Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonia Roselli.
Sonia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started my business after I was doing makeup for a national commercial. The art director wanted me to do her makeup for her wedding at her hotel. At the time, no one offered these services, so I went to her on her wedding day. On the drive home, it occurred to me that this solves a problem for a lot of brides.
Over the last 18 years, I have been doing makeup for weddings and touching every skin type under the sun. I not only was a wedding makeup artist but I also landed jobs doing product development for big labs all over the world. Eventually, I was being hired as often as I was doing wedding makeup.
In the summer of 2014, I sat in on a meeting with a very big cosmetic company while they were doing product development for some new complexion products. They asked what I thought about them.
I told them that the texture was great but the colors were wrong. They were not happy with my response. Their “spreadsheets” told them these colors were the best sellers of other products they had made and they wanted to keep the momentum going in the color range. When I told them just because a color sells doesn’t mean it’s correct, they then proceeded to tell me they had the plan to pay a beauty blogger $100,000 to do a 15-minute video of their product for launch. It was right there I knew very quickly that the industry was taking a dark turn for the worse.
You see, makeup artists aren’t creating beauty lines anymore. They aren’t working with every skin tone or color. They look at spreadsheets and keep the bar low on what a woman actually wants. It was then I had to ask myself “if they are hiring me to get my opinion and paying me 1% of what they paid a beauty blogger, why not do my own line and take my ideas to the people themselves? I know what they want, I hear their frustrations, and a Cheeto orange foundation isn’t it. So that following year, almost to the day, I launched my first skin care product, sexApeel™ Instant Skin Exfoliation Spray. I then would add a few items to our line as I saw a need arise.
Every product I make is from the ground up. I don’t private label anything. I rework textures and colors to what is correct, that will make a woman look beautiful and feel beautiful wearing it. I care what my customer thinks of our products. Sales are important, yes, but in the grand scheme of things, we want products to work, be easy to use and not treat consumers like they are stupid. Consumers are not stupid but brands treat us like we are. The only reason most garbage sells is because that’s all they have to choose from and because a beauty influencer told them what to buy. The result is a lot of frustrated women (and men) with drawers full of shit they can’t use.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Hell no. This is the thing about launching a beauty line. This industry is very tight-lipped about manufacturing. And that’s a good thing. I have spent as much on learning about this side of the industry as I did going to college. Traveling to other countries, learning about products and formulas, meeting chemists. It’s all been challenging from day 1.
I was lucky in the fact that I knew a lot of it through years of consulting with labs. But what was difficult was learning the process from conception to birth of a product. Now that I have a few under my belt, it’s gotten easier.
The one challenging thing I do find is being a small fish in a sea of Estee Lauders. Labs don’t want to work with small folks like me. The ones that do treat you like you’re stupid until you challenge them on the “why’s” of their process. Once they see you’re not a pushover, they either do one of two things. They help you or they ignore you. I can’t tell you how many products I have started working on with labs who went “ghost” because I forced them to think outside the box about innovation. When the lab themselves get lazy and lower their bar, is a lab you don’t really want to work with. Labs have been conditioned to turn and burn with subpar formulas that they aren’t rewarded for doing it better. They get rewarded with subpar bullshit, so they keep doing it.
I had one lab tell me “you’re being too picky and you can save by using this ingredient” to which I replied, “If my name is on it, it better not be bullshit”. Needless to say, most labs find me difficult to work with. And when you have small runs like I do, I’m not really worth their time.
In the end, I do this for my customers, not a bottom line. If my customers are happy, my bottom line will be happy.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Sonia Roselli Beauty – what should we know?
Since I started off as a bridal makeup artist, I was never finding products that worked the way I want. Sure there are great products out there and many I still use. But I always wanted to tweak a product that I loved in some small way. So after my time consulting the big brands, who care only about profit and not about customers, I decided I didn’t need to make millions of dollars, I just needed to earn a living creating shit people love.
I am most proud that we have been seeing nice sales growth month after month. We are just finishing our second year and we are up 20% of revenue over last year. I am very active on social media and I personally talk to as many customers as I can and helping them out with anything they need. I’m sure it won’t always be like this but as long as I have the time, I will try and answer as much as possible.
I am known for bridal and beautiful skin, but I hope eventually as our brand grows, as luxury beauty products that are simple to use and solve problems people have with their beauty routines. I want people to be better versions of themselves, not a made up, virtual reality of who they aren’t.
I am not known for Instagram makeup or heavy contouring. That road is congested and has a traffic jam. I am on the freeway creating beautiful looks that look like skin. Slightly more glam than Bobbi Brown when needed and classic. If I were a human, I would be Sophia Loren and David Bowie love child. I love the artistry of makeup but the sexiness of how it makes you feel.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Oh wow. My mom and every single person that emails me and tells me how much they enjoy our products. That is a huge motivator. I also have friends at the top of their game that have become very inspirational to me. They are at the top of their game and they have a very high bar. It wasn’t until I became close friends with them that allowed me to realize I should not apologize for wanting to do it better. I still make mistakes and I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I do try very hard to make customers happy.
My mom is really who got me into makeup. She always loved her beauty products. I guess I fell into the same routine. She always took great care of her skin too. To this day she tickles me when I see an order come in and it’s my own mother, paying full price for a product. That is true love. I adore her.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.soniaroselli.com
- Phone: 312-371-8596
- Email: info@soniaroselli.com
- Instagram: soniarosellibeauty
- Facebook: soniarosellibeauty
- Yelp: soniarosellimakeupstudio
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