Ashunta Sheriff Is Enhancing Natural Beauty

ASHUNTA SHERIFF BEAUTY

Ashunta Sheriff’s beauty empire feels like a New York City metropolis magically nestled in the thick brush of the deep south. The brand’s UV Glow collection was inspired by the neon graffiti Sheriff saw scribbled on Spanish Harlem apartment buildings on the corner of 110th and 5th Avenue where she grew up, and the dramatic, jet-black mascara is aptly titled “Fat & Juicy” as an ode to Sheriff’s thick Mississippi heritage.

The CEO and two-time Emmy-nominated makeup artist recalls a childhood spent strutting down the city streets with her mom, who was decked out in a summer top, short-shorts, and heels to go to the laundromat. Sheriff remembers watching the lurking eyes of the street follow close behind her. “She was a killer,” Sheriff said. “She’s up in age now, but she couldn’t walk this neighborhood without people harassing her.” 

Sheriff’s mom was in her late teens when she migrated up to the Bronx from the rural south in the ’60s. While Sheriff was very much raised as a city girl, she said she found her peace under the cool canopies of  Central Park. “I am a literal tree hugger,” Sheriff said. After her dad passed when she was just 8 years old, the self-described “latch-key kid” would walk home from school with a group of friends and cut through the park to 110th street (which they were advised not to do, due to the prevalence of crack use in that area in the ’80s). But she would risk it and enter the urban paradise with her crew, where she would sneak off and hug trees. “I knew I wasn’t strong enough to hold what I was experiencing,” she said. “What I learned about tree hugging is these are sentient beings; they don’t say anything, but they’re living, and they’re breathing, and they’re growing, still, continuously. When you’re hugging this tree, in your lowest moment, it’s feeling you, and it’s taking and drawing it out of you, like literally.”

Sheriff brings that sacred connection between woman and nature into her natural skin care non-toxic, vegan beauty brand. Ashunta Sheriff Beauty touts makeup that both looks good and is good for you, a conscious choice Sheriff made as a founder to protect Black and brown women from chemicals that disrupt our hormones. Sheriff credits the women in her life, (some who died in their 30s and 40s from cancers stemming from exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals found in makeup and household cleaners, like parabens and phthalates), as the spirit team championing her work. “They have been the inspiration to help really guide me with formulation,” she said, explaining that hair, makeup, and fragrance companies that target women of color often cut corners and use cheap, toxic chemicals in their products. “If I can change that, if I can create a product line that’s cleaner, that has better ingredients, that’s not harmful, that’s what I wanna do,” she said. 

Before Sheriff dawned her beauty CEO’s crown, she was working behind the scenes of Hollywood TV and movie sets as a makeup artist for the stars. Her work on Taraji P. Henson’s iconic character  “Cookie” on Empire racked up two Best Contemporary Makeup Emmy nods for Sheriff, who said the moodboard for Cookie’s evolving beat was gleaned from an amalgamation of famous Black women she admires and loves, like Oprah’s classic, ’90s TV bob/lob or Mary J. Blige’s colorful, hip-hop eyeshadow palette. “We had to have that Mary influence in [Cookie’s] makeup,” Sheriff said. “So you see those influences where she wore wigs that were super long, and then she’s coming with a cat wing liner and smoky eyes, and giving you that nude pouty lip with a chestnut liner.” The devil is certainly in the details when it comes to beauty for Sheriff — and that’s the art and heart of it all for the mom of four who keeps her own beauty regimen intentional and simple: coconut oil, for literally everything (makeup removal, body and feet moisturizer), intermittent fasting — a generational practice passed down by the cotton sharecroppers in her bloodline who were forced to fast due to their strenuous farming schedules (turns out, the practice is still a good regulatory one for Sheriff), and dancing to African or Jazz music with a glass of wine close by. But the boss admits she could be better with one key beauty regimen: sleep. 

Between calls to Dubai-based makeup stores at 4 a.m. and meetings with international manufacturers and VCs, Sheriff says “living the dream,” often means missing out on dreaming, but she’s working on it, allegedly. “My mom is laughing as she hears this because she’s probably like, ‘I’ve been with you all week, girl. Change where?’” she joked. But Sheriff said when health issues that could have become chronic started popping up, she was reminded to slow down. “I know the lack of sleep is definitely not favored and not good, but it is a part of the founder’s journey. It really is,” she said. “I just love what I do.”