Annette Smith of Lip Service Beauty has been through a winery fire, a year-long insurance battle, COVID, two Canada Post strikes, a tariff war — and this week, hackers wiped out eight years of her Instagram and Facebook in a single afternoon. 

Annette is a certified aromatherapist and cosmetic formulator who left a corporate district manager career to build Lip Service Beauty from scratch — starting on Etsy, growing to 30–40 products, wholesale, and in-person markets across Niagara and beyond.

In this conversation: the 2022 winery fire and the insurance battle she had to fight alone. The playbook she’s built for surviving external chaos. What the hack actually felt like — and what she’s building instead. Why she’s not reinstating her personal accounts. And how she thinks about community over competition in a way most people talk about but don’t actually do.

We close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be recognized for in your community?

Find Annette at lipservicebeauty.ca and @lip.service.beauty on Instagram. 
Because your story matters.