Beauty of 5: KLUR Makes Room For Representation In The Clean Beauty Space
Beauty Of 5: KLUR Is The Black-Owned And Sustainable Skincare Brand Making Way For Diverse Representation In The Clean Beauty World
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / KLUR
KLUR is a Black-owned, clean skincare brand that’s helping keep sustainable products and practices an ongoing conversation in the beauty world. The brand’s founder, Lesley Thornton, has used her background as an esthetician and skincare expert to develop the product line, which focuses mostly on soothing and calming ingredients.
Thornton shared that she wanted to start the brand because she noticed there were several voids in the clean beauty space that weren’t being filled, especially when it came to presenting people of color as users of such products. Along her journey, as she realized that she gravitated towards natural, clean, organic, and biodynamic skincare ingredients, she also noticed that with the natural skincare brands she did see popping up back in 2014 and 2015, diverse representation was hard to come by.
“When I first got on Instagram and I started seeing these natural brands,” Thornton said. “I didn’t see representation. I saw great formulas, I saw great products, but I didn’t see representation for Black and Brown people. What I did notice was it would be easier for an avocado or coconut to be re-posted, and posted, and posted, before you would actually see a picture of a [Black or Brown] person. That was one conversation that I had with my partner back in 2014 or 2015. ‘Why is it that you’ll post a picture of a coconut before you post a picture of a Brown or dark-skinned person?’ I didn’t understand.”
In addition to the clean beauty world failing to represent people of color, Thornton expressed that she didn’t see any Black-owned sustainable brands at the time of KLUR’s inception. Creating her own brand was a way for her to tick all the boxes of things that were missing in skincare.
Being the expert that she is, Thornton gave MadameNoire details on how best to take care of our skin in a sustainable way that prioritizes, “gentle practices, gentle consistency with your skincare, and low maintenance minimal routines.” We also got an inside scoop on some of the brand’s top-selling products, including their Gentle Matter cleanser, a multiuse additive called Skin Soil, their Supreme Seed face mask, a facial serum called Symmetry Fluid, and their fragrant body oil, Elements of Comfort.
Gentle Matter Daily Moisture Cleanser
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / KLUR
Everyone needs a staple facial cleanser in their routine. Thornton emphasized having a gentle pick for every day that avoids shifting your skin’s pH, and therefore is less likely to cause irritation to the skin. As she explained, KLUR’s Gentle Matter cleanser is one that’s full of enzymes so it offers an amount of exfoliation that your skin can handle every day without the cost of tampering with its pH level the way an acid would.
“The reason why I like putting enzymes in our cleanser is because we’re getting a little bit of the exfoliation without ever shifting our skin’s pH,” Thornton said.
“We’re using papaya enzymes which is nice because it’s a fruit-based, gentle enzyme,” she added when speaking on KLUR’s formula for Gentle Matter. “It’s not an active at all so it can be used every single day. Enzymes work to facilitate exfoliation like an acid, but what’s nice about them is that they break down the keratin – the bond between the skin – the oils, and the sebum without fluctuating the skin’s pH. An acid toner or acid exfoliator, that would change the pH in the skin.”
Skin Soil Multiuse Additive Exfoliating Grain
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / 69KLUR
Being one of KLUR’s most innovative products, Thornton shared that Skin Soil was one of the first ideas she had to help the brand start a conversation around sustainability. When she developed the product around five or six years ago, the mass usage of microbeads – spheres of plastic often found in skincare products like scrubs – was even more popular than it is today.
Skin Soil proves itself as a more sustainable alternative to microbead-based products because people can use it with a cleanser they already own and create a “fully customizable” experience for themselves no matter what their cleanser’s base is. Thornton suggests using it once a week so you don’t over-exfoliate the skin. If that advice is noted, the product should last anywhere from six months to a year.
“This is a blend of rice bran, dry herbs, refined grains, and MSM that you mix with your cleanser,” she shared. “It can be an oil cleanser, it can be a gel cleanser, it just needs to be something that can really absorb all the ingredients. Instead of cleansing and then using a separate scrub, you’re literally cleansing with something the skin already agrees with, because you already know your cleanser.”
