Conversations with the Lip Bar's Melissa Butler and Justine Skye
“A Black-owned brand in business for seven years.”
This sentence alone falls short of what beauty company, the Lip Bar has achieved within the past decade. In their latest line, An Island Gyal Collection, Justine Skye, Brooklyn-bred singer/songwriter offers a collaborative experience; delivering a warm palette of earthy tones that effortlessly tie into the R&B singer’s deep Jamaican roots.
The L.A. launch party was a success to say the least! Think island-themed small bites — curry chickpea shooters served by women dressed in bright Caribana-inspired attire, swaying to dancehall music and live performances. And Justine, mingling with women from a wide variety of shades.
From a brick-and-mortar store to placement in major retailers like Target, and expanding from exclusively lip products to including foundation and eyeliner, the Lip Bar has made leaps and bounds within the highly saturated beauty industry. So, how did the line even come about and for their first collaboration ever? And why Justine Skye? Adebukola.com caught up with the Lip Bar’s founder and CEO Melissa Butler to talk about the collaboration and customer-focused direction of her company.
Courtesy of the Lip Bar, AN ISLAND GYAL COLLECTION
Toi Monet Creel: First off, congrats! How exciting is this? Your first collaboration and some new products, The Lip Bar is doing it big!
Melissa Butler: I know! It’s an incredible journey and a testament to the new direction of the brand. We’ve been in business for almost 8 years and literally this is our first collaboration. This is our first time playing with color on the face so we’re evolving as a company.
Toi: What was your thought process around creating the new collection?
Melissa: I always say that I know my customer because I am a customer. I’m always tapping into our authenticity by tapping into our customer's authenticity. So when I started thinking about it, I was like wait, how do we tap into her [Justine’s] authenticity? Her family is Jamaican, she vacations in Jamaica often. Her grandparents live in Jamaica, so that’s what we should be tapping into. That’s the story we should be telling.
Toi: Can you talk to us about the values of the Lip Bar and how you’ve maintained them throughout the growth of your business?
Melissa: For us it’s not about maintaining our values. For us it’s always remembering why we started. I was frustrated with the beauty industry and I decided that instead of complaining about it, I would create the solution. What we value at the company is individuality. We value inclusivity and diversity. True diversity, not just slapping a couple different complexions together and saying, “Hey we’re diverse”. We’re all about being your truest self, being enough and I think that shows up in many ways - from the models we use, to the products that we produce, to the ambassadors that we choose to work with.
Toi: I’m sure you get this question a lot about Shark Tank and how they didn’t buy into the Lip Bar. Perhaps, they didn’t believe there was a market for it? Do you feel that there’s a disconnect with culture in marketing?
Justine Skye in “Eyelandting” eyeliner and “Fiya” lipgloss
Melissa: Absolutely. Black culture is the most copied culture and the most monetized culture. But when we are actually experiencing the culture, we’re made to feel bad about it. We’re made to feel like it’s not enough. We’re made to feel like it’s ghetto or scrappy. Everything that has happened within Black America at some point, unfortunately, comes from oppression. When something comes from oppression, people look at it as ugliness. Even we feel that we should shy away from it. It's not until other people come and monetize our culture that we start to say, “No wait, WE did that. No wait, that’s OURS.” It’s like somebody else saw the value in that, even though we were living it and breathing it. I think naturally there’s going to be a disconnect because often times we are doing it out of necessity and marketing is doing it out of profit and so there’s always gonna be a stark difference there.
Toi: How has the brand changed?
Melissa: For the last seven years we only had lip products and we did a huge expansion this year. We launched an entire makeup system that allows you to get your makeup look done in seven minutes. We looked at the beauty industry and learned that a lot of people are spending money on makeup unnecessarily and not knowing what to do with that makeup. So it’s like, oh wait, there’s education missing. There’s a lot of excess happening and we wanted to come in and bridge the gap there.
