Thirteen Lune’s mission: Make beauty retail more inclusive

*To receive the Vogue Business newsletter,* [*sign up here*](https://signup.voguebusiness.com/vb)*.* In 2020, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in the US and beyond, Nyakio Grieco found herself frustrated by the lack of Black and brown-owned beauty brands on the mass market. Grieco, who founded her eponymous skincare brand in 2002, says she was featured on listicles promoting Black-owned brands, while at the same time watching retailers struggle to commit 15 per cent of their shelf space to Black-owned companies, a target proposed by the Fifteen Percent Pledge, a nonprofit founded by activist Aurora James. “In my mind, I thought, it shouldn't be that hard to have that much representation on the shelf,” Grieco says. That year, Grieco joined Patrick Herning, founder of plus-size retail platform 11 Honoré, to create a new beauty e-commerce platform that would provide retail opportunities for Black and brown-owned brands and give them better access to the consumer market. Thirteen Lune launched in December 2020 as an online store where customers could shop and discover beauty brands founded by Black and brown women. [#article: /articles/5ef349d6df1073db3375829f] Since then, the platform has grown to carry more than 160 BIPOC-founded brands, and is now expanding its partnership with US department store JCPenney. Thirteen Lune has raised $3 million from the Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm led by women of colour. Other investors include Sean Combs, Gwyneth Paltrow, former US ambassador to The Bahamas Nicole Avant and British actress Naomi Watts. The platform has seen a four-digit growth percentage year-on-year, according to Thirteen Lune, though the company declined to share specific sales figures. The goal is to create long-term impact and change within the beauty industry and be more than a passive retail partner, Grieco says. Thirteen Lune is working closely with beauty businesses to help them break into the market by providing them with mentorship, connecting founders and investors, as well as breaking into physical retail stores. BIPOC business should be considered outside of moments of “racial reckoning”, she adds, so that the focus on Black and brown-owned brands is not a trend. “As a business, if you're not focusing on serving a consumer that's been underserved for far too long, soon, that consumer will be the majority,” she argues. “And you won't be able to have a sustainable business without being truly inclusive.” ## **Diversifying inventory** In 2021, after only a few months in operation, Thirteen Lune inked a deal to expand in JCPenney stores as the flagship partner of JCPenney Beauty, the retailer's in-store beauty space previously occupied by Sephora. Now, Thirteen Lune is preparing to make its own brick-and-mortar debut, with its first standalone store in LA expected to open early next year. [#image: /photos/63a1eabd246ede52eb7af9c6]|||Thirteen Lune's retail units in JCPenney stores.||| Despite the challenging economic climate — a looming recession, price inflation and retail sales in the US plummeting lower than expected, according to the [US Department of Commerce](https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf) — Grieco says physical retail was the necessary next step for the business to reach new customers who may be unfamiliar with the brands, whilst offering customers the opportunity to shop an assortment of affordable and luxury BIPOC beauty brands (prices range from $5 to $578). “Consumers want the opportunity to touch and feel the products; to work with beauty consultants; to really hear the stories of the brands; and to connect and interact with the founders,” Grieco adds, noting that these are moments that build consumer loyalty and cannot be replicated online. As appetite for BIPOC beauty brands grows, so has Thirteen Lune’s partnership within JCPenney Beauty — the pilot phase saw the beauty platform operate shop-in-shop units in 10 JCPenney stores, which has grown to 300 stores and is expected to reach 600 by early next year. [#image: /photos/63a1eabb246ede52eb7af9c3]|||Thirteen Lune's co-founder Nyakio Grieco.||| Working with a well-established retailer means a startup like Thirteen Lune can lean on the 120-year-old business for its expertise and resources. “We are set up to operationally succeed as a retailer, we can help bring products to market extremely quickly,” says Jo Osborne, JCPenney Beauty’s senior executive merchandising manager. JCPenney provides Thirteen Lune and other BIPOC brands with guidance on scaling and mentorship. However, as the brands vary in size, Grieco stresses that collaboration is needed to help identify how each brand can “win on shelf”. The same recipe that works for a well established beauty brand might not work for a smaller, newly launched brand, Grieco adds. ## **Solving pain points for emerging BIPOC-owned brands** Lack of access to capital continues to set back Black and brown-owned beauty businesses. “That is really at the heart of why so many brands do not have the opportunity to get to shelf, and when they get to shelf, to