Inspiring Conversations with Laura Mayer of Prettyparty

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Mayer.

Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born, educated, and raised in Los Angeles, home to beautiful people and the hottest beauty trends.   I studied history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). During my college years, I modeled for the UCLA Bruin sportswear catalog and was approached by Petite Elite-New York with a modeling opportunity that I declined in order to pursue my passion — teaching. After graduating from UCLA, I spent several years working with Los Angeles Unified School District’s most challenged student population. Yet, I never thought of it as a job. No matter the issues, I looked forward to each day with excitement. Being able to teach through creative methods that were unconventional brought me, my students and staff so much joy. We became a family and that was the greatest gift.

In 2005, during a ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I discovered a beautiful herd of paint horses while on a snowmobile excursion through Yellowstone National Park. This trip inspired me to purchase a ranch near Los Angeles in 2006 and to turn it into a working ranch offering equine therapy and horse boarding and training. The ranch also features an animal sanctuary with over 120 rescued animals. Each one of these animals has its own unique rescue story and a labor of love that brought him or her to this magical ranch that is their forever home. The ranch’s equine therapy programs help individuals battling addiction, PTSD, depression, eating disorders and any personal growth challenges. In 2008, I became a certified EAGALA Specialist because of my strong beliefs in the healing power that comes from equine therapy.

By 2017, I was ready for something new. Not just new in my life, but also a new approach to an industry that I knew well as a consumer—the beauty industry. So I founded PRETTYPARTY, LLC as a beauty company that would be based on innovation—in other words, as a beauty company whose goal was to do things differently.

I had always had a penchant for predicting new design, fashion and beauty trends before they became popular. I thought that I could leverage that ability into creation of a beauty business that would be a customer-centric leader in the ongoing evolution of beauty by creating and introducing new, affordable, do-it-yourself ways to solve old beauty problems.  One thing I had noticed was that, whether at a movie premiere, a launch party for a clothing line, an art gallery, or my ranch, I heard the same thing from the hottest trendsetters about their look: there are plenty of options for skincare and cosmetics, but nowhere to turn for eye-catching, fast, easy, cost-effective, and most importantly beautiful designs for hair—and yet a person’s hair is often the most prominent and first-noticed feature. Based on my perception that the hair category was probably the least progressive beauty category, I decided to start by designing and introducing innovative new hair products, then subsequently diversify by moving down the face to address brows, lashes, lips, and skin.

Before plunging headfirst into the venture, I sat down and discussed it with my husband Steve, who as a private equity executive with a major investment firm was responsible for the ownership, strategic direction, and operation of large companies in many different industries around the world. What came out of that discussion were three basic principles:

1. 1. While Steve wholeheartedly supported my vision, the company was going to be mine in every sense; I had to live it, own it, and be accountable for it every day.
   2. It was critical to build brand recognition and brand equity, not just sell products.
   3. There are many great business ideas but comparatively few great businesses. The difference is execution. I would have to get the product and the strategy right and then have a laser focus on the myriad details involved in the planning and execution of the business.

Four years and many, many hours of hard work later, PRETTYPARTY has come to life, has become the go-to hair solution for tens of thousands of women and girls of all ethnicities, and is a brand known throughout the beauty industry, and especially in the hair category. The company sells directly to consumers through its website, www.prettyparty.com, and uses its own social media (@prettypartybty) as well as a community of brand ambassadors, stylists, and other beauty lovers to get the word out. The website was “hard-launched” in February 2019 and since then sales, and the company’s brand recognition, increased steadily and even flourished during the pandemic.

In addition to its direct-to-consumer business, in early 2020 PRETTYPARTY was approached by Fashion Nova, one of the world’s largest online fashion companies, about entering into a collaboration and becoming a cornerstone brand of Fashion Nova’s planned new beauty business. The collaboration involved PRETTYPARTY designing a new, more youthful, more ethnic, moderately priced line of hair products, which today are carried both by Fashion Nova and by PRETTYPARTY under the SOULe by PRETTYPARTY label. In 2020, we also decided to dip our toe in the skincare water by introducing an innovative and highly effective line of blue agave-based skin products under the COMMIT by PRETTYPARTY brand.

PRETTYPARTY’S photogenic, edgy, ever-changing, and always-amazing headquarters, known to the company’s community as the PRETTYPARTY PLAYHOUSE, is located in Bel Air, California and, in non-pandemic times, is a constant buzz of activity, featuring photo and video shoots, Instagrammers gaining content, beauty lovers stopping in on their way to festivals or vacations, and various events.

In addition to the animals and equine therapy at my ranch, my other passions include organic living and farming, interior design, and all things beauty- and fashion-related. I have dual U.K. and U.S. citizenship and have also been fortunate to have traveled extensively through Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, which gave me an appreciation for other cultures, traditions and the arts. This, coupled with my own sense of creativity and fashion, has provided me with an eye for design and style—whether of the interior of homes, of clothing, or (of course) of beauty products. I have been credited with many innovations in interior design, fashion, and beauty—and even have patent-pending new technologies, such as PRETTYPARTY’s StyleFlex™, to my name—but the reality is that all style and design has its origin in the human experience either sometime in the past or in another culture somewhere in our world today. I believe that my role as the founder of PRETTYPARTY is simply to translate everything I’ve experienced into new and exciting products to help make beautiful looks easy, fast, affordable, and fun—all the while consistent with the values and philosophies that I have come to embrace in my own life.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
One of the most important lessons I learned as an entrepreneur is that making mistakes is not only inevitable for every startup, but it is actually necessary–and is a sign that you are taking appropriate risks and chances. Of course, as in life itself, the key is to learn from mistakes and then implement that learning. As PrettyParty has grown and achieved more scale, we have collected more data and tried to become more data-intensive in our learning process, but I would call that a work in progress; however, my philosophy has been that our team should welcome, rather than fear, the bumps in the road because they are critical to determining the direction of all aspects of our business.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about PRETTYPARTY, LLC?
PRETTYPARTY, LLC (prettyparty.com, @prettypartybty) is a leading direct-to-consumer beauty company founded on the principles of innovation, affordability, and inclusiveness. The company sells a range of high-quality, game-changing, DIY hair extensions and accessories in addition to skincare products; plans for the future include revolutionary brow and lash products as well. PRETTYPARTY’s hair extensions, including its famous RUBY, feature patented innovations that allow people of all ages, ethnicities, and styles to transform their looks in 30 seconds or less. In particular, the company’s unique StyleFlex technology was designed to enable customers to create an infinite variety of celebrity hair looks and lengths, all without tape, beads, glue, expensive salon visits, or damage to hair and scalp—and all within seconds.

We have been very clear from the beginning about PRETTYPARTY’s brand attributes and values. In a world where consumers have many choices, we have consistently resisted pursuing sales at the expense of our underlying principles and have chosen to build our brand equity by remaining true to ourselves: high integrity, cruelty-free, highly inclusive, and respectful and appreciative of our customers.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Despite my varied and creative background, I have always been interested in business. I paid my own way through UCLA by starting my own outbound marketing business, selling office supplies by phone to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the country. I learned as I went along, making mistakes and figuring things out. I could not afford traditional office space, so I rented a tiny space in a refrigerated meat locker and wore heavy coats and gloves while working. I also could not afford employees, so I played every role in my little company–including introducing myself by different names, and sometimes even different accents, to customers to try to make my company seem more substantial! It seems like several lifetimes ago, but a lot of what I learned in that little business I still apply today.

Contact Info:

• Email: laura@prettyparty.com
• Website: prettyparty.com
• Instagram: @prettypartybty
• Facebook: prettyparty
• Other: TikTok: prettypartybty