In this series, we will take a look at the historical evolution of how iconic beauty products came into existence and grew so popular that they became cultural touchstones in their own right.

In the TikTok era, cosmetics companies are bending over backwards to try to create the next viral hit, launching flashier products with increasingly zany marketing campaigns.  But what if a brand actually cracked the code to social media virality — and sales-record-crushing conversions — way back in 1971, with a simple, low-key formula in an elegant silver tube?

I haven’t even mentioned the brand nor the product, but chances are, “elegant silver tube” already has you envisioning the makeup bag icon to which I’m referring: Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey.

Seven units of the product are now sold every minute (up from the already-staggering one-unit-every-three-minutes stat of just a few years ago). “In the last 12 months, Black Honey has been the number one lip shade in the U.S.,” says Clinique General Manager, North America Kelly Fanning.

“We were ahead of our time when we pioneered [Black Honey],” reflects Clinique Vice President Global Makeup Product Development Scott Miselnicky. “I think it really goes back to the brilliant concept of how this was developed […] Some of that magic is the pigmentation itself — equal portions of red, yellow and blue are in the formula — and what it creates is this neutral berry, burgundy color that works on everyone’s lip tone to give it life. That’s the magic, on top of the sheerness that Almost Lipstick provides. You get pure shade, plus your pure lip tone, which equals you, but better.”

Cynthia Erivo is a noted fan of the color, and even wore it on the 2025 Met Gala red carpet; Liv Tyler famously donned the shade in “Lord of the Rings,” which had such a longstanding impact that it still ranks as one of TikTok’s most viral makeup looks more than two decades after the film came out (more on that later). The descriptors “Holy Grail” and “cult favorite” get thrown around far too often in the beauty world, but when we’re talking about the smashing success that is Clinique Black Honey, those terms are simply accurate.

Fashionista recently sat down with Fanning, Miselnicky and Clinique SVP Global Marketing Christie Sclater for a (virtual) roundtable discussion on the origin story behind the iconic, still-going-strong lip color. Read on for the highlights of our conversation, including insights into why the product was an instant hit when it launched, its newfound relevance as a TikToker favorite and what’s coming next for the Clinique Honey family.

The Versatile ‘Black Turtleneck’ of Lip Color

In 1968, New York City dermatologist Dr. Norman Orentreich and Vogue editor Carol Phillips came together to launch Clinique, a skin-care brand within the The Estée Lauder Companies umbrella. The idea was to set it apart from Estée Lauder’s existing product lineup by focusing on allergy-tested, fragrance-free formulas and a straightforward three-step “system.”  

Black Honey was developed early on: “In 1971, Carol Phillips came up with Black Honey. [She] was pretty obsessed with doing things for the ‘modern woman,’ — she built these little honey pots with gooey, delicious gloss. In that original campaign, she called it ‘mouth makeup for the modern woman,’ which I think is the coolest phrase ever,” says Sclater. “Black Honey was one of the shades. It was the first licorice [lip color] on the map.”

“Carol developed Black Honey as the ‘black turtleneck’ that every woman should have in her lipstick wardrobe,” adds Miselnicky, who has been with ELC since 1994. “It just enhanced everyone’s lip tone and made them look different and better… Yes, Black Honey launched in a collection of shades, and the other shades were not as memorable. But Black Honey just stuck in the minds of people, and it always won consumers’ hearts.” 

As Sclater puts it, “It took off like crazy.”

A Sleek ’80s Makeover

It wasn’t until 1989 that the brand ventured outside the lip gloss pot, introducing the Almost Lipstick format we know today. “The brand re-imagined what Black Honey could look like and took… it into the silver stick. It’s sort of cross between a balm and a lipstick, in a slimline case, super sleek — very Clinique,” says Sclater. 

At the time, the Almost Lipstick formula was “revolutionary,” says Miselnicky. “You have to think — in the ’80s, it was a different world in cosmetics… It was the first lip color that used transparent, less opaque waxes to structure the stick, yet combined with oils gave it a balmy texture that left no background.”

“It was the perfect vehicle to capture Black Honey because there was no background interference, just pure color that, when combined with your lip tone, made the magic,” he adds.

That slim bullet was the format that stuck, and for obvious reasons: “[It was] a whole new expression for what it looked like for the ‘modern woman’ to wear a shade that she could pull out of her bag and it would just look good. You didn’t have to think about it, you didn’t have to worry about it.”

Through the decade — and into the ’90s and 2000s — the lip color continued to resonate with consumers, maintaining strong sales numbers over the years.

Social Media Success

@thebrontemarie

Replying to @Not Joe Mama “Liv Tywer,”— anyway. Arwen was my childhood obsession, along with the orcs, I adore the makeup details we’ve learnt about LoTR over the years.

♬ original sound – Bronte-Marie

While TikTok would have surely been impossible for Carol Phillips to have conceived of in 1971, her Black Honey legacy lives on — and, in fact, thrives on — the platform. And that feels fitting given that Phillips was, first and foremost, a storyteller herself. 

“We used to say a Clinique Black Honey Almost Lipstick was sold every three minutes — but that was before TikTok found it,” reads the brand’s own website. “Things really took a turn when it became the latest TikTok beauty trend — Gen Z became quickly obsessed with the no-makeup makeup look along with the fact it truly looks good on everyone, making it inclusive and a joy to everyone who slicked it on. Pretty soon we couldn’t keep it in stock, and that’s when the real Black Honey resurgence happened.”

“In 2021, a micro content creator who wasn’t a big influencer [made a video] that was just replicating the lip that Liv Tyler had in ‘Lord of the Rings’. And she did it very authentically, very simplistically, and that really took off,” recalls Fanning.

“Black Honey Clinique Liv Tyler,” #blackhoney and #cliniqueblackhoney continue to trend on the platform, with videos singing the product’s praises garnering millions upon millions of views. 

And it’s a worldwide phenomenon: “It’s not just the U.S. — it’s global by far. [Content creators] kept using this phrase ‘universally flattering’, which we would never say on our own, but we kept hearing it from our consumers, from the communities, especially on TikTok. And it actually led us to create a whole campaign, which we called ‘The Difference is You,'” says Sclater. “After that viral wave got started in 2021, [we’ve used that] to fuel the way that we talk about the shade — and then also inspire where we take the shade next.”

Clinique Honey’s Next Chapter

Over the years, the brand has iterated upon Black Honey across its product range, introducing a mascara, eye shadow and lip-and-cheek oil in the beloved shade. Pink Honey, the second shade of Almost Lipstick, quickly became the second best-selling lip color in the U.S. (after Black Honey), according to Sclater. 

And now, the brand is coming for that third-place spot as well. In June, Clinique unveiled its latest expansion of the “Honey” family: Nude Honey, a nude (duh) take on on Almost Lipstick’s universal, sheer-buildable, dewy formula. It launched exclusively on the brand’s own website and at Ulta, where Black Honey has been a “top performing portfolio,” per Fanning. In September, Nude Honey will scale to national distribution across the U.S. and Canada.

“We had a big challenge ahead of us because we have a 54-year-old sister, and she doesn’t do wrong,” says Miselnicky of developing the new shade, adding that it took about five months to get right. “Our challenge was we needed [the new shade] to look good on a wide range of skin tones, and it took at least 12 iterations before we got this thing correct. This is probably one of the hardest lipstick shades that I’ve ever worked on. And again, I’ve been here for 31 years, so that’s saying something.”

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