Bobbi Brown's Jones Road makeup shop opens in the village that inspired its name: East Hampton
Employee Cheyenne Pellicoro applies a makeup sample for a customer at the newly opened Jones Road, a makeup boutique in East Hampton, on May 19. Credit: Gordon M. Grant
Cosmetics entrepreneur and New Jersey resident Bobbi Brown, 66, opening a boutique dedicated to her latest smash-hit collection of cruelty-free products for lips, eyes, skin and face in East Hampton is fitting; the company itself is named after a street in the village.
“We had worked with some copywriters and were racking our brains and nothing was sticking,” explains Brown. “Then one day, my husband and I were driving to the Hamptons and I was navigating. I looked down and there it was on the Waze navigation app: Jones Road. I immediately loved the name and so did my husband and the team.”
Jones Road was born.
There’s background here, of course. Brown, famously known for her eponymous line, sold her brand to Estee Lauder in 1995 for $75 million. The deal came with a whopping 25-year noncompete barring her from returning to the beauty business. She left the company in 2016, and when the year ticked to 2020, bam, she launched the direct-to-consumer Jones Road. Almost instantly, sales went wild and, to date, the collection has garnered devoted fans.
Jones Road, a makeup boutique in East Hampton, is now open. Credit: Gordon M. Grant
This summer, a tiny Jones Road boutique (400 square feet) opened in the heart of East Hampton, where there will be testers galore and shade-matching services for finding that perfect color, along with makeup artists for those special events (Hamptons wedding, anyone?) that Brown says have been “trained by me and my team.” It’s the brand’s third retail location, the first in Montclair, New Jersey, and the other, which opened in March, in Greenwich Village. In addition to the complete collection, expect to find what Brown calls, “some cool brand merch, like T-shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps.” She says the goods perfectly jibe with the Hamptons summer scene and beyond. They are, she says, “Multi-tasking, take-it-everywhere products that you can just throw in your bag and use on the go.”
The line’s packaging — oyster white, putty and pale pink with the words “JONES ROAD” boldly printed in black — conveys purity (and, in fact, Brown says she's eliminated more than 2,700 potentially harmful ingredients from the formulas). And versatility seems to be a key to success here, and is regularly underscored by Brown as she often notes that it transcends age and skin type. On the company website, she compares the collection to a Swiss Army knife, “Easy, cool, multipurpose products that could be used to nail any look whether it be 'no makeup' makeup or something with more drama.” The Miracle Balm ($38), sold in a generous tub that comes in nine shades and is a hybrid blush-highlighter made of Jojoba seed oil, is a bestseller.
Beyond being a fan of the street name, Brown, who has a home in Sag Harbor, says she thoroughly enjoys the scene out east.
“My family and I really love the Hamptons, and Sag Harbor is our favorite place to be in the summer. It’s a beautiful little town … very casual and very friendly, plus, I always meet cool people there. It reminds me of Montclair so I feel very at home.”
And don’t be surprised to see Brown, herself, on the scene. “I will definitely be at the East Hampton store working with our makeup artists and meeting customers.”
Jones Road is located at 55 Main St., East Hampton, 631-604-5966. Store hours are Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; jonesroadbeauty.com.
