The Top 25 Favorite Female-Founded Brands

The Top 25 Favorite Female-Founded Brands


In celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, RetailMeNot curated a list of The Top 25 Favorite Female-Founded Brands to shop below. Make sure to check these out and support them.


#1 Beautycounter


Gregg Renfrew, one of The Wedding List founders, launched this chemical-free beauty brand in 2013. The entrepreneur helped establish a list of 1,500 potentially harmful ingredients that the company avoids using in its personal care products—known as the “Never List”—and actively advocates for stricter guidelines and regulations in the cosmetics industry.




#2 Briogeo


Nancy Twine founded this natural hair care company that has quickly become a favorite among women. Taking it back to the basics, Briogeo nurtures hair with ingredients that detoxify, hydrate, and protect all types of hair—from curls to damaged strands. Plus, you’ll find the line at major beauty retailers like Ulta and Sephora.



#3 Clare Paint


Interior designer Nicole Gibbons founded Clare when she saw no paint brands offering an easy or convenient way to shop for paint. The expertly curated colors and Clare Color Genius help guide you to that perfect hue, while peel and stick swatches take all of the guesswork out of the process (with no mess or endless sea of paint chips!)




#4 Crate & Barrel


Founded in 1962 by 23-year-olds Carole and Gordon Segal, the concept for furniture and housewares store Crate and Barrel was inspired initially by the inexpensive, beautiful, and specific European products for sale they came across during their honeymoon in the Caribbean. They became interested in providing durable yet aesthetically-pleasing products at a reasonable price to young couples and began importing products to Chicago directly from Europe. With Briton Neela Montgomery now running the show as CEO, the brand now has 93 locations and ten outlets in the U.S. and Canada.




#5 CTZN Cosmetics


They are founded by three Los Angeles-born, Dubai-raised, ethnically Pakistani sisters. Being very well-traveled entrepreneurs, they’ve always felt a connection to more than one location as "home" - which served as the inspiration for CTZN Cosmetics and their mission to unite all "CTZNs of the world" with an inclusive, genderless cosmetics line that is cruelty-free, mostly vegan and features heavily inclusive marketing. CTZN Cosmetics is produced in Europe following EU guidelines on formulations.




#6 Fabletics


Co-founded by actress Kate Hudson, activewear brand Fabletics emerged in 2013 due to a lack of stylish, high-quality gear at an accessible price point. The subscription-based company creates personalized outfits based on lifestyle and fashion preferences for a wide range of sizes and strives to spread body-positive messaging.




#7 Glossier


Starting her career as an intern at Teen Vogue, Emily Weiss became known for her popular blog, Into the Gloss. In 2014, she turned her beauty website into Glossier, a beauty and skincare company that creates products based on what women want. As Weiss states on the website, “As I interviewed hundreds of women, I became more and more aware of how flawed the traditional beauty paradigm is. It has historically been an industry based on experts telling you, the customer, what you should or shouldn’t be using on your face.”




#8 The Honest Company


Actress and mom Jessica Alba founded this wellness brand in 2012 after finding a lack of “clean” household products and baby items that were safe for both her and her children. The company, which has four GH Seals and many products with a USDA Bio Preferred certification and EPA Safer Choice label, is focused on developing new formulas and high-performance products that are safe for everyone. Products include diapers, baby formula, makeup, skincare, and cleaning products available on their site or mega-retailers Target and Amazon.




#9 The Honey Pot


Bea Dixon started this natural, plant-based feminine care line in 2014 after suffering from bacterial vaginosis for months. The clinically-tested and gynecologist-approved products are developed by women and powered by herbs to cleanse, protect and balance your vagina—and are sold online and at large retailers like Target.




#10 Kate Spade


Designer Kate Spade started her fashion career while working for Mademoiselle, where she noticed that the market lacked practical, stylish, and affordable handbags—and decided to create her own. In 1992, she brought six prototypes made with Scotch Tape and paper to a New York manufacturer, and the rest is handbag history.




#11 Orpheus Skin


Founder Sara Kyurkchieva long suffered from hypersensitive and reactive skin and always struggled to find a skincare product that was gentle yet potent and wouldn’t agitate her skin. This led her to her search for a natural solution — after much time spent researching with her family for solutions, Sara discovered the rare Orpheus Resurrection flower. Sara’s family has 20+ years of experience in the personal care space, and it helped her turn this dream into a reality with Orpheus skin.




#12 Outdoor Voices


At just 25, Parsons School of Design graduate Tyler “Ty” Haney founded Outdoor Voices' athleisure company. The company’s guiding mission to “Get the World Moving” suggests using exercise and movement to help generate endorphins and make you happy—no matter your body type or fitness level.




#13 Parachute


Parachute founder and CEO Ariel Kaye wanted quality home goods at an affordable price yet couldn’t find any on the market. Enter Parachute; a brand focused on creating impeccable, quality bedding and home goods at an accessible price point. The socially responsible brand is also part of the United Nations Nothing But Nets campaign, which sends malaria-prevention bed nets to those in need.




