We were lucky to catch up with Kimberly Merritt-Watts recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kimberly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

When addressing the underserved community in terms of the beauty industry, I am not referring to economic status nor economic stability. I am referring to the inclusion, empowerment, and education of underserved demographics. From my experience, the most underserved population are “Baby Boomers” then “Gen X” following close by.

Post pandemic marketing opened up plenty of opportunities for relatable creators, influencers, and marketing teams to target a full range of consumers. When makeup and beauty tutorials transitioned from 45 minute YouTube videos to 90 second accelerated clips via Instagram and TikTok, a major niche was neglected. Through my market research, I identified that women between the ages of 40-60 yrs and older were not being included in content that was being produced. They even had little mini influencers at the age of 12 but nothing for our “Golden Age Gals”. The motivation behind my attention to this niche stemmed from my mother and aunts. Fabulous women who have lived through the prime of their lives, completed their careers, reared their children, and are now rewarded with time and opportunity to refocus on the self care they may have abandoned years ago. Their generation is shown to also have an increased consumption of social media. ‘
But when they turned to social media to consume beauty content relevant to their needs there was none. There are plenty of tutorials for the full glam, “baddie” aesthetic, grunge, cut crease, contour and bronze for 20 and 30 somethings to stay up to date and relevant. There is slim to nothing offered for the 53 year old woman that wants to revamp her beauty kit with affordable quality products and learn modern techniques. The mascara trends of 1993 may seem similar but they have evolved.
I chose to nurture this niche with sensitivity and compassion through my live makeup tutorials in person and via live streaming. I offer a kit building service where I assist with shopping for budget friendly and safe products to start them on their way of reclaiming their confidence and enhancing their natural beauty.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hey, I’m Kim, Founder of LSquared Beauty & Cosmetics, an indie beauty brand based in St. Louis Mo. LSquared was originally started to fulfill the absence of nude lippies that complement brown skin tones and deeply melanated lips. Once my journey of creating the perfect formula was settled, I began to expose my community to what we had to offer. Our catalog takes you on a journey of total lip care, from lip scrubs to lip liners to lip balms and more. We have a best selling nude lipgloss line called “Match Your Melanin” and a liquid matte lipstick line called “Its an Attitude”. The shade range of both products allow them to become the “makeup bag favorite” on women young and “golden” of various ethnicities, skin tones, and lifestyles,

LSquared Beauty is so much more that an e-commerce store. We are a community. A community built on empowerment, advocacy, trust, and authenticity. Because of this we can grow beyond just selling a product and develop relationships with our customers and within our surrounding communities. We were able to take the love of lipgloss and empower women to celebrate their beauty with the help of our products and services.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

LSquared Beauty and Cosmetics is more than an ecommerce store. We offer services as well. On service is our makeup application service. Customers can come to my studio, or I can travel to service them on site. This service includes a sanitary, safe, and relaxing experience of pampering. We also offer DIY makeup application classes for our customers to learn step by step how to achieve their custom look to fit their lifestyle. As mentioned before, we also have a service where we assist customers with building their own DIY Makeup kit to fit their budget and skill level, complete with shade matching and more.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

All products are sold from our e-commerce platform of Shopify. I chose Shopify because of its reviews and recommendations of my business network. I have stayed with Shopify because of its user friendly platform and affordable rates. Shopify allows the novice entrepreneur to take web design into their own hands and curate a customized experience for their audience. As your skill grow Shopify hosts more options for you to be as ecclectic and creative as possible. Shopify seamlessly integrates with alot of popular platforms amongst business owners. Platforms such as bookkeeping, postage, and email marketing to name a few. If I had to name a con, it would be the virtual customer service. It is difficult to get a real person on the phone when dealing with customer service issues of your domain. When something as important as your website is in question or compromised, you want to be able to speak with someone immediately to assist.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.LSquaredbyKim.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/LsquaredbyKim
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/LSquaredbyKim