Kelly Kovack [00:00:08]: This episode is presented by Landing International, a B-to-B sales and marketing platform that is revolutionizing beauty retail through technology.
Matin Maulawizada [00:00:19]: Hi, I’m Matin Maulawizada … I’m a New York City-based makeup artist, and it’s a matter of truth.
Kelly Kovack [00:00:33]: Influencer marketing is not a new concept. Brands have always leveraged influential people to help market their brands and products. Social media turned it into an industry. I’m Kelly Kovack, founder of Beauty Matter. I believe real influence comes from expertise, informed opinions, and leadership; not likes and followers. While the impact of influencers is often referred to as a paradigm shifting trend, in reality, it’s a dynamic that has always been part of society, and it’s ingrained in the human psyche. In simple terms, it’s human nature to want things just beyond our reach. Aspiration is the fuel of the influencer industry. Matin Maulawizada is the embodiment of real influence; even his Instagram bio has gravity. Afghan-raised feminist, Berkley-raised molecular biologist, New York-raised makeup artist turned non-toxic beauty and human rights advocate. At least for Matin, his influence was created by passion, substance, and honesty.
So, Matin, thank you for being here. I’m so excited to have you, because you know, I kind of felt the first time we met, we were like kindred spirits; I felt like I had known you forever.
Matin Maulawizada [00:01:54]: I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.
Kelly Kovack [00:01:56]: That’s very sweet. You know, and we met in kind of an environment that is kind of overtly creative, we met doing trend forecasting, which is…it’s always interesting, because it brings people from – as it should, from kind of different walks of life, but you really kind of have to put yourself out there, because it is just a hunch when you’re thinking three years out, and it’s sort of whatever’s rattling around in your head, you kind of have to form it into something cohesive, and it was shocking like how similar the things we pulled were.
Matin Maulawizada [00:02:33]: Absolutely, yeah.
Kelly Kovack [00:02:34]: You know, and so, even though we don’t see each other very often, I feel like sort of this very connected thing with you.
Matin Maulawizada [00:02:44]: Oh, absolutely. I obsessively look at your pictures in your Instagram.
Kelly Kovack [00:02:46]: I know, there was a time where I actually think I – neither one of us are digital natives, but I do think we might have been early adopters of Pinterest.
Matin Maulawizada [00:02:55]: Yes, absolutely.
Kelly Kovack [00:02:56]: Because we used to message each other and we would like molest each other’s Pinterest boards.
Matin Maulawizada [00:03:02]: I wanted to re-post everything that you posted.
Kelly Kovack [00:03:04]: But, you know, on that point, I think it’s really – and, I wasn’t going to start here, but since we’re talking about sort of social media, you know, I think…what is your feeling about kind of Instagram versus Pinterest? Because they’re very different platforms.
Matin Maulawizada [00:03:20]: They’re extremely different. Pinterest, to me, it’s a grown-up form of Instagram. It’s a little more…you can collect things, it’s almost like archiving things for me. I used to take screenshots of everything and then I’d lose them and I could never…
Kelly Kovack [00:03:34]: They’d be all over my desktop, yeah.
Matin Maulawizada [00:03:36]: Exactly. And, with Pinterest, I can put a mood board together and keep it private until I show it to a client, so it helps me in those terms, of like, okay, I’m creating a fashion show, what are the inspirations that I pull from beauty or anything, actually. So, those images are put together on a board, it would be specifically for that person, I would send it to them. And, it’s interesting, because it really kind of…you don’t have to make a board anymore, you don’t have to bring images with you, it’s all on your phone. As Instagram, although you can save on Instagram and you can do the same, it doesn’t have the same kind of flexibility with organization. Instagram to me is like a tabloid magazine that you just kind of scroll through and have fun and enjoy the images, and you know that’s it all like…smoke and mirrors.
Kelly Kovack [00:04:24]: It’s almost like…yeah, definitely smoke and mirrors, or contouring and filters. But, there’s also – Instagram kind of has like this fleeting quality to it, where I think Pinterest, for me, I used it for the same way, I was like, “My god, here’s this tool that can actually sort of help me organize myself.” But, you know, and I think that for brands, Pinterest, when you have to sort of create kind of a hierarchy of priorities, is always on the bottom.
Matin Maulawizada [00:04:52]: Yes, absolutely.
Kelly Kovack [00:04:53]: And, for me, maybe it’s because I naturually gravitated towards it, I was like, “But Pinterest is so much more powerful,” like there’s an evergreen quality to it, sort of the psychology behind why people are on Pinterest is totally different. Like, they’re there to actually look for things.
