Bobbi Brown - beauty isn't about looking perfect

According to Bobbi Brown beauty is “a strong brow, bedroom eyes, a bump on the nose – these are the features that inspire… beauty isn’t about looking perfect”. We love this outlook!

Bobbi’s view, at the time of launching the renowned Bobbi Brown range was unconventional and went against every rule in the cosmetic industry’s book. But this outlook paid off and the understanding that “makeup is a way for a woman to look and feel like herself, only prettier and more confident” is central to the brand.

Bobbi Brown, an American by birth, was a graduate in theatrical make-up. Starting in NYC as a typical make-up artist she built up a credible portfolio earning her gigs with top magazines, photographers, and models.

Ten years into her career Bobbi was frustrated that it was so hard to find and use cosmetics that created a natural look. It was by chance that she met a chemist on a shoot who changed everything. Giving the chemist a set of unprecedented lipstick specifications (no smell, not dry and not greasy that looked like lips, but better), Bobbi was presented with a pink/brown-based smooth lipstick, and it was from there that the birth of her natural lipstick range began. In 1991, Bobbi with $10,000 to back her business debuted the lipsticks and expecting to sell 100 in a month, sold 100 in the first day. The range expanded quickly as magazine editors got behind Bobbi and her small brand. Soon Bobbi launched foundations that were yellow-based, not pink - a first in the industry. By 1995, only four years after Bobbi started the company, Estee Lauder bought the firm. She’s had two major offers already, but Estee Lauder offered her the chance to retain creative control and so, to this day she still does.

Sales at Estee Lauder were initially flat so Bobbi addressed this by taking the brand out of the standard shop and office building and into a cool downtown New York loft putting her head of marketing as president under the instructions to completely change and open out the culture. Products became fun and fresh and her adverts more magazine like - Bobbi was one of the first companies to do smashed and smeared lipstick shots and to regularly use black or Asian models. Numbers improved and by 2006 hit half a billion. Bobbi continues to expand her range and still retains absolute control over the company. Still based in a loft, she sits on the same floor as her team to work