The Rise & Fall of Bite Beauty 💄😭

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hello everybody. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. I'm Maddie and in today's video, we are talking about the rise and the fall of Bite Beauty, the renowned lip brand, which we all knew and loved back in the day. Now, I mentioned Bite Beauty in my recent video of makeup, which we desperately need back, which is the fourth part. If you want to go and check that out, I will have it linked down below. But I asked you guys if you were interested in a full deep dive into Bite Beauty and you guys were definitely up for it. So, here we are with the full story and let's get into it.

[00:00:38]Now, Bite Beauty was a Canadian brand that was fully lip focused, which I mean really in this day and age as well is not really common. You don't get brands just doing complexion or just eyes. And honestly, I kind of wish they would.

[00:00:53]That alone set them apart. They were a fully Canadian brand made in Toronto, based in Toronto. And the fact that they were lip focused was really, really unique, like I said, but they were also so good with the lip products. It's not like they were just doing like, you know, subpar lip products. They were so good. Exceptional. The other thing that set them apart was the fact that they used foodgrade ingredients. It was all edible oils. And at the time this is when natural and clean beauty was starting to get a lot more buzz and the buzz around natural skin care were finding ingredients which we recognized.

[00:01:29]So things like food grade or vitamin C's facial oils like argan oils or rose hip oils and things like that. People were getting more interested in that and felt like okay I can pronounce that. I recognize that. I see that and it's something I use on a day-to-day basis as it is. So it should be good for my body.

[00:01:49]we were kind of starting to get scared of the like long names and things and the chemicals and all this stuff. So, for Bite Beauty to come on the scene and be using food grade ingredients, it felt very approachable and comfortable for consumers, but it was still a brand which was very elevated and luxurious.

[00:02:08]So, yes, they were natural and clean, but it didn't feel like crunchy granola girl. No offense if you're granola girl.

[00:02:15]It's just that crunchy granola girl feel has like a whole different type of branding and marketing behind it. So, getting into the beginning of By Beauty, the rise of Byite Beauty, if you will.

[00:02:24]It was founded in 2011 by Suzanne Langmure. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And like I said, it was a Toronto-based brand. Yay for Canada. O Canada. Go Canada. As a Canadian, I was very, very excited and very proud to buy Bye Beauty and represent By Beauty. And when I was working at Sephora, it was a brand which I recommended constantly. I felt like I also created Bite Beauty.

[00:02:49]You know what I mean? And like I said, the whole concept behind Bite Beauty felt very unique at the time. This was not when clean and natural brands were really, really common. I feel like nowadays we're so tired and fatigued.

[00:03:01]So, you're probably hearing that and you're like, "Gh, like clean and natural." But it was new innovation for the time and a new thought process when purchasing beauty products. but you're still going to give me the like luxury elevated experience that Dior, YSL, Nars, Urban Decay are all giving me.

[00:03:19]Like it was still very much a Sephora brand and it felt on par with the experience that all the other Sephora brands were giving us. The thing I found out when researching for this video is the hero ingredient in their products was resveratrol, which as we know, well, I should I I say as we know, like maybe you know, but maybe you don't know. I don't know. Sorry, now I'm saying I don't know a lot, but it's a popular ingredient with kotali. We see the ordinary use that ingredient. It is an skinare ingredient starting to get some buzz around it, but it's essentially a really really good packed anti-aging ingredient. It's naturally found in red wine, and that's where I think like red wine is a superfood. She's a super. It's healthy. I'm I am healthy by drinking red wine. That's how I feel. Plus, all the oils that they used were edible and natural. They use things like Hoba oil and sweet almond oil and argan oil. So again, at the time it felt very approachable and good for us. Plus, it wasn't just a marketing scheme. It was what the actual brand was based off of the whole foundation of everything which in this day and age is the reason why so many of us are fatigued by the whole like clean natural beauty concept and movement really is because are you actually using clean natural ingredients or are you just finding those buzzworthy words for you to market off of and for us to you know buy the tactic if you will. That is the bold harsh truth. But using Bite Beauty was a genuine experience. They had these claims. They had this marketing. They had this foundation. And everything that they claimed and sold us was what we actually got. And that's what made so many of us fall in love with Bite Beauty because what you see is what you get. So, like I said, they were founded in 2011. And in 2012, they launched in Sephora as this Sephora exclusive brand, which the growth there and the trajectory of that brand is absolutely insane. To be founded in 2011 and then launch in Sephora as a Sephora exclusive brand in 2012 is crazy behavior. And again, I feel like I keep saying like, oh, nowadays this isn't that and that isn't that. At the time, having a Sephora exclusive brand immediately gave you credibility. Still to this day, that kind of holds up, but not as much. At the time, Marc Jacobs Beauty was a Sephora exclusive brand. They launched in Sephora and it was immediately a credible brand. Same thing with Bite Beauty. Like, if you were a Sephora exclusive, you were that brand. Now, the other thing I always massively respected about this brand is that they were always handcrafted in Toronto. All of their products handcrafted in Toronto.

