Launch Date: 1997
Geography: New York, NY, US
Founder: Laura Geller, Founder + veteran makeup artist
Executive Team:
2026 Full Year Projected Revenue: $300M - $400M, according to industry estimates
Primary Category: Makeup
Other Categories:
Funding: Family Office
Primary Distribution Channel: DTC
Other Distribution Channels:
Key Retail Partners:
Key Markets: North America
Laura Geller Beauty was born backstage on Broadway, where I spent years creating looks that had to survive hot lights, long rehearsals, bigger dance numbers. I took that performance-tested expertise and disrupted the beauty aisle in 1997 with a mission: make high-performing, pro-level makeup joyful and effortless for real women.
Long before primer was a category, I introduced consumers to Spackle, one of the first primers for usage outside of TV and movie sets. I then pioneered artisan-baked makeup, baked on terracotta tiles for 24 hours. The result: weightless, creamy powders that don’t cake or crease on mature skin and deliver a lit-from-within finish that became a brand signature. Today, Laura Geller Beauty leads the pro-aging movement by celebrating, not concealing, the beauty of women 40+.
Since 2021, the brand has exclusively featured women over 40 in all marketing, challenging the industry’s youth obsession with humor and confidence. With bestsellers across QVC, Amazon, Sephora.com, Ulta.com, Macy’s.com, and LauraGeller.com, the brand continues to innovate for the most powerful, overlooked beauty consumer: women who know who they are and look good doing it.
Insights: Laura Geller, Founder
Why now and why you?
Because beauty is finally waking up to the most powerful, overlooked consumer in the category: women 40+ who hold trillions in spending power yet remain nearly invisible in marketing. We’re in a cultural moment where aging is being rewritten, not as something to “fight,” but something to own.
Laura Geller Beauty is the original pro-aging beauty brand championing that shifted long before it was trending. We didn’t pivot into this space; we built it. From pioneering primer and artisan-baked formulas to exclusively featuring women over 40 since 2021, we’ve spent decades creating high-performance makeup that actually serves mature skin. While the industry chases the next youthful ideal, we celebrate the women who earned their beauty.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
Laura Geller Beauty’s competitive advantage comes from a unique blend of innovative formulas and a clear focus on mature women 40+. We are one of few brands using the artisan baked technique—a 24-hour process in Italy where cream pigments are baked on terracotta tiles to create weightless, luminous powders that won’t cake or crease. These formulas are intentionally designed to flatter textured, mature skin and deliver effortless application.
Equally important is our pro-aging philosophy. Nielsen estimates that less than 5% of advertising dollars are targeted to adults ages 35-64, and a study by the Harris Poll states that one in four women ages 35-65 feel misrepresented by the beauty industry, with 50% saying they are more likely to support brands that feature relatable women in their ads. Since 2021, we’ve exclusively featured women over 40 in all marketing, building a relationship with a powerful consumer who has been largely overlooked by the industry. Baby boomers are not only the wealthiest generation, holding 70% of the disposable income in the US and spending over $548 billion a year, but they also spend more than any other generation, across all categories. While many brands chase youth, Laura Geller Beauty creates products and storytelling that celebrate aging and meet the real needs of women 40+.
What’s your proudest accomplishment to date?
When I look back at nearly three decades of Laura Geller Beauty, what fills me with the greatest pride is our longevity and the heart behind it. We’re a brand that has survived and thrived without the cushion of a giant corporate parent, which is incredibly rare in today’s beauty landscape. While Fortune 500 companies have the resources to weather economic highs and lows, we’ve stayed standing through our passion and ability to connect with customers.
I’m also very proud that we’ve become a true heritage brand; one that remains as relevant today, if not more, as when we first started. What humbles me most is hearing from customers who tell us they’re the third generation in their family to use our products. To know that a grandmother, mother, and daughter have all shared a love for our formulas or our Spackle Primers is beyond anything I could have imagined when I began as a makeup artist with a dream. Our legacy isn’t just longevity—it’s connection and the privilege of becoming part of women’s lives.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
I wish someone had told me, early on, that the hardest part of building a business isn’t the product development or the strategy or even the long hours; it’s the people. You can find solutions for almost any business challenge, but the “people stuff” is where the real learning happens.
As a founder, you quickly realize you’re leading a team of individuals with different personalities, motivations, and communication styles. There’s no single playbook for that. I had to develop my own skills: how to listen deeply, how to support people in the way they need, and how to navigate tough moments with empathy and clarity. It’s an ongoing practice, even after all these years, that has made me a better founder and a more thoughtful human being.
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
I would tell my younger self that she doesn’t need to have all the answers or all the credentials, to build something meaningful. For a long time, I worried that I didn’t have the “right” background or the fancy degrees that so many people in beauty and business seemed to have. I told myself I had to be the expert in every room, and that fear held me back more than I realized.
Looking back, I wish I had been more generous with myself. You don’t have to know everything to begin; you simply have to be willing to learn, to listen, and to keep moving forward. Every challenge along the way has made me wiser, and those teachable moments are where the real growth happens.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
For us, success in the coming years is about expanding our reach and deepening our impact in the mature beauty space. We’ve built an incredible community of women who trust us, especially those over 40—an audience that has been overlooked for far too long in the beauty industry. With one in every four women falling into this demographic, we’re nowhere near finished.
In the next 3-5 years, we’re focused on growing our presence in the UK, Canada, Australia, and the EU, so women everywhere can experience products designed with their needs at the center. International expansion isn’t just a business opportunity—it’s a continuation of our mission to honor and celebrate mature beauty on a larger scale.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
The industry is oversaturated with youth-chasing trends—from anti-aging quick fixes to filters, fillers, and products promising to erase lines overnight. Brands are still pouring outsized energy into looking younger instead of helping consumers look and feel like their best selves at any age.
What’s being overlooked is the single most powerful beauty consumer today: women 40+. A report by Girlpower Marketing found that 53% of boomer women felt overlooked by product advertising and marketing because of their age. The report also said that 68.3% of respondents said advertisers never or very rarely target their age group on a regular basis. These women drive the majority of category spending yet remain underrepresented in product innovation, marketing, and storytelling. Their needs are still treated as niche instead of typical.
The real opportunity isn’t in the next viral youth hack. It’s in creating high-performing, joyful, pro-aging beauty for the women who actually fuel the industry’s growth. That’s where brands will win long-term loyalty, cultural relevance, and meaningful differentiation.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
Currently, brands focus product innovation and marketing around youth, overlooking the women 40+ who drive the majority of beauty spending. True progress means shifting from anti-aging ideals to pro-aging design, creating formulas that work with real skin and showcasing representation that reflects every decade of life.
The industry should prioritize authenticity over perfection, with transparent claims, realistic imagery, and products engineered for the needs of mature consumers. When beauty stops treating aging as a problem to solve and instead embraces it as a powerful, universal experience, the category becomes more honest, inclusive, and future-ready.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
For Laura Geller Beauty to thrive for another 30 years, and then 30 more after that, and so on! My greatest hope is that the brand grows into a legacy that endures long beyond me, continuing to serve and celebrate women for generations to come.
I started this brand with a simple mission: to make women feel seen, valued, and beautiful. If our business can carry that mission forward long after I’m no longer the one steering the ship, that would be the greatest gift I could imagine.