PORTLAND -- When Brenda Mierzejewski isn't tending to her children, she's in the kitchen concocting products for her new business, Lip Luxe.
It started out as homemade lip balm, a remedy for the Mierzejewski family's chapped lips.
"After going through all these recipes, I finally found what I thought was the best lip balm ever!" said Mierzejewski, who worked off various ideas posted on Pinterest, then added her own ingredients.
She handed out samples to family and friends and didn't stop.
"Everyone is like, 'What are you doing now,Brenda?' Because I've been in the cupcake business, I've been in real estate, I've been a phlebotomist," Mierzejewski said, laughing.
Now her makeup start-up is not only sticking, but it's stacking up to celebrity standards.
She mailed Lip Luxe to celebrities, publicists and makeup artists and, some got back to her with glowing reviews. All of a sudden, through some connections, Mierzejewski said she got a call that Lip Luxe was requested for the Oscars 2015 swag bag.
"They love the branding, they love the logo, they love everything about it," Mierzejewski said.
Two different flavors of all-natural lip balm will be given to Oscar attendees. Mierzejewski hopes the awards show order of about 450 will be the first of many big ones to come.
"It's non-stop. My life is my kids, my husband and my lip balm," she said. "We are just trying to bulk up our inventory so we can be ready for what happens after the Oscars."
As if lip service from celebs wasn't enough, a portion of all Lip Luxe sales goes to Little Hearts, a charity that helped the Mierzejewskis a few years ago.
"We found out that he had two major heart defects," Mierzejewski said of her son Brady. "I couldn't think of a better organization to give back to than Little Hearts because they helped our family get where they needed to be."
Learn more about Lip Luxe here.