Career Diaries: How Saint Jane Beauty Founder Casey Georgeson Pioneered CBD Beauty Space

Saint Jane Beauty burst onto the scene in 2019 with just one hero product: A luxurious beauty serum made from 500 mg Full Spectrum CBD. At the time, CBD was a new beauty ingredient and there were still a lot of rules around it, but the founder Casey Georgeson knew it needed to be introduced luxury skin care market. Less than two years after launching, Saint Jane Beauty was picked up by Sephora and expanded its offerings to include a variety of CBD infusion products, including his new Moisturizing cream with petals. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Georgeson about the brand's seemingly instant success, as well as some of the pitfalls involved in being a CBD beauty pioneer. Keep reading to read the full interview. 

After developing several major beauty brands, what made you step back and create your own? 

Before beauty, I started creating brands in the field of wine. In 2005, I worked for a large company, The Wine Group, where I created a brand called Cupcake Vineyards. This is the first brand I have ever created and it has become very successful. After that I went to business school and I really missed beauty. So in the summer of 2007, I worked at Sephora as their first MBA intern. It was just amazing - and I knew that this is what I want to do when I graduate. 

After graduation, I worked at Kendo and Sephora where I created Marc Jacobs [Beauty], Elizabeth and James and Disney for Sephora. I've always loved building brands, but I knew being a founder was a whole other thing. It was supposed to catapult me ​​into this world where I wasn't sure I was comfortable - I always liked being behind the scenes and having someone else tell the brand's story.

I kind of toyed with the idea of ​​starting my own brand, but I didn't have a grand idea that would inspire me to take that leap of faith into the founder's world. Then I discovered CBD and all of a sudden it was the clearest brand idea I've ever had. I thought this molecule was so interesting for skin care because of its anti-inflammatory properties and the fact that it contains powerful antioxidants. I thought it was one of the most exciting skin care ingredients of our time and the brand took off very quickly after that. 

Did you expect not only CBD as an ingredient, but also the brand to explode as quickly as it did? 

No, and looking back at the 2019 launch timeline, it was like a cannon out of the gate. It was like a “wow” moment when this brand really captured people’s attention and captured their hearts and minds more than any other brand I have ever worked on. He had such an instant connection to the community we built. I'm really proud of it, because we were self-financed, tiny and fragmented - not that we had huge budgets. Every other brand I've ever created was for a giant company and had a launch pad to bring them to life. For this, a small and powerful team worked at my home. I'm really proud of it.

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Have you ever been afraid to create a product with CBD since there were so many rules around it?

I probably shouldn't have been as optimistic as I was, but it seemed so unreasonable that CBD would be treated like something other than a vitamin. I was very righteous about it - I thought, "This should be in skin care." This is very good for you. Knowing what I know now about how much trouble I could get in back when it was another drug on the schedule - right where heroin is - that's just crazy to even say out loud... I could get into a lot. trouble. But I was in California, where cannabis had just been legalized, and I thought it was all right. We hit the national stage after they passed farm account [who legalized CBD products]. I was so confident that this was the right molecule for skin care that I felt everything had to catch up - and it did, but I was probably a little big for my pants.

Do you see yourself as something of a CBD pioneer for others who want to bring it into the beauty space?

I say that CBD is a lot like post-wine ban times because that's the background I came out of and it's really a bit like that. It still feels like the Wild West - there are many brands that have already come and gone, but there is so much room for so many brands to succeed. And I really believe that together we are much stronger and each has its own streak. It's tough competition and it's an industry with a lot of potential. But you know, I'm the first one to stand up and say, "If you want to start a CBD brand, I'll help you because I've learned so much about what not to do." 

A lot has changed since we started and the rules are changing so fast. Therefore, I am always more than happy to share my knowledge with other brand suppliers who are just starting out so that they can avoid some of the pitfalls.

Your latest launch is a petal moisturizer - what inspired it?

I was inspired by how soft flower petals can be. We were working on a photo shoot for A luxurious beauty serum and we were laying out all these petals and plants, and I thought, "These petals are so incredibly soft." Why are they so soft? What gives them such texture? It's the perfect combination of hydration and nutrients. 

So we started developing this formula with the idea that we wanted a really light, lightweight texture, but we wanted to really enhance the deep absorption of this hydration. As such, the formula is very unique - it doesn't feel like a greasy cream, but it also provides all-day hydration to the skin. For flower extracts, it was about which flowers should complement the soothing properties of CBD and skin elasticity. Thus, hibiscus, magnolia, frangipani, pink lotus and daisy are wonderful on their own for the skin, but in the formula they come together in a symphonic bouquet of flowers.

What is one beauty tip you would like to tell yourself in your youth?

It's not the most dramatic, but drink plenty of water. It's kind of a cliché, but I notice such a difference when I don't have enough water during the day. My skin is radiant and firmer when I have plenty of water. Figure out how to stay hydrated throughout the day — even if it's the annoying ritual of drinking water all day long — because it shows up on your skin. 

What's your favorite skincare trend right now?

I really like the philosophy that aging is a gift. And I like this idea that rejuvenation is not the goal. Like, do you want to live to 95 or not? Lean gracefully towards the idea of ​​aging and loving your skin, even though it shows all your laugh lines as a roadmap to your past. This is the only skin you will have for life, so stop being angry with it, stop fighting it, stop criticizing it, just know that this is yours and the only skin you will have. So I really like that this shift is happening.