08 May Drew Barrymore: Flower Power

Oftentimes, when celebrities decide to launch a business line, they target the luxury audience. After all, that is the world and market they know best.

Actress Drew Barrymore, who launched her Flower Beauty Cosmetics makeup line in 2013, went in the other direction. She decided she wanted to develop a quality product line sold at affordable prices, targeted to the vast majority of consumers who can’t afford $100 lipsticks. Barrymore signed an exclusive deal with Walmart to carry more than 180 of Flower Beauty Cosmetics eye, face, lip, and nail products. The products sell for less than $20.

Barrymore, who currently stars with Timothy Olyphant in the Netflix sitcom Santa Clarita Diet, says she decided to develop a makeup line because she wanted to help women improve their self-image. She told Business Insider, “I think there’s such a crucial necessity for positive messaging so that women feel empowered and are not making themselves up to be something else. It’s always about being the best you. Who you are inside and your joy levels and a smile are better than any lipstick. It’s sort of antimakeup messaging, but I think it’s more human messaging and the rest will fall into place.”
Barrymore also chose makeup as her business line because as a former model and a prolific actress (E.T., Donnie Darko, Grey Gardens), she has spent a good chunk of her life being made up by professionals. “I’ve been in a makeup chair since I was six years old and had the fortune of working with the icons of the beauty industry—learning, being in love with products, pigments, brands, companies, and just being a constant student of makeup.”

In 2017 Barrymore expanded Flower Beauty Cosmetics to Mexico, its first foreign market. It also began an ecommerce platform.