Sydney Grace is a company I had not heard of until several years ago. It is owned by sisters, Heather and Laura. When I began purchasing from them and subsequently had the privilege of interviewing Heather (Trivia and Sydney Grace) I learned what a high integrity, family oriented, customer focused all-around great person she is. Plus their eyeshadow products are top notch!

I am pleased to say the company has continued to expand and grow through products and collaborations. It is a great pleasure to interview Laura, the other half of the Sydney Grace company! Both Heather and Laura are delightful to deal with and are amazing role models for other women.

As the co-owner of Sydney Grace, tell my audience a bit about your role within the company. How does your role differ from Heather’s?

As a small business, Heather and I have taken on several roles. Heather is in charge of product production from concept through to production (including ordering, formulating, designing packaging, and working with our vendors). Her background is in finance and accounting, so she also manages the finances at Sydney Grace. My background is in customer service and marketing, so those are two of my main roles here at Sydney Grace as well as employee management, inventory management, and shipping. So, I guess you could break it down in “before” and “after”. Heather manages all the “before” of a product and then I take over “after” the product is created. But we couldn’t do it all without our amazing employees!


You created a stunning palette, Blessed, working with Mary, or as she is better known, Glitzy Fritzy. How did the collaboration come about?

We’ve worked with Mary as a beauty influencer for a few years now through her amazing YouTube channel. She’s such a genuine, sweet (and funny) person so when we received several requests from our customers to collaborate with Mary, we knew it would be a pleasure to do so! She’s been amazing to work with from the beginning.

What criteria do you have for developing collaborations?

I wouldn’t really say we have specific criteria. We need to believe we can have a good working relationship as we will be working closely during development, production, launch and even after.


What has been the most rewarding part of developing and running Sydney Grace?

Over the last several years, we’ve had the opportunity to work with some amazing people (customers, influencers, employees, vendors). I think the relationships we’ve developed through those connections has been one of the most rewarding parts of growing Sydney Grace.

The other would be the benefits it’s given our family. Heather and I both have been able to stay home with our kids while still helping to provide for our families and our kids’ futures. Also, being able to get our kids involved and teach them real life experience about owning and operating a business is invaluable.

What was the most challenging part of that ownership?

Starting and growing a business is full of challenges, so to pinpoint one would be difficult. I think timing and future thinking is one of the biggest. We make decisions based off the information we have now, but we can’t see what the future might hold and how our decisions now will affect Sydney Grace in the future, I think 2020 taught all of us that! Of course, we try to look ahead but some things are unpredictable, so being flexible is important.

What are the most positive aspects of working with family? What advice do you have for others looking to do something similar?

Heather and I have always been close. We enjoy spending time together. However, that doesn’t always make it easy. Whenever you have two people working together and making decisions together, you’re bound to have some disagreement. But, when it’s someone you really love, you make it a priority to resolve whatever disagreements there may be. I do have to say, those are rare, though. We really do work well together.

Neither of us is afraid to say, “I’m sorry” and I think that is a huge aspect of why we can work together and still be as close as we are. For anyone considering working with family, you need to evaluate your relationship and make sure it’s the priority. Heather and I decided at the beginning that nothing would come between our relationship as sisters. Sydney Grace was always secondary to our relationship, and I believe we’ve been true to that and will continue to be.

We saw the passing of one of our favorite influencers, Mel Thompson, at the age of 35 on Sunday, September 26, 2021. You have graciously continued to produce her palette, Tiny Marvels, while donating a portion of the proceeds to her family. How did you arrive at such a generous and heartwarming decision?

Mel was a true gem and is really missed. Mel poured her heart and soul into that palette. It represented so many things that she loved. We thought it only right that as long as we continued to produce her palette (with the blessing of her husband), that it continues to benefit the ones she loved the most.

Upon receiving my palette, Blessed, a beautiful butterfly sticker fell out of the package. Who is the artist responsible for this beautiful item?

Thank you! That is Heather. She has always been very artistic. Our parents allowed us the freedom to explore many hobbies and art was one of them. We took oil painting and other art classes as kids. I never took to it well, but Heather did! Heather has also designed many of our palettes including 3  new ones.The closest I come to art is through photography. I’m trying to improve my product photography, but it’s portrait photography I love.

