Once an e.l.f., Always an e.l.f.

Meet Katie Kim and Anya Fazulyanov, who were part of our 2026 e.l.f.tern class. In this week's Substack, they share their experience at e.l.f.: what first drew them to the brand, what their day-to-day looked like and even the unexpected way a plate of Swedish meatballs sparked the idea behind their winning capstone pitch. Although they worked in very different departments, they found their way to each other and built a bond with their capstone group that will last long after this program. Jump in below for a behind-the-scenes look at their journey and a reminder of why there's truly no place like e.l.f.

This space is for every eye, lip and face! 👁️💄🙂

Once an e.l.f., Always an e.l.f.

Can you two please introduce yourselves and tell me what department you’ve been an e.l.f.tern for this summer?

Katie: My name is Katie Kim, and I am the loyalty and CRM intern. This year, I supported both teams within the digital marketing team. I am a senior at Boston University, concentrating in marketing and business analytics.

Anya: I’m Anya Fazulyanov, and I’m a digital design intern on the campaigns and activations team. I’m studying graphic design at Brigham Young University, and I’m a junior.

What made you want to be an intern at e.l.f.? Was it just a personal passion for beauty or skincare, or was it something beyond that?

Katie: I’ve always loved beauty, so I’ve known that’s the industry I was really interested in. I also knew one of e.l.f.’s biggest strengths is how connected it is with Gen Z, and that’s something I really love. Not just the playful marketing aspect, but also when I was exploring careers, I always saw that e.l.f. was interactive with LinkedIn posts and students showcasing their takes on e.l.f. marketing campaigns. I thought that was really encouraging. That was something that really gravitated me toward e.l.f.’s company culture. When I was doing coffee chats with other e.l.f. employees, they were always putting a lot of emphasis on that.

In your experience this summer, what makes e.l.f. a different kind of company?

Anya: For me, it was really cool seeing how small the teams are for what they do. With e.l.f. being such a big company, I’d imagined there were a lot of employees, but for how big it is, there’s really not that many. Being on the creative team and seeing how collaborative it was, was really cool, and it felt like everyone had a voice, even myself as an intern included. I love that as an intern, I felt respected and I was just a normal employee working.

You’ve been within our walls for the past three months now. What’s the first thing you would tell someone external after this program?

Katie: One big takeaway from e.l.f. was just the support and that they really care. Not just from an intern perspective, but their employees and the company as a whole. e.l.f. invests a lot of time in being able to have visibility and open communication, even from sitting in town hall meetings and seeing how executives are there and answering questions. I thought that was really awesome and really unique for a company. As I progressed in my journey, I was able to understand the importance of things like company culture more. That’s something I realized, and thought oh wow, they invest a lot of time and energy in this. I would probably tell people that’s something unique about e.l.f. that you probably won’t see a lot from other brands and companies.

So readers are aware, at e.l.f., we do something with our interns called a capstone showcase where you’re broken out into groups and are tasked with creating a new concept to pitch for the brand. Can you both walk me through what these projects consist of, and what the process was like for you both?

Katie: I think the capstone showcases are a great way to really dive into being more independent and taking ownership on a project and really apply what you’re learning. For our team especially, we really wanted to highlight our strengths within the departments that we were supporting, and that’s the direction that we wanted to structure our project, because it’s really open to your own interpretation. And it was really great to learn about e.l.f. in a different way.

Anya: There was also such a wide scope of what we could do. We could do anything from international expansions or category extensions or social impact, or even experiential. We could basically do anything we wanted, which was kind of overwhelming in the beginning, and we actually had a completely different idea that we started, and the time was very tight. We spent a good chunk of it on a completely different project, more focused on social impact, but as we went down that path, we were unsure if the idea really played into what we all are doing here for the internship and our strengths. So we pivoted, and that made it go so much smoother. It was cool to be on a team with everyone with their own strengths and bring them together. It also was fun seeing what everyone else came up with.

Your team was one of three groups selected as a favorite out of all of the intern capstone projects. Can you walk me through what your capstone was about? As well as what inspired you all to go with the topic you chose?

Katie: We initially wanted to focus more on the ethos side of e.l.f. and lean into social initiatives, since we know e.l.f. has done things like that. But as we developed our capstone, we talked to other managers and got very constructive, honest feedback on whether they saw this as a fit. That insight helped us shift our perspective to does this concept make sense for e.l.f.? I was also really surprised how easily managers were available so we could quickly hop on a call. They were really helpful, and even though we knew they were really busy, multiple managers from various teams were open to hearing our pitch and giving us actual good constructive feedback.

Anya: Once we had a list of feedback, we knew we needed to go back and pivot. I revisited the lists we made at the very beginning of our brainstorm, and there was a wide variety of concepts. A few were different collab ideas, because we knew that e.l.f. has done a lot of great ones. I also feel like collabs are something e.l.f. is known for, at least in this Gen Z beauty space. IKEA was one of the ideas because I recently visited the one here in Brooklyn. We went over on a Sunday for a day trip just for fun, and even had some of their famous meatballs. After going I brought my visit up to the team, and we were all, like wait, there might be something here. We felt there was a lot of alignment between the demographics, with both being kind of Gen Z. They both focus on being affordable and very accessible to everyone. So we built it from there.

For people who want to apply to be an e.l.f. intern in the future, what advice would you give to them?

Katie: It’s really comes down to networking and broadening your knowledge which is super important. That’s how I got my opportunity through coffee chats. I found it really easy to talk to people who just started [at e.l.f.] because it’s easier to relate into the process of going through networking and coffee chatting and interviewing. I’ve always heard that with the beauty industry, the network is really small too. Everyone kind of knows each other. Because of that people can keep connecting you and that’s how you grow your network.

Anya: For those more on the creative side, you should really make sure your portfolio encapsulates both your strengths and also some of the fun things that e.l.f. does. I remember in my interview when I was showing off my graphic design portfolio, I had a project that had these colorful stickers on it and the hiring manager said “that feels so e.l.f.” Having projects that were really aligned with what they might do was really great. Beyond just graphic design, if you’re in social media or anything creative, build a great portfolio that shows your skills because they trust you to make content and really be involved in the process. If you can show that you’re already starting to do that, I think it will just give you the extra leg up.

We always say once an e.l.f., always an e.l.f. What relationships are you most excited to take away with you?

Anya: First off, my capstone group, because it was really fun to get to know everyone. We went out to a dinner beforehand and we came a long way of working as a team together. It was also fun getting to know the other digital design team managers and higher ups. I actually got hired with two of my other friends that I go to school with, so it was us three on the digital design team as interns. It was fun to work with their managers as well as other art directors and creative directors. I also got to go on set a handful of times this summer, which was really fun. It was cool to meet different photographers and prop stylists and other freelancers and get to know them and see them work.

Katie: I loved my capstone group as well. I think it was special because we really got to spend a lot time together and we got to really know each other. More broadly, I really value our intern class as well. That’s something that I was also really seeking for this summer because in my prior experiences, I didn’t have an intern class. It was just myself or one other intern. Because our program is structured, we have certain experiences we go through together, like the Glow and Grow series. We get to see our career journeys grow, and some people might even get to come back to e.l.f. This program has also been great because we all started at the same time and level, but we have so many unique backgrounds and experiences that we will carry with us long after this.

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