Entrepreneurial student starts own cosmetic business, hopes to bring new flavor to makeup industry
Shannon Maghielse wants to change the face of makeup.
She has invested about three years worth of tuition money into formula development and manufacturing, and will open the Shannon Evans Cosmetics line for business July 1.
The Greenville senior is an entrepreneurial student at Central Michigan University. When she started studying entrepreneurship through the honors program at CMU, many of her classes required her to draft a mock business plan, and she always went back to something she had been considering since she was 14.
"I always based it around a cosmetic business," she said. "In the fall, I actually took my idea and put it into motion."
The line's motto is "innovating beauty."
"I wanted to make sure that all the products were doing more than just one thing," she said. "(I want to) break barriers as to what makeup can do."
The mascara she helped formulate contains a keratin formula to strengthen eyelashes and her foundation contains ingredients that double as moisturizing and anti-aging devices for skin.
Maghielse's line also contains mineral-based powders, an under-eye correcting and highlighting cream containing duo-peptides to reduce wrinkles, a lash-growth serum and others.
She works closely with distributors and chemists at her manufacturer to determine the products she wants to create. She also researched her product's packaging, which will use drop-proof cases.
"How I researched that was mainly based on what I personally wanted, what personally bothered me about makeup and then what my friends and family and people I knew liked or didn't like," she said.
Maghielse's friend, Harrison senior Rebecca Henry, remembered watching Maghielse labor for hours on the overall plan and individual products.
Henry plans on sampling Maghielse's cosmetic line when it makes its debut, and has no doubt the line will take off.
"Just from knowing Shannon, I think it's going to be a success," she said.
Maghielse hopes to sell $100,000 worth of product during her line's first fiscal year, which will start this year. Her goal is $500,000 for its second year, and she hopes to sell between $1 million and $2 million each year after that.
"My brand will never be a large brand," she said. "It will never be like CoverGirl or Loreal ... I'm looking more to a market of a Sephora or a Macy's makeup counter. Those brands are small and unique, and they appeal to different niche markets and that's how I've developed my brand to be."
Robby Roberts, associate director of academic programs at the LaBelle Entrepreneurial Center, said Maghielse is a good example of student outcome in the entrepreneurial program.
"When (students) come in, we try to start them out with innovation and business plan writing," she said. "They take their innovative idea ... through with them until their graduation where they can go out and start their own business if they'd like. That's kind of what Shannon's done. When she came in, she knew what she wanted"
