Ex-e.l.f. Cosmetics co-founder Scott-Vincent Borba to be ordained Catholic priest

Scott-Vincent Borba, a former California esthetician and co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics, will be ordained as a priest after abandoning his luxury lifestyle for the Catholic faith.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno announced May 4 that Borba, now a deacon, will receive priestly ordination on May 23. The move caps his decade-long return to the church. He serves as a deacon and seminarian at St. Patrick's Seminary in California.

Fox News Digital contacted the Diocese of Fresno and St. Patrick's Seminary for comment but received no immediate response.

Borba built e.l.f. Cosmetics, which stands for Eyes. Lips. Face., starting in 2004. The company grew to generate more than $1.3 billion in annual revenue and brought him into Hollywood celebrity circles.

In the mid-2010s, Borba donated his wealth and answered a call to the priesthood. He spoke to KSEE in 2019 about the choice after years of 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? I was vapid. I had a perverse life. I went to LA, I got sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle. It was almost to a point where I was trying to sell my soul for all of the riches of the world, which is not what we're supposed to be."

"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. I was a poster boy for luxury," Borba added.

People had suggested priesthood to Borba a thousand times over his life. The first came from his mother in third grade.

"At Mass, she asked me to look up at the altar, and if I wanted to be the man in the robes," Borba told OSV News. "Whoever the priest was, his robes at that moment were shimmering like glitter. And I knew God was placing on my heart to become a priest."

Borba now leads a modest life after selling his wealth and possessions, a step he called giving himself back to God.

"I am trying to do everything to show our Lord that He gave me everything in His divine providence. He has taken care of me all my life, and now I am to give it all back and to show Him that He is going to take care of me the rest of my life, whatever it's going to be," Borba told KSEE.