Kits, tutorials and a dollar at church
The beginning was deliberately unglamorous. Cunningham learned to make skincare from kits bought online and tutorials watched on YouTube, alongside her mother, at nine years old. Her account of the first attempt is not a founder's myth: “The first soap I made looked like crap,” she told Entrepreneur. “But it smelled good and the lather was good, so we kept going.”
The first transaction was a dollar handed over at church. Eight years later the same business was selling through some of the largest retail chains in the United States.
What Zandra Beauty had become by 2018
Entrepreneur's August 2018 profile of entrepreneurs under 20 reported Zandra Beauty approaching $1 million in revenue with Cunningham at 17. Its products were on shelves at Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond and Wegmans, and a partnership with Target was pending.
Those are three different kinds of buyer. Costco buys in enormous units at thin margins; Bed Bath & Beyond was then a national specialty chain; Wegmans is a regional grocery with a reputation for backing local suppliers, and Buffalo is in its heartland. Reaching all three means the company had cleared the compliance, packaging and volume requirements that stop most small cosmetics brands at the farmers' market.
Manufacturing is the hard part
Cosmetics is a regulated trade. A product applied to skin must be made in facilities that meet standards, labelled to legal requirements, tested for stability and produced in batches that a retailer can restock predictably. The distance between a kitchen batch and a Costco pallet is measured in those systems, not in recipes.
That is what makes the arc unusual. Plenty of children make and sell something. Very few make the transition from a craft product to a supply chain, and it generally requires an adult with the legal capacity to sign contracts, which in this account was her mother, working alongside her from the first batch.
Where Zandra Cunningham is now
The last position documented on this page is August 2018: 17 years old, revenue approaching $1 million, four major retail relationships live or pending, and a stated intention to attend college while keeping the business going. She told Entrepreneur she believed continuous learning mattered.
Nothing in the sources used here records what followed: whether the Target deal closed, where she studied, or what the company's revenue became. No verified personal net worth figure for her exists in these sources, and the numbers circulating online are estimates from aggregator sites.
Why Buffalo matters to the story
The location is not incidental. Buffalo is a mid-sized post-industrial city rather than a consumer-brand capital, and a child building a national skincare line there had no local infrastructure of investors, incubators or beauty-industry contacts to draw on. What it did have was Wegmans, a regional chain headquartered in upstate New York with a long practice of stocking local producers.
That combination, a regional retailer willing to give shelf space and a family prepared to do the manufacturing groundwork, is the actual mechanism behind the headline figure. The story is usually told as a nine-year-old's idea. The part that scaled was the eight years of unglamorous work that followed.
Watch: Zandra Cunningham on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zandra Cunningham | United States | Founding Zandra Beauty at nine | Age 9 |
| Moziah Bridges | United States | Founding Mo's Bows at nine; NBA licensing deal for team bow ties | Age 9 |
| Cory Nieves | United States | At twelve his customers were not other children. They were Macy's, Aetna a | Age 12 |
| Isabella Dymalovski | Australia | She built a skincare range for girls her own age, and ran it at fourteen. | Age 14 |
| Bella Weems | United States | Founding Origami Owl and its Living Lockets at 14 | Age 14 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Began making lip balms at nine in Buffalo with her mother, using online kits and tutorials (Entrepreneur)
- Zandra Beauty approaching $1 million in revenue at 17 in 2018 (Entrepreneur)
- Stocked at Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond and Wegmans, with a Target partnership pending (Entrepreneur)
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No date of birth published in the source used here
- No confirmation that the Target partnership completed
- No reporting on the company or on Cunningham after August 2018, and no verified net worth
Questions people ask about Zandra Cunningham
How old is Zandra Cunningham?
Entrepreneur described her as 17 in August 2018, placing her birth around 2001. No date of birth is published in that source.
What is Zandra Beauty?
A skincare brand Cunningham began at nine in Buffalo, New York, making lip balms from online kits with her mother.
Where can you buy Zandra Beauty?
In 2018 Entrepreneur reported the products at Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond and Wegmans, with a Target partnership pending. Current stockists are not covered by the sources used here.
How much is Zandra Beauty worth?
Entrepreneur reported revenue approaching $1 million in 2018. No valuation or personal net worth figure appears in any source used here.
How did Zandra Cunningham learn to make skincare?
From kits bought online and YouTube tutorials, working with her mother. She has been candid that the first soap she made was poor.
Did Zandra Cunningham go to college?
She told Entrepreneur in 2018 that she intended to attend college while keeping the business. Nothing later appears in the sources used here.
Is Zandra Cunningham on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on her was found.
Where is Zandra Cunningham now?
The most recent documented point is August 2018. No later reporting was used for this page.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Zandra’s story?
How old was Zandra Cunningham when she started making lip balm?
Where did she make her first sale?
Which city is Zandra Beauty from?
Sources
- Meet the New Bosses: How These Entrepreneurs Under 20 Are Changing Industries — Entrepreneur, 2018-08-14
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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