With $500 billion in global annual sales at stake and 30% of the beauty industry market shut down in 2020, one beauty executive didn’t even break a sweat.
“E-commerce has been everything,” KJ Miller, co-founder and CEO of Mented Cosmetics, told Yahoo Finance. “In the pandemic I think one of the reasons we were as successful as we were is because we had already built out our website to be e-commerce first.”
Forced store closures shocked the global beauty industry. Prior to the pandemic, 85% of beauty products were bought in-stores. McKinsey & Co analysts estimated a 20% to 30% global revenue decline in 2020.
Mented Cosmetics, which launched in 2017, bucked this trend with a website that caters to online shoppers in an interactive format that mirrors in-store shopping – giving it an edge over its competitors. The company’s first quarter 2021 revenue skyrocketed 112% year-over-year.
On Mented’s website, consumers are provided with several shade finders to help them virtually try on different lipsticks, foundations, lip glosses, and other products that match their skin tone. Quizzes and tutorials on the site also help shoppers pick makeup that suits their tastes.
Miller co-founded Mented to address a gripe many women of color have when searching for makeup that matches their skin tone – insufficient nude color options by major makeup brands for lipsticks, foundations, and other cosmetics to help them get that natural beauty look.
It was the hunt for the right shade of nude lipstick for work that set Miller off on a journey to launch Mented Cosmetics after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2014. The company now has 8 full-time employees.
Mented Cosmetics has since reaped the benefits of catering to the underserved makeup market for women of color. First quarter 2021 revenue for nude lipstick, in particular, jumped 122% year-over-year.
“We actually experienced a lot of women coming to us and discovering us because our focus has always been on everyday staples,” said Miller. “No one was walking a red carpet. People weren’t going to the club, so you didn’t have a whole lot of need for sky high eyelashes and bold purple lipstick, but you still needed to look good.”
Target was the first big-name retailer to strike a deal with Mented Cosmetics, selling its products in-stores in September 2020. Ulta Beauty launched its online partnership with Mented in January and started offering its beauty items in stores in March.
Mented’s eyebrow pencils and Skin by Mented foundation line have been the company’s top-selling beauty products amid the pandemic.
“When you’re hopping on a Zoom every day, you need the things that are just going to sort of make you look a little bit more awake, a little bit more alive,” said Miller. “So for a lot of our customers that’s throwing on their quick foundation, doing their eyebrows, filling in their brows and maybe throwing on a gloss.”
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