After a flood of visitors trying to order her latest product online temporarily brought down her company’s website, Jen Gerard of Gerard Cosmetics thought she might have a hit.

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When both Gerard and her 24-year-old social media manager went out to an event and ended up choosing to wear the same shade of lipstick shortly after the launch, it validated her hunch, she said. 

“When you can create a product, especially a shade of something that reaches across the generations, then you know you’ve got something,” Gerard said, mentioning her latest lipstick, a shade inspired by a look reality TV star Kylie Jenner of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” has helped make famous.

The Jenner-inspired brand is called “1995,” because the coloring is reminiscent of the 1990s and the grunge phase, Gerard said, adding Gerard Cosmetics created the color with the help of YouTube personality Jaclyn Hill, who has more than 1.3 million viewers.

Gerard, a Santa Clarita Valley resident, CEO and entrepreneur who experienced international success with her teeth-whitening product, Whitening Lightning ®, is seeing similar results with Gerard Cosmetics, a growing line of popular beauty products.

Gerard Cosmetics has more than a dozen new colors formulated, but the brand is purposely being selective with how and when the products are released, she said.

Related: Whitening Lightning CEO Keeping Smiles Bright In Santa Clarita

“We could have launched this line with several hundred products, but what we’d be doing is what everyone else does,” Gerard said. “We want them innovative enough so they that they stand out from the crowd.”

The longtime Santa Clarita Valley resident and Canyon High Class of ’86 alumni has created a crowd of support for herself, quickly gaining nearly 200,000 followers on the Facebook page for Gerard Cosmetics.

She’s had help from the dozens of celebrities who have used her products during red carpet events and, most recently, from Hill.

In light of the line’s popularity, Gerard also wants to make sure she can satisfy the big demand that the products launches have been garnering, she said.

“As the release date (for the latest line) got closer, the demand was already getting so high,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to have to back order anything.”

Gerard first gained success with Whitening Lightning, a brand that quickly earned international attention for its ability to make teeth appear whiter.

After Whitening Lightning, which was launched in 2010, took off, Gerard began to release cosmetics under the same line.

She’s also involved in several Santa Clarita Valley nonprofits, such as Help the Children, SCV Youth Project, Henry Mayo Hospital Guild and Single Mothers Outreach. (Watch the video or listen to the podcast of Jen Gerard’s interview with  former KHTS on-air personality Verna McKay and learn more about why KHTS named Gerard an Unsung Hero.)

When the makeup line began to expand, the best move for branding was to release the cosmetics as a separate line, she said.

“We came out with the Brow Bar To Go ® kit first, probably in 2012, right after the Color Your Smile ® light-up lip gloss,” Gerard said, discussing the evolution of the line.

Now there are several new products in store, which will be released throughout the next year, she said.

“We have a BB Creme that’s an illuminator,” Gerard said, “and we’re working on one that does the opposite — one that tones back your oils.”

The timing also allows Gerard Cosmetics to focus on creating quality products, she said. Her line is designed to address common concerns that, as a cosmetics user, she’s experienced with other lines.

It’s about finding a balance, she said.

“Our lip glosses are really smooth, but not so smooth they get all over the place,” she said. 

But maintaining color is probably just as important, if not more so, she added.

“People talk about the formula (for Gerard Cosmetics), because the colors are very beautiful,” she said.

“One of the problems I always have with the lip gloss is I always buy one, and the color looks good in the tube… ” she said, but the final product can disappoint.

“That was the big thing,” she said of Gerard Cosmetics. “I wanted to be what you see in the tube as what you get.”

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