Tomi Gbeleyi-Curtis started Makeup for Melanin Girls when she saw a gap in the beauty industry. She created a community – and the product line she once needed most.Adeola Ajala
Community has always been at the heart of Tomi Gbeleyi-Curtis’ small business.
The Toronto-based founder of Makeup for Melanin Girls (MFMG), an indie line of colour cosmetics for dark skin tones, has grown the company out of a mission to serve an underserved market – and tapped into networks of like-minded women every step of the way.
Before MFMG was a beauty line, it was an online community, inspired by Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis’ own experiences working as a model in Canada. The entrepreneur, who moved from Lagos to New Brunswick to study in 2009, often encountered makeup artists who weren’t prepared for, or experienced with, beautifying deep complexions.
“When I would show up on set, and typically be the only Black model, there was kind of an apprehension to get my makeup done,” she says. “The [makeup] person would be rummaging in their bag, trying to see if they had the right foundation.”
In those days – before Rihanna’s launch of Fenty Beauty, which put a wide spectrum of complexion coverage in the spotlight while creating a new standard of diversity and inclusivity – Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis had to build her own makeup kit to bring with her to shoots. It was no easy task: Options were limited, so creating the right set required research and ingenuity.
Gbeleyi-Curtis has tapped formal and informal resources to build her brand.Supplied
“I learned how to hack the beauty aisle,” she says. She also sought guidance from YouTube content creators of colour. “At first, it was for education for me, and then I quickly realized there was a community there, of other women around the globe that were kind of stumped.”
So, she turned to social media: In 2017, she created the Makeup for Melanin Girls Instagram page as a way to share tips with others and highlight makeup artists of colour. The account grew to 10,000 followers in a few short weeks. Today, it claims 133,000. “It was just meant to be a celebration of Black women, and of women with darker skin tones,” Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis says. “I didn’t realize just how many people felt the way I did. There was this overlying theme of: Why do we have to do this hacking?”
Her followers were looking to her for the answer. But she was reluctant to take the leap into starting her own line.
“I did not have existing expertise in beauty manufacturing,” Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis says. “I had the audience already, but I was still trying to gather information. I was just really nervous.”
But hesitation turned into action when her Instagram account was randomly, and temporarily, deactivated.
“That was the impetus that drove me to finally launch a tangible product connected to the community,” she says. “I realized that, yes, I’d built this community, but I’d built it on a platform that doesn’t belong to me. I thought it would be great to have physical evidence of it that lives beyond social media. Something that’s tangible, that people can connect with, and that’s visual.”
Overcoming naysayers who felt the venture was too niche or lacked profitability, Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis debuted the MFMG Glitter Palette in 2018 ahead of the holiday season.
Years in, Gbeleyi-Curtis still says the most meaningful feedback comes from product reviews, and from seeing that her products are 'providing a sense of joy,' she says.Adeola Ajala
The palette’s success quickly prompted a collaboration with makeup artist and content creator Ronke Raji on a liquid lipstick collection that reimagined nude shades for darker skin tones. The Power Palette – an eyeshadow kit with shades named after famous Black women, like Rosa, Harriet and Maya – remains in-demand. The brand’s best-seller is a set of handmade mink lashes housed in a box with an illustration of a Black woman’s gaze.
“The lashes in and of themselves are products you could buy anywhere, but I think it’s the packaging and the brand story that people really love,” Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis says.
Beyond staying attuned to her predominantly American consumer base via e-mail, connecting with other small business owners has been central to Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis’ entrepreneurial journey. “I set myself up to be part of communities in the Toronto entrepreneurship ecosystem, so that I could rely on the expertise of others to launch,” she says. Along the way, she’s mixed informal information gathering, like listening to podcasts, with formal learning opportunities, like completing an incubator program at Toronto Metropolitan University and joining the University of Toronto Black Founders Network.
“A lot of my mentorship has actually been very community-based,” she says. “We always think of mentorship as networking up with someone that is ahead of you. But it’s important to network with peers as well. Being with like-minded people that were trying to start and launch a business helped me quite a lot to build confidence.”
Following the requests of her community has also helped Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis evolve the MFMG business model. Wholesale requests shuffled in over the pandemic, and have since taken over the majority of her revenue stream. “I wouldn’t have predicted that when I started at all because my vision was to be that direct-to-consumer brand,” she says. “It’s really important to listen to the customer, because people have been asking me for [wholesale offerings] consistently, but I wasn’t paying attention to it.”
Ms. Gbeleyi-Curtis has since taken on a full-time job in tech and manages MFMG on the side. But she doesn’t have any plans to stop listening to – or sharing expertise with – her audience any time soon. “I’ve sent out a number of surveys and consistently over sixty per cent of them actually want to start a business of their own,” she says.
Her biggest thrill as a small-business owner is reading product reviews. It’s the ultimate sign that she’s providing value to others.
“I can never get over the fact that something that was an idea in my head, that was at one time in my Notes app, is a product that someone’s buying,” she says. “But not only that, it’s providing a sense of joy, a sense of excitement in their life, or they’re getting it as a gift for someone else. And they’re happy with their purchase.”