Róen Beauty’s Tiffany Scott and Kate Synnott on authenticity: ‘The real girl resonates so much more’

Shortly after the brand’s inception, Scott met Róen Beauty’s current creative director, Kate Synott, and the two hit it off. Scott’s passion and innovative vision have successfully complemented Synott’s expertise in makeup and skin care; together, they’ve transformed Róen Beauty into a premiere clean beauty brand. Since its launch, the brand has expanded to product categories including skin care, mascara and blush.

For 2023, Scott and Synnott said continuing to produce new and exciting clean beauty products that are accessible is top of mind. Expanding into more product categories and physical retail stores are goals, as well.

“The success has been really great, and the partnerships have been really great,” Scott said on the latest episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast. “But we want to expand into [more categories] this year. And we have another exciting launch coming in Q2 that’s a retail partnership. [The retailer] is a really beautiful, clean, well-known beauty retailer in the U.S. and abroad.”

Below are additional highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.

The progress and challenges of clean beauty

Scott: “[Creating clean beauty products] is still a challenge. You’ve got biotech companies that are coming onto the scene … that are making these incredible ingredients and they’re synthetic, and people think, ‘Oh, no. It’s synthetic, so it’s bad for you.’ But actually, not all natural ingredients are good for your skin; some of them are terrible for your skin. And not all synthetic ingredients are good or bad. Companies coming up with these biotech ingredients, like squalene, made in these labs that are non-toxic, and they’re great for your skin. It’s amazing to see people pushing the envelope, and I think it could be pushed further. … Kate and I do the research to find the labs that are going to make [the best clean products]. We go around finding different labs to make each individual product, so it’s challenging and it’s more expensive because it’s still not the norm. [However, the industry] is definitely inching in the right direction. You’re seeing more [clean beauty products] out there. It’s exciting to me when I see a new clean beauty brand. … It’s amazing that we have choices in the clean beauty world.”

Synott: “[The competition in the clean beauty space] only reassures us that we’re doing the right thing — because the effort that you have to put in to make it clean [is not easy]; it’s a grueling process. … And it would be worrying if we were the only ones.”

Using celebrities and influencers to drive visibility

Synott: “[The exposure from celebrities] has to be organic. One of my clients, Kristin Cavallari, who’s an amazing woman and businesswoman, posted the Gold Lust palette because she just loves the Gold Lust palette. It was clearly not a paid post, and that’s when it works really well. She was just doing her makeup while she was away on holiday. It was just a quick Insta story, and we got an insane amount of sales and DMs from people [asking] what else is on her face. … As a brand, you could throw a lot of money at celebrities to use your product, but it doesn’t always equate to sales [when it’s not organic].”

Scott: “We gift [influencers], but we don’t really have any paid partnerships with influencers. Occasionally, when we have a launch, we’ll do a couple of paid tutorial videos, but I like to focus more on micro-influencers, because there’s a real authenticity to just the real girl. That’s part of why I started Róen. I love the glamour, and I love the celebrity, but I also think the real girl resonates with people so much. So I like to find the balance of that.”