Location

Detroit, Michigan, United States

Founded

2012

Price

Affordable

Shipping

USA

Catalogue

60 products

New arrivals

5 this month

The Lip Bar logo

The Lip Bar

About

The Lip Bar is one of the most significant Black-owned beauty businesses in America, and its origin story has become genuinely well known. Founder and CEO Melissa Butler, a Wall Street expat and self-described Shark Tank reject, began making lipstick in her Brooklyn kitchen in 2012 because the shades she wanted did not exist. Today the brand is headquartered in Detroit with its own flagship store and is stocked in Target nationwide. The brand states its ownership plainly on its own site: Black Woman Owned, founded and owned by Women of Color, and the number one independent Black-owned beauty brand among all multicultural colour cosmetics. That is not marketing applied afterwards, it is the reason the company exists. The range spans lips, complexion, eyes and curated Fast Face routine kits, built on the principle of maximum impact with minimal effort. Products are one hundred percent vegan and cruelty-free, formulated with a blend of natural ingredients including shea butter, avocado oil, coconut oil and vitamin E. The brand is careful about what it does not claim, stating openly that its products are not certified organic. All products except one palette are talc-free, no product contains fragrance, and the positioning is unapologetically non-toxic beauty essentials for non-toxic people. Priced in the affordable tier, the brand keeps genuinely pigmented colour accessible. For shoppers searching for affordable, vegan, natural, cruelty-free American beauty from a women-owned and Black-owned business built for a full spectrum of skin tones, The Lip Bar is a landmark.

Brand Details
American Beauty
M
Melissa Butler

Shop The Lip Bar

Picked by the brand. Checkout happens on The Lip Bar’s own site.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded The Lip Bar?
Melissa Butler left a Wall Street job at Barclays to found The Lip Bar after growing frustrated by the lack of bold, affordable vegan lipstick shades for women of color.
Is The Lip Bar's quality actually good?
The Lip Bar's bullet lipsticks earn praise for comfortable, flattering pigment on deeper skin tones, though some liquid formulas apply patchy and need heavy layering to look even.
What's the bigger story behind The Lip Bar?
The Lip Bar's sales grew about 40 percent in 2025 even as its Target-specific sales dipped during a boycott, after Butler diversified into Walmart, CVS, and Amazon.
Is The Lip Bar cruelty free and vegan?
The Lip Bar markets its formulas as 100 percent vegan and cruelty free, avoiding markets that require animal testing, though it holds no formal third party certification.
What makes The Lip Bar different?
The Lip Bar became Target's largest Black-owned makeup brand after a rejected 2015 Shark Tank pitch, where all five sharks passed before Butler cold-pitched retail buyers herself.
When and where was The Lip Bar founded?
The Lip Bar launched in 2012 from a Brooklyn kitchen, and Melissa Butler relocated the growing company to her hometown of Detroit after quitting her job in 2014.

You May Also Like

Discover more brands you might be interested in

Osmia featured image

Osmia

United States · Est. 2012 · Luxury

Osmia is an American natural skincare brand founded in 2012 by Dr Sarah Villafranco, a Georgetown-trained physician. She spent around a decade in emergency medicine before a soap-making class changed her direction entirely. Based in Carbondale, Colorado, the brand is woman-owned and follows a deliberate less-is-more philosophy. The aim is healthier, happier skin, using ingredients that support both human and environmental health. Its honesty about certification is worth noting. The brand trades as Osmia Skincare rather than Osmia Organics. It states plainly that it is not certified organic, prioritising supplier quality over paperwork. Every label prints the percentage of certified organic ingredients. That is a more useful disclosure than a badge. Products are made in the USA, either at the Colorado headquarters or with US manufacturing partners, and the soap-making craft heritage survives in the Osmia Craft Series. Hero products include the Purely Simple Face Cream, the Purely Calm Gel Toner and Nectar Nourishing Drops. The Black Clay Facial Soap and Rosemary Scalp Oil are also favourites, and an extensive trial-size programme starts at $3. Formulas exclude synthetic fragrance, synthetic colour, petrochemicals, phthalates, parabens, sulfates and ethoxylated ingredients. Most products are vegan, with eight items containing honey, beeswax, lanolin or buttermilk powder, all disclosed. Cartons are FSC certified with non-toxic UV inks, and plastic components contain post-consumer recycled material. One tree is planted per order through One Tree Planted, exceeding 160,000 trees since 2018. For natural, women-owned American skincare, Osmia is deeply credible. Its honesty about what it has not certified is the most convincing thing about it.

