How Refy Beauty's Founder, Jess Hunt, Built A Viral Makeup Brand

Back in 2020, Jess Hunt and Jenna Meek co-founded REFY, launching their brand with the now cult-loved Brow Sculpt, Brow Pomade, and Brow Pencil. The hope? To make eyebrow routines a lot more effortless and streamlined than ever before, with a love and appreciation for natural glamour (and the look of full, laminated brows, too). What the duo didn’t realize, however, was the impact the brand identity would have on the beauty-loving masses, leading to a complete sellout of their six month stock in only six short weeks.

Hunt tells me via phone from her home in the UK that REFY took two years to develop. While the 27 year-old model and social media maven “didn’t expect much” of the initial launch, the pandemic surprisingly allowed the brand to gain its wings. “Our products needed a lot of education in order for them to work how they are supposed to,” Hunt says. “During the pandemic, people were suddenly home and willing to try new things.” Thus, her followers (and beauty lovers in general) had ample time to watch TikTok reviews, how-tos, and more. And since many were focusing on minimal glam that is easy and fresh for Zoom meetings, the products were a hit. Of course, her own amassed following helped REFY’s brand awareness. Yet Hunt explains that the brand has grown well beyond her own influence, living and breathing largely unattached from her name.

Since then, REFY has thoughtfully expanded its collection past just the eyebrow category, prioritizing innovative products that aim to tighten up one’s makeup regime — like the Glow and Sculpt Face Serum Primer, which nixes the need for a face roller tool as the applicator has a face-snatching roller built-in. The brand’s latest launch offers yet another beauty solve.

“I happen to have pale lips,” Hunt explains. She’s considered “lip blushing” — which is essentially a semi-permanent flush of color tattooed on your pout that lessens the need for daily lip combo applications — but being that she’s in the business of solving “pain-points of a makeup routine,” the idea for Lip Blush was born.

Formulated to add a lightweight, your-lips-but-better wash of natural color to your pout, the Lip Blush currently comes in six hues that offer a less permanent solution to the buzzy lip blushing trend. Equipped with hydration by way of a coconut emollient, it also boasts “blurring technology” that results in plush, cloud-like lips.

A tried and true multitasker, my favorite way to use the Lip Blush is to create a monochromatic moment, applying the products onto my lips, cheeks, and eyelids, blending away in seconds with my fingers or a brush. “Blush is having its moment, and I’m obsessed with blush myself,” says Hunt. She adds that every single launch (including this one) is all about making your life easier.

While the virality of a product launch is impossible to control, REFY has struck gold on more than one occasion. Case in point? Its Lip Sculpt Lip Liner and Setter aimed to nix the need for lip liner reapplication, with a comfortable color formula that comes with a clear setting top coat to keep the look in place. BeautyTok exploded with reviews and videos of wow-ed expressions, gaining a whopping eight million views (and counting) on the #REFYLipLiner hashtag.

The entrepreneur shares with me that her mornings are important, as they set the tone for the rest of her day. And while she’s a self-proclaimed “crazy girl for a to-do list” who leads her days with affirmation-laden journal entries and a lot of coffee, she recognizes that it’s incredibly healthy to turn off her bustling “business brain.”

“I really enjoy going for a walk and listening to a podcast to get out of that zone,” she explains, with her current go-to listens being The Break, Life with Marianna, and Working Hard, Hardly Working. “Though if I really want to switch off, I read a thriller” — and ICYWW, The Silent Patient so happens to top both our lists.