Celebrity Makeup Artist And Beauty Entrepreneur AJ Crimson, Who Built A Luxury Cosmetics Brand Speaking To Black Women, Dies

Celebrity makeup artist and cosmetics brand founder AJ Crimson has died. No further information about his death has been disclosed.

Crimson is a pivotal figure in the beauty industry’s inclusivity movement. Well before Fenty Beauty showed that it can be huge business to speak to consumers of color, Crimson made it his mission to cater to Black women with luxury cosmetics, first with Kissable Couture, a brand he launched with Keisha Whitaker in 2007, and later with AJ Crimson Beauty, his nearly 9-year-old cosmetics brand that launched in Nordstrom last year.

As BuzzFeed reporter Ade Onibada points out on Twitter, “Crimson was one of the only Black men with 100% ownership of his own high-quality line of makeup” that centered Black women and women of color. Both personally and professionally, he faced plenty of challenges building a beauty brand that many thought wouldn’t amount to anything.

“I embraced Black women when everyone told me not to,” Crimson said in a Beauty Independent interview last year. “They said, ‘If you are going to put a Black woman on the visuals, people are going to think this is a Black line.’ But why would it only be a Black line? I worked with Hilary Duff and Fergie. The conversation to me was about inclusion. It started there and, yes, Black women do want to see themselves in the ads and in the conservation, and they don’t want to be a secondary thought or extension.”

Originally from Detroit, Crimson was creative, but he wasn’t sure of the right outlet for his creativity. In a 2020 article that ran in the publication HelloBeautiful, he said, “I love beautiful things, people, fashion, architecture. The beauty industry sort of found me; I thought I’d be in politics, public speaking or artist management, which are all passions of mine [and] have been involved in, but beauty has taken me all over the world in a very interesting way.”

The beauty industry found him when he was interning for singer Peggy Body, formerly artistic director of Biv 10 Records. On a shoot, he didn’t like the way the makeup was being done and decided to see if he could do better. In the process, he picked up products from MAC and, soon after, landed a job at the MAC store and began honing his makeup skills.

While he was still toiling away at MAC, his was presented an opportunity to take a grunt job on the movie “8 Mile” and quit the job at MAC for it, thinking it could help him further his career, even though he wasn’t certain about the direction that career was heading in. The grunt job led him to meeting costume designer Mark Bridges, who encouraged him to leave Detroit. Last year, Crimson recalled Bridges instructed him, “You have to get out of Detroit. You are bigger than what this city can offer you.”

Crimson shelled out $250 for a bus ride to leave Detroit for Los Angeles. Once in LA, his makeup artistry career skyrocketed. Eventually, he would do makeup for tons of actresses and musicians the likes of Missy Elliot, Regina King, Brandy, Hilary Duff and Angela Bassett. From 2004 to 2006, he focused on Fergie from Black Eyed Peas. Her penchant for lip glosses planted the seeds for him to develop Kissable Couture’s lip glosses with Whitaker.

To develop AJ Crimson Beauty, he had Black women in mind from the outset as he was perfecting complexion shades. He detailed to Beauty Independent, “I had about 30 to 40 samples of shades, but I went with eight because, as a makeup artist, those were the eight shades I had needed, and we had the deepest shade I had ever seen. That didn’t come without trial and error. The first run of it was very bad, and we just had to get it right. I wanted to start with the darkest color and work our way back. I used a woman who is South Sudanese as the vision for that.”

At Kissable Couture and AJ Crimson Beauty, Crimson laid the groundwork for sales at beauty industry events such as makeup convention The Makeup Show, where he premiered AJ Crimson Beauty in 2013 and promptly sold out of 500 pieces. He was a staple at the brand Beautyblender’s events, according to founder and CEO Rea Ann Silva.

She says, “Personally, AJ would call me to get advice as he was launching his cosmetic business. We would talk about the transition from makeup artist to brand founder, how to scale his business into pro stores and department stores and the importance of being people of color, who work with people of color, so we can use our experience to conceptualize, formulate and successfully launching an inclusive brand. As an artist, he was a complexion expert, a genius brand founder, and a source of endless encouragement for any person he worked with.”

