She knew.

Were you watching Alysa Liu the other night? Did you cry rewatching again and again, just me?

A 20-year-old who's been in the arena longer than most of us ever will be in a lifetime… this Oakland girl stood in third place after the short program and then went out and scored a career-best in her free skate. She won gold. The first American woman to do it individually in 20+ years.

 But here's the part I loved so damn much: when she came off the ice, she shouted to the camera: "That's what I'm f---ing talking about."

Not "I can't believe it." Not "I'm so grateful." She knew. She'd done the work, made it hers, and delivered massive results on her own terms.

She retired at 16, a prodigy, the youngest US national champion ever, then walked away. She hiked to Everest base camp, enrolled at UCLA, figured out who she was outside of skating. And when she came back, it was different. As her coach put it: she used to be dropped off and told what to do. Now everything is collaborative and she has final say.

That's the thing. She came back to skate her way. The gold was the consequence of that clarity, not the goal. 

There's a version of this for your brand.

When you stop performing for an imaginary judge and start building something that's actually yours, the right people start to feel it.

Let Alysa Doing Alysa Remind You To Do You

What Alysa demonstrated is a case study in something the brand world has been trying to manufacture for years: authentic autonomy.

She came back to skating with a deliberately low-friction approach to identity. No rebrand. No comeback narrative engineered for press. She wore a gold asymmetrical sequined dress she loved, skated to Donna Summer because the music felt right, and let her bleached tree ring-inspired hair be the visual signature.

I promise you, the calls are coming into the salons today asking for tree ring hair color. (P.S. haircolorists — get this on your menu if you love doing creative color like this.)

The way Alysa showed up had the crowd feeling it. Which is always how it works.

The steal here isn’t the aesthetic. It’s the posture. She said in November: “Medals do not validate me in any way; that’s not how I feel validation.” That sentence is a POV. It’s a brand platform. It’s a rejection of the approval economy that most of us are typically still operating in.

What to apply: If you’ve been waiting to launch something until it feels polished enough, or positioned correctly for some imagined audience, consider whether the version of it that already exists (the one that feels a little too you, a little too specific) might actually be the one worth releasing. Specificity is the thing.

Want our help with this? Our Brand Strategy Planner is done for you—built around your ambitions, your voice, your Human Design, and the direction you actually want to take your brand.

In it, you get a content plan with Vibe Coded, Viral Worthy, and Value Bomb posts, a hook bank, series ideas, a voice and visuals plan, plus an IG grid and / or moodboard for your brand, all customized to you.

We’re working on this in the accelerator this week, and I thought I’d share it here too.

Here's the thing about a point of view: most brands don't actually have one. They have a niche, a color palette, maybe a tone. But a real POV has friction in it. It means something to the people who agree with it, and it gently alienates the people who don't — which is kinda exactly the point.

Not everyone will agree with you. And you should want it that way.

Kin Euphorics said we deserve a new kind of social ritual, and turned non-alcoholic drinks into status symbols for emotionally intelligent people.

Flamingo Estate called Mother Nature the last great luxury house and made sustainability feel like sensuality.

Neither of these is timid. They're specific. They have something to push against. 

Hot Take: Did Rhode steal Glossiers POV?

Honestly, does Glossier still have a POV?

Glossier confirmed it's cutting nearly a third of its workforce under new CEO Colin Walsh, who took over in October after a rotating door of leadership since founder Emily Weiss stepped back in 2022. The plan is to return the brand to its "skin-first" roots… smaller team, fewer launches, less noise tbh. It's a bit of a quiet admission, if you ask me, that the Sephora expansion and foundation launches of the last few years pulled Glossier away from the thing that made people fall in love with it.

Meanwhile, Rhode just closed a $1 billion acquisition by e.l.f. Beauty in 2025, is expanding into Sephora UK, is teasing new 2026 launches, and Hailey Bieber is still leading creative. The glazed donut aesthetic is still running the internet.

So here's my honest read: Rhode’s POV didn’t exactly replace Glossier’… but it absolutely filled the vacuum Glossier left when it started chasing.

