Nailed It: Clean Beauty and the Power of Conscious Choices with CÔTE

The clean beauty movement has transformed from niche concern to mainstream demand, driven by consumers who increasingly understand that what we put on our bodies matters as much as what we put in them. At the forefront of this shift are Mary Lennon and Leah Yari, co-founders of CÔTE, a luxury clean beauty brand that began with a simple question: why can't you find a nail salon you can trust?

In this conversation, recorded on Earth Day, Lennon and Yari discuss the evolution of their brand, the challenges of marketing to multiple generations, and why the simple act of choosing clean nail polish can be a gateway to broader health consciousness. It's a story about friendship, business partnership, and the belief that small choices can make meaningful differences.

Amy Cohen Epstein: All right. This is really cool. We've done one other podcast with two founders... I'm really excited to be here today with Leah Yari and Mary Lennon, the founders of CÔTE... So we'll just talk about clean beauty and starting a company and being co-founders and how it works and how you bounce ideas off of each other and where you are, where you're at, where you're going. Your products are so beautiful and your packaging is beautiful and you guys are beautiful. And I think everything that you do and who you are is clearly in the brand that you're building. And so I just want to sort of dive in. So if one of you'll start about how you started, where it started, where you are at, where you're going. And we'll just let this go organically... and see where it takes [us]. I know we can talk about brick and mortar, we can talk about not brick and mortar, just everything. We've got so many angles to go down.

Mary Lennon: I love it. Let's just talk about all the angles. It's been a lot. Well first off, Amy, thank you for having us on. [I've] listened to some of your podcasts and love them. And I think we're really both excited to finally be a part of one of them. So yeah, this has been a journey. I think it's a journey... that we maybe didn't see coming. It started, gosh, way back in 2013. So we've been at this for the better part of a decade now. And I don't think either one of us would say that we had our sight set on starting a business. I mean, I'll speak for myself. I'm not even that entrepreneurial really, I don't think—12 years later, yes, I guess I am. But...

Amy Cohen Epstein: Why do you say that? What does that mean to you?

Mary Lennon: It wasn't in my blood. It wasn't something that I was just like... [I need to give you my] background. I was a teacher.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Don't you think a teacher—you know what you're going to do every day. You have a lesson plan. You have to get up in front of people and teach them. That is [entrepreneurial in] essence.

Mary Lennon: So I'll come back to the teaching part. So anyway, 12 years ago, this all started because my daughter, who not for nothing is about to turn 21, was having her eighth birthday party and wanted to do it at a nail salon. And so being the good West Side mom that I am, I did all my research [on] where can we go and what's clean? And I'm going to take all these cute little girls to go get their nails done. I want to do good by their moms. So I found a place, it was fine. We went, the girls had a lovely time. Leah was there, her daughter was there, but the nail techs were still wearing masks and it smelled when you walked in. And we just started talking and it was like, "Why can't you find someplace that you can just trust and go and it's clean and it's easy?" And that was the beginning of all of this. So that conversation rolled on for the better part of a year. And we always were like, we'd loop back and we'd see each other weekly and be like, "Oh, we could do that better. We could figure this out. We can do this."

Leah Yari: Let's pause for a second. Mary was the admissions director at Sunshine Preschool where my kids went. So I practically lived at Sunshine at that point with my older one. I needed a check-in card. I was there so much. So every time I'd pass her desk, I was like, "What do you think? What should we do?" And we kept coming up with ideas more and more and we bought every nail polish under the sun that was out there. I think we had a table filled with a hundred different brands and [were] testing them, looking at the ingredients, seeing what we wanted to do. And that's when we discussed instead of opening a nail salon that we'd rather have a brand with the products behind it so you can stand behind it.

Mary Lennon: Yeah. So we talked and talked and talked until our families, particularly our husbands, were so sick of hearing about it. They're like, "Guys, stop talking about it or do something." So we're like... and I think that was the push both of us needed. Both of our husbands are entrepreneurs for sure in different arenas, but they both have that gene. And so that was kind of the little push that we needed to get off the ground. And then we kind of didn't look back. My favorite part of the whole business, and this is where Leah and I come at things so differently, isn't necessarily the beauty aspect of it. I'm not a big makeup girly. That's not really where I live. But what I've found so attractive and that I love to this day about our business is the learning aspect. And I think that goes back to my educational background...

