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Susanne Langmuir is wearing Pepper. Dusty pink and creamy, it’s a shade with distinct warmth, rosy in colour, and one that makes for a most striking proposition in her Toronto office – as it would any room. Langmuir has been wearing it since its formulation, almost every day, for some seven years now. It’s one of many delectable delights whipped up with edible oils, fresh pressed fruit, vitamins and nutrients that make up BITE Beauty.
For the founder of the cult beauty brand, lipstick, however, was not a predestined trajectory. Born out of “passion and necessity”, a lipstick manufacturer was never Susan’s dream nor aspiration. “I couldn’t find private label manufacturers. I didn’t set out to be a lipstick manufacturer, but I couldn’t find anyone to do it. And I knew it was possible because I had worked with all these ingredients for so many years.” Having worked in cosmetics and aromatherapy for most her life, Susanne was familiar with the greater universe of beauty, however it was only when she was looking for something specific did she really create her own galaxy.
For Susanne, there is an undeniable yoke between lipstick and food. It is our lips that touch food first, the conduit which facilitates any kind of culinary pleasure. And then of course, the evidence that suggests women ingest a sizeable amount of lipstick in their lifetime – a terrifying thought if you are erudite on the anatomy of a normal lipstick. Susan was, and BITE Beauty was born: an all-natural lip brand consisting of food grade products. Ultimately, it was beauty good enough to eat.
A decidedly loftier occupational perch, BITE is now a Sephora star. It also boasts two Lip Labs – Toronto and New York – whereby bespoke beauty dreams play out in a midst of pop beats and champagne. You leave not only smiling, but in your own customised lip shade. Fun, in every sense of the word.
BITE is also somewhat a product of its environment. Born, bred and baked in Toronto, the ethos of the brand has a similar one to that of its prosperous food scene. Rich in multiculturalism, the town is a hotbed of culinary pursuit; Toronto is undeniably a “foodie” city. The small-batch movement is profound; with sustainability and local produce ebbing and flowing from down to uptown with gastronomic rigour, and in many ways, BITE echoes such sentiments. Susanne has created a beauty empire, but from a small-batch ideology. Everything is made onsite in the BITE Beauty Lab. Real people stir pots of sticky pigment in rhubarb, maple and molasses. Girls whistle whilst they work. And most importantly, they all wear lipstick.
In a trying time of patriarchal misogyny, it is stories like Susanne and BITE’s which are needed in our feminist narrative. She is ambitious, kind, generous and supremely passionate. With no concessions to quality and a keen eye, she has been fearless on her quest for a lipstick as delicious as it is beautiful.
And she succeeded.
Here, a (beauty) bite with Susanne Langmuir.
GRAZIA: Why lipstick?
SUSAN: What’s really interesting about it is it’s something that grew out of passion, and necessity. I couldn’t find private label manufacturers. I didn’t set out to be a lipstick manufacturer, but I couldn’t find anyone to do it. And I knew it was possible because I had worked with all these ingredients for so many years.
Originally, the line was primarily based on lipstick, but it also had a full line of cosmetics. It was based on; what you put on your skin, you absorb, what you put on your lips, you ingest. The average woman consumes 5 – 7 pounds of lipstick a year, but it’s also true that the average woman absorbs something like 7 pounds of product a year [on skin], too. So at the time, the concept of using things that you would eat was not limited to lipstick. But as we started formulating and we got closer to a launch, we were defining our retail space with Sephora and I had this sinking feeling that we were – it wasn’t a sinking feeling – it was more of an opportunity that I saw – if we do lip only, and we focus on that, we have a chance of being the best.
And I was also realising that finding manufacturers to do things was really difficult, even with lips. It was a new concept and my volumes weren’t super high, getting manufacturers attention and getting them to do something that wasn’t already happening in their labs was really difficult. And so we started formulating in-house, and I hired a chemist, I built a lab, I was already well under way and I just realised lips – it’s a classic, all women use it, from 12 to 90 – maybe older [laughs]! It’s an essential item, it’s the one item I kind of really identified with because I’m not a huge makeup-wearer, I never have been, but I always appreciate the transformation of a lipstick.
