Bobbi Brown is en route to her second billion-dollar company

The last time I interviewed Bobbi Brown was almost two decades ago. The make-up artist-turned-beauty mogul was still leading the eponymous brand she had founded in 1991, and had sold to Estée Lauder reportedly for $75mn. It was hitting $1bn in annual sales. During the 20 minutes I had with her at a London hotel, jugs of cucumber-infused water were brought to the table – Brown’s tip for a skin-hydration boost that I replicated at home for a while. Today, Brown, now an elfin-looking 67 and a grandmother, is sitting cross-legged on a banquette in a different glamorous hotel sharing her recipe for another cucumber-infused refresher that I will also try later. “I call it Bobbi Rocks. One extra large cube of ice in a short glass, a pour of tequila, cucumber pulp, lemon juice and fresh mint. An American pour of tequila though,” she stresses. “Your pours are so teeny over here.” 

Bobbi rocks these days. After leaving what she now refers to as “The Other Brand” in 2016, she is more relaxed, more, she says, “herself” – somewhat ironically, given that she had to leave behind her name. “That’s not hard,” she insists cheerfully, “because I’ve been able to reinvent myself.” And so she has. Four years – “not even”, she interjects – from launching Jones Road Beauty, Brown is on her way to making her second billion-dollar cosmetics brand, this time doing it with full creative control and with members of her close family on the team: her husband Steven Plofker, with whom she has three children; their son, Cody Plofker, now CMO; and his wife, Payal Patel Plofker, senior marketing director. Apparently, a family business wasn’t the plan. When I say I’d assumed it had been the very essence of the plan, she gasps. “Oh my god, do you think I ever said, ‘You know, I’d really love to leave one corporation of people telling me what to do and start working with my family?’ No, I did not plan this. It just happened.”  

Initially, she believed she “was done with beauty”. Not least because she still had another four years to play out on the stringent 25-year non-compete she had signed in 1995. Instead, she studied nutrition and started a wellness-supplement brand, Evolution 18. It didn’t fly. “I tried and it wasn’t über-successful and I learned that everything is not just going to be successful because I touch it,” she says. “But I don’t really believe in failure. If you’re worried about making mistakes, you’re probably not trying enough things.” On the day her non-compete was up she launched her new beauty brand.

Jones Road Beauty is the second incarnation of the “no-make-up make-up” look that first made the Chicago-born Brown famous in the early 1990s. At a time when full coverage, full colour was the norm, Bobbi Brown was the minimalist. Her sleights of hand enhanced the naturally beautiful for glossy magazine covers and advertising campaigns. 

The natural look of the 1990s isn’t something she feels particularly nostalgic for. “We used to take foundation and put it all over the lips and now we realise that we looked sort of dead. The difference today is that now I want either shine or colour.” While Bobbi Brown Essentials launched with a range of 10 versions of the neutral lipstick, Jones Road entered the market in 2020 with four takes on a Miracle Balm. The balm, a hybrid of corrective base and skincare, became a madly successful hero product. Company lore goes that the mix of two in one was a mistake. “When I first saw it I said, ‘This is not what I wanted,’” Brown says, “but then I put it on my face and I couldn’t believe the improvement. I said, ‘Look how good my skin looks! It’s a miracle!’” 

Jones Road Miracle Balm in Pinky Bronze, £36 for 50g

Jones Road Shimmer Face Oil, £34 for 15ml

In its pot Miracle Balm looks forbidding, a shiny solid reminiscent of greasy stage make-up. But when applied (Brown digs in, rubs her fingertips together and pats it on her skin with both hands) it results in the kind of glow so desirable today. But it’s polarising. “Some people love it, some people don’t care for it at all,” admits Cody Plofker. Ruby Hammer MBE, make-up artist, brand founder and a friend of Brown, is more diplomatic. “I love it but you have to be very discerning with it because it does leave a lot of radiance. It’s a very user-friendly product in real life to add shine and gleam. But for photography, you have to be a little careful because it catches the light.” Its success is unarguable however. Now available in 13 shades (£36), it currently accounts for around 30 per cent of brand sales according to Plofker, who estimates they’ll sell more than a million this year. 

Other categories are creeping up behind, particularly What The Foundation (£42), a tinted moisture balm in 16 shades. “We definitely feel better about having two hero products than one,” says Plofker. Its concealer and colour-neutralising Face Pencils (£24) and mascara (£24) are also big sellers. A world is being built. Jones Road merch includes logo sweaters. There are now five standalone stores in the US with a sixth, in Brooklyn, on its way. The retail model avoids wholesale but Brown loves Liberty in London and has made it the exclusive department-store stockist. 

Jones Road What The Foundation, £42

Jones Road The Face Pencil, £24

Jones Road The Mascara, £24

Jones Road Lip and Cheek Stick, £34

The appeal of the brand lies in its edit; its brown-paper-sandwich-bag-style packaging, meanwhile, plays on its simplicity of use. “I’m a solutions person,” Brown says. “I literally do my make-up in the car on the way to work or to dinner with my husband. Sometimes I have two minutes and sometimes I have seven, but I don’t take more than that and that’s the woman Jones Road is for.” 

Fiona Harkin, foresight director at strategic foresight consultancy The Future Laboratory, says the business has tuned into the needs of an under-served Gen X consumer. “Any brand that appeals to the time-pressed needs of women in this group, as well as their Boomer counterparts, who no longer want products that simply speak about ‘ageing’ but instead focus on ‘becoming’, will have the wind beneath them,” she says.

In its first year, the brand reportedly made $20mn. “Bobbi thought it would do a million. For sure, we did that in the first month,” says Plofker, who came on board as a consultant and ended up staying full time. This year, they’re expecting to make at least $150mn. The billion-dollar goal? “We’re not near revenue yet. That’ll be a while. But in terms of the valuation we’re pretty close.” 

Brown herself is more circumspect about the future. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I know what I’m not going to do, I’m not going to…” She stops. “No, I don’t know.” Oh, finish the sentence, I say. “You’re not going to sell to another big company?” It’s not that. “It would have to be the right partner who really saw my value. And didn’t think they could do it without me. But I’m not looking for an out. What am I going to do if I leave again? Jones Road is where it’s at.” 

For all her way with a zeitgeisty product, Brown is also a very successful communicator. In the 1990s and 2000s she published nine books, the first two of which were the beauty bibles of Gen X and older millennials. These days, like any good direct-to-consumer brand founder, she is prolific on Substack, Instagram (@justbobbidotcom), YouTube and Pinterest. “Brown’s renowned expertise in the industry, and her social media posts and tutorials, have enabled the brand to authentically communicate with consumers and build trust,” says Rosalia Di Gesu, Mintel associate director of beauty and personal care. 

Jones Road is unafraid to pass the mic to its customers. Its Facebook group of 76,000 superfans are, Payal Patel Plofker says, “very quick to share their opinion”. The beauty consumer of today is vocal; brutal, if they don’t like something. “That can be a challenge,” she adds, “but the brand has been able to evolve significantly based on the feedback.” The ready-made kits or bundles are a case in point. “We try and take into consideration those people who don’t want to make decisions. They’d rather say, ‘You know what, Bobbi picked this. Let me just use this one look that she made.’” 

Brown loves the conversations, positive or otherwise. “I get to know what people like and don’t like,” she says. “I see their comments, and I know what they want. I know what things they want us to bring out and I get to respond to that.” But isn’t it a little bit exhausting, all the reacting and responding and pivoting? Brown looks taken aback. “Exhausting? It’s fun! What’s exhausting about it?” I guess when you’re Bobbi Brown in your rocks era, absolutely nothing at all.