Tomi Talabi is the founder of The Black Beauty Club, a cultural platform that is redefining how we see, celebrate and invest in Black beauty.
Since launching in 2020, The Black Beauty Club has become a destination for conversations, experiences and collaborations that place Black women at the heart of beauty and culture.
Previously,I’m hungryled global communications at Estée Lauder Companies and led inclusive storytelling at Pinterest.
Over the past 10 years in the beauty industry, I’ve watched Black-founded brands be incorporated into the program: during Black History Month, Juneteenth, almost a moment of social accountability or around a time of struggle. Oftentimes, the stories focus on survival, scarcity or support, rather than what we can lead to in any other form of excellence: innovation, functionality, desirability, cultural value and commercial potential.
This framework is important because it doesn’t just stay in the newspapers. Follows founders to investor meetings, sales pitches and partnership opportunities. It shapes how the beauty brand created by Black people is seen as a rising company or “community” brand. It shapes the audience to be understood as everyone who cares about beauty, or consumers who share the founder’s identity.
Related: Black Beauty Club Turns Block Party Into Fun and Discovery Store
For some reason, Black established beauty brands are still treated as a niche before people look at the product, customer or business.
The industry already understands that beauty can come from a particular place, culture or perspective and travel widely. K-beauty, J-beauty, French pharmacy beauty and creator-led brands in all categories are allowed to be specific and relevant at the same time. Beauty with a dark base fits that same concept.
This does not mean that all products are for everyone. No beauty product. The shade of the foundation will not be the same for everyone. The texture of the sun screen will not please everyone. The shampoo will not work on all hair types. Even the brands we consider “general” still work for many people.
The problem is not that all Black products work for every consumer; that brands founded by Black people are often denied wider relevance before people try them.
Image: Courtesy of Black Beauty Club
A product can start with Black skin, Black hair, Black culture or Black Beauty practices and still solve a problem that many people have. It should be evaluated in the same way that any kind of beauty should be evaluated: by its construction, functionality, texture, design, customer understanding, category value and commercial potential.
This is not just a media problem. It’s an industry problem. Sometimes, it’s something we all internalize. I’ve had friends, editors and industry peers ask me a version of the same question: “Can I? Can I use this? Is this space for me?” The answer is yes, but the fact that people still have to ask shows how dark beauty is positioned, as something to be respected far more than something to experience, learn and participate in.
A sunscreen made with darker skin tones in mind might be the best sunscreen for anyone who hates the white cast. A hair product designed for textured hair can still teach the industry something about moisture, protection, sweat, weather and longevity. A positive health brand built around the needs of Black women can still address the larger questions of energy, stress, aging, culture and everyday life.
This is even more important now, when many emerging beauty brands are forced to prove that they can survive in a tough market. Rising costs, wary investors, retail pressure, expensive customer acquisition and changing consumer habits are affecting businesses in every country. But when a Black established genre struggles, the story can be overly metaphorical. It can be about race before it can be about the market conditions that every founder navigates.
Related: Indie Beauty Founders Get Real About the Challenges They Face (Best for 2025)
We have seen a wave of discussion around Ami Colé. We’ve seen stories about Adwoa Beauty, Bread Beauty Supply and other Black founded brands navigating the very real dangers of building in this climate. Those issues are important. Founders must be able to talk honestly about what is difficult. But there’s a difference between covering a vulnerability and being only interested in a product’s vulnerability.
There are also vocal differences that are hard to ignore. When a founder like Kyle Cooke speaks publicly about the challenges behind Loverboy, the story is often allowed to linger. It’s a conversation about business, change, customer base, strategy, momentum and people’s ability to support the product. Being vulnerable does not automatically make a company a cautionary tale.
I want that same generosity and greatness of Black beauty products. When a brand like Bread Beauty Supply is talking openly about a new launch that isn’t going as well as they’d hoped, the story shouldn’t quickly become another sad report about struggling Black beauty. It can also be a story about product, timing, sales, consumer behavior, community, visibility and what it takes to help a great product find its next wave. There are a thousand ways to write about a product in a difficult time. Often times, Black beauty gets very little.
There are many stories to tell before a product is in trouble. New launch. Category information. A product that solves a problem. The structure of the inventor through the use of impossible conditions. It’s a community of consumers who put together a product because they want to win. Those stories are important too.
Image: Courtesy of Black Beauty Club
On Sunday, June 21, The Black Beauty Club brings Beauty on the Block — a free, open-air beauty experience featuring more than 20 Black-founded brands in skin care, hair care, fragrance, wellness and services — to Harlem. The event is based on Black culture, but is open to everyone; try, experience, support and discover, regardless of background.
The point is simple: Get outside, meet founders, support Black culture and discover new things. You may find a sunscreen that stays on better under your makeup, a hair product that makes more sense for the way you travel the world, a scent you didn’t expect to like or a wellness product that becomes part of your daily routine. That’s what beauty discovery should feel like.
Many of the brands that join us are doing interesting work. MIA Outdoor Hair, founded by Jordan Polk, built around a need that was clearly hidden: hair protection for people who live an active lifestyle, outdoors. The sun, sweat, chlorine, cold weather, travel, sports, humidity and extreme temperatures all affect the hair and scalp, but the beauty industry has never treated the protection of external hair as a serious category. The brand is not interesting because it is Black-found alone. It is interesting because it identifies a real consumer problem and creates a new solution around it.
Fair Weather Skin, a mineral brand of sun care that thinks carefully about texture, finish and wearability, is another example. These are all factors that determine whether people actually use SPF on a daily basis. The presence of the product in Violet Gray is important because it shows what can happen when a seller who likes taste and authority gets behind a new brand before it is obvious to everyone.
Image: Courtesy of Black Beauty Club
There are also products that have continued to be created during an incredibly difficult time for emerging beauty businesses. Hanahana Beauty, Rebundle, Black Girl Vitamins, Harlem Perfume Co. and others have gone through the pandemic, changing retail expectations, rising costs, changing consumer habits and a financial climate that has become more difficult to use. That too needs attention. Longevity matters. Consistency matters. Staying alive long enough to continue refining the product, serving the customer and building trust is a matter of course.
The Black Beauty Club exists to help build the cultural and commercial infrastructure around those issues. Visibility is important, but visibility alone is not enough. A founder needs customers, media coverage, retail access, capital, partnerships and industry attention before a crisis, not just after one.
That’s why our partnership with Cash App and Square is important: Their support sees diverse creators and consumers as an economic force, not a seasonal marketing opportunity. It treats this community as a cultural power, financial power and commercial influence. That kind of investment helps shift the focus from awareness to infrastructure.
For planners, consumers, investors and industry leaders, the question is not complicated. Try the products. Ask about formulas. Understand the customer. Follow the founders before the sales announcement. Pay attention to brands that are still early, still building, still defining. Don’t wait until the founder closes the business to decide if the story is worth it.
Black-based beauty doesn’t need to be universal. It already is. The industry should stop treating it as a niche.
Want to know how to reach them? Read more.