[00:06:02]It was said in 2015, the factory was producing about 2,000 items a day. So, for a Canadian brand like that to become a Sephora exclusive brand and then stay manufacturing in Canada, I just was like over the moon about this brand. I felt so proud of this brand. And then when I thought they couldn't get any better, they did this next thing. In 2013, they launched the lip lab. This is when I saw this all over beauty YouTube back in the day. All of the influencers and creators going to the lip lab. I believe it started in New York City and then they ended up launching kind of all over North America. Obviously Toronto because that's where they were manufactured. But they had spots all over North America if I remember correctly. But essentially, it was a lip lab where you could go in and create your own custom lipstick. You could make up the scents. You could have like rose or you could have something more like vanillay. You could customize the scent which was just so cool. It created this like boutique type feel while still being this huge brand in Sephora. They really married the two concepts of being like an indie brand and still having that unique customizable experience and then being this like big name in the beauty world.

[00:07:18]One of my biggest regrets is not being able to go to one of the lip labs, which you can still go to them and I will get into that later on in the video. But then in 2014, LVMH bought out Bite Beauty and that's when we get into our next chapter. So this is postacquisition when Bite Beauty was sold to LVMH. And you would think, okay, well this is where the story turns. Actually not.

[00:07:44]Things went really really well for Bite Beauty right after being bought out. The Amoose Bouch lipstick came to be and that was their like pinnacle product.

[00:07:53]They had so many different shades of this product. It was so creamy and over time after being bought out by LVMH, they did continue their growth. They became massive. They really found a loyal following. There were so many people who were obsessed with Bite kept repurchasing and even hoarding backups.

[00:08:13]Like they were just such a purchased brand. People would find a shade that they like and buy five of them. Like when does that ever happen in this day and age? Not as much. Now, as they grew, we get to 2018, which leads us into our next chapter of the departure. This is really a plain and simple chapter. their founder, Suzanne. She departed from the brand. It was a very low-key departure.

[00:08:37]Not really a big announcement or anything like that. It was said that she's just wanted to focus on her own thing. The thing which I found said that she wanted to focus on her own beauty incubator and a waterless skin care brand. I have not heard anything about this waterless skincare brand, but let me know if you have any details.

[00:08:56]Anyways, like I said, the announcement was low-key. The impact was like next to nothing. like no one really knew that that happened. And then we get into the turn, our next chapter. Yeah, you can see where this is going now. So now with the founder gone, LVMH started to make decisions for Bite Beauty that felt so disconnected from who Bite was like their whole brand and foundation which they'd built since 2011. In September 2019, they did something completely unexpected and unheard of in the beauty world even to this day. They discontinued every single item in the line. Now, obviously, this was a very like weird and bold move for them to make. Like, who just discontinues every single item? No one. However, at the time, I will say I understand why they kind of cracked under pressure. This was at a time where vegan beauty products were the the standard. That's what everybody expected and what everybody wanted. So, especially for a brand like Bite Beauty who built their whole brand off of being clean and natural and foodgrade ingredients felt the pressure of it because they were constantly being called out and their products like the agave lip mask was lenoline based which is obviously not a vegan ingredient. A lot of their lip products were made out of beeswax obviously also not vegan. So for them, they were just constantly being called out by this massive like vegan beauty movement that was happening at the time and eventually cracked under pressure decided it was for the best that they draw back, take everything back, discontinue everything and start from scratch. I do personally feel like this is where everything went wrong. I mean obviously cuz now they are no more.

