41 Black-Owned Beauty Brands to Support Now and Always
While it’s top of mind now more than ever, let’s just get one thing straight: Every day is an opportunity to celebrate Black culture. Black innovators, artists, business people, and regular folk alike have all contributed so much to our society, locally and worldwide.
We see the global influence of Black culture in so many different mediums, including beauty. This makes sense considering Black people, and in the case of beauty, specifically Black women and femmes, have been setting trends for ages. That whole “Instagram Baddie” look everyone’s been emulating? Gelled-down baby (and in some cases full adult) hairs? Neon-colored wigs blended to perfection? Mile-long acrylic nails? All of these are rooted in Black aesthetics — and that’s something to salute.
Unfortunately, while so many of our wider cultural and stylistic proclivities come from the Black community worldwide, Black people are often not recognized in the same way for creating these trends, and often do not profit financially from them. This is why it’s so important to support Black businesses and the creatives who are actually setting these trends. To honor them, we’re shouting out some of our favorite Black-owned beauty brands to support every month of the year.
All products featured on Allure are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through the retail links on this page, we will not earn an affiliate commission.
Courtesy of brandPat McGrath Labs
Beauty lovers everywhere adore and pay homage to “Mother,” aka Pat McGrath, a self-made billionaire and veteran beauty visionary. After developing a love for makeup from her mom at just seven years old, McGrath has gone on to work with Giorgio Armani, CoverGirl, and Max Factor, regularly leading over 60 shows each Fashion Week season, and paving the way for Euphoria makeup.
But she’s arguably most known for her namesake, show-stopping brand, Pat McGrath Labs. Her line has some of the most stunning packaging ever created and every swipe of lipstick, eye shadow, and highlighter is basically a guarantee for an iconic look. Besides the star product below, McGrath has also picked up Best of Beauty awards for Skin Fetish Highlighter and Balm Duo and Lust MatteTrance Lipstick in Elson, a perfect blue-based red.
Star product: Mothership V: Bronze Seduction Palette is so good it won a 2019 Best of Beauty award. Among many fans is digital beauty editor Devon Abelman, who said if she wasn’t a beauty editor, she’d shell out the full $125 for the palette. “The shimmer options in the warm-toned palette are unparalleled,” she says. “They twinkle like a disco ball at Studio 54 at every possible angle.”
Hyper Skin
Hyper Skin creator Desiree Verdejo had such a wealth of beauty knowledge after opening the equivalent to Sephora for women of color — a beauty boutique in Harlem, New York, called Vivrant Beauty. After being surrounded by premium skin-care products she curated, and simultaneously dealing with hormonal breakouts and the dark marks it was causing, she homed in on what was missing. Hyper Skin launched with a single product, the Hyper Clear Brightening Clearing Vitamin C Serum, which combines 15 percent vitamin C and vitamin E to clear away hyperpigmentation.
Star product: The blemish and dark spot clearing Hyper Clear Brightening Clearing Vitamin C Serum is also made with turmeric root extract to tame inflammation, brightening kojic acid, and hyaluronic acid to hydrate.
Coloured Raine Cosmetics
Coloured Raine Cosmetics made its debut in 2013, when founder Loraine R. Dowdy ditched her job in the finance industry to follow her dreams of starting her own makeup brand. Her mission was to create brightly colored, high-quality products for everyone — regardless of skin tone, age, or gender — and that’s exactly what she did. Today, the brand offers a wide range of products, including liquid lipsticks, eye shadow palettes, foundation, and more.
Star product: The Queen of Hearts Eye Shadow Palette consists of both shimmery and matte pigments in standout shades like cranberry, magenta, and eggplant. It also features several neutral shades too, so you can create a wide array of eye looks with just this one palette.
Beautystat Cosmetics
After nearly a decade of running the popular BeautyStat blog, researching and reviewing thousands of products, and developing products for Clinique, L’Oréal, Revlon, and Avon, cosmetics chemist Ron Robinson launched Beautystat Universal C Skin Refiner to much fanfare. His brand mission is to “help consumers cut through the clutter and understand what types of beauty products are working and what’s not.” Now it has a Universal Pro-Bio Moisture Boost Cream and Universal C Eye Perfector as well.
