Birdy Lashes

When Yasmin Maya first posted a makeup tutorial in November 2012 she could not have predicted that her online handle, BeautyyBird, would become both a platform and a product pipeline. By December 2020 Maya formalized a long-gestating idea—selling the lashes she had always recommended to viewers—by launching Birdy Lashes with two faux-mink lash styles (Gemini and Dream) and a two-in-one eyeliner-adhesive, each priced at $12. The launch was framed as a cultural project as much as a commercial one: Maya filmed assets in Tijuana, foregrounded Latinx faces, and leaned into her origin story as a central brand narrative. ([refinery29.com](^[1]), [beautyindependent.com](^[2])).

The genesis of Birdy Lashes was equal parts passion and platform economics. Maya has said the product idea came from years of audience feedback and from personal attachment to falsies as a beauty staple; journalists who profiled the brand at launch noted Maya’s publicly shared immigration story and her desire to create affordable, easy-to-use lashes for Latinx consumers as motivating forces. Trademark activity predates the public storefront: the mark BIRDYLASHES was filed with the U.S. trademark office on August 27, 2020, signaling the move from creator to owner before the product reveal. ([refinery29.com](^[1]), [trademarks.justia.com](^[3])).

Maya’s celebrity—measured in millions of followers across platforms—was the brand’s most tangible asset at launch. By late 2020 outlets reported Maya’s social reach in the low millions (Beauty Independent reported roughly 1.05 million YouTube subscribers and a combined social audience north of 3 million), and she used Instagram seeding and creator friends rather than a traditional PR blitz to convert attention into sales. The brand was self-funded and deliberately lean: Maya told reporters she reallocated what she would have spent on glossy gifting toward causes such as the ACLU and focused marketing spend on direct community activation. ([beautyindependent.com](^[2]), [refinery29.com](^[1])).

The early business trajectory was dramatic: Birdy Lashes’ initial assortment reportedly sold out within a week of its December 2020 launch, a consumer response that validated the product-market fit for a lash SKU designed to be beginner-friendly and affordable. But immediate demand did not translate into an easy path to scale. Within weeks Birdy Lashes was served a trademark demand from Dotdash, owner of Byrdie.com, which on January 15, 2021 requested that Maya stop selling under the Birdy Lashes name—a legal cloud that Birdy’s team said slowed restocking and complicated supply-chain decisions at a critical growth juncture. ([beautyindependent.com](^[2])).

Operationally the company remained scrappy. Public reporting and founder interviews indicate Maya ran a tight ship—outsourcing manufacturing, managing packaging choices to reduce waste, and leaning on influencer-led organic marketing—rather than taking venture capital or private equity. That choice preserved control and cultural framing, but it limited runway for inventory investment, larger retail placements, and broader manufacturing audits that would be necessary to move beyond a creator-driven, direct-to-consumer model. The brand also continued to protect IP: Justia records show a subsequent filing on April 24, 2023 for a broader mark “UN DÍA” tied to cosmetics, suggesting an attempt to expand or diversify the brand architecture. ([trademarks.justia.com](^[3])).

Birdy’s biggest wins were straightforward and replicable: a sold-out launch, earned media across Refinery29 and Beauty Independent, and undeniable cultural resonance in Latinx digital spaces. But unlike influencer brands that parlay initial traction into large rounds and retail distribution, Birdy stayed small and fundamentally creator-led. Reporters documented the brand’s intention to target brick-and-mortar retailers such as Ulta, Sephora and Target, but there is no public record of a major national retail placement during the early years of the brand’s life. ([beautyindependent.com](^[2]), [refinery29.com](^[1])).

What truly differentiated Birdy Lashes at the start was product simplicity and price-point discipline: two faux-mink lash SKUs plus a hybrid eyeliner-adhesive, each sold at $12—a formula designed to lower the barrier for first-time lash buyers. Maya’s promotional aesthetic—lean, community-focused, and culturally resonant—also helped the brand feel authentic in a crowded marketplace saturated with celebrity-backed beauty lines. The decision to use a hybrid eyeliner-adhesive (product-plus-tool) as a core SKU gave Birdy a functional hook that played well in tutorial formats. ([refinery29.com](^[1])).

