Newsfeed
There’s clean beauty, and then there’s Saie – the brainchild of Laney Crowell, an industry veteran who looked at the landscape of toxic makeup and lacklustre “natural” alternatives and decided to rewrite the script entirely. After years at major brands and running her influential blog, The Moment, Crowell spotted the glaring void: makeup that was both uncompromisingly clean and genuinely covetable. No toxic ingredients, no clunky packaging, no half-hearted sustainability claims. Just good products, full stop.
So in late 2019 – because if not during a global pandemic, then when? – she launched Saie, a brand that ditched over 2,000 questionable ingredients without sacrificing an ounce of chic. It was a full-scale reimagining of what makeup could be: high-performance, Instagram-worthy, and backed by a community that believes in it.
As part of GRAZIA’s Career Edit, Laney shares with us her career journey and aspirations.
My current role is…
Founder and CEO of Saie and mum to two girls.
When I was younger I wanted to be…
A marine biologist. I love the ocean – it’s a big part of where my focus on the climate comes from. I started scuba diving when I was 14 and I love being underwater and marine life. I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean – it’s my happy place.
My favourite subject at school was…
Art. I could have majored in art, it was my favourite. I also loved psychology, so it’s a tie between the two. Psychology has definitely played a part in what I do today. Being able to think about how someone else is thinking, what motivates them, and what they want is a really important part of running a business and understanding your consumer. I think of what I do as art – business is art.
I majored in math and economics though, and once I finished my major, I was like, ‘Okay, what do I do now?’ I remember wishing that I had majored in art and psychology, but instead, I did a double minor in French and psychology and all my other classes were art.
My first job was…
A lifeguard. Sadly I wasn’t an ocean lifeguard, I was by the pool, which my kids like to remind me about all the time [laughs]. It’s a very natural first job when you’re a swimmer. I was on the varsity swim team, water polo team, and club teams, so I spent a lot of time in the water.
My career path so far has been…
Fun and very much not linear. After college I worked for a movie producer in LA, and when I look back, I think storytelling has been a consistent part of what I’ve done. That job offered a wonderful place to learn about storytelling and how you bring it to life. Then I moved to New York with the goal of working in magazines. I wanted to be on the masthead, but I had no idea how hard that actually is to do. So, I started interning at Gucci for free to get my foot in the door. Then I got into editorial as an intern at ELLE magazine, where I worked five days a week, sometimes ’til midnight, without being paid. This was back when internships were unpaid, so I also worked as a hostess to pay the bills.
Then I finally got a job at Lucky magazine. I introduced myself to the Editor in Chief, Kim France, when I ran into her in a Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue, and she got me my first assistant job in editorial and fashion news. Then I went back to ELLE – they had a magazine called ELLE Accessories – and I was there for years, working my way up to Editor for the American markets, before going online. I could see jobs being eliminated in print and the conversation moving online, and I was really intrigued by that and how quick online conversations were compared to print. So, I went to a startup that was like a bootcamp for everything online, from what wireframes look like and building a website to social media, blogging, and content creation.
Then I was recruited by Estée Lauder to start their digital department, which was amazing. I loved my time there. I feel like I got my master’s degree at Estée Lauder, and I was really excited to understand what happens inside a brand, because I’d always been on the editorial side, which is really just curating and editing. So after Estée Lauder, I left with this really big idea of making beauty better and started consulting for startups. I started my blog, and then I decided to start Saie!
I was inspired to enter into the beauty space because…
I’m a huge beauty lover. I’m the number one consumer and customer [laughs]. I’ve always loved fashion and beauty.
My daily routine consists of…
When I’m not in the office, I work from home in a really beautiful town, which is about two and a half hours from the city. I wake up, work out, and then drop the kids at school – I love spending time with them in the morning.
Then I come home, shower, get ready, and do my five minute (or less!) makeup routine with all my favorite Saie products. I always start with Glowy Super Gel, Slip Tint, a little bit of either Super Suede or Dew Blush, and Mascara 101. I always curl my lashes and do my brows. Then I do a quick lip moment before I go into Zooms, which are usually back to back until 6 o’clock, when I do dinner and bedtime with the kids. I try and do Zoom calls on my walking pad to get my steps in.
I go into the office once a week. I love going in, we have a really beautiful space in Soho. Those days are all about touching product and doing anything we want do in person, so creating content, playing with formulas, meeting influencers and people we invite into the office… Those days are really fun. Then I love going out to a New York dinner or for drinks with the team.
I usually travel once a month. I had a wild beginning of the summer in terms of travel, but once a month I’m somewhere for Saie, whether that’s LA for an influencer event, San Francisco to meet with Sephora, London to meet with Cult Beauty, or Dubai to meet with Sephora Middle East.
The biggest hurdle I’ve overcome is…
Fundraising. Being a first time founder – and a female founder – fundraising was really tough. But I just kept going until I could get it done. Fundraising is not for the faint-hearted [laughs]. I think the best advice I got was that people invest in a founder is that you’re not just selling an idea – you’re selling yourself. People want to invest in a founder who’s never going to quit or say, ‘Oh well, that didn’t work’.
The biggest milestone I have achieved is…
I don’t know that I have one milestone, but for me, creating a team that I really, genuinely love being with is the thing I’m most proud of.
A quote I live by is…
“Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. It’s by Thomas Edison, and it’s a quote that gives me so much hope because it’s not necessarily talent or being super smart, it’s about how hard you work. It’s something I say all the time.
I was so excited to bring Saie to the Middle East because…
I’m so inspired by the fashion and beauty in the Middle East, so I was really excited to introduce makeup that’s really good for and feels like your skin. The response has been incredible. It was so wild to arrive and everybody already knew us and had tried Saie, but I think that’s a testament to how incredible the consumer is in the Middle East – they’re so savvy. It makes me so excited to introduce people to makeup that’s good for your skin and can even make your skin better, all while enjoying everything that you love about makeup.
What I hope for the year ahead is…
To keep growing and building the Saie community. I built this brand for the community, and I’m so excited to see people in person and to talk to them and engage with them and to introduce more people to the brand. That’s what gets me up every day.
