Inside Susan Yara’s Second Act

Susan Yara built her following as an original YouTube skinfluencer, posting deep dives into vitamin C and retinol even before she started her clinically branded skincare label Naturium. This is why, last year, her fanbase became divided when she decided to post a photo of herself in a thong bikini.

“There were comments from people being like, ‘This isn’t why we follow you. We follow you for skincare education, not to see your butt,’” Yara told The Business of Beauty.

The tone shift reflects Yara’s new direction; she’s relocated to Miami, replaced her skincare-nerd Instagram feed with beach and yacht scenes and is relaunching the fragrance-focused body and hair care brand Playa.

Unlike the clinical, ingredient-centred positioning of Naturium, Playa is inspired by her newfound Miami lifestyle and her Mexican heritage, said Yara. Complete with tropical scent notes, a bold red aesthetic and lots of sexy campaign photos starring Yara herself, it launches exclusively direct-to-consumer on May 1 after weeks of teaser content on social media. Yara is entering a combination of beauty categories – fragrance, body and hair care – that have been growing fast and attracting acquisition activity in recent years.

“I still love to educate people around skincare and the benefits that you’re going to get. But at the same time, there’s this other side of me that was never really shown on social media,” she said. Playa has been in the works for a year and a half, beginning shortly after the 2023 sale of Naturium to E.l.f. Beauty for $355 million. Although Yara said her contract doesn’t force her to remain, she’s staying put at Naturium as she simultaneously builds her new brand.

“I promised Tarang [Amin, chief executive of E.l.f. Beauty], when we were going through the acquisition process, that we were going to take Naturium to the level of being a household name,” said Yara. “I’m still on board with Naturium, 100 percent.”

Beauty and the Beach

Founded by Shelby Wild in 2017, Playa was originally incubated by Forma Brands, the parent company of cosmetics label Morphe that filed for bankruptcy in 2023. Yara purchased the brand name after the conclusion of a 2022 lawsuit in which Wild sued Forma and General Atlantic, claiming a lack of support. (All existing lawsuits against Forma were frozen due to its bankruptcy, and filings show that Jefferies and Cerberus took ownership of the Playa trademark as a result of the process.)

“I have always loved this name, especially because it’s the Spanish word for beach,” said Yara, who bought the trademark from Forma LLC. The purchase, focused on just the brand name, had logistical advantages compared to setting up a new name from scratch. “A big part of that was trying to find a name that worked for this brand, that we could also trademark, that we could get the social media handles,” she said.

While Naturium is mostly fragrance-free, Playa will take the exact opposite approach with scent at its centre. Working with fragrance houses Givaudan and Robertet, the brand will launch with a hair gloss that doubles as a hair perfume called the Fragrance-Depositing Gloss Rinse for Hair, followed by a hair and body mist. Scents like “Nuevasol,” with notes of coconut and jasmine, will reference not only Miami beach life but Yara’s own upbringing in Latino culture with a Mexican father and Korean mother. Yara said she saw a white space in the lack of hair care with fragrances that would work equally as a standalone perfume.

“A lot of the scents that you get in hair care smell like hair-care fragrances,” she said.

Scented body care has been a dominant category for beauty growth in recent years and acquisition target, thanks to beachy body-care brand Sol de Janeiro and the minimalist Salt & Stone. Saltair, meanwhile, is a brand funded by incubator The Center, which also developed Naturium.

Sticking to her ingredient-focused roots, Yara also hopes to put a premium on her products’ efficacy, like when she explains that the hair gloss conditioning agents have “positive charges” that line up with negative charges on the hair, smoothing and killing frizz. She plans on launching a total of four different fragrances this year.

At a price point of $28 to $34, Yara said she views the brand as part of the masstige segment and has already been talking to a retailer. Unlike Naturium, she’s self-funding Playa, and is considering fundraising to support retail entry in the future.

With no outside investors to start, Yara is launching the label entirely on her terms. The first order of business: a 500-person Miami beach club launch with “A-list DJs.”

While her original skincare-oriented followers can expect many more bikini photos to come, Yara isn’t completely abandoning her beauty advice content.

“We’ll get into the education and the science behind a lot of these formulas, for sure, but the overall vibe of the brand is a beach experience,” she said.

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