"MY GOAL IS TO EXPAND INTO A CUTTING-EDGE, FULL COSMETICS COMPANY. I WANT TO DOMINATE."

By Margot Hornblower

Two years ago, Dineh Mohajer, 24, was a premed student memorizing hydrocarbon chains and looking forward to a lazy summer of shopping and hanging with friends. Today she runs Hard Candy, a company she started on a whim after mixing pale blue nail polish in her bathroom to match a pair of sandals. Last year's sales: $10 million. This year's projection: $25 million. "Someone asked, 'Why do you make nail polish for young girls with colors called Pimp and Porno?'" she recalls. "I thought, 'O.K. You're taking yourself wa-a-ay too seriously.' Like, pimp is slang for cool. As in 'Oh, my God, that's so pimp!'" Cool, in other words. Competition from such global giants as Chanel and Revlon amuses her. "Their ads are, like, 'We'll tell you what's hip.'" She puts her green-tipped index fingers to her temples. "I'm, like, 'O.K., Grandma, tell me about it!'"

Ask this college dropout with the six-figure salary and the BMW, "Is this the American Dream?" She wrinkles her nose. "It reminds me of white picket fences," she says. Instead, she offers, "I believe in positivity." That attitude is everywhere as Mohajer rushes around her cluttered Beverly Hills, Calif., offices in 3-in. platform shoes, testing eyeliner samples; approving display designs; ordering in pizza; playing A Tribe Called Quest on the sound system ("It's so chill"); promising Liz, her trademark attorney, who drops by, that, yes, she would join her kick-boxing class; and celebrity name-dropping (Alicia Silverstone and Lenny Kravitz use her polish). Recently she dismissed her 61-year-old CEO to assume the title herself. "My goal is to expand into a cutting-edge, full cosmetics company," she says, adding with a sly smile, "I want to dominate."

For all her success, Mohajer's attitude (the vinyl cover of her appointment book reads F___ IT!) is distinctly Gen X, light-years from boomers' idealized image of their own youth, forged in the crucibles of the civil rights, antiwar and feminist movements. Is there a generation gap? "Oh, my God, I'd have to say yeah!" she answers. Before Hard Candy, she wanted to be a plastic surgeon, a goal her father, a cancer researcher, opposed. "My dad does not believe medicine should be used for high-class fashion--it puts patients at risk," she explains. "But I think it's O.K. to use surgery to feel better about yourself." Nonetheless, she is close to her parents, who emigrated from Iran before she was born and settled in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She plans to help her father market a Pap-smear test he invented.

With Gen X, comfort is key. When Mohajer's boyfriend transferred from Boston University, where they were both students, to the University of Southern California, she followed. The real lure? "The California weather." (Now he works for her, when he's not playing in his underground techno band.) Running a 25-employee company has not cramped Mohajer's slacker style. "I function like an average human being of my age. I go to clubs, movies and watch MTV," she says. "It's so fun! I'm a TV junkie. I need to go to Melrose Anonymous! Eating Cap'n Crunch and watching TV--two things I live for. Twice a week we have all-girls' night. My best friends come over. We watch TV and gossip and scream and yell and do our nails."

When it comes to politics, Mohajer draws a blank. She thinks she registered to vote ("Maybe when I got my driver's license?") but has never cast a ballot. "Politics," she says, "is not fun. They're all charlatans anyway." She covers her mouth in mock shock. "Just kidding!" Were there seminal events for her generation--as, say, Woodstock and Kent State were for boomers? She looks puzzled. "Well, we had the Gulf War," she says. "It seemed scary, but I got over it in two days."