
Photograph by Ryan Hayslip
If you wear makeup, there’s a good chance you’ve used products by local company Anisa International. Name doesn’t sound familiar? That’s because Anisa’s goods are sold under labels like Estée Lauder, Sephora, and MAC. From Ottley Drive in Buckhead, Anisa Telwar Kaicker and her 35 employees design cosmetic brushes and tools (think nail files and loofahs) for some of the biggest names in beauty. Kaicker fell into the niche in the 1990s after working for her family’s import/export business, and her company now produces 25 million brushes a year. Her fully owned and operated factory in China has 500 employees who handle manufacturing, but the innovation happens here. R & D means testing brushes and tools on themselves (with an in-house makeup artist).
This article originally appeared in our April 2015 issue under the headline “Brush Up.”