Beauty influencer friends, Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores Ireland, know beauty. The duo, who have a combined Instagram following of 850,000, and who test product constantly for their respective blogs, felt that despite the breadth of items already available, many didn’t meet their standards. The solution? Launch their own brand, Summer Fridays, which debuted March 7 with a Jet Lag Mask on summerfridays.com and on Sephora’s app, and in Sephora on March 8. It retails for $48. The mask promises to deliver an instant selfie-worthy glow and hydrate thirsty, stressed-out skin. According to industry sources, in less than a week, Summer Fridays’ Jet Lag Mask became the number-two best-selling face mask at Sephora and is among the top 20 bestselling skin care products overall at the retailer. More products are in the works, with the next launch slated for fall 2018. Here, the reasons why this brand, owned 100 percent by Marianna and Lauren, will be a success.

1. The entrepreneurs took advantage of crowdsourcing to develop the brand, ensuring their fans’ concerns and beauty product needs went acknowledged. Consumers may naturally continue engage with the brand if they feel they can drive the direction of the products. According to Mariana, “Whenever I would post a skin care product, my followers would ask so many questions: is this cruelty free? Does this have parabens? Are there synthetic fragrances?” The duo took all the questions and accidentally created a focus group. All the data from their blogs and social, showed what their followers would gravitate to and they were able to tap into an existing audience of more than one million people to create a product just for them.


2. The ease of use and simplicity of the product will be appealing to those looking for no-fuss skin care.
Unlike the usual face masks that go viral on Instagram (ex: holographic sheets or colored mud masks), efficacy was made a priority over glamour. The white-hued mask is infused with skin-boosting ingredients such as chestnut extract, vitamin C, niacinamide and green tea. A thick layer can be applied and then wiped off after 10 minutes. For those on the go, a thin layer becomes transparent within a few minutes so it can be worn in public. Proving that a mask doesn’t need to be gimmicky to garner attention on social media, Marianna posted a video on her Instagram page using the mask as a moisturizer on a flight to NYC (it’s TSA 3-ounce friendly), and it garnered more than 2.8 million views in less than 24 hours.

3. The packaging of the Jet Lag Mask was made with social media sharability in mind, and was thoughtfully designed in a way that allows consumers to easily photograph and become brand ambassadors for the mask.
The squeezable tube is a photogenic periwinkle blue and features a simple, bold-face type of the brand’s name that’s easy to see on camera. The tube is also designed stay put when placed on the table, so consumers can take the perfect flat lay photo, without worrying about it rolling away. Fan photos and video reviews are shared on the brand’s Instagram page (@summerfridays), and highlighted on Marianna and Lauren’s pages as well.

4. The influencers are fostering personal relationships with their fan base, beyond crowdsourcing, offering approachability and accessibility to make their fans feel valued. As part of the brand’s launch, a raffle was announced Instagram, which allowed 50 fans per city (NY & LA) the chance to win tickets to attend the brand’s two launch parties. “We shared this on our Instagram because community is such a huge part of why we wanted to build a brand,” said Marianna. “We didn’t want our readers and consumers to just sit back and watch the events happen on social, we wanted them to feel a part of Summer Fridays and learn more about jet lag mask from us face to face.”