The story behind the viral Black Lip Balm

Finding Ferdinand was born from a personal mission shared by me, Nhu Le, as CEO, and my sister, My Le, our Brand Director. We started the company after witnessing our mother’s repeated battles with cancer. That experience pushed us to scrutinise the ingredients in everyday products, especially cosmetics, and sparked a passion for creating “clean” beauty that feels both safe and expressive.

The business concept crystallised from my own frustration after years of searching for the perfect shade for my skin tone. That specific need revealed a wider gap in the market: consumers want not only clean ingredients, but also personalised, unique shades that truly suit their individual tones and preferences — a level of customisation the mass market simply doesn’t offer. Cue a three-year journey to create the perfect formula, which went on to sell over 10,000 units in its first week.

As with all of our products, we worked with a team of top cosmetic chemists who hand-mixed more than 30,000 shades in small batches to find the ideal balance of opacity, texture, moisture and colour — while staying true to our core philosophy: vegan, cruelty-free and “clean” enough to be stocked at Credo Beauty, the American retailer known for some of the strictest standards in the industry. We never use phthalates, and we align our banned ingredient list with the Credo Clean and Credo Qualified Standards, which together include more than 2,700 chemicals that Credo prohibits or restricts.

Our goal was to create a “your lips but better” balm — and getting the opacity right was essential. It needed to look natural rather than painted on. Equally important was the feel during application: we wanted it to be moisturising with enough slip to glide on smoothly, yet thick enough to seal in moisture and hold the colour. These traits aren’t easy to achieve, because product development requires thoughtful detail and countless nuanced decisions to craft not only the right shade, but the right feeling for the consumer.

At the time, most sheer balms looked too flat or turned orangey across a range of skin tones. After countless rounds of testing and reformulation, we discovered that a cooler violet tint was the most universally flattering. It complemented every complexion, could be layered for greater intensity, and had the added benefit of making most smiles appear whiter. We began with violet in mind and, by the end of the process, our team had blended 13 distinct pigments — more than three times the number most cosmetic brands use — to create what would become the viral sensation: The Black Lip Balm.

Of course, it isn’t truly black, even though it looks that way in the tube. On the lips, it’s a beautiful sheer cool-berry shade that can be built up for a more intense look — and suits every skin tone. Since its launch in July 2023, we have received more than 1,000 five-star reviews and over 100,000 total orders for this single shade. Many people say The Black Lip Balm has become their everyday go-to lip product, their holy-grail beauty discovery, and they often comment on how the cool violet tone accentuates their features, brightening not only their smiles, but also their eyes.

The response has made the three years spent perfecting the formulation more than worth it. The Black Lip Balm has become more than just a product — it’s a quiet celebration of individuality. We didn’t want to create just another balm; we wanted to create something that helps everyone, in their own shade, feel seen and beautiful. And I’m proud to say it seems we have.