Annie Jackson is co-founder/CEO of Credo Beauty, the premier destination for ‘clean’ beauty products. The 130+ brands they carry must follow a strict ‘Credo Clean Standard’ protocol regarding ingredients, r&d processes, labeling claims, and more. Credo is currently sold online and has 15 stores nationwide.
Annie Jackson received one phone call that changed her career and life trajectory. She left high school after junior year, eager to get out in the world and experience life. Annie started her career working in the Caribbean on charter boats at age 17, went on to join the founding U.S. Sephora team in her mid-twenties, and then co-founded Credo, the online and nationwide chain pioneering the ‘clean beauty’ movement.
Chrissie loved speaking with Annie about her entrepreneurial journey through the beauty industry, ending with her currently running her own company. Read on to hear about the phone call that changed everything! Plus, don’t miss Annie’s must-have am/pm skincare routine and product recommendations for 50+ women, her Fab5 list of her favorite products, and a discount code for 10% off Credo products!
Annie, please share some of your backstory!
I didn’t go to college. I graduated early from high school in Marin, got my GED, and I was just really ready to get out into the world! So after my junior year, I moved to the Caribbean and started working on charter boats. It was an incredible experience, and I met a lot of really interesting people. But ultimately, the island became very small and I decided it was time to wear shoes again and face reality and came back home. I was 19 and needed a job and needed to pay rent.
I was going to an interview at a porta-potty company to be a secretary. Not very inspiring. But I got a phone call to interview for a job located in a town closer than the porta-potty company. I had no idea what the job was for, but it was one town closer, so I was like, oh my gosh, I’ll save gas money! I can sleep in! You know, I was just a kid. I walked into this office in your typical office park and the first thing I saw was this beautiful image of Paulina Porizkova standing on a terrace in Greece and it said ‘Estee Lauder’ underneath. I was like, what the hell? I was in Larkspur Landing in Marin, in this tiny little office complex! It turns out it was the Bay Area regional office of Estee Lauder.
Fast forward, they hired me as an Administrative Assistant. I was the person who ran around when Mr. Lauder came into town and got account profiles ready, and picked up lunches for people. Ultimately, I stayed at Estee Lauder for about seven years. The woman that ran the regional office (forever grateful to her: Jan Greteman) gave a kid with zero skills but a whole lot of ambition the time and education to actually carve out a career. She provided this incredible education for me, which is something you wouldn’t really expect. Now they’ve probably become an MBA-only club, but at the time, I had really caring, mentoring bosses and I was so lucky because I don’t feel like you really have opportunities like that anymore. I worked my way up over the years and landed in the ELC NY office. But after some time I wanted to get home to San Francisco. I had started dating my (now husband) before I moved to New York, and we were anxious to stop doing the long-distance thing.
It was 1998 and I was recruited for a start-up in beauty that would get me back to SF called Sephora. It was just a handful of us and we were just about to open the first store. The Sephora experience lit up the entrepreneurial side of me that I didn’t even know existed, in such a huge way. We were just kids, I think I was 26 at the time. We were not only going to potential store locations, we were collaborating with the store design team on how they would be built out for the brands and categories we had, we were finding brands, we were traveling like crazy. It was a dream job.
There was such a small group of us, we were kind of doing it all, and it was incredibly fun. The funny thing about Sephora, you might have heard the story before, but it was a very established concept in Europe for quite some time before it was introduced in the US. And when we brought it to the US, there was this assumption that all the brands that were in Sephora Europe – Clinique, Lancôme, MAC, etc – would be on board immediately about this concept coming to the US. But the US groups were like, “No way, we don’t know who you are, we’re not comfortable with this new “open sell” concept and we’ve got secure partnerships with Nordstrom and Saks, etc. You guys have to basically prove yourself before we’re going to let our brands be sold in your stores.” And we hadn’t even opened a store yet, so we didn’t even have anything to show them except renderings. But we did have to fill these stores we were opening. We had to get out in the market and be true merchants. This is pre-internet. We were walking into little boutiques and reading catalogs to find brands. Brands like Peter Thomas Roth, Bliss, Hard Candy, and Urban Decay etc were “indie brands” back then. This combination of a new selling concept where everything was out from under glass, and introducing new brands people had not seen before was serving this pent-up demand for a new generation of beauty. It was at Sephora that I met Shashi Batra whom I would go on to work with for years after that and ultimately start Credo with.
So how did you pivot to co-found Credo Beauty?
Shashi was the visionary for Credo. He was really inspired by the challenge of creating a concept in healthy beauty and our experience at Sephora was really the catalyst for what we were building at Credo. We were ready to do it all over again, and I would say both of us had a healthy dose of the “disrupter” gene!
Was your mission when you started Credo to offer clean beauty products both online and in-store?
