Meet Covey Founders : Emily DiDonato + Christina Uribe
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Supermodel Emily DiDonato and Google Exec Christina Uribe are more than just best friends, they are, as they described to me, “integrated in every way possible”. One of the things they bonded over early in their friendship? Their ridiculously in depth and complicated ten step skincare routines.
As a skincare junky myself, I was extremely honored to not only have the opportunity to feature Emily and Christina on the site but also sit down with them (in our respective homes, of course) and talk about all things Covey.
Emily H: First things first, what is the origin story behind your friendship?
Christina Uribe: We actually met through our husbands about 6 years ago, I went to college with Emily's husband. It's interesting because Emily and I became friends as adults, you know, we weren't necessarily life long friends and whenever I say that a lot of women tell me, ‘yeah it's so hard to find adult friends’. I think that when you make friendships when you're an adult, they're so much more powerful in a way. You know who you are, you're more mature and so even though it’s only been six years, Emily and I immediately bonded and we are integrated in every way possible - I mean we share a dermatologist, we live I think less than 25 feet away from each other . .
Emily DiDonato: We do everything together. I'll just add to that by saying Christina was one of those people that when I first met her I was like ‘I want to be friends with this girl so badly’. It reminds me of when you were a little kid and you would ask people to come out and play with you, like hey will you be my friend? That's exactly how I felt about Christina and you know going off what she was saying earlier, I totally agree making friends as an adult and maintaining those friendships is a real conscious effort.
Covey was founded out of a true passion for skincare as both Emily and Christina have full time jobs outside of Covey - Emily is currently the face of Maybelline New York and Biotherm, she is also gearing up to return to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2021 campaign. Christina works as a Senior Digital Marketing Account Executive at Google.
Emily H: You both have extremely full plates, why was it so important to you to take on another project like Covey?
Emily DiDonato: I think for myself, as a model my skin is so important. It is such a huge part of my job and I had so many experts around me, I felt like I knew what I should be doing with my skin but it turns out I very much didn’t. I would spend time creating videos for my Youtube channel - sharing my morning or nightly routine and people would come for me in the comments saying ‘that’s not how it’s supposed to work, those products are not meant to be together’ and I felt, at one point, kind of defeated and genuinely confused by skincare.
Christina Uribe: I wholeheartedly agree, even though Emily and I have such different lifestyles - we did have this shared problem. For me as an every day consumer, my skincare routine had become such a source of stress and pressure for me. I was at 10 or 12 steps and I felt like if I didn’t do all 10 steps in the morning or night something bad would happen to my skin. Covey has become even more important to me now that I have two jobs, with Covey and Google, to have something super simple and effective. It’s the same three steps morning and night. There are so many things every day as women that we are expected to try and figure out or have pressure about but your skincare routine should not be one of them.
Emily H: Tell me a little bit about developing the actual products and why you wanted to start with these three specifically?
Christina Uribe: We partnered with Dr. Russak, our shared dermatologist, in NYC. She really helped us to identify what are those key products that really make the biggest difference in your skin. Working with her helped us break through the clutter and taught us that everyone’s skin needs:
1. An effective cleanser because that’s the foundation for everything else.
2. A vitamin c serum, I asked her if I was stranded on an island what’s the one product I need with me and she said ‘hands down a vitamin c serum’ - it’s the skincare MVP, it does everything.
3. A really good moisturize to keep your skin hydrated.
Once the formulation process started Covey took three and a half years to come to life. Christina told me, “for every single one of the three products, we had up to 11 different iterations. Throughout Covey’s lifecycle we had a focus group of 150 people from all different backgrounds and ages that tested all 11 of those iterations." This aspect of our conversation was especially important to Emily because, as we all know, we are living in a time where the market is saturated with products either created by or in collaboration with celebrities - some great and some, well, not so great.
Emily H: In a time where new products are being released daily by celebrities, or at least in collaboration with, did you go into the launch with a plan to show that Covey is legitimate and effective?
Emily DiDonato: I had so much anxiety leading up to the launch of Covey because I was just consumed with how do we show the world that we did not just slap a label on something. It was such a labor of love for us creating these products. That was something that was really important to us and we are glad that it’s showing and resonating with people that the work is really, truly there.
Emily H: And what would you say surprised you both the most through this process - the time it took to create start to finish or maybe you had to invest more money than you initially thought?
Christina Uribe: I would say the amount of time that it took to formulate the products from scratch. Each of Covey’s products are custom formulations, we consulted with a dermatologist, we worked with a focus group - we wanted to be thoughtful in our approach and that took a lot longer than we thought.
Emily DiDonato: Yeah I agree, the time, for sure.
Emily H: And over the course of these three years, did you divvy up roles - maybe one person has strength in one category over another or has the whole process been pretty collaborative?
Emily DiDonato: Pretty early on we had a conversation where we actually talked about and named our roles. Christina we immediately named CEO and mine was Chief Content Officer - we definitely talked about what we were both good at individually but there are a lot of times where we blend and overlap on certain things. We’re always bouncing things off of one another but we’re both aware of where our strengths are.
Christina Uribe: 100%. I think having a partner and being able to have that sounding board, someone else who is there to motivate you, to drive things forward is necessary. We couldn’t do this without one another and even though we have our own lanes to a certain extent, we are constantly in collaboration. I think for anyone considering starting a business, you should explore bringing on a partner very seriously because it’s really hard to do alone.
Emily H: So now that Covey is here, people have it on their bathroom counters, they’re tagging you on Instagram using the products… What do you see for the future of Covey?
Christina Uribe: We are truly committed to keeping things simple and developing products that are essential for your skincare routine and that are compatible with our existing products. Covey’s core values are, and always will be, simplicity, essentialism and compatibility. Our foundation for Covey though is just listening. We’re definitely in the active listening phase for deciding what type of product will come next.
Emily H: And Meet and Bee Inspired follower, @AllieMcelyea, would like to know what the inspiration was behind the color scheme and the branding for Covey?
Emily DiDonato: So for the name, I feel like that’s part of the branding too, Covey means a small flock of birds and we were looking for words centered around community and togetherness. So much of Covey was based around the community through my social media, Christina and I see the two of us as a little Covey, the three products are a covey of their own, so that’s the element of the name. For the colors and the packaging we knew we wanted it to be something you could feel proud to have on your counter, something beautiful but also minimal. We gravitated toward the light pastels right away.
Covey is available for purchase here and you can keep up with Emily DiDonato and Christina Uribe through their social media :