Do you dream of how to create your own makeup line but don’t know where to start? Or maybe you want to break into the beauty industry and just need some pointers on how to get started.
As emerging trends and niches expand, the beauty industry opens up more spaces for small business owners to take the leap and start their own makeup line. But, the biggest challenge to starting a makeup line isn’t what you think it is – it’s not the competition with bigger brands. It’s the lead-up to getting your products to market!
However, there’s no need for stress. This is the ultimate and ONLY guide you need on how to start a makeup line. In this article, you can access a free budgeting sheet, branding template, and more to help launch your small business to success and freedom!- Choose your niche
- Find a supplier
- Financials
- Inventory and shipping
- Build your brand
- Set up shop
- Double down on marketing
- Customer support processes
- Find mentors and a community
How to start a makeup business in 9 steps
1. Choose your niche
Start by narrowing your focus to a specific niche. Do your research and determine how you want to position yourself in the beauty industry.
The easiest way to start finding a niche is to do your market research. It’s as simple as consuming beauty content from the comfort of your home. Start scrolling through Instagram, subscribing to beauty influencers’ YouTube channels, get used to following which trends are emerging and which ones are fading out. As you’re doing your market research, start to consider, “What kind of beauty products excite me?”, “What beauty products have I tried and loved? Or tried and hated?”, “What brand’s makeup line inspires me?” and even questions as simple as “Why do I want to know how to start a makeup line in the first place?” If you're wondering how to create your own makeup line, start by identifying what excites you most about the beauty industry.
Ask yourself these questions to deepen your understanding:
- What can I offer that’s different from what’s currently on the market?
- What demographic of people do I truly resonate with and why?
- What emerging gap do I see in the beauty industry and what can I do to help close the gap?
- Is there a specific problem with products I face that other people might also face?
Tip: An interesting, emerging trend around beauty and skincare are products for men! If this sounds like your kind of thing, we’ve narrowed down five reasons to start your private label business targeting men’s makeup needs!
2. Find a supplier
With your niche dialled, you’ll need to find a supplier. But first, decide if you want to make your own, resell, or private-label your makeup products. Factor in your time, funds, and skill level to determine the best business plan for starting your cosmetics line.
Make your own makeup
Start-up costs: $-$$
To avoid high minimum order quantities from other suppliers, some people choose to produce their own makeup products at home. Usually, lip glosses and lip balms are the easiest to start with because the formulations are simple enough and the products aren’t too bulky to store in their home.
If you produce products at home, be sure to document your formulas carefully and ensure that you’re following local regulations. There are often guidelines for surface cleanliness, ingredients, and more. You can find the following labeling guidelines here:
- Industry Guide for the labeling of cosmetics (CA)
- Cosmetics Labeling Regulations (US)
- Understanding the Label (EU)
Resell
Start-up costs: $$-$$$
The next way to start your own makeup line is by buying wholesale and reselling. If you're exploring how to create your own makeup line but don’t want to develop products from scratch, this method allows you to curate a collection that aligns with your brand.
This is an interesting model because ultimately, it’s all about curating and partnering with different brands that align with your business values. For example, if you want your online store to lean towards organic wellness, you’d want to find brands that also believe in organic makeup ingredients to partner with.
Before you start this business model, factor in time to research what other brands might be doing in your market. Curating and reselling will heavily rely on your branding capabilities!
Here are some great examples of stores that are doing this well:
Private-label products
Start-up costs: $-$$
With private labeling (or white labeling), you can put your branding on generic makeup products. Don’t be fooled by the word “generic” — even Kylie Jenner’s lip kits are privately labeled! This is an ideal option for testing your business idea since you can go from concept to product in hand in a short time.
Many brands these days use the same formulas and the same manufacturers with their own different packaging and logos! Again, it’s really all about how you brand your product to appeal to your niche market.
Now, many suppliers who offer private labeling request a high minimum order quantity (MOQ). If you’re looking for low start-up costs, you should check out Blanka’s private-label makeup line. We offer zero MOQ for anyone starting their own makeup line. Did I mention that we ship from North America and offer to dropship too?
3. Financials
Start with a budget
Let’s start with the basics! Create a budget that outlines projected revenues and expenses for your business operations. Use our budget template to help you identify the key costs involved in getting your business off the ground.
Download your free budget template.
