STYLE : STYLEMAKER : Formula for Success
A lot of little girls like playing dress-up. But Victoria Jackson preferred playing with makeup. And not just her own. “I wanted to do other people’s makeup,” she recalls. “I didn’t necessarily have the talent, but I knew there was something I wanted to express through makeup.”
Today, 30-odd years later, New York-born Jackson and her mail-order company, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, may be the hottest things going in women’s grooming. Where success in the beauty business once seemed to depend on European roots and the suggestion of an aristocratic background--Helena Rubinstein, Charles of the Ritz--Jackson has cultivated a no-nonsense image for the ‘90s.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, after earning a cosmetology degree, Jackson worked as a Hollywood makeup artist and built up a loyal following that included actress Ali MacGraw. She also taught a course in makeup technique at UCLA Extension and began selling her own specially formulated makeup base out of her garage. But instinct told her that if she could combine her teaching experience and her sheer foundation, she stood a chance of rivaling the cosmetics legends.
“Everybody lined up to tell me no,” she says. But three years ago, American Telecast Corp.--the company that helped put exercise guru Richard Simmons on the map--came up with the bulk of $10 million in start-up capital, enabling her to assemble her company and produce her first half-hour infomercial, which featured MacGraw and actress Lisa Hartman and aired on cable stations around the country. Last year, sales totaled more than $50 million.
Why would women buy cosmetics they see only on TV? Jackson thinks that many are intimidated by the salespeople at department stores. In contrast, her video stresses simple steps any woman can learn. “ ‘Winter, summer, fall. If you’re this season, you can’t wear that color’--I hate all that,” Jackson says.
And what’s next? “A line of jewelry with another spokesperson, Annie Potts of ‘Designing Women,’ ” she says. “But I don’t want to say too much about it until people see it on TV and say, ‘Oh my god, what a great idea!’ ”
