Olamide Olowe
A UCLA pre-med student and former track athlete who, at 23, became one of the youngest Black women to raise over $10M in venture funding for a beauty brand. Topicals launched in 2020 with a focus on chronic skin conditions — eczema, hyperpigmentation, ingrown hairs — and a Gen Z visual language that reframed 'skin issues' as worth being seen.
"We're rebranding chronic skin conditions."
— Olamide Olowe
Olamide Olowe grew up in Texas dealing with hyperpigmentation, eczema and ingrown hairs that mainstream skincare didn't speak to — a gap she filled by following Black YouTube creators. She attended UCLA on a pre-med track and was a Division I track athlete before pivoting away from medicine to build a brand.
She launched Topicals in 2020 at 23, after a stint at clean-deodorant brand SheaMoisture-incubated SheaGirl. Topicals' opening lineup (Faded brightening serum, Like Butter hydrating mask) was specifically formulated for chronic skin conditions, packaged in deliberately playful, Gen Z visual language that pushed back against the cleanical 'flawless' aesthetic.
Topicals was the first Black-founded brand to launch at Sephora's Accelerate-backed scale and has since raised multiple rounds of venture capital (Initialized, Bobby Goodlatte, Marcy Venture Partners and others), with mental-health advocacy threaded through the brand's marketing.
Chronic skin conditions belong in beauty, not just dermatology.
Visual rebrand — make 'flare-ups' worth photographing rather than hiding.
- Pre-2018Pre-med track athlete at UCLA
- 2018–2019Works on SheaGirl (Sundial / Unilever)
- 2020Launches Topicals at age 23
- 2022+Sephora rollout; multiple institutional venture rounds
Topicals' Olamide Olowe on Connecting With the Gen-Z Shopper
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