How a Big Risk Paid Off for Patrick Starrr’s One/Size

Subscribe to Full Coverage by Priya Rao: unpacking how shifting ideals, new players and cultural movements are transforming the global beauty and wellness industries.

Welcome back to Full Coverage.

I made it back to New York from LA, although I was very delayed. Thanks to everyone who came out to our community event at the Living Room last week with Amazon Beauty. It was a great night — the best independent founders and lots of drinks and conversations flowing. A big thank you to another group of beauty friends, who showed up to our executive roundtable with TikTok on Tuesday at Hotel Chelsea. Come to the next one!

A Drunk Elephant Comeback?

In earnings this week, Drunk Elephant parent company Shiseido emphasised its refocus on profitability in the Americas. Part of that strategy was squarely focused on former darling Drunk Elephant. Shiseido is planning a “full scale brand repositioning” of the brand in 2026, and will reduce channel inventory and cost.

We all know that Drunk Elephant has struggled since its acquisition by Shisiedo in 2019. Even before the Sephora tween craze, sales had softened (after a bevy of similar brands had hit shelves and it moved into Ulta Beauty) and its clean proposition felt tired. While it had a temporary bump from Gen Alpha, largely due to its eye-catching packaging, items were routinely sold out, the formulas were touted as too harsh for children and young customers moved on, as they do.

I imagine Shiseido is planning a more serious realignment for Drunk Elephant to win back its Millennial and Gen-X consumers, but without founder Tiffany Masterson at the helm, it will be hard to do. What is the soul of the brand today? Who is it for? I don’t know.

Here We Go Again

This week, Daniela Morosini had the scoop on Carisa Janes’ bougie new line, Outside In. Janes, the founder of Hourglass, reportedly had the IP for this line, which includes a foundation and matching brush, as well as a face oil, years before Hourglass was acquired by Unilever in 2017.

Janes joins a slew of entrepreneurs searching for their next act, from Urban Decay’s Wende Zomnir (Caliray) to Stila’s Jeanine Lobell (Neen) to Too Faced’s Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson (Polite Society) and Bobbi Brown with Jones Road (the most successful of them all). Even Joe Cloyes and Greg Gonzalez of Youth To The People launched Lore this fall, just two years after selling to L’Oréal. I know of at least three other founders, who sold their business in the last three years, that are planning their next brands (in a non-competing category, of course).

I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial family — my parents were professors in Laredo, Texas — and I only had a handful of friends growing up who did have family businesses, typically oil and gas rigs passed down from generation to generation. Maybe it’s less likely that founders will carry on a company via their children today. Or, maybe said founders didn’t make that much in a sale and need something to sustain them for the next 30 years. The pitch with most beauty founders, though, is that XYZ brand is their life’s passion, their blood, sweat and tears, but so many beauty founders are proving they’re not one and done, for better or for worse.

Now onto the main event: my thoughts on the need for risk-taking in beauty.

Patrick Starrr’s One/Size and the Power of Innovation

I got to spend my week in LA with some of the best independent beauty brands in the market. I can’t give you the full list, but I bet you can guess.

One name that kept coming up was One/Size, the influencer brand founded by OG YouTuber Patrick Starrr (born Patrick Simondac) and incubated by Luxury Brand Partners. Though only five years old, One/Size has a lot to boast about — according to the brand, it is a top five line at Sephora US and has the number one best-selling SKU in both prestige and mass with its On ’Til Dawn waterproof setting spray. Yes, you read that right.

When Starrr launched his line in 2020, he came to market with a familiar schtick: a full-throttle inclusive shade range that followed in the footsteps of Fenty Beauty. (It also debuted with the typical fare: eye palettes, brushes, the works.) While foundation is important to get right for any complexion brand, foundation didn’t become One/Size’s calling card, setting spray did.

It’s easy to discount setting spray because it exists to lock in other products. It may not seem as integral to a brand’s repeat purchase pipeline as foundation, concealer or mascara, but it’s hard to deny that Starrr and his team, led by Juliette Tang, have reimagined the category.

Not only is its On ’Til Dawn a bestseller, but its version with SPF and its Powder Melt Glass Setting Spray are also hits. Recently, the brand launched its Bouclé Silk Airbrushed Talc-Free Finishing Powder, a formula incredibly hard to get right without the now blacklisted talc; it ranks second just after On ’Til Dawn.

You guys have heard me talk about hero products endlessly, but in beauty you can’t rest on the obvious. You have to be willing to take chances and right now, One/Size is one of the few brands that is doing that.

Tang told me the brand is on track to hit $150 million in revenue for the year, up from $115 million just a year ago. And yes, a slew of other brands are launching setting sprays in One/Size’s wake.

LBP and Sephora were “cautiously optimistic” when Starrr and team pushed the setting spray idea in 2021, she said, but eventually couldn’t deny the volume. Makeup artists and TikTok creators were so taken with On ‘Til Dawn that they tested the product in the most extreme settings, while swimming in Palm Springs heat, in crushing rainfalls and while crying.

One/Size’s setting spray business now drives around 70 percent of all setting spray sales at Sephora. But the brand has expanded the setting proposition, which it calls a “top coat” (referencing a manicure) with base coats, its selection of primers. Customers are reportedly buying up to six products in a single setting, and the brand doesn’t really care if it is using On ‘Til Dawn with Starrr’s own products or offerings from other lines.

When asked if she was surprised by the momentum, considering we are in a “clean girl” beauty moment, not a “glam” one, Tang said smartly, “Well, it’s clear that everyone is our girl.”

Last year, The Business of Beauty reported that LBP was exploring a sale of One/Size and sister brand IGK. I called up Tev Finger, chief executive of the incubator, this week for a check-in; he said the company has had a historical relationship with investment bank Sage Group (due to its sales of Oribe, Becca and Pulp Riot to strategics) but the process is not active. “I want to see how the market shakes out,” he told me.

Retailers are known to push trends when one brand is working; it’s why Target is hyping women’s supplements right now and Sephora continues to drive fragrance. That is not always in the best interest of individual brands.

I’m not saying you can’t riff on something and make it better. That’s clearly what One/Size has done and if you think about it, so did Touchland — taking something that we already use and making it cooler and more relevant. The second, third, fourth or fifth brand to follow isn’t innovating; it’s chasing.

Right now, there is a lot of talk that beauty is boring. I blame that on the proliferation of the same brands coming to market. I don’t think beauty is boring, we are all just starved for something new.

What I’m Reading

My close friend Charlotte Cowles — and favourite The Cut writer — does it again. She explores why more women feel like they need GLP-1s to move up in the workplace. [The Cut]

There’s no such thing as filler fatigue in Mar-a-Lago, where DC surgeons are seeing an influx of MAGA-verse patients who “want to look like they had something done.” [Axios]

The Times is on it! We all know that K-Beauty is dominating globally; now the paper of record explores the trend. [The New York Times]

Can prestige brands really own the haircare category if people won’t pay up for their shampoos? Our newest reporter Rachael Griffiths investigates. [The Business of Beauty]

The “crunchy to far-right pipeline” is a slippery slope, says the now-collapsed Teen Vogue, which suggests ultra-conservative wellness influencers are the female answer to figures like Andrew Tate. [Teen Vogue]

Bustletells us everything we want to know about plastic surgery today in its latest beauty guide. [Bustle]

Thanks, everyone.

Priya

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