I don’t know about you, but I love to success stories about us. Just by chance, I received a product from the Lip Bar line and my lips started to smile, and when I discovered that this brand was started by an African-American woman, I had to learn more.
Here’s what I discovered. The Lip Bar was started in 2021 by Melissa Butler who used the kitchen in her Brooklyn apartment and made her hard-earned and saved $30,000 stretch.
Like so many great services and products created by us, it came from a place of need and genuine frustration. And Butler’s issue is our issue because most beauty products are not made with our skin tone in mind.
These other brands want our money — but they never take the time to learn about the collective us and our delicious undertones.
I admire the drive of the entrepreneurial spirit and Butler didn’t take no for an answer. She stood her ground and before long, she quit her job on Wall Street because the demand for the Lip Bar products continued to grow.
10 years flew by and now Butler’s beauty products are sold in Target and Walmart. Her products were so popular, they became an anchor in Target’s expansion into diverse brands in 2018.
Butler made lipstick because she believed beauty shouldn’t compromise health and because she was determined to change the way people thought about beauty. She also insisted that her formulas were vegan, cruelty-free, and devoid of unnecessary chemicals.
Armed with a solid blueprint for the future, Butler did not let the grass grow under her feet. Her brand has steadily grown over the past several years from the lip products to a robust collection of easy-to-use complexion makeup items.
In short, Melissa Butler is building a beauty empire that embraces the beauty of diversity with authenticity at its foundation.
Her brands now include Easy Beauty Bundle, Tinted Skin Conditioner, and Bawse Lady, a universal lipstick for all complexions, and her prices are reasonable, ranging from $13 to $68.
Now back to the original — The Lip Bar (vegan and cruelty-free) where they use exotic, vibrant colors in organic formulas that redefine the depiction of a linear beauty standard and which complements every complexion.
In the not-too-distant past, women of color were surrounded by images of White women and told (verbally and with images) that our features, and our diverse hues, were not beautiful. Now — fast forward — culturally we embrace our beauty and our self-love grows stronger every single day.
Butler believes that every woman deserves to be positively represented and she makes it her mission to help change the way people think about beauty.
#Minority-Owned #Black Owned #Small Business #Diversity Inclusive #Diversity #BIPOCFounder #FemaleOwned #BIPOC