Beauty mogul Bobbi Brown has never let herself be put inside a box.
In one of her latest ventures, Brown became certified as a health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and launched the wellness line Evolution_18, which vends an assortment of supplements boasting trendy health ingredients like collagen, probiotics and hyaluronic acid. The line, she has said, was a natural extension of her career-long philosophy of focusing on holistic and inner, rather than just outer, beauty solutions. And it’s one of the key businesses under the company she leads now as CEO of Beauty Evolution.
Brown, 63, began her career as a professional makeup artist in the 1980s, and founded Bobbi Brown Cosmetics as a line dedicated to bringing out natural beauty, rather than trying to mask it under layers of loud eyeshadow and rouge. She sold the business in 1995 to Estée Lauder (EL) under then-CEO Leonard Lauder, and stayed with the company for more than two decades before announcing she would be parting ways with her namesake beauty brand in late 2016.
Along the way, Brown published a host of books, became beauty editor at “The Today Show,” editor-in-chief of Yahoo Beauty and grew to be a world-renowned beauty expert, always focused on her signature, nude makeup look.
Brown’s products are now sold direct-to-consumer and through retailers including Walmart (WMT) and Kohl’s (KSS), with an additional online shop on Amazon coming in the next couple weeks, she said.
‘Be able to move quickly’
Evolution_18’s debut in 2018 came just before the wellness boom publicly traded and privately held companies witnessed during the COVID-19 crisis this year. But Brown said that she, like so many other business owners, faced a mountain of uncertainty in the early stages of the pandemic.
“When the pandemic first hit, all of a sudden things got really quiet. We didn't know what was going to happen,” she said during an interview for Yahoo Finance Presents. “Then when people got used to life as we know it now, and we turned our marketing to market to people that are at home, it grew – both in-stores at Walmart, online, and our direct-to-consumer.”
“I think that the opportunity is for any entrepreneur to really be able to move quickly and to be able to realize that in this day and age, we're going through different things, a different time – you've got to speak to the people and understand what they're going through,” Brown said.
“What I learned during this pandemic is I don't care if you're at home. I don't care if you're back at work. Everyone wants to feel better,” she added. “And that is the secret of everything, is feeling good.”
And over the course of 2020, some analysts and companies anecdotally have highlighted the unique opportunity the pandemic – and heightened consumer consciousness around personal health that has come with it – has presented for wellness brands. Bayer in August reportedly took a majority stake in the supplements company Care/Of, valuing it at $225 million for a premium over its valuation following a fundraising round two years ago. And the Zachariah Reitano, CEO of the venture-backed virtual health company Ro, told Yahoo Finance in May that some of its personal health products like allergy solutions and sleep aids were growing upwards of 100% to 1,000% month-over-month this year.
Most recently, the main issues facing Evolution_18 has been too much, rather than too little, demand, Brown said.
“We've had some issues with our best-selling product being out of stock, waiting for that to come in,” she said, noting that Evolution_18’s vanilla collagen tea has been out of stock for nearly two months now. “So it's honestly – it's an interesting opportunity to be able to do things quickly. Because when one product's not available, we're able to shift and say, OK, let’s bundle those together. Let's do these... it gave us an opportunity to create other flavors.”
Staying flexible has also been a theme in Brown’s other projects. At The George, a hotel she started in Montclair, N.J., with her husband Steven Plofker, Brown said she’s figured out a way to increase business even in one of the industries hardest-hit by the pandemic: “We've figured out a way to have weddings in the parking lot, and, and you know, really working to make sure people are safe,” Brown told Yahoo Finance. “And it's, again, you have to shift. You have to do things differently and you have to shift.”
With Evolution_18 just over two years old, Brown said her focus now is on growing the business rather than looking for an exit. And asked whether another foray into cosmetics may be longer-term down the line, Brown said she won’t rule any future opportunities out.
“I'm someone that doesn't plan or think about things. But you know, I'm also someone that never says never to anything,” she said.
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Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck
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