ILIA Beauty Founder Sasha Plavsic On How She Accidentally Created a Global Beauty Brand
“For the first five years, honestly, I’d say it was an experiment”
As ILIA Beauty celebrates its 10th birthday this year, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia chats to founder Sasha Plavsic, as she shares how she turned an experiment into a budding beauty empire….
Harper’s Bazaar Arabia (HBA): Did you ever intend to work in the beauty industry?
Sasha Plavsic: Being in beauty was a total accident; it was at a pinnacle point in my life. I felt really lost and I could have stuck with what I was doing, but I decided to disrupt it and leave the life I had created behind. I started over.
In 2009 I looked at the ingredients in my products and realised there was a lot I didn’t want to be putting on my body. I set myself a project of recreating my cherry tinted chapstick into something more natural.
HBA: What made you look at the ingredients of your products?
SP: My mum would question “What’s in your products? What are you putting on your skin?” The reason why was my brother was sick at a young age and developed an autoimmune illness, which caused a lot of damage to his body. My mum was very curious to how to heal him; a lot of it came down to allergies. So, from the early 80’s my mum was very aware of the environment surrounding him.
HBA: How did you go from creating a lip balm to a global beauty brand?
SP: As an entrepreneur or founder, you have to recognise where you’re strong, where your talents lie and where they don’t. I wanted the brand to be in some of the best lifestyle stores in the world; that was my goal and I reached it relatively quickly within the first year. I didn’t foresee it, as I had no money at all, the brand was started with a loan that was only paid due to my dad passing. There was no help and honestly for the first five years, I would say it was an experiment.
HBA: As a natural and clean brand what separates you from others in the industry?
SP: Our mission is to protect and revive the skin. When I create, I want the product to perform its function. For example, a cleanser should remove the makeup, cleanse the skin but not strip the skin, it should make sure that the pH is balanced. I want something to do its job, then after I can add whatever my skin needs. We also don’t prioritise the millennial [consumer] but also her mum. It’s important to talk to different generations, because nobody has been speaking to them properly and they really love to be spoken to.
HBA: How do you care for those with allergies when creating products?
SP: There are actually ingredients in a lot of skincare that are classified as allergens and there’s more people allergic to them than they realise. Fragrance overall is the biggest disrupter to your skin so all of our complexion products are fragrance-free. If you want a floral experience, we’re probably not the brand for you. We decided to be very transparent and list all traces in our products.
For example The Super Serum Skin Tint SPF40 has been listed as a top foundation but it’s not a foundation, just a tint packed with skincare. You have to shake it as it’s a bit thick but a little goes a long way. Honestly, it doesn’t smell great, but that dissipates on application but it’s because there’s no fragrance.
HBA: What is your beauty routine like?
SP: I think it’s more of a ritual. I use a lot of the same products every day; sometimes it rotates. I use one of our complexion products like our True Skin Serum Concealer or a Multi-stick, maybe some mascara; I keep it pretty simple. I generally like products that don’t give me an instant result but work overtime.
How has the pandemic altered our approach to beauty?
SP: People are looking for something simple because life has become in some ways more simple. Personally, I want to make myself feel better even if I’m staying at home and I think one of our benefits is that we are a makeup-skincare hybrid.
HBA: Why is it important to ILIA to have a strong standpoint on sustainability?
SP: There has always been a sustainable aspect, but it needs to be stronger. In this industry there needs to be big improvements. Our approach to sustainability is very rational; we are in the process of re-adjusting packaging materials and relocating to certain manufacturers closer to our labs to help reduce our carbon footprint.
HBA: ILIA also encompasses social responsibility is this something we will see more of?
SP: I think everybody is liable for that today and when your company gets to a certain size you should put a focus toward it. It’s hard to do in the beginning because of cost and people need to understand that a business can fail early on. Now, we’re at the point we can support and we’re going to keep doing more of what we do. The campaign ‘Between Us’ was inspired by what happened in the world last year. I really wanted to remind people to connect. We’re also currently creating something that I can’t release yet, but it’s something unique to us that goes back to our mission to protect and revive the skin.
HBA: What’s next for ILIA Beauty?
SP: We have an anniversary launch that’s coming in June and we’re definitely going to celebrate a little bit. As it’s unbelievable to see where we are and we have to remember to celebrate the milestones and moments where we’ve achieved something great.
For more information, visit powder.ae.
Images courtesy of Instagram/@iliabeauty
