The career of beauty entrepreneur Mikai McDermott is going from strength to strength and her recent MAC Cosmetics collaboration cements her success.
The Jamaican-born, London-based creator started her makeup artistry career on Selfridges’ MAC counter in 2015, and the launch of her Honeylove Lip Kit with the brand is a homecoming of sorts.
MAC Cosmetics x Mikai McDermott
Speaking to CORQ, McDermott said: “[MAC] was one of the only premium beauty brands that my mum could shop at and find her shade. So it was also a very pivotal moment in my beauty journey, and the first products that I was engaging with as a 12- and 13-year-old. It felt like such a full-circle moment for me to be able to partner with a brand that I felt had always seen and represented myself and my mum.”
Collaborating with MAC in such a meaningful way is a key milestone for McDermott. Two years ago, she signed with creative agency Franklyn’s Forum, founded by Tashan Dwyer. This has supported her to build a long-term strategy with clear goals.
Dwyer said: “[The lip kit] was 12 to 24 months of nurturing, building relationships and working with the right brands in general, because a content creator doesn’t work with just one brand. That’s not how the model works, but it’s making sure that Mikai works with premium brands predominantly, [and] that she’s an expert in that field. Not just in beauty, but in writing, advocacy and hair as well.”
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The storytelling component of the partnership – including an accidental teaser of McDermott’s lip shades from the British Fashion Awards – was fundamental to its success, as was the launch strategy. The creator turned down other brand opportunities scheduled to go live at a similar time as the Lip Kit announcement to give the collaboration “a bigger moment”. A final touchpoint was gifting her collaboration to ten creator friends including Chelsea (makeupbychelsea) alongside an in-store event and meet-and-greet in Birmingham.
Throughout 2025, McDermott was part of the MAC Crew, a year-long contract nurturing her relationship with the company. She was required to complete four to six deliverables and go on a press trip, positioning her as a brand insider. Her content performed well because of her “natural affinity with MAC, from being on the counter, but also from really believing in the ethos and values of the brand.”
Inside the success
The creator’s announcement post about her lip kit has a 4.4% engagement rate and 81,000 views and 412 comments on Instagram, and the TikTok has had 101,000 views and more than 30,000 likes and 800 comments.
A MAC Cosmetics spokesperson told CORQ consumer reaction to its creator lip kits has been “exceptional” and resulted in 1.4 million impressions, 330,000 video views and 50,000 engagements. The brand said: “It’s a strong example of how heritage product meets digital influence to drive both conversation and connection.”
For McDermott, the collaboration has provided valuable insight about her followers. She found many consumers shopped for the lip kit in-person rather than online, and she had an “overwhelming amount” of US beauty lovers wishing to buy the cosmetics. “That’s been a good bit of feedback for me if I want to launch my own product or for further collaborations down the line.”
Building offline connection
McDermott is a multi-hyphenate. A historian, beauty creator, makeup artist and hairstylist. She is also the founder of private social club The Linen Service for creatives and industry leaders. “I’ve always been someone who straddled a few different lanes,” she said.
Working with Franklyn’s Forum as one of its first signings, she has been able to take her community offline and grow as both a creator and entrepreneur. “[Franklyn’s Forum has] never really played a short-term game with me. It’s always been the long game which has meant we’re equally invested in moving forward together.” Her journey with the agency showcases the how crucial good management is to creator business growth.
Dwyer said: “We understood and we saw Mikai’s value [and] we knew how to translate that to the right brands. She is really astute business-wise. I think that’s so, so important. There’s making content, but then there’s also being an entrepreneur. The best content creators are entrepreneurial.”
A clear example of this is The Linen Service, which launched in 2024. It now has more than 4,000 followers and has partnered with Redken and Airbnb to host in-person masterclasses. Her work with the latter resulted in four sold out events. She also hosted a global masterclass in Lagos, Nigeria with Maybelline in 2025 that had 500 attendees. In 2026, McDermott hopes to launch events for her community in New York or Paris.
Ambitions for 2026
Her dream companies include Louis Vuitton Beauty or heritage institutions such as galleries. “Because I am a historian at heart, I’m always thinking about ways that we can properly document beauty outside of online formats.”
Dwyer added: “We just want to find other great brand partners who are willing to try something different. The timelines will be longer but the payoff will be so much stronger.”
McDermott echoed these sentiments and said she wants to develop more complex partnerships with brands. “I’d definitely like to continue building deeper and more refined relationships, which allow consumers to see that creators really believe and trust in the products that they are selling and using.”
By Caroline Edwards, trends editor for CORQ.
