Jackie Aina

Jacquelyn Lonje Olayiwola Oyeshola Bolayemi Aina, known as Jackie Aina (born 4 August 1987), is an American beauty YouTuber and social influencer. ¹ She was born to an African-American mother and a Nigerian father of Yoruba descent, and is known for advocating for the visibility of people of colour in the cosmetic industry; she has partnered with Anastasia Beverly Hills, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Too Faced, Sephora and Sigma Beauty. ¹ As of the English article's figures dated 9 September 2026, her YouTube channel had 3.4 million subscribers and 433 million views. ¹

After two years of college, Aina joined the United States Army Reserve, and launched her YouTube channel one year after joining the military, in 2009. ¹ Her videos were a way of expressing herself and coping with her unhappy marriage at the time; she later divorced. ¹ While stationed in Hawaii she was hired by MAC Cosmetics. ¹ According to Entrepreneur, as the article reports, she was repeatedly told at makeup counters that "the trends she wanted to try wouldn't work for her complexion", and so she started creating videos "about the products and looks she loved that could work for anyone". ¹ On her official website she describes starting her channel in 2009 out of frustration at the lack of women of colour in the beauty industry. ²

Aina argues that people of colour are poorly represented and often ignored in the beauty industry, and has criticized makeup shade ranges for not being inclusive of darker skin tones, pointing out the lack of darker shade ranges for foundations within lines. ¹ She told Bustle in 2018: "We all come from so many different backgrounds, and we also come in different shades and varieties, and what may be something that I'd be willing to overlook may not be the case for someone else." ¹ She has also said that eye shadow, blush and lipstick colours are not universal for skin tones. ¹ She has disapproved of people who claim they "don't see colour", saying they ignore racial issues and discourage her from discussing them, and she demonstrated the point in a tutorial filmed in black and white in which she revealed she had applied makeup of the wrong colour. ¹

In July 2016 Aina teamed up with e.l.f. Cosmetics to create an eye shadow palette; in March 2017 Sigma Beauty released a set of five brushes created by her; and in December 2017 she announced two cosmetic powder highlighters, La Bronze and La Peach, with Artist Couture. ¹ After she said a Too Faced foundation did not feature enough shades, the brand announced a collaboration with her to expand its Born This Way foundation range, which by June 2018 had grown from 24 to 35 shades, nine of the eleven new shades formulated by Aina. ¹ In August 2019 she released an eyeshadow palette with Anastasia Beverly Hills, saying of its shades: "the palette is for everyone but my priority was making sure I chose shades that would specifically work for dark and deep-dark complexions." ¹ In 2020 she co-founded FORVR Mood, a self-care lifestyle brand of candles and accessories sold in Sephora stores nationwide, and in 2021 she expanded into "Lavishly Jackie", a self-care, home and luxury content vertical. ³

Aina won the NAACP Image Award for YouTuber of the Year in 2018, the award's first recipient. ^{1 3} She was nominated at the Streamy Awards for Beauty in 2019 and for Beauty and Collaboration in 2020, and was nominated at the 2026 NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Digital Content Creator – Fashion/Beauty. ¹ She made her Met Gala debut in 2021 and is executive producer and star of The Black Beauty Effect, a docuseries exploring Black women creating social change through beauty. ³

This section sets out positions as the sources report them; it is not a verdict by the museum. Her criticism of cosmetics companies has compromised her relationship with several brands, while she asserts her intention is never to disparage the companies. ¹ After IT Cosmetics co-founder and CEO Jamie Kern Lima criticized the beauty industry for non-inclusive and unrealistic depictions of women in advertising, Aina — who had previously criticized IT Cosmetics — confronted her and the rest of the industry about excluding people of colour and accepting critiques from a white woman. ¹ The museum records these exchanges as the article reports them, without taking a side. As to her religion or school, neither her official website nor the English article names one, so the museum records no school in her data; she is included because the founder's modern century list includes her. ^{1 2}

Her Stanford Graduate School of Business Black Leadership Conference 2026 biography puts her following at over 7.3 million across her social platforms, including 3.5 million YouTube subscribers, and quotes Harper's Bazaar calling her "the most influential voice in beauty today"; these are platform figures dated to the conference page, not fixed facts. ³ The same biography notes that she continues to advocate for inclusivity because people of colour are poorly represented and often ignored within the beauty industry. ³

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