We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Renae Franz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Renae, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

My horizons expanded one day into beauty after a trip home from school with my teenage daughter. She shared with me from a popular publication that the best lip color is one that matches your nipples. Yes. Your nipples!

A trip to Walgreens, thirty tubes of lipstick and three hours later, my daughter and I found our perfect colors. It was a lot of work!

Coming from a tech company background, I was inspired to create an easier way—an app that scans the color codes of your nipples to help you find your match. Thus, flirté beauty was born.

While I see so many people pigeonholed in their career, sometimes it is liberating to expand and reach into new areas. Wow, there is a lot to learn along the way if you are willing to try something new! It is scary yet also empowering to break out of your comfort zone. Because I was willing to make this leap and my skill set allowed me I was able to create the first sustainable, tech beauty company.

Renae, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

A bit about me…..My career for close to 30 years has been developing, leading and commercializing healthcare solutions, which includes efforts nationally & globally advocating for patient welfare & safety. Directly or thru the teams I have led, I have brought over 100 different medical technologies to market. While I have very little experience in the cosmetic industry, I have a strong passion to help others and impact their lives in a positive manner while caring for the earth. Whether it’s bringing a new healthcare solution to solve clinical problems, or in this case a cosmetic line that is good for you, the environment and our communities, my commitment is to empower people and preserve the planet. I believe that part of authentic beauty comes from using products sustainably sourced, straight from nature that are 100% vegan and don’t use animal testing. That said a cosmetic product has no value if it doesn’t work and/or no one will use it. That’s where I brought tech into beauty. After my daughter and I spent 3 hours trying to figure out our closest match (nipples to lip color) and loved the results, I wanted to see if it worked on people of all skin tones and ethnic backgrounds. That Sunday I had a yoga class with a diverse group and offered to buy anyone who tried to do it a free month of yoga. Two weeks later I had gathered feedback showing that 85% liked their closest match and 100% liked their one shade darker. The more pigment in the skin the better the color matching worked. However, everyone complained about how long the process took and it was expensive because you had to buy multiple tubes of lipstick. That’s where I had the idea to bring tech into beauty. There had to be a way where via an App you could discreetly capture nipple color and match to a lipstick. Hence, flirté beauty™ was born!
We have a patent on the concept and own the space of anyone who wants to use technology to capture nipple color and match to lips. Now that was not anything I could have seen myself doing even a month prior but took the leap and pivoted into this space.
In parallel with developing the technology I was trying to figure out how to create lipsticks that could be cleared with the FDA. I was shocked to learn that the US only bans 11 ingredients from cosmetics. Europe bans 1,200. Because of the lax standards the industry often makes product at the lowest possible cost. It was important to me to make the product line match my values so that is why the products are sustainably sourced and packaged in the US. The ingredients are formulated to European beauty standards. I continue to create product lines based on ingredients that help me feel good about using the products and how they impact the environment.
Did you know the average woman eats 7lbs of lipstick over the course of her life? If you are going to start with a clean beauty product, make it your lips because you both eat and absorb the toxins. Many of these toxins cause cancer. My way of giving back and honoring a loved one, my Aunt Susan, who died from breast cancer due to environmental exposure I donate a tube of lipstick.
Additionally, I have learned a lot more about sustainability. One area I was really hard on myself about was the bamboo packaging. Though it is compostable, and the inner core can be recycled, the tubes come from China. I was inspired after talking to a leading sustainability professor at the University of Arizona to learn that it is a journey. It is not about being perfect from the jump. It is a process you take one thoughtful step after another. Since then, I have been looking for alternative bamboo or other sustainable packaging in the US however am not beating myself up over the fact that I haven’t found a solution YET.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the pandemic when everyone was wearing masks and not lipsticks, I started selling a truly protective mask made from technical fabrics that were sustainably sourced.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

My initial capital came from friends and family.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.flirte-beauty.com
• Instagram: @flirtebeauty
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renae-moomjian/

Image Credits
@jackiesterna