Sheena Zadeh’s Kosas is the kind of scrappy success story conservatives like to cheer: a founder who bootstrapped a business from her kitchen table into a reported $150 million brand, grabbing early traction after a lucky break with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and steadily expanding into Sephora and overseas. That trajectory—built on product development, timing, and hustle—shows what free markets can produce when innovators are left to compete.
Kosas’ rise is also an immigrant success story worth celebrating: Zadeh, the daughter of modest means, turned a passion for makeup into a profitable company through hard work and smart risk-taking rather than government handouts or corporate favors. Conservatives should applaud this kind of upward mobility and the example it sets for aspiring entrepreneurs across the country.
But the success narrative comes wrapped in the performative language of “clean beauty,” a vague marketing construct that has generated huge premiums and investor interest without consistent scientific standards. Celebrity endorsements and influencer virality—Hailey Bieber and others—have done more to inflate valuations than product longevity or transparent ingredients, and that distorts what real value looks like in an honest marketplace.
Serious consumers and investors should be skeptical when brands trade on fear-of-chemicals rhetoric instead of clear, honest labeling. Social media threads and consumer complaints about product spoilage and potential contamination raise real questions about some “clean” formulas and whether removing certain preservatives compromises safety and shelf life. A market that prizes aesthetics over durability is a market that will eventually punish hype.
The chatter about a potential sale is exactly the moment to apply conservative scrutiny: the beauty M&A market has been fickle, and overvaluations born of influencer-fueled momentum can leave ordinary investors and employees holding the bag. Smart buyers will focus on margins, repeat purchase behavior, and real international traction rather than splashy launches and celebrity shout-outs. Kosas’ reported 30 percent international revenue may be promising, but it doesn’t erase sector-wide risks that savvy capital must weigh.
Regulators and consumers both have a role to play: demand clarity, not marketing theater. If “clean” means anything useful, it should be measurable, standardized, and enforced so that hardworking Americans know what they’re buying and aren’t preyed upon by fear-based branding and influencer hype. That kind of accountability protects honest entrepreneurs while rooting out firms that rely on buzz over substance.
At the end of the day, Kosas’ story is a reminder that capitalism rewards creativity and grit—but it also rewards transparency and product that works. Conservatives should celebrate Zadeh’s achievement while calling for tougher standards in a marketplace awash in virtue-signaling labels and celebrity-driven valuations. Support businesses that deliver real value, not just viral PR, and let the market sort the winners from the flash-in-the-pan fads.
