CASSANDRA GREY

Name: Cassandra Grey
Job Description: Founder & Artistic Director of VIOLET GREY
Instagram: @cassandragrey

Tired of staring at a medicine cabinet full of products that don’t seem to work? Tired of being overwhelmed by the department store beauty counter? Tired of wondering if you are spending your hard-earned cash on the best products money can buy? Tired of looking tired? So am I, and so is almost everyone else.

Uber gave us all a car and driver; Rent the Runway made it possible to never wear the same dress twice; and Rotten Tomatoes tells us what is worth watching (I don’t screen anything under 60 percent). Well, VIOLET GREY wants to give everyone their own celebrity-approved professional beauty team that vets products to cut through the noise and get to the good stuff.

Just shy of five years ago, the VIOLET GREY team set out with a simple mission: to become the gold standard in beauty recommendations. We realized that everyone, even the no-makeup-makeup people, had a collection of beauty products in their medicine cabinets or on their vanities. But almost no one could say with a straight face that they were confident in what they were using.

Our raison d'être was to transform that haphazard miscellany into world-class routines (dubbed “cosmetic wardrobes”), maintain them, and consistently upgrade them with whatever new products earn inclusion. Over the years, we have gotten particularly good at helping people develop effective, disciplined regimens that translate into confidence about both their look and their product purchases. We call these personal edits VIOLET VANITIES.

In New York and Los Angeles, we’ll actually go to our customers’ homes, put all their stuff on their kitchen table, and leave only what they should be using (or, as Marie Kondo would say, only what brings them joy). We also fill in the gaps or replace products with a superior, best-in-class option, and often prescribe skincare routines with anywhere from two to 12 steps. We do this by asking a series of questions; learning about concerns, insecurities, and goals; and culling the best recommendations from our committee. We’ve even been called OCD because of the way we label the shelves, bags, or vanity space where products will live. Nothing makes us happier than a well-organized vanity.

Until we are big enough to make global house calls, we thought we would share with you what we have done for others. We hope you will relate to and benefit from the knowledge we have amassed by sitting with hundreds of customers. The Rotten Tomatoes of beauty is now at your service. To introduce this series, I requested that VIOLET GREY update my winter skincare routine (I seem to have acquired adult acne over the holidays, and I need help!). And next week, we will be upgrading the bedside beauty routine of one of our customers in Brentwood. Spoiler alert: We found the sex gel (aka lube) to end all sex gels. Stay tuned!

DESCRIBE YOUR SKIN IN THREE WORDS.
Dry, splotchy, and bumpy.

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER-ONE SKIN WOE?
Aging and loose skin on my neck is my number-one skin insecurity.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU CHANGE YOUR SKINCARE ROUTINE?
I change my routine every few months when we’ve approved something new and revolutionary, seasonally, or when I have a new skin issue to solve, like tech neck.

HOW MANY PRODUCTS ARE YOU CURRENTLY NOT USING?
None. I’m always using the products I currently have stowed away in my medicine cabinet and on my vanity.

HOW MANY STEPS INTIMIDATE YOU?
Any more than six steps tend to intimidate me.

Our founder Cassandra Grey is OCD when it comes to her beauty routine. Not only does she never skip a beat when it comes to skincare, but she also lives for seeing her products laid out on her vanity and her backstock in an organized fashion. But a few months ago, she noticed her skin has become more dry, splotchy, and reactive. Her goal? To combat her tech neck and adult acne. And although she is intimated by six steps, we added a few extras while we get her complexion back into top shape. After ruminating with our esteemed experts, we curated the perfect assortment to solve her skincare woes.

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