G: So are you a lipstick wearer?
S: Oh, definitely. So it started with that. Lips was the realisation that we need to focus, we can be the best at something if we focus. And the formulation for lips is really different than other types of products for the face. And it was a formula that I really identified with. So I contacted Sephora and said, “Hey, I know we’re planning this entire line but I feel really strongly that we should focus on this one category,” and they were instantly supportive. It was at a time where lips were trending down, and nails were trending up. It was always in times of difficult economy or difficult political situations – there was the lipstick index, which was; lips were up, and you could count on that. But it was this weird thing that was happening where lips were not where everybody was focusing. They were focusing on nails. And my gut feeling was lips will always be a category that women identify with. You can have 50 lipstick shades and you see another 10 that you can’t live without. And so it’s that little accessory that’s about choice and change.
G: Is this how you see lipstick?
S: Definitely. And this is actually a shade that didn’t make it into the final cut [laughs] and I’m like, “Do we have room for a 13th colour?”
G: Do you get attached to the lipsticks? What are your favourites?
S: It depends on the shades, but yes. There’s Chai and Pepper – I’ve used them since the day we formulated them, almost everyday. And those are two shades that I can be driving and not looking in the mirror [laughs], and I could multitask and apply without a mirror! I just know that they’re effortless shades that I can apply. I have shades that are about comfort, and I know that they provide moisturisation, it resets my look; they always work. It’s like that pair of jeans you always feel good in.
G: Like that fool proof pair of denim, kind of like the denim of beauty.
S: Yes! But all these cubes here are new shades that I’m working on and I love the excitement. That’s another thing that I really loved about the lip category; you’ve got your favourite denim but you always play it up a bit based on trend, change and your mood. That was kind of an ever-changing category as well.
G: Do you think lip, out of all makeup products, has the most transformative power?
S: I do. I think eyes do, too. I think the areas of your face that you express with. Complexion is always about covering up, micro-pigmentation, etc., it’s more maintenance for me. But I think eyes and lips are the areas that when you’re passionate or when you’re talking, it’s the area of the face that people look at.
G: in terms of the philosophy of the brand, can you explain about this edible, natural ethos?
S: What you put on your skin and lips and relating that to food is more tangible and relatable to the average person, rather than confusing ingredients that are used in cosmetics. I could pick up one of our ingredient lists and whilst sterile alcohol doesn’t sound like a natural ingredient, is actually a naturally derived ingredient. So I think relating it to food, especially in the last 10 years, there’s this understanding that marketing doesn’t necessarily lead you to choices that are good. We thought that spreads made out of hazelnut would make our kids smarter. And then you start reading labels and you realise there’s more sugar in those types of products than is healthy. So, food is relatable. Whole food is relatable, whether it’s cosmetics or it’s food.
G: There’s obviously an inextricable link between food and BITE, what is it exactly?
S: When I’m sourcing and looking for raw materials, I always look for minimally processed, whole foods, whole oils. The first thing we always do is look for things that are organic, natural, whole-based, and again if you can have an ingredient that is functional – meaning that it provides a nice texture in a lipstick, it provides hydration AND is full of antioxidants, minerals, skin nourishing properties – you can have those two together in an ingredient list that the average person can look at and go, “Okay, I know what sweet almond oil is, I know what avocado oil is, I know what organic coconut oil is”, to me that’s a win-win because it’s relatable and high-performance, and it’s really good for our lips. That’s a condensed answer to your question [laughs]!
G: How important is the efficacy and nourishment properties of the product, as opposed to just the colour and look?
