As fierce champions of diversity and representation within our own company, RetailMeNot is proud to spotlight Black women–owned and founded brands. From beauty retailers to clothing companies, these are spectacular brands with inspiring leaders, missions and stories. We encourage you to learn about and shop from them—not just today but every day.
We recognize this list is by no means complete, so we commit to continue adding to it! Have a brand you want to share with us? Email us at editors@retailmenot.com.
Black Women–Owned and Founded Brands
All Butter’d Up
If you’re looking to hydrate your skin, All Butter’d Up makes whipped, scented shea body butters that won’t leave you with any greasy residue. They make all of their products in small batches, and the company is committed to using the finest natural and organic ingredients, plus they are all preservative-free and have never been tested on animals. That’s not it! All Butter’d Up also offers lava bead aromatherapy bracelets with roll-on fragrance options.
Prices ranging from $15 to $40
Autumn Adeigbo
Autumn Adeigbo was named “best dressed” in fourth grade, and the rest is her-story! She studied at the Parsons School of Design, working for years in the fashion industry before launching her own brand. From headbands and journals to dresses, her eco-friendly collection is a showstopper and made through sustainable practices. Autumn’s accessories are also available at Stitch Fix—just request the brand from your personal stylist.
All items are made to order, so prices vary
Beauty Bakerie
Beauty Bakerie’s mission is to “be sweet and sweeten the lives of others” by encouraging women and men to feel both empowered and beautiful. The brand offers quality beauty products that are cruelty-free, paraben-free and vegan. Beauty Bakerie has been featured in Forbes, Glamour, Allure and more publications. During Black History Month, they have a special message from their founder, Cashmere, that urges everyone to dig for your ancestor’s stories and bring them into 2022 and show them that their efforts to survive are here.
Prices starting at $26
Beads Byaree
Beads Byaree is founded by Areeayl Goodwin, a Philly born and raised designer. She’s developed a line of one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted jewelry, including earrings, necklaces, waist beads and body bracelets. All of her pieces are made to inspire you to make your dreams a reality, and to remind us all to reach for the stars.
Prices starting at $111
Black Girl Sunscreen
Black Girl Sunscreen was created in Miami with the goal to provide a non-white residue sunscreen brand for women of color. The brand has been featured in Essence and even has a kid’s line called Sunscreen-BGS Kids. The products are sold on their site and at your local Target! None of their products uses parabens or other harmful chemicals, so you can feel safe using it.
Prices range from $9.99 to $28.98
Books and Crannies
DeShanta Hairston is the founder of Books and Crannies, which opened in 2016 as an independent bookstore in Martinsville, Virginia. Browse fiction and non-fiction, a selection of children’s books, used books with paperbacks for $1 and hardcovers for $3. They also host events, such as children’s readings, open mic poetry and book signings with local and regional authors.
Prices vary
Briogeo
Briogeo is founded by Nancy Twine—a CEO who is passionate about offering high-performance hair care that is naturally based, yet provides visible results. Every order supports the company in providing 50,000 meals to those in need during COVID-19.
Prices start at $6
Brother Vellies
Brother Vellies was founded in 2013 by Toronto-native and New York City-transplant Aurora James with the goal of keeping traditional African design practices and techniques alive while also creating and sustaining artisanal jobs. Now handmade artisanally across the globe, Brother Vellies creates luxury accessories that celebrate cultural histories and timeless design.
Prices start at $215
Butter By Keba
Butter By Keba is a premium line of all-natural moisturizing products that are paired with clean fragrance. The formulas are designed for anyone who desires healthier skin or just loves smelling amazing all day. Their products are blended with the best plant-based ingredients, then infused with essential oils and phthalate-free fragrance synergies that have been created using a perfumer’s technique. Their line guarantees you’ll have smoother and softer skin!
Prices start at $24
CARA B Naturally
Founded by sisters Landra Booker Johnson and Kristi Booker, CARA B Naturally is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and offers an all-natural line of hair and skin care products specifically for babies, children and their families who have curly or kinky coils. The products are gentle enough for sensitive skin types and won’t strip away the essential oils young children need for healthy skin and hair.
