“We hear that we’re not allowed to express our feminine self, we’re not allowed to like men opening doors for us, we’re not allowed to like the traditional female role. And I think this is ridiculous.”
Sara Gonzalez has launched a new cosmetics line that is made in America and designed to fill the space left by woke make-up lines that keep alienating women who believe femininity isn't a dirty word, that men aren't women and never will be, and want "a better place to put their money."
We spoke on a day when Gonzalez was dealing with a teething baby, and compared our best remedies—frozen waffles v. frozen strawberries—before diving into why she started the new company American Beauty by Sara, the backlash that she's received against it (yes, already), and what really matters in a lipstick.
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Gonzalez received backlash after she went on podcast You Are Here, hosted by Sydney Watson and Elijah Schaffer with guest Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who shot three rioters, killing two, on a fateful night in Kenosha, Wisc., in August 2020, and was later acquitted of all charges when a jury found that he acted in self defense.
After Rittenhouse made a comment about LeBron James, who publicly mocked him during his contentious trial, the clip went viral and people began reaching out to Gonzalez to slam her, her podcast on The Blaze, and American Beauty by Sara.
"People found out who I was," she said, "and started trying to ruin everything about me." They went to her social media to attack her there, and when they found American Beauty by Sara, they began leaving devastating reviews, without ever having tried the product. They tried to take down her cosmetics line because she was on a podcast with Kyle Rittenhouse and holds conservative views of her own. None of these things have anything to do with her line, and the customers had been leaving glowing reviews.
"They went on there and started writing all of these fake reviews saying that they had used the product and it actually made them age more, all of these ridiculous things," Gonzales said.
"They don't want to allow anyone to have a difference of opinion or to allow anyone to give a voice to someone that they disagree with. They'd much prefer to just shut down and ruin that person's entire life. That's what they tried to do to me," she said. This was on top of death threats she's received, and there's actually a case pending against someone who made "terroristic threats" against her.
Despite all of this, she is defiant and more determined than ever to pursue her goals. "The left thinks that conservatives will play their games," she said. "But for the most part, I don't think conservatives do."
"Generally speaking, we are against canceling people because they have a different opinion," she said. And because much of what she does is already geared toward conservatives, such as her work at The Blaze on Unfiltered & The News and Why It Matters, it's hard to cancel her. The Blaze isn't going to drop her simply because a few left wing trolls got angry on the internet—You Are Here is also on The Blaze, and they stand by Watson and Schaffer's work too.
"Our entire, our entire platform is built around us being able to say whatever the hell we want, and you guys not being able to cancel us. So good luck. I think that it makes them very angry, that they don't have as much of an impact on me as they would like," she said. The biggest hit was to her time.
"The biggest impact really was just the time and the energy that it took away from us doing other things that make our company profitable, just having to field all of these, the trolls. We had to deal with all of the fake reviews, we had to deal with them attacking the social media page. The manpower that it took to remove all of these fake reviews was time that we could have been spending on the company itself. And we couldn't do that because it was just like trying to drink water out of a firehose."
Gonzalez and her business partner with American Beauty by Sara launched the new beauty line in part because they felt that "conservatives are just chomping at the bit for an alternative."
"I am of the opinion, as I think a lot of people are in the conservative space, that we really do need to be focusing on parallel economies. We've allowed the left to control most, if not all of our institutions. It's not just grade school, higher education and Hollywood and so many other industries that they really have taken over while sat back and let them do it," she said.
"I just finally got to the point where I said 'you know, we talk about this all the time I talk about this all the time, I want to put my money where my mouth is and I want to start something that conservatives can go to and say I feel comfortable supporting this company because I know that this company supports me,'" Gonzales said with a passion that drives her work.
"But I also wanted to do it organically. I didn't want to start a company for something that I don't really care all that much about or I'm not passionate about," she said. Since makeup is one of her passions and something she feels strongly about getting right, it was a natural fit.
"It's something that my viewers know me for and I really think that that's where I can be valuable in this emerging space. Everyone has a passion that differs from someone else. So why not have all of us take what we are good at and what we are passionate about and channel that into becoming an entrepreneur?" She said. And that's what she did.
"So I just said, 'you know what, screw it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a leap of faith here.' And I believe that there are enough of us who want a better place to put our money."
All of the American Beauty by Sara products are made in the US, and Gonzales is "extremely proud" of that fact in a time when so many of the goods Americans use on a daily basis are imported. She stands behind every product, and these are things she personally uses every day. Manufacturing is done in "freedom loving states," she said, including Florida and Texas, where she's based.
