When it comes to making ethical and intentional purchases, it’s important to consider our carbon footprints, the labor practices of a company — and who owns and operates that company.
And women-owned and operated businesses are often at the forefront of ethical consumption. It’s a theory that has even threatened women’s success: Women have greater moral reservations about ethical compromises in business.
And you know what? We’re simply thrilled that many women business owners are strong in their convictions for a more ethical, just economy.
Of course, gender is a complex, personal socially constructed concept, but it has very real implications on how we live, work, and thrive in our society. The systems that keep women from succeeding are the same systems that raise boys and men to prioritize capital over compassion — and we’re here to celebrate the people who are paving the way to the end of the patriarchy.
According to the World Economic Forum, women started 49% of all new businesses in the U.S. in 2021, up 28% from just two years prior. More women are becoming entrepreneurs than ever before — and businesses owned by Black women represent the highest rate of growth in the number of total women-owned businesses.
However, in the U.S., men still outnumber women two to one when it comes to business ownership.
We’re here to remind you that you don’t need an excuse like Women’s History Month or International Women’s Day to support a woman-owned business. In fact, we’ve made it even easier to shop from diverse, women-run companies and social enterprises that make the world a better place year-round.
Here is the ultimate guide to women-owned businesses — in fashion, home goods, health and beauty, food, lifestyle, pets, and media — that give back and do good.
By the way, some of the links in this article are affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
The best women-owned and women-led businesses that make a difference
Clothing & Accessories
wearwell
Co-founders: Erin Houston & Emily Kenney
What’s good: wearwell is an ethical and sustainable clothing and accessory brand, carrying products specifically aligned with values of secondhand shopping, size inclusivity, vegan values, and uplifting women- and Black-owned businesses.
1% of every wearwell purchase is donated to a nonprofit of the customer’s choice, like FABSCRAP, Black Girl Ventures, and Holler Health Justice.
Girlfriend Collective
Co-founder & creative director: Ellie Dinh
What’s good: Girlfriend Collective makes apparel and underwear made with 80% recycled plastic bottles (RPET). The brand also has a recycling program (the ReGirlfriend program) to help end the waste produced by clothing and contribute to a circular economy.
For Days
Co-founders: Kristy Caylor & Mary Saunders
What’s good: For Days accepts your pre-loved clothes and gives you $20 in Closet Cash toward your next purchase in the brand’s online shop, where you can buy new sustainable items and contribute to a new model of circular fashion.
Also, 1% of every For Days purchase is donated to a nonprofit of your choice, like The Loveland Foundation or Every Body Texas.
Subset
Co-founders: Cayla O’Connell & Lauren Sagadore
What’s good: Subset (formerly Knickey) is a sustainable underwear brand that prioritizes the use of low-impact materials for an eco-friendly and ethical production cycle. The brand also has a recycling program and has recycled over 750,000 items.
INK & ALLOY
Founder & CEO: Gretchen Hollingsworth
What’s good: INK+ALLOY is an accessory brand selling colorful, bold handmade products like jewelry, keychains, and purses. The company donates 5% of all proceeds to the education of girls in India.
Lisa Says Gah
Founder: Lisa Bühler
What’s good: Lisa Says Gah is a clothing and accessory brand dedicated to slow, sustainable, and ethical manufacturing. With a history of charitable giving, the brand has contributed thousands of funds to organizations like The Loveland Foundation, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Transition Projects, and more.
Richer Poorer
Co-founder & CEO: Iva Pawling
What’s good: Richer Poorer makes sustainable essential clothing items, made with recycled or ethically sourced materials. The brand gives back through the Carbon Fund, as well as Dress For Success Worldwide West, and a number of voting rights organizations.
Birdy Grey
Co-founders: Grace Lee & Monica Ashauer
What’s good: Birdy Grey is a bridesmaid dress and wedding essentials company that partners with The Princess Project to provide pre-loved dresses and accessories to girls in need for prom and other special events.
TomboyX
Co-founders: Fran Dunaway & Naomi Gonzalez
What’s good: TomboyX makes underwear, bras, swimwear and other essentials that are made to be comfortable for everyone, regardless of where they fall on the size or gender spectrum. A certified B Corp, TomboyX is ethical and eco-friendly and has a long history of charitable contributions to LGBTQ+ and social justice organizations.
Mejuri
Co-founder & CEO: Noura Sakkijha
What’s good: Mejuri is a sustainable luxury jewelry company that focuses on traceability and transparency in its craftsmanship, with over 80% of its gold coming from recycled sources.
Mejuri also created the Empowerment Fund, which provides women and non-binary people with broader financial and educational resources to empower themselves.
