It started with a snap—not of a decision, but of an elastic. The moment felt almost like kitsch, with its sudden drama and unexpected humor.

In 2010, Cassandra Morales Thurswell, a 25-year-old waitress from Wisconsin living in Los Angeles, was heat-sealing handmade hair ties at her dining table. Tiny burns dotted her fingertips, order receipts piled up beside bottles of glue, and her apartment smelled faintly of scorched nylon. By day, she worked service jobs to pay rent. By night, she built Kitsch—a name borrowed from the idea that style doesn’t have to cost luxury money.

That night, when another snapped hair tie sent her back to square one, she didn’t fold. She knotted tighter, burned smarter, and built stronger. That single elastic would grow into one of America’s most successful bootstrapped beauty brands, now worth $260 million, sold in 20,000+ stores and 27 countries worldwide.

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