ILIA stopped treating “natural” as a purity test and started treating makeup as a delivery system for skincare. That pragmatic turn helped a lip-balm experiment become a prestige beauty business approaching $200 million in annual revenue.
Chantecaille turned a missing butterfly into a beauty business model: botanical formulas, collectible color and conservation stories sold at prestige prices. Now owned by Beiersdorf, the family-built brand is testing how far that unusually gentle formula can travel.