Did you use a makeup brush today? If you simply nodded your head yes, chances are it was designed by Anisa Telwar-Kaicker, a powerhouse who’s been the main innovator in the makeup brush industry for three decades. But opportunities are you’ve yet to discover who she is.

That’s due to the fact that Telwar-Kaicker invested the very first 25 years of her profession creating and white-labeling brushes which have actually been sold to you, the customer, by basically every major brand you can think about, like MAC, Trish McEvoy, Sonia Kashuk, Sephora Collection, and Revlon among others. Anisa works with more than 700 different brands and is the style genius behind 65% of the brushes with a 4.9 star score or higher on sephora.com (how’s that for a remarkable stat?). Her company ship more than 20 million makeup brushes each year from a sustainable manufacturing facility she owns in China. In addition to her B2B organization, in 2019, Telwar-Kaicker released Anisa Beauty, a direct-to-consumer brand and her very first venture into selling brushes straight to individuals.

However before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s return to the start.

Telwar-Kaicker began Anisa International in 1992 at the age of 24, after operating in imports and exports at her mom’s international trade business for 7 years prior. She didn’t even have a college degree, but what she did have was tenacity, one heck of a work principles, an imaginative eye, and a healthy dosage of innate business savvy.

” When my mother’s business liquified, I had a friend whose family made cosmetic brushes, and I asked if I could try to market the brushes. I informed him, ‘I require you to offer them to me, however when I earn money, I’ll pay you.'”.
So with no credit line, no mission declaration, and a couple of samples, as she tells it, Telwar-Kaicker began reaching out to the biggest cosmetic organizations on the planet offering stock brushes. Soon, she got company from a little brand called Revlon (no big deal). She began designing.

” As I began to consider how I might survive, and how I might add value to the industry, I started thinking of artistry brushes and how to make brushes more valued, however likewise the end consumer,” she says. “Not everybody is a makeup artist, but everyone needs brushes. So I began making these brushes and telling brands, ‘This is what your everyday consumer desires’, and some people started to believe me.”.

We overtook Telwar-Kaicker on the heels of the 30th anniversary of her pioneering business to get more information about her brand and what continues to make it stand apart.
InStyle: After 27 years with a B2B business design, you introduced Anisa Beauty, your very first direct to customer line, in 2019. What made you choose to branch out after so long?

Anisa Telwar-Kaicker: The landscape was altering, and you had makeup artists and celebrities launching brush collections and not everybody was strolling into MAC any longer. I was also revealing innovation and my partners weren’t actually taking it, so I required another platform to show my partners that individuals want what I’m innovating. I was simply someone selling brushes for 20 years, now I’m really able to prove what people want. Now after Anisa Beauty’s Pinnacle Foundation brush has actually been so popular, soon you’ll see the trademarked Pinnacle Foundation Brush design being offered by other brand names, too.

You likewise released a line of skincare brushes with Anisa Beauty in 2020– a first for the market. What was your process for developing the idea?

When you look at the skincare items we utilize, they are so fantastic and have so much effectiveness and are so innovative, and a lot of people use skincare more than makeup, so it was a natural development for me to start thinking about what tool you want to use all that fantastic skincare. The proper tool would supply a more even application, optimize product penetration, help with the skin care layering process, and it actually assists you be more purchased that moment [of self-care] when you apply your skincare. However it also has to be made completely in a different way, down to the glue that holds the fibers in location, due to the fact that the acids and oils in skin care can break down the routine glue. I truly dug into this idea.

You have more than 90 patented and patent-pending brush designs, and your new Crescent Brush and Primer Brush for eyes are unlike anything else I’ve seen. How do you handle to continually innovate in such a saturated market?

I like making a difference in individuals’s appeal routines. You have to stop and consider what kind of product individuals are using and after that the pick-up and settle various head shapes, fibers, and even the type of handle will give them. And now with the direct connections we have with clients, we have feedback from the people using brushes, which input assists sustain the imaginative process, too.

You led the idea of making makeup brushes cruelty-free, patented the first cruelty-free brush designs, and transitioned the market from utilizing animal hair. What was that procedure like?

When I started in the market, all brushes were made out of sable and squirrel hair, and when I discovered out how the animals were killed, I knew it had to stop, but no one would think about moving away from animal fibers. Individuals were beginning to become more sensitive to the issue of animal cruelty, and it ended up being a simpler sell as time went by.

Anisa International is based in Atlanta, which isn’t precisely the beauty capital of the world. Why did you decide to make this city the headquarters?

I moved to Atlanta for personal factors as I was developing this service, and while I most likely “ought to have” transferred to New York or LA, the airport here works well for a worldwide company. I have actually certainly had to move individuals here to get the right individuals on my group, but I’m continuously telling people “appeal lives in Atlanta, too!” We desire individuals to understand that!

Returning to underserved neighborhoods has always belonged of your business design at Anisa International, as has social responsibility in general. Because the summer season of 2020, when people started holding services more accountable about equality, variety, and addition, you have been really singing about what your company is doing to progress even more.

Businesses are stewards when it pertains to their people. And as business leaders, creators, and owners who have a platform to speak, how can we not speak to equality and oppression and not do everything we can to make a difference? I am the leader of an international organization, and individuals in my business were and are affected by inequality and oppression, which’s truly frightening. I want people to know not just what we’re doing to continuously enhance the culture of this company for everyone who works here, but also where we invest and contribute. Since regional and international injustices matter to me, and I will constantly be transparent about what I support.

You have 3 years worth of successes, however what are you most pleased with when it comes to the empire you’ve constructed?

Anisa Beauty is my 2nd excellent pride. It was terrifying, having constantly been behind the scenes, but I get such happiness when I see an individual from Ohio bought $100 worth of my brushes. It provides me terrific pride when individuals like what we develop.