The $10M Day: How Two Female Founders Turned a Taylor Swift Moment Into a $40M Brand

Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen.

What's up, you guys?

Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am sitting down with one of the co-founders of the viral brand Face It, which is most widely known for their glitter freckle patches. You may have seen Taylor Swift wearing them to a Chiefs game back in 2024. We're going to talk all about it, but since then they've been recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 and have turned this small business into a global phenomenon at the intersection of beauty, sports, and pop culture. Faze It is now being sold in over 6,000 retail locations, and you guys are on track to surpass $40 million in revenue this year. I'm so excited to unpack all of this. What a wild, wild journey. I can't wait to hear some of the behind-the-scenes founder stories from the women behind it themselves. So welcome to the show, Nina.

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to go more in depth about how Faze It came to be and, uh, where we're at today and where we're going in the future.

Yeah, I'm excited. Okay, so when this came across my desk, I immediately recognized the name Faze It because I am a Swiftie myself. And in October 2024, I was actually preparing to go to the Eras Tour because I went to the one that was in Miami. So it was like October 20th, and that viral moment of her wearing the glitter freckles to the Chiefs game, I think happened like just a couple of weeks prior to that. And so I actually went and ordered some, and they didn't arrive in time for me to go to the, the Eras Tour because that's when you guys were literally blowing up and probably had orders out your ears. Yeah. And so I remember they came a couple of weeks afterwards, and I was like, wow, they really— yeah, the Swift effect was in, in full effect for you guys with your business. So there's so much that I want to ask you, but to give our listeners the full context, I think we kind of have to start with that viral moment in, in October and Taylor wearing the Glitter Freckles, uh, to the Chiefs game, which skyrocketed the sales to, I think $10 million is what I read. Absolutely. Just like a wild experience. So can you walk us through what happened and how you found out that Taylor was wearing them and kind of what the general reaction was among you and Elliot and the Faze It team?

Yeah. To, to make this impactful, I'll kind of take you back in time even more to like lay the foundation, but Faze It has been around for 3 years now, and we started out as a dermal patch brand. So we were making patches for ingrown hairs and for scars, and I had this idea to launch makeup patchwear because we were already, you know, getting a lot of viral engagement from these patch peel reveals. And I thought, hey, why not do something that's a little more fun and edgy? And personally, I was enjoying my makeup routine a lot and wanted to introduce that into the brand to make it feel like me and make it feel authentic and you know, I started kind of going through TikTok and getting inspiration and saw the huge trend for freckles happening online. You know, people dipping broccoli in henna, drawing on freckles. And I thought, why not make a freckle patch? So we first kind of came up with this freckle patch idea, but beyond that, you know, why not make it sparkly and glam and fun? So that's where the idea for the Freckle Glitter Patch originated. And I got the samples. A few months before April of 2024, started wearing them, you know, in public, got amazing feedback, and we launched them. This is our 2-year anniversary for Coachella of 2024. And, uh, I could get more into this later, but, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes going on during this time as well. But that's when we had like our first blowup. And Elliot then said, you know, this product, like, who is our dream ambassador? Who's like the person that we want to see wearing these freckles? And she just said Taylor Swift. Like, that is the person these products are meant to be.

She's femme, she's glam, she's fun, very girly, especially with the Eras Tour at the time.

There's no way we thought it would ever actually reach her, but that was just the manifestation. And Elliot actually made this TikTok months before Taylor wore them to the stadium being like, who would be the it girl to wear this product? It's, it's Taylor, and I'm manifesting it. And she create It was a very funny moment, like full circle later on when we saw that TikTok. But Elliot started gifting it to as many people around Taylor's community as possible, gifting it to her makeup artists, to the wives of the, you know, the chief players so that like when Taylor's hanging out with Travis and his friends and their wives, she's seeing FaZe It pop up over and over, but also, you know, sending them to her direct contents like her makeup artist. And we did all that gifting months before October when she wore them. And kind of forgot about it, you know, just were like, okay, that wasn't, you know, that was a— we were constantly pulling lovers, we're constantly gifting, who knows. And out of nowhere in October, you know, Elliot's flipping through the channel, through the TV. I'm like deep in a meditation, I'm off my phone for the first time like all month. Like, I— and maybe like that manifestation during my, my meditation helped bring the good juju, but I was totally like unreachable. And Elliot gets DM while she's, you know, flipping through the TV of this girl saying, oh my God, go look at the Chiefs game right now. I think Taylor is wearing your product on the stadium. So she turns it on her TV and there she is, like on the jumbo screen wearing the Glitter Freckles. And Elliot immediately starts trying to call me. I'm not, I'm not picking up. And she's sobbing and her husband takes a video of her because I think it was just this moment of like years. 'Cause even prior to Faze It, she and I had built a company together. So it's been like. 10 years in the making of like building companies and, and working for a, a moment that translates to reality, right? It's like, here's this moment, it's real. Like the, the biggest person in pop history right now is wearing our product. And I think seeing that just created such an emotional, visceral, visceral reaction. And, and luckily she posted that, that video on TikTok of her having, you know, the, the tears of joy. And that video, gosh, I don't, —like 20 million views it got.

