Princess Julia Karoly

The story of the iconic Princess Julia Karoly epitomizes the American Dream. From a 16 year old Revlon phenom to increasingly powerful spots at Clinique, Arden, and Dior, this princess-in-exile ultimately became a cosmetics industry maverick when she founded the Atlanta-based Beautage. Flying in the face of the cosmetics industry doctrine of expensive marketing of criminally high margin products, Julia's company delivers couture quality products to her customers without the New York hype and related high cost. Princess Julia is a sought after speaker including a recent key presentation at the National MENSA Annual Gathering and the author of an upcoming book Charm, An Insider's Guide.

Julia's Roots

Amidst the violent events that became the outbreak of World War I, Hungarian King Karoly abdicated the throne following which, assassins set out to kill everyone in the royal line. Facing the certain extinction of his family, a male heir to the throne spirited away with his two young sons in the dark of night with few possessions and a determination to find safety in America. Julia's great grandfather Karoly, one of the youths, ultimately came through New York's Ellis Island with hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the New World and settled into the Hungarian ghetto of New York City.

As the royal family, with all its branches, was systematically exterminated in the home country, the next in the royal line was seeking the American dream on the streets of New York. Two generations later Princess Julia Karoly was born into the southern US city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Julia's Career

In the early 1980's the driven 16 year old Julia got her start in the cosmetics industry learning quite literally from the ground up. Not revealing her age, she secured a position as a Revlon counter-girl as the first company hire ever under 21. Revlon corporate quickly recognized her talent for relating to people while creating innovative marketing strategies and brought her regularly to New York for advanced training. She developed in-store events and pioneered the concept of bringing salespeople from behind the counter to offer product samples to shoppers throughout department stores.

Recruited thereafter to Clinique, she learned in Atlanta and New York the clinical side of the business. Simultaneously, Julia became a sales turnaround expert for the company, developing custom marketing programs for stores with declining sales. Her efforts so quickly resulted in geometric sales increases that Elizabeth Arden enticed her away to work on the launch of their more glamorous Red Door line. With Julia's flair for marketing, Arden's signature fragrance became a huge success throughout the American South.

While the cosmetics industry floundered in the economic turmoil of the late eighties and early 90's Julia's career continued to flourish with increasing responsibilities ultimately resulting in a position at prestigious Dior. She assisted Dior to catch and surpass their competitors with rollouts of new programs including a Dior jewelry line, cross-selling cosmetics with Dior fashions, and an innovative gift-with-purchase program. After seven successful years at Dior, Julia tired of selling what she terms "ridiculously overpriced products that only the wealthy could afford" and left the company to create products for the 99% of women who couldn't afford Dior products.

Julia's Company

Julia learned at the high-fashion cosmetics houses of Clinique, Elizabeth Arden, and Dior the industry formula for profitability: luxurious packaging, attractive counter girls, expensive celebrity endorsements, intentional overpricing, and pseudo-science skincare. She learned from the giants that products with very similar ingredients varied in price based entirely on marketing the image.

Princess Julia knew that smart women would look past the glitz and readily embrace a couture quality product line, priced sensibly, that delivered the same or better ingredients with better results. From that spirit, and with two years of lab work, came the Beautage anti-aging system, Julia's signature product.

Author –Speaker

Princess Julia appears regularly on television and radio on beauty related topics. She speaks to groups throughout the country from MENSA to women's business groups on subjects ranging from anti-aging strategies to motivational topics related to developing an elegant lifestyle.

Her book, Charm – An Insider's Guide, is scheduled for release this year.

Julia lives with her husband in a small town north of Atlanta near the Beautage headquarters.