“Last time we spoke, we were a D2C brand, and that was my biggest vision,” recalls Lesley Thornton, whom Fashionista first interviewed in 2021, shortly after her skin-care brand Klur saw rapid growth during the BLM-inspired push to support Black-owned businesses. “2020, I think, put us on the map.” Fast-forward four years, and things are pretty different — both in terms of the U.S. economy and retail landscape, and in terms of Klur’s business operations.
The beauty industry has continued to boom, with many indie brands getting the attention of VCs, driving massive rounds of funding and catapulting into the international spotlight on the heels of Sephora partnerships. But many other indie brands — in particular, those founded by people of color — have been floundering and even shuttering under the breakneck demands of the market amid escalating economic challenges.
Klur’s business, founded on a slow-but-steady philosophy, remains steadfast. Maybe it’s not about to see a massive exit in the next year — or even the next five. Maybe it hasn’t dominated headlines through celebrity exposure. Maybe its founder hasn’t gone viral on TikTok. But it’s here, and it’s continuing to grow, and that’s no small feat.
Photo: Courtesy of Klur
In 2022, Klur launched in its first non-DTC retail channel, partnering with Credo Beauty. “That has been very successful for us — extremely successful. We have the second bestselling mask in Credo history, which blows my mind,” notes Thornton. As of this year, the brand is sold across seven retailers (including Happier Grocery, Goop and Credo), at 31 doors and counting.
Klur has also dipped its toes into the hospitality and amenities space, partnering with Australian licensing company Buzz to create body- and hair-care products for hotels around the world. Most recently, the brand brought these licensed formulas to American Airlines’ airport lounges across the U.S.
While Thornton considers these monumental steps in growing her business, they’re certainly different from what many indie beauty brands are going after right now. As competitors are set their sights on flashy deals with Sephora or Ulta, explosive social media virality or seven-figure exits (what up, Rhode?), she recognizes that her approach to scaling her own company is unique. And that’s the whole point. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s still quite small,” acknowledges the founder. “But I’m thrilled that we’re still around in 2025, and that we’re still growing — and that all of our partners are growing.”
I recently caught up with Thornton via Zoom to discuss all things Klur. Keep reading for her insightful perspectives on having conviction as a Black woman beauty founder, whether the industry is “rushing founders toward failure,” and thriving despite not following the traditional “VC-to-Sephora pipeline.”
Related: How Black-Owned, Indie Skin-Care Brand Klur Survived — and Thrived — During the Pandemic
How do you think the beauty brand landscape has changed since we last spoke in 2021?
I was walking by a Sephora in my neighborhood and I saw [makeup artist and brand founder] Mary Phillips in the window and I saw [makeup artist and brand founder] Patrick Ta in the window and I saw Makeup by Mario and all these people I knew at one point, way back in my 2010s career when I was a makeup artist. It made me just feel like, wow, this is where we’ve come. This is really an important shift. And I have to say, I’m really proud that Klur was part of that shift early on.
To this day, [Klur is] the only esthetician-founded skin-care brand in Credo, period, which is still a huge thing. [There are] very few esthetician-founded brands on the market. We came in when the celebrity brand was a big thing. Now it’s kind of phasing out, and now we’re looking for expert brands, but we were one of the only few expert brands out there. Back then, it was, ‘Rihanna is making skin care,’ not Lesley, a little esthetician from L.A.
Klur has taken an intentional, somewhat slow approach to expanding its product line, especially in comparison to other brands on the market. What’s the rationale behind that strategy?
People are rather excited when we do launch because there’s not something every three months. There’s one or two a year, and that has become the expectation — and that should be the expectation.
Photo: Courtesy of Klur
Why did you choose Credo as Klur’s first retail partner?
Credo came to us, and it’s been a really fantastic partner. Annie [Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Credo Beauty] has done an amazing job for independent beauty. I have to give her flowers because she’s put a lot of brands on the map — Kosas, Ilia, all these beautiful brands that are now in Sephora, they started in Credo.
