Aina, Jackie

Impact on the world

Launching her YouTube channel in 2009 while stationed in Hawaii with the Army Reserve, Aina became, per Face2Face Africa, the first YouTuber of color to surpass one million subscribers, building a platform explicitly focused on makeup for darker complexions that the beauty industry had long underserved; when she publicly criticized Too Faced's Born This Way foundation for lacking sufficiently deep shades, the company partnered with her directly, expanding the line from 24 to 35 shades in 2018 with Aina personally formulating nine of the eleven new tones — one of the first times a beauty brand had handed that level of product-development authority to an influencer. She won the inaugural NAACP “YouTuber of the Year” Image Award in 2018, was named Glamour's Woman of the Year and Refinery29's Beauty Innovator of the Year, and built her lifestyle brand FORVR Mood into a multimillion-dollar business, generating $700,000 in sales within its first four hours.

Life & background

Born Jacquelyn Lonje Olayiwola Oyeshola Bolayemi Aina on August 4, 1987, in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles to an African American mother and a Nigerian father of Yoruba descent, Aina studied pre-med for two years at California State University, San Bernardino, before dropping out at 21 to join the U.S. Army Reserve. While stationed in Hawaii and working through an unhappy marriage that later ended in divorce, she was hired by MAC Cosmetics and began posting YouTube makeup videos in 2009 as a creative outlet, building her channel gradually over its first four years before dedicating herself to it full-time around 2016-17. She has continued to combine beauty entrepreneurship with outspoken social commentary, interviewed then-President Joe Biden about COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, and has spoken publicly about pay disparities faced by Black influencers on social media platforms.

Sources

1. WWD; CFDA; Billionaires.Africa