Honestly, especially in the beginning, our learning curve was absolutely vertical. We didn't know what we were doing. Neither one of us were business majors or knew how to start a business and Google was our best friend. We talked to everybody that we knew that had businesses or that had started in beauty or fashion or whatever. And so there was a huge research angle of this that I just dug in with both hands and got dirty. And I mean, we've learned a lot from commercial real estate to manufacturing principles to packaging to marketing, to now everything with influencers and digital advertising and all of this. So it's just been a journey for both of us and we come at...

Leah Yari: Everything from opposite ends. If we see something, we see it from two different ends. Mary says something and I say the exact opposite every single time. So I am a beauty junkie. I always say I have more products in my bathroom than a French pharmacy. I like to try everything. I'm particular on the clean brands because I just feel like since way back when, if I can put avocado oil on my face, I do. And I do it for my kids, but not everything I have is clean. So there has to be a balance of it's got to work and be effective, but it's also for me, it's got to look beautiful, feel beautiful. So yeah, we... come at everything from the opposite side.

Mary Lennon: That's the best. And honestly, I think that that's why our partnership is as beautiful and works as well as it does because while we do bring [two] completely [different] ideas or thoughts or processes to the table, we do ultimately always come to an agreement. I think especially over the last 12 years, we've both kind of listened, learned how to listen to each other and sift through the "I wishes" to the "I really wants" and figuring out where that line is. We like to joke, she's fashion and I'm function, but it fits like a yin and yang. And so it works and I look at the process. If we're making a new product or something, I'm like, "Ugh, Leah's going to call me out for this and this and this." And sure enough, and she's like, "Ugh, okay, I'm going to say this, but Mary's going to say how much does it cost and how long is it going to take to manufacture?" I think we know each other really, really well at this point.

Leah Yari: Well, because every week I walk in the office and I'm like, "Okay, new idea, new product. This is what we're going to do. This is how it's going to work." And then Mary's like, "Hold up. Let me see how much it costs, how long it's going to take, if it works." And so that's why it works really well.

Amy Cohen Epstein: I'm always curious, how did you just start? What was the first thing you did and how did you find the manufacturer? How did you know where to go? How did you do that?

Leah Yari: I got to say this was before ChatGPT. If we had that in our lives, it would be a game changer. Would've been... I mean it's so much easier now. It's insane... I'll let Mary take that because I'm going to give a disclaimer. I was pregnant with my third one at the time and my pregnancies are [where I] throw up from the day I get pregnant [to] the last day, so we had a lot of me sitting in bed talking and Mary actually going and visiting the different sites, and so I'll let her take over.

Mary Lennon: Oh, thank God. Thank God... It was research. We researched, we talked to everybody. I think it was your most recent podcast. I was just listening to [it] the other day where they were saying, people who have accomplished things like to help other people.

Amy Cohen Epstein: They do.

Mary Lennon: And that's exactly true. We had friends who had very successful clothing lines. We're like, "How do you start a business? How do you start a website? Who do you talk to?" So we got some referrals from good friends of ours, and then obviously nobody we knew was in the nail polish space. So there was a good portion of this that we had to just do on our own. But we researched and we picked up the phone. I flew across the country, I met with a lot of people, I met with chemists, I met with manufacturing plants, and we asked questions. We wore a lot of nail polish and it was just kind of a process of elimination and finding out what was going to work for us, what was going to work within the budget that we had set out for ourselves, but also keep in mind—if we were naive, we were so naive, but we bit off a lot [when we] started.

Amy Cohen Epstein: It's powerful to be naive. It's kind of an incredible power.

Mary Lennon: But we were not only starting a brand from the product standpoint, we were also opening the store in Brentwood at the same time. And I don't know if you remember going there, it had a nail salon component. So we were doing nail services, which [means] hiring nail artists and all of that, the state regulations that go into running a nail salon. And then we also had a retail boutique up front, so that's merchandising and buying [not only within] the beauty space, but... home goods and cards. And so we had that going on while we were working with chemists and honing our formulas and figuring out what works and what doesn't work and what did we want our ingredient list to contain or not to contain, which in this business is almost more important. So it was nuts. We had so much going on and Leah was pregnant...

