This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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Prequel Skin is less than a year old. But the direct-to-consumer brand, founded by dermatologist Dr. Sam Ellis, in partnership with Ben Bennett’s incubator, The Center, has caught on. That can be owed, at least in part, to Ellis’s social following: She has 336,000 YouTube subscribers, 226,000 Instagram followers and over 129,000 followers on TikTok.
The brand’s products span multitasking cleansers and moisturizers for the face and body, skin barrier-boosting ointments and a duo of serums, including one with vitamin C and one meant to address skin redness.
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Dr. Ellis discusses how she came to create content as a dermatologist, why that’s proven valuable, why she partnered with The Center and how her brand is inspired by favorite French pharmacy products. The excerpts below have been slightly edited and condensed for clarity.
The road to content creator
“I wanted to make educational videos for my patients, because I, and a lot of dermatologists, had that feeling of, ‘Wow, I’m saying the same things in every single visit — the same topics, the same questions.’ It felt somewhat universal. But I never had the time or the confidence to do it. It wasn’t until the pandemic when we closed our clinic for six weeks that I. decided to try. The whole point of me starting social media and going on Instagram, which was my first platform, was to start creating educational videos for patients so that in the office I could say, ‘Hey, that’s a really good question about the difference between benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid. I have a post on that if you want to go into more detail.’ So that is where everything started. And then a year later, I launched my YouTube channel so that I could have a larger platform to go into more detail and get into the nuance of things. Because I love Instagram and I love TikTok, but I feel like sometimes you can’t get into the details [on those platforms].”
The white space Prequel fills
“Every [product on the market] was more expensive or a very niche product for a very specific concern. So with Prequel, I wanted to create the basics — the things that I and other dermatologists recommend on a daily basis — but then elevate them. And they were all pretty expensive. It was important to me to create something that was affordable, if I could. Before I got into creating skin care, I didn’t realize how expensive it is to create skin care. And so I understand why other dermatologists charge what they charge. … I wanted to create products I could recommend it to my wealthiest patient and my patient who’s coming in on Medicaid — they could all afford it.
There’s space for a dermatologist founded brand that is more approachable and not prestige. We didn’t want skin care to feel to precious — where someone doesn’t want to use it up.”
