A new face for cosmetics

You may not have heard of Lisa Price yet.

Just wait. You will.

Price is gaining fame quickly for parlaying her hobby - cooking up fragrances and skin cream in her Brooklyn, N.Y., kitchen - into Carol's Daughter, a successful, thriving business with enough body care products to fill an 80-page catalog.

She has been featured on Oprah. Hollywood couple Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith became her customers, then endorsers, then investors. Her company recently opened its second boutique, a flagship store on historic 125th Street in Harlem. Luxury cosmetics chain Sephora sells her products in 35 stores, and 40 more stores - including the Sephora store in Tampa - should begin carrying the line next year.

"When I first started making these products in my house, I thought, at best, I'd have this cottage industry that would allow me to be a stay-at-home mom," she told The Tampa Tribune in a telephone interview last week.

"I never thought it would be what it is now."

Price heads to Tampa later this week to discuss Carol's Daughter: how she established the company, how it grew, and what other entrepreneurs can learn from her experiences. She'll be the keynote speaker at Friday's Women Business Owners Leadership Conference.

Americans spend $33.2 billion a year on makeup, hair-care and skin-care products, according to Kathleen Dezio, executive vice president for the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association in Washington, D.C.

Dezio cited a recent report by research firm Kline & Co. that shows industry sales rising by about 3 percent a year.

"This is a vibrant, innovative, growing industry," she said.

Dezio said she sees a lot of entrepreneurs and startup businesses entering the skin-care and make-up industry. They're not just creating innovative products, but they're often forced to find innovative ways to reach customers because retailers only have a limited amount of shelf space.

Carol's Daughter doesn't release sales or earnings figures, but spokeswoman Lauren Rodolitz said the company is experiencing "triple-digit growth." Besides its two stores, catalog and the retail partnership with Sephora, the company also sells products through its Web site, www.carolsdaughter.com, and through several independent retailers.

Price called the company Carol's Daughter because her mother's name is Carol.

Like many female entrepreneurs, Price faced two major challenges in establishing her company: First, she had to shepherd her growing business from its earliest stages - she began by selling her skin creams at flea markets across New York - into maturity. Second, she had to balance her business responsibilities with the demands of raising a family.

How'd she do it? Not by setting rigid goals or forcing her company to grow too quickly, she said.

"I let the company kind of guide me as to where I wanted it to go," she said. "I didn't sit down and say that in two years I'm going to be somewhere. I made plans, but they were always, at the most, five months out."

Balancing work and home life was difficult because, for many years, Carol's Daughter operated out of Price's house.

"It's kind of like living in a fishbowl because you have employees in your home," she said. "You don't have a separation between your personal life and work."

Price says she draws inspiration from other successful businesswomen. She cites Martha Stewart as a role model.

"This may sound a little weird, especially in light of the fact that she got into a little trouble," Price said, but Stewart "does things her way and she's brilliant at branding who she is. She's almost like an adjective. People say 'That's a very Martha color," or 'a very Martha table setting'."

Price said she's also driven to succeed by many of her customers, such as Pinkett Smith, the actress who fought sentient machines as Niobe in "The Matrix Reloaded," explored race relations with director Spike Lee in "Bamboozled," and lent her voice to Gloria the hippo in "Madagascar."

Price said she has kept a picture of Pinkett Smith in her office since 1996, when the actress first became a customer.

"I would use her as a reminder that I knew what I was doing, because she was in a position to purchase anything from anyone, and she chose to buy my products," she said.