March 17, 2021 • 26 mins
Sheena Yaitanes has done it all: she studied biological science in college, went to business school, cooked in MasterChef, acted on television, and studied art. Then she started one of the first clean makeup brands that looked like traditional makeup, Kosas Cosmetics, and it caught Bobbi’s attention. This week, Sheena joins Bobbi to talk about how she started Kosas by shipping four lipsticks from her basement, the one thing that keeps her up at night, and the simple ideas behind her innovative products, including tinted face oil and serum deodorant.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Beyond the Beauty is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm your host, Bobby Brown. I first saw the makeup
brand cosas a bunch of years ago, and it looked
so much like a traditional brand. But it was one
(00:25):
of the first brands that was clean and looked like
a regular brand that you would see in all the
department stores. I tried it and the makeup worked, So
I'm really curious and interested in how the brand was built,
and you know, I wanted to talk to the founder,
Shena Utanus. I was pretty intrigued by not just that
(00:47):
she's someone that loves beauty that grew up watching her mom,
but she was super smart, had a science background, got
her masters in business, was also an actress. But here's
this girl who has a beauty brand. So I'm very
curious to find out who is she? Ina utanous Hey, Shana, Hi, Bobby,
(01:07):
So nice to meet you. It's really nice to meet
you too. You have some incredible, incredibly interesting bio which
I can't wait to dive into. Let's dive into it. Yeah,
but I but I remember the first time I saw
the brand. I was still working at the old company,
and you were, you know, you guys had just come out,
(01:30):
and I just thought how fascinating, Like it was so
new and different because there was nothing in the clean
world that resembled like a real makeup product. So tell
me about the launch. Thank you, Bob, and thank you
for knowing and noticing that, like was like that was
like a big revolution and jump I think for clean um.
(01:53):
But of course, like at the time that Coasts launched,
there was no such term as clean. It wasn't even
a thing yet. Well, there was some there was some
things that people were making in their kitchen and you know,
granola kind of hippie stuff. Yeah, we had like natural
and organic and like a sense of like understanding that
maybe there was some there was some ingredients and conventional
(02:15):
that people didn't want to use. There was like definitely
a rise of like oh should we be questioning these
ingredients that was starting to happen UM. And then I like,
I love where we've landed now and like the and
I love the evolution of where things are going because
I think there was like that big pendulum swing to
natural and organic and that was tough for people who
(02:35):
are obsessed with makeup and wearing it. UM. And so
now I like, I love that we've kind of come
back around to thoughtful and purposeful. Well, let's let's go
back for a second. Because you grew up your mother
worked in cosmetics, she was in retail. Tell me he
worked at the mall. My mother worked at the mall.
(02:57):
Um she worked at before I was even born. She
worked at Clarence Um. And then when I was growing up,
she worked at Clinique. And I don't know if you
I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and guess you've never
worked at the mall. But I actually I actually sold
shoes in high school at the mall. Yes, okay, so yeah,
(03:19):
I mean it's kind of a rite of passage, right,
um So, because my mom worked at Clinique, and she
actually really loved that. She still speaks fondly of like
how fun it was, because of course your you work
at shopping, Like how fun is that? Um? And her
friends would be, you know, like the girl from the
Landcomb counter or like you know, someone from Chanel and
(03:39):
then the s a Sta Lauter. And that's how I
got to know these brands was through the people who
were my mom's friends who wrapped the brands. And you
really start to understand like a very early sense of
like what does DNA mean? What's identity? And like what's
the difference between these things? And so much of that
just came through, like the the textures, the smells, the names,
(04:02):
and they all had a little personality of their own.
So I got my beauty education on the ground. And
you must have played with your mom's makeup when you
were a kid. It's all I played with so Like
I was a very quiet child, I spent a lot
of time in my mom's bathroom or in my room
(04:23):
by myself. Um, I've always been drawn to materials because like,
I have a compulsion to make things. And what greater
material or medium than makeup? I mean we had and
I had so much of it, so much access to it.
It was like it's like going to the art store.
Like going into her bathroom and going through her drawers
was just like going to the art store. And you
(04:44):
used to make your own makeup when you were a
little kid, is that correct? Yes, I mean my own makeup.
I started making my own makeup when I was probably
like ten. I would at that time. You know, you
buy those little Monday Tuesday Wednesday like pill cases and
the jar of vaseline and the eyeshadow and then crush
it all up and mix it all together, and like
(05:05):
I would make I actually made some early stuff that
I'm coming back around to, like the idea of like
glitter gel highlighter. That's a big one. Yeah, So I
would make. I would mix makeup. I would mix skincare too,
and um and nail polish because I was like very
I love the lackery like an Emily texture of nail polish.
(05:28):
I think it's such a gorgeous material. And mixing the
colors was like a fun early thing for me. So
you were very creative as a kid and did all
these really cool things. You grew up, you know, with
your mom's makeup, but you were a smarty pants and
you ended up studying by biology science at u C.
I yeah, I did my Um. I mean, here's the thing.
(05:53):
My parents are immigrants. They moved here, and they moved
to America from Iran in the seventies when they were
in college. They were supposed to come here to do
an exchange program. And at the time, like the relationship
between Iran and the United States was good, and so
things were okay, and they came here, they didn't speak English. Um.
