Aspire with Emma Grede
Patrick Ta on Accountability, Identity and Building a Beauty Empire
16 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
My debut book Start With Yourself is available now. You may have seen the headlines or the clips on social media but this book is exactly what I intended it to be. A conversation that will make you think and it's a blueprint for anyone pursuing success without the toxic positivity. Everywhere I go women ask me how I got to where I am but what they're really asking is how can they get there too.
Start With Yourself is my answer and it will be your answer too. Today, I'm having a conversation with Patrick Tarr, one of the most recognizable makeup artists in the world and the founder of one of the most successful beauty brands in Sephora. Patrick was booked before the launch of his new blushes sent the internet and makeup community into a spiral.
But by the time he sat down with me, he knew our conversation had to be about more than just makeup. What I found interesting is that Patrick didn't come in just to tell his story.
He came in open, emotional and willing to learn, not only from the conversation, but from my own mistakes as a founder and from the accountability that comes when the impact of a launch lands differently than you intended. So yes, we talk about the controversy, but we also talk about the full trajectory that brought him to this very moment.
Growing up feeling unseen, opening a nail salon at 18, going bankrupt at 21, building his career through social media when that was still frowned upon, and turning artistry into a brand built for longevity. This is a conversation about reputation, recognition, and what it means to take responsibility when your business becomes bigger than just you. Here's Patrick Tarr.
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Chapter 2: How did Patrick Ta's early experiences shape his career in beauty?
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Join the membership for where you live at joinbuilt.com slash Emma. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash Emma. Make sure you use our URL so they know we sent you. Patrick Tarr, welcome to Aspire.
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
I am so happy to have you. It feels like it's a really long time coming.
Honestly, I am so inspired by you. So honestly, I feel like I hope to learn something from you today as well.
I'm really excited to have you because for me and for so many of us, you are one of the most recognizable makeup artists in the whole world. I've read some incredible stats about the business that you have and that you've built at Sephora. But I think what's so interesting about you is that you're still a working makeup artist. And even with...
all of the accolades that you have with the size of the brand and with everything that you're doing, you still choose to be there and working with your clients. And when I hear about your experience, I always think that, you know, you were this kid who spent their childhood really feeling like you didn't quite belong.
And I wonder how your experience and essentially how that has shaped how you thought what was possible for you.
I have always been a dreamer. I grew up, I'm first generation Vietnamese American. I did not excel in school. I'm a high school dropout. I was bullied. I have a stuttering speech in impeachment. And I never really felt like I belonged. I was considered like the black sheep of my family.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Patrick face after launching his beauty brand?
I came out of the closet and at the age of 18, I somehow convinced like my mom and my dad to open up a nail salon for me. This is something that I was so ashamed of. Like, why am I choosing to do this? Because I had no other direction. I basically ran that business to the ground. So at the age of 21, I had to file bankruptcy. And at that point, like I was the biggest disappointment to my parents.
As a first generation Vietnamese American whose parents sacrificed an enormous amount for them, like I wonder how much of how you operate is kind of informed by that upbringing that you had.
I moved to Los Angeles and I set out this dream to start my career as a makeup artist. I made sure that I was going to succeed. This was 14 years ago. That was when it was like the start of social media. I would reach out to clients. I remember I was charging $50. to do makeup.
I was just so hungry to make a name for myself and to honestly, to like redeem myself from my parents, to make them proud. And that like driving force of my bankruptcy has like, I think led me to like where I am today.
No doubt. If you could kind of pinpoint one moment from your childhood or your early career that's really shaped who you are and what you do now, do you think it would be that bankruptcy?
I think it was a lot of things.
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Chapter 4: How does Patrick Ta define accountability in the beauty industry?
I think growing up, like really overweight, growing up, not having any friends, growing up, never being told that I was good at anything until I started doing makeup. Makeup was the first time that someone gave me my first compliment. Makeup was the first thing that someone told me that I was finally good at something. And I held on to that for dear life.
When I first started doing makeup, I was very quiet. I just came to work and I did my job and really just tried to
make my clients feel like the best like version of themselves and i realized that me building up the girl sitting in in my chair their confidence it truly like built mine like makeup has given me my voice it's given me my confidence it's given me like this entire career so what i'm able to do for the girls like i like they do that for me
I'm really interested to understand more about the early Patrick and where that resilience comes from. Because when you have a failure like that, you're essentially dropped out of high school, open the salon. You then, I think you're 18, you go bankrupt by the time you're 21. Most people would have just turned around, gone home, decided like,
you know, this type of career is not for me, but you actually decided to like, you know, start something anew. I wonder, like, if you, if you think about those three years, what were the big takeaways for you now that you look back on that time?
I think for me, like I never wanted to feel like that low again. I did everything in my power. I was working seven days a week, not going out. Honestly, like from my 20s to my 30s, no social life whatsoever. Really just like heads down trying to make a name for myself.
I mean, it's amazing to even think about that there's like a decade of unbelievable like work there because, you know, it kind of, when you look at like your bio, one minute you're on a Mac counter and the next minute you are like literally working with some of the most impressive and unbelievable clients in the world.