Leah Yari: [Growing] up, but I wanted everything to look beautiful, the aesthetic, and we sent somebody to Maison Objet in France to make sure the retail boutique was stuff you can't buy in Brentwood. So there was so much going on. And you're right, being naive, I didn't realize how much we bit off at that time.

Mary Lennon: Totally... But it was awesome. We learned a lot and yeah, I think it was more about networking and talking to people that gave us the confidence and the connections that we needed to get this off the ground. I do remember Googling one day, "How do you write a business plan?"

Amy Cohen Epstein: I've Googled that too, for sure.

Mary Lennon: [I] did that. And I sat there going, "Oh, this is why people go to business school. Okay, this makes a lot of sense. It would've been cool to have known all this going in."

Amy Cohen Epstein: Sometimes it's kind of cool to start really big with all that stuff and all the stuff going on, and then to get it to sort of hone it in or rein it in, if you will, as opposed to start small and get bigger. I don't know. I know that you're not necessarily supposed to do it that way, but there's something kind of... magical [about] doing that because then you're sort of figuring it out. You know what I mean? Then you test what works.

Leah Yari: [You] definitely find your niche.

Mary Lennon: You do. You do. And I think maybe it's [expensive] going that way, but... You definitely do that. But I think also it's very easy to get caught up in all the details and worrying about all these different arms of the business... And I don't think it was until we opened our store in New York, which was... eight years into the business I guess, where we finally stopped and took a step back and went like, "Holy cow, look at what we've built." We've [been] so head down and [dealing with] stuff coming up, whether it's issues with the store or the plumbing backs up in New York or the alarm goes off at three in the morning and I'm the one that ADT calls. There's a lot of [that].

Leah Yari: I don't [deal with] these nitty gritties. I just keep going for the gold. I want[ed to be] somewhere in New York because I'm from New York. That was my ultimate dream. So I'm like, "We're going to New York." She [was like], "What?" [And I] said, "No, we have to be in New York. We're a brand. They need to know we're there." And I wouldn't stop. I mean in retrospect, that was a lot to bite off at that time, but it was a really good learning curve.

Mary Lennon: It was. But I think that's kind of the point. Once we did that, and like Leah said, it was really kind of a pinnacle moment for her because she really wanted to be in that space. It made a lot of sense for us then as well, because that was back in the day when people were still doing desk sides with editors and magazines... And that hub is really based in New York. I think the first time we did our desk sides with our publicist and went around, I was surprised by how many 20-somethings [would] sit down [and] they're like, "Oh my gosh, tell me about your product. I want to get you in the spring edition." And we're like, "Okay, well, when was the last time you were in California?" And they're like, "Oh my gosh, I really want to go to California. I've never been." I'm like, "How have you never been to California?" And these sweet little [editors], their world was Manhattan, which is great, but they weren't going to be coming out to kind of experience our world, and that's what we were trying to build when we had the store and we did the brand and we used all of our own products. It was a...

Leah Yari: Lifestyle brand from the day it opened. It wasn't a nail salon, it wasn't [just] nail polish. It was all encompassing—what can be in your beach bag, what can be in your beach house. And that's how you felt when you walked through the door.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Now I feel like you've done that with how you package and how you show it. [I'm] being honest. I think that, and even when you see it in social media, I feel like you've been able to translate that which is the [key transition] you had to make, right?

Leah Yari: Yeah. So [we] went through our new beauty era, which we launched beginning of October this year. So during COVID, we figured out that we really did have [a] loyal customer base. Obviously we had to shut the store—[California] was shut down. And we saw the orders that we were getting in. It was astronomical for that time, but we also realized it was [time to be] done with the store. The overhead was too much. She's right. They broke those windows... so many times, those huge windows on San Vicente, that poor Mary would get calls at all hours of the night to come, and then it was becoming so expensive and it wasn't worth it. We couldn't have people in the store. So when that happened, we kind of went online only and we were trying to navigate that world. And then a little bit into that, I was in Costa Rica at a hotel and I saw the brand that they were using at this one hotel, and [our colleague] Maribel... had worked for that brand in the past. I called her and I'm like, "Oh my God, this brand is in this hotel. That's insane." She's like, "It's not that brand. They're white labeling that stuff. [But] does it feel good on your hair?" I'm like, "Come to think of it, my hair kind of feels like straw, but I was so impressed that this brand actually did shampoos and all that stuff." So I took that idea, planted [it] in my head, came home and I'm like, "Mary, we're going [the] hotel route. We're going to start doing shampoos and conditioners."