(06:14):
They moved to Texas and they went to college. And
while they were here, a war started back in their
home country, and they basically became stateless, Like they couldn't
go back to their war torn country. They didn't really
belong here at all. Um, you know, they started to
face the realities of what it means to be another
here in the US. They were, you know, and then
(06:38):
they and then they tried to make the best of it,
which is two make a better life for their kids.
And they're both they both have like such a deep
artistic nature. I watched my mom grow up. She has
such an amazing sense of color. I like everything I
learned about mixing colors came from her, Like the emotional
(06:58):
response that you get I'm putting pink connects to orange,
Like that's something she taught me when I was a kid.
And so these are the things that moved her. And
yet she was filled with such a fear of ever
pursuing anything creative in her entire life because she was foreign.
And that takes guts, and it takes showing your heart,
(07:19):
and it takes so much confidence and courage, which she
did not have. So I watched this as I grew
up with my parents not speaking English, and that like
affects the dynamic of the parent child relationship because in
a lot of ways, like they can't guide you, you
have to guide them. And then, yes, my nature was
artistic from day one, like these are the things that
(07:40):
I was obsessed with and wanted to spend my life doing. Um,
But I also had to carry some of that fear too.
They were afraid for me, which actually like just made
me afraid too. And so the last thing your parents
want you to do when they feel that way is
to do anything risky, like become an artist. That's insane.
So oh um. I pursued science, which I actually find
(08:04):
to be a very creative discipline anyway, because you are
in uncharted territory most of the time, you're trying to
discover And so that part of it I really did love,
and I still love, and I never thought it would
become useful to me, but turns out it has. Well.
If someone would have told me that in high school,
maybe I would have gotten better than d's in science
(08:25):
because there was nothing creative about my science teacher. So
besides this, besides this brainiac creative girl. You happen to
be beautiful. You acted. I acted for thirty seconds and
I did not like it. Okay, but more than thirty seconds.
You you were in House and you were also Season
one of Master Chefs. So you cook. I love cooking. Yeah,
(08:50):
I love cooking. And it's that whole like compulsively making
things with your hands. There's a theme here. Yeah, no, no, no,
it's it's quite something else. And then you also started
a makeup company. You started with eight lipsticks. I started
(09:17):
with four. Four, all right, I started with ten. You
started with four? And how did you like? So? How
did that happen? I had? I still think about this
a lot, actually, because my love is with color. My
love is with color and form, and I have what
(09:41):
feels like a lot of concentrated creative energy that needs
to come out somehow, and that can come out through
a lot of different things. And there was a period
of time where I wanted to really, like more formally
learn the principles of art. And so I started working
with an art teacher. And this was right before I
started COSIS, and um, she was teaching me color theory,
(10:05):
like we were really understanding and we were working on
portraiture because like I think, I'm just so fascinated by
and like I get a lot of pleasure from the
female form and humans in art, Like that's my that's
something I love. I'm less drawn to landscapes, more drawn
to human So you could paint, you paint people and face.
(10:25):
I paint. I do not paint well, like let's not
let's not get ahead of ourselves. I love it, but
I'm not good at it. And like it's like the
same thing with the piano for me, Like I love it,
but I'm like not good, you know, and that's okay. Um,
So I learned. But I did start to learn painting
and I learned color. And it was in that process
(10:48):
of like when I was learning how to mix earth
tones and skin tones, which I had like absolutely no
idea what the anatomy of these were. It was it's
so fun. But when I was doing it, like I
was ending up these piles of skin toned paint and
they were so gorgeous and so alive, and I was like,
that's makeup that I want to wear, Like those are
(11:10):
the colors that I want to wear that I feel
like you're going to bring to life my whole face,
and that's what I've been looking for. And yet, like
every time I try to find a color like that,
why is it that when I put it on, I
end up looking worse? And I know that this is
a podcasting so other people can't say me, but you can.
I'm so green. My skin tone is really really olive um.
(11:33):
And so it's like a it's a hard to mix
with situation, and there aren't a lot of products out
there that like kind of cater to this tone family.
And so those piles of paint to me like I
felt seen by them because I was like, if I
put those on, I am going to look good. That's
gonna be great. And then those drove what those first
four lipstick colors were. Okay, everyone wants a makeup line now,
(11:56):
but the question is where does someone begin that doesn't
know anything? You know, how did you find a chemist?
How did you find the packaging? Great question. I was
in the makeup chair on I think it was House.
It was my thirty seconds of acting. See I knew
it's always like it's like some dog millionaires of life.
(12:19):
Everything has a reason. So it was in that thirty
seconds of acting. I was in the makeup chair. I
was talking to the makeup artist and I told her
about like I want to have a makeup and at
that time, by the way, there weren't as many people
saying they wanted to have a beauty brand. Beauty was
a place that fashion people were escaping too, because it
was like a way more laid back business. Like they
were like fashions too intense, it's to aggro, Like, let's
(12:40):
go to UM beauty. And so I thought it was
like relatively chill and laid back as an industry then UM.