[00:10:45]Spoiler alert, not spoiler alert. We all know that. Now, I'll save my personal thoughts for the end of the video, but we get into the reformulation. They reformulated everything and then also decided to go in the direction of other makeup products. So, no longer be a lip focused brand. They decided to launch a foundation, which some people had good things to say about it, other people did not. I'm going to be honest, as soon as Bite Beauty started to go in this direction, I jumped ship quick. I was not about it. The thing I loved the most about them was the fact that they were lip focused. So, for them to go into foundations and powders and mascaras and primers felt very inauthentic to me. And it felt like they're just trying to manufacture as much as they can that are going to appeal to the masses and be able to sell. It felt like they just wanted to sell something. It didn't feel like they wanted to create good makeup.

[00:11:47]So, like I said, January 2020, they reformulate everything. Everything is a vegan formula. They do have a lot of their cult classic lip products reformulated, like the Agave lip mask, which no one said was as good as the old one. For me personally, I couldn't even use the original. I've said this many times on my channel, but I've had the worst reaction in the past to the Agave Lip Mask. my lips get like really inflamed and irritated with the original formula. So, I just steered clear from it. So, I'm not the person to talk about what the original was like to the new version, but people said it was not the same. And I mean, I expected that because like I said, lanoline was a huge main ingredient in the product. So, to take that away, you're it's a whole different product. You know what I mean?

[00:12:34]And that was the case for a lot of their lip products. When I tell you these lip products were beeswax heavy, they were.

[00:12:42]And I think for a lot of us when we think back to the original Bite Beauty lip products, they were that very waxy like thick kind of filmy creamy lip product that we all knew and loved.

[00:12:57]Maybe I don't know about you, but I knew them and I loved them. So, like I said, all vegan, all new packaging, all new branding. like it just felt like a whole new brand, which is kind of what happens when you discontinue everything and you you rebrand and you relaunch. I will say poor timing, poor unplanned timing. Like who could predict that in March 2020 the world would shut down. It is really unfortunate that the cards were against them. However, even prior to March 2020, obviously they relaunched in January 2020, like I said, the stuff that was said about the relaunch was not very good. What I heard about the foundation was not very good. It did not make it sound nice. The new reformulations of the old previous lip products did not live up to the old formulas. Also, the move to move to complexion products after building such a loyal fan base with your lip products was wild. And it's like they had this expectation that like, okay, look at how great our lip products were. We're actually going to reformulate those. we're going to go to complexion and it's going to be great.

[00:14:03]It's going to be just as good if not better than what you've experienced previously. But it was like no one had any experience in what that might be like. And that is one thing which I will say you know is the negative about having a lip focused brand or a complexion focused brand is as soon as you pivot to launch a lip product or a complexion product like whatever is the opposite of what you're focused on your customers are going to be apprehensive.

[00:14:28]If anything, my expectations are higher because your lip products are already so good. And like I said, a lot of what I heard is that the complexion products did not meet the expectation. So that is sadly where we get to the end of the story, the last chapter. In May of 2022, they quietly disappeared. It was over 10 years of operation and that is still such a short amount of time for a beauty brand that had such a big impact. I think yes we see a lot of beauty brands which you know 5 to 10 years is is good you know and it's like okay great but for bite beauty to have the significance that they did and then to only operate for 11 years is crazy to me. Like when I actually think about it and when I was actually doing the research for this video, I was like, "Holy moly." Oh my god. The other thing I wrote down, I totally forgot about this. It was actually so heartbreaking because they were 100% gluten-free. And I actually remember this being brought up, is a lot of people who were celiac were able to use by beauty. I didn't even realize that was an issue, but it is a major issue in the cosmetics industry. I just noticed that in my notes here. That is so sad and something I do remember. But overall, the loss of Bite Beauty was so huge. It and it it was one of those things where like we were already mourning the loss of Bite Beauty before they closed down in May of 2022 because like we've laid out, they rebranded everything. They discontinued everything. So it was like you, you know, lost someone mourning the loss of a brand that were still technically around but not at all the same brand which they once were. Now, after they closed down, LVMH did keep the lip lab.

