“The Patagonia of the beauty industry”: Why Erika Geraerts left Frank Body to start beauty company Fluff

Two years ago Erika Geraerts, the co-founder of $20 million skincare company Frank Body, decided to depart the wildly successful business she’d built with her four other co-founders to create an entirely new category in the beauty industry.

She wanted to fight back against the Instagram makeup trends of influencers with perfect skin touting products to change every aspect of someone’s appearance, telling SmartCompany the goal of her new company, Fluff, is to “pare back” and simplify beauty products and beauty routines.

“We call it casual cosmetics, and our product philosophy is to help women and girls pare back their beauty routines and still let them look like themselves,” Geraerts says.

“There’s already enough makeup in the world, and we don’t need more products, we need better products with better brand messages.”

This is a change of tack for the multi-time business founder, who previously sat at the head of a company with a philosophy running contrary to the concept of ‘casual cosmetics’. Read more

Dominic Powell - SmartCompany - 9 August 2018