Kari's Karrot at Colorlab Custom Cosmetics

A long-time European favorite, Colorlab Custom Cosmetics launched its U.S. flagship store right here in Chicago. Colorlab is truly a couture cosmetics company, which allows clients to create exact beauty products that are formulated to address individual skin concerns and coloring. The unique concept is the brainchild of founder and cosmetic industry veteran, Mary Swaab. The formula to her success has been a blend of science, nature and fun. She offers the line in a personalized, attentive and comfortable environment.

Clients are welcomed into the cozy boutique shop on Armitage and paired with an “inventor” or trained makeup artist that assesses skin tone and color, mixing up the perfect foundation, lipstick, eye shadow, blush, and so on, for each individual. Several different colors of either a liquid base or mineral powder (depending on your preference of foundation) are blended using a guiding chart to create a shade as unique as a fingerprint.

I visited the shop on a bitterly cold Sunday, but was so warmly greeted by the staff and the light airy boutique, that I forgot about the sub-zero temperatures outside. Jordy, my inventor, expertly whipped up a perfect mineral powder foundation, designed to balance my skin and match its natural hue to a T. After the all natural mineral powder foundation was perfected, he brought out a lipstick color chart. I selected the color that I wanted, and with expert care mixed what seemed to be dozens of colors and shades together to create a lipstick that not only matched the color chart, but that also looked amazing on me. We even added an essence or flavor; I chose carrot cake essence, thrilled that they carried my favorite dessert flavor.

As a final step, we made our way downstairs to the pressing machine, where 700 pounds of pressure expertly pressed my personalized powder foundation into a beautiful carrier. The lipstick color was heated and molded in a slightly different press, but with the same effect. The staff and I were all laughing trying to come up with fun names for my new lipstick, (one of the unique touches to Colorlab Custom Cosmetics is that you name each product yourself) and finally we settled on Kari’s Karrot.

I’m thrilled to say goodbye to the days of guesstimating a foundation color by the bottle and surmising the exact shade of a lipstick by the color printed on the bottom of the tube. Hello to Colorlab Custom Cosmetics, where everything is spot on.
-Kari Skaflen