Mented Cosmetics

Mented Cosmetics was co-founded in 2017 by KJ Miller and Amanda E. Johnson, two Black women who met at Harvard Business School and started the brand after a conversation about how hard it was to find a nude lipstick that worked on deeper skin tones. The premise — that "nude" is not a single color but a spectrum — became the brand's entire product architecture.

The debut launch was a six-shade nude lipstick range, and the line has since expanded into nude lip glosses, eyeshadow palettes, blushes, and a complexion range built around the same logic of broad, undertone-correct shade matching for melanin-rich skin. Mented operates as a digitally-native brand with growing distribution through Target, Ulta Beauty, and other major US retailers, and remains one of the most-cited Black-owned beauty brands in the prestige-accessible tier. The line is mid-range priced, cruelty-free, paraben-free, and positioned squarely as the answer to the historical gap in nude shade development for women of color.