In its seventh year, the Sephora Accelerate Brand Incubator Program continues its focus on supporting founders of color. The shift, instituted earlier this year, reflects Sephora's commitment to increasing BIPOC representation in prestige beauty and Sephora's assortment. The newest BIPOC beauty founders selected for this year's program have brand offerings spanning the full range of the Sephora product universe, including makeup, skincare, haircare, and fragrance for the first time. Upon program completion, all will have the opportunity to launch their brands at Sephora.
“We are committed to ensuring that the brands and products found at Sephora represent all the colors, races, and ethnicities that make up America, effectively building a beauty community to which everyone feels they belong," said Priya Venkatesh, SVP Merchandising, Skin Care and Hair, Sephora. "To do so, it's important that brand founders of all backgrounds have the opportunity and resources they need to grow their businesses and thrive. Through the Accelerate program, Sephora is committed to giving founders the long-term mentorship, access to market and scale they need to truly accelerate growth, with the program serving as a springboard for nascent brands to become visible, viable, stable, and financially solvent.”
Meet the 2022 Sephora Accelerate Cohort:
Basma Beauty, Founders Basma Hameed and Parisa Durrani: Basma Beauty believes that makeup should fit into your lifestyle, not the other way around, developing easy-to-use, versatile, and buildable formulas that provide control with makeup made for real life and real skin.
Fara Homidi, Founder Fara Homidi: A champion of "high-performance slow beauty," this clean luxury beauty line is professionally formulated for effortless application, featuring sustainably minded packaging and products with a refill system and an inclusive color range.
House of Foster, Founder Selah Lemon: A modern fragrance house rooted in intention, House of Foster doesn't make you choose between wellness and aesthetic. The brand rejects the mundane and believes in the promotion of intentional formulation that positively provokes the senses.
Lion Pose, Co-Founders Nisha Phatak and Madhu Punjabi: Lion Pose is a clean+clinical brand for brown skin raising research standards and fighting hyperpigmentation with powerful actives. Developed with Harvard-educated dermatologists and clinically tested on skin of color, Lion Pose products are intended to be the first line of defense for brown skin issues, whether melasma, hyperpigmentation, ingrown hairs, or acne.
Kempt, Founder Rimah Husain: Kempt is elevating the facial hair removal experience with a skin-first approach. The brand offers effective but gentle hair removal products with clean formulations that feature skincare ingredients.
Mango People, Founder Sravya Adusumilli: Mango People is a line of multifunctional beauty essentials formulated with organic botanical oils and adaptogenic herbs from Ayurveda, and infused with plant pigments that look and feel incredible on the skin. The brand's mission is to provide high-performing products that are inclusive of all skin tones, without compromising on ingredients or our planet.
Miss Rizos, Founder Carolina Contreras: Born in the Dominican Republic over ten years ago, first as an online platform that educates, celebrates, and advocates for curly women and girls, Miss Rizos has cultivated and grown a following of curly hair enthusiasts from all over the world. For the past seven years, Miss Rizos also operates two curly salons in New York City and the Dominican Republic. Its curly hair products embody all the experience, love, and commitment they have for their community as they try to change the world one curl at a time.
Shaz & Kiks, Co-Founder Kiku Chaudhuri: Founded by two sisters, the brand's mission is to create innovative products inspired by ancient Indian rituals, using ethically sourced Ayurvedic raw ingredients that are proven natural alternative solutions, to nourish the entire hair ecosystem holistically. Co-founder Shaz Rajashekar will not be participating in the program.
Sistine, Founder Krys Lunardo: Sistine is an inclusive cabinet of clean skincare formulas for the ecocentric eccentric, curated to match the protective and nourishing properties of earth's four spheres, with clean ingredients extracted from nutrient-rich terrestrial and aquatic plant life. The brand believes that beauty is our orbit, where the co-existential harmony of human and eco-care is balanced.
Wonder Curl, Founder Scarlett Rocourt: Wonder Curl is a Black-owned, vegan haircare line that improves the texture of natural hair by keeping hair nourished and hydrated for days without rewetting or restyling. The brand aims to provide its customers with the best products that will improve the texture of their hair and allow them to enhance their natural curl pattern while achieving any hairstyle they want.
