Summer Beauty and Style Accessories From Female Founders
We’ve tried and tested these great beauty products! These are perfect additions for the season and also celebrate the power and intentionality of women entrepreneurs.
Summer beauty? It’s important because rising temperatures and increased sun exposure create environmental stressors that can damage your health and appearance. Adapting your routine for this time of year, especially when traveling to destinations with greater UV exposure or varying humidity, is a matter of both preventive health and personal comfort. We tried and loved the products on this list for multiple reasons—from founding principles to quality and effectiveness.
Velvet Eyewear
In 1999, optician and designer Cindy Hussey founded a luxury line of eyewear for women that spans sunglasses, snow goggles, and prescription eyewear. Drawing on the heyday of vintage American sunglasses, Velvet Eyewear is our pick for your Summer. Each pair of high-quality sunglasses is designed to fit and flatter the female face, giving you that just-stepped-out-of-a-magazine look. Plus, it comes in a signature Sunglass Style Box. In addition to the style and savvy take on shape and color, these pieces have full UV protection and true comfort for long-lasting wear. Cindy is a business-driven brand expert as well, so she really knows how to make you stand out with a simple choice this season.
Aviators and unisex shapes have had their moment. This year, try something bold and Hepburnesque with the ‘Maya.’ The modified cat eye frame in tortoise shell or beige will have you looking fashionable from Miami to Rome—or perhaps you just wish to bring some glam to that outdoor bottomless brunch. What we love about the Maya is that this sunglass looks good on round, square, heart, and oval face shapes. The beige especially complements tanned, olive, and melanin skin tones. While the sunglass frame is slightly oversized, the expertly crafted polycarbonate is lightweight and provides all-day comfort. One of the benefits of this feminine one-piece style is that there are no nose pads to pinch, snag on hairdos, or get out of alignment. Plus, beach lovers will appreciate the corrosion-free hinges, scratch-resistant lenses, and cleaning cloth.
Cindy stands by her brand and offers a Velvet “Love it or Return it” guarantee! And in terms of fashion, art, and design for social good, every purchase helps to support organizations such as Dress for Success, Wine, Women & Shoes, local Veterans Hospitals, Boys & Girls Clubs, and Materials for the Arts.
“Our brand philosophy is built on a simple, powerful idea: art shapes how we see the world. We believe this creative vision should be accessible to everyone,” says Cindy. “To put this mission into action, we established the Velvet Foundation for the Arts, our official non-profit organization dedicated to supporting arts education. Through the foundation, we are proud to help nurture the next generation of artists and designers.” See the world through new eyes this Summer. Shop the full range of Velvet Eyewear here.
Volition Beauty
No one likes a hard launch into Summer, exposing delicate skin to all that unfamiliar sun! So how about a vegan, female-founded beauty brand that eases you into the season? Yes, please! Patricia Santos has over 20 years of experience in the beauty and apparel sectors, and her journey to founding Volition Beauty began as the only female investor at a large venture capital fund, where she saw that many female founders weren’t getting funded, partly because they didn’t look like the investors they were pitching. She became obsessed with changing that.
Volition Beauty is consequently a female-, AAPI-, and LGBTQIA-founded brand that formulates products of the highest quality, all clean, vegan, and cruelty-free. The user-informed brand believes that a multiplicity of diverse perspectives creates better, richer products. The end result is high-performance skincare and bodycare containing unique and effective ingredients. Here’s what we tried and loved:
Volition Beauty’s Getaway Glow Instant Bronzer Sculpting Body Cream is a quick-drying formula that delivers a shimmery glow without streaking or rubbing off easily. It’s boosted with Vegan Collagen & Squalane, Shea Butter, and Vitamin E to combine all your bodycare products into one universal treatment. Get a gorgeous, glowing instant tan while feeding your skin nutrient-rich ingredients for firmer, smoother, and more hydrated skin. This is the product if you are venturing into pool season at a high-end resort and want to feel ready for stares.
