Topicals Got Its Sephora Shelf. The Brand Did Not Ask Permission to Be There.

Topicals launched in 2020 with a premise that most beauty brands had been careful to avoid: that people with chronic skin conditions -- eczema, hyperpigmentation, psoriasis, perioral dermatitis -- deserved products built specifically for them, with packaging and marketing that did not treat their skin as a problem to be hidden.

Olamide Olowe and Claudia Teng co-founded the brand while both dealing with their own skin conditions, and the products reflected that lived knowledge. Faded, the brand's serum targeting hyperpigmentation from dark spots and ingrown hairs, and Like Butter, the hydrating mask formulated for sensitized and compromised skin, became cult products almost immediately -- driven not by traditional advertising but by community advocacy from people who had tried everything else and found something that worked.

The Sephora launch gave Topicals access to one of the most competitive retail environments in beauty -- a shelf that has historically been difficult for Black-founded brands to reach, and harder still to sustain. Olowe became one of the youngest Black women to raise $10 million in venture capital for a beauty brand, a fundraising milestone that preceded the Sephora expansion and gave Topicals the operational infrastructure to support retail at scale.

What makes the Topicals story significant is not just the retail placement. It is the fact that a brand built around conditions the beauty industry had systematically underfunded and underserved was compelling enough on its own terms -- on the merits of the products and the depth of its community -- to land one of the most coveted positions in mainstream retail.

Sephora didn't discover Topicals. Topicals built something that Sephora couldn't ignore.

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Edited and fact-checked by Sencera Yvonne against primary sources. We correct errors quickly: spot something wrong or out of date? Tell us. Read our editorial standards.