A Baton Rouge permanent makeup artist turned years of client conversations into a community-built beauty brand. Haylee Clark’s goal was to solve a problem that her clients couldn’t find an answer to. But during the process, the brand found its focus in building confidence and became much more than a cosmetic product.

As the founder of permanent makeup business HM Cosmetic Tattoo, Clark heard the same recurring concerns of eyebrow hair loss. While various serums existed to remedy the situation, none were safe for her clients with permanent makeup. So she developed FATBROW to fill the gap.

From the product’s packaging to its applicator, Clark took her community along with her to help shape the brand and created a business built just as much on collaboration as on the serum itself.

At the start of the product development process, she turned to Instagram and asked her followers what they wanted.

“I thought people were going to want a brow gel or something like that,” Clark says. “But an overwhelming response was a brow serum. So I thought, well, let’s give the people what they want.”

FATBROW was merely an idea for nearly two years before she finally found a chemist who believed a permanent makeup-safe product was possible. And it was a journey that did not leave her unscathed, she notes.“I feel like any entrepreneur can say, if you want a lesson in some self-development, start a business,” she says.

Support from the community built long before there was a product available to purchase. Throughout the brand’s initial development, Clark invited her social media audience to give their input on nearly every creative decision. Followers voted on packaging, colors, fonts and even the applicator, transforming what could have been a simple product launch into a collaborative community effort.

The only thing Clark kept a secret was the box the serum comes in. With sweet, surprise messaging on the inside of each one, FATBROW intends to make women feel bold, powerful and confident from the moment it’s unboxed. She says her branding purposely leans into the stereotype of womanhood, and she wants users to be reminded that being a woman is fun and that you don’t have to be serious all the time.

“I feel like the brand is a love letter to my clients, and even to myself, because I don’t always feel like ‘that girl,” Clark says. “But when people use the product, I want them to think of the messaging as if it’s a big sister telling them, ‘you are that girl.’”

As her brand grows, Clark says that she plans to continue letting the same community that built FATBROW help shape where it goes next. For her, fuller brows alone were never the end goal, but building a community where women feel confident enough to be “that girl” is.

fatbrow.com