S: You know, it’s interesting, when I started working with my first chemist, we sat down and she said, “High-performance or organic? Pick one.” And I said, that can’t be the first question that you ask me! [laughs] She goes, “Well, I’m telling you, you have to pick one”, and I said, “I’m not willing to pick one.” Lets imagine they’re twins [laughs], and one of them is called ‘High-performance’ and the other is called ‘Organic and Natural’, and to be honest, that chemist didn’t stay for long [laughs]. But it taught me really early on that we had to be feisty and not compromise on achieving the best balance of having both those things in first position. That led to producing in-house because the only company that can do that for us, is us. Raw materials can be really challenging. I’m working of a product with coffee right now, it’s really amazing. It’s a C02 coffee extract – of course, it’s super expensive. I have to go to a supplier in the south of France because they get those really raw materials; they’re aromatic and the composition is amazing, and that ties in to my aromatherapy background. So, it’s never easy, it’s expensive to pick the right ingredients and of course formulating with this, we need really talented chemists that are only working on a Bite formula because the first seven times we tried this, it failed stability.
G: Is the range completely free of silicones and synthetics?
S: It’s almost entirely free. We don’t bring the ingredients we don’t want to work with; we don’t have them in our lab. But again, part of the balance is, for example, this lipstick has a Red 6, which is not a natural pigment but there’s nothing in nature that gives you that level of colour. If you look at any of the other organic and natural beauty lines, gradually we’ve all started using 6 and 7 because there’s no other natural replica, essentially. And for me, the balance of high performance and organic is that, occasionally, we have 300 plus ingredients, and maybe five of those ingredients are not natural, organic or food-grade. So, it’s a really small percent. But without those ingredients we would not have the high-performance, luxe shades. So, I decided early on it’s not about all or nothing, it’s about always making sure the twins are taken care of.
G: Do you apply that kind of ‘grey’ philosophy across everything?
S: Totally, 100%. If you are so black and white about what an ideal is, whether it’s diet, exercise, relationships, manufacturing cosmetics, I always talk about the 80/20 rule. If for at least 80% of the time, you’re pretty rigid on things that you’ve decided for yourself that you adhere to those. And there’s always difficulty in doing that. As a brand, we’re all no-compromise people when it comes to ingredients and the way we do things with manufacturing, but we’ve adapted to do things that are right for the brand but still create these high-performance products. And in 18 years of watching beauty brands either make it or not make it, Chanel launched a concept in Europe that was called ‘Une’. I don’t even know if it still exists; it was not under the Chanel label but was under their umbrella, and it was a true organic and natural beauty line. Everybody was so excited about it; they had amazing resources, this launch had everything and it truly had good, high-performance products, but it failed at retail, because they lacked the shade range. They lacked the hand-feel of the product because it was all recycled packaging. So, I think it’s hard to be all or nothing, but it is possible with every single choice that you make for ingredients and manufacturing process that if you’re pushing to get the best possible balance, then you end up with something that’s sustainable.
G: You run a small-batch operation, how does that work and what do you think of the small-batch movement? Was that an intentional move from the outset?
S: I think we were ahead – out of necessity again – because some of our ingredients change with every lot. We have an orange peel wax that we use in our Line and Define Lip Primer and it smells unbelievable. They actually take the wax out of the peel of the orange, it’s what protects the orange from oxidation and damage – it keeps fruit juicy – and we use it because it does the same thing for lips. But because it’s natural, every single batch is different – it changes. Sometimes they’re this neon orange – and all our nude shades have to be readjusted on production. We have a lot of ingredients like that. Essential oils can change with every batch. And that’s the beauty of the raw material and making sure it is full of all these nutrients, it’s exactly the same with food, you have to adjust your recipe because sometimes tomatoes are different. We had to pay attention to all of the small batches, and even though we have state-of-the-art, automated lipstick making equipment, we still do it small batch. So it’s this constant balance of how do we honour the raw materials that we have, how to we make sure there is consistency in the product that we produce, but how do we scale up the brand as well.
G: It was fascinating to see things actually working on a small scale, with real people hand stirring the pots, for example.
S: I think the other reason the whole artisanal, hand-making thing is taking off is if you look at, we have mass production of so many things that are eliminating the human element, and that’s kind of scary for people. So I think there’s a revival of this, of bread making. We’re reverting back in a lot of things because there’s an art to it. In the beginning that was really important to me. I started with really small production lines, and I learned that then – when you go downstairs, you see how happy people are? People whistle while they work. Truly, the girls that work down there are wearing lipstick. The music is going, there’s collaboration, there’s teamwork, and I think that makes for better product.
