Always bet on Black.... and a nice matte lip

There's a lot of bad going on in the world right now, narrowing it down to North America there is more than enough orange evil to go around. I can't help my brothers and sisters in the States on the ground (a) because I'm Canadian and (b) because I'm not touching the States with a ten foot Canadian flagpole, so I decided to help in another way that is mutually beneficial. Buying Black. This means increasing my purchases within the Black community by buying from Black owned businesses and supporting Black artists and this is actually a lot of fun. It means picking up an Essence magazine with Ava Duvernay on the cover, or scooping up a copy of Ebony with Jurnee Smollett-Bell featured. It also means checking out Canada's only all Black Burlesque Troupe on March 23th in Toronto, lead and founded by Dainty Smith, picking up my peppy single Doo-Wop Days (see what I did there (didn't really do much just plugged myself) see! see!) or purchasing some lovely teas from a socially conscious tea shoppe out of Manitoulin Island. There's so many ways to support the community and one of my current favourites is of course...lipstick (the word is in the blog name people!) Some thrilling, relatively new Black run and founded lip companies that I'm over the moon about include:

The Lip Bar  founded by Melissa Butler after being erroneously shut down on Shark Tank, these lippies are now being worn by the likes of Taraji P Henson and featured in Essence magazine. I, myself can attest to the power of their #BawseLady shade (as seen below) and look forward to trying more shades from them in the future.

ColouredRaine founded by Loraine Roberts Dowdy is an electric brand filled with bright (and dark) colours to ensure you're dropping jaws in every room. My personal favourites are Tootsie and Cherry Blossom. Check out an online vlog review here.

For those with a lusty appetite for the finer things in life (and an obsession with the 90's cult classic 'The Craft'")   Gold Label Cosmetics is here to satisfy your every designer lip need. Lipsticks and Lip Pens even come in bundles according to shades and dark (or light) urges. As well, after my first purchase I was sent a personalized thank you email from the founder Kristen Elise Brown, herself, if that isn't customer service! Check out her story and some lovely lip swatches here.  I'll have more of an update on this once I receive my order of Dark Children and the Bogota Bundle....

Last but certainly not least, Beauty Bakerie a tasty confection of dessert named lippies and highlighters founded by the unsinkable Cashmere Nicole (who is more than a few success stories in her own right). I've yet to purchase any lippies from them but I have my eye on Raspberry Tiramisu, Cranberry Stiletto and She's Just Jelly and I'll let you know when I get my sticky, matte addicted puckers on them. In the meantime here's an online lip swatch to peruse.

Excitingly, along with being Black-Owned and founded, all the brands I've mentioned are cruelty free and/or vegan so no cute little fuzzies were harmed to achieve a higher level of lip-loving existence. If you give any of these brands a try (which I strongly encourage you to) drop me a note and let me know how it goes.

Kisses and Wishes to you,
2017 Me

P.S Click on the links to check out the cosmetics companies and events!