Meet Maria Karr: Co-Founder and CEO of Rumore Beauty

Maria Karr is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rumore Beauty, the first and only online platform dedicated to the discovery of Russian beauty products in the U.S.

Maria was born and raised in Russia, in the Siberian city of Barnaul, but since 2007, New York City has been her home. Before creating Rumore, Maria led PR, communications, and influencer marketing efforts for leading global beauty brands for the past 10 years. Today, Rumore Beauty has been featured in Forbes, Allure, Vogue, and more.

In a recent episode of our Office Chats podcast, Maria discusses what led her to create Rumore beauty, her advice for other start-ups, how her company is supporting humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, and more.

You can listen to the full episode below or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Can you give us an overview of your career background?

I started my career more than ten years ago in human resources. After college, I was helping entertainment companies like Warner Music Group and HBO recruit the best talent for their teams. Then I decided to pivot into something that I’ve been passionate about since childhood, which was public relations and communications. I wanted to get on the creative side of things and write, plan events, and work on more creative projects. That’s what made me go into PR. I

worked on the red carpet events with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and then transitioned into the beauty space. I came to a boutique PR firm in New York City where I represented clients big and small within the wellness, lifestyle, and health space. I transitioned to different agencies over the next five years or so before landing at AMOREPACIFIC US, which is one of the largest beauty companies in the world and the largest Korean beauty company. That’s where I was up until I launched Rumore Beauty.

What drew you to a career in the beauty industry in the first place?

I grew up in a small town in Siberia called Barnaul, and back then, there was not a lot going on in the beauty space in my town or country. So both the idea of beauty and public relations was very far-fetched. But while I was at university in Barnaul there was a PR department that was always on my radar. I studied closely with that department and that’s when I got the inspiration to go into public relations.

As far as the beauty space, I always loved it as a person but I didn’t think about it as a career because those opportunities were almost nonexistent back home. However, there were door-to-door beauty companies like Avon and Oriflame, and when I was thirteen, I got into the Oriflame business! I was so proud to have the blue bag across my shoulder and talk to my classmates and I was able to make a little bit of money on the side. It wasn’t an income, but it was my first introduction to the beauty space, so the beauty business. It was a lot of fun and I loved experimenting with beauty products. The idea of glamor has always been fascinating to me.

How did the idea for Rumore come to be? And when did you realize you were ready to make the jump to leave your career and pursue this full-time?

I had been in the beauty industry for a while and was so fortunate to learn about brands from all over the world. I realized that I’d tried beauty products from all over the world—from Asia and Europe to Australia and everything in between—but I never saw beauty products from my home country. When I was growing up, there was not a lot going on in the Russian beauty space. Most products were either government-owned or imported and the imports were either very expensive or unauthentic. But I was unaware of what was happening in the modern Russian beauty industry. In 2019, I found myself on a flight to Moscow to run the Moscow Marathon. 

While I was there, I discovered so many beauty brands that I had never tried or seen stateside. The ingredients were great and the products were phenomenal, but I didn’t find them anywhere in the U.S. I fell in love with these products and thought, if they aren’t present in the U.S., I can be the person to introduce them. I felt like my fellow Americans would appreciate a different side to global beauty, as well as the natural ingredients and formulations that I discovered. That’s when the idea was born! Rumore Beauty has helped me merge my cultural background with my career and my life in the U.S.

Rumore Beauty is donating a percentage of profits this month to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Can you tell us more about this?

It’s very hard to comprehend that the war in Ukraine is happening and that it’s not a horror movie or a bad dream. These are the lives of millions of people and it’s hard because, for many Russians, we have lots of personal ties with Ukraine and vice versa. With so much pain and hurt, there is no amount of money that can change anything, but what we’re doing to help is donating twenty percent of all our March proceeds to Save the Children, a humanitarian organization that helps children directly affected by the war.

For us in Russia and in many countries of the former Soviet Union, the impacts of World War II have been so devastating. Even forty, fifty, sixty years after the war ended, the pain of the war remains in society. Every family that I know lost someone and lived through terrible conditions. The concept has always been at all costs, never again. I was lucky enough to learn about it through textbooks and third-person stories. No kid should live through that firsthand, and that’s why our donation is dedicated to children.

