The Lipstick Lesbians Want to Boost Your Beauty Literacy

Chatting with Alexis Androulakis and Christina Basias (AKA The Lipstick Lesbians) feels something like attending a discussion class with your absolute favorite professors—the ones who always make you feel empowered and intelligent, even when you’re still learning about the topic. That educator POV has helped the duo amass a combined following of over 1 million.

And now, the erudite pair is joining forces with a beloved “masstige” brand to take that energy abroad. Androulakis and Basias have partnered with Milani Cosmetics for the content arm of the brand’s Made in Matters campaign. Over four episodes airing on The Lipstick Lesbians social channels through November 4, Androulakis and Basias explore Milani’s global supply chain—from the Italian facilities where the famous Baked Blushes are baked on terracotta tiles and the Japanese-inspired technology found in the Highly Rated Last Extensions Tubing Mascara (airing October 8) to the K-beauty inspo behind the new Conceal + Perfect Blur Out Smoothing Primer (October 21). 

It was an ideal partnership for the creators, who specialize in asking—and answering—the questions many cosmetics consumers don’t think to ask. While Androulakis has always known Milani to deliver “luxury, prestige quality at mass,” she became more interested after Basias pointed out that the brand noted the provenance of its products on the displays in Target. To “bring attention to this, to bring light to this, as a drugstore brand, just rings so true” to The Lipstick Lesbian mission, she says. 

For the brand, the duo brings a unique perspective that’s quite different from traditional review-centric creators, but no less important. “There’s a trifecta: You have the consumer and creators, who approach things from a personal perspective and artistry. You have the brand, who can tell you why this product is coming from Milani and why it’s unique to the marketplace… and you have Alexis and Christina, who are coming at it from an educational perspective,” says Jeremy Lowenstein, Milani’s chief marketing officer. “How do you evaluate a product? Is it what I need?” 

Ahead, Alexis and Christina discuss the partnership, their evaluation process, and why you should think of your makeup the same way you think of your trip to the farmer’s market. 

On Why the Partnership is the Perfect Fit

Christina: “We started to go viral by having Alexis play a game guessing where beauty products were made. She’s been in beauty product development for basically her entire career—Alexis and her beauty product development besties [would] have unreleased products from suppliers all around the world. We would drink wine and do karaoke, and they would have swatches all over their arms. They’d be guessing which part [of the world something came from]—is it Korea, is it Japan, is it Italy? I saw this and was like, “This is so cool.” I don’t know what inspired me, but we created a game out of it in Sephora, and that’s what made us go viral.”

“We helped create this huge shift in the beauty industry, where now consumers are turning around their packaging and looking at where things are made, and they’re starting to make connections. We introduced how big products are being made in Italy when we first started going viral, and now we have this awesome partnership with Milani where we can go to Italy and show you they’re making their powders there, and this is why.”

Alexis: “And this is one of the best baked powder manufacturers in the world. You’re getting that at the best price possible.” 

Christina: “Prestige quality at drugstore prices.”

On What They Knew About Tubing Mascara—and Discovered You Probably Don’t

Alexis: “Back when we filmed that original tubing mascara video, what we realized, in that moment, was that we were educating consumers about what tubing is. Milani led the way in the drugstore with tubing. There’s a nuance to tubing: A different finish, a different removal process. That video was magical because it started a tubing mascara movement.” 

Christina: “I think it’s at 9 million views and counting. Ever since then, there has been more awareness.” 

Alexis: “That graphic on the back articulates tubing so much more effectively. A lot of people have this misconception that the ‘tube’ in ‘tubing’ is a circle, and that’s what you’re gonna see on a lot of the communications, even the luxury communications. But you need to understand it’s a cylinder. Like sausage has a casing, tubing mascara cases the lash. Milani is one of the only brands I’ve seen educate with an infographic to show you that, right on the back of the packaging.

On What You Need to Know About the New Conceal + Perfect Blur Out Smoothing Primer

Alexis: “With this type of format, there’s a sensorial aspect that has to be celebrated. Whenever you have something in a jar, that should signal in your brain immediately, ‘That means that I’m supposed to really enjoy the sensation, because I can play with it and feel the texture.'”

“The sensoriality and the jar, that whole experience, is being driven by Korean-style technology. They love textures. A lot of Korean textures live in a jar, so you can bounce them, feel them, and experience them.”