Matin Maulawizada [00:05:14]: Yeah, it’s a research tool more than showing off. It’s not the place that you show off your work, or you’re trying to be cool or this or that, it’s just…it’s literally just there to support you. So, I feel that way with it. I really feel supported by my peers on Pinterest, by exchanging things or reposting or being forward with something, I take it more seriously than I would other social media platforms; Twitter is completely different, but especially Instagram, it’s more of a joke or a meme or something funny, while on Pinterest, it’s like, “Oh, have you looked at this color that’s coming?”
Kelly Kovack [00:05:53]: Oh, really? So, you actually use it with your peers to sort of…
Matin Maulawizada [00:05:59]: Absolutely, yes.
Kelly Kovack [00:06:00]: Really? Interesting.
Matin Maulawizada [00:06:01]: Absolutely.
Kelly Kovack [00:06:02]: Interesting.
Matin Maulawizada [00:06:03]: And, it’s nice. It’s nice to see that, because it’s really inspirational to me.
Kelly Kovack [00:06:06]: So, actually, if people really want to know where the real sort of creative trend, inspiration is happening, it’s actually on Pinterest.
Matin Maulawizada [00:06:13]: Absolutely. Yeah, it has a lot more archives than you can ever find. Most of them are linked in a way now, but yeah, there’s no noise in it, it’s just pure what you are looking for, and it has all of it, which is great. So, the search is really easy on Pinterest. The search on Instagram is a lot harder, to sift through hash tags is really hard.
Kelly Kovack [00:06:38]: Yeah, I mean, there’s so much noise and garbage.
Matin Maulawizada [00:06:40]: Well, also, people, just to get traffic, they tag any hashtag, things that are not even related to the images, so like…literally like nine out of ten images have “Kardashians” hashtag on it, and it has nothing to do with…
Kelly Kovack [00:06:52]: Or, (unclear 06:53) beauty.
Matin Maulawizada [00:06:54]: Or (unclear) beauty things, which is so random and bizarre to me, but people do that, I guess, just to get traffic to their site.
Kelly Kovack [00:07:00]: Right. You know, I think that…let’s talk about Instagram, because I’m sure as a makeup artist, it sort of changed how you had – or, maybe it didn’t, you know, did it change how you did business? The business of sort of…
Matin Maulawizada [00:07:15]: Oh, it’s a second job for us.
Kelly Kovack [00:07:17]: Really?
Matin Maulawizada [00:07:17]: I mean, yes, because I’m not naturally gravitating towards social media and I don’t have enough followers, but then you – I mean, it’s human nature to compare yourself to people who have three million followers, and then you’re like, how did they get there, and why? Why so many eyeballs are on them? And, it’s mind-boggling, and I’m very jealous of them, at the same time, I’m just intrigued of what they do, but it’s like…I think it’s a platform that you just like, put yourself out there completely. I don’t. I do some work there, and then it’s my dogs and life – it’s a lifestyle type of thing for me.
Kelly Kovack [00:07:53]: Yeah, but I love it. Your dogs make me happy.
Matin Maulawizada [00:07:56]: Oh, thank you. Well, I just get – I just honestly get bored if I’m looking at just faces all day long, and it’s variations of the same makeup, I’m like, you can only do so many different things, and then also the unreal nature, if you just – like, there’s a lot of really popular sites, and I follow them and I love them, it’s just an eyeball with different makeup, of the same person.
Kelly Kovack [00:08:16]: What are some of your favorite?
Matin Maulawizada [00:08:19]: Oh god. Gosh, it’s hard to…I can never remember their handles.
Kelly Kovack [00:08:22]: I know, someone did this to me, and I went blank.
Matin Maulawizada [00:08:25]: It’s hard to – well, Beauty Matter is one.
Kelly Kovack [00:08:27]: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Matin Maulawizada [00:08:30]: It really is, and I think it’s just…there’s a lot of makeup artists that are from all over the world. They’re not really makeup artists that do makeup on others; they do makeup on themselves, and it’s just the picture of their eye from the same angle, so every photo is their eye, and in order to create buzz, they just do these crazy makeups, that if you look at the full face, it doesn’t apply, and it doesn’t work. So, it only works if it’s just one eye. So, it’s really interesting to see that they get like, you know, five hundred thousand likes, and you’re like, “Oh, but if you see her entire face,” you would go like, “This is crazy.”
Kelly Kovack [00:09:09]: So, it’s almost – and, I think like on TikTok, too, the whole…it’s almost like makeup as a form of creative expression, which is something very different than sort of the commercial side of…
Matin Maulawizada [00:09:24]: It’s very different. Yeah, it’s not an applied type of feel, it’s more of a personal art project, or a personal craft project.