Pricing your products
The best thing about the pricing process is that there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. You can experiment and try different pricing strategies to fit your customers’ needs. Research and compare stats and numbers, then try a different strategy.
A few factors will determine how you price your beauty products. Consider the market, your manufacturing costs, shipping, and consumer behaviour.
Market
Start with research. How much are other businesses in your niche selling their beauty products for? Find that average price and consider that your products can fall into that price range.
Take The Ordinary for example. They price a bottle of concealer for $5.80 because it aligns with their corporate values. They decided they didn’t need to overprice their beauty products to prove how unique their brand is.
Manufacturing costs
Next, let’s get familiar with your manufacturing costs. There are materials and costs every step of the way including labels, packaging, taxes, duties, shipping, and more. We dive into this deeper in our private-label beauty products pricing blog.
4. Inventory and shipping
Inventory and shipping are a big part of how to start a makeup business. Here are the main things to consider for each:
Ways to hold inventory
There are three ways you can hold your makeup product inventory. In your home, in a warehouse, or not hold inventory at all.
What do we mean by not holding inventory? We mean the option of dropshipping! Dropshipping is a type of fulfilment where the product is shipped directly from your supplier to the hands of your customer.
Choosing this type of fulfilment method means two things. One, you don’t have to pay extensive costs for a warehouse space to hold your products. Two, you get the opportunity to focus on customer service and marketing.
Now, the downside is that you may not have control over shipping time. This can be combated by finding suppliers that ship from North America or Europe, instead of overseas production locations such as China. Blanka’s products, for example, all ship from North America, meaning they arrive at your customer’s door in 3 – 7 days.
If you decide that holding inventory at home is the best option for you, remember these three factors:
- Record your products’ shelf life: Your ingredients and products will have a shelf life. Especially if your products are natural or organic, the ingredients won’t have preservatives to hold your products in place forever!
- Conduct temperature checks: Makeup products can be finicky! It’s best to keep them away from heat and moisture so you will always have pristine products for a happy customer!
- Update inventory: Whatever your inventory system is, always update and check inventory. The last thing you want is to have a big order and realize you don’t have enough products to fulfill it.
Ways to ship
There are two things to consider when you want to get shipping right. First, makeup can be fragile to deliver — especially pressed powders. Second, shipping costs and the options you offer are crucial to your success as well!
You want to be able to deliver your beauty products without damage so consider how you want to package your products during the manufacturing process – and not wait to bubble wrap it and tape it all after a couple of your customers receive damaged products!
With the shipping options you can offer people, there are several ways you can give your customers the best experience with your brand:
- Offer free shipping: Blend your shipping cost with your product cost! This allows the customer to be incentivized to purchase and increases conversion rates for customers at your checkout page. Another popular option for merchants is to offer free shipping over a certain dollar amount spent, which can increase the average order value (AOV)!
- Free pick-up: Are you selling to local customers? Offer free local in-store (or in-house) pick-up!
- Flat rate shipping: Choose a base shipping rate regardless of order value. Less complex than offering free shipping as you know that for a fact, you are covering your base costs with a constant flat rate amount.
Tip: Have a return policy established before you start selling.
Further reading: How to dropship beauty products with Blanka
5. Build your brand
Have you chosen your niche yet? Great! We can use it to expand your brand in many directions. From your brand voice to logo design, website creation to packaging, there are endless possibilities for building your brand!
Building a consistent brand voice is the best way for you and your customers to understand your brand positioning in the beauty industry. It’s how you can show up and stand out with your story, your packaging, and even how you shoot beauty product photography.
Your brand voice is how you want to be conveyed by customers when they see your ad or your products, so don’t rush this step!
Further reading:
- The Ultimate Guide to Beauty Logo Design in 7 Steps
- How to Find Your Social Media Brand Voice in 5 Steps (Free Template)
Access your free branding template
6. Set up shop
Ecommerce platforms
Let’s set up your online shop! There are plenty of e-commerce platforms to choose from. As you decide, explore the themes each platform offers. If you choose to use Blanka’s app to create your makeup line in 30 minutes, our app works on any platform — or even if you have a brick-and-mortar store!
The most popular and well-loved e-commerce platforms are Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and WooCommerce.
Take Kevin, founder of Boy, please! He created his online store through Shopify. His vision is for men to express themselves through the simple makeup products he offers through Blanka’s app to white-label beauty products.
