Assertion Contradicted
Masterson: Drunk Elephant did zero paid advertising from launch until 2023
“So I decided not to advertise early on. Yep. Never advertised till last year, actually.”
Opinion
Masterson: Arbonne's Mercedes sales targets are 'completely impossible'
“Completely impossible numbers, unattainable.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Nearly every skincare product on the market contained 'Suspicious Six' ingredients
“Every single product on the market I could find had one or more of these ingredients in them. Except for like a pure oil that you might buy at like a Whole Foods or something.”
Insight
Masterson: Brands should anchor in one retail channel rather than spread thin
“You don't want to spread yourself too thin. You want to get into one place and really get your feet on the ground.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Drunk Elephant accountant held 7% equity early on
“Like, literally, like, David had seven percent of the company at that point.”
Assertion Open · timeframe Jan 2027
Masterson: Brands do not pay placement fees for Sephora's Favorites Wall
“So when I got the call, we're going in for free. Because you don't pay for the favorites wall.”
Disclosure
Masterson: Drunk Elephant gifted full sample kits to every Sephora employee
“I called Patrick and Charles, and I said, I think that we should put the money we just saved into sampling, and I think we should give every single employee at Sephora the littles kit, which was the whole line, but little version.”
Assertion Partly supported
Masterson: Drunk Elephant was the fastest-growing skincare brand in Sephora history
“For becoming the fastest growing brand in the history of Sephora. The fastest growing skincare brand in the history of Sephora.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: L'Oréal bid to acquire Drunk Elephant while concurrently suing them
“No. They weren't out of the running. No.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Wonder Bar USA paid $18 cost of goods per cleansing bar
“Cost of goods, to buy the bar, they were buying the large bars for 18 dollars a bar.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Sephora rejected Drunk Elephant's first product for being a single SKU
“I've reached out to Sephora. They've told me, no, we would never carry a single SKU. Like, in other words, if you don't have a group of products, we're not interested.”
Disclosure
Masterson: Drunk Elephant paid $15K–$30K per formulation to own its IP
“No, I think each product was, like, around 30. Yeah, it was expensive. It made it could have been less, it could have been 15, but, so a lot of times, skincare brands will go ask for something to be made, and they don't own it. They just can use it. We owned t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: A publicist pitched a $30,000 focus group for brand naming
“I hired this big, fancy publicist in New York, and I was super excited to work with them, and she actually asked me to put together a focus group. It was gonna cost me 30,000 dollars to talk about the name.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Brother-in-law invested over $400,000 to fund early Drunk Elephant
“Again, Charles is in over 400,000 dollars at this point.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Sephora waived its $1M sales mandate to launch Drunk Elephant
“So it was there in Jackson Hole that she told me that, yes, we want to pick you up, all six products. She goes, if you don't sell a million in the first year, we won't kick you out.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Masterson: Sephora put Drunk Elephant in all stores by September 2015
“And it was Cindy, and she said, Tiffany, there's a thing called the favorites wall at Sephora, and we want you on it. And it's every door. By September of 2015. Every single Sephora. By September of 2015.”
Assertion Supported
Masterson: Early Beautypedia reviewer gave five stars before joining Drunk Elephant
“Nathan is my head of product development SVP of product development at Drunk Elephant. He is the one that wrote the review for the Wonder Bar... And he had reviewed four of the products, I think, maybe five, and they all got five stars.”
Disclosure
Masterson: Drunk Elephant gave equity to every employee after 2017 buyout
“I met with the private equity team trying to, you know, start to really discuss how we want things set up, and I decided I wanted to make everybody an owner of the company. Everybody in the company was gonna have a piece of the company.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: All Drunk Elephant employees made money from Shiseido buyout
“Right, and so did all the employees all made a bunch of money. Everybody made a lot of money.”
Assertion Supported
Masterson: Large Wonder Bar skincare cleansing bar retailed for $105
“The big bar was a 105 dollars. For, to sell, that's retail.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Brother-in-law bought $300,000 of cleansing bars to own North American distribution
“They called my brother-in-law, and they said, do you want to buy 300,000 dollars worth of bars? So he ended up with 300,000 dollars worth of bars to sell.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masterson: Drunk Elephant launched with six SKUs and 5,000 units each
“Six, and 5000 of each.”
Assertion Supported
Masterson: Drunk Elephant made under $100,000 in year one
“I think less than a 100,000.”
