These Model-Led Beauty Brands Are Changing the Industry

Model Lindsay Ellingson and her beauty line, Wander Beauty. (Photo: Getty Images/Wander Beauty)

Models are professional beauties, so it only makes sense that some of them, after years working with professional beauty specialists like makeup artists and aestheticians, end up starting their own brands for hair, skin care, fragrance, and makeup. Why are their lines significant? Models tend to see first-hand what’s wrong in the beauty industry, from harsh chemicals that irritate the skin with repeated use to foundations that don’t exist for certain skin tones. This year, Tyra Banks launched her eponymous color cosmetics beauty line, which includes products with saucy names like Ménage À Brow and Smack My Fat Lash. Meanwhile, other models like Miranda Kerr and Josie Maran continued to combine their interests in wellness with the niche of naturally-derived cosmetics. Here are the model-led beauty lines that you need to know about — no need to be six-feet-tall to experience their effects.

(Photo: Getty Images/KORA Organics)

Miranda Kerr, KORA Organics

Aussie beauty Miranda Kerr became certified as a health coach with the New York’s School of Integrative Nutrition in 2010. But even before she received her training, she put her wellness interest into use by developing KORA Organics, a cruelty-free skincare brand. “I searched for years to find skin care products that were safe for me to use on a daily basis,” Kerr tells Yahoo Beauty. “All of the products I tried and tested were natural but just didn’t improve my skin. I wanted my skin to be clear, bright and smooth.” In 2006, she started working with an organic lab back in Australia, finally launching the brand in 2009 after three years of research and development. “Although I developed and own KORA Organics, I don’t consider it a celebrity beauty brand — I created it as a woman knowing what I wanted to use and the results I wanted to achieve,” she explains. Kerr claims that the organically certified ingredients like Noni Extract and Rosehip Oil are protective and healing — in other words, preventative care for your skin.

(Photo: Getty Images/Wander Beauty)

Lindsay Ellingson, Wander Beauty

Wander Beauty co-founder and creative director Lindsay Ellingson, like Kerr, wants to simplify the daily beauty routine — but with color cosmetics. “The last 10 years of modeling have been the best beauty school one could have,” Ellingson tells Yahoo Beauty. “I’ve tried and tested everything and know what works.” While modeling for clients like Victoria’s Secret and Chanel, Ellingson realized that there was a market for multitasking products targeting busy women like herself. So, after 10 years of modeling, including beauty contracts for Clarins and Victoria’s Secret fragrances, Ellingson launched Wander Beauty. The line includes innovative products like the two-in-one On-The-Glow Blush and Illuminator ($42) and even a non-latex cushion for makeup application. The packaging is gold and burgundy — a fancy color scheme even though the products are also fragrance-free, mineral oil-free, and paraben-free. “We created Wander Beauty to help downsize your makeup bag and simplify your beauty routine with luxurious skin care-infused products,” says Ellingson.

(Photo: Getty Images/Tyra Beauty)

Tyra Banks, Tyra Beauty

“To me, natural beauty is kind of unfair,” Tyra Banks tells Yahoo Beauty, rather unconvincingly. “Really, without makeup, I’d have never been a supermodel!” By the time she launched her direct-selling beauty brand Tyra Beauty this year, she was already a household name, from Sports Illustrated cover model to Victoria’s Secret Angel to TV producer to actress. “I started Tyra Beauty for two very different, but equally important reasons,” Banks tells Yahoo Beauty. “First, my lifelong passion has always been to expand the definition of beauty; to help people everywhere feel as though they can look and feel beautiful on their own terms. Secondly, throughout my career, I’ve developed a strong passion for finding ways to give others the power to transform their own lives by taking ownership of their futures, and becoming their own bosses.” Over the years, Banks had received many offers to attach her name to a beauty brand, but she wanted to take control of the company herself and find a way to launch a company that could also be empowering for women. One signature product of Banks’ is the Smoky Smize Eyeshadow Palette ($39), an eye makeup set to enhance your “smize.” (Banks defined the term on America’s Next Top Model as “smiling with your eyes.”) In 2012, the supermodel studied in the Harvard Business School OPM program, learning from professors and other entrepreneurs about starting a company. “Throughout my career, I’ve used modeling as a jumping off point for bigger ventures in entertainment and business,” she explains. In November 2015, Banks announced that she was scaling back her appearances on daytime talk show FABLife in order to continue growing her beauty company and pursue other entertainment ventures, like the long-awaited sequel to Life-size.

(Photo: Getty Images/Iman Cosmetics)

Iman, Iman Cosmetics

Somali American model and activist Iman started her eponymous color cosmetics line back in 1994 with a very practical concern — there were very few foundations and concealers on the market for non-white skin tones at the time. Since then, the company, through an alliance with Proctor & Gamble, is distributed in mass retailers like Target and Duane Reade, bringing multicultural cosmetics to the mainstream. “Looking good is a commitment to yourself and to others. Wigs, killer heels, Pilates, even fillers—whatever works for you, honey,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in November 2010. While a few other beauty brands have increased the spectrum of skin makeup they offer, Iman’s collection serves as an example of how beauty can change the world.

