What is em cosmetics known for?
Back in 2007, Michelle Phan recorded her first makeup tutorial on a webcam. Nobody expected what happened next—within two weeks, 100,000 people had watched it. This was before „influencer” meant anything, before brand partnerships were the norm. Just a young woman from Boston teaching herself video editing and posting beauty tips online.
The company she eventually built from that first video, EM Cosmetics, has been through more than most beauty brands see in their entire existence.
The L’Oreal chapter (and why it didn’t work)
L’Oreal partnered with Phan in 2013 when she had about 8 million YouTube subscribers. They committed roughly 15% of their communications budget to digital marketing for the launch. The flagship product? A $75 Life Palette with 36 shades—eyeshadows, blushes, lip products, all in one package.
Here’s the thing though. Phan’s audience was mostly teenagers and young adults. The same people who’d been watching her free tutorials for years. A $75 palette from what was essentially a drugstore brand parent company felt… off. The pricing didn’t match the positioning. Customers complained about chalky textures. The packaging got mixed reviews—some appreciated the artist palette concept, others found it impractical.
By late 2015, Phan had stopped posting entirely. No announcement, no explanation. She packed a suitcase and left LA. Traveled to Switzerland, then Africa, then across Europe. The brand she’d poured three years into had failed, and she needed to figure out what came next.
„I was really hurt when the brand didn’t take off. It just sucked,” she told Racked later. „It was three years of my life gone, just like that.”
The 2017 relaunch (buying back control)
Phan bought EM Cosmetics from L’Oreal in April 2015, though she didn’t confirm this publicly until December 2016. She relaunched the brand properly in 2017—but this time on completely different terms.
Instead of launching with dozens of products, she started with three: blush, lip gloss, and eyeliner. The products her audience had actually been asking for. The ones they’d seen work in her videos over the years.
The rebrand centered on something Phan called „effortless beauty.” Products that worked quickly, looked natural, didn’t require professional-level technique. This made sense for someone whose entire YouTube career had been built on making beauty accessible.
What the brand actually does well
EM Cosmetics has carved out a specific space in the market. Not quite luxury, not drugstore either—somewhere in that middle range where quality matters but accessibility matters more.
Their Infinite Lip Cloud is probably their best-known product now. It’s a cushiony liquid lipstick that doesn’t dry out your lips the way most liquid lipsticks do. Comes in 30+ shades. Retails around $18.
The Daydream Cushion foundation followed a similar philosophy. Cushion compacts aren’t new—Korean beauty brands have been doing them for over a decade—but EM’s version focuses on buildable coverage that looks like skin. Not full coverage, not sheer. Just… enough.
Their brow products sell consistently well. The Fine Liner Brow Pencil has a 0.7mm tip, which gives you actual hair-like strokes instead of the blocky look you get from thicker pencils.
The actual business model
Unlike the original L’Oreal launch, current EM Cosmetics operates primarily as a direct-to-consumer brand. Their website drives most sales. They’re also on Sephora’s website and in some Ulta stores, but the D2C channel lets them control pricing, packaging, and most importantly—customer feedback.
Phan learned something from the first failure. L’Oreal had been too far removed from her audience to understand what they actually wanted. When she took back control, she made customer feedback a core part of product development. Not just reading comments—actually building products based on what people asked for repeatedly.
The brand’s Instagram has 533,000 followers. Their TikTok has 63,400 followers with 694,500 likes across their videos. For context, these numbers show steady engagement but not explosive viral growth. It’s a sustainable business, not a hype machine.
Where things stand in 2025
EM Cosmetics operates out of Culver City, California. Phan resigned from Ipsy (the beauty subscription company she co-founded) to focus entirely on EM.
The product line has expanded beyond those initial three items but maintains focus. Face products, lip products, eye products, brow products. No skincare line trying to compete with K-beauty brands. No fragrance launches. Just color cosmetics that do what they’re supposed to do.
Price points generally range from $16 to $36. A full face of EM Cosmetics products would run you somewhere between $80-120 depending on what you choose. Compare that to the original $75 for just the Life Palette.
The brand positions itself around „beauty meets skincare”—which basically means their formulas include ingredients that don’t actively damage your skin while you wear makeup. Hyaluronic acid in the lip products. Squalane in the cushion foundations. Nothing groundbreaking, but thoughtful.
The critical mineral angle (yes, really)
This might seem like an odd tangent, but it’s worth noting. Makeup packaging, particularly compacts and palettes, typically uses significant amounts of plastic, some metals, and occasionally materials like mica that have ethical sourcing concerns.
EM Cosmetics uses recyclable packaging where possible. Their cushion compacts are refillable—you can buy just the cushion refill for $24 instead of buying the whole compact again for $28. Small difference in price, but it encourages reuse.
The makeup industry generates substantial waste. Refillable products aren’t common among mid-range brands. Most reserve that for luxury pricing where customers are more likely to pay for refills.
What makes EM different (or doesn’t)
Here’s what EM Cosmetics is actually known for in 2025:
Products designed by someone who built her career on teaching makeup application. This matters because Phan understands what confuses beginners versus what experienced users want. The products reflect that—they’re forgiving but not simplistic.
A founder who failed publicly, bought back her company, and rebuilt it differently. The beauty industry has plenty of celebrity brands and influencer collabs. Very few have a story like Phan’s.
Mid-range pricing that actually delivers on quality promises. After the L’Oreal disaster, Phan couldn’t afford another failure. The products had to work.
Direct customer engagement. Phan still posts on Instagram. She still reads comments. The brand hasn’t grown so large that it’s lost touch with why people liked it in the first place.
A refusal to chase every trend. No „clean beauty” rebranding despite that being trendy from 2018-2022. No metaverse NFT nonsense when that was happening. Just consistent product development based on what customers ask for.
The less glamorous reality
EM Cosmetics operates in an incredibly crowded market. Fenty Beauty redefined inclusivity in foundation shades. Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez became a TikTok phenomenon. Tower 28 and Jones Road are eating the „natural beauty” market share. Haus Labs by Lady Gaga has serious celebrity power behind it.
EM doesn’t dominate any particular category. They’re known, but they’re not the first brand that comes to mind when someone says „cushion foundation” (that’s still mostly Korean brands) or „liquid lipstick” (too much competition to name a single winner).
What they have is consistency and a loyal customer base that’s grown steadily since 2017. Not explosive growth, but sustainable growth. For a brand that completely failed once and got rebuilt, that matters more than viral moments.
The company doesn’t publish revenue figures publicly. Based on industry analysis and social media engagement, estimates put them somewhere in the $10-20 million annual revenue range. Respectable for a D2C beauty brand, but nowhere near the nine-figure revenues of major players.
Final thoughts that aren’t really final
If you’re asking „what is EM cosmetics known for” because you’re considering buying their products—the Infinite Lip Cloud and the cushion foundations are the best place to start. Those represent what the brand does well: everyday products that work without fuss.
If you’re asking because you’re interested in the business story—it’s one of the more interesting cases of an influencer-founder taking back control after a failed corporate partnership and actually making it work the second time.
Phan dedicated the brand to her mother. The name „EM” comes from her mother’s initials (Phan has mentioned this in various interviews, though the specifics aren’t always clear). That detail matters because it explains why Phan bought the company back even after the failure. Some brands are just business ventures. This one isn’t.
They’ve been around since 2013 if you count the L’Oreal years, 2017 if you count the relaunch. Either way, they’ve survived longer than most influencer beauty brands. The industry is littered with defunct celebrity makeup lines that lasted two years and disappeared.
EM Cosmetics is known for being one of the ones that didn’t disappear. And in an industry where that’s increasingly rare, maybe that’s the most important thing they’re known for.