Trust the Tingle: Why Intuition Still Wins in Beauty
What do Spider-Man and Sephora have in common?
They both trust the tingle.
At this year's BeautyMatter NEXT Summit, Sephora’s EVP of Merchandising, Carolyn Bojanowski, said something everyone in the room felt but rarely hears out loud:
“I know I want to work with a brand when I feel a tingle.”
Not a deck. Not a forecast. A feeling.
In a landscape driven by data and scale, it was a reminder: The best partnerships still start with instinct. And honestly? It explains a lot about our eight-year collaboration with Sephora, which just earned us Best Strategic Collaboration for high-volume content production at the BeautyMatter Awards.
Where collaboration actually happens...
We didn’t start with a grand vision in 2016. We started by solving real production challenges. But as Sephora’s catalog grew exponentially—more products, more brands, more ambition—we kept stepping up.
Listening to founders at NEXT, a clear pattern emerged. The brands winning right now aren’t chasing perfection. They’re bold enough to hold a point of view and collaborative enough to evolve it.
Push back or get steamrolled
Charlotte Palermino of Dieux put it bluntly:
“If you don't have a brand or proof of concept, yes, you’ll be bulldozed."
Strong partnerships aren’t built on agreement. They’re built on trust and the willingness to challenge, refine, and hold your ground when it matters.
Our relationship with Sephora shifted from “send us images” to “help us scale this globally” because we learned when to stand firm and when to flex.
Systems get you 80%.
Trust gets you the rest.
Our follow-the-sun workflow handles over 20,000 requests a year with a 99.6% on-time rate. The US wraps up, our global extension teams pick up, and production never stops.
But that’s not what wins awards.
Trust does. Trust that quality holds when request volume jumps 44% in a quarter. Trust that Sephora’s aesthetic stays consistent across the US and globally. Trust that the work holds up no matter who’s leading it—because we build teams around shared values, not just skills.
That’s what transforms vendors into partners.
Hold your North Star
NEXT speakers echoed the same truth across every stage: You can’t build long-term if you’re bending in every direction.
Cassandra Thurswell of Kitsch said it clearly: “No one will save you. You have to save yourself.”
Our own North Star is simple: make beautiful work at scale without burning out the people behind it. That means anticipating roadblocks before they show up, building thoughtful systems that keep things moving, and showing up as collaborative partners—especially when things get messy. We design around problems instead of reacting to them.
That’s how we protect the creative process even while the industry is moving fast.
Wedding Bells!
Marrying the photographer to the brand
Nina LaBruna of Fazit described how her glitter freckles ended up on Taylor Swift. Her takeaway wasn’t the virality. It was the honesty.
“Don’t know which lever worked,” she admitted. But she understood her product helped people connect, and she leaned into that.
That same clarity showed up across this year’s BeautyMatter winners. Sol de Janeiro scaled culture without losing soul. Éva Goicochea brought humanity to sexual wellness. Danessa Myricks, Lisa Eldridge, and K18 were honored for solving real problems rather than launching noise.
The through-line was clear. Brands combining innovation with intention. Agencies delivering results while staying human.
Why this award matters
This year, View Imaging won Best Strategic Collaboration for high-volume content production with Sephora.
BeautyMatter’s award honors partnerships where scale and creativity don’t cancel each other out.
As our CEO, Marissa Bennett, put it: “This recognition validates what we’ve always believed: Real collaboration is built on trust and transparency. That’s what makes brands better.”
The takeaway
The beauty landscape is shifting fast. AI is everywhere. Brands face 50 different state regulations. Trends move in weeks, not seasons. Retailers and founders are rethinking what sustainable growth looks like.
And in the middle of all that, the partnerships that endure and win are the ones grounded in intuition, honesty, and trust.
Because when the data hasn’t caught up yet, when timelines are tight, when stakes get messy, sometimes the right answer is still the simplest one.
Trust the tingle.
Want to talk about what real collaboration looks like?
Let’s connect.
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