How It Cosmetics Became A Top-Selling Beauty Brand — Practically Overnight

In the same way The Real World's tagline captivated audiences back in 1992, so did news-anchor-turned-beauty-boss Jamie Kern Lima the first day she stepped foot on stage at QVC in 2010. The theme between the two shows was surprisingly similar, too: No faking it allowed. So to prove the concealer Kern Lima was demoing from It Cosmetics, a relatively new makeup brand she co-founded with her husband a few years prior, covered up redness better than Behr paint, she tried it live, over her own rosacea.

Needless to say, the product sold out in 10 minutes — and It Cosmetics has been on the up-and-up ever since, earning a top-seller spot at both Ulta and Sephora, plus 9,630,000 YouTube video mentions to date. "You can't fake authenticity," Kern Lima tells Refinery29, which is precisely the reason for its enormous fanbase.

Ahead, we're spilling the secrets behind the company's evolution. As you might imagine, it wasn't always polite — but we'll be damned if Kern Lima didn't keep it real.