Q: What is the essence of Beautyology?

A: I felt like there was a disconnect between how beauty products are marketed to consumers and the truth about where they really come from, how the ingredients that go into them get sourced and more importantly, who the people are that are sourcing them.

I’ve worked in the beauty industry pretty much my entire career and witnessed the evolution of the clean beauty movement and how all the efforts being made to make sure products are sustainably formulated and packaged. The one piece of this puzzle that hasn’t received enough attention, in my opinion, is about the people around the world who help to make your skin cream and face serum possible in the first place. As a beauty consumer myself, I started wondering more about the backstory of my favorite ingredients like shea butter and marula oil. I learned that these resources had rich, historical ties to the communities from where they come from, yet this information is not widely accessible to U.S. beauty consumers.

Q: Tell us how you choose the brands you work with.

A: All of our brands come from various countries around the world that follow fair trade and ethical business practices. I have to hand it to social media because it was through Instagram that I initially found many of the brands that are on the site today. I just started researching fair trade beauty and ethical beauty brands and came upon some brands doing incredible work I would have never known about otherwise. Tierra & Lava, for example, is a botanical skincare brand based in Antigua, Guatemala that works with Mayan farmers in their region who grow and produce the ingredients they use in their serums, soaps, balms and deodorants. Arbor Mundiworks directly with communities in Peru to ethically source ingredients like Buriti Oil and Palo Santo from the Amazon and Andes. Terres D’Afrique is an absolutely gorgeous, spa-grade luxury line out of South Africa that sources their ingredients directly from the Tonga community of Malawi, the Venda community of Limpopo and the Himba community of Namibia.

Q: What are some natural ingredients you’ve discovered that you now can’t live without?

A: I’m addicted to shea butter. Ever since I was introduced to Shea Yeleen when it first launched and its founder Rahama Wright reached out to me to help her promote her products, I fell in love with the scent, the texture and the how well it works for everything! I also am a huge face and body oil person to the point that I could never use another lotion and I’d be fine. Marula, Argan and Blue Tansy oils are my top three right now. Although I recently got introduced to the Peruvian ingredients Buriti Oil for skin and Bataua Oil for hair and they’re unlike anything I’ve used before. Buriti (also called Aguaje oil) is reddish in color and has an almost smoky scent. It’s an incredible source of Vitamin A, a natural retinol alternative. Bataua Oil makes my hair incredibly shiny. Oh and Baobab from Ghana. It’s an amazing source of nutrients for the skin and gut.