Talk to us about Russian beauty! What makes it special and how have you seen it evolve?

We did not have lots of manufactured products available to us and for most of the twenty century, for various reasons, women and men did not have access to lots of imports. Either they were extremely hard to get or they were very unaffordable. People relied on natural ingredients. I remember my grandma and other relatives going into the forest and sourcing ingredients or using their gardens as a cosmetic playground. They would make concoctions using berries, herbs, veggies, and fruits. One key ingredient is sea buckthorn. It’s pretty rare in the US, but in Russia, every grandma had sea buckthorn berries in their garden. They are full of vitamins that are good for your inner health and your skin. 

Some of the products on Rumore Beauty contain sea buckthorn as the main ingredient. Our Botavikos anti-stress serum is one of our best-sellers that’s powered by sea buckthorn oil. We also just introduced a hand cream with this ingredient and it has that phenomenal sea buckthorn scent that takes me back to my garden where I could eat those fresh berries. These natural ingredients are passed down generations and we are so lucky to have modern technologies that allow us to bring those natural and botanical traditions into modern formulations that work really well for the skin.

Has there been a memorable moment in your start-up journey where you learned a valuable lesson on entrepreneurship?

Ever since I decided to launch my company, I’m learning something new every day! One of the bigger things that I’ve learned throughout my journey is to never compare yourself to others. Every founder, every start-up, and every brand is different. You might see content on social media or hear stories of an overnight success that lead you to have self-doubt, but the truth is, you don’t know the full journey. You don’t know what someone has gone through to achieve success, the help they may have had, or their timeline.

All you know is your timeline, your KPIs, and your financial situation, so focus on yourself. It’s the same thing with running. It’s easy to see someone rush past you and think, “Why am I so slow?” But maybe that person has been training since they were five years old and you just started last year. Maybe they’re dedicating five hours a day to train and you can only squeeze in half an hour. Don’t assume, just stick to what you have to do, know your objectives, know your goals and do your best.

The beauty industry is incredibly competitive. Do you feel like your experience working for other beauty brands has given you a leg up in launching a beauty business of your own?

What I think benefited me the most is that I thought of myself as just a publicist, I always wanted to be a part of the industry on a bigger scale. I attended so many events and networked with people to understand how the beauty industry truly works. This perspective helped a lot because I was knowledgeable on what was on the market, what would the trends were like, how different brands position themselves, and all of that was very helpful. As a former publicist, networking has always been a part of my career, but now it’s even more important.

Having connections and access to different points of view is one of the greatest tools that any person, entrepreneur or not, can have because, within one industry, you may have a great idea, but then ask people outside of that space and they may provide very valuable advice that your industry colleagues may not have thought of.

What is the most challenging part of your job and what is the most fulfilling?

There’s lots of trial and error with starting a business. When you’re starting something new, there are no protocols in place. There are no schedules, systems, or even people there to help you along the way (unless you have a co-founder). Working in those conditions gives me flexibility and allows me to be creative, but for someone coming from a corporate background, I was so used to having a structure mapped out. It’s a never-ending process that I’m solving day by day, but the upside of all of this is the result. When I started Rumore Beauty, I loved the products we offer, but I had no idea what the response would be from customers. 

What gives me the most rewarding feeling is seeing the reviews on our site saying how much our products have impacted peoples’ lives and how their skin has changed for the better. That’s the biggest reward that I can ask for. I’ve become friendly with customers over the past year and sometimes people email me directly or message me through social media to share how our products made a difference for them and that makes me happy every day. Whenever I have a bad day, I go through our reviews and I’m reminded of why I’m doing this. If I can help one more person, then I’m doing something that’s good not just for me but also for society.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to start their own business?

It may sound cliché, but this is something that I constantly remind myself of—the time is now, believe in yourself. As humans, we try to rationalize why we put things off. We say it’s not the right time, we don’t have enough money, or something is happening that may interfere. Guess what, in three months or a year, it might be the same. The time is now because, as the world has shown us, we don’t know what’s going to happen. The journey may not be pleasant or comfortable, but if you never try, you’ll never know. There is a fifty percent chance that you may succeed and that is much better than nothing.

Portions of this article have been edited for clarity and brevity.