Alumni
Grad Founds Product Development Agency SOS Beauty and Works With OUAI and Summer Fridays
Visual Communications Graduate Dustin Cash is the Founder of SOS Beauty, a Los Angeles-based strategic beauty product development agency that's worked with brands such as OUAI, Summer Fridays, Patrick Ta, and Shani Darden Skincare, among others. They specialize in partnering with beauty companies to bring innovative, luxury product lines to market.
Where were you born and raised and where do you currently reside? I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and moved to Los Angeles to attend FIDM. I fell in love with the city and never left! I currently live in West Hollywood with my partner and our blind 18 year old shih tzu.
Did you hold any internships or part-time jobs while at FIDM? I actually started an event company while at FIDM. I was handling the events for the haircare company Alterna and that was the connection that landed me a career within the beauty industry. It's so crazy where the path of life can take us.
What is your favorite FIDM memory? I loved my time at FIDM. Living at Park La Brea [apartments] with roommates from all over the world was pretty cool.
What led you to found SOS Beauty? After leaving Alterna in 2012, I started a small bodycare brand, and during that process I realized that even with my years of experience and powerful connections, it was hard to commercialize a brand. I wanted to make it easier for people, so after four more years as an independent consultant building brands like OUAI, I started SOS Beauty with my business partner, Charlene Valledor.
Tell us more about what you do for your clients. In short, SOS Beauty is a beauty brand development agency that oversees everything from brand strategy, product development, commercialization, and even retail relationships for our clients. We have clients across haircare, skincare, bodycare, wellness, and color cosmetics. One thing is for sure, we never get bored.
How did your long career at Alterna help prepare you for entrepreneurship? I started at Alterna as a vendor handling all of their events and after building that relationship for a year, I went in-house. The cool thing about working there for nearly 11 years was watching the company go through phases of rapid growth and expansion. That experience taught me so much. I would never be where I am today without that experience.
How does being based in LA inspire or affect your business? LA became the center of the influencer boom a few years ago and has since became the center of incubation for new beauty brands. It’s a very exciting time to be in LA—but when isn’t it?
Where do you see SOS Beauty headed in the future? We will always focus growing our services portfolio to support our clients in any way that we can. At the moment, we are even considering opening a second office in Shanghai to support the upcoming beauty boom in Asia.
Categories: Beauty Marketing & Product Development Visual Communication Alumni
