NYX Professional Makeup

NYX Professional Makeup was founded in 1999 in Los Angeles by Toni Ko, a Korean-American entrepreneur who launched the brand at age 25 with $250,000 from her mother. NYX — named for Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night — started with a small line of makeup pencils and hit $2 million in revenue in its first year by selling high-performance prestige formulas at drugstore-friendly pricing.

Ko grew the brand into a social-media-native juggernaut and sold it to L'Oréal in 2014 for $500 million, one of the largest indie beauty exits of the decade. Modern NYX is one of the most-followed makeup brands on TikTok, with viral hero franchises that include the Buttergloss, Fat Oil Lip Drip, Jumbo Eye Pencil, Marshmallow Smoothing Primer, and Bare With Me skin tint. NYX is sold at Target, Ulta, drugstores, and select Sephora locations — and is one of the most-cited dupe brands on social media alongside e.l.f. and Maybelline.