It’s Women’s History Month. During this time of reflection on all that women have achieved and overcome, we salute those around the world that identify as women. Women in beauty hold a special place with the ELLE.com Beauty Team (and not just because they make some bomb products), but because beauty is so personal, and we are thankful to the brands that create products to help women feel good.
If you are interested in shopping for women-owned brands, you’ve come to the right place. A great way to support women is economically and by putting dollars back into their pockets. You can do this and look good at the same time. Ahead, 27 women-owned brands that we love along with our favorite products.
Happy Women’s History Month!
Skincare
Tata Harper
The Colombian-born Tata Harper revolutionized “clean skincare,” using natural ingredients to actually elicit long-term benefits on the skin. With glass packaging and global ingredient sourcing, Tata Harper is the brand for green beauty lovers looking for an upscale experience.
Osea
Seaweed has amazing benefits—and is quite the tasty snack, IMO—which is why Osea Malibu founder Jenefer Palmer built an entire line around the star ingredient. A former spa director surrounded by Southern California’s balmy weather and sandy beaches, Osea’s products can transform just about any space into a calming spa oasis.
Krave Beauty
Founded by Liah Yoo, Krave Beauty creates planet-friend products beloved by skincare enthusiasts worldwide–like their recently relaunched Beet the Sun SPF. Created to be gentle and effective, their line is ideal for both beginners and experts alike.
Joanna Vargas
As an esthetician, Vargas is responsible for the glowing complexions of your favorite A-listers on the red carpet. Her skincare line is just as expertly curated. Intended to mimic the effects celebrities can achieve in-office, her line doesn’t skimp on quality ingredients.
Black Girl Sunscreen
In 2016, Black girls were freed from the white cast that sunscreen left on melanated skin when Shontay Lundy launched Black Girl Sunscreen. As the name suggests, it’s made with melanin-rich skin in mind, though it can be used across all skin tones. While I use this as sunscreen, on vacation, I also discovered this doubles as a primer—my makeup grips to the formula.
Biba Los Angeles
Biba de Sousa, the founder of Biba Los Angeles, is an esthetician who works with celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish. Her products are some of the most expertly created and carefully considered on the market. Must-have items include the Onerta B Cream Barrier moisturizer, the Zinc Mask, and well, pretty much everything else, too.
Rose Ingleton MD
Dr. Rose Ingleton has treated the skin of some of your favorite stars, including Gabrielle Union, Chrissy Teigen, and Adriana Lima. And while you may not be able to have a celebrity derm, you can access her products. Inspired by her Jamaican heritage, she created her namesake brand to provide consumers with an effective, easy-to-use skincare system. The Calming Hydration Booster and Signature Moisturizer are regulars in my bathroom medicine cabinet.
Eadem
Two women with two different skin tones came together with one mission: to create products that prioritize the skin concerns of women of color. Eadem was born out of friendship, founded by Marie Kouadio Amouzame and Alice Lin Glover who met while working at Google. With the brand’s tech-first approach to skincare, aptly titled Smart Melanin™ Complex, Eadem products address hyperpigmentation, dryness, and more, keeping melanin-rich skin at the forefront always.
Hyper Skin
There isn’t a dark spot too stubborn for Hyper Skin. Founded by Desiree Verdejo, Hyper Skin uses clean, good-for-you ingredients to target dark spots and marks, and brighten the skin. From the cleanser to the best-selling vitamin C serum, each product is meant to play well with your routine, not disrupt it.
Namesake
Being the daughter of a dermatologist has its perks. After snooping around her mother’s own practice and looking for her own remedies for her reactive skin, Davlyn Mosley made the decision to whip up all the skincare wisdom she’s gained from her mother over the years and bottle it in a 1.7 fl oz jar. The result? The Daily Moisturizer, Namesake’s inaugural product that imparts deep moisture and strengthens the skin’s barrier.
Makeup
Charlotte Tilbury
This brand can’t seem to make a product immune to going viral. Whether it’s their new matte Blush Wands, an eternally sold-out glowing primer, or their lipsticks that are spotted on every celeb imaginable, at the helm of this growing brand is Charlotte herself.
Kosas
The “Clean Girl” beauty aesthetic is one Kosas founder Sheena Zadeh-Daly has been sporting for years. With skincare-loving ingredients and a focus on the planet, Kosas’ iconic products will always have a spot in a beauty editor’s makeup bag.
Ami Colé
Ami Colé founder Diarrha Ndiaye created this line of minimalistic yet effective makeup that has quickly become “must-have products,” for beauty lovers. From their coveted lip oils to the brand’s new Cream Multistick, every product is created to enhance the wearer’s natural beauty–rather than cover it up.
Jones Road
A legend in the beauty industry, Jones Road is Bobbi Brown’s new beauty brand. It’s already making waves, whether by creating a digital firestorm over its complexion product, What The Foundation, or by simplifying the sometimes exhausting beauty ritual, Jones Road is an innovative brand with a beauty icon leading the way.
