May is AAPI Month — aka Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!
AAPI Month is dedicated to celebrating the beauty, culture, and people of Asia and the Pacific Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
All in all, 75 countries fit into the AAPI category, including Fiji, Hawaii, and New Zealand!
To celebrate AAPI Month this year, the Beauty Playbook team put together a list of the top AAPI-owned hair, skincare, and beauty brands from around the world!
AAPI Hair Brands
Cofounded by the Mehta siblings, Nikita and Akash, Fable & Mane is centered around the long-standing cultural practice of Indian hair oiling.
This AAPI hair brand truly focuses on the root of haircare and offers natural products that include ten potent roots found in India to strengthen and repair hair with the utmost care.
Recommended Product: You can’t go wrong with the HoliRoots™ Collection. Our personal favorite is the HoliRoots™ Hibiscus Hydrating Hair Oil Mist. It’s a genius way to save your hands from thick hair oil residue while keeping your roots nourished.
Chunks
The name of this AAPI hair brand is just so fun!
Chunks is a colorful hair accessories company that’s “proudly and responsibly made in Jinhua, China.”
Since day one, Chunks founder Tiffany Ju has created high-quality claw clips and hair accessories that celebrate expression and diversity.
After being called a “tastemaker” and “trendsetter” by the world’s top magazines, Chunks continues to thrive and dream up joy.
Recommended Product: Everyone loves a brand-new hair accessory, but what we really love about Chunks is their commitment to reducing waste in the hair industry.
Chunks offers an entire section called Oopsies! on their site, which sells “any product with cosmetic imperfections at a discounted price.
These perfectly good ‘imperfects’ may include slightly flawed acetate or construction, but are still cute and functional.”
Damn Gina
Sumana Jayanth is a leader in luxury curl care at an affordable cost. Her stylish silk hair accessories put the bounce back in your curls.
Naturally Curly wrote, “Sumana chose to build her business around silk products because of their ability to help with split ends, frizz, and alleviating the dreaded ‘bed head’ that comes post-wash day.”
Recommended Product: Damn Gina offers hair oil, cute silk scrunchies, and hair wraps, and…
Silk-lined bucket hats! Grab yours in olive green, black and peach, or in a fun pattern like florals or checker print.
INSERT NAME HERE
Best friends Sharon Pak and Jordynn Wynn just wanted long, gorgeous beach waves (and the serotonin boost that came with a great hair day).
So, they left the cosmetics industry and, in 2019, officially launched INSERT NAME HERE.
INSERT NAME HERE offers ponytail extensions, bun extensions, beach waves bundles, clip-in bangs, hot tools, and so much more — whatever it takes to have a great hair day.
Recommended Product: The Insert Waves Here Triple Barrel Hair Waver has over 500 5-star reviews and was one of Allure’s featured Best Curling Irons/Wands in 2021.
Other fantastic AAPI hair care brands include:
AAPI Makeup Brands
The Petite Club brand is the brainchild of Tina Yong, a Chinese beauty YouTuber in Australia. Using 100% animal cruelty-free material, The Petite Club offers false eyelashes for individuals with “hooded or smaller eye shapes.”
Recommended Product: Fan favorites include Cotton Cloud Lashes, Daydream Lashes, and Vibin’ Lashes.
One of Korea’s top selling makeup brands, B.Ready is a men’s total-styling brand of makeup for men who “feel free to express their own vibes.”
Recommended Product: B.Ready Airy Hair Spray, a light hairspray for 24-hour hold without stiffness or caking.
Born in San Diego, CA, into a large Vietnamese family, Patrick Ta is one of Hollywood’s premier makeup artists. His full line of makeup is dedicated to making women feel beautiful and comfortable in their own skin.
Recommended Product: The Major Tools Set is just that: major. It includes a Contour Brush, Complexion Brush, Body Brush, Eyeshadow Brush, Lip Brush, and Major Brow Dual-Ended Brow Brush.
The ONE/SIZE brand is the vision of Filipino beauty sensation Patrick Starrr — a makeup artist and social media influencer. Focusing on the voices of the unheard, ONE/SIZE brings meaningful connection, storytelling, and artistry to the makeup industry.
(ONE/SIZE is also a very special LGBTQIA+ beauty brand.)
Recommended Product: If it’s an Allure Best of Beauty Award winner, you know it’s amazing. Try ONE/SIZE’s Cheek Clapper 3D Blush Trio.
