How Bobbi Brown Became A ‘65-Year-Old TikTok Sensation’ And Reinvigorated Her Career | Forbes

In May, makeup mogul Bobbi Brown had a decision to make: should she clap back at the TikTok influencers who were misusing her newest product, a moisturizer-like foundation, or should she keep her mouth shut and avoid feeding the outrage cycle?

Brown split the difference. She recorded educational videos about how to properly use the foundation (sparingly, not in fistfuls, as some wayward TikTokers had done) and one joke reel that poked fun at the gobs of product the influencers were using. Naturally, the joke reel went viral, drawing north of 4 million views.

“I was like, ‘Uh oh, am I gonna get canceled?’” Brown said five months later. She mentioned the incident during a makeup master class for her new brand, Jones Road Beauty, in front of a live audience of some three dozen—wait for it—social media beauty influencers. She got laughs in response, because of course Brown was not canceled. “Foundation-gate,” as her son Cody Plofker refers to it, has only endeared Brown more to the social-media masses.

It’s a new chapter for Brown who, two years ago this month, launched Jones Road, a direct-to-consumer beauty line in Brown’s signature minimalist, “no-makeup makeup” style. Jones Road is the first cosmetics company Brown has been allowed to create since selling her first brand, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, to Estee Lauder for a reported $74.5 million in 1995. Then 38 years old, Brown signed a 25-year non-compete clause, figuring she’d be happy turning Bobbi Brown Cosmetics into a billion-dollar brand under the umbrella of a bigger company until it was time to retire in her 60s.

While Brown maintains that she doesn’t regret signing the 25-year non-compete—“I don’t believe in mistakes,” she said. “I believe in an opportunity to shift and fix things”—she nonetheless got an itch to leave Estee Lauder before the contract was up. She announced her departure at the end of 2016, and bought herself a necklace charm with the date when she’d be legally allowed to operate in the beauty space again: 1020, for October 2020.

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