“As an artist, he was a complexion expert, a genius brand founder, and a source of endless encouragement for any person he worked with.”

The Lip Bar founder Melissa Butler was a regular at The Makeup Show with Crimson and became his friend. In an Instagram post, she wrote, “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And AJ seemed to have it all figured out. He was driving so much traffic to his booth Bc every time they’d make a sale, his whole team would cheer. It was smart. It was scrappy. It was effective.”

Shelly Taggar, owner of The Makeup Show, remembers that, for 10 years, Crimson “took the stage with his knowledge and bright light and shared it with young artists. He was always giving back. He will be missed by The Makeup Show community dearly, and we will never forget him.” James Vincent, director of education and artistry for The Makeup Show, says, “AJ Crimson was an inspiration in all he was and all he did. As an artist, educator and entrepreneur he was a constant example of authenticity and talent. His brand and his vision made a mark on this industry that made real impact. We have lost a bright light.”

Retailers generally didn’t believe Black women would buy luxury cosmetics, so Crimson decided to control his brand’s distribution. AJ Crimson Beauty is available online via its website, and Crimson held a series of pop-ups prior to the pandemic. He also previously operated the store AJ Crimson Beauty Atelier. Following the murder of George Floyd and the prominent Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, a lot of retailers reached out to Crimson about carrying his line, and he rebuffed them with the exception of Nordstrom.

“A lot of places didn’t fit, but I’m super excited about Nordstrom,” he said in 2021. “They understand what I’m doing. Their beauty stylists are professionals, and they actually sit down with you and walk you through the beauty process. That’s what I do. They do clienteling and have a close relationship with their customers the way we do at AJ Crimson.”

Crimson was excited to expand upon his relationship with AJ Crimson Beauty’s customers. Talking last year, he mentioned its sales had increased 33% in 2020 despite the year being terrible for the makeup category and that skincare was in the brand’s pipeline. A dream of his was to introduce a diffusion line to expose his products to a wider audience.

“If I had to compare the brand to a business that currently exists, from the outside looking in, what feels really great would be the best years of Tom Ford Beauty. I love how niche it is. I love how it’s not everywhere, but it’s where it needs to be,” he said. “I would want that, and the diffusion line would be our big splash where we get to play in a bigger way and be more global.”

As news of Crimson’s death spread Wednesday and Thursday, beauty industry professionals, actresses, editors, influencers and others expressed shock on social media, and recounted his kindness and talent. Hairstylist Larry Sims tells Beauty Independent, “Not only is AJ a brilliant entrepreneur that we all admire, [a] gifted artist who’s created iconic moments for the culture and fierce supporter to everyone that crosses his path, he is a brother and a friend, a true angel amongst us all. I love you eternally.”

Makeup artist Danessa Myricks, founder of Danessa Myricks Beauty, writes on her Instagram account, “My heart is broken as I mourn the loss of my friend AJ Crimson, this magical human, artist, creator, leader, loving man who has left us far too soon. I wish I could tell him one more time how special I thought he was, how important his presence was, how deeply meaningful our conversations were and how much he inspired me and lifted me up always. To know AJ Crimson is to know love and laughter, confidence and passion. I will miss you so much my beautiful friend. Thank you for all you contributed to me, this industry and the world.”

Michele Marie PR, the public relations agency for AJ Crimson Beauty, said in a statement, “Our entire team mourns this tragic loss, and our thoughts and prayers are with AJ’s family. Our deepest sympathies go out to them. We absolutely loved AJ, truly one of the sweetest, most humble people we have ever had the pleasure of working with. We are all devastated.”

In addition, the agency provided a statement from Crimson’s family that reads, “AJ Crimson was a makeup industry leader that set a standard of beauty that was elevated, beautiful, and accessible to people of all color. We as a family are heartbroken and devastated by his passing, but thankful for the lessons that he laid on each of us with his truth, directness, and leadership.  We thank you all for your kind words, tweets, and posts, as AJ was an inspiration to us as much as he was a bright light to the rest of the world. There are no words that can sum up his whole. Until we meet again!”