Are you obsessed with lip gloss? You’re not alone. Statistics show that over 122 million people in the US use lip gloss, and that number is projected to increase by 124 million by this year. Thanks to the current popularity of all things beauty-related, lip gloss lovers and entrepreneurs have endless opportunities to turn their passion into money!
Starting your own lip gloss business can be a great way to earn extra income while working from home. Since there are so many options, you can choose the business idea that best suits your skills and interests. Here are six lip gloss business ideas to explore!
1. Make Your Own Lip Gloss Line and Launch an Online Store
Perhaps one of the most fun and creative ways to make money with a lip gloss business is to make and sell your own lip gloss from home. Here are a few simple steps for building your lip gloss empire!
Obtain the Necessary Licenses and Permits
Depending on where you live, you may need to obtain a general business license or a sales tax permit to sell physical products. Some businesses need zoning permits and an employer identification number (EIN). You should also decide whether your business will be a sole proprietorship or if you’ll incorporate your business as a limited liability company (LLC), S-corp, or partnership.
The FDA also requires that all cosmetics meet specific safety standards. Take some time to learn the legal requirements for starting a business in your area so you don’t run into legal issues down the road.
Determine Your Lip Gloss Niche
There are so many different ways to stand out from your competitors, but one easy way to do so is by nailing down your niche. First, determine what types of lip gloss you’ll create; the options are endless with sheer, matte, plumping, stains, flavored, long-wear, moisturizing, glitter, oils, and even color-changing glosses. Next, figure you what makes your lip gloss different from other brands. Maybe you use all organic ingredients, or perhaps your focus is on a certain demographic, like teens. Knowing who you’re targeting and what makes your products unique will make your marketing efforts easier.
Create Your Lip Gloss
Believe it or not, you can create your own lip gloss company with a relatively small investment. You just need a few supplies and ingredients, including base, color additives, optional vitamin E capsules, lip balm tubes or containers, piping syringes, and shipping supplies.
For the base, you can use natural substances like beeswax, coconut oil, or shea butter. You can also buy a lip gloss base from Amazon. For pigment, you can use beetroot powder or lip-friendly glitter from Amazon for some extra sparkle.
Jars are also easy to find. Amazon has a wide assortment of colorful cosmetics jars, tubes, and labels you can use to package your glam lip balm.
Then, mix your base, add in your pigments and extras (flavors, vitamins, or glitter), pipe into your containers, and add your brand labels.
Choose a Lip Gloss Business Name
Choose a name that makes it clear to potential customers that you’re a lip gloss brand. For example, “Luxe Lips” or “Lush Lip Gloss” are names that show your potential customers your business is all about lips. You can use a lip gloss business name generator to develop more ideas.
Open Your Online Store
There are many ways to sell your lip gloss online, from opening an Etsy shop to building an e-commerce site with Shopify or selling directly on TikTok.
For beginners, Etsy is an easy and affordable option. If you’re not familiar with Etsy, it’s a large online marketplace for craft and homemade item sellers, making it the perfect place to sell your lip gloss. It’s fast and easy to create a store, and it only costs $0.20 per listing.
To set up your shop, you need only choose your country, the currency in which you will sell your lip gloss, and your shop name. Then, create listings for each item, and take some high-quality photos of your lip glosses to include with each product listing.
Once you start making sales, you can get paid by direct deposit by giving Etsy your account information.
Promote Your Store
Once you’ve launched your lip gloss store, it’s a good idea to form a marketing strategy to start making sales sooner. For example, you can learn Etsy SEO so that your items rank better in Etsy’s search function.
You can also use social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to get the word out about your new brand.
You can even connect with micro-influencers online and ask them if they would review your lip gloss or if they would be interested in hosting a giveaway for some of your products. Just know that with this option, you’ll need to gift them some free products, and depending on how much promotion they do, there may also be a fee involved.
2. Join a Direct Sales Company
If you’d rather not create your own lip glosses, you can start a business selling other brand-name products.
Direct sales companies are a great way to start your own business with minimal investment. Becoming a consultant usually involves purchasing a starter kit, which includes products, marketing materials, and training from the company.