Prices start at $13.99
Clare
Clare is on a mission to simplify paint shopping. They’ve reimagined a whole new paint shopping experience with designer-curated colors, technology to guide you and mess-free paint swatches, all delivered right to your door. Founder and interior designer Nicole Gibbons has had such success that Clare Paints has been featured on HGTV, The Oprah Winfrey Network, Good Morning America and Elle Decor.
Prices vary
Cloth + Bristle
April Sargies, founder of Cloth + Bristle, has brought her vision to life by bringing premium all-natural cleaning products into our homes. With 25+ years of experience in the professional cleaning industry, she identified limited options within the market for products that were free of the toxins/chemicals that worked effectively on delicate and fine surfaces. This problem inspired Cloth + Bristle, and the renowned patent-pending No. 001 all-purpose cleaning product.
Prices range from $5 to $50
Délali Robinson Cosmetics
In 2016, internationally certified beauty professional and licensed cosmetologist Adobo Robinson, who was born in Togo (West Africa) and raised in Germany, created Délali Robinson Cosmetics and remains CEO of the brand. It was developed as a solution to providing better color foundation and face powder matches for darker complexions. They are melanin-focused for skin care, and Délali Robinson Cosmetics offers more than 40 different shades in liquid, cream and powder foundation. All the products are paraben-free, gluten-free, cruelty-free and vegan-friendly.
Prices start at $14.99
Ecoslay
Ecoslay was founded by three women and one man, but we’re still including it on our list. This hair care brand’s products are made with ingredients to give your hair the boost and nutrients it needs to maintain its natural beauty. Pick from the Orange Marmalade Curl Definer to help get those summer waves, Matcha Boost to strengthen brittle, dehydrated hair and Banana Cream or Rice Pudding to deep condition and add hydration during the cold, dry months.
Prices start at $10
Expedition Subsahara
Founder Sofi Seck is a weaver originally from Senegal, West Africa. Her company sells woven baskets, placemats, bags and jewelry. Expedition Subsahara aims to build and maintain a STEAM school for young girls in Senegal. That’s why 20%t of each product sold is set aside in an education fund for the school.
Prices start at $35
Femi
Founded by Davielle Jackson, this subscription-based services make it easier to meet your needs for sanitary products. When you subscribe, they will send the perfect period box, complete with the Pretty Panty, extra pads, liners, wipes and a few extra freebies.
They make sure underprivileged students have access to premium sanitary items. Femi believes that no girl should go without what she needs every month or worry about leaks at school. And no woman should be limited to harmful, fallible and sometimes embarrassing feminine products.
Prices start at $4
Fenty Beauty
Who doesn’t love Rihanna? She wasn’t done with just her Grammy-winning singing career. She launched an award-winning beauty line that features foundations in essentially every shade. After years of experimenting with the best-of-the-best in beauty, Rihanna saw a void in the industry for products that could be used for all skin types and tones, so she launched an inclusive makeup line Fenty Beauty.
Amazingly, Rihanna also founded a clothing company called Savage x Fenty, which carries lingerie and loungewear. If that wasn’t enough, she founded and runs a non-profit, the Clara Lionel Foundation, which funds groundbreaking education and emergency preparedness and response programs around the world. It’s donated $5 million to fight against COVID-19. Talk about a superstar!
Prices start at $16
Golde
Golde has a mission to bring good vibes to the wellness industry, and they’re doing it! They are an independent, Brooklyn-born brand that produces superfood-boosted essentials that are great for health and beauty. Golde has products that look good, taste good and help you feel like your best self.
Prices start at $18
Hanahana Beauty
If you’re looking for a clean beauty brand, Hanahana Beauty is for you! They offer a collection of products made from ethically sourced ingredients that are better for the body. Hanahana Beauty is committed to consumer transparency and remaining cruelty-free. They also pay two times the fair trade price for their shea butter, which is sourced directly from Tamale, Ghana. Turn to Hanahana Beauty’s products to feel smooth on the outside and confident inside!
