Jamie Kern Lima: There’s Beauty in Our Flaws

SETBACKS CAN BE SETUPS FOR WHAT GOD HAS NEXT

IT Cosmetics Founder Jamie Kern Lima by Laura Neutzling

WHEN JAMIE KERN LIMA WALKS INTO A ROOM, her warmth puts everyone at ease. She’s approachable and unassuming. She’s also the first female CEO within cosmetics giant L’Oreal, an ascent she made by starting a cosmetics company in her living room in 2008. By 2016, IT Cosmetics was a beauty empire on the Fortune 500—and Jamie sold the company to L’Oreal for $1.2 billion.

Her rocket-fueled trajectory experienced bumps along the way, including a few setbacks Jamie believed were impossible to overcome. But in the style she’s come to be known for, Jamie refused to let the “no’s” stop her from the dream God put in her heart.

Those dreams began to blossom as young Jamie watched The Oprah Winfrey Show in her living room, determined to one day interview people and share their stories with the world. Jamie broke tradition with her family and became the first member to go to college, where she majored in journalism and worked multiple jobs to put herself through school. After she graduated, the budding journalist scored her dream job as a news anchor—but the dream got a bit tarnished early on.

“I developed a skin condition called rosacea, where my skin would get really rough in texture and bumpy,” she recalls. “One day my producer spoke into my ear piece saying, ‘There’s something on your face—you need to wipe it off!’ I would be live on air, and I knew it was something I couldn’t wipe off.”

Jamie was pushed into a season of self-doubt, wondering whether she’d be fired because of her appearance. She searched for makeup to cover up her red, bumpy skin but turned up empty. Then, a lightbulb realization dawned on her: If I could create a product that works for me, it’s going to help a lot of other people.

Jamie encountered a storm of doubts while trying to come up with a plan—thoughts like, You’re not qualified, you have no money, you don’t know what you’re doing. Jamie pushed through those doubts and made a decision to trust what was on her heart—even though she didn’t know how it was going to work out.

If I could create a product that works for me, it’s going to help a lot of other people.

“On my honeymoon flight, my husband and I wrote the business plan for IT Cosmetics. We got back, quit our jobs, and went all in! We had very little savings, but we poured it all into making our first product.”

From the moment she started IT Cosmetics, Jamie’s next dream was to appear on QVC, the giant TV shopping network. She wanted to show real women with real skin issues—no Photoshop, no filters, and no shame. “I wanted to show something different for every little girl who was seeing ads and started doubting themselves—and every grown woman who still does.”

FROM LEFT: Jamie on-air at QVC, Jamie mentioned in Forbes in 2018, Jamie and her children

If You put this dream on my heart, why isn’t it working?

After three years and scores of rejections, Jamie began to wonder why the dream that seemed so real wasn’t coming to fruition. “If You put this dream on my heart,” Jamie prayed to God, “why isn’t it working?” Slowly but surely, God seemed to be laying the groundwork with connections that started to show up in Jamie’s life, which manifested into an unexpected meeting with a QVC host who resonated to Jamie’s vision. Finally, Jamie got the shot she had been imagining from the very beginning. The day she was scheduled to go on air, a bundle of nerves and her company on the line, Jamie had to remind herself why she was baring her real skin in front of millions in the fi rst place. I would rather show real women of all ages, shapes, sizes, skin challenges, skin tones, she thought. If a woman out there is going to give me two seconds of her time and she turns on her television, even if she buys nothing, I would rather have her see women who look like her and see me calling them beautiful and meaning it than sell a ton of product and stand for nothing. Comforted by this realization, Jamie trusted God for what would happen next. “They showed my bare face, bright red with rosacea, on national television,” Jamie recalls. “And I went over to all the women and called them beautiful—every age and shape and size and skin tone. I start sobbing on national television. And that one airing turned into fi ve that year, and a hundred the next year. And eventually we built the biggest beauty brand in QVC’s history.” That one moment still defi nes what Jamie does to this day: speaking to and mentoring entrepreneurs, and letting women of all colors, shapes and sizes know they are beautiful—to her, and to God. “There’s probably no way I could have gotten through the years of rejection without hearing what God says about me instead of my own self-doubt. And I think this is a lifelong journey. I think so many of us learn that sometimes God’s setbacks are really set ups for what we’re supposed to do next.”

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Jamie’s story! Jamie’s book, Believe IT, is available at your favorite book retailer today.