Monday, May 11, 2026 - Scott-Vincent Borba, e.l.f Cosmetics co-founder, will be ordained a priest on May 23, 2026, in the Diocese of Fresno, California.
The internationally famous cosmetics executive, who before
age 30 had spearheaded successful business campaigns for some of beauty’s
biggest brands, including Neutrogena, Sebastian, Joico, Murad and Hard Candy,
is now a Deacon after giving up his career for the religious life.
At age 50, seminarian Scott-Vincent Borba says he doesn’t
consider his to be a late vocation.
“God called me at age 10,” he told OSV News. “I just
accepted late.”
Now in his pastoral year at St. Patrick’s University and
Seminary in Menlo Park, Borba chuckled as he recalled how he drove a luxury car
and wore an expensive black suit to his first meeting with his vocation
director.
“(The director) opened the door, looked at me and said, ‘I
have got a lot of work to do on you,'” recalled Borba, who is studying to be a
priest for the Diocese of Fresno.
Besides being an internationally famous cosmetics executive
which made him a household name, Borba even developed his own eponymous brand
of skin-balancing water, with Anheuser-Busch signing on for a marketing and
distribution deal.
He had several books to his credit, such as “Skintervention”
and “Cooking Your Way to Gorgeous.”
Borba also modeled as a youth, was an esthetician to the
stars, and even gave actress Mila Kunis a $7,000 facial — using microcrystals
from diamonds and rubies — for the 2011 Golden Globe awards.
He’d had an office in Beverly Hills, a beach house not far
away, and a social life that included parties with Paris Hilton and millions in
the bank.
However, amid what seemed to be a nonstop wave of fortune
and fame, he was miserable.
“I was at a party and I was very, very unhappy,” Borba told
OSV News. “I just felt like I was empty and I was empty. I was exhausted. I was
burning the candle on both ends.”
Right on the spot, Borba looked up to heaven.
“I said, ‘God, if this is life, where all you do is work and
party and do that all over again and di£, then this is not the life that I
think that you have made for me. But I can only change if you help me,'” he
recalled.
In response, Borba experienced a sudden conviction about his
worldly ways, the reality of sin and hell, and God’s power to save.
“I said, ‘Help me … I don’t want to do this (anymore),'”
Borba said. “I was sincere about it and asking for God’s help, (and) he gave me
my conversion. … It was God’s grace all over me.”
Subsequently, Borba packed his bags, left his house and
checked into a hotel.
“I just didn’t want to be at my house anymore,” he said.
“Everything reminded me of sin. … I was telling God, ‘I am so sorry for having
ever offended you.'”
Over the next few years, he moved away from Los Angeles and
began divesting himself of his wealth — in stages, Borba admitted.
“At that point, God called me to give up everything, and I
thought that meant just my cars,” he said. “So I had an Aston Martin
convertible, and I said, ‘All right, Lord, I’m gonna sell this car, give the
money to charity, and then use some other money to get myself a truck.’ Then he
said, ‘Give it all up.'”
Borba said the Virgin Mary has been instrumental in his
vocation journey.
Borba recalled how after a particular childhood prayer
intention was answered favorably following a rosary he prayed, he “asked Mary
to stay with me, to keep me and to hold me throughout my entire life.
“I know that our Blessed Mother has brought me into this
vocation because of her love for me and for her Son,” said Borba.
Even when he headed to Los Angeles after college to seek
worldly success, Borba — who had then lapsed in his practice of the faith —
still instinctively sought to connect with God.
On the drive there, “God gave me the grace to turn off my
radio, roll down my window and scream out to him, ‘Father, Father, please help
me achieve some of my dreams. And upon achieving those, I will give you back my
life and service,'” said Borba.
Now, Borba — who left those dreams behind at age 40, and
entered the seminary at 42 — is making good on that promise.
“I have never been happier. I have never been more full of
joy,” he said.
“With everything the world can give me, I would give it back
a million times over to be united to Jesus.
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