Why I Am Closing Ami Colé, My Beauty Brand

archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 5 Oct 2025 23:12:21 UTC All snapshots from host www.thecut.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Menu BEAUTY Why I Am Closing Ami Colé My beauty brand offered Black women shades they couldn’t find elsewhere. Why wasn’t that enough? By Diarrha N'Diaye-Mbaye, founder of the beauty brand Ami Colé. JULY 17, 2025 SAVE Photo: Vanessa Feder In 1989, my Senegalese mother and father worked together to purchase a hair salon on 125th Street in the heart of Harlem. At one of the first African braiding salons in the country, my mother, Aminata “Ami” Colé, wrapped my baby self tight on her back as she stood eight to 12 hours a day, making her clients feel beautiful. As I learned to talk — both in my native tongue, Wolof, from my “fake aunties,” and in English, from my mother’s loyal customers — the underlying lessons I heard and internalized were about community, womanhood, and beauty. As she fin

archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 5 Oct 2025 23:12:21 UTC All snapshots from host www.thecut.com WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee Menu BEAUTY Why I Am Closing Ami Colé My beauty brand offered Black women shades they couldn’t find elsewhere. Why wasn’t that enough? By Diarrha N'Diaye-Mbaye, founder of the beauty brand Ami Colé. JULY 17, 2025 SAVE Photo: Vanessa Feder In 1989, my Senegalese mother and father worked together to purchase a hair salon on 125th Street in the heart of Harlem. At one of the first African braiding salons i