win and succeed,” Grieco says. Reflecting on her own experiences as a beauty founder, she recalls the “heartbreaking” feeling of securing a deal with a national retailer, but quickly realising she could not afford to be there. Without enough finances, smaller beauty brands struggle to meet the order quantities wanted by retailers, she says. She works with brands to help build a stronger foundation, for example, helping to strengthen their supply chains, and once ready to scale, connecting founders with investors. “First and foremost, BIPOC beauty brands need proper access to capital,” Grieco argues. “Many go to shelf unprepared to handle the costs needed to sustain hundreds of doors. Lack of capital also hinders brands from adequately marketing themselves to customers, which can hinder their growth trajectory.” She declined to provide further details on how it supports brands to do this. For Indigenous beauty brand Prados, founded by Cece Meadows in 2018, reaching and connecting with investors was a gruelling process. “Before Thirteen Lune and Nyakio it was hard to be heard in a room full of investors and lenders,” she says. “Their commitment to make introductions, help get us paid early on terms and ad spend on their end has helped get us out there on a larger scale. While we are still in the building stage, it’s been easier for investors to see and hear us.” [#image: /photos/63a1eabb9242a3a8bb2b400c]|||Junior Mintt, founder of Mintty Makeup (top) and Cece Meadows, founder of Prados. ||| BIPOC businesses were struggling to enter the mass market, despite being featured on a number of listicles in major publications. “Many of these brands didn't have a lot of followers and many of them are direct-to-consumer without a lot of distribution,” Grieco recalls. However, she notes that over the past 24 months as consumers discover and shop more Black and brown beauty brands, the visibility is driving growth. “Some of those early brands that we brought to the platform that maybe had a few thousand followers and we're doing a lot in sales have now become some of our biggest brands.” Brands such as Ami Cole, Buttah and Relevant Skin are among Thirteen Lune’s top sellers. Intersectionality within beauty retail is still a pain point for Junior Mintt, founder and CEO of Mintty Makeup, who says retailers struggled to “understand” and connect with the brand. “The biggest challenge we faced was simply proving the value in servicing and centering Black trans people,” Mintt explains. “It was hard for people outside of my community to see that centering Black trans people wasn’t alienating everyone else, but rather valuing everyone equally.” Allyship can help boost discovery for small and emerging BIPOC brands, says Grieco. Of the brands stocked on Thirteen Lune, 90 per cent are BIPOC businesses and 10 per cent “are dedicated to fostering allyship”, she says. When Olaplex launched on the platform, Grieco says, haircare sales across all brands increased. “The visibility that these larger brands give to some of our smaller brands waiting to be discovered has also shown success.” Other beauty heavyweights stocked on the platform are Dr Barbara Sturm, Allies of Skin, and American actor Tracee Ellis Ross’s newly launched haircare brand, Pattern. “The challenge of making the beauty industry more inclusive cannot just fall on the hands of Black and brown founders,” Grieco says. “Allyship is key and an important piece to making it more accessible. So, it’s important we align ourselves with like-minded partners.” **Key takeaway:** Thirteen Lune launched in 2020 with the aim of making the beauty industry more inclusive by encouraging consumers of all backgrounds to shop Black and brown-owned beauty businesses. Two years later, after growing the number of brands stocked on its platform and following a successful partnership with US retailer JCPenney, the beauty platform is strengthening its omnichannel operations as it looks to roll out more stores within JCPenney Beauty as well as open its first standalone store. *Correction: Corrects year-over-year growth percentage.* *Clarification: Thirteen Lune is partnering with JCPenney Beauty, the retailer's in-store beauty experience. (21 December 2022)* *Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at* [*feedback@voguebusiness.com*](mailto:feedback@voguebusiness.com)*.* **More from this author:** [Luisaviaroma to open New York flagship as US sales boom](https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/luisaviaroma-to-open-new-york-flagship-as-us-sales-boom?itm_source=manual_article_recommendation){: target="_blank"} [Ralph Lauren sales climb 5 per cent on China resilience](https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/ralph-lauren-sales-climb-5-per-cent-on-china-resilience?itm_source=manual_article_recommendation){: target="_blank"} [Capri lowers forecast based on China, inflation and energy crisis concerns](https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/capri-lowers-forecast-based-on-china-inflation-and-energy-crisis-concerns?itm_source=manual_article_recommendation){: target="_blank"}

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