Orion Brown, BlackTravelBox: Clean Beauty Essentials to #TravelinColor + An Ongoing Race and Beauty Industry Discussion

I’m so pleased to share a conversation with you today between myself and Orion Brown of BlackTravelBox, a beauty brand offering clean beauty essentials on-the-go for Black and Afro-Latinx travelers. Orion and I are actually University of Chicago classmates from the early 2000s! It was great to connect all these years later, learn about the beauty business she launched in 2017 (after a 15-year career in brand strategy, consumer insights, product and packaging innovation and portfolio management). In today’s conversation we cover: *How Orion’s love for travel developed, and the problems she faced as a WOC trying to bring sufficient and effective personal care products (particularly hair care) for long international trips *A walk-thru of the products in BlackTravelBox’s range *Orion’s experience of the global pandemic (as someone who relied on travel for self care), and her thoughts on pivoting or iterating her brand as our current social landscape is altered *Deeply problematic beauty industry marketing that socializes women and girls into normative standards of white beauty and considers everything else an aberration *Why BlackTravelBox is “for everyone” but Orion’s real thoughts when white women ask if it’s “for them” (and why her marketing clearly targets WOC) *Mentorship for WOC and the problem of a lot of free advice but a lack of true support *Some of Orion’s favorite beauty brands of the moment and her travel inspiration during quarantine And of course much more. Orion is so articulate and engaging and I am happy to put this brand on your radar. If you are looking for sustainable, minimal, portable, eco hair and body care that’s made in the US (Colorado specifically), and to support a WOC beauty brand – please do check out BlackTravelBox. There’s a special offer for Your Purpose is Beauty listeners below.