Kelly Kovack [00:09:30]: Yeah, which I think is very cool.
Matin Maulawizada [00:09:32]: It’s great, it’s amazing, and I’m looking at it, I’m like, “Wow, this is so beautiful,” but of course, it would last for two minutes, because there’s like a strip of eye gloss there, and like lip gloss, literally like a stripe, and you know it’s going to melt in like two seconds in the eyeball, because it’s the warmest skin on the face. So, it’s really interesting to see them do that, and they get so much traffic. So, it’s a very…it’s not an applied vision board, it’s more of a fun thing to look at and then you just scroll and you forget about it.
Kelly Kovack [00:10:05]: Right, it’s more like entertainment.
Matin Maulawizada [00:10:07]: Exactly. It’s completely entertainment.
Kelly Kovack [00:10:09]: I mean, it’s entertainment, but it’s also become big business.
Matin Maulawizada [00:10:12]: Well, yeah. What amazes me, it’s like…people want to be entertained by everyone, so we’re not actors, so for makeup artists to really make a platform for themselves, they really have to be entertainers. They have to be on stage, they have to talk, they have to teach, they have to be pretty, they have to be fit, they have to have the “it” girl in their chair, and it’s really…it’s kind of tough for everyone to do it; we don’t all get to do that.
Kelly Kovack [00:10:41]: Well, you know, I think what’s really interesting is, you know, this idea of influencers, you know, social media sort of took the idea of “influence” that’s always been around, word of mouth is how every entrepreneur starts their business, because you have no money, but I think social media kind of created this platform, and then off of that, there’s been this completely new business called “influencer marketing” that’s emerged. But, you know, one could argue that you are kind of the ultimate influencer. You’ve built a career based on amazing editorial work, and celebrities that are some of the biggest celebrities in the world, and you’ve been doing them for years. So, you know, I would say that’s kind of a more authentic kind of influence, but it’s sort of evolved to kind of these unboxing and sort of this crazy kind of packaged form of influence.
Matin Maulawizada [00:11:44]: Well, it’s a different type of influence, because when we were coming up, everything was done three, four months in advance, so you really did have to have a forecasting type of brain, and say, “Okay, what will people do this fall?” and you’re thinking about this in the spring because you’re going somewhere warm to shoot something, and then the magazine would come out six months later. Well, now, it’s like, “Oh, it’s now,” and you’re posting it and it’s done, and it’s like maybe you wait a week by the time they edit it, so it’s like all of these online magazines and all of that, so it’s taking that flavor and that wait and that preciousness of “Oh my god, my cover’s out,” and then you rush to the magazine store and buy like ten of them just to archive it. Nowadays, I’m like, “Oh god.”
Kelly Kovack [00:12:30]: It happens so fast.
Matin Maulawizada [00:12:31]: Yeah, it’s lost its flavor, and I was actually thinking about this the other day, I’m like, I wonder if it’s going to happen at some point that there’s too much content and we are not only flooded psychologically with it, but also, there’s no room in the world for it, and we need to purge it, we need to literally recycle and clean it, because it’s gotten to a point that’s absurdity.
Kelly Kovack [00:12:54]: No, I agree. I think that there’s…you know, it’s sort of like we’re constantly bombarded by, especially in New York, by stimulation, and online, it’s just…I mean, I can’t even remember – I knew the number of how many visual images in a day a person consumes, but you can’t actually process it and really appreciate it, because it’s just noise.
Matin Maulawizada [00:13:19]: That’s it, it’s become noise, then it’s also, they’re images not worth really consuming. I mean, of course it’s subjective, and everyone has the right to have their own taste, but it’s gotten to a point that anyone that creates some kind of shock or posts some kind of semi-provocative photo gets more likes and in turn gets more followers, and that pushes them to the space where discovery is, and it gets to a point that I’m like, “This is crazy.” It shouldn’t be. There should be a filter somewhere in there that would literally monitor these things.
Kelly Kovack [00:14:03]: I mean, do you ever – I know that I do, do you ever just say, “That’s it,” and do sort of a digital detox and not pick up your phone, not…
Matin Maulawizada [00:14:08]: I’ve not been cool enough to do a detox yet.
Kelly Kovack [00:14:12]: Well, not an official detox, but sometimes I’m just sort of like…
Matin Maulawizada [00:14:16]: I know people that actually post and say, “Okay, for the next three weeks, I’ll be off.” I’m like, “Okay, why do I need to know this?”
Kelly Kovack [00:14:23]: Right. Well, it’s also kind of become a thing.
Matin Maulawizada [00:14:25]: I think so, yeah, I’m sure.