Wildfang
Co-founders: Emma Mcilroy, Taralyn Thuot, & Julia Parsley
What’s good: Wildfang creates fun, gender-free clothing with inclusivity and sustainability in mind. The brand is Climate Neutral certified and gives back 1% of its annual revenue to causes that matter, sharing funds with organizations like Planned Parenthood, RAICES, ProjectQ, and more.
Home Goods
Parachute Home
Founder & CEO: Ariel Kaye
What’s good: Parachute is a Climate Neutral certified home goods company that prioritizes ethics and responsibility. Investing in both environmental and social justice, Parachute leads carbon offset projects around the globe and has created the Home for Dreams initiative, which supports Black-owned businesses with capital, advisory meetings, and brand amplification.
Pssst… Check out our sustainable bedding guide for more great options like Parachute!
TUSHY
Founder: Miki Agrawal
What’s good: TUSHY is a bidet company fighting for clean butts and a clean planet. By helping to remove our dependence on toilet paper and water, TUSHY aims to create a more hygienic and sustainable bathroom experience.
Plus, a portion of TUSHY profits goes to building community toilets in areas around the globe, fostering a revolution of “dignified defecation.”
Mustard Made
Co-founders: Jess & Becca Stern
What’s good: Mustard Made is a colorful and playful home organization brand made by and for moms. Based in the UK (but with offices and products in the U.S.), Mustard Made donates £5 from every order to Beam, which supports people experiencing homelessness to find secure housing, jobs, and training opportunities.
Jungalow
Founder: Justina Blakeney
What’s good: Jungalow carries all kinds of unique home goods, decor items, and wallpaper that all start as hand-painted designs by founder Justina Blakeney. Aside from prioritizing sustainable materials and thoughtful manufacturing, Jungalow also plants two trees for every one product purchased.
The brand also supports a number of charitable partners like Girls Who Code, The Rainforest Alliance, Southern Poverty Law Center, and more.
Our Place
Co-founder & co-CEO: Shiza Shahid
What’s good: Our Place sells kitchenware and home goods like pans, glassware, and more, all designed to bring people together around food and honor the traditions of immigrants and BIPOC communities.
Many of Our Place’s items are made with partially recycled materials and every order is packaged 100% plastic-free. Additionally, Our Place works with nonprofits like Feeding America to make good food more accessible to all.
Pssst… check out our shopping guide to recycled glassware, too!
Baloo Living
Founder & CEO: Elizabeth Grojean
What’s good: Baloo Living is a weighted blanket company that embraces the comforts of deep pressure stimulation without compromising its eco-friendly values. Baloo is a member of the NYC Fair Trade Coalition and Ethical Brand Directory and practices carbon neutrality through a partnership with Sea Trees by Sustainable Surf (which replants mangrove forests!).
Baloo also donates a portion of profits to Pajama Program, which supports children facing adversity by providing the means to a healthy bedtime.
Lorena Canals
Founder & designer: Lorena Canals
What’s good: Lorena Canals rugs, designed by none other than Lorena Canals, use no chemicals in its production process. The company also created a “RUGCYCLED” collection that uses cotton leftovers and scraps from their other products to maintain a zero-waste status.
The Lorena Canals factory is in India, where more than 170 artisans make each of the pieces by hand under fair trade practices. This is also home to the brand’s Sakûla Project, which provides food and education to low-income children in India.
Pssst… Check out our guide to sustainable rugs for more!
MINNIDIP
Founder: Emily Vaca
What’s good: MINNIDIP is a designer inflatable pool brand to help everyone have a pool party! MINNIDIP regularly donates to charitable partners in areas of environmental conservation, animal rights, childhood cancer and homelessness, and social justice.
Health & Beauty
BLK & GRN
Founder: Dr. Kristian Edwards
What’s good: BLK & GRN was created out of a desire to normalize access to non-toxic beauty products for Black women and to fund Black women entrepreneurs who care about the planet and the products they use every day. All products offered by BLK & GRN are ethically sourced and are made by over 136 Black artisans.
These personal care items are safe for people and the planet and cultivate the Black community with every dollar spent.
Pssst… Check out our guide to Amazon alternatives for more!
OUI The People
Founder: Karen Young
What’s good: Personal care brand OUI The People creates sustainable skincare products and stainless steel razors that “go against the grain.” By prioritizing transparency from product to packaging, OUI The People makes bodycare cool for the planet.
Hero Cosmetics
Co-founder & CEO: Ju Rhyu
What’s good: Hero Cosmetics is a skincare brand (and home of the Mighty Patch). Designed to create effective solutions for acne, rosacea, and dark spots, Hero aims to remove the stigma of skin conditions — and treat them with care.
