YouSaid · the spoken record

Bobbi Brown

lines on the record: 71
first: 2018-09-17
most recent: 2018-09-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yes, when they decided what to name me, I was named after my great grandmother Berta, thank God they didn't name me Berta. Not sure anyone would use lipstick called Berta Brown.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that my intelligence is mostly emotional intelligence, which is dealing with what's around me. I am incredibly lucky and fortuitous and grateful and all of those things. I'm not the only one that works hard. I am not the only one that seizes opportunities. I don't know why, you know, things I do are successful. Not everything I've done is successful, but I keep going. And I'm really good, what I'm really good at, and I hope there's other entrepreneurs out there that understand this. I am really good at hiring people that are good at things that I'm not. That's really important because I'm not good at everything. And I told my aunt Alice, I'm not really good at anything. I'm just good at telling people what to do I'm really good at telling people what to do.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, but I would never put, even if I could, I would not put my name on a product anymore Because I have to be the face of that product. I don't want to be responsible for everything. I did that already.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To mold and shape and be in control of how things are. And so, no, I have no, I had no interest. You know, honestly, it's been a while. It took, I'm not going to say I walked out the door and it was fine. There was a lot of emotion the first month or two. There was a lot of emotion, you know, the first year. Now, year and a half. I literally could look at what's happening there and I unfollowed everything. So I don't see anything. But when I do see it, it's like there's nothing there because it's not the company. I found it and it's not the company that it's not my company. It's their company. And yes, I'm really proud of the products. I'm proud of everything I did. But the world has changed and the direction they're going is fine is what they want to do.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No. Honestly, if you really ask me why I left, I needed to be the boss again. Like when you're the boss, then, okay, something doesn't work, we could fix it. So, yes, when I left Bobby, it wasn't easy. The second it happened, or I went down the elevator and I knew that was that second, it was done, I had a relief come over me. Like, I can't tell you. The first relief was, oh my God. All these problems are lifted.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm imagining I'm walking down some street in New York. I pass you and I know it's Bobby Brown. I'm like, oh my God, Bobby Brown, I love your makeup. And you're on your way to work. And you would say, oh, yeah, thank you so much. And I wouldn't know that you were miserable walking to your powerful job at Bobby Brown.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Depleted and spent When I came home. So for two years, my aunt Alice, who was 80 at the time, would say to me, it's time My husband would say, Are you ready? Like, my friends would say, come on, enough is enough already. And I kept saying no because I think if we could just do this, if I could get this, you know, it could be better. And it didn't get better.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my god, there was just, you know, they started. I used to hire, approve and hire and interview every person that walked in that brand. And then I didn't anymore, and all of a sudden there were people working on my brand that I never met before, and that I might not have hired. And, you know, it was a struggle. And I tried to let go of the details, but then I realized the details were what makes the company so special. And so I kept thinking I could fix it. So I would walk in every day with an imaginary tape around my arm saying, okay, let me fix this. Let me fix this. Let me fix this. I couldn't. And, you know, the last year was really tough. I'm sure they were not happy with me. I was not happy with them. And it just was time for both of us to move on.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just because, you know, it got so big, the company got so big, the corporation got so big. They bought so many other companies. It was growing. It was huge. I am not a follow-the-leader kind of person. I am the leader, okay? I can't help it. And if I see things not working, Where it makes sense to me and wasting energy and time, I don't like it. And I like to. Do it differently. So, you know, and I like to try new things and invent new things. So, yeah, it was always a struggle, always a struggle. And so then the last couple years were really tough.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it's not a good idea. Okay, all right. 100%. And, you know, we were not friends for many years after we sold the company. And we just recently got back together the past couple years. So, you know, life is interesting.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't easy, and I'm sure it was harder for our partners at the time. They didn't stay very long. You know, we had a little bit of a tough relationship for a while because, you know, you start a company with friends and things happen and things get tough. And it was a tough time. There was a bunch of years where things... You know, Ros and I, and then the four of us, and after we sold the company, they moved Raz off the brand. She ended up working for the company for a while, and then she left.