Bronner Bros. Honored Black Beauty's Builders at the 2026 Beauty Icon Awards
Lisa Price, Olamide Olowe, Germaine Bolds-Leftridge, Tokyo Stylez, Cornell McBride Sr. and more were celebrated October 10 at Atlanta's Riverside EpiCenter under the theme Midnight Bloom.
By Black Beauty Founders Staff
For nearly 80 years, Bronner Bros. has been where Black beauty professionals come to learn, compete, connect and get seen. On Saturday night in Atlanta, it turned the spotlight on the people who built the business.
The second annual Beauty Icon Awards returned to the Riverside EpiCenter as a black-tie celebration under the 2026 theme Midnight Bloom, a tribute to the long, often unseen years of building that happen before the world ever sees the bloom.
The Woman Behind the Bloom
Every great night has a visionary behind it, and this one belongs to Kelly Keith. Keith created the Beauty Icon Awards and serves as its executive producer and creative director, and her own story could have been written for this year's theme.
A proud Spelman College graduate, she started her career at Bronner Bros. in the mid-1990s, choosing the Black-owned beauty company over an opportunity at Morgan Stanley, and helped grow its professional division. She went on to build an impressive executive career, leading growth strategy at American Express and at beauty brands under L'Oréal and Unilever that served Black women, before coming home to Bronner Bros. with decades of corporate expertise in hand.
In just two years, Keith has turned an idea into one of the most anticipated nights on the Black beauty calendar: a red-carpet celebration of the stylists, glam squads, artists and founders who rarely get their flowers, with a student summit built right into the day so the next generation is in the room. And she is thinking even bigger, with plans to grow the Beauty Icon Awards into a televised program and a year-round event series. Black beauty has needed its own grand night of honors, and Kelly Keith built it.
This year's honorees spanned every corner of the industry: celebrity hairstylist, wigmaker and entrepreneur Tokyo Stylez; Carol's Daughter founder and president Lisa Price; Braided New York founder and celebrity braider Xia Charles; photographer and director Derek Blanks; Topicals founder Olamide Olowe; Design Essentials founder Cornell McBride Sr.; and beauty industry leader Germaine Bolds-Leftridge.
Black Beauty Founders readers know two of those names well. Lisa Price is fresh off the launch of Lisa's Kitchen, the first collection since she reacquired Carol's Daughter, which BBF covered this week. And Germaine Bolds-Leftridge, a BBF Power Player, is the president of GBL Sales and co-owner of Ambi Skincare, known across the industry as the beauty broker who helped put brands including Mielle Organics on retail shelves.
Recognition is the bloom. The building happened in the dark.
The evening also recognized Spelman College’s Cosmetic Science Program, whose expansion created the first undergraduate cosmetic science program of its kind at an HBCU, a signal of how much the future of Black beauty will depend on the chemists and formulators behind the brands. Seeing Spelman honored on a stage created by a Spelman graduate made the moment feel especially full circle. Keith framed this year's honorees as people who did more than participate in the beauty industry: “they helped move it forward.”
The next generation was in the building, too. Before the red carpet, roughly 400 students gathered for the VIVATRESS Student Summit, presented by Bronner Bros. and VIVACÉ by KISS, which returned as title partner. The day included a Fantasy Braid Competition and a Beyond the Chair conversation on entrepreneurship and branding with Cliff Vmir, Jesseca "Judy" Harris-Dupart and Evan Nicole "The Hair Guruu" Williams. ORS marked its 30th anniversary at the awards, and Eco Style Styling Gel joined as a supporter.
The inaugural 2025 honorees included Chaka Khan, Danessa Myricks, Jesseca "Judy" Harris-Dupart, the late George E. Johnson and Terrence Davidson, and the second year confirmed the event's place on the Black beauty calendar.
The Founder Takeaway
Show up where the industry gathers. Events like the Beauty Icon Awards put founders, stylists, educators, brands and buyers in one room, and the introductions made there can change a business.
And invest in the science. With Spelman training the next wave of cosmetic chemists, founders who build relationships with formulators early will have an edge on product, claims and credibility.
James Bronner summed up the mission: honor the legacy, and make sure the next generation has the knowledge and opportunity to build its own.
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