Then, you can promote the products by hosting pop-up parties, selling online via your website or social media, or even email and catalog marketing.
The best part about joining a direct sales business is that you become a representative of an already established brand. That means customers can trust the quality of the products, and you don’t have to spend time and money on marketing and branding.
There are tons of direct sales companies that feature beautiful lip glosses. Here are a few popular ones worth checking out:
Bellame
Bellame sells science-based luxury wellness, makeup, and skincare products. Their lip line consists of hydra-silk lip liners, moisturizing lip glosses, velvet luxe lip stains, moisturizing lip lacquers, and more.
When you join Bellame as a brand partner, you’ll earn up to 40% on personal sales and up to 10% on team sales. With Bellame, you can sell on your website, social media, and using their online digital tools, and it’s only $99 to get started.
Arbonne
Founded in the US in 1980 by Petter Mørck, Arbonne offers a wide range of high-quality, plant-based products for men and women.
Their lip glosses come in various shades and are made without gluten or animal products. In addition, they offer independent consultants multiple ways to earn income, including a 35% commission on product sales.
Avon
Avon is one of the oldest cosmetics companies; founded in 1886, it is now one of the world’s largest direct sellers.
Their products include lip glosses in a variety of shades and formulas. Joining Avon as a representative is free and comes with various benefits beyond earning commissions on sales, like product discounts and free samples.
Mary Kay
Mary Kay is a cosmetics company founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash. They offer a wide range of high-quality beauty products, including lip glosses in various shades and formulas. As an independent consultant, you can earn commissions on sales and qualify for free product samples.
Younique
Younique is a cosmetics company on a mission to empower women worldwide with high-quality products and opportunities to build their own businesses.
They do not test on animals and have an impressive lineup of beautiful lip glosses and other cosmetic products. Anyone can invest in becoming a Younique consultant through their website.
3. Create a Subscription Box
Another fun and easy way to make money with lip gloss is to create a subscription box. A subscription box is a collection of items you curate each month and send out to your subscribers. Here’s the strategy:
Come Up with a Theme
The first step is to develop a theme for your lip gloss subscription box. It could be all-natural lip glosses, vegan or cruelty-free lipsticks, or general lip care products.
Source Your Products
Some good places to source your products are through niche e-commerce sites and Etsy. You can also try Alibaba or Indiamart, which are both great marketplaces for buying items in bulk.
Once your subscription box is established, you can also encourage suppliers to contact you to add their items to it. Vendors are always looking for ways to market their products, and some are even willing to send you items for free.
Figure Out Pricing and Shipping
Pricing is always a challenge when starting a business, but subscription boxes are especially tricky. You want to make sure you’re making a profit, but you also don’t want to charge too much and lose customers. A good rule of thumb is to price your products at around the same price as you would find them on other e-commerce sites.
Decide ahead of time how often you will send out your subscription box; most businesses ship once monthly. Be sure to communicate cut-offs and ship dates to your customers so they know what to expect.
Create an e-Commerce Store
The next step is to create an e-commerce store to sell your subscription box. One of the best platforms to do this is Cratejoy. Cratejoy is a marketplace specifically for subscription boxes, and you can list yours on their platform, which gets 4 million page views per month. They take a cut of the commissions, but otherwise, it is free to use.
You can also create a custom website on Cratejoy for a monthly fee. It comes with app integrations, subscriber support, customer management tools, and more. This is a good option for you once you’ve sold a few boxes and are ready to grow your business.
If you have a large social media presence on platforms like Instagram or TikTok, you can use that to promote lip glosses and other cosmetic products. There are many ways to earn money as an influencer, but let’s talk about the three most popular options.
Sponsorships
Sponsored posts can pay $100 or more per post, so it’s well worth the effort!
All you need to do is reach out to brands you’d like to work with and provide them with your media kit.
Your media kit should include statistics about your following (including the number of followers, engagement rate, and demographics), your bio, and a selection of your best photos.
If you’re having trouble finding brands to pitch, you can also find sponsorship opportunities via influencer marketplaces like IZEA, Popular Pays, and InfluencerHer Collective that match brands with influencers.
