edition
CAREERS special
June 20, 2018
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Page 9
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Portland native makes splash in beauty industry with environmentally friendly,
cruelty free, nail polish.
Bringing Science
to Business
Portland native Kalauna Carter is making a splash in the beauty industry with her
environmentally friendly, cruelty-free line of nail polish, the first of its kind operated
by a woman of color.
Portland native makes splash in beauty industry
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
Portland native Kalauna Carter is mak-
ing waves in cosmetics by helming an envi-
ronmentally, cruelty free, nail polish busi-
ness called Kolors by K that has already
garnered some high profile customers.
As an African American woman, Carter
was motivated by the lack of representa-
tion of women in the beauty industry.
“We see the products, we see the mod-
els, but how many of them are truly wear-
ing products made by women of color? Not
many,” she said.
Now Based in Tallahassee, Fla., Carter
attained a bachelor’s degree in Environ-
mental Science, concentrating in plant and
soil science from Tuskegee University. In
May, she graduated with a Master’s degree
in Environmental Management from the
same historically black college.
Carter took her love of nail polish and
knowledge of chemical components to
entrepreneurial ends when she discov-
ered how dangerous the chemicals in
many mainstream commercial beauty
products were.
“If I can figure this out without all these
chemicals, I could be on to something,”
she recalled saying to herself at the time.
With the advice of a cousin, Teresa
Scott, she went to work and that’s when
Kolors by K was born, launching in sum-
mer of 2016.
Now, she sells her nail polish online at
kolorsbyk.com, as well as to retail stores in
growing numbers.
Carter’s products boast numerous certi-
fications, including being “10-free,” which
means it is free of a plethora of non-envi-
ronmentally friendly chemical compounds
that have often been linked to cancers in
women ranging from ovarian to breast:
camphor, toluene, formaldehyde, fluoride
resins, xylene, ethyl tosylamide, parabens,
phthalates and fragrances are among them.
The polishes are also FDA approved,
vegan, and internationally certified as not
tested on animals. Carter is the first woman
C ontinueD on p age 14