Meet the Recipients of Glossier’s Grant Initiative for Black-Owned Beauty Businesses
Kim Johnson, Senior Community Manager
On June 11, as part of our broader commitment to racial equity and inclusion, we opened the application process for our Grant Initiative for Black-Owned Beauty Businesses, which provides advisory support and $500,000 in the form of grants for the next generation of leading beauty companies. In pursuit of our vision of changing how the world sees beauty, we created this initiative with the belief that we must start by driving change in the beauty industry, both within Glossier and beyond.
The response to the grant initiative has surpassed all of our expectations. When the call for submissions closed in early July, we were astounded to have received nearly 10,000 applications. To all of our applicants: thank you. Delving into your submissions and reading about your visions has been a privilege. While the amount of phenomenal applications we encountered made this process harder than we could have imagined, we are incredibly grateful to each and every one of you for taking the time to share your stories with us.
Over the past several weeks, our team (led by a panel made up of a diverse group of colleagues across departments like Community, Creative, Content, and Finance) has worked diligently to review every single application, acquainting ourselves with thousands of incredible businesses—both large and small, some just getting ready to launch, and others years into their process. As a testament to the caliber of all the applications we received, we were inspired to develop a programming series open to all founders who applied, spanning the month of September and focused on topics ranging from supply chain to brand storytelling.
And finally, we could not be more excited to introduce the grant recipients! These 16 businesses—ranging from a superfood-based beauty and wellness company to a soon-to-launch men’s hair care brand—blew us away with their vision, ingenuity, and passion for changing the beauty industry for the better. This is not the last you will hear from us on these industry-shifting companies; we’ll be spotlighting each business individually on our channels, partnering with founders to amplify their stories in ways that are unique to them. We will continue building meaningful relationships with each founder through dedicated monthly advisory support, pairing each business with a function lead at Glossier whose focus is most relevant to the founder’s interests and needs. We will also facilitate business and community-building programming over the course of the next six months to foster connection both with our team and amongst grantees.
We are honored and humbled to play a small role in the journeys of these businesses and founders and can’t wait for our community to fall in love with them the way we have.
Growth-Stage
These businesses launched over 12 months ago and are working to scale operations. Grant amount: $50,000 per business.
AbsoluteJOI, a clean skincare line dedicated to women of color, was developed by Dr. Anne Beal in response to the skincare needs of women with melanin-rich skin. Her desire to create her line was sparked after reading that 75% of beauty products marketed to Black women contain toxic ingredients. With an approach focused on “clean, effective, and simple” products, Dr. Anne is raising awareness of the benefits of a non-toxic lifestyle.
Alodia Hair Care is a line of clean and green hair and scalp products founded by Dr. Isfahan Chambers-Harris. She was inspired to create a holistic approach to healthy hair after her own personal experiences with unnatural and toxic hair care products. Alodia Hair Care uses plant herbs and extracts and technology to personalize product choices based on scalp health, hair type, and styling preferences.
Golde Wellness is a Brooklyn-born health and beauty brand, powered by superfoods. Founded by Trinity Mouzon Wofford and her partner Issey Kobori in 2017, Golde is on a mission to make wellness easy and fun. They create products—ranging from latte blends to superfood masks—that look good, taste good, and help you feel like your best self.
Hanahana Beauty is a consciously clean skincare and wellness brand founded by Abena Boamah-Acheampong, a Ghanaian-American creative entrepreneur and mental health advocate. With the vision of disrupting the global beauty industry, Hanahana Beauty values sustainability and transparency, and keeps Black women at the forefront of their business and brand.
Melanj Hair is a textured hair extensions company founded by sisters Nikki and Whitney. The pair spent years sharing their healthy hair routines on YouTube before setting out to develop a product that compliments natural hair without compromising it. Their clip-in extensions are made of 100% human hair and designed to blend seamlessly into natural hair of all textures.
Early-Stage
These businesses launched in the past 12 months and are working to grow a customer base. Grant amount: $30,000 per business.
Brown Girl Jane is a plant-based wellness collection centering the needs of dynamic women of color. Owned and founded by Malaika Jones Kebede, Tai Beauchamp, and Nia Jones, their product line harnesses the power of broad-spectrum CBD in order to holisitcally address internal balance and external beauty.
epi.logic is an edited line of powerful skincare products with essential actives created by Dr. Chaneve Jeanniton, a board-certified plastic surgeon. She created the products based on her experience working with a diverse array of patients looking for a simplified and benefits-based approach to skin. Each product is balanced to deliver a variety of complexion-boosting results, and designed using a data-driven approach to eliminate potentially reactive additives.
