4/20 isn’t just a day, it’s a lifestyle. The U.S.’ expanded legalization and recreational use of various consumable cannabis products from chocolates to cooking oils and butters have inspired many lifestyle and beauty brands who are pushing the envelope to develop cannabis and hemp infusions in topical beauty and wellness products as well.
Cannabidiol, known as CBD, is derived from hemp—marijuana’s cousin. It doesn’t contain the psychoactive properties that marijuana delivers but it does offer a wide-range of wellness and health benefits. From helping to manage anxiety and depression to alleviating muscle soreness and moisturizing as well as reducing skin inflammation, some beauty brands consider CBD to be an increasingly beneficial and necessary ingredient to add to their makeup and skin care formulas.
CBD is more easily obtainable in most parts of the U.S. but federal law still classifies it in the same drug class as marijuana, restricting its legal access and use. Moreover, as with legalized marijuana, the companies authorized to produce, process and sell CBD have not equitably included Black and Brown-led businesses looking to enter the CBD and cannabis market. Like many Latine Black and Brown beauty entrepreneurs, who have had long standing familial and cultural ties to the plant’s use, the entrepreneurs featured below are looking to reclaim the CBD space for their companies and honor their traditional practices.
As marijuana and CBD become legalized in more places and more popularized in products that span beyond ingestible use, we celebrate seven trailblazing companies that are leading the charge in cultivating CBD-infused beauty products into consumers’ overall lifestyles.
Atomic Makeup
This New York-based, vegan and cruelty free makeup brand by Mexican-American Founder Navil Rico specializes in CBD lipstick and lipgloss. Considering themselves pioneers in the CBD-infused corner of the makeup industry, they celebrate the enhanced benefits of the plant’s antioxidant, anti-microbial, and moisturizing properties for promoting lip moisture and softness.
Buena Botanicals
Afro-Latina twin sisters Coral and Tarah Hines’ CBD lifestyle brand, based in Atlanta and Florida, got its start in 2019 to help address anxiety and depression. They credit their passion for “healing, building community, plant medicine, and love for Mama Earth” as the ethos for creating all their products. A few products worth checking out include blissful CBD-infused soaps, oils, elixirs, bath bombs and moisturizers. With a portion of their proceeds going to the organization Dream Defenders, their brand demonstrates its commitment to self and communal healing.
Bread X Butta
Lynsey Ayala, a second generation nuyorican from the Bronx created her brand in honor of her Taino ancestry and love for plant-based medicine. She utilizes her home-grown, hemp-infused salves, soaks, and tinctures in tandem with her Bedstuy Brooklyn based community workshops in art, music, and alternative medicine.
Xula
Karina Primelles and Mennlay Golokeh Aggrey, founders of the CBD brand based in Mexico City, are mindful of limiting their ecological impact by incorporating regenerative farming techniques when sourcing hemp for their oil and salve products . According to their website, Xula’s mission strives for inner balance to promote “living comfortably in your own skin” and “exploring the diasporic connections of cannabis between Africa and Latin America.” They also partner with the Floret Coalition, “an anti-racist cannabis coalition to support and fund equity oriented actions and campaigns.”
Make & Mary
Yvonne Perez Emerson’s plant wellness brand and full spectrum hemp extracts are locally based and harvested in Oregon. Her topical beauty products address concerns with aging, skin and wellbeing. Describing creative self care and plant medicine as a necessity, Emerson creates CBD body serums, hydrosols, and balm wands to deliver makeup and skin care that showcase one’s natural beauty.
Bolivar Hemp
Inspired by her last name and Latin American political revolutionary leader Simón Bolivar, Larisa Bolivar ushered in her CBD cosmetic brand in Denver, Colorado when marijuana and CBD were just on the precipice of being legalized. True to the inspirational source of the company’s name, Bolivar believes in revolutionizing skincare with plants as seen in the brand’s extra-strength muscle rub, hemp relief cream and hemp relief Balm.