How Nyakio Grieco Turned a Passion for Beauty Into a Greater Purpose (and Multiple Businesses)

The woman behind Thirteen Lune and Relevant: Your Skin Seen has been disrupting the beauty industry's status quo for more than 20 years.

In our long-running series "How I'm Making It," we talk to people making a living in the fashion and beauty industries about how they broke in and found success.

In beauty, it's not uncommon for founders to speak about their nostalgia or longtime love of the category; maybe they used to watch their mom put on makeup growing up, or perhaps they still recall the smell of their grandmother's perfume. But for Nyakio Grieco, what began as a passion not only transformed into a business — but as of 2020, a calling.

Born and raised in the States, her relationship to skin care goes back generations. "My grandmother taught me my first beauty secret using Kenyan coffee beans and sugar cane to make an exfoliator," she says. "That's sort of where my beauty journey began."

A focus on potent ingredients sourced from the ground was much of the basis of her first brand, Nyakio Beauty. "I started my first brand based on beauty secrets that were shared with me from my Kenyan ancestors," says Grieco. The line had "many stops and starts," she says, due to a lack of cash flow. But eventually, she sold it to Unilever in 2017, staying on for a few years to help with the transition.

Then came the summer of 2020: Amid a racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd, Grieco suddenly found herself thrust into the spotlight, for a brand she started 18 years prior. She and Patrick Herning, founder and CEO of size-inclusive e-commerce site 11 Honoré, decided to funnel the newfound attention on BIPOC founders into something positive. In December 2020, Thirteen Lune, an inclusive e-commerce platform with 90% of brands created by Black and Brown founders, officially launched.

The site was an instant success, garnering attention from press, consumers and even celebrities like Sean "Diddy" Combs and Gwyneth Paltrow. Just 60 days later, JCPenney came calling. "From the get-go, we always said we would be an omnichannel business, but it definitely accelerated a bit quicker than we expected," says Grieco. "But it's a gift, and now we're not only able to scale the business enormously, but more importantly, really change the lives of so many founders by taking their businesses from small DTCs to, now, a 600-door footprint this year."

Grieco also launched her second beauty line, a skin-care brand called Relevant: Your Skin Seen, in 2022. The lineup features products formulated for all skin types and tones, specifically melanated skin, in bright, can't-miss orange packaging "It's hopeful, it's joyful, it's serious skin care, but done in a fun and accessible way, that truly delivers on its results."

As her brands continue to grow — Thirteen Lune raised $8 million last month and plans to open its first brick-and-mortar store later this year — Grieco remains focused on her key goals: building a future for Black beauty founders in this generation and beyond. Ahead, find out how she first developed an interest in beauty, how 2020 restructured her goals and what she thinks of the current state of the industry.

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How did you first develop an interest in beauty, even before pursuing it as a career?

I met my grandmother when I went to Kenya when I was eight years old. And then even growing up in the States, my mom was always practicing the same sort of rituals that she grew up with. Using things that come from the earth to treat your skin, that was always sort of part of my DNA.

I went to college for business and then when I went to California I started working in the entertainment industry. I started out as an assistant at a big talent agency and ended up working under a partner at a talent management firm. I had all these amazing actresses that I got to work with, and my favorite part was fashion and beauty. I loved that way more than reading scripts and finding acting jobs. This was a really interesting time in the early 2000s too, because this is right when we were starting to see actors on the cover of magazines and getting beauty deals, and I always wanted to be a part of those negotiations, be on set, and be in the makeup trailers. I just loved beauty.

You launched your first brand, Nyakio Beauty, more than 20 years ago. What was your aim when you first started out?

There were amazing products being sent to famous actors all the time, but I never found any that represented the sophistication of Africa and all of these rituals I had grown up with. I mean, there were a lot of brands using ingredients from Africa, but nobody was talking about Africa. So I found it to be an opportunity to quit my job and make my grandmother's coffee scrub. That was my foray into beauty, wanting to tell an authentic story and celebrate the power of these amazing ingredients that came from the continent of Africa.

I was 27, I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I wanted to do it and so I did. With the naïveté I had, I didn't realize the challenges I would be faced with as a Black female entrepreneur. And yes, it was very difficult to raise money. I never raised VC money until I was in this part of my career with Thirteen Lune. So it's been a journey.

What were some of the other challenges you faced?

Nyakio Beauty had more launches than you can possibly imagine, usually due to lack of access to capital. So I would have to shut the business down and relaunch it. The challenge, at the core — and I think I'm not alone in this as a female and a female of color in the world of entrepreneurship — is that access to capital really is the biggest hurdle. I wasn't able to build teams, I wasn't able to scale the business. Often the business got bigger than I could handle.

I would have great opportunities in the media. My products ended up on both "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "The Ellen Show" in the same week, and I did have that moment like, 'Oh my God, this is amazing.' And then all of a sudden my website crashed, and I had no inventory, and I couldn't ship people their holiday gifts and they were really mad.