I know, I was like, I think it got like tens of millions of views I saw.

Yeah, then she had all these news stations reaching out to her wanting to cover it the next day. But from my perspective, I look at my phone, it's probably like 30 minutes after this all happened, and I open my phone and there are so many text messages like from her, from my parents, from my husband, because you know, within that 30 minutes like everyone had seen it. And I was just like, it felt like whiplash, like what just happened? And it took me like a second to actually absorb the fact that Taylor Swift was wearing our product. And I was supposed to have like a night out with my friends and I said, guys, I gotta go. I gotta go home. Like there's work to be done. And the rest of the night, I was just gonna say, gotta get to work. Yeah. We were up all night trying to like build on that momentum. And as the news articles were coming out, like just reaching out to the publicist, making sure that they mentioned that it was our product because a lot of people were just You know, mentioning the fact that she was wearing this eccentric makeup, but like not knowing where it even came from. Cuz even though our product had kind of exploded before the Taylor Swift moment, it was specific to like the festival group. Like it wasn't like known yet in a more general way. And that's what Taylor did. She really like put us on the map and be, and allowed us to become this like more recognized brand.

I was gonna say, thinking about Coachella and everything, it's such a perfect product for that like time of year and that audience. It's so cool how. How it kind of, it does transcend across like beauty, but now also sports because it got brought into like the football stadium kind of game day vibe. And then also festivals. And yeah, it's really cool to kind of see how that, that spread. But, uh, speaking of like getting to work the night after that, I wanna talk about what happened next. Like what did you guys do? Yes, there's news outlets contacting you and stuff, but I think I read that your sales went up like 2,500% in, in like 12 hours or something. I mean, what was the, the real kind of like raw experience of managing that influx? Because a lot of brands just aren't prepared for Taylor Swift to wear their product and for, you know, that crazy amount of fandom and demand to hit their doorstep.

Yeah, I say it's always a combination of strategy of thinking ahead and of a little bit of luck sprinkled in there. And, you know, luckily we had been growing enough that at that point we had a warehouse, we had a 3PL, we were anticipating good sales that year. Like, this is where it's like, okay, is, is there something beyond me energy-wise that's like involved in this? Because we had just gotten in like 100,000 units to our warehouse 2 days before that happened. We had just gotten the biggest PO, um, to our warehouse that we had ever placed. Uh, and that was, you know, in knowing that there were going to be the holidays coming up and lots of events where we could, as you were saying, see our product appear because it's beyond just festivals. It's for any occasion in life. And there were a lot of, you know, Halloween and holidays coming up. So we obviously sold out of those units very, very quickly, but it was a combination of Eliot really hedging the PR and the messaging and taking on, you know, all of those news outlets and just letting the world know that it was our product she was wearing and really like pushing that messaging forward. While I was working on the backend, on the ops. That night when, you know, she wore the product, the first thing I did was I called our manufacturer and I said, hey, this crazy thing just happened. I know that you just sent a huge volume of product to us, but I need you to send me more, like, as soon as possible, as many as possible. Let's DHL air freight it. Like, I just need it in my warehouse right now. So my manufacturer actually teamed up with another manufacturer nearby., and they were able to expedite like a new order for us, like at 2x the rate that they normally do. So that was kind of one thing. And then secondly, the 3PL we were working with, they were also a startup company and, and they only had a few clients at the time and they weren't really built out for something like this either. So I called, you know, I called our 3PL and it was the same thing. I said, hey, like this crazy thing just happened, all hands on deck. Like we're anticipating a lot of orders coming in in the next 24, 48 hours, whatever you can do to get those out in time. I heard that you did, you said that in the beginning of this call that, you know, you didn't get your product right in time. So obviously there were some hiccups, but overall, like we did not go outta stock and we did get all of those orders out and we, it was kind of crazy that we were able to manage, manage that influx because like you said, most brands just wouldn't be able to. So I think it was a very good time of planning as the company was at a point where it was scaling to the point that we had the infrastructure. We had the people, um, our warehouse, like I was saying, they also teamed up with another warehouse nearby, brought in like 10 extra hands to help pack up orders that day. Um, and then afterwards designated a whole team just to Faze It to help during that, that time of the Taylor Swift moment. But yeah, just, just kind of strategize, like preparing for that moment is, um, even though we weren't anticipating it, always being prepared for it, I think is what had our back. Like knowing that we were putting all these levers in place and gifting the amount we were gifting, we were hoping that something like that would happen and we were pretty prepared for it too.

It's interesting to hear. Well, I think it's like you said, the little bit of luck sprinkled in was the fact that you had that massive order that had just hit the warehouse because holidays were coming. I think that was like divine.

And it's luck, but like it's also strategy too, right? Because it's, it's luck in the sense that like the timing was synchronized, but it was also strategy knowing, hey, we have these events coming up. Hey, we're doing so much gifting. Hey, we are seeing an influx of sales.