Star product: After discovering his friend’s innovative technology for stabilizing vitamin C, conducting consumer tests, and submitting samples to an independent, dermatologist-run lab to overwhelmingly positive results, Beautystat Universal C Skin Refiner came to life. It’s packed with 20 percent pure vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid), which we know has amazing benefits for evening skin tone and texture, boosting radiance, and diminishing the appearance of dark spots. It also contains squalane for lightweight moisture and tartaric acid, an ingredient known to optimize skin’s pH levels for better absorption.
TPH by Taraji
We all know and love actor Taraji P. Henson, and after years of not-so-great experiences with stylists who didn’t know how to work with her Black hair, she created her own line which spans across scalp care, cleansers, treatments, and stylers for all hair types — natural hair, wigs, installs, braids, locs, straight hair, wavy hair, and curly hair. “Yes, I’m a Black woman, and I’m always going to stick up for us first because we get left behind, but I want this to be all-inclusive,” Henson previously told Allure.
Star product: Master Cleanse was the first product Henson made for herself. “For me, hair is nothing if you don’t have a clean scalp,” she previously told Allure. It’s a refreshing formula made with witch hazel water, eucalyptus oil, and tea tree oil to break down buildup. Its packaging is outfitted with a tri-touch applicator, which provides deep access your fingers might not get to — whether you’re wearing a protective style or cleansing your natural curls.
Epara Skincare
According to the brand, “Epara means ‘to cocoon oneself‘ in the Nigerian dialect of Ebira.” Hence, the focus on a sparse area of the skin-care market: luxury skin-care products that cater to the underserved needs of women of color. Founder Ozohu Adoh grew up in Nigeria, earned her MBA at Oxford University, and starting working with a lab in the U.K. to develop formulas made with organic ingredients from Africa to treat not only her own dry, uneven skin (caused by follicular eczema), but other issues women of color face — including discoloration caused by the sun, free radicals, and air pollution.
Star Product: Cleansing Lotion is a lightweight, silky cleanser that keeps skin soft and moisturized while gently removing makeup and dirt from the day, thanks to ingredients like glycerin, plant extracts (moringa seed extract), and botanical brighteners (licorice root extract).
Bevel
CEO Tristan Walker oversees both Bevel and Form Beauty, which are housed under parent company, Walker and Company. It was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2018, but Tristan remains at the helm. “Our purpose is to make health and beauty simple for people of color,” according to the brand. Bevel offers elevated but straightforward skin-care, hair-care, and body products geared toward men, but we’ve heard everyone raves about Bevel razors. Bevel is also readily available at target.com.
Star product: Skin Heroes Bundle diminishes discoloration and uneven skin texture you might experience due to previous bouts of acne, bumps, or skin irritation. The kit includes a 10 percent Glycolic Acid Exfoliating Toner, Spot Corrector, and Face Serum. Hello, smooth and clear skin.
B.Simone Beauty
Multi-hyphenate businesswoman and YouTube personality B.Simone launched her namesake brand, B.Simone Beauty, in 2019 and earned an applause-worthy $100,000 in sales in the first two months. The vegan and cruelty-free line is made up of mainly lip products, including liners, lipsticks, and glosses, as well as makeup bags and accessories. Aesthetically the products and formulas rival its luxe counterparts, yet come at fairly affordable price points. For example, lip pencils cost $12, while liquid lipsticks are $16.
Star product: The Lip Mattes are long-lasting, creamy, and come in gorgeous colors with fun names like “Money Maker,” “Freestyle,” and “Link in Bio.”
Pattern Beauty
Known as a celebrity hair icon, Tracee Ellis Ross launched her own hair-care line — a long-time dream of hers — called Pattern Beauty for people with curls ranging from 3B to 4C textures. Allure editors found the products to be super hydrating without leaving their curls feeling heavy or greasy and gave them definition without crunchy residue.
