or someone whose idea of beauty is Marcia Brady, Jerrod Blandino has come a long way in the cosmetics business.
His trendy Too Faced Cosmetics Inc. in Irvine seems to be going the way of another Orange County cosmetics maker, Urban Decay, which was picked up by Mo & #235;t Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA in 2000.
Blandino said he’s gotten offers but isn’t thinking about selling,unless someone makes him an offer he can’t refuse, he said with a wink.
Too Faced, started in 1998, is targeting about $15 million in sales next year. The company’s products, big among celebrities and the hip set, are sold in Nordstrom, Sephora, Bloomingdale’s, Planet Beauty and Bon Ton stores on the East Coast, among others.
For now, Blandino said he’s having fun bringing his ideas to life. Those include Too Faced’s latest product, Lip Injection, which he calls Viagra for the lips and is selling like, well, Viagra.
Within the first two months, Too Faced sold more than 100,000 tubes of Lip Injection at $18.50 apiece.
The product’s name reflects Too Faced’s edgy, flamboyant strategy. Lip Injection isn’t injected at all but is a gloss that’s brushed on and dilates blood vessels.
The idea for Lip Injection came after Blandino said he saw a Viagra commercial.
“If it makes things grow, can it make lips grow?” he said he asked at the time.
So Blandino said he went to a cosmetic laboratory Too Faced contracts with and asked the folks there. Sure enough, it was possible to puff up lips. The result: a clear gloss that tingles as it goes on and makes a noticeable difference in lip size.
Lip Injection is Too Faced’s best selling product so far, according to Blandino. It was launched at Sephora, which had the product to itself for the first two months.
“It’s buying me a private jet,” Blandino said.
Blandino’s inspiration is rooted in pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Too Faced has an eye shadow called Boo Boo Kitty, named after Shirley’s stuffed kitty doll on “Laverne & Shirley.” There’s a pink lipstick called Marcia Marcia Marcia, taken from a classic line on “The Brady Bunch.”
Turns out Marcia Brady is kitschy enough that even Too Faced’s primary buyers,17- to 30-year-olds,get it.
“Marcia Brady represents pure, innocent beauty to all generations,” Blandino said.
Too Faced customers have the disposable income to afford little luxuries. A tube of lipstick sells for nearly $20, more than four times what a Revlon tube would go for. Too Faced’s customers typically buy Seven Jeans, which cost upward of $200, Blandino said.
“They know what’s happening, what’s hot,” Blandino said of Too Faced’s customers.
The company is big with the Hollywood set. Too Faced recently did the makeup for guests attending the premier of “Alfie.”
Too Faced also makes its way into Hollywood gala goodie bags, the ones that all the stars get just for showing up.
The company counts Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Pamela Anderson, Cher, Wynonna and Naomi Judd, Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts as fans.
Blandino describes the products as “basics with a twist.”
The twist is the Hollywood glamour, red carpet appeal with a dash of rebellion.
“That is what we are,” Blandino said. “And our customer wants to be what we are.”
But teens and young women can be a fickle lot. Consider Foothill Ranch-based retailer Wet Seal Inc., which is down on its luck after falling out with trendy shoppers.
Blandino’s response: he’s even more fickle.
“They’re keeping up with me,” he said.
Being on top of what’s hot also has a down side. Too often, Too Faced has the problem of being quickly knocked off by competitors, which range from Revlon Inc. to Urban Decay, Tony & Tina and Stila Cosmetics.
That happened with Too Faced’s lip gloss rings,which literally are worn around the finger like a ring. Rivals even mimic Too Faced’s pink packaging, he said.
“But they can never be us,” said Blandino, never short on attitude.
Too Faced has a flare for packaging, with its lip-gloss in a pill container and retro makeup kits called The Quickie Chronicles.
Some product names: Who’s Your Daddy? blush, Badda-Bing-Badda-Boom eye shadow and Drama Queen lipliner. Blandino does all the design work, including the company’s logo, an exaggerated curvy female silhouette known as “Envy.”
“I created Envy after drawing a blend of all the amazingly beautiful, arrogant, vain, crazy women I met working behind the makeup counter,” he said.
Marketing is what gets Too Faced in the door, Blandino said. From there, the products sell themselves, he said.
Blandino uses words such as “fire” and “juicy” to tell workers at cosmetics labs what he wants. Different labs are good at different things, he said. So Too Faced uses a few of them in California, New York and Italy.
Too Faced launches products four times a year, same as the big guys.
At a Planet Beauty in Newport Beach, Too Faced products are second to Sebastian International Inc.’s Trucco line, said Cheryl Davis, district coordinator for the Newport Beach-based cosmetics store chain.
The appeal of Too Faced’s products go beyond teens, she said.
Davis, 37, said she wears Too Faced products. Liquif-Eye,a clear solution drawn over eye shadow to turn it into liquid eyeliner,is one of her favorites.
“It’s awesome,” Davis said.
Too Faced is run from a small, casual, very pink office in a decidedly unhip Irvine business park, where a small white dog named Jack moseys around and barks at strangers.
“We have many different hats but we all get along,” said Jeremy Johnson, the company’s president.
Rounding out management is Andrew Knox, vice president of sales. Knox, who worked for Donna Karan International Inc., Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. and Tony & Tina, is the only one who lives in Los Angeles, keeping Too Faced in touch with Hollywood.
The company employs 21 people in all.
Too Faced got its start with the help of a small loan from Blandino’s dad and a bunch of credit cards.
“We presented to the bank,” which wasn’t interested, Johnson said. “In order to get a loan you have to have a home, you have to have something to put up.”
In the beginning, Blandino and Johnson cooked up makeup formulas while holding down their day jobs. Blandino worked for Est & #233;e Lauder Cos. Johnson’s past gigs included Giorgio Armani SPA and Chanel SA, where he was a business manager.
When they were starting out, Blandino and Johnson pitched the press themselves, starting at the top of the fashion world,Vogue.
Within their first week in business, they scored a Vogue feature.
“It just hit hard,” Blandino said.
The story didn’t go unnoticed at Est & #233;e Lauder. Blandino’s boss called him into the office and plopped the magazine in front of him.
His reaction: “I have to quit, I guess.”
Blandino, raised in Brea and Laguna Beach, began his cosmetics career behind the Est & #233;e Lauder counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. He later worked at South Coast Plaza and was promoted to regional makeup artist. That’s when he said he began working with the Hollywood crowd. Earlier in his career, he went to animation school and taught art to elementary school kids.
“I just always knew in the back of my head I’d be doing something big,” he said. “We clawed our way out from behind the counters.”
Now Too Faced has hired a publicist to get its products placed in magazines, movies and on TV shows, Blandino said.
The company is at a transition phase, according to Blandino.
“We’re making departments now,” he said. “We’re getting professional.”
Soon, Too Faced plans to look for a bigger space in the area.
“Definitely Orange County,” Blandino said. “Orange County is the new Beverly Hills.”