G: It’s like how they say cooking tastes different when there’s love involved.
S: Yeah, totally. It’s home baked cookies versus mass produced store-bought. There’s a difference. I think we were ahead – out of necessity – of that whole artisanal, small batch. Even using my farm to produce raw materials, that’s cited as a trend for next year, and I started doing that two years ago… I think people really appreciate that our raw materials are special. But to actually go and see them growing and to get your hands dirty – it’s a completely different spin on things. I think farm to factory, farm to table…the sustainability thing is huge. When you have something that you are a consumer of, whether it’s food or skincare or clothing, that you already want to buy, and then find out you can also feel good about the fact that it’s low footprint or sustainable or organic and it’s good for you, when you have that win-win it’s really compelling.
G: What do you produce on Your farm, and how is it involved with BITE?
S: There’s mint, calendula, lavender and sunflower oil. It’s taken two years to produce ingredients like that. Last year we produced mint and calendula so they’re coming into new products in 2018, and we have a handful of products we’re adding them to. But I actually love the idea of partnering with someone. In the experience of growing things, I met lots of other farmers in the area, I love the idea of finding someone who has bees on their property and maybe we can produce beeswax. And honey, we’ve done a maple collection ‘cause there’s a lot of maple around the farm. So I think it’s about finding inspiration from regional ingredients; it’s a kind of a new way of thinking about it as well.
G: The aesthetic – packaging, branding, art direction – is very different from the typical aesthetic of an organic, natural brand, which can sometimes look a bit daggy. Was that a purposeful decision?
S: 100%. That was really intentional. You can see on my mood board it’s a combination of sexy, emotional, tactile, tangible. For us, that balance is communicated in our textures, it’s communicated in packaging, how things feel when you pick them up. There’s kind of an edgy timelessness. The juxtaposition was really important to me – this doesn’t look like a natural product. Five to six years ago, talking about natural was a formula for disaster because there were so many products that didn’t perform and didn’t work; people were nervous about using natural. So it was that combination of things. I had that concept very clear in my mind and I took it to my graphic design husband and wife team, Deedee and John, and then it kind of grew organically [laughs]. I was formulating products and they were designing them. We actually used a design firm called Ios in Australia that are really high-end industrial designers, they designed Armani’s stores and packaging. So those were the things we splurged on, and we had to splurge and save to get that kind of balance. It’s all about balance.
G: What about the name ‘BITE’? And can we really eat it?
S: I liked it because it was edgy, it had tooth to it. Not edgy as in Kat Von D edgy, which is very different, it’s something that’s got a bit of raw in it. And bite is also something you’d want to eat. When I first came up with the name, everybody said that it didn’t sound like a beauty brand, and I ignored that. I remember the first two years, I would say BITE and they would say pardon me? Come again? I would have to say Bite, as in something you would eat, something that is really good for you because what you put on your lips, you ingest, and from that moment we owned the name in people’s minds. We don’t encourage people to eat it, but again we always try to find things that are organic, natural and food grade. It’s our first priority. But from a legal standpoint, we don’t encourage people to eat it!
G: In terms of being a woman and being an entrepreneur, have you faced any hurdles?
S: Its funny, because in the last couple of years I’ve been asked to speak at a lot of women’s organisations, and this whole movement of SHE-EO and those kinds of organisations, and my take on that is: being an entrepreneur is challenging. My take on being a woman and entrepreneur is: I think I’m lucky because I’m in cosmetics, which is really a female-centric space, and Sephora is an organisation that is largely run by women. I think I picked a space that is supportive of women and of entrepreneurs so I got off easy. I think we’re 90% women here. But I have a great chemist in the lab, Jefferson, who’s male. My take on being a female entrepreneur is learning that things aren’t always perfect, but you can always strive to find the best possible balance of perfect. I can’t imagine if I was in the tech business and I was an entrepreneur, I think I would have a different perspective and maybe I’d have a bit more of a chip on my shoulder. I’ve been really lucky.