And I asked her and I told her about it,
and she said, oh, I have a few friends who
have made some products. And you know, here's the name
of somebody. I had tried the Google thing. I reached
out to any chemists, not one of them wrote me back. UM,
(13:03):
and then she gave me this name and this one
person wrote me back and that started everything. Wow, So
how did you sell the first four lipsticks? So I
made a website and I actually don't think like shopify
was even around around them. There was something different. I
(13:26):
had to actually like make a custom website and it
had four products on it, you know, it was these
four lipsticks. It was a single page yourself or did
you have to ask someone to do I had. I
had to ask somebody, So I had want this, you know.
I went to this guy's garage and he made me
a website with one page, and I designed it by
drawing it on a piece of paper. People are so sophisticated, now,
(13:49):
aren't they. They're like have all these branding decks and
like the whole thing. And I was just like, here's
my website. I put some squares on there. I was like,
put the face here, the button here, and that was
kind of it. And it was a single page. And
then like one day I turned it on and that
day was the day I received the lipsticks. Like it
wasn't this like grand master plan. It was just like
(14:10):
I was so scared to even own this many lipsticks.
Remember how many was your first order? The minimum the
minimum order quantity which was so cute, which was a
thousand pieces per shade. So I had four thousand lipsticks
in my house and I was like, what does four
thousand sticks seriously even look like? Like I was like,
can you give me, like, is it like going to
(14:30):
fill up one room? What's it gonna look like? Any
it wasn't It was actually not that big. I was surprised. Um.
I put them in the den in my house, in
these little piles, and then that was it. I turned
on the website and I posted about it on Instagram
to my five hundred friends and family that followed me,
and people like people started placing little orders. It was
(14:54):
so like, I remember how long it took for me
to make the first and dollars. You know, I love
hearing this story because so many people You're right, they
make the decks, they get the investments, they do all
of this and I and I have people calling me
all the time. How do I get these two influencer?
(15:15):
How do I get pressed? And I'm like, you need
the product you need, Like, if you don't have a
product that you think is better than what's out there,
you don't have a company. You can't do it the
other way around. So honestly, anyone that's listening, I don't
care if you want to make bras or granola. This
is how you start a business, and this is how
you become an entrepreneur. And by the way, I don't
(15:38):
know how long from the time that you did those
four lipsticks too, when people started hearing about you, but
in and I know that you were the number one
indie brand of the year in two thousand and nineteen. Like,
that's huge. That was four years later. That was four
years later. Yeah, it took time. There's so many coast
(15:59):
of questions because it's become such a giant brand. How
many employees do you have right now? We have forty?
Kink you for thinking we're a giant brand. We're a
teeny tiny brand. But I'm glad that it looks that way.
But yeah, we have a team of forty. In the
indie world, you're a giant brand. Okay, I'll take that
in my small pond. I'm a big fish. Yes. And
(16:21):
what what keeps you up at night? Oh my god, Bobby,
when is the last time I slept? Everything? Every little
thing I would I would say, I mean, I think
what's very There are a few things. One is I'm
a person, Like I'm a human being with a heart
(16:43):
and a soul and bones, and I'm just eight, Like
I'm just as vulnerable as anybody else because we all are.
And so I think the like giving up of my
personhood in some way, or or like not having the
sensitivity towards like who I am as a person. I
know that's a super abstract and vague, beyond vague thing
(17:05):
to say, but I think that sometimes does because like
it ultimately comes down to this like feeling of being
misunderstood sometimes or or like misrepresented, and that's that can
hurt because, Um, I think that we have a drive
to be seen by those we love as what we
believe we are. And when you end up doing something
(17:30):
a little bit more public than you know, you're being
seen by a lot of people who don't love you
as well. So like there's a huge amount of misrepresentation
that can happen, and that sometimes keeps me up at night.
I mean, don't you think that social has been a
big like reason how your business grew so fast? Absolutely,
it's been a big reason. I think that's because of
the time that the business started in. Like if if
(17:52):
we were in a different time and social didn't exist,
then it would have grown fast in another way, because
like I do believe like I'm here to do this regardless,
and I'm getting into the time frame that I've been
planted here in. So yes, it is because of social
right now, um, to some extent um, But I think
it's like it's just like one layer deeper. It's like
because of the love of love, love of doing it. So,
(18:15):
I mean, your business has grown so much, what are
you hoping? What are you hoping for the business? And
then I want to just dive into some of your
special amazing formulas and products, So what are you what
are you hoping for the business? I right now, I
think that our business has grown definitely, but it's really
just like at the very beginning stage, so early, and
(18:39):
I haven't even like scratched the surface on like some
of the things that I want to do, which all
really have to do with storytelling and product and because
those are the two places where my heart is. Um,
there's you know, I want to be able to I
can't wait to be able to like actually like touch
people again and be able to have that conver station
(19:00):
with other women about how they feel about their appearance, um,
and like what coases can do and what kind of
support we can bring into like from a product perspective,
and have that like really like what I'm always looking for,
which is that feeling of like finally, you know, like
finally I've been looking for lip color that looks like
(19:22):
this finally, like I you know, I've been wanting to
be able to like get this like polished skin look,
and I never have been able to. And you know,
like thanks for making this and finally, like I feel
like I love doing this ritual every day and like
you know, really enjoy it and it doesn't feel like
a routine or a chore. Well, your tinted oil has
been a runaway success, you know. I think that was
(19:44):
a very unique um formula that I think really you know,
hit like hit a nerve. So when did you how
did you think of that? Because there's not a lot
of tinted oils on the market, No there aren't. I
mean for me, it was like I liked to use
oil and I like the look of of a of
(20:04):
like a foundation, Like I like the look of a
little bit of complexion product. I think it makes me
feel like I look dressed. Um, I don't like a
lot And it's like very specific what I'm looking for,
Like I want a little bit of my skin to
show through, but only the parts of my skin that
I love, and then I want the rest of it
to all look really even and I want to address
my redness. I don't want to. I don't want something
that's going to settle into my pores. And most importantly,
(20:26):
I wanted to look better and better throughout the day,
which i've you know, have had a hard time experiencing
as a person who wears foundation. And I want to
be able to wear it every day. Frankly too, I
don't want to save it for special occasions, which is
how I was feeling. I want to be able to
get up and put on my favorite face every day quickly.
