Scott-Vincent Borba, co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics, has given up his fortune to become a Catholic priest.
The former cosmetics executive is set to be ordained as a Catholic priest on May 23 in his hometown of Visalia, California, by the Diocese of Fresno, concluding a decade-long return to the church.
“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 — with father and son Joseph and Alan Shamah in 2004. A decade later, the affordable, cruelty-free makeup brand was generating $100 million in annual sales, according to Forbes, and is now valued at $3 billion.
As the cosmetic brand’s sales surged, Borba became immersed in Hollywood social circles, mingling with celebrities and socialites. “I was a poster boy for luxury living,” he told ABC 7. “I was not in any which way humble. I was very prideful.”
Borba, now a deacon and seminarian at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, lives in a “tiny little room” with few possessions, his life pared down to “the bare minimum.”
Borba said he felt a connection to religion from childhood but suppressed those feelings for years during the cosmetic brand’s success. It was not until his mid-40s that he returned to religion 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. And upon that instance, I had this massive flood of love and mercy that came into my life,” Borba said. “It was a very mystical experience.”
It was during the mid-2010s that Borba decided to donate his wealth and pursue a calling to become a priest. The decision followed decades of what he described in a 2019 interview with CBS47 as a “vapid” and “perverse” life.
“(God) not only blessed me with money and awareness, and just every business I had, he allowed me to have success with it,” Borba said.
“Then I decided, you know, what is wrong with me?” he continued. “We’re supposed to be living for our Lord and Lady. I was living for myself. I was idolizing myself. I was idolizing everything else out there that was luxury.”
Since committing his life to ministry, Borba hopes to be “a light” in the world.
“I am trying to do everything to show our Lord that He gave me everything in His divine providence,” Borba said. “He has taken care of me all my life, and now I am (going) to give it all back.”