DORÉ

Annie Jackson is Co-Founder and COO of one of our favorite clean beauty destinations, Credo. Two weeks ago we popped by their new Upper East Side location to celebrate its opening and ww were able to get a few extra minutes with Annie to talk, of course, all things beauty…

What is your morning skincare and make up routine?

My routine changes all the time – we receive a lot of submissions and I am not going to pretend that it’s not ridiculously fun to continually try new products. I have been a buyer for over 20 years – and it’s only recently that my husband has stopped complaining about the real estate my job takes up in our bathroom. (disclaimer: I am beauty merchant, so keep that in mind if this feels excessive……)

I use One Love Organics Vitamin B Enzyme Cleansing Oil with a warm muslin cloth. It smells like pineapples and is a great way to start a morning…..especially a cold winter morning. I actually only use a cleansing oil if I work out in the morning, which I try to do every morning – otherwise I just splash my face first with slightly warm water and then do the rest of the steps.

Then I am an obsessive face mister and go through January Labs Restorative Tonic Mist like crazy. I try a lot of different kinds of face mists but honestly always come back to this one.

Then I gently press into my skin the Saint Jane Luxury Beauty Serum. Again, like face mists, we could sink a ship with the beautiful facial oils we sell, however, this one has this incredible cushion and absorbs really quickly on me. As someone with very dry skin, strangely, most oils sit on my face and don’t absorb as nicely.

Then I put on a light layer of Trilogy Ultra Hydrating Face Cream, or if it’s a weekend I use Josh Rosebrook Nutrient Day Cream with SPF 30 – it has a slight tint to it and is one of the most gorgeous facial skincare creams I have ever used.

For makeup…this is when I start running out of time and rarely change my routine…..

I start with Alima Pure Eye Primer.

Followed by Jillian Dempsey Eye Liner in Rich Brown all around my eye.

Then I use the PYT Beauty No BS Eyeshadow Palette and apply the coppery shade on my lid and the deeper on my brow bone.

Then because I have a strange affliction for multiple eyeliner pencils so one more time I go over the top lid again with Ere Perez Jojoba Eye Pencil in Bronze.

I brush away any fall out with a blush brush and then use RMS Un Cover-up concealer in 11 over any redness and then apply Ilia True Skin Serum Foundation in Texel.

I use Juice Beauty Phyto-Pigments Brow Envy Gel in Medium and lastly, I love Ilia Limitless Lash Mascara in After Midnight.

Until I get to work I use the Henne Luxury Lip Balm in V2 and then at work – I have about 30 lipsticks in my bag. Right now I am loving the PYT Strike Twice Lip Duo in Rumor or I will grab W3ll People Optimist Semi-Matte Lipstick in Soulmate. Both have a nice pop of pigment and last on me.

What products do you keep in your bag at all times to get you through your day?

I always have RMS Living Luminizer with me, it is a great way to give a little life to dull skin – I have used this little baby for YEARS and swear by it. I also keep RMS Un Coverup concealer in 11 for any touch-ups during the day. I just added a newer brand to Credo in my bag – the Lepaar Elemental Day Silk to combat any dryness. The ridiculous number of lipsticks I carry around are rivaled only by my love of clear balms, glosses and sticks. In addition to Henne, my most-used is probably Abhati Mahandi Lip Treatment — I love to support this brand since the founder, Anju created it to raise money for girls in India to go to school…AND the balm is gorgeous and nutrient-packed with sea buckthorn and vitamins.

What is your nighttime skincare routine?

I never met a cream cleanser I didn’t love! Right now, I am using Josh Rosebrook’s Complete Moisture Cleanse. My skin feels soft and plumped-up, not tight and dry – which I obviously don’t love. If I have time, a couple times a week I will run around shutting down the house for the night wearing the Tata Harper Resurfacing Mask or the Kypris Cerulean Mask, depending on how my skin feels. I remove the masks with a warm muslin cloth and then to remove any residual eye makeup, I just use jojoba oil on a cotton pad first and then put a little on my finger and dab on my eyelid and around my eyes. Then I use Maya Chia Supercritical Omega-3 Chia Oil, followed by Goop Replenishing Night Cream. Back in my Estee Lauder days, I was a die-hard Crème de la Mer girl, and this is literally its doppelganger, but instead is formulated with awesome USDA organic ingredients.

What are you most excited about for the future of clean beauty?

I think it is awesome that we are seeing retailers in the mass space committing to putting safer products on their shelves. When companies like Target and CVS identify chemicals of concern and raise an awareness with the kind of reach that they have, it further pushes contract manufacturers to start formulating with better ingredients and it pushes big brands to start making changes. It also lets people know there are effective and awesome options out there without having to sacrifice.

I am also excited that people feel empowered to educate themselves on ingredients and want to make informed decisions about the products they choose to buy. But I think what I am most excited by, is that these brands are effective and formulated with beautiful and good-for-you and good-for-the-planet ingredients – and stand up to conventional brands and not being pigeonholed into a “green beauty” or “clean beauty” corner. They are just being recognized as “the best mascara.” That is badass.

And last (but most definitely not least) the clean beauty space is pretty dominated by women founders – and seeing them start to scale and be able to breathe a little bit and enjoy their success after sometimes decades (!) of REALLY hard work…..is ridiculously rewarding.

What is your advice to people who want to “clean” their beauty routine but are overwhelmed by the task?

Beauty should be fun, and it should inspire you and make you feel good. At no point should it feel overwhelming. The norm for our customers at Credo is they either wait until they run out of the conventional product they are using and want to replenish it with a clean version, or they want to swap out what they are using in certain categories first because they have “heard” certain products can have questionable ingredients in them: the norms are usually SPF, Shampoo, Moisturizer and Mascara. A helpful tip if you want to understand the space a little better just in general: read the ingredient label. The International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI) is a system of names for ingredients listed on the package of personal care products. If a brand is following INCI guidelines (which they should be but don’t have to be) they are using the scientific name of an ingredient that is globally standardized (many brands put the English translation in parenthesis next to it so you can easily understand what it is.) We’ve seen people read a “natural” product ingredient label and have a reaction because they see, for example Butyrospermum Parkii and say “I thought this was natural!” But that is just the INCI term for Shea Butter. So, read the label, but don’t get intimidated if the ingredients are long or you don’t recognize them. It is better to see the company has it together enough to use the INCI terms and isn’t being “inventive” with marketing terms.