Flori Roberts Dies

Beauty entrepreneur Flori Roberts died last month. An independent beauty icon, Roberts started three cosmetics companies after a career in show business. Like other actresses, Roberts never disclosed her age—a practice that her family is maintaining in her death. Roberts was born in New York City and graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in drama. During her acting career she was recruited to replace Carol Channing in a Broadway production of Lend an Ear. But after that run, Roberts started her career in advertising and public relations before creating her eponymous cosmetics company for women of color. She founded Flori Roberts in the 1960s with her husband Craig Roberts, a doctor who had studied the science of Black skin. After getting rejected by metro New York department stores, Roberts found a willing retail partner in Bamberger's. After a successful debut, the Flori Roberts brand earned spots in Burdine's in Miami and Foley's in Houston.

“They couldn't believe we had foundations and lipsticks and eyeshadows in colors that were right for them,” recalled Marion Boswell, a Black woman who was Roberts' first beauty advisor, to The New York Times.

Twenty years later, after contracting skin cancer, Roberts founded Dermablend, “to conceal everything from a birthmark to a blemish.” In 1992, Craig Roberts decided to retire and both brands were sold to Ivax Pharmaceuticals. But Flori Roberts wasn't done and, in 1999 with her son Doug, she created Smart Cover Cosmetcs. 

In a 2014 interview, Roberts said, “It is time for women in America to take their place and be heard as preeminent business leaders. We have built businesses generating trillions of dollars in sales. We have developed our own style of management and leadership in the workplace and taht difference has definitely been good for business.

Roberts'  legacy of supporting women will be kept alive through a host of philanthropic activities. According Angie Stringer, president and CEO of Girls Inc., Sarasota County, FL, Roberts' efforts is felt in Girls Inc.'s entrepreneurship and leadership programs.

“The impact of all her contributions will be felt for years to come,” Stringer told the Herald-Tribune.

During her career, Roberts supported other entrepreneurs and was a former board member and former president of the Independent Beauty Association.

“She was a business pioneer with her line of Flori Roberts, which she sold and then reinvented her brand under a different name, which also became successful. But most of all, she just wanted everyone else to do well — an incredible trait for a special lady,” said IBA Board Member Stan Katz.

Roberts is survived by her two sons, Bruce and Doug, and five grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in Roberts' name be made to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.