17 Black Owned Makeup Brands 2024

While many people might’ve been confused in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, black women love makeup.

In fact, we love it even more when products are made for us and with our complexion in mind.

Luckily for us, we haven’t had to solely rely on options from non-black brands.

Black makeup brands are on the rise and we love what they’re doing.

From big names to indie shops, here are some of the best black-owned makeup brands.

Fenty Beauty

First on our list probably has to be the most well-known black-owned brand – Fenty Beauty and their Moroccan Spice Eyeshadow Palette.

With sixteen neutral and vibrant colors, you’ll get a lot out of this palette.

And that’s not all Fenty Beauty has.

Owned by the beautiful Rihanna, this brand is popular for their wide foundation shade range and their inclusivity.

Rihanna launched the brand in September 2017, and she clearly wasn’t coming to play straight out of the gate.

Her brand launched with an impressive 50 shades, more shades than some seasoned brands have after decades of being around.

It was clear that her goal was inclusivity.

Since the beginning, her marketing has always included models with varying shades of skin tones from the lightest to the deepest.

Moreso, she has included men in the marketing for her brand as well.

The tagline for her brand is “beauty for all,” and Fenty Beauty definitely keeps their standards up there.

With new products launching regularly and a cult following, Fenty Beauty by Rihanna isn’t going anywhere.

If you’re interested, Rihanna even has some of her own favorites that include the Stunna Lip Paint Longwear Fluid Lip Color, Pro Filt’r Instant Retouch Concealer, and the 2019 Allure Best of Beauty Winner, the Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation.

Black Opal Beauty, A Famous Black Owned Makeup Brand

Black Opal Beauty is another black-owned makeup brand and they are known for their complexion products like the TRUE COLOR Skin Perfecting Stick Foundation.

The brand has celebrated over 25 years of “passion, talent, and expertise.”

Originally founded for black women, they were inspired by the differences in black skin.

Since 1994, they have been especially popular with the black community for products that help with our “problem areas.”

As black women, we often find it hard to find products that help cover up dark spots.

More so, it can be difficult trying to find products that accommodate for our many shades and undertones.

The brand has come far over the last few years.

They began with a fade gel that was meant to target hyperpigmentation.

While they would continue with products that targeted skin issues, they would branch into makeup products in 2007 with their Oil Absorbing Pressed Powder which earned an Essence “Reader’s Choice Award.”

Since then, the brand has won numerous awards and spread their beauty catalog to foundations and primers, eye products, lipsticks, and more.

So for the women who experience oily skin, hyperpigmentation, and more, Black Opal Beauty is a brand dedicated to helping us find the products we need.

Black Radiance Beauty

The True Complexion Creme Contour Palette is a popular product from the black-owned drugstore brand Black Radiance.

This is another brand that is dedicated to helping women of color find the complexion products that match their true skin color.

The brand has a mission of inspiring black women through beauty and through their products.

When the world seems to be going in one direction or “loving” a particular look, it is easy for women with deeper complexions to be hard on themselves.

Black Radiance is working to get rid of that and make sure all women of color can find love within themselves with how they look.

The brand celebrates self-acceptance and inner strength.

They continue to create products that will allow black women to look and feel their best.

Black Radiance has their own collection of face products including lip and eye products.

Plus, their tagline aligns with their mission: “love your shade of beauty.”

The Lip Bar

The Lip Bar is “challenging the standard of beauty” with their Fresh Glow 2-Layer Compact Bronzer Blush Duo.

This product is a combination to help give women of color glowing and bronzed skin.

And that’s not all the brand has to offer.

As is obvious by their name, The Lip Bar has a series of lip products that work well with deeper skin tones.

Say goodbye to lipsticks that make you look like a ghost!

In addition to that, their products are vegan and cruelty-free which means they don’t use animal byproducts and they don’t test on animals.

Second, they focus on inclusivity.

In the makeup industry, many seem to believe that this only includes skin tone, but this includes gender as well.

The Lip Bar is one of the few brands that you’ll see online with both men and women models.

The brand has certainly come from humble beginnings. 

Melissa Butler first appeared with her idea for The Lip Bar on Shark Tank.

Even though she was turned down, she would later launch her brand in 2012.

And The Lip Bar has continued to grow since then.

Beauty Bakerie

Makeup is sweet and so is the Beauty Bakerie “Proof Is In the Pudding” Eyeshadow Palette.

Founded by Cashmere Nicole, she lives by the notion that she can have her cake and eat it too.

That’s why you’ll see the “sweet” theme all throughout her makeup “bakerie.”

She’s had a mind for business since she was in the single digits.

After she became a young mom at the age of 16, she had to push her dreams aside, but years later, she would return to them.

She describes that a “near-death experience” pushed her back towards her goals and has forced her to appreciate every moment.

Goodbye are the times when she would spend 8-15 times a day retouching her makeup.

Because of that, she’s dedicated her brand to making products that last.

From eyes to lips to face, her products are all on theme from the “Neapolitan Bar” blush to the “Brownie Bar” bronzer.

