years of virtual radio silence, posting weekly Top Shelf interviews and profiles. It’s not quite the same.
Glossy shed a lot of light on a work environment I had naively assumed was a kind of haven for beauty lovers and writers — I suppose I have always viewed Glossier as run by editors, not tech gurus and VC investors. I grew up reading the blog, watching my favorite writers on Instagram as they posted from an office filled with mood boards and a closet full of Byredo and Khiel’s samples. The Glossier products were just a bonus, a chance for me to get my hands on good packaging and absorb inspiration for writing genius product copy. The golden age of blogging is over, and that’s a shame, but ITG was groundbreaking in its approach to the beauty and journalism industry and was formative in setting the tone for digital editorial.
Companies and their leaders, especially in the beauty industry and especially when it comes to online journalism, have a shelf life, so to speak. This is not to say that I don’t still love Glossier — many of their products remain staples of my beauty routine, and Into the Gloss will always be the blog that inspired me to be a writer, to aspire to have an editorial career, and made me a devotee of a toner that has been dubbed “Satan’s Salad Dressing.” So much has changed since 2015, when it was running out of a small loft in Soho. Glossy is not a company eulogy, as I first speculated, but I wouldn’t call it a glowing celebration of their future, either.
Meltzer quotes an unnamed source as saying, “I hate that I love it. I think we all do,” and nothing quite sums up the recent Glossier experience more than this sentiment. Glossy perfectly addresses this nostalgia for “the old Glossier;” Meltzer writes a brilliant portrait that fills in the blanks, chronicling the growth, the scandal, and the future of a beauty company valued at $1.3 billion. Even if you’ve never heard of Glossier, Glossy is worth a read if only for the name-dropping and remarkably relevant narrative around modern CEOs and their empires — and how the mighty have fallen.
All quotes in this article are pulled from “Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier” (Atria/One Signal Publishers, New York, 2023).