EXCLUSIVE: Annie Kreighbaum's new venture.
“I kind of want to be the Martha Stewart of makeup."
Good morning everyone.
Last night, I had one of my most exciting evenings on Substack in weeks. First: I was cleaning out my closet, and I asked
’s chat about their experiences selling on The RealReal. Most of Magasin’s readers responded with messages along the lines of, “Do not do not do it lol.” Then I went live while working on today’s letter, and a bunch of people said they really like a guy named Ken Miller’s Substack Lives. There was a Ken Miller watching my stream, so I invited him to join me. Turns out this Ken Miller was just a random man in New Jersey who was getting ready for bed. We are all fans of his now.Today’s letter includes: An exclusive interview with
about her new brand, another exclusive interview with and about their new print (!!) newspaper project, the iPhone case I want to be carried in like Stuart Little, and i-D is expanding their beauty coverage.📱 Have a story you think we should look into? Text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: (646) 494-3916
Today,
(former executive editor of Glossier, co-founder of Soft Services) launched Kraum, her new makeup tool business. Substack was a part of the business plan; back in July, she wrote in her newsletter (now called Vanity Project for soon-to-be obvious reasons) that her subscribers were “a very attractive asset to a potential company, and thus to a potential investor.” Annie and I have entered each other’s orbit over the last year — partially because of Substack — and I’ve been able to witness the creation of Kraum up close: from a clandestine pitch deck in spring 2024 to a launch this week.I’ve decided Kreighbaum could sell me anything. This isn’t a compliment, it’s just the reality of how history has played out between the two of us.
“I’ve been told so many times that I wouldn’t do well in a corporate environment. Maybe that’s true, but I’ve also been working for 15 years.”
It started with a 2014 Into The Gloss article that I read on my bed in Kaufman Hall, my dorm at FIT. She recommended the Too Faced Lip Injection, which she said had a “Porn-y” effect. Of course I knew what she meant, as someone who spent countless Friday nights in high school applying Lip Venom on my friends and marveling as the blood rushed to our lips. Into The Gloss remained a bookmarked tab on my laptop throughout college. In March of 2021, I listened to her give a smoky eye tutorial on her podcast Eyewitness Beauty (that she co-hosted with former Glossier colleague, Nick Axelrod). No one was going out at the time, but I still went to CVS so I could practice along with her guidance. By now, her instructions have become muscle memory, but I still hear her voice in my head when I open my pot of Chanel eyeliner.
Annie doesn’t just suggest products, she makes them. Her eyebrows allegedly inspired Glossier’s Boy Brow, which, at its peak, sold roughly one tube every 32 seconds. She co-founded body care brand Soft Services in May 2021. And when she invited me into her West Village apartment this summer to show me the progress on her new project, I learned she also makes great stovetop coffee. I drank it as she walked me through X-Acto knife cutouts and marker-drawn sketches for her new business. She got as excited about a rice-sized cutout in a piece of card stock as she did about the in-person makeup tutorials she plans to host for the brand.
