Tiffany Masterson

“Drunk Elephant? That’s the dumbest name I’ve ever heard.”

Six years later, she sold it for $845M.

Tiffany Masterson didn’t hire branding agencies.

She had no clinical background.

She didn’t test her brand in a focus group.

She trusted her gut.

For years, she did what millions of women do: bought the products, followed the trends, and paid the price with her skin.

Reactive. Inflamed. Unpredictable.

The industry called it “sensitive.”

Tiffany started asking: What if it’s not my skin? What if it’s the ingredients?

Essential oils. Drying alcohols. Synthetic fragrance. Silicones. Chemical sunscreens. SLS.

Six ingredients hiding in nearly every “clean” product on the shelf.

She called them the Suspicious 6™.

She cut them out completely.

And just like that... her skin reset.

No more breakouts. No more “reactivity.”

Just skin doing what it’s supposed to do.

But there wasn’t a single brand that left all six out.

So she built one.

Six products. Self-funded. Self-tested.

Launched from her website in 2013 under a name that everyone hated: Drunk Elephant.

The name came from marula oil, a hero ingredient in her formulas.

She’d seen a video of elephants eating fermented marula fruit and stumbling around.

Drunk elephants.

Weird. Memorable. Undeniably her.

While the industry chased trends, she obsessed over pH, delivery systems, and absorption.

She didn’t care if an ingredient was natural or synthetic.

Only if it was safe, effective, and non-sensitizing.

She formulated products your skin could actually use... and customers felt the difference.

By 2015, Sephora came calling.

Eleven days after launching online, her products were sold out.

As Drunk Elephant scaled, Tiffany stayed focused.

She hired people who shared her values.

Delegated what she wasn’t great at.

Owned what she was.

And when Shiseido offered $845M in 2019, she didn’t just sell.

Every employee, from the receptionist to the C-suite, got equity.

Today, Drunk Elephant is sold in 30+ countries.

You’ve seen the neon packaging. Now you know the story behind it.