Verna Meachum Archives (2024)

In honor of Black History Month this month (and all year long”>, I’m sharing 20 Black-owned beauty brands with you.

Maybe you want something to add to your makeup collection or you need something to give your curls some extra TLC. Whatever the reason, this mix of skincare, body care, and haircare products are all worth exploring.

So, without further adieu, let’s take a look at my picks.

1.BLK+GRN

Blk + Grn is an all-natural marketplace by all Black Artisans. You’ll find Black-owned products for skin, body, makeup, home, menstrual care, and hair.

Their mission is a one-stop-shop that only houses clean, toxic-free beauty products to ensure whatever product touches your body is the best. They keep your health and Mother Earth at the forefront. Products are toxic-free, plant-based, and cruelty-free.

Star product: Micellar Cleansing Water by Marla Rene. It doubles as a makeup remover and cleanser and is formulated with cucumber, vitamin B5, and calendula to restore hydration to dry, damaged skin.

2.Black Girl Sunscreen

Shontay Lundy changed the sunscreen game for women of color by creating a non-white cast formula. This sunscreen was created for everyday use, filled with natural ingredients, that will protect your skin from the sun and doubles as a moisturizing lotion. Their story begins with the need for melanin women to have a sunscreen brand that caters exclusively to them. Black Girl Sunscreen was designed to start the conversation around sun safety and education.

BGS took the #1 reason Black women weren’t wearing sunscreen and solved it in a way that connected with them specifically. It’s their goal to educate and protect melanin beauties worldwide.

Star product: Black girl sunscreen. The weightless, melanin-protecting Black Girl SPF 30 Sunscreen won’t leave skin with a sticky residue or white cast.

3.Breahni

This brandis committed to producing extraordinary products with the finest quality products that inspire all to love their curls naturally. Productscontain moisturizing and nourishing ingredients that improve manageability and defines natural curls. Breahniproducts are free from parabens, silicones, and sulfates.

Star product: Light Styling Gel. This no-flake gel will give you slip, definition, and moisture, a few of our favorite things.

4.Briogeo

“Brio”is an Italian word that means “vibrant and full of life” – representing not only the bustling city in which the brand was born, but the thoughtfully energetic and artistic packaging that houses each formula.”Geo”is a Latin word meaning “of Earth and nature,” which represents the pure, yet potent, recipes of each formula.

Briogeo’s mission is to create hair that is vibrant and full of life through the earth’s very own ingredients.

Star product: Don’t Despair, Repair! For those with dry, damaged hair, this is for you. 97% Naturally-Derived, Vegan & Cruelty-Free.

5.Curls

Star product: Blueberry Bliss Reparative Hair Wash. This is a sulfate-free cleanser formulated to soften the driest curls, as well as hydrate them. Ingredients include certified organic Blueberry Extract, Aloe Leaf Juice, and Chamomile Extract.

6.Gilded

Founded by Blair Armstrong, who is a physician’s assistant in dermatology, which is how her love for skincare began. She launched Gilded with a clear vision: to offer safe, effective, and luxurious body-care products for all women. 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.

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.

Star product: The Marble Body Brush. Dry brushing has a myriad of incredible skin and health benefits that include, lymphatic support and boosts circulation, relieve ingrown hair follicles, improves the appearance of cellulite, exfoliates and tightens the skin, smoother and softer skin. As a whole, dry brushing increases energy, blood flow, and circulation, and is an opportunity to focus on and reconnect with your body, making it a wonderfuladdition toyour wellness practices.

7.Kaike

KAIKE (pronounced “cake”> was founded by Keli Smith as a plant-based skincare brand with a belief in celebrating our skin.Born from the idea that less is more, they create minimal,multi-purpose products to solve a variety of skincare issues specific tomelanin-rich skin. Kaike uses clean, simple ingredients. Kaike aims to address the complex skincare issues Black people endure daily.

Star product: Kaike lip frosting. Kaike’s signature Frosting is a creamy co*cktail of mango butter, coconut oil, apricot kernel oil, and more.

8.Kurly Klips

Kurly Klips is an award-winning clip-in product, founded by Lana Boone. They use 100 percent human hair, which includes patterns of spirals, fro, curls, a textured blowout, Afro puffs, ponies, and even headband wigs. Clip-ins can be used as a protective style, low maintenance style, transitioning to natural hair, etc. Keep in mind that although clip-ins are low maintenance, don’t neglect your real hair, as it still requires you to handle it with TLC.

Star product:The Ponytail Frois an easy install when you need to put your hair up and dash out of the house.

9.Janet and Jo.

Janet and Jo. is a vegan, cruelty-free nail lacquers that flatter all skin tones, with a special emphasis on shades for darker skin. Products are free of 10 harmful ingredients commonly found in nail polishes. After growing cautious of questionable chemicals in many nail products and watching her mother and grandmother battlebreast cancer, Janet and Jo founder Kendra Woolridge wanted to create something better.

Star product:Build Your Own Trioincludes a base coat, glossy top-coat, and your color choice of nail lacquer.

10.Lamik Beauty

Vegan, natural beauty products for multicultural women created by Kim Roxie. Lamik Beauty is made up of high-quality eyebrow and complexion products.Roxie’s mission isto provide women of color with clean beauty products and services.

Star product: Brows in a Box. This is the perfect bundle to create a polished eyebrow look packaged in a travel-sizedCompact and dual-sidedBrow Brush.

11.Oui the People

Oui the People was founded by Karen Young and is dedicated to producing body care with mindful messaging that rejects perfection and champions individuality. Their products are about making you look “flawless,” they simply want to make science-driven shaving and skin-care products to help you feel confident. They believe that beauty “shouldn’t come at the expense of our psyche. Rather than pursuing flawlessness, we aim to build efficacious products, designed thoughtfully, that help you feel great in the skin you’re already in.”

Star product: The Tone It Around Set. The Tone-It-Around Set features our single-blade sensitive skin razor and The Big Reveal PHA Ingrown Relief Toner. Paired to treat ingrown and irritation from the source and keep them at bay with softer, toned, hydrated skin.

12.Pat McGrath Labs

Pat McGrath is aself-made billionaire, a true innovator and is one of the most sought-after makeup artists in the world. Name any trend of the past couple of decades, and you’ll find her at its origin.

Her line has some of the most stunning packaging ever created and every swipe of lipstick, eye shadow, and highlighter is guaranteed to give you an iconic look.

Star product: Skin Fetish Highlighter and Balm Duo – products that Pat has picked up Best of Beauty awards for.

13.Pattern Beauty

Celebrity hair icon Tracee Ellis Ross has her hair-care line, called Pattern Beauty for people with curls ranging from 3B to 4C curl type. Products give great definition and are super hydrating without leaving curls feeling heavy or greasy. Pattern Beauty is centered around the celebration of Black Beauty.

Star product: Treatment Mask. A rice water-infused Treatment Mask that delivers slip, curl elongation, and definition to coils.

14.Range Beauty

Range Beauty was founded by Alicia Scott who 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. Besides that, many foundations also caused Alicia’s eczema to flare up, so even if shecouldfind her shade, the formulation might not agree with hersensitive skin. Range offers 21 shades that includes a hydrating formula.

Star product:The True Intentions Hydrating Foundation. The Hydrating formula nourishes and protects skin, contains Calendula and Cornflower Extracts that have antibacterial properties to treat and prevent eczema and acne. Sheer to medium coverage, sweat and transfer-proof, will not clog pores. 100% cruelty-free, vegan, and never contains paraben, talc, sulfate, phthalates, or synthetic dyes and fragrances.

15.Rawkyn

This brand is devoted to the rehabilitation of the health of your hair.Rawkyn is committed to producing supreme hydrating deep conditioners, hair masks, and scalp treatments.

Star product: Red Rawkyn Moisture Me! Clay Mask. This is an intensely moisturizing deep conditioning treatment with red clay, which is the star ingredient that allows the mask to penetrate deep into the hair follicle promoting optimum absorption. The maskis infused with murumuru butter, chamomile, coconut oil, and sage.

16.Righteous Roots Oils

Righteous Roots Oils is a hair rejuvenating growth product with essential oils featuring both anti-frizz and detangling properties. RR’s mission is “Dedicated to transforming your hair into the best that it can be with a goal to make all hair types both beautiful and healthy.”

Star product: Righteous Roots Oils is great to use as a hot oil treatment, deep conditioning, pre-poo oil treatment, pre-wash detangler, scalp massage, anti-itch, scrunch out the crunch, and styler. Can be used for all hair types.

17.Soultanicals

Founded by Ayo Ogun, Soultanicals is a vegan hair-care brand created toaddress the specific needs of those with natural and multi-textured hair types. The brand consists of hair masks, butters, leave-ins, oils, cleansers, plus more, all of which are made with plant-based, herbal, and African botanical ingredients.

Star product:TheAfrotastic Curl Elastic Deep Conditioning Treatis full of hair-loving ingredients. It’s a creamy, nutrient-rich, deep conditioner that rehydrates and detangles thick, hair.

18.The Crayon Case

Founded by Raynell Seward, akaWuzzam Supa/ Supa Cent. One of the first product offerings from the brand was the eyeshadow palette, Box of Crayons, which includes a variety of colors and pigments that bring sentimental memories of playing with crayons and colors. The Crayon Case is the coolest brand theme!

Star product:64 BOX OF CRAYONS PALETTE. This palette contains highly pigmented, matte, and shimmery shades to create any eye look you desire.

19.A’mour 360

Founded by Anna Cabo. Anna suffers from an autoimmune disease and developed a keen awareness of the importance of ingredients for the skin. She would make her batch of homemade products at home, incorporating essential oils.

Star product: Nourishing Oil is formulated with fourteen oils that are lightweight and non-greasy, so that it absorbs quickly into your skin, leaving your skin feeling “oil-free. The oil is non-comedogenic, free of silicones, synthetic fragrances, and other ingredients that may cause unwanted side effects to your health.

20.Oyin Handmade

Founded by Jamyla Bennu. Oyin Handmade is an artisanal manufacturer of moisture-rich personal care products, especially formulated for highly textured hair and dry skin.

Star product: “The Juices” Hydrating Herbal Leave-ins. This is 100% natural tea-based hair tonic spray that helps condition and refreshes hair and stimulates the scalp.