MEET JEANNIE JARNOT
Longtime spa director and healthy beauty expert, Jeannie Jarnot, is on a mission to deliver beauty you can trust, one Hero product at a time. After uncovering the prevalence of toxic ingredients in the spa industry – and how they might have contributed to her own infertility – Jeannie began her quest to make clean beauty the rule rather than the exception. The complexity of navigating cosmetic ingredients only fueled her passion to make it simple to discover safe, effective and luxurious skincare. By working only with brands who have an unwavering commitment to ethical sourcing, ingredient purity and unparalleled quality, she has instituted a new standard of excellence and transparency in the industry, establishing her company as the most trusted source for healthy beauty.
Through her Inspired Curation process, Jeannie works directly with brand founders to hand select, test and approve each product featured by Beauty Heroes. Inspired by the belief that ‘quality over quantity’ is the new way to shop, Beauty Heroes’ monthly delivery service slows down the discovery process and introduces clean beauty through an intentional and educational approach, inviting us all to ‘Use less. Love more.’
On beauty-heroes.com you speak about your unique approach “Inspired Beauty Curation” – what exactly is your process when selecting products for Beauty Heroes?
Thank you so much for asking this question! The process isn’t able to be clearly outlined. People ask me all the time how I discover the brands or products I select for Beauty Heroes. There are so many ways that different people and products come into my life.
But the curation either begins with a product or a person. Sometimes I find a product that I touch and I just know it has a special quality about it that I want to share. When you’ve tested as many products as I have, it’s so exciting to come across a product that has a unique quality to it. Other times I meet a Founder who has a unique point of view when it comes to beauty and self-care. After just a conversation with them I think to myself, I can’t wait to try what they make! And usually, pretty quickly, I land on what I think is their ‘Hero product’.
I only work with brands that make me feel something. But what I feel is different from each of them, as different as the people who make them. It’s very personal and it’s a constant source of personal and professional inspiration.
What are some of the products and beauty routines you regularly use and abide by?
My favorite beauty routine is masking. I have a lot of beautiful face masks and I will often mix two or three together in a mask bowl and brush it on. The bowl and the brush make all the difference when applying it, making it a true beauty ritual. I often add honey to a face mask, it’s my favorite ingredient for my skin because it exfoliates without drying. I used to have terrible cystic acne and honey was an ingredient I never needed to worry would cause a breakout. I will mask 2-3 times a week, my skin just loves it and I feel like it makes a difference in maintaining the overall health of my skin – brightening, exfoliating and protecting it.
I also feel that bathing contributes a lot to my health and beauty. I definitely believe in conserving water, but baths are a place that I’ll splurge once a week. Thankfully we have less pressure now than we did a while ago to conserve water – I was sad to give up baths for about a year during the extreme drought in California. Baths are sacred time and no one can get to me when I’m in the bath, meaning my email or phone. They are the best place to reflect and re-set my energy so I can emerge better and brighter. I love designing a bath with lots of different ingredients, oats, salts, clays and oils.
And, I get a regular manicure. I don’t feel beautiful unless my nails are well kept, and somehow I have no talent for taking care of them myself, which is ironic sine my mother was a professional manicurist. I like my nails really short with clear nail polish, and I rarely deviate. When they’re not done, I don’t feel confident. I’ve been seeing the same manicurist in Novato for about 10 years, she’s my girl.
What advice would you offer women when choosing her beauty products?
My advice is simple, healthy beauty products will give you better results than products that have all the harmful chemicals. Believe it! We often hear that you no longer have to compromise performance because healthy beauty has come such a long way. I think that’s inaccurate. Healthy beauty products are not on par with conventional mass beauty products, they are FAR better. Products shouldn’t only be non-toxic, they should contribute to your health, and of course only enhance your natural beauty.
What is most inspiring you at the moment in the beauty and wellness movement?
First, I am inspired by brands that are talking to their customers about more than what is inside the bottle. I am working with several brands that are inspiring their consumers to live more mindful, conscious and sustainable lives.
Second, I have been inspired by the response by our customers who are choosing to use less, but better beauty. We all love our beauty products and we don’t want to give them up. I am first in line when it comes to appreciating my products. But I realized a while ago how important it is to be mindful of our consumption. That was a huge inspiration for our beauty discovery service that delivers one full size Hero product at a time, that I hoped would shift our experience of how we discover beauty, valuing one beautiful product at a time. I am inspired by how many people resonate with this movement of conscious consumption.
What is one important thing you’ve learned thus far in the creation of your business and what piece of advice did you receive that you would like to pass along to women pursuing their dream?
If it really is your dream, you will be compelled to do it. And go in with all your energy, but without attachment to the outcome. Beauty Heroes was an idea I had for about 10 years before I decided I would always regret going after my dream. So, I went forward, without the attachment to needing it to be successful. The success was in the decision to pursue it. Taking that step to start Beauty Heroes was my big success story. Everything that comes after are just the chapters.
How does the Beauty Heroes Discovery offer works and what do you love about it?
Beauty Heroes is a monthly discovery service and online beauty store with the strictest ingredient standard in beauty. Our monthly beauty discovery service delivers one skin, body, sun or hair care product to our members on the first of each month, slowly introducing the very best in healthy beauty. Our online beauty store, available to members and non-members curates the very best of my healthy beauty discoveries.
My hope through our service and the way we deliver beauty is to connect us more to what we put on our skin, hair and bodies. As you know with Hair Print, so much goes into formulating a product that is safe, sustainable and effective. I got a spark of inspiration from brand founders who work so hard to create product that is good, through and through, from ingredients to packaging to experience. And I discovered that when I understood a product I was using – the ingredients, the process, the maker and her/his intention – I had a heightened experience with that product. I want Beauty Heroes to impart that in the way we help our customers discover beauty. I want them to have a connected and transformational experience when they use their skin, body and hair care products. Life is about beauty and pleasure. I also believe that when you have fewer products, you enjoy what you do have more. Our tag line has become Use Less, Love More. Love what you do use more and use less of what you don’t.
Where do you see yourself and Beauty Heroes in the next 2-3 years?
I am constantly asking the question, ‘how can Beauty Heroes better serve our customers?’ I hope that we will be able to maintain our vision of being a company that has helped shift and shape the way we discover and consume beauty. I also see us participating in meaningful ways of giving back to our community around the globe. I hope to work on a project that serves families that can benefit from a little more beauty in their lives.
Personally, I am working on completing a book about how I invite more love into my life by using less. And, I hope to have mastered the art of balancing work, life and health – that’s a whole journey in and of itself.
What woman epitomizes beauty and grace for you?
Of women who have passed, Maya Angelou. She was so real. She had a hard life, and she never pretended that it was easy. She ended up being graceful because of how she turned all her trials into art.
Of women still with us, Danielle LaPorte. She has long been a woman I look up to. I’ve had the opportunity to meet her and she’s even better in person than she is in her writing. She radiates authentic beauty to me.
Do you have a beauty secret or hack you would like to share with our readers?
Use your smile, as in employ it. Never in a fake way, but in an intentional way. Use your smile and your beauty to connect with others. That’s what it’s there for. And don’t be afraid to feel and be beautiful. I feel like we as women need permission to own our beauty and to feel beautiful. It’s ok to look in the mirror and think that you look beautiful.
What’s your definition of beauty?
Beauty is how we connect to nature and to each other. It is a form of communication. And that connection can be through any one or all of our senses. We can hear, smell, touch, see, feel and perceive beauty to connect us to someone or something.
- Tags: women in wellness