Summer Fridays featured image

Summer Fridays

United States · Est. 2018 · Luxury

Summer Fridays is an American skincare and hybrid makeup brand founded by Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland. It is the rare influencer-founded company that built a real product business rather than a merchandising exercise. The brand's argument is that beauty routines have become over-stimulating, over-complicated and over-active, and its three pillars answer that directly: gently effective, everyday intuitive and community born. Formulas use what the brand calls perfected levels of active ingredients, enough to work without the downtime that stronger actives demand. The Jet Lag Mask remains the defining product, a hydrating mask-to-moisturiser. It carries the National Eczema Association Seal of Acceptance. That is an unusual credential in prestige beauty, and a meaningful one for reactive skin. A thirty-three-person study reported 100% seeing increased hydration at eight hours, with 97% finding skin softer and smoother. Cloud Dew Gel Cream, the Lip Butter Balm, ShadeDrops SPF 50 Mineral Milk Sunscreen and the Sunlit Vanilla Eau de Parfum complete the core range. All products are vegan and cruelty-free, and are free from parabens, sulfates and phthalates, with the Jet Lag Mask fragrance-free, gluten-free and non-comedogenic. Packaging uses aluminium, glass, sugarcane-based and post-consumer recycled plastics with FSC-certified paperboard cartons. The brand partners with Pact Collective on a take-back scheme, offering a $25 gift card for five or more returned empties. Prices run from $16 to $82. For anyone researching American beauty, vegan beauty, cruelty-free beauty or gentle everyday skincare, Summer Fridays is deservedly ubiquitous. The eczema seal on its hero product is a quiet mark of quality.

KraveBeauty featured image

KraveBeauty

United States · Est. 2017 · Affordable

KraveBeauty is an American brand founded in 2017 by Liah Yoo, and it is one of very few beauty companies whose marketing actively discourages you from buying. The rallying line is Press Reset on the Skincare Norm. The range splits into a Core series for daily maintenance and a Supplement series for targeted needs. The brand tells customers outright when they do not need a product. Its #SlowDownSkincare campaign rejects the fast-fashion launch cycle the industry runs on. Behind that stance sits real formulation discipline. Great Barrier Relief, built on tamanu and centella, improved damaged barrier function after two weeks in an independent clinical study on twenty participants. Beet The Sun SPF 40 passed six separate tests, including two FDA broad spectrum tests and the ISO 24444 and 24442 protocols. Oat So Simple Water Cream, Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser and Kale-Lalu-yAHA complete the core line, with everything priced between $16 and $28. KraveBeauty is a Certified B Corporation, PETA-certified vegan and cruelty-free, Plastic Neutral certified, Climate Label certified and a member of 1% for the Planet. It commits to including at least one upcycled ingredient in every new launch, using leftover Jeju matcha grinds, rejected UK hemp seeds, ugly Jeju carrots, European wine pomace and Romanian rosehip seeds. Great Barrier Relief is bottled in 100% PCR PET, and refill pouches are available. Formulas are always free of fragrance, colorants, dyes and essential oils. For sustainable, affordable, barrier-first skincare, KraveBeauty is a benchmark. It is one of very few brands whose environmental claims survive close reading.

From The Labels is not officially associated with the brands, designers, or individuals mentioned on this page. Information is curated from public sources, and brand owners can update or verify their listings by contacting support@fromthelabels.com.