Yeah, something is probably going to hit or pop soon. We should probably be prepared. But I think it's like, you know, to your point of maybe we manifested it, like Elliot really put it out there in terms of like, I could really see Taylor Swift wearing this. You know, I think there's a lot of people that want their brands to explode or they want their businesses to pop off or, you know, for someone to repost them or for some kind of like a viral moment to happen where they get a ton of new visibility. But the reality is in a lot of cases, people aren't prepared. For that. And so either they don't attract it or they don't manifest it because it's like you wouldn't even be able to hold it, or it does happen and then they're not able to sustain it. And so what I'm hearing about this story is that, like you said, there's the strategy and there's also the luck. There's like the divine intervention and the, you know, the manifestation element of it, of something like magical outside of your control happening, but also having built something and prepared yourselves for like if something like this were to happen, what would the game plan be? What would we do? Do we have the right, uh, partners, manufacturers in place to be able to get more product? All of that stuff. And I think it's a valuable lesson whether, whether people listening have a product-based brand or not. It's like preparing yourself for the manifestations that you hope to come so that when they do arrive, you can actually ride the wave of them and sustain it. That's so beautiful.

I love that, that thought process. And I think there's so many lessons you can take as like an entrepreneur and like in your work life that you can apply in your personal life. And I think that's a really really wise and good sentiment to take away from that.

Yeah. So speaking of this idea of riding the wave of that momentum, because, you know, I think there's times where it can hit really hard and fast and then it sort of like drops off and dies or phases out. And I'm sure that's something that you guys had also thought about and were, you know, wanting to strategize around how do we maintain this? How do we ride the wave of this insane viral moment and actually make this last. So can you share kind of what the thought process was there of continuing Face It's success after just one big viral moment and, and not being like the one-hit kind of like wonder situation where it's like really blows up and then totally disappears off the face of the earth?

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Yeah, you know, when Taylor Swift wore our freckles, we only had 3 products at that point. We had our gold and our silver and our rose gold speckles. So we had 3 colorways and it really was kind of targeted towards festivalgoers at that point and concertgoers. And I think after the Taylor Swift moment, the way we kept our momentum and the way we try, you know, stayed relevant was through expanding our product line, continuing to innovate, and making sure that we could intersect in different niche demographics. So shortly after that, we worked really hard to build like a product roadmap where we could launch different colorways, different types of designs to attract new audiences and to fit into specific occasions. So for example, this year we launched a whole variety of holiday collection. So we have snowflakes, and shortly after that, that was our first launch because that was Christmas time. We launched like a multicolored snowflake patch, and that became afterwards the number one selling SKU, like even more so than our gold patches. And we saw people wearing them, you know, to go skiing. We saw people wearing them around the holiday season during wintertime. So, and this, you know, then, then we had like gingerbread speckles this year. We had little candy cane speckles for Valentine's Day. We did, you know, little heart décolletage patches, and like Cupid Eye. So there's so much we can play with, with the product technology and with the application. And we've seen our demographic just really expand beyond just people going to concerts or festivals. We, we see a spike for, for Valentine's Day. For St. Patty's Day, we had a huge spike because of our shamrock speckles. And I just think we keep expanding the opportunity. And we've also seen a huge influx of people, you know, wearing these product for spirit wear to sports games and to arenas. So we offer all sorts of colorways. We did our own play on eye black with, you know, pretty standard primary colors. So if you wanna go support your team without having to wear like a big oversized jersey, it's a more femme, fun way to emphasize your spirit wear. So it's just kind of limitless, like what you can do and the way you can play with this product. Recently for festival season, we just got the product into our warehouse yesterday. We now have a whole new collection of different category products. So for the first time, we launched our jewelry patchwork. So we have like this really beautiful orchid choker necklace, we have a belly chain patch, we have, you know, hand jewelry patches, and we also launched the first ever hair patch. So like, I'm, you know, and I posted a sample video of like one of our sample runs 2 weeks ago, and I got like 100K views on that, that video. So I'm really excited to see what happens with that product in the upcoming weeks, but I think that's how we stay relevant is we just keep offering newness and ways for people to play around and experiment with their beauty more and more.

Yeah. The constant kind of innovation is really, really cool. Was the sports thing inspired by the fact that Taylor had worn it to a Chiefs game and it was like, oh, maybe this is like a new category because I don't know if you guys ever imagined, you know, Face It being so tied to sports or spiritwear, if that's something that you had envisioned. But I think about even like college football. Like, I went to a Big Ten school, and me and my friends all would have definitely worn like Faze It stuff to game days if it had existed. But I'm just curious if you guys ever envisioned that, because you've now secured corporate partnerships with like the NFL, US soccer. I mean, it's, it's definitely a core pillar. Absolutely.

