Tribalure Canada Inc.’s makeup products are unique in almost every way: striking, Indigenous designs, bold red hues of everything from lipstick to pressed powder, and an underlying commitment to uplifting women. With support from Export Navigator advisor Shannan Roberts, Tribalure’s founders have gained the know-how and the connections to take the brand in exciting new directions.
Angie Sarsons and Denyse Nadon are easy to pick out in a photo of the winners of an Indigenous beauty bootcamp. The Cree-Algonquin founders of Tribalure Canada Inc. are wearing blouses and lipstick the same shade of red as their signature feature makeup kit. They look ecstatic and proud.
“We were just in awe,” says Sarsons, of the energy and opportunity of the December 2023 event hosted by Mississauga-based chemical company BASF Canada and Oklahoma-based accelerator StitchCrew. Out of 40 participating Indigenous-owned businesses, Tribalure was selected to receive a capstone award that will help them expand from makeup products to plant-based, homeland-wildcrafted skincare with help from student chemists at Seneca Polytechnic.
“The beautiful thing about that boot camp was that we didn’t see it like a competition. We all wanted each other to thrive and succeed, and we all won something,” says Sarsons.
For Sarsons and Nadon, who’d dreamed of launching a holistic makeup line together 20 years ago but couldn’t raise the capital or support at the time, that bootcamp was a pivotal, special moment: Here were people who wanted to invest in and support Indigenous women’s innovation. Here was a coming together of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of doing business. Here was proof that their years of hard work since launching Tribalure in 2022 was paying off—and that their dreams for growth could now come true too.
“Everything is just gaining momentum,” says Nadon, as online sales and social likes and follows rise.
Getting to that moment, that day, has taken incredible tenacity and time—as well as fortuitous connections and opportunities.
In their first year of business, Nadon and Sarsons attended 14 trade shows and events to introduce Canada to their products, which range from Raven Quill Longwear Liquid Eyeliner to Crimson Shadows Makeup Brushes with striking designs. Both can also be found in the red kit, which is a tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
“We knew those events would catapult us to other people, opportunities and resources,” says Sarsons, who would travel from her home in the Kootenays while Nadon would travel from her home in Ontario.
One of those first-year events was the SHE Conference in Vancouver—where they happened to connect with Export Navigator advisor Shannan Roberts, and soon became clients. Together, one of the first orders of business was developing an export plan to get Tribalure products into the United States, where they were already seeing strong demand.
As they began to act on that plan, soon came the need for guidance with all the little things: selling online, market research, labelling compliance, trademarks, and bookkeeping.
“You open to their knowledge,” says Sarsons. “They are the experts in this field and they did a great job connecting us to different resources that have been helpful to us.
Nadon agrees: “The whole team is there for us and we appreciate them.”
With help from Export Navigator, Tribalure continued to be presented with opportunities to attend events that would get more eyes on their makeup, like the 2023 RES Summit in Las Vegas—a conference with various business development opportunities which gave the brand a whole new level of exposure and renewed drive to increase availability of Tribalure makeup in the US.
The duo recently completed a second export plan that builds upon the beauty bootcamp capstone project of developing skincare with sacred blueberries from Nadon’s community. Recently, she stood up in front of elders of the Apitipi Anicinapek Nation (near Matheson, Ontario) to ask permission. The response was, how much do you need?
“With our pitch winnings, it feels like we are bringing these two worlds together,” says Nadon.
An authentic way of sharing grounding, ancestral knowledge and sacred plants—and a modern way of doing business to spread the joy of self-love.
“Both of us have devoted our entire lives to our communities,” says Sarsons. “Now we’re in a space that engages our creativity and uplifting each other and making the most of these exciting partnerships and relationships.”
