STUDIO EIGHT
Where beauty, culture, and conversation meet.
STUDIO EIGHT is the editorial and media home of Triple Eight Creative, a space to explore the ideas, experiences, and conversations shaping beauty, business, technology, hospitality, and everything in between.
Founded by Chardé Smith, STUDIO EIGHT brings together original articles, founder essays, industry commentary, and conversations that go beyond the surface. From the beauty counter to the boardroom, we explore the moments that shape how we create, connect, and show up in the world.
Whether you're here to discover a new perspective, catch up on an episode, or explore what's happening across the industry, there's always something worth talking about.
The Beauty Edit
Beauty is more than what we see.
The Beauty Edit explores the products, people, trends, and cultural conversations shaping the beauty industry. Through thoughtful commentary, practical insights, and a perspective informed by more than two decades of professional artistry, we're looking beyond what's trending to understand what it means for the people who experience, create, and work in beauty.
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The Beauty Edit
STUDIO EIGHT PRESENTSBeyond The Counter
The conversation doesn't end at the counter.
Hosted by Chardé Smith Anglin, Beyond the Counter is a podcast exploring beauty, business, technology, hospitality, and the experiences that shape how we build, connect, and show up.
Drawing on more than twenty years in the beauty industry and experience building Triple Eight Creative, Chardé brings listeners into honest conversations about entrepreneurship, creative work, industry evolution, and everything beyond the service itself.
Some episodes are personal reflections. Others feature conversations with founders, creatives, and people whose experiences bring something new to the table.
Because there's always more to the story than what happens behind the counter.
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The Founder Stories
The stories behind what we're building.
Building something of your own comes with experiences that don't always make it into the business plan. The Founder Files is a collection of personal essays and reflections from Chardé Smith on entrepreneurship, reinvention, creativity, leadership, and the relationships that shape the journey.
From building Triple Eight Creative to navigating the unexpected turns along the way, these are the stories, lessons, and questions that deserve more than a passing mention.
Consideration Is the Highest Form of Luxury
After NYC Tech Week, Chardé Smith-Anglin realized Triple Eight Creative was never just a beauty company with many moving parts. It is a company built around one idea: people remember when they feel considered. This founder essay explores what that means for customer experience, team culture, beauty, technology, and the future of modern brands.
The Beauty Breakdown — Hevn Studios
Hevn Studios doesn't feel like a photo studio. On Saturday, Lyric and Mind Candy Beauty filled it with beauty professionals ready to talk craft, career, and the parts of this industry nobody puts in the brochure.
In the Room: What Women Founder Events Are Really Teaching Us Right Now
This week, I stepped into rooms filled with women building what’s next. From conversations with founders like Rachel Liverman of Glowbar and Gabby Garritano of JECT to insights on platforms like ShopMy, one thing became clear: community, clarity, and connection are no longer optional. They are the foundation of how modern brands grow.
International Women’s Day
Beauty has always been present in the moments that shape our lives. From weddings and career milestones to quiet conversations between friends, the act of getting ready often becomes a moment of transformation. For founder Chardé, helping women find their signature style has always been about more than makeup. It’s about confidence, identity, and the power of showing up for yourself.
After 20 years in beauty,building a salon featured in Women's Wear Daily, leading operations at MAC Cosmetics—here's what I learned about what beauty actually needs.
Beauty is a billion-dollar industry operating on outdated infrastructure. While consumers expect personalization, ease, and digital clarity in every other part of their lives, beauty services remain fragmented and inconsistent. The future of high-touch industries will not be less human — it will be more intentional. Technology, when designed with care, does not replace intimacy. It scales it.
Ulta, Loyalty, and the Cost of Not Listening
The Ulta Beauty World rollout wasn’t a failure of demand. It was a failure of listening. As excitement built across social media, customers signaled exactly what they wanted. But when access prioritized influencers over loyal spenders, the disconnect became impossible to ignore. This Beauty Edit explores what the moment reveals about loyalty, trust, and why the future of beauty events must be built around real connection, not optics.
Where’s the Clarity?!
If you’ve been guessing your way through your routine, you’re not the problem. The system is. This post breaks down what’s missing in beauty right now—and how the Signature Glam Test and Winter Edit were built to bring the structure back.
The 8 Women Who Inspired Me This Year (And Why I Needed Them)
This year I kept a running list of women who inspired me to build with more intention, more clarity, and higher standards. These founders and artists reminded me what’s possible when you keep showing up and creating your own lane. Here are the eight women who lit a fire under me, plus two honorable mentions.
Six Months In — The Beginning of a Global Beauty House
Six months into relaunching Triple Eight Creative, I’m finally seeing the blueprint of the beauty house I’ve been building my entire career. What started as a return to my artistry has evolved into a brand rooted in clarity, identity, and connection. This reflection looks back at the moments that shaped T8C and the vision guiding the next chapter.
The Beauty Edit: When the People Who Built the Industry Start to Lead It
Studio Eight by Triple Eight Creative is a digital media platform exploring the intersection of beauty, culture, and innovation. From industry insights and trend breakdowns to interviews with creators redefining the space, Studio Eight spotlights the voices shaping the future of beauty—both behind the chair and behind the brand.
When you build experiences for people, you quickly learn that some problems only reveal themselves once people enter the room. After watching the conversations around Beautycon, Create & Cultivate and CultureCon, and experiencing CultureCon as both an attendee and Braindate host, I’ve been thinking about feedback differently. The bigger question isn’t simply how you give more people access. It’s how you scale without losing the feeling that someone considered you.