Melissa Butler’s The Lip Bar x Kash Doll Lip Kit

Melissa Butler’s The Lip Bar and Kash Doll Launch The Last Doll Lip Kit

4 days ago

3 min read

Melissa Butler’s Detroit-born brand and Detroit’s own Kash Doll spent two years building the limited edition kit, available now only at TheLipBar.com.

By Black Beauty Founders Staff

Kash Doll holding The Lip Bar x Kash Doll Last Doll Lip Kit

Melissa Butler started The Lip Bar by mixing lipstick in her kitchen. Today her Detroit brand is sold at Target, Walmart and Meijer, and on October 15 it launched what it calls its biggest collab of the year: The Last Doll Lip Kit, made with Detroit rapper and actress Kash Doll. It is the first beauty collaboration Kash Doll has ever done. The limited edition kit retails for $55 and is available exclusively at TheLipBar.com.

What’s inside the kit

The kit pairs three custom shades: Straight Line lip liner in Never Pressed, Long Haul lipstick in Run It Up and Gloss Up shimmer gloss in Shopping Spree, all in a custom marbled pink box stamped TLB x Kash Doll. Kash Doll handpicked every shade, and the two teams spent two years in the lab getting it right.

The liner has a precision tip and a creamy, velvet matte finish that delivers full color in one swipe. It is infused with jojoba oil, aloe vera, coconut oil and vitamin E, and it is smudge-proof, water-resistant, vegan and cruelty-free. Kash Doll calls the gloss her favorite product in the kit.

The Lip Bar Last Doll Lip Kit with Straight Line lip liner, Long Haul lipstick and Gloss Up shimmer gloss

The founder behind the brand

Butler’s path to beauty did not start in beauty. The Detroit native studied business finance at Florida A&M University and worked on Wall Street as a stockbroker. Frustrated by the industry’s lack of diversity and the chemicals in so many products, she started making lipstick in her Brooklyn kitchen and launched The Lip Bar in 2012.

In 2015 she took the brand on Shark Tank, where all five sharks passed and she was told to quit. She kept going, moved the company home to Detroit and landed at Target three years later. A Detroit billboard later marked how that turned out: ten years in business and two million units sold.

In the interview released with the launch, Butler admitted the irony. Growing up in Detroit, she said, she and her friends were “not big makeup girls,” wearing little more than black lip liner and a beauty supply gloss. “I can’t believe I have a makeup company,” she laughed.

A partnership that started with a real customer

The two had talked about working together for a long time, but the moment that set it in motion happened at a Detroit Pistons game. Arenas only allow tiny bags, so fans bring only what they truly need. When Butler ran into Kash Doll there, the rapper was wearing The Lip Bar and pulled the gloss right out of her purse. “I’m emailing in the morning,” Butler remembered thinking.

Kash Doll had been a customer for years, and so has her mother, whose favorite is The Lip Bar’s red. She also remembers spotting Butler’s products at Target and feeling inspired. “Y’all inspired me to get in there,” she told Butler.

The Lip Bar founder Melissa Butler and Kash Doll in the TLB x Kash Doll campaign

For founders, that is the lesson worth noting: the strongest partnerships often start with someone who already loves the product. Kash Doll tested shades in the store, took samples home and brought them to her makeup artist, and Butler kept the result rooted in the customer The Lip Bar has always served. The kit, Butler said, was made for Kash Doll and “everybody who look like you,” with brown skin and Black women at the center of every decision.

Bossy and baby girl

Asked how she wants women to feel when they wear the kit, Kash Doll described a balance between boss and baby girl. “Feel bossy,” she said. “It’s subtle and soft, but it’s like, what’s up?”

She also turned the spotlight back on Butler and the Detroit women building businesses around her. Kash Doll, who said she is just beginning to tap into entrepreneurship herself, praised founders who do it “with class,” with integrity and real care for their customers.

TLB x Kash Doll Shopping Spree shimmer gloss campaign close-up

For The Lip Bar, the kit is a hometown story twice over: a Detroit founder and a Detroit star, building something together. And like any true limited edition, it will not last. As the two put it at the end of their interview, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

As for the goal, Butler put it simply: “We’re going to run it up.” Kash Doll’s reply came fast. “Run me my money.”

But the line that sums up the launch belongs to Butler, describing her collaborator. However people think Kash Doll shows up online, Butler said, “in real life, it’s times five.”

Shop The Last Doll Lip Kit