Flaunt Body offers versatile, unisex, and effortless body care products focused on niche skin concerns. In 2019, founder Cameron Moore launched her hero product, an Ingrown Hair Mask, as an innovative and inclusive solution to a common body care gripe. Cameron’s focus is on creating alternative body care solutions for active, fast-paced lifestyles.
kanti is a skincare brand whose mission is to uncomplicate skincare for people of color, while celebrating Black and brown skin at the forefront of their brand. After connecting with other millenial women about beauty and noticing a common need across their peers, sisters Keamone F. and Alisha Ricki founded kanti as a clean, effective, and affordable solution to the most common skin concerns amongst melanin-rich skin.
Luna Magic is a beauty and lifestyle brand founded by Afro-Latina and Dominican-American sisters, Mabel and Shaira Frías. Inspired by their passion for beauty, they created a line of vibrant, high-performance cosmetics that celebrates their mutual love for their multicultural heritage and Latin culture and music.
Redoux is a sophisticated line of fragrances that evoke emotion and bottle the feeling of memories through scent and storytelling. Asia Grant, alongside her co-founder Alejandro Villalba, crafts scents that elevate personal rituals, embody a cross-sensory experience, and draw inspiration through food, art, conversation, and cultural histories.
THE MOST empowers women of color to embrace their natural hair with all-in-one styling tools designed to cut styling time and minimize the invisible pain points in textured hair care. Their upcoming hero product, THE MOST Mint, streamlines the process of detangling and applying product to highly textured hair. Founder and entrepreneur Dawn Myers, believes in culturally-informed engineering and the power of beauty as a practice of self worth.
Pre-Launch
These businesses have a finalized business plan and plans to launch within the next 12 months. Grant amount: $10,000 per business.
DEON LIBRA, launching in 2021, is an adaptogenic beauty brand formulated to support the body’s natural ability to handle stress and activate lasting healthy skin. Founder Devin McGhee started developing DEON LIBRA out of her kitchen in 2018 and since then, alongside co-founder Brittany Kirkland, has harnessed a love and knowledge of beauty, and extensive research of long-term solutions for anxiety, depression, and stress-induced skin problems, to develop adaptogenic beauty for the communities that need it most.
Eadem, launching in Fall 2020, is a curated line of hyper-targeted skincare for melanin-rich skin, designed by women of color for women of color. Founders Marie Kouadio Amouzame and Alice Lin Glover, who met during their time together at Google, saw a space in the market for clean, effective, and thoughtfully designed skincare for women of color.
Pound Cake, launching in October 2020, is a pro-Black, pro-fat, and pro-queer cosmetics company with a mission to represent all shades of beauty with products designed for various skin and lip tones. Co-founders Camille Bell and Jonathan Velazquez are passionate about addressing shade inclusivity across every beauty category—not just complexion—and developed Pound Cake's revolutionary line of liquid red lipsticks to cater specifically to different lip tones.
Wavy Blue, launching in September 2020, is a men’s personal hair care brand with a simple mission: give shine to Black men that make waves everyday. Founders Cameron Maple and McKervin Ceme are dedicated to building products and experiences that honor and acknowledge the diversity and dynamism of Black men.
Photo credits:
Top row from left to right: Dr. Anne Beal (AbsoluteJOI), Dr. Isfahan Chambers-Harris (Alodia Hair Care), Mabel and Shaira Frias (Luna Magic), Cameron Alexis Moore (Flaunt Body), Marie Kouadio Amouzame (Eadem), and Dr. Chaneve Jeanniton (epi.logic).
Middle row from left to right: Brittany Kirkland (DEON LIBRA), Devin McGhee (DEON LIBRA), Malaika Jones Kebede (Brown Girl Jane), Keamone F. and Alisha Ricki (Kanti), Abena Boamah-Acheampong (Hanahana Beauty), and Trinity Mouzon Wofford (Golde Wellness).
Bottom row from left to right: Whitney & Nikki (Melanj Hair), Asia Grant (Redoux), Cameron Maple (Wavy Blue), McKervin Ceme (Wavy Blue), Dawn Myers (THE MOST), and Camille Bell (Pound Cake).
