You’ve probably seen festival attendees, concertgoers and even Taylor Swift sporting faux glitter freckles to elevate their looks. And if not, look them up. They’re made by West Palm Beach, Fla.-based makeup patch company Fazit, whose co-founder, Aliett Buttelman, sat down with Vendelux to divulge how she’s making waves in the sports world with the help of a little sparkle.
When Taylor Swift herself supported her beau at a Kansas City Chiefs game wearing Fazit’s gold freckles, it was reported that Fazit’s sales skyrocketed as much as 3,500%. The pop culture moment “helped our customers connect the dots: Beauty and fandom can coexist,” Buttelman explained. But Buttelman didn’t just mail some product to Swift and hope for the best.
Fazit’s rise in popularity “really started organically,” Buttelman said, noting that she would wear the faux freckles out in public herself—“and like any good CPG (consumer packaged goods) founder, always carried extra.” If Buttelman received a compliment on her sparkly speckles—which are applied like a temporary tattoo—she’d pull what Fazit refers to as a “makeup patch” out of her purse and apply them to prospective customers on the spot.
“It quickly became clear that Fazit wasn’t just a product—it was an activity,” Buttelman said, noting that in these moments she realized the importance of her company’s events strategy “meeting customers where they already are.”
Buttelman’s on-the-ground approach also informed one of her best practices for breaking into a space where conversations around beauty don’t traditionally show up: “Offer low-lift, on-brand opportunities to collaborate,” she said.
“If you can’t afford a celebrity endorsement, gift product to their team or circle. Relationships often start at the edges,” Buttelman advised other business owners, speaking from experience. It’s about being “relentlessly resourceful.”
Just in time for its Swift-related virality, Fazit launched its Team Spirit Collection, which offers its signature glittery speckles in green, blue, red, purple and orange, at which point fans began incorporating Fazit into their game day outfits,” Buttelman said.
From there, the beauty firm’s event marketing strategy shifted to lean even heavier into sports, highlighting what athletes care about: that the patches are sweat-proof and waterproof. It was a natural evolution to begin sharing samples with well-known athletes, sports agents and local run clubs aside from musicians and social media tastemakers, per Buttelman.
As a result, Fazit’s most successful efforts thus far have been its brand activations “around major cultural sports moments like the Boston Marathon” and New York Marathon, where real runners were gifted the makeup patches at the starting line, the water stations and the mile 13 marker, per Buttelman. The result: “A runner wearing Fazit freckles [at the New York Marathon] ended up on the front page of The New York Times. That was a surreal moment for us. It sparked a domino effect and helped solidify our place in running culture.”
With her sights set on showing up throughout the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and WNBA seasons, Buttelman said that her brand’s experiential touchpoints are putting an emphasis on the female sports fans. Rather than attending beauty conventions or hosting one-off pop-ups, for instance, Buttelman is focused on sports schedules so she can “meet them [female sports fans] on the turf and create something they want to participate in.”
With that, expect Fazit in the next couple of months to launch custom patches for athletes, host in-stadium pop-ups and brand activations and participate in even more marathons, run clubs and sorority tailgates—which are the ultimate personification of the intersection of beauty, sport and experiential, Buttelman noted.
“Female athletes are finally getting the platform they deserve. At the same time, brands are realizing that the women’s sports fan is entirely different from the men’s,” Buttelman said. In addition, “they value personality and multidimensionality” in the athletes they look up to. Thankfully, Fazit is primed to swoop in and offer makeup patches as “a confidence ritual” for some athletes and a means of “self-expression” for others, Buttelman said.
Off the court, female sports fans are also engaging differently. “They want to connect beyond the game, whether that’s at a stadium, arena or pop-up experience,” Buttelman said, noting that the ability for fans to wear the same product as a sports icon they love and even use it themselves when being active has been one of the pillars of Fazit’s success.
For other business owners, entrepreneurs or even event planners looking to make waves in a space where they wouldn’t traditionally show up, consider Fazit’s other best practices for finding success in an entirely different industry than its own:
- Find a connection point and build on it.
“We noticed runners wearing glitter to races and reached out to local run clubs in our biggest markets to send samples for upcoming events,” Buttelman offered as inspiration.
- Don’t fear being disruptive within your category.
“Show up in spaces other brands haven’t thought of yet or aren’t prioritizing,” Buttelman advised.
And as it pertains to relationship-building:
- Follow up and stay in touch.
- Keep partners in the loop on new products, launches and collaborations.
It’s a surefire way to ensure that these partners feel that they’re engaged in a true partnership, rather than simply serving as a vehicle to drive sales.