Many brands are willing to work with influencers to promote their products, so this can be a great way to make money from home – and enjoy free lip gloss products!
Affiliate Posts
Affiliate posts are another great way to make money promoting lip glosses and other cosmetics.
This type of post is when you promote a product and receive a commission on any sales that result from your post. The sale can be credited to you through an affiliate link in your bio or a unique coupon code associated with your affiliate account.
Examples of affiliate programs you could join to promote lip gloss include Sephora, M.A.C. Cosmetics, or BabeBox.
Creator Funds
The competition among social media platforms is fierce, which is why some platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube will pay influencers to create original content for their platforms. Each site has different qualifying criteria to join, but once you’re accepted into the program, you can earn a little money from your beauty-related content. Check out this blog post to learn more about making money from content creation.
5. Start a Beauty YouTube Channel
If you like being in front of the camera, starting a beauty YouTube channel is an excellent opportunity to share your love of lip glosses and other cosmetics with the world. You can create how-to videos, review products and lip care, or chat about the latest trends in the beauty industry.
To get started, you can use your smartphone and editing software like Final Cut or CapCut. Then, come up with a catchy name for your YouTube channel that indicates to your viewers what your channel is all about. (For example, “Lustrous Lips with Lily” or “Beauty with Becca.”)
To grow your channel, you’ll need to produce high-quality content regularly, engage with your viewers, and use tools like TubeBuddy to find keywords for your videos and optimize them for YouTube search.
Once you have an audience, you can monetize your lip gloss channel in several ways:
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are an excellent way for YouTubers to make money. Often, sponsors will provide you with free products in exchange for a mention in one of your videos. If your channel gets big enough, sponsors will find you. In the meantime, you can use the same influencer platforms to find brands to work with as you would if you were an Instagram or TikTok influencer.
Affiliate Sales
You can add affiliate links in the description box to lip gloss products you talk about or promote in your videos. You can even promote Amazon links via the Amazon Associates program, provided you have a large enough following.
YouTube Partnership Program
Once you have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours, you may be eligible to join the YouTube Partner Program. This program allows you to monetize your channel through ads.
6. Become a Beauty Blogger
If you love to write, consider becoming a beauty blogger. Blogging is a fun way to share your opinions and product reviews with the world. With enough time and dedication, it can become a significant source of passive income.
The first step is to use a site like Bluehost to find domain names related to lip gloss. You can usually purchase a domain for well under $20.
Most professional bloggers choose to build their sites with WordPress and learn how to use search engine optimization (SEO) to rank their pages on Google. Pinterest can also be a powerful platform for driving traffic to your website.
If you blog solely about lip gloss and lip products, your niche site will be seen as an authority on the topic by Google, which means that eventually, your blog posts can start outranking bigger sites that talk about broader topics.
Once you start getting enough traffic to your site, you have lots of options for monetization:
Display Ads
Display ads are a common way for bloggers to make money. You can sell ad space on your blog or apply to an ad network like Mediavine, Monumetric, or Raptive.
Digital Products
You can also create and sell digital products like ebooks, courses, printables, or templates. For instance, if you’re an expert on making your own lip glosses, you could create an ebook or guide and sell that on your website.
Affiliate Links and Sponsored Posts
As with influencers and YouTubers, you can also include affiliate links and sponsored posts in your blog content to make money. You can start with the Amazon Associates program and find other affiliates that sell makeup products through platforms like ShareASale and FlexOffers.
In addition to finding sponsorships through online marketplaces, it’s also a good idea to add a page on your site with your media kit and a contact form so brands can reach you directly. If you’re ready to start a blog, you can sign up for Holly’s free 10-day how to start a blog course.
Lip Gloss Business Ideas Wraup
As you can see, there are many different ways to create a successful lip gloss business from home! From creating and selling your own lip balm to blogging about beauty, there are many opportunities for you to pursue.
You may even wish to pursue more than one strategy to create multiple income streams. Whichever type of business you choose, be sure to have fun and enjoy your passion for lip gloss!
Are you ready to begin your lip gloss business? Be sure to download our free business plan template!
Originally published April 4, 2022. Content updated May 2024.