How I Got Here: Beauty editor Sarah Tarca on the cold-call that launched her career
IMAGE VIA @tarca/INSTAGRAM
WORDS BY DAISY HENRY
“When we launched Gloss Etc, it was designed to be a place that cut through the noise, that was free but high quality, and that wasn’t a servant to an algorithm.”
Have you ever stalked someone on LinkedIn and wondered how on earth they managed to land that wildly impressive job? While the internet and social media might have us believe that our ideal job is a mere pipe dream, the individuals who have these jobs were, believe it or not, in the same position once, fantasising over someone else’s seemingly unattainable job.
But behind the awe-inspiring titles and the fancy work events lies a heck of a lot of hard work. So what lessons have been learnt and what skills have proved invaluable in getting them from daydreaming about success to actually being at the top of their industry?
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Welcome to How I Got Here, where we talk to women who are killing it in their respective fields about how they landed their awe-inspiring jobs, exploring the peaks and pits, the failures and the wins, and most importantly the knowledge, advice, and practical tips they’ve gleaned along the way.
This week we hear from journalist, beauty editor and Gloss Etc co-founder Sarah Tarca. A self-proclaimed ‘print girl’ and media industry veteran, Sarah cut her teeth at Cosmopolitan, introduced feminism to the pages of Girlfriend and edited at Marie Claire before launching her own beauty newsletter, Gloss Etc, with fellow beauty editor Sherine Youssef.
Sarah’s had plenty of Andy Sachs moments while climbing the ranks – from unpaid internships to finding copies of unreleased books (yes, that really happened). Now, Sarah has her dream job: as the co-founder of Gloss Etc, she’s responsible for road-testing new beauty products, interviewing experts and then reviewing them in her weekly newsletter.
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Hi Sarah! Tell us a little about who you are and what you do.
I’m the co-founder of Gloss Etc, a (very!) pretty and useful newsletter dedicated to all things beauty. I’m also a journalist, beauty editor, creator and all-around words person. It’s my job to test beauty products, review them, interview founders, scientists and dermatologists, and be professionally curious (borderline annoying) by always asking the hard questions.
I then weave everything together into a digestible and relatable format for our readers each week. We help translate the ingredients, trends and science speak while cutting through the noise and hype so you only spend your money on what’s truly worth it. Think: the group chat brought to your inbox.
Take us back to when you were first starting out. Did you study to get into your chosen field or start as a junior and climb the ladder?
I grew up in Adelaide and was studying journalism, but the course was geared towards being a newspaper reporter which was… not my thing. What I did love was magazines – I’d always been a print girl, just like I’d always been a book girl. So in the second year of my degree, I cold-called a bunch of magazines in Sydney and booked three weeks of work experience at different titles. I’d only ever been interstate twice in my life.
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One of those titles was Cosmopolitan and while I was there, they asked me if I’d come back as an unpaid intern. Moving to Sydney for an unpaid gig seemed like an outrageously good idea at the time, so I did just that, taking a ‘real job’ in a shoe store so I could afford, you know, life. The risk (naivety?) paid off because when a full-time role came up as an office junior (called editorial coordinator), I got the gig.
After one year, I moved to my first writing role, which I juggled while being the personal assistant to the editor and photo editor – it was my job to source all the celebrity images for the mag. Being a PA was tough and laced with many Andy Sachs moments, but it was also incredible as it taught me the value of connections and having the right support people to help you get the job done. I went from being completely new to a city to knowing how to get shoes re-heeled, find an advance copy of an unreleased book (this really happens), source a flourless kosher chocolate mud cake, rearrange travel itineraries and manage diaries.
From there I jumped to Girlfriend magazine as the beauty editor, then beauty and features editor and finally, editor of the magazine, where I stayed for five years. I loved my time at Girlfriend and I loved writing for teens, not only because I’m probably 18 at heart, but because it was a huge responsibility. It was like having 350,000 little sisters to look after and I took that role very seriously. When I left, a reader wrote to me saying she would always remember me as the editor who introduced feminism to Girlfriend and honestly I could’ve retired on that. But I didn’t – I went back to my beauty roots, joining Marie Claire as beauty director for a short but sweet stint before launching into freelance life while I travelled with my partner.
