I'm So Surprised Olandria Doesn't Have a Brand By Now

On celebrity fatigue and why her collab with Brandon Blackwood makes so much sense

Since Summer ‘25, Olandria has been on a flawless it-girl run. She’s unavoidable - on magazine covers and red carpets and all over our feeds - and I certainly ain’t complaining.

Envied not just for her face card and body tea, but for a captivating personality and a refreshing groundedness, she has that rare kind of pull brands chase. From McDonald’s to Barbie to Hyundai, her successful portfolio of advertisements makes it clear: the girl can sell. That’s why one question looms: where is her brand? Olandria could push any product under the sun, so the absence of her own line has felt intentional. This week’s announcement of her first-ever product offering, a stunning purse produced in partnership with Brandon Blackwood, isn’t a random drop, but a deliberate start.

We’re in an era of inescapable celebrity brand launches. In haircare alone, we have Bey, Cardi, Taraji, Tracee Ellis Ross, even Issa Rae…. It’s overwhelming. Sexxy Red has (had?) her lip gloss, Nicki does sneakers and press-on nails (…), and Rih has built a brand empire I can hardly keep track of. As I write, more names come to mind: Rare Beauty, REM Beauty, Haus Labs, JLo Beauty, the Kardashian corporate multiverse. Who asked for all this? It’s enough.

The truth is, we’re all tired of celebrity brands. In a world full of talented but under-resourced entrepreneurs, the market feels oversaturated with merchandise pedaled by women who are indubitably talented, but whose expertise clearly lies in entertainment, not in product formulation. And to be honest, celebrity brand marketing just feels too fake to me. You have a personal trainer, a chef, a makeup artist, a stylist, and a hairdresser, but you want me to believe that your growth oil/ face serum/flat tummy tea is the reason you look like that while I look like this…okay.

My take is celebrity brands should not exist unless they hit three criteria: innovation, passion, and expertise. Anything else is a vanity project. Rihanna’s brand portfolio is the perfect example of how to do it right:

1. Innovation: Fenty Beauty pioneered the 40-shade standard for makeup lines, forcing the beauty industry to treat inclusivity as the baseline. Now, brown skin girls no longer have to wait for follow-up foundation launches.

2. Passion: Throughout her career, Rihanna has consistently pushed boundaries in beauty and fashion, treating personal style as a creative discipline rather than letting critics and convention dictate how she dressed.

3. Expertise: Rihanna’s huge portfolio of looks speaks for itself. Her long-standing, evolving relationship with fashion and beauty makes her authority feel earned rather than manufactured.

Rihanna’s empire represents what happens when celebrity branding is fully built out through innovation, passion, and expertise. But even when they work, celebrity beauty brands now feel like part of a crowded, predictable formula. The more interesting shift is happening elsewhere: in collaborations with established brands that already know how to make the product. That’s exactly what excites me about Olandria x Brandon Blackwood.

There’s no shortage of good beauty and fashion products on the market. There is a shortage of capital and access to promotion that affects the amazing brands that already exist. Olandria and Brandon are offering us a refreshing alternative to the traditional celebrity beauty brand model. The product itself, a pink pebbled leather purse, is hardly avant-garde, but we already live in a moment where novelty for novelty’s sake feels exhausted. What matters to us now is alignment: the who and the why behind the product, and whether it is anchored in something beyond visibility and capital gain.

This project stands out because we can tell it was designed with intention. It’s shaped by the existing relationship between Olandria and Brandon Blackwood, who first began working together in 2025. It’s rooted in a shared cultural grounding: Olandria’s HBCU pride, mutual engagement with Black uplift, and a consistent confrontation of anti-Blackness.

I hope it succeeds, because it feels like the kind of authentic, centered offering that consumers genuinely connect with. That’s where this model is more interesting than the standard celebrity launch. It’s not ownership for the sake of empire-building, but partnership with established brands that already understand craft, production, and longevity. It feels real.

And I hope this launch's success encourages other women of Olandria’s status to consider partnerships with established, culturally-significant enterprises. In addition to the celebrity brand epidemic, we’re at a critical moment for Black-owned businesses. These companies don’t lack quality product or leadership, but awareness and funding, and celebrities are in the position to contribute both to deserving businesses. As a fan and a consumer, that would mean more to me than another blatant money grab.