The Shelf Audit Files No. 17 — The Makeup Counter

Beauty Bakerie's Lip Whip runs $22.00 a tube. Mented Cosmetics charges about the same for one of its lipsticks. Two names, two shelves, two separate sales, on two brands most of us would swear have nothing to do with each other.

They do. Follow the paperwork and the same private equity firm, West Lane Capital Partners, is now the one cashing both checks, inside the same portfolio. One wallet, two “Black-owned” labels — and it is the kind of thing that never shows up standing in the aisle reading a box.

This book gives you all five names: the two that share an owner, the three where the founder never sold, what each one actually costs, and the thirty-second check you can run yourself forever after. It is about who owns the company and what you pay. It is not a claim about whether any of these products work or are safe on your skin.