#14 Proven Skincare


Frustrated with finding products for her “difficult” skin, founder Ming Zhao teamed up with Dr. Amy Yuan to develop a personalized skin care line backed by scientific data. Together they created The Skin Genome Project—the world’s largest skincare database and winner of MIT’s 2018 Artificial Intelligence Award—to analyze the effectiveness of skincare ingredients, environment, scientific publications, and other factors to select the best ingredients for your skin.




#15 Reformation


After a visit to China motivated her to research the fashion industry's environmental impact (one of the top polluters in the world), founder and CEO Yael Aflalo was inspired to start her (now incredibly successful) sustainable clothing brand Reformation. The company, whose clothes are made in Los Angeles, has since taken off with a fashionable clientele that includes celebrities, models, and “It” girls. Committed to reducing waste, the brand has a five-year sustainability roadmap. It has partnered with companies like online consignment shop thredUP to help incentivize their customers to recycle and extend their garments' lives.




#16 Rent the Runway


In 2009, Jennifer Hyman co-founded Rent the Runway with her Harvard Business School classmate Jennifer Fleiss with the genius idea to offer women rentable gowns and dresses for events, so they didn’t have to buy them. With the mission to “make women feel empowered and self-confident every day,” the company expanded from renting designer gowns to include everyday outfits, maternity wear, accessories, and more so that women can freely express themselves, feel their best, and dress for success—all for a budget-friendly price tag.




#17 SPANX


Initially invented when she cut the legs off of her control-top pantyhose, SPANX founder Sara Blakely has since revolutionized the world of intimate apparel. Designed to help eliminate panty lines and compress and lift in all of the right areas, the company has grown to include shapewear and bras, athletic wear, denim, hosiery, and more.




#18 S’well


Sarah Kauss started S’well in 2010 to rid the world of single-use plastic bottles. Over a decade later, the stylish and sustainable water bottles are some of the most popular on the market and have expanded beyond into food, barware, and accessories.




#19 Tarte


What began as a cheek stain in 1999 has since turned into one of the most successful cruelty-free, natural beauty brands. Pursuing a Ph.D. in psychology at Columbia University, founder and CEO Maureen Kelly dropped out of the program to follow her true passion, creating beauty products with natural ingredients for real, everyday women. Tarte Cosmetics’ easy-to-use products are formulated from ingredients like Amazonian clay and vitamin C and E and do not use parabens, mineral oil, synthetic fragrances, or gluten.




#20 Thinx


Co-founded by Miki Agrawal in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign raised $65,000 to make “a more thoughtful pair of underwear,” underwear brand Thinx initially became popular due to its edgy, taboo, and feminist advertising campaigns. With Maria Molland now at the helm, the company specializes in “period panties,” a feminine hygiene alternative. The company also donates menstrual products to those in need, including young women, underprivileged communities, and the homeless.




#21 ThirdLove


Frustrated with a lousy, ill-fitting selection of bras, Heidi Zak decided to make her own bra. Teaming up with designer Ra’el Cohen, ThirdLove was born. The company—whose products also include underwear and sleepwear—was the first bra brand to offer half-cup sizing. With double the amount of sizes as other brands, ThirdLove uses a Fit Finder quiz to recommend the ideal bra in 60 seconds and a mobile app that gives women the option to measure themselves at home to find the perfect fit. To date, the company has also donated over $18 million worth of bras to women in need.




#22 Tory Burch


A fashion designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Tory Burch launched her fashion line and first retail store in 2004. With 250 stores worldwide, the company has grown into a fashion powerhouse with a portfolio that includes shoes, handbags, jewelry, watches, clothing, home goods, and more. In 2009, she created the Tory Burch Foundation to support women entrepreneurs' empowerment by providing access to education, loans, and more resources.




#23 Touchland


Millennial entrepreneur Andrea Lisbona is setting out to disrupt the stale hand sanitizer industry with her innovative brand to elevate everyday experiences, which has been in the works for more than a decade. Inspired by great innovators and the marriage of great function with great design, Andrea developed Touchland, a revolutionary brand of hand sanitizers that combine sleek, functional packaging with non-sticky, moisturizing, luxurious-feeling formulas that come in eight unique scents.




#24 Universal Standard


New York–based Universal Standard was founded by Polina Veksler and Alex Waldman with the mission to disrupt the clothing industry by taking size out of the equation. After their initial launch sold out in just days, the two opened up a showroom and rolled out a highly anticipated denim line with an initial 1,700-person waitlist. The size-inclusive, high-quality clothing options (ranging in size from 00 to 40) now also include basics, outerwear, suits, maternity wear, accessories, and so much more, along with a “Fit Liberty” policy that offers free exchanges on products for a year if your size changes.




#25 Wildfang


Founded in 2010 by Emma Mcilroy and Julia Parsley, who previously worked at Nike, Wildfang specializes in gender-neutral apparel, suits, feminist accessories, and basics. The company donates to select charities with every single purchase, and in 2018 helped raise over $400,000 for organizations that support reproductive, immigrant, women’s, and human rights.




If you like to shop online, these stores offers cashback shopping.





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