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had no interest. I didn't like the big corporate meetings, and I would sit there in some meetings, and I know I used to drive people crazy because I didn't do things the corporate way. And I'm sure people either looked at me as brilliant or really difficult or, you know, whatever. You know, the thing is, unfortunately, men could be brilliant when women are considered difficult.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so the idea was once Este Lauder was running the business side, you didn't have to worry about going to banks for financing. You didn't have to worry about supply chain. You didn't have to worry about payroll or accounting or not filing a letter with the Office of Tax and Revenue. And you didn't want to do any of that stuff.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know, but I didn't want to. Because I just wanted to have a fulfilling life with my family, my friends, and my kids”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'll get to we did. But no one's ever gotten the number right, and I'm not good at numbers, and I can't even tell you what it is, but it was like more than I could ever have imagined.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, when Leonard said to me, you know that we can help you grow your business and you could do what you really love, which is be creative and work on shoots, work on the brand, but not have to worry about the details, and we could help expand your business and you can have complete autonomy, you know, which means I could do what I wanted with the company and still be in charge.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. So we were invited to have dinner at Leonard Lauder's home. My partner, Ros and I were invited one night to his home and him and his wife at the time Evelyn. We had a beautiful dinner and fell madly in love with him, with her. And he basically said, you know, I'm really interested in buying your company. You've done, he said, what he said to me, he says, you have done such an incredible job. You are beating us in the stores. And we were beating SD Lauder and Neeman Marcus at the time. You are beating us. We can't beat you. So we thought we would buy you.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who had a salon and was a well known hairdresser. And he said, you know, Leonard Lauder would like an introduction to you. Can I do that? And I said, sure.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They did. They wanted a bias. We weren't for sale. We didn't think they were the right people to buy us. And we weren't for sale when we got the call from SD Lauder either”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then there was a Dallas-based company that tried to buy us, a finance company that basically finally said, if you won't sell to us, we're just going to knock you off with another makeup art, which they did, which is fine. I'm never afraid of that.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know they never paid me a nickel. And I never, ever push my brand. They would say Bobby Brown from Bobby Brown Cosmetics. And so it was an amazing thing because it established me as a beauty expert, not just someone who makes makeup. It was really my expertise. So it separated me, the person from the brand, which was good, but it also really helped the brand.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Jeff Zucker was the executive producer of the Today Show at the time. Oh my gosh. And it was a Friday. Monday I was on the Today Show. I was in my dressing room. You know, my PR team at the time was beyond excited doing how to put your makeup on something. Probably Katie was interviewing me. Jeff came up and he said, Grammy, You know, wanted me to have you on. I said, That's awesome. And he said, I hear you want to be a regular. I said, I'd love to be a regular. He says, okay, you're a regular. I said, when can I come back? He said, How about next month? I said, okay, once a month, he said, okay, fine. I was on the Today Show for about 12 years, 15 years. And honestly, being a beauty expert on the Today Show probably put me on the map.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and then I happened to be in Florida doing a personal appearance for one of my makeup products and also for my first book. And I'll never forget it was in the inner circle, which were the fancy ladies at Neiman Marcus. I finished my speech and I said, any questions. And this little red-headed lady, you know, grandma type, raised her hand and I went back. You know, I remember I put my hand on her shoulder. She was so cute. And she said, yes, I have trouble keeping my lipstick on. How do I do it? And I said, well, and I gave her the answer. And she looked at me and she says, thank you. She said, are you Jewish? I said, yes, I am. And she said, I've seen you on the Today Show. I've been on once. I said, thank you. And she said, as a Jewish, this is off microphone. She said, she said, you've done so much. Is there anything else you want to do? I said, I don't know. I said, I don't know. Maybe I'd love to be a regular on the Today Show.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“but also at the same time I was becoming a known beauty expert on the Today Show. Which was really a major launch in the brand and the business. So the story behind the Today Show was that I wrote my first book.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Um, certainly, you know, and especially in Dallas, where they would look at me like, she's the plain Jane type, you know, because in Dallas, the makeup, the hair, the jewelry. You know, it took a while to. That's Neeman Marcus. That's Neeman's. That's the fancy stuff. It took a while to be beloved by those women.