Imagine walking into a beauty store looking for mascara.
There's one promising dramatic volume.
Another offering extreme length.
One promising lashes so long you'll practically need planning permission to blink.
And then you see a mascara called Cow Lashes.
I'm sorry. COW WHAT?
Now, I don't know about you, but I'd have questions.
And that's exactly why this brand is worth studying.
Meet SARELLY, the Mexican beauty company co-founded by Anna Sarelly and Remi Martini.
In September 2026, the brand expanded into more than 600 Target stores across the United States.
And one of the products leading that expansion?
Cow Lashes Mascara.
Yes, somebody put a cow in the mascara aisle.
And there's some very smart business thinking behind it.
Who Looks at a Cow and Thinks, "Mascara"?
Apparently, somebody who understands both beauty and branding.
Growing up in Mexico, Anna Sarelly was familiar with the expression pestañas de vaca, or cow lashes.
It's used to describe naturally long, straight eyelashes that point downward.
And rather than translating that observation into another generic beauty promise, SARELLY built a product around it.
Cow Lashes.
A mascara designed to lift and curl lashes that naturally grow downward.
Now that's interesting.
Because the name isn't simply trying to be funny.
It comes from a recognizable beauty characteristic and a familiar cultural expression.
And it tells a story.
You hear Cow Lashes once and you're probably going to remember it.
You may even tell somebody about it.
Which is considerably more useful than being the forty-seventh mascara promising extraordinary length.
There's a Lot of Money in Being Easy to Remember
Here's something I wish more businesses understood.
Customers can't buy from a brand they don't remember.
And they certainly can't recommend one they can't describe.
Think about how many products you've seen this week.
How many can you name without looking them up?
Exactly.
Now imagine someone telling a friend, "You need to try that mascara with the cow name."
They might forget SARELLY.
They might forget the packaging.
But they've remembered enough to start looking for the product.
And that's a pretty useful advantage.
The easier you are to remember, the easier you are to talk about.
Every time customers have to rediscover who you are, you've got another job to do before they can choose you.
A distinctive name gives them something to hold onto.
And sometimes that little mental shortcut is more valuable than another expensive advertising campaign.
The Cow Has Company
Here's where SARELLY gets even more interesting.
Cow Lashes isn't the only memorable name in the collection.
There's Horse Lashes Mascara.
And Telenovela Tint Duo.
You can almost hear the product development meetings.
"Okay, we've got the cow. Who's next?"
"The horse."
"Wonderful. Somebody call the stable."
But there's a strategy underneath all that personality.
These names come from a brand that proudly draws on Mexican culture, language, beauty habits, and humor.
SARELLY isn't trying to sound like every other cosmetics company.
It's creating products that feel connected to the people and culture that inspired them.
And that's an important distinction.
Because sometimes brands work so hard to appeal to everybody that they remove the very things that made them interesting.
The unusual language disappears.
The humor gets polished away.
The personality gets replaced with something a committee decided was more universally acceptable.
And before long, the brand sounds like everybody else.
SARELLY went in the opposite direction.
Then Came Target
Now here's where the business story gets particularly good.
SARELLY didn't have to abandon its personality to expand internationally.
In September 2026, the company launched in more than 600 Target stores across the United States.
Think about that for a second.
A Mexican beauty brand built around cultural identity, community, and unmistakable product names is now competing for attention on shelves alongside established cosmetics companies.
And it's doing so with products called Cow Lashes and Horse Lashes.
That's a long way from the idea that a brand needs to become more generic as it grows.
It also demonstrates something worth remembering about retail.
Getting onto the shelf is one challenge.
Getting noticed once you're there is another.
And when customers are standing in front of dozens of competing products, having something they can immediately recognize or remember becomes especially valuable.
A name like Cow Lashes certainly gives them something to think about.
Possibly while wondering why nobody thought of this sooner.
Don't Confuse Being Different With Being Random
Now, before everybody runs off to rename their businesses after farm animals, there's something important here.
Please don't launch Goat Accounting because you read this article.
Unless you've got a remarkably good reason.
SARELLY's name works because there's an actual connection between the expression, the customer, and the product.
The humor isn't floating around looking for somewhere to land.
It's attached to something meaningful.
That's what makes the difference.
You can come up with a strange name in five minutes.
Coming up with a name that's strange, relevant, memorable, and genuinely connected to your brand?
That takes a little more thought.
And that's where the real strategy lives.
Here's Where I'd Pay Attention If I Were a Founder
1. Stop sanding off everything unusual about your brand.
Sometimes the very detail you're tempted to remove is the thing people would remember.
A funny name.
An unusual phrase.
A distinctive way of explaining what you do.
Before you make everything sound more professional, ask yourself whether you're also making it more forgettable.
2. Give customers something they can repeat.
Imagine somebody recommending your business to a friend.
What would they say?
Would they need to pull up your website and read your entire About page?
Or is there one name, phrase, product, or detail that makes you easy to describe?
If customers can remember you, they have a much better chance of bringing you into conversations you're not even part of.
3. Use your own story instead of borrowing everybody else's personality.
SARELLY didn't need to invent some elaborate fictional world to give its products character.
It drew from familiar expressions, cultural references, and real beauty needs.
Think about the language your customers use.
Their inside jokes.
Their frustrations.
The funny things they say when describing a problem.
There might be an excellent product name or brand story hiding in conversations you're already having.
4. Protect what makes you recognizable as you grow.
This one is especially important.
Growth often brings more people into the decision-making process.
More opinions.
More approval meetings.
More suggestions to make everything sound a little safer.
And if you're not paying attention, you can slowly edit away the personality customers loved in the first place.
There's nothing wrong with improving your brand as you grow.
Just make sure you're not improving it into complete anonymity.
Now, About Your Business...
Here's a little test.
If I covered your logo, could someone still recognize your brand?
Could a customer describe your products to a friend without having to remember your exact business name?
Do you have a phrase, visual, product name, or experience people associate with you?
And perhaps most importantly:
Are you protecting the unusual parts of your brand, or slowly editing them out?
Because being understood matters.
But being remembered matters, too.
SARELLY managed to take an expression about cow eyelashes and turn it into a bestselling beauty product with international retail distribution.
That's not a bad outcome for a name that might have gotten some very interesting looks in a conventional product meeting.
And now a question.
What's one product name you heard once and never forgot?
Because I'm still thinking about the cow.