Abi Lawrence-Adesida & Jacqueline Kusamotu
Co-Founders of Candour Beauty
Interview by: Selena Schleh / Photography by: Amanda Akokhia
When Covid forced the world into lockdown last year, the overall feeling was one of doom and gloom – hardly an opportune time to start a business, you’d think. But for Abi Lawrence-Adesida and Jacqueline Kusamotu, it was actually the perfect moment to launch their new e-commerce platform, Candour Beauty. “There was a real need for access to beauty products, good customer service and information on how to use the products,” explains Jacqueline. “Black women are typically not served by mainstream retailers. The local stores where we would go for hair and beauty products don’t have online platforms, and those that do have very bad customer service. So that was already a huge gap, and Covid magnified those issues.”
The pair hatched their plan for Candour Beauty while working in management at a telecoms company. Naturally drawn together by a passion for beauty, they’d both experienced how Black women are often overlooked, misunderstood and ignored by the beauty industry, so decided to draw on their digital experience and their “shared qualities of grit, proactiveness, focus and perseverance,” to create an authentic platform offering quality, tried-and-tested beauty and personal care products specifically for women of colour.
A virtual Aladdin’s cave of beauty, the site stocks a carefully curated range of brands ranging from small Black-owned businesses such as The Afro Hair & Skin Company, to global beauty behemoths like Dr Barbara Sturm. “Our first question is always: does this product address the needs of our customers?” says Abi. Hyperpigmentation, for example, is one of the biggest bugbears for Black skin, so the duo actively seek out specialist products such as the bestselling Nuhanciam Anti Dark Spot serum. As conscious consumers themselves, they also look closely at a brand’s back story and values. “We prioritize Black-owned brands as we understand the generational impact of what it means to support a Black-owned company, but at the same time we want to stock the best product for our customer,” explains Jacqueline.
With Candour Beauty’s retention rate increasing month on month, it’s clear the clientele is happy, but the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Aside from the logistical issues of fulfilling orders from home during lockdown, they’ve struggled with funding: “As Black founders, we’re definitely over-mentored and under-funded,” says Jacqueline ruefully. As relative newbies to the beauty business, they’ve also had to forge connections with larger established brands from scratch. But the rewards far outweigh the negatives, says Abi: “We were able to solve our own problems by coming up with this business. We’ve built something from nothing, which is inspiring not just for us, but our children and the next generation.”
Looking to the future, the plan is to expand their unisex offerings and move into male grooming and colour cosmetics, as well as launching their own range of merchandise, such as hair styling tools. “We want to grow in terms of our demographic, but also our market,” says Abi. “At the moment we’re based primarily in the UK, but we want to become a true global brand.”
