MERIT Beauty
Founder Snapshot
Katherine Power
Founder & Chairman, MERIT Beauty, MERIT Beauty
Katherine Power is a true icon and inspiration. She built her career defining and solving problems women need solved vs what the industry thinks they need. She co-founded Who What Wear in 2006, creating the editorial template that would define fashion content for a generation (and many of my early roles). Then she did it again with Versed (skincare), Avaline (wine), and Byrdie. She is a brand builder who’s clearly listening to women. Merit was founded to solve the problem of over complicated color brands. Nothing was both high quality, and easy to use. Merit passed $100M in omnichannel retail sales in its third year of operation, making it one of the fastest-growing prestige beauty brands of the decade. The line currently has just 19 SKUs (which I really love).
The Minimalist
$38
One is sold every 10 seconds. A pigmented skin tint that goes on sheer and builds to light coverage with no heavy foundation texture, no oxidation, no cakey finish. Formulated with clean ingredients including hyaluronic acid, it sits on skin like your best skin day. Incredibly easy to apply, even easier to live in.
Shop NowMy Take / Katie Galano, Female Founded
“Merit is for women who had five minutes to get ready, but want to look like they had twenty.”
When I first heard of Merit, it was actually at work. When I opened the website, I was immediately drawn to the Five Minute Morning set. It’s so obvious, yet I’ve never seen it before. At first I didn’t understand that very neutral packaging, and then it made sense too - it’s meant to look natural. The whole brand ethos is to enhance what we’ve already got. One thing I don’t like about makeup in general is I never want to look like a different person. I want my kids to see me looking like their mom, and like THEM all the time. I love Merit because it allows me to look like me, just with a little more confidence.
