Paris Barud, who’s the founder of the cosmetics brand Narcissa Beauty, has launched five lipstick colours called the “Hayat Collection” inspired by and named after African queens.
Barud just recently learnt about the queens, Yaa asantewaa, Moremi, Nefertiti, Queen Nandi and Araweelo, and felt overwhelmed by the fact that she didn’t know about them.
“I wish I had learned about this when I was younger. I feel like it would have given me a lot more perspective and not having to read about this in my 30s” said Barud during an interview with Global News.
Each lipstick colour represents a different queen and the side of each the different packaging gives a description of each one of the queens and what they stood for.
The lipsticks are all in a matte liquid formula. The Queen Nandi lipstick colour is a light brown nude. While the Moremi shade is an intense black.
She’s chosen a bright pink shade for Nefertiti and bold red for Queen Araweelo.
Barud has a daughter who is nearly two years old and hopes that she will have more exposure to black women in positions of power than she had while growing up.
“I wanted her (my daughter) to know that there’s women out there that look like her in history. I mostly did this for my daughter, so she could have women she could look up to, like warrior queens.”
Barud launched her business in April.