Martha Stewart “couldn’t imagine being retired.” On a not-atypical week in mid-September, the now-84-year-old media and lifestyle business legend is promoting her new skincare brand Elm Biosciences, plus launching a new collection of bedding at the Empire State Building.
“Retirement is not an option,” Stewart tells me. She can do anything she wants, anyway; if she wants to travel, she might as well tack some business on. Her life and career are a “giant puzzle.” “I don’t sit down at a table with a 10,000-piece puzzle like some people do. That puzzle is alive and growing and scintillating every day,” she says.
Stewart is deep in promotion mode for her new skincare brand, and it’s clear how she became America’s first female self-made billionaire: She knows how to promote a product. Every question comes back to Elm’s “cutting-edge technology,” the involvement of the world’s leading dermatologists, how it works for all kinds of consumers of all ages. The trust Stewart developed over decades teaching audiences how to perfectly craft their homes and meals is now coming to skincare.
“They can see that I use it, and that’s the best way to sell a product I found over the years,” she says. “When I talk about sheets and towels, if I use it and say it’s really good—they sell. Same thing with gardening tools, same thing with Pretty Litter, the cat litter. I’m authentic and I use it. If I approve it, it’s generally a good product.”
Stewart has been developing Elm Biosciences for five years with dermatologist Dhaval Bhanusali, who helped create Hailey Bieber’s brand Rhode. Natalie Sperling is the brand’s CEO. Its investors include Red Sea Ventures and Lerer Hippeau.
Stewart has brought her trademark perfectionism to the brand. “We tested, it feels like, 600 different pumps to be perfect,” Sperling says. From Stewart, they’ve also learned how to share the new brand with consumers.
“She’s been an educator for, what, five decades now? says Bhanusali. “One of our big things is we must educate our consumers and teach them the best we can.” Sperling agrees: “She forced me to think about all the different people, all different types of worlds they live in, and how they would experience something.”
The brand is scratching an itch for Stewart who says she’s always wanted to be in beauty—even though it took decades for her to reach the category. “I’m an experimenter,” she says. “I’m very interested in what works and what doesn’t work.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
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PARTING WORDS
"I don't know how to be a performative version of myself to the public, nor do I want to."
— Elizabeth Olsen on her approach to public life and acting
Correction, Oct. 24, 2025: A previous version of this newsletter misstated the current number of Black women Fortune 500 CEOs.
