Karen Young, founder of OUI the People — an inclusive body-care brand designed to make you feel good in your own skin — only ever wanted to be a founder, but “I’ve never shied away from being a Black woman, and I thrive in the fact that our creativity and business acumen is finally being seen.”
As discussed during a sit down with blacklove.com, Karen says a mixture of her environments and her love for diversity was the starting point.
"I was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Guyana, South America. There’s always a cultural imprint that is going to follow me for the rest of my life. It’s seen throughout every single thing that I touch and do, the way that I speak, the way that I think about the world. I practiced both Hinduism and Christianity as my family was blended. It has impacted every aspect of how I see the world. And I think that it has also impacted the things that I see that are missing from the world. I’ve really always been obsessed with body care. My family has always been obsessed with body care and really taking care of our skin, from my grandmother to my uncles. We took such pride in looking and smelling good, with small means at the time. My grandmother slathered me in coconut oil, my hair was always done, scalp greased. The attention to the full body was our thing."
She founded OUI The People because she suffered from terrible razor burn and ingrown hairs.
"I felt that men had more thoughtful choices than women when it came to shaving. As an adult, when I wanted to gift a man in my life with something beautiful and useful, it was often a safety razor. It struck me that I was not only having a terrible experience shaving, but that the very act of shaving was far from luxurious. I wanted to create something that felt tailor-made to be inclusive of women as well, and anyone who felt left out of the grooming conversation."
The focus for 2024 and beyond? Bodycare.
While OUI the People has a line of over 15 products, Young says her number one focus is dry skin and that her favorite product is her “best-selling body gloss serum.”
"I’m always going to be super focused on dry skin because it’s the starting point for inflammation of all kinds. The first product that we built to address dehydrated and dry skin is Featherweight Hydrating Body Gloss. It’s easy to use, feels luxurious, and delivers real hydration- not just a greasy coating. Everything that kind of went into the crafting of featherweight was about delivering true hydration to the skin. Normally, a body oil is simply occlusive, rarely hydrating. What we developed was this oil-serum-hybrid that actually gets beyond the upper layer of the skin, and fills in the gap between the dry skin cells.”
Shop award-winning range here.
