Cocoa Brown’s Marissa Carter: From Dublin beautician to backstage at the Oscars

In a few short years she's from being a beautician in Dublin to booking her flight to LA to mingle with the stars fronting the brand chosen as the official tan sponsor of the 2014 Oscars.

It's fair to say Marissa Carter, 30,  owner of Carter Beauty Blackrock and its bestselling fake tan, Cocoa Brown, as well as mum to son Charlie, has done good.

Launched in Ireland in November 2012, Cocoa Brown One Hour Tan is the country’s number one tan, selling three bottles a minute.

As the brand not-so-quietly takes over the UK market – it’s currently sold in Primark, Superdrug and feelunique.com – we nabbed a chat with Marissa the secrets to entrepreneurial success (with a few tanning tips along the way!).

Believe in yourself

“I first approached an Irish distributor and told them I had an idea for a tanning brand but that I had no money. I said they’d need to give me an order of 25,000 units of this bottle of tan that had no name,” she told us.

The distributor ‘thought she was mad’ to pitch a business proposal with no sample – but three weeks later they rung her back to get on board with the business.

“They said ‘Look, Marissa this is one of the biggest risks we’ve ever taken, but we like you and we’re going to take a punch on you’” she said.

The distributor made an order of 25,000 units of Marissa’s non-existent product – and Cocoa Brown Tan was born.

Know your market

“For the last couple of years, spray tanning has been the most popular treatment in my salon [Carter Beauty in Dublin],” she said.

Marissa was keen to listen to her clients to find out the kind of tanning product they were looking for in the market.

“I spent a lot of time asking my customers what they liked about tan, what they didn’t like about tan,” she told us about how she developed the formula for Cocoa Brown One Hour Tan.

Go out and get it

Despite being a qualified beauty therapist, Marissa flew to Philadelphia for her Cosmetic Chemistry qualification so she could have educated conversations with the people that were developing her as-yet-unnamed tan.

She'd just given birth to her son Charlie and admitted she had a lot of time to develop the idea of Cocoa Brown Tan.

"I then got onto my manufacturer, who I’d been working with for quite a while. Samples were going backwards and forwards as I working on my dream tan," she said.

"And then in November 2012, the 25,000 units of Cocoa Brown launched in Ireland."

Stand out in the market

You only have to look at the fake tanning range in your local Boots or Superdrug to see that it's a very crowded market. To overcome this obstacle, Marissa created a tanning product that was different to the rest.

"There’s a couple of things that make the Cocoa Brown product different," she said.

"The first thing is the colour. When I was working with the Cosmetic Chemist to formulate the colour, I said I needed it to be a rich, cocoa brown colour - not orange."

Change people’s perceptions

We’re not going to lie – we’ve had our fair share of tanning disasters in the past, but Marissa went about changing people’s opinions of fake tanning by developing a quality product at a good pricepoint.

“People that don’t use or like tan, when they use it, they’re pleasantly surprised,” she said.

“The quality of the product and the convenience of it developing in just an hour is just amazing.”

Don’t be ashamed of who you are

The Irish beauty has said in the past that she dyed her hair brown to tone down when she was first breaking into business. Now, she has no qualms hiding who she really is and the packaging of Cocoa Brown encapsulates her girly demeanour.

“The packaging is very girly, very feminine. Obviously because I was putting my name to the product, I wanted It to be a representation of my style and I’m unashamedly feminine,” she said.

Do what you love

“I’ve always wanted to do beauty, it’s in my blood. I tweezed off half my friend’s eyebrows before they were 14,” she joked to us.

“I was the one that was stealing make-up from my mother’s make-up bag and bringing it into school. I was the class beauty queen.

“It will be an amazing experience to be over in LA for the three days before the Oscars and handing our product to massive celebrities,” she said.

Stand up for what you believe in – your brand

“In Ireland, when we announced that we sold three bottles of Cocoa Brown a minute, people were like ‘Oh, do you not think that’s an awful lot of tan for people to be wearing?’” she said.

“My answer to that was ‘Would you prefer if we announced three cases of skin cancer a minute?’ People are more aware now of the dangers of getting a real suntan. I believe fake tan is a very safe way of people achieving that bronzed, natural look.”

Find a work/life balance

“I like to work really, really hard but then that’s it - it finishes at 7 o clock in the evening. Obviously there are times when you have to work weekends and you have to work late,” she admitted.

“I do definitely try and enjoy life as much as possible. You’re not here that long. There’s no point being successful and not enjoying that success.”

“I find gardening very therapeutic and my little boy comes round with a very small watering can and helps me out,” she said.

There are no shortcuts to success

“Everyone wants to make it look easy, but I believe it’s about hard grafting and anyone that says otherwise is telling a fib,” she said.

Surround yourself with people that are better than you

One of the key attributes to Marissa’s success is surrounding herself with people that have skills she doesn't – something that’s clearly worked to her advantage.

“I think in business, you should never be afraid of hiring someone smarter than you, because if you always want to be the cleverest person in the room, you’ll never learn anything,” she said.

“Have a really good team around you. I think of a lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to do everything themselves.”

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Set short-term goals

“I like to set a goal, achieve it and then go ‘next!’ I like to do things fast because I hate waiting,” she told us.

“Maybe in five years’ time I’ll be sitting in one of the chairs as a Dragon. Or maybe I’ll be pointing across the boardroom saying ‘You’re fired!’

“Watch out Lord Sugar, I’m coming for you!”

Cocoa Brown is available in selected Primark stores, online at feelunique.com and in Superdrug stores nationwide.

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