Mary Lennon: Listen, she dreams to the stars and back—huge. And I love her for it.

Leah Yari: [I] land somewhere in between.

Mary Lennon: And then I'm here and I reign her in a little bit.

Leah Yari: It doesn't get done if Mary doesn't help me do it. I got to say that I... dream big, but she makes it happen a hundred percent.

Mary Lennon: But honestly, our best stuff, and to your point, our packaging, our look, our feel, our branding, that's all Leah and I can't do it.

Leah Yari: [You] just don't love it like I do.

Mary Lennon: I don't love it like you do, but I love you for loving it because I need that. So it works. So while we had these stores going and we were doing the nail services, it was very important for us to control the environment because we wanted a safe, clean environment in which to get your nails done. That's why we started the whole business. Part of that was soap, so you had to have an antibacterial soap per the State of California regulations in order to do a safe manicure. So we got in the soap business and we manufactured our own signature scent antibacterial soap. We never sold it. We just made it in the big gallon jugs so that we could use it in our services, in our stores. That was it. People asked us now and again when they'd come in and get their nails done, like, "Oh my gosh, I love your soap. It smells so good. Where do I get it?" I'm like, "Oh, come get your nails done."

So then when the stores closed, we had gallons and gallons and gallons of soap left. So Leah... came up with this great idea. She's like, "Let's just bottle it ourselves and give it away as holiday gifts." I'm like, "Great, what are we going to do with all this soap?" So we found some cute little amber bottles... with some pumps. We bottled our soap... and we gave it to all of our partners and our wholesale partners and our manufacturers and anybody that we've worked with—we're just like, "Here, happy holidays. Have some soap." The response coming back from that blew us away, [we] did not see this coming. Everybody's like, "Thank you so much. This is awesome. I'd like to buy a case." We're like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We're just trying to get rid of old soap. We don't have that." They're like, "Why not? It's awesome. I love it. I put this in my guest bath. Everybody talks about it. They ask me where I got it. I want to buy more. I'm almost out."

Amy Cohen Epstein: [Those] have to be pretty decent margins depending [on] how much you spend on that bottle.

Mary Lennon: And then Leah comes and she's like, "Oh, I was at this hotel and the shampoo and [conditioner]... we can do this better." I'm like, "I've heard this from you before." So between the soap reaction and Leah's travels and we're like, "I think maybe it's time. I think the universe is trying to tell us, let's move on from nail polish"—not ditch nail polish. We obviously still are in that space and are doing a lot with that—but we've now branched off, and so now we have soap and we have [body] wash and shampoo and conditioner and lotion. I love our lotion and we've gone into the hotel world now, and...

Mary Lennon: Now we [bit off more than we could chew again], right? We're really good at that. So we've still got our old business going on in the background, and now we've got this new arm with hospitality and amenity lines and a new direct-to-consumer line collection with body and hair. And because we didn't have enough on our plate, we introduced lip. So we've got an amazing peptide lip line now. It's awesome. We're dabbling in color a little bit with that, so we've got lip color. So no rest for the weary.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Well, this all makes sense. It's not like you went off and did a... t-shirt line. It's not like random sunglasses or something. I mean, I guess that would even sort of make sense, but it makes sense.

Mary Lennon: Yeah, I think it does. And I think obviously we've stayed true to our clean ideals that we wanted from the beginning. We really do our due diligence when it comes to creating new products and testing them and making sure that they're clean and not just clean by our own FDA standards, but that we've surpassed the EU standards as well, which are a lot more stringent than what we've got going on in the US right now. So I think I'm really proud of what we've done. Again, maybe this is the "take a step back" moment because our heads have been spinning with this new launch and we launched a new website and new branding look and everything as well. So [it's] been a lot going on, but I am proud of what we've accomplished.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Do you, Mary, ever miss the world of preschool aged children?