Prices range from $12 to $75
Healthy Roots Dolls
Healthy Roots Dolls is a toy company founded by Yelitsa Jean-Charles. Her brand creates dolls and storybooks that empower young girls and represent the beauty of diversity. Zoe is a best-selling doll with hair specially designed to be washed and styled. You can use actual products on Zoe’s hair and achieve styles from puffs to box braids. We love Healthy Roots’ mission to, “bring curl power to the toy aisle with products that reflect the diversity of our reality.”
Priced at $84.99
Jam + Rico
Jam + Rico is a women-owned fashion jewelry brand that creates bold, unique and colorful designs that evoke confidence and beauty. The two designers take inspiration from the people, culture, music and art from areas like the Caribbean and Latin America. From these explorations, they’re creating lovely and spirited jewelry pieces.
Prices starting at $44
Jones Bar-B-Q
Jones Bar-B-Q was founded by sisters Deborah “Shorty” and Mary “Little” Jones over 30 years ago. The sisters carry on their father’s legacy of smoking meats and making their family’s secret barbecue sauce from scratch daily at their restaurant. Fun fact: They were featured on “Queer Eye”!
Prices start at $6.99
Jungalow
Jungalow started as a design blog by Justina Blakeney in 2009 and has since grown into a lifestyle brand and the go-to source for “jungalicious” design goods and bohemian inspiration. Jungalow works with vendors from all over the world to source, design and create products and work toward more responsible and sustainable business practices. Shout-out to Justina, who is #goals. She’s a designer, artist and author of The New York Times best-selling book The New Bohemians.
Prices range from $5 to $199
Kazmaleje
This pioneering company is specially designed for anyone with textured hair. Kazmaleje has the mission to empower women and men to rock their natural curls while showing off and celebrating their unique style. They have collection of detanglers and combs, and offer tips for longer hair. You can get 10% off when you sign up for emails!
Prices start at $14
Kinky-Curly
Natural hair is beautiful hair, and Kinky-Curly has created products that are formulated to add moisture, give hold without drying your hair out and offer protection from the elements. The brand is available at Whole Foods and Target and was named one of the “hottest makeup and hair products of 2008” by Essence. We also love that a portion of the proceeds from each sale is donated to Charity: Water to help build wells in developing countries.
Prices starting at $10
KNC Beauty
Founded by the amazing Kristen Noel Crawley, KNC Beauty offers a collection of eye masks, lip masks and lip scrubs that are all about keeping you looking and feeling naturally cute and effortlessly fresh. Just look at how great these under-eye masks look!
Prices start at $22
Lily Frilly
Lily Adeleye is the 6-year-old CEO of this brand. And fun fact: She’s the youngest CEO to have her products sold at Target. You might know her mom—Courtney Adeleye, the founder of The Mane Choice. Kids who love accessorizing and doing their hair will find joy in these standout clips.
Starting at $1
Love Notes
Brooklyn-based founder Nya Kam creates gorgeous, hand-poured, custom-blended soy candles as well as body teas and aromatherapy. Love Notes Fragrances was distinctly designed with its sleek packaging made with their consumer in mind—the consumer who personifies fashion, beauty and sass while still caring about quality, their health and the environment. Our Editor-in-Chief has tried these candles, and they smell amazing and will beautify your decor.
Prices start at $40
McBride Sisters Collection
The McBride Sister Wine Collection is a story of two sisters and their passion for wine. They specialize in wines from California and New Zealand, two continents that each founder grew up on. After connecting later in life, they have created the largest African-American–owned wine company in the United States. Every one of their wines is labeled “Black Girl Magic.”
Prices start at $16.99
Melanie Marie
This custom jewelry company, named after the founder Melanie Marie, does a lot of charity work that gives back to local communities. Melanie Marie offers young girls the chance to engage in exciting excursions, creative mentoring, social advocacy opportunities and educational opportunities to help them discover their passions and achieve academic success. To make this happen, they sell products like anklets, bracelets, baby jewelry, earrings, hair clips, bags, shoelace tags and so much more.
