#10 Water

Time since launch:10 months
Time on brand: 30 months
$ invested: 995K+

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” — David Foster Wallace

Tomorrow I’m leaving to hike Everest Base Camp for 20 days with little to no wifi access. It’s the first time I haven’t brought a laptop on holiday with me in about 8 years. I’ve had this trip planned for over a year, and while it’s definitely not the best time for me to leave my business, it’s also totally the right time for me to go for a long walk and get some perspective. This is as much a trip for me as it is for Fluff: letting go of control, acknowledging my fears, and… seeing what happens.

The point of the fish story (which I gave to all of my staff when I left frank body almost three years ago now) is that “the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.”

This past weekend I had two significant conversations.

Firstly, a friend of a friend asked me what Fluff was. Essentially, “how’s the water?” I was stuck for words. What the hell is Fluff?

Two years ago I wanted to sell makeup. Today I’m asking consumers whether it’s possible to consume without being consumed, and whether we’re obsessed with the wrong things.

Two years ago I thought that we’d be one of many products in a girl’s makeup bag. Today I’m asking why we buy products that we won’t ever finish.

Two years ago I thought the industry could do with a little less pink. Today I think the industry could do with a little more autonomy.

Two years ago I just wanted girls to look like themselves. Today I’m genuinely worried that the world just wants to look like everyone else.

Second: over a bottle of red wine-fuelled, happy/sad tears on my end, a friend told me this may be the hardest thing I’ll ever do.

The path to Fluff’s ‘success’ is a long, windy, bumpy one. And I’m still on my L plates. With no sat nav. It feels like I applied for a job and now I don’t know what position I’m in, even though I wrote the description.

Maybe I’ve been spending too many weekends down at the beach, but I’ve been trying to liken some of our business stresses to that of being caught in a rip.

It can be a perfect day: good sun, good people, I’m eating an apricot, the water is perfect, life is 10/10. I’m swimming when without warning, I get pulled in a certain direction, off-course. Now, a little pull I can manage, especially when I’m in shallow waters, but as I get pulled out deeper, I can panic. I start feeling like I’m losing control, like I’m not gonna make it out again. But the thing about rips is, you can’t do that. You’ve gotta “go with the flow”; you’ve gotta be aware and stay calm. You’ve got to let the current take you out till it eventually releases you. Only then can you put your head down and start swimming back to shore.

When it comes to these pressures, there’s this weird place I often arrive in: a point that it just suddenly becomes ok. I realise that the water I’m swimming in is taking me in a direction that’s outside of my control. So I don’t fight it. I go with it.

I turn 30 in June, and as much as I’ve tried to deny the inevitable, everyone around me really is getting married and having babies — my staff included.

It’s normal. I personally don’t feel the pull right now, and maybe that’s because right now Fluff feels like a baby of my own… and a marriage (emotionally), and a house (financially). Like all of the above, it involves a sacrifice. It’s meant I’ve been unable to prioritise things that I should, like family and friends. It’s meant I’ve found myself impatient, intolerant, bored, and disconnected — at the best of times — with people I love. It has meant I’ve found myself struggling to have conversations with some people, and gravitating towards others.

Fluff is continuing to hurry slowly, as best we can as a small fish in a $450 billion industry. At times it can feel like the industry either isn’t ready (or doesn’t want) Fluff. And that can be disheartening. It made us question: do we dial back and do what everyone else is doing? Or do we lean in to what makes Fluff, Fluff?

We’re sticking with the latter. Because the impact that this brand can make has actually become so much bigger than I thought it could be.

Every day our audience tells us they need Fluff. That’s what keeps me going, but is so easy to forget. It reminds me of when writer E. B White talks about “being torn between a desire to enjoy the world and a desire to improve it, and that it makes it very hard to plan the day.”

And a conversation led by psychologist Brian Little, in which he discusses how an attempt to improve the world isn’t the easiest path in the pursuit of happiness, but leaves us perfectly positioned for the happiness of pursuit.

It’s a different kind of satisfaction. It definitely teaches you a thing or two. So, some recent things I’ve learnt, in no particular order: I probably shouldn’t have opened a shop straight away.

I should have spent more time on my initial hires.

I should have spent more time on my product briefs.

I’m terrible at growth hacking.
And saying no. (Working on both)

The beauty industry is so superficial. It knows exactly what it wants. I think it wants the wrong things.

I could have gone in slower and softer with our message. In the future, I know I’ll be glad I didn’t.

No matter how much people tell me they understand I’m under a lot of pressure, they still think I’m available 24/7.

Honesty & permission is important.

Money is important.

Sleep is important.

A problem is simply a discussion waiting to be had.

My patience (and persistence) is stronger than I thought.

Forecasting still feels weird.

Focus is critical.

When you’re trying to break through walls you’re going to come out dusty.

This is water.