Insight
Dampening a makeup sponge causes it to repel foundation onto the skin
“You wet the sponge, you wring it out, and you towel dry it. But what ends up happening is then the sponge starts to repel the makeup. So it's then pushing the makeup onto the face as opposed to grabbing the makeup and trying to suck it in.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
E-commerce remains the smaller part of Beautyblender's overall business
“I mean, even, even to this day, my digital, my e-commerce business is the smaller part of my business.”
Assertion Open · timeframe Dec 2022
Beautyblender's patent was blocked by an existing medical ear cleaner patent
“There was a patent owned by a company that, and this is the craziest thing, and this is why I fought so long and hard about it, but There was a medical ear cleaner that was like, if you can envision, like, almost like a Q-tip, only bigger. It was like, it had …”
Insight
Makeup sponges are the most recognized but least developed beauty tools
“It's that disposable mentality that we've been taught about makeup sponges that makes you feel like it's not a worthy tool, but it's the most recognized tool, but the least developed one.”
Insight
Category creators need knockoffs to prove their product's superiority
“The way that I soothe myself about knockoffs is that I remember this fact that, you know, Coke needed Pepsi. Xerox needed IBM. Beauty Blender needs knockoffs in order to prove why we are the category creator and the best.”
Disclosure
Silva still owns 100% of Beautyblender and took no outside investment
“No, I still own it a hundred percent. I have no investors.”
Assertion Supported
Classic Hollywood makeup relied on pink undertones that excluded darker skin
“The makeups that were designed by men back in the day, and the heavier makeups, when you go back and you look at black and white, silver screen makeup, all the way to like, say, the seventies or eighties, right, when you're talking about Bobby Brown, those mak…”
Assertion Supported
Silva was hired on 'Girlfriends' specifically for her high-definition makeup expertise
“That recognition that you have was the singular reason why I was hired to do the show Girlfriends, where I created Beauty Blender.”
Insight
Noisy airbrush compressors drove Silva to invent the Beautyblender for TV sets
“So although airbrushing was a wonderful technique to make makeup look natural in high definition, it's not a practical set tool. So in the morning in my trailer on the back lot of Paramount, I can be Spraying people in my trailer, my music is on, we're chit-ch…”
Assertion Supported
The first Beautyblender was a standard makeup wedge hand-trimmed into a teardrop
“Beauty Blender is a wedge that I trimmed. Into a teardrop. The sponge itself has no edges. We round the sponge.”
Disclosure
Silva initially thought Beautyblender was too complicated for mainstream consumers
“I dared to dream on occasion, like, wow, what if this could be a consumer product, but way too complicated for them to understand. Like, it's so far in makeup artistry, I don't think anybody would, you know, why would they trade this out with whatever they're …”
Disclosure
Silva and her early partner each invested $75,000 to launch Beautyblender
“In the beginning, when I first decided that this should, you know, I wanted to try to make this a business, I had invited another makeup artist to work with me. I eventually bought her out but we had both, I think we both invested, like, 75,000 dollars.”
Disclosure
Silva mortgaged her house to self-fund the launch of Beautyblender
“I amassed and saved some money to buy a house, and I'm, I mortgaged my house, and that's how I did it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Beautyblender's iconic hot pink began as color-coding for manufacturer prototypes
“And every time that a new formulation was sent to me, they would dye it a certain color so that I wouldn't confuse them. So when we talked, they could say, hey, remember the blue one, remember the green one, remember the yellow one, remember the purple one. An…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Beautyblender has sold over 100 million units to date
“Probably more than a hundred million.”
Disclosure
Silva invested over $2 million to launch Beautyblender's foundation line
“I mean, I invested, you know, over two million dollars into this launch.”
Disclosure
Silva may take on a minority investor in the next few years
“I think probably in the next three to five years, just because of my age and also my own personal desires, things that I want for my life, maybe I'll take on an, like a minority investor.”
Assertion Supported
Silva got engaged to NFL star Eric Dickerson and appeared on Oprah
“We actually got engaged, and I ended up getting pregnant, and he asked me to marry him, you know, brought me on the Oprah Winfrey show, and I thought, ok, I'm gonna be an NFL wife and a mom.”
Assertion Supported
Silva was the makeup artist for 2Pac's 'California Love' music video
“I did the California Love video with Tupac and Dr. Dre, where it was, you know, all Mad Max, and.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early entertainment makeup was strictly segmented by film versus television mediums
“Before it was very, almost like the businesses were very separate, the makeups were very different according to the medium you were working in.”
Assertion Supported
Silva worked as a makeup artist for Sean 'Diddy' Combs for 12 years
“I worked with Sean Diddy Combs for about 12 years and all of his artists.”
Assertion Contradicted
Victoria Vogue dismissed Silva's cold call by citing their 400 existing patents
“And she, you know, she said, well, that's great, honey. We hold over 400 patents. I'm sure whatever you have designed already is covered in our patents, so I don't know that we could help you much.”
Assertion Supported
Beautyblender still uses its original fabricator and manufacturer
“I'm still working with the same fabricator and manufacturer from the very beginning. Like, they've grown with me in this business, and, you know, they took a chance on me.”
Disclosure
Silva kept the neon pink prototype color to stand out in retail
“I want you to be able to see it in a sea of black across the room. You know, when you walk into the store, I think the fact that it's an egg shape is so different. People are going to look at it and wonder, what the hell is this thing? And I want it to be pink…”