“I don’t believe that people should have to be dependent on a professional to feel their most beautiful and for their hair to be healthy,” Ross previously told Allure. Pattern Beauty spans across cleansing, conditioning, treating, tools and accessories. Along with being reasonably priced, its shampoo and conditioners come in three different sizes (starting at $9 for three-ounce bottles).
Star Product: Jojoba Oil Hair Serum is a super lightweight, soothing treatment to keep your scalp happy and free of itching and flaking. And it only contains five nourishing oils: safflower oil, jojoba oil, rosehip oil, olive oil, and lavender oil. Together with the sixth and final ingredient, hydrogenated ethylhexyl olivate (which are fatty acids derived from olive oil), they support low porosity hair to stay moisturized and less prone to breakage.
Courtesy of brandMented Cosmetics
Mented Cosmetics came to life with one question founders KJ Miller and Amanda E. Johnson couldn’t find the answer to: Why was it so hard to find a nude lipstick for their rich skin tones?
Thus began their quest to perfect nude lipsticks and lip liners for deeper brown skin. They created quite a zealous following of others looking for the perfect nude also. Since then, the brand has expanded to include foundation sticks, eyeshadows, blushes, and even nail polish.
Star product: Skin by Mented is one of their most versatile products. It’s a multi-stick that functions as a foundation, concealer, and contour all-in-one.
Dehiya Beauty
Dehiya Beauty is a plant-based skin-care brand inspired by ancient beauty traditions and African herbalists. After spending time in Morocco with a fourth-generation herbalist who taught her about plants indigenous to Northern Africa, founder Mia Chae Reddy decided to highlight these ingredients in her own skin-care line.
In the brand’s range, which includes cleansers, serums, masks, and tools (like the Allure favorite Mihakka Exfoliator), you’ll find oils like cold-pressed argan oil from Morocco, marula seed oil, babassu oil, and many other ethically sourced, botanical ingredients that nourish and restore dry skin. It also recently launched its first lip and cheek tint, as well as a highlighter called The Halo Effect, that contains castor seed oil and rosehip seed oil, among other glow-giving ingredients.
Star product: The Biru Balm is an amazing multipurpose moisturizer made up of soothing oils and flower extracts, like calendula, which has calming benefits for the skin. It can be used anywhere on the body to soothe and hydrate.
Luv Scrub
Unlike traditional loofahs, Luv Scrub is made of 100-percent nylon. It’s a mesh exfoliator that’s been used in West African skin care for generations. The brand’s founder, Caroline Owusu–Ansah, knew she was onto something when she gave the product to a number of friends who started raving about their smooth skin and telling her she should turn it into a business. Luv Scrub comes in five colors, including the millennial-pink shade pictured above, as well as dark purple, black, mint-green, and coral.
Star product: Luv Scrub gently sloughs away dead skin to reveal bright, smooth skin, and never causes irritation like some exfoliators do. Because it’s long and wide it’s great for getting to hard-to-reach areas, like the bottom of your back. And it won’t breed bacteria because it’s made of nylon.
Soultanicals
Vegan hair-care brand Soultanicals was started by Ayo Ogun, a mom of six, after too many tearful hair-detangling sessions with her daughter. Ogun’s goal was to create products that smell delicious and address the specific needs of those with natural and multi-textured hair types — and she did just that. The brand now consists of hair masks, butters, leave-ins, oils, cleansers (and much more), all of which are made with plant-based, herbal, and African botanical ingredients.
Star product: The ‘Fro Despair Vitamin Hair Repair Mega Deep Conditioner is full of scalp- and hair-loving ingredients like rosemary and sage, biotin, brown rice protein, organic olive oil, and vitamin E. It’s recommended that you leave it on for at least 30 minutes to let it work its moisturizing magic.
Pholk Beauty
Pholk Beauty creator, Niambi Cacchioli, wanted to make it easier and more affordable for Women of Color to get their hands on good skin care. The brand is vegan, natural, and made in Jersey City, New Jersey, at its very own lab. Cacchioli got the idea for her brand after years of traveling around Europe and struggling to find skin-care products that suited her, so she started experimenting with local ingredients and making her own concoctions that worked wonders.
