Meghan Markle revealed that she could not audition for beauty ads because of her freckles.
“That would have been when I was an actor, auditioning for commercials,” the Duchess of Sussex, 43, said to guest and friend Jamie Kern Lima on the Tuesday, April 29, episode of Lemonada Media’s “Confessions of a Female Founder” podcast. “And I remember my commercial agent could not submit me for beauty or skincare ads because I had freckles.”
Meghan recalled being turned away because her freckles weren’t considered as “a sign of beauty.”
“You couldn’t see yourself reflected there,” she said of the beauty industry’s old ways for advertising their products.
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The royal applauded Kern Lima — who is the founder of It Cosmetics — for taking the leap to use real-life women of every age, shape, size and skin tone as her models.
“That was such new thinking then. When you were bringing that to market that was so [unheard of],” Meghan said. “Now it may seem more normalized. People listening now will be like ‘Well yeah of course,’ It was not an of course. It was a revolutionary way to think about makeup and beauty at the time.”
Kern Lima, 47, founded the cosmetic company in 2008 after struggling to find products to aid her struggles with rosacea and hyperpigmentation. Before finding success, she confessed to getting rejections for “three years straight” when trying to get her brand in stores.
“I sent samples everywhere and none of them believed, at the time, in this idea of a product that works for people with skin issues and we show it on all ages and real people and sizes and skin tones,” the businesswoman said. “They would always say this to me, these words exactly, ‘Women will only buy makeup from images of unattainable aspiration.’ It was always those two words, ‘unattainable,’ which means you can’t even look like that ’cause it’s not real.”
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Despite the setbacks, Kern Lima didn’t give up on her dreams. Now It Cosmetics is found in retailers nationwide. When Meghan decided to venture into the business world with her brand As Ever, she confessed that Kern Lima gave her some tough love advice that helped out in the long run.
“You and I had just become friends, and I was talking to you about business. I remember you said to me, ‘OK, so what’s the timeline?’ I said, ‘Oh, a couple months from now.’ You said, ‘That’s too soon.’ And I didn’t want to hear that, but you’re right,” Meghan recalled. “You planted a seed that became a knowing for me, and it gave me the grace to have the space to take my time until it was right.”
Meghan added that while “I didn’t want to hear it, it was the thing that I needed to hear.”