Founded by South-Asian beauty entrepreneur, Deepica Mutyala, Live Tinted is a clean, vegan, cruelty- and fragrance-free beauty line for darker skin tones.
Recommended Product:Hueglow in Dusk (Bronze) and Dawn (Rose Gold) blend for the perfect micro-shimmer on your face and body.
Laneige means “fresh snow” in French, but don’t get it twisted.
This AAPI beauty brand was founded in South Korea in the ‘90s and can now be found all over the world.
Plus, they’re part of the AMOREPACIFIC skin and hair care family, which also includes AAPI brands: Sulwhasoo, Innisfree, Hanyul, Ryo, and more.
Recommended Product: Their moisturizing sleeping lip mask is a cult favorite and another Allure Reader’s Choice Award Winner for Lip Balm 2023.
More gorgeous AAPI beauty brands include:
AAPI Skincare Brands
Founded by Kapua Browning in 2015, Honua’s skincare products combine traditional Hawaiian botanicals and methods with modern skincare technology. Honua is not just one of the best AAPI beauty brands out there – it’s one of the best.
Recommended Product: The Honua Ritual comes with four products: Pa’akai Cleansing Cream, Hawaiian Beauty Water toner, Aloha Youth Serum, and ‘Ōlena Oil.
MAHALO Skin Care is an artisan-crafted line of facial beauty care products.
Founder and Chief Skin Chef, Maryna Grace, uses Hawaiian-based botanicals to create products that target skin inflammation, aging concerns, and support healthy complexions.
Recommended Product: How could we pass up the opportunity for “Hawai’i bottled” in bamboo jars?
Get 12 products with the PARADISE Collection, including UNVEIL cleanser melt concentrate, PETAL hydrating mask, and HAWAIIAN HYDRATION cellular repair concentrate.
Both brands were founded by Charlotte Cho, an esthetician and author, with the goal of giving the world a Korean perspective on beauty and skin and how we treat it.
Recommended Product: The Then I Met You Soothing Tea Cleansing Gel is a bestseller for a reason, beauty friends.
Founded by Liah Yoo, KraveBeauty is an AAPI skincare brand that focuses on clean, effective, and sustainable skincare. Her goal? To simplify the beauty game and take the stress out of skincare.
Recommended Product: KraveBeauty’s Beet The Sun SPF 40 PA+++ is a barely-there chemical sunscreen that’s lightweight and has no white/blue cast.
Christine Chang and Sarah Lee were the only bilingual, bicultural executives in their positions at L’Oreal. They were looking to take Korean beauty global when they founded their own brand: Glow Recipe.
Their skincare products pair superfruits with active ingredients to create the clean beauty “glow.”
Recommended Product: Their OG product, the Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask, is a must-have. In fact, one mask is sold every three minutes!
The Hanalei Company is a cruelty-free Hawaiian skincare and beauty product line inspired by the beauty and richness of Hawaii.
Founders Alice and Vira Kim partner with experts to “create modern skincare products that blend native Hawaiian botanicals into effective formulas.”
Recommended Product: Do we have to pick just one? Because we have a list: the Lip Treatment, Sugar Body Scrub and Lip Scrub, Kukui Body Lotion, and on… and on…
What’s Ayurveda?
It’s the traditional practice of Hindu medicine based on balancing bodily systems with diet, herbal treatment, and yoga.
This luxury India-based skincare company helps you flirt with Ayurveda in a variety of products: body polish, lotion, face wash, perfume and body mist, makeup, and more.
Each product includes homegrown ingredients like black sesame, anise, pomegranate, honey, and vanilla.
Recommended Product: The Light Hydrating Facial Gel Pure Aloe Vera is essential — no pun intended. This cooling blend of aloe vera, cucumber extract, and glycerin soothes your skin to its most moisturized state ever.
This luxury Korean skincare brand focuses on products enriched with green tea.
Known as a powerful antibacterial agent for treating acne and unclogging pores, green tea is ✨ the Korean skincare secret ✨
Recommended Product:** If you love luxury skincare, this AAPI-owned brand is for you. Their Treatment Cleansing Oil helps remove makeup impurities without stripping your skin of its natural oils.
Just Herbs is a skincare and cosmetics brand out of India. They offer organic, herbal Ayurveda beauty products, like eyeshadow palettes, vitamin C serum, tinted lip balms and lipsticks, sunscreen, and more.
