Starface is one of the biggest beauty success stories in recent years. Not just financially (however, they did just land a $105 million minority investment) but more so in terms of its cultural capital. The pimple patch brand – famous for its original 'big yellow' star-shaped hydrocolloids – dismantled everything we've been marketed about acne. Instead of aiming to 'fix' your skin, Starface positioned acne as something to be highlighted, even celebrated. Got a pimple? Gold star for you. Starface injected fun into one of the most sensitive skin 'issues' and the sentiment has absolutely resonated. The stickers have been seen on the likes of Addison Rae, Justin Beiber, Hailey Bieber, Amelia Gray and Dua Lipa.
Co-founded by former beauty editor Julie Schott and entrepreuner Brian Bordainick, Starface just launched into Australia via Mecca. To mark the occasion, I caught up with Julie and Brian to talk all about the acne experience, building a brand for gen Z, collaborating with Hello Kitty, beauty standards, beauty icons and how subversion can be the key to success.
The entire interview, below.
So firstly, how did you two actually meet and decide to start working together? Brian I know you don’t really have a beauty background…
Julie: Brian's wife introduced us. Rachel Strugatz and I met backstage at a Tom Ford show when she was at Women's Wear Daily. You know what it's like backstage? Intense. We bonded and became friends immediately. She had started in accessories covering fine jewellery, then got promoted to beauty.
Brian: Rachel and I had just started dating, and I'd done some stuff in entrepreneurship but had never made a physical product before. She was like, "you should meet my good friend who's trying to get this idea off the ground." Julie and I met, we clicked and then we went into business together remarkably fast.
So Julie, going back a bit, what got you into beauty and magazines?
Julie: Hmm... I don't think I chose it, I just kind of ended up there. I knew I was obsessed with magazines and was dying to work for one in some way... any way I could, really. I started interning at Elle Accessories department while I was in college in New York. It was a twice yearly jewellery publication with all fine jewels. Imagine. Keeping track of every little precious item sometimes felt like my world was ending because the stakes were so high. But I liked it. Anyway, Emily Dougherty was the beauty director at Elle print at the time. I got sent over to help her with something, and I never left. I got passed from beauty department to beauty department and realised I really liked writing about products and how people thought about themselves and that intimate relationship. There's something really universal about it beauty.
And the idea for Starface – how did that come up? I've read a lot of your past interviews where you've discussed the fact you had access to every product, every expert, but you always had a pimple...
Julie: So basically Starface was an extension of "write what you know," which was what I was doing at the time. When you have acne, you're inclined to write about skin. You're going to write about everything you're trying, what you're observing. When I look back at those stories, so many of them are acne-focused.
Anyway, Elle was really science-forward and I wrote this story on antibiotics and how antibiotic tolerance can make your acne resistant. Even though everyone was being prescribed antibiotics for acne? Basically, what I learned from it all and came to understand – both from myself and from other people – is that there's not a cure for this thing. There's not an acne magic bullet. What might help someone will do nothing for someone else. That's just the way it is. If that's your skin type, that's your skin type. I was rashy and acne-prone. I always had been. I sort of developed this acceptance for myself, and that took the weight out of it. Just naming it, writing about it, it made me feel better. That was the kernel for me; if you just talk about something, you immediately feel a little less alone. Having a secret will weigh you down...
Brian, as someone who was a bit of an outsider within skincare, what was your initial take on the idea of putting a star on your face?
Brian: In a lot of ways, and maybe this is looking back with rose-coloured glasses, neither one of us had made a physical product before, so we were asking a lot of questions that were probably incredibly basic. But they got us to where we are because we unlocked a lot of new ideas and ways of thinking.
When Julie was first ideating on Starface, we stepped back and asked: how did we wind up here from a category perspective? Why is the acne care the way that it is? If you look at the skincare shelf, especially as it relates to acne or blemishes, it's very clinical. The messaging is very "there's something wrong with you – eliminate it, blast it, heal it, cure it."
I think a lot of it was because, even though 95 percent of people have pimples throughout the course of their life, there's a lot of money to be made by saying, "there's something actually wrong with you, and I have the cure in a bottle." The whole category evolved that way. Everything wound up white, drab and treatment-based.
We had the perspective of, "wait a minute – this doesn't actually have to be that way." Having little beauty experience was probably a great thing for me because it offered an open mind. Plus Julie had the experience and great baseline idea. That's kind of how we got going.
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And why stars?
Julie: It started as this idea of 'gold star for you', like a reward. A reward for your pimple.
You've definitely resonated in this sense. To me, Starface feels more like a conversation than just a product, especially for younger people. Did you think about Gen Z when you were building, or did it just happen?
Julie: We talk about this a lot actually. If we had done focus groups or sought out data before putting the product out, the data would have said, "don't do it." No one wore decorative patches on their face. I don't think anyone would have said they wanted to if we asked them, either.