(Photo: Getty Images/Luma Cosmetics)

Jessica Hart, Luma Cosmetics

Australian model Jessica Hart spent two years developing her natural beauty line, Luma. French socialite (and daughter of former Vogue Paris editor in chief Carine Roitfeld) Julia Restoin-Roitfeld is a devotee due to the brand’s simple, low-maintenance aesthetic. "What inspired me to start Luma was because I saw a huge gap in the market for affordable, naturally-derived cosmetics,” Hart tells Yahoo Beauty. The brand has 30 different products free from parabens and artificial oils — though you will find pomegranate and primrose oils in the lipsticks. “We care so much about our skin care routine and not about the makeup we use on our skin, but if we make this simple change, then I feel like we are on the right path,” says Hart.

(Photo: Getty Images/Au Naturale)

Julie Henderson, Au Naturale

Former Sports Illustrated model Julie Henderson has an All-American blonde hair and blue eyed appearance, but her makeup collaboration with Ashley Prange’s natural product line Au Naturale is a summery addition for all skin tones. "With all of the modeling jobs I have done over the years, I became interested in the ingredients of the makeup we put on our faces,” Henderson explains to Yahoo Beauty. “As I began to explore, the more I learned, the more I became aware there was nothing in the market that was clean and nontoxic.” The Beach Bombshell Collection ($98) is made for the summer months, when you want to enhance your glow without being weighed down by heavy makeup and includes organic, cream-based eyeshadow, bronzer, highlighter, concealer, and lipstick as well as natural lip gloss. Henderson raises a thoughtful question: “We try to eat organic, so why shouldn’t we be using organic cosmetics on our skin?”

(Photo: Getty Images/Sejaa Pure Skincare)

Gisele Bündchen, Sejaa Pure Skincare

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen is known for being a climate activist — since 2009, she bas been the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program — and most recently, she was in a video about “nature” as a spokesperson for Chanel. In March 2010, she also launched her own eco-friendly skincare brand, Sejaa, which purportedly leaves as little environmental impact as possible, using “all-natural ingredients, calming fragrances, thoughtful packaging, and recycled paper.” There are only three products in the collection: a day cream, a night cream, and a mud mask, but it’s possible that Bündchen is less involved with the quiet brand these days. According to Forbes, Sejaa has had “ongoing negotiations with Shiseido for years without reaching terms.”

(Photo: Gabor Jurina/Rodin Olio Lusso)

Linda Rodin, Rodin Olio Lusso

Linda Rodin entered the fashion industry as a model and exited as a major stylist and luxury beauty entrepreneur. “After many, many years as a stylist, I was exposed to all of the latest and greatest beauty products on the market,” Rodin tells Yahoo Beauty. “I tried most of them, and was always disappointed.” She started with a simple formula, mixing together several oils, like arnica, calendula, and argan, that she had been using for different beauty purposes throughout the years, and she gave them to friends and colleagues at the photo shoots. “Everyone loved it,” Rodin recalls. “I was on my way.” She officially launched Rodin Olio Lusso in 2007, and Estée Lauder Companies acquired the brand in October 2014. The oil is made from 11 botanicals and doesn’t come cheap at $170 for 1 fluid ounce, but Rodin claims it’s all she puts on her skin. And with glowing skin at 67-year-old, Rodin is her own success story.

(Photo: Getty Images/Josie Maran)

Josie Maran, Josie Maran

Former Maybelline model Josie Maran is one of the original models who became beauty entrepreneurs. She started modeling at age 12 in San Francisco, where she was constantly asking the makeup artists about the ingredients in the products and about opportunities in the beauty world. “Once I realized there wasn’t any high-end, high-performing and natural good-for-you cosmetics in the world, I decided to create it for myself and for all the beautiful women who deserve high quality ingredients on their skin,” Maran tells Yahoo Beauty. She discovered argan oil, her signature ingredient, while on vacation in the south of France. “My skin was cured of breakouts, rashes, dryness — you name it! To this day, argan oil is my go to miracle moisturizer,” she says. Since the launch in June 2007, her eponymous line of argan oil-based beauty products, from hair serum to lipstick, is sold at Sephora and QVC.

(Photo: Getty Images/Net-a-Porter)

Anja Rubik, Original by Anja Rubik

How do you smell like an it-girl model? Polish model Anja Rubik, a favorite of Karl Lagerfeld’s, collaborated with creative director Julien Gallico and perfumer Patricia Choux, one of the top noses in the business (she’s also worked for Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, and Jo Malone) in order to create an eau de parfum called Original by Anja Rubik. The fragrance is sold on Net-a-Porter for $110 and includes top notes of green tea and pink peppercorn. When she was developing the scent, she brought along her mood board, which included designers like Anthony Vaccarello and photographers like Robert Mapplethorpe, well known for his work on black-and-white lilies. “I love lilies — the smell and how delicate and innocent and white it is whilst at the same time symbolizing erotica,” she told Vogue UK in April 2015. “There’s a huge contrast, which is something I think every woman has inside of her.” The black-and-white unisex bottle is also important to Rubik’s aesthetic philosophy: “We live in a time where women are taking over a lot of men’s responsibilities, so I wanted it to have that,” she explained.

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