“You’ll see that in the cool factory footage coming soon in the episode. The way that it was manufactured allows it to do so many things without feeling heavy on the skin [while providing that] blurred-out effect that you want when you’re priming. Again: Accessible luxury.”

On Why (and How) They Evaluate—Not Review

Alexis: “We have a whole product development anchor wheel that Christina helped me build.”

Christina: “My background is in education; I have a PhD in education technology. So I help Alexis figure out the best ways to approach teaching these subjects. But Alexis is just so talented at simplifying complex things.”

Alexis: “It’s really about answering the ‘Why?’ for people. Whether we’re answering the question ‘Why was this made in Korea?’ or ‘Why was this made in Italy?’ or ‘Why should I use this? How should I use this? Does it matter? Why does it matter?’ There’s a framework. There’s an artistry component—because I’m also a makeup artist—and the product development component: Who was this made for, who was in mind? Whether that’s an archetype of a human, or the texture of their skin, or their age.” 

“But the needs are what it really comes back to. For me, at the end of the video, you need to know ‘Is this for me?’ You need to know how you’re going to use it, and you’re going to need to know a little bit about where and how it was created—that’s the product development piece. And we’re going to give you some product development words, too, because hey, you’re all aspiring product developers, as far as I’m concerned.”

“It’s all about evaluation. We don’t review products; we evaluate and we’re building beauty literacy. 

Christina: We talk about that a few times on our channel, too, that it’s not a review. It’s an evaluation because we’re testing it, we’re evaluating it, we’re telling you who it’s good for, not necessarily ‘This is good for me because.’

Christina: What got us on this journey in the first place was the evaluation of information. In many ways, without realizing it, I was on TikTok researching for two years—evaluating creators’ success and seeing what worked for them and how things happened.”

“I love to look at all different types of perspectives, and what I think works really well for our content is that Alexis is giving you so many different perspectives: The beauty product development, the artistry, a little bit of the chemistry, the application on face, and always thinking about the end consumer. And that’s why I think it’s really rich: You’re getting all of these intersectional identities in one person.” 

On Why You Should Think of Your Makeup the Way You Think of Your Dinner Ingredients

Alexis: “For us, it’s so important that people understand the craft. I think we even asked Jeremy and the team at Milani, ‘Do your customers understand how novel it is to have a baked powder from Italy? Do your customers understand how special it is to bring in primers from Korea, one of the best texture markets in the world?'”

“When I started at the makeup counter when I was 19, the first thing I did was flip over every box and find out where it was made. Don’t you want to know where your food comes from? If you’re eating produce that’s farm-to-table, you can taste the difference. The same holds with suppliers creating the products for you and where they’re made. The product development is the next step. It’s the chef who’s curating the menu while the chemist is cooking for you.”

“The product will have a different meaning for you when you know the cycle of how that product came to life. When Jeremy was sharing that he wanted us to create this series with Milani, that’s what got us the most excited—that a brand was willing to be bold, to go to the factories, to tell these stories.”

On How Beauty Is Going Global—and We’re All About to Benefit From It

Alexis: “In terms of innovation: I like to call it the harmonization of globalization, where we start to see trends kind of merge from all markets. Like, we’ll see French Girl Beauty collide with K-Beauty, with a little bit of U.S. sautéed on top. So it doesn’t matter where you’re manufacturing, ultimately you’ll get a newer-age format.”

“Because of how harmonized all the markets are becoming—K-Beauty, J-Beauty, C-Beauty—those trends are proliferating into North America, and companies are capitalizing on what makes those brands special, but putting a North American twist on it.”

“You’re going to see more sophisticated ingredients… and more sophistication across all categories. You’ll see more formats, and I’m excited about that. And I think we’re going to see a moment [in the eye category] in the next 18 months, massively.”

On Their Personal Milani Faves 

Alexis: “It’s so funny: We’re going to be filming this very soon, but the most expensive product I have in the plumping category has been dethroned by the Balmshell Lip—it’s such a fun, easy lip to use. It’s a product everybody can and should own because it’s so wearable, and right on trend.”

Christina: “Alexis just gives me all my product information! [Laughs] I like the Lip Oils, specifically. I always keep them in my pockets. And they’re yummy! I love a yummy lip oil.”