Why Our Launch Products Are All Serum-Based

Today I’m sharing something that, until now, we’ve kept between our team and the lab. When Annadea launches on July 14th, you will see that all three of our first products are serums. They are genuine color formulas built on a serum foundation, not skincare serums tinted as an afterthought or conventional makeup wearing a serum-sounding name. It is one of the most consequential product decisions we’ve made in building this brand, and the reasoning behind it is, in many ways, a reflection of the brand itself.

I really think that one of the most fun parts of being a girl is getting to indulge in a beauty routine. Sometimes it feels like a science experiment trying to figure out the right combination of skincare products, but I enjoy the trial and error. It’s also somehow soothing to watch videos of girls doing elaborate makeup routines; I’m always amazed by the creative ways people use products. But for me, personally, I like a routine that’s fun and efficient, something that feels like a “get to do” vs. “must do” but is also possible to do in a relatively short amount of time. When I reach for a snack in the kitchen, it’s something I’m excited to eat. Makeup should be the same. It serves a function or purpose, yes, but it can also bring you joy! In my opinion, texture is one of the best ways to achieve this feeling of joy in a beauty routine. When I look forward to pumping something in my hands, or smoothing it on my face, it’s because I enjoy the sensorial experience. And for me, serums are the most luxurious. They’re hydrating, nourishing, thick but not heavy. They feel like an indulgence.

In my dream world, Annadea’s color products would have the same sensory quality, so we worked closely with our product developer and lab partners to achieve exactly that.

I built Annadea to put that joy of the routine back at the center. Long before we had a name or a finished formula, the brief I kept repeating was that using our products should feel easy, forgiving, something you look forward to rather than move through thoughtlessly. The most flattering product in the world is worthless if it doesn’t feel good going on, because it will stay in the drawer while you reach for something that does.

Consider the last serum you loved, not for what it did but for how it felt: the cool, weightless drop in the palm, the way it melts the instant it meets warm skin, the faint cushion it leaves behind, that plumped, quenched, softly luminous finish.

Skincare has spent years teaching us what that sensation is worth. The entire language of glazed, freshly-facialed skin was written in serum textures, and it rewrote our expectations: we no longer want to see where the product ends and the skin begins. So our team asked the question: if the serum is the step people genuinely enjoy, why has it been confined to skincare? Why should color belong to a heavier, higher-maintenance category? What if color could feel like a serum?

“Skincare-makeup hybrid” has become a loose phrase, applied to anything with a virtuous ingredient list. We mean it literally. We didn’t want makeup that merely contains a good ingredient so the claim can go on the box; we wanted makeup whose texture is genuinely doing something kind for the skin all day–hydrating, cushioning, nourishing–so that the longer you wear it, the better your skin looks beneath it. We wanted formulas you forget you have on, until you catch your reflection and see the quality of skin we became obsessed with: glowy, active, faintly flushed, luminous in a healthy way.

When color is suspended in a serum, it doesn’t mask the skin, it joins it, so the flush appears to rise from underneath and the glow looks like your own. A serum that has truly absorbed has no hard line to break down, so it wears away softly and evenly rather than separating into patches or settling into fine lines. And because it melts in rather than sitting on top, it flatters a far wider range of skin–heavier textures behave differently on dry skin than oily, on deeper tones than fair, while a luminous veil that becomes part of the face adapts to whoever is wearing it.

As I’m quickly and repeatedly learning in entrepreneurship, the same quality that makes an idea beautiful is usually the one that makes it nearly impossible to execute. A serum feels extraordinary precisely because it is fluid, slippery, and weightless, and those are the opposite of what you need in a product that must deposit color and hold it, evenly, through a day of talking, eating, sweating, and hands against the face. A serum wants to travel; makeup has to stay. Reconciling those two qualities is one of the genuinely hard problems in this category, and it tested us most.

We moved through round after round chasing the version that had both: the melt-in slip on application and real grip once it set, the kind that survives the morning rush and is still intact when you finally sit down at night. Early formulas felt wonderful and faded by midday; later ones wore beautifully but lost the sensation that was the entire point. The answer wasn’t a single clever ingredient but the ratios between many of them; the precise relationship between what makes a formula glide and what makes it grip. I couldn’t be prouder of where we landed. The formulas launching soon are the ones that stopped forcing us to compromise.

Anything designed to feel dewy and rich is working in exactly the territory that, handled carelessly, congests pores. Much of what feels luxurious in beauty earns that feel from ingredients that clog the skin over time, and that is a trade I was never willing to make. I have fallen in love with countless products that seem wonderful immediately upon application but wreak absolute havoc on my skin in the long run.

So non-comedogenic was a fixed constraint from the first brief, and it made an already hard problem harder by an order of magnitude. We were now asking for a texture that melts in, grips all day, delivers true color, and cares for the skin, while being formulated to not clog pores. That meant scrutinizing not just the actives and pigments but every emollient and carrier that gives a serum its slip, since those are often the culprits, and then testing the result. It is much of why this took as long as it did. The first question I know people will ask is the oldest one in beauty: will this break me out? And I wanted to be able to answer “no” honestly and confidently.

We are launching with three serums because we began from a feeling rather than a category: makeup should be a joyful part of the day, not the most effortful, and no format delivers that pleasure like a serum. We wanted color that behaves like skincare–it absorbs, cares for the skin, and produces that glowy, faintly flushed look that seems to come from within, and we were stubborn enough to insist it also grip, wear, and stay clear of anything that could clog a pore.

We’ve been living with these formulas for a long time, testing them on ourselves, our team, and our most honest friends, and the response is remarkably consistent: people forget they’re wearing anything at all, until someone asks what they’ve changed about their skin.

That is exactly what we set out to make. Very soon it will become yours!