We’ve been able to slowly test what it looks like for a brand to, in the clean beauty space, create high-performance products. A lot of these formulations — retinol and peptides and these really high-performing ingredients — were not in Credo before we entered the store.
[Credo helped me understand] that it’s not even going to be called ‘clean’ beauty anymore. It’s just the expectation that products should be good for us, they should be good for the planet, and brands should be doing good with their platforms. But I didn’t understand that as an esthetician — so really, through the partnership of Credo, I learned my brand, I learned my customer. And then that allowed me to segue into the amenities and hospitality space because I realized there are other ways to scale a brand.
Photo: Courtesy of Klur
Why did you choose to expand via licensing deals, versus entering a mass retailer?
I think in a sense, taking clean beauty out of the retail landscape and bringing it to a bigger hospitality space has changed the conversation. We need awareness. We don’t need large scale, we don’t need 500 doors.
This was the perfect place for us to be discovered without any competition. The products are being used in-room, in-suite.
It’s a peculiar thing to have this international presence without this gigantic footprint in the U.S. We’re not in one of the large mass retailers like Ulta or Sephora. But to grow this international presence — we’re in Cairo, Egypt in a hotel. We have a few hotels in Japan. We’re in the Omni Hotel in the United States — that’s 54 properties, 30,000 rooms. That’s not a small amount of people. So we’re affecting lives in a positive way and bringing a sustainable approach to the hospitality space.
How did the licensing opportunities come about?
We don’t do much of the heavy lifting. That’s why it doesn’t trigger any of the anxiety. We didn’t have to grow an additional team for this. We work with [licensing company Buzz’s] team. They’re a team of 150 people. We are not 150 people, so the lift is on them. They collect a portion of it. They give us a small kickback on the royalty licensing fee. It’s very simple.
Tell me about the process of getting Klur’s amenity offerings right. The licensed products include shampoo, conditioner and body wash. These were and are not part the brand’s portfolio.
[The licensing company] does a lot of it, but we do all the creative, we go through all the formulations. They still have to meet our rigorous standards.
Some of [the formulas] are bespoke depending on the hotel. For American Airlines [Klur is stocked at its U.S. Admiral Club Lounges], we did a very special one-off scent called Balance in Blue. We worked on that for three and a half years.
Klur was tapped several years ago to participate in this program, and they went through many brands, and then we ended up being one of two brands to choose from, and ended up winning the contract. The lounges have showers, so they have body wash, shampoo and conditioner in the shower. And then at the basin there is a hand wash as well. So there’s four products in all lounges, and that contract is for the next several years.
Photo: Courtesy of Klur
Most indie beauty brands talk about the dream of launching in Sephora or Ulta. But you actually turned down those opportunities. Why?
We had the conversation with Ulta. We had a great conversation with Sephora. One of the buyers at Sephora continuously buys Klur regularly.
But first off, I’m not willing to compromise my health. I don’t like the additional stress. As a founder-led brand, I think one of the best things I can do is take care of myself.
I’ve always known that Klur is a slow beauty brand, but we are also a slow-growth company. And I fully embrace that. I don’t know if you’d call it strategy or intuition, but it is just part of who I am as a founder. Nothing is to be rushed. Why are we talking about taking our time and taking things slow, and then we have a new launch every six weeks? That’s ridiculous. It’s not built into the brand. It also gives me insane anxiety, the idea of being in all these doors; that’s a major commitment and I’m not ready for that.
You’ve also passed on taking on investment — why?
I’ve never taken a dollar from anyone. In fact, the couple conversations I’ve had with VCs have been extremely insulting. Their best advice has been for us to take small business loans, as if I didn’t think about that. I need an MBA to go to the small business association? So for me, it was belittling.