The brand also works with Carbon Fund to reach full product carbon neutrality.
Megababe
Founder: Katie Sturino
What’s good: Megababe creates innovative products for normal body discomforts like boob sweat, chafing, and underarm bumps. Free of toxic chemicals and made with vegan ingredients, Megababe is good for you and the planet, all while embracing our beautiful bodies just as they are.
Supergoop!
Founder: Holly Thaggard, CEO: Amanda Baldwin
What’s good: Holly Thaggard started Supergoop by working to make sunscreen available in schools in Texas. In addition to protecting its customers from the sun, Supergoop continues to donate SPF pumps to schools across the country through their Ounce by Ounce program.
RÓEN Beauty
Founder & CEO: Tiffany Thurston Scott
What’s good: Founded by clean makeup enthusiast Tiffany Thurston Scott, RÓEN Beauty creates makeup and beauty products formulated with ingredients that are vegan, gluten, and cruelty-free. The brand is also part of the Responsible Mice Initiative, which ensures that any mica used in makeup products is carefully selected from raw material manufacturers and 100% ethically sourced.
The brand also partners with TerraCycle to help customers recycle their outer makeup packaging.
maude
Founder & CEO: Éva Goicochea
What’s good: maude makes body-safe sexual wellness essentials that are inclusive to all and made sustainably. The brand furthers its mission of accessible and inclusive sexual wellness by working closely with organizations like Advocates for Youth and SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States)!
→ Explore our full reviews of all maude sex toys, maude lubes, and other maude products
Pink Moon
Founder & CEO: Lin Chen
What’s good: Pink Moon is a skincare and wellness brand founded on the owner’s long-held practices of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Reiki, and Astrology. By partnering with EcoCart to provide carbon-neutral shipping, Pink Moon has offset over 334,000 pounds of carbon while providing its signature eco-conscious products.
Pink Moon also donates 1% of every purchase to a nonprofit of your choice, like Animal Haven and Womankind.
SAALT
Co-founder & CEO: Cherie Hoeger
What’s good: SAALT is on a mission to “bring periods out of the dark ages” by creating reusable, safe menstrual products for all. With menstrual discs and cups, as well as period underwear, the brand aims to make having a period better for the planet — and in general!
A certified B Corp, SAALT also donates 2% of its revenue to provide period care to regions with the most need, and help fund initiatives in menstrual health, education, and sustainability.
The brand has donated over 52,000 period products, cleaned up over 78,000 pounds of trash, and funded over 373,000 days of school for girls around the globe.
Rael
Co-founders: Yanghee Paik, Aness An & Binna Won
CEO: Yanghee Paik
What’s good: Rael is a holistic wellness brand that promotes full-cycle care (so they have goods for periods and skincare!), using cruelty-free and eco-conscious ingredients. Embracing Korean beauty science, Rael aims to provide high-performing period care across the globe.
Rael is also on a mission to spread menstrual dignity to all, working with charitable partners like #HappyPeriod and I Support The Girls.
Ritual
Founder & CEO: Katerina Schneider
What’s good: Ritual was created when founder Katerina Schneider couldn’t find a prenatal vitamin she felt she could trust — so she set out to make her own. Ritual creates vitamins with completely traceable ingredients, from farms and suppliers that use regenerative agriculture practices.
A certified B Corp, Ritual is also committed to its sustainability goals, aiming to have 100% sustainable packaging by 2025 and reach net zero emissions this year.
Food
Seattle Chocolate Co.
Owner & CEO: Jean Thompson
What’s good: Eating sweets has never been so good. Seattle Chocolate Co, and its sister company jcoco, make up an ethical chocolate umbrella that gives back. The company’s origin chocolate is directly sourced from small Peruvian Farms and it uses Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa in its large line of products. As of 2022, the brand is also certified carbon neutral!
Best of all, Seattle Chocolate Co. donates 10% of its net profits to Girls Inc, and jcoco donates fresh servings of food to those in need with every purchase. Partnering with food banks in Washington, California, and New York, the company has donated nearly 4 million servings of food.
Sips By
Founder & CEO: Staci Brinkman
What’s good: A top-rated tea club and subscription service, Sips By works with hundreds of tea brands across the globe to bring people together over a steamy mug of tea. Sips By partners include other women-owned brands, as well as BIPOC-owned, AAPI-owned, and LGBTQ+-owned small businesses that practice ethical and sustainable sourcing.