Getaway Glow Gradual Tan Firming Body Moisturizer provides a gradual, healthy-looking tan in a quick-drying formula that also helps firm and minimize the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. Getaway Glow’s SPF 30 Radiant Sunscreen is also a must for broad-spectrum protection if you plan to be out for some hours. You’ll love the clean, tropical scent! If you want to look truly luminous and sun-kissed, try the Getaway Glow Liquid Sunshine Drops with squalene and grapeseed. This is perfect if you plan to parade by the pool rather than doing laps. And of course it’s not all about the body. If you want your face to have that golden glow and carefree Summer aura, try the Getaway Glow Gradual Tan Firming Serum with peptides and niacinamide. This is a lovely ‘barely-there’ beauty product for face, neck, and decolletage.
Volition has many products to try. Shop them all here.
Natracare
Natracare’s organic wipes and safe-to-flush moist tissues are easy, space-saving essentials for flights, road trips, beach days, camping, Pride festivals, parties, drag shows, and tea dances. They are effective and gentle on all skin types, even if you are ultra-sensitive and prone to eczema or rosacea (we know: we tried!) They quickly and easily remove makeup, sunscreen, and environmental dirt, leaving you feeling refreshed.
But not only that: This is a brand we can get behind, especially during Pride Month. We really only like to support brands that are inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and committed to ingredient transparency. Personal care items such as period products still lag behind in these areas and are often marketed in biologically essential ways that exclude transgender and nonbinary people. There’s a growing demand for skin-safe products that are gender-expanding, gentle on the body, and transparent in their ingredients.
Natracare is responding to that shift, speaking to bodily autonomy and self-care routines. Made with organic and plastic-free materials, their range of period and personal care products reflects a simple philosophy: these products are for all bodies, not just those traditionally represented in marketing.
You can learn more here about their When We campaign and the female founder Susie Hewson, who “didn’t set out to build a business. I set out to right a wrong.”
Sanitary products have long been bleached with chlorine, exposing your body and the environment to carcinogenic by-products known as dioxins and furans. “What began as a battle cry became Natracare. It was my act of defiance, showing we can design for change. It was a declaration that we deserve better for our bodies, our futures, and our planet.”
Shop the Natracare store here to see everything that’s on offer.
MASAMI
Travel can be hard on hair, mainly due to extreme moisture loss in low-humidity airplane cabins, environmental stressors like sun, saltwater, and chlorine, and exposure to different, often harsh, hotel water types. These factors, combined with inconsistent hair care routines, lead to dryness, frizz, breakage, and dullness. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a travel-friendly hair care system you could take with you? There is. MASAMI offers high-performance, vegan Japanese-inspired hair care focused on botanical hydration using nutrient-dense mekabu seaweed ( a variety of the edible wakame seaweed). Their products are cruelty-free, paraben-, sulfate-, and phthalate-free, and designed to provide weightless moisture for all genders, hair types, and textures.
We highly recommend investing in the MASAMI Mekabu Hydrating Haircare Travel Kit. This 4-piece set of premium, travel-sized hair products is designed to hydrate, nourish, and add shine to all hair types using cherished Japanese marine botanicals. Here’s what’s included: 2 fluid ounce bottles of shampoo and conditioner; 2 fl oz pot of styling cream; a 1 fl oz pump dispenser of shine serum. All work beautifully and create hydrated, shiny hair. No more fretting about hotel amenities! No more siphoning off small amounts of the products you use at home.
And, of course, fitting our theme, MASAMI has a female co-founder, Lynn Power! Shop the whole range of salon-grade, beautifully-scented MASAMI products here.