Mary Lennon: Yes and no. I mean, [it was a] sweet part of my professional history for sure. And before that, I was a fifth and sixth grade classroom teacher. So yeah, I mean I do miss that, but I will say this scratches the itch just fine. I am still learning. I've learned a lot about cosmetics, manufacturing and hair and body manufacturing in the last year, year and a half, let's say.

Leah Yari: Let me answer that question [honestly]. She misses the kids. She does not miss the LA parents.

Mary Lennon: That's... [Leah] said it, not me. She said it, not me. It was very sweet. I did enjoy it a lot, but I think I really enjoy what I do now.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Yeah. Leah, did you always feel like you had this entrepreneurial spirit?

Leah Yari: I didn't know I had it. So I studied... business and then went into real estate for a little bit, [which] was not for me. And then went to a graduate program for interior design and was actually working with a firm that did hotels. Funny enough, that's what they designed. And then after a few years when I got pregnant with my first one, because my pregnancies were so bad with the throwing up, I couldn't function at work anymore. So I went off on my own and did things for friends here and there, dabbled in it, but not until this came [along] with Mary. And then I didn't realize how much of an entrepreneur I am with creating products. It gets me so excited to do it. And then even with the hotel stuff, I worked with the brander without Mary [knowing], and I created this whole thing and then I came to her, I'm like, "What do you think about this?" And [I brought] her slides... because I wanted her to see behind just my words, I had physical proof of what I wanted to do.

Amy Cohen Epstein: [You] put together a good presentation.

Leah Yari: Yeah, I'm good at presentations... Cover your ears, Mary. And now I'm into this body oil that I'm creating. So we're working with the chemist and the lab to make... a nighttime body oil. So I'm trying to get it perfect before I present it to her and then she can fix the costs and the weights and measures and the stuff she does best.

Amy Cohen Epstein: What a great partnership. I mean, I've said that a few times now. It's so great. [It's] fun. Definitely.

Mary Lennon: It's so great. It's fun. Honestly, I couldn't do this without Leah, and I think she'd probably [say] the same. A hundred percent. It works.

Leah Yari: We don't agree on much [separately], but somehow it works.

Amy Cohen Epstein: The woman that I work with, with the foundation, we've been friends since we were four and five years old actually. And [she's] worked with me for... 15, 17 years or something. And I mean, she's a lifelong friend obviously, and we're very similar. We kind of look like sisters and people think we are, but temperamentally we're very different. And half the time I feel... technically I'm her boss, but half the time I feel like I'm asking her permission. And then half the time she's asking my permission and it's just this incredible balance and there's just no way we would be able to do the things we do without each other. It's so wonderful... I don't know how people do things alone.

Leah Yari: Honestly, I don't know. Because it's so nice to have somebody to have an idea board. We go back and forth until we find what's perfect for CÔTE between the two of us.

Mary Lennon: And I'll think of things that she won't think of and she'll bring something. She's the ultimate consumer and she's like, "I would never pick that up if it looked like that." I'm like, "Really? But it says X, Y, Z on the front, which is so important." And she's like, "It doesn't look good. I would never pick that up."

Leah Yari: Especially on the website when we're designing the website, it needs to be tweaked every week. I always tell them, I'm like, "If I'm not going to buy it and it's not easy to click on, it's not happening. It's too hard." So we have a lot of those discussions.

Mary Lennon: Yeah... I mean, I think it's fitting that we're filming this today on Earth Day [because] that's so central [to] what we've done. I think that is something that both of us actually agree on, that it's really important what you put on your body. And I mean obviously we started in the nail space. It's important what you put on your nails. People don't realize that it's a porous surface. It goes right into your bloodstream, it goes right into your nervous system. And then that was impressed upon us so much very early on when we started down this research hole with the non-toxic nail polish route that that's something that we've really tried to carry over and [stay] true to while we've introduced these new hair products and body products. It's the same as food. You're putting it into your body, you're putting it onto your body, it's going to affect how you are and how healthy you can be and everything. So that is the one thing we agree on.

