Key Takeaways:
The term “African Beauty” is frequently invoked in global beauty conversations, yet it remains one of the most complex and often misunderstood categories in the industry. For many outside the continent and even within the diaspora, Africa is mistakenly treated as a single cultural unit, rather than a constellation of distinct histories, aesthetics, economic realities, and beauty traditions. This oversimplification influences how consumers perceive African brands, whether locally or internationally.
Meanwhile, founders on the continent and in the diaspora must navigate unequal access to capital, fragmented manufacturing infrastructure, persistent colonial-era biases, and the global appetite for African ingredients that doesn’t always translate into local benefit. Understanding what it truly means to be an African beauty brand, therefore, requires looking beyond ingredients or aesthetics. It demands examining authorship, economic power, cultural memory, and the lived realities shaping beauty identities both within Africa and across its global diaspora.
Authorship Over Geography
For Ayeya Inc. founder Olowon’djo Tchala, describing a brand as an African beauty brand “isn’t just about where the ingredients come from, or where I was born, but about honoring a philosophy rooted in deeper values than geography alone.” The Togolese founder emphasized values to BeautyMatter. “It’s a commitment to traditions, ethical sourcing, and community empowerment, reflecting Africa’s wide spectrum of cultures, ingredients, and rituals.” His definition also ties identity to action. “To me, it also means advocating for economic independence, producing with dignity, centering African voices, and challenging dominant narratives about what beauty looks like and where innovation comes from.”
Haweya Mohamed, co-founder of African cultural agency, The Colors, complemented this with an authorship test. “An African beauty brand is defined more by authorship and anchoring. Is the brand’s vision, product development, and storytelling driven by people who are rooted in African realities, whether on the continent or in the diaspora?” She argued that if a brand “outsources all thinking and creative control to London or Paris and just sprinkles in baobab seed oil, [it is] African in marketing, not in substance.”
Tchala also insisted on layered identity. “I don’t try to make broad generalizations. Instead, I lean into local specificity,” he said. Yet he also consciously “uses a pan-African narrative, because I believe in unity and shared heritage.” The balance is practical as well as symbolic. That is, local roots power credible supply chains and storytelling while pan-African framing builds cultural bridges.
Mohammed echoed this sentiment, urging brands to be specific first, continental second. “[For example], this is a Kenyan haircare brand rooted in Nairobi salon culture; this is a Moroccan fragrance house inspired by Amazigh traditions; this is a South African dermo brand built around research on melanin-rich skin at local universities.” That specificity resists flattening Africa into one market or one look.
Political Economy: Infrastructure, Capital, and Perceived Value
Both voices emphasized that diaspora authorship is both powerful and limited. Mohammed noted that African voices are “louder than ever,” thanks to digital platforms. Yet, she also warned that “the microphone and the stage still belong largely to the West.” Visibility is growing, but the levers of distribution like retailers, trade shows, awards, and advertising networks, still concentrate power outside African hands. This means that although African creativity can go viral, control over which stories scale remains uneven.
Tchala made a closely related point about trust and local markets, describing how internalized colonial thinking can make local consumers prefer foreign labels. “Even when a product is made in Africa, people might trust a foreign label more,” he said. The implication is not only cultural, but also economic. Think how packaging, imported materials, and certification demanded by Western markets can inflate costs and make locally made products less accessible to African consumers.
Also, African beauty cannot be disentangled from political economy. “Manufacturing and infrastructure remain limited in many markets, with high logistics and energy costs. Access to capital is another major obstacle. Financing for consumer brands is scarce, the cost of capital is high, and currency volatility makes long-term planning difficult,” said Mohammed, listing some of the main systemic barriers at play. She added that diaspora founders face “institutional biases” in Western capital markets, the same structural friction that affects Black founders more broadly.
Tchala concurred and framed the investor gaze critically. “There is a romantic idea in the West about ‘exotic Africa’ or ‘tribal beauty,’ which sometimes simplifies or flattens the reality of African communities. Investors may see African heritage ingredients as a trend rather than a legacy.” He called attention to the “hidden cost” of meeting Western market specs, an expense that often undermines local affordability and ownership.
Ethics, Benefit, and Intellectual Sovereignty
That said, a central, recurring demand is ethical traceability. Tchala is explicit. “We honor ancestral knowledge, like shea butter and black soap made by women’s cooperatives in Togo, but we also insist on fair trade, transparency, and ethical supply chains.” He insisted that purchases should translate to real uplift. “When someone buys our products, they’re not just making a moral choice; they’re participating in a social and economic cycle that uplifts entire communities.”
“Is the global attention to ingredients such as shea and moringa delivering local benefits or simply creating new extractive systems?” Mohamed asked. Her prescription is structural, as she cited that African scientists and creatives must lead the entire value chain from research and formulation to branding, cultural influence, and global distribution. Also, political frameworks must support local industrial capacity.
Both voices converged on three non-negotiables. Tchala listed them plainly: “truth, dignity, and community.” He unpacked these into concrete demands. First, transparency in ingredients and storytelling; second, respect and fair pay for harvesters; and third, environmental care, and economic empowerment. Mohammed's vision of a self-sustaining African beauty industry insists political coherence, industrial policy, easier access to capital, and cultural platforms that elevate African authorship.
If the category is to move beyond trend cycles, the work must be practical and political. It must include funding labs and local R&D, building vertically integrated supply chains, require transparency from brands claiming heritage, and measure who benefits from ingredient stories. As Mohamed argued, “The day the African continent has the infrastructure, financing, and policy framework to build an integrated cosmetics and fragrance industry, it will become one of the most powerful forces in the global beauty industry.”
For Tchala, “Business must lift people, not exploit them.” This means more rigorous sourcing, clearer attribution of authorship, and a refusal to treat Africa as a motif. For investors and retailers, it is an invitation to finance the institutions including labs, factories, and cooperatives that allow African beauty to be authored, owned, and sustained from within.