With your online shop set up, you need to consider how to display your products.
Product descriptions and photos
Your beauty product descriptions are important! Not only should your product descriptions share your makeup’s benefits, but they can also help you optimize your website for search engines.
Writing beauty product descriptions that sell takes practice, especially when you’re not familiar with the SEO best practices! With a well-written product description, your product pages can climb to the top of Google search pages when your customers search for your “Aloe Rich Lip Balm.”
Here’s how Glossier displays their information on their webpage. They highlight product reviews, use bullet points, clear icons, and a clean, white background to guide your eyes to the photos and benefits.
Consider showing swatches of different skin tones in photos or videos and add those additional media to your product gallery. With more options and clarity of how your product looks and feels, the more customers will trust your brand.
As with your product photos, you can get them professionally taken and edited by people on Fiverr or take the product photos yourself. When you private label your products at Blanka, we have professionally taken photos of the products ready to go for your ecommerce store!
7. Double down on marketing
Even though the niche you pick starts with a smaller audience, you have the opportunity to create a unique voice in the crowded beauty industry. Here’s how:
Social Media
Do you have a Facebook, Google business page, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok account set up for your brand? There are many online platforms to showcase your brand to viewers. Your online presence is the perfect place to acquire new customers, tell your story, and connect with the people in the niche beauty community you’ve chosen.
If you’re wondering how to start a makeup business, social media is a great place to begin! On Instagram and YouTube, you have the opportunity to connect with beauty and lifestyle influencers who can become your brand advocates, reaching hundreds of thousands of new viewers each day! When you're just starting, it's a good idea to reach out to micro-influencers first (those with 1,000 to 10,000 followers).
Email marketing
The first step to email marketing is building your email list. Start by adding a sign-up form on your website for 15% off for visitors who give you their email addresses. As your email list grows, you can use platforms like MailChimp and Klaviyo to build your campaigns!
When you begin to build your email list and send welcome emails, deals and offers, and product announcements consistently, your audience will build trust with your brand over time!
Social proof
Do you feel more inclined to buy when you’re about to purchase something and see real customer photos and reviews on the page? If you said yes, you’re not alone! Almost 2/3 of shoppers think online reviews are an essential part of their decision-making process of whether to buy or not to buy.
Encourage your customers to share a photo, tag your brand on social media, and post their reviews online! The more trust you build with your customers, the more likely they’ll return and purchase from you over and over again.
8. Customer support processes
There are two things you can get started on right now! First, set up a business email address. Second, set up a live chat on your website. You want your customers to be able to reach you with ease!
Intercom is a powerful tool that incorporates a functional live chat to engage with your customers when they enter your site and a simple FAQ functionality. Olark is another great platform for introducing live chats on your site.
9. Find mentors and a community
A fantastic way to get support as a new business owner is to find a community where you can ask questions, learn from others, and add your two cents to the mix!
At Blanka, we support our merchants by inviting them to an exclusive Facebook group where they can discuss private labeling business strategies. Many of our group members want to know how to start a makeup line and can always reach out to the expert group for guidance!
In great communities and forums, you can seek mentors who can guide you through specific business or personal questions. Look for your community today!
As a new business owner, it’s a good idea to continue learning about the business and the makeup trends. You can keep up to date with the latest through blogs! Shopify’s blogs are a great tool to expand your knowledge of the e-commerce beauty industry.
Start an online makeup business with ease with Blanka
You came into this article to learn how to start a makeup line. Whether you want to be a business owner, start your own branded makeup line, or simply have more freedom and money for your dream lifestyle, we hope you find an option that works for you.
If you decide that private-labeling is right for you, Blank is here to help you design and launch your own private-label product line with precision and ease. Get started today!
Answers to other burning questions you might have
How much does it cost to start a cosmetics line?
The cost depends on whether:
- You want to start from home to lessen expenses
- You want to pay for a warehouse to hold inventory
- You want to make your own formulas with your own ingredients
A blog in 2019 estimated that the initial cost to start a cosmetic line is $17,000.We believe starting a makeup line should be accessible to everyone—that’s why our startup costs are as low as $26/month. Gain access to high-quality, vegan skincare and makeup products, all manufactured in North America!
Do I need a license to sell cosmetics online?
Understanding local regulations is crucial for your business. In regions like the U.S., for example, the FDA requires approval for color additives in makeup products.
