Is beauty’s inclusivity era over? How the industry is failing the Black founders who made it possible

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It feels like the solidarity of #BlackOutTuesday – when 14.6 million black squares flooded Instagram in solidarity for the Black community – is well and truly over. From DEI rollbacks in U.S. and here in the U.K., to brands abandoning inclusion initiatives, the mass support and investment in Black-owned brands and businesses that followed the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 has passed and now, the beauty industry is seeing a gaping hole where melanin-rich founders once were.

After a lengthy legal battle with “predatory” lenders, Adwoa Beauty, a Black haircare line founded by Julian Addo in 2017, is due to enter liquidation. We’ve seen this happen many times before: most recently when Diarrha N'Diaye-Mbaye closed her brand Ami Colé because of the “unsustainable market” following Trump’s tariff changes, and with the closure of 4.5.6. Skin, a skincare brand once praised for “decolonising” beauty.

These brands weren’t just revolutionary for Black consumers, but changed the industry as we know it by reminding us that inclusion – from product development to marketing – can benefit everyone. And yet, these brands were still denied the necessary business needs like patient capital, access to funding and strong retail support, which tend to be afforded to mainstream competitors.

For Sabrina Elba, co-founder and CEO of S’ABLE Labs, these closures represent a deeper crisis. “When a Black-founded brand closes, I don’t see it as just one brand disappearing, I see the weight of what Black founders are carrying. It reveals how fragile the path still is.”

The political climate of 2020, and what followed, gave a glimmer of hope for Black businesses.

In 2020, fashion designer Aurora James challenged U.S. retailers to devote 15% of their spending to Black-owned businesses, resulting in the Fifteen Percent Pledge – which juggernauts Sephora, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s were the first to back. The #BuyBlack movement was also helping Black founders see sales go “through the roof” – but only for a moment.

With growing anti-DEI and an ever-changing consumer landscape increasingly shaped by algorithm-driven trend cycles, there’s no doubt that Black founders are faced with immense pressure to outperform from the outset. When those impossible standards aren’t met, they're left to fail or labelled "not extraordinary", as Emma Grede said of Ami Colé, despite its mainstream success.

As Keshia East, founder of No Knot Co and co-founder of Kurl Kitchen, puts it, the treatment of these brands reminds us that representation alone isn’t enough when opening a beauty brand as a Black woman. “These are brands that have opened doors, created representation, and inspired other founders,” she says. “When a Black-owned beauty brand struggles or closes, the conversation often becomes about the individual business. But I think these situations highlight broader structural challenges that many founders face, like access to capital … and the pressure to compete against much larger companies with significantly greater resources.”

Ami Colé founder Diarrha noted an unmistakable shift in attitude from backers who had been enthusiastic about “betting big on inclusivity” in 2020 and considerably less so a few years later.

When Ami Colé shut its doors, the grieving response was immediate, especially online, but that sense of community – the same community that sold out the brand’s first run of products within the first month of launch – is deemed meaningless to investors like Grede, who told She’s So Lucky podcast listeners: “The point of being in business is to make money. It isn’t to serve the community.”

For Keshia’s brands, it’s the community that it’s nurtured that have been their biggest champions and support. While being stocked in major retailers like Boots has allowed them to reach customers, she believes they would never have been able to access alone and industry support can sometimes feel "inconsistent". “There’s often enthusiasm around discovering Black-owned brands, but maintaining that support over several years requires a different level of commitment from the wider ecosystem,” she notes.

Data analysed by writer Jalana Torres found that, in moments of crisis, support for Black-owned businesses, specifically beauty brands, spikes. “Black-owned brands inherited a different narrative, one associated with sympathy and tragedy…” she wrote in her Substack, The Beauty Of. “[Products] come secondary to the feeling of ‘just support this brand please before it ceases to exist’ or ‘buy black-owned brands because you’re aware of systemic racism’. They may continue supporting the brand in the past crisis, but it’s a risky business strategy.”

Bread Beauty Supply's Slick-Hold Gel launch generated "almost no sales." [Olamide acquired Bread Beauty Supply in 2025]. Users gave their advice freely, raking up over 5,000 comments in a day. There’s no shortage of social support when a brand needs it, but maintaining that support and turning it into sales and brand loyalty is what’s actually missing.

Business closures and setbacks are a normal part of entrepreneurship and not unique to Black founders. However, the recent pattern of closures raises legitimate questions about whether the industry's support for Black-owned beauty brands was deep enough to withstand the fickle and changing landscape. Ultimately, these closures are a loss for customers, founders and the wider beauty landscape so meaningful support is needed for true progress.

“We need more long-term thinking,” says Sabrina. “Black-owned brands can’t just be treated as exciting when they first arrive. They need the same chance to build longevity as anyone else. It’s about moving from symbolic support to structural support.”

“Public support can be amazing for awareness, but long-term support is repeat purchase, strong retail relationships, people coming back to the product, partners really investing in the brand over time. That’s the part that builds a business. It’s people choosing the brand once the initial buzz has passed.”

With nearly a decade of experience across leading newsrooms and digital platforms, Lauren’s career in lifestyle and beauty journalism flourished after earning her journalism degree from the University of the Arts London.