Written by The Strategy

We’d like for you to meet MAKE. 

We have been fans of Carrie Barber for a while. We love her style, and her IG account is one of our favourites to follow. Now, she’s inspiring us once again with her latest venture: relaunching the MAKE Beauty brand.

MAKE Beauty was originally launched in 2013 by Ariana Mouyiaris and  Nikos Mouyiaris. After a two-year hiatus, the brand relaunched in May of this year with Ben Bennett, founder and CEO of incubator and investment first, The Center, in partnership with Carrie Barber.

The new version of MAKE launched with four skin-care products: a pre-cleanse fluid, a cleanser, a gel cream and a rice essence. The new products use botanical and botanically-derived ingredients, as well as tested synthetic ingredients. The brand utilizes a biotech approach to formulation called, L.E.N.I. – Lab Engineered Natural Ingredients. The approach is in effort to consider the environmental impact of sourcing ingredients, as well as the safety and efficacy of products. MAKE has also partnered with Plastic Bank, in an effort to be Plastic Neutral; meaning for every once of plastic MAKE uses, they work with Plastic Bank to recover and recycle the same amount of plastic that would otherwise enter our oceans.

Not only do we love the brand ethos, we love everything from the packaging (each container has elevated our top shelf space) to the efficacy of the products. Stubborn makeup is easily removed, and our skin is left feeling and looking refreshed.

In addition to being high effective, MAKE products are also made without parabens, phthalates, petrolatum and pegs, and are vegan and cruelty free.

As co-owner and creative director of MAKE, Carrie Barber tells us a little bit more about the brand:

What drew you to MAKE?

MAKE has always been a brand I loved. I remember when I lived in New York and they had just launched, it felt fresh and forward and was right at the beginning of the wave of new beauty brands we all know and love so much now. To me, MAKE has always been a brand ahead of its time. When it launched in 2013, it was one of the first beauty brands to communicate with a voice that felt human, celebrating community and individuality with authentic diversity and unique expression.

Tell us a little bit more about the new MAKE beauty brand. What makes MAKE stand out from the rest?

When I was thinking about how MAKE should evolve in the future, it was important to me to bring through those aspects of the original brand DNA, while also creating a brand that would push us forward into the next chapter of what beauty means. For me, that means sustainability as the standard, utilizing cleaner and more effective ingredients, leaning into technology both in formulations and the digital experience, and playing with pigment again.

We also launched with skincare, which I think surprised MAKE loyalists, but I believe skincare is the foundation of great makeup. Skincare also allows us to tell the story of L.E.N.I., or Lab Engineered Natural Ingredients, which is one way we approach sustainability. It’s very harsh on the biodiversity of the soil and takes a lot of resources to use all natural ingredients. The technology in lab grown naturals has advanced and so we really want to lean into that.

What inspires the MAKE brand?

MAKE is inspired by looking forward. When concerting the creative for the new brand, we were very inspired by sci-fi and futurism. With what our labs are creating and the original forward looking approach of MAKE 1.0, it felt like our north star. We push ourselves to think about what’s to come and really challenge ourselves to create that. We had a lot of fun with that and often ask ourselves, “if we were on the MAKE space station…”