Halsey knows that fans don’t always know what she looks like—and that’s on purpose. In 2015, shortly after she released her first album Badlands, she grew tired of everyone referring to her as “the blue-haired singer.” So, she shaved her head and made it a mission to constantly evolve her look. In 2017 she walked the Grammys red carpet with a bleach blonde pixie cut; a 2020 magazine cover showcased hip-length braids; and at her opening concert for the 2022 “Love and Power Tour” she rocked half-up blonde curls.
Core to their chameleon act: make-up. “I do my own makeup and I started doing it out of necessity,” says Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns and was born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane. “I had a real motivation to make products, quite frankly, that would just work for me that I couldn't find on the market.”
That passion and experience led beauty industry veterans Jeanne Chavez and Dineh Mohajer—who’d founded Hard Candy, a popular cosmetics brand, three decades prior—to approach Halsey in 2019 about creating a new makeup line. Since its January 2021 launch, about-face, which is vegan with a focus on “clean” ingredients, has sold more than 5 million products. In 2022, Halsey says the company raked in $50 million in revenue.
Core to their chameleon act: make-up. “I do my own makeup and I started doing it out of necessity,” says Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns and was born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane. “I had a real motivation to make products, quite frankly, that would just work for me that I couldn't find on the market.”
That passion and experience led beauty industry veterans Jeanne Chavez and Dineh Mohajer—who’d founded Hard Candy, a popular cosmetics brand, three decades prior—to approach Halsey in 2019 about creating a new makeup line. Since its January 2021 launch, about-face, which is vegan with a focus on “clean” ingredients, has sold more than 5 million products. In 2022, Halsey says the company raked in $50 million in revenue.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hi, we are here with Halsey today.
00:05 Thank you so much for joining us
00:06 to talk about your music and your beauty businesses.
00:09 - Thank you for having me.
00:11 - You are an award-winning musician, a Grammy nominee.
00:14 Walk me through what it was like to realize
00:17 that you could sing and act at a young age.
00:19 - Oh my goodness.
00:20 I remember the first time someone ever told me
00:23 that I had a nice voice.
00:24 I was in the car, I was singing along
00:27 to probably an Avril Lavigne song.
00:29 On the radio, my mom turned to my father and said,
00:34 "Chris, listen to her."
00:37 And my dad was like, "What?"
00:39 She was like, "She's good."
00:41 And I just remember, you know,
00:43 the way that felt and how proud I felt in that moment.
00:46 I think that's one of those memories
00:47 that kind of like stays with you,
00:49 especially when it ends up becoming, you know,
00:50 part of your line of work.
00:52 And after high school, I intended to go to
00:57 like a pretty acclaimed university
01:00 and found out that I could not afford to go,
01:03 which was something I knew.
01:05 It wasn't a surprise to me that my parents, you know,
01:06 didn't have a lot of money at all.
01:08 But being 17, I couldn't really apply for loans
01:11 or I couldn't really take matters into my own hands.
01:13 And I was really frustrated
01:15 because everyone had told me my whole life, you know,
01:17 if you take these classes, you get good grades,
01:18 you do these things, you'll go to a good college,
01:21 et cetera, et cetera.
01:22 And that was like life kind of hitting me in the face
01:24 of like, it doesn't go that way sometimes.
01:27 And that was my big moment of like, well, what do you mean?
01:29 I did everything right.
01:30 And so from that moment forward, I was just like,
01:32 well, I'm just gonna do everything wrong
01:33 'cause doing everything right doesn't matter.
01:35 So I moved to New York.
01:36 I didn't go to college at all.
01:37 And then I started making music
01:40 and I just sort of never looked back.
01:42 - So being an entrepreneur, you, you know,
01:49 obviously have your musical career and your musical brand,
01:52 but you also ventured into other avenues
01:55 of entrepreneurialism.
01:56 You have a beauty brand now, About Face and AF94.
01:59 Walk me through your decision
02:00 to enter the beauty space specifically.
02:02 - I started doing my own makeup, mostly out of necessity.
02:06 My first record company was a boutique label
02:10 and their whole roster was DJs.
02:13 It was like male electronic artists.
02:15 So that initial conversation was really funny
02:18 when it started becoming like, yo, I need styling.
02:20 I need glam.
02:21 I need this.
02:22 And they were like, you have $20.
02:24 The other guys are showing up with the USB
02:26 in like the hoodie and doing the thing.
02:28 And that was like a moment where I realized
02:29 I didn't have access to the same resources
02:31 as some of my other peers,
02:33 especially my female or like female presenting peers.
02:35 And so I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to fall behind.
02:40 I just need to figure out how to do it myself.
02:45 I had a real motivation to make products,
02:49 quite frankly, that would just work for me
02:51 that I couldn't find on the market.
02:53 So with that being said,
02:55 I was actually approached by the founders of Hard Candy,
03:00 which was one of my favorite makeup brands ever as a kid.
03:03 And we just felt like the perfect pairing.
03:05 - My last question I have for you is what is next for you?
03:09 Do you have any big plans with the beauty brands,
03:12 with other entrepreneurial ventures, with your music?
03:14 I would love to know what you're looking forward to
03:16 in the next couple of months or year.
03:17 - Oh my gosh.
03:19 Let me tell you, I am doing a lot of things right now.
03:22 I'm definitely working on music,
03:24 but I'm kind of always working on music.
03:26 And, you know, About Face has a ton of really,
03:29 really exciting launches coming in the next year
03:31 and some retail expansion, same for AF94.
03:35 I'm raising my son, which is amazing.
03:38 He just turned two a couple months ago.
03:41 So I'm navigating that.
03:43 Yeah, really, I think just trying to continue
03:46 all the amazing projects that I have going right now
03:49 and integrating all that into motherhood
03:51 and enjoying the last year of my twenties.
03:54 - Yeah. - You know?
03:55 I got one year left until I start the big 30.
03:58 I started doing this when I was 18.
04:01 I felt so old at the time.
04:03 And I've been doing it for over a decade now.
04:07 So sometimes I just feel ancient.
04:10 And I realized, I think this past year,
04:12 just how young I really am.
04:15 And then I have such a long runway in front of me
04:18 to try new things and explore different things.
04:21 And I'm gonna try them all.
04:24 (upbeat music)
04:27 (upbeat music)
04:29 (upbeat music)
04:32 (upbeat music)
04:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]