Kelly Kovack [00:14:28]: I mean, ironically, in Silicon Valley they’re doing sort of these detoxes, and I’m like, “Right, but you created the problem.”
Matin Maulawizada [00:14:37]: Well, if I wanted to do a detox, I would…in like my dream world, I had this at one point in my house, but then, you know, I moved and I didn’t have time to make it. I had a faraday cage that has coppers in it, copper mesh…
Kelly Kovack [00:14:52]: Can you explain what that is? I remember – I actually remember you talking about this.
Matin Maulawizada [00:14:57]: Oh yes. It basically creates a space that no electromagnetic wave could come in, and I would turn off the breaker on my bedroom and literally, there would be no wires, there’s no electricity, there’s absolutely no electric noise or waves in my room, and I have to say, it was amazing, because I wasn’t allowed to keep my phone…
Kelly Kovack [00:15:15]: You could really feel the difference?
Matin Maulawizada [00:15:16]: Yes, because you couldn’t get any reception, you have to put everything away, and there’s no electricity, so you couldn’t turn on the TV or radio or anything, or look at your phone, so it was kind of wonderful. The sleep quality was really different, and then of course, I got back to life and forgot about it, but for the two or three years that I was forced to do it, my doctor suggested it, and it wasn’t because I was online all the time, it was because I was detoxing for other things, it was quite amazing.
Kelly Kovack [00:15:45]: I had someone also who actually made me change the habit of, you know, there are so many people who – the first thing that they do when they wake up is they grab their phone.
Matin Maulawizada [00:15:56]: Of course, because that’s where your alarm is too now.
Kelly Kovack [00:15:59]: That’s where your alarm is, and then you start going through emails or whatever, and you know, I was doing, at that time, a lot of – I had a lot of clients in Europe, and so whatever was in that email was kind of setting the tone for my day, and it wasn’t always good, and so, he really made me – he’s like, “Don’t keep it – don’t keep the phone in your bedroom. Give yourself an hour before you pick it up so you can kind of set your intention for the day,” and I have to say, it was a little hard at first, but I do it now and I…it really kind of changed everything.
Matin Maulawizada [00:16:36]: Absolutely, it’s a habit. Yeah. You just refuse to look at it until you’re ready to go to work. I think, yeah, that’s the problem with having limitless access to all – everyone, and everyone expects immediate answers. For example, I’m good on texting, even texting or DM on Instagram better than actually answering emails. Emails I don’t even look at until I’m done at work, and sometimes I’m working until 10, 11 at night, so people don’t hear from me, and my agents go crazy, because you know, some of them only deal with email, and then I’m like, “Well, too bad, because I don’t read my emails until the end,” and so that could be a problem, because they expect you to always be on, and of course, we’re working in a global arena with B-to-B or fashion or any of this, and it’s so well-connected, but yes, when London wakes up, we’re up, yeah, which is middle of the day for us, and if we send an email at the end of the day, they are just beginning, and then by the time they get back to us, we are asleep, so it’s really tough to…
Kelly Kovack [00:17:45]: It never stops.
Matin Maulawizada [00:17:46]: No, so that expectation has to be more realistic. I saw a movie, a documentary Michael Moore did, it was one of those things, he was interviewing people in Germany, and actually, it’s become illegal with certain firms to email their coworkers after 6pm. They literally cannot do it.
Kelly Kovack [00:18:05]: I actually think that there needs to be sort of more discipline around that.
Matin Maulawizada [00:18:08]: Absolutely. I don’t get my work details until 9 o’clock at night because it comes from LA sometimes, and people in LA, they work until 6 o’clock and they send it at the very last minute, it’s 9 o’clock New York time, and my call time is at 8am. I’m like, come on people.
Kelly Kovack [00:18:24]: Well, and it’s also sort of we have this – well, especially, I suppose, in New York and even kind of in the beauty industry with so many entrepreneurs, and you know, entrepreneurs are incredibly driven because they’re passionate and they’re on all the time, and sometimes there’s this expectation that their team needs to be sort of as on as they are, and I think we’ve all been in situations where you’re getting emails at like ungodly hours, and the expectation is like, “Well, why didn’t you respond?” “Yeah, I was asleep.”
Matin Maulawizada [00:18:59]: I mean, your phone doesn’t ding every time you get an email?
Kelly Kovack [00:19:02]: Right? It really…and, I think that there’s – especially in beauty and this is kind of a good segue to talk about sort of wellness and clean beauty, but in beauty we almost have this dichotomy where we talk about wellness and health and sort of “clean beauty” and non-toxic, and then so many of the work environments and the culture is incredibly toxic.
