Pretty in Pinkston Skincare is a skincare line with a purpose. A Black-owned, luxury skincare line, it was developed for the purpose of promoting healthy skin and maintaining that melanin glow. The company’s mission is to promote young black models with an interest in fashion by featuring them on their label for maximum exposure and funding their scholarships.
A former runway model, Kimberly Pinkston fostered a love for skincare in her teen years. She remembers with fondness over how her mom would always fuss at her for using eggs and mayonnaise on her face. Her mom would look for the natural herbs she used for cooking and find them in Kimberly’s room while she was mixing ingredients with lotion. In her teenage mind, she was determined to find any way to get modelesque skin.
It made sense to her to develop her own skincare line—with a purpose. The result was Pretty in Pinkston, a skincare line that nourishes the skin and aids in healing while restoring a youthful glow. All their products are vegan, gluten-free, sulfate-free, cruelty-free, silicone-free, talc-free, paraben-free, and eco-friendly.
In addition to this, the company makes an impact on its community by donating 20 percent of all profits to a scholarship fund for young models who want to attend college as well as to the MS Foundation to support the search for a cure.
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Kimberly had to figure out her “new normal.” She went through the motions of being diagnosed and decided that her diagnosis would not stop her. Instead, she would use MS as her driving force to make a difference and prove a point. By creating her own skincare line with a purpose, Kimberly chose to make lemonade out of the lemons she has been given, and so far, it has turned out exquisitely.
Kimberly Pinkston also teaches professional runway techniques to young girls in underserved communities. She teaches them for free because she knows their parents don’t have the money to give their kids the experiences they deserve. Her only criteria are for the girls in her program to maintain an A or B average in school and to be active in their communities. Beauty, she believes, is nothing if not accompanied by intelligence and compassion.
Kimberly’s personal mission is to find a cure for MS and to help young black girls pursue their dreams of becoming fashion models. In fact, the model on her website is one of her students. “I want to get them as much positive exposure as possible. Twenty percent of all sales are donated to the MS Foundation so that no one else has to go through what I deal with daily as well as a scholarship fund for the young ladies in my program who want to go to college. I love giving back! Someone helped me on my journey, and now, I pay it forward,” she said.
Never one to run out of ambition, the Pretty in Pinkston founder dreams of one day gracing the cover of Forbes and Entrepreneur magazines as the new authority in skincare.
Learn more about the skincare line on the website as well as on Facebook.