Amy Cohen Epstein: [That's] more than one thing. I think one of the things you said from the beginning, which is how this came to be in many ways, which was your daughter's birthday, your... daughter's eighth birthday—you said, nails to me [for] a young girl and boys too now, it's one of those first things you do. I think it's like that first... foray into makeup. Yeah, there's stuff we put on our face, but nails is one of those first things we do. And so I think the idea that you can do it in a way that's clean and that is non-toxic is really important because it sort of sets... the standard for all other things that you're going to put on your body that seep into your body moving forward. And so I think it's actually... a foundational piece that if you can stress to your child, "Yeah, we're going to use makeup, we're going to start with nails, [but] they're going to go off and do it [with] their friends or do it at home or do it in a salon," that piece of it is important to me. That's a really big deal. It's a bigger deal than we think about it or we talk about it or the world makes it out to be.

Leah Yari: [That's] the biggest problem. It's a big deal and it's your immune system. Your immune system can't fight something that's on your nails every week that's going into your system. And I know it's a gel revolution in this country, but I don't think people understand [the] effects that are happening with them. So... when we had the nail salon, we had a lot of people that were either going through treatment or they were pregnant or immune compromised and they would trust us, which was... a lot.

Mary Lennon: I have my favorite story about this... doing what we were doing. You don't always think about how it affects other people. And I was doing a pop-up activation at the Sun Valley Film Festival... six or seven years ago, and we had nail techs there using our polish and putting colors on people as they came in. And this woman came in and sat down and we were all about non-toxic and "here's [what's] not in our polishes" and all this stuff. She sat down and she puts her hands out and I look and she starts crying and tears are coming down her face. I'm like, "Are you okay? What's going on?" And she goes, "I'm going through chemo right now. I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. This is the first manicure that I've had in a really long time and that I feel good about and it's going to be okay and safe for me."

My doctor told me when all this started, "Don't just stop using nail polish, don't get your nails done anymore." And she goes, "But this is okay. You've taken out the stuff that's dangerous and I can do this." I was like, "[It's] just nail polish." But it was so profound to her. It was something that she really had enjoyed doing in her life, [she] went through this awful health situation and that part was taken away and it was just like a little luxury, a little piece of normalcy that she was getting back and I don't know, [it] just hit me. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I don't feel like we're saving lives out there, but we were making a difference in somebody's life for that moment." I don't know. That was a very cool, "Wow, okay. [This is why we're] doing what we're doing."

Amy Cohen Epstein: No, it means a lot. A hundred percent. My mom... had ovarian cancer for five years and passed away and she had a pedicure, and this was obviously in the nineties where none of this existed and she got an infection from a pedicure and who knows, it could have been—the standards were different across the board. And she was very vain and she was so pissed because it turned into a whole thing...

Leah Yari: Yeah, it's very dangerous.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Yeah. And her doctor was like, "Well, you're done getting pedicures." And she was so upset. She's like, "I'm not going to not have pedicures. It's one little thing that makes me happy. I want to have a manicure and pedicure." And she was religious about it. And I remember saying to [my] mom, "[Maybe you should] give it up if this is a repercussion from something happening." And she's like, "You don't understand. I get so little to do to make me feel good." And obviously as I've grown older, I understand now how she was feeling because I knew she had so little that she could do to make herself feel beautiful. So I get that woman where she was coming from and being able to give that to her is a huge deal. And being able to teach young girls and boys that they can do things safely and that there's options.

Mary Lennon: Well, that's the truth. And I think Leah and I, between the two of us, have three daughters... who have quite literally grown up with our business. And it is, I think, rewarding to watch them pick something up—a bottle of nail polish—and look at the label. I never did that. I never did that growing up. Somebody could have handed me the $2 drugstore nail polish [and I'd] be like, "Awesome color" and just put it on. But these girls, and I like to think maybe it has something to do with [what we've taught them], but maybe it's just the world also that they're growing up in, but they look at what's in something or what's not in something.

Leah Yari: Their generation is much more savvy. I mean, even the young moms in their twenties and early thirties, they're... looking on the Yuka app and EWG and Credo and they're looking—people are way more aware than we were back then.

Amy Cohen Epstein: And hopefully even if they're making a bad choice, they're doing it consciously... Even if you're making a bad choice, you're making a bad choice. And [you] still make that bad choice but know you're doing it... Probably [feel] better about that.

