We’re excited to feature the final installment of our “Own Your Story” series from the SITTI Box!

Beginning in August, Sitti is featuring seven lifestyle brands that focus on inclusivity and representation in our ongoing blog series titled, "Own Your Story". This time, the “Own Your Story” series is elevating the stories of the seven brands featured in SITTI’s All-Inclusive Box. 

Each quarter of the year, we get to know the brands in our box, while learning priceless lessons and advice from their shared experiences. We talk about where the idea for their brand came from, and what’s made their journey unique. Every brand adds something special to make up our All-Inclusive Box; a box centered around representation and inclusivity. To learn more about our other brands featured in our Boxes, click here.

Introducing: Cheekbone Beauty

 Image provided by Cheekbone Beauty

“To Cheekbone Beauty, inclusivity means giving people a seat at the table, and actually listening to what they have to say”.

Cheekbone Beauty is an Indigenous-owned and founded, digitally-native, Canadian cosmetics company established in 2016. Based out of St Catharines, Ontario, Cheekbone Beauty is known for creating high quality, cruelty-free beauty products including our signature SUSTAIN line of lipsticks and eye pencils, our Warrior Women liquid lipsticks, and a variety of other cosmetics all designed for low environmental impact and maximum wearability.

Their mission is to make beauty more mindful and sustainable and their vision is to help every indigenous youth see and feel their enormous value in the world while building a truly circular business with sustainability as a focus.

 “We are more than just another makeup brand; we are honest, transparent, curious, loving, and values-driven”.  

 Image provided by Cheekbone Beauty

How they came to be 

In 2015, the Anishinaabe-Canadian founder was working in sales and marketing in the food industry when the idea to make lip gloss came to her in her sleep. She jumped out of bed to jot the idea down, and then spent the next several months researching manufacturers before launching her makeup brand in 2016.

Harper's middle-of-the-night epiphany came just a few months into being sober after an eight-year battle with alcoholism, and fully comprehending the ramifications of Canada's residential school system (established to assimilate Indigenous people into European culture) had on her grandmother, a survivor, and the rest of her family.

Confronting the generational trauma head-on, Harper created Cheekbone to give Indigenous people a much-needed space in the beauty industry where they feel seen, and as a means to give back to their communities. Through the brand's charitable initiatives, monetary donations, product donations, or project donations are made to Indigenous youth to provide them with the tools they need to achieve their own goals.

Cheekbone also celebrates Indigenous people's deep connection to nature and the land they live on, with its focus on using sustainably sourced ingredients and minimal waste packaging. The brand's fan-favorite SUSTAIN Lipsticks come in a tube made with 85% less plastic, plus biodegradable paper printed with vegetable dyes to ensure the materials don't have a negative impact on the land it's going back into.

 Image provided by Cheekbone Beauty

Importance of Representation 

"We use the word representation a lot - it's one of the fundamental purposes of Cheekbone Beauty and something that I am very passionate about. 

My brother used to send me DMs and texts every time he saw an Indigenous person doing something awesome. I think back to that whenever we do a photo shoot with an Indigenous model, every time someone tags us, every time someone shares one of our posts or reels to their story, and every time someone tells me that my story, the Cheekbone Beauty story, has inspired them. 

Company logo provided by Cheekbone Beauty.

"I truly believe that representation saves lives." - Jenn from Cheekbone Beauty