In Pholk Beauty’s products, you’ll find ingredients like cold-pressed hibiscus oil sourced from Senegal, moringa sourced from Ghana, and turmeric from Jamaica. They offer a wide range, including cleansers, toners, multi-use balms, and face masks.
Star product: The Werkacita Beauty Balm soothes angry, dry skin with a combination of mango butter, hempseed oil, jojoba butter, and glycerin. It also smells just as amazing as it feels.
Loving Culture
After realizing how many toxic ingredients go into chemical hair straighteners, Mary-Andrée Ardouin-Guerrier decided to ditch them for good and started fresh with a big chop. She starting experimenting with making her own hair oil to help speed up growth and saw seriously amazing results. She had her friends and family try it and they loved it so much they said they’d be willing to buy it. And thus, Loving Culture was born.
The brand’s Revitalizing Organic Hair Oil is made with fair trade argan oil, castor oil, and olive oil, which are rich in vitamins B, C, and E, as well as scalp-stimulating ingredients like eucalyptus oil and cayenne pepper extract. It’s also vegan, fragrance-free, and safe for all hair types.
Star product: The Revitalizing Organic Hair Oil is a gorgeous, do-it-all hair oil that soothes irritated scalps, smooths split ends, and nourishes dry hair. It’s made without synthetic dyes and fragrances.
Pear Nova
Created by Rachel James in 2012, Pear Nova is a super-chic collection of vegan nail lacquers inspired by fashion’s most innovative designers. The line is “5 free,” so it doesn’t contain formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, toluene, and dibutyl Phthalate DBP. Additionally, the brand offers gel formulas and cuticle oil, as well as fun, seasonal collections like Trip to Tulum and All Thai’d Up.
Star product: While all of the shades are stunning, we’re particularly partial to Lemon Drop Logic, a vibrant, sunny yellow that flatters dark and deep skin tones.
Ace Beaute
Niye Attang launched Ace Beaute in 2016 with a selection of cruelty-free false eyelashes and later expanded to offer eye shadow and brushes. The brand lives by the motto: “Beauty for All” — meaning all colors, ages, genders, religions, and socio-economic status. It’s held true to that mission through its product offerings.
Take a peek at Ace Beaute’s Instagram feed and you’ll find countless photos of colorful eye looks from folks all over the world. In the last four years, the brand has become most famous for its technicolor eye shadow palettes that feature colors like slime green, aqua, neon yellow, and more.
Star product: The Oceanic Palette features 15 pigment-packed shadows in sea-inspired shades that are perfect for anyone who loves bold colors.
Undefined Beauty
Before starting Undefined Beauty, founder Dorian Morris worked in the industry for huge companies like Sephora, Kendo (who owns Fenty Beauty, among other major labels), and CoverGirl. She then took what she learned and used it to create her own “beauty baby,” if you will, which resulted in a CBD-infused lineup of skin-care and makeup products.
In addition to the popular hemp derivative, the brand’s products also contain ingredients like shea butter, jojoba oil, coconut oil, and natural fruit extracts for flavor. The whole collection is made without sulfates, artificial dyes or fragrances, and is 100 percent vegan.
Star product: If you love a lip balm with a bit of tint, try the Glow Balm. It comes in in five sheer hues — including rose, nude, and fuchsia. This moisture-rich salve is perfect for anyone who wants a little color along with a ton of hydration.
Oyin Handmade
When Oyin Handmade founder Jamyla Bennu wasn’t able to find products with naturally sourced ingredients that worked for her highly textured hair, she decided to take matters into her own hands — literally — and formulate them herself. “I just started whipping them up in my kitchen,” she said in a statement sent to Allure. By 2001, Bennu had launched a full natural hair and body-care line.
The Baltimore-based brand now offers an extensive selection of personal-care products, including but not limited to shampoo and conditioner, co-washes, pomades and puddings, leave-in conditioners, and deodorant. They’re all cruelty-free, gentle, and contain skin- and hair-loving ingredients like green tea extract, hydrating glycerin, and castor seed oil.