[00:16:15]There are some again all over North America. I think there's one in Nashville, maybe. There's one in Toronto still. There's one in New York. And all of their lip products got rebranded to the Lip Lab. So, you can purchase the Lip Lab products from their website and then you can still go into the lip lab to create your like, you know, little lipstick experience, if you will. And to this day, I'd still be curious to do it.

[00:16:39]like I it is still on my bucket list. I still do want to do it and maybe more so now because I'm even more curious to know what it's like, but I would love the original experience. Let's be honest. So, I mean, I guess in retrospect, it's a little bit nice that Bite Beauty kind of lives on still through the lip lab, but honestly, in my personal opinion, it's like worse. Like, in my opinion, I'd rather not have anything. And you just kind of think about like what it once was and what we once had and what we don't have now. And it's just like a constant reminder of that. And I would love I know the whole vegan beauty thing was a huge movement.

[00:17:16]Like I said, like obviously Bite Beauty got really caught up in that, but I just wish we could go back to how they originally were with the beeswax, with the lenoline, like their original formulas. I just think it's the same thing as like the tulkfree movement we're seeing now of all these brands having to make free products. I mean, a lot of companies are having to do it because so many countries are banning Tulk and the whole this a whole can of worms that we could open right now, but we're going through that massive movement right now in this day and age.

[00:17:48]And at the time, it was the vegan beauty movement. Like everything needed to be vegan. All the formulas needed to be vegan. It got really, really extreme.

[00:17:56]And that's where I personally am giving my little tidbit of opinion there. It's one of those things for me where I'm like, if you expect vegan beauty products, there are plenty of vegan beauty lines out there, but at the time when everybody was like pressured to have vegan products and formulas, same thing nowadays where all these brands are having to create tulk-free formulas, it's just like, you know, it's just one of those things where you can kind of go around in circles on that. I can respect and appreciate that that's what people wanted. It just got to a point where there was so much pressure around it and for Bite Beauty, like I said, to be this like natural, clean, foodgrade brand to feel that heavy pressure. Like there was so much pressure and criticism on them at the time. And I just was like, ah.

[00:18:40]But we knew what they were from the get- go. Like it's not like they're trying to hide it, you know, which is a whole other thing. It was just a movement at the time. And everybody kind of predicted that at one point that would die down and there would be regret behind the decision that Bite Beauty made. And I think that's where we're at today. There is regret behind it. I would be really really curious to know what Suzanne, the founder, thinks of things, the outcome of the brand. I would be really really intrigued to know what LVMH thinks. Like the people who made the decision behind that, what their opinion is nowadays. Would they make the same decision? I have a lot of questions and a lot of opinions that I'd love to hear. And of course, I would love to know your guys's opinion on Bite Beauty. So many iconic products. Let me know down below what your iconic products were. We didn't really get too much into the iconic products. I talked about that a lot in my video of makeup we desperately need back. So, I don't want to get into it too much cuz I've already talked about it. If you want to go check out that video, I will have it linked down below. I really just wanted to get into the story behind the brand because it is one of those brands which is so sad to me. It really is the most heartbreaking in my opinion brand story.

[00:19:50]You have Bite Beauty. Marc Jacobs Beauty was a sad one, but now we're getting them back. So I'm like, okay, we're going in the right direction. The other really sad one was NYC New York Color. I got to do a deep dive video on them at some point. That one was really, really sad. Let me know as well any brands which are heartbreaking to you. The direction that they went. I mean, I feel like there's a lot. I just can't think on the spot right now. But Bite Beauty is that one in my mind where I'm like, God, they just ripped my heart out of my body and tore that up. And then that's that. That was it. And now they call it the lip lab. You know, that's what we got. Anyways, I'm going to wrap up this video here. If you did enjoy today's video, be sure to like it, share with a friend, and subscribe to my channel so you don't miss out on future videos or episodes of the Beauty Brief podcast, which I upload on Saturdays. And without further ado, I hope you have a great rest of your day wherever you are, and I will see you next time. Bye.