Mineral makeup pioneer Diane Ranger is ready to battle it out with the big boys to capture sales to the big girls.
The founder of Dana Point-based Colorescience is looking to grow the cosmetic company just months after selling a majority stake to Irvine private equity firm VMG Equity Partners.
The company generated an estimated $30 million to $40 million in sales before the acquisition.
Now, with VMG’s financial backing, Colorescience hopes to generate more than $100 million in sales in the next few years by beefing up its sales force, launching a mineral makeup book, making television appearances and recruiting cosmetic industry veterans to help grow the company.
“This is a billion-dollar industry and we want to be a major player in it,” Ranger said.
Colorescience has made its niche in the cosmetic industry by focusing on natural ingredients.
The makeup is made from minerals such as bismuth oxychloride, iron oxide, micronized titanium dioxide and zinc oxide and sold through dermatologists, plastic surgeons, spas and upscale hotels.
Ranger, who started Colorescience in 2000, sits on the company’s board with her husband Chet Ranger and VMG Equity’s Robert Schult and David Baram.
She continues to run the company as chief executive and has a heavy influence on how Colorescience operates, according to Schult.
“Diane Ranger is the real deal. She’s the pioneer of mineral makeup. We couldn’t run this company without her,” Schult said.
The company is laying the groundwork for growth.
Colorescience recently beefed up its employee count to about 100 people, some of whom work at the company’s 7,000-square-foot headquarters and at its 10,000-square-foot plant in Houston. But a good chunk of them work as independent sales representatives, Ranger said.
“The key is to grow our distribution right now,” she said.
The company wants to stay away from big retailers, something rival Bare Escentuals Inc. has done, Ranger said.
“We want to stay with the plastic surgeons and dermatologists,” she said. “We don’t belong in retail. It’s not our niche.”
Ranger is making her publicity rounds by appearing at various upscale resorts and industry shows where she talks about Colorescience and the benefits of using mineral makeup.
VMG is rolling out a series of clinical tests on Colorescience products with dermatologists and researchers to prove that its makeup is good for women with wrinkles, fine lines, acne, discoloration and rosacea, a blushing condition.
Since all of the company’s products are made with natural sun protection, Colorescience has won approval from the Skin Cancer Foundation in New York.
The company plans to publish the clinical results in a book about mineral makeup written by Ranger.
The book, which could be released sometime next year, will focus on mineral makeup’s history, its benefits and how it’s used. A good chunk of the book will be dedicated to telling Ranger’s story and how she started Colorescience, Schult said.
Ranger also started San Francisco’s Bare Escentuals in the 1970s. The company went public last year with a recent market value of $2.5 billion.
She watched her creation blossom without her when she left Bare Escentuals in 1990 after an unsuccessful bid to grow the company’s stores through venture capital funding. Bare Escentuals ended up in debt and was bought out of a foreclosure for $160,000 by John Hansen in 1990.
Under Hansen, Bare Escentuals came out with its own version of mineral makeup called bareMinerals and had sales of $395 million last year.
Ranger said she felt pushed out of Bare Escentuals and vowed never to work with investors again when she started Colorescience.
She wanted to focus on building the business with her husband Chet, a retired investor from Houston.
Colorescience grew over the years and buyout offers started pouring in.
Ranger said she understood that bringing in investors could help her grow Colorescience but wanted to make sure that she had a say in how things were managed.
VMG courted Colorescience for months before Ranger agreed to a deal in October.
Ranger chose to sell her company to VMG because they were willing to work with her on her own terms. She also admired its executive team, which is made up of veterans in the consumer product industry.
Schult is a former chief operating officer at Nestl & #233; USA Inc. and former managing director for food products at TSG Consumer Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. President and Chief operating officer Curtis Cluff was chief operating Officer of Obagi Medical Products Inc., a Long Beach-based skin care company.
And Baram is the chief operating officer and director of The Firm, a talent agency and brand developer that has managed Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Snoop Dogg and Martin Scorsese.
“They know all about brand building and they have the experience to get Colorescience to the next level,but they also want to do it the right way,” Ranger said.
