Conscious commerce and inclusive beauty are very much buzz words in the cosmetics and personal care sector today. But Jenn Harper is taking mission-driven business to new heights and reaching an impressive number of previously unserved beauty consumers (including over 54,000 Instagram followers).
Harper launched Cheekbone beauty in 2016, and then spent 2-plus years “to develop the market and see if anyone really wanted our brand to exist,” she tells CosmeticsDesign.com Editor Deanna Utroske in the above video interview (filmed at last weekend’s Green Beauty Night event in Los Angeles, California, where Harper, alongside other indie beauty founders and several ingredient suppliers, met and spoke with attendees over tabletop exhibits).
In October 2019, Cheekbone Beauty accepted seed funding from Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, as Cosmetics Design reported at the time. And with that capital, says Harper, the brand has established a new board of directors and can now focus more fully on the environmental sustainability of the brand.
Harper’s approach to socially conscious business necessarily includes green beauty, but Cheekbone Beauty is about so much more: “We really wanted to represent Indigenous women and have a place and a platform where they can see their faces—and specifically for Indigenous youth,” she says.
“Myself growing up,” acknowledges Harper, “I don’t really feel like I had too many role models. So I thought it was so important to have them see their faces in a brand. And essentially, the beauty industry has never paid much attention to Indigenous women; and now, there’s a brand that exists for them!”
To learn more about Cheekbone Beauty and Harper’s approach to conscious business, watch the full Cosmetics Design video interview at the top of the page.
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Deanna Utroske is a leading voice in the cosmetics and personal care industry as well as in the indie beauty movement. As Editor of CosmeticsDesign.com, she writes daily news about the business of beauty in the Americas region and regularly produces video interviews with cosmetics, fragrance, personal care, and packaging experts as well as with indie brand founders.
Deanna will be traveling next to the Personal Care Product Council’s annual meeting; if you’ll be there too and have beauty business news to share, feel free to contact her at deanna.utroske@wrbm.com
