Mikayla Nogueira first burst onto the beauty scene through TikTokers’ FYPs in 2020 — her thick Boston accent and unapologetically glam makeup rapidly earned her 16.3 million followers on the platform. This week, on Tuesday at 12 p.m. EST, Nogueira announced her unsurprising evolution from influencer to founder. Her beauty brand, Point of View, will become available on March 26. Its Instagram has amassed over 81,000 followers since it went live in step with the announcement.
Point of View will debut with five products, all of which are intended to prep and prime the skin for perfect makeup application. They include Drench It, a hydrating priming milk containing 60% fermented rice water and peptides; Drip It, a serum promoting hydration and glow; Whip It, a moisturizer with barrier-boosting properties; Glaze It, a gripping primer; and Amp It, a lip treatment to help prep lips for color. The brand is backed by Imaginary Ventures, which has invested in brands including Skims, Glossier and Kosas. The terms of that deal were not disclosed.
Nogueira wrestled with the idea of starting a brand for some time, though Point of View has already been in the works for two years.
“I had made an incredible impact on social media. I had built such a strong, incredible community, and I had worked with all the dream beauty brands I aspired to work with. I had done partnerships with brands I never imagined [I’d work with]. But [I had this] lingering question in the back of my mind, like, ‘What’s next? What is my legacy truly going to be? Do I want to be known as just a social media influencer or known [for] something deeper, something bigger, [to have] a richer impact?” Nogueira said.
Her biggest obstacle to overcome was fear, she said. After all, many influencer brands do not succeed — plus, the beauty market is saturated, to say the least.
“[I was] trying to figure out: Can I actually do this? It was absolutely the most terrifying decision of my life,” she said. “I don’t want [this] to be seen as the next influencer brand. I want [it] to be seen as the next legacy brand. I want to build a brand that leaves a legacy and can thrive.”
To do so, Nogueira is working with Ani Hadjinian, a seasoned beauty exec who has worked at Bobbi Brown, Augustinus Bader and Stella & Dot, among other brands. Hadjinian is both co-founder and CEO of the brand.
“[These products have] efficacious formulas. They have clinical and consumer claims to back them up. And they’ve been designed to work together — they’re a symphony; they were created at the same time so that they could be layered and worn underneath your makeup. Everything is done so thoughtfully,” Nogueira said. Formulating the products this way also ensured they would not pill, a common complaint when combining skin care and makeup.
Hadijinian pointed to Nogueira’s “ability to tap into her audience,” calling her community “so incredibly powerful.”
“She has made people become better versions of themselves, whether [that means] taking a risk and learning new makeup techniques or trying on a dress that they never thought could [work for] their body,” she said, adding that Nogueira’s audience spans multiple generations.
The Point of View team is exploring ways to bring her community into the brand, such as by gifting select followers with PR boxes. “It’s fun to create a challenge or a contest that not only allows the community to get involved and have a little fun, but it also allows people to feel like they’re truly a part of the brand,” Nogueira said.
Hadjinian noted that founders such as Bobbi Brown and Nogueira share an “obsession with quality.” She said Nogueira had a strong intuition about the direction she wanted to take the brand, from its formulas to its packaging design. “We would put stuff in front of Mikayla and, without even touching it, she’d be like, ‘Nope.’ [She has] this intuition.”
To create the collection, Nogueira and Hadjinian traveled to Korea, which Nogueira said felt “timely,” given the current Korean skin-care boom. This was important, Nogueira said, given the country’s ability to formulate advanced, lightweight textures that layer well and tap into some of K-Beauty’s hero ingredients. The brand’s Drench It toning product, for example, features fermented rice water, which is said to provide long-term skin benefits. In many similar products, the first ingredient is water.
Nogueira will spend the next two weeks disseminating content she dubs “edutainment,” so that by the time Point of View is available, customers will be primed (no pun intended) to shop. It will launch DTC and on TikTok Shop.
“I want people who are interested in the brand to know absolutely everything you could possibly know about the brand, the products, me, the website, … I want them to know it to their core,” Nogueira said. “I will be going ham on my socials, but I’m excited. It gives me so much adrenaline. This is what I love to do.”
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