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

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.”

Read the full op-ed at Cosmopolitan UK.