A Farewell to Ami Colé, the Beauty Brand That Felt Like Home

As I write this, scrolling through Ami Colé’s website feels like a dream for beauty obsessives like me—Black, chronically online, and armed with a wallet awaiting their next purchase. The beloved Lip Oil that earned permanent real estate in every Black girl’s bag since launch? Now slashed to half its original price of $20. The dense, malleable Complexion Brush that applies cream and liquid formulas with ease? Marked down too. The waterproof lip liner that hugged the edges of the Lip Oil’s glossy finish. The Foundation Stick with the kind of undertone that melted into your skin in a single swipe. One second, I was adding items to the cart, and the next, my total ballooned. And as I hit “place order,” the sigh that left my chest wasn’t relief—it was grief. The confirmation email landed in my inbox, and it didn’t come with the usual rush of excitement. Instead, it sat there like a slight ache. Ami Colé is closing, and with that comes the quiet heartbreak of losing one of the few beauty brands created with Black women in mind—by someone who looked like us, understood our skin, our undertones, our routines, and our struggles.

Launched in 2021 by Glossier veteran Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, Ami Colé combines the influences of Harlem and Senegal that shaped N’Diaye-Mbaye’s sense of beauty, named after her mother. What began as an Instagram focus group during the nascent stages of building Ami Colé transformed into a full-fledged community championing a brand that delivered results. The products and support spoke for themselves, and as a result, Ami Colé eventually raised over $3 million in funds and secured real estate in more than 600 Sephora stores after launching in the retailer in 2022.

Ami Colé’s signature tangerine packaging became our version of Tiffany Blue—instantly recognizable, deeply cherished, and proudly displayed on vanities, in makeup bags, and TikTok makeup tutorials. However, its particular shade of orange signaled something more radical: accessibility, intention, and a sense of belonging. It didn’t whisper exclusivity from behind a glass case—it smiled back at you with familiar warmth, almost saying, You’re seen. You’re centered. You’re home. We weren’t fed too-red, barely-deep, or far-too-ashy finishes. In fact, natural, everyday dewiness was the cornerstone on which Ami Colé was built.

Excellence was many customers’ first love—a deep chocolate tint that was light enough for your lips’ natural hue to shine, but pigmented enough to offer a subtle brown veil (even better when paired with the Midnight or Cafe Touba lip liners, which arrived years later). Some found a home in the white tube of the satin-finish Skin-Enhancing Tint. I found relief after swiping the former’s offshoot, Skin-Enhancing Stick, which connected with my neutral (sort of golden) undertones to reveal a filter-like drydown I hadn’t experienced with any other complexion stick. (Read our review here.)

Few brands made me feel this considered, this prioritized, this seen. Ami Colé didn’t just make good products; it was home for the ridges on our two-toned lips, pining for an everyday glossy (not sticky) finish, or the different textures and tones on our skin just looking for a complexion boost. Or as founder N’Diaye-Mbaye puts it in her farewell op-ed in The Cut, “Better yet, we were on the shelves of the people whose needs matched what our products offered.”

You didn’t need to be Black to shop at Ami Colé and understand its messaging, which was abundantly clear: these products are designed to solve the issues that Black consumers had battled for decades. Gone were the days of scathing social media uproar in brands’ comments following a lazy complexion launch that left us with three deep shades and numerous light ones. We didn’t need to wait for a brand’s second-round relaunch after consulting with a Black influencer. Ami Colé got us the first time. A purchase meant more than supporting a Black-founded, Black-marketed brand; it was a signal to beauty’s behemoths and corporations that intentional branding, thoughtful research and development, and community building are not insurmountable tasks. The road wasn’t easy, but when is it ever for a Black founder? Still, N’Diaye-Mbaye kept the mission afloat even when she was drowning herself.

However, even with best-selling SKUs, a legion of Ami Colé devotees, and a laundry list of accolades built in four years, N’Diaye-Mbaye explains that Ami Colé couldn’t outrun damning expectations from investors who rallied behind the brand’s inclusive messaging when inclusivity and diversity were the buzzwords du jour during the height of George Floyd protests, but ultimately sang a new song under the scope of today’s anti-DEI world. “We’ve got this president, climbing tariffs, and marketing costs that are brutal for small brands like mine. And while my story isn’t unique, it still hurts to watch an industry preach inclusivity while remaining so unforgiving,” she explains.

Soon—in September, to be exact—there will be a world in which my Lip Oil will run out, brushes will lose their muscle, and lip liners will be worn to the nub. So yes, I stocked up. But more than that, I’m holding onto the feeling this brand gave me—one of joy, pride, and reflection, because that’s the part you can’t just reorder.

And while we won’t be able to restock forever, we can savor what we have now. Below, ELLE editors rounded up some of their Ami Colé favorites—the products that made us feel most like ourselves, and that we’ll be using down to the very last drop.