Page 47 - Beauty Prime Magazine

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EMPOWERS WELLNESS
Dr. Kristian Edwards embodies
empowerment, leading BLK + GRN with
unwavering dedication to health,
community, and conscious consumerism
sed their products. So I modified my list
to be natural products by Black-owned
companies. However, I had to go to a
lot of websites to order the products I
wanted and I had to test them for effe-
ctiveness. I created BLK + GRN to be
an easy one-stop shop to find non-toxic
and Black owned products.
My mission has and always will be to
connect Black women to the tools, re-
sources, knowledge, and products they
need to lead happier and healthier lives.
I believe that a life free of toxins and all
things artificial is a life worth cultiva-
ting. My purpose through BLK + GRN
is to help Black women do exactly that
while also elevating and incubating a
group of Black women artisans who
otherwise would not have a place to
share their stories or their products with
the very people they created them for.
Since 2017, BLK + GRN has elevated
over 100 Black-owned brands and
shipped over 18,500 orders of non-toxic
products placed on our marketplace.
How do you select the Black
artisans and creators featured
on BLK + GRN, and what criteria
must their products meet before
being included in your marketp-
lace?
At BLK + GRN, our all Black
artisans are carefully chosen by Black
women’s health experts who know what
an all-natural product truly looks like.
We’ve seen first-hand the damaging
effects harmful ingredients and prac-
tices have had on our community. Our
marketplace connects Black women
with natural lifestyles to high-quality,
toxic-free brands that share in our mis-
sion of health, wellness and community
cultivation. We promise to maintain that
connection by curating, crafting and
consuming consciously for you. We use
a 4 step onboarding process:
1. Discover - We love finding small
Black artisan brands that are high qua-
lity and really meeting a unique need.
We have hundreds of artisans that we
have discovered, but we are not interes-
ted in carrying every product possible;
we curate our selection to include only
the best of the best of Black-owned
brands.
2. Alignment - We only partner with
Artisans that have built their brands on
the values at the heart of BLK + GRN
— health, wellness, and community
cultivation. We go deeper with the Ar-
tisan, asking questions about sourcing,
packaging, personality, and community
responsibility.
3. Quality Assurance - We wouldn’t
bring anything that’s toxic into our
home, or yours. We check each product
ingredient against our Toxic Twenty
List- which was developed utilizing
the latest research - and we ensure that
nothing scores above a 5 for toxicity.
We want to be absolutely sure we’re
offering you the cleanest plant-based
products on the market.
4. Test - Once we’ve ensured safety,
we test for effectiveness. For this, we
turn to aestheticians, dermatologists,
makeup artists and other professionals
to use the product and report back on
effectiveness and quality. Dr. Kristian
personally tests every single product!
What measures does BLK + GRN
take to ensure product quality
and customer satisfaction, and
how do you handle feedback and
returns?
BLK + GRN aims for 100% customer
satisfaction. While all sales are final and
we do not accept returns, we want to
hear from you if you are not happy with
your purchase. If our customer receives
a damaged or incorrect order, we
ship them a replacement. If they have
feedback on the product itself we share
it with the creator to incorporate in their
constant analysis of their product.
As a marketplace focused on na-
tural and non-toxic products, how
does BLK + GRN stay updated on
industry trends and regulations
to maintain the integrity of your
offerings?
We use the Environment Working
Group’s (EWG) Skin Deep® database
to stay up to date on the research around
the toxicity of ingredients in personal
care products. When we discuss ingre-
dient safety in our ingredient library, we
regularly refer to the EWG’s safety and
sustainability rating because we consi-
der their data fairly reliable, and their
research is public. Their scoring system
is between 1-10 when rating ingredient
safety and sustainability.
Looking towards the future, how
do you envision the growth of
BLK + GRN, and are there any up-
coming initiatives or partnerships
that you’re particularly excited
about?
I am really excited about my TikTok
and going live more on IG. I am getting
emails from my customers that they
want more information from me about
healthy living. I am so excited to talk
about healthy eating, easily incorpo-
rating exercise into daily activities,
self-love tips, gardening, in addition to
my use of non-toxic products.
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