Billy Porter, an Emmy and Tony Award-winning star, is debuting a brand-new makeup and skin care line called Black Mona Lisa Beauty, named after his fifth studio album.
The line will include ingredient-conscious products, including kale cleanser, niacinamide vitamin boost serum, eye shimmers and collagen and retinol serum.
“Black Mona Lisa has become my alter ego”
“I remember reading ingredients — there was a product for face wash for women, and then a product for face wash that was supposed to be for men — and it’s the same ingredients,” Porter, 55, said to PEOPLE, rejecting gendered marketing in favor of universal appeal.
For Porter, the endeavor is a full circle moment. His relationship with retail beauty started when he was a 14 year old. “I got my first job, I went down to Kaufmann’s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was the big department store, and I went to the Clinique counter. I don’t know why I knew about Clinique, but I walked right up to the Clinique counter and I said, ‘I need a full face regime.’ And they were like, ‘You don’t have any pimples.’ I was like, ‘We’re doing some preventative work here,’” Porter recalled with WWD.
In the same interview, he shared how he previously experienced reservations with expressing himself through make-up. “I had some trepidation about how I wanted to express myself sometimes. There were days when I wanted to wear some lipstick, and I wouldn’t do it because of whatever the status quo was.”
For now, Porter is balancing his Broadway run, which ends October 19, with promoting his new single “Holy Shuffle” alongside Big Freedia, all while showcasing Black Mona Lisa Beauty’s transformative products.
“My last albums were called Black Mona Lisa and Black Mona Lisa Volume 2, and when that name sort of dropped down from the sky, I knew that it was bigger than a song and an album. Black Mona Lisa has become my alter ego, and I’m building out the brand. I sort of have just been dreaming, and scheming, and manifesting, and putting things out into the universe,” Porter shared with PEOPLE.