Star product: The Honey Wash Hydrating Shampoo contains pure honey for moisture, as well as quinoa protein, which aids in naturally strengthening the hair. It also happens to smell amazing.
Lamik Beauty
Lamik Beauty’s Instagram bio says it all: “Clean makeup focused on the women who spend 80% more on cosmetics but get 10% of shelf — Women of Color.” Its founder and CEO, Kim Roxie, built the cosmetics brand in 2004 based on her desire to create vegan, natural products for multicultural women.
Sixteen years later, Lamik Beauty is made up of high-quality eyebrow and complexion products — including a foundation that they custom blend for your skin tone. Its products are made with moisturizing oils like jojoba, coconut, and castor seed, as well as botanical extracts like rosemary, which serves as a natural antioxidant.
Star product: Send a selfie taken in natural light to the brand’s email, hello@lamikbeauty.com, and a Custom Blend Foundation in your perfect color match will be made and sent right to you.
Gilded
Gilded founder Blair Armstrong is a physician’s assistant in dermatology, which is where her love for skin care began. She launched Gilded with a clear vision: to offer safe, effective, and luxurious body-care products for all women. The line consists of a skin-brightening body polish, a buffing brush made with marble for an ultra-fancy feel, and a body balm designed for super-dry skin, in addition to three sustainable candles housed in marble jars, and a mixing palette for makeup.
It’s also worth noting that Armstrong made it a separate personal mission of hers to provide dermatological care to uninsured and low-income women and children. Right now, this is taking place in the Atlanta area virtually.
Star product: Infused with a high concentration of shea butter, as well as hyaluronic acid and squalane, the Supreme Body Balm give really dry skin a dose of intensive moisture.
Frederick Benjamin Grooming
Michael James, aka the founder of Frederick Benjamin Grooming, started his brand because he was determined to find a better way for Black men to feel powerful when it comes to hair care and grooming. He wanted to provide them with safe, high-quality products that are free from common chemicals and irritants, so he made products infused with natural oils to cleanse the scalp and hair without stripping it while fighting bacteria and calming aggravated skin.
In addition to basic hair care and styling agents, the brand also offers a range of shaving products, including a soothing after-shave gel with aloe vera, a beard oil, and a post-shave bump treatment. Everything is fairly affordable too, with prices starting at $12.
Star product: The Easy Primer Skin & Beard Oil is a pre-shave elixir that soothes dry skin and prevents irritation. It’s also lightweight and sinks into the skin quickly.
Janet and Jo.
After growing weary of questionable chemicals in many nail products and then watching her mother and grandmother battle breast cancer, Janet and Jo founder Kendra Woolridge wanted to create something better. She decided to make products her loved ones could use without having to worry about anything harming their health. Woolridge brought to life a line of vegan, cruelty-free, non-toxic nail lacquers in colors that flatter all skin tones, with a special emphasis on shades that flatter darker skin. There are vibrant corals, poppy purples, sunny yellows, hot pinks, and many more fun shades.
During the month of June, the brand will donate 50 percent of all sales to the NAACP “to support their mission and fight for justice,” founder Kendra Woolridge tells Allure.
Star product: Work Wife is a creamy, peachy-coral that adds an eye-catching accent to any ensemble. It also couldn’t be more perfect for summer.
Vernon François
Hairstylist Vernon François created his namesake brand because throughout his career he noticed a massive need for hair care and styling products that worked on diverse hair types — specifically natural hair, curly and textured. His line has of a full range of styling products for different hair types, as well as tools and accessories, like a protective silk cap and a microfiber towel that won’t disrupt fragile curls. François has used his line on many celebrities, including Lupita Nyong’o.
Star product: The Dazz~Ling Shimmer & Shine Spray nourishes and hydrates the hair with baobab seed oil, while leaving behind a noticeable sheen, thanks to mica.
