Smashbox

Two great grandsons of Hollywood makeup legend, Max Factor, opened a photography studio in Culver City in 1991, watched professional makeup fail every day under hot studio lights and launched a cosmetics brand inside the studio five years later. Davis Factor and Dean Factor founded Smashbox Cosmetics in 1996, inside the Smashbox Studios building, where major fashion and celebrity photographers shot Vogue covers and album sleeves. The hero, the photo finish smooth and blur primer, launched in 2000 and was originally a backstage tool studio makeup artists used to keep makeup intact. The retail version sold for US$42 per ounce. The development environment was the unfair advantage. Most cosmetics brands developed in laboratories and validated through focus groups. Smashbox developed inside an active studio under flash and tungsten lighting, validated by working artists on paying shoots.