Interview with Jerrod Blandino of Too Faced

I was very happy today to be able to interview Jerrod Blandino of Too Faced. Jerrod is the co-founder and Creative Director of Too Faced. He had time to squeeze me in for a very quick phone interview. Below are the questions that I was able to ask him.

Interview with Jerrod Blandino of Too Faced

Q. Why is Jillian your HSN Ambassador and how did you two meet?
A. Jillian and I met over 20 years ago. I was working at Saks 5th Avenue behind the counter and Jillian came in. We became fast friends. I told her that one day I would own my own makeup line. Jillian said when that happened that I had to call her.

When I launched Too Faced, I called Jillian and she had me come on TV with her in LA on a local channel. It was a hit!

I often send products to her, bounce ideas off of her, and get her feedback on things. We’re very good friends. We were out at dinner one night and we were talking about HSN and I said she should be the HSN Too Faced Ambassador, and she agreed. It was a lot of fun!

Q. Are you excited for your first ever HSN show?
A. Yes! Too Faced has been around for 17 years. It seemed like such a far away dream for us to go on HSN! I’m so happy that it’s finally happening.

Q. What are your best selling products?
A. Our best selling products are Shadow Insurance, which is a cult favorite that I know you love, Better Than Sex Mascara, and the Chocolate Bar palette. All of the products that we put into the HSN Today’s Special are our best selling products and fan favorites. This HSN special is really a big ‘Thank You’ to our fans. It’s an amazing value and it will only be available for 1 day! We’ve never offered anything like this before.

Q. How do you come up with playful product names like Better Than Sex?
A. We worked on Better than Sex mascara for 3 years. Can you believe it? During one of the final days, I said ‘We nailed it! This is the Holy Grail of Mascara! Oh my God, this is better than sex!’ and everyone who was there working on it with me laughed and agreed, so the name stuck! For the Chocolate Bar palette, the name came from the ingredient, of course.

For me, Too Faced is an emotional brand – from the packaging to the products and their names. I want you to feel the joy and humor in everything we do. We call it the Too Faced wink.

Q. What’s the story behind Melted Lipsticks and their inspiration?
A. My mom and I were out shopping one hot day and she left her La Creme lipstick in the car. The lipstick was, of course, a hot mess by the time we got back to the car. So when she went to apply it, the lipstick got all over her face. I couldn’t help but think ‘Oh, it’s so beautiful! It’s so rich, glossy and yummy, I need to capture that!’

So when I was in the lab working on some lipsticks, I dipped a testing stick into a batch of La Creme lipstick and held it up next to a regular lipstick. Again, it was rich and juicy, and I just KNEW I had to capture that! So I worked with my lab to keep it like that. It was really inspiration from an accident. The Melted packaging took a while, too, because we had to figure out how to keep it in its liquid state, as well as the best way to make the applicator. The applicator has 8 holes and the flocking so that it can be easily applied.

Thank you so much Jerrod for taking the time to speak with me today! We really appreciate hearing from you!