No Glass Ceilings: Glass Skin Co.
Interview with Tranicè Eubanks for Brown Haus Presents: Boss
Tranice: Glass Skin Company is a skincare brand based in Los Angeles. We primarily focus on delivering products that are free of overly sensitizing ingredients at a price point that’s accessible.
Q: How did you get into this field?
Tranice: I went to grad school for environmental engineering and my research focused on material development and chemistry.
Q: Why did you start a business?
Tranice: I was chatting with a friend, bringing in my chemistry background, and I’m just like telling them all these ingredients and it’s not really clicking for them.
I’m suggesting products to them that are $90 a bottle. They’re not ever going to opt to buy that when they can go and purchase something from CVS for $9.
Furthermore, we’re always an afterthought. Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty and the 40 Shades Foundation. And, that was the first time everyone tripped over themselves to acknowledge the fact that black people exist.
Q: You’re a black person who has a business. Do you ever worry about alienating your audience or your potential audience?
Tranice: A lot of black owned businesses will say oil this, body butter that, coconut salve this. They pretty much took the marketing that a lot of mainstream white led groups use to market products.
You don’t realize that a lot those same ingredients are in a whole lot of body care products across the market…products that are not necessarily marketed to White people.
You wouldn’t know that because they don’t African Queen Cocoa you to death. So I think ultimately it you have to decide as a business owner, are you going to allow this to stifle you?
Are your goals only to serve black people? Or are you just a black owned business? These are two different things.
Q: Does your blackness inform your business at all?
Tranice: With regard to our formulations, yes. All of our formulas are hydration focused. I know that my skin and the skin of people of color tends to run a little bit drier. So that kind of leads the practice.
Also, I am my unapologetically Black self all the time. This is the same method I use in my professional life as well. In college, as you can imagine, being an engineer, I was the only person of Color and I’ve always been in every space that I occupied in undergrad.
So I’ve learned, when you want to serve, or be seen in the space, just be yourself and don’t feel bad about that.
Read more https://glassskin-co.com/