A Toronto Man Turned His Inclusive Makeup Brand Into A 6 Figure Business Thanks To TikTok

Jean-Luc Palumbo grew up being called a "flamer." Now, he's selling lipstick by the same name for his six-figure Queer and inclusive makeup brand, reclaiming the term and taking up space in the beauty industry.

The 28-year-old Torontonian has skyrocketed to success in the past 13 months. His brand offers vegan, cruelty-free and scent-free lipsticks, gloss and eye shadow palettes. The products have playful names like Sneaky Link, Femme, Fruity, Flamer and Bear that come in various shades, which are made to accommodate a wide range of skin tones while also paying homage to the Queer community.

"So most, if not all of our shades, are Easter eggs or terms used within the Queer community," Palumbo told Narcity. "I wanted to bring light to a lot of terms that are used not all the time in a positive light – kind of reclaiming some of the terminologies."

Palumbo is a full-time case manager in the healthcare industry, but makeup has been a passion for him for years and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he started to rethink what he wanted to do with his life.

"I was finally comfortable enough with my skills to sort of branch out and try to create work with it [makeup], as opposed to just creating beauty content online on myself."

In March 2020, he downloaded TikTok, an app that would inspire him to create Jean-Luc Cosmetics, later helping him launch the company.

How it started

"I immediately was able to network with all these other business owners and people in the beauty space [on TikTok], and things like that, and that's when it kind of sparked my interest that 'Hey, maybe I could start my own brand.'"

After gathering advice from other businesses and people with knowledge of sourcing products and finding labs, Palumbo invested $10,000 of his own money to start a one-person company from the ground up.

"I started it in probably July 2020, and we didn't launch until April 2021," said Palumbo."It was a really, really long time because, of course, I'm navigating the unknown. I didn't go to school for business; I went to school for kinesiology and social work."

"Looking back, it took me a really long time to sort of learn the ropes."

The TikTok boom

Palumbo discovered the secret power of creating an engaged community on TikTok because a brand is only as good as its marketing.

"Most of my growth is attributed to TikTok, so I'm really, really thankful for it."

Palumbo started posting on TikTok about a month before the brand's launch in April 2021. In just over a year, he's grown a following of over 78K people on the app and managed to catch the eye of a major beauty influencer and TikToker, Mikayla Nogueira.

"She actually reviewed my product, and it completely changed the trajectory of my business," he said. "I'm still pinching myself. Every day I wake up, and it's so surreal."

Nogueira commented on one of Palumbo's TikTok. From there, they got to chatting over Instagram, where Palumbo asked if he could send her a package of products with no expectation that she would do a review.

Nogueira responded and sent over her shipping address.

"I was like, 'all right, that's it,' she gets hundreds of packages, and I'm just a small brand from Toronto."

But on a Friday night, just as he was about to hop in the shower and hunker down in his jammies, Palumbo's world changed.

"I opened my phone, and I didn't even see her video because I had so many notifications. My TikTok app was glitching, and I was like, why am I getting all these orders?"

After recruiting his best friend to watch the review first to ensure it was positive, Palumbo gathered the courage to watch and said it was "nothing but amazing."

"She was so incredibly kind, she loved everything I sent to her and that sort of snowballed into this crazy amount of growth we've gotten over the past month."

According to Palumbo, Nogueira's rave review "quadrupled" the brand's following and led to several products selling out.

"That's the thing on TikTok," he says, "I'm seeing so many smaller brands on the rise because what small brands have over the big multimillion and billion-dollar corporations is the authenticity. You're seeing us grow, and people are tagging along for the journey."

Looking ahead, Palumbo hopes to quit his full-time job by the end of summer and take the beauty industry by storm.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.