And we were definitely thinking about that and manifesting it even before the Taylor Swift moment. We, we did activations on college campuses, just like you said, to inspire sorority houses to wear different color waves to sports games. And I think it just really made sense for us because we try to think about beauty outside of what standard beauty companies think through. And it's like, okay, well, if we have the optionality to offer different colors and to, you know, make these like spirit wear designs, like for US Open, we did their, their logo is like an eye black play. And, you know, I, I think it just The Taylor Swift moment, like her wearing it to the Chiefs game, kind of solidified that vision for the brand to kind of fit into that intersection of beauty and sports. And I think Taylor herself also being very involved in the football scene made it a little bit more like, we just saw a surgence of girls getting a little more involved in football. And, um, there, there was like a cultural push, definitely more like interest in sports for women. And I just think today there really hasn't been too much optionality. For like girls to rep spirit wear in like a fun feminine way. And we're like, why not, you know, enter and tap into that white space? It just kind of made sense.

No, it's very cool. It's very, very cool. So in that like year timeframe from the viral moment and, and beyond, you guys launched in 6,000 retail locations, places like CVS, Target, Walmart, Sephora UK. I think I saw Revolve. I mean, that must have been also intense. It's a short time period to like get into all of these stores. What was that process like? What, like the negotiations? How busy were you guys? Like how did you handle that without going crazy or burning out?

I think there was just so much adrenaline during that time. Like, I don't know, it's a great question. I still like sometimes I, I blink and I'm like that, and it's still crazy. But like last year was the craziest year of my life, hands down. And both of us were getting married. Too. So on top of it, we were planning our weddings. I mean, it was just a wild year.

God really was like, this is the year, girls.

Yeah, I'm just gonna like pile it. Let's just throw like this other thing on top.

There's a backlog of blessings that have been waiting for you guys. Here you go.

I think it really taught me how to multitask and how to balance. And you know, I always preach like balance is key in life. Like, you find your rhythm when you can figure out how to balance it all. And last year was the ultimate test of like, how do I balance? And Elliot too. I mean, it was just like, okay, how we manage our sanity? How do I work out? How do I plan my wedding? How do I have these calls with retailers? How do I do ops? And we had a smaller team too.

I'm 7 weeks away from my wedding right now, so I'm like, imagine, I'm like, I know the, the wedding prep. I'm imagining you're like, how do I go to these Pilates classes and also run this, you know, multimillion dollar brand that is scaling at lightning speed?

And I don't know, I'm, I, I don't know if I have the best answer to that question, but I think it's like I was talking to my husband about this last night, actually, of during those times, it's about like being steady and just kind of somehow finding peace and calm and riding the wave. And every day did feel like a marathon. Like it was crazy, my to-do list, and it still is. But like, I think last year we really tried to do more work in the moment in order to make sure that going forward it would be more organized. So we brought on more hires, we built out roadmaps, you know, like our systems are a lot more organized this year than they were last year. So that like time management is just better. And so I think in that moment, even though we were exhausted and, and burnt out and overworked, like we did prioritize organization and just making sure that like everyone on our team could kind of own their roles in the company and feel confident owning those roles. So that we could keep striding to work on building bigger picture and like visualizing bigger picture for the company. Because for example, my benefit to Phase It is not necessarily doing the inventory management, but it's like doing the product developing. So just kind of keeping that in the forefront, even though there were months where I had to take on jobs that were less fun or more time consuming for me, I knew that I could get through that and like train someone and ultimately get to the other side and do the things. That I love to do that are going to grow Phase It and are going to make us get to that next point. And that's, that's where I just kept my focus. I kept thinking like in the future, I kept just thinking, how do I get to that goal? I kept thinking about those goals and that's how we kind of somehow got through the other side and, and managed to get it all done.

I was going to ask if you, if you grew your team in that time and if you guys had brought on hires, what was there? Was there any major difference or was it just a couple people? Like, is there any major difference between what the team looked like then versus now in terms of its size?

Yeah, we doubled our design team, so we have like 3 full-time graphic designers now who kind of all handle different legs of, of the business when it comes to marketing and graphics. We have a new media team that manages all of our ads. I'd say our team has definitely doubled in size, and that sounds like a lot, but actually considering how much growth there's been, it's really been optimized. Like, I think we've really done an efficient job at it, so we haven't just like thrown random people into the mix. Like, everyone was hired for an intention and a purpose, but it's definitely a much bigger team today than it was a year ago.

I think something that you pointed out that's really relevant and just valuable to anyone who's building something of size or wanting to scale is, you know, this idea of like preparing for that future point that you're trying to get to, and in the sense of being willing to have maybe longer hours or do things that you don't wanna be doing, or, you know, spend more time. So that you're structuring out the systems and building something. You have like really solid SOPs and it's like, okay, we know exactly how this needs to be done. You know exactly how to train someone on it. Like all of that, like front-loading a lot of that, like effort and work and strategy and organization, because you know, that's gonna be so much more repeatable down the line and it is gonna liberate you and give you so much time moving forward. And I think it's something that people can avoid sometimes cuz it's overwhelming. It's like a lot on your plate, especially when you're trying to be the founder, the creative, the visionary, you wanna work on innovation and new product design, and that's your zone of genius, and you want to only be in your zone of genius. But it's like, only operating in your zone of genius is earned, and sometimes there's things that you have to do and get in place before you can actually do that, you know?

Yeah, I know. I mean, you're, you're making so many valid points, and I have so many thoughts to it. But there's this book I read a while ago called Atomic Habits, and it talks about how we're literally built to not want to do things that lead to a more sustained future for ourselves. Like, we're very like instant gratification. That's why we're so addicted to social media and all of these like instant gratifiers, because thousands of years ago we weren't built to like put money in the stock market and let it grow over time. We were, we were more focused on what's our meal today, right? So we're wired to do things for instant gratification. And I think like it's such a discipline. And talking about like life skills and kind of what you were saying before about comparing life skills to skills you learn as an entrepreneur. It definitely teaches you discipline and teaches you like, let's put aside instant gratification and work towards a better future for myself now. And even if it's not so appealing for me to do these tasks today, like I know this will have a payout in the future. That's one thing I definitely learned during this process is like, oh gosh, I don't wanna like think about building this roadmap today, but I knew, oh, if I got this built out today, then I don't have to be the one like sitting there and telling everyone like every day, do this or do that. Like, everyone's gonna know exactly what their roles are when it comes to ideation to, to product launch.

It's that tedious work, the tedious stuff of like building out the systems. Exactly.

Like that tedious stuff that's really not fun to do, and it's not— it doesn't feel like in that moment you're gonna gain anything from it. Like building out that roadmap today, it's not gonna do anything for me today or tomorrow, but it's gonna do something for me in 3, 6 months, 10 years from now. So it's kind of making sure that you think how these little daily habits and tasks do compound over time and lead to more freedom and flexibility and growth later on. And like another point you're making me think of as we're talking about this is just the input-output mentality. And I've, I've been kind of making this my mantra for the last 6 months of prioritization. Um, and I think, you know, back to all of your points before of like, how do you know where to focus first and And I think we had difficulty with that. I think we had so many opportunities, we were just saying yes to everything because we didn't want to miss out. And we probably did ourselves a disservice. I think there was a period where we were stretching ourselves too thin and, um, just so excited about all the opportunities and doors that were open. So we had to kind of take a pause and say, let's actually figure out like ways we can spend our time best. And that's where the mantra for our team came to be of, you know, for every input, there has to be an equal than or greater than output. So that we knew that, you know, our energy was being spent wisely because energy is valuable and, you know, we can't just be constantly throwing it all out there.

You mentioned that you were deep in meditation when the, the viral moment happened. And you know, you've also spoken a little bit about, uh, manifestation in the sense that Elliot kind of threw it out there if she'd love Taylor Swift to wear the product. I'm curious what, like you as a female founder, what your relationship has kind of been to mindset work, mindfulness, spirituality, any of those things to keep you grounded and centered. You mentioned really being stable and at peace, and that being something that you can leverage during times of intense growth or when you're scaling. So I'm curious about your own kind of like mindset work and journey.

Yeah, I think wellness is so important, especially like the more you have on your plate. And I used to teach yoga. For years. I, I don't really anymore, unfortunately. I don't have a strong practice the way I used to. I think life just kind of took a different course, but I definitely still have a workout regimen, a wellness regimen, a mindfulness regimen. And when life is crazy and there's a million things going on, you need to have some sort of focal, an object to ground yourself with. And I believe, you know, having a meditation practice, having a mindful practice and I— it's different for everyone. I personally don't meditate every single day. Like, I'm lucky if it happens like twice a week. But I think I've taken a lot of those skills and tools that I learned through my yoga background into my day-to-day. And there's little techniques you can do, like, of when you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed, just taking a moment to step back and say, okay, well, I have too many things on my to-do list to actually get done today. I'm not going to get all these things done, right? So instead Instead of driving myself crazy trying to get 100 things done today, which is impossible, let me just chip away at like 5 really important ones. Like what, what are gonna be the most important ones that are gonna pull the, you know, drive the needle forward and having those like internal dialogue conversations with yourself. I think it makes your days more manageable, your life more manageable. It's still progress. It's still moving forward. It's still, you know, input output. It's still like getting good output, but it's at least you're not gonna drive yourself nuts. You know, I think it's really important to be patient with yourself and to, to like talk to—

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Yourself in that way.

Yeah, no, to have, to have some, some self-talk and a clear, clear-minded view of what the priorities are and just kind of organizing yourself in that way. And like you said, balance in the sense of not completely sacrificing your health in the pursuit of the success or the money or the progress of the brand, because, you know, as the founder, you are the vessel for that brand moving forward. And so you do have to keep yourself healthy and well, even while you're trying to work at this output that is sometimes kind of insane, especially when you have a, you know, a crazy kind of scaling moment like that. But you know, they say like every overnight success is a decade in the making. And I think that kind of proves to be true in Fazit's story as well. You mentioned the brand is 3 years old. Obviously last year was a huge year for you guys. But you also alluded to the fact that you and Elliot had previous ventures and different businesses that you had tried before that. Can you speak to that journey of like throwing stuff at the wall and like testing things and, and just like entrepreneurship and how, yeah, it's not always the first thing that you do that succeeds, but what that kind of looked like for you guys?

