Rea Ann Silva, founder and creator of Beautyblender, discusses the ownership structure of her cosmetics company with Guy Raz.
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.”
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…”