FollowThe MakeUp Bar in Nichols Hills has been an iconic shopping destination for 14 years. Everyone from Khloe Kardashian to Kristin Chenoweth has checked into The MakeUp Bar to get their favorite products. This time SPLURGE! checked in with owner, Alex Mendez-Kelley to get the scoop on all things beauty—including the announcement of Alex’s new makeup line that will hit shelves this fall. She can’t tell us what it’s called, but we’re excited and we’re the first to know.
It’s safe to say The MakeUp Bar has come a long way since it’s humble beginnings when it carried only a few makeup brands. Alex owned a salon for seven years before deciding to sell makeup and skin care fulltime. She was the only esthetician at her salon, Classic Salon, where she kept a U-shaped bar full of candles and makeup.
“I used to always tell people, “‘Oh, go check out the stuff on the makeup bar. I just laid out a bunch of stuff on the makeup bar,’” Alex recalls. “And so it just became one of these things that constantly became all about “the makeup bar.”
Finally, a client suggested she just officially name her counter, The MakeUp Bar. Alex knew she wanted to focus on makeup; it had been her passion growing up. But it wasn’t until after May 3, 1999, when one of the most destructive tornados in U.S. history devastated Moore, Oklahoma, that Alex realized the impact beauty could have on women who had lost everything. One of the executives of a small makeup line, called “Tony and Tina,” volunteered to send products to help the tornado victims who had lost everything.
“He called personally and said, ‘Listen, we can’t send you thousands of dollars; we can’t send you food; we don’t know how to bandage people, but what I can send you is a box of nail polish and makeup because I know lots of teenage girls have lost things that make them feel like normal,” Alex recalls. “We had a client who worked for the Red Cross. She took it down there and she said it just lit up so many peoples’ faces to sit and paint each others’ fingernails.”
Soon after, Alex decided it was time to give The MakeUp Bar it’s own amplitude. But it wasn’t easy. Some of the high-end brands, such as Kiehl’s and NARS, didn’t want their products in stores associated with hair salons, let alone a salon in Oklahoma.
“I started finding a lot of resistance from a lot of the lines I wanted to carry,” Alex said. “Even though Classic Salon was a high-end salon with professionals who had been in the business for many years, the brands didn’t care about that. They didn’t want the stigma of being in a beauty salon.”
Finally, she convinced a company, called Bliss, that she could indeed sell their products. The Bliss products had already paid for itself the same day she got the shipment.
“I thought, ‘I think that I can get more companies like this and I think I can get more companies to say ‘yes’ to Oklahoma,’” Alex remembers. “That was the really big sale. It was getting those companies over that hurdle. I was on a viable mission to convince people that Oklahoma City is a viable market for high-end beauty products.”
Fast forward to 2015, the MakeUp Bar is still in the Wilshire Hills Shopping Center, and Alex’s 30 years of industry experience shows in her brands and care for makeup. Brands such as Revive, Laqua and Molton Brown, sit on the shelves of this strong, independent beauty retailer. And yes, NARS and Kiehl’s jumped on board. The MakeUp Bar’s slogan, “an intoxicating beauty experience,” is something of truth. Alex breaks it down for us.
“I think it’s just one of those places where you can just kind of become drunk with lip gloss before you know it,” she says.
Despite the many skincare and makeup lines, Alex pays special attention to the brands she chooses to sell. She either knows the owners, the creators or the dermatologists behind the brands. The quality of ingredients and product integrity is something she takes seriously.
“I tend to want to work with companies that have open-ended recipes,” Alex says. “And almost all the companies we work with have that policy.”
In other words, Alex doesn’t like to carry product lines that market products based on new ingredients, that they then sell separately. She expects them to incorporate those new healthy ingredients in the products they already have. From someone who has been face-to-face with world-renowned makeup artists, such as Kevyn Aucoin, it’s easy to understand why she keeps her standards so high.
Her broad clientele spans across different ages and races, while she still provides a full-service esthetician menu of facials, makeovers and other skincare practices. There are even full-service skincare lines for men such as, Jack Black and Billy Jealousy.
Whether you visit The MakeUp Bar for a group makeover with your friends or just to find the perfect lipstick, know that you might get lost among the 140 product brands. Perhaps getting lost in makeup isn’t such a bad thing, especially if it’s a truly intoxicating experience. After all, it is a makeup bar.
By Jessica Valentine | Photos by Emily Brashier