But I wanted to look awesome. And that's really how
(20:47):
that product came to be. It was like how do
I fulfill all those needs? Um which is usually where
I start. I'm like, I'm looking for something that makes
me feel like this, so like what would be the
ingredient profile of that? And that the ingredient profile turned
out to be something that I like, tremendously love, which
are oils. And then I ended up putting pigment inside
(21:10):
the oils, and then I was like what is this?
Like this is like pigment in the oil, it's face oil,
and it's tinted, so it's tinted face oil. And that's
like how it was named. And you have a new
serum deodorant. Yes, I never I never ever thought of
putting those two words together. So could you tell us
(21:30):
what it is and how you thought that? Totally so
similarly to the foundation thing, Like, I had this issue
which was that I have very strong BO and smells
terrible and ripe and insane, and um, I wanted to
like not have BO. I mean, it was really like,
it's really actually that simple. I want to not have BO.
(21:53):
I had started to hear about like I've been I've
been looking for things all over the place, Like I
had tried baking soda on my armfits burned my armpits
and turned them black. I had tried. I was like, okay,
maybe if you do like a few drops of lemon
juice and like some tea tree oil, like that will
be the thing that you know is like so anti
microbial that you won't have BeO. None of those things worked.
I've tried several different kinds of things, fennel oil. Um.
(22:17):
I then like caught wind of people putting h a
toners on their armpits and this was like changing the
game for their BO. So I started doing it too,
and I was like, wait, what there was this first
day that I did it, and I was like, I
don't I smelled my own armpit. I'm gonna do it
right now. I do it all the time. Now. I'm
(22:38):
now now that I use my own theater, and I'm
obsessed with among my armpit because I know what my
actual real armpits smells like. I know what my own
essence smells like, and I like it. I think it's
pleasant when it doesn't have any b O. And that's
what I started to experience. So I was like, I
have to figure out how to really, like, you know,
make this safe and great for armpits. And um, that's
(22:59):
how that was formulated, and it was a Serumi texture
and therefore it's a Serum deodorant. I do want to
ask you the same question I asked to everyone I
have on this podcast, What does beauty mean to you? Beauty?
(23:23):
Beauty to me is like an entire, whole life lived experience.
It's like a collection of things that make you love
looking in the mirror but also make you feel really
good and make you feel, to me like the favorite
version of yourself. Like if I were to close my
eyes and picture myself in my own perfection, which is
(23:45):
such a thing that comes like we are born. We
are all born that way. It's such a thing that
comes from all your thoughts and feelings and who you
are on the inside. And I focus deeply on the
things that I love about myself. What are the ways
and things in my life that really support me showing
up as my favorite version of myself? And that's how
(24:07):
I see beauty. And what's your health routine? Like, my
health routine is very human, um, and it's like totally
based on doing things that make me feel like my
favorite version of myself. So um. I like in terms
of eating, I would call myself balanced. Like I love food,
(24:30):
and dinner is my favorite meal of the day by far,
and I love like a full dinner and like the
full ritual of it and everything. I think that's such
a like heartwarming time of day for me. Um. And
then the rest of the time, I eat almost the
same thing all the time. And I also like, so
I like eats a lot of healthy things. And then
I eat like cookies and candy and I drink wine
because I like them. They make me feel good. I
(24:52):
love that. I love that. I would I would call
it intuitive eating, totally intuitive eating. I very much like
listen to what I want and then I of it,
and then I feel awesome about it, Like that's the
one thing that I like to throw away, which is
like any feeling of guilt. And what do you do
for fun? I think the thing that I do the
most for fun those I spending time with my friends.
It's like spending time with friends just talking, like there's
(25:15):
nothing more fun to me than that. And last question,
is there one product you cannot live without anything in
the world. Oh my god, there's like twenty I could
not live without coffee. I'm with you on that. Yeah,
I'm with you on that. But I am really really
happy to have met you and to listen to your journey,
(25:37):
and I'm I'm excited to be back in the clean
game and be you know, someone who you know could
also be here for support if you ever need anything,
I'm available because you know we're we're in this together.
