Cosmetic business goes global

She did. Today, her company Anisa International has 550 workers in China (down from an all-time high of 700) and 25 in its Buckhead headquarters. Sales for 2008 were $17 million, down from $20 million in 2007. "We took a couple of big hits," she said.

The company makes private label cosmetic brushes for some of the world's largest companies. Among its clients are niche brands Laura Mercier, Smashbox and Becca, along with global giants Elizabeth Arden, Maybelline, Esteé Lauder, Lancôme and L'Oréal, as well as mass market retailers Sephora, Target and Amway. She also started her own line, adesign.

In 2006 she was named Target Corp.'s 2006 Vendor of the Year Award in the Beauty Division and helped drive sales of more than 3.2 million brushes.

Cosmetic brushes, traditionally made in Japan and Korea, are now mostly produced in China. The daughter of an Afghan political activist who came to this country in a prisoner exchange and a Russian who was largely raised in a Turkish refugee camp, Telwar started her career working in her mother's Nashville import/export business. She then became a successful cosmetic brush sales representative building a large international clientele.

After working for more than a dozen years with the company, she had a falling out with management and in 1992 struck out on her own. Two years later, feeling the "need to leave the nest," she moved to Atlanta.

"I was responsible for about $10 million in business and I knew I could hold my own," she said. But in order to ensure the quality and guarantee on-time product delivery, Telwar had to control the production. Using her own money and working with a former Korean associate, they navigated the Chinese bureaucracy and opened the factory in 2003.

"I do not speak Chinese and I am not a manufacturer. I am an entrepreneur, marketer," she said. "I had a wonderful Korean colleague who could manage the hands-on business of getting the brushes made while I handled the vision, the marketing and sales. It's a relationship that continues today. The first two years I went back and forth between Atlanta and China."

The factory is now running smoothly, and Telwar, 42, is primed to expand globally, partly because she now has the resources and track record and partly because Telwar is getting married. She plans on dividing her time between Atlanta and London where her fiancée is based.

"Since opening the factory I was so involved that I had to pull back and re-configure myself and the company. It is now more than just me," she said. "Being in London will help the company. It allows me to be hands-on in Europe, which is a very big market. I need to make those contacts. I will be in a better time zone to deal with the factory as well as the Asian markets."

In an effort to grow market share and attract new customers, Telwar doesn't just take orders but develops new products such as brush sets, bath items, promotional and skincare accessories. She has a patent pending for a set of magnetic brushes with interchangeable heads. A pointed foundation brush, created for adesign, has proved a favorite with other companies as well.

Her clients say that innovation and quality are two of the features that differentiate the company. "Anisa's brushes have so many great attributes, but at the very top of the list are quality and consistency. We rely on Anisa's high quality standards to deliver a top-notch product time after time and can always be trusted to deliver the highest quality brushes to compliment our products," says Patricia McGill, director of global product development for Laura Mercier Cosmetics, a $120 million French company. "We work very closely together and they are extremely invested in our brand from a manufacturing standpoint."

The other part of the success equation goes back to China where the factory has become a benchmark of American ingenuity and standards. "Because we deal with a product that – literally – touches people, we have to ensure the highest standards of cleanliness. Our clients demand it and so do we. When we first opened, our workers would have lunch, throw their garbage on the floor and go back to work. We had to teach them about washing hands," she said.

The key is to operate transparently, she said. "Any government official or any of our customers is welcome to come in and see what we're doing."

Bare Escentuals, a San Francisco-based company with 2008 sales of $556 million, uses several private label manufacturers, including Anisa International.

"Brushes are very important. We look for quality, innovation and a good price in our manufacturers," said Bill Ashton, vice president of operations. "But, it is also important to deal with contractors with impressive values who practice social responsibility."

Ashton has visited several Chinese factories. "Most are just women sitting at long tables working. No talking. The places are often real dirty. You visit Anisa's factory and it's clean. Spotless. The workers are happy. They smile. They have heat and air conditioning. I happened to be there when they gave out worker incentive prizes and 100 women got bicycles. Do you know what it means to a woman in China to have a brand new bicycle?"

Social responsibility is part of Telwar's values, she said. "We have nothing to hide and we hope that we are raising the standards for factories in China. We provide a work environment where our workers want to stay."

Telwar admits that going out on her own and building a factory in China was a "big risk," but now says it has paid off. "It used to be that I was the brand. Now the brand represents itself. There are so many opportunities for us."