Fly By Jing
Founder & CEO: Jing Gao
What’s good: Fly By Jing creates spicy Schezwan sauces, spices, and dumplings inspired by the flavors of founder Jing Gao’s hometown of Chengdu. With bold, soulful tastes and bright design, Fly By Jing highlights the personal cultural histories of its founder — and the AAPI community.
Adding a little spice to the fundraising scene, Fly By Jing has also worked with charitable partners like St. Jude Children’s Hospital and BeChinatown.
Diaspora Co.
Founder & CEO: Sana Javeri Kadri
What’s good: Sana Javeri Kadri started Diaspora Co. when she was 23 in 2017, selling just one item: Pragati Turmeric. Her desire was to create a radically new, equitable spice trade.
Today, Diaspora Co. sources 30 single-origin spices from 150 farms across India and Sri Lanka, paying farm partners an average of over six times above the commodity price, investing in land stewardship, climate resistance, and delicious food systems.
Part of this work is through the company’s Farm Worker Fund, which invests in the social and economic well-being of over 850 farm workers in South Asia. Diaspora Co. has also provided healthcare access to 25 women in the farm community.
Women’s Bean Project
Founder: Jossy Eyre, CEO: Tamra Ryan
What’s good: The Women’s Bean Project is a nonprofit social enterprise that provides transitional employment and self-sufficiency to women experiencing poverty.
Making nourishing products while nourishing the community, Women’s Bean Project now sells products through over 1,000 retailers, and has helped to keep 95% of their program graduates employed a year after completing their program.
Omsom
Co-founders: Vanessa Pham & Kim Pham
What’s good: Sisters Vanessa and Kim Pham created Omsom to offer sauce packets and starters that celebrate the multitudes of Asian flavors, stories, and communities. While opening up diverse flavor profiles and having conversations about big topics like xenophobia and the “ethnic aisle” in the grocery store, Omsom doesn’t shy away from being loud and proud.
Through their brand, the duo has also worked to give back to the AAPI community, donating to Heart of Dinner, to feed AAPI elders in New York City.
Partake
Founder & CEO: Denise Woodard
What’s good: Partake was born out of a mom’s desire to make tasty snacks for her daughter, who has many food allergies. Selling cookies, breakfast and baking mixes, and snack packs, every offering at Partake is certified gluten-free, non-GMO, and vegan. They are also free of the top nine allergens: wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish, sesame, and shellfish.
While championing food inclusivity (did you know Black children are at a significantly higher risk for developing food allergies?) Partake also works with organizations like No Kid Hungry to fight food insecurity. Denise also founded Black Futures in Food & Beverage, an annual fellowship program that mentors HBCU students to help them secure internships and jobs in the food industry.
Buchi
Co-Founders: Jeannine Buscher & Sarah Schomber
What’s good: Buchi is a kombucha brand dedicated to community, collaboration, and culture (pun intended). Ingredients are sourced through closed-loop, carbon-neutral sugarcane processes, and for other ingredients, preference is given to independent, women-owned, and minority-owned suppliers.
Buchi also partners with One Tree Planted to work on reforestation projects around the world.
Lifestyle
Package Free Shop
Founder & CEO: Lauren Singer
What’s good: Package Free Shop is your one-stop shop for sustainable everyday items. With zero or minimal packaging, every item sold by Package Free Shop can either be composted, reused, refilled, or recycled.
The brand encourages shoppers to lean into a planet-forward lifestyle, and since its launch in 2017, has diverted 132 million plastic bags, 48 million plastic straws, and 3.8 billion plastic water bottles from oceans and landfills.
Thistle Farms
Founder & President: Becca Stevens
CEO: Tasha Kennard
What’s good: Thistle Farms is a nonprofit social enterprise that makes candles, lotions, essential oils, and more. Not only does every purchase support women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction — but the organization also houses residents in a therapeutic setting that offers them housing, healthcare, therapy, work, and community.
Stasher
Founder: Kat Nouri
CEO: Shannon Morgan Stearns
What’s good: Stasher creates alternatives to plastic bags, making it easy to reduce food and plastic waste. In fact, since its founding, the company has saved over 5.5 billion single-use plastic bags from entering waterways and oceans.
Stasher also donates 1% of its sales to environmental nonprofits, totaling over $1.3 million in donations to date.
The Little Market
Co-founders: Lauren Conrad and Hannah Skvarla
What’s good: The Little Market is a nonprofit fair trade shop that features ethically-sourced and artisan-made products. By celebrating individual artisans and their cultural techniques and traditions, the Little Market brings attention to social justice and human rights issues while extending opportunities for people around the world.
