As a founding partner of MAC Cosmetics, Victor Casale is well versed in what it takes to build a successful beauty brand. Two years after MAC was sold to Estée Lauder in 1998, Casale met Lee Graff, a corrective make-up specialist at the CosMedic Clinic in Toronto, and together they began developing a line of full coverage foundations specifically for the clinic’s clients. Out of this, Cover FX was born.
What did you set out to achieve when you started Cover FX?Working with Lee, we founded the company out of a love of foundation. We exist because of complexion, so we’ve taken it very seriously since we first developed our flagship cream product. Over the years, we’ve evolved and made our products available to everyone through offering full coverage, powder and liquid formats. We take pride in the fact that we have a global shade palette of 28 shades and we are very unique in that our products are high tech skin care products with colour.
What is your international presence like?We are now selling in three countries – Canada, the UK and the US and we’re looking to open in Hong Kong by September. In the UK, we’re in department stores, in the US we’re in about 400 Sephora stores and in Canada, we’re in the beauty boutique in Shoppers Drug Mart and Sephora.
How did your history at MAC shape your approach to Cover FX?As one of the founding partners of MAC, I learned that you can’t do everything well. This is why we decided with Cover FX that we would focus on complexion. We may look at launching colour products that help provide a healthy base but we’ll always stay focused on our mission to provide healthy foundations, a global shade palette and offering customers full coverage where they want it. Something else I learned at MAC was how to develop products that really perform well. I brought that knowledge to Cover FX to create products that perform, are good for the skin and cover a comprehensive shade range.
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