Made for the skin you actually have.

Ami Colé was named after Aminata “Ami” Colé, the mother of founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye. Diarrha grew up in Harlem, spending long afternoons in her mother’s hair braiding salon, surrounded by Black women getting ready for the day. That environment shaped what she eventually built: a beauty line meant to feel like an extension of the women who inspired it, not a version of someone else.

Before starting the brand, Diarrha spent years inside the beauty industry, working on the sales floor at Sephora and later on marketing and product teams at L’Oréal Paris, Temptu, and Glossier. That work gave her a close look at how the industry operated, and how often makeup made for deeper skin tones felt like an afterthought — added to a lineup rather than built into it from the start. She kept running into the same problem herself: products that either didn’t match her complexion or ignored her undertone entirely.

Ami Colé launched in 2021 with a small set of products built around a simple idea: a five-minute makeup routine that still let skin look like skin. Rather than chase heavy coverage, the brand leaned into a “no-makeup makeup” approach — lightweight formulas meant to be worn daily, not layered on for special occasions.

The shade ranges reflect that focus. Instead of building out light shades first and treating deeper tones as an extension, Ami Colé started from the darkest shade and worked outward, developing tones for rich, ebony skin through medium skin with olive undertones. It’s a small structural choice, but one that shapes how the whole product line gets developed.

Formulas across the line are vegan, cruelty-free, and talc-free, developed after N’Diaye-Mbaye surveyed hundreds of women about their routines and frustrations with existing products. That research shaped decisions down to texture and finish, not just shade matching.

The brand built a following quickly, picking up coverage from Vogue, Allure, and Marie Claire, and moving into Sephora in 2024. Early backing came from investors including Imaginary Ventures, Debut Capital, and L’Oréal’s BOLD venture arm, along with angel investors like Hannah Bronfman.