“We’re back, baby!”
So declared the cofounders of Too Faced, Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson, when they took home the 2023 Newcomer of the Year WWD Beauty Inc Award for their new venture, makeup brand Polite Society. At the Oct. 6 WWD L.A. Beauty Forum, they took the stage yet again, in conversation with WWD executive beauty editor and Beauty Inc editor in chief Jenny B. Fine.
“We love this community, and I feel like through the vehicle of beauty, we can change the world,” Blandino said. “It might sound ridiculous to some, but we truly do instill self esteem into people. The way you move through the world is very much affected by the way you look at yourself in the mirror.”
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Indeed, it’s maintaining that close-knit, emotional connection to consumers that drives him. “Founders bring a soul and a heartbeat, and it’s so important to preserve that. If you are in private equity or you are a larger company buying a smaller one, that is the magic. Otherwise, you’re buying a Pantone and a logo, essentially.”
“We own 100 percent of the company, so we can do whatever we want to do,” Johnson said. “We had a fire in us to do it all over again, do it our way, and get back to how we used to do it.”
And though the boys love beauty, Blandino drew a comparison to another industry to flesh out his end goal. “Apple didn’t invent computers, but Steve Jobs made them more emotional and integrated into our life. You don’t always have to be better. You have to be different,” he said. “Since COVID-19, [beauty] got very crowded, our industry became a money grab, and there were a lot of soulless brands. But if you want to create a brand that lasts and that’s meaningful, you need to create something with a heartbeat.”
Blandino defines that, for Polite Society, as being more versatile than Too Faced. “At Too Faced, I created moments of your life — you’re at the club, you’re at a wedding. Polite Society is about products that you can live in every day, that deliver on their promises.”
As for how they approach new product development, it’s more driven by gut feel than data. The quantitative side of the business, Johnson said, “is driving in the rearview mirror. Personally, it’s what’s already happened. How are you going to move forward?”
Even unforeseen challenges, like tariffs and macroeconomic pressures, they navigate similarly. “Our prices are staying the same,” Blandino said. “It’s not the road for everyone, but that’s where the emotion comes in. I’m going to take it on the chin, I’m going to make a little less money, but you’re going to be there with me tomorrow and the next day and the next year.”
That freedom is priceless — literally — with Blandino saying they’d never take on external capital. “Give us wings, not weights,” Johnson agreed. “There needs to be a happy medium for when strategics come in, and then it could work.”
