In a beauty category filled with familiar formulas and forgettable packaging, Butterface is taking a different approach. Founded in 2025 by Emily Bell in Somerville, Massachusetts, the emerging lip care brand is bringing personality, intention, and a little bit of sass to an everyday essential.
At the heart of Butterface is a simple idea: what we put on our bodies matters. After discovering that the lip balm Emily had used since childhood contained seed oils, she began looking for an alternative that could deliver genuine hydration without relying on a long list of questionable or unnecessary ingredients.
When she couldn't find exactly what she was looking for, she decided to make it herself.
The result is Butterface—a tallow-based lip balm brand with a playful point of view and packaging that's just as memorable as the product inside.
Emily has always been drawn to wellness and more intentional approaches to personal care. Her frustration with conventional lip products ultimately became the inspiration behind Butterface.
"I've always been into wellness culture and try to avoid a laundry list of questionable ingredients," she explains.
That philosophy continues to shape the brand today. Butterface uses tallow, an ingredient that has recently experienced a resurgence in the skincare world but has roots in traditional skincare practices.
For Emily, the appeal goes beyond a trend. She sees tallow as an ingredient with staying power—one that was traditionally used in skincare before petroleum and industrial oils became commonplace.
Butterface also hopes to encourage consumers to think more critically about the ingredients they encounter every day.
"There are a lot of cheap filler ingredients that people just accept as normal," Emily says. "What's worse is that some of these ingredients are actually harmful to our health."
While educating consumers can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, Butterface is embracing the opportunity to offer a different perspective on what's considered standard in beauty.
If there's one thing Butterface isn't, it's boring.
From the name itself to the packaging design, the brand embraces a bold and cheeky personality in a category that can often lean clinical or overly serious.
The name "Butterface" is intentionally provocative. Emily sees it as a way to reclaim a phrase that has historically been used as a derogatory term toward women.
Rather than shying away from the controversy, she's flipping the script.
That same philosophy carries into the visual identity, which combines bold design with a nostalgic feel. The result is packaging that feels playful and instantly recognizable while still communicating the brand's modern approach to beauty.
And behind that visual identity is a family collaboration. Emily's husband, graphic designer Alex Rabe, takes her ideas and brings them to life, helping translate her vision for Butterface into its branding and packaging.
For a brand built around more intentional choices, packaging was an important part of the equation.
From the beginning, Emily wanted Butterface to be plastic-free.
"I feel like it's important for me, as a business that is putting product into the world, to not be adding to the plastic waste problem," she says.
While she acknowledges that completely eliminating plastic from everyday life isn't always realistic, she believes businesses can play a meaningful role in reducing unnecessary plastic waste.
That made paper tube packaging a natural fit for Butterface.
Rather than settling for a standard size, Emily worked with Paper Tube Co. to develop a custom-sized tube specifically for her lip balm.
The result is a compact package that feels playful and intentional while reinforcing Butterface's commitment to a more thoughtful approach to product design.
For Emily, one of the biggest highlights of the finished packaging is its size.
"I love the custom size that Paper Tube was able to help me achieve," she says. "It's really just so cute and fun—exactly what I was going for."
That attention to scale is especially important for a product like lip balm. The packaging needs to be functional and portable, but it can also become a major part of the product's identity.
Butterface's custom paper tube does exactly that.
It turns a small everyday product into something that feels collectible, giftable, and unmistakably Butterface.
And according to Emily, finding the right packaging solution was refreshingly straightforward.
"There weren't really many other options. Paper Tube made it easy to create exactly what I wanted at the right price."
Butterface may be a young brand, but Emily already has plenty of ideas for where it can go.
For now, new flavors are on the horizon, with hopes of eventually expanding into additional offerings.
As the brand grows, Emily plans to continue exploring the intersection of sustainability, wellness, and beauty—the same space that inspired Butterface in the first place.
And if she weren't building Butterface? She'd probably still be working somewhere within that same intersection.
For a brand that started with one woman's search for a better lip balm, Butterface has already developed into something much bigger: a playful, personality-driven take on beauty that challenges what's considered "normal"—from the ingredients inside to the packaging around them.
More flavors. More tubes. More Butterface.
Butterface's partnership with Paper Tube Co. is a great example of how custom packaging can become an extension of a brand's identity.
By combining a custom paper tube, bold visual design, and a distinctive brand voice, Butterface created packaging that does more than protect its lip balm—it tells the story of the brand before the product is even opened.
For brands looking to move away from conventional plastic packaging without sacrificing personality or shelf appeal, Butterface shows what's possible when packaging is treated as an essential part of the brand experience.
Interested in creating custom paper tube packaging for your next product?
Explore Paper Tube Co.'s custom packaging solutions and see how we can help bring your vision to life.
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