Pride Month for years now has been a prominent event, so much so that many brands have capitalized on it. This shift has pushed makeup brands to embrace inclusivity and create spaces for the queer community.
LGBTQ+-friendly beauty brands are helping lead that change. Through diverse campaigns, inclusive product development, and a commitment to representation, they recognize that beauty comes in many forms. If you’re looking for brands that celebrate individuality and make inclusivity a core part of their identity, these eight queer-friendly beauty brands are worth exploring way beyond Pride.
1. ONE/SIZE Beauty
Filipino-American beauty creator Patrick Starrr launched ONE/SIZE in July 2020 with one belief at its core: makeup should be one-size-fits-all.
Starrr, openly gay and one of the most visible queer voices in beauty, built the brand after noticing a gap between industry messaging on inclusivity and the products being made. With his background as a licensed esthetician with sensitive skin, he focused on developing formulas that work across diverse skin tones, types, ages, and genders.
What to shop first:
- On ‘Til Dawn Waterproof Mattifying Setting Spray
- Secure The Blur Makeup Magnet Primer
- Turn Up the Base Versatile Powder Foundation
Available at Sephora and onesizebeauty.com.
2. Issy Cosmetics
Issy was founded in 2019 by Joel Martin Andrade and Jasmine Ang Chua. Andrade, the brand’s co-founder and creative director, built Issy from a specific frustration: Filipino skin tones were consistently underserved locally, and the people who felt that gap the most were often those already outside the mainstream beauty conversation. The brand’s tagline is “Beauty Made Easy,” and that ease is available regardless of gender identity or complexion.
Inclusive Filipino cosmetics is not just positioning for Issy. It is built into every product tier. The Active Foundation comes in 27 shades, and their Shade Match Matrix is a functional tool for finding your exact match. All Issy products are also vegan and cruelty-free.
What to shop first:
Available at issycosmetics.com and TikTok Shop.
3. Allies of Skin: LGBTQIA+-Founded Clinical Skincare That Treats Every Skin Story
Allies of Skin founder Nicolas Travis launched the brand in Singapore in 2016. Travis is a LGBTQIA+ founder who survived a serious accident at 19 that required facial reconstructive surgery. That experience, combined with severe acne from his teenage years, drove him to study biomedical and pharmaceutical science and develop skincare that actually worked.
The brand name reflects what he believes: that no one should face their skin, or their identity, without support. Inclusivity has always been part of its identity, regularly highlighting people from different genders, sexual identities, and backgrounds across its marketing and community initiatives.
What to shop first:
- Peptides and Antioxidants Firming Daily Treatment
- Vitamin C 20% and Citrus Cells Advanced Firm and Glow Serum
Available at sg.allies.shop, Sephora Singapore, Sephora Hong Kong, and Sephora locations across Southeast Asia.
4. Sugarock Cosmetics: Drag-Born, Community-Built Asian Beauty
Sugarock is an Asian beauty brand founded by Kudos, a beauty blogger and drag icon who created the line from his own experience as a queer performer. The name says exactly what it is: sweet aesthetics with a rock edge. Bold colors, innovative formulas, and packaging designed to make people stop mid-scroll.
Sugarock is what happens when a brand is built by the same community it sells to. Kudos did not build a brand inspired by drag culture, they are drag culture.
What to shop first:
- Sugarock Twilight 12-Color Eyeshadow Palette
- SUGAROCK Limited Edition 12-Color Eyeshadow Palette – Anti-Plagiarism
Available at CBeautyMall.
5. Vice Cosmetics: The Vice Ganda Makeup Line That Made Ganda for All Mean Something
Vice Cosmetics was founded in 2017 by Vice Ganda, one of the Philippines’ most visible queer public figures and a comedian, actor, and television host with decades of mainstream presence. Vice Ganda, who identifies as non-binary, built the brand around the idea that beauty should be affordable and inclusive, regardless of age, skin tone, gender, or budget. The tagline “Ganda for All” is not just wordplay in Filipino.
In 2022, trend forecaster WGSN named it one of the top Filipino beauty brands to watch, and 60% of its customer base now shops through digital channels including TikTok Shop.
What to shop first:
Available at Shopee, Tiktok and beauty retailers nationwide.
6. Laka Makeup
Laka launched in 2018 under the direction of CEO and Brand Director Lee Min-mi, a former advertising executive with experience at Estée Lauder. She identified a clear gap in the South Korean beauty market, which remains one of the most traditionally gendered in the world, and built the country’s first gender-neutral makeup brand around closing it.
The name Laka stands for Love And Kind Artistry, and the brand runs entirely on that philosophy. “Every product of ours does not specify gender and presents looks that can work for both women and men,” Lee said in an interview with The Korea Herald.
The market responded. Over 30% of purchases for top products come from male customers. Laka’s sleek, monochromatic packaging actively rejects cutesy K-beauty tropes, and campaigns feature diverse models using the same shades without gender-coded copy.
What to shop first:
Available at YesStyle, Stylevana, and the-laka.com with shipping across Asia.
7. Flower Knows Makeup
Founded in Hangzhou, China in 2016 by Yang Zifeng and Zhou Tiancheng, Flower Knows is a makeup brand built on the idea that beauty is wearable fantasy. The aesthetic is fairy tale maximalism: mermaid compacts, swan ballet palettes, baroque embossed blush pans. What lives underneath that packaging is a genuinely high-performance formula that has built the brand a global following.
Flower Knows has found a devoted audience in queer and alternative beauty communities. The brand celebrates theatricality, artistic packaging, and emotional response to beauty, all of which align naturally with queer aesthetics without the brand ever centering that as a marketing angle.
What to shop first:
Available at YesStyle or STYLEVANA.
8. TÉVIANT Beauty: Filipino-Based Artistry at International Standards
TÉVIANT launched in 2018 under celebrity makeup artist Albert Kurniawan, an Indonesian-born artist who moved to the Philippines with P5,000 in his pocket and built one of the country’s most recognized indie cosmetics brands from there. Kurniawan previously worked with Dior, Chanel, and NARS before founding the brand, named after his mother Tevianty, who shaped his belief that beauty is a form of empowerment and grace under pressure.
Kurniawan has worked extensively with trans women, drag artists, and queer public figures across Philippine entertainment and fashion. His approach to the brand is consistently collaborative, designed as a platform for artists and makeup enthusiasts regardless of background.
What to shop first:
Available at teviantbeauty.com with worldwide shipping.
How to Keep Supporting Queer Businesses in Beauty Beyond Pride Month
Buying from these LGBT owned makeup brands is a strong first move. Keeping that energy past June requires a little more intention
Leave reviews on the platforms where the brand sells. Write about the products in your community spaces. Recommend them when someone asks for a foundation or a setting spray recommendation. Share their campaigns even when there is no Pride ribbon on the packaging. These small actions keep money and visibility flowing to businesses that have earned both.
LGBT friendly beauty brands stand out in how they build products, identities, and communities rooted in real inclusion. This list highlights makeup, skincare, and beauty labels that reflect that spirit, with inclusive formulas designed for diverse skin tones and identities, alongside brands shaped by queer leadership and community needs. Which one would you try first?