Since its inception, Beauty Bakerie has been a brand dedicated to making black women feel included in the makeup industry.

Vera Moore Cosmetics

Vera Moore Cosmetics is another black-owned brand, and while they also carry makeup, they also focus on skincare.

This can be seen in their Glycolic Scrub with AHA and Aloe.

They are an all-encompassing beauty brand that offers nail polish, a collection of blushes for all skin tones, eyeshadow palettes, and more.

The company was founded by Vera Moore, and if you’re thinking that name is familiar, it might be.

While Vera Moore is the founder and CEO of the brand, she is also an actress.

In fact, she was the first black actress on the soap opera, Another World.

After appearing on TV, she noticed a problem with the makeup industry.

There weren’t many quality products for women of colors.

Not only were the shades unnatural looking, but they would easily rub off on clothes.

This brought about the creation of her brand.

Her products have been around for decades with numerous makeup and skincare products that have been made for women.

And if you’re shopping for the men in your life, Vera Moore Cosmetics even has skincare options for them as well.

Since then, her brand has grown nationally as her products are now available with Walgreens.

Coloured Rain Cosmetics

An option for cruelty-free makeup is Coloured Raine and their Queen of Hearts Eyeshadow Palette.

If you’re looking to feel like a black queen, this is the palette for you with shades like “Royal Highness,” “Empress,” and “Your Majesty.”

The brand was founded in 2013 by Loraine R. Dowdy, a Brooklyn native.

The brand was founded in 2013 by Loraine R. Dowdy, a Brooklyn native.

She took a lot of risks to create this brand.

Originally working a corporate job in finance, she decided to bring her dream to life.

All in all, she wanted to break beauty barriers.

That’s what she’s done and what she continues to do.

The mission behind her brand is to spread diversity through beauty.

Coloured Raine products range from eyeshadow palettes to their popular liquid lipsticks.

What started out as a dream indeed became reality because the range of her products are now available in Target.

Plain Jane Beauty

Plain Jane Beauty is a black-owned brand that is really into clean beauty.

Their Sheer Translucent Finishing Powder is just one product that demonstrates this.

With natural and organic ingredients, you can find a number of their products to suit a healthy lifestyle.

The brand offers plant-based foundations that are noncomedogenic which means they won’t clog your pores.

Founded in 2011 by Lake Louise, she took her Stanford education and made it her purpose to create a clean and cruelty-free makeup brand.

And that is how Plain Jane Beauty came to be a contender in creating inclusive, brown shades for women of color.

Sacha Cosmetics

The brand Sacha Cosmetics blew up when they released their Setting Powder.

For women of color, it was the first translucent powder that would actually work with our skin tone.

During the 2010s, translucent loose setting powders became all the rage.

The only problem was that most brands were still catering their “translucent” or “nude” powders to women with lighter complexions.

Thankfully, the Caribbean gems behind this brand were cooking something up for us.

You can expect that this brand started out for women of color being that it was founded in 1979 in Trinidad and Tobago.

Their products are sold all over the world ranging from matte liquid lipsticks to mattifying primers.

Even so, the brand will always be instantly recognized for their powders.

The buttery softness and golden undertones of their powder make Sacha Cosmetics a favorite among black women.

These powders are practically magic with promises of having no flashback while helping the skin remain flawless all day long.

IMAN Cosmetics

IMAN Cosmetics is another popular black-owned makeup brand.

While they have amazing products like the Iman Cosmetics Sheer Finish Bronzing Powder, it is definitely the star power of their founder, Iman – the popular Somali fashion model.

She landed her first modeling job with Vogue in 1976 and immediately began challenging the bored, played out notions of what “classic” beauty was.

After modeling, she founded the company in 1994 and the company has continued to grow since then.

It was her 2004 alliance with Proctor & Gamble that helped bring this brand to all of our favorite stores.

Now Iman Cosmetics products are available in Target, Walmart, Walgreens, and Duane Reade.

Dedicated to being an outlet for women of color, they have a number of products to help women with deeper skin tones find their shade.

Iman Cosmetics covers all the basics with their complexion products, bronzers and blushes, and lipsticks.

And to further help women of color understand beauty, she released her book THE BEAUTY OF COLOR in 2005 where she addresses multiple skin tones including Black, Latina, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, and more.

Black Up Cosmetics

Another black-owned brand to look into is Black|Up Cosmetics. 

They carry a variety of different products including their Sublime Light Compact Highlighter.

An international brand from Paris, they hail themselves as the first French beauty brand dedicated to women of color.

Essentially, they’re all about helping us find makeup products that won’t leave us looking ashy.

And in order to do this, their makeup is made by women of color, something they emphasize.

Overall, Black Up Cosmetics is meant to represent the woman who is stylish, modern, and elegant.

Danessa Myricks Beauty, A Black Owned Makeup Brand

Danessa Myricks Beauty is more than a black-owned brand.

With products like her Oil and Dew Wet Balm Set, she believes that makeup is art.