Nyakio Beauty
Nyakio Kamoche Grieco grew up visiting her grandmother in Kenya, and watching her use coffee beans to exfoliate and take care of her skin. Now, she’s the founder of namesake brand, Nyakio, a cruelty-free, vegan skin-care line inspired by her homeland and the farmers in her family. The brand uses 13 key ingredients from around the world to create products that protect and soothe the skin.
Star product: The Quinoa Depuffing & Firming Eye Cream, uses Peruvian quinoa, coconut oil, and coffee extract to soothe your undereye area and make you look more awake.
Unsun Cosmetics
Unsun Cosmetics was created by Katonya Breaux in 2016 after years of searching for a sunscreen that works for women of color. The brand’s three-piece sun-care collection consists of 100 percent mineral-based SPFs that don’t leave behind any weird residue or chalkiness. They’re also made with skin-boosting ingredients like hydrating glycerin, coconut oil, and olive fruit oil for added moisture.
Star product: The Mineral Tinted Face Sunscreen provides broad-spectrum SPF 30 and has a subtle tint that evens out the skin and gives it a glowing finish.
Base Butter
Base Butter, founded by dynamic duo She’Neil Johnson and Nicolette Graves, is a brand that believes in skin acceptance and using skin care as a form of empowerment. It offers two crowdsourced products: Radiate Face Jelly made with aloe vera and evening primrose oil, and Sustainable Makeup Remover and Pre-cleansing Cloth, which is a microfiber towel that lifts dead skin, dirt, and debris.
Star product: Radiate Face Jelly is the brand’s best-seller for folks with oily and combination skin. It was designed to balance the skin by regulating sebum and adding hydration.
Kurly Klips
The natural hair movement has brought forth an explosion of clip-ins and extensions, making it easier than ever for those with kinky curls to play with textured looks. Kurly Klips is one of the black-owned brands in the space you should definitely try.
Founder Lana Boone says they use 100 percent human hair for the clip-ins. In fact, she says that she spent more than $200,000 on hair until she found exactly what she was looking for. Patterns on tap include loose spirals, 4C patterned curls, and even a textured blowout option that comes in different lengths. You can also play with ponytails, as well as puffs and ponies.
Star product: The Ponytail Fro is an easy install when you need to put your hair up and dash out of the house.
Uoma Beauty
Uoma Beauty (which means beautiful) is here to disrupt the prestige beauty space with a lineup that celebrates inclusivity by way of the African diaspora. CEO Sharon Chuter is a Nigerian beauty executive who spent over a decade in the game working for big name companies. She took her expertise in the space and applied it to launch her own brand in April 2018. She came out the gate strong with a 51 shade foundation line.
Chuter used the Fitzpatrick scale to ensure each shade caters to the unique needs of the skin, based on the color groups it falls into. Uoma carries all the products you need to execute a whole look, inspired by Black female icons, rebellion, and self-expression. The brand offer lipsticks, eye shadows, liners, brow products, and more.
Star product: The Say What! Foundation is a versatile, buildable base available in six formulas with easily-adjustable coverage.
Anita Grant
Anita Grant’s namesake brand offers hair-, skin-, and body-care products that look like they popped right out of a hip apothecary. The idea for the line came after Grant found herself in the hospital having a bad reaction to a lotion containing propylene glycol. She became obsessed with ingredients, what they do, what they don’t do, and began looking for ways to create her own products using natural ingredients.
Her U.K.-based brand started with herb-infused hair products and body oils. Now, working with fair trade and organic farming communities, Grant’s brand offers deep conditioners, leave-ins, cleansers, shampoo bars, oils and clays for your face, toners, and so much more.
Star product: The Rhassoul Deep Condish looks like a chocolate bar. Made with cocoa powder, you simply break off a piece, add water, and smooth through your hair to revive those curls.
Oui The People
Oui the People is not here to sell products to make you look “flawless,” and you won’t find anti-aging claims on their packaging. They simply want to make science-driven shaving and skin-care products so you feel confident as hell.