Credo has always been about physical retail stores, as Shashi and I were retailers. Of course we had a website, but we opened our flagship store in Pacific Heights on Fillmore St. in the Summer of 2015. We wanted to provide a platform for brands that aligned with Credo’s values and we started with a restricted substance list called the “Dirty List” to vet brands against, that ultimately became something much more robust called “The Credo Clean Standard” today that operationalized how we do business and is a guideline for our brands to follow around strict ingredient standards, sustainability requirements, and radical transparency among other things. Credo means “I believe’ in Latin, and at Credo we believe customers deserve to know what’s in their products and why.
Did you have a hard time finding the brands that were of the ‘clean’ standards you’d set for the company?
We had thought we would create our own brand simultaneously to opening stores. It was still just the two of us and we were sorely strapped for resources and people, and once we started seeing the brands out there in the ‘clean’ space, and meeting the founders, we were so pleasantly surprised in their beautiful formulas and interesting ingredient stories that we put the idea of our own brand on the back burner for a while.
Do you consider Credo more of a skin care or a makeup store?
Both – our assortment is primarily skincare and makeup and then a smaller percentage of it is hair, SPF, wellness, and fragrance. We carry about 130 brands now.
When did you decide to create your own Credo branded products?
It wasn’t until year 6 that we launched our makeup brand called Exa, and in 2022 we acquired the brand Follain, and in 2024 we launched our Credo skincare brand. Giving some time between growing our business and launching our own brand was the right timing in the end, as we had so much more intel on our customers and their needs and it made the end product that much more relevant.
How do you set your standards for what’s clean or what’s not? Do you go by your own rules or by other standards?
Credo does so much more than just curating clean beauty brands. The heart of The Credo Clean Standard™ is our groundbreaking Dirty List™—a strict, science-backed list of ingredients we refuse to allow due to safety and sustainability concerns. It goes beyond just a list of ‘don’ts’—it’s a roadmap for brands, pushing them to elevate their products at every stage. From thoughtful formulation and responsible sourcing to ethical supply chains, full claims transparency, and eco-friendly packaging, we’re setting the bar higher for a cleaner, more sustainable beauty future.
Credo has been the go-to partner for pioneering brands, offering unmatched guidance and accountability in an industry where ‘clean beauty’ is often just a buzzword. Brands that meet The Credo Clean Standard™ don’t simply check a box—they’re raising the bar and redefining what it means to be truly clean, setting a bold new standard for the entire beauty industry.
And where did your passion for wanting to launch a brand in the clean space come from?
We lost Shashi, my Co-Founder, to cancer in 2017, but what ultimately became the clean beauty movement was his vision. He was always very intrigued, I think, by the intellectual challenge of ‘can you actually create a brand that emulates conventional beauty, but is better for you and better for the planet’. He -ironically enough- used to be the President of Victoria’s Secret Beauty. The irony is that his intrigue around clean beauty started there. He was successful in creating a natural line of products for Pink that failed miserably because that demographic could care less about that. But what he was more intrigued by was that he actually found contract manufacturers that were able to develop nice formulas comprised primarily by plants and found more sustainable packaging that he felt really stood up to conventional beauty at the time. The vision for Credo started to form then. So when we started talking about it, the challenge was could we, on the high streets of the US, actually make a play for this and find brands that could go head-to-head with Mac, Kiehls, Nars, etc, and give customers what they’re looking for that is better for you and better for the planet?
And now you’ve done it! So where do you hope to be in 10 years from now?
I hope we continue to scale the stores. This time has been spent strengthening our Credo Clean Standard and breaking down the stigma that truly clean brands can’t be efficacious – those days are over. When people continue to say clean is just “table stakes” now for any brand gives me a ton of pride but it’s also incredibly meaningful long-term for human health and the health of our planet. Retail has always been a challenging game, and COVID just ramped it up – we have been thrown a different playbook every year, it seems. But what we have learned is that we’re very comfortable in street locations/neighborhoods – malls, not so much. I would love to see Credo stores in more suburban neighborhoods next.
So is your headquarters in San Francisco?
We had a beautiful HQ office in the Presidio area of SF for years. We had just relocated from a small bungalow to a much larger space in March of 2020. We barely moved into it before we went into lockdown! Now we are totally remote. We have a fairly small HQ staff, primarily in SF, NY, and LA. Our team is an incredible group of really passionate people who work magic every day at Credo.
And what do you spend most of your time on?
I am always on the lookout for new brands that can be developed – it’s so fun because you tend to be able to be in the kitchen with them. And then we’re spending more time developing the business around our own brands. I’m able to be out in the market more these days, engaging in different events and collaborations, which is a lot of fun.
What are the key things 50+ women should do to care for their skin?
I think hydration is really the key. It is the number one call out when we talk to our customer, and luckily our customer loves to talk to us! We developed the Credo Skincare brand actually with that in mind. And then, of course no matter what the age of the person is, whether it’s preventative or wanting to address signs of aging, vitamin C and retinol, and hyaluronic acid – those with ingredients that you can actually point to efficacy – are always the ones that I recommend. We’re also seeing a lot of what people call the ‘skinification of makeup’, which basically is seeing skin care benefits in makeup. Brands like RMS and Iris & Romeo add skin care benefits to their makeup products, which is terrific. I’m 53, my skin’s very dry, and I have a lot of hyperpigmentation, so if you can give me a great complexion product with SPF that’s also nourishing my skin, I’m all in! Iris&Romeo Weekend Skin Tint is amazing. It gives you a beautiful glow with a universal tint, and it feels like you’ve got a beautifully elegant skin care product on your face with SPF50.
