It’s no secret that the beauty industry has a lot of work to do to diversify its workforce, ourselves included. We launched our Community Mentoring Initiative to help create more opportunities for small Black-owned businesses and for Black students looking to learn more about what it’s like to work for a beauty brand. For a period of three months, selected businesses gain direct access to our co-founders Sarah and Christine, as well as support from our in-house teams to help with business strategies and provide resources.

Allow us to introduce you to the three brands that we’ll be partnering with for our very first round of mentoring!

54 Thrones

Founder Christina grew up experiencing the true and sacred beauty of Africa. Empowered by her Nigerian aunties who would indulge her with tubs of shea butter, she was moved by the ingenuity and innovation across the motherland, and in 2016, 54 Thrones was born.

Hama Beauty

With over a million different products out there, it can be difficult and overwhelming to find products that work for you. Hama gathered more than 500,000 reviews of over 10,000 different products from 400 brands to create a quiz. Using data science, they generate personalized skincare and beauty product recommendations from people with similar skin tone, skin type, and needs.

Skin Gourmet

Skin Gourmet makes raw, edible skincare sustainably sourced from Ghana. They believe good skincare is not just about the products you use on your body, but how it affects you and the world around it. Skin Gourmet products are processed by hand and made with sustainable packaging, and every purchase improves the life of a Ghanaian by allowing them to grow beyond aid.

Thank you to everybody who applied to participate in our new initiative! Applications for the next round of mentoring will open later this year to include small BIPOC-owned businesses, stay tuned!