On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore their routines, schedules, habits and day in the life.

In 2010, Emily Weiss was working as an on-set styling assistant for Vogue, when she was inspired to launch a beauty blog. As the story goes, she was chilling out on a beach in Connecticut when she came up with the name — Into the Gloss.

Moving quickly, she started a logo, brainstormed some content ideas, spent $700 on a camera and had an acquaintance help her build a website. Weiss debuted the blog in September that year with a post about Nicky Deam, who was working as a publicist at KCD at the time.

“I started Into The Gloss because I wanted to create a space dedicated to beauty conversation and connection,” she recalled in an interview with Grazia. “I saved up for months to buy a camera and started asking interesting women I knew if I could interview them in their bathrooms.”

Over the next few years, the beauty blogger balanced her day job at Vogue with Into the Gloss, she would blog on the website between 4am to 8am, before heading off to work. All of this hard work began to pay off. After growing the website to 10 million pageviews per month, she was able to form several corporate partnerships that enabled her to quit her job at Vogue and focus on Into the Gloss full-time.

In 2014, Weiss began pitching VCs with an idea to create an e-commerce platform. While it wasn’t an easy process – she was rejected close to a dozen times — Weiss managed to raise $2 million to hire a small team and raise Glossier. Since then, Glossier has grown to become one of the biggest beauty brands in the world, and is currently valued at over $1 billion.

When I think back on my proudest moments at Glossier, they have never been about reaching a number or size or gaining an award – it’s always been a story. Whether that’s from a customer on an Instagram post, or when someone walks up to me and tells me how much our products have changed their life.

Emily Weiss On Skincare, The “Weird” Shampoo She Loves, And Her Advice To Would-Be CEOs | Vogue

Emily Weiss’s daily routine: meditation, bathtime & Manuka honey

On a typical day, the Glossier founder & former CEO is up at 7am and the first thing she does is meditate for 10 minutes. It was a habit created out of a New Year’s resolution a few years ago, and she’s been trying to stick with it ever since. For Weiss, it’s all about developing a consistent morning routine that she can do anywhere in the world.

“I try to have best practices that are consistent no matter if I’m in New York or Toronto or London, and that includes meditation,” she told Fleetstreet Magazine. “I learned vedic meditation and I do that for 20 minutes in the morning. I’ll wake up to an alarm and meditate before I look at my phone and see what’s happening. It makes the rest of the day a lot easier.”

According to a 2022 interview with Vogue, Weiss also likes to drink hot water and lemon with some Manuka honey in the mornings. After that, she’ll write her five-minute gratitude journal — “I feel better when I’ve done it,” she explained.

Then it’s off to work. The Glossier offices are walking distance from Weiss’ home so she usually grabs an Americano on the way. “If I’m feeling responsible, I’ll get a fruit cup, or a raspberry scone if I’m feeling decadent,” she admitted to Marie Claire.

I’ll respond to the most pressing emails before I even get dressed and then, on my way to work, I usually catch up on any texts/Slack messages/emails/Instagram DMs I received the day before. It’s important to me that I check out any photos that our customers have tagged Glossier in. I try to “like” every single one.

Emily Weiss | The Violet Files

A couple times a week, Weiss will go work out after she wraps up her day at Glossier. She’s a big fan of studio exercises at Physique 57 and yoga at Sky Ting. “I used to meet with this fantastic trainer, Key Son, in the morning at the gym in my building, but realized that working out after work helps me de-stress before I go home for the day,” she explained.

When it comes to her self-care routine, Weiss’ go-to ritual is taking a bath. She explained her evening routine in an interview with Vogue.

The number one thing that always helps me is taking a bath – so maybe I’m English if I take a bath every night. It’s a transition from daytime to nighttime. I get home from work, take a bath, and there’s a real before and after. Straight away my whole body is completely relaxed and I’m in a totally different headspace. I always dump a giant bag of Epsom salts in the bath – they’re cheap and you need a lot of them, not just a scoop. I have so much Epsom salt real estate in my house – that’s the base.

Emily Weiss On Skincare, The “Weird” Shampoo She Loves, And Her Advice To Would-Be CEOs | Vogue

Photo credit: Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

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