MEET THE FOUNDER | REBECCA MCCARTHY TALKS TO US ABOUT KNUCKLE GLOSS

By Rishma • On What is New

At the inter­sec­tion of cos­met­ic sci­ence, cul­ture, and cre­ativ­ity sits Rebecca McCarthy, founder of Laughter & Kandy Beauty and the vis­ion­ary behind Knuckle Gloss, the wear­able lip gloss that redefines what a beauty product can be. Trained as a cos­met­ic chem­ist yet deeply rooted in art, jew­ellery, and hip hop cul­ture, Rebecca rep­res­ents a new gen­er­a­tion of founders who refuse to choose between per­form­ance and self expression.

Draw­ing inspir­a­tion from 80s and 90s hip hop beauty, state­ment accessor­ies, and the power of inten­tion­al design, Laughter & Kandy Beauty chal­lenges tra­di­tion­al beauty norms by turn­ing every­day products into express­ive exper­i­ences. With Knuckle Gloss, Rebecca merges high per­form­ance, skin con­scious for­mu­la­tion with bold, cul­tur­ally res­on­ant design, prov­ing that even the smal­lest beauty products can carry mean­ing, cre­ativ­ity, and confidence.

In this inter­view, Rebecca opens up about step­ping out from behind the scenes of for­mu­la­tion, trust­ing her cre­at­ive voice, and build­ing a brand that cel­eb­rates indi­vidu­al­ity, cul­ture, and crafts­man­ship, all while stay­ing groun­ded in sci­ence and skin health.

You are a trained cos­met­ic chem­ist with a strong cre­at­ive back­ground. How did you find the con­fid­ence to step out from behind the scenes and build Laughter & Kandy Beauty as your own brand?

Step­ping out from behind the scenes was a gradu­al pro­cess for me. As a cos­met­ic chem­ist, I was com­fort­able for­mu­lat­ing and devel­op­ing products for oth­er brands, learn­ing as much as I could and build­ing con­fid­ence in my skills, know­ledge, and cre­at­ive instincts behind the scenes first. Over time, I real­ised that along­side the sci­ence, I also had a strong cre­at­ive vis­ion that I wanted to explore more fully. As I grew in my career, my “why” became too strong to ignore. I wanted to bring cre­ativ­ity into beauty in a way that felt inten­tion­al, express­ive, and inspiring—even in the smal­lest products.

I wanted to cre­ate products that didn’t just work, but told a story and offered a full exper­i­ence, inspir­ing oth­ers to feel con­fid­ent and express­ive. Build­ing Laughter & Kandy Beauty was about trust­ing both my sci­entif­ic expert­ise and my cre­at­ive voice, and allow­ing them to exist together.

Hip hop cul­ture has always been about iden­tity and self-expres­sion. How did 80s and 90s hip hop beauty cul­ture influ­ence the visu­al lan­guage of Laughter & Kandy Beauty?

80s and 90s hip-hop beauty cul­ture was a major influ­ence on the visu­al lan­guage behind the launch of Knuckle Gloss. Grow­ing up, I was sur­roun­ded by hip-hop through my broth­ers, and that expos­ure shaped my appre­ci­ation for the cul­ture early on — par­tic­u­larly the way beauty, style, and self-expres­sion were used as power­ful forms of identity.

That era of hip-hop beauty was bold, unapo­lo­get­ic, and express­ive. Accessor­ies weren’t just dec­or­at­ive; they car­ried mean­ing and pres­ence. The knuckle-ring design in Knuckle Gloss was inspired by that time, where state­ment pieces sym­bol­ised con­fid­ence, indi­vidu­al­ity, and own­er­ship of self.
When launch­ing Knuckle Gloss, I wanted the product to feel inten­tion­al and express­ive rather than trend-driv­en, some­thing that cel­eb­rates per­son­al­ity and cre­ativ­ity. Draw­ing from that cul­tur­al influ­ence allowed the product to feel nos­tal­gic yet mod­ern, and to cre­ate space for people to express who they are in their own way.

Knuckle Gloss is more than a lip gloss. It is an exper­i­ence. What was the vis­ion behind mer­ging a func­tion­al beauty product with a state­ment accessory?

The vis­ion behind Knuckle Gloss was always to cre­ate some­thing that went bey­ond func­tion. As a cos­met­ic chem­ist, per­form­ance, for­mu­la­tion, and skin health are non-nego­ti­able for me — but I also believe beauty should feel express­ive and excit­ing. I wanted Knuckle Gloss to feel like a moment. By mer­ging a high-per­form­ing lip gloss with a state­ment access­ory, it became some­thing you don’t just use, but exper­i­ence. The knuckle-ring design trans­forms a small, every­day product into some­thing bold, play­ful, and con­fid­ence-boost­ing the moment you put it on. It rep­res­ents my belief that even the smal­lest beauty product can carry inten­tion, cre­ativ­ity, and iden­tity — elev­at­ing the ordin­ary while remain­ing func­tion­al and skin-conscious.

You worked on for­mu­la­tions for oth­er brands before launch­ing your own. What les­sons from those behind-the-scenes years most shaped how you approach your brand today?

Work­ing behind the scenes taught me that great beauty products are built on inten­tion, not just trends. For­mu­lat­ing for dif­fer­ent brands gave me a deep appre­ci­ation for per­form­ance, sta­bil­ity, and — most import­antly — skin health. I learned that it’s not just about what looks good on the sur­face, but what’s hap­pen­ing beneath it: how ingredi­ents work togeth­er, how they feel on the skin, and how they per­form over time. That under­stand­ing con­tin­ues to guide every decision I make with Laughter & Kandy Beauty.

