Meghan Markle recently opened up about how her freckles once limited her opportunities in the beauty industry.
Speaking to her friend and guest Jamie Kern Lima on the April 29 episode of Lemonada Media’s podcast Confessions of a Female Founder, the Duchess of Sussex, 43, recalled her early days as an actress. “That would have been when I was an actor, auditioning for commercials,” she said. “And I remember my commercial agent could not submit me for beauty or skincare ads because I had freckles.”
She shared how her freckles were not seen as “a sign of beauty” and how alienating it was. “You couldn’t see yourself reflected there,” she noted, referring to the industry's traditional standards of beauty advertising.
Meghan praised Kern Lima — the founder of It Cosmetics — for breaking those boundaries by featuring real women of all ages, sizes, shapes, and skin tones in her campaigns.
“That was such new thinking then. When you were bringing that to market that was so [unheard of],” Meghan said. “Now it may seem more normalized. People listening now will be like ‘Well yeah of course,’ It was not an of course. It was a revolutionary way to think about makeup and beauty at the time.”
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Kern Lima, 47, launched It Cosmetics in 2008 after dealing with rosacea and hyperpigmentation. Despite her vision, she faced repeated rejection from retailers.
“I sent samples everywhere and none of them believed, at the time, in this idea of a product that works for people with skin issues and we show it on all ages and real people and sizes and skin tones,” she said. “They would always say this to me, these words exactly, ‘Women will only buy makeup from images of unattainable aspiration.’ It was always those two words, ‘unattainable,’ which means you can’t even look like that ’cause it’s not real.”
Still, she persevered — and today, It Cosmetics is widely available.
When Meghan launched her brand As Ever, Kern Lima offered advice that stuck.
“You and I had just become friends, and I was talking to you about business. I remember you said to me, ‘OK, so what’s the timeline?’ I said, ‘Oh, a couple months from now.’ You said, ‘That’s too soon.’ And I didn’t want to hear that, but you’re right,” Meghan recalled. “You planted a seed that became a knowing for me, and it gave me the grace to have the space to take my time until it was right.”
Meghan concluded, “I didn’t want to hear it, it was the thing that I needed to hear.”
