MEET JAMIE KERN LIMA: CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF IT COSMETICS
The saying goes that if you love your work, you’ll never work a day in your life, and that perfectly describes the passion that Jamie Kern Lima has for IT Cosmetics. The brand’s co-founder and CEO, Jamie was inspired to create the solution oriented makeup line by her own personal beauty challenges of covering up rosacea prone skin and enhancing sparse brows. She works with plastic surgeons to develop formulations toimprove skin and balance women’s needs for visual enhancement and solution oriented skin care. Here she tells Beauty in the bag how she transitioned from TV news anchor to cosmetic maven, and how she develops the best possible products.
Tell us a bit about your background. How did you get into the beauty business?
Before launching IT Cosmetics, I spent several years as a TV news anchor. Looking awake for the 5am news wasn’t always easy, especially while dealing with rosacea and sparse brows. After accidentally wiping my brow off in the middle of a broadcast, and never being able to find products that gave true full coverage without creasing, cracking or making me look older, I was inspired to partner with plastic surgeons and create a line of problem-solving products. In fact, many of my personal beauty woes and those of women I know have inspired several of IT Cosmetics’ award winning products today.
What is the philosophy of IT Cosmetics? How does it differ from other cosmetic brands?
At IT Cosmetics, we believe every woman is beautiful, we believe great makeup can give you great skin, and we believe that when you get our products home, you don’t need to worry about being an expert because the products are superior. They literally are developed to do the work for you. That’s why we work with a team of leading plastic surgeons and for us we focus on developing clinically-proven color cosmetics and skin care products that are so cutting-edge in their anti-aging technology and formulations that you can see the results in your skin the first time you wear them. My goal is when you wear IT Cosmetics you get compliments on your skin. That is how we’ve built our brand—by this happening and by real women getting real results and spreading the word!
Does IT Cosmetics have a hero product? Why do you believe it is so successful?
We only launch hero products, which is what makes us different from most brands. We don’t do trend or a million eye shadow colors, as I feel there are amazing artistry lines out there that do this very well. I have to believe in every ounce of me that a product will change women’s lives and their skin or I won’t launch it. So we launch fewer products than most companies but when we do I have to know in every ounce of me that it will be a hero. But I guess our three most famous hero products include Bye Bye Under Eye® Concealer, which is a truly full coverage, anti-aging concealer that literally covers everything and is often imitated but never duplicated. Our CC+ Cream with physical SPF 50+ is a truly full coverage CC cream that is life and skin changing Our Brow Power® Universal Eyebrow Pencil truly looks like real hair. One thing I rarely get to talk about is that for the life of our company, for every Brow Power pencil we sell, we will donate one to the Look Good…Feel Better program to help women undergoing cancer treatment feel more confident. To date, we’ve donated more than $4 million in Brow Power pencils.
Creating new products is a blend of artistry and technology. What has been the biggest challenge for getting the formulations you want?
At IT Cosmetics we spend even more money on clinical research than we do on packaging or marketing. Every woman has a different set of skin care problems that she needs solved. We seek out these issues through our own research and talking with everyday women and our loyal customers. We then work with an incredible team of leading plastic surgeons to develop clinically proven solutions and formulations. And we won’t stop working or put a product on the market until the formulation is perfect and gives you powerful clinically proven results. We strive to find the most beneficial, healthy, safe, and rewarding solutions that will further IT’s position as THE problem-solving brand.
Please share a makeup secret with our readers for visually turning back the hands of time.
The easiest way to look youthful and full of life is by getting eight hours of sleep. Since that’s not always possible, I use Bye Bye Under Eye Anti-Aging Concealer to cover any dark under eye circles, which can make you look tired and sometimes older. I also use Brow Power, which helps to cover grays or sparse brows. Eyebrows frame the face and create symmetry, and symmetry equates to beauty in the human eye. So many women forget about brows, which are one of the quickest ways to look younger. I was recently traveling through Asia and I was in such awe of the beauty there—everywhere I looked women had thick, full brows (often from makeup), flawless skin, and a flushed lip. As we age, we lose our brows—it can start in your 20s so just using a product like Brow Power, if you do nothing else, gives you the look of naturally full brows, and creates a frame of symmetry for your face. Brows are one of the easiest ways to look like your most beautiful you.
What’s next for IT Cosmetics? What would you like to be doing in five years?
I want to continue to change women’s lives every day, to remind them that they are important and that they are beautiful and that they are worth it. They deserve to find products that help them truly look and feel their most beautiful. I want to continue pouring my heart and soul into creating these products for them. I love showing women live on QVC why we often spend years developing a product and then showing them live how it works. I love that women can go to ULTA stores and touch and try IT Cosmetics and see for themselves how they work on their skin. When I hear from women of all ages about how we’ve solved their problem or simply that an IT Cosmetics product makes them feel beautiful – that is why I live and breathe.
Leave a Reply