Recommended Product: The 8 in 1 Root Nourishing Amla Neem Shampoo cannot be missed.
It includes hyper-gentle ingredients, like amla, hibiscus, henna, trigonella seed, neem, vetiver, wheatgerm oil, and soy lecithin – for those advanced beauty babes.
More amazing AAPI skincare brands include:
AAPI Fragrances, Bath & Body Brands
New Zealand-based beauty brand Abel Odor offers complete ingredient transparency for its line of perfumes.
Their delicious products are made from 100% plant-based ingredients with no synthetics or chemicals. It’s vegan-certified and uses recycled packaging.
Recommended Product: Their best-selling Black Anise 100% Natural Eau de Parfum is “a sophisticated and genderless scent that is warm, smoky and sultry amber.”
Listen… we’ve got to talk about bikini lines and body hair.
Fur was founded by best friends Laura Schubert and Lillian Tung as an all-over grooming line that takes care of hair up there, down there, and everywhere.
And how do you know it’s safe enough to use… down there?
Fur’s entire product line contains “the cleanest facial-grade, vegan, cruelty free, non-toxic ingredients that are dermatologically and gynecologically tested.”
Every product is free from mineral oil, silicones, parabens, synthetic fragrances, or artificial dyes.
So… whether you wax, sugar, shave, or pluck, you need these beauty products that are dedicated to comfort and care.
Plus, Fur was named one of the Best Body/Beauty Products by Byrdie, Women’s Health, Essence, Bazaar, and American Spa. Shoutout to body hair!
Recommended Product: Fur’s Bare Necessities is a bundle of their best-selling duo for itchy ingrown hairs and clear skin: the classic Fur Oil and Ingrown Concentrate.
Ellis Brooklyn is a gorgeous fragrance brand by Bee Shapiro, whose covered beauty for The New York Times for over a decade.
Naming the beauty company after her daughter, Ellis, and her former residency in Brooklyn, NY, Bee set out to create the first sophisticated clean option for fragrances and perfumes.
Calling fragrances “a powerful, invisible language that can tell a story or conjure a keen memory in one concise sniff,” Bee created perfumes (and candles!) with clean ingredients, sustainable sourcing, and unforgettable scents.
Recommended Product: It’s hard to choose from Ellis Brooklyn’s bestsellers list, so we’ll let you choose between these few: Salt, Myth, Bee, or Sweet.
Other AAPI brands in the fragrance, bath, and body indudstry include:
AAPI Nail Art & Nail Care Brands
Known for their incredibly cute press-on nails, Glamnetic launched in 2019 and soared to the top of nail art brands.
Founder Ann McFerran is happy to be a strong voice for AAPI women in the beauty industry, especially for Thai women like herself. She told CNN:
“We are inspiring another generation of female leaders to want to step up and feel like they have an example to look up to.
I get so many messages from fellow AAPI girls out there saying that because they see someone who looks like them succeeding, they feel like they can do it, too.”
Recommended Product: Marshmallow Swirl, Goal Digger, and Olive You. (Their magnetic lashes were also the first in the beauty industry – and absolutely to die for.)
It’s non-toxic nail polish. Need we say more?
Jin Soon Choi is a top runway and editorial artist and nail spa founder, so she knows a thing or two about discerning clientele who want non-toxic formulas and long-lasting gorgeous colors.
JINsoon has over 60 shades for all skin tones, and each one is cruelty-free, vegan, and UV-protected.
Recommended Product: Check out these award winners that look good on everyone: Sea Clay, Tila, Dandy, Abyss, Absolute Black, Pop Orange, Nostalgia, and Audacity.
Christina Kao is the founder of Le Mini Macaron, a gel nail kit and polish brand with a French + American namesake.
Le Mini Macaron has tiny portable manicure kits for on-the-go beauty.
Each manicure kit includes a patented mini LED lamp (that can plug into your laptop!), one bottle of gel polish (in a color that matches the LED lamp!), cuticle stick, a mini nail file, and 10 remover wraps.
Recommended Product: It truly can’t get better than having an LED lamp that matches your nail color, but we narrowed down our favorite kit to the Lilac Blossom. (Coconut Yogurt is a close second on name alone.)
Other recommended AAPI nail brands include MiniLuxe, sundays, and GenMe‘s Nail Art Styling Studio for kids.