Lupita’s favourite lip balm sells out in stores across US

Kenyan actress and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o sparked an immediate sellout of a lip balm brand across the US.

The sales of Clarins HydraQuench Moisture Replenishing lip balm skyrocketed overnight after Lupita dropped a tube into Ellen Degeneres hat which the host was using to collect money to pay a pizza delivery man.

When Lupita dropped the tube into the hat, on Sunday, Ellen excitedly picked it up and said “Lupita’s lip balm! That’s worth something!”

Soon after, #Lupitaslipbam started trending on twitter as viewers tried to find out what brand it was. Once they found out, the lip balm started flying off the shelves.

The French beauty brand immediately reaped big from the thirty seconds free, organic social advertising. The Clarins Group, the French luxury cosmetics company that manufactures the lip balm, put out a press release on Monday reporting that the lip balm had sold out in stores across the US and was only available online.

To satisfy demand, the company had to order additional stocks from France. It also offered limited free shipping for the product on its website.

The lip balm is currently not available over the shelves, but it is available online.

Meanwhile, Non-Stop a new movie featuring Lupita topped the US box office last weekend dislodging The Lego Movie, an animated film by Warner Bros. The action thriller, which opened on Friday, ended the animated movie’s three-week reign at the box office.

This feat came hours before Lupita’s historic moment at the Academy Awards where she won an Oscar for the Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in 12 Years a Slave.

Non-Stop held off a strong challenge by another new movie, Son of God, a story on Jesus’ life based on footage aired on the mini-series The Bible.

Non-Stop — which confines its entire drama inside an aeroplane flying from New York to London — raked in $30 million according to studio estimates. On the other hand, Son of God pulled in $26.5 million.

Lupita is featured as an air hostess. During the transatlantic flight, US Federal Air Marshal Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) starts receiving a series of mysterious texts demanding that he instructs the government to wire $150 million into an off-shore account.

The text messages state that until the money is wired, a passenger will be killed every 20 minutes.

As Marks tries to locate the source of the text messages, the first passenger is killed with another text message reiterating more deaths to follow if the transaction is not completed.

However, as Marks searches for the passenger responsible, US government officials whom he had relayed the message to discovered that the off-shore account they were supposed to route the money to was registered under his name.

Marks insists he is being framed, but he is now being treated as the main suspect and fighter jets are scrambled and can be seen surrounding the plane.

Unlike in 12 Years a Slave, Lupita’s role is not as pronounced and is mostly seen as an extra. She does most of her talking off-camera mostly making announcements through the plane’s public announcement system.

The longest on-camera and in focus segment she is featured in is towards the end of the movie, when she is encouraging a little girl to come from hiding.