But the Birdy story is not one of uninterrupted ascent. The trademark dispute with Dotdash in January 2021 is the clearest early setback, and public reporting indicates it affected restock timing and created uncertainty for customers. That operational pinch—paired with the limits of self-funding—left the brand without the capital cushion or legal bandwidth that larger, investor-backed creator brands often enjoy. By 2024 the company’s direct storefront displayed a temporary ‘see you soon’ pause as Birdy undertook a brand refresh, noting on its site that ‘over the past three years, BIRDYLASHES has blossomed’ and promising a relaunch in 2024; as of the site snapshot that message is the most recent public status update. ([beautyindependent.com](^[2]), [birdylashes.com](^[4])).

Hard financials are absent from the public record. There are no SEC filings, no press releases announcing venture or strategic investment, and no reported acquisition price or formal retail distribution deal in major chains. That lack of transparency is not uncommon for self-funded founder brands, but it constrains the ability of outside observers to model Birdy’s unit economics, gross margins, and lifetime value metrics with confidence. The clearest quantifiable datapoints available to reporters are product price ($12 per SKU), the one-week sell-out narrative, the trademark filing dates, and Maya’s social reach—facts that together tell a partial story of reach and early demand but not of scale. ([refinery29.com](^[1]), [beautyindependent.com](^[2]), [trademarks.justia.com](^[3])).

For celebrity entrepreneurs, Birdy Lashes offers a nuanced playbook: a strong personal brand can produce immediate unit demand, but converting that demand into an enduring company requires capital for inventory, legal protection, and retail ops, or a willingness to remain small and community-focused. Maya’s choice to stay self-funded preserved control and cultural fidelity; it also meant Birdy never enjoyed the rapid distribution lift that outside capital and retailer relationships can produce. The brand’s pause for a refresh in 2024 underscores that creator-led brands must balance attention cycles with infrastructure investments if they hope to graduate to the mid-market. ([birdylashes.com](^[4])).

Finally, a note on sourcing and limits: in reporting this profile, public sources—including Refinery29, Beauty Independent, Justia, Glossy, and Birdy Lashes’ own site—provide clear evidence for the brand’s launch timing, pricing, social strategy, trademark filings, and early legal challenges, but they do not disclose revenue, COGS, unit-sales or outside investment. Where this analysis offers numerical inference (for example, remarking on the $12 price-point and the ‘sold out in a week’ cadence), it does so on the basis of those published reports and flags remaining unknowns explicitly. ([refinery29.com](^[1]), [beautyindependent.com](^[2]), [trademarks.justia.com](^[3]), [birdylashes.com](^[4])).

• August 27, 2020: Birdy Lashes (BIRDYLASHES) trademark filed with U.S. trademark office (serial number 90143211).
• December 8, 2020: Public launch of Birdy Lashes (two faux-mink lash styles 'Gemini' and 'Dream' plus Birdyliner eyeliner-adhesive), reported in Refinery29; MSRP $12 per SKU.
• January 15, 2021: Dotdash (owner of Byrdie.com) sent a letter to Birdy Lashes requesting it cease use of the Birdy Lashes name, creating a legal dispute that delayed restock plans.
• February 12, 2021: Beauty Independent publishes a profile on Yasmin Maya and the brand, reporting a one-week sell-out of initial inventory and describing the brand as self-funded with a combined social audience of roughly 3 million.
• April 24, 2023: Justia records show a trademark filing for 'UN DÍA' owned by Birdy Lashes, suggesting product or brand architecture expansion plans.
• July 18, 2023: Glossy profiles Yasmin Maya and Birdy Lashes in its Influencer-Founded Brand Guide, signaling continued industry interest and brand visibility.
• 2024 (site notice posted): Birdy Lashes storefront placed behind a 'see you soon' / brand-refresh page promising a relaunch in 2024; site language notes 'over the past three years' of activity.