How a chance meeting at our For Future Generations Scholarship Fund event turned into Sustain Lipstick in shade Melissa.
We met Melissa at our For Future Generations Scholarship Fund event last year. She wasn't there because we'd invited her as talent. She was there because she cared about the cause. She was already wearing Cheekbone Beauty that day, already posting about it, already telling her audience which products she reached for and why, long before we'd had a single conversation about working together.
That's not how most brand partnerships start. Usually it's the other way around: a brand finds an audience it wants access to, makes an offer, and hopes the enthusiasm follows. We've done deals that way too, and we can tell you honestly, it doesn't always work. You can dress up a paid placement to look like love, but audiences are good at spotting the difference. So are we, now.
A Practice, Not a One-Off
What made Melissa different wasn't that she was talented, though she is. It's that the order of operations was right. She loved the brand first. She understood why Cheekbone exists, to create opportunity for the next generation through education and philanthropy, before we ever asked anything of her.
This is, honestly, how we've built several of our most meaningful products over the past few years, it started with Mikayla @mikaylaloosli. We look for people who are already customers, already believers, and we ask them to help us build something, rather than paying someone to talk about something we built alone.
It's slower. It's less predictable than a media buy. But it produces things a media buy never could.
Who Melissa Is
Melissa is a working makeup artist. For years, alongside her client work, she's volunteered her time doing makeup applications for mothers staying at Ronald McDonald House, women whose entire world had narrowed down to caring for a sick child, often for weeks or months at a stretch.
"These were mothers who were giving everything they had to their children. Their focus was completely on their families, and understandably, they had put themselves last. But sitting with them for even a few minutes, offering them a small moment of self-care, reminded me how powerful it can be to feel seen.
It was never just about makeup. It was about giving these moms a moment to breathe. A moment to feel cared for. A moment to reconnect with themselves, even briefly, during a time when so much of their life was focused on fear, stress, and uncertainty.
As moms, we often forget about ourselves in everyday life. But when your child is sick, that self-sacrifice becomes even greater. That is why I believe the work Ronald McDonald House Charities does is so important. They support not only the child receiving care, but the entire family around them."
- Melissa
She told us that a few quiet minutes of care, someone doing her hair, her makeup, treating her like herself and not just like a caregiver, could change a mother's whole day. Not fix anything. Just remind her that she still existed as a person outside of the hospital hallway.
That's the story we wanted to build a product around.
Why Joy
When it came time to choose a theme and a cause for this shade, the decision made itself. Sustain Lipstick in shade Melissa is inspired by Joy, the kind found in small moments of connection, resilience, and care for one another, even in life's hardest chapters. A portion of every sale supports Ronald McDonald House Charities, helping families stay close together while their children receive the medical care they need.
It's a warm, wearable shade. But the reason it exists has very little to do with color theory.
What This Says About How We Work
We're a small, Indigenous-founded beauty company. We don't have the budgets that a lot of the brands creators are used to working with, and we're upfront about that from the first conversation. Melissa worked with us inside that reality instead of around it. That kind of respect goes both ways, and honestly, it's rare.
We'd rather work with someone who has a smaller, genuinely engaged audience and actually believes in what we're building than chase a bigger name who's indifferent to it. Reach is easy to buy. Belief isn't.
Melissa earned a spot on this list because she'd already shown up, at our event, in her actual life, in her actual work, long before there was a product on the table. That's the bar. It's always been the bar.
Sustain Lipstick, Shade Melissa
A creamy, comfortable formula in refillable packaging, vegan and cruelty-free, formulated to meet our Biinaad Clean Standards. Launching July 25th. A portion of every purchase supports Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Thank you, Melissa, for showing up the way you did. This is what it looks like when it's real.