BBF Next Wave: Isan Elba Is Redefining What Access Looks Like in Beauty

There are women in beauty who build brands, women who shape culture, and women who push the industry to think more deeply about who it serves. Isan Elba is doing all three in her own way.

Many know Isan as a creator, DJ, and rising cultural voice, but behind the images, events, and growing visibility is a young entrepreneur building with real intention. Through Beauty Access and Beauty Forward, she is creating a more thoughtful model for how beauty products can move through the world and into the hands of women and communities who actually need them.

For Isan, the road into this work did not begin with a formal business plan. It began with content creation.

“There are two answers to that,” she said of what initially drew her into becoming a creator. “It is money and access.”

At 19, while attending NYU for film school, content creation became a practical opportunity. Brand deals brought in income, but they also opened the door to rooms, conversations, and decision-makers that many people spend years trying to reach. Over time, that access became just as valuable as the check.

“As I continued, after the glitz and the glam of it kind of wears off and I really think of this as a real job with real access to people, it was just kind of this opportunity for me to be able to learn more,” she said.

That learning curve mattered. Beauty had already been part of her life for years. Her mother used to be a makeup artist, and Isan grew up around beauty as both ritual and expression. Social media sharpened that relationship even more. As she created beauty content and built community online, she also developed a much deeper understanding of products, confidence, and the emotional side of beauty than she realized.

That became crystal clear during her first Beauty Access event, when young girls began asking her which products to choose and how to use them.

“What was the most fun realization for me was that I was kind of like a beauty expert for the girls,” she said.

Still, the deeper turning point came from a problem many creators know all too well. Products were arriving daily, far more than any one person could realistically use. Friends and family could only take so much. Throwing products away felt wrong. Donating them sounded simple, until she realized it wasn’t.

“I’m eternally grateful for it,” she said. “But at the same time, we have to be extremely realistic about the fact that there is no possible way that I could be able to use all the products that are sent to me.”

When she reached out to shelters, she discovered that large quantities of beauty products often create logistical and safety challenges. Items have to be checked, logged, sorted, and assessed. What sounds like generosity can easily become more work for already stretched organizations.

That was the gap she saw, and the beginning of Beauty Access.

Beauty Access was created to advocate for more inclusivity and sustainability within the beauty industry. It opened the door to a bigger question: what are we actually doing with beauty excess, and how can those products be repurposed with dignity and intention?

“Beauty Access just allowed me to open that door into that conversation of what are we doing with our excess products and how can they be of better use by repurposing it for other people to have and to enjoy as well,” she said.

From there, Beauty Forward was born as the first flagship initiative under that broader vision.

If Beauty Access is the umbrella, Beauty Forward is the structured system underneath it. Now officially recognized as a nonprofit, Beauty Forward handles on-demand pickups, drop-offs, and shipping for excess beauty and hygiene products, especially from PR and overstock. From there, each product is sorted, categorized, and logged before being redistributed to women’s shelters and underserved communities.

Right now, Beauty Forward partners with Women in Need, the largest women’s shelter network in New York City.

What makes the system so strong is that it is not random. It is highly organized. Products are tracked by type, value, and purpose so donations can reflect actual community needs. If a shelter needs curly hair products or body lotions, the team can identify what is available and respond with intention.

“We log every single product that we get in,” Isan explained. “So we’re able to say, we got in a MAC Chestnut lip liner and it’s valued at $24.”

That level of detail turns the work into more than a donation pipeline. It becomes a real redistribution model.

It has also taught her a lot about how beauty actually operates.

“Marketing is a complete scam,” she said candidly, before expanding on what she means. Beauty, like any industry, is built around profit. That reality is not lost on her. The real challenge, in her view, is proving that inclusivity and sustainability do not have to work against business goals. They can support them.

“What I’ve learned most out of this is that I think everybody can win,” she said. “It’s just about taking enough time to build solutions that actually support that.”

That mindset sits at the heart of her vision for brands and partners. She wants to create systems that help communities, respect creators, and also make practical sense for companies. For her, the future of beauty should not be built on waste, exclusion, or empty language. It should be built on accountability, access, and real usefulness.

She is equally clear about what community means. In an industry that uses the word often, Isan defines it simply.

“Real community looks like listening to what people want and responding accordingly.”

That includes listening to creators. It includes building for underserved women. It also includes Black women, who continue to drive beauty spending and trends while still being excluded from too many meaningful conversations.

“Black women are one of the biggest buyers,” she said. “And I think a lot of times we’re left out of conversations.”

That is one of the reasons her work feels so important right now. Isan is not just responding to waste. She is asking bigger questions about who beauty is designed for, who benefits from it, and who gets to shape what comes next.

Her ambitions extend beyond redistribution. She wants Beauty Access to eventually expand into areas like beauty journalism and deeper research around issues that disproportionately affect Black women, especially around textured hair, education, and inclusion. During our conversation, she spoke thoughtfully about the current natural hair discourse and the need to move away from shame.

“As long as we’re not saying that we hate our hair, that’s really what I care about,” she said.

That nuance matters. So does her perspective on mental health, which continues to influence how she leads, works, and shows up publicly. Guided by a mother who was open about therapy and emotional wellbeing, Isan sees mental health as foundational, not optional.

“It’s okay to not be okay,” she said, reflecting on the example her mother set.

That grounding has been essential, especially as she has become more visible online. Speaking more openly on camera brought more criticism and negativity, but it also pushed her to define what is real and what is noise.

“My life is in abundance,” she said. “My life is my friends. My life is doing good for my community. Not what somebody just said with Twitter fingers.”

And then there is music. Long before DJing became part of her public identity, it was already part of her world. With a father and uncle who DJed, and years spent immersed in music culture, what started as a hobby eventually became another lane of expression. Today she has DJed for names like Vogue and Meta, bringing the same sense of taste, rhythm, and presence that shapes her work elsewhere.

Still, for all the lanes she moves in, beauty remains central because it is where she is building something that can outlast her.

When asked what she hopes to change permanently through Beauty Access and Beauty Forward, her answer was direct.

“I want to change that inclusivity and sustainability is not an optional thing that you can kind of just buy into if you want to,” she said. “I want to make sure that it’s the standard and the foundation of all brands.”

That is the kind of vision Black Beauty Founders pays attention to.

Because Isan Elba is not just participating in beauty culture. She is helping rethink how it works.