Tarte founder and CEO Maureen Kelly was just 23 years old when she began working on products for her now-famous makeup brand.
During a 2023 interview with New You, Kelly referenced that she didn’t have business or chemistry experience before launching Tarte. However, she had an interest in natural makeup since childhood. She explained that her mother had “always created really natural everything for” her and her sister when it came to cosmetics.
In a 2022 interview on the TODAY show, Kelly noted that she began her company in 1999, using her single-bedroom New York apartment as her cosmetic laboratory. She said she eventually “convinced a lab to start working with [her]” after she realized she needed more products than she could whip up by herself “in [her] house.”
Kelly also told TODAY that she funded her business through credit cards.
“I had a credit card bill for $50,000 when it was all said and done,” recalled Kelly in the 2022 interview.
While speaking to New You, Kelly shared how she was able to get her products into stores. She said she had tried to launch Tarte Cosmetics in upscale department stores like Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, and Henri Bendel. However, “no one was calling [her] back,” causing her to panic about her business possibly going under. Kelly then decided to tell a “white lie” to a representative at Henri Bendel to help her company get started.
“I left a final [message], it was the seventh message for Henri Bendel saying, ‘I’m about to launch at Bergdorf Goodman.’ It was a little white lie. I do feel bad to this day about it,” said Kelly. “And she saw my products, and she said, ‘I will give you a chance. We have a press breakfast next week where we bring all the editors in. And you can have a little booth in the corner, and if they like your products, I will give you a counter here at Henri Bendel’s.'”
Kelly said one of the beauty editors at the press breakfast event immediately took interest in Tarte and ended up publishing images of the products in the magazine they worked for. According to Kelly, soon “Sephora and all of these stores around the country” wanted to stock her products.
Women’s Wear Daily reported that in 2014, Kosé Corp purchased “a 93.5 percent stake in New York-based Tarte Cosmetics for $135 million.”
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