f*cking
Up the
beauty
industry

one lipstick at a time

                          This launch was four years in the making. We created Pound Cake because we saw a marginalizing industry that not only refused to include us in their beauty standard but also in their product creation. We poured our blood, sweat, and tears into making something never before seen and yet so long overdue: five liquid lipsticks made for five different skin and lip tones. It is from the ashes of a destroyed standard that we give you this.

We are a pro-black, pro-fat, and pro-queer cosmetics company and will continue to act in a manner that reflects as such.
We reject “universal shades” and believe everyone is owed a product that was made for their unique skin and lip tone. We hope you rock this red:

• Without fear
• Without wearing foundation to even out your lip color
• Without being told, “No”
We’re setting a new standard of inclusivity in the beauty industry, one that goes beyond just showing BIPOC in photos. We are reinventing color cosmetics.

Lipstick shows up differently on different lip tones. In essence, this means someone with pink lips and someone with deep brown lips wearing the same lipstick will achieve different results. Our solution? Approach all products like foundation.

120+ revisions, 40+ trials, a spot in Glossier’s exclusive Black-Owned Business Cohort, and an Allure Best of Beauty Award later, we have finally debuted our long-awaited line of Cake Batters. These EXTREMELY opaque and vibrant créme-matte liquid lipsticks are not only vegan, clean, and cruelty-free but were also made for your skin and lip tone - deep brown, pink, and everything in between

A red lip is bold, empowered, and filled with desire and passion. It’s life, it’s blood, it’s energy. A person with a red lip is absolutely undeniable.

Meet the Founders

We’re a community now, so get to know us!

Camille Bell

CEO + Co-Founder

I created Pound Cake because I saw the need for a revolution in how cosmetic companies produce and market color cosmetics. There was a tweet that went viral a few years ago calling on the beauty industry to make lipsticks that show up as advertised on all skin tones. This tweet spoke to me because I too have always battled with lipsticks looking different on me than expected (if they show up at all). Cosmetic companies don’t understand that it is not only skin tone but also lip tone that affects the way products show up on people. After realizing this, I fought hard to build this offering to us.

Johnny Velazquez

CBO + Co-Founder

In the 1900's, makeup boomed into the global white supremacist, queerphobic, fatphobic, and ableist exploitive industry we know today and much of that is marked by the invention of "Pancake" or "Cake" makeup. That's why our name is not a noun but a statement: Cake represents everything wrong with the industry to us (from products to representation) and Pound (a synonym for destroy) is what we plan on doing to it.