Sharon Chuter, beauty veteran and founder of Uoma Beauty, has died, a family member has confirmed to WWD. 

She passed away on Aug. 14 on a patio in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office. The cause of death is still being investigated. 

Chuter was 38 years old. 

The Nigerian-born beauty executive held roles at L’Oreal, Revlon and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton before founding Uoma in 2019. The line, which included a hero foundation that offered 51 shades as well as other complexion, lip, cheek and eye products priced from $18 to $40, debuted at Selfridges and rolled out to Ulta Beauty shortly after. 

The line was born in part from Chuter’s aim to bring meaningful inclusivity to beauty at a time when, following Rihanna’s 2017 debut of Fenty Beauty, other brands in the space were scrambling to be more inclusive, and at times missing the mark. 

“Diversity became a hot topic that every corporation was trying to tick off their list,” Chuter told WWD at the time. “As a person of color, I was looking at it and there was no depth to it — it was shallow. Everybody was looking for quick wins.” 

In 2020, Chuter introduced Pull Up For Change, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing Black representation in the corporate world. The organization debuted in June that year, when Chuter posted a video to Instagram challenging companies to make public the number of Black employees in their organizations and on their leadership teams. 

Coined “Pull Up or Shut Up,” the social media campaign sought to galvanize companies to make more substantial commitments to diversity than donating money and posting black squares on Instagram, as so many did and publicized following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. 

“Every single brand and every single company has an Equal Opportunity Employment policy,” Chuter told WWD when the campaign launched. “All these brands are now standing in support and donating, meanwhile, within their organizations they don’t actively employ Black people — they have no Black leaders. We need to move this conversation forward.” 

Exactly one year later, Chuter launched another beauty brand — this time for the mass market — called Uoma by Sharon C. Aiming to deliver what Chuter described as “radical inclusivity,” the line debuted in June 2021 at Walmart with a range of skin care and makeup products priced from $6 to $24. 

“It’s one of the biggest launches we’re doing in Walmart history,” said Musab Balbale, former vice president of beauty at Walmart Inc., at the time. 

In 2022, Chuter was named a CEW Achiever Award honoree for her innovation and resolve to make beauty better. 

“Sharon is very gutsy,” said CEW president Carlotta Jacobson of Chuter at the time. “Even though companies had programs in place, Pull Up created an acute awareness that there was a big need there.”

“For me being a catalyst for change means passion,” Chuter said then in an interview. “That passion drives the courage to lead and challenge the things you cannot accept. But most of all, to love enough to carry the burdens that inevitably come with being a changemaker in a world that is fiercely opposed to change.”

In 2023, Chuter debuted a “We See You” campaign via Uoma, which starred muses from Jasmine Sanders to Leomie Anderson and confronted the notion of “not seeing color” when it comes to race, instead encouraging people to not just see racial differences — but embrace them. 

Later that spring, Chuter departed her post as chief executive officer of Uoma, also relinquishing her board seat. 

“Although I am stepping away from my role as CEO and board member, my vision for Uoma and its mission remains dear to my heart. I remain a shareholder and will continue as an industry-leading product and creative visionary for the brand,” she told WWD in an email at the time. 

The brand tapped Cyndi Isgrig, the former president of Dermstore, to serve as interim CEO of the brand, whose assets were then acquired that December by MacArthur Beauty, an offshoot of The MacArthur Companies. All investors exited the company upon acquisition except Braintrust Fund, which stayed on. 

Uoma went silent on social media from August 2023 through most of 2024, when it announced that it was “back” via an Instagram post in November. In February 2025, Chuter filed a lawsuit against The MacArthur Companies and Braintrust Fund alleging that Braintrust “pushed Chuter out” of her operational roles under false pretenses, and that the sale of Uoma’s assets was “unlawful” and conducted “to satisfy Settle’s $6.2 million loan, all without Chuter’s knowledge or consent.” 

Currently, Uoma still sells via Ulta, JCPenney and direct-to-consumer. 

“I’ve always been a misfit,” Chuter told WWD in 2019 when she debuted the brand. “The [beauty] industry has historically decided who is beautiful and who is not. I understand how it feels to be born feeling different — not different good, but different bad…I appreciate uniqueness and stories. Who is behind the shade? What is their origin story and what do they want? And how do we create a world that allows for these different views?”