Marley’s Monsters
Owner & president: Sarah Dooley
What’s good: Marley’s Monsters creates handmade reusable products UNpaper towels, cloth napkins, dusters, and more. These sustainable alternatives help minimize your carbon footprint and save trees, all while making your home a bit more colorful.
Marley’s Monsters also diverts all of its fabric waste by donating scraps to St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County and ENVIA Fashion, where they are upcycled into other new products like jewelry, hair accessories, and more.
Blueland
Co-founder & CEO: Sarah Paiji Yoo
What’s good: Blueland is a Climate Neutral certified B Corp that designs reusable and refillable cleaning products like laundry essentials, hand soaps, cleaning sprays, and more. Since 2019, Blueland products have helped eliminate over a billion single-use plastic bottles from landfills and oceans.
Pets
Rowan
Co-founders: Michelle Arnau & Sally Clarke
What’s good: Rowan is reinventing coat care with naturally-derived formulas made with human-grade, vet-approved ingredients that keep your pup’s skin healthy, fur shiny, and smelling like coconuts (there’s even dry shampoo for dogs!). Plus, 1% of every purchase is donated to a nonprofit of your choice, like The Street Dog Coalition or Sage Compassion for Animals.
Springer
Co-founder & CEO: Shannon Ross
VP of Finance & COO: Diana Ross
What’s good: Springer creates innovative products for dogs and their parents, like travel bottles, walking gear, and more. As a member of 1% for the Planet, Springer also donates 1% of its sales to nonprofits that protect the environment — because there’s no better playground for pups than Mother Earth.
Dandylion
Founder & CEO: Carolyn Chen
What’s good: Dandylion is a dog skin and coat care company with natural products created in collaboration with vet dermatologists, chemists, groomers, and over 100 dog parents. Products — like this no-rinse paw cleanser — are pH-balanced and formulated with sustainably sourced ingredients that are vegan and cruelty-free.
All packaged with recycled, recyclable, compostable, or biodegradable options — often by Chen and her family themselves. Dandylion also gives back to animal rescue organizations like Hope For Paws.
Cat Cave Co.
Founder & CEO: Holly Hudson
What’s good: Cat Cave Co. makes cat beds and products from ethically-sourced, organic merino wool. The brand pays its workers 200% the average wage and gives back to local shelters and rescues.
Dog Threads
Co-founder & CEO: Gina Marie Davis
What’s good: Offering a large collection of matching dog and human apparel items, Dog Threads donates a portion of each purchase to an animal rescue nonprofit to help shelter animals in need. The brand also recycles its scrap fabric to create donated dog beds!
FOUND My Animal
Co-founders: Bethany Obrecht and Anna Conway
What’s good: FOUND My Animal sells rope leashes, collars, pet apparel, and accessories that promote animal adoption. Unique to each leash is a simple, numbered brass tag that reads “FOUND” and a portion of all sales go to support animal welfare and rescue organizations.
Pets available for adoption are also widely shared across the brand’s social media pages.
Media
Pantsuit Politics
Co-founders: Sarah Stewart Holland & Beth Silvers
What’s good: The hosts of the Pantsuit Politics podcast take a different approach to the news, looking at politics through lenses of nuance, compassion, and care.
The Newsworthy
Founder: Erica Mandy
Erica Mandy is an award-winning broadcast journalist and former CBS news reporter who started The Newsworthy, a daily news podcast to help people stay informed in a convenient, unbiased, and fun way. Her show empowers hundreds of thousands of listeners to engage more deeply with the world around them.
The GIST
Co-founders: Ellen Hyslop, Jacie deHoop & Roslyn McLarty
What’s good: We all love a great newsletter! The GIST is a fan-first sports media platform that is reinventing the dialogue around sports by providing equal coverage of women’s and men’s sports. Whether you’re checking out the newsletter or listening to the podcast, the GIST will be there with bit-sized and badass sports coverage.
The 19th News
Co-founder & CEO: Emily Ramshaw
Co-founder & publisher: Amanda Zamora
Editor-in-Chief: Julia B. Chan
What’s good: The 19th is a nonprofit newsroom beloved for its reporting at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy. Supported by members, philanthropy, and corporate underwriting, the 19th offers free-to-consume and free-to-publish journalism — especially produced for women, women of color, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Girlboss
Founder: Sophia Amoruso
CEO: Lulu Liang
What’s good: Girlboss is a modern media company providing women all over the world with the tools and mindset to succeed. Whether you’re reading the Girlboss Daily newsletter, shopping Girlboss goods created by women, or listening to Girlboss Radio, you’re uplifting ambitious women everywhere.
