Melissa Butler left Wall Street, made vegan lipstick in her Brooklyn kitchen, and built The Lip Bar into a brand you can find in stores across the country. This edit starts with its lip formulas and lip sets, then moves to the concealer, tinted moisturizer, blush and mascara.
How The Lip Bar Turned a Shark Tank No Into a Detroit Storefront
Melissa Butler was born and raised in Detroit, studied business finance at Florida A&M, and took a job as an analyst on Wall Street. She did not enjoy it. At night she went home to her Brooklyn kitchen and made vegan lipstick in bold colors she could not find elsewhere, and that side project became The Lip Bar. In 2015 she and creative director Rosco Spears pitched it on Shark Tank, where all five Sharks passed. Butler has said since that the pitch was not that good, which I find more persuasive than any tidy founder myth. She kept going, reached a buyer at Target, and the brand went on Target's website in 2016 and into stores in February 2018. The brand says it is vegan and cruelty-free, and that shows in grid one. Nonstop Liquid Matte goes on as a silky liquid and dries velvety with jojoba oil and vitamin E. Straight Line is the creamy liner, Gloss Up is the non-sticky color-rich gloss, and Long Haul is a slim bullet with up to eight hours of wear, per the brand's own consumer study.
Layers for the mouth
Grid two is where The Lip Bar shows how it thinks about a mouth, as a set of layers. The Nude Mood Lip Kit pairs a nude liner with a lightly pigmented gloss, so the guesswork is gone: line, gloss, done. The Liquid Matte, Lip Gloss and Lip Liner Trio can be worn one at a time or all together for definition, color and shine. No Filler Needed is the volumizing plumper, and The Prototype is a botanical lip oil, which is the texture I would reach for when the day has been long and the lips feel it. A small tip for the kits: draw the liner slightly inside your natural edge, put the gloss only in the center of the lips, and stop there. It reads as fuller without looking like anything was tried.
A whole face, not just a lip
The Lip Bar started with lipstick, but grid three shows how far the shelf has grown. Just a Tint is a 3-in-1 tinted skin moisturizer with hyaluronic acid and SPF 11. Quick Conceal is a caffeine concealer, and the brand sorts its shades into six complexion families from Ivory to Ebony, so once you know your family you know where to start. Fresh Glow Dream Blush and Big Timer Volumizing Mascara round out the face, and the mascara is an ultra black, volume-boosting formula. What I would skip is choosing the concealer shade by squinting at a screen. Start with your complexion family from the brand's quiz and match from there.
Detroit, on purpose
The brand's flagship sits in downtown Detroit, at 1444 Woodward Avenue, which is a nice full-circle detail for a founder who left Wall Street and moved back home in 2014. It describes itself as founded and owned by Women of Color, and says it is now in more than 2,000 stores. If you are new to it, begin with a liquid matte lipstick and a liner, then add gloss when you want softness. Treat everything else in the edit as a sampler you can build on. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Cartier Tank Solo and Ole Henriksen Lip Balm, From a Danish Dancer Turned Facialist.