You know, when I think back to the first time I started a company, I was totally different person. Completely different skillset. And it's, it's amazing to take a moment to just reflect on the growth that happened during that time. I had launched a company during college called Labruna Skincare, is my, my last name. And it's like a topical, healthy, natural skincare line. Um, I was using my yoga to kind of, or my wellness community to kind of become my first customers during that period. And my background in nutrition to, to make these products in the first place. And it started out as a hobby, and I think that's like where a lot of drive comes from is when you're actually passionate about something and, and you gravitate towards it naturally, and then you just invest resource, energy, and time into it. That's when something can really like bloom into a beautiful, a beautiful thing. And I remember meeting Elliot, I had probably started the company 6 months before that. I had, you know, there were little bottles, they were very homemade looking. I was selling them in a few little stores. It was a super small company. I was still in school and she was also still in school. We were both in school. I was at NYU and she was at Columbia, and I had a friend who introed us and we met together at the Wing at the time, and we just started brainstorming ways that we could, you know, grow the business. She— sorry, to give context, she had started a consulting agency. So my friend was like, you two are, you know, kind of trying your own ventures and I think you could help each other out. So that's how we met, and we just started chipping away at that brand, and I always We say that La Bruna was kind of like our MBA. That's where we learned a lot of mistakes. I, I can't even begin to start listing like the things I learned from that company. But I think what makes somebody, like you said, not the overnight success, but the 10 years behind it, and what makes somebody get to the point where there is that kind of success is not necessarily like that they're the smartest, not necessarily that they're even the hardest working. It's that there's consistency and just continuous movement forward. And for us, that couldn't be more true. And I, I think having her as a partner was so beneficial to both of us because it kept us motivated. Like, we had somebody to— we— I had motivation to, to build something because I wanted to build for her, and vice versa, she wanted to build for me. And there was more accountability, I guess, is the word I'm looking for. So, you know, we did Labruna together for like 4 or 5 years, actually even more, like 6 or 7. And it grew. I mean, we, we definitely got it from the the beginning stages to, to being on shelf in Nordstroms and Urban Outfitters. And I mean, we had a huge, pretty big like D2C channel, but there were just things that were not— that just didn't feel right about that company. Like through kind of the errors that— it was a difficult company, it was a very difficult company to run. And I just knew that it wasn't going to have the kind of growth that something fresh would have and something that she and I kind of came up with together, because I wanted her to be like equally invested in it. I wanted her to like be involved in naming the brand and like coming up with the products with me. And, and that's how we decided to pivot away from that company, La Bruna, and start Face It new. But we have worked together literally every single day for the last like, whatever it's been, 8, 9 years. Like, there hasn't been a break, you know? And I think that's what has gotten us to today. It's just we have pivoted, pivoted, that's not working, keep going, keep going. Like, We've never lost confidence in each other and in growing together. Like we just kind of, we kept chugging away every day and ultimately we got pretty good at what we were doing. Like that's kind of what happens when you put the time in, right? They say like the 10,000-hour rule. Like once you put like 10,000 hours into something, you become an expert in it. So we definitely put our time in and I think that's what got us to last year to that moment of success.

Yeah. I'm curious about the co-founder dynamics. Between you guys? Cuz you didn't start out as friends, actually. It sounds like you were set up to be good partners, to work together or come up with ideas together or help each other have some sort of, you know, mutually beneficial relationship. But I'm assuming that y'all are friends after working together and being co-founders of this brand for the past 8 years and, and all of that. So what is it like, you know, staying aligned on decisions? And the future vision of a brand, especially when the stakes are so high and also like protecting the friendship that you've built?

I think there, there was something different and interesting about our dynamic, like you said, because a lot of partnerships I see, like it is two friends coming together and, and starting a company together. Whereas she and I started as work associates and as mutual beneficiaries of like, she's great at PR and branding and I'm like the operator and like the product developer. And like those two things coming together make a company. And, you know, through the journey we kind of, I think, just solidified our roles and really found our own paths, like within the company. I always explain that when you look at a car, it's like she's the exterior, right? She's like the beautiful automobile, like what you see from the outside, like kind of the brand, the brand person, the one who's presenting the messaging to the outside world. Whereas like I'm more of the engine, like I'm kind of, you know, in there like pulling the levers and doing a lot of the like behind the scenes work. And I think like that makes us a really functional team. But yeah, we, we became best friends too through the process. I remember there was one day, it was probably like 2 years into, into building La Bruna that we went out to, to dinner and got drinks and we were having a little celebratory moment and we both were like, you know, we're actually friends, right? Like we, we can be friends outside of this. Like we have a lot in common and we're the same age, we have similar interests. And then after that we also just kind of became best best friends through the process. And, you know, I think it can be difficult at times to, to manage that, but I think in our relationship, like, obviously our, our friendship is so important, but like, we have a common goal and a common interest at play here. And kind of like, it's almost like I think of it as a marriage. And Faze It, our company, is our baby, our child. And it's like, first and foremost, we have to do what's always right for the brand. And I think we're so aligned with that that it us aligned by proxy, because we're equally invested in nourishing this being, this, this thing. And that's what keeps us really together at the end of the day. And having that be the focal—

it's so funny that you say that because I interviewed the girls from Almost 30. I don't know if you're familiar with the podcast, but Krista and Lindsay, you know, they have a huge podcast, also best friends, grown, uh, you know, a pretty massive brand together. And they also said that they view their friendship as a marriage. They're like, that's really like, we're, we're friends, but like we're married.

