So when you were building a beauty brand back then, what did that look like? What was the first step? You mentioned you didn't have a business plan, but how many SKUs did you launch with and how were you going to make people aware of what you were doing?

Well, to begin with, I opened a store in 1993 on Manhattan's Upper East Side because I had built over almost two decades a huge following in the New York City metropolitan area from celebrities to everyday people.

And they all wanted to come to the store.

So the store was a pulse of the city.

I mean, we were busy.

I had makeup artists working for me.

And we were doing makeup for everything.

But were there ever situations like that where you saw that and you were like, okay, what are we doing here?

What were some of the challenges that you faced

in the early days? Well, I think right off the bat, Melissa, I did not have the business acumen to open a business, to understand why.

what it was going to take to hire people, to employ people, to run the books, to, you know, taking care of like payments with the taxes.

And none of that was on my agenda or nor did I learn it.

So, of course, I defaulted to people that I wanted to trust that had that business acumen.

And some of them failed me.

Some of them, sadly, I couldn't monitor what they were doing.

How has sort of listening to your customers shaped your business strategy going forward from the very beginning?

Okay, so you were-

...

when I really buckled down, and I opened a store in New York City in 1993.

And I decided after renting space in, in salons all across the city or working out of my apartment in New York City, 'cause I was living in, in Manhattan, I decided I'm gonna make it official.

My clients would say, "We wanna come to your store.

You should open a store." So I opened a store in 1993, and I had that store for 21 years until 2012, and it was the place to come in New York City where women would come for their special occasions, brides, um, everybody would come there, um, to have makeup lessons, and it was-

Mm.

Um, I had depression, and y- um, you know, my family, it was in my family.

Do you remember if there was a thing that happened?

There wasn't a thing that happened.

But, you know, I have been part of the transformation of Judaism.

And so part of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time.

And part of it has to do with an openness to acknowledge that traditions change.

So when you look at the impact of feminism on Judaism, the impact has been not only new rituals, things that now we take for granted but didn't exist before, but everything from the language of prayer.

Prayer books have changed.

But are you at a place where you are happy to sit on the sidelines? Are you at a place where you're continuing to lead resistance from this new perch that you have? What's it like now to be a rabbi?

Yes.

This is on my bed, not because I got it from here.

I paid full price.

If I told you the full price of this, you would be in shock.

They hardly ever go on sale-

Yeah, Mother's Day's coming up.

And you can buy this, you ready for this? Mix and match.

You can do a bundle of three, or a bundle of six, and you can mix and match and do delectable cookies, gourmet caramels.