Professional Beauty chats with founder Anna Ross concerning the launch of four new lipsticks and what colour cosmetics natural makeup artists can expect to drop later this season. “Great for your karma and cuticles” reads the Kester Black homepage. The indie New Zealand brand was among the world’s first makeup ranges to attain B Corp status with its clean, long-lasting, cruelty free, vegan nail and lipstick formulations. Ethical and sustainable practices are baked directly into the company, which is ever evolving thanks to its Better Beauty Growth Plan. They’re certified carbon neutral, donate 2% of all revenue to social causes and open sourcing their innovative formulations to any or all. See what founder Anna Black says to look out for from the brand later this season.
PB: Are these the first non-nail products to launch with the brand?
“They sure are, although they would be the second drop of colours. The very first 6 shades were launched in October 2022 and we took feedback from that launch to develop the following 4 shades.”
PB: What exactly are your plans for more expansion/products?
“We have a quantity of other products launching this year. Nails are next in June, eyeliners in July and brows in September.”
PB: Let me know in a little more detail why these are superior to regular lipsticks and other clean lipsticks?
“The quality is pretty better than other brands and they also won the Clean Beauty Awards! They perform incredibly. They're a real long lasting lipstick. If you don’t eat oily foods (oil removes them) they will last about 12 hours. We decided to manufacture these in Italy where they're literally centuries in front of the technology we've in Australia. They're produced by the same manufacturer which makes the Chanel, Tom Ford, Dior and Burberry cosmetics. They are also not so drying (for a matte lipstick).”
PB: Can you provide us with some detail about the colour products you’re going to launch?
“The formula is 100% natural and formulated to COSMOS standard. It’s a soft pencil which allows for blending and also to be used as an eyeshadow or lip liner. They are really face pencils. The brows are the same formula so they can also be employed as eyeliners. They're dermatologically tested and long lasting, it’s a 12 hour formula. Just quickly around the brows, we've pushed these back to launch early next year as we are waiting on the brow mascaras that are also 100% natural (fiber-like formula).”
PB: Inform us a little more regarding your better beauty growth plan?
“I have spent the last month approximately fully engrossed within the Better Beauty Growth Plan, which is essentially our sustainability blueprint and strategy. We have place a lot of time in it to explain the large issues to ensure that people really understand why all of our goals are essential.”
“The first part is the Better beauty Blueprint. This is made up of 8 pillars that are designed to inform all of our decision making. Everything comes back to our drive to be the best beauty brand for that world, not just the very best in the world. We’re really hoping this really is adopted by other brands so that we can together offer better products to more people.”
- Clean ingredients
- Better packaging
- Caring for the environment
- Superior product performance
- Traceability and Transparency
- Supplier standards
- Vegan & cruelty free
- Giving back
“The second part is the Better Beauty Plan. This is broken into 6 main headers as well as in total we've 26 goals, most of which we have already achieved and some we're working towards. From reducing emissions, developing better packaging and ensuring logistics transparency and paying above the living wage. It’s a very honest document with where we're at and the challenges we are facing.”
- Our Community Goals
- Our Governance, Transparency & Accountability Goals
- Our Ethical Goals
- Our Plastic Goals
- Our CO2 Goals
- Our Circularity Goals
PB: How can other makeup brands do similar? Do you know the steps?
“Download our plan and set it into action! A variety of it really has to become thought about in the design phase so print it and give a duplicate to the design team.”
PB: We would love to listen to a little more about the decision go bestsellers and limited-edition only.
“This past year was an uphill battle when it comes to getting our hands on stock. As we’re a small brand, we chose to move using the challenges instead of combating them. We are committed to offer premium products therefore we are putting our capital to make sure that we don’t run out of our best sellers again. We'd no top and back for almost 6 months of last year and they're our 2 top selling skus. Fashion colours have a limited sell through phase and we have in the past been caught out by looking into making more of a particular colour once it sold though, simply to have stock we must put on sale at 70% off to clear. This drives consumerism which drives waste and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We made a decision last year to never continue sale again so this will avoid people from purchasing products because the discount is too best to pass up, only to get it take a seat on their shelf and go unused and eventually into landfill.”
PB: How do you think that Kester Black can be used by makeup artists looking to use more natural makeup products?
“Kester Black makes all the staples. Our Supersonic Top Coat dries to touch in close to A minute and also the Miracle Treatment Base Coat is the best ‘nude/clear’ polish for the natural nail look. It’s made with light reflecting pearls to help make the nail look super healthy and it’s impossible to use streaky, ideal for on shoot days where you stand always under time pressure. Both products are 77% natural so that they should be a staple in every single makeup kit.
All in our products are designed to be super high end. We wouldn’t bother launching anything that wasn’t as much as makeup artist quality. I'd say Kester Black is ideal for the core products, most makeup artists have mix-your-own colour palettes but we’re here for all of your black, brown and natural hues! And keep your eyes peeled for kit worthy pallets in 2022.”
PB: What exactly are your tips for makeup artists who're looking to transition to natural makeup within their tool kits?
“Search for brands they trust to place quality first. There are plenty of ‘eco’ and ‘natural’ brands out there and that’s really all they're going for. I made Kester Black to prove that high performing products may be 100% vegan and natural. Because of this , why we produce all of our products with the leading manufacturers globally, therefore the hot tip would be to look for products produced in the EU!”
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