…kept working on Beauty Bakerie.
The company had a traditional matte lipstick at first, but Nicole worried about what was in the lipstick – and why it left a ring on whatever it touched – after going through breast cancer treatment. So she worked to make the products vegan, non-toxic and cruelty-free. And smudge-free. Allure dubbed it “the cockroach of lipsticks,” saying it could “probably outlast an apocalypse.”
Early on, her friends told her to create a crowdfunding campaign and tell her story as a breast cancer survivor, but she was hesitant. “I was kind of embarrassed by it, kind of ashamed. Who wants to be the person who is the sick person, the person who has the story. My friends were saying, ‘Hey, you should start an Indiegogo page, so you can raise money to take your brand to the next level.’ I prayed and prayed on it. All of a sudden, I was hearing God tell me to tell the story. I was like, ‘That is not what I am doing.’ I was just terrified of that.”