Sknmuse Founder Ezinne Iroanya Strives To “Authentically Represent What Black Luxury Means To Us”

When Ezinne Iroanya, founder skincare and body care brand Sknmuse, won the $20,000 Cantu Elevate Grant last month, it felt like a full-circle moment. Before she moved to Oklahoma on her own at 16 years old, her mother owned a hair salon in Nigeria. Cantu products were a mainstay on the shelves of the salon alongside Luster’s Pink Oil brand.

The Cantu Elevate Grant is among several for Iroanya, who’s raised more than $150,000 in grant money. Previously, she secured grants from Digital Undivided, Glossier, Pledge LA x Grid110, Black Girl Ventures and Sonder Impact. The wins are a boon for Sknmuse, which Iroanya started in 2019 with $300 from her personal savings. The brand is projected to reach $250,000 in sales this year. Its customer retention rate is 45%. Iroanya says, “The business is profitable, but these grants help us grow and scale.”

The competition for Cantu’s grant marked the only time Iroanya pitched to a room of just Black people. “Often the people who have the money, unfortunately, don’t look like us,” she says. “It was nice to have people immediately get what I was saying. I didn’t have to explain myself or answer questions about why only Black women.”

The cash infusion is slated to go toward increasing Sknmuse’s wholesale network by 60%. The brand is currently stocked in about 12 retail and e-tail partners, including online destination Thirteen Lune and specialty Black-owned boutiques. Madewell also onboarded it onto its website in June by way of its Makers United program. Iroanya is focusing on breaking into hotels next. “We really want to make a name for ourselves in that industry and use them as discovery points for the brand,” she says.

Sknmuse’s product lineup contains Body Butter, Devine Body Oil, Body Balm, Cuticle Oil and three candles. Its prices run from $10 to $70. Devine Body Oil became a bestseller after Issa Rae and aesthetician Sean Garrette touted it. A fragrance is in the works for the holiday season, and haircare products are possibilities for the future.

Although the possible haircare expansion edges Sknmuse closer to Iroanya’s mother’s wheelhouse, Iroanya has sought to forge a path in the beauty industry distinct from her mother. “There are so many beautiful companies right now doing amazing things for hair and my specialty, even though I grew up in a hair salon, has always been body care,” she says. Still, her mother has made an imprint on Iroanya’s career path by instilling the importance of prioritizing one’s self in her, a lesson that guides Sknmuse.

“Everybody likes to minimize beauty as a vanity metric, but we interact with beauty every day we get dressed and look in the mirror. We like to look good, and when you look good, you feel good,” says Iroanya. “At Sknmuse, we’re not just talking about beauty the way the Western world talks about it, but we talk about it as elevating your self-care ritual.”

Sknmuse’s initial product, Body Butter, was inspired by Iroanya’s grandmother’s recipes. The brand is heavily influenced by West African beauty practices. Iroanya tests each of the brand’s products within Black spaces. The Cuticle Oil, for example, was vetted by customers at a Black-owned beauty bar in Inglewood, Calif., for months prior to its launch. Ingredients are sourced from primarily Black- and brown-owned businesses in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and Ghana.

Sknmuse’s customers are primarily Black women, and Iroanya has developed three customer avatars to encapsulate who they are. There’s Cynthia, a retiree with a love for gardening; Monet, a career-driven therapist and influencer with a passion for beauty; and Jasmine, a married woman dedicated to her self-care routine. Following Garrette’s mention of the brand, Iroanya has noticed LGBTQIA+ customers have been flocking to it.

Iroanya has partnered with the organization Trans Defense Fund in Los Angeles to address the beauty needs of the transgender community. She says, “We found out from our interviews with them that Black trans women really love products that help with stubble, which is something I would’ve never thought about if I didn’t have that conversation.”

Iroanya describes Sknmuse as at the “intersection of beauty, culture and community.” Its very first pop-up event took place at a Black Christian Women Conference outside of LA. “They showed out and showed up for us really intentionally,” she says. “They gave us a three-time return, and we still have customers that bought from us that first time that still come back and buy today.” Since the pop-up, Sknmuse has doubled down on events such as a pop-up at the hotel Dream Hollywood which featured a henna artist and a brunch that mixed Silicon Valley investors with Angelenos. The events featured a henna artist, and attendees could get fitted for custom grillz.

Iroanya envisions Sknmuse evolving into a luxury goods conglomerate and supporting other brands along the way. “We really want to authentically represent what Black luxury means to us in our communities,” says Iroanya. “We see luxury as a means of servitude, not exclusivity. So, we ask ourselves, ‘How can we serve our customers, and how can we be the best we can for them?’”