Susanne Langmuir opened the doors of Lixr in Toronto’s hip Trinity-Bellwoods neighborhood last fall with little fanfare. “We did no publicity,” she recalls. “People wandered in, learned about the products, and we evolved from there.”
In the bright apothecary-inspired shop, the walls are adorned with glass jars, bottles, and vessels, each filled with the ingredients like avocado oil, lavender, and calendula flower that Langmuir uses in her products.
In the hands-on beauty laboratory and retail space, customers get up close and personal to see how custom-blended foundation is crafted. Or they are invited to use measuring spoons and beakers to help concoct their own bronzer and blush. The vibe is science meets fun or what Langmuir calls “a cooking class for your skin.”
Word quickly got out about the unique hands-on experiences — so much so that Langmuir’s team had to often shut off online bookings and lock the door to manage the curious folks coming in without appointments. After they ironed out some of the kinks and figured out how to best manage the flow, the shop officially opened this past spring.
Lixr itself marries several popular of-the-moment beauty and skincare trends: sustainably sourced ingredients, products free of harmful chemicals, and a less-is-more ethos that encourages simplified beauty routines with products that are equal parts skincare and makeup. But what sets the brand apart is the ability for individuals to personalize every product, something research firm NielsenIQ reports is a trend that’s changing the beauty industry.
Langmuir is uniquely positioned to fulfill such desires. A passionate entrepreneur, she has made a career out of creating retail experiences built around customized beauty products, starting with fragrance, then lipstick, and now foundation, bronzer, and blush.
“Susanne has always been ahead [of trends],” says Lesa Hannah, a Toronto-based beauty writer and editor. Langmuir is best known for her lipstick brand, Bite Beauty, which saw customers creating their own lipstick shade.
“I’m always looking at solving problems for myself,” Langmuir says. “I couldn’t find a lipstick that had good ingredients, felt good on my lips, and also had a color range, so I set out to do that. It was the same with foundation. The fact that there wasn’t a high-performance one with a nice finish that lasts when it’s hot outside that I could find just baffled me.”
For Lixr, Langmuir took what she learned from Bite Beauty as well as what she’s seen in other hands-on settings, such as cocktail classes and candle-making sessions. “I’ve really evolved the concept so that it is about having an experience, and there’s a bespoke, high-quality educational element,” she says. “The beauty of customization is that what is right for you may not be right for your six other friends.”
Customers are welcomed with a beverage and a treat. After putting on an apron and gloves, they sit down for a private session with a mixologist. For the foundation, for instance, over the course of about an hour, guests work with a mixologist to identify among 27 hues which tones that best blend to match the skin, then adjust for shimmer and finish.
For the bronzer and blush, customers make the products themselves, picking from six shades and mixing together the ingredients, including cocoa butter, castor seed oil, and silica powder. The mixologists educate guests about the ingredients, including where they’re sourced and what they do for the skin.
At the end of the experience, customers take home hand-blended products that they know they can rely on to look good on them long after they leave the shop. Lixr’s personalization goes beyond the DIY experience too. The formulas for the foundations are kept on file so they can be ordered again at any time.
Many of the products that can be crafted at Lixr are made from ingredients sourced from Langmuir’s 52-acre farm located two and a half hours away in Meaford, Ontario, along southern Georgian Bay. Though she doesn’t have a farming background, she grew up planting sunflowers and pulling weeds in her mother’s acre-and-a-half garden.
“I didn’t fully appreciate how lucky I was to have that connection to food and a connection to the ability to be self-sustainable and to grow things,” Langmuir says. Time spent traveling to source essential oils when she worked in the fragrance industry also influenced her desire to focus on working with plants as much as possible. “That travel,” she adds, “sparked 20 years of connecting with farmers and producers.”
Across five acres, Langmuir grows lavender, calendula, sage, thyme, sunflowers, and rosemary for Lixr. “Next year, we’re planting on a small scale many other things, like chamomile,” she says, “to see what the pH of the soil is and how those really beneficial ingredients in skincare and hair care will work on this farm.”
Creating organic products with natural ingredients has always been a primary objective for Langmuir, and it’s now a priority for customers. “For a very long time, it was an uphill battle to convince people about these ingredients,” she says. “I was always educating people about the benefits without fear mongering. Then, people started turning the box around and taking a look at ingredients and whether they’re good or bad for us.”
Now, consumers are not only curious but also concerned. “People are scared as heck about what is in their products,” Langmuir says. “I had a conversation with somebody in her mid-50s who’s never questioned what’s in her makeup, and all of a sudden she’s on a quest to understand what phenoxyethanol is.” (It’s a preservative used in cosmetics. Exposure to it has been linked to a variety of issues, from eczema to life-threatening allergic reactions, according to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.)
Word continues to spread about Lixr and the quality of its products. More than half of the visitors to the shop are from outside Toronto. It’s become a destination that people are building into their vacations in the city. “We get grandmothers bringing in their granddaughters, mothers and daughters, entire families celebrating an upcoming wedding or a baby shower,” Langmuir notes.
While Lixr has been open for only a year, Langmuir is already thinking about expansion into the United States and elsewhere in Canada. “I’ve really focused on getting the model down in my own store so that we can replicate that experience elsewhere,” she says. “My heart wants to go to New York because that’s where I opened my first store. And I’m thinking of cities that people travel to to have experiences and connect with friends and family.”
Until then, she’s offering virtual experiences for those who can’t visit in person for customized foundations, blushes, and bronzer. “For the foundation, we’ll guarantee the match,” she says, “and then we’ll send you a GIF of us making your formula.”
Maryam Siddiqi is a Toronto-based writer who has contributed to National Geographic, The Globe and Mail, and Elle Canada. Follow her on Instagram at @siddiqs.
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