Meet The Black-Owned Beauty Delivery Service Making Shopping Easy

The Regime Beauty has found a way to innovate the beauty product delivery experience for women of color. Founded by New York-based data scientist Yan Lawrence, the forthcoming on-demand beauty marketplace will deliver beauty supply store essentials (think: edge control, deep conditioners, and press-on nails) to your door in 60 minutes or less. But that's not all. Drawing upon her STEM background, Lawrence built The Regime Beauty platform using a proprietary algorithm that benefits consumers and retailers. 

"We focus on personalizing the experience for users and expanding beauty supply store reach across the United States," Lawrence explains. "Other delivery platforms just deliver products. We utilize data to power both sides of the marketplace—making the customer beauty experience seamless while using data to draw insights into what's currently working in the market to help beauty stores scale fast."

Ahead, Lawrence fills us in on her inspiration for The Regime Beauty and what's next for the platform.

The Inspiration 

Lawrence's desire to start The Regime Beauty is rooted in her hair journey. She chose to perm her hair by the time she was a teen and was excited about her silky tresses (until she noticed hair loss). "My hair inevitably started to fall out," she says. "At the time, I truly felt like my beauty went along with it.

After big-chopping, she struggled to find the products that were right for her. Eventually, she found a correlation between applied mathematics and beauty while studying at The City College of New York. "I had my 'aha!' moment," Lawrence explains. "I realized I could use my love for math and technology to solve the most asked question in the beauty industry: Is this product going to work?"

The Launch

Her experience as a data scientist for the NBA and quantitative analyst at Bank of America helped her create an algorithm that recommends products based on an individual's interest and location. From there, The Regime Beauty was born. In 2020, Lawrence joined forces with CTO Paula Wambui (who now serves as the chief technology officer) and Antone Evans Jr. (the team's data scientist) to help scale the platform. "Building our platform has been a journey," she says. "It's been a learning experience because each step of the way, we had to validate [this idea] to ensure this is what our consumers wanted."

Lawrence made sure to vet her concept with beauty lovers and professionals, and those conversations further illuminated pain points in the beauty shopping experience. "I've spoken to consumers, barbers, and stylists, and one issue they have all pointed out is not having access to these products in real-time," she notes. "The [big beauty retailers] do not carry all the products one might be looking for. So they are left to go from store to store looking for products. Everyone has expressed the need for a tool that shows them [all of the stores near them], the products they carry, and their price point. With The Regime Beauty, consumers can shop for many products and make purchases based on price comparison and distance."

How the Platform Works

Using The Regime Beauty app is simple. "Users first get to choose their interests so we can provide better recommendations," Lawrence explains. "On the platform, users can see their personalized recommendations along with their percentage match. They are then able to browse and shop products, place an order, and track delivery. " 

While shopping, users can select products from Black-owned brands like Mielle Organics, Camille Rose, Nuele, and TGIN. Along with partnerships with widely known brands, The Regime Beauty also prioritizes working with smaller Black-owned brands and beauty supply stores. "We have such a great relationship with our local retailers, and we want new beauty brands to have access to reach new customers through our partnerships," she says.

The Future of The Regime Beauty

The Regime Beauty is set to officially launch in early 2023, with New York being the first city they'll service. However, Lawrence and her team already have their sights set on expansion. "In the next five years, The Regime Beauty is working to change the way people discover beauty products," Lawrence tells us. "We plan to expand into the major cities across the United States. We will continue to be community-driven by creating new business opportunities for entrepreneurs in these communities and decreasing economic inequality for marginalized groups."