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Ami Colé, the premium cosmetics line stocked in Sephora and backed by L’Oréal, will shutter in September, founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye confirmed on Thursday.
In an article for New York Magazine’s The Cut, N’Diaye, who previously worked at Glossier and L’Oréal, wrote that she could not compete with the “deep pockets of corporate brands” and that “prime shelf space comes at a price” the business couldn’t afford, describing how its attempts to grow dented its sales. According to sources close to the company, it was searching for a buyer before making the decision to close.
“We made operational decisions that felt necessary at the time — like scaling up production to meet potential demand — without truly knowing how the market would respond,” N’Diaye wrote. Stock levels became difficult to predict, as viral peaks could cause products to sell out and then be overstocked, and that investor expectations, which she described as “temperamental,” were piling up.
Founded in 2021, the line launched with a range of skin tints and lip oils, designed by N’Diaye to fill a gap in the market for darker skin tones. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the line became one of many Black-owned consumer brands to garner venture capital support; the line raised over $1 million subsequently and launched in Sephora in 2022, becoming available in more than 600 stores.
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In October 2024, the line received a minority investment from BOLD, the corporate venture capital arm of L’Oréal.
A crop of independent founder-led brands, Black-owned labels like Uoma Beauty and Hyper Skin, have struggled to maintain access to growth capital — the former’s founder is currently suing MacArthur Beauty, its private equity owner, alleging it was under-sold without her knowledge or consent, while the latter is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to raise $150,000 to save its business.
In a press release circulated at the time of its L’Oréal investment, the brand was said to have grown its revenue 75 percent the previous year. It won more than 80 industry awards and was featured in Oprah Winfrey’s “Favorite Things” list.
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