Hav­ing seen both the cre­at­ive and tech­nic­al sides of the industry, I’m inten­tion­al about bal­an­cing innov­a­tion with respons­ib­il­ity. Every product I cre­ate is informed by sci­ence, driv­en by cre­ativ­ity, and designed to respect the skin.

Your upbring­ing blen­ded art, edu­ca­tion, and beauty. How did your par­ents’ influ­ences shape the way you see beauty as both sci­ence and self-expression?

My par­ents played a sig­ni­fic­ant role in shap­ing how I view beauty today. My moth­er, a cos­met­o­lo­gist, intro­duced me to beauty as an art form and a means of self-expres­sion from an early age. Through her, I learned how beauty can be per­son­al, cre­at­ive, and empowering.

My fath­er — an edu­ca­tion­ist, law­yer, and dip­lo­mat — instilled in me a love for learn­ing and curi­os­ity. As a teen­ager, I stud­ied visu­al arts and later com­pleted a makeup artistry found­a­tion course, where I real­ised my interest went bey­ond applic­a­tion. I wanted to under­stand what actu­ally goes into products and how ingredi­ents cre­ate results.

Even as a child, I would read ingredi­ent lists on cos­met­ics and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al products long before I fully under­stood them. That curi­os­ity even­tu­ally led me to study Phar­ma­ceut­ic­al and Cos­met­ic Sci­ence and become a cos­met­ic chem­ist. Today, my approach to beauty sits at the inter­sec­tion of sci­ence and self-expression.

As someone deeply focused on skin health, how do you bal­ance bold aes­thet­ics with high-per­form­ance, skin-safe formulations?

For me, skin health is always the found­a­tion. No mat­ter how bold or cre­at­ive a product looks, it has to respect the skin first. I don’t see cre­ativ­ity and per­form­ance as oppos­ites — I see them as com­ple­ment­ary. The sci­ence ensures the product is safe, effect­ive, and com­fort­able to wear, while the cre­at­ive ele­ments allow it to feel express­ive and exciting.

With Knuckle Gloss, the state­ment design draws you in, but the for­mu­la­tion is inten­tion­ally developed to sup­port lip health and per­form beau­ti­fully. That bal­ance is what allows the product to feel bold on the out­side while remain­ing thought­ful at its core.

Hip hop has always pushed bound­ar­ies. In what ways does Laughter & Kandy Beauty chal­lenge tra­di­tion­al beauty standards?

Laughter & Kandy Beauty chal­lenges tra­di­tion­al beauty stand­ards by rede­fin­ing what beauty products can look and feel like. Knuckle Gloss steps away from min­im­al, con­ven­tion­al pack­aging and embraces bold­ness, cul­ture, and indi­vidu­al­ity. The brand merges strong visu­al iden­tity with thought­ful for­mu­la­tion, show­ing that cre­ativ­ity and cred­ib­il­ity can coexist.

It’s about encour­aging people to engage with beauty on their own terms—whether that means being play­ful, express­ive, min­im­al, or bold—without feel­ing boxed in by expectations.

You’ve said cre­ativ­ity should exist even in the smal­lest products. Why is that import­ant to you?

I see beauty as some­thing that should be enjoyed — it should feel fun, play­ful, and express­ive, while still being taken ser­i­ously in terms of skin health.

Even small beauty moments, like apply­ing lip gloss or doing skin­care, can be mean­ing­ful. Per­son­ally, I roman­ti­cise those moments and turn them into exper­i­ences for myself, and that philo­sophy nat­ur­ally car­ries into my products. When even a small item like a lip gloss feels express­ive and thought­fully designed, it can genu­inely influ­ence how someone feels in that moment.

Cre­ativ­ity in small products is about remind­ing people that beauty doesn’t have to feel ordin­ary. It can be joy­ful, inten­tion­al, and con­fid­ence-boost­ing every time it’s used.

The knuckle ring design nods to cul­tur­al sym­bol­ism. What does it rep­res­ent to you per­son­ally, and what do you hope it rep­res­ents for your community?

Per­son­ally, the knuckle ring design rep­res­ents a mer­ging of everything I love — beauty, cre­ativ­ity, cul­ture, and jew­ellery. My appre­ci­ation for jew­ellery was passed down to me through my moth­er, and that influ­ence nat­ur­ally shaped the way I think about adorn­ment and self-expression.

When cre­at­ing Knuckle Gloss, my core why was to bring cre­ativ­ity into beauty, and the idea of mer­ging jew­ellery with a beauty product felt instinct­ive — almost like beauty meets jewellery.

For the com­munity, I hope the design rep­res­ents empower­ment in a gentle yet con­fid­ent way. I want it to encour­age indi­vidu­al­ity, cre­ativ­ity, and self-expres­sion, and to show that beauty can carry cul­tur­al mean­ing while still feel­ing per­son­al and modern.

Look­ing ahead, how do you envi­sion Laughter & Kandy Beauty evolving?

Look­ing ahead, I envi­sion Laughter & Kandy Beauty grow­ing as brand that con­tin­ues to bal­ance sci­ence, cre­ativ­ity, and thought­ful design. I want the brand to expand inten­tion­ally, cre­at­ing products that are innov­at­ive yet con­sidered, always groun­ded in skin health, for­mu­la­tion integ­rity, and quality.

As the brand evolves, I want it to remain express­ive and ver­sat­ile, open to dif­fer­ent inspir­a­tions, ideas, and cre­at­ive dir­ec­tions. My focus is on build­ing a brand that feels authen­t­ic, adapt­able, and rooted in pur­pose, while stay­ing true to its core belief that even the smal­lest beauty products can be mean­ing­ful, express­ive, and well-crafted.

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.