It's honestly so accurate. Like actually now being a married person, I'm like, there are so many similarities. You share finances, you share bank accounts. There's, I mean, a lot of like personal information we both have about each other.

We know our taxes, like, and you could each individually feel a certain way about something, but at the end of the day, it's like, what's best for the family? What's best for the brand? Exactly. Union.

Like that. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Like it goes beyond us as individuals. There's like a bigger thing at play here and I think that's what keeps us strong as a couple. But yeah, no, we always joke that like we, we're both married, but like we're like each other's work wives. Like it goes beyond friendship. I'm sure.

I'm sure. So like advice for other female founders on how to get people to care about your product and vision, because obviously in the last year, you know, Your product is now, it's not just the Taylor Swift thing, but even though she wore it again in the Eras Tour docuseries, which I'm sure was a very fun and cool moment to see her wearing it again in a very, you know, public platform where everyone was gonna see it. But also, uh, Khloé Kardashian and her kids have been wearing it. Uh, Kim Kardashian's daughter Chicago was seen wearing it. You know, you've had this exposure, but when it's the early days and you don't have that major, you know, celebrity level visibility yet, what helped you the most in kind of holding the vision and believing in your success? You said, like, I— we always believed that that was coming or something, something like that was possible. What helped you in holding that vision and really believing the success before you had the visibility of all these like bigger figures propping you guys up?

Yeah, no, that's a really, really good question. And I think it just makes me think of our adaptability. And that's like the biggest piece of advice. That's one of the biggest piece of— pieces of advices that I can think of is like being open to adapting. And there's so many brands out there that start with a certain vision or a certain product or a certain, you know, image that they want to be and convey. And the ones that succeed, like, you'll find they reiterate so many times. Like, they kind of keep— not keep reidentifying themselves, cuz it's not good to keep doing it over and over. But while you're building and finding your identity, I think it's really important to do that. You know, for us, like, we started out as a totally different brand. I mean, we're always always called Face It, but we started with ingrown hair patches. And like, we did see some success there. We started out with scar patches, we had hyperpigmentation patches. Like, we were a more skincare dermal brand because we had a skincare company and we pivoted into patchware, but like through the dermal skincare lens. And you know, I think we did that because it just made sense, it spoke to us at the time. But we did that for about a year, and at some point it kind of stopped speaking to us, and it wasn't speaking to our audience in the way that we hoped it would. And you just have to keep, uh, like ideating until you find that right product market fit. So really, like if you break it down to its core, why we won is we weren't trying to force something to happen. We weren't trying to like force an audience to resonate with a product. Like if it wasn't working, if it didn't fit, like you just have to keep trying something new. And that's when I was like, all right, well let me touch in with what I actually want. Like let me be a consumer for a second. And when I put those goggles on and I stopped like like thinking about things that I thought people might want, and I actually put myself in the consumer's shoe and said, what do I want? Like, what speaks to me? That's when the idea for the Glitter Freckles came to be. And, you know, that's when, that's when the, the explosion happened. So really, like, biggest piece of advice is just don't be afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid to keep ideating and, and playing around with your, your products until you find that right product-market fit. And like, kind of going from there, like, obviously people can have things that speak to them. I think when it's— when it feels right to you and when you're passionate about it, that's also when you can feel more comfortable being the voice of the brand. And I think when we made that pivot and we rebranded and we launched the products that actually felt a little more in tune with like what we wanted, that's when we started putting ourselves out there more. And that's when, you know, Elliot and I got in front of the camera and started doing a lot more TikToks.

It felt probably more authentic, like it just felt genuinely exciting and like we're loving this.

Yeah, like when it doesn't feel right, you kind of, you hide a little, or you're like, this isn't me. And when it feels like you, you're able to proudly present it to the world and speak to it. And I think people just can feel that authenticity and it resonates a lot better. So that's the other piece of advice, like as you're ideating and as you're thinking through new products and as you're changing things around, like really stay true to what you love and what like resonates with you as a consumer. Because that's also going to translate when you then like present your brand. And don't be afraid to show it off, like don't be afraid to like put your face out there. I mean, we're in that age now where it's possible to make TikToks and be on social media, and anyone can be their own influencer. And like, that worked to our advantage greatly. I mean, that's when things really start picking up as well. It's like when we became the influencers of our own brand.

Yeah, no, such a good, such a good point. I'm curious if at stage, like, do your husbands work for the company, or what is that like?

