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How Two Best Friends Are Revolutionizing Beauty for Black Women

Subscription services have seen a rise in popularity amid the pandemic, as people can choose to have items like food, groceries, house supplies and beauty products delivered to their doors. For the latter, a duo of Dallas-based best friends is catering to Black women and other women of color, while simultaneously shining light on women-owned businesses.
This past February Valese and Bridgette Jones launched the Queendom Beauty Box, a subscription box with products catering to the skin and haircare of women of color. In each box are sample-size products from different women of color-owned businesses.
“It gets so expensive when you’re buying large quantities,” Valese says. “And so we said, ‘Let’s find a way where people can get exposed to these products without necessarily spending $50 on one product that ends up not working for you; Where you can try six to nine products in this one box and find out if this thing works for you.’ And then [subscribers] can go back and patronize that business.”
Valese and Bridgette came up with the idea for the Queendom Beauty Box while they were in the process of building their mobile beauty salon, the Queendom Beauty Bus. During the pandemic, an investor had backed out, delaying their bus project. They wanted to remain productive and keep their brand active as they worked on the bus project, so they came up with the idea of the subscription box.
Subscribers can order these boxes online for $35 each, or pay a $100 annual fee and receive one box every three months. Some of the products include candles, body scrubs, cleansing oils and hair deodorizers.
“People don’t realize how big of a market by itself that Black hair care is,” Valese says, “because our hair is so different and we all need totally different products to take care of our hair. It’s a huge market and it goes untapped by mainstream sources.”
Both Valese and Bridgette agree that women of color are often overlooked in the health and beauty industry. With their subscription box, they aim to help WOC business owners from all over the country form connections with people who need their products.