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Accountry. They call them doors actually. So we open four doors, four stores. Started adding products, and I would visit the stores and do personal appearances, usually with my husband and my baby or babies in tow, because we always You know, I never like to be apart from them. And they always came. And I would travel to these markets and I would be on their local TV. I'd be in their newspapers. So it was a full-on press thing.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Paid by Burgdorf Goodman. When While we were at Bergdurf, well, we added pencils and then we added eyeshadow. Like we did everything not strategic, but as they came up. And we added them. And we were pretty much with the same lab for most of the time. And then Bergdorf, you know, one day we were doing so well at Bergdorf Goodman, they said, you know, we're a sister company of Neeman Marcus. They would love to try you in four stores. So we opened up four stores in Neeman's. And a store is”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Outside of the cosmetics department, where I think they had handbags. And so it wasn't for any other reason, but people thought it was a brilliant genius idea that we marketed ourselves apart from the noise of the cosmetics floor.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were. On 5th Avenue, right? On Fifth Avenue, and there was no room in the cosmetics department, so they put us on a table.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we thought we would sell a hundred lipsticks the first month, which, you know, that was the thought, and we did a hundred the first day.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because my husband and I did not have the expertise. You know, we had no idea. We were 31 year old kids with a new baby. He was in law school. He was a real estate developer. I was a makeup artist. I knew how to make these lipsticks. I knew what it should be. And we were this couple that we were friends with. He had been in the cosmetics industry. And she was in PR. So it was, you know, a magical pairing. That's how we started the brand.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We pretty much emptied our bank account, which was, I remember $5,000 my husband remembers ten thousand, I trust him more than I remember my memory, and we actually partnered with these friends of ours who, one girl was in PR and the husband was in the cosmetics industry. So the four of us partnered together that”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Building in my apartment building in New York City, and I said hi. She said hi. And I said, what do you do? She said, oh, I work at a cosmetics. Lab in Queens. And I said, Oh, do you have a card? And I had my lipsticks recreated there. And they made my lipsticks. Met her in the elevator”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She brought them in. I mean, I had no press release, I had nothing. She called me back and she said they're really interested we'd love to take them. And that's when I realized I had it really changed the way we were doing things. And, you know, I had to find a different way to scale up than the chemist because that was the only way he knew. So I parted ways with the chemist and I had to find a lab to recreate the lipsticks the way I wanted. And we needed to find someone to do it. I remember making all these calls, but then one day I was in an elevator and I said hi to the girl in the elevator and she said hi. I think we were on the 11th floor so we had a few minutes”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I never even shopped at Bergdorf Goodman back then. And I said, whoa, I'm doing this line of lipsticks. You know, perhaps you want to look at them And she said love to. Let me bring him in.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I ended up going to a party in the city with some friends and friends that actually eventually were going to be our partners in the company and I met her friend Allison and I said thanks for inviting me. I'm Bobby. She said nice to meet you. And I said, what do you do? And she said, I'm the cosmetics buyer at Bergdorf Goodma.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People started calling up and ordering lipsticks Um, you know, it wasn't like, oh my God, I'm gonna be rich, oh my god, I could pay my mortgage this month. It was just, you know, steady things coming in and we got a bunch of offers. You know, people wanted to purchase lipsticks, so I don't even think, you know, we sold 400 of them. I mean, we sold a bunch of them. This”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, 15 bucks. And when I first started my plan was to sell them to models, to editors, and then one day I was having lunch with a girlfriend who was the beauty editor of Glamour Magazine at the time. And she said, so what's going on? You know, we'd both had young babies and I was talking about the kids. And I said, you know, I'm doing, let me show you this thing. She goes, oh my God, that's so cool. She said, can I write about it?”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So, no, once we agreed that we would be partners, there was nothing in writing. It was just, wow, this could be interesting. It wasn't anything more than that.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or something. Yeah, and I would either mail it to him or I would say do this. And yeah, back and forth, back and forth, he made them for me and I did everything else”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know cherries in the snow, and I'm like, why don't we call them beige pink, orange, red? So, you know, raisin, I named them what they look like.