Prices range from $10 to $435+
Maui Moisture
Maui Moisture’s mission is to provide curl confidence to help improve self-perception and esteem, something many women and girls in the textured hair community struggle with. The brand’s ultra-hydrating, vegan-friendly formulas transform curls by using 100% aloe vera as the first ingredient in all their products, delivering 40x more moisturizing properties and 80% stronger hair.
In Honor of Black History Month, Maui Moisture just announced an exciting partnership with PyschoHairapy, a global mental health and hair movement founded by Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka, a psychologist, hairstylist and hair historian. Dr. Mbilishaka has created this certification program that equips hairstylists with the skills to recognize mental health issues in their clients and administer culturally informed mental health services and resources.
With the brand’s purpose of transformation in mind, Maui Moisture enacts this [partnership with PsychoHairapy to ensure their role in transforming women’s lives goes beyond a good hair day.
Prices start at $4.98
OUI the People
Founded by Karen Young, OUI the People makes amazing reusable, direct-to-consumer razors, body gloss, a shave gel-to-milk, in-shower moisturizer and bikini line masks. The company has a commitment to changing the language of beauty with no perfecting, flawless or anti-aging claims. OUI the People just creates amazing products that will make your skin feel great.
Prices start at $10
Pat McGrath Labs
In 2016, Pat McGrath founded her famous makeup line, and it’s grown into a multi billion-dollar business. They have a wonderful collection of rich and shimmery formulas designed to make everyone with every skin tone feel beautiful. After over 25 years of friendship, McGrath made Naomi Campbell the face of the company!
Prices start at $29
Pattern
American actress, singer and television host (and overall icon) Tracee Ellis Ross debuted her hair line Pattern with a purpose. She worked with chemists for over two years to formulate hair care products that are designed for curly, coily and tight-textured hair. Ross also just joined Ulta as their Diversity & Inclusion Advisor! Pattern now offers serums and hair masks—check them out!
Prices start at $19
Pear Nova
Rachel James is a graduate from the International Academy of Design & Technology, and she founded Pear Nova in 2012. She put together a talented team in Chicago to create their debut line of creme nail polishes designed with an aura of silk and leather. Since the first collection, James has created classic and gel palettes inspired by the runway, world travel, food, music and her home. All of Pear Nova’s products are cruelty-free, vegan-friendly and made from clean products.
Polish collections start at $5.40
Rehtom
Founder Ayanna created Rehtom with the goal to design and provide statement apparel and accessories for the fashion-forward weekend mom. This shacket above is made of Genuine US Issue BDU and features the signature Rehtom logo along with patches and accessories that add major confident character. During the holidays, this item was selling out fast, and we think it’s obvious why.
Prices start at $30
Satrell
Satrell was created by Nichole and is named after her two sons Samual and Dontrell. They offer tons of beauty products, such as lip glosses and nail polishes, all created with the goal to inspire creativity and expression. The brand has core values that we love: passion, trust and boldness. We all can get behind that!
It’s awesome that the collection is cruelty-free, vegan-friendly, free from harsh chemicals and complementary to all skin tones. All these beauty products are long-lasting, moisturizing and allow women to showcase their personalities. Their lipglosses are a must!
Products start at $15
Trade Street Jam Co.
Not your average jams! Brunch lovers will very much enjoy these tasty jams in sophisticated flavors like blueberry lemon basil, smoked yellow peach and strawberry chipotle & fig. Founder and CEO Ashley Rouse started the business in an apartment in North Carolina on Trade Street.
Prices start at $15
Trill Paws
Trill Paws is a pet accessory and lifestyle brand based out of Los Angeles, California, and founded by Rachel Jones. Her brand designs and creates pet tags and accessories inspired by pop-culture icons and with cute sayings. The offer anything from emoji designs, popular sayings, fun memes and more.
