ent the entire experiment in real time on social media.  “I thought, ‘Why not show them from scratch just how well it works and that you don’t have to go through the crazy side effects to get long lashes?’” she said in 2023. The plan was a spectacular success. By the end, the videos – dubbed ‘lash chop’ – attracted millions of views and turned her business into a cult product, with sales rocketing to more than 190,000. “There’s honestly no more real or raw way to show that a product works.” The stunt came several years after Giarratana was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis, two debilitating conditions that affect a significant proportion of Australian women. Endometriosis affects about one in seven Australian girls and women, while PCOS affects approximately one in 10 women of reproductive age.  The birth of an organic skincare brand  Giarratana was working with a naturopath to alleviate her symptoms when she began examining the ingredients in the beauty products she used every day. “When I got home and started reading labels, I was shocked,” she tells Inside Retail today. “Many of the products I used every day contained ingredients I no longer felt comfortable using, and I ended up throwing almost my entire beauty routine away,” Giarratana said. She found alternatives that were expensive, inaccessible, cosmetically uninspiring or unable to match the performance of conventional beauty products. Concurrently, she became aware of the shocking density of the average routine, which comprises, for women, around 12 personal-care products each day and more than 100 individual ingredients before leaving home. Together with her husband, Michael, she founded Xali, an organic skincare brand that focused on lash and brow growth whilst excluding synthetic fragrance, parabens and phthalates. The pair’s professional expertise was not suitable to create a beauty brand. She was a social worker, and Michael was a carpenter, leaving them to learn product development, manufacturing and company building through research, questioning and error. Their commitment soon acquired material consequences when the couple sold a house they had renovated, and soon they moved in with Giarratana’s parents, investing the entire profit into Xali. “It took nearly a year from then to turn a profit, so there were definitely some scary moments along the way,” she said “ There were times we questioned whether we’d made the right financial decision, but we truly backed what we were doing at Xali,” Looking back now, Giarratana claims she doesn’t see selling her home as a reckless decision but as a reflection of how deeply the couple believed in what they were creating. “It gave us a deeper hunger to ensure Xali was successful.” Xali generated only $12,000 in revenue in its first year of operation, but by 2026 had become an eight-figure beauty company, achieving a $20 million sales milestone within 4 years of its 2022 launch. While Xali is stocked in independent retailers, its success has been driven predominantly by direct-to-consumer sales and founder-led storytelling, and it has sold close to 400,000 products. Its Peptide-Powered Hair Serum has overtaken the Lash Serum as the brand’s bestseller. It’s apparent that consumer appetite has been fuelled by demand for non-invasive ways to enhance natural lashes. The eyelash-serum category is expanding rapidly, with the global market valued at 1.28 million in 2023 and projected to reach 1.92 billion by 2030, with the Asia Pacific accounting for 45 per cent of revenue in 2023.  Dodging lash growth serum side effects  Ironically, that growth has coincided with scrutiny of the category’s formulations. There is a plethora of eyelash serums on the market that contain prostaglandin analogues, a synthetic compound used to stimulate lash growth, which has been associated with a myriad of side effects, including iris darkening, eyelid pigmentation and loss of fat around the eye socket. Giarratana claims Xali’s formulations exclude prostaglandins or synthetic hormones and instead use peptides, botanical extracts and hyaluronic acid. For her, that formulation philosophy reflects the business’s original purpose. “Women want transparency. They want efficiency. They want brands they can trust.”  Xali’s next stage will test whether that intimacy can survive scale as the brand hints at new launches and investment intended to support international growth. However, what matters most to Giarratana is allowing customers to see the reality behind the brand.  “They see a real woman with real health challenges, showing up in a very real and often unpolished way who created products to solve problems she genuinely experienced herself.” She and Michael have also recruited specialists who can challenge their thinking, while she hopes to eventually “slink away” from the camera and spend more time developing products with her team. For now, her presence remains commercially potent. In a category saturated with promises, she has built credibility through an unusually literal principle to put your own eyelashes on the line.