So I'm I'm happy to meet you, and I'm really
proud of you and I can't wait to see what
you Thank you so much, Bobby, thank you for having me.
(25:57):
It's really great to meet you. My pleasure. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Beyond the Beauty is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm your host, Bobby Brown. I first saw the makeup
brand cosas a bunch of years ago, and it looked
so much like a traditional brand. But it was one
(00:25):
of the first brands that was clean and looked like
a regular brand that you would see in all the
department stores. I tried it and the makeup worked, So
I'm really curious and interested in how the brand was built,
and you know, I wanted to talk to the founder,
Shena Utanus. I was pretty intrigued by not just that
(00:47):
she's someone that loves beauty that grew up watching her mom,
but she was super smart, had a science background, got
her masters in business, was also an actress. But here's
this girl who has a beauty brand. So I'm very
curious to find out who is she? Ina utanous Hey, Shana, Hi, Bobby,
(01:07):
So nice to meet you. It's really nice to meet
you too. You have some incredible, incredibly interesting bio which
I can't wait to dive into. Let's dive into it. Yeah,
but I but I remember the first time I saw
the brand. I was still working at the old company,
and you were, you know, you guys had just come out,
(01:30):
and I just thought how fascinating, Like it was so
new and different because there was nothing in the clean
world that resembled like a real makeup product. So tell
me about the launch. Thank you, Bob, and thank you
for knowing and noticing that, like was like that was
like a big revolution and jump I think for clean um.
(01:53):
But of course, like at the time that Coasts launched,
there was no such term as clean. It wasn't even
a thing yet. Well, there was some there was some
things that people were making in their kitchen and you know,
granola kind of hippie stuff. Yeah, we had like natural
and organic and like a sense of like understanding that
maybe there was some there was some ingredients and conventional
(02:15):
that people didn't want to use. There was like definitely
a rise of like oh should we be questioning these
ingredients that was starting to happen UM. And then I like,
I love where we've landed now and like the and
I love the evolution of where things are going because
I think there was like that big pendulum swing to
natural and organic and that was tough for people who
(02:35):
are obsessed with makeup and wearing it. UM. And so
now I like, I love that we've kind of come
back around to thoughtful and purposeful. Well, let's let's go
back for a second. Because you grew up your mother
worked in cosmetics, she was in retail. Tell me he
worked at the mall. My mother worked at the mall.
(02:57):
Um she worked at before I was even born. She
worked at Clarence Um. And then when I was growing up,
she worked at Clinique. And I don't know if you
I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and guess you've never
worked at the mall. But I actually I actually sold
shoes in high school at the mall. Yes, okay, so yeah,
(03:19):
I mean it's kind of a rite of passage, right,
um So, because my mom worked at Clinique, and she
actually really loved that. She still speaks fondly of like
how fun it was, because of course your you work
at shopping, Like how fun is that? Um? And her
friends would be, you know, like the girl from the
Landcomb counter or like you know, someone from Chanel and
(03:39):
then the s a Sta Lauter. And that's how I
got to know these brands was through the people who
were my mom's friends who wrapped the brands. And you
really start to understand like a very early sense of
like what does DNA mean? What's identity? And like what's
the difference between these things? And so much of that
just came through, like the the textures, the smells, the names,
(04:02):
and they all had a little personality of their own.
So I got my beauty education on the ground. And
you must have played with your mom's makeup when you
were a kid. It's all I played with so Like
I was a very quiet child, I spent a lot
of time in my mom's bathroom or in my room
(04:23):
by myself. Um, I've always been drawn to materials because like,
I have a compulsion to make things. And what greater
material or medium than makeup? I mean we had and
I had so much of it, so much access to it.
It was like it's like going to the art store.
Like going into her bathroom and going through her drawers
was just like going to the art store. And you
(04:44):
used to make your own makeup when you were a
little kid, is that correct? Yes, I mean my own makeup.
I started making my own makeup when I was probably
like ten. I would at that time. You know, you
buy those little Monday Tuesday Wednesday like pill cases and
the jar of vaseline and the eyeshadow and then crush
it all up and mix it all together, and like
(05:05):
I would make I actually made some early stuff that
I'm coming back around to, like the idea of like
glitter gel highlighter. That's a big one. Yeah, So I
would make. I would mix makeup. I would mix skincare too,
and um and nail polish because I was like very
I love the lackery like an Emily texture of nail polish.
(05:28):
I think it's such a gorgeous material. And mixing the
colors was like a fun early thing for me. So
you were very creative as a kid and did all
these really cool things. You grew up, you know, with
your mom's makeup, but you were a smarty pants and
you ended up studying by biology science at u C.
I yeah, I did my Um. I mean, here's the thing.
(05:53):
My parents are immigrants. They moved here, and they moved
to America from Iran in the seventies when they were
in college. They were supposed to come here to do
an exchange program. And at the time, like the relationship
between Iran and the United States was good, and so
things were okay, and they came here, they didn't speak English. Um.
