BTS: Making Mascara 101.

 Saie sits down with Sarah Tallman, our Head of Product Development, to chat  the early days of our award-winning Mascara. 

We're a team of big beauty experts bringing our expertise to clean products that actually work. It's our collective experience and our eagerness (maybe obsession?) to use ingredients that are as clean as it gets and unparalleled in performance that guided us as we created our award-winning Mascara 101. It took us over two years to develop but we finally made what Allure editors deem is "The clean mascara to beat". Today we're interviewing our Head of Product Development, Sarah Tallman, to learn what makes Mascara 101 so incredible.

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Saie: Can you give us a little insight into how Mascara 101 came to be?

 ST: Mascara was the # 1 most-requested product by our community, so it felt like the natural choice when we were deciding which product to formulate first. We knew it had to be beyond amazing and different from other clean mascaras on the market,  so we worked on it for over two years before we had our finished product. 

 My first goal for the mascara was that it needed to be incredibly clean (I’m happy to say we pulled it off with 100% naturally-derived ingredients) and perform at the same level in terms of look and wear as all of the best-selling non-clean mascaras out there. It was a tall order! It took a lot of persistence and time, but we got there by setting our standards really high and refusing to settle for anything less, as well as a lot of trial and error until we were left with a mascara that all of us would be excited to wear. Something I'm very proud of is our custom brush. We make our brush in Italy and it takes months, but it's very important in how the formula lies down on your lashes and combs the product throughout each lash.  Everyone is obsessed with the little bristles at the end of the wand that grab bottom lashes and hard to reach lashes in corners and around edges of the lash line.

Saie: If you had to say in 3 words what makes Mascara 101 so revolutionary, what would you say? 

 ST: “Never dries down.”

Saie: What's the best thing anyone has ever said to you about Mascara 101?

 ST: Honestly, we get letters, DM's and texts about it daily. People can't believe that they've found a mascara that works at this level but is made with only clean ingredients that are good for them. We had a lot of people reach out during quarantine saying they had to give up their lash extensions because they couldn’t go to the salon, but Mascara 101 totally made up for it, AND their lashes are longer and more conditioned than ever. My favorite quote though, was probably when a celebrity wrote to us saying that Mascara 101 had replaced her designer mascara (one that's probably the top-selling mascara at Sephora). That was a thrill and so rewarding to hear!