Lilac. Melon. Coral. Cantaloupe. The profusion of off-kilter lip colors at the recent spring 2014 collections sent a seismic rumble through my makeup bag last month. Suddenly, basic felt boring—so when I heard about the arrival of BITE Beauty’s new custom lipstick lab in SoHo, I knew what I had to do. Armed with a picture of model Daria Strokous’s punkish, pastel peach mouth backstage at Fendi on my iPhone, I headed to the 500-square-foot space for a bespoke blending session.
Fendi’s neon pink lips backstage at the spring 2014 show served as the day’s lipstick inspiration.
Photographed by Victoria Will
Originally conceived as a summer pop-up shop, the Toronto-born makeup brand’s now-permanent outpost has been fielding lines around the block since opening its doors on Prince Street a few months back. This may have something to do with a) the company’s commitment to using only all natural food-grade ingredients that are technically safe enough to eat, and b) its extraordinary high-impact color pigments, which are totally addictive—even if you’re not the type to worry about silently ingesting trace amounts of your lipstick.
On arrival, I sit down at one of the brightly lit stations with blending specialist Stephanie Spence—an impossibly pretty redhead wearing an impossibly pretty red lipstick—and explain my mission: I want a cool yet bright, powdery yet fresh shade of coral that also happens to look great. Is that so much to ask?
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It is not, says Spence, who starts dipping into dozens of small round pots of pigment—smooth jars labeled with words like white, zinfandel, blue 520, or pomegranate—and then blending them on the flat surface of a sterilized light box with a little silver spatula.
After a few minutes, she offers me a small dollop of pigment to try on in front of the mirror. It’s pretty—but slightly too pink. By round two, we’ve worked our way to a chalkier, more apricot shade that’s weird in all the right ways. Before we finish, Spence lets me pick a finish. There’s sheer, matte, luminous crème, or—my choice—crème deluxe (a velvety finish that contains Japanese silk powder for extra conditioning). Next she asks me if I would like my lipstick to be infused with a hint of fragrance—in mango, cherry, peppermint, vanilla, violet, or citrus mango. I would not, which is fine, since unscented is also an option.
Finally, Spence sets to spinning my formula in a compact centrifuge, then pours it into a neat circular lipstick mold and chills it at precisely -2 degrees Fahrenheit until it hardens into a perfect waxy bullet form. The entire process takes approximately seven minutes from start to finish, right down to the neat handwritten label with my name on the box. The grand total? Forty-eight dollars—and enough newfound lipstick love to carry me through the coming year.
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