In episode 149 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Dimond talks to the Naturium, Susan Yara.

Two years before Hailey Bieber sold Rhode to e.l.f. Beauty, Susan Yara and her team sold Naturium to the beauty juggernaut for $355 million USD.

The Naturium growth story is the kind of story you hear and think “This could be a Netflix doco.” Susan, naturally, tells it better than I do, but this may be one of the biggest beauty comebacks in recent history.

Susan Yara, then a popular YouTuber, joined Naturium in a founder and CEO role in the year 2020. There was a controversy, the internet called for her to be cancelled, but against the odds the brand achieved a whopping 80% compound annual growth rate and were acquired by e.l.f. for that eye watering $355 million in 2023- just three years post-launch. This week, Naturium launches into Sephora Australia (into physical stores TODAY), with Susan still very much fronting the brand and, as she tells me, “getting to do all the fun stuff.”

So. How did she do it?

In this conversation, Susan shares a timeline of that 2020 controversy, whether “clean” means anything in 2025, and why your customer’s return rate is the most important stat to be looking at .