Walking from her living room to her bathroom, talking on the phone in her New York apartment, Sarah Potempa suddenly realized she has no clue why you have to hold your curling iron upside down and wrap it backwards in order to curl your hair into perfect, beachy waves. She promptly hung up the phone with her sister, Erin, and sketched out the idea of a rotating curling iron. Erin had been having some trouble in her law firm in Chicago, feeling undervalued as a woman. Potempa asked if her sister would want to start a business with her – solely based off a sketch of a rotating curling iron. Erin promptly quit her job and joined Potempa to transform an idea into a reality.
Background
Sarah Potempa grew up in the Midwest along with her four siblings, attending Libertyville High School and even winning Homecoming Queen in 1998. Besides being an active member of the Swing Dance Club, the Student Council President, and a member of the choir, Potempa also loved participating in sports like basketball, tennis, volleyball, and softball. Her interest in braiding her teammates’ hair was what initially sparked her desire to explore her passion for hair.
Laughing, she recalls scouring the Yellow Pages in hopes of finding a salon in need of help. She truly struck gold in Mundelein’s Hair Directors, which was run by the single, female owner. The owner mentored Potempa, from having her examine advertisement after advertisement on her first day to watching instructive VHS hair tapes. The owner inspired Potempa to pursue her dream in hairstyling. Despite her inclination to skip college, Potempa attended NYU with the support of her parents and earned a background in business. As a Resident Advisor at NYU, Potempa attained a connection to a producer of celebrity photographers through mutual friends.
“She’s [the celebrity photographer] pretty much the one that changed my life”, Potempa affirmed. “She totally set me up.”
Experience
Without any portfolio or images, Potempa embarked on one of her first photo shoots with a famous photographer and model (set up through her NYU connections), having absolutely no knowledge of who either of them were. After periodically helping out with shoots like these, Potempa quit her job at the time, at a salon in SoHo, and announced her official availability. After that, the world of hair was at her fingertips — literally. Her first true experiences as a stylist were with Bob Racine, a painter discovered by Andy Warhol.
“For two full years, I hardly made any money. I worked 15-hour days, and sometimes I’d make $100 but I just did it, I loved it so much,” said Potempa.
During a shoot in which Racine requested that the model have snake-like detailed hair, Potempa showed her true expertise. She showed him how to do a French fishtail that prompted him to call the agency to suggest they take her on as an artist. All the while, Potempa was working with the artist Daniello, a celebrity stylist for musicians such as P!nk and Cindy Lauper.
Eventually, Potempa’s hard work and time with both Racine and Daniello resulted in her being signed to their same agency, Wallgroup. At the time, she was only 22, making her the youngest member of the agency. By age 23, she was also signed as a spokesperson for Aussie.
The Beachwaver is born
Through her four years of experience in makeovers with Aussie, Potempa found that she loved to help women and make them feel beautiful.
“We literally follow around celebrities, it’s insane. Any photo you ever see of them, I’m often in the background. We follow them to make every photo perfect so I feel like there are easy ways to show girls how to do that and also explain to them that [the photos] aren’t all real.”
Not only were celebrity photos misleading, but beauty editors were at fault as well. Beauty editors everywhere – who wrote articles on how to curl hair – had no clue how to actually do their own hair, Potempa said. She saw a huge disconnect between the girl at home who does her own hair and the girl writing the article that just gets her hair done because she can afford it.
To help bridge this disconnect between everyday girls and celebrities, she created the Beachwaver, an innovative rotating curling iron. But the curler wasn’t created overnight – in fact, it took years to perfect. Continuing to style hair in joint with her efforts to create a new business, Potempa was sucked into a whirlpool of success after gaining connections to a man who worked for QVC, a cable television network specializing in home shopping. Rachel Zoe, celebrity fashion stylist, was upset with the models QVC had booked for the launch for her clothing line.
“I was doing her hair and she was like, ‘OK Sarah, you’re modeling.’ And I was like, ‘Oh God, no. She put six-inch heels on us and a huge fur vest and like bangles up to here [gesturing to her elbows] and I was like, ‘I can’t! I don’t even wear heels!’”
During this event, Potempa grew close to a guy who worked for QVC at the time, as they shared laughs concerning Sarah’s modeling moment mishap. Later that year, Zoe had another event in New York to actually launch her line. At the time, Potempa was pregnant and “felt like a mess,” but she suggested her curling iron idea to her QVC friend, who was also an attendee of the event.
He immediately introduced her to members of QVC who then invited Potempa to meet to discuss a future pitch meeting, which led to talk of a prototype. A prototype of such an iron created through a design firm would cost at least $10,000, though, and she didn’t even know if her idea was going to stick. Utilizing their skills in engineering and business, Potempa and Erin sought out a team to help create their prototype. For about a tenth of the cost of what the prototype would’ve costed through a design firm, The Beachwaver was born, and it was an instant success.
Since creating the Beachwaver, Potempa has designed an entire collection of haircare items available for purchase. She claims their straighteners are just as awesome as the notorious Beachwaver. Her bubbly humor creeps through clever titles of products like “Help your selfie,” which includes a book on how to take the perfect selfie along with a clutch and styling brush.
While the Beachwaver Co. already possesses substantial popularity, Potempa sees the company becoming even more popular after the airing of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this winter. Yet she fears that the international publicity will incite customers from other countries to purchase the Beachwaver, which is an issue as its outlets are only compatible with U.S. outlets. Will the Beachwaver’s waves reach other corners of the world? We’ll find our answer in the coming weeks.
Q & A
Q: Why move back to Libertyville? The company was started in New York and you loved it so much there.
A: “I have two kids, a 5-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, and Erin, my older sister, has two kids. I never thought we’d come back; I still work in New York, and I’m there every week, but my husband is also from the area, and my sister was actually the first to come back. It was like one of those moments where [we were] like, ‘Okay, we own the company, we have all this stuff, we’re growing so rapidly,’ and my sister really felt that family is so important.”
Q: I read that your Beachwaver is the Official Hair Sponsor of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? That’s amazing!
A: “It’s a big deal for us as a company. A year ago they used the tool and had wanted us to be a part of it, but we were too small. We’ve never done this before, so, for us, the only reason we’re doing this is because it’s the perfect tool for the show. Every girl has told us in their reviews that they’re obsessed and feel like a Victoria’s Secret Angel. It kept coming up and coming up and it was perfect when [Victoria’s Secret was] like, ‘We want you to be the sponsor of the show.’”
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show will be airing internationally on Dec. 8.
Q: What was it like styling the President?
A: “So, he was actually a senator at the time, and it was a photo shoot in D.C. for the inside of Vanity Fair. I went there, and the photographer wasn’t done setting up, so [the president and I] ended up talking for about 45 minutes. We were just chatting, and he was like ‘Yeah, I’ve been to Libertyville, I know your hometown.’ It was just a really normal, random conversation. When I went in and started the photo shoot, and the photographer I had worked with at the time asked him, ‘Oh, did you know Sarah’s from Chicago?’ and he was like, “Yeah, she’s my homegirl.” For that photo shoot, the one thing I really wanted to do was trim his eyebrows because they were really unruly. After that shoot, his assistant called and I came back and did the cover for Vanity Fair, which actually ran twice, with the photographer Annie Leibovitz. It’s one of the many crazy experiences I’ve had.”