However, the way we were posting pre-launch was like a call and response. Even when it was just my little Instagram, I'd be posting stars and people would reply. It became "gold star for you," then "what's Starface?" and then "give me Starface." They'd never even seen the finished product. We didn't fully know at the time the meaning of it, but it was an early predictor that there was something there – a need and a desire – and that it was resonating. We just followed that through line. Even now, it's all about listening. We're reading the room every day.
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You were and are still so known for your stars, but you do topical skincare now too. How did you think about that expansion while staying true to the brand's philosophy of acne positivity and lightheartedness, in a sense?
Julie: First, you have to provide a service. If you're not solving a problem, that's always the first question – is there a need that's not being met, and could we meet it in an entirely new, creative way? You don't want to be redundant. There's cool stuff happening in beauty aisles that would be fun to take on, but we only go where we think we can bring something different.
Brian: And we're always trying to stay true to the genesis of the brand, which is elevated, fun and accessible. We're always looking at it like this: is someone else doing this? Can we be creative? Can we bring our brand experience into this space? We always want people to use our products and feel a certain kind of way. If you pull our lip balm out of your bag, it's cute, it's collectible, it's also a great lip balm. We don't want to fall into a "me too" way of thinking where it would be easy to say, "oh, that brand is doing it – we could do that too." It's not how we want to grow.
Julie: And people have strong feelings about the stuff we make. It can be love-hate. You love the scented balm or you're not into it. We don't really live in the middle... There's no point in my opinion because I feel it's those brands that get kind of lost.
Amazing. So the limited collaboration patches – Hello Kitty, for example. Tell me about that. Was it always the vision? To me it gives the brand even more of an accessory element... they're super collectable.
Julie: Oh, we were knocking on Sanrio's door for a while. Brian was relentless with that. From the start we were like, it's got to be Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty's got over 70 years of fandom behind it. People have Hello Kitty tattoos. I am fascinated with that level of obsession. Hello Kitty is the most iconic global character and so it had to be her.
What's the process, collaborating with a global brand in that way?
Brian: When we first met with them and we were working through the initial designs, they gave us access to everything they'd made over the entire brand lifespan. It was just wild. The depth they've gone to and how tight they are with the brand from an image perspective, we've certainly learned a lot from them in that respect.
So tell me, what's your opinion on how the acne conversation has changed over the past five-ish years?
Julie: It's an interesting thing to look at. When you listen to the generation we mostly serve at Starface, it's a completely different experience than what you and I had growing up. It has shifted, and once that shift happens, there's no going back. When I talk to a seventh grader now, she's saying, "oh, I just put a Starface patch on and I feel cute and I feel better," and "I like seeing one of my favourite celebrities show their skin too." She didn't grow up getting shown the stuff we got shown; she never saw the sad before-and-afters. Those teen experiences and coming of age experiences are formative. The first fourteen/fifteen years of our lives are intense. I think seeing things, like acne, through more of a positive lens is important and necessary.
So Julie what are you using right now; what are you doing to your skin?
Julie: I still have acne-prone skin. I'm still going to break out if I'm traveling or have a rash for no reason. I'm kind of in a less-is-more approach right now; a more intuitive take, listening to my skin. It's easy to get swept up in a regimen, like "I must do this every single morning and every single night." I just listen and react accordingly.
Are you a treatments person? Aestheticians?
Julie: I'm a nail and hair person. Coming out of my mag job and into Starface, I found I unconsciously made a shift from corrective treatments to more expressive stuff. I don't want to do things focused on looking younger or editing myself. I do not relate to looksmaxxing. I just want to have a good time. I want to change my nails and dye my hair a different shade every single month. To me, that's a better use of time.
Who colours your hair?
Julie: It changes, but Alex Brownsell from Bleach London is the person who first made my hair red. She is like, amazing.
So what's your favourite part of running Starface? What do you love the most?
Julie: I love casting. Casting is my dream job.
I loved the campaign you did with Devon Lee Carlson with the bleaches brows. She was on a rollercoaster and with baby chicks?
Julie: Oh yeah, she was incredible too. It was freezing but she's so professional and funny and beautiful. That was a great day.
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Who else is on your radar in beauty?
Julie: Did you watch the winter Olympics? I've been obsessed with Alysa Liu forever. She wears Starface, which is so cool. I watched a video of her explaining her approach to her hair once. It's been like years of her applying another line of bleach to get that striped effect? It's this whole process, and it's so real. She has amazing style. I love the band Wet Leg, too. The lead singer has worn Starface. That was so exciting to me.
Brian: I look outside of beauty a lot – spirits is an area I find really fascinating right now. It's similar in a lot of ways to beauty because the barriers to entry have gotten lower, new players have come through, but it still takes a lot of work to stand out. They don't take themselves too seriously either, which is super fun. I'm always attracted to brands that are a little less earnest and serious – brands that are fun and stand out without being super preachy.
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If you could put a star on anyone's face, who would it be?
Julie: Oh, my brain is like shutting down. I've not been asked this... Okay I can give you two: Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Or Romy Mars and her boyfriend!
I can see her wearing one...
Julie: Can you imagine? Major. I love her.
Starface Hyro-Star
Starface Hydro-Star
Images: @julieschott, @starface, supplied.
