The House of DRUNK

With Paris as the romantic backdrop to Drunk Elephant's annual House of Drunk, we exclusively spoke to founder, Tiffany Masterson on the story behind the brand, what real beauty means to her and why she chose Paris as this year's destination.

- ALISHA AZUDDIN

What was the idea that started the Drunk Elephant brand?

TM: It was my skin! I started researching ingredients because I started off with selling a little bar cleanser. People used to tell me they were breaking out and they just didn't know why. I got super curious so on my own I made a chart-I made an Excel spreadsheet and with each product I'd come across, I'd insert the ingredients into each cell of the sheet. I'd look up and study each ingredient and would figure out what role they played in the product. Was it a preservative, antioxidant, thickener, pH adjuster, vitamin C, emollient. And I just started forming this picture of my head around this idea that some of the ingredients in there are all for skin and some weren't.

I didn't want to use silicones, I didn't want the drying alcohols, the essential oils, SLS-it's too much for our skin. It strips it so that's where my philosophy started coming together.

I looked on the market and there was nothing I could find that didn't contain any of these six categories of ingredients and delivered products that have only ingredients that are there for the benefit of the skin.

What are the must-haves in your skincare routine?

TM: Well, the philosophy is the first must-have in my skin care routine, which is avoiding the six ingredients (essential oils, SLS. fragrances/dyes, alcohol, silicone, chemical screens) that create triggers and issues in our skin. So to avoid the suspicious six is truly the philosophy-that's a must-have before anything else in the world. The second must-have is cleansing only once daily.

(Cleansing) only once a day? Why is this so?