Rose-Marie Swift Reflects on the Early Days of RMS Beauty
Long before clean was cool, RMS Beauty was doing things differently—and better.
If you’re into clean makeup, chances are RMS Beauty has already earned a spot in your makeup bag. The brand’s founder, Rose-Marie Swift, is more than just a set of initials on the jar; she’s a rule-breaking, industry-shaking pioneer who was preaching about using organic ingredients, reducing the use of synthetics and swiping on cold-pressed coconut oil before they were wellness trends.
Her cream blushes and highlighters (housed in palm-size pots) became cult staples—just like her friendships with famous faces like Gisele Bündchen and Miranda Kerr. RMS was carving out the path for clean beauty well before the term went mainstream. And as for Swift’s rule-breaking spirit? That started way before beauty got clean.
Swift’s first-ever job as a makeup artist was for a burlesque show where her sister knew the owner. This was back in the 1970s in Vancouver, where she grew up. Swift says she only took the gig to help her buy a new microphone for her punk band. (Yes, you read that right.) “Honestly, I never wanted to be a makeup artist—it just happened,” she says.
Swift already liked playing with beauty products and discovered she had a keen eye for faces, so she kept at it, and before she knew it, she was the resident makeup artist for several hotel burlesque acts around the city. “The girls wanted me to come in for all their shows, and soon they were asking to buy the makeup I was using,” says Swift. Being a keen entrepreneur from the get-go, she began buying from a wholesaler and reselling at an impressive markup. This didn’t directly translate into her world-class beauty brand (which was reported just a few years ago to have surpassed $40 million in annual sales); that came later.
Swift moved to Europe in the ‘80s and worked her way through Paris, London and Berlin before eventually landing in New York. “I totally lucked out and got into Streeters, the top talent agency at the time,” she says. Soon, Swift was doing makeup at Louis Vuitton shows and for the cover of British Vogue, collaborating with the likes of Annie Leibovitz and working on Victoria’s Secret catalogues. It was on-set in the tropics with a bikini-clad VS model that she had her lightbulb moment. “Her bare skin looked so much better than the makeup on her face,” recalls Swift. “She was just 18, but in some light, she looked old. I thought, ‘This isn’t working.’” So she decided to create her own products. It took some time, but RMS Beauty eventually hit shelves in 2009.
Before terms like “microbiome” and “skin barrier” became the norm, Swift was already connecting the dots between what goes into your body and what shows up on your face. “I was a raw foodist for a while and learned a lot about what is done to oils and food and how that can affect us,” she says. Swift wanted to work with functional products that were free of harmful ingredients and would improve the look of skin, so she knew she had to make her own. “I thought of it as skincare meets colour,” she says. And she leaned into active ingredients like ashwagandha, turmeric, Kakuda-plum oil and olive leaf, which would even skin tone and texture over time.
All of this may not sound groundbreaking now—in the era of skinification, where no brand dares to launch a product without some kind of complexion-boosting benefit—but in the early aughts, “clean makeup” designed to do something for your skin was practically unheard of. “Everybody laughed,” Swift recalls. “They all said that it couldn’t be done, but I did it.” Soon, investment firms and curious backers came calling—but Swift wasn’t interested in relinquishing any aspect of her vision for the sake of growing on a bigger scale. “I’d rather just do nothing than be told what to do,” she says.
But after years of turning down investors, she finally found a partner who understood the brand’s DNA and didn’t want to change it. In 2021, RMS Beauty was acquired by private equity firm Highlander Partners. Swift’s old friend David Olsen (former CEO of Cos Bar and global vice-president at Net-a-Porter) stepped in as CEO. Swift remained the creative director, while her longtime collaborator, Elaine Sack, moved into the role of chief strategic officer.
RMS Beauty may have been a clean brand before there were clean brands, but now it sits on shelves at many major retailers, like Ulta, Nordstrom and The Detox Market, in an unpolluted sea of seemingly similar products. However, Swift is quick to point out that many don’t hold themselves to the same standards. “It’s all kind of greenwashed,” she says. But she is unbothered. “We are probably one of the cleaner brands out there, if not the cleanest, and I’m just going to keep doing what I want.”
“I’d rather just do nothing than be told what to do.”
And RMS Beauty isn’t done disrupting the beauty industry just yet.
“Since the acquisition, we have undergone a significant transformation,” says Olsen, whose buttoned-up delivery contrasts sharply with Swift’s off-the-cuff candour. “We’ve expanded from a niche clean-beauty brand into a fast-scaling, multi-channel business with a much broader reach.” The brand’s retail presence has grown substantially with core partners like The Detox Market but also with major players like Amazon. And it’s working: RMS Beauty has seen a five-times increase in revenue and a major shift in brand awareness and consumer loyalty, says Olsen. “I’m really proud of how far we’ve come and especially how we’ve scaled while staying true to our values.”
To differentiate itself, it is leaning into sustainability as part of its evolution, with the introduction of refillable formats for several hero products and others in recyclable aluminum tubes. “RMS continues to innovate with purpose while staying rooted in clean values,” Olsen adds, summing it up like a mission statement.
Another feature that sets RMS Beauty apart is the demographic of its core consumers. At a time when it feels like every brand is bowing down to Gen Z, its simple, straightforward ethos speaks to older millennials and the women of Gen X who may often feel overlooked. “I believe RMS is for every age, but I do feel proud that my content resonates with a community that feels like they aren’t being spoken to as frequently and honestly as they’d like,” says Swift.
Swift would like to not only keep innovating and pushing the boundaries of “natural” but also watch the rest of the beauty brands clean up, too. “I would just love to see the whole industry offer people more—to help them be healthier versions of themselves,” she says. That level of intention around doing good and thinking bigger has been core to the brand since the beginning. After all, Swift reminds me, “RMS” also stands for “right mental state.”
Glow Standard
RMS Beauty’s bestsellers and most beloved products are an excellent entryway into the brand’s lineup.
This article first appeared in FASHION’s November 2025 issue. Find out more here.
Karen Robock is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting on beauty, health and wellness for nearly two decades. She has written about everything from manicure trends to birth trauma and been published in dozens of magazines and newspapers in Canada and the U.S., including Canadian Living and Prevention. Between writing assignments, she makes time for her two kids, two dogs, and a dedicated skincare routine. You can see more of her work at karenrobock.com.
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