(06:14):
They moved to Texas and they went to college. And
while they were here, a war started back in their
home country, and they basically became stateless, Like they couldn't
go back to their war torn country. They didn't really
belong here at all. Um, you know, they started to
face the realities of what it means to be another
here in the US. They were, you know, and then
(06:38):
they and then they tried to make the best of it,
which is two make a better life for their kids.
And they're both they both have like such a deep
artistic nature. I watched my mom grow up. She has
such an amazing sense of color. I like everything I
learned about mixing colors came from her, Like the emotional
(06:58):
response that you get I'm putting pink connects to orange,
Like that's something she taught me when I was a kid.
And so these are the things that moved her. And
yet she was filled with such a fear of ever
pursuing anything creative in her entire life because she was foreign.
And that takes guts, and it takes showing your heart,
(07:19):
and it takes so much confidence and courage, which she
did not have. So I watched this as I grew
up with my parents not speaking English, and that like
affects the dynamic of the parent child relationship because in
a lot of ways, like they can't guide you, you
have to guide them. And then, yes, my nature was
artistic from day one, like these are the things that
(07:40):
I was obsessed with and wanted to spend my life doing. Um,
But I also had to carry some of that fear too.
They were afraid for me, which actually like just made
me afraid too. And so the last thing your parents
want you to do when they feel that way is
to do anything risky, like become an artist. That's insane.
So oh um. I pursued science, which I actually find
(08:04):
to be a very creative discipline anyway, because you are
in uncharted territory most of the time, you're trying to
discover And so that part of it I really did love,
and I still love, and I never thought it would
become useful to me, but turns out it has. Well.
If someone would have told me that in high school,
maybe I would have gotten better than d's in science
(08:25):
because there was nothing creative about my science teacher. So
besides this, besides this brainiac creative girl. You happen to
be beautiful. You acted. I acted for thirty seconds and
I did not like it. Okay, but more than thirty seconds.
You you were in House and you were also Season
one of Master Chefs. So you cook. I love cooking. Yeah,
(08:50):
I love cooking. And it's that whole like compulsively making
things with your hands. There's a theme here. Yeah, no, no, no,
it's it's quite something else. And then you also started
a makeup company. You started with eight lipsticks. I started
(09:17):
with four. Four, all right, I started with ten. You
started with four? And how did you like? So? How
did that happen? I had? I still think about this
a lot, actually, because my love is with color. My
love is with color and form, and I have what
(09:41):
feels like a lot of concentrated creative energy that needs
to come out somehow, and that can come out through
a lot of different things. And there was a period
of time where I wanted to really, like more formally
learn the principles of art. And so I started working
with an art teacher. And this was right before I
started COSIS, and um, she was teaching me color theory,
(10:05):
like we were really understanding and we were working on
portraiture because like I think, I'm just so fascinated by
and like I get a lot of pleasure from the
female form and humans in art, Like that's my that's
something I love. I'm less drawn to landscapes, more drawn
to human So you could paint, you paint people and face.
(10:25):
I paint. I do not paint well, like let's not
let's not get ahead of ourselves. I love it, but
I'm not good at it. And like it's like the
same thing with the piano for me, Like I love it,
but I'm like not good, you know, and that's okay. Um,
So I learned. But I did start to learn painting
and I learned color. And it was in that process
(10:48):
of like when I was learning how to mix earth
tones and skin tones, which I had like absolutely no
idea what the anatomy of these were. It was it's
so fun. But when I was doing it, like I
was ending up these piles of skin toned paint and
they were so gorgeous and so alive, and I was like,
that's makeup that I want to wear, Like those are
(11:10):
the colors that I want to wear that I feel
like you're going to bring to life my whole face,
and that's what I've been looking for. And yet, like
every time I try to find a color like that,
why is it that when I put it on, I
end up looking worse? And I know that this is
a podcasting so other people can't say me, but you can.
I'm so green. My skin tone is really really olive um.
(11:33):
And so it's like a it's a hard to mix
with situation, and there aren't a lot of products out
there that like kind of cater to this tone family.
And so those piles of paint to me like I
felt seen by them because I was like, if I
put those on, I am going to look good. That's
gonna be great. And then those drove what those first
four lipstick colors were. Okay, everyone wants a makeup line now,
(11:56):
but the question is where does someone begin that doesn't
know anything? You know, how did you find a chemist?
How did you find the packaging? Great question. I was
in the makeup chair on I think it was House.
It was my thirty seconds of acting. See I knew
it's always like it's like some dog millionaires of life.
(12:19):
Everything has a reason. So it was in that thirty
seconds of acting. I was in the makeup chair. I
was talking to the makeup artist and I told her
about like I want to have a makeup and at
that time, by the way, there weren't as many people
saying they wanted to have a beauty brand. Beauty was
a place that fashion people were escaping too, because it
was like a way more laid back business. Like they
were like fashions too intense, it's to aggro, Like, let's
(12:40):
go to UM beauty. And so I thought it was
like relatively chill and laid back as an industry then UM.
