In many ways, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Bliss, and Urban Decay defined the90s beautyscene.
She basically said, “You got this.
You could do it again.
Clockwise from top: Bobbi Brown, Marcia Kilgore, and Wende Zomnir—then and now. (Plus, their latest ventures, respectively: Jones Road, Beauty Pie, and Caliray.)
When we were young, no one ever did that for each other.
Marcia was incredibly kind and got me through a really hard time.
So I just have to say thank you.
Brown holding Cody, the second of her three sons, in an ad for the Bobbi Brown Baby fragrance. (Cody is now the director of e-commerce for Jones Road.)
Marcia Kilgore:Oh, thank you!
I would’ve done it for anybody, and I would hope that somebody would do that for me.
After I soldBliss, it was like, Who am I?
Long before starting Urban Decay in 1996, Zomnir got her introduction to the makeup industry as a model in Belgium, where her family lived during her teen years. She doesn’t remember the exact date of this photo, but based on the Flashdance top, we’re gonna say 1983.
And then when your business is gone, you could have a real crisis.
I experienced it much earlier than you did.
I knew that I could get through it, so you could get through it.
But [during COVID], I had this reenergized family life.
Eventually I was like, “You know what?
I’m a creative person and I need to do something creative again.”
That’s how Caliray came about.
Brown:I took two days off after I left [Bobbi Brown Cosmetics].
Then I started looking… What’s next?
Zomnir:I was like, “Oh, my God… Do I have to become aYouTuber?
Is that my fate?”
Because I don’t really enjoy doing that.
I enjoy creating things and putting stuff on my face and the whole top to bottom of beauty.
Let me show you how to lift your eyes!”
Brown:A friend of mine said open aTikTokaccount and just be yourself.
Myself is not dancing to bad music.
It’s giving tips and advice.
So I started doing it, and I couldn’t believe it.
I need real advice."
Zomnir:It’s a bigger group thanGen Z, which everyone wants a piece of.
Brown:I don’t pay attention to Gen Z. I don’t care.
Kilgore:I don’t know what Gen Z is.
Zomnir:It’s children, your children.
Kilgore:I just think, What will this do for a customer?
What might she need?
Zomnir:Okay, now Bobbi’s inspired me to try TikTok.
(Cody is now the director of e-commerce for Jones Road.)
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God.
Do I have to become a YouTuber?
Is that my fate?”
Brown:And by the way, our sales quadrupled.
Do it your way.
It’s not perfect, not scripted.
Zomnir:Social media has caused a democratization of the industry.
When we launched our first brands, it was about, “How do you get out there?”
There wasn’t social media and nobody was paying attention to theselittle brands.
You couldn’t get past the wall of the giant brands.
And now it’s all about the noise, right?
There’s a hundred different brands out there.
Kilgore:And how you sell is so different.
Retailers used to be the only way.
It was you making the product and coming up with the ideas.
Retailers gave you shelf space.
They brought the traffic in.
You stayed in your box and they stayed in their box.
Then retailers started their own incubators.
It used to be you knew that the retailer was your partner.
Now it’s every dog for himself.
So it’s really a shift of where’s the money going.
The whole concept of Beauty Pie istransparency.
We sell our products direct, without the huge markups, to members.
We are a DTC [direct to consumer] company.
We save so much money now.
You just read your DMs.
Kilgore:You never used to be able to go straight to your customer and have that real conversation.
Brown:Bobbi Brown turned into the biggest corporation that I couldn’t imagine.
I think it was a waste of time and it was certainly a big expense.
And you got more rich stuff from them than you ever got from the research.
So when I did the next thing, I knew exactly what to do.
It’s really important how you spend money, especially when you’re a new brand.
And I like making a profit.
Zomnir:I’m pretty scrappy and that was probably my biggest asset in doing it all again.
I don’t need a PR person holding my hand.
I’m willing to carry boxes and just do whatever it takes to get it done.
Don’t go."
And I was like, “No…
I think I’m gonna go.”
I want to get my hands dirty.
Brown:Yeah, I think we all share that for sure.
Not only do I not need the PR person, I don’t want it.
You have to wear the heels."
I can be myself.
And scrappy is everything.
Kilgore:I would say also we’re probably all ridiculously optimistic.
Brown:I launched Jones Road the day my 25-year noncompete [with Estee Lauder] ran out.
It was a week before the presidential election, in the middle of a pandemic.
Everyone said, “you’ve got the option to’t do this now.”
I was like, “I don’t care.
I have my freedom today.”
Kilgore:It’s really hard work having a start-up beauty brand.
And we’re used to it cause we werent celebrities.
So we know how to do that work.
Kilgore:You know what I mean…. We never had it super easy.
No one’s gonna do anything for me, so I know how to do it.
But they get in [to thebusiness of beauty] and it can be a bit shocking.
Zomnir:I think a lot of people think the name equals automatic sales.
It’s the next order.
And the next order and the next.
You gotta fight for everything.
Brown:You have to make things that people want again.
