Ami Colé’s Diarrha N’Diaye to Lead Skims Beauty
In July, Diarrha N’Diaye announced the closing of her beauty company, Ami Colé, a brand known for its viral lip oil, shade inclusiveness, and the community N’Diaye had cultivated by making beauty products. Fans begged N’Diaye to keep it going, but the brand officially closed its website four weeks ago on September 30. As N’Diaye wrote for The Cut, it was unsustainable to continue in this beauty market with so much competition and pressure from investors.
“I’m looking forward to what comes next,” she wrote. Well, her next move is here and it’s pretty major: N’Diaye has been appointed EVP of beauty and fragrance at Kim Kardashian’s Skims Beauty, where she will lead product development, innovation, and brand strategy. N’Diaye’s résumé is long: Before building Ami Colé, she had extensive experience in product development at global brands including Glossier and L’Oréal. “I have sat on salon floors, worked eight-hour shifts at beauty retailers, started a company, and am now taking an executive seat at a beauty brand promising to bring a fresh approach to beauty,” N’Diaye tells The Cut exclusively. “I have been around the block, and I’m happy to bring this vault of knowledge to Kim’s beauty closet to work on a new wave of inclusive beauty for all. The sky really is the limit, and I want every little brown girl to know that.”
In a press release, N’Diaye said she’s “excited to bring in best-in-class formulas and a customer-first mentality to Skims Beauty.” Her award-winning Ami Colé formulas were industry-shifting — those skin tints that matched every complexion, even the deepest shades, and the cream blush sticks that glided on with a pigment that could be seen miles away. “I want Skims Beauty to be a place where everyone feels represented, and there was no better person to help us do that than Diarrha,” Kardashian said in the same statement. According to N’Diaye, Kardashian already has a vision for beauty: makeup classics, excitement about rituals while simplifying them, and focusing on skin from strand to toe. N’Diaye’s job is to “figure out how we create this second-skin experience for the customer and bridge the gap from clothing to makeup, hair, and fragrance.” And she is more than happy to get back to work, N’Diaye tells The Cut. “I meant what I said about my love, dedication, and obsession with our beloved beauty industry. I am proud to have lived my dream out loud, failed, and dusted myself off into an amazing new opportunity to continue to do the work.”
It’s not Kardashian’s first foray into beauty. In 2017, she launched KKW Beauty, which was shut down in 2021 just months after Coty purchased a 20 percent stake in the company. In 2022, it was rebranded as SKKN by Kim, a skin-care line that later expanded into makeup. (The lip products were great but really the only thing worth investing in.) Earlier this year, Skims acquired Kardashian’s and Coty’s stakes in the brand. SKKN by Kim officially closed in June, and a few weeks ago Kardashian teased the launch of Skims Beauty on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast. “I loved KKW Beauty. The lip liners are coming,” Kardashian said. “I love when I know what works and then I try something and I know what doesn’t work and that’s okay, so we’re going to bring back what works and we’re going to make it so major and so great.” N’Diaye knows what makes a good beauty product (we’re all still holding on to our lip oils for dear life), so we can’t wait, Kim.
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