Quitting your job can be scary but imagine doing it when your industry is booming and women are lining up for your highly coveted role? Well, that’s what Zanna Roberts Rassi did and yes, everyone thought she was crazy but she left her beauty editor position anyway and honestly hasn’t looked back. After a sting at Target as their style editor and a little broadcast in between, Rassi went onto launch her own brand, Milk Makeup.
It’s safe to say the clean (before it was a buzzword), cruelty-free, and vegan makeup line has disrupted the $532 billion beauty industry with its clever packaging and cool marketing putting the customer experience first. Rassi and her co-founding partners—Dianna Ruth, Mazdack Rassi, and Georgie Greville—have a fresh approach to beauty, one that isn’t afraid to push boundaries and push the limits of what beauty is/stands for. Just take Milk Makeup’s luxury lipstick collaboration with The Wu Tang clan for example. This seems so left field but the limited-edition line was an internet sensation.
Read on to learn more about Rassi’s unconventional career path, her advice for new entrepreneurs, and how she’s switching gears to find her new version of success in 2021.
How did you make your first dollar and what did that job teach you that still applies today?
I was a waitress in a local restaurant in Manchester, where I grew up. It taught me a lot of invaluable life skills at an early age: How to multitask, team work, staying calm when things get heated, or smiling at the end of a smelly 10-hour shift. Most importantly it taught me to view everything customer’s eyes and everything I do today is through that lens. What problem are we solving? What advice am I imparting? It’s all about the take away—tangible or not! Be it at Milk Makeup, editorially, or on TV.
Take us back to the beginning!
It’s been a build rather than one moment.
(Cont’d…)
Milk Makeup was born out of Milk studios and the creative community that work and hang there. MMU has been bubbling in the walls of Milk since the doors opened in 1998. I used to be a beauty editor in the UK and would often talk with Rassi about what a line would look like. Much later Georgie, Dianna and myself would sit in the lobby or the bar at Milk Studios and watch how the coolest peeps in the world wore makeup. Stylists, musicians, celebs, assistants, editors—always unique and loaded with self-expression—like a walking Pinterest board. They were reimagining tired old concepts of beauty right in front of us and doing it all on the fly, quickly. We wanted to provide them the tools to live their look.
Entrepreneurship is all about taking calculated risks—What’s the most pivotal risk you’ve taken, and how did it change your path?
I left my role as a full-time magazine editor when magazines were booming. Everyone thought I was crazy (being an editor was a coveted, glamorous job). I wanted to learn about the industry from different angles. I started working with Target as their style editor and learned a lot about marketing, merchandising and mass. I also jumped in to broadcast, translating my editorial skills and knowledge on to TV.
2020 presented everybody around the globe with new, unprecedented challenges. How did you #FindNewRoads + switch gears towards your new version of success?
March 12th 2020 and my definition of “success” changed overnight. Success was stabilizing my family. Keeping our six year olds healthy, sheltered from the stress we as business owners were feeling, fed, and on Zoom classes learning (that may have been the hardest part, lol).
At Milk MAKEUP success was to support our community. We wanted to double down and support and give back to our home, NYC, the city that has given us everything. We donated 100% of all of our sales on April 10th to NYC COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund. We raised $106,000 The fund goes toward supporting health care workers and essential staff, local small businesses hourly workers. Helping our community was a success. We mobilized quickly and created a fund to give back. It was awe inspiring to see those who are usually in competition coming together for the greater good.
When it came to selling makeup, well, as with many companies, we were forced to expedite the use of technology. We had to push on through with major international launches in France and the Middle East with none of our team on the ground there. We introduced virtual consultations for consumers, adapted to LIVE streaming quickly, and carried out press events on Zoom.
How are you making a difference and pushing your industry forward?
From the outset of Milk Makeup, we set out to push boundaries. We pretty much took every rule book and threw it out of the window. We are a bunch of Downtown NYC rebels. We like to say “fu*k it” a lot when told we shouldn’t do something. At launch we were tired of the predictable standards of beauty being represented, so Georgie Greville, our creative director and team casted models that fell all along the gender spectrum. Dianna Ruth (our COO) refuses to create any product that already exists, like putting hemp-derived cannabis in a mascara which turns into a best seller and starts the trend in the industry. Rassi is a branding wiz who came up with the idea of collaborating on a luxury lipstick with The Wu Tang clan.
Going after what you deserve in life takes confidence and guts. Does confidence come naturally to you or did you have to learn it? What advice can you share for women on cultivating confidence and going after their dreams?
I’ve always been confident in abilities but quietly so. I’m a self deprecating Brit. I’d rather just do, over talking about it.
A simple trick we all can do at any point is positive visualization. It’s a powerful tool. Imagine yourself succeeding. What does that look like? Who's in the room? What's the conversation? What are you doing? Focus on that. Visualizing this goal will lead to an immediate spike in confidence. Also, surround yourself with positive confident people—it’s infectious.
When you separate yourself from your job title and the bells and whistles of your business or career, who are you and what do you like to do?
I’m a pretty simple creature. I love to hang with my kids and bake meringues and sew or snowboard together. I love anything that involves a friends and family gathering, food and good wine.
For those who haven’t started a business (or are about to) what advice do you have?
Think not about what you are selling, more about what you are solving. And do you really care about solving it for others? What are your values, your why? If you are doing it for the right reasons, you’ll have the staying power when the going gets tough.
What is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make with money early on? What financial advice can you share?
Not investing in experienced employees and seasoned advisors for fear of blowing the budget. Investing in a great team is investing in a great future. We all know being the smartest in the room is not a good thing.
It’s easy to celebrate the wins, but how do you handle failure or when something hasn’t worked out for you?
Learn why it didn’t work out and from your mistakes, own it, accept it quickly, and move on to the next. Don’t dwell. That’s dangerous spiral territory.
Fill in the blanks:
When I feel fear, I…
Do it anyway!
The best career advice I always give is…
Dreams are free. White board everything!
I turn bad days around by…
Calling my parents. They put it in perspective.
Three qualities that got me to where I am today are…
Honest, gratitude, respect.
The change I’d like to see in my industry is…
A move to projecting more realistic standards of beauty.
