Melanin Essentials
Pennsylvania, United States
August 2021
Personal care products
Manufacturing
United States
BWOC-owned and operated, Melanin Essentials is a social impact beauty brand dedicated to manufacturing high quality personal care products that respect the Earth and your melanin. Founded in 2017, cofounders Saba Williams and Olayinka Credle set out to address the iniquities experienced by people of color within the beauty industry and bring awareness to the climate crisis. Using clean ingredients and sustainable packaging, Melanin Essentials seeks to combat the issue of the environmental and health hazards caused by plastic waste and toxic beauty. By definition, Melanin means, pigments that give hair, skin, and eyes their color. No matter what obstacles one may face being their most natural self, Melanin Essentials wants their customers to experience the same revelation that allowed the cofounders to embrace their natural beauty: “God makes no mistakes with his creation”. No matter how light or dark the skin or eyes, no matter kinky or curly the hair, Melanin Essentials celebrates the fact that – we all have melanin. Melanin Essentials is for the climate and the culture.
Overall B Impact Score
Governance 12.0
Governance evaluates a company's overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. This section also evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents.
What is this? A company with an Impact Business Model is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for one of its stakeholders - such as workers, community, environment, or customers.
Governance 12.0
Governance evaluates a company's overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. This section also evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents.
What is this? A company with an Impact Business Model is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for one of its stakeholders - such as workers, community, environment, or customers.
Community 45.8
Community evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. Topics include diversity, equity & inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management. In addition, this section recognizes business models that are designed to address specific community-oriented problems, such as poverty alleviation through fair trade sourcing or distribution via microenterprises, producer cooperative models, locally focused economic development, and formal charitable giving commitments.
Environment 31.9
Environment evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations and, when applicable its supply chain and distribution channels. This section also recognizes companies with environmentally innovative production processes and those that sell products or services that have a positive environmental impact. Some examples might include products and services that create renewable energy, reduce consumption or waste, conserve land or wildlife, provide less toxic alternatives to the market, or educate people about environmental problems.
What is this? A company with an Impact Business Model is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for one of its stakeholders - such as workers, community, environment, or customers.
Customers 4.5
Customers evaluates a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels. In addition, this section recognizes products or services that are designed to address a particular social problem for or through its customers, such as health or educational products, arts & media products, serving underserved customers/clients, and services that improve the social impact of other businesses or organizations.