“The idea was to give you something fully customizable. You don’t have to use a physical exfoliator every single day, but when you do, it can be a customizable experience with the cleanser you’re already using so that you’re introducing less products to your skin.”
“We’re basically using these ingredients to cleanse the skin without any extra additives on top of that. This is strictly all the exfoliating particles you would need to get a mechanical, physical exfoliation of the skin. You don’t really need all of the other ingredients that come in a ‘typical exfoliator’ except the actual particles.”
Telling me more about MSM, which is one of the product’s key ingredients, Thornton described it as “so skin-strengthening” and “such an underappreciated ingredient.” It’s an organic sulfur compound that’s naturally found in our bodies, in places like our knees, in our joints, and in our hair. Speaking to the ingredient’s detoxifying properties, Thornton said, “A lot of people focus on collagen, but think of MSM as collagen’s sister. It facilitates pushing waste out of the cell so it’s actually the only thing that can detoxify the skin. MSM is the only ingredient that can remove waste out of skin cells.”
The Supreme Seed Delicate Purification Mask
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / KLUR
On KLUR’s website, Supreme Seed is described as a product that’s made up of “bio-dynamic plant extracts” that’s good for releasing the “accumulation of daily environmental debris.” Thornton explained that the soothing mask should be used as a cleanser so that its unique botanical blend can help purify your skin without stripping it as other clay masks on the market do.
Symmetry Fluid Anti-Pollution Serum
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / KLUR
Symmetry Fluid is KLUR’s pollution-fighting serum that’s designed to keep free radicals at bay. When asked how free radicals could negatively impact the skin, Thornton started off by giving a brief definition of what exactly free radicals are.
“Free radicals are ROS, ‘reactive oxygen species.’ They’re in the world, they’re in our air, and they’re around us all the time,” she said.
“What we want to do is incorporate antioxidants into our skincare routine on a daily basis. It’s an overlooked step, but it’s all about prevention because exposure to those reactive oxygen species is what breaks the skin down,” she continued. “It creates a loss of collagen, and pokes holes in the skin barrier.”
“I think it’s actually the environment, the sun, and the irritation that our skin barrier faces every day that’s overlooked in our aging process. We’re all going to age, but we’re not just aging because we’ve been around for a long time. We’re aging because we’ve been around these reactive oxygen species. Antioxidants really help stabilize the skin, and an unstable molecule is what we call a ‘free radical,” she added. “This product is all about the balance of prevention and repairing the skin at the same time. It’s preventing new damage and it’s balancing the skin through certain types of lipids and ingredients that are needed to restore the skin barrier. It’s also so soothing and calming. It’s not one of those products you’ll see a huge difference with but you’re really using it to prevent any new damage and repair the old damage.”
Elements of Comfort Body Oil
Source: Courtesy of KLUR / KLUR
Elements of Comfort is a body oil that’s unique to KLUR’s line because of its fragrance. According to Thornton, because it’s for the body and not for the face, Elements of Comfort is the only product KLUR currently carries that it’s isn’t “aroma-neutral.”
“Elements of Comfort is very special and unique in the sense that, you might get a cleanser that has absolutely no smell (ie. Gentle Matter) and then you’ll get Elements of Comfort in the same package and it’ll have this uplifting aromatic experience,” she said. “It was intended to be a multi-purpose body oil that would replenish the skin, nourish the skin, address stretch marks, and tighten the skin.”
Speaking on the product’s ingredients that offer those benefits, Thornton said the Elements of Comfort uses “an ingredient called tamanu oil in abundance. It’s great for strengthening and tightening the skin. It also has avocado oil, which is very high in fat to restore our lipid barrier, great for very dry skin.”
“We’re also relying on ingredients like lavender, neroli, and Bulgarian rose, that really come together harmoniously. The fragrance and aroma profile of the blend is highly uplifting and soothing,” she added. “It can be used all over the body just as a normal body oil, or it can be used strictly just as an aromatic product to decompress and distress. A lot of research behind lavender and its calming properties have shown us that it is great for decompressing, distressing, and clearing your mind. Also, it can be used as a hair oil or as a bathing oil. It’s multi-purpose, so that’s the one product I don’t give any best usage for. I want you to incorporate it in a way that you feel like you need.”