So actually what happens in that time, like from Matt Counter to you picking up clients like Shay Mitchell and Rihanna and J-Lo, like tell me like what was the actual turning point for you?
I have always been obsessed with makeup. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was DMing people. I would reach out to as many people as I could and just like wanting someone to say yes. Something that was, I think that was like frowned upon like back then, but I didn't know how else to reach these people. I didn't want to fail again. And at the very beginning of my career, like when it was so
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Chapter 5: What led to the controversy surrounding the Transition Blush launch?
We ended up outsourcing a external agency to help us. And a friend of a friend that worked at Sephora caught wind that I was like starting a brand. They asked us to fly to San Francisco. And I was like, oh my God, like this is such a... a big moment for me because like Sephora is a brick and mortar that I have always admired. It's a store that I've, that I shopped at.
I flew to San Francisco with our three products to present. I was so nervous. I came into this like boardroom and there was like 20 people in there and I presented everything that I had. I told them my story. I told them like my hopes and dreams. And I left that meeting with like tears, like running down my face because like I was so happy.
Were you like, I killed this and Sephora are going to take my brand?
I knew I was an amazing makeup artist. I knew I had the best clients. So like, of course you want me.
Chapter 6: How does Patrick Ta view the importance of creator credit?
I left crying because I was just like so happy with how it all came to place. Sephora is such an inviting company. We ended up launching exclusively at Sephora a year and a half later.
So it was pretty quick between you starting with your friend and business partner to actually launching product on your own to then a year and a half later getting in Sephora. That's a pretty quick trajectory. And this is all happening around COVID as well?
This is like right before COVID. And like not knowing anything about the industry then, like we launched, they gave us a end cap in 200 doors. And I was like, why aren't they going to give me more doors? I don't understand. We only had three products on four shelves. We used like all the other shelves for like photos.
What I didn't realize back then is that like every single square foot of Sephora needs to generate dollars. And the fact that they were able to take a leap on to us really like said something. I'm now in over, a thousand doors and I'm a top 10 brand at Sephora. It's crazy to like even say that.
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Chapter 7: What lessons has Patrick learned about leadership and integrity?
I think it is really important as a brand, compete with yourself and never stay stagnant. Like just because I have like the number one blush right now, it doesn't mean it's always going to stay like that. When I launch a product now, These products, I stand behind. And that is so important for me.
When I first launched the brand, I was creating products that I really felt were missing from my own makeup kit. But how I create products now is that I need to know that I still want to talk about this
five years from now you need to be able to love your product and make sure that the formula is there so once you like even like stop talking about it the formula speaks for itself and i made sure that the products that i launched i love them i stand behind them and that i i always like ask myself will i love this like 10 years from now and that's a really hard question because like you don't know
It's a hard question. I think it's a hard lesson to learn. And I felt the same thing. You know, I used to get fatigued. I was like, are we really going to do like another blue jean campaign? And it's like, yes. And if we're lucky in 30 years, we'll just be doing blue jean campaigns and still talking about the same thing.
Chapter 8: What insights does Patrick have about the role of social media in his career?
Because when you do something with excellence and you're really amazing at it, it's, The best thing in the world is to be able to double down and have that product and speak about that product over and over and over again. But I think that you're right. You can't get lazy. You have to innovate. You have to iterate. And you always have to be thinking about the next thing.
You have to also know when it's the right time to evolve from that product. You can't do it too quick and you can't
do it too late even though i might understand this like this technique of cream over powder and i think it's so old it's been like three years there are so many people out there that have no idea what it is i launched that blush duo five years ago it was like sitting stagnant on the shelves for at least like a year and a half it wasn't until like i started educating i started really like showing people how to use or different ways of using it that like
this blush took off like wildfire.
I've seen that in my own businesses. Not everything is a hit out of the gate, but if you really believe in something, like you have to kind of really double down and say, this is what it is. This is what I stand for. I have a lot of belief and conviction in this product and I'm just going to keep going because eventually things take flight.
And I think the same things happened in my own companies. Like you launch something and two years later it takes off and you might just be a little bit ahead of the curve. How do you like spot new trends, see what's happening in your business and decide, actually, this is a product that I need to create. This is a category that I need to be in.
So because I'm a working makeup artist, I don't think that I'm going to give that up anytime soon. When I do makeup, I don't really look for trends. It's really important for me because I work on some of the biggest names... in Hollywood, I just want them to feel the best version of themselves. I want them to feel confident and I want them to book me again.
And how you get that to happen is that they feel like the best versions of themselves. I'm not focused on trends. I'm focused on making my clients just like love how they look and they feel confident. Sometimes those looks become trends. I bring that then into my development process.
I want to talk to you a little bit about the business. And because I look at it, I'm like, my goodness, you started with like such a tiny team. Now you've got a team of over 60 people. What has been, I guess, like the hardest leadership lesson that you've learned as the company's grown and scaled?
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