The brand carries everything you need for a clean shave (where ever you desire). The brand’s single-blade razors in come in rose gold and matte black, and their shaving gels turns into a milky texture. Founder Karen Young grew up watching her uncles shave meticulously, and thought everyone deserved the same experience. She launched the brand in 2015 as Oui Shave and changed the name to Oui The People as a nod to everyone (including non-binary folks) who swear by the brand.
Star product: Bikini line sheet masks, perfect for moisturizing and soothing the area when you’re done shaving.
Danessa Myricks Beauty
If the beauty gods would grant us one wish, we would ask for our skin to constantly glow as if Danessa Myricks did our makeup. Whether she’s creating a super high-impact, metallic eye look complete with gold foil, or she goes soft glam with a glossy lip, Myricks’s work is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Her makeup brand is beloved by makeup artist, and even regular folks co-sign, especially those who loves a multitasking product. Danessa Myricks Beauty offers everything you need for a full face, start to finish. There is also a wide selection of pigments in both powder and liquid form that you can use on your lips, eyes, and even body.
Star product: Colorfix 24-Hour Cream Color. You can use these little tubes absolutely anywhere. Digital hair editor Jihan Forbes likes to use hers to create cat eyes with a matching lip.
Bomba Curls
Lulu Cordero is using hair care to celebrate the roots of her Dominican culture — and its beauty secrets. Cordero’s Bomba Curls brand uses high-quality natural and organic ingredients that help maintain strong, moisturized, poppin’ curls. The brand launched with the Forbidden Hair Oil, and recently expanded to include the Forbidden Hair Mask, a deep conditioning treatment that promises to restore elasticity and promote healthy hair growth.
Star product: Dominican Forbidden Oil, a lightweight and multipurpose oil with nourishing ingredients like coffee seed and black cumin seed oils. It’s gained a ton of popularity online with natural hair enthusiasts on social media and even here at Allure. “The moment I squirted it on my scalp, the delicious scent of the coffee hit my nose,” says editorial assistant Gabi Thorne. “I love a good oil for my dry scalp — this soothed the itchiness.”
Range Beauty
Alicia Scott started her career working in the fashion industry, where she noticed a lack of deeper foundation shades at runway shows and photoshoots. It’s a problem she realized went beyond the drugstores she frequented, which also had a dearth of options for the melanin-rich. On top of all that, many foundations also caused Scott’s eczema to flare up, so even if she could find her shade, the formulation might not agree with her sensitive skin.
So, as any self-starter would do, Scott decided to create a foundation she could actually use that wouldn’t irritate her skin. Her beauty brand, Range, offers 21 shades. As a bonus, the hydrating formula contains soothing chamomile extract and French clay to keep oil under control.
Not a liquid foundation person? All good — Range also offers loose complexion powders and highlighters, as well as a body oil.
Star product: The True Intentions Hydrating Foundation, which gives you sheer to medium coverage and has calendula and cornflower extracts that have natural anti-bacterial properties for acne and eczema-prone skin .
Beneath Your Mask
Beneath Your Mask in the byproduct of a series of life-changing events for founder Dana. While living her dream as an entertainment business manager in Atlanta, she was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). It started a spiritual and physical healing journey that led to the inspiration for the name of her brand.
Beneath Your Mask’s skin, body, and hair products all have anywhere between 11 to 18 active ingredients, packaged in Miron glass containers that aid in activating the formulas. Its Heal Whipped Skin Soufflé is enough to brag about alone, as it’s a 2019 Allure Best of Beauty Award winner.
Star product: The Remedy Conditioning Lip Balm goes on smoothly and leaves lips feeling moisturized hours being applied.
Beauty Bakerie
We love an Instagram baddie beat, but a makeup lover needs choices, and Cashmere Nicole, founder of Beauty Bakerie, is happy to offer one. When she created her brand, Nicole wanted it to promote an alternative to the bad-girl images that young people are often exposed to, especially on social media.
Sweetness is what Nicole wanted to bring back to the game, and that mission is reflected in so many element of the brand. The packaging keeps to a confectioner’s theme. The brand’s So Icy illuminator powder is housed in what looks like a mini tub of ice cream. The hero Lip Whip tubes have that signature swirl that make it look like the lipsticks were filled using a frosting pipe. Certain items, like the Neopolitan Eyescream Palette, look good enough to eat. And its Milk & Honey Palette is so good, we gave it a 2019 Best of Beauty award.
