While Pride Month is a time to celebrate individuality and love, it comes with a sense of urgency. Last year, we were on pace to see a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills passed in the United States, largely targeting transgender youth. What's more, a GLAAD study found that six in 10 LGBTQ people have faced discrimination based on their sexuality or gender identity, which is up 13% from the year before.
It's important to educate ourselves, fight for equality for all people, and be inclusive of all identities. Donate to places such as the ACLU, SAGE, and the Trevor Project. Speak out against homophobia and transphobia if you see it and actively work to help make your community a safer space.
If you're hoping to show your support by buying from LGBTQ-owned brands, start here for some of the best beauty products available. While buying from LGBTQ-owned brands is certainly a Band-Aid solution to a large systemic problem, it's something tangible to do to show support this Pride Month.
JVN Hair
Jonathan Van Ness has made a major entrance into the beauty world with his haircare brand JVN Hair. The brand aims to flip traditional beauty standards on their head, and Van Ness wants people who use his products to use them to enhance their natural beauty rather than try to change their hair to fit a beauty standard. Each product is formulated with hemisqualane, a strengthening ingredient made from bio-fermented sugarcane that will leave you with impossibly soft and damage-free hair.
Good Light
Good Light creates beauty products that are meant to shatter the gender binary. Developed by David Yi, these personalcare products are made for all people, no matter how you identify. Affordable and housed in aesthetically pleasing containers, this skincare works overtime to give you the best skin possible.
Common Heir
There’s something exciting about truly sustainable skincare products, and that’s precisely what Common Heir offers. Founded by Angela Ubias and Cary Lin, the brand’s packaging is plastic-free and biodegradable. It aims to be inclusive and high performing.
Undefined
Undefined’s slogan is "Let’s democratize wellness and ‘undefine’ beauty.” Dorian Morris founded Undefined to make beauty more inclusive, accessible, and intersectional. Offering skincare and wellness products, the brand takes a holistic approach to beauty.
Andrew Fitzsimons Hair
Highly coveted hairstylist to the stars Andrew Fitzsimons recently launched a haircare line. He’s been doing the Kardashians’ hair for years and is now bringing his expertise to the masses with 23 haircare products and five collections: Virgin Repair to curb damage, Fantasy Curls to cater to 3a to 4c curls, Body Volume to give thin hair a boost, Prism Shine for a glassy finish, and other styling formulations.
Madison Reed
Founder Amy Errett started Madison Reed to make top-tier hair colors with nontoxic ingredients. These hair colors stick to the European Union standards for color formulation, and they help nourish hair rather than deplete it.
About-Face
When Halsey set out to build a makeup brand, they didn’t just want to create run-of-the-mill products. About-Face is full of bright, vibrant colors made with long-wearing formulas that are created with self-expression in mind, not beauty standards.
Noto Botanics
Noto Botanics is trying to disrupt the industry by offering gender-inclusive cosmetics made with good-for-you ingredients. Noto Botanics skincare gleans real results, while its multipurpose color sticks and balms give you a shock of sheer, buildable color wherever you want it—no rules to follow.
Malin+Goetz
New York City’s favorite personal care brand was founded by real-life couple Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz in 2004 when they opened an apothecary in Chelsea. These products are the perfect marriage of luxury and efficacy.
One/Size
Patrick Starrr created One/Size with the mission of making self-expression attainable for everyone. This is makeup created without gender in mind.
Boy Smells
Queer-owned fragrance brand Boy Smells brings gender to the forefront rather than banishing it by creating "genderful” scents that warp everything you’ve ever come to expect from gendered fragrance. Co-founders and partners Matthew Herman and David Kien have created unexpected perfumes by combining scents like rose with smoke and violet with leather.
Jason Wu Beauty
Get runway-ready makeup at home with Jason Wu’s skincare-makeup hybrid products. It’s probably the coolest makeup you can buy at the drugstore, and that’s no accident.
KimChi Chic Beauty
Created by drag queen Kim Chi, KimChi Chic Beauty is made for people who love makeup. These glitter-soaked, rainbow-colored palettes will feel at home in any beauty lover’s collection. Plus, 2% of every purchase supports LGBTQ mental health and suicide prevention services.
Beekman 1802
Business partners and life partners Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge founded Beekman 1802 to encourage you to be kind to your skin. Each product is made with goat milk to nourish and calm skin.
Pause Well-Aging
This brand is all about aging gracefully and not rejecting the thought of getting older. The founder, Rochelle Weitzner, wants to empower people as they age rather than shame them.
We Are Fluide
Imagine a world where makeup is made to be something to play with, regardless of skin tone or gender expression. That’s the world that We Are Fluide is trying to create. This Brooklyn-based cosmetic company is run by a small team aiming to help people express themselves.
W3ll People
Co-founded by makeup artist Shirley Pinkson, this no-makeup makeup brand is all about democratizing beauty. Its products are simple, straightforward, easy to use, and multipurpose.
Freck Beauty
You’ve likely heard of Freck as the brand making freckles cute with pens to help you either draw on or enhance freckles. Directed by Nasera Alayon, an LGBTQ graphic designer, this brand is the ultimate encapsulation of making beauty fun.
This article was written on an earlier date and has been republished.
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