Scott-Vincent Borba, the former California esthetician who helped found Elf Cosmetics, is set to be ordained as a Catholic priest on May 23. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno announced the date on May 4, marking a dramatic turn for a man who once built a beauty empire and now says he is trying to give everything back to God.
Borba founded e.l.f. in 2004, with the company name standing for Eyes. Lips. Face. The business grew into a major player in the beauty market, eventually posting annual revenue of more than $1.3 billion. Borba, now a deacon and seminarian at St. Patrick's Seminary in California, said he made the decision in the mid-2010s to donate his wealth and accept a calling to the priesthood after what he described as decades of living a “vapid” and “perverse” life.
He said he had been approached with the idea of joining the priesthood “a thousand times” over the years, beginning in third grade when his mother first raised it. At Mass, he said, she asked him to look up at the altar and imagine whether he wanted to be the man in the robes. “Whoever the priest was, his robes at that moment were shimmering like glitter … And I knew God was placing on my heart to become a priest,” Borba recalled.
His path back to the church came after years in the luxury world he once embraced. Borba said God had blessed him with money, awareness and business success, but that he later realized he was living for himself and idolizing luxury. “I was a poster boy for luxury,” he said, adding that he had gone to Los Angeles and been pulled into the Hollywood lifestyle. The shift eventually led him to sell his wealth and possessions and adopt a modest life.
That leaves one clear takeaway as May 23 approaches: a man once known for selling glamour is preparing to enter the priesthood on terms that he says are meant to reject it. Borba’s ordination in Fresno will complete a change he began years ago, when he decided that success alone was not enough and that his remaining task was to give back what he believed he had been given.
