Like many of us, I’m fascinated by the beauty products celebrities use to keep them looking perfect in countless paparazzi pics. For instance, Christina Ricci doesn’t leave the house without her hydrating gel moisturizer, Lucy Hale swears by her eyelash curler and Whitney Port loves a luxurious eye mask. While slathering on the same beauty products as these celebs might make you feel like a star, it’s often those friend-tested, colleague-endorsed products that are truly killer. Seeing your best girlfriend rock a stunning metallic eyeliner is sure to inspire your next bold beauty move. And that’s advice you can take at face value!
WOMEN IN NUMBERS: $300,000
We’ve all been there. Your favorite beauty blog urges you to go all in on a contouring kit, which actually leaves you looking decades older and feeling at least $200 poorer. As beauty-product-obsessed ladies, we often turn to one expensive face fix after the next. In fact, did you know that during the course of her lifetime, the average American woman will spend as much as $300,000 on facial beauty products? Yikes! If you’re wondering how in the heck we could shell out so many beauty bucks, here’s a hint: The average American woman uses at least 16 facial products every dang day.
WOMAN TO WATCH: Marcia Kilgore, Founder of Beauty Pie
From Mary Kay parties of old to modern-day department-store makeovers, the cosmetics industry continues to be a pretty big deal. Thank goodness Marcia Kilgore, the founder of Beauty Pie, is using her years of beauty-product experience to upend the industry and give women what we really want: luxury skin-care and makeup products at an affordable price.
Marcia is no entrepreneurial newbie. This Canadian biz wiz was also the founder of Bliss Spa, as well as the beauty-focused Soap & Glory and footwear company FitFlop. And her latest business concept, Beauty Pie, has become a major hit with cosmetics junkies the world over.
Essentially the buyers club for beauty addicts, Beauty Pie shuns the mumbo-jumbo, middlemen and markups that have become commonplace in the cosmetics industry. Here’s how it works: Members pay just $10 a month (Yep, that’s less than what you’d fork over for one tube of your favorite matte lipstick!) then choose from a dizzying array of skin-care and makeup products, as well as beauty tools—all for as much as 85 percent less than regular retail price. It’s totally brilliant!
Beauty Pie gets around the markups by sourcing products that are unbranded but of luxury quality. After all, it’s the brand that often accounts for the markup. Beauty Pie cuts out the long journey products make, from the manufacturer to the supplier to the brand and then the shelves, also cutting the markups that add up every step of the way.
From illuminating primer to super-softening lip oil, Beauty Pie offers every imaginable cosmetic product your sweet face could desire, all with astounding transparency. For example, a luxurious lipstick costs Beauty Pie members about $3! About a nickel of that cost goes toward warehousing, about a quarter goes to safety and testing and the rest accounts for the product and packaging. The Beauty Pie website includes this breakdown for every item it sells, leaving ambiguously determined pricing in the past.
Thanks, Marcia, for having the confidence to disrupt the status quo of the beauty biz in order to offer women some totally stellar additions to our makeup bags. We think your company is a real beaut!
QUITE THE QUOTE
If there’s one rule when it comes to makeup, it’s that you’ve got to have fun with it, girl. As former On The Dot Woman to Watch and makeup aficionado Michelle Phan said:
“Makeup is not a mask that covers up your beauty. It’s a weapon that helps you express who you are from the inside.”
This is Melinda Garvey signing off until next time. Remember, ladies, empowered women empower other women. Share On the Dot so more women can have a voice. Thanks for getting ready with us.
To learn more about our conversation, check us out at OnTheDotWoman.com and talk to us @OnTheDotWoman on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear your voice.