INFOCUS
EMBRACING BEAUTY AND EMPOWERING WOMEN IN KANSAS CITY WRITTEN BY SOPHIE OSWALD PHOTOS BY JAMI BOWMAN
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shley Maurin Rodden has brought her desire to help women feel confident in their own skin to life with LOVER® Cosmetics. She loved beauty as a child, but the realization that this could be a lifelong career didn’t hit her until college. While attending KU she became fond of a store in the area that inspired her love of makeup. She realized one day she’d want to open a makeup boutique of her own. After interning at Chanel in New York City, Rodden returned to Kansas City and worked at various marketing jobs. In 2006, she founded LOVER Cosmetics. In 2009, she made her way to Paris to attend makeup school at the renowned Christian Chauveau makeup artistry school, then returned to Kansas City and fine-tuned her own brand. “LOVER is nothing like it was when I first started the line. I started with about 25 different individual eye-
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Above: Ashley Maurin Rodden, owner of LOVER® Cosmetics shadows and about 10 different blushes and lip products,” Rodden explains. “All the pieces were individual like you see at most makeup counters today. But after doing hundreds of makeovers, women kept saying the same two things: ‘I don’t know how to do my makeup’ and ‘I don’t have time.’ That made me start the process of testing magnetic palettes and making prototypes.” The products made at LOVER Cos-
metics are all cruelty-free and made in the USA (with the exception of a few pencils). Nearly all are also EU-compliant, gluten-free, paraben-free, and many are also vegan. “I am able to visit the manufacturers, talk to them about what goes inside the products, and give our customers the best quality,” says Rodden. But LOVER is more than a makeup brand offering gorgeous, clean products in helpful magnetic packaging.