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After nearly six years of vagabonding, I came back to Australia and had the idea, while pregnant with my second child, to launch a dedicated beauty newsletter that looked and felt like a magazine page but had the tone of your group chat. I called Sherine Youssef, who I’d known since Cosmo days and who I personally felt was the best beauty journo in Australia, and basically bullied her into doing it with me. We launched Gloss Etc a week before my son was born – they’re both (miraculously) still alive and thriving.
What challenges have you faced getting to where you are now?
When I graduated, print was king. I’ve witnessed the launch of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, the rise of bloggers and then influencers after that. Websites used to be just a place to house regurgitated mag content! Wild. The challenge has always been how to adapt to a changing media landscape. Working on Girlfriend was a gift because teens were early adopters, so we had to be, too. I’ve never been fearful of change so I thrived on the newness. However, where I was initially hired to edit a magazine, I was eventually also the social media manager of five different platforms, as well as digital editor, so editing the [print] mag almost became a side gig.
We were all juggling so much more than our job descriptions! It’s always challenging to know where to put your resources, or even what platform to give your scraps of time to. In the end, I wanted to come back to being a writer, which is why I chose the industry to begin with. So when we launched Gloss Etc (before Substack exploded), it was designed to be a place that cut through the noise, that was free but high quality, and that wasn’t a servant to an algorithm. We just wanted to serve our community.
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What do you want people to know about your industry and role?
Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer. Storytelling is an art; weaving pictures and emotions into words is not something everyone can do. I think it’s often devalued because we’re taught ‘writing’ in school but it takes time to learn this craft. It takes time to nail the art of a great interview, the hours of research and fact-checking for an article. It’s more than algorithm chasing or clickbait.
Good content should be paid for in some way – so subscribe to that Substack, support the writers, click on their paid partnerships! Writers are sharing their passion with you and these small gestures make a huge difference to each one of us.
What’s the best part about your role?
I haven’t had to purchase a mascara or any beauty product in 15 years — a huge perk. Annoyingly though, my landlord won’t let me pay in lipstick. From a Gloss Etc perspective, I get to work with Sherine, who I respect so much and have the best working relationship with. She’s forever my yin.
From a writer’s perspective, it’s when someone reaches out of the ether to tell me they’ve read something I’ve written and that it resonated with them. There is no greater feeling in the world, because often you send it out and have no idea where it lands, so to know it fell into the right screen really speaks to me.
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What would surprise people about your role?
We try every single product that we feature. Or, if it’s not right for our skin and hair type, we give it to a select few to try and report back. That may not seem like a big deal but a lot of people – and publications – talk about products they haven’t even seen because of advertising money. We’re only a team of three at Gloss Etc: a creative director, Sherine and myself. The beautifully designed newsletter, the Instagram shots and reels, every DM and caption and everything in between is all juggled between the three of us. It’s impossible to love every single product that lands on your desk. Anyone who tells you otherwise is… maybe not being entirely truthful.
What skills have served you well in the industry?
In no particular order: A curiosity that just won’t quit, a pathological need to follow through on my word (excellent for deadlines), a knack for welcoming and embracing change and flowing with the chaos, a willingness to volunteer my face as tribute each week and seeing the possibility in everything. Also, listening to people, stories and conversations on the bus (yeah I’m that creep). Plus, knowing where to find a flourless kosher mudcake on one hour’s notice.
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What advice would you give someone who wants to be in a role like yours one day?
Find the thing you love the most and do that — or at least a version of it. It might not look how you expected but you can mould that skill however you like. If you’re doing the thing you love, it honestly makes all the hard crap worth it. Also, find a team that supports you and is the other half of your workplace jigsaw. If you’re both good at the same things, nothing will ever get done.
Also, being a girl’s girl is cool. There’s plenty of success out there, enough for all of us. So forget about comparisons or envy and support the girls! Cheerlead them when they’re kicking ass, like their posts, share their work. Girl’s girls have longevity, they’re the ones you remember. I’d rather people say that I was like a warm hug than a cool girl.
What about a practical tip?
You cannot be a great writer without being a voracious reader. This is how you learn language! New words! Storytelling! You’ll discover the writer you want to be through reading. So take a break from the doom-scrolling and pick up a book instead.
Keep up with Sarah here.
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