Prices starting at $13.50
The Beem Box
Nimilolu (Nimi) is the founder of The Beem Box, which she started to create a community that admires and acknowledges those who are often left out of the beauty conversation. More than a beauty box, the aim at the Beem Box is to encourage and inspire the beauty that is within you! They believe that makeup does not validate beauty, but rather it amplifies the true beauty that is already present. Their subscription beauty box sends five to six full-size makeup items curated for deeper shades, pigments and undertones.
Buy for $39.95 + shipping
The Crayon Case
Known by the stage name Wuzzam Supa, Reynell Steward is a former waitress-turned-founder and CEO of this awesome cosmetics brand. It’s a makeup brand that creates products that come in an assortment of colors and pigments that gets inspiration from her memories of playing with crayons and bold colors. The Crayon Case has a new Big Box that offers 64 shades of makeup.
Prices start at $4.40
The Honey Pot Company
Beatrice “Bea” Dixon is the founder of Honey Pot Company, which is a company that focuses on natural remedies to help prevent unruly infections. They offer natural treatments for UTI and healing aid, along with washes, wipes, tampons, pads and pantyliners. Honey Pot’s mission is, “to educate, support and provide women around the world with the tools and resources that promote feminine health and wellness.”
Prices start at $8.49
The Lip Bar
Melissa Butler is truly a powerhouse! After making lipstick in her kitchen, she created The Lip Bar in 2012 with the belief and message that everyone is beautiful and deserves to be celebrated. The brand uses inclusive imagery and offers a dynamic collection of products for everyone’s complexion, age and skin type. The Lip Bar expresses that beauty shouldn’t compromise anyone’s health, and wants to change the way people think about beauty.
Prices start at $9
The Lit. Bar
Founded by Bronx native and resident Noëlle Santos in 2019, The Lit. bar is an indie bookstore in the “Boogie Down Bronx” in New York with the fun slogan “Bookstore & Chill.” But they don’t just offer a curated book collection; it’s also a wine bar! They encourage curious readers and welcome literary and community gatherings, making it a staple in the neighborhood. The Lit. Bar only general interest bookstore in the borough.
Prices vary
The Mane Choice
Courtney Adeleye founded her hair supplement company after creating a successful YouTube channel to show her healthy hair journey. She created The Mane Choice Hair Solution to be a results-driven and super-affordable hair vitamin that includes hair-healthy ingredients like black tea, moringa and Kalahari oil. This couple-owned brand is on a mission to offer products that beautify while improving health.
Prices starting at $9.99
The Ronnie Shop
Chemical engineer and U.S. Trichology Hair Loss Practitioner Garonne “Ronnie” Decossard founded The Ronnie Shop in 2015 after dealing with hair loss issues. The brand specializes in hair regrowth products that are all formulated with all-natural and essential oils that moisturize, seal and restore the scalp to promote growth and length retention. They also now have shampoos, a conditioner and an herbal tea treatment that nourishes the hair and skin. There’s also an eyebrow serum!
Prices starting at $14.99
The Sip
Inspired by their monthly girls’ nights and passion for Champagne, Erica Davis and Catherine Carter founded The Sip to make it easier to try new sparkling wines and get bubbles delivered to your door. The Sip is a subscription service that sends curated sparkling wines and champagne right to your doorstep bi-monthly. Choose from a variety of selections, such the Rosé All Day Box for rosé lovers and the classically fabulous Deluxe Box.
Prices start at $54.95
Queen City Beauty Group
Nichelle Mosley founded her Queen City Beauty Group with the aim of it being a safe place to celebrate and empower the Black community. She doesn’t just have beauty products, there’s also apparel and services, all that target hyper-pigmentation, sun damage, acne, rosacea or wrinkles and fine lines. Everything can be ordered online!
Prices starting at $5
We Are Crown’d
Excel Ansong created We Are Crown’d as a destination to purchase all-natural products for your hair, skin, face and body. They’re designed these products for everyone, and they are designed to be a natural medicine that soothes and eliminates different types of skin and hair conditions. They are formulated with natural oils, herbs and other natural elements that have proven to aid certain ailments.
Prices starting at $6
The post 48 Black Women–Owned Brands We Love appeared first on The Real Deal by RetailMeNot.