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You'll get $7.50. I'll get $7.50. I thought, okay, that's a deal. So I had a lipstick that I called brown because I thought it was brown based, not because of my name. And then I thought everyone's going to love that. And then I said, you know what? Not everyone has the same color lips. And I started studying people's lip color. And then I sat down and I thought about all the different lip colors. And then I said, you know, some people don't like lip color lipstick. They like red, orange. Someone likes a good beige, a pink, but I said, you don't need 15 different pinks in your makeup kit. Let me make the ideal pink. Let me make the ideal orange. So I sat down and I thought of 10 different colors. I worked with a chemist. He made these colors. And I thought, all right, let's put a number, one to ten, but let me name them. And I wasn't going to name them the way lipsticks are named.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And did it look like a pharmacy? Yes. Okay. Everyone's wearing white and it was exactly There was a chemist on site, and he had these lipsticks, and I remember touching them, and I said, wow, these are really nice. He said, oh yeah, I make those. And I said, you make them. And he says, yeah. I said, oh, I would love to be able to make a lipstick. He said, I'll make it for you. I said, all right, I said, what I want, you can't buy. I said, I want something that doesn't smell. I want it to be creamy but not greasy. I want it to look like lip color. I can't find a lipstick that looks like lip color. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, well, and I pulled out my taupe eye pencil and my pinky blush. And I said, look at when you put this together, if you put a little bit of balm on it and blot it on your lips, he's like, all right, give me those things. And he went home and he sent it to me. And I said, oh my God, I love this. I said, I bet I could sell this. And he said, all right, why don't you sell it for $15? He said, I'll make it. You sell it.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was pregnant with my first baby and I was on a photo shoot for Mademoiselle magazine. No, it was self-magazine. And it was called Makeup Shopping at Alternative Places with Makeup Artist Bobby Brown. And they took me to different places. And one of the places downtown, I guess I took them, that I took the crew to was Kiel's pharmacy. And Keel's at the time was this independently owned, cool place. I brought everyone down there. We were shooting there. And while they were shooting, I was talking to the chemist that was there. And he had a little, a couple lipsticks.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I chose that. I chose that. I wanted to be, I wanted to go through that tunnel, put my hair in a ponytail, put my sneakers on, be in the park with my dog. You know, I'd rather be home with my husband and my baby than, you know, stay, I couldn't understand why they wanted me to stay at a fashion chute until 10 o'clock at night. Just because they took a long time deciding things. I'm like, no, I'm out of here at six.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, but when you do advertising and catalog, like catalog at the time was paying between $250 and $500 a day, and that's when you do makeup on a bunch of models for a Saxfith Avenue or a Macy's. And then if it's a commercial, you got a couple thousand. But everything you do, you meet people. And you tend to move in packs. If a hairdresser gets... Booked for something, they book you, and then you know you start doing advertising, and that's could be up to $5,000 a day. And by the way, while I did those things, I also had a very, very serious relationship. I got engaged. I moved out of the city. I had friends. I had a normal life. I started having kids at the same time.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I was at the top of my game, and by the way, you do magazine work and editorial. It's fantastic. No matter how big it is, you still get $150 a day.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fashion model. Probably two of my hugest aha, like back then was when I had a six or eight page spread in American vogue with one model Tatiana Petite and it was literally full face, full bleed, full face, a makeup story only on different looks, different makeup. That was like, put me on the map. And then the next map was a cover of Vogue with Naomi Campbell.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On TV, I had these really simple things I looked for. I wanted to make the foundation to actually be the color of the skin. And, you know, I had a mix and blend because most makeup on the market was bad. And, you know, having a giant kit, I had everything. So I would kind of, you know, smush a lot of it together. And people started taking pictures of it. It looked really good.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, alright, so let's go back to the 70s and the 80s. The makeup back then Was the epitome of unnatural. Foundation was pink. It stopped at the jawline. It was contour, eyes were, eyeshadow was yellow and purple and blue It was all of those things. I was always doing more of a, now it's called a bobby face and now it's called nude makeup. But back then, it was just, I always made people look healthier. I wanted people to not look like they were wearing makeup, and I even had one very, very famous makeup artist, you know, who I asked his opinion on stuff, said, you will never work because people don't want to look like that. And I don't want to look like that. People want to look made up. And, you know, I just couldn't do it.”
2018-09-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bobbi Brown Cosmetics: Bobbi Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT