Welcome to Second Life, a podcast spotlighting successful people who’ve made major career changes—and fearlessly mastered the pivot. Hosted by Hillary Kerr, co-founder and chief content officer at Who What Wear, each episode gives you a direct line to people who are game changers in their fields. Subscribe to Second Life on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts to stay tuned.
Beauty founder Gregg Renfrew is back on Second Life. In 2013, she launched Beautycounter, which is now called Counter, after she took the reins of her own company back. Upon its initial debut, the brand skyrocketed to success and helped pioneer the clean beauty movement, committing to using safe ingredients and leaving harmful chemicals out of its formulations. Renfrew also became the first beauty CEO to testify before Congress about cosmetic reform. In the fight for more transparency, she demanded that lawmakers pass legislation to regulate personal care products. The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022, or MoCRA, was the most significant piece of U.S. beauty regulation that passed since 1938.
Almost a decade after creating Beautycounter, Renfrew sold the brand at a one-billion-dollar valuation to a private equity firm. Since this sale, her path has taken many turns, including being asked to step down as CEO, leaving the company, and coming back as CEO before the business went into foreclosure. Even after all these challenges, she refused to walk away from the brand she built, and she focused on keeping it alive under a new name: Counter.
Renfrew was first on the podcast in 2019 to speak about her life before Beautycounter, including selling Xerox copiers as a sales rep and starting the bridal e-commerce platform The Wedding List, which was later acquired by Martha Stewart. Now, she’s back to catch us up on everything after Beautycounter, including the relaunch in June 2025 under Counter. She has a few things she’d like to do differently this time around, and she’s only in the beginning stages of this exciting new chapter.
Her story emphasizes the power of perseverance and how we can all take control over our own fate. All you have to do is find the courage within to make it happen. Renfrew’s continual work in the beauty space has only made the industry better, and she is not backing down from her mission of clean beauty in this new phase.
Listen to the latest episode of Second Life to hear more from Gregg Renfrew about the wild ride of building (and rebuilding) a beauty empire. Keep scrolling to shop some of our favorites from Counter.
Counter
All Bright Vitamin C Serum
Counter
Silky Skin Cleanser
Counter
Dew Skin Tinted Moisturizer
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