- AI-based clean beauty site NakedPoppy announced it raised $4 million in funding and the company launched its first branded beauty product called the NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner.
NakedPoppy — the first clean beauty site powered by intelligent technology — announced the launch of NakedPoppy.com. NakedPoppy.com is considered an online destination for on-the-go women who are seeking the highest standards in hand-vetted, luxe, and long-lasting clean makeup.
And NakedPoppy’s intelligent proprietary technology enables women to enjoy a highly personalized and curated experience that dramatically simplifies the process of finding the right products. Recently, NakedPoppy released its first branded beauty product called the NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner.
NakedPoppy’s cosmetic chemists carefully screen each product it sells for these characteristics. And out of about 80,000 chemicals registered in the United States, about 12,500 are available for use in personal care products.
NakedPoppy’s pool of scientifically screened and allowable clean ingredients is fewer than 700 across all the brands it carries. This pool is constantly changing as new studies emerge so that women can always be sure that their makeup is of the highest quality. Plus makeup artists and NakedPoppy staff review each product to make sure it performs as beautifully as conventional makeup.
“Women are increasingly concerned about what they put on their faces, near their eyes, and on their lips. They’re also understandably confused about how to distinguish what’s genuinely clean from what’s marketed as ‘natural,’” said NakedPoppy co-founder and CEO Jaleh Bisharat. “NakedPoppy does the hard work of carefully vetting for the cleanest of the clean so that customers don’t have to. In addition, NakedPoppy’s disruptive personalized shopping experience lets each woman find perfect-for-her clean makeup with unprecedented ease, speed, and confidence.”
NakedPoppy is debuting at a time when makeup regulations have become out of date in the U.S. Ever since the most recent federal law was enacted in 1938, tens of thousands of new chemicals have been introduced to the marketplace — many of which have not been tested for safety adequately.
Plus labels are difficult to decipher with NakedPoppy’s research showing that 7 in 10 women characterize it as “difficult” or “very difficult” to assess which makeup is free of harmful chemicals.
NakedPoppy was built to help and establish the highest standards for clean products based on four criteria: everything on NakedPoppy.com should be cruelty-free, low in environmental impact, ethically made, and free of harmful chemicals.
Customers find their ideal products by completing an expert online assessment that takes about three minutes. And NakedPoppy’s patent-pending technology then instantly uncovers perfect-for-her picks, assembling them into each customer’s personalized clean makeup boutique.
NakedPoppy’s personalization algorithm takes into account a wide range of considerations including skin type, skin color, skin undertone, age, eye color, hair color, allergies, sensitivities, beauty goals, etc. And its proprietary technology can even interpret photographs of a customer’s wrist to accurately pinpoint her base skin color. This ensures that NakedPoppy finds the best hues for each customer.
“Our data science, green chemistry, and makeup artist teams worked around the clock to develop this personalized experience, which we believe is a breakthrough in how people will shop for beauty products going forward,” explained NakedPoppy co-founder and Chief Product Officer Kimberly Shenk. “Customers shouldn’t have to waste time wading through products that won’t work for them or wondering which shade best suits them. Now they don’t have to.”
In order to make choosing clean makeup simple, products are accompanied by a score that indicates the degree to which a product will be an ideal match. So a product with a 99% score will be much more suitable for a given customer’s skin, coloring, age, and other characteristics than another product with a 60% score.
Along with curating clean makeup from the world’s best clean brands and due to the co-founders’ inability to find a clean liquid eyeliner that performed to their standards, the company had launched the NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner. The NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner was formulated and manufactured in Italy. And the NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner was co-created with NakedPoppy’s test panel of clean beauty enthusiasts. This team shared their desired criteria for the perfect liquid eyeliner and tested early samples, providing feedback on all aspects of the formulation and voting on the preferred application brush. NakedPoppy Clean Liquid Eyeliner is vegan and suitable for sensitive eyes.
“This is a hero product, no doubt about it,” noted Susan Lyne — the Managing Partner of BBG Ventures, former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Gilt Groupe, and a NakedPoppy angel investor. “Most eyeliners start drying out after a few weeks and get harder to apply. This one is still as supple as the day I got it. It looks natural, lasts all day and washes off easily with soap. It’s pretty perfect.”
Another recent announcement NakedPoppy made is a $4 million round of funding. The $4 million round of funding was provided by Cowboy Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Maveron, Polaris Ventures, and Slow Ventures.
“We see enormous potential for NakedPoppy as every category of personal care and beauty is being transformed with clean ingredients at its core. NakedPoppy combines the highest standard for clean beauty with the curated personalized shopping experience that delivers recommendations like we’ve never seen before,” commented Victoria Treyger — a General Partner at Felicis Ventures. “Additionally, NakedPoppy is run by an exceptional team that has built some of the leading commerce brands of today. The founders are obsessed with delivering the new standard for clean beauty for their customers.”
Bisharat is known for running a former CMO/VP Marketing at Amazon, OpenTable, Upwork and Eventbrite. And she also served on the Board of Directors at OpenTable and Homestead Technologies.
And Shenk was trained at the U.S. Air Force and MIT while adding deep technology experience after building and running data science and product teams at tech and retail companies as well as for the U.S. Air Force. She led the data science team at Eventbrite, headed product at Domino Data Labs, and is on the advisory board of the Data Institute at USF.
