Photography by Kimberly Tran
Styling by Angel Rovelo
Makeup by Archangela Chelsea at TMG LA
Hair by Hailey Adickes at TMG LA
Production by CM Agency
More Code Than Contour: How Monica Ravichandran Is Rebuilding Beauty from the Inside Out
In an industry that often prioritizes gloss over grit, Monica Ravichandran is engineering a different kind of revolution, one that doesn’t just swatch across skin tones, but interrogates the systems beneath them. Formerly embedded in the circuitry of Silicon Valley, where product dashboards ruled the day, Monica didn’t so much pivot to beauty as she reprogrammed it. What began with a frustration over finding the right nude lipstick for brown skin has since scaled into a global community of over 2 million women who don’t just follow Monica, but they trust her.
She speaks the language of code and culture with equal fluency, pairing UX design logic with deep emotional intelligence. Her content is precise, unfiltered, and structurally elegant: part masterclass, part manifesto. There are no “beauty guru” theatrics here, only insight sharpened by strategy. She doesn’t just test formulas, but she dissects them. She doesn’t just critique campaigns; instead, she redesigns them from the ground up. And when she co-created a red lipstick for MOB Beauty inspired by her own wedding, it wasn’t a vanity project. It was cultural reclamation in a bullet.
Monica Ravichandran isn’t asking to be included in the beauty conversation. She’s rewriting the terms of engagement. In this unfiltered interview, the product manager-turned-beauty-founder unpacks her legacy-in-the-making, one shade, strategy, and story at a time.
Monica, you went from Twilio and PM dashboards to wedding lipstick shade matching and cultural color theory.Where do tech and beauty truly intersect for you, and when did that intersection become a mission?
The intersection happened the moment I realized the beauty industry had a user experience problem. In tech, you’re taught to identify friction points and solve real user pain points. In beauty, I saw brown women, like me, struggling to find the right foundation, the right nude lip, even the right information, and that wasn’t a personal problem; it was a systemic one. My mission started when I stopped just posting beauty videos and started approaching it the way a PM would: through UX, data, and unmet need.
You describe your early videos as “mid-tone guidance for brown girls”: direct, specific, and long overdue. What was missing in beauty that you instinctively stepped in to correct?
Mid-tones were always the afterthought. Swatches stopped at tan, tutorials skipped brown skin, and “universal” meant beige. I didn’t set out to be the spokesperson; I just got tired of watching people like me contort themselves to fit into beauty systems that weren’t built for us. So, I started making the content I wish existed: accurate, educational, no-fluff, and brown-skin-first by design, not by diversity checkbox.
Viral moments are one thing. Building trust consistently, with 2 million women around the world, is another. What’s the invisible architecture behind the loyalty you’ve cultivated?
It’s simple: I never pretend. I don’t post “first impressions” when I’ve been testing something for a month. I don’t sugarcoat shade ranges or gatekeep techniques. I build trust the same way good products and brands do through clarity, consistency, and always thinking of the end user. My community knows I’m not trying to sell them a dream. I’m showing them how to make beauty work for them.
You create with strategy, yet your tone feels effortless. When you’re scripting or storyboarding, how do you walk the tightrope between data and intuition?
Data tells me where the pain is. Intuition tells me how to speak to it. I use SEO tools, audience comments, watch-timedrop-offs, but I don’t let the numbers dictate the soul of the story. I script like a product manager and deliver like a big sister. That’s the tightrope: being technically sharp but emotionally real.
As a South Asian woman in beauty, how much weight do you carry — culturally, commercially, emotionally — when you’re the “first” or the “only” in brand rooms?
It’s heavy. I feel the weight every time I’m asked to speak for a whole diaspora, because I can’t. Every brown woman has their own unique experience, and being expected to represent all brown women is wrong. But I’ve also learned to turn that weight into leverage. I show up knowing that I might be the first, but I refuse to be the only. And I push to make sure the next wave isn’t a trend, it’s a standard.
You often reject “beauty guru” vibes in favor of something sharper, more honest, more UX-driven. How did your background in engineering influence the way you review, speak, and educate?