Leah Yari: [It's not possible] to be clean 24/7. It's very difficult. Life is about balance. People do their chemically treated treatments at the spa and then they drink their green juices. It's the world we live in, but it's about balance. It's not being the ultimate clean that you can be. There is no such thing.

Mary Lennon: And everybody draws their line in different spots. My line includes nail polish, but not everybody does. But yeah, it is. It's just about choices and it's choices in moderation. Everything in... I mean, did I have a Diet Coke yesterday? Yes. Yes I did. [But it was] in moderation on an airplane. [I] don't have one every day...

Amy Cohen Epstein: Sometimes... when you're traveling, sometimes you're just like, "I just need it." It just somehow makes my stomach... [feel better].

Leah Yari: It's the airplane. The airplane makes you eat the craziest things.

Amy Cohen Epstein: It does. And somehow it doesn't count up in the air. I don't know. Time stops. It does somehow. It really does. The brand now includes a lot more things. So what's beyond—I don't even want to say what's next. I feel like what's next is already in the pipeline. And if I ask you that, Mary, that might be different than [what I ask] Leah.

Leah Yari: Yes.

Amy Cohen Epstein: It might be different. Yes.

Mary Lennon: You're going to get a different answer from both of us.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Okay, [let's] take it down a notch. But if we're thinking big picture, long-term-ish, not 20 years from now, but in the next five years, what are we thinking? Are we still direct to consumer? Would you go back to a brick and mortar store? Is that just [a] thing of the past? [Or would you call] ADT [at] three in the morning?

Mary Lennon: You're going to get different answers from both of us, but we will ultimately come to an agreement on this. But I would say no [to] the brick and mortars. That was a box [we] super double checked and it was a great ride and super fun. But it's a lot of work. It's a lot. And you really have to be there. Yeah, you do. It was hard managing the store in New York from the west coast. We're both LA based and we had a great staff out there. But it's a lot and it's a huge suck of resources for sure. And I feel like [it was the right] time and place too. That was the right choice for us then because we were really keen on getting the word out and getting people to experience our brand in the round. And we did that. And so now I think we're a known brand. I think like Leah has said, we're going to continue to expand our collection a little bit. We've got a few more product ideas in the works, even beyond the body oil that Leah has already mentioned.

Leah Yari: I'd like to be up in the air—just saying that [for] the airline amenities. I'm [dreaming], my mind's always going.

Amy Cohen Epstein: [Like] in a really high end first class box that you open.

Leah Yari: Yes, I can see that. You can experience it.

Amy Cohen Epstein: So it's like in a hydrating bomb situation. Exactly.

Mary Lennon: Yeah. Don't give her ideas. [What are you] doing?

Amy Cohen Epstein: I mean, I want to experience that. I want to travel overseas and open a box and be like [I can] slather it on my face. That sounds awesome to [me].

Leah Yari: Exactly. But that's my whole thing with the hotel. Why are we paying these prices [for] hotels or airlines and then getting crap? We should be getting the standard of what we're paying for... I agree.

Amy Cohen Epstein: And nowadays the crap is so much crappier. The price is so much higher.

Mary Lennon: Exactly. It's so true. Yeah. And then we'll continue to expand our amenity line. We're working with some great hotel partners right now and we've got a lot more in the works here domestically and then also internationally as well. So there's a lot [of things] on the horizon. How about that? Yes. And it's very like us to have eight different business arms going at one time.

Amy Cohen Epstein: I love that. My brother just stayed—he was just telling us this weekend—he stayed in a five star really, really nice New York hotel downtown. And he went to use the gym. He wasn't even going to use the gym. He was going to go in the sauna for five minutes, 10 minutes. And they said, "Oh, that's $50." And he's like, "I've never heard that before in my life." It was like you were on an airplane where they charge you for food. But he's like... "No, no, I'm staying here." And they're like, "Yeah, Mr. Cohen, [it's] 50 bucks." And he was like, "What the fuck? Are you serious?" It's the craziest thing... So he's like, "Okay." And so I'm thinking, well, if that came with a great CÔTE set of amenities, I don't know what [you're] going to [have me] use. But yeah, hydrating [body] balm, the whole [thing]... of course [you'd love that].

