I didn’t start my career as a beauty brand founder the orthodox way.
In 2009, I was fresh out of hair school and apprenticed in a busy salon. Though gaining invaluable experience, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. I hadn’t yet found my niche in the vast world of beauty.
I started working in a hair salon as a hairstylist. One of the best parts of working in a salon is having access to beauty services, and one service in particular changed my life. My natural lashes are very short, and I was notorious for trying every strip lash and new mascara to enhance them. Naturally, when first getting lash extensions on, I fell in love with them. Everyone who knew me noticed the difference in my face, which looked brighter, and my confidence was boosted.
To me, lashes are not just an enhancement of one’s appearance; they boost one’s confidence — a way to make someone walk out of a salon feeling like they could take on the world. I saw an opportunity not just to beautify but to empower. I set down my scissors and picked up my tweezers that day. I was no longer a hairstylist; I was now a lash artist. The term didn’t yet exist in 2009, but I could already see the potential of lash extensions. I was determined to make this bespoke service a household name.
Early days and a pioneering spirit
In the early days, the demand for quality lash extensions was high; consumers wanted the service, but lash artists were challenging to find — especially good ones. I became fully booked in less than two months. By 2012, I was notorious in my community as Kim “The Lash Girl.” My burgeoning reputation was growing within the small lash community. Still, I wanted to do more to revolutionize the industry, which lacked proper education and high-quality products. I had no community to turn to for asking questions and seeking mentorship, and the product was scarce. I embarked on a mission to fill these gaps.
Taking the most significant leap of faith, I began educating other artists. I wasn’t just teaching techniques; I was fostering a community and building a network of professionals who shared a passion for beauty and empowerment. During this period, I developed a curated line of professional lash products. My clients noticed the lashes immediately for being soft and natural-looking. The adhesives were not irritating like others on the market. I evaluated and tested hundreds of products, going back and forth for months with the manufacturers until I felt the line had come together.
When other lash artists contacted me to purchase, I knew I had a special product line. At that time, I didn’t have a website, and I was selling lashes from the trunk of my car. I had never anticipated selling the line to other lash artists — I just wanted a curated, high-quality line for my clients. My husband Craig, a serial entrepreneur with a strong marketing background, saw the opportunity to launch a brand. He spent his nights and weekends creating our first website and even suggested the winning name: Borboleta, Portuguese for butterfly.
It was a symbol of transformation that perfectly aligned with our vision. All butterflies are beautiful and uniquely different. They transform to get their wings. At the time, I didn’t know how much the butterfly symbol would mean in my personal story as an entrepreneur.
Creating Borboleta
Initially, it was just Craig and me, a couple of computers, and a makeshift office in our condo in Provo. Less than a year into the launch, Craig left his full-time career as marketing director at MX to pursue Borboleta. I switched from lashing 10+ clients daily to traveling coast to coast, training lash artists to do lashes the Borboleta way. As our reputation grew, so did our team. We hired a team of 10 educators early on to scale the demand of new beauty professionals wanting to break into the world of lashes. We upgraded from our condo to our first official headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City, creating a home for our business and our growing community of dedicated lash professionals. At this point, we were barely two years into the company; year after year, we grew 300x.
Over the next seven years, Borboleta transformed from a promising startup into a global leader in luxury lash products and education. As we expanded, we developed over 750 unique SKUs and trained more than 30,000 individuals worldwide. This rapid growth, while exhilarating, brought its share of challenges.
With a background in beauty and education from hair school, I was accustomed to the hands-on aspects of beauty services, but stepping into a corporate role required a significant shift. It was a journey filled with learning — sometimes the hard way — about the nuances of blending practical beauty skills with business acumen in a professional setting. This period often felt like navigating the “wild West” of a burgeoning industry.
How we grew
The COVID-19 shutdowns took a significant toll on the beauty industry. Our professional lash artists could not work, and because we were selling to service providers, no orders were coming in.
From the beginning, I believed Borboleta should be a beauty brand, not just a professional eyelash brand. We were heading in that direction. We had worked with an agency in NYC that had built a direct-to-consumer arm to extend us into the professional lash space and provide lash care, a new category in beauty. But in 2020, a network of 50,000 lash artists were saying, “What do we do?” We decided to launch our serum to our pros as a drop-ship option so they could maintain their client relationships and earn money through the process. Today, we still hear stories from our community about how they were able to pay their bills and make it through because of this.
We could have chosen to launch direct-to-consumer or on Amazon during that period like we originally planned. People have asked, “Why didn’t you take the opportunity to build a $3 million business during that time?” I’ve tried explaining that I couldn’t turn my back on the professional community. I would have been one of those lash artists looking for a lifeline during the pandemic. The decision may have stunted our DTC growth, but it allowed me to give back to the industry that gave me everything.
Overcoming obstacles/Not all butterflies
I stayed in the day-to-day business as we tried to make Borboleta a consumer brand, but I was uncomfortable. I’d never worked in a world like that; I identified as a lash artist more than I did as a business owner. I had to adapt quickly. I was the founder of the business and paid people’s paychecks, but I wasn’t respected by the internal consumer team we had brought in. I don’t blame them, but when it’s your company and someone else is telling you what your dream should look like, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
From 2021 to 2022, we neglected the same pro community we built a shelter for in 2020. We focused on being a direct-to-consumer brand, which didn’t come together without our ties to the Pro lash community. I disconnected and became a silent shareholder for something I used to feel excited about. Feeling isolated from the Pro community and lost in the current team’s vision to scale Borboleta’s consumer channel.
The best thing I learned during that downward spiral was to ask for help. I sought mentorship outside of the company. After receiving some much-needed advice, I let many people go, personally and professionally. That was so hard. After taking a three-month break and doing intensive therapy, my life dramatically changed. I became committed to a new level of professionalism. My vision was coming back to life, and I could clearly see how to merge the two worlds of lash pros and consumers.
The future is bright
Since 2022, we have realigned our strategy to focus on supporting the professional lash artist community. We have collaborated with Milady to roll out our lash kits to beauty schools nationwide. We also recently signed a distribution contract with CosmoProf, which has 1,500 professional beauty supply stores nationwide. We are the first brand they’ve ever signed with for lash extension distribution. To me, this is a story of absolute triumph. I’ve always seen our brand as a household name in lashes, and that’s where we’re heading. We are the first professional lash brand to enter the consumer market, aligning with our goal of merging the worlds of lash professionals and consumers. Borboleta’s lash serum has been awarded by beauty editors at InStyle, Byrdie, Health, and People.
Money was never my driver. I fell in love with my clients and built a sisterhood with them. I always had their back, and they always had mine. That’s the same experience I want people to have when visiting a Borboleta lash artist. I like the pros to be viewed as more than beauty professionals but as actual professionals with real careers. That’s been my mission as we bring on more significant contracts, and they’ll always have a home here with Borboleta.
