Known as the creative force behind Benefit Cosmetics, co-founder Jean Ann Ford died from cancer at her Tiburon home Thursday night. She was 71.

She is survived by her identical twin and Benefit co-founder, Jane Ford; her daughters Maggie Ford Danielson and Ann Ford Danielson; and four grandchildren.

Ford co-founded Benefit, then a small makeup shop known as the Face Place in San Francisco’s Mission District, in 1976. Originally from Indiana, she had embarked on a modeling career but decided to become an entrepreneur, along with her sister, at age 29.

“In 1976 we flipped a coin. Heads we open a casserole cafe, tails we open a makeup shop!” the Ford sisters said, according to an account on Benefit’s website.

In the late 1970s, their small enterprise would turn into a cult classic thanks to an exotic dancer called Rosie, who strolled in one day and asked for a solution for a very specific problem. She needed a potion that would turn her areolae pinker for, she said, customers at the back of the room. Jean and Jane told her to come back the next day for a product they had not yet made. That night, they boiled rose petals and created a nipple stain called Rose Tint, the company’s first product. That product today is called Benetint and is marketed as a lip and cheek stain that sells for $12 to $30.

Maggie Danielson, Ford’s older daughter, said in an email that her mother had a way of connecting with people and breaking down barriers, most often with a laugh.

“I think that’s what she loved most about Benefit. Makeup was her conduit for connection. She created her own world in which fun, sass and friendship was the currency,” Danielson wrote. “She said to me once, ‘A Benefit product is like a mystery, and you have to buy the product to figure out the answer.’ She loved the art of the smile.”

Ford is credited as being the quirky, creative mind behind the brand, often coming up with the fun names and stories around Benefit’s products, including Boi-Ing, an industrial-strength concealer, and Hoola, a matte bronzer where one can “skip the tanning bed, avoid orange hands and still look sun-kissed on a cloudy day.”

Benefit credited Ford with creating one of the beauty industry’s first independent billion-dollar makeup brands.

“Her ingenious, creative and passionate contributions to Benefit were fueled by a genuine passion for the consumers,” the company said.

The Face Place was renamed Benefit Cosmetics in 1990, the same year its first makeup counter opened at the Henri Bendel department store in New York City. In 1997, Benefit made its first international expansion into London, and two years later, the sisters sold a controlling stake to LVMH, a Paris luxury goods conglomerate.

Both Jean and Jane stayed with the company until 2012. Jean’s daughters work as Benefit’s chief beauty ambassadors.

Younger daughter Ann said via email that her mother was a force. “She spent her whole life creating a world where women could find joy and happiness in themselves. She truly believed when you make someone look good and feel good, they will be good. ... She was the best woman I will ever know.”

There are no services planned yet, the company said. Notes or flowers can be sent to Maggie and Ann Danielson’s attention at Benefit Cosmetics, 225 Bush St., 20th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104.

Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika