Founder Story Friday: The Dream That Became Cheekbone Beauty

In January 2015, Jenn Harper woke up in the middle of the night after having a vivid dream. She had seen little Indigenous girls laughing, playing and covered in colorful lip gloss.

It wasn’t a metaphor. It wasn’t something she’d been thinking about all day.

Jenn got out of bed, opened her laptop and started writing.

That moment would become the beginning of Cheekbone Beauty.

She didn’t come from the beauty industry. In fact, she had no background in it at all.

At the time, Jenn was working in sales and marketing in the food industry. She wasn’t a cosmetic chemist. She hadn’t built a beauty company before. She didn’t have a background in the industry.

She had an idea and an enormous amount of determination.

Jenn spent 2015 researching manufacturers, learning how to build a business and developing what would eventually become Cheekbone Beauty. She has said she read more than 100 books about building a business because she was learning everything from scratch.

Cheekbone officially launched in 2016.

But as Jenn was building the company, she was also doing something much more personal: reconnecting with her Indigenous roots. She began learning about her grandmother’s experience in Canada’s residential school system and about the intergenerational impact those experiences had on her family.

And that changed what the business meant to her.

It became about representation.

Jenn realized that the world didn’t necessarily need another cosmetics company.

What she saw missing was representation. She wanted Indigenous youth to be able to look at a beauty brand and see themselves reflected, not as a stereotype, not only through stories of hardship, but as people who were beautiful, capable, creative and full of possibility.

That idea became central to Cheekbone’s mission. Today, the brand describes its purpose simply:

“Representation saves lives.”

And that’s what makes this founder story so compelling.

The product is makeup.

But the reason the company exists is much bigger than makeup.

Building a business that gives back

From the beginning, Jenn wanted Cheekbone to be a force for good.

The company’s give-back work focuses heavily on Indigenous youth and education. Cheekbone launched its Scholarship Fund in 2021, creating financial support for Indigenous students pursuing post-secondary education. The model is particularly meaningful because the giving is connected directly to the products.

Each year, Cheekbone releases limited-edition products where 100% of profits go toward the scholarship fund. The scholarships are administered through “Indspire”, a national Indigenous registered charity that invests in the education of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people for the long term benefit of these individuals, their families and communities, and Canada and helps Indigenous students with post-secondary education costs.

In 2025, Cheekbone’s For Future Generations campaign funded five scholarships in partnership with Indspire, whose matching support turned that into 10 scholarships for Indigenous students.

And the work continues.

In 2026, Jenn shared that the Cheekbone community had helped fund 52 scholarships for Indigenous students since the program began in 2021, with a goal of reaching 100 scholarships.

That’s the part of the story I find most powerful.

The dream didn’t simply become a company.

The company became a vehicle for helping other people build their own futures.

Why we chose Cheekbone Beauty for HSB

At HSB, we’re interested in brands that are doing things differently. Brands that believe real change comes from treating people well, giving back to our communities, creating beautiful products and taking extra steps to preserve our planet. Brands that are making a difference in the world, one purchase at a time.

Cheekbone Beauty is a perfect example of this.

It’s an Indigenous-owned beauty company with a founder whose personal journey is deeply intertwined with the reason the company exists.

It’s a brand built around representation and a business that uses its success to invest in Indigenous youth and today, it literally changes lives.

Jenn Harper didn’t set out to simply create another beauty brand. She set out to create something she wished she had seen growing up.

And then she built it.

That is exactly the kind of story we want to tell at HSB!

Shop the brand and help make a difference: Cheekbone Beauty

HSB Pillars Cheekbone contributes to:
🤝 People First
💛 Give-Back Brands
🌎 Planet Positive

Founder Story Friday is a Hello Small Brands series celebrating the people behind purpose-driven brands, and the ideas that made them start.

‍