Lili Reinhart knows her new skin-care brand, Personal Day, will be met with skepticism. “I anticipate it,” she said. After all, the world does not need another celebrity-founded skin-care brand, or any skin-care brand.
But Reinhart has a greater mission for the brand: to fuel conversations with her community about acne and the way it impacts mental health. Reinhart, best known for playing Betty Cooper in “Riverdale,” has 25.2 million Instagram followers and 6.8 million TikTok followers.
“I felt so vulnerable,” Reinhart said, regarding her own skin issues in her late teens. At age 19, she started filming “Riverdale,” which meant six-day workweeks and 16-hour days, during which her face was caked with makeup.
“I felt like I was surrounded by people who didn’t have that problem. … When you have a flaw, you look at that thing on everybody else. So for me, when I have a breakout, I look at everyone else’s skin and compare myself to them,” she said.
Eventually, she found solace in talking about the issue on social media. “Being open about this has never been about validation. It’s just [about] seeking to feel less alone. … Whenever I post about these things, I have swarms of people saying, ‘Me, too!’ and, ‘I’m so glad you’re talking about this.'”
Reinhart, now 28 and over a year out from the ending of “Riverdale,” was first approached to create a brand by her talent agency, UTA, which has a brand-building arm, UTA Ventures. The group helped connect her to Shelagh Wong, who came on as CEO and co-founder. Wong previously worked at brands including influencer Camila Coelho’s Elaluz brand, Smith & Cult and Korres. Dan Reich and Ken Landis, both of whom were founders of Tula and Dibs Beauty, are board members.
In addition to investing some of her own funds — the amount was not disclosed — Reinhart and Wong raised money from Red Sea Ventures, whose early-stage investments included Allbirds, Sweetgreen, Nest and Prose, as well as personal investments from partners at L Catterton.
Working with UTA Ventures was an easy decision, Reinhart said. She’s been a client of the agency since age 18.
Reinhart will promote the brand to her own community, via the UTA network and with robust influencer seeding. In addition, Personal Day will host a launch event for media and influencers in Los Angeles in November.
Personal Day will launch on October 28 with five products: the Full Clarity Cleansing Powder ($24), the Even Keel Resurfacing Peel ($34), the Everybody Stay Calm Recovery Mask ($32), the Doing The Work Salicylic Acid Acne Treatment ($36) and the Dive Deep Mevalonic Moisturizer ($38). The mask and moisturizer feature mevalonic acid, a patented ingredient created by the brand’s supplier, that’s exclusive to Personal Day for the next two years. It is an epidermal growth factor that can help strengthen the skin barrier, according to the brand.
Wong described the price point as “entry prestige.”
“The business minds want to charge as much as possible for everything,” she said. But Reinhart wanted the brand to feel accessible to her audience. The decision was made to keep the collection under $40. “The price point just needs to be high enough that we can deliver the beautiful formulas you would see from a prestige skin-care line,” Wong said.
“I live in Los Angeles, and I have access to the estheticians and services in Beverly Hills that people from my hometown in Cleveland don’t have. … But really, the difference in your skin comes from what you do on a daily basis and what’s on your bathroom counter,” Reinhart said.
Personal Day will launch direct-to-consumer, but desirable retailers have shown interest, Wong said, hinting at future plans.
The brand has established an advisory board comprised of Reinhart’s esthetician, Sarah Ford; dermatologist, internist and dermatopathologist Dr. Mamina Turegano (1.2 million TikTok followers and 500,000 Instagram followers); and psychologist Dr. Courtney Tracy, (1.7 million TikTok followers and 147,000 Instagram followers).
“Mental health is part of our [the brand’s] DNA,” Wong said. Reinhart has been extremely outspoken about her own. In 2020, when she published “Swimming Lessons,” a book of poetry, she spoke to The New York Times about her experiences with depression, therapy, anxiety and body dysmorphia. If you Google “Lili Reinhart acne,” you’ll find countless stories from beauty publications documenting her makeup-free selfies and social media posts where she’s talking about her experience with acne.
“When I was a teenager trying to be an actor, [I saw pictures of] actors with gorgeous, perfect skin. [I didn’t see] actors talking about acne or skin issues,” Reinhart said. “If [these issues] were being talked about, it was on the cover of a magazine with a headline like: ‘Look at these celebrities looking fucking ugly without makeup.'”
She added, “People associate acne with being dirty and having dirty skin, and that creates a feeling of shame. I have people who are 50 [years old] messaging me on TikTok saying, ‘Thank you for talking about your acne because I still deal with it today.’ I’m thankful that whatever I’m posting out there is resonating. And I want our line to resonate with someone who is 14, and someone who is 40.”