Rooted
Admit it: When you slather on sunscreen, you always forget the backs of your hands? But did you know, the skin on the backs of your hands is particularly delicate and vulnerable to UV rays due to a combination of thin skin structure, lack of fat, and consistent, unprotected exposure to the sun when driving, walking, or participating in aquatic activities. Because of these factors, the hands often show signs of sun damage—such as brown spots, wrinkles, and thinning—sooner than the face. This is why we love discovering new products such as Rooted HydraShield SPF Hand Cream. This is a “facial-grade” skincare product engineered to protect and deeply hydrate hands while shielding them from sun damage.
Created by lifelong friends and creative partners Nana and Kokwe, the founders of Accra’s Polish’d nail bar, this daily, lightweight, non-white-cast sunscreen formula targets long-term hand health, not just surface softness. We love the oval-shaped, palm-sized, travel-friendly bottle, too. These female founders developed Rooted to bring Ghanaian ancestral wisdom to modern beauty everywhere with crafted intentionality. They have a range of salon-grade products for hands, nails, and feet. Check them out here!
Love All
Kate Davis is an entrepreneur, designer, and lifelong tennis and golf player who believes that sport has the power to bring people together. After a successful career in finance and building businesses, she now brings her own sense of fun, joy, and nostalgia to the world of sports apparel. Inspired by the heritage style of classic country club sports and the idea that sport should feel welcoming to everyone, she founded the Love All family of brands, including Love All Tennis and Love All Golf.
Love All blends vintage-inspired style with modern performance fabrics and is designed for women who want to move effortlessly from the court or course into the rest of their lives.
Our pick for the season: The Big Accessories Crusher Bucket Hat. It is the perfect blend of comfort and unpretentious style. Bucket hats offer a winning combination of 360-degree sun protection, packable convenience, and versatile, casual style, making them a popular, practical accessory for both outdoor activities and urban fashion. They protect the face, ears, and neck from UV rays, are easy to stow, and suit almost any outfit.
This hat features the heart-shaped tennis racquets embossed logo as a reminder to seek and celebrate love and friendship in a time of division. The hat is designed to fit all head sizes, making it a versatile addition to any wardrobe—choose from black or navy. Made from 100% cotton for a soft, breathable, but durable feel, it’s ideal for outdoor wear, sports, or casual fashion. And best of all, it packs flat and can even be folded into your pocket, unlike ball caps with their cardboard or plastic visors or broad-brimmed hats.
Chlōq
You know the feeling: You’re browsing the Duty Free store at the airport and huge images of movie stars and models entreat you to purchase a designer scent—often expensive even at a tax-free discount. You try this and that, but it’s almost impossible to make a decision unless you know what you’re after. The designer perfume industry is intimidating and intentionally so, using exclusivity and high-status marketing to make you feel that investing in a fragrance will transform you. Well, that’s a lot of pressure, especially when you’re traveling.
Chlōq, founded by Alison Keutgen, is a clean-fragrance, affordable, and casual brand—a self-proclaimed “everyday accomplice” for women who don’t want to play games. The naming of the fragrances is adjectival, and therefore intentional: Intoxicating, Radiant, Unleashed, Mightiful. Forget about the unattainable. Focus on amplifying who you already are.
All Chlōq formulations are EPA Safer Choice and Clean Sephora compliant, free of endocrine disruptors, BHT, and forever chemicals. The brand is committed to directing up to 5% of profits to grassroots women’s resource organizations and direct-impact groups like Mama Shu’s Avalon Village in Detroit and the Blessons Foundation in Chicago, which funds trades education for women.
Our go-to travel choice is Intoxicating: It is described as “a velvet ribbon of fragrance—gardenia, black fern, and skin musk.” It had us visualizing a stroll through night-blooming jasmine on our way to a sunset dinner in Key West. We also liked Unleashed: This is light, sparkling, and citrusy, the perfect choice for a night of cocktails and dancing. The Discovery Trio is sized for travel and includes Intoxicating, Unleashed, and Boardroom Badass (a subtle and understated scent for women who travel for business).
Chlōq fragrances offer a sensory experience that is awakening rather than cloying or seductive. They will suit women on the go who wish to make the most of their energy.