Leah Yari: Yeah... I mean I have to get it to the consumers that need it.

Mary Lennon: I know, I know. Listen, all this stuff, her ideas are phenomenal. I just... function, function. I need to step in and be like...

Leah Yari: It has to be cost effective. I get it. Every time I bring something, she's like, "This is going to be $150."

Mary Lennon: I'm like, "But it's worth it." I know. She's like, "I'd pay $150 for it." I'm like, "I would not pay $150 for that. We need to rethink this."

Amy Cohen Epstein: The only last thing I'd ask that... we have a hard time with, and we're about the same age, is when you switch over and you're in direct to consumer and you're really utilizing social media and influencers and all this stuff... finding someone [to help with] the mindset of a younger generation. Do you guys have trouble with that or do you bring someone in? How do you work that? It's hard.

Leah Yari: It's very, very hard. It's difficult to find that balance of are we going after the college age kids that buy these without thinking and they love it? Are we going after our age [group] who cares about what we put on? It's really hard. I mean, we work with different age groups... trying to pinpoint—since we're so new, the new arm of CÔTE since October—we haven't pinpointed who our demographic is. Because if you look at the sales, we're all over the place. We have the 18 year olds, we have the 30 year olds, we have the 65 year olds. So we haven't honed in on where we are yet. We're still in the learning curve.

Amy Cohen Epstein: That's got to be challenging with a really, really wide range demographic. It's really challenging [in terms of] how to market and where [do] you market...

Leah Yari: How to reach those people. And also what are you going to bring next? It depends on who is your market, right? You can't bring $150 soap for the 18 year olds. That's not going to work.

Amy Cohen Epstein: And how you get it in front of an 18-year-old versus how you get [it] in front of a 50-year-old is very different.

Mary Lennon: Very different. Yeah... It's a big challenge [right] now too. I mean, we've been talking about this. Obviously we do a lot in the digital space and the paid ads and all that. The game that you need to play to get in front of people. But then to your point, what about old school mailers right now? I've seen so many lately... popping up from all different brands. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, who looks at mail anymore? Hard mail?" But here they are, and I'm seeing it and Leah's seeing it and we're like, "Oh God."

Amy Cohen Epstein: Because we open our mail.

Mary Lennon: We [do]. We have that issue a lot. We have wide ranging events, and we have an event in Sun Valley, Idaho that's a hundred people. It's a hundred women. And literally the age range that comes is about 22 to 87. And the 87 year olds expect an invitation in their mail and follow up, hand addressed. And it's very old school with [place] cards and the whole nine yards, and we do it for them, but the 22 year olds don't even have an address. We don't know where they live. So it's hitting all the buttons. And that's a tiny number, a hundred people versus what you're going after. So it's hard. You have to really... it's a lot of work, but you do it because you do what you need to do.

Mary Lennon: Well, and I think our kids too keep us kind of grounded on what's going on. I mean, we're pretty blessed that we have great relationships with our kids, especially our older girls.

Amy Cohen Epstein: It's a good built-in focus group.

Mary Lennon: Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. And we're like, "Wait, how do you do this TikTok thing again? Oh God." Yeah. So we have them in our back pocket that we tap into every now and again. [You can pay them in body oil.] Exactly. [Leah] and I have an idea of what we would want. And then we're like, "Would you ever use this?" And they're like, "What? What's that?"

Leah Yari: Oh, nighttime body oil. Our age group needs that.

Mary Lennon: [Our] age group needs that.

Amy Cohen Epstein: I love it. I live in Denver right now and my husband's like, "You look like an oil slick when we go to bed."

Mary Lennon: Better than the alternative, honey.

Amy Cohen Epstein: That's right. I'm so lubed up at night. It's hysterical. I love it. So send me the body oil. I'm happy to... test it for you... And you're going to sleep through the night and thank us later. I love it. I'll just change my pillowcases... every day. Thank you ladies so much. This was awesome. So fun. [It's] fabulous. And honestly, I legit can't wait to see everything that's coming out because the adventure continues.

Mary Lennon: The adventure continues.

Amy Cohen Epstein: Yeah, it is a lot. But thank [you for] having [us] on.

Leah Yari: [Thank you for] having us on.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.