Beautiful Brand Spotlight: Kindred Black – Slow Beauty Meets Sustainable Treasures
In our ongoing Beautiful Brand Series, we spotlight brands that embrace beautiful design and thoughtful craftsmanship. Meet Kindred Black, a slow beauty brand offering sustainable skincare and cosmetics in beautiful packaging alongside jewelry and rare objects.
When Alice Kindred Wells and Jennifer Black Francis launched Kindred Black in 2015, it was less a brand than a quiet rebellion—an environmentally conscious answer to overconsumption, offering natural, plastic-free skincare, cosmetics, and botanical perfumes crafted to endure. Nearly a decade later, that act of defiance has become a design philosophy where everything Kindred Black offers is thoughtfully crafted with intention. What began as a slow beauty brand has since evolved into a curated sanctuary for slow living where skincare elixirs in hand-blown glass vessels mingle with sculptural jewelry, one-of-a-kind vintage treasures, and limited-edition home objects.
Kindred Black is at once an apothecary, a jeweler, and a gallery, unified by a philosophy of slow consumption and reverence for craft. To browse Kindred Black online is to move through a collection that feels less like products and more like keepsakes—artifacts of a slower, more intentional way of living.
An Origin in Discovery
Photo: Kindredblack.com
Kindred Black’s ethos was forged in motion. From its earliest days, Wells and Francis immersed themselves in the pursuit of makers who valued craft and sustainability, chasing down leads, traveling widely, and gathering recommendations from anyone willing to share them. “We talked the ear off of just about anyone who would share a recommendation,” they recall, describing their early hunt for natural ingredients, low-waste packaging, recycled materials, and locally made goods.
Yet, discovery was never just about raw materials. From the beginning, the founders delighted in hunting for unexpected treasures, from antique jewelry to pre-owned pieces revived by a network of jewelers, seamstresses, and tailors. “We believe so fervently that new doesn’t always mean better,” they explain. “There is no greater expression of personal style than a piece you won’t see anywhere else.”
This spirit of discovery continues to shape Kindred Black today, where beauty essentials live alongside one-of-a-kind artifacts and storied objects, each proving that sustainability and style can coalesce.
It’s brands like Kindred Black that drive Uncommon and Curated’s ethos. When we first learned of Kindred Black years ago, it felt less like discovering a brand and more like being invited into a secret. Watching their journey has been just as captivating—witnessing the quiet evolution while never losing the core essence of the brand.
Why It’s Uncommon
Kindred Black’s beauty lies in the details—choices made with care and conviction, until the whole became something rarer than the sum of its parts. Each hand-blown bottle, small-batch elixir, and restored treasure reflects a devotion to craft, sustainability, and the art of living with intention. From partnering with charities to launching a refillable circular beauty model, Kindred Black proves that building a beautiful brand goes well beyond what meets the eye.
Slow Living Ethos
At the heart of Kindred Black is the belief that objects should endure. Kindred Black embraces beauty, adornment, objects, and art, all bound by a single philosophy of permanence and reverence. This ethos weaved throughout the brand’s collections feels less like “product lines” and more like chapters of a larger, living narrative. Whether it’s a cork-sealed skincare elixir in a recycled glass vessel, a gold ring cast with organic texture, or a one-of-a-kind vintage find, each piece is designed to transcend trend cycles. Beauty becomes slower, adornment becomes talismanic, and even everyday rituals are elevated into acts of artful living.
Hand-Blended, All-Natural Elixirs
Kindred Black’s elixirs are as thoughtful as the vessels that hold them. Each formula is built from minimal, natural ingredients with pure oils, toners, and botanical extracts hand-blended in small batches to preserve potency and integrity. This simplicity is intentional: by stripping away synthetics and fillers, the brand highlights the raw beauty of each ingredient, allowing subtle variations between batches to become a mark of authenticity rather than imperfection.
Hand-Blown Elixir Bottles
Equally important is how the formulas are housed. The elixirs arrive in hand-blown orb bottles crafted from recycled glass in Oaxacan workshops, sealed with natural cork and wax, transforming packaging into part of the ritual. Sourcing is just as meticulous: Moroccan rosewater distilled in a single pass by a family farm, jojoba grown in small sustainable cooperatives, botanicals chosen for both their efficacy and ethical origins.
Refillables & Full-Cycle Intent
In 2023, Kindred Black expanded this ethos further by introducing infinitely recyclable aluminum refill bottles, embedding sustainability not just in what goes into the bottle, but in what happens after. With this circular beauty model, customers can now replenish their favorites without adding waste, underscoring the founders’ belief that the responsibility of sustainability lies with the brand, not just the consumer.
Photo: Kindredblack.com
“The hand-blended elixirs arrive in hand-blown orb bottles crafted from recycled glass, sealed with natural cork and wax, transforming packaging into part of the ritual.”
Packaging as Philosophy
Kindred Black also invests heavily in sustainable packaging, often spending double to ensure alignment with their values. Shipments arrive in recycled boxes, FSC-certified cartons, biodegradable GreenWrap padding, and water-activated paper tape. The result is an unboxing experience that mirrors the products themselves: thoughtful, intentional, and free of excess.
Sustainability Born of Experience
The founders’ dedication to sustainable design is not just marketing—it was shaped by their firsthand exposure to industrial pollution in overseas manufacturing hubs. Factories thick with chemical haze and unsafe conditions inspired a radical commitment to building a beauty brand rooted in ecological responsibility.
Solar-Powered Artisan Glass
Some of Kindred Black’s hand-blown glass vessels are produced in Oaxacan studios powered by solar energy, where recycled glass feeds into circular production. This integration of renewable energy and traditional craft exemplifies the integrity woven into every detail of the brand.
A Brand That Gives Back
Kindred Black’s values extend outward. The brand donates portions of sales to organizations, including the Durrell Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Planned Parenthood, The Ocean Conservancy, and the ACLU. These commitments reflect an understanding that sustainability must also mean supporting the ecosystems—human and environmental—that make beauty possible.
Beauty Beyond the Surface
Kindred Black earns its place in the Beautiful Brand roster as a sustainable brand that insists on reverence, creating and curating beauty and objects with intention. To shop Kindred Black is to embrace a philosophy of slow living—where each object carries a story, each routine becomes a ritual, and each purchase honors both heritage and the planet.
