Delux Beauty "Nails" Color Business With Lip, Cheek Expansion

Delux Beauty's salon nail color line will be expanded with lip and cheek products in September, bringing 65 new SKUs to the existing 24-product collection, the company said. The products will be available at Henri Bendel, Rescue Beauty Lounge, beauty.com, eve.com, beautyjungle.com and beautyspy.com.

The evolution represents "a natural progression for our company so that we can apply the same kind of playful and luxurious attitude to the new lip and cheek products that we have held toward the nail polish," Delux Beauty President Kristin Fink Mason said.

Lips and cheeks were a "good starting point for the expansion of Delux because they are the core ways to focus on and accentuate natural beauty with a flushed lip and glowing face. It is a nice clean healthy look," the exec noted.

"We always wanted to provide the consumer with a high quality, beautiful color palette in [a] fabulous looking product," she continued.

Mason owns Delux Beauty with her sister, makeup artist and CEO Jillian Fink Dempsey, who heads the firm's Los Angeles office. Company headquarters are located in New York City.

Dempsey opened the Delux Beauty Parlor in Los Angeles in 1994. The salon served as a launchpad for her nail polish line, which she created and began selling a year later. Dempsey sold the salon in 1998 to team with Mason and focus on the product line.

Unlike Delux' nail polish distribution, target retailers for the color line will be smaller apothecary stores with less of a salon focus, Mason noted. Retail distribution, however, is expected to double with the introduction of the color line, the exec predicted. Delux hopes to generate $5 mil. in sales next year.

Delux Beauty's philosophy is that makeup should "enhance beauty, not mask it." Driven by the fact that less makeup is more, Delux products are meant to "show some skin," the company said.

Despite its "less is more" attitude, Delux stresses the layerability of its products. In its namesake nail polish category, for example, consumers can layer a sheer topcoat over an opaque hue, the exec noted.

"We have incorporated in our initial lineup that same concept," Mason continued. Lip glosses can be layered over lipsticks, while glistener can be mixed with blush. "We have tried to be as experimental with texture as we have with color," she explained.

Delux has an "intergeneration age demographic...with a color for everyone in the line," according to Mason. In terms of a target audience, "we are looking for someone who is modern, who has a career, is playful, knows herself and likes to be ahead of the curve."

The company will expand its cosmetics offerings with concealers, eyeshadows and powders in the spring. Skin care will be launched only if "it has some superiority to it or adds something tangible in terms of the benefit to consumers," Mason noted.

Delux lipsticks, in 24 shades, are individually formulated with highly pigmented colors named for men such as Leonard, Theo, Desmond and Lawrence. Each lip color contains vitamin E and avocado oil for a velvety texture, the company said.

For everyday wear, pigmented lip glosses will come in 20 shades for $15. High Gloss can be squeezed directly onto the lip from a black plastic tube. Four shades, such as Bambi, Ginger and Pepper, will retail for $16 apiece.

Tintstick, an expected best seller, is housed in a tube reminiscent of lip balm for use in public "without appearing too vain," the company noted.

Finally, Delux lip balm contains all-organic ingredients such as shea butter, aloe vera and honey. Formulated to seal in moisture, the balm will cost $14.

For the cheeks, Glistener's water-based formula ($18) can be used as a highlighter or be mixed with a lotion or foundation for a translucent look. Oil-free Flush Stick is Delux' version of a blush and glistener product in-one. Available in six shades for $22 each, the sticks add natural flush to cheeks.

Packaging for the new products departs from the Delux nail polish retro, 1950s-style bottles. In contrast, the lip and cheek line "takes a more modern approach," the company said. Packaged in champagne-colored tubes, the lip and cheek products carry a scripted "D on top."