Beautiful Inside & Out!

By Joanna Cosgrove

Online Editor

It’s estimated that the average woman ingests between two to four pounds of lip gloss in her lifetime – that’s roughly 708 tubes. With the notion that life’s inevitable ought to be more edible, tarte Inc. has teamed with BORBA, both based in New York, to formulate Inside Out, a vitamin-infused, soothing lip gloss line up that’s beneficial for the lips and not so bad if it’s unavoidably consumed.

“Customers are growing increasingly savvy in many different ways. With the proliferation of information about environmental & health concerns as well as beauty blogs, TV shows and magazines that translate what was once industry jargon into laymen’s terms, women are demanding more from their beauty products,” commented tarte’s Alexis Mezzina DiResta, vice president. “It’s no longer enough to create a lipstick that makes you look pretty—it needs to make you look good, feel good, and (hopefully) be good for you too. As a result, healthy beauty and environmentally-friendly beauty have become huge trends. The Inside Out lipgloss is reflective of those trends.

Borba has a short but unique history of blending beauty products with nutraceutical ingredients. The company markets a line of drinkable Skin Balance Waters, “skin treatment-infused” nutraceutical candies and a topical skin care collection infused with fibers like hydrolyzed cotton, elastin, silk, spandex and diamond dust, which is said to envelope “the epidermis from above and below to create optimal skin conditions.” 

BORBA Founder, Scott Vincent Borba, admits the Inside Out line, however, began with a cold call to tarte Founder and CEO, Maureen Kelly. “To be honest, I cold called and pitched the concept of a vitamin-infused lipgloss with nutraceutical ingredients,” recalled Mr. Borba. “We both felt that our brands made a perfect match and decided to do it right then and there.”

Inside Out includes natural ingredients from BORBA’s Age Defying, Replenishing and Clarifying product lines. According to product literature, ingredients like acai and green tea extract help strengthen capillary walls, reduce epidermal irritation and enhance skin’s clarity and radiance; grape seed extract and vitamin C help accelerate production of natural elastin, protecting skin against free-radical damage and restore skin’s clarity; vitamins A, E and K act as antioxidants and impart a healthy glow; lychee extract promotes long-term skin hydration; and chamomile extract soothes skin and helps to counteract redness.

Mr. Borba said his company identified and provided the cocktail of ingredients they would best provide the Inside Out consumer with skincare benefits. While product development was a joint effort, the credit for the packaging and gloss color choices fell to Ms. Kelly.

The pomegranate-scented Inside Out line is available in a set of three colors – apple-a-day (sheer shimmery hot pink), om (sheer shimmery nude) and liquid sunshine (sheer shimmery pale pink) - and retails for $45. Inside Out glosses are also sold individually for $21 at www.tartecosmetics.com and www.sephora.com