Scott-Vincent Borba helped build one of the most recognizable beauty brands in America. Now he’s preparing for a very different kind of public life.
Borba, a co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics, is set to be ordained as a Catholic priest in his hometown of Visalia, California, on May 23. The Diocese of Fresno will ordain the 52-year-old years after he left behind the beauty industry and gave away the fortune he made from the company.
“I have never been happier in my life,” Borba told ABC 7. “Once I started to reorient myself, recalibrate myself with God’s help to the focus to Him, the joy started coming.”
Borba co-founded e.l.f. Cosmetics — short for “Eyes Lips Face” — in 2004 with Alan and Joseph Shamah. The brand became a major player in affordable, cruelty-free beauty, eventually reaching $100 million in sales by 2014.
But Borba has said the success didn’t translate into fulfillment. In a 2019 interview, he described his earlier life in Los Angeles as spiritually empty.
“I was vapid and I had a perversed life,” Borba said. “I went to L.A., I got sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle — it was almost to a point where I was trying to sell my soul, right, for all of the riches of the world, which is not what we’re supposed to be. … I was living for myself. … I was a poster boy for luxury.”
Borba said he had felt drawn to the priesthood for much of his life but spent decades pushing that calling aside before he “finally accepted the call about maybe three years ago.” He told ABC 7 he reconnected with faith in his 40s after experiencing what he described as a sudden loss of joy.
“I asked our Lord to help me be the man that He created me to be,” Borba said. “And upon that instance, I had this massive flood of love and mercy that came into my life. It was a very mystical experience.”
After that, Borba said he gave his cosmetics fortune to charity and entered ministry. He’s now a deacon and seminarian at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where his life looks very different from the luxury world he once inhabited.
“I live in a little tiny room. … It’s sparse, nothing in it,” Borba said. “I have a few bits of clothes and a few pairs of shoes. And my life has been culled down to the bare minimum.”