If you could host a dinner party and invite five people, living or dead, who would you invite and why?

I love history and I thought about the five dead people I’d invite, but I don’t think I could narrow it down to five. I think if I did, I’d leave the evening unsatisfied by having a taste of hearing their stories, but not having enough time to really dig into each one. I think I’d rather spend that time with my family because life is short and really those are the stories that matter now. Historical figures and celebrities have had their time (and we can learn a lot from them and should), but my time should be focused on what and who is here now.

There is much discussion about beauty companies not being inclusive of women over 50. How do you address this concern? Do you feel beauty companies have improved in their inclusion of women over 50? If so, how?

I have seen more mature models being featured over the last couple years amongst beauty/cosmetics brand and I hope that continues. Skin care products have been better about this than cosmetics, but I believe that’s because they are targeting the more mature audience specifically.

I know we hear a lot that women over 50 shouldn’t wear shimmer, and I think that should change. I say, “wear it if it makes you happy!” Our 75 yr old mom loves shimmer and she looks amazing wearing it! She gets compliments on her highlighter all the time! And Mary (Glitzy Fritzy) does an amazing job showing women over 50 how to wear shimmer eye looks. We’ve enjoyed working with Mary and hope that we can continue to represent and feature women over 50 (I’ll be there soon!)

I do think it’s easy to feature younger “models” on social media, because that is the generation that really spends their time creating that content and making it easily available to brands by tagging them when they post. I’d love to see more over 50s tagging us!

Much like Amazon changed the complexion of brick-and-mortar shopping experience, a company called Beauty Pie is changing the complexion of how beauty products are priced and purchased. What are your thoughts on this approach?

I’m not sure I know enough about them to really comment. We’ve been able to find high quality beauty products online at a fraction of the cost of the big name brands for quite some time. Sydney Grace is one example of that. But, instead of charging a subscription fee to get those discounted prices, we make them available to everyone. I think one thing that makes us unique is we don’t outsource to labs all over the world. We make our products right here in our own lab. That means wehave 100% control over what goes into our products and the result.

Where do you see your company 5 years from now?

That’s a tough question. We’ve learned over the last 5 years that life and business can be unpredictable. We’d like to branch out into new markets and develop new product lines in the next few years but keep the same quality standards for our products and our customer service.

 


Your company name is derived from your children’s names. Do any of your children show an interest in the company? If so, where do their interests rest? Which are their favorite products?

Yes, that’s right for the names. Heather and I both have 2 girls and 1 boy each. Most of them have expressed some interest in getting involved as they get older including Heather’s son. My son (11) has his heart set on engineering. Connor (Heather’s son) and Allie (my oldest) are very artistic, and have shown some interest in that area in regards to Sydney Grace packaging and marketing.

Allie is also a very talented writer, which we could use! She and Maddie will be high school juniors this year, so they are considering their options for after high school. I could see Maddie and Sydney having a role in management as they are both organized and good project managers. Sydney enjoys photography also, so that may be something we get her involved in, in the near future. I could really see Maddie working in product development too.

The older ones have already been trained in several areas of the business and we’ll be continuing to teach and train the younger ones as they get older.

Heather and I both want our kids to have the freedom to choose what their future looks like. We’ll be happy if they choose to take a bigger role in Sydney Grace as young adults, but we’ll also be happy if their path takes them somewhere else.

Allie’s favorite is the Enduring Love palette. Maddie’s is our new cream blushes. Sydney’s is the Mya lip cream. Payton doesn’t wear much makeup yet, but she likes the lip creams and Lara is perfect for her since it’s just a clear gloss, but she’s kind of partial to the lip cream, Payton. 😉

 

Please include any sources that people can use to purchase from you or connect with you.

Our full product line is only available on sydneygraceco.com, but they can also find us on Amazon and Etsy. We have a couple retailers that carry some of our products: Beauty Statement and Camera Ready.

We’ll be expanding into other markets hopefully by early next year.

They can also connect with us on social media on Instagram @sydneygraceco, Facebook, and TikTok

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