Star product: The Lip Whip, a liquid matte lip color that’s a hit with the brand’s massive Instagram following.
Latched + Hooked
The crochet hair technique (in which one uses a latch hook to weave hair extensions through cornrows, creating a new hairstyle) has been around for a long time. It’s a process Latched + Hooked founder Tiffany Gatlin remembers from when she was a little girl. Crocheting has enjoyed a boost in popularity as both a protective and transitional style, but the installation process, particularly curling braid hair extensions with flexi rods and then dipping it in boiling hot water so it can hold the style, can be a little time-consuming.
Gatlin went on a mission to change that. The result is Latched + Hooked, a line of pre-twisted chemical-free synthetic hair. The offerings include crochet curls in a range of patterns, as well as braids and twists. The brand also has a wide range of synthetic braiding hair available in a rainbow of ombré colors, plus two different types of synthetic wigs.
Star product: Zoë Bohemian twists, pro-looped individual twists for a quick easy summer look, year-round.
The Crayon Case
We love a beauty brand that stays to theme, and The Crayon Case does in the most adorable way possible. Taking inspiration from the classroom, The Crayon Case’s products include many makeup kit staples: brushes, eye liner, eye shadow, lashes, and more, all packaged to emulate No. 2 pencils, rulers, erasers, Sharpies, and other memorable school supplies.
Founder Raynell Seward (aka Wuzzam Supa/ Supa Cent) started the brand in 2017. Her social media popularity helped propel her venture, as well as one of her first products, the Box of Crayons Palette, which went viral soon after it was released. In 2018, her company grossed $1 million in revenue in just about an hour during its Cyber Monday sale.
Star product: The Crayon Box palette, which includes 18 shades in mattes and shimmers that mimic the brights, darks, and pastels you might find in a box of crayons.
Salt Spray Soap Co.
Inside Genelle John’s store in St. George, Bermuda, she sells the scents of the island in the form of soaps, body butter, scrubs, and lip balms. John has been using natural ingredients in her hair and on her body her entire adult life. When she returned to the island after university, she decided Salt Spray Soap Co. was her way of contributing to the community. All the products are made with moisturizing and antioxidant-rich ingredients. Her salt scrub is pretty unique; it’s an emulsified blend, so when water hits the body, the scrub turns into a lotion-like texture.
Star product: The brand’s Body Butter which comes in seven scents, is a win for soothing skin after a day in the sun.
Uhai Beauty
Uhai Beauty is a hair-care brand founded by former chemical engineer and Southside Chicago native Susan Edwards. Much of the inspiration for her products comes from her experiences during an 8-year stint in Liberia, the hair-care brand’s home base. “Uhai is my love letter to the continent and [Liberian] women,” Edwards explains in the brand’s mission statement. Baobab, the star ingredient in Uhai products, is a superfood prevalent in Africa, filled with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties that can help soothe irritated scalps.
Star product: The Scalp Serum, which uses aloe leaf juice, tea tree, rosemary, and baobab oils to soothe and hydrate your scalp.
The Lip Bar
Melissa Butler hasn’t let the brutal rejection she received on Shark Tank get in the way of her dream of building a beauty brand that represents all women. Butler, a former Wall Street stockbroker, founded the Lip Bar for those seeking edgy lipstick shades with healthy ingredients. The formulas include organic shea butter, organic avocado oil, and coconut oil, and are 100 percent vegan.
These days, the brand carries everything you need for a full beat in minutes: foundation, mascara, blush, highlighter, eye liner, and more. The brand just released its “Island Gyal” collaboration with Justine Skye, which includes two lip products, a blue eye liner pencil, and a cheek and eye palette.
Star product: It can be hard to find a bronzer that actually shows up on darker skin tones, but Lip Bar solved that problem with its Fresh Glow 2-Layer Bronzer + Blush Duos.
Source: allure.com
