Aesthetician And Influencer Liz Kennedy Heads To QVC With Her Brand Beauty Magnet’s 5-In-1 Skincare Tool

When Liz Kennedy lived in New York City five years ago, she kept losing beauty tools in her small apartment. She figures she bought hundreds of replacements for tweezers that had seemingly vanished into its nether regions. “My husband said, ‘Why can’t you ever find your stuff?’” she recalls. “Put them all in one place.”

Kennedy decided to do exactly what her husband advised and arrange her beauty tools in one place with Beauty Magnet, a brand she launched last year starring the 5-in-1 Professional Skin Care Tool containing a tweezer, derma roller with 540 needles, rose quartz face roller, eye roller and extractor connected with magnets. On Sept. 27, she’s taking the all-in-one-place tool to QVC, where it will reach consumers in millions of homes across the United States to prevent beauty tools from going missing in those homes.

“Most women are using these tools. I’m not reinventing the wheel with this, I’m reinventing the way it’s put together,” she says. “The Beauty Magnet for me is a way to simplify women’s lives and also give them something that is aesthetically pleasing.”

QVC viewers will be offered the 5-in-1 Professional Skin Care Tool for $79.95 in a lilac and white case that holds the tool along with a spray bottle that can be filled with disinfectant. They’ll be getting a substantial discount on the product. On Beauty Magnet’s website, it’s offered for $125 in a black case with the tool and spray bottle. Driven by its QVC presence, the brand estimates it could hit $5 million in sales in a year.

Kennedy, an aesthetician and influencer, is well acquainted with the shopping network. She grew up watching QVC and was formerly a spokeswoman on it for Meaningful Beauty, Cindy Crawford’s brand with Guthy Renker. “Everything is coming back full circle. I’m the QVC consumer and now the seller. It’s perfect for me. I’m the QVC consumer because I want things that make sense that are easy and affordable,” she says. “QVC was always something I wanted to do—and it’s our massive focus.”

QVC isn’t Beauty Magnet’s first distribution opportunity outside its site. Via a distribution partnership with the brand Nudestix that ended about six months ago, it was previously available online at Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, Macy’s and Sephora. Although QVC is Beauty Magnet’s main focus going forward, Kennedy suggests spas could be important venues for it, too. Similar to what it’s doing for QVC, it can create custom versions of its tool for spas.

Kennedy has a large platform of her own that she can tap to sell Beauty Magnet. On Instagram, she has nearly 100,000 followers, and she regularly pops up on television to dole out beauty expertise. In 2019, she hosted a YouTube makeover show called “Inner/Outer Beauty.” While she mentions Beauty Magnet on her social media accounts, she’s cautious not to saturate her content with it.

“Most women are using these tools. I’m not reinventing the wheel with this, I’m reinventing the way it’s put together.”

“I hate when people own brands, and they just talk about it every freakin’ day. I think it’s cheesy and inauthentic,” she says. “I’m getting together with other aestheticians and makeup artists because we are all out here selling brands. I love the products, so I thought, ‘Why don’t we come together and sell each other’s products?’ We are working to help each other’s products so including ours doesn’t feel so cheesy. No one likes to be sold on the same thing every day.”

Kennedy tries to post at least once daily on social media to be continually in front of her audience. On her platform, she’s not afraid to be honest about her foibles—and she believes her honest, conversational approach will be a winner on QVC. On social media, she says, “I’m just myself. I’m like, ‘Today was shitty, my kid slapped me in the face or I got pooped on.’ I just keep it real about motherhood and skincare like you would with a girlfriend.”

Bringing a beauty tool to market and appearing on QVC aren’t cheap. Kennedy reveals the mold for the 5-in-1 Professional Skin Care Tool alone cost $250,000 and building up inventory to make a splash on QVC was another $300,000. Beauty Magnet has raised roughly $1 million so far from investors such as Tariq Khan, managing director of CTZN Cosmetics and TAKtical International, and is in the middle of raising a round with the goal of drawing $2 million.

Fundraising hasn’t been a cinch for Kennedy. She originally started pursuing funding prior to the pandemic to produce Beauty Magnet. “I was pregnant. So, a pregnant woman asking for money can be really awkward because people don’t take you seriously. I struggled for a year to raise money. I was feeling really deflated,” she says. “Then, I gave birth to my son, the pandemic really helped me because skincare blew up, and I started changing my strategy. Instead of wealthy VC guys, I asked people in the beauty space.”

Beauty Magnet won’t stick to beauty tools forever. Kennedy intends for the brand to enter the skincare segment, but not in a traditional manner. Instead, it expects to translate the magnetic element that’s been key to its 5-in-1 Professional Skin Care Tool in the skincare segment with skincare products.

Kennedy has a bigger vision for Beauty Magnet beyond products. It currently dedicates a portion of its proceeds to A New Way Of Life, a charity providing housing and leadership development for people who’ve been incarcerated. In the future, Kennedy hopes to erect a program to teach women in jail how to become licensed aestheticians and amass clients on social media to have flourishing businesses as soon as they’re out of jail. Additionally, Kennedy plans to ramp up content that guides women to be the best they can be or, in her words, be “beauty magnets.” A podcast is a possibility.

Looking ahead five years for Beauty Magnet, Kennedy says, “By then, I definitely want to be a global brand, and I want people to be like, ‘She’s the only one who’s been able to do something physically while also changing the mental component. It’s going to be a lifelong brand, it’s not a short-term brand for quick money, and I want to change the way women think about themselves.”