Ulta Beauty’s fifth MUSE Accelerator cohort is eight emerging brands that share $410,000 and a 10-week program that started Sept. 14, according to the retailer’s announcement. The program ends the week of Nov. 23, a date that follows from its start and length.
The Eight Brands in the 2026 Cohort
Ulta named the founders and described each brand in its release. AWARE Hair, founded by Jade Mui-Wong and Tina Mui, is a professional scalp wellness brand. Blue Water Girls, founded by Osaremi Sade Parham, makes Caribbean-inspired sun and body care. Dos Mundos, founded by Alexis Flores, is a Latin-owned luxury fragrance house that draws on Latin cultural stories and memory.
MIA Outdoor Hair, founded by Jordan Polk, sells hair care for outdoor life. Its hero product, HairBlock, is a texture-aware leave-in serum with a three-filter UV system that Ulta’s release says protects hair from sun, salt water and chlorine. Mochiglow, founded by Jenny Ching Lien Farelli, makes fine fragrances inspired by Asian desserts and drinks such as rice, mochi and matcha.
MoKnowsHair, founded by Monica Stevens, is a salon-quality line for all curl types. Prados Beauty is a cosmetics brand founded by Ernestine Cecelia Meadows, a makeup artist who goes by Cece Meadows and is Xicana and Yoeme. It works with Indigenous artists. Prereq Care, founded by Sana Mithani and Lizna Kabani, makes skin care for preteens and teens and was developed with 50 young people who helped shape its formulas and packaging.
Three of the eight brands sell hair care or scalp care. Two sell fragrance. The counts come from Ulta’s descriptions. The release does not state any brand’s current retail status. It says the program prepares brands for national retail distribution.
How the Program and Funding Work
The program lasts 10 weeks. The curriculum covers brand strategy and positioning, retail fundamentals and supply chain logistics. Brands pitch Ulta’s merchants and meet investors, and they receive mentorship from Ulta leaders and from founders of brands in Ulta’s portfolio. The release does not say where the program takes place.
Each brand receives $50,000. One brand also receives a $10,000 bonus that Ulta and the Fifteen Percent Pledge select based on sales growth, whitespace opportunity and community impact. Eight brands at $50,000 comes to $400,000, and adding the bonus gives the $410,000 total in the release. Ulta calls the Fifteen Percent Pledge a long-time partner and gives no further description of it.
Counting from the Sept. 14 start, the cohort is in its fifth week as of Oct. 16. The release does not state how many brands applied or how Ulta chose these eight. It says Ulta looks for founders with a strong vision, effective products and scalable potential.
Speakers and Mentors
The cohort hears from beauty and wellness leaders in fireside chats, including Grace Ray of Cécred, Nancy Twine of Briogeo and Chelsea Riggs of Amika. Nine mentors from Ulta and its brand partners work with the founders. They include founders of Cocokind, Good Molecules, Hero Cosmetics and Rizos Curls.
Julissa Prado and Tony Prado, co-founders of Rizos Curls, are returning as mentors and stressed access to mentorship and retail resources, according to the release. Cory Varona and Nicol Varona, co-founders of OCOA and members of the 2024 cohort, said the program gave them financial investment, mentorship and internal sponsorship that helped them scale into more than 460 Ulta stores.
How the Program Started
Ulta announced the first MUSE Accelerator in 2022 as a program for early-stage BIPOC beauty brands, according to its launch announcement. Each selected brand received $50,000, and the first cohort had eight brands. Shontay Lundy, founder and chief executive of Black Girl Sunscreen, said in the announcement that she understands “the critical importance of mentors as guides along the way.” Monica Arnaudo, then Ulta’s chief merchandising officer, said Ulta has a responsibility to take tangible steps toward foundational industry change.
The 2026 announcement does not use the term BIPOC to describe the program, and it does not state an eligibility rule. It says Ulta looks for founders with a strong vision, effective products and scalable potential.
The 2025 cohort also had eight brands, according to Ulta’s 2025 announcement. That cohort received the same $50,000 per brand and the same $10,000 bonus for one brand, for $410,000, and its 10-week program began Sept. 8, 2025. Ulta said it received more than 500 applications in 2025 alone. Eight accepted brands out of more than 500 applications is an acceptance rate of 1.6% or lower, a calculation from the announcement’s counts. The 2026 announcement gives no application count.
What the Program Has Produced
Ulta launched MUSE in 2022. The release says the program has supported more than 30 brands, awarded more than $1.5 million and provided more than 150 coaching hours. Accounts of the number of brands differ within the release: the summary figure says more than 30, while Lauren Brindley, Ulta’s chief merchandising and digital officer, says in her quote that the program has supported “32 brands and counting.”
Three cohorts of eight brands, in 2022, 2025 and 2026, account for 24 of the 32 brands Brindley cites, which leaves eight brands for the 2023 and 2024 cohorts combined. The announcements reviewed for this article do not give the sizes of those two cohorts. Dividing $1.5 million by 30 brands gives $50,000 a brand, which matches the per-brand award this year. Dividing by 32 gives about $46,900. Both are calculations from the release’s totals, and the release does not say whether the totals include the 2026 cohort.
Four alumni brands have since launched at Ulta: Pound Cake, Octavia Morgan Los Angeles, Scarlet by RedDrop and OCOA. Four of 30 brands is about 13%, a calculation from the release’s counts. OCOA, a 2024 alumnus, launched in more than 460 Ulta stores and on Ulta.com in August 2025. The release also adds an alumni spotlight this year featuring OCOA, Octavia Morgan Los Angeles, Scarlet by RedDrop and POOM Cosmetics.
Brindley also said in the release that MUSE has spent five years elevating emerging voices with the potential to shape the future of beauty.
What the Cohort Means for Shoppers
The release does not say whether any of the eight brands will appear on Ulta’s shelves or website, and it names no launch date for any of them. It describes the program as preparation for national retail distribution. The next point in the cohort’s calendar is the end of the 10-week program in late November.