And I asked her and I told her about it,
and she said, oh, I have a few friends who
have made some products. And you know, here's the name
of somebody. I had tried the Google thing. I reached
out to any chemists, not one of them wrote me back. UM,
(13:03):
and then she gave me this name and this one
person wrote me back and that started everything. Wow, So
how did you sell the first four lipsticks? So I
made a website and I actually don't think like shopify
was even around around them. There was something different. I
(13:26):
had to actually like make a custom website and it
had four products on it, you know, it was these
four lipsticks. It was a single page yourself or did
you have to ask someone to do I had. I
had to ask somebody, So I had want this, you know.
I went to this guy's garage and he made me
a website with one page, and I designed it by
drawing it on a piece of paper. People are so sophisticated, now,
(13:49):
aren't they. They're like have all these branding decks and
like the whole thing. And I was just like, here's
my website. I put some squares on there. I was like,
put the face here, the button here, and that was
kind of it. And it was a single page. And
then like one day I turned it on and that
day was the day I received the lipsticks. Like it
wasn't this like grand master plan. It was just like
(14:10):
I was so scared to even own this many lipsticks.
Remember how many was your first order? The minimum the
minimum order quantity which was so cute, which was a
thousand pieces per shade. So I had four thousand lipsticks
in my house and I was like, what does four
thousand sticks seriously even look like? Like I was like,
can you give me, like, is it like going to
(14:30):
fill up one room? What's it gonna look like? Any
it wasn't It was actually not that big. I was surprised. Um.
I put them in the den in my house, in
these little piles, and then that was it. I turned
on the website and I posted about it on Instagram
to my five hundred friends and family that followed me,
and people like people started placing little orders. It was
(14:54):
so like, I remember how long it took for me
to make the first and dollars. You know, I love
hearing this story because so many people You're right, they
make the decks, they get the investments, they do all
of this and I and I have people calling me
all the time. How do I get these two influencer?
(15:15):
How do I get pressed? And I'm like, you need
the product you need, Like, if you don't have a
product that you think is better than what's out there,
you don't have a company. You can't do it the
other way around. So honestly, anyone that's listening, I don't
care if you want to make bras or granola. This
is how you start a business, and this is how
you become an entrepreneur. And by the way, I don't
(15:38):
know how long from the time that you did those
four lipsticks too, when people started hearing about you, but
in and I know that you were the number one
indie brand of the year in two thousand and nineteen. Like,
that's huge. That was four years later. That was four
years later. Yeah, it took time. There's so many coast
(15:59):
of questions because it's become such a giant brand. How
many employees do you have right now? We have forty?
Kink you for thinking we're a giant brand. We're a
teeny tiny brand. But I'm glad that it looks that way.
But yeah, we have a team of forty. In the
indie world, you're a giant brand. Okay, I'll take that
in my small pond. I'm a big fish. Yes. And
(16:21):
what what keeps you up at night? Oh my god, Bobby,
when is the last time I slept? Everything? Every little
thing I would I would say, I mean, I think
what's very There are a few things. One is I'm
a person, Like I'm a human being with a heart
(16:43):
and a soul and bones, and I'm just eight, Like
I'm just as vulnerable as anybody else because we all are.
And so I think the like giving up of my
personhood in some way, or or like not having the
sensitivity towards like who I am as a person. I
know that's a super abstract and vague, beyond vague thing
(17:05):
to say, but I think that sometimes does because like
it ultimately comes down to this like feeling of being
misunderstood sometimes or or like misrepresented, and that's that can
hurt because, Um, I think that we have a drive
to be seen by those we love as what we
believe we are. And when you end up doing something
(17:30):
a little bit more public than you know, you're being
seen by a lot of people who don't love you
as well. So like there's a huge amount of misrepresentation
that can happen, and that sometimes keeps me up at night.
I mean, don't you think that social has been a
big like reason how your business grew so fast? Absolutely,
it's been a big reason. I think that's because of
the time that the business started in. Like if if
(17:52):
we were in a different time and social didn't exist,
then it would have grown fast in another way, because
like I do believe like I'm here to do this regardless,
and I'm getting into the time frame that I've been
planted here in. So yes, it is because of social
right now, um, to some extent um, But I think
it's like it's just like one layer deeper. It's like
because of the love of love, love of doing it. So,
(18:15):
I mean, your business has grown so much, what are
you hoping? What are you hoping for the business? And
then I want to just dive into some of your
special amazing formulas and products, So what are you what
are you hoping for the business? I right now, I
think that our business has grown definitely, but it's really
just like at the very beginning stage, so early, and
(18:39):
I haven't even like scratched the surface on like some
of the things that I want to do, which all
really have to do with storytelling and product and because
those are the two places where my heart is. Um,
there's you know, I want to be able to I
can't wait to be able to like actually like touch
people again and be able to have that conver station
(19:00):
with other women about how they feel about their appearance, um,
and like what coases can do and what kind of
support we can bring into like from a product perspective,
and have that like really like what I'm always looking for,
which is that feeling of like finally, you know, like
finally I've been looking for lip color that looks like
(19:22):
this finally, like I you know, I've been wanting to
be able to like get this like polished skin look,
and I never have been able to. And you know,
like thanks for making this and finally, like I feel
like I love doing this ritual every day and like
you know, really enjoy it and it doesn't feel like
a routine or a chore. Well, your tinted oil has
been a runaway success, you know. I think that was
(19:44):
a very unique um formula that I think really you know,
hit like hit a nerve. So when did you how
did you think of that? Because there's not a lot
of tinted oils on the market, No there aren't. I
mean for me, it was like I liked to use
oil and I like the look of of a of
(20:04):
like a foundation, Like I like the look of a
little bit of complexion product. I think it makes me
feel like I look dressed. Um, I don't like a
lot And it's like very specific what I'm looking for,
Like I want a little bit of my skin to
show through, but only the parts of my skin that
I love, and then I want the rest of it
to all look really even and I want to address
my redness. I don't want to. I don't want something
that's going to settle into my pores. And most importantly,
(20:26):
I wanted to look better and better throughout the day,
which i've you know, have had a hard time experiencing
as a person who wears foundation. And I want to
be able to wear it every day. Frankly too, I
don't want to save it for special occasions, which is
how I was feeling. I want to be able to
get up and put on my favorite face every day quickly.
