Sarah Creal
The Secret Weapon
Today’s conversation is with the brilliant Sarah Creal: beauty industry veteran, product developer, founder, and the woman behind some of the most iconic products in the history of prestige cosmetics. Sarah opens up about growing up in Warren, Pennsylvania, where she lay on rocks as a kid watching airplanes overhead and dreaming of what was out there. In our conversation, we trace her path from the Clinique beauty counter, to Revlon, to Bobbi Brown, to developing lines for Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and Victoria Beckham, to finally launching her own namesake brand exclusively for women 40+.
Sarah shares what it felt like to beg for investment and be told older women don’t want to look at older women — and how she responded by building something that is redefining the entire visual language of beauty for women in their prime.
Tune in for a conversation about taste, tenacity, and what it means to finally choose yourself after a lifetime spent in service to others.
Fig. 01 — From the episode archive
Guest Questionnaire
The Questionnaire
- Favorite work of art?
- Anything by Helen Frankenthaler
- Favorite quote or mantra?
- “If you want to see, you have to look.”
- Favorite book of yours?
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
- Favorite time of day?
- My morning meditation time: a moment of peace to myself. When I miss it, it feels like I haven’t brushed my teeth.
- Favorite movie?
- Parasite
- Album or musical artist you have on repeat?
- Toss up between Post Malone, Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter, any of the pop girls, and a bit of Run DMC!
- Favorite type of tree, plant, or flower?
- Peonies from my garden in my Southampton home.
Three Questions on Time
Take Your Time Back
If everything on your calendar tomorrow was canceled, what would you do?
I’d let my daughters sleep in so I have some time to myself first. Morning would be coffee, meditation, SoulCycle, and a great breakfast all before they wake up. Then when they’re up, I’d take them shopping. It’s one of the best things you can do. They’re trying on identities, trying on fashion and becoming who they are.
Time is the only thing you can’t fake. What’s something you could have only learned over time?
Take time for yourself. It sounds trite, but it’s the real secret. Meditation is the secret to the universe. Being willing to sit with yourself and know yourself, that’s the hardest thing to do and also the gateway to having a great life.
When does time stand still for you?
When I’m in a super creative mode. Recently I was with my team at 6pm, everyone exhausted, and we needed a tagline. In the moment I found it, and that one tagline spawned the entire next 12 months of creative development for the brand. It took an hour and felt like two minutes.
From the Episode
Show Notes
In This Episode
- 1:35Show intro & meet Sarah Creal
- 2:47Breathing exercise
- 4:27Childhood in small-town Pennsylvania
- 7:30First makeup experiments & discovering product development
- 10:22Growing up with an architect father
- 16:04Choosing Penn & studying English
- 21:40Literature as the lifeblood of storytelling & selling
- 24:04Starting at the Clinique counter
- 27:00Landing her first product development job
- 30:03Becoming Bobbi Brown’s head of product development & marketing
- 34:26Creating Tom Ford Beauty & the “architecture of the face”
- 38:41The Ralph Lauren story
- 43:52Throwing out the rulebook with her own brand
- 51:34The new “beauty erotica” photoshoot
- 52:31Channeling ideas & the dream that birthed the brand
- 56:51Fighting for funding & naming the brand
- 1:00:45Take Your Time Back segment
- 1:04:57Closing thoughts
In Her Words
- “Tenacity and resilience are the things you need. If you have a dream, you have to keep going past all the no’s.”
- “You have to think of the end at the beginning. That’s discipline.”
- “The moment that as a woman you are no longer deemed a vessel for either a man’s pleasure or the ability to procreate, you are then relegated to this place of just boringness. And from my own experience, this is actually not the life older women are living.”
- “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten both more cognizant and respectful of my own capacity.”
- “I throw it out to the universe. I’m a very spiritual person and I just say, what am I here for? What is my purpose? What do you need me to do? I try to stay as open as possible.”
- “I just don’t think there’s enough anticipation in the world. We know everything.”
Follow Along
Sarah on Instagram: @sarah.creal
Dianna on Instagram: @diannacohen
Take Your Time on Instagram, TikTok and Substack
