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Business & Tech

In the Bag: How Kiss and Makeup Connected With Oscar

Makeup products from Malvern boutique Kiss And Makeup will be going home with Academy Award nominees on Sunday night.

Part of the reason Academy Award nominees are “just happy to be nominated” is likely the free swag they take home at the end of the night. The infamous Oscars swag bag, worth tens of thousands of dollars in free products, includes vacation packages, jewelry, accessories and more.

This year, the award show’s “Everybody Wins At The Oscars” consolation bags will include products from Malvern beauty boutique Kiss And Makeup—an opportunity that could skyrocket the startup brand to stardom.

Kiss And Makeup’s darci by Di Caprio brush cleaner will be awarded to the non-winners in five Oscar categories this year: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. That means, at the very least, Meryl Streep or Glenn Close will be going home with a Malvern makeup product on Sunday night.

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And, rumors of an imminent Brangelina split aside, if Brad Pitt doesn’t win for Moneyball on Sunday, Angelina Jolie could very well sample some darci by Di Caprio products this weekend, too. 

The story started with a press release the boutique owners sent out about the brush cleaner. That apparently put them on the radar of Distinctive Assets—the celebrity marketing company that has provided “Everybody Wins At The Oscars” swag bags to the non-winning Academy Award nominees for the past decade.

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A representative from Distinctive Assets gave called them to deliver the good news.

“When we first got the call, I thought it was a telemarketer,” Kiss And Makeup co-owner Darci Henry said. “I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll call you back. And she was like, ‘Well… usually people are really excited to find out they were picked.’”

Once Henry, Kiss and Makeup co-owner Lisa Di Caprio and creative director Sandy Alexander realized the importance of the call, they were excited.

Being offered a spot in Distinctive Assets’ swag bag is a big step for a start-up, with celebrity product endorsements worth their weight in gold. If Meryl Streep really does love her new brush cleaner, it could completely change the two-year-old makeup brand's future. So with that in mind, the women behind the brand made it their mission to wow the Academy Award nominees.

"We said, 'Let’s do a presentation that’s going to knock them out, that’s going to completely blow them away,'" Henry said. "So that’s where we came up with the concept of, 'Don’t judge a book by its cover.'"

Academy Award nominees will receive a decorated faux book containing the line’s signature brush cleaner, pump, two limited edition Kabuki brushes, a reusable towelette and a handwritten card, along with an explanation:

You can’t sum up your career with one performance, define a character with a single facial expression, or take one look at someone and understand who they are or how far they’ve come.

On the surface, your makeup brushes may seem clean, but take a closer look and you may find a different story.

With the makeup business as competitive as it is, the trio knew they needed something that would get the attention of the nominees.

"We wanted to be clever—different—not just products that somebody was going to take a look at and toss," Henry explained.

The products are all donated, so there's not immediate or guaranteed return on the investment. There are four runners-up per category, times five categories, so that's at least 20 free samples plus packaging.

"It is a stretch for us financially—it’s huge—but business wouldn’t pay off without risk, and this is our time to shine," Henry said. "Hopefully, something great will happen."

Kiss and Makeup is celebrating its inclusion in the Oscars swag bag with a red carpet gala on Oscars night, Feb. 26. RSVPs are accepted until Feb. 24.

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