They definitely, like, dabble in the finances here and there. Uh, I mean, my husband is an entrepreneur, and so is Elliot's, and they're both really, really smart. I mean, I love picking both of their brains, but they have their own careers. They're in their own lanes. I think, like, I love my husband, but it'd be very hard to work with him on a daily basis. It's important to kind of, I think, separate that and And, but yeah, they definitely, I mean, they're very involved. Like my husband and I talk about work a lot and he knows everything that's happening with Fazit and so does Park's husband. Um, so it, it does feel like they are a part of the team. Like it definitely feels that way. But no, they're not, they're not official employees of the company, but they, they, they come in maybe like as consultants once in a while. I love that.

I love that so much. I'm sure there's very interesting dinner conversations though when the four of you go out and get together as like a group of really young. Hot, smart entrepreneurs that are building incredible things in the world. I mean, that's like what everyone wants to see. Speaking of which, there is a documentary. You guys had shared parts of like your journey on the episodes on Peacock, the Swift Effect kind of docuseries thing, but then you've decided to actually create your own documentary. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is like?

Yeah, our PR team kind of encouraged us to do that in case We, we don't really, we don't have an exact plan for what we wanted to do, whether it's for investors, whether it's for our future selves, just to kind of reminisce on the time. I think really it's the documentary short. It's 10 minutes long. Elliot, I have to give her the credit there. She produced it and created it. I mean, it's amazing. Uh, and parts of it are gonna be featured on the Today Show next week, which I'm very excited for. But yeah, I think really the, the purpose of the documentary is to show that Faze It is beyond what people really see it as today. Like, we're not just a glitter freckle company, right? We are the future of occasion wear. Um, we're like the go-to product when somebody wants to emphasize their look and feel confident and, you know, take their, their occasion and make it more memorable through our patch products. And we really try to convey that messaging through the documentary, which is sometimes really hard to do in like a normal pitch deck. Or just through visuals. So like actually getting Elliot and I to talk about the process and to talk about like a lot of the things we talked about here today gives the audience, our consumers, just a stronger picture of the brand voice and the founders behind it. And kind of back to what you were saying before about like how to resonate with your consumers and be authentic, like that was the purpose of this documentary, is just to actually touch our consumers and talk to them in a different platform and in a different way.

Very cool. Do you guys know when it's gonna be out? I mean, you mentioned it's gonna be on the Today Show, but, or snippets of it. Do you know when we'll be able to watch it? I have to get back to you on that, um, on the exact details. Stay tuned, everybody. Coming soon. Okay, let's just share, I want you to share one of your favorite Faze IT products for everyone listening to this. We have, it's mostly, if not all, female audience. So if they're like, oh my gosh, wait. I've seen this or I think I know this brand or I've never heard of this brand, but now I'm intrigued. What, like, can you shout out like one of your like favorite products so that maybe we can put the— point them in that direction and they can make their first Faze It kind of purchase, become a Faze It girl?

Yeah, I mean, you cannot go wrong with our staple OG Speckle Freckles, like the gold and the silver. I always tell people like pick the color because sometimes people don't know what color to pick. Pick the color that you wear as your jewelry, so if you're like more of a gold girly, do the gold. If you wear silver, do silver. I like the gold. I wear the gold speckles almost every single day. I think the new stuff— I'm so excited by the festival collection that just launched. The belly chain is so cute. Like, I've been wearing it every single day. I'm getting ready for Coachella. That's probably my new favorite one that I've been like really getting good usage out of. And beyond that, we are coming out with a whole choker line extension, but we do have like an orchid choker that just just launched yesterday. So that's also one that I'm like very, very excited for.

But I don't know, there's— oh my God, we need the chokers. We're in the era of like the 20th anniversary of Hannah Montana, plus like Hilary Duff is back in concert, like Lizzie McGuire throwbacks, the Laguna Beach like reunion. Kristin wore a choker. I feel like we're just like in— like millennials are having a heyday right now.

We're in that era. Yeah, 2016 Coachella was like our whole inspiration for our, for our festival launch. So there's like definitely throwback nostalgic inspirations in there, which are really fun.

It's definitely having a moment. I love that. I love that. It was a time to be alive. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Nina, and sharing all of the behind the scenes kind of stuff, the founder stories behind the brand. This has been so much fun. If people wanna keep up with you and Elliot, you know, just as like founders and then also the brand, uh, where can they find you guys?

On our personal TikToks, um, we both have our own, own TikTok channels and Instagram. We post a lot about work on our personal Instagram pages too.

And you guys can find Face It pretty much anywhere.

It's in all the stores, on our website, Amazon, CVS, Walmart, CVS, Walmart.

Yep, Revolve, anywhere. So we'll link, uh, socials for you guys below in the show notes that you can connect with Nina and Aliette., and, uh, go check out the Face It products. The freckles are absolutely amazing.

And, uh, thank you so much for coming on the show.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right, you guys, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, tag us, let us know that you are listening, or send Aliette or Nina a message if you loved this episode and connect with them personally on socials. And we will talk to you guys next week. Bye. If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love.

You'll find them under the similar episodes section in the description down below with direct links so you can dive in and start listening right away or add them to your queue for later. Binge away for even more growth, expansion, abundance, and fire motivation.