A lot of the firms we’ve spoken with want us to be doing $5 to 10 million a year. I know that’s a lie, because many of these brands, they’ve given $2 million, $5 million to, just on a Sephora P.O. They want you to rush your process so that they can rush their process in getting their money back. And that is not how I’m going to build this brand and this company.
How have you kept the company stable and growing without external funding?
We have customers who, since 2020, have repurchased 70 times. We live off the repeat purchase, which is phenomenal. We are one of Credo’s top performing brands… We’re moving inventory, which is great. We’re making sales, we’re able to put that back into the business.
I’m not taking a salary. We are not running ads all day long. We are literally just making the company work on its own sales, essentially. I am not going to take investment based on how much we can scale.
Photo: Courtesy of Klur
We’ve seen other indie beauty brands struggle after launching with a major retailer before they were ready, and some have even folded because of those challenges. What are your thoughts on that?
I don’t think we’re ready for that type of scale. And I don’t think many of the indie beauty brands are. And that’s the real conversation — are we rushing founders to failure?
I’ve never once heard [from Klur’s customers], ‘Oh, I wish you were in Sephora. I wish you were in Ulta.’ Never heard it at all. I’ve stayed true to myself, despite everything I was told from some of the smartest people in the industry, some of the biggest names in the industry. When they told me to go right, I went left. When they told me to go left, I went right.
What’s next on Klur’s business path?
I really don’t know. We have forged this path of our own. We haven’t followed the VC-to-Sephora pipeline that’s done.
In a dream world, where would I like to go? I’d love to be our own hotel. I’d love to have our own boutique and wellness spas. That would be my dream. That would be a full-circle moment. We started as a small spa in Los Angeles doing facials and treatments. I would love to return back to that, something that is grounding. Maybe it’s a boutique hotel spa of eight rooms. I don’t know. But I’m dreaming of another world for Klur, and it doesn’t just involve that same pipeline because I think that that path is done. But I do think there is a way that we can be a representation for a new path.
What is your advice to other founders, or others looking to get into the indie beauty space?
My advice would be, don’t look at the industry, because then all you’re going to end up doing is being part of the industry. I am in the industry by way of being a brand, but I’ve not done anything the industry said I had to do to be successful. My measure of success is honesty and authenticity.
What is something you’re most proud of when you think about what you’ve accomplished with Klur so far?
I’m most proud of not having done anything the way the industry has said you should do it. I’ve not been a forward-facing founder. I haven’t been on camera all the time. When we have a new launch, I’m not like, ‘Oh, hi, I’m Lesley. I’m here to sell you something.’ I think I’m so proud of that because it just means that I have stayed true to myself throughout the entire process.
I don’t care what other people think. I have detached the expectations of this entire industry because, in fact, I think that everything looks alike. Everything sounds alike. So when you do something different, you actually automatically stand out. If everybody is on camera asking you to buy their product and you don’t go on camera, then you automatically stand out. In a way, you become a bit of a mystery. And it’s not that I don’t want to be on camera, but in many ways it’s actually been beneficial to the brand.
What are you most proud of personally as a founder?
There’s not a lot of other Black founders. There’s more founders that look like yourself than look like me. That is the truth. And so when I take a step back and I realize, if I can open the door for someone to just feel like [they] can be in the luxury market, in hotels, in premium retailers… I don’t have to sell to Sally Beauty or Walmart. I don’t have to discount all my products all the time. I don’t have to fold at the idea of putting something on sale when everyone else puts it on sale.
If I can create that path, especially for Black women in beauty, and say, ‘Listen, you can go in an entirely different world,’ I take great deal of pride in that. There are very few women that look like me, that have done what I’ve done, that walk their walk, that talk their talk, that go on their own path and do it with conviction and do it with resilience. And if a VC says they’re not interested, I hang up and keep moving with my day. And I think I’m proud of that in the sense that it’s become something that people can look up to, something that people can see as another path.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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Source: Fashionista.com
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