e.l.f. co-founder becomes Catholic priest after leaving Hollywood life

Scott-Vincent Borba was ordained a Catholic priest on May 23 in Visalia, California, the Central Valley city where the e.l.f. Cosmetics co-founder was born and raised. Borba, now in the Diocese of Fresno, left behind a beauty-industry career and a Hollywood lifestyle that once put him in celebrity circles before he entered seminary at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park.

Borba has said the pull toward priesthood began early. At 50, he described his vocation as something he had carried since childhood: “God called me at age 10,” he said. “I just accepted late.” The line captures the scale of the shift in his life, from the glamour and wealth of the cosmetics industry to the discipline of clerical formation.

Borba helped launch e.l.f. Beauty in 2004 with Joseph Shamah and Alan Shamah. The brand name stands for eyes, lips, face, and the company built its reputation on affordable, cruelty-free cosmetics before expanding into a much larger beauty business. Borba’s name remained tied to that origin story even as he stepped away from the industry and into religious training.

His ordination gives an unusual turn to a familiar American success narrative. e.l.f. began as a startup rooted in mass-market beauty, with Borba among its founders, and it eventually grew into a major player in cosmetics. Borba’s path went in the opposite direction, from the market logic of Hollywood and luxury to the Catholic priesthood in Fresno County, where his hometown ordination marked a public break with the life that had made him rich and visible.