Is there a new product or ingredient that we should all know about? The ‘hyaluronic acid’ of 2025?
Some of my favorite ingredients are in our new Credo Deep Thirst Moisturizer (along with our all-time fav hyaluronic acid). They include:
Vetiver Root Extract – hydrates and protects the microbiome
Hyaluronic Acid– Hydrates, plumps the skin with moisture, reducing the look of wrinkles
Sodium PCA – Moisturizes, holds several times its weight in water
Prickly Pear & Pomegranate Seed Oils – Antioxidant rich, protects the skin from environmental stressors
Are you testing out new products all the time? What are some of your favorite products?
I am indeed testing products all the time! I am currently looking over at the mountain of boxes in my office. It’s fun to test new things, but there are a couple tried and true products that I use all the time, like Iris&Romeo Weekend Skin SPF 50 Vitamin C Glow and Iia Limitless Mascara – they just came out with the brown shade I love – and SoShe Lipstick is so beautiful. It is like a lip balm and a lipstick. SpeakEasy is my favorite shade, it’s like a beautiful rum raisin shade. Also, Gen See liquid shadows (I love the shade Dirty Gold), they’re beautiful, because if you’ve got oily lids or hooded lids or you have a problem with eye shadow creasing on you, they wear beautifully…. I could keep going.
What’s your process for testing new potential products?
Many times I meet founders not quite ready to launch whose products I test – and in that case I usually send it to about three or four people I know in beauty to weigh in before I even share them internally. But brands that formally submit to Credo go through the Merchant in charge of that category and then if it’s compliant and seems to fit the needs of our customer it then goes to product efficacy testing. Does it really work? Does it really smell good? Does it really have a point of difference? Does it work in the component? Then it goes to a cross-functional panel to get multiple points of view. We select very few brands and want to hear from our store team and other internal people who challenge its viability.
If someone had said back when you were going off to work on Caribbean charter boats at age 17 that this is what you’d be doing now, what would you have said?
‘You’re crazy’! I always had that drive to challenge the status quo. I recognize it now. I don’t think I knew it then. I think I felt like an impatient kid probably back then, and I just wanted to kind of get going and get doing something. And I just kind of happened into beauty and stayed on that track. Now I look back and it’s been such an incredible ride and it’s offered me and my family a really nice life. Icing on the cake is that I’ve spent time with a lot of very inspiring females, which has been really rewarding.
What percentage of Credo is female?
Our Credo team is nearly 90% female (including stores). And about 90%+ of the brands we work with are founded and run by women. We consider the founder as important as the brand itself because that’s how our customer shops. And it’s been very rewarding to watch some of these brands that have been with us for 10+ years now, grow and scale and start to see the rewards of their hard work.
Below, please find Annie’s day/night recommended skin routine, 5 of her favorite products, and a discount code for 10% off all Credo products!
Annie’s FabList Skincare Products Every 50+ Woman Should Use Daily, and the Order in Which They Should Be Applied.
AM:
Cleanse: True Botanicals Renew Norishing Cleanser
Hydrating Mist: Josh Rosebrook Hydrating Accelerator
Moisturizer: Credo Deep Thirst Vetiver Roos + Hyaluronic Acid Moisturizer
Eye Cream: Follain Eye Cream
SPF: Iris&Romeo Weekend Skin SPF 50 Vitamin C Glow
PM:
Cleanse: Credo Deep Thirst Vetiver Root + Babassu Cleanser
Hydrating Mist: Josh Rosebrook Hydrating Accelerator
Moisturize: Therapi Honey Skincare Propolis + Ultra Radiance Cream
Eye Cream: The Outset Smoothing Vitamin C Eye + Expression Lines Cream
Annie’s Fab5 Favorite Products to Try:
Ere Perez Jojoba Eye Pencil
Gen See Mixed Media Metallic Liquid Eyeshadow (Dirty Gold is a favorite shade)
RMS Beauty Luminizer
ILIA Limitless Lash Mascara (now out in a beautiful brown color)
SOSHE Ceramide Refillable Lip Silk (Speak Easy is a favorite shade)
Coupon for 10% off Credo Products:
Please use code FABLIST10 for 10% off Credo Beauty purchases through July 16th.
Author’s Note: Annie also told me about one of her best-selling products, the Biotyspa Body Sculpt Kit. It comes with a suction cup, shower gel, and body oil and you use the suction cup on your thighs, butt and stomach to get lymphatic drainage and reduce lumps/bumps. I just started using it (they suggest 30 days daily and then 2-3 times a week) so I can’t say full results yet, but after use I really feel that it’s getting things moving under my skin!!! I see why it’s a bestseller.
