Cécred

Crenshaw, Ford and Tyla Does Beauty mention Cécred as a Black-owned brand with science-forward positioning. With superstar singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and her mother Tina Knowles connected to it, Crenshaw points out that it has funding and infrastructure to support that positioning.

Cécred launched in February 2024 with shampoos, conditioners, masks and a hair oil designed for all hair types. Early this year, it introduced Restoring Hair and Edge Drops, and the two new products reached first-year sales projections within a month. Cécred’s prices range from $31 to $56.

In May, Cécred entered retail at Ulta Beauty in the largest exclusive haircare brand launch in the beauty specialty chain’s history. Grace Ray, former CEO of Milani Cosmetics and CEO of Living Proof, is guiding Cécred’s expansion.

Cécred’s products are powered by a custom bioactive ferment technology that it purports took six years of research and development to create. The brand has 14 pending patents. In a 2024 interview with Essence, Beyoncé stressed that Black women shouldn’t be overlooked in product testing.

“We are often prescribed things based on studies we were not included in. It’s bigger than me, or hair. Now we have created something that celebrates healthy hair for all women, including us. I’m always honored to invest in us,” she said, adding, “We went above and beyond to make decisions based on results and the absolute best science, and better results meant more investment in quality products. Every hair texture deserves testing, research and development.”

The Doux

Press Play, the most recent collection from The Doux, a brand with the tagline “old-school flavor with new-school science,” takes a page from Olaplex to contain a bond-building complex. The Doux’s has been dubbed Doux-plex and is formulated with a proprietary blend of ingredients to strengthen and repair bonds.

The Doux is generating annual eight-figure sales sums. It has a broad mass-market retail presence in Target, Walmart, Sally Beauty and CVS. All its products are under $25. The brand’s bestselling texture foam Mousse Def, which includes synthetic polymer blend polyquaternium-55, has sold more than 500,000 units.

The Doux website proclaims, “This lightweight molecular structure wraps around each strand like invisible armor—strong enough to last all day, gentle enough to keep your bounce. The OG technology that every other foam wishes it could be.”

Hairstylist and cosmetologist Maya Smith launched The Doux in 2011 while living in Germany where her husband was serving in the United States Air Force. Her motivation was to slash the time commitment of styling hair.

“I wanted to create one product that would style, condition, detangle and define in one step,” Smith told Beauty Independent in a 2023 interview. “Once I started working with that mentality as a stylist from behind the chair, both to save myself time and to make their life easier, every product that we’ve created since then has followed those values as far as improving the quality of life of a person with textured hair by making that process easier.”

Florae Beauty

Founded by neuroscientist Natalie King in 2022, Florae Beauty validates its formulas with clinical testing. The haircare brand’s products include a $35 shampoo and conditioner, $59 hair oil serum and $59 mask. Customers can customize the mask with $20 boosters to address thinning, dullness or scalp issues. A quiz on its website helps with personalizing a unique haircare routine.

Beauty Independent reported three years ago that Florae Beauty had raised over $550,000 in funding from angel investors, notably Dave Peacock, COO of Continental Grain and former president of Anheuser-Busch, and secured a $50,000 grant from St. Louis organization Arch Grants. King said at the time that her ambition is for Florae Beauty to become “Johnson & Johnson meets L’Oréal,” and she planned to offer telemedicine-style consultations with trichologists, dermatologists and other practitioners to assist customers in meeting their hair health goals.

OurX

Launched in 2023, OurX was designed to be the Noom of textured hair by providing tailored programs for consumers to follow. Founder Cecil Kurzman assembled a team of trichologists and hairstylists to act as the guides. Its motto is, “Built by textured hair experts, rooted in science.”

OurX has seven products priced from $24 to $36: Pre-Cleanse Micro Oil, Nutrient Cleanse Complex, Detox Cleanse Complex, Scalp Serum, Scalp Purifying Solution, Intensive Conditioning Compound and Treatment Leave-In. The products are formulated with ingredients familiar from skincare such as hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHAs and squalane.

OurX raised $500,000 from friends and family to test the market and another $2.5 million from Reign Ventures and others. Kurzman previously worked as the VP at Epic Records and founded the talent management organization Nexus Management Group. As an investor, she’s backed companies such as Spotify, Cover FX and Bulletproof Coffee and was a board member at Revlon, Lanvin Group, United Talent Agency and Warner Music.

Kurzman told Beauty Independent in 2023 that she felt compelled to dive into the haircare industry because she saw an enormous gap for product innovation in the textured haircare category. She said, “The more heritage formulations and brands are great and have a lot of phenomenal applications, but this customer is diverse and should have at least as much preference of a product as the general market does.”

Soft Rows

Founder Quani Burnett recruited Sula Labs founder and cosmetic chemist AJ Addae to create Soft Rows’ proprietary formulas. The brand recently launched with three products: $28 All Set Soft Touch Styling Foam, $36 Supreme Strength Moisture and Repair Deep Conditioning Mask and $30 Velvet Slip 3-In-1 Hair Lotion. At the heart of the products is the so-called soft shield complex with ingredients like fermented peptide, hyaluronic acid and aloe and cationic polymer.

“The textured hair aisles have long been filled with heavy oils and butters, and I knew I wanted to reimagine cultural hair staples with cleaner/better for you, high performing ingredients for today’s multi-cultural consumer,” Burnett told Beauty Independent last year. “We exist at the intersection of science and salons.”

Soft Rows is in the Sephora mentorship program Accelerate’s 2024 cohort and strives to fill a gap in the textured haircare assortment at prestige retail. Burnett said, “When a Black woman walks into Sephora, she’s going to buy all of the Black-owned skincare and body brands and then, when she gets to the hair aisle, she’s probably going to go to the beauty supply store because she knows that those products are going to work on her hair.”

The Steam Bar

A member of the 2025 Sephora Accelerate cohort, The Steam Bar’s site says it combines “the concept of skinification with the technique of hair steaming to focus on what lies beneath.”

With an emphasis on scalp care, the British brand’s products include Scalp Saviour Mask, Scalp Shampoo, Super Conditioner and The Scalp Serum. Prices range from $42 to $61, and the formulas feature ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, glycerine and prebiotics.

The Steam Bar is available at Selfridges, and the brand hosted a pop-up salon at the London retailer. Founder Judy Koloko expects to bring a similar concept to the U.S. She told Essence, “Our campaign will be ‘Coming to America,’ inviting customers to enjoy an immersive haircare experience—think Bridgerton meets steam.”

Sliq

Sliq is another British haircare brand with science at the center. Co-founders Mary Mbdaye and Zainab Suns told Beauty Independent in 2023 that it provides textured haircare guidance that speaks to modern consumers. This year, the brand released its first product, Deep It, a conditioning treatment with oils and butters along with a strengthening solution and hydrolyzed pea protein.

Mbdaye envisions Sliq expanding its product assortment with a strong styling gel that rivals Eco Style’s. She said, “It’s a staple in every person who has textured hair’s arsenal, and it’s not necessarily because it’s always the best product, but because it’s one of the few that allows for some level of versatility…I respect the legacy players, but I think there’s a lot of space to play.”

This year, Sliq was one of five brands to join Glossier’s Black Beauty Grant Programme in collaboration with Black Girl Fest. Recipients receive 10,000 pounds or roughly $13,400 and participate in a seven-week program. On top of products, Sliq’s goals are assembling a directory of hairstylists and opening a concept salon.