Alix Earle didn’t build her skincare brand overnight!
The TikTok star, who rose to fame by creating raw “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) videos, opened up about the journey behind her brand, Reale Actives.
With a huge following of 8.5 million, some might think Earle can just create a brand in a matter of days or a week. But despite her fame and connections, building Reale Actives was far from easy. In fact, it took the influencer years.
In a TikTok video, Earle detailed what inspired her to create her skincare brand, how she made it, and how long it took to make it all happen.
“So all of this started the summer after I graduated college in 2023,” the TikTok star began. “I went to school for marketing. I always dreamt of like one day being able to start a company of my own, exploring different options. And I just kept coming down to basically being really invested in something to do with acne, covering it up with makeup.”
Hating ‘Skincare’ Due To Her Acne Problem
Earle went on to say she has had an acne problem her “whole life,” which became an “insecurity” of her,
“Truly, I have dealt with it my whole life and not just dealt with it, but like It became such a point of insecurity for me,” she recalled. “Like, times I didn’t want to leave the house, I didn’t want to go to the grocery store, my skin hurt to touch it, like, I just- I always hated my skin, and I always hated skincare.”
The skincare business idea was pitched to Earle by a friend, but she didn’t want to do it at first.
“Someone was like, ‘Well, if you care about this so much, why wouldn’t you do skincare?’ And I was like, ‘I hate it. I would never do that,’” she said. “It’s not fun for me. I’m confused by it. I don’t like it.”
Earle continued, “It’s not something I’m proud of. I just- I didn’t like anything about it. And then that’s when it hit me that there was something there I could create and stop making this so miserable and confusing for myself and make it fun. So that was step one.”
The Search For A CEO
For Earle, the next step to making her brand happen was finding a CEO, as well as a dermatologist.
“This was probably around like February, March 2024. One, I knew I needed a dermatologist,” the social media star shared. “I needed someone that was going to be able to help me with product formulation, innovation, understanding my skin and what I can better do to treat it, get the ideas I had about products and make them 10 times better.”
As for the CEO, Earle said she “needed someone who was going to be able to run this day to day, help me build out a company,” adding, “Obviously, I’m a little bit more experienced or love, like, the marketing creative side of things.”
Building Reale Actives Took Almost Three Years
Later in the video, Earle stated that the whole journey of building Reale Actives was “surreal,” and it took “such a surreal journey took “two and a half years.”
Apart from making something that would help her acne, Earle also noted that she created the brand to “change in the way that people think about the imperfections on their skin.”
“I wanted to just make a change in the way that people think about the imperfections on their skin,” she explained. “Growing up, I would have died to have products like this on my counter. Like, everything I used was always just very clinical.”
Sharing Her Struggles On TikTok
Earle has already been sharing her acne struggles on TikTok ever since she started doing GRWM videos. When asked by ELLE as to why, she said: “I felt more insecure than I had ever felt. I got to this place where my skin was so bad that I didn’t want to get in front of a camera. I didn’t want to post, and I didn’t want to leave my house,” the influencer recalled.
“After a month or so of that, there was one day when I woke up and was just like, ‘Maybe if I post this, someone else will feel better if they’re also going through this.’ I thought, if I get ahead of it, then maybe people can’t say things about me. That ended up being the first video of mine that really blew up, and I started to get followers. People started commenting about how much this resonated with them. I realized that putting yourself out there and being vulnerable can actually help other people going through the same thing. And it helped me too, because I realized I wasn’t alone.”
At first, she was shocked at why her video went viral, but it made her realize that opening up about her “biggest insecurity” could be freeing.
“I tried for so long to be so perfected and curated online,” Earle admitted. “Then, the second I posted my biggest insecurity, that was the thing that did well. I was completely blindsided and confused. But it was then that I realized you don’t need to be so curated or put on this fake filter of who you are online. That taught me a lot, and it’s a lesson I still carry with me.”
