Coil Beauty: A Company for All Colors

Embracing all people of color, Coil Beauty, an online retailer focused on acceptance, prides itself on providing for the black community. The business offers a variety of products for hair, skin, and nails that address the often overlooked beauty needs of people of color. 

Aisha Shannon-Bates started the company after experiencing her own struggles within the beauty community. Through first-hand experience, she discovered that beauty stores automatically associate her skin tone with a weave, without offering any other products. It was then that Shannon-Bates decided she wanted to create a space to appreciate women with natural curls and straightened strands and to provide them with a plethora of cosmetic resources. "I founded Coil Beauty from my own experiences, and from endless research of products made by and for people of color," Shannon-Bates says on the Coil Beauty website. "Who better to create products for us than people who not only understand our needs, but also have those same needs themselves?"

GIF via www.coilbeauty.com

Listed under the website’s hair option, animations flip through a variety of hair types and hairstyles, such as tight curls, cornrows, bantu knots, and straight, relaxed hair. Behind the site's “Our Mission" banner, hands of different skin tones are seen making empowering fists. The website’s marketing alone emphasizes all types of beauty. 

According to Coil Beauty’s website, the brand's mission is “to make it more seamless and fun for people of color to browse, shop and find beauty products, to create a beauty destination where you are our specialty—not an afterthought, and to enhance our platform and product base to meet the needs of our awesome customers by putting you and your feedback first.” The site also hosts the Coil Beauty Blog, which features posts catered to beauty-aficionados of color. Topics range from finding the right salon and stylist for your hair to finding the right lip color and beyond.

Coil Beauty features products for textured hair, quality makeup for all skin tones and types, and more. Popular brands include Pear Nova, Mielle Organics, The Lip Bar, Camille Rose Naturals, The Mane Choice, Soultanicals, Girl + Hair, and Unsun Cosmetics. 

Logo via www.coilbeauty.com


In 2019, Coil Beauty introduced a program called Coil Confidence, which grants one lucky winner an "interview makeover," including hair, nails, makeup, and interview attire. Graduating seniors from Chicago-area universities can apply by sending in their GPA, which must be over 3.5, a copy of their high school or college transcript, and a 200 word essay describing the importance of confidence in the workplace. Coil Beauty also offers a similar program for two eligible high school students. The winners will also have a makeover, but it will be geared toward prom. Interested applicants are encourage to email their applications to [email protected].

What it boils down to, according to the Coil website, is that "it should be just as easy an enjoyable for people of color to find beauty products as it is for everyone else," and Coil Beauty is doing just that.

 

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