Matin Maulawizada [00:19:29]: Yeah, absolutely. The sales floor alone, I worked in sales for…I mean, I started at the counter when I was in college, and in the ‘80s, ‘90s, it was amazing, and then it got into early ‘90s, late ‘90s, was still doable, achievable. I came back in a different capacity after college to head teams for brands, and the expectations of sales were so incredibly high and impossible to achieve.
Kelly Kovack [00:19:57]: But, you know, the irony is, and this is like one of my soapboxes, is that, you know, the most important people I think in the beauty industry, are the people on the frontline, the people you’re talking about that are on the sales floor. You know, for brands, in that moment, in that store, for that customer, they’re the face of the brand. But, so many of these brands don’t give them the time of day. They’re just like, “We’re paying you X amount per hour; you need to sell this much.”
Matin Maulawizada [00:20:29]: It’s almost minimum wage, in a way, and they are forced to sell, you know, really high values every single day.
Kelly Kovack [00:20:37]: But yet, they’re writing checks to influencers, giving them the latest products, and yet the people on the frontline are expected to sell the product, and they don’t get it. So, there’s kind of, I think, a, you know, to me, I just…like, I would love to have a platform to be an advocate for those people, and I think like, if you want to know what’s happening with consumers, you don’t need to talk to a focus group; go talk to the people who are at the counter. They’re selling it, they’re talking to the customers.
Matin Maulawizada [00:21:05]: No, they are the ones that really turns you onto products. I’m sorry, influencers in social media, we post, and it’s all because, you know, the brands supply us products or pay us to do it, and a lot of people, they take that money and post whatever comes their way, and the saddest thing is it’s not true – it’s not the truth about the products, it doesn’t educate you completely about those products. Until you sit down on that chair and try the cream and put it on for, you know, three to four weeks, you have no idea of what it does. There’s no miracle creams out there, and the saddest thing is, it’s like, yes, most of that budget goes into influencers’ pockets instead of going to sales force, and also, they don’t have the advertising budget anymore, so they hire anyone. I’ve been re-hired to clean up work that people have done because they didn’t have the budgets to do it properly, and I mean, yeah, these people, they know how to do makeup on themselves…
Kelly Kovack [00:22:08]: Right, because they watched a YouTube video.
Matin Maulawizada [00:22:10]: Yeah, I mean, they’re great at what they are doing for themselves, but it’s like, you cannot do every single face, and you’re not savvy at what it takes to do a shoot, to make a macro photo for an eyelash, so they just stick false eyelashes, and I mean, it looks like a mess. So, it’s a really tough thing to balance.
Kelly Kovack [00:22:32]: What do you think brands can do better in terms of kind of creating truthful content and sort of engaging the people on the frontline?
Matin Maulawizada [00:22:44]: One of the things, and I was just in London a few months ago and I saw a few ad campaigns that really interested me, and it was – all of the models were of different ages, and they were a lot of women over 40, 40 to 70, on beauty campaigns, videos, so it wasn’t retouched, it wasn’t crazy looking, it wasn’t, you know, some unachievable, insane triple filtered, you know, face-tuned image, it was a proper, beautiful makeup on a beautiful woman that looks like someone that you know. So, I think if we move towards that trend, it would be amazing. I know fashion is moving more towards that, so they’re creating fashion for different body shapes, different heights, different vibes, but beauty hasn’t done that yet. I know there was a couple of – like Noors did a beautiful campaign with Charlotte Rampling once, and it’s one of my favorite ones, of course, but there needs to be more of that, especially in American beauty.
Kelly Kovack [00:23:45]: What do you think kind of on that thought, but a little different, about the Gucci beauty campaigns?
Matin Maulawizada [00:23:53]: The new ones?
Kelly Kovack [00:23:54]: The new ones, or the new one.
Matin Maulawizada [00:23:56]: I haven’t seen it.
Kelly Kovack [00:23:56]: Well, when they launched the new products with sort of the imperfection and the red lips and the imperfect teeth and the…no?
Matin Maulawizada [00:24:04]: Honestly, I haven’t seen it.
Kelly Kovack [00:24:05]: Really? I’m going to send it to you, they’re amazing. They’re amazing.
Matin Maulawizada [00:24:08]: So, good, I’m glad they did that. European brands are trying to go there, for sure, a lot more. I mean, I was surprised how many of those kinds of images you would see in Europe, but in America, it’s still like that pretty girl, you know, 17-year-old that will pretend to be 30, you know, working 18 hour days and have a baby and a half and looks like that, so it’s just kind of unachievable beauty here. I know all of it is a fantasy, but it still can be fantastic and beautiful, but it has to be a little bit more real.