Glossier's original magic was the same thing Rhode built on: the idea that skin is the point. That less is the aesthetic, not a compromise. That the girl who buys your product already looks good and your job is to be part of her actual life. When Glossier started launching foundation and fragrance and trying to compete in a saturated market, it drifted from the specific belief that gave it gravity.

Of course, Rhode didn't invent minimalist skin care at all, but it occupied the position clearly, at the right cultural moment, with a founder who embodied it daily.

The thing worth watching now is whether Walsh can actually restore the original Glossier POV — or whether he's walking into a situation where the cultural moment has already passed the brand by. You can cut staff and reorient strategy, but POV isn't something you can restructure back into a brand. It either lives in the founding DNA or it's something you have to rebuild from scratch, which takes years.

The lesson for your brand: the brands that try to be everything eventually have to come home to the specific thing they believed in the first place. Sometimes there's still time. Sometimes Hailey Bieber has already moved in.

This may help you think it through for your brand.

The POV Builder we've been working through in the Cult Brand HQ follows a simple arc: 

Tension: What do you reject? What's the thing people accept that your work quietly — or loudly — disagrees with? What "best practice" feels limiting, not liberating?

Truth: What do you wish more people understood? What do you find yourself repeating because no one else is saying it clearly enough?

Transformation: What shifts when someone starts operating from your belief? What becomes possible? 

Cultural Context: Why now? Which larger movement does your brand quietly participate in?

Then distill it: We believe… / We reject… / We invite…

When your beliefs are clear, your content stops trying to perform. It starts to lead. Glossier knew this once. Rhode knows it now. The question is whether you're building something with that same kind of conviction before somebody else steps in.

1. The Brand Brief Workshop — Free, February 26

How to Land Your First Beauty Brand Partnership. Hosted by @ouiwestudio + @onbento, with a live UGC opportunity with Casa Noon Beauty. Follow @ouiwestudio on Instagram for the link or register here.

2. Entreprenista Monthly Grants Roundup Every month, Entreprenista publishes a curated list of active grants for women founders — real opportunities, updated regularly, across industries and stages. It's one of the most useful free resources if you're actively looking for funding or recognition programs right now. Bookmark it and check back monthly. → entreprenista.com/articles/february-2026-grants

3. Inc. Female Founders 500 Inc.'s annual list honoring 500 women founders across industries. The 2026 cycle just closed, but winners are announced in March — so now is a good time to watch the list and start preparing your story for next year's application window, which typically opens in fall 2026. → inc.com/female-founders

4. Glossy Beauty & Wellness Summit — November 9–11, Westlake Village CA One of the more substantive in-person gatherings for brand builders in beauty and wellness. Good for founder-to-brand relationships, industry positioning, and getting in the room with decision-makers. If travel is a stretch, the Glossy E-Commerce Summit in Miami (June 1–3) is another option worth knowing. → glossy.co/events

5. Business of Beauty Global Forum — June 24–26, Napa Valley CA Hosted by Business of Fashion, this is an intimate, invite-only-style gathering of 150 senior beauty executives, founders, and creatives. You apply for an invitation, so it's worth submitting even if you're earlier stage — the application itself is a useful exercise in articulating where your brand is headed. → pages.businessoffashion.com/the-business-of-beauty-global-forum-2026

p.s. wondering how else we can work together?

At Oui, We Studio, we offer consulting, strategy, and visionary collaboration. You’re building something big — and you’re not here to play small.

We help founders and teams create businesses that feel as good as they look. our work blends human design, AI-led strategy, and magnetic systems that scale with you.

What we do best:
→ refine your offers and experiences so they resonate and sell
→ craft messaging that creates IYKYK connection and market visibility
→ design systems that support sustainable, soul-aligned growth

Whether you’re refining your personal brand, expanding your company, or stepping fully into ceo energy, we’ll meet you where you are and help you move forward on purpose.

 From one-time intensives to long-term partnerships, we co-create brands that feel aligned, expansive, and built to last. More details are here.

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