Why Did You Start Your Business? Meet Natalie Plain

Natalie Plain has been invested in eyebrows since she was a child.

Born with bushy brows, as a young girl, Natalie begged her mom to allow her to get her eyebrows shaped by a professional. Finally, her mom relented, and at age 15, she got her first appointment at a salon.

After a 30-minute consultation followed by a careful brow shaping, Natalie was hooked.

“I was in love with my new look and my confidence level shot through the roof. Hence to say I never forgot the experience, but was left wanting more.”

The seeds that would eventually become Natalie’s business, Billion Dollar Brows, were sewn.

The Early Years

Like many people, after her professional shaping, Natalie took her eyebrow matters into her own hands. After all, a salon appointment every four weeks to maintain eyebrows gets expensive fairly quickly.

Armed with tweezers and eyebrow makeup (that doubled as eye makeup), for years Natalie attempted to shape her brows herself. After college, she spent her first paycheck on the best brow products she could afford.

But even those products weren’t good enough for Natalie. Not finding anything on the market that met her exacting standards, she decided to do it herself, armed with the memory of her first professional eyebrow shaping.

Broke but determined to continue treating her eyebrows to the best products, a business concept slowly took shape in Natalie’s mind.

Building Billion Dollar Brows

Like many female entrepreneurs, Natalie’s business began with scarce resources.

“Thanks to mentors and my husband alike, I launched Billion Dollar Brows on a credit card and a belief that better brows can be achieved without breaking the bank.”

Seventeen years ago, in her Los Angeles apartment, she and her husband designed a plan for a company that would provide innovative, affordable, and high-quality eyebrow products worldwide. 

Naming the Business

How did they come up with such a catchy name? Natalie and her husband, Bob, are very competitive by nature, so a contest to see who could name the company first was the obvious way to go. They went back and forth on options for a while but nothing seemed to stick.

Then one day, Bob and Natalie were in their apartment when Bob heard her say, “I’ve got the name!” She was reading People magazine and on the cover was a picture of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen with the headline, “Meet the new Billion Dollar Babies!” What happened next was inevitable.

“A master of alliteration, Natalie ran with the inspiration and said, “Let’s name the company Billion Dollar Brows!” Bob says. “My first reaction was “Shoot, she beat me.” My second was, “That’s a great name!”

The name stuck, all thanks to a headline about the Olsen Twins in a supermarket tabloid.

Billion Dollar Brows Today

Seventeen years later, Billion Dollar Brows is a global brand and considered a leader in eyebrow cosmetics. The company was founded on the incredible transformation Natalie felt when she first got her eyebrows professionally shaped as a teenager.

Billion Dollar Brow’s goal is to teach people how to take care of their eyebrows, love them, and use the styles they prefer. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to eyebrows, and Billion Dollar Brows knows that.

Every product is designed to help people feel the same joy and confidence in their appearance that Natalie felt as a teenager.

Making a Difference

Natalie and her husband/business partner, Bob, didn’t want to stop at only helping people. They also wanted to help end cruelty in the beauty industry. That’s why every single product from Billion Dollar Brows is cruelty-free and their brush line is vegan.

Recently, Billion Dollar Brows has expanded with The Billion Dollar Box™. It’s a refillable cosmetic kit designed to reduce waste. Customers purchase one magnetic box and customize the makeup they want to go inside it. This makeup comes in individual tins instead of the multi-product options in stores.

The idea is to reduce the amount of half-used makeup containers that people throw away when they’re done with the single color or product they wanted.

Looking Ahead

From an eyebrow transformation to the new Billion Dollar Beauty® expansion, Billion Dollar Brows has only grown. This company is primed to keep expanding and shaking up the beauty industry — keep an eye on them.

“Beautiful Brows Begin Here.” – Natalie Plain