How Failure Felt Like "Business School" for Ashley Tisdale—And Helped Propel Her Brand Forward

Ashley Tisdale is more fulfilled than ever, having spent the past few years focused on motherhood and her wellness and beauty brand Frenshe. But she's the first to get candid about what she's had to learn to get to the place she is now.

On this week's episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk," the actress/singer opens up about what she learned from her "biggest failure" and how it's only made her more confident in her work with Frenshe, which she founded as a blog in 2020 and has since expanded into products.

Tisdale explains that she faced unexpected challenges when she was named the CEO of her former makeup line Illuminate, which she acquired through BH Cosmetics in 2018. She recalls, "I was taking over a makeup company that I had a branding deal with and I really was excited about it."

Joking that "Instagram made it look so easy to be a CEO," the former Disney Channel star reveals that the pressures from the role weighed heavily on her mental health before she decided to shut down the brand in 2020. "There were times where I had insomnia, I was stressed, I was looking up celebrities who have failed, trying to feel less alone in my journey," she says.

"I was doing a Netflix show and I was in the makeup room trying to put in Shopify discount codes. And it was just like, 'What am I doing? What am I doing right now? Who am I doing this for? And why am I torturing myself?' That was really a big moment for me," Tisdale shares. "I thought I was having health issues, and I was really just having anxiety."

However, the Frenshe founder realized later how much she learned from the experience. "I really kind of went to business school that year," she shares on "Nice Talk."

She continues, "I think the biggest lesson for me was just so many people fail, so many people do...the success of something is learning all of these things. That was a moment where I learned to pick myself back up and move forward and keep going."

Tisdale originally launched Frenshe as a blog in which she could be candid about mental health and other wellness topics. After she saw how it resonated, she felt positive about the brand's capability to expand into products with Being Frenshe. "When I see the success of Being Frenshe, it really makes me feel like I do know what I'm doing," she adds. "I am involved in every aspect of Being Frenshe, but I think that's why it is so successful, because I think people can see that it's not just me putting my name on something and they see how much passion goes into this."

On "Nice Talk," Tisdale also opens up about Being Frenshe's next venture: hair wellness.

She shares that she's "really, really excited" about the new hair care line because of how personal it is to her. "The whole ritual is really based off of my own hair rituals. I was diagnosed with alopecia in my 20s, and so I really learned how to take care of my scalp, my hair, what not to do," the Freshe founder says.

Because of that, she envisioned the line as a means to allow people "to give their hair a moment and to be more accepting of our hair and where it's at."

The new line is available exclusively at Target and features three categories—the Moisture Collection, the Clarifying Collection, and the Restore Collection—in Being Frenshe's signature scents of Cashmere Vanilla, Lavender Cloud, and Salty.

Tisdale shares more about what she's learned in launching her beauty and wellness brand, her past as a child star, feeling most powerful being a mom, and more on this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

This episode was recorded prior to the Los Angeles wildfires. You can find out how to help those affected here.