Glossier
Whether under the stewardship of founder Emily Weiss or their new CEO Kyle Leahy, there’s no denying Glossier’s impact on the beauty world. Their newest launches, a refillable deodorant and a brown mascara, brought the brand back to its roots: clean, easy, and barely there.
Uoma Beauty
My Nigerian sorority sister put me onto this super-inclusive brand; with foundation coming in, get this—51 shades. However, it’s their Trippin’ Smooth Powder that keeps me coming back for more. It creates a soft focus and minimizes my fine lines and pores. Paris filter who? And I stan a brand with an international flair: Uoma translates to “beautiful” in Igbo (one of the main languages spoken in southern Nigeria), reminding me of my (inner and outer) beauty with every application.
Thread
During the pandemic, Melissa Butler, founder of The Lip Bar, quietly launched another brand called thread. Melissa created thread with Gen-Z makeup-loving humans of color in mind as a way to affordably express themselves freely and unapologetically through beauty and their personal appearance. The ‘face it’ multi-use complexion sticks come in 26 shades, making them the most inclusive foundation sticks available in-store at Target.
Rare Beauty
Founded by singer and actress Selena Gomez, no other brand has transcended the celebrity-founded beauty company cliché like Rare. With their viral Soft Pinch Liquid blush and recently launched Positive Light Silky Touch Highlighter, Rare Beauty is a brand committed to producing effective makeup products that withstand the critics.
Haircare
Briogeo
Nancy Twine was always been entangled in the world of beauty. Before launching Briogeo in 2013, Twine spent her childhood concocting nourishing hair products alongside her grandmother. However, she was disappointed by the subpar formulas in beauty stores and opted to return to her roots. Using ingredients inspired by her grandmother’s beauty formulas, Brigeo was born with a focus on natural ingredients with professional results.
Sienna Naturals
Haircare shouldn’t be complicated, which is why Hannah Diop launched Sienna Naturals. Each product is formulated with the brand’s Rooted Technology to ensure your hair is clean and healthy from root to scalp. Issa Rae loved the products so much that she joined as co-founder.
Rizos Curls
Founder Julissa Prado created Rizos Curls to solve her own hair woes–and ended up creating a line that spoke to thousands of other curly-haired people. They marry quality ingredients with education, using their TikTok to help others find the proper technique–and the best products–to help them achieve their hair goals.
Salwa Petersen
In 2o2o, Salwa Petersen created her brand and founding product, Chébé Du Tchad Hair Cream. Helping strengthen and hydrate hair based on rituals in her native Chad, this product is designed to help hair grow long, by infusing strands with a blend of botanical ingredients.
Ceremonia
As the first Latinx-owned haircare line carried at Sephora, Ceremonia has a cult following amongst beauty insiders and clean beauty enthusiasts alike. Using botanical ingredients and stunning packaging, Ceremonia allows people to embrace their natural texture with a minimalist lens.
Kazmaleje
Latoya, LaTasha, and LaTrice Stirrup are giving wash day a makeover with tools that have demystified the detangling process. Founded in 2015, the three sisters created hair tools specifically for curly, coily, kinky hair. The Kurlsplus Paddle Comb glides through my hair and is so gentle on my tender scalp. It’s a great product for friends who have kids. It’s made wash day fun again!
Fragrance
Nest
NEST is one of the most iconic home fragrance brands on the market. Founded by Laura Slatkin, the brand has made a name for itself with luxurious candles, perfumes, diffusers, and body care.
Brown Girl Jane
In need of a mood lift? Each scent in Brown Girl Jane’s lineup takes you to a different place. While Brown Girl Jane appears as a fragrance brand, founders Malaika Jones, Tai Beauchamp, and Nia Jones are on a mission to keep wellness and self-care at the forefront of the beauty conversation among Black women.
Liis Fragrances
This has quickly become one of my favorite fragrance brands. Founded by Alissa Sullivan and Leslie Hendin, if I can call their brand anything, it’s intentional. They focus on creating clean formulas sans preservatives, dyes, and sulfates. In addition, they amplify other women by striving to use mainly women-owned businesses within their supply chain production. Their newest fragrance, Lucienne, is named after Alissa’s mother and Leslie’s son’s middle name—with notes of polemo, lemon zest, fresh magnolia, dragonfruit, and aquatic waterlily, it gives an uplifting and bright scent profile, which is understandable since Lucienne is derived from the Latin word for light.
NEST Fragrances Lime Zest & Matcha Votive Candle
Brown Girl Jane Casablanca Eau de Parfum
Liis Fragrances Eau de Parfum
Beauty Commerce Writer
Tatjana Freund is ELLE.com’s Beauty Commerce Writer, covering makeup, skincare, and haircare products and trends. Previously, she worked at Marie Claire. She has bylines with Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazzar, and more. Tatjana is an advocate for Latinx representation in the beauty industry. Her work has been featured on the Drew Barrymore show. She’s a fan of whiskey neat, podcasts that give her nightmares, and one time Zoë Kravitz laughed at a joke she made.