Toi: The hemp/CBD oil industry is having a break out in beauty products especially in 2019, would you ever develop a line with CBD, if you haven’t already?
Melissa: That’s not at the forefront of our goals right now. There’s so much within traditional beauty that we can still explore, so not just yet but I am watching it.
Toi: Many businesses shut down after five years and you have passed that mark. What’s your advice for some aspiring entrepreneurs out there on keeping a new business afloat?
Melissa: By many statistics I probably should have quit, but I just believed in the Lip Bar so much. I believed in changing the way people think about beauty and how they see beauty for themselves so I just kept going. It wasn’t until five years that we actually had a breakthrough. My advice for aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners is to remember your why and double down on it, focus on it and know that it’s not going to be overnight and that’s fine. As long as you are solving a problem and you’re consistent and focused, then it’ll manifest.
Toi: Do you have any advice as far as getting noticed by major brands?
Melissa: Number one you have to know why you want to get noticed by major brands. Entrepreneurship is very trendy and it’s super sexy right now, but you have to know what type of business you want. Do you want to be a lifestyle business? Do you want to be an enterprise business? Why do you want to be noticed by a big brand? Why do you want to go into retail when you can just own it? You can own your margin. You can own your relationship with the customers. Ask those questions first. What’s going to attract you to another business is going to be the same thing that attracts you to a customer: You’re solving a problem.
the Lip Bar CEO Melissa Butler and R&B singer Justine Skye 👸🏾
Toi: How did you go about choosing Justine Skye as a collaborator and the face of the collection?
Melissa: Our customers are extremely vocal so we wanted to work with someone we knew that they could believe in. First of all, she’s stunning. Second, she’s incredibly talented. She’s never been afraid to be herself, whoever that is at whatever time, whether it’s speaking about her personal experiences or talking about her heritage, or just being very excited to exude Black Girl Magic.
A self-proclaimed “Renaissance Woman", Justine Skye definitely knows her way around fashion and beauty. Her 17-piece collaboration with H&M was applauded for being “every bit as cool and versatile as the singer herself”. It’s no surprise that her Lip Bar collab wouldn’t disappoint, as it represents the best of the Lip Bar’s ideals: owning your truth, doing it your own way, and evolving into your best you, on your terms! With this in mind, we sat down with Justine and got her take on the collaboration.
Toi Monet Creel: It’s the launch of your first collaboration with the Lip Bar, what does this mean to you?
Justine Skye: I feel amazing. It’s been receiving great feedback and I’m just excited to celebrate with everyone. We’ve been working on this for a while and now we’re just ready to celebrate.
Toi: Of course we know you as Justine the artist, how was it stepping into the beauty lane?
Justine: I’m a musician and part of being an artist is getting ready for things and experiencing glam so my glam team is a huge part of my career. They’ve been killing it and in them killing it and us creating these looks for red carpet events, album covers or music videos, it generated a lot of traction as far as what products I’ve been using. This isn’t my first makeup collaboration, but it’s definitely one of my favorites.
Toi: Do you consider yourself an influencer? Because influencer marketing will be worth over $10 billion by 2022. Many people are tapping into that revenue stream.
Justine: If that’s what the universe brings me then it’s what it brings. Being an artist you work with brands on a lot of things and I always make sure that whatever it is, it’s always incorporating that [artistry] because that’s the core of who Justine Skye is.
Toi: I love that and I also love how it brings your culture into consideration. Was that a must for you?
Justine: When this collaboration idea even came about it was just a no-brainer to base these colors off of my heritage because they're vibrant, they're warm, they make you feel good, they make you feel love. The Brown Girl nude lip is what I like to call it (laughs) because it's chocolatey. I just wanted to incorporate that tropical feel into this and I think that we executed it great.
TC: What was your favorite part about collaborating with the Lip Bar?
JS: Getting the samples and probably getting to play with them physically, (smiling).
An Island Gyal Collection can be purchased at www.thelipbar.com.
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