But I will say I'm very grateful for those moments of resilience and perseverance because it's all part of the process. What I do think is important, especially within beauty, is taking up space and building more generational wealth. And it is important that it starts at the top, that the people writing the checks are committed to making this world more inclusive and equitable. That's why I do what I do now.

Nyakio Beauty was acquired by Unilever in 2017. What advice would you give a founder considering an acquisition?

Make sure you're prioritizing your worth, your self-worth, in any business transaction. It's okay to say no.

I think for so many business founders, especially founders of color, the minute somebody wants to write you a check for your idea — often because it's so hard to get to that 'yes' — you'll jump to that 'yes' before you take time to think about how much equity you'll have to give up, or how much of yourself you'll have to dedicate to growing this business. My best piece of advice is to listen to your gut and have a good lawyer.

Sometimes I'll read about these acquisitions and I'll see people in our community getting upset when a brand sells to a larger conglomerate. I think that's absolutely ridiculous because building generational wealth is building generational wealth.

A Black brand being acquired by a conglomerate in a fair deal is a great thing for all of us. It means we're taking up space, it means we're inspiring the next generation of founders to know that they can do it too. And I've seen, with friends of mine who have had successful exits, it does give the business the ability to play in arenas that maybe they haven't been able to before.

You started Thirteen Lune in 2020. What prompted you to create it?

[We were] in the midst of a racial reckoning and a global pandemic, and I found myself on all of those lists, you know, "top Black-owned businesses to follow." And while it was lovely to receive more recognition than I had ever received in 18 years of being a Black beauty founder, it was built on the precipice of such a heartbreaking time.

So, I decided, let me find a way to channel all of this, all the pain we were all feeling. I started shopping the lists. I couldn't believe how many I would find that were beautiful, clean brands, with great authentic founder stories, but very little distribution.

So I started connecting with them and DM-ing them. At the same time, my dear friend Patrick and I had long been speaking about starting a business together. It was in that moment, and watching the 15% Percent Pledge and Pull Up for Change and all these great initiatives happening, that I thought, 'why is it so hard to get to 15 brands on a shelf? I'm on a list of 150 right here.' If we were to open a store tomorrow, I could have 90% of my shelf space dedicated to people of color from around the globe.

So, that was sort of the initial 'aha' moment in creating Thirteen Lune, to be the first of its kind, truly inclusive beauty retailer. We implemented that 90-10 rule, with 90% being BIPOC brands, and then 10% dedicated to fostering allyship. Because beauty is a connector, and it's a way to bring people together and I thought including allyship was a very important piece in our assortment because there were brands that were doing the right thing, and really recognizing everyone when it came to shade range — in front of the camera, behind the camera — long before the racial reckoning.

Do you think the beauty industry, as a whole, has made any significant progress when it comes to inclusivity and anti-racism?

I believe that there's a lot more work to do. But I will say — and I'll speak for myself — the biggest shift that I've seen is that there are so many more people that now have permission to speak their truth, and to demand more from the industry.

And let's take 'doing the right thing' out of it for a moment. Just from a business standpoint, look at the enormous amount of capital that Black and Brown people — women specifically — spend on beauty, and how we've been such contributors to helping make a lot of people billionaires. Black women are the fastest-growing set of entrepreneurs.

When you look at the beauty space and the beauty rituals we all celebrate, most of them come from marginalized parts of the world, created by people from parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, East Asia and South America. So not only is it doing the right thing, it's a way to increase wealth overall throughout the industry.

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You started your second brand, Relevant Skin, in 2022. How did it come about?

For the first time ever in my life, I had the economy, the access and the resources. So I thought, 'why not? I'm gonna create the brand of my dreams.' When I started out in this industry, I started out with these family recipes and focused on sourcing ingredients that come from the earth. But truth be told, no matter where I was in my career with Nyakio Beauty, I never had the access to some of the actives that I really believed contributed to creating more melanin-safe skin care.

You may be talking about the number-one peel on the market, but then I, as a Black woman, can turn it over and see a certain level of acids and know that is not safe for me. It's going to cause hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation. It causes people to feel left out.

We got to hire two independent chemists, both of whom are Black, by the way, because I wanted to not only elevate them in their careers and give credit where credit is due — they have made some of the most award-winning formulas across the industry for many, many years — but also because I knew they would understand the importance of melanin-safe skin care in a way that many other chemists I had worked with in the past did not.

Also, being a retailer, and being able to capture the data of what was moving in and out of Thirteen Lune to a very diverse consumer base, I saw places where we could still better serve. Relevant: Your Skin Seen is made for all skin types and tones. Now I get to have a five-acid toner that I know is safe for my skin because I know it’s been formulated for all.

What have been some of the proudest moments of your career thus far?

I'm really proud of the fact that I never gave up. I got to align my passion and love for beauty with my purpose. I'm really grateful that I got to find it and co-create a space where I'm helping others who are also deeply passionate about beauty get to success much quicker than I ever did. But also that I get to do something I love, do good in the world, and build a really strong business. I'm so lucky that it's not just about a brand, it's about a mission, and taking up more space.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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