Her intention is that makeup should be for women from all walks of life, and she even tries to share that with her consumers.

She’s published books to help makeup artists with contouring and highlighting their clients.

She continues to give back with her “Danessa Myricks University.”

The brand provides a number of videos that can help any aspiring makeup artists or even someone trying to learn makeup for themselves.

She offers lessons that range from how to create a matte smokey eye to mastering dewy skin.

As an artist she continues to share what she has learned from working on her own and throughout her collaborations.

Myricks has even co-created with a number of other brands before establishing her own.

To her, makeup can be mastered and her products at Danessa Myricks Beauty can help you master the skill and turn yourself into the art.

Bernadette Thompson

We’re keeping it a little makeup adjacent with the beauty brand Bernadette Thompson and their Hand and Nail Treatment Kit.

Founded by Bernadette Thompson, this nail tech has been all over the world.

She has worked on celebrities like Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, and Lupita Nyong’o.

For decades, she has been placing her mark on the beauty industry, and her work is phenomenal.

She has a number of nail collections filled with different kits and lacquers for anyone who’s looking to bring her vibrant colors to life on their nails.

Bernadette Thompson is one black-owned beauty brand that brings high fashion to the masses.

Pat McGrath Labs

Pat McGrath is one of the biggest names in the makeup industry and products like her Mothership IV Decadence Eyeshadow Palette show why.

She has been called many things, but on the list you’ll find “the most influential makeup artist in the world” as well as Time’s 100 most influential people.

If you can believe it, the makeup artist has absolutely no formal training.

Even so, she has blossomed over the years in her career.

She first began by working for magazines before she was hired by Giorgio Armani to work on his cosmetics brand.

She won numerous awards, worked on a number of fashion shows, and would go on to begin her own brand.

In 2015, she founded Pat McGrath Labs, her own makeup brand.

It has grown exponentially that in 2019, it became a billion dollar company.

Pat McGrath Labs is all about pigment whether you’re shopping for her glittered lip products or her heavily pigmented eyeshadows.

Juvia’s Place

The Masquerade Palette by the black-owned brand, Juvia’s Place, is a staple in many beauty collections.

The brand was founded in 2015 by Chizi Eburu, who at the time was a stay-at-home wife and mom of two children.

When the brand first arrived on the scene, they were instantly recognized for their extremely pigmented eyeshadows.

Since then, they have gained the attention of some major influencers.

Even so, this brand can’t be mentioned without some of the controversy that has followed them.

Some have seen this brand as prioritizing non-black influencers when the mission of the company was originally founded to represent women of color.

More controversy followed Juvia’s Place in 2019 when they shared a photo of influencer Jeffree Star who has been known to make racial slurs against black people in the past.

As they always say, there are two sides to every story and regardless of what side you’re on, Juvia’s Place is still one of the popular black-owned brands that have continued to make products that look amazing on black skin.

Plus, we’d be remiss not to mention their numerous eyeshadow palettes like “The Tribe,” “The Afrique,” and “The Nubian 3.”

Uoma Beauty

Let your lips speak for themselves.

The UOMA Black Magic Hypnotic Impact Metallic Lipstick is a standout from African brand UOMA Beauty.

There’s a lot of beauty behind this brand, and it begins with its meaning.

UOMA means beautiful in Igbo, and their story continues with their founder.

Sharon Chuter was born in Nigeria, but has since been based out of Los Angeles and London.

She believes that “beauty starts the moment you decide to be yourself.”

While they also focus on making sure their products are suited for women of deeper skin tones, they emphasize that all are welcome to join their tribe.

There are many brands in the world that simply focus on their marketing and branding, but UOMA has values and beliefs.

They include: self-expression, colourful living, African pride, empowering tribe, inclusivity, and beautiful rebellion.

The story of this brand is beautiful and so are their models of varying complexions.

Ranging from “White Pearl” to “Black Pearl,” UOMA Beauty speaks to all women.

Mented Cosmetics

Last on our list, we have Mented Cosmetics and their Nude Eyeshadows Palette.

While many of the brands on this list were founded by one woman, Mented Cosmetics was founded by two – KJ Miller and Amanda E. Johnson.

These women formed the brand after having a conversation on the difficulties of black women finding nude lipsticks.

So what did they do?

They decided to make their own.

The name for the brand comes from pigMented, which is exactly what their products are.

Mented Cosmetics began with nude lipsticks but soon branched into different shades as well as eyeshadow palettes.

Even while the brand was created with black women at the front of their minds, they believe that the standard of beauty should be equal no matter what your skin tone is.

Since their beginning, Mented Cosmetics has grown to now include eyes, lips, face, brow, cheek, and even nail products.

Black Owned Makeup Brands Conclusion

And there you have it!

If you were looking to shop black, you might’ve thought that you didn’t have many choices.

As this list clearly shows, you can shop black for some of the best foundations, eyeshadow palettes, and lipsticks on the market.

Have you tried any of these brands?

Let us know what your favorites are.