Brandie LaBomme, wife of NFL star Vontaze Burfict, was pregnant with the couple’s first child in 2014 when she discovered BeautyTube and relearned how to apply makeup. Now, the budding entrepreneur has her own line of beauty solutions, sold under the LaBomme Beauty banner.

HAPPI: You’re a wife, mom and beauty aficionado. Tell us about your first experience with makeup and how you started LaBomme Beauty.

LaBomme: Growing up, I’ve always been a girlie-girl. I think how I really got into the process of creating my own brand was around 2014 when I was pregnant with my first child. I wasn’t feeling like my best self. I was feeling very uncomfortable in my skin through all the changes that go with pregnancy. Through that, I dove into the whole YouTube thing, and I watched all these different videos on how to perfect my makeup routine—because when I was younger in high school, makeup was not how makeup is right now. I used to do a CoverGirl powder foundation and double black eyeliner. I wanted to relearn how I do my makeup, and through that, I bought all the products, all the brands, tried all the things. I saw things that I really loved; I saw things I didn’t like so much; and I saw things that I felt could be improved upon…That really started my deeper connection with beauty and with makeup…Fast forward to 2020, and that’s when I officially started formulating in my head and creating the brand of LaBomme.

HAPPI: Tell us about some of your products.

LaBomme: With LaBomme, not only do we want to give great formulas to products, but we also want to find problem-solving techniques to add to the makeup experience. For example, I have eyelash extensions; I can’t pull them off every day. Eyeliner has always been a tougher part of my routine. With our Angle Baby eyeliner, the tip can move 360 degrees—you can hold your arm a little more comfortably to get into those harder to reach spots.

Another product is Madame Matte. It’s a very comfortable matte lipstick. We love liquid lips, but a lot of liquid lips aren’t comfortable to wear. The difference between this and a lot of other liquid matte lips is that this one does not fully dry down. That’s what lends to the comfortability of it. It’s still very long-lasting; it’s very pigmented. The texture is a very mousse-like comfortable formula. We have eight shades.

HAPPI: The names of the shades are very cheeky and fun—Flamethrower, Spicey, Bonjour. How did you go about naming the shades?

LaBomme: As a brand as a whole we want to be outspoken. We want to be fun; we want to be in-your-face. I feel like with the younger generation, they speak their mind without forgiveness. We want to be like that. We want to make it a safe place—and on top of that, we want to be inclusive; I feel like our brand is welcoming to all.

HAPPI: LaBomme’s tagline: “We don’t define beauty, we don’t try to.” In my eyes that means beauty can be created in many different ways.

LaBomme: Yup, exactly. We as LaBomme want to offer amazing products at a great price-point. We’re not high-end; we’re not $100 for a lipstick. We don’t want to tell our customer what beauty is. We don’t want to say that you have to look like this, or you have to do this. We want to offer them the best product possible and let them define their own beauty on their own—give them the tools to do whatever they consider is beautiful.