Beauty business
A Westville woman is aiming to support other women with her cosmetic line Foxbrook Lipstick.
Catherine Millen, 28, created the brand in August 2016, building the business from the ground up while she was living in Fredericton, N.B.
Now back on Foxbrook Road where she grew up – the inspiration behind the name – she’s continuing to try to lift other women up by collaborating with entrepreneurs and other passionate individuals to design their own colour and have it named after them.
“These first girls that I started with, they’re all from small, Maritime towns and now they’re all living across Canada and doing these really impressive things, so I kind of got the idea going that … big things can come from small places.”
Millen was always interested in beauty products, often applying make-up and styling her three older sisters’ hair before dances and proms, she said.
“I don’t necessarily think women need make-up to feel or look beautiful, but the way you feel can affect the way you act and affect the way other people look at you. I think it’s important to feel good about yourself and feel good about how you look.”
She turned that enthusiasm into a job, working as a make-up artist and in commission-based sales for different cosmetic companies while living in western Canada for four years.
“The thing I enjoy most about working in cosmetics was helping women feel good about themselves and instilling confidence,” she said.
She returned to the Maritimes in 2012, spending time in the service industry in New Brunswick and also studied dental assisting, which she calls her day job.
During the spring of 2016, she said she took notice of a growing movement of women setting their own trends through social media in style and beauty products and the idea of developing a cosmetic line in collaboration with social media began to form.
Working with women she knew or people who were referred to her, she designed lipstick colours catered to each individual. A lot of the women have large social media followings, she said, with others looking to them for their sense of style.
“I figured if I involve these women in the process and they design a lipstick they would wear on a daily basis, it’s already marketed towards their followers.”
Aside from the actual manufacturing of the cruelty-free products, which is done in Ontario, Millen is doing it all herself – from designing the logo and website to the packaging and shipping. She jokes, though, that her almost one-year-old son is head of shipping, as he likes to throw things around while she’s preparing products for customers.
Three weeks into her business, Plush Esthetic Studio in New Glasgow reached out to her to carry her brand and she’s in the process of getting her products into other Nova Scotia locations. She ships to Canada and the United States through her website, too.
A learning process she’s enjoying, she’s created the job she wanted but wasn’t able to find since her move back to Atlantic Canada.