When work all but dried up in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the pause gave Marcia Williams an unexpected opportunity.
Having launched her makeup brand Embellish Beauty nearly a decade prior, it wasn’t getting the time and attention it needed to flourish. That changed in 2020.
In the two-plus years since the pandemic took hold, Williams has grown her Conshohocken-based business dramatically, quintupling products from 10 in 2019 to more than 50 today. She’s also brought on an investor and is now looking to expand into retail.
Williams launched Embellish Beauty in 2011. Part of the brand focused on doing hair and makeup for clients, including for weddings. During that time, a number of women expressed that they had gluten allergies.
“It was really eye opening to see it could be life-threatening if you had gluten in a [beauty] product,” Williams recalled.
So she began researching alternatives and ultimately decided to create her own gluten-free line. That soon extended to clean beauty – the practice of eschewing certain chemicals – and a new segment of business was born.
Williams launched her product line with lipsticks, still a top seller today. But several years after she debuted Embellish, Williams landed a gig with West Chester home shopping giant QVC. Working there for six years – often at odd hours due to the filming schedule – product development for Embellish languished.
Then Covid hit. With lockdowns forcing closures, Williams lost her job at QVC and the brides whose weddings she had booked, so she turned her attention back to Embellish.
“I wanted to focus in on the product and really give my all to the product,” she recalled.
More than product development, Williams also decided to revamp her business model. When she launched, Williams not only formulated, but made and packaged her products. At the time, she was working out of the Weavers Way co-working space in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, where she was also able to get some of her products into the co-op’s store.
It was a time-consuming process she didn’t want to repeat. Plus, she knew it wasn’t scalable.
The process to formulate, especially in the early days, took time — upwards of nine months for product development, she said.
“To come to market, you want to make sure that it's right and that it's going to serve a really good purpose. People make products all the time. That's not new. But I want to be different. I want to be better. I want to be innovative as much as possible,” Williams said, noting she now works with a production facility in Canada.
Embellish is what is considered a “solutions and results-based beauty” brand, as Allison Weiss Brady calls it. Brady came on recently as an investor in the business, in which she now owns a 25% stake. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Brady is a Philadelphia native and University of Pennsylvania alum whose background is in public relations and marketing, as well as the modeling industry. The pair first met just prior to the pandemic at a women’s networking event in Philadelphia. They clicked and soon struck up a relationship.
This is Brady’s first investment in a beauty brand, though she has been an investor in other projects, including Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s documentary “On the Shoulders of Giants.”
Prior to Brady's involvement, Williams bootstrapped the brand. Together, they hope to take Embellish to the next level.
That is already well underway. In the past two years, Williams has launched a bevy of new products, including numerous lipsticks, mascara, blush and highlighter, plus her popular eyelash kits. The magnetic lashes can be re-worn up to 40 times and come in 11 styles. The idea for them came partially as a result of the pandemic, when eyes became a dominant feature with much of the rest of the face covered.
As with her lipsticks – which are meant to be moisturizing and long-lasting – the eyelash kits were also about solving problems many women have when applying traditional lashes with glue or for those who have latex allergies. Using a special eyeliner, the lashes adhere to the liner via magnets, which also make for easy removal.
The Eye Candy Lash Kit has sold out twice already, or upwards of 300 kits, Williams estimated.
Williams’ target demographic is women in their 30s through their 60s and, as a biracial individual, inclusion is integral to the brand. As such, she formulates colors that are suitable for an array of skin tones. “I want all women to feel beautiful and luxurious and sexy when they have my product,” Williams said.
With a vast array of products and new ones in the works, Brady and Williams are now looking to the next phase for Embellish, which includes retail partnerships. Currently sales are direct to consumer and come from as far as Africa and Australia, though they are heavily concentrated in the U.S.
“One of the things that we're looking for is to hire someone, preferably local in Philadelphia, that has experience in beauty and bringing products to retail stores,” said Brady, noting they’re looking for a consultant for that and marketing and social media roles.
They’re also considering other ways to grow the brand, possibly through additional investors, though both want Williams to maintain majority ownership.
“We can always use more investment because we'll just grow that much quicker,” said Brady. “We just want to grow and grow quicker by having a bigger team around us.”
Where does your interest in the beauty industry stem from?
MW: My grandmom was a hairdresser. That was the start of me wanting to be in the beauty space. I [initially] wanted to get into hair. I wasn't really thinking of makeup on the larger scale of things.
What are some products you’re considering?
MW: I often think about the things that I work with when I am working on someone. What are the essential things that really make a beautiful bride or what are the essential things that you and I need to have on before we leave out of the house? One of the things that I think about is setting spray. I think they're essential for artists to have in their kit, I think is great for the brides to carry along, something that smells good, that's refreshing, but that's also going to set and matte out the look. That's something I've been thinking a lot about, and then also prepping the skin is really important because your makeup is only as good as your skin is. … So a mask or some sort that can go into a kit as well I think is really important.
Where are you looking for retail partners?
AB: I think we're probably going to start off with some local Philly places just because Philly loves to buy Philly. We'd love to be supported in our hometown area. I think [high-end] spas and hotels. … We’re open to obviously Ulta and Sephora and all those because they do carry some of our competitors.
MW: Target, Sephora. I'm open to Ulta for sure.
