Patrick Tsang interviews the co-founders of CTZN Cosmetics, three sisters Aleena, Aleezeh and Naseeha Khan. CTZN Cosmetics is a new-age makeup brand founded by the Khan sisters identifying themselves as third-culture kids, with their diverse backgrounds of being born in the U.S. raised in the U.A.E. with Pakistani ethnicity. Aleena, Aleezeh, and Naseeha are currently based between London and Dubai. The CTZN story came to fruition when founders Aleena, Aleezeh, and Naseeha went shopping for cosmetics at a major beauty retailer and realized that not a single model in mainstream beauty campaigns looked like, better yet, represented them. Models with ‘middle brown’ skin tones were hardly ever Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern. Beauty campaigns aside, the same issues were prevalent in beauty brands' product formulations, where certain skin tones and undertones are often not considered. The CTZN founders soon realized that many of their friends of color felt the same way about their demographics being underrepresented in industries such as beauty and fashion. The conversation then evolved when Aleena, Aleezeh, and Naseeha noticed that the beauty industry's lack of diversity spans way beyond skin tones and gender. The male demographic is often unacknowledged in the cosmetics industry despite being a significant percentage. The mission became clear to the founders: to truly be an inclusive makeup brand, CTZN Cosmetics needed to be genderless, catering to all skin tones. CTZN Cosmetics is also proudly 100% vegetarian, cruelty-free, paraben-free, and talc-free.

Find out more about CTZN Cosmetics:

https://www.ctzncosmetics.com

https://www.instagram.com/ctzncosmetics/