If you've followed Glossier veteran Diarrha N’Diaye's Instagram account @ByAmiCole in the past year, you've witnessed all the process of creating a beauty brand from scratch. As she explained in "The
Process" highlight reel on her page, "I am not in the business of creating more 'things.' My goal is [to] create better things." So she turned the Instagram account into her very own virtual focus group, requesting input on everything from packaging to logos in between a feed chock-full of melanated beauties. "Because I've spent too many years and Sephora visits having to explain my skin," she adds. Today, N'Diaye will launch Ami Colé, her answer to the beauty industry's questionable history with Black skin.
Ami Colé enters the beauty world with its first three products inspired by the founder's Senegalese background (the brand is named after her mother) and made in Harlem. The beauty brand further encourages the "no-makeup-makeup" look with its Skin-Enhancing Tint ($32), which arrives in six shades that impart a "blur effect without masking your skin" and ingredients like baobab seed extract, hibiscus flower, and pumpkin seed extract. The Light-Catching Highlighter ($22) is a translucent balm with flecks of glitter that leave a radiant glow, and the Lip Treatment Oil ($20) comes in a universally flattering rosy brown hue.
"I envision [the customer] as a woman who enjoys being herself, with a true joy in going to the mirror and feeling confident in what she looks like,” N’Diaye told WWD. "For me specifically, being a darker skin tone, I know how important it was for me to feel confident even to function in society. For me to be able to walk out the door and feel like, ‘OK, I look my best self, I feel my best self.’ That’s was crucial to how my day went. That is really important for this customer."
Ami Colé is available to purchase on its official site starting today, May 17, and will launch on Thirteen Lune in June.
