Isamaya Ffrench’s eponymous beauty brand ISAMAYA is very new - two years! But what an impact it’s made. Shocking us with her lipsticks in penis-inspired packaging (a sentence I never thought I would write!) and her Steven Klein campaigns, her brand of cosmetics has landed - as she says - “exactly where I wanted it to land”.

But juggling it alongside her day job - creating campaigns and catwalk looks for some of the most influential global stars in the fashion and music industry, from Balmain, Giambattista Valli, Vivienne Westwood as well as contributing to international magazines like Vogue, Dazed, and Beauty Papers, recently took its toll. When she experienced one too many burnouts, Isamaya finally learnt that she’s the only person who can improve her own life quality. And so that's just what she did.

You can find out more about Isamaya Ffrench here:

https://britishbeautycouncil.com/advisory-board-announcement/

https://isamaya.co.uk/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAuYuvBhApEiwAzq_YiYrJfHNc5Xt1q1Gp6SZIaqymoGvNcyuCiJC2gARBzo5-wGP7WBPJBxoCFPcQAvD_BwE

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/style/isamaya-ffrench-beauty.html

https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/article/42106/1/isamaya-ffrench-my-life-in-make-up

Please follow or subscribe to Keeping Face wherever you’re listening, and if you enjoy it, please spread the word!

Please visit the website https://lapyae.com/ to find out about Keeping Face founder, Kathleen Baird-Murray’s new, special project.

For more information about how to sponsor an episode, please contact emily@blanketlondon.com

Produced by Parkview Creative. For more information please contact them at info@parkviewcreative.com

Music composed by Armand Daniaud

Editing by Armand Daniaud

Keeping Face logo by Paul McNeil

Social Media by Angelika Wiatkowska

AMAZING AMY: THE PERFUMER WHO WANTS TO CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER

Passionate about fragrance, Amy Christiansen, founder of Sana Jardin, created her luxury perfume house of intoxicating scents with a Master Perfumer. A social justice activist, her business model has a strong social conscience driving it - she ensures that the women harvesting the petals for her fragrances are in turn able to develop their own businesses. On this episode of Keeping Face, Amy shares the joy she experienced at being able to support female micro-entrepreneurs - but also the immense sorrow and worry when she was in Morocco when 6.8 magnitude earthquake exploded and witnessed the subsequent humanitarian disaster at first hand. One of the nicest, kindest people you’ll ever meet, this is an inspirational listen about a brand whose values have always been more than just virtue signalling. It shows that doing good and running a successful luxury brand are not mutually exclusive.

For more background, these links are useful:

https://sanajardin.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5-uuBhDzARIsAAa21T8adeLWwSeEds5CXqLZuuNu2_doPMct5Odl9cSvJKOsFJtykpD3rIgaAimGEALw_wcB

https://wwd.com/business-news/financial/clean-fragrance-perfume-sana-jardin-raises-2-million-us-market-1235741004/

https://perfumesociety.org/discover-the-sustainable-future-of-fragrance-with-sana-jardins-amy-christiansen/

Please follow or subscribe to Keeping Face wherever you’re listening and if you enjoy it, please spread the word! It helps others to find us.

Please visit the website https://lapyae.com/ to find out more about Kathleen Baird-Murray’s new, very special project.

For more information about how to sponsor an episode, please contact emily@blanketlondon.com.

Produced by Parkview Creative. For more information please contact them at info@parkviewcreative.com

Music composed by Armand Daniaud

Editing by Armand Daniaud

Keeping Face logo by Paul McNeil

Social Media by Angelika Wiatkowska

How Nyakio Grieco Learnt to Be Her No1 Advocate

Nyakio Grieco is what they call a beauty industry veteran, having lived and breathed it for years before starting her own brand, Nyakio, which was acquired by Unilever in 2017. She’s now both a retailer with Thirteen Lune in the US, a beauty emporium that focuses on brands developed by people of colour, as well as the founder of Relevant Skin check, which launched in June 2022, and now sells at Sephora. Besides creating products that really work, like her One and Done, a three in one primer, moisturiser, and sun protection, has been about tapping into the need we all have to feel seen, to feel relevant. 

In this episode, Grieco, who was born in Oklahoma to parents of Kenyan heritage and who now lives in Los Angeles, reveals the stumbling blocks in her way - specifically the challenges that lurk around taking on investment. An inspirational listen, she discusses the importance of family heritage, and how that played into her learnings around the Black Lives Matter racial reckoning of 2020. “You can’t stay too long in a place of negativity, you have to turn your pain into purpose…”

For more background, these links are useful: 

https://thirteenlune.com/blogs/shop-talk/a-note-from-nyakio

https://relevantskin.com/

https://www.nyakio.com/us/en

https://wwd.com/beauty-industry-news/beauty-features/inside-nyakio-griecos-unyielding-vision-for-borderless-beauty-1235620655/

Please follow or subscribe to Keeping Face wherever you’re listening, and if you enjoy it, please spread the word! 

Please visit the website https://lapyae.com/ to find out about Keeping Face founder, Kathleen Baird-Murray’s new, special project. 

For more information about how to sponsor an episode, please contact emily@blanketlondon.com

Produced by Parkview Creative. For more information please contact them at info@parkviewcreative.com

Music composed by Armand Daniaud

Editing by Armand Daniaud

Keeping Face logo by Paul McNeil

Social Media by Angelika Wiatkowska