But I wanted to look awesome. And that's really how
(20:47):
that product came to be. It was like how do
I fulfill all those needs? Um which is usually where
I start. I'm like, I'm looking for something that makes
me feel like this, so like what would be the
ingredient profile of that? And that the ingredient profile turned
out to be something that I like, tremendously love, which
are oils. And then I ended up putting pigment inside
(21:10):
the oils, and then I was like what is this?
Like this is like pigment in the oil, it's face oil,
and it's tinted, so it's tinted face oil. And that's
like how it was named. And you have a new
serum deodorant. Yes, I never I never ever thought of
putting those two words together. So could you tell us
(21:30):
what it is and how you thought that? Totally so
similarly to the foundation thing, Like, I had this issue
which was that I have very strong BO and smells
terrible and ripe and insane, and um, I wanted to
like not have BO. I mean, it was really like,
it's really actually that simple. I want to not have BO.
(21:53):
I had started to hear about like I've been I've
been looking for things all over the place, Like I
had tried baking soda on my armfits burned my armpits
and turned them black. I had tried. I was like, okay,
maybe if you do like a few drops of lemon
juice and like some tea tree oil, like that will
be the thing that you know is like so anti
microbial that you won't have BeO. None of those things worked.
I've tried several different kinds of things, fennel oil. Um.
(22:17):
I then like caught wind of people putting h a
toners on their armpits and this was like changing the
game for their BO. So I started doing it too,
and I was like, wait, what there was this first
day that I did it, and I was like, I
don't I smelled my own armpit. I'm gonna do it
right now. I do it all the time. Now. I'm
(22:38):
now now that I use my own theater, and I'm
obsessed with among my armpit because I know what my
actual real armpits smells like. I know what my own
essence smells like, and I like it. I think it's
pleasant when it doesn't have any b O. And that's
what I started to experience. So I was like, I
have to figure out how to really, like, you know,
make this safe and great for armpits. And um, that's
(22:59):
how that was formulated, and it was a Serumi texture
and therefore it's a Serum deodorant. I do want to
ask you the same question I asked to everyone I
have on this podcast, What does beauty mean to you? Beauty?
(23:23):
Beauty to me is like an entire, whole life lived experience.
It's like a collection of things that make you love
looking in the mirror but also make you feel really
good and make you feel, to me like the favorite
version of yourself. Like if I were to close my
eyes and picture myself in my own perfection, which is
(23:45):
such a thing that comes like we are born. We
are all born that way. It's such a thing that
comes from all your thoughts and feelings and who you
are on the inside. And I focus deeply on the
things that I love about myself. What are the ways
and things in my life that really support me showing
up as my favorite version of myself? And that's how
(24:07):
I see beauty. And what's your health routine? Like, my
health routine is very human, um, and it's like totally
based on doing things that make me feel like my
favorite version of myself. So um. I like in terms
of eating, I would call myself balanced. Like I love food,
(24:30):
and dinner is my favorite meal of the day by far,
and I love like a full dinner and like the
full ritual of it and everything. I think that's such
a like heartwarming time of day for me. Um. And
then the rest of the time, I eat almost the
same thing all the time. And I also like, so
I like eats a lot of healthy things. And then
I eat like cookies and candy and I drink wine
because I like them. They make me feel good. I
(24:52):
love that. I love that. I would I would call
it intuitive eating, totally intuitive eating. I very much like
listen to what I want and then I of it,
and then I feel awesome about it, Like that's the
one thing that I like to throw away, which is
like any feeling of guilt. And what do you do
for fun? I think the thing that I do the
most for fun those I spending time with my friends.
It's like spending time with friends just talking, like there's
(25:15):
nothing more fun to me than that. And last question,
is there one product you cannot live without anything in
the world. Oh my god, there's like twenty I could
not live without coffee. I'm with you on that. Yeah,
I'm with you on that. But I am really really
happy to have met you and to listen to your journey,
(25:37):
and I'm I'm excited to be back in the clean
game and be you know, someone who you know could
also be here for support if you ever need anything,
I'm available because you know we're we're in this together.
So I'm I'm happy to meet you, and I'm really
proud of you and I can't wait to see what
you Thank you so much, Bobby, thank you for having me.
(25:57):
It's really great to meet you. My pleasure. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
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