Engineering taught me that clarity is kindness. You don’t ship messy code that doesn’t pass tests, why ship messy advice? Whether I’m reviewing a foundation or teaching undertones, I want the content to feel like a clean dashboard: no fluff, no filler, just what works and why. Everything doesn’t always work for everyone, and that’s ok.
The MOB Beauty red lipstick launch you co-created is storytelling, ritual, and reclamation. What did it teach you about the intimacy of product development?
It taught me that formulas and shades are personal. That lipstick wasn’t just a shade, it was my wedding story, my community’s feedback loop, my years of red lipstick trauma alchemized into something empowering. Product development, when done right, is a love letter to the people who’ve been left out.
You’ve called out gaps in shade ranges, PR kits, and influencer campaigns. How do you balance being a critical voice with being a strategic partner for global brands?
By being unshakably user-first. My critique isn’t personal; it’s my professional and personal experience as a beauty critic. I don’t just say “this isn’t working”; I say why and how to fix it. I bring product thinking into every brand conversation, so they don’t see me as a problem, but as a partner who hopefully helps them build better.
The most radical thing you do is make beauty feel achievable for people who have rarely seen themselves reflected. Was that a conscious positioning or a result of your own lived experience?
At first, it was my own lived experience. Growing up playing sports in the sun, I had darker skin, and I thought I was the problem when brands didn’t have a shade for me. Now I realize it’s them, and making beauty feel achievable isn’t radical because it’s complicated; it’s radical because it’s inclusive.
What do you say to creators who are still afraid to niche down, especially when their identities are not part of the “mainstream” algorithm?
The niche is the algorithm now. The more specific you are, the more people trust you. If you build for everyone, you resonate with no one. Your identity isn’t a liability, it’s your moat, your mission, and your differentiator.
Let’s talk infrastructure. You’ve built systems, hired teams, created templates. What’s your internal “brand playbook” and what rules have you set for yourself?
My playbook is product-driven: Identify the user pain → Build with empathy → Test honestly → Scale strategically. My rules are clear: no biases for ANY brands, even my “favorite ones.” No saying yes to campaigns that don’t make sense for my community. And no outright copying – I’d rather lead from zero than mimic from one.
Do you believe we’re entering a new era of long-form, expert-driven creators, or will beauty remain driven by fast cycles and aesthetic mimicry?
We’re in a pendulum swing. Short-form got us addicted to speed; now we’re craving substance. The creators who’ll thrive next are the ones who can go deep, who have POV, expertise, and staying power. I think there will be a place for both, but expert-driven creators have longevity.
You’ve been on panels, in interviews, and behind labs. What is your vision of what a “beauty founder” looks like in 2025, and is she more code than contour?
She’s both. She understands TikTok but also supply chains. She cares about shade names and SKU gaps. She’s data fluent, community-rooted, and not afraid to say, “This formula isn’t good enough, let’s try again.” She’s not chasing virality; she’s building legacy.
How do you define beauty when it’s no longer about aspiration but reclamation?
Beauty, to me, is when you see your full self, culture, texture, undertone, everything, and don’t feel the need to apologize for it. It’s not about becoming someone else. It’s about returning to yourself, fully and unapologetically.
And finally, if there’s one imprint you want to leave not just on faces, but on the future of the beauty industry… what would that legacy be titled?
“Beauty is not just a business, it’s also a feeling.”
Because beauty should never feel like an afterthought, it should feel like home. The thing people escape to when they’re having a bad day or the tool to make an even better day.
Monica Ravichandran is not here to fit into the beauty world; she’s here to rewire it. With the sharpness of an engineer and the soul of a storyteller, she’s turned her lived experience into a lens, her community into a compass, and her digital space into a sanctuary. Hers is not a brand that trends, but one that teaches. She’s a blueprint for the next generation of founders: intersectional, intentional, and impossible to ignore.
In a landscape saturated with sameness, Monica doesn’t ask to be seen, but she shows us how to finally see ourselves.
Still thinking she’s just another beauty creator? Look closer… Monica Ravichandran isn’t following the algorithm; she’s writing the source code.
