When Elevé Cosmetics founder Gertie Wilson and her sister/co-owner Ginger Averitt decided to open a flagship, they wanted a place where customers could relax while experimenting with the products in their vegan-based beauty line. The result is a unique, multi-use space that's half makeup shop, half champagne bar, and one hundred percent Austin.
Located at corner of Davis and Brodie lanes, Elevé's stylish new boutique features the company's entire line from, as they like to say, "lashes to lippies." Among Elevé's star products are the must-try rose gold highlighter, Nail POP nail polishes, and Lash Party, the company's first-ever mascara.
The shop's streamlined, modern interiors provide a neutral backdrop for customers to try out new looks using an app which snaps a selfie and then projects the makeup directly onto the photograph for a virtual makeover. (Trying stuff directly on your face is so early-aughts.)
It's not just the company's approach to trying on makeup that's modern. Since launching in 2015, Elevé (which is a French term used in dance to mean "rise up") has taken a unique approach in the crafting of cosmetics, attempting to blur the line between makeup and skin care. The vegan-based line foregoes the fillers found in most commercial makeup and instead packs its products with antioxidants and peptides.
After nearly three years of selling online and at a handful of Austin-area boutiques, it was time to elevate the Elevé brand with its own store. In March, that dream became a reality when the sisters chose South Austin for their first shop.
“We found that the Austin market had limited access to nontoxic beauty products — specifically in the South Austin area," Wilson tells CultureMap. "On top of that, we saw a need for a champagne bar that wasn’t your traditional bar scene. [We] wanted Elevé Cosmetics to be a multi-use space where women could get ready with friends and try out clean beauty while sipping on delicious bubbly.” And sip they can while seated behind the space's all-white bar or perched on plush blue velvet couches.
While we are firm believers that champagne is reason enough to go anywhere, it's Elevé's ethos (not to mention the fact that's it's a locally owned business) that keeps us coming back. After all, isn't it time we "rise up" and leave those mall makeup chain stores behind?
The new space is part shop, part bar for bubbly.