Gonzales notes that it may be hard at first for conservatives to use their retail spending to advocate for political change, because it's just not part of the conservative culture. Many in the conservative sphere simply buy what they like, regardless of a company's political views of actions, instead believing that the quality of a product should stand on its own.
Gonzales is all for quality, and has been a perfectionist about getting her line right. But in this divisive, overly political time, she believes that there's got to be more than that.
"It's just a miscalculation that I think a lot of conservatives made," she said. "We have kind of have the idea that we're going to do our own thing, and generally be left alone. Personally, I don't feel that my opinions have much to do with my business, but the left is not playing by those rules. The left is playing by a completely different set of rules now," she said.
"As much as we would like to be able to leave all of our personal opinions at home and be able to run our businesses and buy what we like as long as the quality of the product is there, we have an entire half of the country who are not playing by those rules because those aren't the rules that they want to live by."
"They want us to inject politics into every single part of our lives," she said. "And, unfortunately, if we don't play by those rules at least in terms of what we consume, we will get swallowed."
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"And that means creating alternatives for conservatives. When they can put so much manpower and energy into ruining people's livelihoods, we can't sit back anymore and just watch it happen. I think we have to get active and we have to get involved because they've really changed the game," she said.
"I am a huge fan of voting with my dollars and that is one way that conservatives take a stand. Find the companies that are going to offer the same high quality that you're going to get from the gigantic leftist institutions but in the form of a conservative, small business that you can support," she said.
"The leftist radicals are the ones who are the loudest, they're the ones who scream about everything. And that's how they get their way. So whether or not the executives actually believe in silencing people or canceling partnerships based on who people vote or what they believe, they're still going to do it. It's just it's really important for conservatives to try to stick together. We didn't start the game. We didn't start the battle but I think if we stick together we can finish it."
That includes buying American made.
"If you're buying something, as a consumer, try to buy American made. If you're, if you're an entrepreneur, and you're a business owner trying to get all of your stuff wholesale, if you can, buy in America. I understand that there are some constraints that many businesses have that many industries have, particularly the clothing industry. I realize that it becomes very burdensome for the entrepreneur, the business owner, to keep prices competitive," she said.
"When you are going American-made it is more expensive to have labor here in America than it is in some of the other countries like China. But it's so important to remember that if we are as patriotic as we say we are, we have to be building up other American companies. We have to be building up our own economy.
"It's just something that I really am passionate about. And with my brand I can do that and still deliver something that I know has the quality and is at a great price point for the average American," she said.
As for the products, Gonzales is really excited about the line she's put together. It focuses on feminine looks and timeless quality. She started with lipstick.
"I really like the idea of being able to show your personality through your makeup, and one of the ways for me to do that was lipstick. So in research and development, lipstick was where we started and we had the right formula," she said. They have both a classic cream lipstick and a long-wear matte, which Gonzales said she wears every day.
After that, other products followed, as well as anti-aging skincare, and they're working on more, including eyeshadows and other products. But for Gonzales, quality is paramount, and she won't release anything that she wouldn't wear herself.
"I have purposely not released any eyeshadow yet because I want to wait until it's something that I'm wearing every day that I can offer to everyone else," she said.
American Beauty by Sara emerges into a marketplace that shows little value for femininity for women. Instead, brands keep showing men in dresses and makeup, and belittle the female form, androgenizing it. This is not Gonzales' take. Instead, she celebrates femininity.
"That was a conversation that I had a lot as I was developing the company," she said. "It's like we're not allowed to be feminine, and we keep being told we're not actually real women. Women are men and men are women now."
"We hear that we're not allowed to express our feminine self, we're not allowed to like men opening doors for us, we're not allowed to like the traditional female role. And I think this is ridiculous," she said.
"What our brand is about and what we want to do is help women take back femininity, and be able to say 'y'know what? I actually want to look nice for my husband. We're into fashion too. We're into makeup too.' We're not just these old fuddy-duddies that the left makes us out to be," Gonzales said.
"I feel like for so long we've allowed the left to control the narrative that we're just not into those kinds of things. And now, as with every facet, we have men taking them for themselves, claiming our femininity. One of the things that I kept expressing was that we should be proud of our femininity, we should be embracing those things," she said. "I am proud to have a company that says, 'I support you in this and I'm here to walk through this battle with you."
